Mary Beth Ellis at Ohio State University with The Best Damn Band in the Land: WTF?
"WTF, I leave the country for three weeks, I come back... and the site's all run up with drum majors. I ask you people, WTF?" -Wataba The Reader
"Mary Beth was on a writing residency, watched a video of Script Ohio, cried, and we now all suffer the consequences, that's WTF." -Haveros The Reader
For a chronological listing of all posts concerning my book-in-progress on The Ohio State University Marching Band, behold.
For the quick and dirty video version of answers to the most frequently asked questions about these adventures, also behold this interview.
For those of you who still enjoy complete sentences, you get to behold, too:
Why are so many posts on Blonde Champagne suddenly about Ohio State's Marching Band? We fear change. Also snare drums.
1. Remain calm.
2. I don't understand this any more than you do.
Blonde Champagne reflects my life. It always has, whether that life is occupied with liveblogging the Closing Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, escaping from a benefits-rich, will-to-live-robbing position as a tech writer at an engineering firm, or plunging into a cost-benefit analysis of federal funding for the Wild Burro Advisory Board. And as of late, my life has been awash in marching drills, trumpet solos, and drum major hat plumes. The contents of the bottling here will naturally follow.
What did we do to deserve this?
Here's where my life was in January of 2011 as I undertook a writing residency in northern Michigan: I was eight weeks past burying my father after watching him battle a particularly nasty and fast-moving form of cancer, five weeks past some emergency surgery of my own, and, when asked for my street address, had no idea what to answer, for my husband and I had bounced from DC to Oklahoma to Ohio to Alabama after he lost his job.
The Catholic brother college I dearly loved as my own had turned off into a theological weed patch, shattering my heart and placing my "Play Like a Champion Today" tee shirts into storage, because each time I saw at images of golden domes and golden helmets, the pain of the loss of a deeply significant faith-based beacon tore through me all over again.
The patch of Colorado I'd turned to since the age of six the center of all that is good, green, and Western-saddled was destroyed in a forest fire.
The space shuttle program I dearly loved since childhood and was once a part of was shutting down.
Also I was out of schnapps. Nearly all of my emotional anchors had been rendered shipwreck debris in the space of about eighteen months, and now... I was in Michigan... in an area so remote the GPS declined to acknowledge its existence.... in January. I was writing an article about the recently completed college bowl season, flailing around online for a random reference to football culture, and awaiting the meteors. The meteors arrived in the form of a video of Script Ohio.
I saw a former enemy, a school of which I was a hater (and I do mean hater, like, with an "8" and fourteen R's: H8RRRRRRRRRRRRRR) forming the letters of my home state with devastating purpose and clarity at a time when I was desperately unmoored, and it somehow simultaneously broke me and sewed me back together all at once. You don't go through something like that and then just wander into the kitchen to heat up a Hot Pocket.
The video viewing party became an essay. The essay became a phone call to the Band's current Drum Major, Jason Stuckert. The phone call became conversation lasting three hours. The party and essay and the phone call became a book.
It's not you. It's this band.
But isn't your first book, Drink to the Lasses, about attending the University of Notre Dame's all-women sister school? Why not just write about Notre Dame's band?
For the same reason you don't carry around pictures in your wallet of family members who have suddenly decided to make a living selling couch cushions made from the pelts of baby penguins and orphaned unicorns. I can't be around that *#&%, yo.
So... you hate Notre Dame now?
No. I love it and I miss it terribly. I hope it comes back someday.
...Look, a squirrel!
D Row, Matt The Badass, Alex Who Talks Real Pretty, Claudia The Campus Sister... who are these people? Why are they all cooler than me? Are they going to hit us?
An FAQ on Blonde Champagne culture, characters, and lingo is pending. It's not here yet because other people are writing it. They are writing it for free. They are acting like it.
What's a ramp entrance? What does "TBDBITL" mean? Why is everyone in the Tasting Room telling the Drum Major to "slice like a f'ing hammer"? Is this getting really annoying? Why haven't we noticed the search function on this site yet? Are we this inept and panicky in other areas of our lives?
