Jeff Ream
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Posts posted by Jeff Ream
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1 hour ago, BigW said:
I swear that there were repeated statements that innovation was to be taken under heavy consideration in the evaluation. To hit the top box, there had to be State of the Art, cutting edge elements in the program.
I've been thinking about that whole concept and how it's affected the activity as a whole in one way, but work calls.
sets new standards was on the WGI sheets for years. i can see why it would be on there...if you're getting 9.8 or above in book, yeah it should be consideration. but not the sole determining factor
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2 minutes ago, MusicManNJ said:
No one was let go until it was clear that the org was going to close. They did let go the ED but that was not related to funding. The Corps was on track to come out in 2024. The end of settlement discussions also ended the Cadets future.
2 minutes ago, MusicManNJ said:No one was let go until it was clear that the org was going to close. They did let go the ED but that was not related to funding. The Corps was on track to come out in 2024. The end of settlement discussions also ended the Cadets future.
interesting. ok. i never said they wouldn't come out, but finances weren't good.
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8 minutes ago, JimF-LowBari said:
Thinking more like Gotterdammerung where the head burned down everything around him. And this final mess could have occurred during the GH trial and publicity
if only that one witness wouldn't have decided against testifying
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2 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:
Quit moving the goal posts on me. First you said you don’t see anyone glamorizing. Now you say you don’t see anyone giving him a pass. You’re killing me.
i don't see glamorizing though. i see some comparisons yes, and face it....for all the bad, there was good too. if not for him in 1980 recruiting down south, the corps probably dies. it possible for someone to do good things and still be a vile excuse of a human being at the same time. history is littered with examples. when it comes to him, really, in a way it's like the judge said to CAE...ya gotta take the good with the bad. for all the bad, you can't just cancel out the good. it just means you hammer the bad that much more.
i remember at OC finals in 2002, at retreat they had age outs giving speeches, and the Cadets kids all sounded like brainwashed clones, saying they wouldn't be where they were without the corps and him. my group and people around us rolled our eyes. but the next 3 nights we all went ####### over the corps performance.
and thus is the conflicted legacy the organization and the corps suffered from for years here, RAMD, Soundmachine and everyone else.....how do you separate the greatness on the field from him? it was ###### hard, and this was before 6 years ago this week. Add on the messes after Scott was pushed out, the lady losing lawsuits over a fraudulent charity being brought in, moving 5 hours further away from the loyal alumni base, and boom here we are. So much on field greatness reduced by off field mismanagement and literal crime. and a lawsuit, against someone that isn't him, at a non corps sponsored event was the final straw.
so maybe you understand the conflict people have. i'm not and never have been enamored or under the sway. i've advised kids going in what to expect. i wouldnt talk them out of it if their heart desired it, but i wanted them prepared for what they may encounter. i know someone that ended up teaching there trying to talk kids out of going there a few years prior. Heros often fall hard, and thats what you're seeing people express right now. Amazingly the corps survived at all after 18.
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3 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:
Interesting word choice. So many possible responses.
i often sevre them up and see how people go from there. you caught on to my trick.
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25 minutes ago, garfield said:
My screen name, almost as old as DCP, is in honor of the corps. Their performances consistently ranked the corps in top positions with me, with only a few exceptional years. The alumni I know are at the same time crushed and unsurprised.
The G7
Thank GOD for the O-13 (the Other 13), led by a big, affable, and tenacious Italian corps director in Jersey and his friends, who had the ball-bearings to fight back in the most creative of ways to derail the DCI coup and takeover. My appreciation of their corps' performances aside, I would appreciate a word from the humble-pie-stuffed mouths of the other six corps of the notorious group who held the G7 document and its (half) creator above their heads like a proverbial Will Smith at the Spartacus opener. At this time, poignantly, the rest of the activity's "leaders" would show considerable humility, direction of focus, and unity if they were to proclaim to be ever vigilant against the potential damage from a too-powerful ego. That Sparta-Hop's has now been all but killed leaves the door open for a new concerted effort to root out the rot and pledge activity-wide to DFTK. His involvement and his corps' demise permit the survivors to build anew on top of the foundational bones of the old, just the same as in Spartacus' Rome.
