Can a beard and bow tie truly alter the landscape of a performance? In today's episode, we tackle these questions head-on. We commence on a somber note, sharing news and sending love to our dear friend Lance LaDuke after his scary accejent. We urge you to send your prayers and positive energy his way. Amidst this hardship, we underscore the beauty in finding joy in the smallest of things.
Bolo ties, beards, weird gig offers, art deserts, chubby cheeks FUNdamentals, merch ideas, and gratitude in this wee 's Fifth Position.
Also introducing special features with Patreon: www.patreon.com/tromboneretreat
Learn more about the Trombone Retreat and upcoming festival here: linktr.ee/tromboneretreat
Hosted by Sebastian Vera - @js.vera (insta) and Nick Schwartz - @basstrombone444 (insta)
Produced and edited by Sebastian Vera
Music: Firehorse: Mvt 1 - Trot by Steven Verhelst performed live by Brian Santero, Sebastian Vera and Nick Schwartz
Thank you to our season sponsor Houghton Horns: www.houghtonhorns.com
Support the show
Can a beard and bow tie truly alter the landscape of a performance? In today's episode, we tackle these questions head-on. We commence on a somber note, sharing news and sending love to our dear friend Lance LaDuke after his scary accejent. We urge you to send your prayers and positive energy his way. Amidst this hardship, we underscore the beauty in finding joy in the smallest of things.
Bolo ties, beards, weird gig offers, art deserts, chubby cheeks FUNdamentals, merch ideas, and gratitude in this wee 's Fifth Position.
Also introducing special features with Patreon: www.patreon.com/tromboneretreat
Learn more about the Trombone Retreat and upcoming festival here: linktr.ee/tromboneretreat
Hosted by Sebastian Vera - @js.vera (insta) and Nick Schwartz - @basstrombone444 (insta)
Produced and edited by Sebastian Vera
Music: Firehorse: Mvt 1 - Trot by Steven Verhelst performed live by Brian Santero, Sebastian Vera and Nick Schwartz
Thank you to our season sponsor Houghton Horns: www.houghtonhorns.com
Support the show
After this I'm going to go down to the theater and get a nice fun session going. Yeah, yeah, that's nice before your opera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to practice at the ballet and then walk across the street or the plaza and go play four and a half hours of Tom Huesa. Have you practiced bum bum in all 12 keys? You know, I've done it in most of the keys. It is an E major, of course, at the beginning, and the opera ends with a restatement of it in E flat major, which is very interesting idea.
Speaker 3:You said you're kind of bored. Maybe try swapping them. Spice things up a little bit, see what happens. It is the fifth position podcast, part of the Trombone Retreat podcast, which is part of the third coast Trombone Retreat. Should we just do that Three layers?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a conception. Is the top still spinning?
Speaker 3:Yeah, just make it like really slow. Yeah, well, you know we start this off with some, some tough news. Many of you are aware, and, if you're not aware, our good friend, lancelot Duke, who many of you know from the Brass Junkies podcast. He's worked with the Trombone Retreat for many years now being a guest speaker. I've known him for a while here in Pittsburgh Anyone that knows him knows how amazing he is and I don't need to wax poetic about that because you already know that.
Speaker 3:But he's dealing with a really him and his family are dealing with a really tough time right now. He had a really bad fall and he's he's been in intensive care for a while now at least over a week and yeah, it's just scary. You know we talked about how I had my fall, like you know, a year or so ago and it wasn't even it was really scary, but not even half as severe as this. From what? From what I heard, he felt kind of a good distance at his house onto a hard surface and yeah, I didn't know how to really talk about it, but I just wanted to let people know in case they didn't know. And there's a good way to follow everything going on with Lance and, of course, we want you to send all of your vibes prayers, whatever you can, to the situation. The most recent update, yesterday on the fifth, was just a short one, but it was a tough one.
