My A Cappella Life Part 3
Everything I Took From the Hullabahoos
I spent this past weekend on Cape Cod playing bocce and hooting and hollering with a bunch of people I love dearly. It was the warmest of times, it was the fuzziest of times. During a break in the ribaldry, half of the attendees and I locked arms and sang the Irish Parting Blessing to honor our host’s recently departed brother, Tommy. I found myself once again surrounded by people who live in the innermost chambers of my heart, none of whom I would even know exist if I hadn’t gone off to college and joined an a cappella group.
I still owe just over thirty thousand dollars to my student loan providers. If offered, I will accept cancellation - heck, if you’re feeling inspired, reach out and I’ll send you my login details and you can make a payment on my behalf. I know it’s bad to carry debt and I’m working on it. I don’t mind owing money because I am still, and evermore will be, reaping the benefits of my time at UVA, which is almost entirely true because I spent the vast majority of my time there gallivanting with my all male a cappella group, the Hullabahoos.
In April I returned to Charlottesville for the Hullabahoos 36th anniversary spring concert. I’ve been back several times since I graduated and I am now very comfortably in my “nobody is mistaking me for a student” era. For the concert, the ever expanding alumni network accreted into clumps like my group, the 2009-2013 Hullabahoos. It would have been perfectly jolly enough to just return with my bros and hang out in Charlottesville. But to actually come together to make a plan to strut and fret our five minutes on the stage, to be heard once more - that is some next level Magic Tree House wizardry.
During this reunion I was one of several alumni who spoke about our time in the group. Preparing that speech was the seismic shift that created the little wave of reflection that I am now sharing with you, my beloved audience.
I was barely into the second week of my first year at UVA when I thought, “Nobody in the world is having more fun than I am.” I was right. It was this perfect, built-just-for-me type of fun that was both [mostly] harmlessly debaucherous and enormously constructive. I’d inched my way toward college as a goody-two-shoes caterpillar and the Hullabahoos was the cocoon in which I dissolved and reformed.
For four years, I never once felt like I was missing out on a more fun party happening somewhere else. A boilerplate year in the Hullabahoos consists of singing in front of the whole school during the first week, biweekly rehearsals, an RV road trip up and down the east coast, three concerts (Fall, Christmas, Spring), and on-demand ‘raging’ at the Hullabahouse, which I asked if I could live in the minute I laid eyes on it as a New Guy. The exclamation point at the end of the year is Beach Week, when the group rents a house in Myrtle Beach while half of UVA is there partying during the week between final exams and graduation. At the end of my first year, standing in waist deep water surrounded by a spreading pool of my own urine, projectile vomiting pure beer into the Atlantic after just barely losing a case race that had started at 9 AM, I was completely overcome with pure elation. My first year had been so densely packed with fun and I still had three more to go.
Yes, there was endless alcohol and yes, I drank more than my fair share of it. But the booze was not what bonded us. Cracking open the Natty Light was just a way of signaling that no, I’m not going to read those 600 pages of 17th century prose tonight. I am going to beat your ass in Mario Tennis and then go for pizza at 1 a.m. and possibly attempt to serenade an Olympic swimmer while we wait for our large cheese pie.
UVA has a pretty dominant Greek culture. I have plenty of great friends who joined fraternities and sororities. But I was kind of creeped out by the fact that you could look at someone and pretty accurately guess if they were in Sigma Chi or Tri Delt or SAE. The Hullabahoos did not bond over a shared socioeconomic upbringing - we bonded over our shared passion for singing other people’s music without instruments. We were actually, organically, pretty diverse - racially, economically, and geographically, which was kind of eye opening for a guy from a 97% white small town in coastal Massachusetts. I do think there’s real value in becoming bros of the closest order with people from completely different worlds.
I highly recommend admiring your friends. The Hullabahoos are a student-run organization, although as a first year I was so wide-eyed that it seemed like it all just happened on its own. An attitude that served me well in this group and has served me well since is that of the Eager Rookie. In the older guys and the alumni who visited, I saw a buffet of wonderful traits and I grabbed everything I could. I wanted Brendon’s swagger, Patrick’s vocal power, Bobby’s thoughtfulness, Joe’s curiosity, Kelly’s stage presence…I wanted to figure out who I was by my fourth year the way the guys ahead of me seemed to have done.
