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This one time at band camp...

No, wait, I wasn't even in band when this happened. Anyways, I keep hearing this one story about a graduated band nerd on his last night in band, a current band nerd, and a gong mallet without the soft head part. I don't know exactly what happened, but from the parts that I've heard, I think knowing the whole story would either damage my psyche for life, make me want to vomit, or both.

this is Kari's friend "X" (I'm hanging out here). she forgot to mention that freshman year, while she a few other band geeks were trying to hog-tie and lock our annoying bari. sax player in the instrument closet, they accidentally locked her in there to. for the next few weeks, the other guys (she was the only girl) made fun of her and asked when they were "going to get married."

The first marching competition I had ever been in turned out great. It took place in Grenada, Mississippi and we got all superior! ^-^ Everyone was happy, cheering, jumping around, and some guys even did cartwheels. whee

Well...when we got back home, our band director told us that all bands that got all superior had to go to the competition in Vicksburg a few weeks later.

None of the older band members were familiar with this since it was a new thing they were trying. Heh, that Saturday came fast...extremely fast.

The day just before the huge competition was our school's homecoming, so we were basically exhausted. Not to mention the bus ride there was horrible.

After we arrived, they allowed us to take some of our uniform off. I was wearing a pair of jeans and two t-shirts under my uniform since we were going to the mall afterwards and I didn't want to change in front of people. So, of course, I was burning up.

Then the time to march came. No one was happy, cheering, or doing anything except complaining about the heat.

When we stepped out onto the field, immediately one of the flag girls almost fainted. Not a very good start.

During our first song, Bull Fight, one of the two trumpets screwed up on his solo, BIG TIME, which completely killed mostly everyone's confidence.

Then while we were playing our fourth song, Conga, the trumpets ended up speeding up and their little solo part sounded...awful, too bad for words.

Needless to say, when we were marching off the field, we weren't expecting to get any awards. And you know what? We didn't. We got nothing.

To make things worse, after marching off the field, we had to walk up this TALL hill to the place where they were taking pictures and the photographer was an idiot.

After getting us all in the right spot, he kept joking around and saying stuff like "Smile!" "Say cheese!" "Now is that a smile?" GAH! Us clarinets were just about ready to throw our instruments down at him when he finally took the blasted picture.

An hour later, they called all of the bands back onto the field for the award ceremony. We had to stand there, for 30 minutes, watching other bands receive awards while we got nothing.

Directly after the award ceremony, you know what happened? The clouds moved in and it started raining. It fit our mood perfectly.

That had to be one of the worst Saturdays of my life.

If anybody finds out that I let this first story be known to the general public... I'm screwed for life.

Last night of Band Camp. All the guys are incredibly rowdy from being locked away from civilization for a week. Some of us got this idea for a game the night before. The basic premise was like sumo wrestling with matresses: Stay inside the line while beating the crap out of the other guy. They convinced the chaperones of the guys cabins to let us go down to the pavilion in the Boy's Camp and play this game. Well, apparently the girls found out about it too. The conductor caught them playing. The girl's chaperones called our chaperones over walkie-talkies and we cleaned up and high-tailed it back to bed before we got caught. Luckily, we predicted the next move. The practice feild was by the Girl's Camp, as was the water pump. We had to go into their territory where they were waiting with water balloons. We came prepared with water bottles and the drink coolers. In the end, I dumped my water bottle on the girl I like, who happened to be wearing a white shirt. She flipped me onto the cement.

We got a trophy made for the winners of the games, it's 2 statuettes holding mattresses, and it has the girl's winner on one side and the guy's winner on the other.

Another story...
We were heading off to a competition, and were stopped at a rest area for dinner. On the way out, the tenor sax section leader was in one guy's way, and the guy cursed him out. The kid sincerely said he was sorry, but the guy took it the wrong way and nearly beat the s**t out of him. The only thing that stopped him was his daughter who pulled him back. We were all afraid that he was waiting outside or something.

Football Game Story.
I swear, I have the horniest kid on the face of the planet out to get me. He's also, however, the funniest kid on the planet. All year, he's been harrassing me for the sole reason that I didn't feel comfortable around him. One football game, right before we went on, he came up to wish me good luck and gave me a peck on the cheek. -note: We're both very straight guys, we're just also members of the horniest team in school.- Expecting me to freak out, he half ran away. I just walked up to him, told him I didn't wish him good luck, and gave him a peck on the cheek back.

Half the band had a heart attack right then and there. At least, it seemed they did by their reactions.

Bus Story.
One day, we're on the way back from a competition, when the subject of who I like comes up. I swore they'd never find out, and one of the girls tackled me into my seat, sat on me, tortured me in every way possible, for, like, half an hour.

She never found out.

Oh, and the conductor has a pact with God. Or the Devil. We're not quite sure yet.

