Get a Life, Have a Laugh
by Jessica DeRubbo
“We’d rather miss a note than a meal,” chuckles Bob Pulido, executive director of the Get a Life Marching Band of Portland, Oregon, adding, “We’re old and slow, but we’re in shape—round!”
As you probably realize, the Get a Life Marching Band, which is comprised of amateur musicians ranging in age from their mid-20s to mid-70s, doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Thrill of Smiles
“I want people to laugh at our band,” explains the band’s executive director Bob Pulido, although he doesn’t mean that he wants the music to be so bad that people laugh, rather, the group’s light-hearted approach to making music is to be shared. Making people laugh, Pulido points out, makes both the audience and band members feel good.
Despite the easygoing tone, the band takes its music very seriously. Before a gig, it practices each of four songs for two to three weeks.
“I like the way we can be serious about the music without being serious about ourselves,” says Steve Tolopka, music director and band webmaster. Tolopka says his favorite aspect of playing with Get a Life is “the thrill of putting smiles on people’s faces when we’re on the parade route or at an event.” Tolopka adds, “I like that we’re shameless and invent goofy stuff on the fly as long as we think it’ll be entertaining.”
Tolopka’s wife, Janet, plays in the band as well. “In case you want to know,” jokes Steve, “Janet plays alto sax, and since I play tenor, that makes us people of the opposite sax!” You can almost hear Get a Life’s snare drummers providing the rim shot!
Enduring Passion
Before 1994, Pulido (along with other current members of Get a Life) was a member of Portland’s One More Time Around Again Marching Band. That’s an enormous band with some 500 members, which has marched at the Rose Bowl Parade, but understandably this band only musters for around three events per year. Pulido discovered, however, that fans and musicians wanted more marching band music played by people with an enduring passion for oompah.
Pulido’s story of how Get a Life got its start sounds, appropriately enough, like a tall tale. It begins with Pulido and a friend, known only as “Big John,” taking a road trip and fighting in the back seat of a car. They were horsing around so much that the driver got frustrated. He turned to them and said, “Why don’t you guys just quit and get a life?” And that, Pulido promises, was the beginning of his new journey.
Starting out with only 14 members, Get a Life began marching in parades in 1994. More recently, in November 2005, an impressive 120 Get a Lifers performed at Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary Parade. The day after, undoubtedly with sore muscles and blistered feet, the band got up and marched in the Pasadena, California, Doo Dah Parade, which is billed as America’s favorite “other parade,” an irreverent spoof on the Rose Bowl Parade.
Proud of It
Fitting right in with the Doo Dah Parade ethos, the Get a Life Marching Band does not play traditional marching band music, and members do not wear typical marching band uniforms either. They march to rock ‘n’ roll and funky numbers and are dressed in khaki shorts and white T-shirts.
The band’s baton twirlers even march right along with them. “They wear short skirts, too—yikes!” laughs Pulido, adding, “many of us are in our 50s and 60s, and we’re proud of it.” Pulido, who is 56, admits that he has shoulder aches from the drum harness he has to wear, but he wouldn’t give up marching for the world.
Tolopka likes to think that people go through three stages when they watch Get a Life perform. The first stage is, “Huh? Who are those guys—what the heck kind of band is that?!” The second stage kicks in maybe half-way through the act: “Man, those guys can still play!” The third stage, acceptance and nostalgia, begins as soon as the bass drum’s boom fades out of earshot: “They were a blast—I hope we can see them again!”
Good things come in threes: according to its website—www.getalifemb.org—the band has three things in common: all members belonged to a high school or college marching band, all have not gotten over it, and all would rather miss a note than a meal.
The last point, about food (a band obsession), has inspired Get a Life’s irreverent motto—one that will resonate with any musician who has ever labeled themselves a starving artist—“Are you gonna eat that?!”
