Monday, October 8, 2007

Latent Side Effect

I've just realized one thing that I didn't expect when I set out to learn how to play the bagpipes. When anyone learns what I'm doing, the typical response is a light-hearted joke about wearing a kilt. I suppose that if I want to be a piper, I will one day wear a kilt. It would be terrifically sentimental if I could wear the family tartan (to be explained in a future post). But what I hadn't thought of until now, is that nothing's worse than a piper with pasty white scrawny calves. So now I have to add some sets of calf raises every time I practice the chanter. Maybe I could just get some calf implants...that would sure save a lot of time. But that's risky too, cause once you open that kimono where would it stop....botox, lipo, hair plugs, back wax? The list could go on and on and on.....

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

About Kilts -

One day my parents came down to take me out to lunch in Wrigleyville and we saw 2 guys wearing kilts!!!

I am pretty sure they were scrawny and pale so you have nothing to worry about... unless it's a windy day...

-Liss

Anonymous said...

Dude-

Go to Sports Authority and buy some football socks (up to the knee), stop at the dollar store and get a couple of window dressing tassles, tie them around the socks. Then get one of your deer hunting friends to cut you the tail and a piece of his ass fur... use that as a loin cloth... Get youself a pom pom and hot glue it to the top of a rasberry beret... Drape a bag over your shoulder and blow into a tube the size of a coffee stirrer.

Then stop and realize that your calves are the least embarrasing thing about your gig. If you wanted to be cool, you should have gone to Guitar Center and bought a 300 dollar Mexican Stratocaster... slung down low on an oversized strap.

-Dude.

Anonymous said...

I would start wearing your wife's clothes, then move on to the kilts. That's what I have done, and I'll never look back.

Carol said...

te he. I was searching for piping blogs and found this and had a giggle at your post. Don't worry about your calves, you'll have some lovely thick woolly socks on, so add a bit of padding in the socks!!

As for the kilt wearing, it's a funny thing but girls go crazy for a man in a kilt! Go figure. We were at a dance one time and my husband had his kilt on and I swear every girl that went past him on the dance floor wanted to touch his legs. What was with that? He of course enjoyed it immensely.

Good luck with your lessons.