The Dog Says How (6 page)

marching band

I have to admit,
musically, I pretty much plateaued in junior high. I always thought it was because a week after I got my trumpet, my brother threw a pencil down the bell, which—seemed to me—gave it a nice, smoky, jazz sound. But the band director saw it differently and had to have a heart-to-heart talk with me.

“Kevin,” he said, “you know, there are many other avenues of artistic expression that you might want to explore.”

“No.”

“Kevin, you can’t stay in the band.”

“But sir, I can’t join choir . . . I’m tone-deaf.”

“Yes,” he said, “I know.”

“And art is so messy and Home Ec scares me. There’s a song in my heart; it’s trapped—and tone-deaf and has no rhythm—but it’s there, I know.”

And I cried and cried and he softened up and left me last chair in the worst band: We were called the “Cadet Band”—all seventh graders, and me, a ninth grader.

Now, Mark Twain once said that Wagner’s music was better than it sounded.
Everybody’s
music was better than it sounded when the Cadet Band played it. When listening to our band it always felt like there was a bee trapped in your head somewhere that couldn’t get out. At the walls of Jericho, we could have been like the band that prevented structural damage—and stopped the walls from tumbling down—because I’m sure the Canaanites would have said, “Just stop. Stop it. We’re coming out.”

I have to claim that I was part of the problem. Whenever we came to the end of a song the band would finish, but I always had some more music left to play. Or I would finish my music and put down my horn and the band would keep going. Then I would have to quick pick up my horn and pretend I had more to do. One time I was playing “Hogan’s Heroes March,” an old basic, and lo and behold, I finished at the same time as the band. A miracle. Then the director said, “Very good, band, and now we’ll play ‘Hogan’s Heroes.’” I thought we
were
playing “Hogan’s Heroes.” I still don’t know what they were playing.

The best time of year to be in band was the summer. I loved marching band. For one thing, everybody got to play. So I was mixed in there with Kim Feller, first chair state champ. The drummers, all hockey players, were tough and cocky and sinewy. And the music . . . this was not regular band music—no. In marching band we played bona fide pop hits. Everyone’s song could be a marching band song—Simon and Garfunkle “Hello darkness, my old friend” (boom boom rat a tat boom rat a tat). Frankie Valli “Silence is golden, golden” (tat tat rat a tat boom tat tat). Starland Vocal Band “Afternoon Delight” (boom tuka tuka crash tat-e-tat). Jimi Hendrix “Purple Haze”(b-dah b-dee b-doh b-doo tat tat). Ted Nugent “dog eat dog. . . . ” (bugedabugedabugeda crash). Even, “Tequila.”

Best of all were the uniforms. School colors in black and orange, ancient and wool, for both seasons. High Beefeater fur hats that had to be cinched in so tight your eyebrows sat just above your upper lip. I remember bringing my uniform home. I was so excited, but I was kind of small, so they’d given me a girl’s uniform . . . with
darts
. Darts sewn into the chest and even worse, when I put it on the darts went in, accentuating my concave chest and giving me a look like I was the mold for a 1957 Cadillac bumper. My mom, bless her, stayed up all night taking out the darts, and I was set for the summer.

The summer of my ninth grade, Mr. Sand, the high school director, announced we’d been invited to a parade, a real parade. The Old Milwaukee Days Parade in Wisconsin. Before this year our only parade had been the Osseo Lions Club Parade . . . and that was only four blocks long and we followed a float from the retirement home. I guess it was a float. There was a pick-up truck with four people sitting in the back around a card table playing bridge, and they never looked up. I wondered if someone shouldn’t tell them, “Hey, you’re in a parade, wave or something.” But, then again, maybe being in a parade hadn’t been their idea to begin with. But now we were headed for the Old Milwaukee Days Parade. Three miles long and we would be judged against other bands.

Mr. Sand also announced he was going to turn us into something. We thought we were already something. We drilled for a month. “Come on you lazy good-for-nothings. You call that an embouchure? Put that horn to your lips and give me twenty.”

We marched into the night up and down, under the streetlights of Osseo. Kids were sitting on the corners, taunting us. Corner after corner . . . “lines tight, eyes forward!” . . . and Mr. Sand turned us into a well-oiled machine.

We made the drive to Milwaukee and spent the night in a motel. In the morning the entire drum section was in the motel office promising they’d “never do IT again,” and that they would “pay for IT.” They seemed a little foggy and their uniforms a bit off, like they were in the Italian Army.

We made our way to the parade site. There were busloads of bands from all over the country, eyeing each other over. As we lined up, I almost started laughing. We had this whipped. Mr. Sand’s plan was flawless. A block away we would start with “Hogan’s Heroes,” then as we approached the judging area, feint back with “MacArthur Park” as a palate cleanser. Then we’d hit ’em hard with the classic hit “25 or 6 to 4.” It was brilliant.

I looked up front at our drum major, Mike Marachek, an imposing figure in size fifteen boots and an all-white uniform. He was haughty, powdered, pampered, rouged, and ready for action. In his white Beefeater hat, he looked like a giant, beautiful Q-Tip. Then we lined up and suddenly an official jumped in front of our drum major.

