normy diploome

OK, though I find it sad. I like the traditional Blue Stars hat as distinctive, although the side plume may be a problem for today's drill. However, both Bluecoats and Phantom wear helmets rather than shakos and this doesn't seem to hurt their visual presentations. The Blue Stars' visual problems the last few years had more to do with feet, not hats. But you are the CEO, and you certainly have done many fine things to maintain a great organization. Good luck with your DCI BOD meeting. Have a great 2013 summer. NDP

Yes, you are right. But I didn't say it was. Read what I wrote. But I shouldn't actually post while in my hospital bed. Somehow I always leave out something. I guess tension and anxiety is supposed to be part of the suspense as we await the unveiling. It won't be as powerful if they don't master the show behind it. Last year could have been so good...

But here is what the Blue Stars are saying today, after April Fool's, really is a primary sketch for their new uni. Rumor from a well placed source within their admin is that their CEO at last camp dissed the traditional Blue Stars pith helmet as unworkable for today's drill. (???) I find most of the sketches here very busy, too much built on BD, and prone to distracting the drill rather than masking ticks. Unfortunately few uniform designers have actually written drill for real people or taught drill on the top 12 level. http://www.bluestars.org/story.php?story_id=685

Cadets posted (4/2) on their website and FB that they are seeking a few more contrakids, now known as tubas. One camp in late April. Move-ins May 15th or so. Great season anticipated. But the instrument they also show seems quite challenging, even for an all Barber show which will be a cut above. http://www.classicfm.com/pictures/more-pictures/worlds-largest-tuba/

My upper deck 50 yard line seats in 640 is where I roost with friends. He is a Garfield alum who went on to be one of the founders of Carolina Crown (most of their founders were from Greater New York who got transferred down South.) With a few rare exceptions I have been to most Championships since DCI started. Worked on the field crew for a few of the first ones before my legs got too ornery. I have worked with 3 DCI World Class medalist units over my years including two multiple champions plus others as a consultant. Still love it and the folks who do it.

The multi-blizzard winter, the devastation of Superstorm Sandy, and the constant rearrangement of the high school and college calendars as a result of these factors have sent the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern closing date for this year later and later. Some districts will only end the school year at July fourth weekend to get the mandatory 180-190 school days or 16 weeks for a semester. I am amazed the Surf has been able to do as much as they have this winter. Many of their base communities are still in dire straits. Surf and others are not a corps restricted to college kids. Give them their props. Many other reasons are determining the drum corps tour as well. The Flatlanders, Midwesterners, and Southerners move their school years earlier and earlier to accommodate the ESPNs and NCAA wanting a longer, and thus earlier, football season, while the Mid-Atlantic and New England states have traditionally not started school until the day after Labor Day and ended the second week of June. California follows a similar school year. It's the soybean corps and those in the heat and humidity belt who insist drum corps season start before Memorial Day and end on July 31st, or so it seems. No wonder housing grows more difficult for corps to acquire. amongst many reasons.

In the march toward world dominance of all things drum corps, evidently the G7 instigators have heeded Glasgow's approach to mandatory 26 hour bed rest for the Bluecoats before every performance and sought a new mode of travel from one show site to another. Once implemented this effectively ends what has been the California model of drum corps touring where all corps board busses immediately after one show finishes and drive endless hours to the next show site. Using the new approach (cf. link below), better rest and increased practice times will probably result, provided the corps can clear screening each time... :tongue:/> http://popsop.com/wp-content/uploads/hop_01.jpg

OK, after almost a week of pondering, I get that the Cavies want to advance past last season, almost to forget everything that happened there. So from 15 minutes of Fame, we go to no public persona at all, thus a Secret Society. My question is, after ditching the sun-glasses and now hiding behind the identically fake long black beards, are we supposed to think they will remind of us of their fellow Illinoisan Lincoln or Drew Shanefield?

I see that they aborted the camp weekend in Indy early due to the 6 inches of snow. Back in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, they would have laughed at only six inches. Maybe the Indiana Blue Stars will soon be joining the Florida Crusaders since Boston is so wet and very cold for today's DCI, he, he. I better watch it before they put a voodoo spell on me. Things are already tough enough.

Saw this on the news Palm Sunday evening during basketball half time. Video was the same on TV but with the battery doing exercises. Says they only have 100 total to date, looking for twenty more bodies. What I saw from the TV was a very, very, very young and small hornline, an older and full battery, and a seventeen year old front ensemble if I am good at guessing ages. No guard as it was the same weekend of the WGI regional at URI. Lots of bronchitiis and such going about which may have kept numbers down (and seemed to keep the scores down at Kingston, RI show). The TV video was done well. http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/new_haven_cty/drum-corps-holds-open-house

Nope. I took 15th place application of the word which is "to posture or dramatize a point to an extreme in a contrived, sometimes humorous way so to shape further discussion." This you do, very humorously most times. Being a blaggard, no that you don't do. :-)

But then again, Michael, truth be told, you are, beyond all the blustering and humor, a professional musician with advanced education...and not the "common" ticket-buying fan in the stands.

