Wandering Where We’ll Be

Dan left yesterday for GenCon, a role-playing gaming convention in Indianapolis, and he’ll be there until next Monday. Not sharing Dan’s enthusiasm for gaming, I opted to stay in Shakopee with Jake.

Since returning from Chicago, our inbox has been filled with emails from fellow Team Band members reflecting on their experience in Chicago and sharing a ton of photos. Today I received an email from Team Band’s director for our Opening Ceremonies performance on Soldier Field. She had written to all of the newspapers and media groups who covered the Opening Ceremonies, and her writings were published on Planet Out and Gay.com websites, and I thought I’d share them here:

http://www.planetout.com/fitness/article.html?sernum=3866&navpath=/topics/fitness/gaygames/

http://www.gay.com/fitness/article.html?sernum=3866&navpath=/channels/fitness/gaygames/

Now, looking ahead…

Last week Dan and I booked our flights to London for our six-month trip through Europe. We fly out of Minneapolis-St. Paul on August 31. We have a list of about 10-12 countries and a few specific places that we’d like to visit, but no set itinerary. So, we’ve been busy doing research on where we’ll go and when, getting our finances in order, picking up a few last minute items to bring, and beginning to gather our gear, which will be packed into our approximately 40 liter backpacks.

I’m at the Shakopee library right now, and am on a one-hour time limit at this internet workstation, so I’ll close here so I can finish going through our emails and, then, check out the library’s travel section.

Tim

I’m currently in northern Minnesota (near Emily, MN) at my parents’ cabin.  I came up here yesterday afternoon with my mom and dad and two of my nephews, Tony and Parker.  Jake also came with, but Dan stayed in Shakopee to attend a reception for his cousin, Kevin, who is showing his pottery at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN, and help his mom look for carpet.

We’re all in the cabin, resting after a hot and busy day of working and playing.  When the cabin was built last year, the 55 trees that were cleared to make way for the cabin were cut into sections and stacked in a LARGE pile.  When the whole family was up here for the reunion (or Family Camping Weekend – it’s original name, which doesn’t really fit anymore since nobody tents anymore unless they want to; there’s plenty of room in the cabin, bunkhouse, trailer and porch), we cut, split and stacked about ¾ of the pile.  My dad cut a few more of the sections when he and my mom were up here two weeks ago.  And, today, the five of us took another crack at the pile, cutting, splitting and stacking all but about a dozen log sections.  We’re all anxious to finish the project not only to have it taken care of, but also because the fire ring will be moved back to its original (almost), larger and more level location once all the sections are cleared.  UPDATE:  The following day, we moved the remaining log sections out of the way, leveled the area with shovels and rakes, dug the new fire pit, spread some wood chips around the pit and moved the kerosene torches to the new area.  While we certainly didn’t need a fire for warmth that evening, we started a small fire and made s’mores with roasted marshmallows.  The new location is just to one side of the cabin and has great views of the lake, cabin and bunkhouse; it’s going to work great!

After we called it quits for the day in early afternoon, we went down to the lake and went swimming.  We all swam out to the diving dock, even Jake.  Jake would jump off the dock after me, and I would lift him out of the water back onto the dock.  It was a lot of fun!  Dad, Mom, Jake and I swam back into shore after a bit, and shortly thereafter, I noticed three people swimming toward our dock, with one person paddling along side in a canoe.  The woman swimming in the water said “Hello!”  She and two of her grandchildren were doing their annual swim across the lake and back (about a quarter mile each way).  They rested a bit and, then, took off swimming back to the other side of the lake.  But, this gave Parker and Tony an idea: we should swim across the lake and back, too.  So, we recruited grandma (Mom) to follow us in the paddleboat, and we did just that.  We swam across the lake to the dock of the people who had swum over to us.  They were out on their dock, so we visited with them for a bit and rested.  Then, we turned around and swam back to our dock.  We had a big dinner and the boys went water skiing afterward.

OK, I’ll back up a bit… Dan and I returned home from our 12-day stay in Chicago last Sunday.  We participated in the Chicago Gay Games as members of Team Band, consisting of over 250 members of Gay and Lesbian Bands from around the world.  I played percussion (mostly snare drum), and Dan wore many hats, carrying a rainbow flag for the opening ceremonies, assisting in many ways for the band’s concert at Pritzger Pavilion at Chicago’s Millennium Park, and carrying our Minnesota Freedom Band banner for the closing ceremonies.  We both had an awesome time in Chicago for the games, meeting many other participants, including Team Band members and a few athletes, as well.

