the indescribable moments of your life

"ba-da-oom-cha-oom-cha- oom-cha-ba-da-da-da" is how the year started, at drumline camp, which started even before band camp. it was a grueling day, every day for a few weeks, teaching all the youngsters how to march while playing our instruments, memorizing the cadences and songs, hanging out with new people, being in high school finally. "ba-da-oom-cha-oom-cha- oom-cha-ba-da-da-da" was how the band director vocalized the start of the drum cadence, the way we would start every parade for that fall, how we would end the year at the orange bowl parade, how we get close to 250 people to march in step for 3-6 miles, depending on the length of the parade route. and once we were done marching on streets in the early morning, we'd spend the next few hours working on the field show on the south parking lot of the high school. here the band director's oft-occuring quote was "gonna fly now"--we were playing selections from rocky, and i was the pit percussion kid playing the timpani, having to drag three large kettle drums out to the parking lot, having the director tell me every day that i had to play them louder, to make my playing flashier, bigger. so i would flail my arms, acting like the crazy drummer on a viking boat, keeping the rowers in time.

i was a freshman in high school back in 1995, and i remember listening to this song first on the way to a marching band practice--this was the year of a band trip to the orange bowl parade, so much of my time that summer and fall were spent in preparation (our high school had about 1,000 students that year, and over a fourth were in the marching band--our drumline had six bass drummers, four quints, and ten snares--i played snare).

it was an interesting year in my life--first year of high school, playing soccer, playing music, dealing with the fallout from my older brothers' reputations, running the technical side of theatre productions (sound, lights, construction, destruction), starting debate, finding my core group of high school friends (the soccer-debaters, a core that still lives on at bhs), having crushes on girls in my grade who of course decided to date the juniors and seniors, trying to make sure that we were the best band in high school (something we had yet to achieve), getting pulled over by the large number of police for silly reasons, hanging out with the burgeoning group of guys that played quake, dealing with the two very intelligent girls with lockers on either side of mine who constantly and in good humor made fun of me.

"did ya miss me?" she asked, like she did every morning and afternoon when she saw me at our lockers, in the new addition of the south hallway (a nice place as most of the freshman lockers were here, and because the little debate room was close by). this girl was certainly someone who would be a big part of my life for the next few years--still is, in a way i guess. her sister is now one of my best friends. it's crazy how things work out in a small world like the one in which i live. and it wasn't just the new life of locker-neighbors that was giving my life a richer experience.

"when you score a goal like that, you have to celebrate, brett. come on." i had just curved a ball around the wall from 20 yards out and put it in the upper right corner, and a former teammate (he had graduated the previous spring) watching the game was running up and down the sidelines screaming for me. i admit it felt good, but i was mostly embarassed--i had spent most of my youth trying to get better at soccer (most particularly dribbling and shooting since i never had as much team and practice support growing up in small town South Dakota, one of the last places for soccer to catch on in the United States, and probably the world). I had the second generation of adidas predator cleats, and they were heavy, but the rubber fins on top allowed someone like me to put dangerous amounts of spin on the ball--always before i had shot with knuckle or top-spin, but in times like this one, i was happy to have the curve-giving fins. starting in eighth grade when i played for the high school team, i became one of the guys in school who was known for playing soccer. and i liked it that way. it stuck, until i hit college that is when everyone it seemed could play as well as i could, and i lost a bit of my identity--that's a story for another time though.

the same went for music--not just marching, field, and concert band. i played bass in the jazz band, and then there was my rock band. we were young (our name back in freshman year was under 18, but we could just as well have been under 16). and we were proud. but we tried hard, practiced, recorded, played shows, did everything we could to compete with the college bands in town because there weren't any similarly driven high school bands then (the following year, it took off and peaked my junior year when there were ten or eleven high school bands, which isn't bad for a high school and town of our size). and it was with the people in my band that we shared and developed our love of music and music videos.

the following song and its album came out in 1995. mellon collie and the infinte sadness was the album for this year of my life, much like silverchair's neon ballroom was the album that typified my senior year. i listened to a strange diversity of music back then, but a large part of it was considered "alternative rock," and the videos for this music was actually played on mtv back then (i cut down my mtv watching after 1996 when i started to get annoyed at the other content--or lack of music video content, as i saw it).

the song and the album have been mainstays in my life for eleven years now i guess--that's kind of crazy (and there were a few years when i didn't listen to the smashing pumpkins too often), but there's something beautifully grandiose about the album, and particularly about tonight, tonight. even its video was fantastically designed, bringing a new polish to an oldly styled idea of people in suits playing fancy instruments while floating among the cutout stars and planets. in some ways it was reminiscent of one of my other favorite videos--perfect drug by nine inch nails. the similarities don't stop at the historic outfits of the people--both were based on past work--perfect drug on edward gorey's art, and tonight, tonight on georges melies' silent film a trip to the moon.

tonight, tonight by the smashing pumpkins

time is never time at all
you can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth
and our lives are forever changed
we will never be the same
the more you change the less you feel
believe, believe in me, believe
that life can change, that you're not stuck in vain
we're not the same, we're different tonight
tonight, so bright
tonight

and you know you're never sure
but you're sure you could be right
if you held yourself up to the light
and the embers never fade in your city by the lake
the place where you were born
believe, believe in me, believe
in the resolute urgency of now
and if you believe there's not a chance tonight
tonight, so bright tonight

we'll crucify the insincere tonight
we'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight
we'll find a way to offer up the night tonight
the indescribable moments of your life tonight
the impossible is possible tonight
believe in me as i believe in you, tonight