Yeah. Tonight some friends came over during the debacle that destroyed the hope of Carolina, and we started running over some Irish tunes, it being only fifty-some days until St. Patrick's day. This was after last night where our flute and whistle expert Barbie commanded the day at a local pub and eatery and reduced even die-hard Italinas to do a little jig.
So here we were the next afternoon, almost all of us back together and feeling sweet---oh, maybe a little ragged---and we started with something mundane, like maybe it was Cooley's Reel. Kendell was on bass and I was playing mandolyn, Neil emoting and Miss Barbie on the whistle and flutes. Well, none of us was jumping up and down giddy with delight on that one, but it got the blood going, and I thought we had done a credible job of playing that tune, being the first and all. It felt pretty good, sounded sound: you know! All the things that make a music thing music were there.
So I was sitting there kinda blinking happy when my guitar buddy says to me, "All I can say about your mandolin playing is, you should play less."
Now I'm not some L&I guy that is trained in labor negotiations. Last week the sumbitch was complaining that I sounded like a bass player playing the mandolin. I was all ready to hang my head until I realized something.
I was a bass player playing mandolin. OR actually a guitar player that had been corrupted by playing bass who was trying to rectify by playing mando.
So I asked him what the hell he meant and he gave me that so-smart nod and he said: "You know." Well, one thing I thought of was that maybe bass players don't play so many notes, being bereft of strings, comparitively, so I had thought to throw a couple extra mando notes in there, to get us all out of that bass mind-set. And then there was too many notes all of a sudden.
Pah. Everybody is a critic! That's when Dean stepped up and diced it properly.
"Pete," he said."You gotta shop at the play-less store."
We laughed our asses off on that one. Well--Dean and I did. Neil was still being serious. But that's not surprising. He's one of those guys walking aroung ass-less these days, pants falling off of poor them. They laughed their asses off in days of yore and they have no more ass to keep up those trousers.
And in case you are wondering about the happy birthday thingie, it was my birthday weekend, although our friends in Hamilton Township have elevated the phrase to mean something more like "screw you". So these old guys would be out there BBQing a thousand halves of chicken (best damn chicken going--they use butter and lemon juice as the marinade btw) and smiling all nice and saying, "Hey Dave! Happy Birthday, my friend!" hehe.
Think about that the next time a bunch of tuneless folks croon that old favorite. IN the meantime I have to go play.
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