Times That JBrad Ignored the Clarinets: Vignettes of Neglect

All marching band sections have their own personality.  (Actually, I'm pretty sure all sections of any ensemble have their own personalities, but this is about marching band, so… yeah.)  Does the section make the personality?  Or are certain personalities attracted to certain instruments?  It's sort of the old "nature or nurture" debate, and as with every other such discussion, it's probably a bit of both.

We don't need to go into every section here (and I'm sure the personalities of a particular section often change between bands), but in general, clarinets are quiet, reliable, and responsible.  We're sort of the oldest child of the band: not necessarily a lot of fun, but dependable.  We're not likely to host many of the post-game parties (in fact, in my rookie year, most clarinets didn't even participate in the post-game parties!  We’re better now), but we're usually pretty well represented in student-staff positions.

Mix that sort of personality with an instrument that's pretty quiet out on the marching field and usually on the outside of the formations (because we're an instrument that's pretty quiet out on the marching field), and it can be awfully easy to forget about us sometimes.  However, there's just your common neglect, and then there's egregious neglect.  Here are a few stories about the more outrageous times we've been ignored.

(Reminder: Brad = JBrad = Director of Husky Marching Band)

1.  Can You Hear Us Now?

During music rehearsals, the band gathers in a series of concentric semicircles around the director's podium.  (Although "concentric semicircles" makes them sound a lot neater than they really are.  They're really wobbly, discontinuous arcs.)  This helps everyone to be able to hear and minimizes phasing across the band (where you hear the parts from one section earlier than those from another, due to sound not being instantaneous).  The clarinets are usually up front to the director's left.

One day, we'd just gotten a new set of sheet music for "Battle Hymn of the Republic".  I don't even remember what the theme was for the show, aside from it being a bit random.  Band day, maybe?  It was early in the year.)  Anyways, as we played through it, we clarinets started giving each other odd looks, stopping playing and looking closely at the music, and just generally giving off indications of bewilderment.  The reason?  This particular version of "Battle Hymn" sounded an awful lot like an up-beat dirge.  (Kind of like it was done by the guy who does changes songs from major keys to minor keys.  If you haven't listened to any of those, do yourself a favor and do so immediately.  You'll be glad you did; they’re really cool.)

This wasn't completely bizarre; we get some strange arrangements of songs sometimes.  (Or downright lousy arrangements at times.  There was one arrangement of Moon River (itself already a pretty bad song) that was so terrible that, in an uncustomary display of emotional demonstrativeness, I, in the middle of practice, tore it from my lyre, flung it to the ground, stomped on it, ripped it to tiny pieces, and then, when I got home, burned them.  Emily, the librarian at the time, was not pleased with me, but of course I had spare copies.  I still maintain that it deserved it.)  And it wasn't wrong, just different.

We played through it again, with the same result.  After the second play-through, Brad looks down at his score, then announces, "Make sure you have the right copy, because we changed the key.  You should all have green copies of the music."  And then, completely missing the clarinets (again, right in the front!) giving each other revelatory looks and taking the lavender sheets of music off of our lyres, he points somewhere off behind us and to our left, and says, "Something in that area doesn't sound right."

He hadn't even noticed that our entire section was off by a minor third.

2.  "I dunno.  I say do what you wanna do."

As I've already mentioned, Brad tends to forget that the clarinets exist out on the field, and sometimes gets a little focused between the 35-yard lines or so.  It's understandable, but it does mean that sometimes, if we're struggling with a particular move, whether because it's a long move, or the charts aren't clear, or whatever, he's moving on while we're still trying to puzzle it out.  This is common enough that I can't possibly recount every incidence of this.

However, there's one incident that occurs every year that deserves mention, just for being so spectacularly bad and, y’know, happening every year, regularly, without fail.

The very first part of the pregame show has the band starting in a block, and pulling out into a Logo W across the field.  For most people, this isn't that difficult: perhaps a small adjustment, and then just waiting for your turn to start marching downfield.  However, for those in the back, near the top of the W, this is a nightmare.