Speaker 3:I wanted to give you an update on Lance. He has had a couple of hard days recently. He's been unresponsive for the last two days, has a feeding tube and is on a breathing machine. Please send extra prayers for him. So if you want to follow progress, I'm subscribed to his Caring Bridge, which is a great website. If anyone's ever had someone going through a tough time where you can, it's an easy way for everyone to communicate and his website is wwwcaringbridgeorg. Slash visit, slash Lance Leduc and you can subscribe and keep updated. I don't think there's any way to visit or donate anything as of yet, but I'm sure if there is and you guys want to support them in any way, I'm sure that can. But we'll stay tuned to it and we just wanted to send out great energy into the world for our friend Lance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean definitely related to that. The just one thought that popped my head is you know, like you mentioned, if you've, if you've known someone who's going through an illness or an injury or something like that, caring Bridge is very common platform to use and, hey, sometimes the internet has some wonderful things and that's an absolutely wonderful resource and they don't charge anything and you know, it's just one of those things that helps the people who are going through the difficult time not have to reach out to a bunch of individual people so they can post, post in one spot and reach out to everybody. And yeah, that's a wonderful thing. But also, it's just it's very sad to hear this about Lance. I mean, you know he made literally one bad step and fell and everything change, changes instantly. And, yeah, live every day like it might be the last one.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and it's a great place where you can also leave messages. I doubt he's going to be seeing these right away or anything, but you can leave messages to the people closest with them and send support. So we're thinking about you, lance, one thing I was thinking about I forgot to mention to you we were talking about. You asked me how Thanksgiving went and I totally forgot after you recorded. But so my dad is.
Speaker 3:You know, I've talked about him maybe a little bit on here, probably not much, but you know he's, he's older, he's in his early 80s now and we have him in a care home Because he just, you know he needs to be Taking care of 24-7 and but when I'm home I I'll pick him up, take him out to lunch or, and right now you know he's dealing with a lot of things.
Speaker 3:So he's, he's just very quiet, he's very peaceful, he's incredibly sweet, but it doesn't say much and you know he'll sit there, you pop him on the couch for the TV and he'll watch football for hours. But I, I thought like when I picked him up, I play him like the latest episode of the podcast, because he says he always wants to listen. He can't really quite figure out how to listen on his own. So we're listening in the car on the drive to Thanksgiving. He's super quiet. I don't even know if he's really, if it's registering or if he's really paying attention. You know I play the episode before the Thanksgiving episode and it goes on for, yeah, I don't know eight minutes and he's not really saying anything. But you know, he seems peacefully, seems comfortable, and then Nick makes a joke about sausage fingers, about not being able to type on the keyboard, and my dad just bust out laughing. He's like sausage fingers.
Speaker 1:I have an audience.
Speaker 3:And it really made my day and he was listening in that. Just I just wanted to share that with you. I hadn't told you that yet. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I forgot about that. I'm glad you told me that funny.
Speaker 3:There's a couple other moments. He laughed at you too, and I remember, but it's night. I mean, we're not professional comedians, but if we can make anybody have a good day or laugh about anything for a second, it's, it's worth it. So, moving on to our trombone, google alerts oh, yes. Just a couple little things. There's an article about Andy Griffith. Do you remember Andy Griffith?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like the Andy Griffith show. Yeah, yeah, back in the day. This is something for our older listeners. I for some reason I was really into that show growing up, even though it was decades and decades before my time is all in black and white. Young Ron Howard in it, mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:But there's this article randomly about how he, his first love in the arts was the trombone and that's how you like he first he got a trombone and got lessons with his preacher and it is a nice little story and it got him, gave him the bug for performing. But it really made me think about. That is the first, because I watched that show so much. That is the first tune I ever learned on the trombone. In sixth grade I taught myself the dumb, but I'm dumb.
Speaker 3:Dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, d dun dun dun dun and it's like a whistle thing. Yeah, I don't know why. I just made me think about that and everyone was like I still remember being in the band home, like I figured out a song by myself and like people walked in like wow, you're not even using music, he's a sorcerer. Gotta get back to that natural stuff. Also, david Gibson, the very accomplished jazz trombonus is coming out with a new album called fellowship, to be released January 15th. You can check out more info at jazzboneorg, which I'm very jealous. That's a very good.
