King Snake vs. Bunny
August 1st,
The guys are in rare
form tonight, an extra silliness likely brought on by their sleep
depravation from playing late in
Fulshear last
night. This evening’s venue is to be
a concert given by the trio at University Place
.
It’s an independent living community
named by Money magazine as one of the top
retirement centers in America. With nearly 200
decked out units, a ballroom-style dinning room,
heated pool, gardens for tenants’ patios, it’s
more of a resort than a convalescent home.
Matthew and George are excited to be performing
again at a retirement community since this type
of venue is where the two first started out
years ago performing together as the duo ‘nothing special’. George admits that it feels
a little like a
home-coming for the trio. He has picked songs
specifically from the 1930s through the 1950s
for the evening’s performance.
As George enters the auditorium with his equipment, he notices a small elderly woman in the corner of the room questioning Lee. Lee is relieved as George moves across the room to meet her “Hi. I’m George.” “And what do you do?” “Well, tonight I’m going to play that piano over there.” “Well, I helped secure the funds for that piano. It’s a piano valued between $20,000.00 - $30,000.00 dollars so be careful! And I know this because headed the committee to get it here.” George is at first surprised by the woman’s abrasive introduction, but quickly writes it off as some form of dementia. “Well, thank you for allowing me to perform on it tonight. All of my mistakes will sound better than ever coming from such a fine instrument.” The lady doesn’t respond. George attributes this to a faulty hearing–aid battery, not a lack of humor. He quickly sets his microphone and cables down to retreat back to his car to unload more gear.
On the way, he encounters Matthew with his bass in tow. “Hey, watch out for the little lady in there…she seems annoyed that we playing here tonight.” Matthew questions, “You mean Norma? That’s our host.” George strokes his forehead “Aww crap. What’s with her?” “I don’t know, she used to be some big-time organ-player. Her name is Norma Louder. Don’t let her rough exterior fool you.” “You’re kidding, right? Norma LOUDER…and she plays the organ? But she invited us out here though, right?” Matthew nods “Yes. She’s a resident in charge of community events, and we’re her guests tonight.” “Hmmph, guests like the condemned at a lynching.” grumbles George as he heads back down the corridor to the parking lot.
George returns to find Norma gone (whew). The three finish setting up, but before they can play for a sound check, one of the staff enters to commandeer the trio. “Norma says you three are to join her in the dining room.” George and Lee look to Matthew for a sign that they can get out of it. He shakes his head. “We can eat, then come back for sound check.” George protests “You know I never eat before we play.” Always the 'team player', Lee offers to eat George’s portion as they head down the hall.
On the way Matthew introduces George to a spritely lady coming down the hall towards them. “George, this is ‘Granny’. She is over 100 years old.” She lends a gracious smile to the boys. “She doesn’t take any medications, none at all.” George folds her delicate hand in his. “I think you’re probably in better shape than I am. No meds at all, huh? I am privileged to meet you.” Granny blushes at the two as she continues on her way.
To their surprise, the guys are quickly ushered past the on-looking residents in the dinning hall to a private room in the back. The decor is elegantly adorned, fit for a dignitary. A bit too exclusive for Lee's and George's tastes. The three sit down at the table as if they’re awaiting sentencing from Norma. George wonders what to use his second and third forks for. "Man, I thought we would get to eat with the residents. This is like…like eating with the principal.” “Shhh! Here she comes"
Norma hobbles in and plops down in the seat at the head of the table. She begins to question Lee, and then George. She quickly discovers that George does not in fact read music, but plays by ear. A fact that George's ego has never allowed him to be embarrassed by or ashamed of. He reminds her that composer Irving Berlin never learned how to play a piano or read music beyond a rudimentary level. He goes on to tell her that Berlin owned a special piano that mechanically transposed keys and an assistant wrote out the music scores. "Irving Berlin wrote over a thousand songs including many hit Broadway musicals. We'll be playing one of his most played songs tonight: BLUE SKIES."
Just as Norma begins her rebuttal, Bill enters the dinning room. He introduces himself as one of the University Place volunteers. After brief introductions of the trio, Norma and Bill resume some ongoing argument about the facilities hierarchy, and who's really in charge here. The food quickly arrives, and the guys dig in - even George (despite earlier protests). Bill acquiesces to Norma, and tells her that she of course, was in charge all along so he can talk to the guys. Matthew consumes his body weight in iced tea and makes known that if he could pick a GP3 sponsor for the group, it would be Lipton Iced Tea. (For the remainder of the dinner, George will request iced tea from the servers only to forward the glasses to Matthew when they're not looking. The count at the moment is 5 glasses of tea.)
