1994-10-01 - Lafayette
LAFAYETTE! WE ARE HERE!!
Ladies and Gentleman...and Lafayette Lepers.. umm, I mean, Leopards, back despite being placed in remedial Logic & Rhetoric, the Clevererest Band in the Wurld, the Columbia University Marching Skool of Engineering and Applied Science.
[fanfare]
featuring....
Patrick Lambert - Splitting atoms
Kathy Wrightson - Splicing genes
Columbia Security - Eating donuts and splitting blue jeans
and
Michael Kingsley - Hey! That's me!
[fanfare]
welcomes itself back to beautiful, bucolic, choleric, urbane, eleemosynary, yet still iconoclastic Lawrence_A_Wien.stadium@Baker.Field where were sure that the Lions and the Leopards will have a big cat fight, the level of play will be as high as the price of one of those lovely, four-color, 100% cotton, oh-so-stylin' Marching Band T-shirts, for sale under the stands in Section G, the score will be as low and underhanded as the average Lafayette student, and the game will be as ugly as some inbred, backwoods Pennsylvania bumpkin.
[Band enters to "Who owns New York". Go figure]
Before we begin today's athletic contest, the Band would like to memorialize that great hero Marie Joseph O'Jeay Paul Yves Beavis Fromage Roch Gilbert Ringeau du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, who on that fateful day in 1776 stumbled out of the Pennsylvania woods, obviously still reeling from the effects of the Brandywine campaign, (or was it the Whiskey Rebellion?), tripped over a pile of manure and accidentally founded Lafayette "University". Let us fondly remember the years he spent pining away in an Austrian prison cell after choosing a particularly inopportune moment (like, say, the French Revolution?) to come out in favor of monarchy. But without those prison years, how would he have ever met his lovable sidekick-for-life, that diminutive rapscallion, Jacques Itch? The Band, for one, finds it rather ironic that Lafayette University is named for the hero of several revolutions, while Lafayette students themselves are merely revolting.
In honor of the Marquis, Jacques, and their many great accomplishments, the Band would like to play "Peace Frog," but since that's entirely out of the question, we will now form the modern French flag, as designed by Lafayette himself, and play for the 4,369th consecutive time "I Hear You Knocking, But You Can't Come In."
[form flag. play knocking]
Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise as the Columbia University Marching Band now performs our National Anthem.
[play banner....run away]
HALF-TIME
Ladies and Gentleman, the Board of Managers has asked me to announce that Billy Joel will be unable to attend tonight's scheduled lecture in Ferris Booth Hall {which sucks}. Instead, the Board of Managers is proud to present an evening of questions & answers (and perhaps a little music) with John Turturro.
Ladies and Gentlemen, and first-year parents, back despite the Simpsons on TV every night of the week -- Homer, Bart and O.J.-- it's the most nostalgic band in the world, the Columbia University Marching Reign of Terror.
[fanfare]
featuring...
Patrick Lambert - Judge
Kathy Wrightson - Jury
Various Deans - Lining up to be executed
and
George Rupp - Manning the guillotine
[fanfare]
Presents an all-star gala halftime salute to several different things, among them that most turbulent and oft-musicalized period in world history, the French Revolution (even if they were just a bunch of rabble-rousin', guillotinin' regicidin' Bastille-st ormin', Robespierrin', Marie-Antoinette-let-them-eat-cake-in', Versailles-crashin' Marat-stabbin', Jacobin-offin', Les-Miserablin' liberty-fraternity-and-equality-proclaimin', wine-swillin' cheeseheads).
[who owns]
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Actually, it was just another hot summer day in July of 1789 when the Paris residents, running out of cheese and with another 200 years to wait before Jerry Lewis, decided to do something to bring their pathetic little country some notoriety. They looked to the pages of history for inspiration and found that violence was a solution to any problem. And so, they took to the streets, arming themselves with wooden chairs, apple cores, dead rats and as sorted filth, which they threw at any rich oppressor who happened by . Eventually, the mob made its way through the greater downtown area to the Bastille, where they were able to liberate all five or six prisoners with the sacrifice of only a few hundred lives. The French now celebrate this momentous triumph annually. What better way to end the day, they thought, than the beheading of their very own King and Queen...so that is what they did. The next step, of course, was forming the Committee of Publ ic Safety, which set about insuring everyone's safety by promptly beheading the general public as well.
In celebration of this blood-soaked nightmare of a bit of history, the band now forms a guillotine and plays what the executioner was heard to say "(I Got You) I Feel Good."
[play i feel good]
Ah, in today's day and age who can help but realize that History is not merely a meditation on the past, but something which shapes very future itself. Indeed, after its own earlier vivid reflections on the life of the Marquis de Lafayette, the Band, f or one, began to see shades of Lafayette's famed Brandywine Campaign in our own everyday lives...take, for example, the epic Crack Argument that is taking place down on 218th street even as we speak, or perhaps the boisterous Heroin Dispute in Morningside Park last night, or the famed Acid Misunderstanding of 1968's, and who can forget the Great 'Shrooms Controversy that happens in Sheep's Meadow each and every day.
Anyway, in honor of historical determinism and drug warfare everywhere, the Band will now form a misunderstanding and play "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
[play smells]
But all of this stodgy academic talk tires the Band, so while we're here, why don't we welcome all the first year parents in the audience to lovely Baker Field, which you may have noticed is located a convenient hundred or so blocks from the College camp us. Indeed, fear of football hooliganism, and the raging, bloodthirsty, untamable mob of Lions fans that come rioting out of every game prevented any closer location. Speaking of the Columbia campus, come Graduation time in May, you will probably notice the bustle of activity around as maintenance workers busy themselves planting and reflowering the campus. This is, of course, in stark contrast to the deflowering of campus that occurred just weeks ago during orientation. In other...uh...Ivy League news (nice segue) it seems that the Princeton tiger was assaulted by members of the Cornell Marching Band. Authorities are investigating the incident but have gone on record saying that "she was dressed like she wanted it."
As an informative service, the Band will now form just how many of your tuition dollars go towards your education, and play, because we can, "In the Midnight Hour"
[for a 0, play in the midnight hour]
Ladies and Gentlemen, please rise as the Columbia University Marching Band performs our Alma Mater, "Sans Souci."
[play sans souci]