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Jeff, Thank you for posting this video. There is much here to consider. But the paradigm placement is pivotal in distinguishing how, if, and when his financial philosophy should be applied to drum corps whether our activity be seen as a non-profit, not for profit, or profit making business. For one, this man is speaking in macro images which is a very different set of glasses from the usual drum corps afficianado worrying about mortgage, job security, marital/familial security, personal health, personal happiness and responsibility to others whatever the moral motivation. The key sentence is understanding his statement about the 12 per cent rate of poverty. He is seeking to irradicate the whole problem. It's my conviction that most persons in the drum corps dialogue aren't that messianic but are thinking "how do I survive so I don't fall further into that 12 percent?" When one is living breath to breath, being entrepreneurial is beyond the Black Hole. In my professional life of thirty plus years outside of drum corps, I have worked in Gold Coast communities in community leadership and very successfully if sucess is judged by the bottom lines improved and advanced and individuals serviced and challenged. I have also worked as intimately in communities where there was no such animal as luxury money, disposable income, or opportunistic budgets of funding distributions by alternative possibilities. That is, hand to mouth situations. The "haves" think differently from the "don't haves" because the starting point is different. Your video highlights some of that, i.e. risk vs. survival modes. But most involved in our drum corps activity come from the survival mode communities with 9 per cent unemployment at the least, families which have to deal with a 52% divorce rate upsetting basic personal confidence, and extremely changing neighborhoods which gave rise to the activity at its roots. Whether one accents drum corps as an activity which is there ultimately to form a better individual or whether one starts at how do we advance the corporation, the current corps, and make the activity more popular are very different starting points. I believe all of these are different facets of one diamond, a diamond which has flawed facets and polished facets. Some of us will accent one (individual formation) and find another outside our realm of perception (corporate business, for instance.) Some will be great for the board room and horrible for helping the teenager who's girl friend just dumped him, his college has changed the matriculation of the major he has been studying and is charging more tuition plus, and his parents have been fighting more times than he can remember them hugging. So of course he's having problems focusing on the set change for today or the blind pass-through at syncopated meters. It's like a chicken talking to a duck (old Chinese proverb.) Both conversations need to be had, both skill sets are needed for the health of the activity. But the realistic dilemna is that folks of the G7 and boardroom world aren't talking the same language or conversation as the person who sees drum corps as a vehicle to learn personal excellence in a community setting. Neither is more right than the other. But the different priorities do lead to different choices for different applications and generate far different conclusions. If I am not sure whether I'll have food in my fridge, I certainly am not going to be impressed by your risk taking with my hard earned money. But since one cannot live life without risks, the challenge here still remains. I'll have to watch this video again and reflect some more. This is a fertile ground worth hoeing; I just don't know what seeds are being planted or what fruits are being expected.

On page 41 of Volume I of this thread, White Dawn, Slingerland, Garfield, and I got into a bit of a related discussion that the inside costs of the DCI corps cannot be adequately assessed by a mere reading of the 990's as the services provided or not provided by said corps are not identical for each corps nor is there equality and uniformity in the the financial requirements and subsequent services charged to the marching members. A fuller cost-benfit-analysis is required to appreciate the solvency and maintenance of an individual corps relative to the other corps which may attract the same membership and commitment. White Dawn brought up Blue Devils diminishing costs for camps as the corps does not provide housing for members until just before tour. Therefore this cost is not reflected in the 990's but comes out of the pockets of the membership at their own conivance and creativity. I mentioned meal provision and transportation provision to and from camps and Spring Training as items which were not uniformly provided, if at all, by several World Class corps. The recent article this week about the bus fire experienced by the Troopers enroute from the Denver airport to camp in Wyoming seems a timely example of what some corps provide and others, like Phantom and BD, do not. Garfield was surprised, and with Slingerland, both asked for more current examples and other variances of this 990 cost differential analysis . Now I apologize that it has taken me a bit and this thread is closely approaching Volume II, but operating out of a hospital bed isn't always easy. So here goes. Phantom Regiment, unlike most DCI corps, diminishes camp costs to the corps but increases the same for the marching membership by not providing meals for members at camps and at times, spring training. Check this week's brass camp schedule (3/22/13) for Regiment if you need more proof. http://www.regiment....ampschedule.pdf This is extremely different from the gourmet meals provided to the Cadets by their organization and for instance, the corndog buffets and other popular foods provided to the enterprising young men in the Cavaliers, etc., etc. Plenty of marching madness around for everyone to consider. "A few dollars there, a few dollars here, is making marching drum corps more and more dear." (That's the refrain for my contribution entry to the Blue Stars' composition competition. May also work as a second refrain to the legendary "I march in Phantom cause...")

