From: aelman@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Adam Elman)
Subject: Re: Best marching band
Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: 28 Sep 92 22:29:24 GMT

hopkins@agora.rain.com (Scott Hopkins) writes:

>I remember quite vividly when the Stanford marching band made a presentation
>at University of Oregon a few years back.  

Ah yes, October of '90.  I remember it well.

>They approached the spotted owl
>issue in completely poor taste.  It was the only marching band that I've
>ever seen get booed by tens of thousands of people.  It involved a
>lumberjack chasing around a spotted owl, which ended with the lumberjack
>killing the spotted owl.  This was Oregon for Christ sakes!

Funny, that was definitely _not_ the plot of the show.  We poked fun
at _both_ sides of the issue.  If you want, I can e-mail you a
copy of the script for that show -- I still have a copy at home somewhere.

>  Naturally, the
>people raised hell about it, and I believe the Stanford Band was actually
>suspended a game or two because of this.  If you think this was 'fun' or
>perhaps even 'funny', you were dreadfully wrong.  If a band has the nerve
>to come to a state's football field, and then mock the state, I don't think
>humor is involved.

Once again, it was not meant to "mock the state" -- it was political
satire about a very controversial political issue.  I guess you're
just not a fan of political humor.  For the record, by the way, there
is a good contigent of Oregonians in the Stanford Band (including the
current manager), all of whom thought the show was funny.  There is
even a larger contingent of Northwesterners, including one of the
announcers who scripted that show.

>  If it was humor that was meant, I think maybe a little
>lesson still needs to be instructed to the band.  Perhaps a little class
>would do.  I have nothing against the football team, in fact I think
>they're quite good, but maybe the administration should show the band a
>little more discipline.  Because the incident at Autzen Stadium not only
>gave your band no respect, but in the long run - your school.

To be honest, we did receive quite a bit of hate mail after the Oregon
incident.  But we received a lot of fan mail as well, including some
from Eugene.  Also, again for the record, the main complaint from the
UO athletic department was _not_ the show, but rather some defacement
to signs which the band committed (the band did apologize and pay for
the damage, and I would agree that that was uncalled for; we don't do
that sort of thing anymore).

Frankly, if you don't appreciate our brand of political humor, then
I'm sorry.  Our intent is never malicious -- we're just trying to
entertain.  If we occasionally overstep the bounds of good taste to
some people, well, we are college students, after all. :-)  Seriously,
though, my feeling is that the Spotted Owl show was _not_ in
particularly poor taste, and anyone who thought it did probably had a
mistaken view of what it was all about.  I reiterate my offer to mail
you a copy of the script if you want to see what we actually did.

Adam Elman
aelman@cs.stanford.edu

P.S. the band is in trouble again, of course; this time for something
as stupid as making a comment that we had been censored for our first
show of the year.  We were going to do an "unauthorized bio of Gerhard
Casper (our new president)", but the AD put its foot down.  We did not
do the show, but instead recycled a show from 1985 and made an
announcement to that effect after the show.  If that isn't
oversensitivity, I don't know what is...




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