Write, You Boring Loser!

Why is it that, for almost all of 2009, I've had almost nothing to blog about? Meaning, I can think of nothing to write that anyone else would be remotely interested in reading.

My job's... jobby. So, yeah. Oh, and I took a hiatus from big theatrical projects this year. And I don't have any family in crisis. Well, no crisis that I could share publicly. That is, until I write my tell-all memoirs and air out all our dirty laundry! (Please. Like any of my family wouldn't tell you themselves what's effed up in their lives.)

Hmmm. I guess I just don't have much in common with anyone right now. And also, I think too many people I know would read this (five people) and so I can't even do the easy thing and make fun of other people's Internetting Efforts.

HEY! Speaking of, you know what's not funny? A LOT of stuff on FunnyOrDie.com. I was just watching this thing made by this friend of a friend. And it was not funny. Typical bloggers would probably post it here so you could see for yourself how not funny it was. And then you could say stuff about it, too. Or maybe you could even defend it. Like, "Hey! That's me in that sketch! You're wrong! That's funny!"

But.

I'm not going to post it.

BORING.

Desperately Seeking GerRee

This has never happened to me before.
I am stunned and paralyzed.

I always get to be "GerRee." Always. Does that make me spoiled? Yes. But I earned this. I endured teasing and countless mispronunciations and misspellings of my name all throughout childhood. WITHOUT self-righteous, corrective response from me, mind you. But, by the time we all went wired, and everyone was having to use handles like Jen146 and SteveA7, I came out on top. I never had to compromise, or even throw in my last name for good measure. Nope.

Just "GerRee."

Then came Twitter. I purposely dragged my feet. Ever the early adopter of other social media, I decided to sit the first round out, just to make sure I wasn't taking on a new online habit that soon would evaporate like so many others.

But here I am, coming in on the "late adopter" curve, as everyone tweets. And, what to my wondering eyes does appear?



"Username has already been taken."

I blinked. I typed it in again. Same result, obviously.

I can't move. I can't breathe. Someone. Else. Is GerRee?

The kicker: They first tweeted only two weeks ago. I missed my window by 15 days. The gut punch: They haven't tweeted since.

I have been thwarted by a late-adopter, non-user. Perhaps he or she has been running into me at every turn for the last 15 years.

And they've finally won.

Perhaps I will chose LoserGerRee for my Twitter username. Or DefeatedGerRee. Or FuckYouGerRee. I don't know.

For now, I can't bear to register anything. I am now fully engulfed in the flames of pouting. Burning, burning....

Declined.

Don't you hate it when your debit card gets declined in front of people (or even not in front of people) and it's only because you made a transfer to another account that you should have been using instead?

Feh.

I need an accountant.

The strange, strange world of the wedding fair...

Where can you go to eat free food, free cake, hear free music, and be truly annoyed despite all the goodies?

No! Not weddings. (Shame on you!)

Wedding fairs.

Listen. They're a necessary evil. Planning a wedding, very likely, is an exercise in extreme imagination for you because, chances are, you've never done it before. That's what makes wedding fairs so great. You can see, hear, and taste the things you're considering spending boo-koo bucks for - from catered goodies and photography, to harp players and yes, wedding bands.

But they're annoying.

Though, probably not for you. You're so excited about your event, you probably can't see straight. Heck, I'd played a ton of weddings by the time I was planning my own, and I still went to a wedding fair with a friend. Of course, she was a little more excited than me, but dude: FREE CAKE.

So, why are they so annoying for me? Because it's annoying to watch wedding vendors who take themselves too seriously vie for optimum viewing positions and eyeballing each others' displays like, "Hmmm... I see she's decided to go with a display of physical albums as opposed to my brilliant video presentation...." It's like any business convention you've ever been to, at which multiple vendors work hard to be seen. The health of these businesses depend greatly on whether people stop, pop an hors d'oeuvre in their mouths or pick up a pretzel and wave it through the cascade o' chocolate and then decide, I must have these guys in my fairy tale.

I guess it's not even fair for me to call wedding fairs "annoying," as much as they are comical. Only, just as I'm about to point and laugh, I realize: I'm a vendor. Or, to be more correct, I work for a vendor. Either way, it'd definitely smack of hypocrisy for me to point and laugh. So, back I go to "annoying."

But you must go. You simply must go to these things. Probably only one will fill you up just fine. And do not take your fiancé if he's already skittish about the "circus" factor - there are plenty of clowns at these things. If your fiancé's ever said anything like, "Honey, why do we need to take so many days off for our wedding?" or "What do you mean SIX bridesmaids?" or "Can't I just wear a suit?" or "Why get a DJ when I can just burn a comp cd?" LEAVE HIM AT HOME. Take a girlfriend or a mom. (If you have fun with your mom.)


