It takes a lot to get me out of the house on a holiday. As Captain Flatulence puts it, “There are too many amateur drunks out there.” But I promised some people from church that I would play bass for their July 4th celebration. So I was out and about.
Luckily, we played fairly early in the day. We started about 11:00 while the folks in Point Venture lined up their festive golf carts for a parade. As soon as the parade got going, we took a break to cram a couple of hot dogs down out throats. Then we played another set of patriotic standards before calling it a day.
This was my first opportunity to play my new bass in public. When you just play with yourself, you don’t know how an instrument will sound with an ensemble. Playing out doors adds another variable of uncertainty. I was very pleased with how well the instrument performed, even if I didn’t do as well as I would have liked. (We only had one short rehearsal, and I don’t read music that well.)
Afterward, the nice folks from church slipped me some “gas money” and took Suna and me out for a ride on their pontoon boat. We got home before anyone had a chance to become seriously drunk. Then we got to listen to fireworks for most of the night. The lack of sirens makes me optimistic that people showed more sense than I usually give them credit for.
About My Outfit
It was July Fourth. We were outdoors. It was hot. The t-shirt was a promotional item.
Suna said I looked like a “scary Highway patrol musician.” But I was only doing my part to dress for the occasion. The bass was handmade in Mexico city. The T-shirt was made in Haiti. The glasses came from Thailand. The hat band was hand woven from a horse’s tail—quiet, Flatch!—just outside of Tijuana. All to celebrate US Independence Day.
Oh, the hat was actually made in Conroe, TX.
