Hello Jeff Cali, my name is Jeff Cali

Jeff Cali Sports Editor

A funny thing happened to me about a couple of months ago. I received an e-mail at work from Jeff Cali.

Yeah, that’s kinda what I thought too.

However, that’s only the beginning of the tale I am about to tell. You folks that were super relieved that there was only one of me all these years can start to shudder. There are two more right here in our great state. And I met them both.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start, so I hear.

It was in late May and I was making a routine check of my Ada Evening News sports department e-mail when I came across one with no subject line. I don’t even think I noticed the recipient was J. Cali. I opened it up and the first line read as follows:

Hi Jeff Cali, my name is Jeff Cali. As you might guess, that pretty much caught my attention.

This Jeff Cali went on to tell me how he was a member of two rock bands in the Oklahoma City area — Munkie Gunn and Mark of the Sage. He told me a little about the bands and said Munkie Gunn was headlining a show in Bricktown on July 11 and asked if I would be interested in being the band’s guest.

Munkie Gunn? Jeff Cali? I figured I’d better check this out before responding. I mean, Jeff Cali is certainly not the most common name in the phone book. Was this a joke?

Sure enough, thanks to my friend Google, I found a MySpace page for Munkie Gunn and the name that was listed on the page was indeed Jeff Cali. And they were already advertising headlining a show at the Coca Cola Events Center in Bricktown on July 11.

How could I say no? I mean I had the opportunity to attend a rock concert and meet a Jeff Cali. Count me in. I e-mailed him back and told him I would love to come and he said I’d have tickets waiting at the door.

As the concert date got closer, I researched Munkie Gunn a bit more to find out exactly what type of music I was going to be listening to. It was then I discovered the bad featured not one Jeff Cali, but a pair. I was going to get two Jeff Calis for the price of one. Wow.

I was really anxious and admittedly nervous about how this Cali get together was going to go down.

Finally, last Saturday (July 11) arrived and it was off to OKC.

I couldn’t help but wonder what it was going to be like just picking up my tickets. Would the reserved ticket person believe that I was indeed the third Jeff Cali in attendance and hand the tickets over?

I arrived about 45 minutes early and headed inside the Coca Cola Event Center. Munkie Gunn was the headliner for a show that featured four other local rock bands — Outflow, Wild Sally, Spunn and Harmful if Swallowed.

The lady at the Will Call table hardly looked up when I told her I was here to pick up some tickets the band left for me.

“What is the name please?.”

“This may sound strange, but Jeff Cali.”

I had her attention then. She told me she would have never believed me if one of the Jeff Calis in the band hadn’t reminded her that indeed there would be another one arriving to pick up a couple of tickets.

I then made my way over to a souvenir booth where a lady asked me to sign the guest book.

“Sure, I’d love to,” I said. “But you’re probably not going to believe the name I am about to write.”

Sure enough. After I scribbled Jeff Cali, the lady perked up and introduced herself. She was Tammy Cali.

After she introduced me to several other Calis that were helping her run the booth, she got on the phone.

“Let me tell him you are here,” she said.

Minutes later, a young, dapper looking fellow emerged from backstage. Kinda reminded me of me when I used to be young and dapper looking. No, it wasn’t like looking in the mirror, but you could sure tell we shared some of the same Italian genes.

“Hi Jeff Cali,” we kinda both said while shaking hands.

It was right about then I found out the two Jeff Calis in the band were a father-son team. I was talking to Jeff Cali Jr. at the moment, who is 26 years young.

“Come on. Let me take you to meet dad,” he said.

I fully expected to hear Rod Serling’s voice tell me I had traveled to another dimension at any time.

We ventured back stage and there was Jeff Cali Sr., sitting in a golf cart sporting a nice Fu Manchu beard and moustache.

“Hi, Jeff Cali,” we again kinda both said while shaking hands.

I also met Jersey the bass player and Jimmy the drummer. Cali Sr. is on the lead guitar and Cali Jr. is the Munkie Gunn vocalist.

The Jeff Calis seemed to be as exciting about meeting me as I was them. I found out their family tree branched out mostly to Indiana and Illinois. I figured there was little chance we were related at that point until I told Cali Sr. that I was born in California.

Apparently, these Calis are related to an actor named Joseph Cali who still lives in California. My father’s name is James Joseph Cali. Back in the day, my mother apparently was in the crowd that hung around actors and famous California folks. She dated Tarzan and Don Drysdale for crying out loud. So there is at least a chance, we three Jeff Calis could be related.

Other Calis in attendance that I met included Licia, Marissa, Travis, Tyler, Matthew, Shelby and Katrina. There were also grandkids Chris, Dante, Alyssa and Tairisa.

About halfway through the opening acts, Tammy Cali tracked me down and said there were a couple of Calis that just arrived she wanted me to meet. So she got Jeff Cali Sr. to first introduce me to his sister, Cynthia.

You could tell she thought it was amazing that another Jeff Cali stood before her. But the neatest introduction was yet to come.

A little Chinese lady (all of them are little, I think) was talking to a friend and Jeff Cali Sr. pointed her out. It was the matriarch of this Cali family — Jeff Cali Sr’s mother, Yoshi. (That explained the Fu Manchu beard!).

Yoshi was really taken aback by the introduction.

“Spelled the same?” she asked, almost stuttering in disbelief.

I pulled out my driver’s license and handed it over. She even noticed that Jeff Sr. and I spelled Jeffrey the same — ‘rey’ instead of ‘ery’. And to add to the weirdness, his middle name is Wayne and mine is William.

When the night was over, after hours of rock and roll and storytelling between sets, I really felt like part of a new, extended family.

“This felt more like meeting another family member,” Jeff Cali Jr. said. “And now we know we have a good friend by our side.”

I found out later that the Jeff Calis are sports fans, with football, golf and auto racing at the top of their lists.

“We usually shoot for the underdog in any event,” Jeff Cali Jr. said.

If you like to jam to some hard rock, be sure and check out Munkie Gunn if you get the chance. They will rock your socks off. I’m officially one of the lead groupies.

During my formative teen years, I was actually a singer myself. I competed in high school contests through while at Byng and also went to nationals in music contests through my church. Maybe Munkie Gunn or Mark of the Sage need a back-up vocalist?

I dunno. Three Jeff Calis in Oklahoma is a lot to digest. Three Jeff Calis in the same band — that would be off the charts.

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