The band director had visions. Visions of awards, plaques, medals, and trophies. And appearances in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Rose Bowl Parade. Even visions of magazine articles written about him and his reinvention of what a post-millenial marching band repertoire should look/sound like, framed and mounted outside the band room in the hallway for everyone to see/read.
All summer he had worked on an arrangement of Brian Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets." First, the big brass - trombones and tubas - takes the melody, low and slow and steady. And after a chorus (no, two), in come the middle reeds - oboes, clarinets, saxes - echoing the bottom, giving the melody body. Then percussion - drums in poly-rhythm. The tempo picks up, and then. Then the top - xylophone and flute - to add filigree.
The band loved it, once they learned it. But the poms director didn’t. They talked. It was cordial at first: She said the new song was "great...and really interesting," but that it would be difficult to choreograph a halftime routine for it. But not impossible, right? No, not impossible, but very very difficult. He shrugged off her concerns, and she pressed for a change. As she pressed more, he shrugged more. And it all came to a head in the hall between fourth and fifth periods. She called him a "snob" and a "nerd." He called her an "ignorant bitch." So she went to the principal.
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