Speaker 1:A website website yeah.
Speaker 3:He is the one jazz trombonist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like it. Well, hey, we we snag trombone retreat. Yeah, cuz so many people were going for that. Just under the wire we got it.
Speaker 3:I have a. I actually have a question from our audience for my friend Nicholas. Oh, go for it. So this question was submitted from Simon Jansen. I believe he's a bass trombonist as well. Nicholas, what inspired the rat tail mullet combo that Nick used to sport a couple years ago?
Speaker 1:I mean what? Inspired Monet. What inspired Van Gogh? I view my head as a blank canvas and I let God paint his beautiful painting upon it. No more seriously. First of all, there was no rat tail.
Speaker 3:I mean it got braided. Sometimes it got braided. Okay, there's that famous photo of Lexus.
Speaker 1:Yes, it has been braided. I do stay corrected. I guess I would turn it that's a mullet to rat tail transformer and rarely seen in the wild. But well, first of all, I had really long hair. I didn't cut my hair, the whole pandemic. So all my hair was long, Well, almost all the top's a little thin. But we were going down to Arkansas for the Trumbo Festival. Trumbo.
Speaker 1:Festival. God, my brain doesn't work and I thought I really want to do this, method like method acting, and I'm going to fit into Arkansas by being like an Arkansas-ian, arkansan, arkansan and why isn't it Arkansis? Okay, whatever, I'm moving on Arkansison, arkansison, arkansison. So I thought what better to fit in than sporting a mullet? And so I cut the party off the top and left it in the back and had an old Little Rock waterfall going on there.
Speaker 3:Little Rock waterfall.
Speaker 1:Hot springs. And then, of course, my wife hated it a lot, she hated it.
Speaker 3:That's usually the prerequisite for you doing anything right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I don't know how she puts up with me. I'm pretty impossible. But I kept it for a year before I cut it off. Why did you cut it off? It got insane, it was so ridiculous. How often in?
Speaker 3:public. Did people say something to you about it?
Speaker 1:It happened a couple of times where people were like that's an awesome mullet, or like whoa, they'd say something like that, but I once want we were getting new headshots for the ballet website.
Speaker 1:It looks great in a tux, I'm sure and so I did a Google search for barbers that specialize in mullets and of course there was one in the East Village and I referred to him as my mulletologist. And it was a cold like February day and I'm all bundled up, I have like a beanie on and I come in. He's like so you want to trim up your mullet a little bit? Huh, and I took off my hat and he goes holy shit, that's a serious mullet.
Speaker 3:Whoa, you impressed the mulletologist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was like he made other barbers like come look at it, that's awesome, yeah. And a fun story about that guy. I asked him how he got into cutting hair, just making small talk in the barber's chair, and he said, well, I learned in prison. Whoa, yeah. And he said he said there's very few jobs in prison that they won't. You're basically protected in a way from the other inmates and one of them is being a barber, because everybody needs a haircut, so you're not going to mess with the barber. Wow, and so you know there's more than one in a prison because there's so many people. You know he learned from a barber that learned from someone else and learned the trade, and he said that's how he kind of protected himself and made friends on the inside to have like a safe stay in prison, as it were. He's also got access to scissors. That's true, yes, so apparently I mean it makes sense. No one screws with a barber in prison Kind of a necessary service.
Speaker 3:And if you give a guy a mullet cut you know that's intimidating.
Speaker 1:Give a guy a mullet, you'll Dance for a year. Teach a guy a mullet dance for a lifetime.
Speaker 3:How do you teach someone a mullet?
Speaker 1:You know honestly, you can't. It comes from an inner quietude, an inner peace. I know Sebastian particularly hated the mullet.
Speaker 3:That is not true. I remember specifically you thought I would hate it, especially because we had a live. I think that's when we were interviewing Christian Lindbergh live. Yes, we did. I think you sent pictures or something and you showed up or something and you were just like really scared I was going to freak out or something and be like no, you can't do that. I thought it was awesome and you were surprised.
