The Wrong Band
November 8th, 2006
My friend S. has a theory about people who were once cool vs. those who have never managed to rise above “marginally acceptable” in the overall social system . He shared this theory with me a few years ago while we were at a work function watching a (married) HR-type hump the leg of our (notoriously lascivious) overseas sales dude on the dance floor while we threw back drinks at one of those lame company bonding events that not only involved sumo wrestling, but also featured one of those bouncing moonwalk things. Because nothing says “bonding” like donning sweaty plastic fatman outfits and clotheslining your colleagues after many many drinks – ooh ooh, and also dry humping on the dance floor, not to mention getting extremely drunk and wondering if your boss is actually hitting on you, or is it that you’ve had too many gin and tonics? Not that it’s ever happened to me.
The year prior, at the same annual event, I actually raced around the floor of a convention center on some sort of souped-up motorized toilet with wheels. Normally, I don’t go for that kind of thing, but it was a face-off with my European counterpart who spent most of the summer on holiday (NINE WEEKS, PEOPLE) and yammering on about “beauty sleep” while I worked until 1 a.m. contemplating how many apples I could stuff in the bags underneath my eyes for the trip to hell. So when the opportunity presented itself, I was bound and determined to exact revenge and beat her siesta’d ass, even if it involved setting aside my dignity to straddle an American Standard.
For the record, I lost. I couldn’t figure out where the accelorator was or how to steer or…well, anything, and I wound up jamming myself and the toilet between a pillar and the fire extinguisher, requiring the toilet proprietor to pluck me out while my opponent raced around the orange cones to victory. Story of my life.
Anyway, the dry humping raged along on the dance floor, and after trying to play it cool and figure out how one of us – any of us – could snap a picture of it with our camera phones (we totally did and yes, we shared it with my boss of all people, who found it as amusing as we did), we ended up talking about the kind of person who initiates that sort of public debacle. His theory is that people like this woman were never, ever cool in their entire lives, and are always trying to make up for it by being extra obnoxious in their adult lives. I’m not sure of the specifics of this theory, or why it applies, but I do know for sure that I have never really been cool in the traditional sense, save for one completey ill-advised time in college, and lo, it was very bad.
I have mentioned it before, but I played the oboe all through middle and (oh my God) high school. Clarinet, too, and oh yes, I dabbled in cello. I can still play the first two pretty well (seriously), but the cello never really stuck. My senior photo? Is me in a marching band uniform, and honestly, if that doesn’t scream – well, I don’t know what it screams, but it can’t be good. But the thing is, I totally loved it. I had no idea that it wasn’t cool until I went to college, after my former high school boyfriend was ahead of me and joined the marching band IN COLLEGE, and reported back that no, people didn’t find drum majors hot the same way we did in Pennsylvania, and yeah, maybe agreeing to play the saxophone at a Big East school wasn’t such a great idea, because the ridicule factor was pretty high.
My high school band competed in local and statewide competitions, and we took it extremely seriously, my God, SO SERIOUSLY. I remember when our head majorette (twirler, if you will), fell off the podium in the middle of a really crucial moment, and I was so torn up – just inconsolable – on the field, my salty tears falling into my open mouth as I heaved sobs around my clarinet mouthpiece and tried to march on. I was ENRAGED that she could just FALL OFF like that, without consideration for the rest of us who worked so damn hard at marching around, all serious-like, while we played “Shine Down” for the screaming crowds in wool uniforms (oh, and also hats with giant feathers. Yes.)
We also played football games. Oh yes, we did. And liked it. I still have absolutely no idea about the game of football, but I can tell you the exact moment it’s appropriate to break into a rousing rendition of “Louie, Louie,” or, if you prefer, the Notre Dame fight song. In addition, because I know someone is going to ask, yes, I totally went to band camp for six years. Six years, because I was apparently an elite enough oboe player to make it to the high school band while I was still in middle school. Well, that and oboe players are hard to find, so they were desperate. But yes, band camp. But I can tell you there was no sex involved, but oh, we totally said things like, “This one time, at band camp?” all the time, because a lot of shit went down at band camp. Band camp was where the magic HAPPENED.
Anyway, back to band competitions: I was served up a plate of cosmic comeuppance for the podium incident a few months later when I hyperventilated, then subsequently fainted while playing a really important oboe solo at a concert band competition in Virginia. (I can’t believe I typed the words “really important oboe solo” in reference to myself in a public forum, but there you have it.) There were paper bags offered, heads hitting the ground and oh my GOD, the tears and disappointment, because I botched my solo, and NEARLY FAINTED to boot, bringing the whole thing to a screeching halt. My band director – who, by the way, I still keep in touch with, and adore, honestly – ended up having to help me off the stage in my sweaty wool uniform in front of everyone, and if there was ever a moment I wanted to die, that was it. Oh, and we lost the competition, and everyone blamed me, including me. The bus ride home was AWESOME, and full of much mockery from the twirlers I’d so mercilessly railed on only weeks prior. Le sigh.
