2007 is the year for Bush to win? Empire? Bucs? MBI? "7"?

ABC's of Drum Corps (Draft, not published)

The ABCs of Drum & Bugle Corps: Alternative Braggadocio Concepts

by Cozy Baker (ABC: A Baker, Cozy)

An unaBridgemen “Corpsinary” of Drum & Bugle…uh, Brass Corp(oration)s

Alternative Braggadocio Concepts

An unaBridgemen Dictionary of Drum & Bugle Corps

© 2007, published by Mirage Senior Boke Choke Press

“I love deadlines, especially that whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” ~ Douglas Adams, scribbler of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe

AL: American Legion in Miami, Chicago, Miami, Detroit, Miami…. [VFW (yep, Miami), not Combine or DCI.]

A-Team: Mr. T proudly carrying the National Colors/Colours. [Honor Guard.]

ATV: Pit Crew tractor. Awesome in the hands of skilled daredevils; e.g., Bluecoats loading after a show. [Golf Cart, John Deere, Lawn Mower.] 2. AstroTurf® Visuals? [AstroTurf®, Viz.]

accelerando: 1. Overused pedal on Pit Crew ATVs. [Deaccelerando, Golf Cart, Lawn Mower.] 2. Drum Line on steroids.

adjudicator: Judge from Rodeo Drive. [Clipboard, Judge.]

ad nauseam: Wretched “sameism.” By intermission, many were bored, checking the stock market, retching, ad nauseam. [Et Cetera.]

aficionado: If you can spell this, then you already know the perils and thrill of being a Corps Nuts.

AFL: American Flag Line, old term. [A-team, Honor Guard, Color Guard]

age-out: Burned out performer who needs to crash before returning to school/work. DCA? “Not now. Hmm, DCA looks enticing.”

aisle: 1. Seats in stadiums for Staff to watch their Corps. [Usher.] 2. Room on the Bus to spread out to sleep – For the daring only. [Bus.]

alto: 1. Too Flugel to be a Mello. 2. Mid-voice when Corps sings ambrosian chant on the field.

alumni: 1. Depression era Survivors, Baby Boomers, X-generation and more in a booming spurt of growth in Drum Corps – Our Revival. [DCA, Ol’ Fogy, Seniors.] 2. Age-outs or Burnouts who look back fondly on the Summer of ’42, ’52, ’62, ’72, ’82, the Ties in the nineties….

amplification: 1. Cap Head, Instructor, Staff or Tech who’s blown his/her top. 2. Sure-fire way to electrocute Electronics personnel…eventually during a summer thunderstorm. [Electronics.]

announcer/narrator: 1. Richard I. Blake XXet al. 2. Local personalities who mean well but stumble over “Modest M(o)ussorgsky…Rimsky-Korsakov…Rachmaninoff orchestrated by Respighi,” ad classico, even which Corps is actually taking the field (George’s dad, AMC-TV’s Nick Clooney). Thank you, sincerely, for your contributions! [Band.] 3. Comic on a mike who shouts at DCI Madison Senior ‘99, “And making his debut with the Kilties, DCWorld’s very own….” [;Peashey.]

any key: Car key that DCI majority voters grabbed in their rush to leave immediately after approving the birth of “Brass Corps” in 2000. (“Hoist with one’s own petard.”) [Brass, Bugle, G, Horn, Lamp.]

Any Key Aeon: Current Corps era which replaced the Geerassic Era of Brass Corpsdom.

arc: Circle with missing segments, sometimes missing bodies. Arc! I hear yon drum corps. [Drill, Horn line.]

arrangement: 1. Chorded notes of existing Composition arranged on parchment. 2. A cozy affair ‘twixt some Boreds and Exec. Directors, Directors and Cap Heads, Techs and Members, and on down the food chain.

arranger: Disarranged napkin scribbler of deranged music, be it Brass or percolator. [Composer.]

artsy fartsy: Who cares. (No question mark required; it’s rhetorical.) [;Fartsy, Arte.]