Speaker 1:It looks great with a blazer on man.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe it'll come back. I mean it's still. I mean I like the look now the thick beard help you. You don't need a scarf in winter now, no.
Speaker 1:And not that I wear bow ties anymore. That's kind of gone away with modern dress. I don't think I'd need a bow tie. It's kind of covered up under all this beard.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, you just forget it and no one will say anything. No, have you ever done the my base remos in the Pittsburgh Opera as a similar coverage in that area, but there's times he's forgotten ties. And have you ever done the thing, or seen someone do the thing, where they use black tape and create a bow tie?
Speaker 1:Well, I've seen them do I don't know what they call it. There's like a type of bow tie that's acceptable in dress codes, where it's like it buttons together in the middle and it's like a little cross. Oh, those look cool, yeah, and I've seen them do it like that style.
Speaker 3:It's like I think it's technically a bow tie but it has a name and it's like a different style, it's not a Bolo but it's like, yeah, I would if there's a Bolo company listening, and I'm sure they are, sebastian Vera would like to be your spokesperson and bring Bolo ties to classical music wear.
Speaker 1:I love, I love a good Bolo tie with a crisp pair of cowboy boots. There's nothing better.
Speaker 3:Are we technically allowed to wear a Bolo tie with performance, where I guess it depends on the contract?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess it depends. Yeah, in the ballet we don't have to wear a tie at all, it's optional.
Speaker 3:Oh, then I would never wear one.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it is come time to pick at that bone. Sebi Got a bone, I got a bone to pick. It's. It's. It's, I guess, unfortunately related to my last bone to pick about sending out like contractors sending out an email to like a bunch of people at once. This is also a hiring contract email thing.
Speaker 1:Why do some contractors think it's OK to write you and say, hey, can you play this gig, and then not give you any details about what the gig is, where the gig is, how much it pays, how long the rehearsals are? It's like, well, then you have to like respond back and say, OK, well, maybe. And then they like this last exchange. I wrote back and said, well, what's the gig and when are the rehearsals? You just gave me the date of the performance and how much does it pay? And then they wrote back and gave me all that but didn't tell me where it was. So then I had to write back again and say, OK, well, where is this gig? And turns out I couldn't have done it, but I was just like that's such a waste of everybody's time. Why? You know, I'm thankful for getting offered work I really am but like it's just such, it's like it took three back and forths to determine if I was available. That should be a one back and forth situation.
Speaker 3:That sounds like someone either who is incredibly inexperienced, incredibly disorganized or used to everyone jumping at it at anything they offer and saying yes immediately all the time. But it's sometimes I hear there's a stigma about like asking how much something pays, like you can't be entitled or whatever, but I don't think it's ever.
Speaker 1:Well, why should I be the one asking how much it pays?
Speaker 3:Yeah, tell me how much it pays, and then you feel like a jerk for having to ask, but I'm sorry that's that should not be. Anything we ever feel bad about is getting clarity about compensation.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and along along those lines. I've had people offer me gigs that aren't the best gigs and then apologize for offering it to me. Like, oh, like, I'm sorry if this is like offensive and then I'll respond. I'll be like I'm offended that you think it'd be a friend offensive, like you're offering me work. Yeah, it's up to me to say yes or no, but I'm always going to be grateful that you're offering.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you never know, it's not only about money. Sometimes there's another reason. You might want to do it, like it's in a city you like, or it's it's with some friends you have, that you haven't seen a while, or something like that. So I mean never heard.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, I've done plenty of gigs where it's like it's more about the experience. Either it's a piece I really want to play or, like you know, oh, sebastian Vera is going to be on first from on. All right, that sounds like fun, let's do it. And so like, even if I, like I have to travel and like lose some money with travel, to go do something that's going to be fun, that might be a good experience to have.
Speaker 3:And that's way better than if Sebastian Vera was on second tripple, because that's that means I would be sitting next to you, and the last time that happened I swear we almost got fired.
Speaker 1:Was that in Huntsville? Was it no, no, no, we said DCNY.
Speaker 3:No, it was at the Kennedy Center.
Speaker 1:Oh right City.
