[Dixielandjazz] FW: Excuses

[Charles Suhor]

One advantage of having a union in New Orleans, when the union had teeth in the 50s, was a regulation that a musician must be on site 15 minutes before the downbeat, or be subject to a fine. Even weekend players seemed to respect this, and an extra penalty was the ire of fellow musicians. I always thought the leader had a right to be pissed if someone showed up at the 11.9th hour. I have no idea what the standard is nowadays in N.O. or elsewhere.

Charlie



On Feb 15, 2015, at 2:40 PM, Jim Kashishian wrote:

> Randy wrote:
>> I was thinking about excuses that people use for being late or not showing
> up to a gig.
> 
> Hi, Randy.  What a fun thread.  I suspect we will see lots of posts on this
> question.  Since I live in the country that hands down wins the "arrive late
> or never" theme, it is very curious that the other 4 guys in our band (all
> Spanish) are spot on time every time.  This behavior is far from usual here.
> 
> In Spain, arriving late...up to a half hour, is to be expected, and the late
> arriver will make no attempt in excusing him/herself.  We often find
> ourselves standing waiting for the sound guys to arrive when the deal was
> that all the sound be set up before we arrive.  Nevertheless, we are always
> there, and kicking ourselves for being on time!
> 
> Not arriving at all is written into the Spanish language with the grand
> excuse of always using the subjunctive when saying when you will be there.
> A Spaniard will say "I should be there at...", thereby giving themselves the
> excuse that they never really said the time for sure.
> 
> In fact the phrase "for sure" is expressed with the word "seguro", which
> doesn't really mean for sure as you would think by the translation into
> English.  It really means, when spoken by a Spaniard, "might or maybe".
> There is no word to express "for sure", thereby giving the whole population
> an out when caught out.  Interesting how a language can bend itself to
> express the actions of its users.
> 
> So, excuses aren't needed here at all since the language takes care of the
> whole problem of being on time or arriving at all.
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
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