The FAQ will be fully Ohio State Marching Band compliant. Shut up and get in line for your cookie.
Why should we bother reading the book when you're spillin' here for free, word slut?
The blog is not the book. The blog is the notes for the book. It's highly likely that certain phrases, observations, or entire paragraphs will find their way from Blonde Champagne into the final product, but this space functions as my grey matter playground, where I think out what I've seen, who I've met, and exactly how much therapy might be necessary at the other end of it. Many details and observations which are dear to me won't survive the winnowing process into the book; the site, then, will also function as a Home for Editor-Rejected Deep Sousaphone-Related Thoughts.
I also like to keep my good and faithful The Readers updated on the project; they have been most generous with their support, whether spiritual, click-based, or material. I am privileged to watch, hear, and in general experience this Band in a way the vast majority of them never will. They want to know "what's acting," as Paul Revere would say, and I appreciate the feedback my readers offer as I perform this dauntingly massive creative and mental sifitng process. Besides, I'm here; they're not-- they can let me know how effective I am at describing what I see, feel, and stumble over. And... like it or not, Miss Belle, they will.
Last but not least, Blonde Champagne also functions as my own personal Sunshine Law. It is my gesture of good and transparent faith to the members of this Band. These students endure me staring at them several hours a week; they have got to be wondering what I'm planning to put into permanent print about their craft and their culture, this smash-music way of life known as The Ohio State University Marching Band. Posting my thoughts as I go allows the members to not only assure themselves that I mean them no harm, it also provides them an opportunity to correct errors, prevent the accidental airing of privileged information, and clear misconceptions before they are forever inked in a soon-to-be-closed bookstore near you.
This site allows me to hold up an immediate mirror to the emotional upshot which I and those around me experience when the Band performs or rehearses. "You have no idea what I see," I told them when I introduced myself in the early fall. They cannot see what I see, for they are having an entirely different experience; they are busy creating the moment. They deserve to know, before the season is done, the intense emotional energy they evoke in those who see and hear them.
Why are the posts about the Bands the only ones on Blonde Champagne with "Previously on..." tags?
Many people land here from search engines looking for quick information about the Band, which... oh, honey, no. This is a highly personal and emotional journey which is taking place in real time, and to the poor uninitiated soul who Googles his way here in a five-second attempt to find out when the next Drum Major tryout is, he is going to find himself in a Candyland undergrowth of ground bounces, Paul Anka references, and deference to people who prefer to be referred to as "54."
While the book itself won't be a straight narrative, the story unfolding on Blonde Champagne pretty much is. The posts are best read in context with one another, and the chronological linking is designed help new The Readers negotiate the adventure in order, without becoming confused by non-Band related material.
(I do write about other things here.)
(On occasion.)
What's up with the "Today's Tasting Room Musical Note is sponsored by..." closing videos and pictures?
These additions started in September 2011, when some of The Readers began pointing out that nearly every post about the Band were under titles containing some sort of lyrics-based reference. My thanks to CaseyKasem The Reader, who often drops into the Tasting Room with relevant links. It's a play on the wine appreciation term "tasting notes," which refers to detailed written observations on a recently enjoyed bottle.
See, as always, this is about your comfort and your understanding and your constantly refilled wineglass, so that you're not filling up my inbox with the same question 14,251 others have asked before. You you you.
When's the book coming out?
You know what needs to happen first? Many complex, industry-insider publishing hoop jumping obstacle courses, such as actually writing it.
"The flint of MB's words striking against the steel of Jason Stuckert's baton. Stand back and watch the Conflagration of Awesome." --Langrish The Reader
GETTIN' OUR LEGAL ON: Mary Beth Ellis and BlondeChampagne.com are not in any way officially affiliated with Ohio State University, the Ohio State University Marching Band, the OSU Alumni Band, or the OSU Athletic Band.
But you know they totally wish they were.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 11:42PM 
