Tag: music

Grooves

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Old man, asleep at the bar.
He’s never said a word in three years.
Nobody knows who he is or what his story is.
Let’s take him to the jukebox.
You can hear sounds of ancient times by running the needle along ridges in pottery.
It’s from when vibrations got embedded in them as they turned on the pottery wheel.
This old man’s got lots of wrinkles, so we put him in the jukebox.
He is instantly electrocuted.
When the smoke clears, we prop him back up at the bar.
To tell you the truth, he smells kinda better now.

Wands

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The White Mage volunteered at the local school as the band instructor. A welcome break from experiments with potions and wands.
He put away his projects, picked up his baton, and headed out the door to make the trip to the school.
Servants follow the children of the nobility into the recital hall, bearing instruments of all sizes.
They find their seats while the Mage tapped his baton on the lectern for attention.
Fireballs flew out the end, incinerating the strings section.
“No wonder why that wand wouldn’t hold a charge,” he said, servants attacking the flames with water buckets.

The Dead Lawn

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The lawn is dead.
I tried watering, fertilizing, sod patches – you name it, I’ve tried it.
You know how some kooks tell you to play music for plants? Well, I tried that too. I guess those kooks were as kooky as I’d thought.
There’s nothing left of the lawn. It’s all blown to dust.
It’s a shame, because I bought a shiny new lawnmower.
The neighbors come by to borrow it. They expect me to fill it with gas.
Why? What’s the point?
They have lawns. Let them gas it up.
I’ll just sit here, watching Dust Devils graze.

Music Club

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Alice has been dead for twenty years, but the record club has been sending her the default monthly selection every month.
She was unmarried, had no kids, no brothers or sisters, and her parents were long gone.
The people who moved into her house kept the albums, as did all of the people who moved in after them.
Only when the house was demolished to make way for a shopping mall did the deliveries stop.
Still, if you listen carefully, right outside the bookstore, you can hear music.
Of course you can, stupid. There’s a music store there.
Overpriced, too.

Satchmo

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Satchmo! Satchmo!
Dressed to the nines!
The nines, I say!
You? You nowhere near them nines, boy!
Threes. Fours. Maybe fives if you shine up them shoes.
Me, I be the sevens. Gonna take me all day, but I wanna be the eights one day.
But the nines?
Hell no. Satchmo the nines and I ain’t Satchmo.
Once, I done seen Satchmo, and he was the tens.
No shit! Tens.
Blowin his horn, catchin the light.
Tens.
I asked Satchmo, but he just laughed.
When you dressed to the nines, everything is nines.
Blow that horn! Blow that horn, Satchmo!

Jellyfish

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Jefferson Jellyfish Jones couldn’t count to 88, but he used every one of those 88 keys on that piano like a surgeon uses every knife on his tray.
He sliced and snipped at the music, tucking and nipping until what was once a bloody mess was a shining example the finest beauty.
Your ears and soul, lifted higher than they’d ever been lifted before, sonny.
At the ripe old age of 88, at the Bad Times Bar, Jellyfish hit those keys one last time, face down.
Even in his dying moment, no sweeter sound.
Play all night, Jellyfish. Play on.

Band In A Box

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Somebody showed me “Band In A Box.” Just set up a looping track, set the key and the beat, and you’re ready to play or sing along.
It really works.
Until this morning, that is. I pushed the button and nothing happened.
My virtual bassist caught a nasty virus from a digital stripper, then he wrecked his car in a racing game.
No backups, either. The funeral’s tomorrow.
The guitarist looked up Yoko Ono on Wikipedia, fell in love with her, uploaded himself to India, and vanished.
The drummer became a Pastafarian – Flying Spaghetti Monsters.
So, anyone for Guitar Hero?

The Cello Player

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Few things are certain in life.
Most of all, of the things you can count on, I’m most certain that you’ll never hear a chick say “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m fucking the cello player.”
Guitarists, singers, bass players.
Even drummers, if you can imagine that.
But when it comes to cello players, they’re the ones that haul their cellos up five flights of stairs into a lonely, cramped apartment.
Nobody knocks. Nobody calls.
More time for practice, right?
I guess so.
But no matter how good he gets, no chick will say “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m fucking the cello player.”

Fiddle

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If hillbillies call a violin a fiddle, what do they call themselves a cello?
Truth is, hillbilly ain’t seen no cellos never. But they always a first time.
First time a hillbilly seen himself a cello, he thought it warn’t nothin’ but a big ol fiddle for a big ol giant.
So the hillbilly think himself a big man, all hillbilly do, put the cello up at his fool neck and he try to play the thing fiddle-like.
Yeah, he break his neck, fall down dead right there, cello fallin on him.
They says a giant kilt him dead, sir.

Jacob

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Jacob”s violin was the pride of Minsk. But that didn’t matter, because the Nazis put everyone on the trains.
The commander of the camp was also from Minsk, and he knew of Jacob. He commanded him to play for the officers during dinner.
Jacob refused, demanding to play for the workers.
So, they let him. And after a minute of playing for us, he was shot.
The commander was Klaus Gustav. Years later, I found Klaus in Cairo, and I strangled him with one of Jacob’s violin strings.
The sound of Gustav’s croaks doesn”t haunt me at all.
Only Jacob.