Chicago was extremely hot (in the 90’s) and humid for much of the time we were there.  We had a few long and hot days preparing our field show for the opening ceremonies.  Before arriving in Chicago, we had received online the music that we would perform and the charts for the field show.  Thursday morning was rehearsal at Soldier Field for the percussion feature that would begin the Opening Ceremonies.  And, the entire band first rehearsed Thursday afternoon, running until late in the evening.  We practiced marking time, carrying instruments, marching at an 8-5 interval (8 steps per 5 yards), doing turns, and yelling “GO, TEAM BAND!” after hearing “BAND, A-TEN-HUT!” from the director.  We also got into our step-off position and figured out our first movements onto the field.  We were a group of over 250 musicians with varying levels of marching experience – some with little or none.  Initially, we were in a large, hot gymnasium at the University of Illinois-Chicago.  Then, we moved outside to the baseball field.  After rehearsal ended after 11 pm, Dan and I – having had little to eat today — took the Red Line north to the Fullerton stop, where we had some excellent burritos at a little Mexican hole-in-the-wall and, then, walked back to our room at Arlington International Hostel.

On Friday, we had rehearsal at the UIC ball fields in the morning/afternoon and then the run-through at Soldier Field in the evening.  Our field show – which was simplified somewhat to better match the realities of putting a show together in two days — was beginning to come together, but we still needed the “optional” rehearsal Saturday morning to clean up the rough edges.  The time and location hadn’t been determined, so we were told to call the Team Band Hotline for that information later in the day.  The Hotline informed us Friday evening that rehearsal would begin at 10 am at a yet-to-be-determined location.  We set the alarm for 8 am and learned that we would reach the rehearsal location by taking the Brown Line to its terminus, where members of Lakeside Pride (Chicago’s Gay/Lesbian Band) would be waiting to shuttle us the remaining few miles to a nearby prep school.  The morning sun was shining, and we were in for another hot and humid day.  Bottles and bottles of water were consumed, sunscreen was applied and shirts came off.  A few minor changes were made to the field show, we practiced keeping our lines straight by “guiding center,” and we ran the entire show a couple times before taking cover from the extreme heat.

Dan and I went back to our hostel room, stopping for lunch at the Bourgeois Pig Café for lunch.  We took a short nap, showered and dressed for the Opening Ceremonies and took the Red Line and a bus to Soldier Field.  The security at Soldier Field was very tight, and we were required to be accompanied by our “wrangler” to move to our “holding area”, go down to the loading dock to unload/unload instruments and move to our performance positions.  Fortunately, for us, our wrangler, whose sole responsibility was keeping track of all 250 of us, had a great sense of humor.  Her name was E.J., and she had a high, squeaky voice like Karen on Will and Grace; in fact, she was very much like Karen, and we appreciated her ability to keep tabs on when and where we needed to be and do it with sharp wit.

To open the ceremonies, the percussion section and other members Team Band with various percussion instruments were positioned in groups all throughout the stadium in the stands, with each group consisting of a cymbal player, two snare drum players, a quad-toms player and a bass drum player.  On cue from Christy, our director, the snares began a drum roll very softly, as if it was coming from far away.  The sound grew louder, and the toms joined, followed by the bass drums, after which the sound grew to a great crescendo, ending with a cymbal crash and a great big chord of sound from the chorus, who were seated in the stands behind the main stage where the torch was located.  It sounded pretty cool, and we definitely got the attention of the crowd.

We watched the first part of the opening ceremonies from our designated seating section in Soldier Field.  After the athletes from around the world paraded into the stadium, they held up rainbow-colored lights to create a huge rainbow flag on the field.  Then we watched and listened to a bevy of gay and gay-friendly celebrities, including Megan Mullaly (Karen of “Will and Grace”), Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, singers Jody Watley and Erasure’s Andy Bell, comedians Margaret Cho and Kate Clinton, former Olympian Greg Louganis, Star Trek’s George Takei, former Major Leaguer Billy Bean and former Minnesota Viking Esera Tuaolo.

Then, E.J. announced that it was time for us to make our way down to our prep area behind the north “end zone.”  We retrieved and tuned our instruments, put our colored sashes on, talked through the field show one last time and moved into our positions to march out onto the field.  We just had to wait until the current speaker (I didn’t catch his name.) was finished and we would be up.

