Life lyrics

Ci Williams is not your typical poetic muse. At 91, Williams hangs out in the back of his garage on Palm Avenue telling tales and drinking beer, just as he has for the last six decades. And lately, he’s become the inspiration for a band of Huntington Beach rockers known as Minnesota 13.

“Dude, he was ornery from the beginning, and he is still ornery today,” the band’s guitarist Frank Occhipinti said.

Occhipinti , who has lived down the street from Williams for the last six years, first introduced Williams to another neighbor, Timmy Todd, about a year ago. It was during that first encounter that Todd turned to Occhipinti and told him, “We have to get this stuff down.”

Williams’ tales of hopping on a boxcar for a cross-country journey to Orange County back in 1930 — seeing only orange groves, bean fields and oil derricks — and his decades in Huntington Beach have influenced every lyric written by frontman/drummer Todd.

“I just sat down and started going over the Ci stories and putting together songs,” Todd said.

The band will be introducing Williams to the public the only way they know how — through their music. Re-energized by the addition of bassist Millard Ellingsworth, Minnesota 13 has its first of many 2007 performances at 10 p.m. Thursday at Perq’s night club in downtown Huntington Beach.

Expect stories of Williams’ exploits, sneaking beer into the Sea Cliff Golf Course, his cross-country trip in the back of a train during the Great Depression, or more recently, his battles with lawnmowers and getting hooked on “That 70’s Show.”

Almost every member of the band has at one time or another made his or her way into Williams home to be bombarded with black-and-white photographs of the good old days of Huntington Beach. And they know Williams’ tales by heart.

“It’s the best hearing him tell them,” vocalist Nicole Cass said. “He gets this little twinkle in his eye.”

The band called itself Minnesota 13 after the grain alcohol popular in Minnesota during Prohibition, which they learned from one of Williams’ tales.

“It’s a metaphor for what gets everybody through the day,” Todd said. For some it’s Prozac, and others surf, he said.

“I ask every time we play, ‘What’s your Minnesota 13?’ ”

For those who enjoy the sound of Minnesota 13, a CD may be in the works soon. The band plans to cut an EP by the end of the year, Todd said Tuesday night at Bomb Shelter Rehearsal Studios in Westminster.

Playing in Los Angeles months earlier, Todd heard the band summed up as an amalgamation of “Alice Cooper meets Prairie Home Companion — the last film from Robert Altman,” he said.

“That’s another thing we push for is a happy ending, hoping our smiles are contagious to everyone else in the room,” Todd said.

A teacher by day, Todd constantly keeps his “ears to the ground for what the kids like, trying to connect the younger ages to those in their 20s and 30s,” he said.

Williams could not be reached for comment this week, and band members said he won’t make it to Perq’s tonight. “No way, it’s way too late for him,” Occhipinti said.

But the band hopes to create a spot for Williams in the minds and hearts of anyone who enjoys music — especially locals, Todd said.

“We know who our hero is. He’s a little 91-year-old man who lives on Palm Avenue,” Todd said. “The kids can have Shaq and Kobe. I have Ci.”