Chrome

The question of the night came to me during an intense game of Wii tennis on the wings of technology. The phone in my pants vibrated harshly in a way that made me miss my forearm shot that put my friends in the lead. "Damn it, why now?" I thought to myself. I look at the beat up broken brown phone as my friend was performing his victory dance. "Oh, Jill texted me." As I look at the partially scratched screen I could barely make the text as Jill's voice floats in my head: "Do you want to go clubbing tonight?". I could see Jill asking that, being that friend who likes to party. I chuckled at myself while imagining me at a club. I would be the shy, socially awkward, scrawny boy that looks like he is 16 in the corner. "I can't dance and I don't have a way with the women" I replied back, "Why should I go?" I thought I got out of it, the for sure crazy night that would be too adventurous too dangerous to me. I thought I escaped, but being the top honor student she was, she came back with an unbeatable retort. "Where else are you going to learn those skills Chris?" Checkmate. I admitted defeat and lost a bit of my ego. "Fine I will go."



I sat the family owned hole-in-the-wall restaurant wondering what was in store for this night. All of the different possibilities ran through my head, and a lot of them worried me. Questions ran as quickly through my mind as Usain Bolt: "What music will they play? Are there going to be a lot of people there? Am I under dressed?" They flew around my mind as if a swarm of bumble bees had decided my brain cavity would be a great place for their hive. Bobby (one of my guy friends) was sitting at the table with me drinking Dr Pepper and video chatting with his friends. All of sudden, we hear a loud ring tone that makes Bobby almost spilled his glass of Dr Pepper on his $2000 apple laptop. It was his phone receiving a text, but not just any text. This was the text that hammered the final nail of my coffin. The message was simple "Tundercats are a Go!" It was time to hit the club.



The closest club was about a 20 minute drive south of where we lived. Bobby, however, decided we were going to make it illegally there in 10 minutes. As I loosen my grip on the door handle and stumble my way out of the car, I saw the club. The place was called Chrome, and it looked like a drunken man designed the place and decided to build it in a day. There was still a line of about 150, outside, so I guess people liked it. We meet a few of our high school friends who smelled like a mixture of pot, alcohol, and Axe to try to cover up the smell. One of the girls in line decided to exclaim out to the world in her high pitch voice "I'm so drunk!" and make out with the male next to her. "What have I gotten myself into" said the one scared voice in my mind. Little did I know things were only going to get worse.


One I got inside, I almost passed out. First of all, it must have been 95 degrees because of the summer heat and all of the body heat from trying to fit 500 people in a 25o person room. The women were wearing outfits that came with questions like "Is that all you are wearing?" and "When are you expecting to get laid?" Alcohol was being passed around like pot at Woodstock. the beer was coming forth from the bartenders like a waterfall of inebriation. All of the drunk, horny young adults staggered their way to the dance floor where the biggest shock of all came. The dancing looked like an ancient roman orgy, but with clothes on . It was way too crowded in there and instead of grinding on your girl, you would accidentally grind on four other people as well. The girls clearly didn't care if the males were invading their private lady parts and the guys didn't care that they did it in public. I opted out out of the dancing and instead went to the seating area.


The seating area was arranged so that you could see the dance floor from an elevated level. The tables there were covered with alcohol containers, so I simply moved the alcohol to the other side of the table so I could see what was going on. The club scene help me see that these "adults" were really just sex crazed, drunk buffoons. As I was sitting there thinking about how stupid this idea was, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw that it was Josh. Now, Josh is the definition of the word alpha male; he is strong, handsome, a volunteer fireman, and bursting at the seems with self confidence. "Now why in the hell are you at a club sitting all by yourself?" he asked with his slightly southern drawl. "well, I don't have a date and I'm not going into that meess to try to find on" I said as I pointed to the dance flor. "yeah you are" he said and before I knew it, I was being drug by the wrist through the chaos. Hw weaved through the crowd as if he was controlling them and moving them at his will. He spotted two pretty women with his eagle eyesight, and directed me to them. He brought me right in front of them and started the conversation. As he started talking, I got a little bit more confident and started talking quite a bit and then, on a daring whim, I asked one of them if she would like to dance. She looked at me and gave me a sympathetic smile while saying "I'm sorry, but I'm with her" as she pointed to her (apparently) girlfriend. At that time, Jill walked sluggishly over to me and commented "I'm tired, lets go home." "No complaints here."