AstroTurf®: Wonderful for Corps, dangerous for contact sports…Hmm, isn’t Drum Corps a contact sport? [Crash, Judge, Saboteur, Shoveling.]

audition: From the nervous multitudes, two lucky performers selected by the Instructor gawds to fill two openings. The audition begins not at Open House, but months before, if one is to be prepared. [Camp, Open House; Bond, Peter Bond, for tips.]

auxiliary: Silks, Stage Right. Sabres y Rifles, stage a la izquierda. Read “auxiliary.” Close your eyes for the Visual. Practice writing on a chalkboard 128 times after Camp. Now, please remember how to spell it.

B “Build the bingo halls and they will come.” – Cozyism

Bb: A sharp idea to Marching Bands and some Corps. See Any Key, Band, BOA, Blue Devils, Bugle, Cadets, G, Intonation, Lamp.

BOA: Bands of McCormick.

baby boomers: DCA. [Ol’ Fogy.]

band: 1. Not Corps. A fine world of its own, a beloved cousin of Corpsdom. 2. Hopkins 24/7. 3. What Announcers keep saying during the Summer.

barefoot: 1. The preference of many of the CG a field. [Sabot, Saboteur.] 2. Lack of footwear in the park.

bari: A Euphonium on a diet, and the two most difficult horns to march in terms of physical endurance. (Sorry Contras.)

baton: Li’l stick used by Phantom Regiment Conductors and Cabs’ Jimmy Russo. [Spin, Twirl; Fred J. Miller, Inc.]

battery: A bunch of Guzz diddling Energizer bunnies with no turn-off switch. [Drumhead, Drummer.]

University of Cincinnati Marching Band plays Al

The University of Cincinnati vs. Pitt game was over, but the UC Marching Band played on. (CozyPhoneCam)

'Nana Puddin' will perk ya' up!

Nick Angelis runs U. of Cincinnati Band's Drums

Nick Angelis, former Star of Indiana and Blast! soloist, is the percussion caption head for the University of Cincinnati Marching Band. Angelis, red shirt, jumped into the snare drum line for an hour last Sep. (CozyPhoneCam)

Drum & Bugle Corps in 2020

(This "Cozy's Corner" originally appeared in Drum Corps World, April 2001. It's a tongue-in-cheek view of drum corps in the year 2020. Some names are teasingly misspelled.)

2020 – News as it happens in the future

“Imagining in excited reverie that the future years had come, dancing to the frenzied drum.” – William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939

Implementing Tiebreaker Plan #135, in the event of a tie at this year’s 2020 Finals in Madison, the drum majors of the tied corps will face off in a figure skating skate-off. Mike Boo will judge.
The Absolute Key meeting still reports a series of ties in the vote to increase the size of the pit. “For now, the limit of the pit shall remain at 135,” Dane Achooson, the Danish CEO of Drum & Brass & Woodwinds & Electronics & Amplification Corp(oration)s Universal, reported in an exclusive to DCUniverse.
The Cadets, also the Star of Indiana Bus Charters, announced jointly that the new 147-passenger bus will be introduced this summer. “With the advances in FRS communications toys, three-mile caravans are not expected to be a problem,” the Drivers’ Consortium proclaimed.
Pioneer reports that Tootsie Rolls® has been added as a sponsor. “We’ll be proud to wear the Tootsie Rolls patch on our unis,” Director Murray proclaimed. Plans are underway to work the candy logo into the paint scheme of the golf carts by the pit crew.
Frankly Ponzo is in the midst of his 15th Final Farewell Tour with the Caballeros. The hand recount of the fan$ vote still shows a unanimous sentiment for Ponzo to play again in 2021. No appeal is pending.

