24. December 2010 by admin.

And so, with the flourish of a pen, the President eliminated one of the major barriers to equality for gay men and women: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  It’s funny to hear how the right wing fanatics are beating the airwaves with claims that the military will collapse, that we’ll have to reinstitute the draft and that this decision will destroy our ability to rule the world..er..maintain our safety in these troubled times.  Please.  First, by saying these things, you make the United States sound like a weak nation.  How is it that other countries can integrate their militaries but the United States cannot?  I mean, if the British can do it why can’t its former colony?  Are we less than them?  That’s what they will have you believe.

And then there are the claims that suddenly, because they now can come out, gays will be showering with their straight counterparts in the military and sexually assaulting them.  Since there have been gays in the military since there has been a military, I seriously doubt anything will change.  In fact, it may help to alleviate the sexuasl issues that have plagued the military of late, perpetrated, I might add, by straight men against straight women.  The assault cases against cadets in the Air Force academy were not gay.  In fact, if you look at the statistics, gay men and women tend not to be the problem, straight men are the problem.  I don’t hear any call for “outlawing” them.  Ah well.

And then there are the concerns that this is just the first step toward giving gays and lesbians full equality!  Oh, the horror of it!  Soon we’ll have gay marriage and then you’ll be able to marry animals and children will have to grow up knowing there are gay people in the world.  Um…ok.  Why are these people so concerned with me?  Don’t they have their own lives to live?  Don’t they have their own marriages to destroy?  I mean, if marriage is such a sacred institution, then why is divorce allowed?  And why do 50% of marriages fail?  I would suggest that if these people are so afraid of the lives that others live that they begin with their own lives first.  He who is without sin, first stone, ect.  When your house is in order, then you can come and check out mine.  You’ll find it’s cleaner, more organized, and fabulously stylish.  Please!

So, here’s my proposed timeline:  In 2011 we will see the fall of Proposition 8 in California.  Civil Unions will begin the erosion of discrimination against gay marriage which will culminate in the codification of civil marriage sometime in 2013 or so, allowing religious marriage to supplement, but not control, the institution of marriage.  Sounds like a dream but then, the repeal of DADT was once thought to be a fantasy as well.  Here’s to our dreams coming true in our lifetimes!

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9. April 2010 by admin.

So, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about his passing but one of my college band directors died this week.  He was an interesting man and he certainly rubbed me the wrong way.  You see, he took the organization and did what most of us would do when confronted with an organization that had been in existence for many years and that now “belonged” to him: he changed everything.

Now I say this with many more years of experience behind me, not as the naïve college student of a time when everything was happening.  I’ve been in his position and I know what he went through as he came on board as the new Director of Music for the marching band.  And I still disagree with what he did, but now I know why I disagree with it.

I thought he was a tin-horn little dictator, we called him napoleon behind his back both for his size and his temper.  His autocratic manner notwithstanding, he came in to make the band over in his own image and it has suffered as a result.  I know there are many who loved him and will have nothing but good things to say about him and his work, but the upheaval he created and the results of my trying to get him to reconsider remain vivid, even today.

We were a force, an organization like no other in the nation.  While there are many college marching bands, even a few with reputations for having fun while performing, there was only one Showband.  The Marching Husky Showband had a swagger and an attitude that could not be copied.  Our logo was a mustachioed character under an aussie hat and we embodied that in all we did.  We were a travelling band too, something that was not very common.  My freshman year we played in a Mardi Gras parade or two and the tales we tell of those days still bring a smile to my face.

We were a party band too, with something happening almost every weekend.  The parades were common as were the non-college events we were asked to play for.  I can remember playing for the Bulls when Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were the stars.  We did international volleyball when the US played Cuba at DePaul University.  And I was on the field when NIU lost to Northwestern breaking the longest college football losing streak to date.

You knew that when you joined the band, you immediately had 200 friends, people who cared about you and with whom you were going to be spending a great deal of time.  Rehearsals began the week before school did with a band camp that tested many players.  It was a drum corps style show with flourishes and complex routines that seldom, if ever, ended with us in a formation that depicted our college logo.  But it was always cool!