A NOTE ABOUT FOOD:

When choosing your caterer, consider what it'll cost to feed the band, should you choose to be saintly and do so. I am on a high. Two gigs in a row, we have been fed so beautifully, I almost felt like a guest at the party. This doesn't always happen, and I'm not saying you HAVE to. But for points that really count toward good karma, feeding musicians is high on the list. Musicians, for the most part, are really good people. They do what they do, not because it makes money (SNORT!), but because they love to be loved and love even more to put beautiful sounds out in the world (even if you force us to perform "Milkshake" at your wedding, which is NOT beautiful.) So feeding the band is very kind. The boxed lunch option is certainly one way to go. But when we get to eat the exact food we've been smelling and watching you eat... oh, mama. That's noice.

Here's an example of a recent lovely meal:

Notice the headphones and iPod for last-minute studying of the requested first dance song, as we were eating during the toasts and soon I'd have to sing an obsucre song that meant a lot to the couple but that I'd never heard of until three days before. No pressure. Oh, by the way - good food greatly improves your band's performance! The couple at this wedding, as it turned out, were very pleased with their first dance.

Why waste this material?

So, wedding singing is not, as it turns out, just something I'm doing for a few months to help a friend, or earn some Christmas cash, or tide me over until I start a "real" band.

Nope. I've been singing at weddings for over three years now.

Three years of watching brides and brides' mothers cry when I sing Celine Dion songs. Three years of watching people all but ignore Luke, our fantastic guitar player, until we do "Sweet Home Alabama" and then, suddenly, fingers and fists shoot up in the air pledging undying loyalty. And three years of watching drunk guys get that look in their eyes. Oh, yes. The look that brings them across the dance floor, trying to lock eyes with me, smiling like they've got the most naughty, brilliant idea I will have ever heard.

It's the Request Face.

"Hey, you guys got any AC/DC?", "Play some Hendrix, man!" or "Let's hear some crazy funk!" Drunk brothers and uncles and cousins of brides and grooms get this bizarre possessive attitude with the wedding band. I call it the Man-der-ella Syndrome. Like, suddenly, if he doesn't supervise our every song, choosing only selections that will keep the party rockin', the clock will strike 12, everyone will go home and he'll just be a drunk with a monkey suit on. No matter what we play, there's no escaping the end of the night that someone else's money has bought. And I find it ironic that the bride and groom, the parents of the bride - whoever has actually shelled out the dough for us - with few exceptions, NEVER bug us. Just the fuckin' sawed off little men who, for some reason, seize the final two hours of the whole event to finally contribute in some meaningful way.

I used to think I had to talk to these clowns. Now I can see the look building two and three songs ahead of time. They're rockin' out to some dance music with a bridesmaid. The bottom lip goes under the top teeth, they start hearing our truly standout musicians (because being drunk can make you notice stuff) and suddenly, they see the band. For the first time, they realize there are human beings up there. Humans who can hear ideas. Good ones.

Matt, our band leader/keyboard player/male vocalist is usually safe behind the keyboards. But me - I just have a thin little mic stand to hide behind, so they always come to me. Like I said, used to, I thought I needed to acknoweldge these Drunky McStumblies out of respect for the family. But now, I realize, their families don't even like these dudes! How could they? They're obnoxious! So now, when I see the look brewing, I'm ready. And when it finally comes to critical mass - when the big idea for the song that will send the wedding party into a frenzy crosses their mind and they march right up to me about to open their mouths... I simply turn around. I show my back to them. I just pretend that, suddenly, I need to talk to Jimmie, our bass player, Jeremy, our horn player, or make some faces at Andy, our drummer.

No, I don't think I'm Jim Morrison. But all it takes is a few seconds of this, and the drunk guy loses his train of thought. His mouth stays open for a few moments longer, but believe me, his brain has already lost the grip. The song title's not coming back. Plus, he can suddenly feel that all the eyes of the people on the dance floor are upon him, and he doesn't want to stand there for long looking like the ignored idiot that he is, so he gives up, puts his bottom lip back under his top teeth, and bites down, nodding his head to the beat, scooting back to his bridesmaid with a jut of his chin.

And the band plays on...

So, the way I figure it, the stories are piling up and it's time to start recording them. Despite the fact that I never, ever wanted to be a wedding singer, I am. And while I am, I might as well reveal the absurd underbelly of the All-American wedding, from the unique perspective of the bandstand.

A view unlike any other.