Our “handler” told us to stand by.  We were ready to go.  Then she gave our director the “go ahead.”  Our director, Christy Zurcher (from Lakeside Pride Band), gave us four counts with her hands, and we marched out through the plastic-strip curtain and onto the field to clicks (drumsticks striking the rims of the drums on counts 1 and 3).  The crowd was apparently growing weary of the many speeches and seemed to come to life with a roar that echoed throughout the stadium.  We reached our starting point at the “goal line” and played a rousing arrangement of Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.”  Then we moved onto the field and moved into the formation of a roman numeral seven (VII – for the Seventh Gay Games), first displaying it facing one side of the stadium and, then, the other – all of this while playing our next number “Everybody’s Everything.”  Then, we scattered from our VII formation into a formation displaying the Gay Games logo and played “Artistry in Rhythm.”  Once again, we scattered, but this time into our original lineup, faced the stands on either side and played “Somewhere” from “West Side Story.”  Having completed our show, we marched off to clicks again.  We did it!  We put together a field show in three days with a band consisting of musicians from all over the world, and we performed it on Soldier Field in front of the 12,000 participants and many more spectators.  It sure was a thrill.

Now, we had a concert to prepare.  We rehearsed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning for our concert at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s new Millennium Park.  We got a chance to see and play at the Pritzker during our run-through on Monday; wow, what a beautiful facility this was that we would perform in the next day!

My parents and my brother, Mark, as well as two of Mark’s co-workers from the University of Montana, would be attending the concert.  My mom and dad drove to Rock Falls, Illinois on Monday to visit my grandma and her daughter and son-in-law.  They stayed overnight and, then, drove to a suburb of Chicago, where they caught a train into downtown.  By a strike of luck and coincidence, Mark was scheduled to be in Chicago for work this week and would be able to attend my concert as well.

After our rehearsal on Tuesday morning, Dan and I met up with my parents, had a bite to eat, went back to the hostel to change into concert dress and took the train back downtown for the concert.

The concert went very well, performing at Pritzker Pavilion was a lot of fun, and having my parents and brother there for the concert was extra special!  Here is the program we performed.

“Call of the Champions” (The Official Theme of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games) – John Williams
“To The Summit! (Strive for the Highest)” – Robert W. Smith
“Fantasia in G” – Timothy Mahr
“Simple Gifts” from “The Lord of the Dance” – Traditional/Roland Smeets
“Blues in the Night” – Johnny Mercer & Harold Arlen/Paul Jennings
“Cloudburst” – Eric Whitacre
“Suo-Gan” – James Curnow
“Africa: Ceremony, Song and Ritual” – Robert W. Smith
“Pop and Rock Legends: Chicago” – John Wasson
“Imagine” – John Lennon/Richard Saucedo

After the concert we went with my parents and brother to a nearby restaurant for some appetizers and Sangria.  On Wednesday, Dan and I went with my parents to the Shedd Aquarium during the day and, in the evening, we attended the event put together by Mark and his University of Montana co-workers for UM alumni now living in the Chicago area.  It was a neat opportunity to get a glimpse into the work Mark does for the UM.  Afterwards, my mom and dad and Dan and I walked a couple blocks to Johnny Rockets, where we sat in their sidewalk seating and had apple pie or a malt and coffee.  The weather both yesterday and today was cooler than it had been over the weekend and it was a beautiful evening.  It was a fun end to a great day!

Mark, Mom and Dad took the Red Line out to meet me and Dan at the Bourgeois Pig Café for breakfast.  It was raining this morning; so, we took our time over breakfast, coffee, and the newspaper to wait for the rain to slow.  We all took the train back into downtown, where Dan and I said goodbye to Mark, Mom and Dad, who would be on their way home shortly.

Dan and I went to the Clarinet Choir performance at noon and, then, visited the Art Institute of Chicago.

On Friday, we had rehearsal for the Closing Ceremonies.  This performance would be less demanding, in terms of field formations.  We would march onto the field in four lines – two from left field and two from right field.  The lines would separate to allow the athletes to file between us and, then, up into their seats in the stands.  We would take turns with the chorus to accompany the procession of athletes into the stadium, play one more selection standing in place (Sweet Home Chicago) and, then, march off.

Friday afternoon Dan and I walked out to Navy Pier and took an architectural boat tour down the Chicago Canal.  Saturday morning was the run-through for that afternoon’s ceremonies.  Between the run-through and the actual show, Dan and I had lunch at the Chicago Diner, a great vegetarian restaurant on North Halstead, and then, walked over to Lincoln Park for a quick nap in the shade.  We performed our part of the ceremonies as planned and then, watched the rest from the stands, including a couple numbers by Cyndi Lauper.  We also went to the “after-concert” gathering at a downtown bar to visit with – and say goodbye to — other members of “Team Band.”  Sunday morning we took an Orange Line to Midway Airport for our flight back to the Twin Cities.

Just a quick post to let you all know that we made it home -- well, to our temporary home in Shakopee, MN with my parents.  Last Friday we drove from Iron River, WI to my parents' cabin near Emily, ... [Continue reading this entry]