"I used to work with a guy who was born and raised in Indianapolis. He told me that if I went to the Indy 500 not to bother going to the race - it was a waste of money - instead go to the time trials because that's when the teams have to qualify, so they pull out all stops and really push the envelope. I don't imagine that Drum Corps is is that much different. [my edit: Some corps] might not be too concerned about it, but a corps that's on the bubble is really going to pour it on. To me that's part of the fun." I have to agree with Piper about this one. Haven't we all enjoyed those performances where the corps left everything on the field, and I don't mean the memorabilia once left on Finals' Night retreat. I mean the years when we yearn for a tie in twelfth place because those units have so improved and peaked at just the right time. Isn't that search for excellence fundamentally what the activity is about as a youth formation experience? Think of the Troopers a few years back, Crossmen, Magic , etc, etc. The championship experience will elicit this type of adrenaline and excellence whenever the requirements of participation impose limits.

I have to confirm and affirm your correction of Mike D that the Babylon Islanders and Floral Park Mid-Islanders were two separate corps. I would add that the Babylon Islanders also competed in the Sounds of Suffolk Circuit and had DCA Judge and WGI show coordinator Tom Beresford as Drum major for awhile, at least before he went on to the Selden Cadets. Brasso seems to be playing with us with his selective choice of corps names, particularly those with a double meaning, if you catch my drift. However, he finds the State of Washington Black Watch notable but not the Black Watch corps of Southern N.J. and whose CG is still competing in WGI. Black Watch was the type of Scottish tartan both corps wore, not the beverage. Now DCP is not supposed to be a dialogue of religious beliefs I understand, but CT's Our Lady of Sorrows' parish corps references a Marian title Mater Dolorosa in Italian, referring to Mary's seven moments of pain in Scripture. Best image of this wouid be the famous statue of Michaelangelo, the Pieta. Now that is an unusual corps logo. And weren't the (Post 507) Hornets the corps Hopkins marched with as a kid before the Hornets merged with the Keystone Regiment to form the Crossmen, a cross of two corps?

yes, Lancaster and the Red Roses were the other force in the English dispute. But Black Roses, they are expensive! Refer to any episode of NCIS where Gibbs donates same to Abby.:tongue:/>/>

Moderators might want to merge this thread as it has been previously posted.

There was also a C.Y.O. corps from St. Matthias Parish in the Ridgewood (very German) section of Queens County on L.I. in NY. It was called, "The Blue Max" a term associated with German fighter pilots as in the novel and movie of the same name. The corps is pivotal to DCI history as it had as a member Jeff Sacktig and his brothers and sisters before he and John moved on to the the Crossmen, and then Jeff later to Garfield Cadets. The rest, as they say, is history. :thumbup:/>/>/> The other corps from Ridgewood was the OLMM Orbits (Our Lady of Miraculous Medal) who with Max and others competed in the L.I. and Greater NY circuits which became hotbeds for later great contributors to DCI history (e.g. Paul Litteau, Pete Emmons, Wayne Downey, Noel Borden, Ernie Robinson, Tom Beresford, Kevin and Maureen "Moe" Smith to name but a few.)

Hey what's with you of late? Did you not read all the threads about budget cuts and difficult financing or did you just buy a ton of stock in FJM, Demoulin, Algy, Dance Sophisticates and/or Stansbury? This is about the 3rd time in a week you've made a comment about corps forsaking uniforms for costumes which change each show (like WGI guards.) You are beginning to sound like "Pope DanielRay, the Infallible," or are you joining him in a duet of Johnny One Note? Too often costumes, props, and 80 zillion versions of flash flags are used for masking to hide the lack of substance in musical arrangement, performance, and actual drill. Like a cow chewing grass to get the last ooze of nutrients out, I prefer substance over masking. We've yet to exhaust our traditions before foresaking them all for flash.

"Suite" idea! I look forward to this. Perhaps the second and third place winners might provide some performance opportunities or revenue sources as well.

Some thoughts about the current show announcement and the disappointment (mine too) that we won't hear Holsinger's Ballet Sacra this season. Would have been interesting to hear what Cadet alum, Dr. Drew Shanefield, Cavies' current arranger would have done with the piece Maroon Platoon used to beat Star of Indiana in '93. My question is, If the Cavaliers are a fraternity, and Michael Boo is part of that fraternity, how is any fraternity with Michael Boo a Secret Society??? I would have thought this show title was more for Crown most off seasons. Upon seeing the announcement and still laughing about Boo's G7 comment, a well versed friend of mine wondered if Cavies '13 will be specifically theme related as in the Samurai show or more obliquely as in 007? More transparent than Mad World and more successful than the 15 minutes??? He also asked, If the Cavies are doing Secret Society, does that mean they lose their Vatican connection and the Benedictine Abbey or IBC field? Maybe the Masons will provide or the Order of the Buckle? Will this be the new Skull and Bones, like Yale? I know, I know: it's a secret.