2022.10.13
Be a Kermit the Frog. Have a creative vision and no ego. Recognize the unique talents of those around you. Attract weirdos. Manage chaos. Show kindness. Be sincere.I had taken point for JP Honk's appearance at PRONK!, just the afterparty, and I had worked to rally people to go even though it was a weirdly last minute thing. But there was confusion and a definite sense that it might not come together, and I was feeling guilty that I would have wasted folks time and made them feel bad since we were playing as a fraction of our fullsize crew in front of more established fellow bands. Like I knew I had been my usual "C'mon lets do it!" self and reassured folks with confidence that wasn't 100% justified.
But then I thought of Kermit in the Muppet Movie:
And I reminded myself that, even when I'm playing "captain", like for this or a BABAM event, I always put myself in the same boat as every performer, and if we get frustrated with people we are playing for, usually bandmembers would be annoyed at those people, not at the person willing to try to pull it together and make it work anyway.
And for what it's worth, our set at the afterparty was solid! We were the first band after the opening local hiphop artist act, we recruited a few extra folks to start, and then we explicitly leaned into the HONK! traditions of inviting people from every band to jump in, and deftly restructured the setlist to focus on songs that were most amenable to that kind of sharing... the results were fantastic. (Which is to say, right on par for HONK parties, which was the goal, especially as a newer to the scene band.)
(I posted a transcript of that muppet movie scene almost ten years ago but I can't figure out why it was so much on my mind then. Maybe in the wake up the previous year's broken engagement?)
