I came home for the first time in forever this past weekend. Things had been a hippin and a hoppin in The Big Apple and let me just say I needed a bit of a rest. So I spent Labor Day weekend crashing by my mother's pool and chillin with the grandparents.
Friday night I found myself back at my old high school though. It was Friday night lights. Both football teams were on the field and everyone was ready. After all, this is Western, PA. Of course anyone who is anyone is there from the mayor on down. The school board superintendent was there along with the school board publicity person. This is just the start of fall. The start of football weekends. The start of the half time shows good and bad.
Our home team was winning. My baby cousin was on the field working as a water boy on the field earning his proverbial wings. All was well in the little hamlet outside of the Steeler Nation. That is when the home team's band began the half time show. You figure their football team sucked. Maybe their band will rock it out. At first it started out innocently enough. I always cut them some slack because they are kids. Granted, I live in NYC, where we have the greatest talent pool ever. They began their set with some lackluster eighties song and went downhill from there. When the band and football team suck, at least there is always the closing number, right?
Dead wrong.
When the band announced their closing number, I expected them to prove me wrong. Blow me out of the water. That is when they announced they would be performing "Ode to Joy." The band absolutely butchered this classic by the great Beethoven. To add insult to injury, their drill team did this terrible dance rendition to it. They were out of sync with each other. The girls were leaping at different times and even Stevie Wonder could see that they were off. Then the baton twirlers kept dropping their batons. Then one girl dropped a flag.
I kept thinking,"It is Friday night, you are in the spotlight. Get it together or get off the stage."
Of course I also pictured poor Beethoven, who had long suffered his entire life. He had been overshadowed by the more handsome, more commercially successful, but albeit 17th century hack Mozart. Not to mention he was so poor and desperate that while on a walk home in the rain he grabbed a pen off of Shubert's grave. Then lest we forget his father beat him until he mastered the piano. And then he lost his hearing and died in poverty. Now this man who suffered so much was stabbing himself in the head with the pen he stole from Shubert in the afterlife. Oh the horror! As I pictured the poor aggrieved composer I remembered a line from Donny Darko that surmised this series of events best:
"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to sparkle motion."
Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
www.aprilbrucker.com
Friday night I found myself back at my old high school though. It was Friday night lights. Both football teams were on the field and everyone was ready. After all, this is Western, PA. Of course anyone who is anyone is there from the mayor on down. The school board superintendent was there along with the school board publicity person. This is just the start of fall. The start of football weekends. The start of the half time shows good and bad.
Our home team was winning. My baby cousin was on the field working as a water boy on the field earning his proverbial wings. All was well in the little hamlet outside of the Steeler Nation. That is when the home team's band began the half time show. You figure their football team sucked. Maybe their band will rock it out. At first it started out innocently enough. I always cut them some slack because they are kids. Granted, I live in NYC, where we have the greatest talent pool ever. They began their set with some lackluster eighties song and went downhill from there. When the band and football team suck, at least there is always the closing number, right?
Dead wrong.
When the band announced their closing number, I expected them to prove me wrong. Blow me out of the water. That is when they announced they would be performing "Ode to Joy." The band absolutely butchered this classic by the great Beethoven. To add insult to injury, their drill team did this terrible dance rendition to it. They were out of sync with each other. The girls were leaping at different times and even Stevie Wonder could see that they were off. Then the baton twirlers kept dropping their batons. Then one girl dropped a flag.
I kept thinking,"It is Friday night, you are in the spotlight. Get it together or get off the stage."
Of course I also pictured poor Beethoven, who had long suffered his entire life. He had been overshadowed by the more handsome, more commercially successful, but albeit 17th century hack Mozart. Not to mention he was so poor and desperate that while on a walk home in the rain he grabbed a pen off of Shubert's grave. Then lest we forget his father beat him until he mastered the piano. And then he lost his hearing and died in poverty. Now this man who suffered so much was stabbing himself in the head with the pen he stole from Shubert in the afterlife. Oh the horror! As I pictured the poor aggrieved composer I remembered a line from Donny Darko that surmised this series of events best:
"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to sparkle motion."
Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
www.aprilbrucker.com
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