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Me wearing my ridiculously spangled marching uniform,
and playing my saxophone. There's weed in the bell.
you just cant see it. |
One of the best memories I have of high school is band camp. Which I know makes me sound like a complete and total dork, but I'm not. I am not a penis. In face, at my high school, band was cool. We had cheerleaders, and football players, and all kinds of other people in our school band. I mean I was the captain of the dance team, and I tore it up on the marching field. Besides the fact that our school band was totally kick ass, why wouldn't you want to sign up for the opportunity to leave school early to beat a drum and go crazy on the band bus?
I was in high school band since the eighth grade. Yep, I was that bad ass of a musician. I started out as second chair saxophone, and I hated not being the center of attention, so naturally, I worked my ass off, and be freshman year, I beat out the upperclassmen for first chair. Which meant I got to play some pretty epic music, and tell the seniors what to do. Because in music, seniority is based on experience and skill, not age. Well beside the face that being in band was just epic in itself, no other school program could compare to band camp.
While the athletes were sweating their asses off (figuratively)doing two-a-day practices, we got to sit inside in the air-conditioning, play awesome music, and eat rainbow cupcakes. Now band camp wasn't a total piece of cake. We did have to learn the choreography for field shows which required us to stand at attention on a football field in the blazing sun whilst trying to decipher diagrams mapping the formations we were supposed to create, and silently mouth "What the fuck" behind our instruments. In the end, though it was totally worth it because our field shows were always bomb.
Well, at least most of them were. But in our defense, the music teacher was new, and the last teacher hadn't done shit, so pretty much, we were starting from scratch. In our first show, we played the Hey song minus one trumpet player because I had choked him out for making fun of me prior to the show. (I was a troubled little eighth grader). Anyway, it turns out you don't win competitions playing the Hey song without a first chair trumpeter. Anyway we were so dejected after that miserable season, that we worked our tushes off, and kicked ass the next season. Our band teacher Mr. Hercules (that's his real name, no lie) left to complete his music degree. So my freshman year, we had a director with much less experience. Mrs. Coon was still a bad ass when it came to marching band, and the band season with her was totally awesome. She had an epic sense of humor, and let us play songs like Jump on It, and Louie Louie in parades. Also she introduced color guard to our band. So when we marched in shows and parades, we had a bunch of girls in sparkly outfits dancing to our music. Which made our band awesomer (is that a word? Awesomer? Apparently not according to to SpellCheck) because we had
sparkles. I remember the songs we played. We played
Oye Como Va,
All That Jazz,
Hey Big Spender and
Maria from
Westside Story. We still didn't win anything until my senior year though.
But enough about random songs and shit. I know all you people are waiting to hear the dirt about band camp. Well to be honest, there isn't much dirt that happened at band camp since band camp was on school property, and under the watchful eye of the cameras on campus. The REAL crazy stuff happened on the band bus. On the way to and from competitions. I watched my friend lose her virginity on the band bus. I mean literally,
watched them get it on. Because they were right in the seat directly across the aisle from me, and my friend had one of her legs in my lap. I smoked a bong for the first time on the band bus. I watched a clarinet player lick a cat butt on the band bus, and saw a percussionist get his penis stuck in a sousaphone. So pretty much, if something crazy was going to happen at all, it was going to happen on the band bus.
The truly awesome thing about being in band is that band season lasted all year long. In the fall we had marching band. In the spring, we had concert band. So yeah it was Pretty Fucking Awesome, Concert Band was a different matter all together. We would go to competitions at Hannibal LaGrange University, and our director would leave to go speak with the judges, leaving us surrounded by the super hot members of other high school bands, and drop-dead-sexy college kids. Which as you can probably guess, never ended well. You didn't have to look very far to see music students and college kids either hooking up, or smoking weed out of their instruments. I'm sure our instructor knew what was going on, but as long as we weren't getting pregnant, getting too high to play music, or otherwise embarrassing our school, he probably couldn't care less. Pretty much, being in band allowed you to get stoned at school functions. Personally, I was the one musician in the practice room actually practicing. I loved the music we played, and when I wasn't playing(or smoking out of) my saxophone, I was playing the piano, composing songs, and practicing competition pieces. I love music, and so almost every opportunity I got, I would practice, and try to make myself better.
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Me playing jazz piano at a concert.
I know. My hair looks terrible. |
I guess its paid off, because not to toot my own horn, but I am on of the best pianists I know. I play from the soul.
And that just got hella cheesy. But oh well. I like cheese. Especially string cheese, because it's the sexiest of all the cheeses. It's like you get to undress it. Seriously, the person who invented string cheese is a genius.
Anyway, back off the weird little tangent I just went on, I love music. Correction, I love good music, Even more specifically, I love making good music.