The drill for these positions (which were usually mostly pics and clarinets) is a nightmare of unclear charts, finicky and sometimes overlapping positioning, and odd counts and steps.  Combine this with the fact that you're learning it the first week of the marching season, so rookies are trying to absorb this with everything else, and it's routinely a disaster.  And since Brad is focused on the people simply marching at 8-to-5 down the field, he doesn't give us long between each move.

The generally accepted solution?  Ignore Brad right back.

Every year, the marchers in these unenviable positions* spend the first few run-throughs actually trying to keep up, only to realize (or remember) that this is completely, hopelessly, utterly futile.  Then we all look at each other, collectively say "Screw it", and huddle up to figure out where exactly everyone is supposed to be when, including all those times where that involves people simultaneously inhabiting the same small parcel of space-time (and not in the fun way).  It usually takes a couple days to figure everything out, and every year the solution is slightly different, but we get there in the end.

* Not that the other clarinet positions during pregame were particularly enviable, either (although it’s gotten much better recently).  Back when I was marching, we were still doing what we called the long run-on, which is where the band came running onto the field single-file to fill in the pregame block.  The clarinet spots are typically the first ones onto the field from either side.  In fact, my rookie year, I was the first one on the field after the drum majors.

This is less exciting than it sounds.

See, to get 200+ people onto the field and in their spots, one at a time, takes a couple minutes.  And once you get to your spot, you don’t just stop.  Oh, no, no, no.  You get to run in place, high-stepping the whole time, at a very uptempo pace, until everyone is in place.  And that’s after running (not just jogging) 50+ yards just to get to your spot (~26 yards into the center of the field, 20 yards upfield, plus the distance from back next to the stands).  As you can imagine, this leaves you a bit tired.  It’s also rather high-visibility, being right in front of the block and one of the only ones on the field at first, so you can’t slack.

After the run-on ends, you get roughly 7-10 seconds (depending on how quickly the PA announcer speaks) to stand at attention before proceeding to march (and play, don’t forget the playing) roughly 80 yards downfield, mark time while finishing the first song, and launch directly into the second song.  It’s… a workout, especially for your lung capacity.  And especially when you get to rehearse it several times in a row.

Fortunately for the marchers now, the long run-on is apparently gone, there’s a fanfare thing that starts the positioning for the pull-out Logo W (and probably helps the folks in the back with the finicky positioning, too), and there’s a break between the first and second songs.  They don’t know how easy they have it.

3.  Manus Celer Dei

My rookie year in band, Husky Stadium was also playing host to the Seahawks while (then) Seahawks Stadium was being built.  One benefit of this was brand-new FieldTurf to replace the old Astroturf.  (Another benefit was both college and pro markings on the field, which is a HUGE boon for marching.)

However, rather than do what any sensible organization would do and getting rid of the vile, abrasive stuff as quickly as possible (heck, I’d have a bonfire, never mind the fumes), someone decided that it would be a good idea to put strips of it down around the field, partially covering the track surrounding the field.  These strips were dozens of yards long and maybe ten yards wide.  It looked pretty tacky, and I’m not sure what purpose it served, but we all just kind of shrugged and went on with our lives.

Until one fateful November day.

I can’t tell you the exact day, but I do remember that we were rehearsing our Broadway show.  We were playing either Mean Green Mother from Outer Space or Oklahoma.  The day wasn’t actually too cold, as I recall, but it was insanely windy.  And the way Husky Stadium is built, with one open end and one closed end, wind tends to swirl a bit.

So there we were, struggling to march through the wind, in a very wide-set formation.  I was out past the 10-yard line in the closed end, and there were people outside of me, although I don’t think we quite got all the way out to the end zone, and of course the formation was symmetrical, so there are marchers out that far on the other end of the field, too.  We’re in the middle of a move, which has me pointed in more or less in the direction of the podium, when I catch a strange motion out of the corner of my eye.

I turn to look (I know, bad discipline), and realize that what I’m seeing is a bench from off the sideline, flying through the air down at the open end of the stadium.  My gaze turns a bit farther, and I see that what has provided the propulsive power to the airborne bench is a strip of the turf, which the wind has picked up off the ground, and which is now crashing like a giant (remember, the strips are ten yards wide, and at least parts of the strip are nearly vertical) green wave over the far end of the field near the sideline, swallowing everyone in its path.

