left... left... left, right, left

listen to this! talking heads songs as interpreted by the university of arizona marching band.

this gets me right there.

by now you know that i adore talking heads. what you might not know is that i also spent a number of years immersed in marching band, both in high school and in college. those are years that i wouldn't trade for anything.

marching band is hard work. thankless work, too, at times. (halftime routines are generally ignored as drunk spectators make for concession stands so they can get even more drunk.) band members always looked more forward to competitions than football games, as everyone at those events wanted to see the band, and always recognized the skill it required.

but it wasn't the performances i enjoyed as much as the rehearsals. for some reason i absolutely thrived on the tedium of learning the drills... "trombones, take eight counts to move to three steps inside the 30 yard line; clarinets, take 8 counts and mark time in place. now run it. again. good. again." it could take a full day to learn the steps to one song, then two more days to perfect it, making sure we all lifted our feet to the same height and held our instruments at the same angle.

it was repetitve, exhausting and tedious. yet for some reason i loved it. it was totally extracurricular (i don't think anyone earned any academic credits for it) and hogged up a lot of time. it was physically draining, too. wearing those heavy canvas uniforms while hauling ass down a football field is difficult enough, but doing so while actually playing --and playing well-- requires an immense amount of physical control. but the experience was always challenging and i always considered my fellow band members to be among my closest friends. marching band was, in a word, invigorating.

i can still get a taste of the band from time to time. sometimes i hear the duke marching band practicing on the field near WXDU. i can feel those drum cadences, close my eyes, and remember wiggling my uniformed butt to those beats. and whenever i stumble across the drum corps competition on PBS i stop and watch, slack-jawed. those groups have perfected the art of marching. everything is tight, tight, tight and they put on a fantastic show.

man, talking about this makes me wish there was an amateur local marching band i could participate in. i would probably give up my spot in the durham symphony to do it.