January 12, 2009

Three Wigs, At Least

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Since my rush of gigs this fall, music has slowed to a crawl.

It's fine - my brain hasn't really been down with planning and booking and all that jazz. Other than snagging a few winter gigs (including one for Bywords on Feb. 1, come on out!), I'm happy to take things a day at a time.

Except that sometimes I remember why I love to play, and why I sometimes get the urge to book every show I can get my hands on. I had such a reminder this morning when I was listening to the new Beyonce album at max volume.* There I was, head bopping to the music, fists pumping in the air, and I started to plan out my next musical venture: a Beyonce cover band.

Granted, both my previous bands featured Destiny's Child covers at one point or another. It was good, clean fun. They were even good, clean songs (we obviously didn't cover Bootylicious).

But a full Beyonce cover band? My heart swelled as I imagined the outfits, the wigs, the dancing and the SYNTHESIZER. I started making the musical arrangements in my head, trying to place everything, trying to figure out how many instruments I could fake on my keyboard. The keyboard I don't own and would need to buy to pull this off, but hell, isn't Beyonce worth it?

Then I started to get that rush I used to get when I would plan shows. All the searching, coordinating and pretending to practice. Aaah, I can't wait.

Whether or not this comes to fruition, it's been worth it just to remember that I love doing what I do.

All I need now is a wig or three.

*Surprised? I love Beyonce. LOVE HER. There's nothing wrong with a mouthy banjo player crushing on B the Diva. You know it.

Click here for a fabulous Beyonce song that is part ironic, part sarcastic, part demeaning and ALL GOOD.

************

Just a heads up y'all. Zoom has made a tofu-related bet with me that she will lose, and I can say this with full confidence. Not only will she lose, but upon losing she will need to post a video or either her or Duncan doing something amazing, and potentially acrobatic.

You're welcome.

This bet was made at Raw Sugar Saturday evening, when Zoom, the GC, my BH and Milan all shared a table. Which reminds me... Milan, can you pretty please write a post about those crazy birds that can't seem to stay alive? That shit is seriously funny.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to admit I've never even made a tofu-related bet before, let alone won one. However, I have absolute confidence in my ability to hate tofu regardless of how it's prepared, so I'm not worried.

Cheers,
zoom

P.S. I hope you know a good videographer.

Stella said...

How sad that your very first tofu-related bet will be one of FAILURE.

Kiss kiss.

Milan said...

Milan, can you pretty please write a post about those crazy birds that can't seem to stay alive? That shit is seriously funny.

To get things started, here is a photo I took of the stuffed Kakapo in the Oxford Museum of Natural History.

As promised, it is a big green parrot. Wikipedia has some information on their reproduction.

There are a lot more alive now than when Douglas Adams wrote Last Chance to See. The population is now up to 90, all living on two predator-free islands.

Stella said...

Excellent. This is good. Very good.

Although it doesn't quite have the same comedic effect as hearing you describe Kakapo mating with a straight face.

I think I may have peed I was laughing so hard.

Milan said...

As for their failure to stay alive, not how the male 'booming' attracts predators, how the females abandon their eggs at night, and how they only reproduce during years when particular trees bear a lot of fruit.

That being said, they do live for 90-120 years, so they get plenty of chance to reproduce (in the absence of predators, which didn't exist in their habitat before Europeans brought cats and rats).

Milan said...

Douglas Adams' entire book is available online. Some choice bits on kakapos:

"In fact the kakapo is a bird that in some ways reminds me of the British motorbike industry. It had things its own way for so long that it simply became eccentric. The motorbike industry didn't respond to market forces because it wasn't particularly aware of them. It built a certain number of motorbikes and a certain number of people bought them and that was that. It didn't seem to matter much that they were noisy, complicated to maintain, sprayed oil all over the place and had their own very special way, as T.E. Lawrence discovered at the end of his life, of going round corners. That was what motorbikes did, and if you wanted a motorbike, that was what you got. End of story. And, of course, it very nearly was the end of the story for the British industry when the Japanese suddenly got the idea that motorbikes didn't have to be that way. They could be sleek, they could be clean, they could be reliable and well-behaved. Maybe then a whole new world of people would buy them, not just those whose idea of fun was spending Sunday afternoon in the shed with an oily rag, or marching on Aqaba."

---

You see, the young birds that we've hatched here don't come to sexual maturity at the same time, so when the females start getting sexy, the males are not ready to handle it. The females are bigger and more belligerent and often beat the males up. So when that happens, we collect semen from Pink, and...'

'How do you do that? asked Mark.

'In a hat.'

'I thought you said in a hat.'

`That's right. Carl puts on this special hat, which is a bit like a rather strange bowler hat with a rubber brim, Pink goes mad with desire for Carl, flies down and fucks the hell out of his hat.'

`What?

'He ejaculates into the brim. We collect the drop of semen and use it to inseminate a female.'

`Strange way to treat your mother.'

'He's a strange bird. But he does serve a useful purpose in spite of being psychologically twisted.'

Stella said...

Oh my shit that is funny.

I am choking on my chocolate bar.

Milan said...

The book is full of funny sections. For instance:

People's immediate response to snake bites is often to overreact and give the poor snake a ritual beating, which doesn't really help in the identification. If you don't know which exact snake it was you can't treat the bite properly.'

'Well, in that case,' I asked, 'could we perhaps take a snake bite detector kit with us to Komodo?

'Course you can, course you can. Take as many as you like. Won't do you a blind bit of good because they're only for Australian snakes.'

'So what do we do if we get bitten by something deadly, then? I asked.

He blinked at me as if I were stupid.

'Well what do you think you do? he said. 'You die of course. That's what deadly means.'

Anonymous said...

I wish I knew exactly what the bet was, but I'll back a vegetarian on a tofu-related bet any time over an omnivore. "Those" people just don't understand the amazing joys of tofu. I, myself have amazed and astounded many an omnivore with tofu. If I were Zoom, I'd concede defeat right now before she ends up with egg-replacer on her face.