Subject:      [IRTRAD-L] Zouki Provides Guidance for the Suffering
From: Bill Black <Zouki@AOL.COM>
Date:         Thu, 18 May 2000 09:38:36 EDT
Reply-To: Irish Traditional Music List <IRTRAD-L@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE>
To: IRTRAD-L@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE

B. Denton, God be kind to him, writes:

BD

We used to have a cello player who would show up at our session in Ft. Lauderdale.

BB

Your first mistake was to play in a venue that was not equipped with an Unsuitable Instrument Detector installed at the door (available from Zouki Industries whenever we get our shipments from the slave labor camps in North Korea)

BD

She totally destroyed whatever was going on but was ignorant enough of the music to think what she was doing sounded great.

BB

Your second mistake was to let her take the thing out of its case. Your third mistake was not to stuff her and her cello back in the case 'long about the third repeat of The Butterfly.

BD

She brought enough of her own friends along to reinforce her self opinion.

BB

I can just see the next spicy issue of TREOIR featuring a spread on "Cello Babes and Gang Sessions in Florida".

BD

I used to yell "Shut the F**K up!" and it made no difference....

BB

Subtlety serves no purpose. You should have been more direct. This is why God invented two by fours.

BD

We eventually resorted to micing all the other musicians.

BB

An unpleasant alternative but I'm sure you could still hear the infra-sound rumbling along under the JR&H. Like playing in pubs in the Bronx with the elevated subway (? oxymoron) doing its thing periodically outside.

BD

She eventually moved to Cleveland.

BB

Perhaps appropriate.

BD

She showed up a couple of weeks ago with a bowed Chinese instrument that sounded like a tortured cat and insisted on playing with us...

BB

Your fourth and final mistake, allowing your morbid curiosity to overrule your best musical instincts. (Again the Unsuitable Instrument Detector would have come in handy, especially if you had set it to "vaporize").

Is there by any chance a tape recording of this unpleasant event?

BD

I wouldn't wish her on my worst enemy....

BB

The good Lord will I am sure reward you & your fellow musicians for your patience with this Paragon of Insensitivity, who we hope has taken her constipated feline and returned to lovely Cleveland.

I hope that you followed the Zouki Session Maintenance Instruction number 34.7: always tell unwanted musicians that you're moving next week's session to Dirty Spike's (or whatever name the local Hell's Angels hangout goes by).

Thank you all for listening.

Z