My hunch is that DCI is next (see below) and, when it itself becomes part of the rubble foundation of the drum corps' history, the remaining leadership of the activity will want the trust and patience of the fans while they rebuild the "show producer" function of DCI, the organization. They'll go a long way toward earning that trust, IMO, if those remaining corps now become the real nails in the Cadets/Hop coffin by pledging to never again let such hubris by one or two beguile others into a coup mentality.
DCI's "deep pockets"
DCI has $12mm in the bank? Seriously? I haven't paid much attention in recent years but, back when I was active pre-2021, I don't remember accounting for a single year where DCI has a 5-digit balance in the bank. In fact, their ultimate stated goal for years was to build a $500m cushion in their budget; to the best of my memory, they never attained that goal. So, where'd this cash come from? Ahh... Covid Cash. I remember the talk at the time: DCI needed funds to keep a tour operation going even though there were no shows to pay in to keep it going. Huh? So, DCI needed to sustain itself when it had no job to do for two, frightful summers? So they took gratuitous tax dollars, got it. So many thieves, IMO. The corps created DCI to promote shows so, if the corps couldn't perform shows, what was DCI needed to do? I understand paying a staff or two to maintain relationships, etc was important but, otherwise, it should have been shut down and stripped to the bones, 50th anniversary or not. This kind of financial foolishness is exactly of the type that has the activity as a whole but a few coffin nails away from demise. I can kind-of justify the corps themselves taking free taxpayer stimulus (kind of: no tour = few expenses) but I've felt from first hearing it that DCI was gaming the Covid system to the detriment of taxpayers and it smelled as bad as socks at the end of the season.
The irony is that by taking the money and finally getting their "cushion" (about one year's tour expenses) DCI has made themselves a target in a deep-pockets lawsuit looking to reimburse attorneys for expenses (and hoped-for payday) if not for restitution to the actual victims. Karma, truly. It makes me chuckle that their cushion could be so short-lived and the remaining corps will be right back in the same position of having to fund a tour company to organize their shows even while they claim every dollar is needed to design, write, teach, and perform them. Their reliance on "someone else" accomplishing the cushion goal might well leave them in exactly the same position of having no cushion at all in DCI.
Again, on bended knee, they should swear an oath to the Jacobs-idol to never again let the ramblings of a known lunatic drive their decisions or egos. It never ends well.
Insurance to Cover
Reem has made the apt point twice now and it can't be skipped (because, I'll say it: if Jeff and a few others spotted it, you know the sharp insurance company attorneys will, too): the event at the center of THIS case happened at a non-sanctioned, non-sponsored event where a group of like-minded corps participants gathered for fun. It wasn't a "company event", reportedly. Liability insurance covers the insured's events, not casual gatherings where attendance was optional and spontaneous. Estoppel laws would prevent overlapping liability and, obviously, insuring against the antics of 128 high-school aged knuckleheads while on official corps business is hard (and expensive) enough. I've watched enough insurance scam YT videos to think that, in all likelihood, the corps' liability insurance didn't apply and, instead, it's the accused's personal liability insurance (if any) that would protect an accused while not on "company business", not the coverage provided to the company for when he/she was on company business.
So, I see the Wiley-Coyote-eyed attorneys focused in on DCI's bank balance and smelling blood. I won't be at all surprised to see the next marching shoe to drop being DCI's "cushion" significantly eaten up by defense and settlement costs.
In a double irony way, if I'm right and, if DCI survives the attack, it will be left penniless, wholly dependent on the gate revenue produced by the remaining corps performing shows with no financial cushion against calamity. IOW, exactly as it's been for mostly every year of DCI's existence prior to the pandemic pennies from heaven. It will again be left up to the leadership of performing corps to craft the new DCI into the image it needs and wants to produce a tour.
Let's hope they keep the G7 debacle, and my hoped-for humility, front and center of their minds as they do.
