Albany Script (as performed 9/24)
COLUMBIA vs. ALBANY
Sept 24, 2011
PREGAME
Ladies and gentlemen, and Albany students, back despite popular demand, it’s
the Cleverest Band in the World, the Columbia University Marching Band!
[Fanfare]
Featuring:
J. Jose Delgado: Head Manager
J. Hayley Peterson: Drum Major
and J. Lauren Ackerman: “not the New York Philharmonic, but not the worst
thing you’ve ever heard.”
[Fanfare]
Welcomes itself back to beautiful, bucolic, bilateral, urbane, multicultural,
eleemosynary, yet still iconoclastic Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien
Stadium at Baker Athletics Complex, where we’re sure the Lions will rule the
beasts, the Great Danes will be “sent to a nice farm upstate,” and everyone will
wish they’d just bought a hamster instead.
[Who Owns]
Recently it seems that US News and World Report has released its much-
awaited college rankings, giving high school students everywhere something to
pay way too much attention to. As if Jersey Shore wasn’t bad enough. After
spending the summer holding its breath, the Band was relieved to learn that
Columbia University held strong at the number four slot. When she was informed
of the news, Columbia Dean of Admissions Jessica Marinaccio smiled demurely
and said “It is not the policy of the Columbia administration to put any stock in
rankings lists, but IN YOUR FACE! IN YOUR FACE!”
Coming in ahead of Columbia were Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, which some
ignorant observers might think means those institutions are, quote, “better.” We
in the Band, however, prefer to take the sore loser’s age-old refuge: blaming the
methodology. Clearly US News overvalues tweed, homogeneity and misogyny
while simultaneously undervaluing, you know, culture, fun, and attractive people.
And at least we escaped that horrendous five-way tie for fifth, which proved once
and for all that college rankings are just like Little League, everybody gets a
trophy and nobody loses! …Except for Cornell.
In honor of false senses of superiority, the Band now forms our collective ego
and plays “More Than a Feeling.”
[Formation: swelling ego (actually a circle that gradually expands). Song: More
Than a Feeling]
Run away!
HALFTIME
Ladies and gentlemen, and baseball fans, back despite losing up a storm, it’s the
chokingest band in the world, the Columbia University Marching Boston Red Sox!
[Fanfare]
Featuring:
J. Kierkegaard: Dane
J. Albany: Great Dane
and J. Scooby-Doo: Greatest Dane.
[Fanfare]
As well as seismograph readings going up, Hurricane Irene coming down, and
public panic at an all-time “HANDS OFF THAT CANNED CORN, LADY!” the
Band now presents an all-star gala halftime salute to talking about the weather!
[Who Owns]
JOKE ONE:
Recently it seems that after failing to bring around the apocalypse with
earthquakes, tropical storms, and yet another season of “Two and a Half Men,”
the universe has gotten a little lazy about trying to end life on earth as we know
it. Its latest feeble attempt to send people scurrying to their bomb shelters
involves a decommissioned NASA satellite that made its fiery descent into the
Earth’s atmosphere yesterday, giving newspapers a splashy headline on a slow
day and giving the rest of us one more thing to ignore as we work on our three
simultaneous problem sets. The world’s leaders, however, did not take this
seemingly innocuous threat lying down. As soon as the White House and NASA
picked up the satellite on radar, they immediately put in a call to—-not the Army,
Air Force, or National Guard, but a ragtag oil drilling crew in the middle of the
Gulf of Mexico. Then they gave them this like super-cool spaceship-tank thing
with a bunch of top-secret technology, and Steve Buschemi totally went crazy
and started breaking stuff but Ben Affleck and Arwen the elf queen got to live
happily ever after anyway because Bruce Willis saved the world…oh wait, that
wasn’t CNN, the Band fell asleep watching “Armageddon” on cable last night.
In honor of another close call, the Band now forms its sense of relief and
plays “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
[Song: Prayer. Formation: Smiley face.]
JOKE TWO:
Recently it seems that Columbia has been attracting more than its share of
celebrities to Morningside Heights, leaving the Band a bit starstruck. Joseph
Gordon-Levitt (or, as he’s more commonly known, your hipster friend’s favorite
actor) filmed a portion of his next movie at the intersection of 116 and Broadway,
and last week Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick were spotted picking
up their two daughters from the Barnard Toddler Center. There doesn’t seem to
be any sibling rivalry between them, despite Broderick recently insinuating that
he loved one child more than the other because she was more attractive than
her sister. That’s not really fair, Matthew…the girl can’t help it if she takes after
her mother.
But even these stars of stage and screen couldn’t distract the major news outlets
from an even bigger name: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Apparently he didn’t get enough of CU during his infamous 2007 visit, and so this
year he exercised his right to free speech by asking Columbia’s Model United
Nations team to dinner. Although Ahmadinejad had high hopes for his first date
in years, the students declined the invitation, saying they were busy washing
their hair that night. Of course, the media had a field day anyway, which
culminated in bloggers at the National Review labeling Columbia “Jihad
University.” To be fair, a name change was long overdue…that old “University of
Havana-North” moniker was soooooo 20th century.
In honor of upholding stereotypes, the Band now forms a fearmongering
caricature and plays the new Columbia fight song.
[Song: Dynamite. Formation: “JU”]
Run away!