Your “A Day/Week/However Long in the Life” Saturday Evening Thread

A little bit of a spin on the Saturday night semi-musical post tonight, since screw it, I can, it’s my show tonight. The world of a freelance musician’s definitely a strange one, where what you’re playing, for what event, and how much notice you’re given to do it could ranges to basically anything. So let’s dive into my last few weeks or so.

I play a lot of weddings these days, and that means I get to play a lot of what you’d consider to be standard wedding songs. We seem to be contractually obligated to play this, because we do it for almost every wedding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Wahxcg8ro

I would much rather play it than Pachelbel’s fucking Canon in D. I am not going to link to that because you have heard it before and I’m sick of it. No matter who I marry, no Pachelbel. That’s a dealbreaker. (I’m pretty sure Senorita Weaselo, being a violinist, understands.)

But we get requests to play a lot of other stuff. These days we play a lot of Ed Sheeran, whether “Perfect” or “Shape of You.” (We do the latter occasionally if we’re asked for poppier stuff, right after we play “Despacito.” No, I’m not kidding, someone wrote a string quartet arrangement of “Despacito.” It’s actually not too bad, all things considered.)

Not a weird wedding song, but something I was glad to hear/play?

Get some Ben Folds up in here, even if we’re not rockin’ the suburbs just like Quiet Riot did. Weird wedding song that I was surprised to hear/play?

Last I checked, this was a breakup song. People know that it’s a breakup song, right? There were no words, but we all know how the song goes. This doesn’t mean I only play weddings. I’m just in the circuit and play a wedding or two a week. I get to play other stuff too!

Last week a friend of mine texted me to ask if I could play something for a recording. I was at Senorita Weaselo’s so I didn’t have my copy of the music, but I borrowed hers—it was from a critical part of the violin rep (I call it our Bible), so of course all of us have our own personal copies.

The most holy of violin holies. Which I played a nice chunk of on like three hours’ notice. Also I haven’t played it or worked on it in over ten years (I should brush back up on it). Go me.

I’m playing an orchestra concert tonight in Brooklyn. One of the pieces we’re playing is a collection of four songs, including an arrangement of this

and my personal favorite part, the last song in the cycle is entitled “Florida Man.” We’ve all seen “Florida Man” posts that are completely ridiculous. Hell, there’s a Twitter account and a hashtag and a meme. And it will be in song form!

What’s next on the horizon? Some summer orchestra stuff, more weddings. Actually attending a wedding that I’m invited to and not playing for once, that’s exciting.

Okay, what’s on tonight?
Well first off, tonight is the DFO Bar Crawl! We should be hearing here and there from Commentists attending the shindig about any goings-on… going on. And/or them asking for bail money. I put it at 50-50.

No championship sports on. Toronto leads the Warriors 3-1, and I still think I’d rather listen to *googles world’s worst rappers* all of those guys (and gals) over Drake. But since this all started because Kevin Durant (and then the rest of the team except Steph and Draymond) got hurt, we’re just gonna blame him on this one.

No offense, KD, it’s just a hilarious song. Who else would rhyme “Dirk Nowitski” with “Dirk Nowitski”? By the way, yes, also over Drake. Anyway, Game 5 of that is in Toronto on Monday.

In “please please please work out” news, the St. Louis Blues are a win away from their first Stanley Cup, and more importantly, someone beating Boston in a championship. Thank the Milwaukee Bucks for beating the Celtics. Anyway, Game 6 in St. Louis is tomorrow night. ROOT FOR INTERNET DAD!

Let’s Fighting Love
UFC 238: Cejudo vs. Moraes Prelims (8:00 Eastern, ESPN)
Don’t ask me, no idea. At some point is UFC going to continue numbering their events? In 50 years are we going to have UFC 1,392 or something?

Boxing: Valdez vs. Sanchez (10:00, ESPN)
According to the guide the fight is for the WBO featherweight title, held by Valdez.

Saturday Night Baseball
Cardinals-Cubs, Dodgers-Giants, OR Rockies-Mets—check your listing (7:00, FOX)

What the hell are (Super) Regionals?
College baseball super regionals! Best 2 of 3
Texas Tech at Oklahoma State (6:00, ESPNU) (Game 2, Texas Tech leads 1-0)
Michigan at UCLA (9:00, ESPN2) (Game 2, Michigan leads 1-0)
Duke at Vanderbilt (9:00, ESPN U) (Game 2, Duke leads 1-0)

Don’t spoil the season premiere of BattleBots for me, but I know some shit went down in the Quantum-Blacksmith fight.