Lastly, to Cadets2000, your disgust and exasperation at the whole is just like that which drove me away from active participation a few years ago. Let it happen. It's OK to walk away and even fashionable now to proactively stop buying products from companies whose actions turn your stomach. As a very good friend of mine said as I was headed out the door, "There are other things" that will fill the hole left by finally calling the spade and walking away. You'll broaden by the action more than the feeling of the loss of something precious. I, and many others, can attest to it. And, at the same time, don't cancel your DCP account but, instead, reduce your drum corps habit down to a few times a year to check in and see if anything has changed (in drum corps if not in DCP). One never knows: three-peats happen, (We Are) The Future wins and, sometimes, Angels defeat the Demons after the bloody battle. It's worth checking in now and then.
for clarification only one season without shows happened. 21 was a short tour plus Indy and no super regionals, but there were shows and money did come in for 2021
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30 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:
I see comparisons to a tragic Shakespearean figure or a Greek tragedy to be glamorizing. Maybe that’s just me. I see a snake oil salesman who finally got caught.
i dont see anyone giving him a pass though.
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26 minutes ago, kdaddy said:
A DCP/RAMD user criticized GH way back in 2002 for adding the "under god" portion in the show. We all saw what it was - a ploy to get fans to cheer after the ballad. But the user took it a step further, saying that "GH does not believe in god, he's a <X>." I can't remember what the X was, but it might have been one of the self religions like Landmark.
And I assume the Landmark teachings are the basis for the 2007 show.
This is straying off the topic of Cadets + Bankruptcy, but I guess it's more evidence of the bizarre personality that went of the rails in so many ways.
so Landmark taught you that magical things happened when you touched your trumpet?
after the hash marks were repainted of course
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23 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:
Let’s not over glamorize Hopkins. He ran a summer marching band. Brought in top talent who designed championship shows for him. Drove them away. Tanked the band. Assaulted girls and was convicted. Now he sets up tee times for you. A dickish loser with a psychopathic personality. Not worth anybody’s time of day.
i dont see any glamorizing anything. i see a lot of brutal honesty pointing out well documented flaws that led to legal action
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4 hours ago, Marched4years said:
GH made himself the company and the Cadets. He blurred those lines.
true. but again dinner and drinks after hours isn't company time unless its designated as an official company function/meeting
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1 hour ago, BigW said:
There was some serious pushback and struggles on those issues, for those not familiar. It's even beyond the music versus visual tussle when it comes to the inspections. I know the one story told to me from one of the posters on this thread about the AL people trying to deduct over haircuts worn by guys on currently active service in the Army- if their hair length was passing muster by the actual army... what's the beef? Seen other posters who went through it feeling the deductions were rather arbitrary and smacked of favoritism.
Then you had the issue with the rules where all music had to be performed within a specific range of beats per minute or get penalized. The problem was that a lot of the arrangers wanted to actually try and create more musical performances. It's no wonder that the Senior/All-Age community split from the Legion, and that the Combine/DCI split from the VFW. I know there were other more serious issues at hand but things like that pushed the split.
Even in the 50s and 60s, people were trying to expand musical boundaries and conventions in the activity. Whether some folks like it or not, it's been an institutional progression because of that ethos.
I've been meaning to bring this up as well, and Jeff might have answers and clarification:
IIRC when DCI released the new placemats pre-covid, they had them up for public viewing, and I remember the one very strong implication on those placemats was that innovation was to be rewarded as a priority. If someone was pushing the envelope, coming up with new ideas, and it was good material, it was to be rewarded higher than someone less innovative. If the judge is being asked to do that- there you go.
i don't remember that being an emphasis at all.
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4 hours ago, gak27 said:
Per the dci.org writeup for their "Spotlight of the Week" feature for this show:
"Originally, word among drum corps fans was the rest of the show was going to be Bernstein's "Prelude, Fugue and Riffs." However, that piece was put on hold until the corps' 1991 show and was replaced with "Christopher Street" from Bernstein's score to the musical, "Wonderful Town," the 1953 Broadway production that won five Tony Awards."
