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*rubs my hands together* Let's set the stage. Before every team goes on, the announcer reads Airgrams for every specific team, someone has paid a few bucks for the privilege. It's a clean easy fundraiser. It's also a horrid plague and infestation that's been around since at least the late 80's/early 90's in some Band and indoor contests. Imagine as each Team enters the field Fran announcing things like these, and I have heard hundreds of these things, Jeff can prolly confirm my accuracy: "Angie, play that clarinet! Love, Aunt Mabel and your Mom." "Ted, we'll still love you even if you screw up your solo. Your parents and sister." "Flutes do it BEST! From Moms Mabley. and Granpa Derf." "Jeff Ream, BEAT THAT BASS DRUM! HARD! REAL REAL HARD!!!!! Love and kisses from your sekrit admirer!" "Connie, DON"T SCREW UP! Your little brother." "Katie, Marry me you sexy sax player, your secret admirer." I can go on. At one contest in the early 90's, the chief judge began to fire his starter's pistol at the press box in a desperate effort to get the announcer to stop because they'd gone on for three minutes and were still reading on while the band was set to compete. The BEST moment was a couple of years ago at one show where three to five (I lost count) potential suitors asked the same girl in the one band to the homecoming dance. AWKWARD..... So, there you have the Big W guide to Airgrams. And I hope those who read it will understand how much I wish they'd be sent to the dump with Starter pistols for the chief judge and G-D Bugles and single tenor drums.

I know this is widely available online. But here it is from my own iPhone a few weeks ago.

There ya go!!!!!

I'm a computer/ internet savvy millennial but I would prefer to have a Blu-ray disc rather than only digital. I have every DCI finals on DVD/Blu and it would be pretty disappointing to no longer have that option. I guess maybe it's a new version of preferring vinyl over cassette or CD.

I'm already done with airgrams. In the rear-view mirror. LOL

Well… If ya can’t dazzle them with Brilliance, I say baffle them with Bull****!!!

As far as the proposal... what? You agreed with throwing 8 - 22 under the bus and to their own league to make it as good as they can? Even as they acknowledged that they were "the draw" and suggesting that they O-13 wasn't able to carry it's own weight? "punctuated equilibrium"? Really? How about Creative Destruction? Better? Always lots to do. In the mind of the "creative" class, always much to do. "National Class"? Uh, no. Regional Class? Uh, no. No, one championship. KIds just want to know where they stack up. If they win OC, they'll want to know where they stack up against WC. It's human nature. "Stripes on a zebra" stuff. Where will we get? "#babysteps" is the same as "nudge". But now that people know, it's not effective. They won't willingly be manipulated. #TryAgain

I just caught up on thread and all I can say is that I can't believe Stu thought it was a good idea to start it.

I'm guessing with his advanced grad school eddjukashun he's changing his moniker to Scrappy-bara, ha, ha, ha.

Hey @Stu, that little [+] button is the multi-quote tool. Use that to put all your responses into one post so the rest of us don't get entire pages of just you rambling.

Annapolis' Stadium alone is enough to vault it to #1. Cleanliness alone. No argument. Competed at Hershey, Philly, A-Town, and was up at Scranton and also spectated at A-Town.

I only submitted Annapolis because it is the closest stadium to the dozens of Midwestern stadiums that could also host DCA that are decent, beautiful, acoustically great and relatively inexpensive.

Annapolis tops my list. And I would say that even if I lived five states away, instead of an hour or less as I do. The stadium is a major-league venue... and the city, and DC/Baltimore/Eastern Shore region, are great for dining and sightseeing. My sleeper pick for second: Syracuse. I wonder if I am literally the only person who feels this way....LOL... but I thought the two Syracuse years were great ones. IMO, the stadium and the OnCenter convention center were terrific venues for the field and I&E events. Plus, the Friday night parade and concert at the NYS fairgrounds were both great exposure for DCA. And I seem to remember a big crowd for finals, in particular. Few, if any, empty seats.

Legends finished their season, and quite nicely. I am content.

Ahhhh... good ole' wisdom. It would have been more wise for them not to have gone out on the road in the first place. It would have been more wise for people to get the facts before cracking open their wallets out of shear emotion. Ahhh... good ole' wisdom.

You are correct; Legends doesn't "owe" its donors anything. But obviously it would be very wise of them to reach out to the donors with their plan for the future.

Easy to grasp: the phenomenon was not one of logic but one of emotion. Even I, on first viewing, thought that there was yet another corps stranding kids in grave danger out on the road; and that initially burnt my buns!!! And I am not blasting the altruism of people; that character trait should be encouraged and nurtured!! And I am all for supporting 'the kids' who perform with any corps that is ran in a responsible manner!! And I do commend corps for their competitive performance success!! But instead of immediately going to my debit card moments after my initial reaction, I decided to re-watch the vid a couple of times, listening closely to the words, and also did a quick read through their website to cross-reference what was said on the vid. Well lo and behold…. the explanation answers you now want on what they were seeking and why they were seeking it are on both the video; and what got them in that shape in the first place was listed on their website; at least all of that info was there.... ‘that night’.

Just seems like selling *any* kind of physical product in 2017 makes no sense, much less DCI letting it continue to wag the merchandising dog. Mike

Go to the dentist, get a pro cleaning, then immediately put your mouth under a magnifying scope; that will also show it to still be a filthy mess. Point is that human musical performance is not meant to be clinically clean under the magnafying lens. And there have been some great articles posted by ASCAP about how the human emotion 'rails' against electronic clinical perfection such as auto tune, auto correct, and auto quantizing. just sayin'.

See, I just don't agree with this. Do you recall the Happy Days "Jumping the Shark" episode? My hunch (welcome to garfield's world) is that the G7 ppt doc was GH's Jumping the Shark moment when he lost virtually all of his boardroom cred. I absolutely believe that some (I won't even say "most"), but some members of the G7 were not aware of what was coming out. Once out, if they were all on board with the notion of what they thought they were presenting, it would have been very difficult to backtrack and throw GH under the bus. I know you'll say this is evidence that they all owned what was presented and I couldn't disagree with that. But I think this action came after years of bellyaching and plotting and planning by one or more director's, and likely many of those years supported by the some of the others that "...something HAS to be done..." to stop paying for corps and programs that never seem to advance but are, instead, satisfied to receive the benefits of being in the gang without having to demonstrate an inclination to advance as the G7 did to become part of "the draw". Again, I don't agree with their view or their solution, but I certainly can understand their peaked frustration and their choice to take action for their own survival.

Do you constantly live life with a stuck up your ###?

What happened 10 years ago in this activity is utterly irrelevant now. Heck maybe even five years ago. Kids marching Cavaliers right now were in diapers when they won with frameworks.

Making finals is staying on top of the activity, if you want my opinion.

With the retention I'm hearing about from Cavaliers MM's and staff...I don't see them tumbling down to 7. Lots of good post-season vibe coming out of Rosemont.

It isn't about the scores, it'a about the members. Why would a future design staff purposefully put their members in that position in the future?