Last night, my youngest Indigo had a school band concert.  She had decided to do band in middle school and chose the trombone as the instrument to play.  She is passing band class which is interesting given that the trombone has never seen our house, and I have never heard her play solo.  Why the trombone after several years of her playing the drums baffled me.  Though prior to the drums, she played the piano.  I guess the trombone was the logical progression – or a sign she has a short attention span for an instrument.

Traffic sucked, so the “extra time” I gave myself ended up being no extra time.  DJ and I pulled into the school parking lot at 6pm, reached the gym at 6:01pm, and the concert started at 6:02pm.  Good timing, I guess.

I have decided that all beginning band parents are really saints.  Sitting in the audience listening to the beginner songs that are barely recognizable as the music being played is full of starts, stops, squeaks, squawks, and barely in unison.  We sit there listening to the songs, taking photos, taking video, and clapping enthusiastically after each song as thought it was the greatest thing ever played.

I always support my kids – and do the right thing for the kids. But damn. Last night was tough.  It was clear that while Indigo’s trombone had not come come that the other kids had instruments that have never seen home either.  Practice was clearly a mere suggestion and not a requirement.  It was quite bad.

Layer onto that the fact that this “concert” would have made any music/band teacher crazy.  Fuck, it would have made anybody who performed in band crazy too.  There was a lack of band decorum.  No one was sitting up straight.  No one was readying their instruments to start playing.  Kids were hiding behind each other – hiding behind music stands that were way too high.  And as the music/band teacher announced the next song, the kids provided color commentary.  As one parent commented afterward, it was like an improv concert mixing comedy and music in a way that was funny at times, but cringe-worthy.  Cringe-worthy because the improv was kinda disrespectful, not just to the band/music teacher but also to the people for which they were performing.

I asked DJ at one point if this was this teacher’s common practice.  She has had him for music the year before.  She confirmed that it was.  Her class was annoyed by his lackadaisical teaching approach.  It is why they loved having a different music teacher for band – he was good on many levels.  And their concerts even at the beginning level were great in comparison.

So I stood there last night, taking photos, and applauding politely.  I had just taken a fisheye photo or a photo with my fisheye lens rather, and tipped it out to look at the photo I had just taken.  And I saw this and just had to take a photo.

DJ leaned over to whisper: “Did you take a picture of your dick?”

I turned to look at her – shock on my face – she got uncomfortable until I whispered back: “Get out of my head, kid!”

She stifled her giggles. I shook my head.

She whispered back: “I learned it from you, Moe – I learned it all from you.”

As my friend would say at this point: Apple, meet tree – tree, meet apple.

Yeah – that’s about right.

G got up and came to stand by us in the back of the room.  He looked at DJ who was wearing her cutoff shorts that are technically too short for school.  She had changed into them after school.

“I can’t believe you wore those short shorts. However are you going to keep the boys from being distracted by you.”

Without missing a beat, DJ replied: “My fists – my fists will keep the boys from being distracted by my shorts.”

He could not argue.

Between the horrible band performance and the fact the gym was about 120 degrees, I think we were all loopy.

At least that’s my story.