I was sure enough of myself to not worry about losing my identity by tinkering with it. Mostly I just wanted to be a good steward of the scepter of good times. What I appreciated most about the group as a New Guy was that being a part of the group felt special. I wanted to help make the group feel special for the New Guys who came after me, and for the people who spent time with and around us in college. And I honestly and proudly think I accomplished that goal. I was never once oblivious to the fact that I was living in the Good Old Days.
We were also beneficiaries of an endlessly breaking wave of parental gratitude. During our annual RV tour in October, we made pit stops at some of the guys’ family homes. After an afternoon of barbecue, bocce, and bathing, we sang a couple of songs for Nick’s family. His father raised a glass when we were done and said something very close to, “It’s scary sending your kid out into the world. All you want for them is to be safe and surround themselves with good people. You can’t possibly understand how overjoyed we are that Nick has found you guys.” At the end of my second year, Joon’s parents in South Korea remotely treated us to a dinner outside of Charlottesville. The note Joon read us on their behalf contained a nearly identical sentiment.
The Hullabahoos are extremely fraternal, and as you gain brothers, you gain bonus parents. And, as I learned a few years after I graduated, it hurts to lose those bonus parents. Sammy, Nick, and I had all made our way out to Los Angeles after college. We were quite the trio. Circa 2015, Sammy’s mom Diane found out she had cancer. She fought it like a demon but at some point she courageously looked her future in the eye and summoned the strength to make a trip from Virginia Beach out to the west coast to get together with her beloved UCLA sorority sisters.
Nick and I were invited to join what we all knew not-so-deep-down was a Last Supper. I don’t think there exists any honor one person can bestow another that is higher than, “I don’t have much time left here, and I’d like to spend some of it with you.” It was beautiful and sacred and I will never forget the peace and love in her eyes and embrace. Di - we had an absolute blast at your funeral.
Every time I see the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ pop up, I think: “That ain’t me and my friends.” Singing is a very emotionally naked act. We had a usually-obeyed rule that everybody auditions for every solo. Never once did I stand up in front of the group to shoot my shot at being The Guy Up Front without my legs shaking. I think the vulnerability of singing for your best friends hoping that maybe they’ll choose you was like this atomic bomb that vaporized the walls that people, and especially men, tend to put up between each other.
I think there’s something about wanting to sound good singing together that necessitates some natural interpersonal tuning. If you’ve got a problem with yourself or somebody else in the group, that issue somehow throws the music off. And so, like a guitarist twiddling with knobs, everyone involved would loosen and tighten until we found ourselves in the same key. I butted heads with plenty of people during my time, but it never felt scary. We all loved the same thing; we just had competing ideas of how to love it best.
During my first year I found myself sitting with an uncomfortable feeling after being called back for a solo but ultimately not getting it: relief. I plopped myself in Bobby’s room and waited for him to figure out something was bothering me (it didn’t take long). I told him I didn’t really want to get a solo because I was terrified of forgetting the words. Bobby said one of the most helpful things a person has ever said me: “Who cares?” “What?” I asked. “Who cares if you forget the words?” he repeated. “I…doesn’t everyone? Doesn’t it ruin the show?”
I’d always thought that forgetting the lyrics was a concert killing cataclysm. It had never occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t a big deal. Bobby pulled up a couple of videos of different guys over the years: one guy choked during “Lean On Me” and filled in with “uhh…slamma lamma ding dong!” and the crowd roared. Thanks, Bobby, for pulling that little pin out of the Brandon voodoo doll.
Over the course of my four years I went from quietly singing in the background to pretty much making up my own parts, and found myself more and more frequently out in front of the group. I would still get nervous but my focus shifted from fretting about screwing up to hoping to use my voice to meaningfully communicate the song I was singing.
