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My combo and I were really cookin, so, using the special form of communication particular to musicians, we agreed to “trade fifths.” First went my drummer. Man, he could really slam those skins. It was like domestic abuse, what he did to them. Slap those bitches, I thought, clenching my anus. This was it! “Yeah,” went someone in the audience. Next up was the bass player. He could stroke that cherrywood fuck pole till the headstock foamed. I’m saying that it was like he was masturbating, only you got to watch. “Play those fifths!” I shouted. The audience responded like a caved-in hornyhole. I was shitting bricks. In what manner would I “tickle the ivories” when it came my turn to play the fifths? I’d have to improvise. Literally.

Date Written: July 10, 2005
Author: qualcomm
Average Vote: 3.66667

Comments:
07/18/2005 Will Disney: I like how the narrator came off as vaguely psychotic, but this short did not float my boat on this Monday AM.
07/18/2005 The Rid: A lot to like, but a lot to not like. Is the author a musician?
07/18/2005 anonymous: For what no doubt misguided reason do you ask?
07/18/2005 The Rid: The descriptions read like the author doesn't play an instrument.
07/18/2005 anonymous: The author plays an instrument, not that it matters. The author is not very good at his instrument, yet he is well aware that that there is no such thing as "trading fifths." The author realizes that, except for "tickle the ivories," every piece of musician's jargon in the short is fake. After all, the author is the one who made said jargon up. This fakery was not meant to fool readers, but amuse them.
07/18/2005 anonymous: Oh, and skins. Drums really are (or were, at least) called skins. Oh and cookin. Jazzbos really do (or did) say cookin.
07/18/2005 The Rid: True, drums are sometimes called "skins." And "cookin'" is accurate, if cliche. And you're right, "Trading fifths" was pretty funny.
07/18/2005 Mr. Pony (4): This was cute, but I only thought so after the author spelled it out. Would I have grown to like it as much if the author had kept silent? We'll never know! However, since many of my own shorts can only be fully appreciated after a lengthy explanation, I will give this four stars to help encourage this sort of back and forth. Conversation is good! Long live the true heir to the Imperial Throne of Denmark!
07/18/2005 Litcube (3): Well, this is an interesting short, I guess. Trading fifths with percussion was a weird thing to say though.
07/18/2005 anonymous: Darn it. I was hoping that would come off as completely normal.
07/18/2005 The Rid: No, since a drumkit isn't a melodic instrument, it's kind of hard to get into fifths.
07/18/2005 Litcube: Timpani, perhaps?
07/18/2005 anonymous: Are both of you guys trying to be stupid? Or is this genuine stupidity I'm witnessing?
07/18/2005 The Rid: 'Cube, I forgot about the timpani!
07/18/2005 Dylan Danko: What an unbelievable string of comments.
07/18/2005 The Rid: Look, author, I thought this short was pretty funny. It feels like 3.5 or 4. And the line, "I'd have to improvise. Literally." really cracked me up. And though I believe you are aware the jargon is bogus because you made it up, I have a hard time believing that any jazz musician would use said jargon, except when it suits the author's sensibility. The fake jargon is funny, but it sounds so fake that I don't buy it. I think you could have have invented funny fake jargon that was also plausible.
07/18/2005 The Finch: The Rid and Litcube are both musicians.
signed,
The Finch
07/18/2005 anonymous: Rid, that's part of the joke. No musician would ever use that terminology. It's supposed to sound lame and unbelievable.
signed,
You Are A Fucking Idiot
07/18/2005 The Rid: Hey, I get it, but I just don't buy your reasoning. If all your terminology were fake, maybe I would. You self-righteous, cocksucking asshole.
07/18/2005 Dylan Danko: I'm not sure, Rid, but i get the feeling that you might have some musical talent. What instrument(s) do you play? How much formal training have you had?
07/18/2005 The Rid: Oh, Danko. I dabble.
07/18/2005 anonymous: No, you're right, Rid, I should have made this short totally believable. That would have been hilarious. By the way, you've got a lot of nerve saying "I get it" after I've had to explain everything to you.
07/18/2005 The Foonch: America has voted and these are the two dumbest comments ever made my a human!
1. True, drums are sometimes called "skins." And "cookin'" is accurate, if cliche. And you're right, "Trading fifths" was pretty funny.
2. Look, author, I thought this short was pretty funny. It feels like 3.5 or 4. And the line, "I'd have to improvise. Literally." really cracked me up. And though I believe you are aware the jargon is bogus because you made it up, I have a hard time believing that any jazz musician would use said jargon, except when it suits the author's sensibility. The fake jargon is funny, but it sounds so fake that I don't buy it. I think you could have have invented funny fake jargon that was also plausible.