Anyway, not cool, not cool at all over here. And by ‘not cool’ I mean, actually dorky for reals, not hipster geeky uncool that everyone likes to throw around with the tech boom and all. There were no hot geeks involved here. This is epic, authentic oboe-playing uncool. So in college? I totally planned to try to be cool. And I succeeded, and hot damn, it was a bad idea, and before I knew it, I’d put myself back in the uncool category, with a little more pride. But really, I have gone long enough, so that social experiment dissection is just going to have to wait until tomorrow, where we can all decide if my Moment of Ill-Advised Cool is the reason I never dry-humped a married man on a dance floor.
*Tori Amos
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
25 Comments Add your own
1. CMC | November 8th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
I had to de-lurk because what you said about the whole drum major being cool in PA thing? Yeah – I had no idea that marching band was ever cool until I went to college. Yes, IUP…where the marching band is announced as the “Beast of the East”. Drum major auditions were held in the courtyard of the music building. And there was a LARGE audience.
Thank God my future husband was a violinist.
2. Suebob | November 8th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
This is such a beautiful post. I put it up on Linkateria.
3. Cee | November 8th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
I have tears in my eyes from the laughter. Oh my god, the pathos of the fainting during the solo in the sweaty wool uniform. I am so sad (in an amused sort of way) for your younger self
4. Meepers | November 8th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
That was one of my favorite of your posts yet. Not that I was in the band (no musical talent, I stick to dating/marrying musicians…much easier that way) or anything. But I can totally understand about the cool one minute and utterly humiliated the next. Cheers!
PS. You know Toad t.W.S. are from SB, right? The drummer built a house up the street from where I was born/lived for 16 years. They all still pop up from time to time. I loooove Toad!
5. TwoBusy | November 9th, 2006 at 8:21 am
From drunken, dry humping corporate jackasses to the incomparable bravery of you soldiering on in the face of twirling tragedy, clarineting your tears away (and onward, to your own oboesque fall from grace)… this was an epic post.
In light of which – and in the name of all that is holy – you’ve gotta post that senior photo. Seriously.
6. Amanda | November 9th, 2006 at 8:24 am
Postslike this one? Make you undoubtedly cool.
7. Amanda | November 9th, 2006 at 8:25 am
Darn space bar: Posts (space!) like this one. It’s early here, OK?
8. Claire | November 9th, 2006 at 8:31 am
I can relate somewhat. I played the viola from 4th grade all the way until my senior year. And i loved it. LOVED it. and i was pretty good, too… but we all knew that it was hugely geeky and i was prepared to deal with it by telling people i was in the “Dorkestra”. See what i did there? This is how you make people like you – by being self-deprecating. Eh.
But yeah, i totally loved it and didnt’ care what they thought – orchestra was usually 1st period and i thoroughly enjoyed waking up that way.
But we didn’t have the uniforms. For that, i can still be proud. I second TwoBusy! Must see picture!
9. jonniker | November 9th, 2006 at 8:33 am
TB: My mother still has it prominently displayed. I’m holding a hat and a clarinet, if I’m not mistaken. I’ll see if she can scan that sucker in for me, dear God. (Bonus feature of the photo: bushy high school eyebrows)
10. guinness girl | November 9th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Oh, Jonna, how I love you. Clarinet, oboe, and cello, huh? Me: piano, french horn, and cello (sort of – really only one summer AT BAND CAMP). 7 years of band camp. Wool uniform and INDIAN HEADDRESS. (No, I’m not kidding). Thus, I feel your pain. Your sad, sad, pain.
11. Stinkypaw | November 9th, 2006 at 8:51 am
The band thing wasn’t really big in French school over here. Some suburbs schools had majorettes and all, I always wanted to be the twirler girl but after reading what happened to that girl – forget it.
Not that you care, but I had to look what oboe was in French because I didn’t know, nor did I know what it was in English, but that’s another story…
Is that cool or what?!
12. jonniker | November 9th, 2006 at 8:57 am
GG: Our twirlers wore FULL INDIAN HEADDRESSES! YES! My uniform had an Indian head with a headdress on the chest. My “overlay” if you will, which was plastic, over the damn sweatpig wool of the uniform.
We were the un-PC Warriors.
13. Lawyerish | November 9th, 2006 at 9:31 am
You see, this is all further evidence that we have lived parallel lives. Because Space Camp/Academy simply wasn’t enough. I, too, collapsed in tears at a marching band competition one year, because something — I don’t even remember what — kept us from winning and MY GOD, we had WORKED SO HARD. (I was on the drill team — dance team, kick line, whatever — but also played clarinet in the symphonic band.)