And then came my junior year.  We had just played for a “national” audience at the Freedom Bowl where our football team lost to Fresno State.  Our director had decided it was time for a change and the Bowl game was his chance to finish on a high note.  And so we were without a director when the fall season came around.  We, that is the students, had a chance to “audition” a few directors but I don’t know if anything we did made a difference.  The result was that our new director took over in the early portion of the fall season.

The first thing he did was change the name of the organization.  “What is a Showband, anyway?” he asked one day when another musician and I were meeting with him about the changes.  I guess you had to be a part of it to understand what it meant.  And he certainly was too common for that.  And so we lost our identity and became the Husky Marching Band.  Just another marching band with a mascot and uniforms that looked like they belonged to the 1960’s.  I tried, to no avail, to get him to understand the history he was removing but he needed to make the band over in his own image, to make it his completely, and any vestiges of the former organization would need to be eliminated for that to work.

And so my friend and I met with him on three occasions, gathered signatures from a good number of the band members in favor of retaining the name, and tried to reclaim a little bit of what we saw we were losing.  Nothing worked.  We went from unique to common.  Even the music went from original (we had music majors transcribing some cool music specifically for us!) to stuff anyone could get out of the marching music catalog.  Whatever was “hot” that year was good enough for him.  Don’t even think of playing the Budweiser theme or the Stripper during a football game.  No, we lost a significant chunk of our musical history when he took over.

And then I noticed that my role in the band was changing.  I had been a second trumpet most of my college career.  We had our first trumpet prima donnas, the squealers and screechers who could hit the high notes much better than I, and I was content to sit in the second row and support them.  And there were still times when the second trumpets had their solos and their chances to shine.  At least in my first two years.  But apparently I had upset the status quo and so, when I came back for the spring semester and the pep band season, I found that I was handed third trumpet music.  My senior year I was relegated back to fourth trumpet.  And yet my talent had not changed, nor had the number of trumpets or the talent being distributed.  My friend was right there with me.  We were being punished, it seemed.

But I didn’t care what I was playing, there was still joy and pleasure to be gained regardless of what part they handed us.  And we had fun, more fun than we were supposed to, no doubt.  I remember his nasty glances at us when we laughed during a football game at some joke we had made, or when things were pushed a little further toward being over the top than he liked.  Or we would start one of the old songs and he would angrily look around for the player.  Ah yes, we did not let him keep us down, there was no way we were not going to enjoy being in the band, despite his best efforts.

I learned a lot from him.  Mostly how not to be.  I understand the need to make an organization your own and to put your stamp on things, but I also know that you don’t do it the way he did.  You cannot come into an organization and change everything because you think you know how things should be.  That is the sign of a petty leader.  It validates our naming him Little Napoleon.  Because he had to have it his way without regard to the feelings of the people who had been there before him. 

When I came into an organization as the new leader, I made sure to study things before making any changes.  And I learned that you don’t have to substantially change an organization to either make it your own or to have it be your own achievement.  In fact, I learned that it’s not what you do with an organization or the successes you have as a leader or manager.  No, the true measure of a successful manager and leader is in the caliber of people you elevate to your level and beyond.  I know that I am a successful person because I have people who used to work for me who have gone on to their own successes.  Not because I made them do something but because I gave them the chance to grow and shine on their own.  My job has been and always will be to help my staff be successful in their positions.

I also know better than to meddle with success.  The Showband was a true success and a singular honor to be a member of.  There was little honor or pride for me in being in the marching band.  As with my life, I have helped others to be successful not by changing what works or turning something rather unique into something ordinary.  No, I relish the special and have helped to enhance and nurture unique organizations whenever I could.  Sure, I’ve left my mark, but not by changing them.  No, I’ve helped by keeping them unique.

So, I guess I do have to give my thanks to my old band director.  He was able to accomplish something special in me by being the wrong kind of person at the right time.  He was a disappointment and a lesson for a young man learning about life in college.  It is sad that he had to be that kind of person but I am thankful that he helped shape me.  I hope to be the kind of man he wasn’t.

I don’t know what happened with the band after I graduated, I’ve seen some pictures and know that they’ve changed directors a few more times.  But that unique spark is gone and while it will always be a wonderful memory for me, I am sad that others who followed won’t be able to experience it for themselves.

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