Last month Ed at Guy Dads wrote about how the Stanford Band got kicked out of the San Francisco Pride parade for unruly behavior. I know, when is the Band not unruly? Unruliness is their raison d’être, pretty much. Today Ed called my attention to Leah Garchik’s column in the Chronicle, where the story got picked up:
The Stanford Marching Band, which runs this way and that instead of marching in precision formation, got kicked out of the Pride parade for slowing down the action. The band wasn’t a registered participant, but marched along with several gay and lesbian groups from Stanford. Ed Jones, who with his husband, Eddie Reynolds, was with a Queer University Employees at Stanford contingent marching near the band, says a parade monitor with a “cold, hard heart,” warned the musicians three times, then called in security to barricade the street and force them out of the lineup. The monitor must have been a Cal grad, says Jones, noting the irony of tight control of a parade about freedom.
The band’s Michael Priest said the band has issued an apology to parade organizers, and is hoping that time heals this wound. “We hope to be back next year.”
Way to go, Ed! Go Cardinal! (No doubt the paper will be getting letters from Cal defenders.)
Sigh. Reminds me of the U.Va. pep band. For the longest time U.Va. did not have a marching band (partly because the football team, joyfully, sucked) but a satirical pep band that would run on the field and do loose formations, usually lampooning the opponent or some University politics. I actually tried out for the band playing saxophone (my HS band instrument) and they said they would rather have me join playing the bassoon (my orchestra instrument) and they would provide me a stand and chair carrier (bassoons can only really be played sitting). Alas, I ended up declining. And more alas, the pep band was disbanded by the evil empire of the Athletic dept and replaced by a ‘real’ marching band in recent years.