Speaker 3:Ballet. Yeah, and that's like the most. You made me laugh, more than I've ever laughed in a live performance, and I was just like fuck, I can't, I can't stop laughing, I can't stop Stop laughing, stop laughing, breathe, breathe, breathe. Don't look.
Speaker 1:That's the story. That's basically me and the tuba player every show just making each other laugh all the time.
Speaker 3:Which is important. It's great to laugh, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like. It's like soup for the soul.
Speaker 3:Well, I have a. I have a new fresh, fresh, hot out of the oven quora question from the internets for you today. Yeah, bring it on. I found this this was deep, deep in the Quora archives as two years ago. I'm playing the trombone in school, I tend to puff my cheeks out. How can I continue playing the trombone Without making my face become chubbier? I think there's a fear of More. You puff your cheeks out that the cheeks will eventually give in and you'll have like a little bulldog.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's like when, it's like the old, old timey thing, like if you, if you keep making that face. It's gonna stay that way. Yep, yeah, well, yeah, I think that someone someone needs a like a medical or an anatomy book for Christmas, and Wowzers, that is a, that's a doozy.
Speaker 3:I think it is gonna happen. It is gonna happen, so stop puffing your cheeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stop puffing. We have a student I'll tell you off air it was who started intentionally puffing his cheeks because he said a lot of his idols puffed their cheeks and I told them straight away I was like that's crazy. You sound great, luckily, but that's crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are some very famous people that have done that.
Speaker 1:My teacher, my teacher Don Harwood, famously puffed his cheeks and but he would tell you if you started doing it like all the time, like him. He like don't do that, don't do that, yeah, cuz he it was something I just developed for him and he didn't. It's like there's a lot of things. We all have those things in ourselves. So it's like do as I say, not as I do. You know, like I tended tongue everything through my lips, really, yep but, and so we just lost so many listeners.
Speaker 1:But I have when I, when I've tried to tongue like where you're supposed to it, I can't do it, and so you know, when students ask me where does my tongue hit, yeah, and I'm like, well, we're supposed to hit, this is where I do it. Don't do that.
Speaker 3:When I get when I get that question, that that triggers the alarms, the teacher alarms in me of like my student is thinking too much right, exactly, exactly yeah let's focus on what we want to sound like right now. Yeah, we can't forget that you can't spell fundamentals without fun.
Speaker 1:Boy, oh boy, don't I know it. Yeah, I'm after this. I'm gonna go down to the theater. Oh. And get a nice fun these session going, yeah, yeah before your opera. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna practice at the ballet and then walk across the street or the plaza and go play. Four and a half hours of Tom was a. Have you practiced?
Speaker 3:In all 12 keys.
Speaker 1:You know I've done it in most the keys. It is an e major, of course at the beginning and the opera ends with a restatement of it in e-flat major, which is very interesting idea hmm, you said you're kind of bored.
Speaker 3:Maybe try swapping them. Spice things up a little bit, see what happens.
Speaker 1:Well, in the last performance in the third, in the third act, it's about maybe halfway through the third act, everything kind of Goes down soft, soft, soft and then, with the baritone rolling stage, there's a low brass chorale. That's very beautiful and it's just one of those moments that everything's placid and it's you know what I think non brass players Don't understand about those moments, how terrifying they can be, you know, because it's just it's so hard to keep everything pristine and in tune and move all four parts together and I get it goes on for like maybe a minute, maybe shy of a minute. So about three quarters away through the chorale I moved my notes, I moved from a D to an e-flat and I moved one half note too early. Oh, it sounded and these half notes are slow, and it sounded rough because it was a G minor chord moving to a C minor chord and a G minor chord does not have an E Flatnet. I don't know if you knew that.
Speaker 3:Well, I I can't quite empathize because that's never happened to me. I've never played a wrong note in the wrong spot in the last 24 hours. Yeah, that's real. Did everyone just immediately get up and run back to the box office to get their refund? I?