The inquest continues, shifting to Matthew. While Norma focuses her assault on Matthew, Lee asks Bill a very peculiar question: "Have you ever seen the movie 'HARVEY'?" George speaks softly (almost inaudible) "Uh oh...this is going to be interesting." Lee pushes his plate forward out of the way, grabs his napkin and begins twisting. George isn't exactly sure what's about to take place, but he sees a gleam in Lee's eye. Bill responds curiously "Yeah, 'HARVEY' - the Jimmy Stewart movie with the imaginary rabbit?" Lee asserts "Ah, but Harvey wasn't imaginary, and he's with us here today." George slides another glass of iced tea Matthew's direction "Oh boy, here it goes." Even Norma stops short in her questions of Matthew to look down the table at Lee's napkin rustling. "What is he doing?"
Note: One of the interesting things about the trio is that is that they will always find the 'humor equilibrium' of the environment they're in. If the mood of a room is fun and playful, they will passively participate. If the situation is more intense, they will lighten the mood with humor. They can't help themselves. The more unnecessarily serious the room, the sillier they become. It's not that they 're disrespectful, it's just what happens when you pair three class clowns together. This overwhelming instinct kicks in and like geese answering the urge to fly south, the threesome can not resist the lure of cutting up to lighten the mood. To make matters worse, Matthew and George have a very juvenile sense of humor. They have known each other since grade school and while they both have developed into semi-responsible, contributing members of society, their humor has not advanced much from when they were in the 4th grade. Anything for a laugh is often the mandate between them (often at the expense of Lee's good nature). But tonight it's Lee's turn as the ringleader.
He has finished his 'napkin puppet' and it's
a... a small, white...rabbit
. Lee cradles
it in the crook of his arm, and leans forward
for 'Harvey' to drink from his water glass
.
Bill and Norma look on in disbelief, Matthew
finishes off a tea that George has supplied him
with (the count is now 6 glasses). It's
remarkable how life-like this puppet is. Some
would argue that Harvey is more life-like than
Lee (and better mannered). Not to be outdone, George quickly fashions his
napkin into the shape of...well, it kinda looks
like a...well, (he's
not as good at this napkin origami as Lee) George decides to settle on a
snake
since it's the only animal form that he
seems capable of sustaining. (Norma is not
amused.)
And of course, the snake being a natural
predator of the bunny begins
to attack from under the table! George and Lee's
puppets scuffle raucously to the surprise of the
others. It looks as if Lee and George are involved in
some weird puppet therapy that no one dares to
interrupt. Matthew looks down at the tablecloth
in front of him, partially to avoid eye-contact
with their host, Norma, but also to fantasize
about how he could make a huge puppet out of
this thing! He starts another glass of tea
instead. As the battle rages on, Bill's wife
Susan arrives to see the spectacle 'King Cobra
Rabbit Hour'. Lee's playful bunny has overcome
the king snake by laying down, then striking as
George's snake moves in for the kill. "Ha!"
exclaims Lee, "Just because Harvey's fluffy and
playful, doesn't mean he's not able to defend
himself against your snake's vicious attacks!"
The waitress enters as Lee makes his proclamation. George considers offering an explanation, but decides to leave her with her puzzled expression. Norma has begun talking to her about the check anyway. They decide to take the argument outside into the foyer. While Norma is away, Bill mentions to the guys that he used to have a pony-tail, "...that is until I hurt my knee in the shower." George is intrigued by such an odd statement and curiously ponders the connection between his mobility and the length of his hair. Lee decides it's more fun not to know the answer to such a strange statement. But George asks for explanation. None is ever given. George attributes this to karma of not clarifying Lee's statement to the waitress.
Norma reenters the room victorious over the waitress. There is no more small talk - what's the point. The battle lines have been drawn. Norma is serious about being serious and the trio is serious about being silly. This is a volatile mix. Ying and Yang. While the guys take the music very seriously, they have no pretense of being serious about themselves. In her day she was a world-class organist, the thought of musicians not learning the craft as she would say is distasteful and she feels her community patrons deserve more than this. The room is cold.
Matthew finishes his final glass of iced tea (8 glasses in all) as Lee and George head back to the auditorium. They find that the room is already filled with eager residents who have arrived early to get a good seat. "Well, there goes the sound check." George smiles. Taking it all in stride, George takes his place behind the piano and flicks the microphone on. "Welcome to my mid-life crisis everyone. We're going to warm up now if that's okay on a couple of original compositions. They're instrumentals, so you can make up your own words, and sing whatever you like." Lee guesses that except for the trio no one in the room is under 75 years old. He makes adjustments to the sound board as the three cheerfully pluck strings, strike piano keys, and tap drums. The three finish to polite applause.