“Hold it, hold it,” he said, one hand indicating “stop” and the other waving in. “Bring ’em in.”

And we watched as they escorted the forty-horse Clydesdale team in front of our band—amazing, majestic, imposing beasts pulling a large wagon of beer barrels. And
no
clean-up crew. Which meant in ten minutes we were going to be marching down the middle of Milwaukee in ninety-eight-degree heat with the forty-horse fun factory mining every step of our way.

Mr. Sand handed out salt pills. “Take these only in case of an emergency.” We all immediately took the salt pills.

THE PARADE STARTED.
In no time my lips were parched. Those wool uniforms were heating up. My black Beefeater hat felt like a solar collector. Just before the judging table the front-row flute section hit something slick on the pavement. Watching those Beefeater hats drop was like out of a scene from
The Patriot
. It was horrible.

But just as fast they were up again, hats now at various angles and one player missing a flute but “miming” the instrument. Somehow we held it together through “MacArthur Park.”

“Now,” shouted Mr. Sands, “we’ve trained for this.”

He was right.

Woodwinds and horns snapped into place, the low brass moved in for cover, drummers—untucked and defiant—fired steady rounds of timpani, and out front, leading the charge, the giant Q-tip, size fifteen white boots, kicked up to the sky.

I decided not to look down no matter how or what I felt. Mr. Sands kept shouting words of encouragement, and although I couldn’t hear him, out of my periphery I could see his jaw moving like a loose hinge, his face going from red to purple, a big vein popping from his forehead.

We passed the judging area, our heads high.

“ . . . Twenty-five or six to fo-oo-our. . . .”

AFTER THE PARADE,
we lay next to the buses in the parking lot. Uniforms from all over the country lay scattered around us—royal blue, gold, red, white, and now mixed in with it all, our orange and black.

“That was the worst,” a veteran member proclaimed. Only the drummers looked the same as when we started.

Mr. Sands came around to everyone individually and told us he was proud.

“You won’t need rockin’ to sleep tonight, Kling,” he said.

“No sir.”

“Next year we might try you on tuba.” Next year. There would be a next year.

I looked down at what was once a spotless spat. “Mr. Sand, look,” I said.

“Throw ’em away son, just throw ’em away. You did good, boy, real good.”

nutcracker

I remember the first piece
of art I ever sold. I was in college. One night I saw Audrey, a flute player with the band, sitting at the local pub with a friend. I introduced myself and announced I also had an interest in the arts, that I had shown quite an aptitude in a drawing class. Audrey seemed preoccupied, but her friend wondered if I had some sketches in my room.

“Why yes, I do. I do have some sketches in my room.” She then wondered if I’d show her my portfolio.

“Of course,” I said, and we were off.

When we got to my room I took out my portfolio and to a somewhat surprised Audrey’s friend, I displayed my sketches, especially the human figures, and said how the hands and feet give me the most trouble as you can see by the shoes and mittens. She was impressed. And then, when I felt the evening couldn’t get any better, she said she wanted to, you know, buy a painting.

“Of course,” I said.

Then she leaned into me and whispered, “It feels good to buy art.”

I said, “I know.”

I have never forgotten that evening, the evening I knew I was an artist.

The first performance art I ever bought was a viewing of Mary Gilligan’s appendix scar during recess behind the brick pump house. It challenged me.

I FIRST LEARNED
about being an artist during Ms. Keller’s third-grade class. Through the luck of alphabetized seating I was able to watch Robin Johnson create a series of paintings of her house.

During show-and-tell, Robin Johnson showed the pictures she had painted of her house. They didn’t look anything like the place where she lived, but she was a way better artist than the house she had to live in, so we let it go. I loved the pictures, the colors, the eye for detail, the confidence in the composition. I had to have one of her houses. So I paid my lunch money for one. Then I learned how good it felt to own art and to support someone I admired. That lunch money prompted Robin to create more houses she never lived in and in no time most of the third-grade lockers housed Johnsons.

SO EVEN AT THIS
early age, I knew I was an artist. It seemed like there were those of us bursting with art . . . and that expanding art looked for the easiest way out of our bodies. Through its flow one determined what kind of artist you would be. A painter’s hand was always moving, a singer’s breath took on the rhythms of the world, and a dancer, a dancer’s whole body got to move.

Every year our grade school held two assemblies. One was a visit from NASA. An aerospace engineer displayed the marvels of space travel, highlighting the event by dipping a grape into liquid nitrogen and then breaking it with a hammer. This swayed many toward the space program. The other assembly was a dance production of
The Snow Princess
. I’d seen people dance on TV, but never thought they were real. They were too perfect. Then the snow princess came to school. The beautiful snow princess, while breaking ties with her oppressive father, not only danced on stage, but up and down the aisles. And as she spun past, I noticed she had dark leg hairs poking out of her white tights. This wasn’t perfect. This meant the snow princess was real—and a modern woman. The NASA guy came back every year. We never saw the snow princess again but she had already awakened in me a yearning that would not quiet.

