9.28.2009
A little clarity
9.24.2009
Scripts for San Jose State
SJSU PREGAME: Welcome, Freshmen!
and now, back from a summer of keeping vigil at Neverland Ranch, it's TOTOTTILSJUMB...
1. Internet Piracy
Well Freshman, as Stanford slashes budgets to keep up with the dying economy, the school's been making changes, and we're here this evening to help guide you through them.
Song: Shipping up to Boston
Formation: Pirate face w/ eyepatch
Video Board: "Piracy was more fun the old fashioned way!"
2. $$Vaden$$
Your RA has surely recommended Vaden Student Health Services for all for your "private" health needs. Most students visit Vaden once a quarter for their allotment of a dozen free Trojans, watch out! if you're Huskie sometimes they break! But, budget cuts have forced Vaden to levy a $167 fee on all undergrads, which means those dozen free hook-ups will now cost you more than 10 bucks a pop. You know, it's a lot cheaper to be just friends.
Song:
Formation: PAY->PLAY
Video Board: "It's cheaper to be just friends!"
3. Pest Control
Stanford's squirrel population has driven acorn reserves dangerously low; and budget cuts have left us unable to protect our precious nuts. Therefore, the freshman IHUM program has announced that all freshmen with names A-M are now assigned to IHUM 43a: Introduction to Pest Control. Slingshots are available in the bookstore; show up to your first section with a squirrel in hand. As a bonus, you can sell your squirrel meat to Stern Dining!
Song:
Formation: Slingshot, shoots tubas, possibly also shoot t-shirts into the stands
Video Board: "IHUM 43a: Intro to Pest Control"
4. SLAC
Stanford and the Department of Energy have always had a working relationship with SLAC: the Stanford Linear Accelerator, unfortunately neither the government nor the university can afford to maintain the two miles of pipeline needed to accelerate experimental particles. So now Freshman physics students will report to directly to SLAC and earn valuable extra credit holding atoms and running into each other at great speeds.
Song:
Formation: Box, bandies holding atoms run into one another
Video Board: focus on colliding bandies
Outro: Breaking news, a new round of of budget slashing has cut ALL funding from student activities groups. Guess you'll just have to join the Band, Monday nights, 7 PM, at the Band shak, see you there! YBWTOTOTTILSJUMB
And here was our halftime:
Mark: Aaaaand now back from...
Kanye: Yo, Mark, I'm really happy for you, I'ma let you finish but Beyonce had one of the best halftimes shows of all time! One of the best halftimes shows of all time!
Mark: Shut up, Kanye, it's TOTOTTILSJUMB!
To deal with the many problems facing America today, we're going to look to historical precedents for solutions.
VIDEO BOARD, throughout show: "Warning: This show may contain satire."
1. The Great Wall
First up: illegal immigration! Looking to history, we realized that China's Ming Dynasty built the Great Wall to keep the marauding Mongolians at bay. Clearly, we too can just build a wall to keep invaders out. Wait… what’s that? The Mongolians conquered China anyway? I guess we should go back to the drawing boards.
Song:
Formation: Wall, people (wearing blue and gold?) running across the wall
2. King Solomon
Discussions surrounding Justice Sotomayor's appointment revolved around judicial impartiality. Arguments in the confirmation hearings that emotions should not be able to swing a Supreme Court decision. A valid sentiment, which dates back to the time of Biblical King Solomon, who, when presented with a maternity suit, simply decided to hack the neonate in twain. Oh… he didn’t actually hack a neonate in twain? Well, let’s just move on…
Song:
Formation: Stick figure splits in half
3. Prohibition
Next up, the War on Drugs. Drugs bring the worst out of us, tearing families apart and destroying our society. We can think of another substance that leads to this moral decay: alcohol. We find guidance in our own past in the Prohibition, totally banning all alcohol to fight the problems from the source. Oh, is that wrong as well? It led to unparalleled crime and rampant corruption? Well, maybe it’ll work out better this time…
Song: Drunken Lullabies
Formation: Bottle-> Syringe
Video Board: "This is your brain on drugs." (Focus on enthusiastic bandie)
4. Socialized Medicine
With the growing controversy surrounding health care, the nation has never been more divided. Some support a single payer system while others believe the government should just stay away from medicine. In looking for a historical precedent we realized France and Britain already tried the socialized option, and since then it's been nothing but forced euthanasia and brillo-pad sponge baths! What's that? Their life expectancies rank considerably better than ours, and they pay less? Hmmm... maybe we'll have to think about this some more...
Song:
Formation: Cross->Heart
5. Caste System
Tired of seeing people forced to live in the streets? Well so are we! Fortunately, ancient civilizations solved this problem thousands of years ago. All we have to do to cure our empathy is adopt a caste system! Feel bad for the man lying in the street corner? Well you shouldn’t, his previous life was one of sin and he finally got what’s coming to him. We don’t need social services to help them; they should find nirvana themselves.
Song:
Formation: HOBO->HAHA
Awesome possum.
Midweek recap
Saturday was Stanford's home opener (a resounding victory for the Cardinal against San Jose State) and coincidentally was also the Band's first football game of the year, halftime shows and all. Look for the scripts.
Monday was Frosh Rehearsal and over 200 people were there. That's right, the Band was ten score strong on Monday. We can only hope it will stay that way, to properly train a full army of rock for when we trek to Oregon State in October.
Look for more updates as football games and field rehearsals come and go.