It was a definite pivot from the first 2/3...
1991 needs more love for the bookends. not so much the 10 minute ballad
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On 4/3/2024 at 2:01 PM, Tim K said:
My sentimental favorite is 1980. I loved that show and it was fun. I also saw it early on and would never have predicted Garfield would have made finals that year.
Runner up sentimental favorite 2021 “Shall Always Be.”
1984 “West Side Story” is one of my favorite shows of all time.
2013 “Side by Side” was well done.
2022 “12.25” gave us a bit of Christmas in July.
i was at the show where Boston beat them for the last time until 2017
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On 4/3/2024 at 1:27 PM, Kopeck said:
Love me some Rocky Point Holiday and West Side Story was one of the best shows I have ever seen.
on a hot Sunday afternoon at Cedar Cliff HS in July 83, the Cadets changed everything i thought i knew about drum corps. a lot of the crowd were stunned, not fully understanding what they were seeing, but knowing it was good. i saw it as the way things were going to go.
a year later, same stadium, WSS. it cemented everything i thought the year before. after the year, getting the VHS of 82, i saw where it all started. and 87 was the icing on the cake.
if 89 had had the same ending for at least half the year, man they could have done damage
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19 minutes ago, Slingerland said:
It wasn't at YEA. The Board was dysfunctional (non-functional, more accurately), and despite plenty of warning signs that there were issues with their CEO, they made no effort to exercise their responsibilities as Board members. At a time when every other corps in the early teens was implementing member-safety protocols, YEA ignored that movement, and the amount of financial chicanery going on in their back offices was legendary in the activity.
If there's an upside, it's that almost every other corps has seen how bad it can be when one megalomaniac is allowed to become the face of the organization, and have modified their approaches to being more proactively responsible about business operations and more transparent with their stakeholders.
in fact, before the 18 scandal broke, the women came to the board who appointed an investigator who was not neutral in any way. and when that was whitewashed, boom the Philly Inquirer story came to be
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24 minutes ago, 2000Cadet said:
Well, this is what happens when you put your hands on people you're not supposed to. Though I'm extremely sad about this outcome, I'm more ANGRY at the adults who committed these crimes and put the corps in this position. The HATE I have in my heart toward those people is beyond any measurable order of magnitude. No amount of innovation, influence on the activity or World Championships excuses putting your hands or other body parts on CHILDREN or adults who do not consent.
Let this be a lesson for STUPID adults who consider committing these types of crimes. I hope you're punished to the fullest extent of the law.
This will probably be my last post on this site as I really see no more motivation to be here. I'm grateful for the way Cadets have changed my life, as well as the lifelong friends I've made from marching there. But the anger I have in my heart right now is taking over the excitement of participating in any type of drum corps discussion or watching drum corps again.
i hope you change your mind. i was very angry and bitter when my corps went down...and man if any of that stuff ever made it to court, ohhh boy. but i realized in time i loved drum corps beyond just my little Westshoremen bubble.
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1 hour ago, Icer said:
The professional CEO does not direct the board in any organization that I know. The board exists to support the management and provide oversight. This is a model that exists with both for-profit (non-public) and non-profit. The more dominant the CEO, the less the board does. This is reality. There is another model, which is a board-managed organization, and a lot of small non-profits use this approach.
So this idea that the CEO says jump and the board says how high is a misnomer. The CEO says what they want, presents a budget and an operational plan, and the board asks questions. At the end of the day, the board either supports the CEO or replaces them. Because the CEO of Yea! was also the corps director, the fan base, which was exclusively focused on the creative product, looked at him as the coach of a sports team. Team isn’t winning, replace the coach. But the organization was much larger, with 3 operating units, and the situation is not so simple.
i suggest you read the Glass Door reviews. they lay it out well, as well as the myriad other places it's been documented by those who were there.
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8 hours ago, Marched4years said:
I know - I worked there. The Glass Door reviews are legit.
not sure how the law works regarding ‘not a corps function’.
example: everyone from the office goes out to the bar after work for dinner and drinks. The ceo assaults you in the parking lot. Is it ‘not a work’ function? I don’t know the line and I guess that’s for the courts to decide.
well thing there as i understand it is the CEO is guilty, not the company.
