I must have a giant sign on my forehead that says "hire me for shit". It was only 3 weeks ago that I had to play waiter for Mr. Rader's party (I can still smell the 40$ burning a hole in my jew pockets), and suddenly Marty Kluger calls me up and says he needs me on Christmas fucking Eve (THAT'S MY TV NIGHT!) to help him...carry drums?
As we all know (ahem..), he's the timpanist in the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.
This equals free tickets for Josh.
That's all well and good, but tonight he had a new job. The lead trumpeter for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, his good buddy, needed a drummer for Midnight Mass at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Hartford on Christmas Eve.
Now Marty needed a roadie.
This is when I figured that giant sign I never knew existed must actually be there
Yeah, I agreed to do it.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Catholics are fucking nuts.

Let's put it this way. I got to sit on a drumstick box behind the timpani (up in the lofty freezing cold reaches of the giant choir box thing 30 feet above everything else) for an hour and a half while a very, very lazy archbishop bitched around on his shiny little pedestal. I did get to turn the pages for the organist at one point. And then at 1.30 AM I got to help lug 2 50 lb. drums down 12 or so flights of stairs. Yay.

Some quotes from the evening:

Mr. Kluger: That archbishop fellow has been droning on for 15 minutes now...
Me: He sounds genuinely bored.
Mr. Kluger: Now Josh, be respectful.
Mr. Kluger: .....
Mr. Kluger: *sigh*
Mr. Kluger: You know what, it sounds like he's making a call to jihad down there.
Me: No way, he sounds way too bored to be making a call to jihad.

Mr. Kluger: So, did you know when to turn the pages?
Me: Well, he just kinda nodded.
Mr. Kluger: That takes talent. He's always banging his head around anyway while playing that thing.
Me: Well, it must be a rush to play an instrument 3 stories tall.
Mr. Kluger: It's like an instru-gasm.

Archbishop: Merry Christmas!
Bitch in Choir: AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!
Mr. Kluger (under breath): Oy.

Mr. Kluger: You know what those wafers and wine represented, right? The body and blood of jesus!
Me: .....but now with half the calories!
Mr. Kluger: *laughs so hard he almost runs off the road*

Looking back, I worded this entire post very badly. But between the time of the morning, those damn heavy drums, and spending 2 hours sitting on a box with a snare drum, a cymbal, 2 timpani, a trumpet, a tuba, and a 3 story organ about 1-5 feet away from me, fuck it.

- Josh, still twitching.