dapperpoet

Yes, this. My wife, a month before I saw BK in Houston, had her last radiation treatment after four chemo treatments. I found the lump last December, and within a few days she was in the first of two surgeries. Been a very long year so far. But, she is in complete remission. I was there with my beautiful son, having driven from Alabama to Houston to make some job connections for him, and it was the first show we'd seen together since I stood on the turf at Lucas Oil and wrapped my arms around him after he (and several others) :) had just won the world championship. When Thomas first marched DCI for Spirit, I bought him the book about a summer's tour by BK. So, needless to say I dissolved when the started flipping the graphics over- an incredibly moving show. Those kids should know that I've been watching DCI for 40 years and was never moved as much. Thanks for, as the kids say, being real. Me too.

Obviously weren't there for the 2012 extravaganza when Crown fans booed BD loudly. I was.

A great year for DCI- says a lot that my son aged out in '12 with BD and my favorite show this year was Blue Knights. Stands looked packed. BLOO was awesome- so glad this activity exists to continue to entertain and delight. Congratulations on a record that will not be broken for a looooong time.

So what you're saying is that the corps who is a lock to win the world championship and is undefeated just doesn't rise to your standards and isn't good enough? Frankly, as someone whose kid marched BD (and Spirit) I am astonished at the BD hate here- I guess I had just forgotten how the guardians of some supposed mythical standard of achievement are ready to spew forth the same old drivel: It's not hard enough, they don't march and play, blah blah blah. All of which is demonstrably untrue. But it doesn't matter what year it is, what the show is, or how well they're doing it, haters gonna hate. Go Devils! Time for some Blue Smoke. But unless you perform a show featuring shapeshifting angels playing perfect triple tongue licks at 240, it won't be good enough. They should work up to that. Geesh.

My all time favorite is Adlai Stevenson. That prairie voice just sings, and he brings a gravity to it that no one else I have heard does.

There certainly are enough examples to study: I have Gregory Peck, Adlai Stevenson, James Earl Jones, and Henry Fonda all doing Lincoln Portrait right here on the hard drive.

Six years ago we sat high up in Atlanta. You were a high school sophomore. I said to you, “You know, you could do this next year.” Since then and tonight there have been tens of thousands of miles, hundreds of rehearsals, football fields from California, to Minnesota to Boston to San Antonio. You played finals your first year two blocks from your house in Bloomington. Tonight, after kissing your head and telling you how proud I am and how much I love you, I want to say that you have already done so much more than lots of those kids sitting through their senior years with you this fall at Auburn have done. You know how to keep your mouth shut and do what is necessary, not what you want to do all the time. You know how to work and work to get better when you knew from the first camp there was no chance of even being a finalist. You know how to finish a show at midnight, catch a few hours of bad sleep on a bus, and greet another morning and a 40 pound contra with a smile. Heat sirens in San Antonio. Crackers and pudding for supper. Rehearsal in pouring rain. The humidity of Monroe, Louisiana. You learned that sometimes it’s not the leaders of an organization that you kill yourself for, it’s the kid in the next bus seat. Finally, tonight, you know excellence and being within touching distance of perfection. You know what it is to rise to the highest levels of an activity and be humble. And talk about getting better tomorrow. You know how to be in first place at semi-finals after an undefeated season and say to me, “Wow, that was a rough run tonight. Gotta get better tomorrow.” Your first year at Spirit it was 110 degrees with the heat index. You were 16 and away from home for the first time. The lights in the gym would not turn off at night. The air conditioning in the school worked sporadically. You hurt your back. You had every reason to quit, but you didn’t. Every one of those beautiful tan faces of all the kids in all the corps tonight could tell a similar story. As you said, at sixteen, “There comes a time when some people stand up and some people quit. I didn’t quit.” Many, many people never learn that lesson in a lifetime. Please remember on the blue days to come (we all have them) that you are a champion, that you not only know what excellence is, you have achieved it. That you made yourself the incredible person you are because you tried to make each run through better, each performance the best. I love you Thomas. (Thomas has since graduated from Auburn, and has just this week accepted a job as an elementary music teacher in Texas)

No, it's not true. I marched four years for Ray Cramer at Indiana and nothing like this ever happened. It wouldn't have been tolerated for a second.