Our school taught art and music, but dance was not encouraged. I played third-chair trumpet in concert band until the band director suggested I try another form of expression. I informed him I was already interested in dance. He said, “Kevin, you may want to try pottery, coil pots.”

“There’s no future in coil pots. I want to dance,” I said.

He rubbed his face with his hands as he liked to do before coming to his point.

“Kevin,” he said, “you have no rhythm. When you clap to a song you’re a bit behind, and your clapping looks like you’re trying to catch something.”

“I am,” I said. “The beat. If I can catch it, maybe I can keep it.”

He rubbed his face harder and let me stay in band, all the while trapped in the body of a dancer.

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS
later I get a phone call. It’s Lise Houlton, director of the Minnesota Dance Theater. They want me to perform a small part in the production of Loyce Houlton’s
Nutcracker
. I am so excited, I say yes without thinking. For rehearsal she said I’ll need a dance belt and ballet shoes.

The next day, full of the holiday spirit, I run to the dance store in town. I announce to the shopkeeper that I’m in the
Nutcracker
.

“Oh, which one?”

“How many are there?” I said.

She’s in the one in St. Paul and her daughter is in another one for kids. It turns out everyone from the Joffrey Ballet to the Humane Society has a version.

“I’m in the one with the Minnesota Dance Theater,” I announce, “and I need shoes and a dance belt.”

She gets the shoes, but before she gets the dance belt she looks at me and says, “I think you’re an eight.”

This worries me. I know three of my sizes and
none
of them are an eight. She brings me a box and I take it home. In case you’ve never worn a dance belt, they’re the evil little brother of the jockstrap. They’re super-tight elastic, for holding everything in place. The first time I put one on, I made a face like my dad made the time he sat on my brother’s ten-speed bike. If you don’t think dancing makes you feel like a man, put on a dance belt. You know you’re a man.

Now that I had my gear I decided to look at the story. The plot of the
Nutcracker
is like something that Hunter S. Thompson would have conceived when crossing the Nevada border.

The dance is based on the story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” written by E. T. A. Hoffmann. It’s about a little girl in a loveless household fighting bloody battles against a Mouse King with seven heads. In the new version there is a Christmas party at the house of a little girl named Marie. Her godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, presents his gift, a beautiful nutcracker. Her little brother, Fritz, soon grabs the nutcracker and breaks it. Okay, normal so far. Soon the guests depart, and the family goes to bed. But Marie sneaks back to the tree where strange things begin to happen. The tree grows; the room fills with mice, led by the mighty Mouse King. The nutcracker comes to life and engages the mice in battle. The nutcracker then turns into a prince and he and Marie are welcomed by dancing snowflakes. As a finale, the Sugarplum Fairy and her Cavalier dance a pas de deux. Marie awakes from her dream and finds herself by the tree with her beloved nutcracker.

In rehearsal I learned I would play a character called Madame Bonbonniere and also the Judge hosting the party. I felt confident about playing the Madame. She has lots of makeup, a huge wig, stilts, and children dressed as mice who startle her as they emerge from her dress. It’s fun and wacky.

But this Judge presents a problem. Joining me on stage will be members of the American Ballet Theatre and beautiful dancers from the Minnesota company. I’ll have to actually dance. Besides, tights are not kind to me. My friend Buffy Sedlachek says my knees look like I’m smuggling walnuts. And after years of writing, my body is in the shape of a question mark, instead of the preferred exclamation point. My body doesn’t say, “I’m here!” It says, “I’m here?”

Not to be daunted, I employ an old stage trick. When in doubt, get a mustache and have the size of the mustache grow in an inverse ratio to the talent of the performer. I looked at the mustaches in stock and then had the costumer go out and buy me a jumbo one. Then, I dug out my college makeup kit, and found a base called “Leading Man Pancake.” It’s the color of humans that I imagine are found in remote sections of Sicily. I have never known anyone to use it, but with this mustache—the cross between a helicopter and a dog—riding my upper lip, and “Leading Man,” nobody would be looking at my legs.

Opening night was spectacular. The Judge went off without a hitch. I had some trouble with the Madame’s wig and almost stepped on a mouse child, but even that seemed to flow unnoticed.

In the receiving line following the show, a patron was going down the row of dancers gushing praise. “How wonderful, how beautiful.” When she got to me she said, “And you, what a good sport.” Good sport? Hmmm. Later on at the party, a mouse child told me she liked last year’s Madame Bonbonniere better than mine. Children can be so . . . honest. I was crushed. Later that night the little boy playing Fritz came up to me and gave me a hug. He is six years old and already an amazing dancer. I asked him his secret.

He said, “You know what you need to do?”

I said, “What?”

He said, “Every dancer has a diamond on their chest. You need to show that diamond all the way to the back of the theater.”

After that night I let my art fly out the diamond on my chest. I was never very good, but you would’ve never guessed it by my joy. My favorite part about the show was watching the kids in all the wings offstage and the looks on their faces as the principal dancers took the stage. And by the looks on their faces, this was much better than smashing a grape with a hammer.