Hundreds of people thought I was Serbian last Saturday.
“Why?” asks Attractive Girl while eating a delicious snack.
“Ooh, what is that snack?” I ask.
“It’s 호떡!” she says, smacking her oh-so-kissable lips.
“Oooh, I love 호떡!” I say. “Can I have one?”
She assumes a flirtatious motherly pose. “Only if you answer my question.”
Fair enough. The reason people thought I was Serbian is not because I’m Serbian. I’m not. It’s because I drummed for a Serbian folk music band (Majstory, pronounced like my story) at Omaha’s Serb Fest on Saturday! We were basically the dance band for the evening.
“What is Serb Fest?” asks Attractive Girl, handing me a nice greasy 호떡.
Besides being the reason I had to come back to Omaha, it was an all-day party for, of, and about Serbian things! Things including music, history, food, and of course, people. There were tables with Serbian items on them, interesting historical trivia about Nikola Tesla (he was Serbian by the way) and the Serbian Orthodox Church (priests must marry and grow beards), and singing Serbic children:
Also, these children danced. Serbishly.
You can’t see any shots of me playing with the band (I forgot to ask someone else to take pictures), but you can see our stuff set up there behind the childs. There was also a ton of super delicious Serbian food.
“What did you eat?”
Roast lamb. I think I should say it again: roast lamb. It was roasting for almost an entire day. Super good. Hey, you’re drooling!
“Oops! *slurp* But… I want to eat roast lamb!”
Don’t we all!
“Actually,” says a passing vegetarian, “I don’t.”
Well… um. Okay. But all normal, omnivorous people want to eat it.
“Are you saying vegetarians are abnormal?!”
Um… no. Dang it, I don’t even know who is talking anymore! Narrative devices aren’t supposed to be confusing! Let me talk more about Serb Fest.
“Okay.”
So there was food, and drink, and history, and tours of the church, and dancing, and music. The music was provided not only by Majstory but also by an acoustic group, pictured both above and below.
That guy playing the upright bass is also the bassist for Majstory. What’s more, he is named Joe Brudny and he came over to my house yesterday and recorded some of that medium-sized guitar (which is actually not a guitar per se but rather a Serbian instrument called a brač) for me. Awesome.
IMPORTANT NEWS: I’ll be drumming again with Majstory for a similar event in Kansas City on September 13th! Come on over! Say “shta radish tea!” to people and they will think you’re Serbian too.
Now I am going to go before Attractive Girl or Vegetarian Girl confusingly interrupt again.