Speaker 1:Do have to credit to, I mean amazing conductor Donald runicles. Oh yes, the Scottish dream, the Southpaw. He connects left-handed, which is is that weird? You know, you don't notice it really. Okay, there's another. There's an Italian conductor who switches he's a switch hitter, he, in the middle of the opera. I think it has to do with his shoulder problems. So in the middle of opera he'll switch the baton from his right hand to his left hand and kind of give his right arm a rest. Carlo Ritzi, smart, but runicles, being the season pro that he is, he looked over at me and, right when I was supposed to be, gave a big Right there. He didn't freak out nothing, and you know Live art folks.
Speaker 3:He's up happens. I mean, I think you were just introducing early chromaticism, like Wagner did exactly Cross chromatic Modulations.
Speaker 1:Augmented German six. Hmm, there's a beautiful augmented German six right at the end of opera and the in the coral line. Oh, it's really nice. Yeah, I'm getting more. And I mean, at first I was really not into it. I'm really getting into it, sebi, it's.
Speaker 3:There's some beautiful stuff in that opera when you're forced to listen to something for like 40 hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're gonna find some things you like. It's like, ooh, there's a part where they that same the bomb, be Boom, that that's called the pilgrims chorus and they start way off stage super soft and they're almost like like the level of a hum, that volume, and then they walk on stage and then they walk off the other side. So it's like you get this whole chorus and it builds up to being really loud and then goes off in the distance again. It's, it's really beautiful, stunning, actually that's really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am curious now. I really would like to hear both of those major trombone choruses played at the same time, just to hear what it sounds like.
Speaker 1:I Could if, if there's anyone out there that would be into that, I she's playing tonight. Romero Sasha would be into doing that for sure.
Speaker 3:Make a quick video and we'll post it.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll add, If she gets there early enough. She usually kind of comes in late, but if she gets there early enough, I'll ask her if she wants to do that.
Speaker 3:That would be awesome you like during all the long tosses. You're just going to be off doing it in another room and you'll be able to hear it from the stage like what the fuck?
Speaker 1:is going on in fact. Yeah, deb, I have a question for you. Yes, what are you grateful for these days? Oh, man.
Speaker 3:That's what we call a segue in the biz, ever at Seamless Ooh In the podcast business.
Speaker 3:Well, I was thinking about it today and you know this is a easy time to remember things to be grateful for Not that it's ever easy to remember these things, but it's important to try, in my opinion.
Speaker 3:But there's a few positions I have that enable me to perform in non-conventional places, especially during the holidays, where a lot of people are wanting to experience the arts, and we get to go to a lot of smaller communities, smaller towns in the middle of Pennsylvania, ohio, west Virginia, new York, and you know, perform for these people.
Speaker 3:And yet it can be a grind, you're driving a lot more, but once you get there, I mean people are so excited and it's such an opportunity and I'm such a big believer and it doesn't matter what audience you're playing for, how big or small, or what venue. It can all be valid because, at the end of the day, art is a service and you're bringing joy to people, you're bringing beauty to people and it's I'm excited. I'm about to travel a bunch in the next couple of weeks. I think one interesting one I have coming up in I think it's like Friday is, you'd be super jealous because we're performing in an Amish community in Ohio and they invited us to. If we come there a couple hours early, they have this giant Amish buffet in that they're going to give us free admission to.
Speaker 1:Oh, that food is going to be so freaking good.
Speaker 3:I know and I'm nervous too, because it's only they said it only opens up at like an hour before like six o'clock in our performances at seven and I've really gotten in a habit of not eating too much like too soon before performance because it really affects things. So we're like me and the guy I'm carpooling with, we're like, okay, we got to get there right at six, yep, first of all, there's going to be a line and secondly, we got to start digesting right away. And you know the second, we see a buffet. We're just going to go to town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get some unsweetened tea. The tannins in it will help help you with digestion.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:That's why. That's why, like in China and a lot of Asia, they drink tea. It helps digestion. That is good advice. That's good advice. Well, if a fat person knows anything, it's how to tackle buffet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I don't know. I'm excited about all these little trips.
Speaker 1:That sounds like fun. It's going to be great. Yeah, I've been in the community in Ohio.