Signed
The Foonch
07/18/2005 TheBuyer (4): Pan back and they're in a Holiday Inn Lobby playing Margaritaville.
07/18/2005 The Rid: Thanks, Foonch!
07/18/2005 The Rid: Author, I can hear someone yell "Play those fifths." But inventing "Trading fifths" just so someone can yell it out doesn't work for me because the rest of the short is so believable. I mean, the rest of your descriptions seem eerily accurate, probably because watching Ron Carter solo is a lot like watching him masturbate. I dunno. It was the one thing that rang false in a funny short and it bummed me out a little.
07/18/2005 anonymous: I didn't invent "trading fifths" just so someone could yell it out. It was a reference to the old jazzbo tradition of trading fours, shot through this narrator's idiotic malapropist lens. Geez, it sounds like you don't even play an instrument, making comments like that.
07/18/2005 The Rid: Author, I know what "trading fours" means. I've been playing drums for 23 years. But when you wrote "trading fifths," I honestly thought it was some baloney reference to scales, as in 1-4-5, or something like that, and simply playing just fifths seemed odd, and if possible, boring, and not something a drummer could do. Christ, if you'd written, "Ringo Starr said he was trading fifths all night," I'd have gotten your joke, which apparently I didn't get. Damn it! You win. Jerk.
07/18/2005 anonymous: Drums. I knew it.
07/18/2005 anonymous: Is your name Aryeh?
07/18/2005 The Rid: No. Close, though. Also play guitar. What's your instrument, author?
07/18/2005 anonymous: People.
07/18/2005 Mr. Pony: I disagree with you, Author. Making the jargon in this short more believable would have ruined it for me, I think.
07/18/2005 The Foonch: The Rid snaps his fingers to indicate applause.

Signed,
The Foonch
07/18/2005 The Rid: Only on 96th street, Foonch!
07/18/2005 Mr. Pony: Doesn't TheBuyer play the trombone?
07/18/2005 Klause Muppet: I can sing!
07/18/2005 Litcube: TheBuyer plays an drum.
07/18/2005 Ewan Snow (3.5): The Rid, you have brought Acme discourse to a new low, you fucking retard.
07/18/2005 Partytime: Author this is sickening. In selecting a soft target such as the jazz, your ignorance of 20th Century music becomes apparent. Your misconception of the jazz as psuedo-complex informs your hallucination of the jazz as fattened prey for casual ridicule. The jazz is not some arbitrary nebula of notes. Far from it. In fact, many of the finer players are schooled in fundamentals of Western music. It is more than the thumping and cooing of a few stimulant-driven, jungle- drumming, white-woman-chasing black men as your allusions to "trading fifths" of whiskey, raping the "ivories" and efforts to deemphasize the importance of rhythm suggest.
07/18/2005 The Rid: Hey, Ewan: Fuck you!
07/18/2005 Kenji X: I like how Partytime calls it "The Jazz" like he's some beret-wearing, cock-gobbling hipster shuffling into his cum-stained hip-huggers looking for the latest suck fest as soon as someone shouts, "Trade those fifths." My Instrument of choice: Oboe, all the way, baby. Snap, snap, snap.
07/19/2005 Litcube: Holy shit. Qualcomm called me stupid.
07/19/2005 Partytime (4): I hear you Kenji, I'm a sucker for woodwinds myself.
07/20/2005 Kenji X (3.5): Right on, PT, right on.
07/22/2005 Dick Vomit: Ol' DV just stumbled on this gem of a comment string. Can you cats trade some more vituperative fifths for me so I can laugh my ass off s'more?
07/22/2005 Mr. Pony: I wish I could play the drum.