As we drove home in her father's red jaguar, we were listening to the radio to assess how the night went and I came to the conclusion of not so hot. It was 3 am, I was tired, and I didn't hook up with anyone. I felt like an innocent freshman in high school who walked into highschool on the first day of school. I told myself, "your just no tready, maybe a few year from now, the club will be more fun." At that instant moment in time, life decided to play me the irony card. Jill looked at me with her sky blue eyes and said


"So, you coming back next week?"

Why?

Well, after a terrible day, I just had to make it worse.  Reading these reports was just awful, just awful.  Why must we read about these.  Wait, I know why, we are suppose to broaden our knowledge of literature.  We are suppose to think outside of the box.  But maybe its just me, I would much, MUCH rather read literary fiction and poetry.  Fiction can be anything.  ANYTHING!  It is amazing to see what these authors can come up with and their great sense of imagination.  You use imagination when you read these styles of books, and isn't that the first reason we started to read in the first place?  Our teachers in elementary school telling us that when we read a book, it takes us to other places.  Poetry takes us to the actual mind of the poet, where we can see his romantic or dark mind.  We can be soothed or frightened by the words on the page, as we read with the beat like a drum.  We feel our souls tremble as we read these inevitable truths.  That's what writing should be.  The crap we have to read is not writing whatsoever.  When I was reading about the blog, I was taken to a place where the author had no enthusiasm and just told me about blogging.  On a scale of excitement, turtle races demolished this paper.  And then we had a tear jerk-er, the homeless in college.  Don't get me wrong, I don't hate homeless people, I just hate people who try to make me feel bad and fail.  What every happened to the Keep It Simple Stupid method?  Why must everyone that I have to read feel like elaborating on and on and on over a bunch of bullshit that no one cares about.  I wrote this blog to boycott these stupid pieces of work.  Until I find a work that moves me, I believe that this "writing" shall not be deemed writing in my mind.  So bring it on writers.  Bring it on.

The Teacher

The names that describe him are endless: The Percussion Teacher, The Captioin Head, Percussion Professor, and The Big Man In Percussion.  His name is Eric Willie, and he is in charge of Tennessee Tech's Percussion Studio.  He is the man with a plan, but what was he before he was a teacher.  Eric was just another percussion student who by shear chance, had the opportunity to teach at an early age.  "I started teaching marching band camps during my junior year in high school and I enjoyed seeing what approaches worked and didn't work" says Eric.  He also had a private student whom he taught his senior year.  When his student made the top honor band in the western part of the state, the event gave Eric "hope that I might be able to pursue teaching."  Another, mare close to home influence though was his father.  Eric's father was a rock and roll drummer who was actually the first to introduce percussion into Eric's life.  "He introduced me to Wipeout, Let There Be Drums, and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" Eric recollects.

But even the teacher had to learn from someone.  Eric believes he has been blessed with many good teachers in his life (even though at the time he hated some of them, now he understands what he taught them secretly).  For instance, his high school band director would extend his work day for no extra money every single day and give the students lessons.  This taught Eric that "to be a musician it takes time." Every teacher he had just built a new level of musicality just like a building.  Even now, he knows that the building is still not complete as he said "(guys like) Mark Ford, Christopher Deane, Ed Soph, Ed Smith, and Paul Rennick,  

All of my DMA teachers (have) taught me that I had a lot to learn!"

"Why does he do this though?" is a question that wandered through my mind as I left his

office after my lesson with him. "How can he sit there day after day listening to kids that are

not nearly as talent as he his, and he patiently holds their hand (not literally) and walks them

through the study of music?" Most people would explode and yell something along the lines of

"Why can't you play anything!" and break a drumstick and walk out of the room. Instead, Eric

sits there right beside you on his stool listening intensely for the sound of you drum as you

make music out of thin air. His favorite part about teaching: "I love seeing the students

performance ability improve." He feeds on the students accomplishments because deep down,

he knows none of this could have been possible without his guidance.

What a lot of people don't know about Eric is that he (like many of the faculty here at

Tennessee Tech) is a world class performer. Eric is sponsored by many percussion companies

who want people the know that he uses their products and nothing else. He has many videos

on the internet of him performing a variety of percussion instruments. Eric has an unusual

view of the performance because unlike most people, he likes the preparation of the piece more

than the piece its self. "I really enjoying breaking out the metronome and breaking things down"

Eric commented during one of our afternoon chats.

Overall, I can tell that I have become a better musician in these past 4 weeks and most of it

is thanks to Eric Willie. The Big Man lives on, and will be loved by his students or anyone who

has ever heard him perform.