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10 hours ago, Chief Guns said:
I do believe BD fatigue is a factor. We have had people on this forum admit it. People in general don't like dynasties........unless it's the corps/team/athlete you root for.
However BD earned those championships. Just like PR, Cadets, Crown, Bloo and SCV earned their titles over the last 15 years.
funny though the years where BD had the most hatred were the first years in the recent dominance.....09, 10, and 12. yeah 15 and 19 were tight, but the hatred wasn't at the level of those 3 years
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11 hours ago, ContraFart said:
I like those who recognize evil when the see it lol.
the sky is Carolina Blue for a reason
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11 hours ago, Terri Schehr said:
I’m sure there were people who were tired of Michael and the Bulls. Not me, of course.
hell people are tired of Dallas and they haven't won #### since 1996!
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30 minutes ago, Marched4years said:
This is 100% accurate. There was no oversight from the board, not just when it came to show design, but for the organization as a whole. How is a woman supposed to feel safe reporting sexual misconduct when emotional abuse in broad daylight was accepted and met with ‘well that’s just GH’. I have zero faith that if it was brought to their direct attention, they would have done anything other than ignore and sweep under the rug. If a victim is told ‘I have to stop doing this, I’m already in trouble with the board’ I’m betting they were not willing to make changes. There was a lawsuit filed, that was later withdrawn because the victim didn’t want to hurt the corps. The board did nothing, which in turn allowed other women to be sexually assaulted.
For the ‘it happened 40 years ago’ crowd, the culture that allows this to happen then still existed well in to 2009 (the last I had direct contact with the organization) and maybe beyond.
Is it ‘fair’ to alumni, fans, future members etc, well no, but life isn’t fair. The years of improper management caused this outcome, not the victim seeking justice. You can’t expect to allow this type of abuse and poor management for this long and never pay a price. This happens to be the price. It’s not the same for every group, but these are the cards the cadets were dealt. The victim is well within the law to pursue this type of justice, if you don’t understand why she would want this, be thankful that you or someone you love wasn’t hurt to the degree that they feel they need to pursue this path.
It seems a lot of fans forget this is a youth activity with large power differences in unusual situations. The protection of the performers should be of utmost importance, even if that means it comes before performance objectives.
the only thing i could see myself arguing was it happened at a non corps organized function. yes it was people tied to the corps, but it wasnt at a camp, on tour, an organized gathering or anything like that. there to me the line on the corps liability is a little fuzzy. Sure they should have dismissed the individual immediately, even in the days of 40 years where the best medicine was to look the other way and tell somone to go elsewhere quietly, so maybe the corps could be digned some for not dismissing the perpetrator right away, but it isn't like the Spirit situation where it happened on tour.
But given the culture that lasted way too long...again, read the Glass Door reviews on YEA
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49 minutes ago, MusicManNJ said:
Once the settlement discussion ended, so did the future of the corps. There was a donor who was going to pay the settlement. The plaintiff's lawyers made it clear they would pursue this to trial and would enjoin any perceived successor organization. The only thing left to do was the orderly unwinding of the organization and ensuring staff was paid, refunds for the 2024 audition season were made, purchased corps jackets delivered, and the passage of time to avoid the 90-day clawback period. Assets only started to be sold when the settlement discussions ended and it was clear bankruptcy was the only option.
So the corps wasn’t in the hole in August? I remember seeing in many places about transportation issues and employees being let go long before the inactive announcement was made.
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2 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:
Feel free to educate him. If you listen to Gary he’s why they moved to Erie where he killed the Thunderbirds
Oh he is on the board. Maybe he’s right. Except for victim shaming
Cadets and bankruptcy
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted
funny. i asked a board member to confirm the rumors of the sell off....which were rampant...after said board member came on here and invited questions. and they refused to answer my questions unless i gave up where i got the info from.
great business practice there. moral and financial bankruptcy