Drama

While those who know me well might think that the title refers to my oldest girl and the never-ending battle with clothes and "tude" (defined as attitude with sarcasm and coincidentally enough sounds exactly like the her new word "dude" which she calls everyone right now), they would be wrong on this occasion.

I recently had drama that kept me up on Facebook past midnight.

What might keep a mother of three, very reasonable, very responsible up half the night while her husband and children peacefully sleep? Two words--music competition.

Parachute is touring and wanted to have local bands open for them. Salt Lake City is a stop. My very talented, musical, youngest brother wanted to be that band. His band Stereo Breakdown pooled their meager funds together (brother currently works part-time in a coffee shop while going to college) and bought an open box camcorder to film the music videos required by the contest. He had video editing software on his computer. They had a few songs recorded at studio downtown that they wrote for the competition.

No drama at this point. I, as a dutiful sister, went each day of the competition and voted for him and laughed/sometimes enjoyed the other bands. I only laughed in the privacy of my own home office.

On the 2nd to last round of the competition, the drama started. I had forgotten to vote in the morning. So, my husband and I used the Itouch in bed at 10:34 to vote. We noticed that the votes were very close. 1 vote apart. I called my brother and asked when voting ends. He said midnight and did we know anyone else who could vote.

As an established family with children in elementary school, my friends pool doesn't tend to stay up late into the evening. I apologized to him that I couldn't be more help. He mentioned that someone was bashing their band on the competition site and we said goodnight.

Leaving my husband in bed, I padded down in slippers to my office to see what was up. Yes, someone was bashing my brother's band. If the music wasn't his style, that is fine with me. However, he began to accuse them of spoiled pampering by parents giving thousands to give them a leg up on his favorite singer who was recording live from her own home (her own recording studio with a grand piano and professional equipment-the poor dear).

Needless to say, it rankled the members of my family. My father and brother retorted back before cooler heads could reign. The same guy (Rcast38) continued his bash fest against them from the anonymity of his user name and all the venom he could spew. I said something positive on the site and proceeded to Facebook to make a plea to all who might be online at 11:04 pm to help my brother with votes.

Thanks to reasonable people and wonderful late night support, my brother's band made it past that round of competition. The most soothing to my family and my brother was that Parachute voted for his band that round.

So, in some very small part, Rcast38 must take credit for inspiring the outpouring of support from the friends and family of Stereo Breakdown who might have slept through the last hour of competition instead of thinking of anyone else they could contact to vote. He continued his spew the next night of competition and even though my brother didn't win that final round, the rest of us are still proud him.

So that's my drama, family drama, the good kind. The kind where you do anything to help each other even if it's past bedtime because my family is awesome. If you type otherwise, we'll rally.

p.s. there is a wonderful Hunger Games theatrical trailer to view if you find yourself tapping the keys anxiously and waiting for midnight to come one night in the future.