It's 7:00PM
- Time to officially get started. Norma approaches the front of the
room like a commandant as she wields a microphone
that she's brought to the concert. She begins to
'introduce' the band to the audience, but it
feels more as if she's exposing them. It quickly becomes apparent that her integration
of the guys 20 minutes before was not polite
conversation but rather a means to extract
information to use against them at this precise moment.
She proudly reveals to the captive onlookers
that "The piano player can't actually read any
music at all! So this should be interesting for
us tonight."
(George is strangely relieved to hear this
knowing that he has an excuse if his playing is
below standard tonight. He thinks 'I'll just
tell them sorry for messing up the tunes
tonight, but after all I am musically illiterate"
he also contemplates if he should play along
with her insults and act the part of an idiot
savant).
At first the Matthew and Lee are a little caught off guard
by this strange metopmorphis - she's become
something of a cross between Ed Sullivan and
that Where's the
beef lady?
The three are amused at
how easily they were 'tricked' into spilling the beans
about each other by this master interrogator. Once she is finished serving up
George she aims
her sights on Lee. (Lee remembers how the napkin king snake hid
under the table to attack the bunny at the
most opportune moment.)
As Norma begins her assault on Lee, the other two join in. George and Matthew decide to get in on the act not necessarily to defend their partner, but to poke at him too - these three have become quiet skilled at playfully ribbing each other. Norma openly questions the comment lee made at dinner about being a semi-retired roofer, George interjects "That means that if you hire him to do your roof he'll quit before the job is done." Lee shrugs it off and laughs. Matthew laughs. Some in the audience laugh - but Norma does not! The fact that George gets a bigger laugh than anything she's said so far is even worse than playing without reading music! "Oh whatever!" scowls Norma and tosses her mic and sits down. George becomes so tickled by the absurdity of Norma's actions it takes a few moments of laughter for him to regroup and begin the first song. Matthew doesn't even get an introduction!
George dedicates their first song to her, BYE BYE BLUES. Not so much as a peace offering as much as a statement to lighten up and have some fun. The guys are off and running. George and Lee are still smiling ear-to-ear by the third song, overcome with laughter about Norma's repulsion of their joy. A bit of an antagonist, George sings the Irving Berlin song directly to Norma sitting on the first row. The crowd is warming, as if a spell has been lifted from over them.
Right before the start of the song DON'T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE, Matthew leans over to George to alert him that he 'will not be playing the special bass part' - This a mistake. Though George is oblivious to many things in 'real life' he has a keen ninja-idiot savant-like sense of awareness on stage. He instantly feels a hundred or so curious eyes of the audience wondering what Matthew just said - So George tells them. "Matthew would like me to announce that the 'Special Bass' part of this song will not be performed tonight. So if any of you were attending in hopes of hearing this solo, you may be dismissed now and offered a full refund." Chuckles bounce around the auditorium - (but not from Norma) Matthew is trying to become invisible. Matthew instantly realizes that he should have never given such ammunition to a clown like George on stage.
The song starts "Missed the Saturday dance...Heard they crowded the floor..." George pauses the song in the middle, and after several moments of silence he announces "Had there been a Special Bass Part' this is the point in the song where it would have been played." Matthew looks straight a head. Norma's grip on her cane constricts as the blood leaves her hand rushing to her head. The audience responds again with laughter, having never seen this type of improvised behavior from performers. They're watching these guys have a good time which each other, and the feeling becomes contagious. The guys have earned this right due to the musical competence they've displayed, despite Norma's of stance about their musical illiteracy. The audience knows their involved in unique display - something real and not 'canned'. Matthew redeems himself with a stellar rendition of the Bobby Darin classic 'MAC THE KNIFE' No thanks to George's morbid introduction of the tune: " We'd like to play for you now, a song about a serial killer." (read the lyrics here) The song becomes the high point of the evening for everyone.
By the end of the concert, these three have even managed to put a smile on Norma's face and a song in everyone's heart. Just like Lee and George's dinner puppet show, a venomous attitude has been overcome by joy. Maybe these three jesters have even helped Norma to have a bit of fun tonight. She does finally introduce Matthew. And it's not as mean-spirited as what she said about Lee and George. She even thanks the band for coming out, and it seems genuinely sincere.
The guys stand at the door of the auditorium as the residents file back to their units down the corridor. Many hands are shaken, hugs and smiles are offered to the guys. After the last walker has made its way out of the room, the guys begin breaking the equipment down. Lee looks at the wrinkled napkin on the floor that once took the form of 'Harvey'. He has an epiphany of how we all are made from the same fabric. But each of us decide if we will allow this life to fold us into the form of a hateful snake or a playful rabbit. George approaches him, "Hey, what are you thinking? Are you alright? " Lee responds warmly, slowly bobbing his head "Yeah, I am doing fine... I'm really fine."
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