And Brad doesn’t notice.  He just keeps on conducting.

I’m not sure if it was the vanishing of a sousa into the devouring turf or the people running from it that finally got his attention, but Brad calls a halt just as the last of the Astroturf smashes to the ground, and we all run over and start trying to pull the turf off of our fallen comrades.
 
Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, but the sousaphone itself was nearly flattened. 

And the strips of Astroturf vanished from the sidelines shortly thereafter.


So there you have it.  Three of the most egregious times I can remember when the clarinet section was ignored.  I’m sure there are plenty of other good stories out there, whether you’re a clarinet or not.  Anyone else want to share?

Scathing Critiques of Children's Literature: Little Blue Truck Leads the Way

(Warning: Although I normally restrict my swearing to the Poor Driving series so that it's easy to avoid, this post will also contain swearing.  But then again, it's at least in part about poor driving, so it seems thematically appropriate.)

So I normally have my next few blog posts planned out.  I've actually got a couple planned posts in this series that I haven't gotten around to doing yet.  This wasn't one of them.  But I read this one to my son at bedtime the other day because he asked for it, and it's been a while, and we needed a short book to finish up storytime.

And then I recalled why I hate this book, and this new post was born.

I've actually hated this book since shortly after the first time I read it.  I have nothing against Blue personally; I enjoy Little Blue Truck quite a bit.  How can you not?  It's about the Golden Rule and the power of friendship, with a little bit of schadenfreude and karma thrown in.  And if there are other Little Blue Truck books, I haven't read them, which means I don't hate them either.

But this book, man.  This fuckin' book.

I complained to my wife about this book back when it was a near-daily staple in the storytime routine.  I may have slipped an editorial or two into storytime.  It's possible that I was told to knock it off and just read the damn book already.  (It's also possible I'm grossly paraphrasing here...)  And reading this book again brought back all of those feelings of rage as if they'd never left.

So you know what?  I've got my own blog, where I can write about whatever the hell I want, and no one can stop me!  So I'm going to write about this damn book.

For those of you not familiar, the Little Blue Truck is a simple country pickup who is friend to animals and rude bulldozers alike.  This particular story sees Blue on an adventure to the big city.

As you can imagine, simple country pickups and the big city don't mix very well.

After a brief time enjoying the sights of the city, Blue is overwhelmed by rude vehicles demanding that he get his ass in gear and stop blocking the damn road because they've got places they need to be and can't wait all day for a motherfucking n00b to finish gawking and get the hell out of the way.

Now, could these vehicles (including a tour bus, grocery truck, a police car (seriously, Blue is impeding a police car WITH ITS LIGHTS FLASHING.  Do they not have these out in the country?  Like, at all?  Are flashing lights that hard to understand?), a street sweeper, the fucking Mayor's limo, and the last straw, a taxi, behaving as obnoxiously as taxis usually do) be more polite in expressing their frustration with Blue's leisurely pace and their desire to be about their business?  Of course they could.  Do they still have a valid point?  Abso-fucking-lutely, and as you can probably guess from my Poor Driving posts, I'm way more sympathetic to them than I'm probably supposed to be.

So Blue winds up creating gridlock throughout the entire city core, and is trapped in the middle of an intersection, surrounded by hostile cars fed up with his fucking dipshit balderdashery, when he finally snaps (genteely, of course), and offers possibly THE WORST ADVICE IN THE HISTORY OF CITY TRANSPORTATION:

"You might be fast, and I might be slow, but one at a time is the way to go!"

Oooooooo-kay then.

Of course, then the Mayor's limo dies, and Blue offers him a ride, whereupon the Mayor seizes his chance to bloviate and pander ("the way mayors do"), and doubles down on Blue's folksy bullshit.  "How lucky we are to have this little blue truck here to educate us on the error of our ways," he says.  "Let's absolutely take advice from the truck that's NEVER BEEN IN THE CITY BEFORE AND CAUSED THE GODDAMN TRAFFIC JAM TO BEGIN WITH."

