How Brian Got His Dojo Back... or... Brianzai!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Somebody recently asked me the following question:

"If you could wake up in somebody else's body, whose would you want it to be?"

I don't like to over-think things, but I had a few questions of my own. First of all, what sort of question is that? Why would you want to wake up in another person's body, and why are you asking me, weirdo? Secondly, would I have to accommodate all of their internal organs, or would their body just be some sort of jumpsuit? And finally, what if I already did and the answer is Me?

I posed these questions to Brian at a recent practice session and he went all Mr. Miyagi on me and began to speak only in metaphors. He then revealed to me a gruesome blister he had been cultivating on his index finger. It was a type of blister with which I was unfamiliar. It sort of looked like a regular blister, except that it was bright red - almost fuchsia (if that's a color). Basically, it looked super-painful and a little creepy, if I'm honest. I asked him if it had something to do with his new ipod app - Cow Toss. He simply said, "It did not, Daniel-san"

(which he knows good and well I no longer prefer to be called). He told me that it was from

slapping the bass with so much gusto. He also told me that he had developed the blister by the second song of our practice. We ended up playing about 20, so I figured he was about 3 hours into the blister and he hadn't said "boo."

Brian said that the blister pretty much answered my questions about waking up in somebody else's body. For the record, I did not completely concur. But in any case, I acted like it made perfect sense, mainly because I didn't want him "painting the fence" on me.

I'm not sure if Brian was trying to say that he wanted to wake up in the body of someone with a healthy finger, or if he was just bragging about what we can all agree is a pretty awesome injury. Either way though, I learned that Brian has some serious dedication to continue to play with something so revolting growing under his skin.

We put him on vasaline-lined glove-rest because we have a truly major gig coming up on Thursday. We're playing at the world famous Momo's in Austin, along with several other bands. If you've never been to Momo's, you definitely want to be there. And even if Brian's finger is not completely healed up by then, you can be sure he'll play through the pain and fight for our honor.

Bloggin On It

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Lately I've been working on my bloggin' abilities. I've got to say, I'm starting to really enjoy writing blogs and such. It's caused me to get real introspective and what not. I’ve always been a super-sensitive guy - just ask the ladies… But until now I’ve been afraid to really share my thoughts and feelings. I decided the time was now. Or “is” now. But to be clear, it happened in the past. I’m totally over the whole self-reflective phase.

I started by writing some new songs with the band. At first, the rest of the guys weren’t open to the subject matter I wanted to tackle. They seemed to think that a song about my phobia of any food that has bones in it would never sell. They also said my slow jam about the childhood removal of a large, impacted chunk of earwax was not “marketable” and lacked “widespread appeal.” But then, as I was tweaking the last verse of my song about how I accidentally got busted listening to a LaBouche CD in college, the band began to open up about their own issues.

Well, needless to say, we all ended up in a counseling session/teambuilding workshop. Our new band therapist is costing us $250 a week and on top of that, Brian gave himself a concussion trying to pull off a really flamboyant trust-fall.

So that’s where all this bloggin’ has gotten us. Maybe I’ll just keep my self-exploration to myself from now on – or maybe just between myself and the blogosphere.

Rival Band

Saturday, November 6, 2010

If there's one adjective that describes our band, besides "awesome," it would probably be "way too competitive." You know the guy who is super competitive about everything and gets a little too worked up when playing tiddlywinks? Well, we're like that, but we're a band. In fact, each of us on an individual level is completely reasonable. Get us together, however, and we're super competitive (and not in a cool way).

For example, we heard there was another band playing after us at the last show, and just as we were about to end our set, we challenged them to an impromptu battle of the bands. They declined because they said they were just there to "play during their designated time slot" and that we were "just trying to hog the stage," and that they "didn't want to embarrass us." Well, even though we ignored them and kept playing long after our time slot ended, our competitive nature probably ended up working against us, as we found that when we returned to our van, they had spray-painted the windows black and slashed our tires. But that's not important.

Last week we were placed in an uncomfortable position when our competitive nature was met with an ethics issue. We found out that Jes, our high-school-aged guitar player couldn't make it to a gig because he was moonlighting in another band and their gig was the same day! We were all very upset, confused, frightened and infuriated/nauseous at first, but then we found out that it was his high school marching band, and Jes would be playing the trumpet.

Well, we didn't know what to do. Normally, we would have challenged the rival band to some sort of choreographed dance-off in an alley or a footrace at high noon... but this was different. Obviously we have a moral code in our band (I don't want to get into it, but it's a pretty thorough and strict moral code) that disallows us from competing in any way with a high school marching band. But between you and me, there are also like, 100 people in that band, which makes any sort of physical confrontation out of the question, and choreography is totally their thing.

So long story short, we decided to let Jes play in the marching band and we played the gig without him, though we sent a very unsavory and anonymous note to the band director.

