If my drumsticks don’t wanna hit the crash, there will be chaos. 

So I tried to ignore the complaints of the musical branches in my hand every few measures as they complained on the and-of-4 before one of them collided with their sworn nemesis. 

I get they have their own feud going — Sticks claim it goes back generations, back when hickory and bronze had to live on separate sides of the train tracks, until one pioneer by the name of Kit Drummerson united both refined wood and metal alloy to form what one percussion historian has called, the instrument you simultaneously want and don’t want to buy your hyperactive child for their birthday. When I calmly try to point out to Sticks that the hi-hat and ride both are made of bronze, they immediately yell, “NOT THE POINT! THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” 

It never works to tell them it’s exactly the point. 

Sometimes I listen to Sticks, they’re incessant usage of derogatory and vile descriptors like, being a doo-doo-sounding-ass piece of bronze and a rattly ol’ bitch are just too much — like with any bully, you figure that if you capitulate and give into their every whim, they’ll just stop on their own.

Turns out, that doesn’t work with Sticks, or with Carlton Sanders, who never fails to comment under my band posts, “I played in  high school band with that guy — ask him about the time I covered his snare in sun-dried tomato cream cheese!” 

Here’s the problem with Sticks getting their way: the Ace on the Bass, who funny enough is named “Miles Davis” because his father hoped he would share his affinity for trumpeteering, is the equivalent of the quarterback in our band. Miles Davis, with his bass around his neck, glares at me whenever I don’t hit the crash as we rehearsed on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday — not Friday because Miles Davis goes to his parent’s house after his shift at Mickey D’s and watches his father drink wine as he complains about how he didn’t get a chance to pass on his trumpet knowledge to “the fruit of his loins,” a phrase Miles Davis never forgets to tell us at band practice on Saturday morning to make up for missing Friday. 

So I’m either hearing it from a frankly confusedly bigoted set of Sticks, or a beleaguered Miles Davis who needs to prove to his withholding father that a cover band of Linkin-Park-meets-Chapelle-Roan will actually make it big. 

It’s an impossible position to be in. It’s an impossibly Pink Pony that reminds us In the End, it doesn’t even matter.