(I may be paraphrasing again.)

So, of course, all the good collectivist vehicles follow their glorious leader's instructions and fall into a single file line behind Blue, having seen the light and mended their asshole-y ways.  And "it all went fine", we're told.

OH, FUCK NO.

What would actually happen, of course, is a clusterfuck of epic proportions that would shut down the city core for hours.  How do I know?  Just look at what happens around here when one lane gets shut down on any given street.  It's like goddamn Kralizec, and you need a fucking Guild Navigator to get anywhere.

Fittingly, a marching band joins the line of cars, because what's going on now isn't any semblance of reasonable traffic flow, but a full-blown, honest to God parade.  And do parades enhance traffic flow and allow the smooth and rapid transport of goods and people?  Of course they fucking well don't; they're a fucking disaster.  And of course people spontaneously line the parade route and cheer Blue all the way out of town, rather than running him out chased by threats of physical bodily harm.  Seriously, it's like this book takes place in North Korea or Crimea.

Anyways, it's probably clear that, despite the anti-peripatetic fuckmuppetry going on here, that's not the only thing bothering me about this book.  Most people don't get this worked up over a children's book, I'm told.  (Of course, I'm told this by someone who was read Beowulf for storytime when she was 5, so I've got a boulder of salt here with me...)  No, there's something much more insidious going on here.

Let's go take another look at the key passage in the story here:

"You might be fast, and I might be slow, but one at a time is the way to go!"

What's Blue really saying here?  Basically, he's saying, "I know you guys are all smart and fancy, and I'm just a simple country pickup truck here for the first time, but my simple folksy wisdom will obviously recognize and easily solve problems in a way your ivory tower methods can't."

It's the exact same anti-elite, anti-intellectual, "small towns are the pinnacle of American culture" truthiness bullshit that's infecting America today.

Look, as I've mentioned before, I grew up in Eastern Washington.  I've got nothing against small towns.  I like small towns just as much as I like big cities.  They've each got their own problems and charms; there's a lot they can learn from each other; and sometimes what works for one just won't work for the other, and both sides need to do a better job of recognizing that.  I'm not taking sides here, just arguing against the promotion of one over the other.

Seeing crap like this in a kid's book just pisses me off.

Did the authors do this deliberately?  Honestly, I doubt it.  This isn't Melanie's Marvelous Measles.  But if anything, that just makes it worse.  A deliberate bias like that is easy to explain away, brush off for what it is.  I think the authors simply took a character they established in a perfectly nice first book (except for that bulldozer which is probably off to demolish precious wilderness to build some soulless McMansion suburban sprawl), and put him in a new situation.

But a book that simply assumes that naturally Blue's way is best, despite being completely out of his element and his solution being a terrible one, is far more treacherous.  It starts planting that seed that them there city folks are not just rude, but they don't even have the common sense to figure out how to drive down a road!  It's a good thing we have these plain-spoken, clear-thinking country folks to show people how things should really be done.  And it's all so natural that it's hard to argue against or even recognize that it's happening.

And no, I would equally not want to see a book where a city car goes out to Blue's farmland and starts giving advice, either.  Just so we're clear.

For what it's worth, my characterization two paragraphs above is not necessarily how I think of non-city dwellers, but it is, in my experience (in person, online, and with more public figures in the media), how many of them seem to think of themselves.  For a particularly egregious example, consider Sarah Palin.

So yeah, I know.  It's just a kids' book.  It seems a little silly to get so worked up about it.  But dammit, this is an attitude that is seriously fucking up America right now, and it pisses me off that it's in a goddamn kids' book, of all things.  He's got his whole life to deal with this; why start now?  Why start instilling that sort of attitude before he's even old enough to understand it?

Fuck that shit.  And fuck Blue's craniorectal advice, too.  "One at a time" is the motherfucking Blue Screen of Death of traffic management.  Here's a better idea: Go with the goddamn traffic flow and stop getting in everyone's way, please and thank you.

Fin.