This is a true story, one I would normally have saved for a Friday but it works too well not to use right now. In the 7th grade, I joined the middle school band. I wasn't anything special but I could hold my own, and when we went to pick our classes for high school, I decided to stick with it. My freshman year was uneventful and I must have gotten a pretty good grade because I decided to re-up as a sophomore. It didn't go well, though. Despite my best efforts, when report cards came out in late November or early December, I was given a C -- which isn't a good grade at all, and certainly not something you want to see from one of your "easier" classes. I also had no idea why. I went to all the classes and pull-out lessons, practiced (somewhat) at home, learned all the music, etc. At no point during the marking period had I received anything other than positive feedback.

My mom decided to investigate on her own, asking my guidance counselor what happened, but the guidance counselor had no idea either. The two of them went to speak with band director -- coincidentally, and embarrassingly, during my class -- and the conversation didn't go well. As my mom would later tell me, when she asked the band director about my grade, he told her I hadn't been practicing. And, he had evidence. My embouchure wasn't great and had I been practicing, it would have shown improvement -- but it didn't.

If you don't know what the word "embouchure" means, don't worry, you're not alone -- my mom didn't either. She asked the band director and he replied by grabbing himself by the mouth and squeezing lightly, saying "it's how he holds his mouth when he plays his instrument." Makes sense, in most cases, but my mom was still at a loss. Half in awe and half confused, she looked at him and said, "but my son plays the drums."

That was my last day in the high school band.

The real takeaway from the story is that teachers should probably know who their students are (and, in the interest of self-improvement, students should make sure, constructively that their teachers know who they are). But the reason I share today is a lot simply: drummers can't do much without drumsticks.

Except for protest, if the 1994 Academy of Country Music Awards was any indication.

The ACM Awards are an annual event honoring -- you guessed it -- some of the best country music of the year. The 1994 ceremony took place on May 3rd in Los Angeles and was co-hosted by Reba Mcentire and Alan Jackson, which is a bit weird because they were both nominees for various awards. But the real weirdness happened when Jackson and his band took the stage to play "Gone Country," a chart-topping song they released a few months earlier. Here's the performance, via YouTube, and see if you can tell what's wrong. (A hint: I kind of gave it away a couple of paragraphs above.)

Before the show, producers had told Alan that he had to play to a pre-recorded track, which Jackson clearly felt was tantamount to lying to both his fans and the audience. So instead of playing along with the charade, Jackson tipped off the audience to the subterfuge by telling his drummer Bruce Rutherford to play without sticks. So as the performance transpires and everything sounds perfect, there is Alan Jackson’s drummer, swinging his arms like he’s playing the drums, but with no sticks in his hand.