I can't, of course, speak to anything going on in the OSU band in 2014. What I can say is, when I marched at Indiana we met up with the Buckeyes in Chicago in 1980- both bands were staying downtown (we were at the Drake, they were somewhere close by). They were coming back from Madison and we had just marched at Northwestern. We ran into some of them at a restaurant and they had wet hair. We asked them what was going on and they said that it was part of the hazing process- they had ketchup and mustard and chocolate syrup poured in their hair and had been forced to ride in the bathrooms of the coaches from Columbus to Madison because they were freshmen. I was appalled, at Indiana, people went out of their way to help you- we wanted everyone to make the band and have a good time. On visits to Columbus to march, we found a very anti-woman vibe. They were demonstrably proud to have kept women out of their band for as long as they did, and they let it be known that if they could "drive out the b####es" (their words) they would. So no, this news surprises me not at all.

Saw BK for the first time in Houston. Not ashamed to say the show made me weep openly. I hope their artistry is rewarded.

Come on really? You must not be watching the same show as everybody else.

I've always liked Crown (I was not happy with some of their fans when BD won in my son's age-out show and they loudly booed) but I was in Houston last night seeing my first DCI show in two years. I have never seen a crowd so un-responsive, or a Crown show that was such a mess and so flat. It's an off year for them. Oh the other hand, I was blown away by BK- I can count on one hand the number of times a DCI show has caused me to weep openly because it was so beautiful- Cadets '87, Crown '05, Phantom '08, and now this BK show. It's messy, but it's a beautiful concept front the uniforms to the graphics to the vocals. Wow. Best BK show I've ever seen. BD is head and shoulders above everyone who was there last night and I think will be undefeated when it's all said and done. Cavvies are back in the mix after wandering into the swamp which makes me incredibly happy.

There we go. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (blame Billy Shakespeare for the reference, not me)

What a wonderful story. Michael Boo tells a similar story of BD's directors thinking of him in a time of need. I'm richer for knowing about this.

Dude: I like the stuff you write (not that I agree with most of it, but I love passion) and you're clearly invested in the activity. But making an argument that says "I know more than most people in the stands" and "a few kids near me did this so everyone feels this way" is not the way to get me to agree with you.

Because drum corps was only really relevant when you marched, and because few corps mean a diluted talent pool of the best performers. Wait. That's just the opposite, isn't it?

It is amazing to me, and I'm sure it has a great deal to do with the fact that I never marched drum corps, that a HUGE percentage of posts on DCP have exactly one theme: "Why did anything ever have to change? Why don't they just do it the way they did back in________________ when I marched?" Really? At what point? One valve g bugles? Two? Marching tympani? Glockenspiels? It's better. The shows are better. The music is better. The kids are both more athletic and more musical. They come from better feeder programs (high school marching bands). Tell me any corps from 1973 or 1985, using the same sheets they did then, who would be competitive with intonation, musicianship, cleanness, demand, of a top 10 corps in 2013. I love the old stuff too, but to say the activity should not have evolved has been empirically disproven.

See how stupid I am? See here, all along, through observing my son grow and change, I thought the purpose of drum corps was to educate, promote the growth of its members and to encourage excellence. Just money making, huh? Okay.

I'm not telling anybody what to do about anything. I'm also not calling anyone ignorant or being insistent that you share my view of the work. I'm tremendously ignorant about the politics of the ins and outs of DCI. My son marched SofA, Boston, and Devils. Having aged out, he's on Crossmen's staff. All very different takes on what it means to be a DCI member and fan, and I have enjoyed every minute of it.

Of course. But not evidence that it isn't great either. From my favorite American thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance": "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

GRRR....Clear to whom? For what level should a show be written? First graders? Doctoral students in music history? Somewhere in between? Looking at the paintings in the Louvre, does it help to know the context in which the painting was made, the symbolism in the painting, what came before, or after the painting, what impact it had in the its own time and what impact it has had historically? What other paintings were done by the same artist? Or should one just think about what is the "clearest" picture, the easiest to understand? Liking the pretty picture of the sunflowers is fine, understanding the context, impact and meaning of Van Gogh's work is a different experience altogether. Of course, audience members can choose the former, and that's just fine. Each to his or her own- I prefer art that educates, teaches, challenges norms, and moves the medium forward. If you don't, you expect different things from a drum corps show than I do, which, again is just fine. Doesn't make you or me more right.

An eloquent argument for shallowness and ignorance.

Now THAT would be some revolutionary art.

Okay, let's say I agree with you completely. It doesn't change the fact that opinions about the work varied, or that it has always been thus when people made revolutionary art.