Belated Obit.

The bike riding started to pull me out of it, and the job situation is pulling me out of it so now I actually feel like writing again and I actually feel like having something to say. So, if you're wondering what the flurry of posts is about. That's what it's about. It's a few weeks worth of pent-up rantings that are just now coming loose.

So...

Maynard Ferguson died last week and I've been remiss in not mentioning it here.

Who was this guy? Well, besides being a great Canadian and jazz trumpet player- he was Seth's idol.

Huh?

Back in my life before I met y'all I was a band nerd. Right about now the IMSAlums on here are coughing and laughing because they thought I was a band nerd when they met me. And the Carls are all like, "dude, you're totally a band nerd, you started the Pep Band dumbass." But really, no. In all those incarnations of the Nenie I was really into that part of my identity, but it was nothing compared to the way I was before I got to IMSA.

In junior high I was a band nerd, and a large part of how I defined myself. So when I went to high school I wanted to continue on with that facet of my identity, and I threw myself into that little world, auditioning for the highest bands, playing in jazz band, hanging out with the coolest of the band geeks...

When I think back on my time at Hoffman, I don't really have many friends that weren't in band with me, and since I was in the higher of the two bands as a frosh, most of my friends were older. Which, again, sounds kinda like the first half of my life as a Carleton student.

The ringleader of the geeky crew I ran with was a guy named Seth. He was a trumpet player who'd switched to euphonium and an all-around ridiculous human being (meant in the most Jen of ways.) And it was through this guy and his buddies that I came to know the music of Maynard Ferguson.

It's hard to think back to that year of my life and not have Ferguson's piercingly beautiful trumpet as the soundtrack and at the time, I never really saw my life existing without Ferguson on the soundtrack.

It's interesting that Ferguson should re-enter my life now since this bout of depression has induced a Hornby-esque bout of "what does it all mean?" that's been aided my myspace....yes, I need help.

Anyway, here's to Maynard Ferguson, an incredibly important part of a chapter of my life that's all too often swept away. Though I haven't really listened to him in close to a decade I think I'm gonna pick up a few of his albums when I have the cash for it and relive 1994.