I think in the end, we learned a lesson. Not sure, but I bet we did. Anyway, random thought... if you're like me and your mind can't keep from going back to the earlier comment about tiddlywinks, here's a great resource to answer any of your questions: http://www.tiddlywinks.org/.

The Posse Gives Back

Friday, October 22, 2010

A good friend of The Posse came to one of our gigs a few weeks back and mentioned that he likes doing "the right thing." He said this without any sort of context. In fact, we were discussing the mass-to-volume-to-flexibility characteristics of various Mongolian food ingredients, and the associated implications of each with regard to bowl-stacking strategies at the Mongolian Grill. Because of the limitations set forth by the Mongolian Grill, each customer is allowed to load one bowl with uncooked ingredients, and then hand it over to the cook who "grills" is on a giant griddle. Of course, you could pay for two bowls, but if you play the game correctly, and carefully consider the mass, volume, and flexibility of each ingredient - and then load the bowl strategically - you can basically game the system and feel a small victory in your heart.

"I like to do the right thing." He says. I assumed he meant that he liked to load his lo-mein noodles first. "No," he said. "I mean, I'm all about trying to do the right thing morally."

We thought about that proposition, then asked him what he was talking about. He indicated that he knew of an awesome charity event that was coming up, and that he would be serving on the board. They needed a band that was all about bringing sardonic honky-tonk bluegrass heat, but sometimes for a cause rather than tons and tons of money (which is usually how we get paid). He wondered if we would like to "do the right thing" and sponsor the event by donating our services.

I asked him why he brought that up right in the middle of a conversation about Asian Cuisine. He didn't have a good answer, except that it had made him think of being hungry. The benefit is for Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week in Austin. He pointed out in a fairly polite way that while we were talking about gorging ourselves, there were plenty of people - just in Austin- who not only go hungry, but who don't even have a place to sleep at night. The Austin event lasts for a week (obviously) and is a team effort by the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, the Basic Needs Coalition of Central Texas (which includes tons of great organizations), and now The Possum Posse. That's right, we've decided to "give back" and stop being what my grandmother calls "a bunch of selfish jerks."

We're going to be playing the Monday Night Networking happy hour, Awareness Austin, on November 15th at Molotov Lounge on West 5th street. If you don't know, it's owned by some bachelor named Brad. Word is that he's going to be there. As much as I would like to believe he's probably a total jerk, he's a better guy than us because he beat us to the punch in sponsoring the event.

You can get on some facebook thing and see the event details, and you can find out more about Austin's Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week here.

So I hope we'll see you there! Not only would you get to hear the greatest band in the world, possibly ever, but you would get to officially say that you did the right thing.






.

The Crowd Arrives Late

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Is it just me, or have we been hit with a string of unusually bad luck? Or maybe it's an unusual string of bad luck. In any case, it's not that our luck is unusually bad, it's that there is a lot of norm-level bad stuff happening at an unusually high frequency. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe we accidentally dug up an Indian burial ground when we were burring our pets... or if maybe we tried to break into the home of a boy who's family has accidentally left him alone at home while they are traveling during Christmas... or if we were separated from our mouse-family while emigrating to America during the early 20th century from Russia and can only feel a small connection when looking at the night sky and singing one part of a duet and hoping (but secretly knowing) that our mouse-sister is singing the other half (and the high harmony part) of that same duet. In any case, things have just not been going well for us.

We recently had a gig at Ski Shores on Lake Austin. We were excited because it's an awesome place where people can just pull right up in their boat and enjoy an awesome meal, great drinks, and sometimes The Possum Posse. The week of the gig, however, we were rescheduled to an earlier time slot due to some issues related to the university of texas. We tried to let everybody know via our website, but as you probably know, there are only about 4 people outside of the band who have visited our website. In fact, there are only 3 people inside of the band who have visited our website - and we have a 6-person band. Weak, I know.

So we played an early set in the heat of the day, but... once we got there to set up, we learned that due to the recent rains, Lake Austin had been closed to boaters!

After we were done playing to the crowd of approximately 10 people, including waitstaff, bartenders, and management, we relaxed at the bar. About 20 minutes into our relaxing, a group of people gradually began trickling in and asking about the live music. We explained that we had been bumped up, and that we had just finished a 3-hour set. They were not appeased. For the first time ever, we found that the demand for Posse exceeded the supply of Posse! Needless to say, we were shocked.

Had we not already sent home 3 of our band members and broken down all of our equipment, we might have played another set... and we are just desperate enough for attention that we seriously considered it. But in the end, we decided that it's better to leave people wanting more. Of course, since they hadn't heard us, it wasn't really "more" they wanted, as much as it was "some." So maybe the reason we decided not to play wasn't because we wanted to leave them wanting more. Maybe it was because they wanted to hear us (assuming they would enjoy our music) and we didn't want to burst their collective bubble with our mediocrity.

Hopefully we'll return to Ski Shores soon. It's an awesome location, and tons of fun. Maybe we just need one show to turn our luck around. Or maybe we'll just move our dead animals to a different cemetery.