Mikey

It all started simply enough. I played Bach, like everyone else. Sure my third slide fell out of the horn even when I didn't push my valve down, clanking on my bell and falling to the floor in rehearsal, but it happened to everybody once in a while, right? And the intonation – Well, as Tom Stevens once said, „Intonation is subjective. Missed notes are objective.“ I never really knew what that meant, but whenever I said it everybody around me nodded wisely and made understanding grunts of admiration. Besides, Bach was just – Bach. Everybody played them. We'd go out together at night after practicing, drinking too much beer and beating up the occasional oboist who crossed our path. Louder and higher was our Credo.
Then, after finishing school and getting a job in a small orchestra, things started to change. Everybody told the story about Phil Smith coming out from behind the screen in Chicago with a Yamaha B-flat, making everybody on the committe chuckle, and how the next week they drove him down to Elkhart and got him fixed up with a solid C trumpet and a 1B mouthpiece, anyway. The truth was though, alot of the guys started showing up at work with new horns that really played well in tune, but they'd always stick the bells up under their arms when they weren't playing, and if you'd ask them if it was a 229 or a 239 they'd get kinda cagey and change the subject. They'd always find a way to avoid letting you try one out, too.
So I started checking out the Mount Vernons. Unlaquered, leaky valves, broken braces, it didn't matter. I'd bring 'em to work, and ask the guys how it sounded. I'd get the non-commital grunts from the ones with the shiny new silver-secret-Bachs, and I'd watch my bank account deplete with every auction on e-bay.
Then after a particularly bitter concert in which I managed to anger all of the woodwinds by playing every important passage with them either too loud or too sharp, and sometimes both at the same time, our 2nd trumpet player took me out for some drinks.
After three boilermakers with absolutely no conversation except the animal grunts great trumpet players are somehow able to make when amongst themselves, 2nd Trumpet gathered up some nerve and spoke complete sentences to me for the first time since we had met.
„Listen,“ he said, „those horns you been seein' us with. They ain't Bachs.“ While spitting out the last sentence 2nd Trumpet looks around the bar furtively, making sure we're not being overheard. „They just look like Bachs. Yamaha took all the bad notes outta 'em, and engraved their names on the bells. They don't want to come out in the open with it until so many of us're playin' em that everybody else'll just hafta join in. Look, I talked to our cell leader, and even though you only been here awhile, he's willin' to give you one, too, only yer not to tell a soul, and when it's time, we'll all come out in the big ads on them buses and such as Yamaha Recording Artists. Ain't that just great?“
So that was that. Overnight I took possesion of my first Bach look-a-like, and my career skyrocketed. Auditions were no longer so nerve-wracking. I got knowing looks from the proctors as I 'd walk into the room and up to the screen, some of them even mouthing in a sports-fan sotto voce with both hands at the sides of their mouths, „Ya-ma-ha! Ya-ma-ha!“
In a matter of a few years I had gone from a part-time entry-level regional orchestra to the Top Five.
Then Yamaha ambushed the unknowing american trumpet player. Overnight there were pictures of us everywhere, with a single malt Scotch in one hand, and a japanese Bach look-a-like in the other. Restaraunt reservations weren't a problem, and even the conductors would mouth „Domo Arigato“ to us after particularly well-executed passages in concerts. Anybody seen with a Bach case at a stage door was refused entrance, being told politely that the municipal orchestra rehearsed Tuesday and Thursday nights down at the High School.
But I couldn't keep away from the Internet. Sellers from Hawaii advertised refinished Mount Vernons, beautifully gold-plated, with palm trees in the background of the ads and sensual descriptions including exotic ribbon microphones I'd never heard of. I'd buy them sight unseen, even the ones from the mid-west that had been silver-plated with gold “trim“ - I'd buy them just to see what „trim“ was. Hell, I was making a fortune in endorsements alone, right?
Then I started to cross-dress at night, after concerts when I was safe, alone at home, and I'd play french solo pieces with a bejeweled Flumpet, or I'd put on my black leather tails and honk out Bruckner excerpts on my 45 pound Raja. I'd wear racing gear with advertisements from synthetic valve oil companies hand-sewn on, and play „A Short Ride in a Fast Machine“ with my newest Lawler with racing stripes and streamlined for less wind drag.
But as much as I wanted to, I couldn't do any of this in public. I yearned to play my brushed gold and mahogany Harrelson with the onyx finger buttons on a night of Debussy and Ravel, but I was under contract with Yamaha.
It was frustrating, but I had everything under control. As long as I had these litle fantasy excursions alone, nobody would find out. Who was I harming, right?
Then one night, dressed as Dame Edith and practicing the harp part to Wagner's Fire Magic in the Götterdämmerung on my Romeo Adachi Star Wars Model C, there was an announcement over public adress systems from roaming automobiles driving around in the streets.
„There has been a gas leak – please leave your homes for the next public building immediately. Do not run, but precede in a cautious manner. Please leave your homes now.“
When I slowly cracked my door open, I saw pandemonium in the streets. People running every which way, carrying bedrolls, mixmasters, and the last ten years of their income tax filings. There was no time to lose. I flung myself out the door, headed for orchestra hall in my rhinestond-studded horn rims and sensible shoes, Dame Edith be damned.
Two blocks away from the hall I ran straight int 2nd Trumpet, dressed as Mata Hari with a Titamium Prana in his hands. As he looked sheepishly in my direction, we noticed Utility Trumpet racing down a sidestreet dressed as a cleaning woman with a stock Bach 229 in his hand.
„Slumming, as usual,“ muttered 2nd Trumpet, „But they'll catch us all, just the same.“
„What are you talking about?“ I asked, just as a small asian man in a black leather military-type uniform with the letters „YY“ in a lightning motive on his epaulets came up to us and demanded our endorsement cards.
„Please return home at once,“ he said, „this has been a test. Nothing more. Your cell leader will be in touch with you directly.“
Upon returning home I realized that although everything seemed as I left it, all of my covertly purchased trumpets were gone. No overt threats, just the newest Chicago and New York models on beautifully hand-crafted wooden trumpet stands in my practice room. Pretty subtle, but I got the message.
As I sit here cowering behind my PC, I can't help but think about the good old days when things were simple, and everybody knew the rules. It was Bach or Bust.
What now? God, what now?

X
(Name removed to protect the identity of the artist.)

Schwab

Thats funny stuff!

TrentAustin

Rofl Rofl

Tootsall

Stop! Stop! It hurts so much.

ROGERIO

Funny Mikey, very funny. You need to be syndicated my friend. Write the script... lets film this and put it on youtube... or maybe it should just be a South Park episode...

thanks for sharing.

Mikey

I should have posted this response sooner, but I am not the author. I just swiped it from "anoTHer" site.

tpter1

That's funny, Mikey, nevertheless!

Solar Bell

That was very good!

-cw-