Speaker 3:I have no idea. I imagine the audience will be a little more reserved. We're kind of crazy and a lot of people are wearing costumes. A lot of the members of the band will sing.
Speaker 1:Well, the Amish won't be there.
Speaker 3:At all. You don't think so.
Speaker 1:I mean music isn't really allowed in the Amish community, depending on how strict the specific community is. Yeah, I'm curious, we're not even wanting to have dolls with faces.
Speaker 3:I thought they were the ones bringing us out. But yeah, I guess we'll see. I guess I'll let you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean because, like, for example, my mom grew up in an like what would be considered an Amish community in Michigan, but you know it was the Amish live there, but also you know also what they would call the English also live there, us. So my grandpa, who was an auctioneer, I would he went to auctioneer school.
Speaker 1:Believe it or not. That's a school you go and learn yeah yeah, and he would sell livestock and stuff. I got a lot of his clients were Amish so I'd go with him and he'd have to settle the bill with the Amish. And I tried taking a picture of a young boy. Once he caught me and it was not very in his dad got very mad at me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. In general that was very disrespectful, but I was just so curious.
Speaker 1:It was my first time at that point, my first time seeing an Amish person. And yeah, yeah, you know where they have a huge Amish community is Sarasota, florida. Oh yeah, and there's an amazing Amish restaurant there called Yoder's. Yoder is like the Smith of Amish, last name I have been to.
Speaker 3:Yoder's. You've been to Yoder's. Yes, I spent Christmas there. So good, it was very good. Yeah, I'm sure they all listen to this podcast so yeah exactly Let us know. Yeah, I know, when you see them in airports I feel like they're more used to being stared at, like you can tell there's like kind of over being looked at. They know they stand out. So yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean what's crazy to me is like you go to a farmer's market anywhere, basically, but in New York they'll be Amish vendors. It's just not unusual for farmers market, but you got to wonder what they see when they drive into New York City. I'm sure they're used to it now, but it's got to be crazy to them. You know and imagine the opposite lifestyle. But I mean I understand why they're coming in there. They're just trying to make a buck, like anybody else.
Speaker 3:You kind of, with your haircut you kind of look Amish.
Speaker 1:We could slap on a little hat and suspenders and no-transcript. Hey, suspenders are a gentleman's accessory. I would like to own some suspenders If you really want to get fancy with them. A good pair of suspenders. They call them braces.
Speaker 3:Trombone tip I learned from Dave Taylor. Dave Taylor prefers to wear suspenders with suits because you can wear like a size bigger in your pants, be able to breathe as comfortably as you want, but they won't fall down.
Speaker 1:Back when I was taking auditions, I used to wear a suit if I got past the prelims. And I had a suit that the pants were really big and I wore suspenders with them and it felt like I could sit or stand and breathe as big as I want, not feel restricted. It was perfect. So I kind of find it by accident, but it worked.
Speaker 3:Trombone retreat suspenders coming to a store near you.
Speaker 1:Oh, now, that is a good idea.
Speaker 3:Can I tease that? We do have merch in the works. We're like five years behind this, but we do have some stuff that will be happening and that will be awesome.
Speaker 1:Drop us a line on what you think would be good merch for us to get, like any sort of specific thing that you think would be fun. We're always looking for ideas, but we obviously have some, but we'd love to hear from you guys too.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Send us in to tromboneretreat at gmailcom. Any ideas about merch? Any questions for the podcast? Any general comments about the podcast? We always love hearing from you. We always take the time to try to respond to everyone. We can Follow us on the social medias at trombone retreat and Nick at base from bone 444 and myself at JS dot. Vera, did I cover all the bases? Remember to subscribe to the podcast. Do a rating review on Spotify and Apple podcast helps us out a ton and smash that like.
Speaker 1:Button.
Speaker 3:That's it, and yeah, we, we. We just did an interview that'll be coming out soon, and we have a lot more coming up, so I will only have to say make it a great day, love y'all. You.
Speaker 1:Southern. All of a sudden Love y'all. Love y'all.