I also found that my talents were useful in the space between songs. I wrote Christmas poems and read them to the audience during our holiday concerts. At my final concert, I told the story of how I burned my face:
I was frying some late night hot dogs in a lot of butter when from the other room, I heard someone butchering a story. I bolted from my post to set the record straight, then returned to find the pan ablaze. The only thing that ran through my panicked brain was, “Don’t throw water on a grease fire.” As the smoke alarm burst into song, I scooped up the burning pan and rushed outside. The flames billowed toward my face and I instinctively blew on them, which caused them to whoosh up and scald my face and singe my eyebrows. TJ ran out and smothered the burning pan with a blanket. I felt stupid and my face hurt. Then the fire department showed up and asked what happened, and I told them I burnt some hot dogs. They explained when something like this happens they need to see the evidence. And I said, “I ate them.” The end. This next song…
I don’t know if you liked that story, but the crowd in 2013 did.
You’ve nearly reached the end - thank you for sticking with me. It very sincerely means a lot to me that you are reading something I wrote. This last bit is about some of the pinch-me stuff I got to do with the Hullabahoos.
I think music stands above the other arts in terms of granting its practitioners access to people and places they have no earthly business being involved with. I learned some mind warping Hullabalore early in my tenure. One nugget was that the founder of the Hullabahoos was now a writer for The Office. I didn’t do anything with this information, I just thought it was so cool that I had some connection to my favorite TV show that my brothers and friends and I would watch as it aired and would quote constantly to each other.
When I tell people I used to sing a cappella (would you believe that happens quite frequently?!), they invariably say, “Ooh cool, like Pitch Perfect?” And I say, “Actually, I was in that movie.” Thanks to the exploits of those who had come before me, I drew the lucky card of being in the group when Universal Studios decided to turn Mickey Rapkin’s book Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory into a movie. Mr. Rapkin had followed the Hullabahoos around for a semester and written about their exploits while dubbing them the ‘bad boys of a cappella.’
The director Jason Moore knew our founder-turned-Hollywood writer Halsted Sullivan and called him during his prep, thinking it would be a fun Easter egg to have us in the movie. He was right.
We went to our recording guy in Charlottesville and recorded an arrangement of “The Final Countdown” and then rented an RV (old hat by this point) and drove down to Louisiana to film our scene. I had spent my whole life preparing to play my role of Hullabahoo #6 and oh baby, did I play it well. Our music director Kelly was rightfully awarded the solo, and it’s his voice that millions and millions of people have heard on the soundtrack. I’m one of the “AAAAH BE NE NE NYOO NYOO BE NE NE NE NE NYOO”s.
We also got to join the 2010 Democratic winter retreat to sing and enjoy a meal on the American taxpayer (actually, probably on some SuperPAC’s dime). I danced with Nancy Pelosi (while leaving room for the Holy Spirit) and a few of us smoked cigars with Jesse Jackson, Jr. It just so happened that President Obama was down a few points within his own party at this time, so Marine One dropped him off to join the fun. The man who had scored us our invite caught him on his way out after taking a bunch of pictures with Congresspeople and their kids. “Mr. President, you gotta meet these guys!” President Obama went down the line and shook our hands.
I’d never met a President of the United States before but it was pretty cool. I remember he had a nice handshake, which is not surprising. I said, “Hi Mr. President, I’m Brandon.” “Nice to meet you, Brandon.” After he went down the line he gathered us around. “Let’s get a picture.” I think he made a crack about asking us if we needed a baritone. A glassy-eyed woman shoved her nervous looking friend into the picture. After the camera flashed, President Obama said, “Do you know these guys?” The woman looked terrified. “Uh…no?” “Let’s go, get out of the frame and take another one, I’ve got a helicopter to catch.”
In my fourth year, I got to be on an episode of The Office. But that’s what my next post will be about.
The cool things we got to do were cherries on top of the world’s greatest sundae. During a formative period in my life I got to be a part of something beautiful that opened up the world for me. The Hullabahoos helped mold me into a version of myself that I can’t imagine not being; the group strapped constructive armor around my inner child and helped convince me to never really take the steering wheel away from him.