The fainting. The really important oboe solo. Oh. My. God.
14. Jen | November 9th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I don’t even know what to say, I’m so busy giggling and cringing at my own dorky high school (and part of college, who am I kidding) self. Clarinet? Yes. BAND CAMP? Oh yes. The nervousness of being first chair at some big concert? OMFG!!!!!
15. Jamie | November 9th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
OMG, SHINE DOWN Your light on MEEEEEEEEEEEE…best marching band song in the history of the WORLD.
When our HS band played Shine Down, I was in charge of the choreography for it…I may or may not have put together the coolest routine EVER using not only streamers, but also huge, glittery, foamcore stars that measured approximately 3 feet square. I’m just sayin’, is all.
To add insult to serious injury, I also spent 2 years as part of my university’s marching band (which I LOVED). Not only was I on the dance team/kickline, but I was foolishly in love with/dating a Sousaphone player. Yes. A Sousaphone. It doesn’t get much hotter than that.
16. Heather B. | November 9th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
I knew there was a reason for why I enjoy you so much: I played the clarinet too (as well as the bass clarinet and the bassoon).
I too am uncool and damn proud of it.
17. Leah | November 9th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Since I didn’t play any portable instruments, I wasn’t officially allowed in the band, but boy oh boy did I sit with the band boys, instrumentless, during all the football and basketball games in high school. Sometimes they let me hold their instruments (dirty!).
Also? This one time? Rumor spread that the school had filled a dumpster with ancient marching band uniforms from the early eighties, and I actually climbed a tall chainlink fence and put my whole body into a dumpster to retrieve a polyester jack (size: teeny tiny) and a big beehive hat with a feather.
They still did not let me in the band. Perhaps I was TOO cool for it. Yeah, that’s it.
18. orooni | November 9th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Have you ever heard that This American Life about music? It has this great story by Sarah Vowell about high school band. It’s at thisamericanlife.org, under “our favorite shows”, and it’s called “Music Lessons,” if you’re interested.
19. Jen W. | November 9th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
I, for one, can verify the big foam stars that Jamie carried while she flounced around the football field. They give me vivid nightmares to this day.
I must see this senior photo. You post that one, I might be able to post the single most dorky photo of me ever taken: braces, huge glasses, and big ol’ safety riding helmet. HOTT.
20. Gentry | November 10th, 2006 at 3:34 am
This is your funniest entry yet. And at my school, they were called Bando’s. In the highschool social heirarchy, they were just above “Dog Squad” (flag girls) and well below the Drama Queebs (of which I was one).
21. guinness girl | November 10th, 2006 at 7:23 am
OMG. Jonna, I think we had the same fucking band uniform. Seriously.
22. Suebob | November 10th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Yes, pay attention to that Ooroni comment up there. The Sarah Vowell piece is brilliant and will make you fall down laughing. Maybe save it as a reward for when your project is done.
It contains one of my favorite lines of all time – Sarah describing how she felt with her tall-hatted uniform on (paraphrasing) “As comfortable and stable as a puppy balancing on a beach ball.”
23. jen fromboston | November 10th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
symphony and marching band geek right here. And yeah, we took that shit for serious.
My instruments were flute (5-6th grades), bass clarinet (sexy, and probably respobsible for slight scoliosis based on fact I weighed about as much as the case/instrument) and had to carry said thing 1/5 miles, each way to school and the thing is? I barely practiced. form of self-torture I guess and alto sax (9th-11th grade – about as cool as I got all things considered).
I was not cool enough for band camp. probably because I sucked ass.
Great story.
24. jen fromboston | November 10th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
this entry made me loop up somethign about my high school band and I found this about the director:
http://www.geocities.com/rhsramband/Staff.html
Not really worth the read but the bit gets into his interests – and last line? at least he is a realist.
“Mr. Davis’ interests include spending time with his family, listening to all kinds of music, especially jazz and classical, reading inspirational books, following the Red Sox and UCONN Football and Basketball teams, fixing stuff around the house and making his students’ lives miserable.”
25. FieldCommanderBill | November 17th, 2006 at 10:51 am
My wife has been sending me your blog in links, and now I am hooked because of this post!
My formative band days took place in Ohio and we took competition sooo seriously. I played mainly tenor Sax but in HS moved to just about any wind instrument. As a senior, I was our marching bands Field Commander or Drum major if you like. This brought back so many memories about the ridicule people suffered if they even mis-stepped and cost us points…damn them!
Thanks for the walk down memory lane and the laughs. If you post your senior marching band pic, I will post mine!
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