It is almost New Year's Eve and it is supposed to be cold. I feel like Matthew Thompson (a.k.a. Matty T-Rex) on a rainy Easter a couple of years ago. He said, "It's supposed to rain on Good Friday. And then Easter's to be sunny and nice." Almost New Year's Eve and it's about 55 degrees out. I need it to be bitter and dreadfully cold, because I usually spend the night inside laughing to myself about how cold my high school marching band is in the stupid parade they go to every year, and which I ditched without fail. I want to be able to savor every moment my army-trained former band leader and his troop of snotty jocks (my band had jocks, go fig) have to pain their feet and chap their wet lips playing in the malicious cold.

The leader of my high school band is Mr. Johnston, Mr. Bob Johnston, known among his ass-kissing desciples as "Mr. J." I didn't call him "Mr. J" even once, because he asked us to. I used to have a mild respect for this man. I wouldn't have, say, defended him in a knife fight, but neither would I have kicked his dog if the opportunity presented itself. Over time I developed a surpassing dislike for the man and his disciplinarian policies. He acted like a drill seargent, and didn't even make up for it by teaching us to play. When I became a senior, I expected that he'd at least award me the privilages he routinely gave to seniors. When I was an underclassman, nothing irked me so much as his allowing seniors first pick of any candy he brought in, special recognition at concerts, more authority as section leaders, priority seating, and a more personable attitude. He gave me the final insult by being inconsistent about these things toward me when I became a senior.

I spent most of my time in his marching band as last chair, because he didn't inspire me without enough enthusiasm to practice (my three former band teachers had all done this, and I had always been first chair). Toward the end I would sit in band at the end of every schoolday, frequently after school, and even over the summer--it was like a football team in terms of preparational intensity, because all he cared about was winning parades and performance contests; I would sit there in a mild haze, drunk with alienation, boredom and contempt for Mr. Johnston. He shared a name with Bob Dylan's producer, which just drips with irony.

I fell into joking with the kid in the chair immediately above mine about Mr. Johnston's closet homosexuality, inbreeding, physical and spiritual ugliness, and fanatic need for control. I would write vulgar comments on the sheet music he had given us. I was, incidentally, a trombone player in this band, and you can only guess what I did with the word "trombone." It's probably not what you're thinking. At the end of my first semester, senior year, I was absent on the day everyone passed in their music, which would have afforded me anonymity. When I showed up the next day and he asked those who still had music to pass it in, I handed it to the flugelhorn players sitting to my right. It passed down the row, producing giggles from some, looks of horror and surprise from others (mainly freshman girls or effeminate guys). Finally, it reached the tyrant himself.

Mr. Johnston called for me to stay after. My ride (who was about to take me to tryout for his ska band--I failed) stayed with me. We sat there, showing a mixture of sheepishness and defiance, as Mr. Johnston made the usual show of disgust, betrayed confidence, and intolerance (he read some of my comments, which were very witty if I may say so myself, with such a tone of anger that I thought he might pass out from so much blood in his head and bile in his chest). I sat there with my ugly chin beard (my nick name among a few members in the band was "ball sack"; I hadn't yet learned to trim my peach fuzz) and keep my eyes down, my face sardonicaly smiling. "Stop smiling, goddammit! It's not funny! And look at me!" He called my parents, at about eight in the evening, and told them all about it. He also assigned me to sensitivity training with the school counselor, which was kind of like forcing Churchill to take a crash course in rhetoric. I will admit that I am extremely insensitive when it comes to conversation, because I'm always trying to make jokes I know people will take as insults. However, as to the reason he gave for sending me to a counselor--insensitivity to homosexuals and other ethnicities--I can only say he was a bit inaccurate.

I couldn't get to sleep easily for a few days becuse of a new, strong source of anxiety he had shoved down my throat. Later it would be because of Napster, which kept me up until 3 a.m. nearly every night my second semester, causing me to fall asleep in the middle of many A.P. European History classes. Thus, although I still remember many of the terms (Warsaw Pact, Maginot Line, Citizen Genet) I forgot most of what I learned about modern history.

Anyway, point is, I want that bastard to freeze his ass off this New Years in whatever show-off parade he forces his students to perform in this year.