My senior year of band was by far the most epic. We finally won some awards, and our marching season was kick ass. I mean we were the only band that broke it down in the marching field. Literally, our field show had dance moves choreographed my yours truly (with a little help from our director of course). We were so damn boss. And we went crazy on the band bus afterward. I'd go into detail, but as you all know, what happens on the band bus stays on the band bus.
Ok you're probably sitting there going, really? That was it? She entitles this post 'What Happens on the Band Bus..." and then proceeds to tell us everything but what happens on the band bus. Dafuq?
Well to tell you the truth, what happens on the band bus really does stay on the band bus. But since I love y'all, I'm gonna let you in on some of the things that took place on the band bus.
1. We did homework.
I can literally feel some of you rolling your eyes already, but this was high school y'all. We had homework.
2. We played music.
More eye rolling. Stop it.Your eyeballs are going to fall out of your head. It was a
Band bus. We practiced our music.
3. We stripped down to our underwear.
I can practically hear your dirty little minds turning. You perverts. We wore marching uniforms, and they were extremely uncomfortable. So naturally we waited until the last possible minute to change into them. Which happened to be on the band bus. Believe me, it was a lot less sexy than it sounds.
4.We drank
Soda! We were all underage and even though we did smoke weed on the band bus, we weren't dumb enough to try to compete in field shows drunk.
5. We smoked weed.
In moderation, and of course never before a performance. We needed to be at the top of our game. After the field shows, though we got baked as Fuck. Once it was dark. And the bus already smelled like musky sweaty wool marching uniforms. With the windows down, you couldn't smell a thing. Though I suspect our teacher knew what was going on.
6. We got laid. Well some of us did. I didn't. But as I already mentioned earlier, hookups were fairly common in band. Not to mention all the kinky things you could do with the instruments. Things I've never done personally, but as the weed seat and the fuck seat were directly across from each other in the back of the bus, yeah, I saw a lot of disturbing things being done with all kinds of instruments.
And No. I'm not going into detail. Use your imagination.
7. We sang songs.
A lot of the band members were part of the school choir, and vice versa. So a lot of random harmonic singing broke out on the band bus.
8. We twerked.
Well, at least I did. Because I like to twerk. Ok, pretty much, I was the only person who twerked on the band bus. But twerking is epic. And I twerk. Therefore I am epic
9. We slept together.
Not like that you nasty little people! Marching in field shows is exhausting. Seriously. You try blowing a horn whilst running all over a football field while marching in step. It will wear you out. So on the way home after we got our buzz on, or had our orgasms or whatever, we usually ended up passed out asleep.
10. We watched a trombone player urinate out the window while we were on the highway.
It was very disturbing. That is all I wish to say about it.
11. We also watched a nymphomaniac from another band give a flute a blowjob.
Also very disturbing.
12. We overwhelmed McDonald's employees.
A band runs on its stomach. We could literally see the dread on the faces of the McDonald's employees when our bus full of loud teenagers holding metal objects pulled into the parking lot. I could almost swear they drew straws to see who would have to man the cash registers. What can I say? We were terrifying.
13. We mixed chemicals.
No we weren't making bombs, but somebody brought their Advanced Chemistry 'homework'along, and was mixing Hydrochloric acid, and a bunch of other chemicals in the backseat. Of course it exploded. And melted part of a snare drum before we could figure out what the smell was. I guess we were lucky it wasn't ammonia and bleach or we all would have asphyxiated and died. Also we gave a band member a neon purple hair dye job with bottled water and a Ziploc bag to rinse the dye out with. We stuck her head out the window to dry it, and surprisingly it turned out pretty good,
14. We cooked.
The same student with the Hydrochloric Acid brought a portable Bunsen burner with him, and after a quick trip to Walmart for a pot and some ingredients, we all chipped in and made shrimp gumbo in the bus. It smelled pretty good until the bus hit a bump, and the burner slipped and burnt a hole in the seat. The gumbo tasted pretty good though.
15. We gave breast exams.
One clarinet player was convinced she had breast cancer. We all told her she was a hypochondriac, but she told us she was positive she felt a lump. So we being the good friends we are pulled up the directions for a mammogram on somebodies iPad, stripped her naked from the waist up, laid her down across a seat, and proceeded to give her a breast examination. (It wasn't as weird as it sounds. We'd all pretty much seen each other naked, and more than half the band was gay).
Anyway it turns out the lump was just her nipple. Her boobs were health as a horse. Well as healthy as a healthy as a healthy horse anyway. It would have sucked if she was as healthy as a sick horse. That would have just been bad.
Pretty much the band bus is a place where the weirdest, strangest, funniest, nastiest, craziest things happened. And every one is okay with it. Because it's the Band Bus.
What can I say?
C'est La Vie.
Viva La Vida.
And Fuck the System.
Peace.
Signed hot_tunes♪♫