9.21.2009
Pahk the cah at Hahvahd squay-ah
7.21.2009
2recaps1post
Anyway, on Sunday, the Band sauntered on up to the City to play for/entertain/provide a distraction to/clog up the AIDS Walk in Golden Gate Park. It was super serious but also super awesome.
Highlights included:
- Serenading passersby with a rendition of "The HIV song" by Ween
- Seeing all the different ways event organizers can give us coconut-related foods
- Playing too loud to hear boorish Kal fans' grunts
- Causing the AIDS Walk to dysfunction with all the people stopping to watch us instead of walking, cloggin' up the street and making us take breaks
- Coming dangerously close to running out of songs to play, 4 hours is alot, especially when your songs average 2:00 in length.
It was largely a blast though.
About a month ago, but only about week ago was it telecast on ESPNU, the Band was called on to serve its country in the highest honor possible. We played at two USA Men's Volleyball team's games vs. China in San Jose. We're not gonna lie, it got tough out there on the front lines. Just exactly how were we going to adapt all our volleyball cheers/heckles for America? We found a way, yelling "One! Two! Three! Point Freedom!" whenever the Stars and Stripes scored, and doing a "United States of America, Organized 1776" spellout right before All Right Now. For the toobz, the games provided the perfect opportunity to resurrect the toob painted with the portrait of Mao Tse Tung. There was free candy, cool looking press passes, and confusing amounts of Chinese dancers. A truly serendipitous venture. And of course, to honor the recently passed King of Pop, our drum major Byron, that old scallawag, conducted in a red leather jacket, a black wig, and one white glove. What's that you say? Pix or it didn't happen? Well alright, some Bandies brought their cameras to the game. I'll scour through them, and maybe you'll see some on the Facebook page.
But now I really have to go. "Kalimba Story" is callin'. The time is nigh.
7.09.2009
Repentance for our June abandonment
The sun crept upwards on the horizon in a beautifully clear day. Bandies all over campus and other whereabouts rose from their bed, excited for the day to come. Some were commemorating the occasion with a ritualistic eating of a bacon cheeseburger and 40 oz of ancient hopgrain juice. But soon the ATS approached and the masters of enthusiasm started making their way toward the Shak, the air crisp and clean. They approached the door, and OH DEAR MOTHER OF GOD MAKE IT STOP! WHY DOES IT SMELL LIKE THERE'S A CORPSE IN THE SHAK? ON AMERICA'S BIRTHDAY OF ALL TIMES. QUICK EVERYONE, WE'LL BARRICADE OURSELVES IN MICH TERRACE.
Indeed the Band kicked off Independence Day by being punched in the nostrils with a brass-knuckles wearing odor. We searched everywhere trying to find a reason for this senseless crime. The answer came in the form of Joe Lewis, rib-maker and drinker extraordinaire. You see, a week ago the Drum Corps Invitational came to town and while normally fine to peace and let them use the house, Joe, one of our more senior Bandmembers with lots o' gonnengtions, wanted us to play for some of his DCI friends and as payment cooked us a great lot of delicious ribs before we headed off to a volleyball game, but I'm getting ahead (behind?) of myself. Long story short, he left some of the leftovers in a cooler outside the Shak and they marinated with the sun's rays and an odious blend of bacteria to deliver us that olfactory grenade on Saturday morning.
After we recovered and made it to Redwood City, the parade started, and we employed our typical parade-flummoxing play and rock out parked, run to catch up, then park and play, then run, repeat ad nauseum (literally) for a mile and a half. Those with weaker constitutions cried aloud to the heavens what they had done to deserve this feeling afterwards, while the stronger among us just sat in fear afterwards, waiting for their lungs to exact revenge. But we were rewarded, with Food Tickets! And waiting!
But then, it was time for the battle to begin. We heard Davis pretending to cadence into the spot and we knew our moment of combat was nigh. When Drum Major General Byron blew his attack whistle, we all rushed the spot and threw down a killer rendition of "Welcome to Paradise." And by killer we meant literally. By the end, three Davis trombone players were on the ground with their entrails splayed out in front of them. The whole thing was somewhat reminiscent of the Charge of the Light Brigade except we were the side that wasn't the Light Brigade. There was a Christmas-in-the-trenches type truce as we joined hands for "Beginnings" but we then returned to trading musical blows. By the end, it was obvious who had won, but Davis wasn't letting us take our prisoners back to the Shak to get the meat smell out, so we just declared victory and left.
After that we carried out the rest of our 4ourth like the rest of you schlubs with OMGWTFBBQs and fireworks aplenty. And we all rode into the sunset.
Epilogue: Dateline July 6, 2009. The Shak appeared to be safe. The smell demons were exorcised and everything seemed back to normal. Jill arrived. She walked to the room formerly known as Teamball, now recently colonized by the Tenrz. She opened the freezer portion of Shak fridge to put in her ice pack, and NO. WE GOT RID OF YOU. HOW COULD YOU BE BACK? WHY GOD?
But it wasn't back, Smelly McRotten had been chased out of the Shak, but it's little brother, Smelly McMolden had taken over the Shak fridge by way of making it not work. It claimed the remaining ribs and a bottle of apple juice as its casualties. No burial was held. Let us not forget the lesson these ribs sacrificed to teach us. The Tenrz take over the teamball room. The fridge dies. The moral is clear. The Tenrz lose at everything. And so the call goes out. Anyone got a fridge? Preferably one with a Capri Sun pouch painted on the friont?
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK or day or so, when we recount how the Band single-handedly defended freedom against an imminent scourge, ON THE VBALL COURT.