Drum Corps Ol’ Fogies Home Newsletter

Remember, bingo this Thursday evening at the Drum Corps Ol’ Fogies Home, patriotic Tom Peashey calling. Bring your shovels. Dave and Carol Eddleman will be the guest tabulators as the constant recounts must cease.
Caesar and Sue Blenski will conduct golf cart driving lessons the second weekend of July at the Home. Tootsie Rolls will be served to all successful graduates. Retired Bluecoats ATV drivers will teach the evasive driving portion.
The dress uni for this Saturday’s banquet at the Home has been posted: Summer dress: Plaid kilts with Greek caps.
Due to popular demand, peanut butter sandwiches will return on Monday, Wednesday and Friday…ok, also Tuesday, Thursday….
Complaints continue to roll in that John Dowlan refuses to stop practicing on his antique snare. “I can beat the whole lot of you with one wrist tied behind my strap,” he stubbornly proclaimed. Dowlan is under investigation as the thief of knee braces from rehab.
Wild Carol Hooton will lead a discussion in the Eastman wing at 7:30 P.M. titled “21st Century Classical Trumpet Influence on Drum & Whatever We Call It Now.”
The retired drivers’ wing of the Home will be showing home movies of 20th century summer tours at 8:30 P.M. If scuffmarks from wheelchair treads continue to appear in the hallways, these videos will be banned. All posters stating “We’re all bozos on this bus” have been found to be in bad taste.
Truth or Crawford announced, “I plan to leave the Home and return as the director of the USMC D&B Corps on November 9.”
The retired scribes continue to bury the front office staff in piles of papers typed on forbidden Royal and Underwood typewriters. Steve Steve of DCUniverse is under investigation as the supplier.
The most recent raid on the photog’s wing to search for dirty bugle photos was rebuffed by a barrage of flashbulbs popping.
The Kilts and Sky vets have won the “Most Retro” award once again. The majority has been found to play Olds bugles and drive – yep, Olds.
Billy Roetzhere continues to stand atop a huge “X” he chalked out in the middle of the Home grounds. He wears his kilt and yells, “Join me in the ‘V’ lads and lassies!”
For the final time, retired VK members are ordered to stop mimicking the health department inspectors. Specifically, desist in your annoying habit of following the inspectors with your clipboards.
The Bill MacGraph family tree has issued its third demand for a larger suite at the Home.
Volunteers are sought as Halloween decorators at the Home. Velvet Knights, Bridgemen, Impulse, Heat Wave and Chops, Inc. alumni need not apply.
Countless reports of eerie appearances of Bones abound.
Meanwhile, the Ghost Riders are still missing.

Back to 2020 news in the virtual world of reality:

Division I voted that Moog synthesizers will be allowed into the historical Northeast League, mood permitting. Divisions VII and higher staunchly hold onto their bugles. Aside: Any bugles in the key of G spotted in museums, jetport sales or tick markets should be reported to the Ol’ Fogies Search Committee. Note: The Smithsonian refuses to release its inventory.
At the archeological site in California, after much zigging and zagging, diggers have reported the remains of a bugle factory. Coincidently, the pit is next door to the present Kanstul Band Instrument Factory. The nostalgic search has been underwritten by grants from the Drum Corps Ol’ Fogies Home and National Geerasic Era Magazine.
“These bizarre bugles are Wild Things!” a young archeologist, Alexis Chex, exclaimed around a campfire while flipping through her bowl of oats.
“Now, if we could only find the King site,” scientist Key Abnormal, standing on a crumbling wall, wailed. “We still need to ‘deg’ for the Dynasty bugle grounds. Then, there is the oldest of the old, Olds.”
Into the Woodwinds opened in Bayonne, NJ. YEA! A somber musical by Yawn Yawn-ho about the Grimm reality of fipple flutes, shawm descendants and Girandella wood, it is conducted by George Dubya.
The Madison Bored of Directors announced that Scott Stewart, executive director, has hired Bobby Knight as director of Hoosier Wind.
After an exhausting study, orchestrated by Bond, Peat Bond, the PR guru reports that the controversial reed-less oboes do indeed project double the distance of reeds. Whether rules will be amended, a majority vote squeaked through, to allow reed-less shawm descendants remains to be determined.
Geoff Mitchell’s on-growing study regarding frumpets in the key of Q is due at the next Absolute Key meeting.
“All your contrabass are belong to us.”

I might just become a vegetarian

Years ago, I cut way back on pork and beef. With this Filipino beauty, I could go totally veggie!