Thursday, October 3, 2024

Octoberfest Battle

      Ah, things are mellow now. Well, kind of. The Padres are going to Divisional Series, so that’s exciting! I don’t know if I should say this in public but: I don’t really care that much. I’m glad they won. I like seeing the county excited. But, I just don’t care that much. The singer of the Calvins cancelled band practice on Tuesday so he could watch the game! Not even live, on TV! That’s nuts! I could understand if he got tickets, but he didn’t. I know a lot of people who did though. While I was looking at social media over the past couple of days, I couldn’t believe how many people I knew that went. The guitar player for the Eruption even got caught on TV camera! His wife was very excited. I’m sure he didn’t know until he got home. She may have texted him, I don’t know. I’m sure I’ll find out tonight. Yep, practice again! 2 weeks in a row! We’re going to sound awesome. Each practice we get a little tighter, and I have high hopes for this one. Last week was pretty awesome, so this should be better! 6 weeks until show time, we’re going to kill it! I’m excited. I’m more excited about that than the Padres. Sorry, to whom it may concern, but that’s how I feel. I watched the VP debate on Tuesday. That was more exciting to me. Sorry again. I did watch last night. Nothing was really on, and it is kind of exciting. My wife grew up involved, so I know she loves it. It reminds her a lot of her dad, so I get it. She grew up watching, and being a junior Padre, so it’s a part of her life. I just like seeing people excited about stuff. The one thing that lingered for me was that, I was surprised our singer would rather watch baseball than practice. However, I did not want to practice Monday because of football.

     Oh well, I guess we each have our thing. I’m just glad I caught it. I was willing to practice on Monday, but our guitar player was helping his brother move, so we couldn’t. We’ve got 6 weeks until a show, we’re fine. This weekend I’m finally, supposedly, going to have Hustler’s practice! I haven’t seen them in a month! Maybe over a month. People were on vacation, and now it’s crunch time. We have a show on the 2nd. So just a few weeks to get ready. I’ve known we were going to have practice on the 6th for a while now. It’s been on my calendar. Then yesterday, while everyone was texting to make sure, the guitar player says he’s out of town until the 12th! Sheesh! We didn’t have these songs down all the way yet anyway, and now this! Our acoustic player already said he forgot everything. I really hope he’s joking! I’m pretty sure he is. But, the last time we practiced the guitar player was gone, and we only practiced the song that the acoustic player wrote. I hope that’s not the case this weekend. We can play the songs a man down. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. A lot of times, when you play music with a different structure, you listen to each other more, solidify your part more, and tend to learn more about the actual song. As opposed to just your part, and what you’re used to. I know it’s helping the Eruption. When we play without our drummer, we have to think differently about the whole song. It took quite a bit of getting used to initially. Having wrote the majority of the songs myself, and having played them for decades, yes, plural, I’m quite confident about how they go. But, I was really surprised by the other two, and how reliant they were on the drummer’s parts. Now, playing without him has gotten easier, and I think we all know our parts a little bit better because of it.

     It’s Octoberfest this weekend! It’s supposed to be hot too, maybe 100! Ouch. Nothing like walking around on asphalt, in the direct sun, when it’s 100! Plus, practice on Sunday, with no AC! I might lose weight this weekend. Not that it’s a bad thing, but sheesh! It’s also a bit of a bummer because practice and Octoberfest are both in La Mesa. So, I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday. I don’t want to try to cram both in on the same day. Both deserve their respective times. We won’t be going oompah crazy, we just like wandering around checking out all the stuff. It was way different when we lived downtown La Mesa. Then, Octoberfest consumed life for a weekend, it engulfed us. Now, we’re more like spectators. It was always about the party before. Now, not so much. We’re still going to run into a lot of friends, and familiar faces, which is one of the main reasons to go, but we won’t get sloppy. At least we don’t plan to. Now that we have to get in, and get out, it’s different. The only thing that really still remains the same is our love for the spectacle, and our love for La Mesa. I like checking out all the booths. I don’t care that it’s not “authentic.” There’s this whole “battle” about “authentic” Octoberfests. I don’t get it. El Cajon has Octoberfest two weekends in a row, last week and this week. And we know so many people who have this problem with La Mesa being more like a street fair, than an Octoberfest. And I just couldn’t care less. For years people have been trying to get us to go to the El Cajon Octoberfest, because it’s so (in a bougie voice) “authentic.” I’m not sure if I should say this in public but: I don’t care about “authentic” German anything. I care about La Mesa. I will probably never go to the El Cajon O’fest, because without the booths, it’s waiting in line for a lame time! Not interested!

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