Our school was holding Chapter Championships for the ToB, so we were, of course, the last ones to perform. It was late afternoon, and the sun was in all the bands eyes all day. We were the special ones because the sun was low enough to block out the Center Podium Drum Major. Before the conductor dismissed us from the marching block to get into our Start Positions, he warned us to try to not get the sun in our eyes.

That performance will be one I'll never forget. The exact moment we started, the sky clouded over. As the music moved on, if you were to look at the sky, it would match the mood of the music PERFECTLY. At the climax of the opening movement, the clouds started to blow around violently. At the hardest part of the music, the Woodwind Run, the wind blew ominously. At the most dramatic point of the Ballad, it began to rain softly. The movement after the ballad was supposed to be the equivalent of the Mummy's Curse (our show was about the pyramids and such) so it was always speeding up. Guess what? So did the rain and the wind. At the last note, it stopped raining. The wind died down. The sun showed through the clouds in the most beautiful way possible.

We marched off that feild to see our conductor smiling like he knew it'd happen all along. None of us will EVER forget it.

'nother story.

We were at an Away Competition. We were all set to go, just waiting to be introduced onto the feild. We stood there for 10 minutes before we realized it'd be a while.

We were getting restless, and the director could see that, so he went up to the drum majors and whispered something in their ears. They went to the back of the group, told us to about face to the stands, and play the Hey Song.

Now, the stands behind the Entrypoint were the bands that already played. Even so, we were laughing through our instruments when a couple of kids pulled out their trumpets and played along with us. Later on, we were told that the other half of the band, the ones who came in from the front of the feild with the props, heard us from across the feild and played towards the parents.

After we finished the song, it dawned on us what we had just done. We saw the director talking to an official-looking dude, and we were making comments to each other like "You see that? He's telling Longdo 'I'm sorry, you just lost 50 points for that.'"

We, of course, took first place that night. It was also the best performance we ever had. Most of us chalk it up to the Hey Song energizing us.

'nother band camp story.

We're taking a brake. Most of us are just fooling around being as normal as a band kid can be. My section leader was walking along, singing a note for some unknown reason. She was walking towards me, so I just jokingly held out my binder with the drill in it. She walked right into it.

Another girl -the same one who flipped me after the water balloon fight- saw this and started chasing me. We got about halfway across the football feild before she caught me and started beating me with my own binder. The only reason she didn't flip me was because my sax was still around my neck, and she'd never in a million years risk damaging an instrument. In the end, all three of us were cracking up because of the total randomness of the whole thing.

It seems all band photographers are stupid. We went to a marching competition, and our section leader had a broken arm...which made playing the clarinet just a little hard. So we went up to take our pictures, and usually we're suppose to hold the instument across our chest facing towards the left, but oursection leader couldn't do that with her arm. So we held them the other way. So the photographer is getting up in our faces, because we're holding it wrong, and we're trying to explain it to him. Dumbass. Finally, he actually slows down to listen to us, and we took the picture holding it to the right.

I don't want to make this long but here it is in the shortest way possible:

We where at a stadium setting up our schools band invintational (sp?), and I happen to see a golf kart sitting around with the keys in it. We'll I make fake excusses for the parents that where nagging "Hey kid! Get er off it!" So, I go to the football (marching) feild, and do some doughnuts. You know, offroad stuff. When I dropped it off, I made another excuss and went into hiding in the bleachers for about 1/2 hour.

They where indeed looking for me. And I did not get in trouble on the account of my hiding. 3nodding

Oh man... a couple weeks ago, we were playing at a basketball game for pep band against a team who's mascot was a seagull. Yes, a seagull. (No offense to anyone who has a seagull for a mascot, of course. o.O;; ) In any case, our band found this incredibly funny. So every time they were shooting a free-throw, our band started doing the thing from Finding Nemo where all the seagulls go, "Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!" in those really weird voices. I don't think they were amused, but we sure were. XD

Our lone senior trumpet player has this box (The "Andy Box 3000") that he keeps in his cubby. Among other things, it always has duct tape in it. One of his hobbies is duct taping things to the ceiling/wall. There's currently a planner taped to the storage room ceiling (there WAS two... not sure what happened to the other one). He also taped his friend's flute to the wall (it was in the case still XD) earlier this year, and today he taped a milk bag to the wall.

On black and gold day (which is our spirit day, since our colors are black and gold) during tutorial (which is before school, and normally when jazz band takes place) our band room turns into a chaotic mess of people going, "Do you have this?" or "Can I use some of that?" There's spray paint, glitter, ribbon, garland, nail polish, face paint... EVERYTHING. You can see guys painting their nails everywhere you look. It's hilarious. And if anyone shows up in the band room WITHOUT black and gold stuff on... let's just say that their look changes a bit before they leave. XD