Before you know it, you're the crazy cat lady in the scary house

I can't get no satisfaction

January 05, 2002 ... 1:16 a.m.

I can't get no satisfaction

Since Lord Of The Rings has become such a blockbuster, it occurred to me to share my "Six Degrees of Elijah Wood" story with all six of my readers (hey if you are reading this--sign my guestbook! Please? Pretty please?). I am from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. So is Elijah. Oooooo.

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So is Ashton Kutcher, Kelso from "That 70's Show" and Terry Farrell, Dax on "Star Trek" and Ron Livingston (whos actually from Marion but, whatever), Alan Lowe on "The Practice" and Riley Smith, Les (The Beautiful Weirdo) in Not Another Teen Movie and Kurt Warner--he's the St. Louis Rams QB (my mommy works with his mommy).

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But I don't know any of them....Ron, call me.

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I don't actually know Elijah, either. My mom was friends with his mom, Debbie. They grew up across the street from each other. Debbie's brothers had a garage band. My grandpa actually had to go over to their house and complain because all they ever played was the Stones' "Satisfaction." Over and over. I can just see my grandpa storming over there yelling, "Can't they play some freakin' 'Jumpin Jack Flash'?"

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Because Grandpa is such a Stones fan.

I haven't actually seen "LOTR" and I don't know if I will. I went to "Harry Potter." [Hi, my name is Eibisch and I am addicted to Harry Potter.] I got a jumbo Coca-Cola. I thought my bladder was going to burst by the Fluffy scene.

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Plus, I may still have residual "LOTR" burnout. I have an animated version, all the books (I am such a dork!) and during marching band in high school, we did a "LOTR" show. In "Gandalf's Theme" I had this huge bells (kind of like a metal xylophone, but loud) solo. If you mess up on the bells everybody knows. I don't need that kind of pressure!

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The instrument itself is rather prominent and I had to play loudly. Which means hitting the keys harder. I played it with these mallets that had brass heads. I had 5 pairs and broke every one of them. But I never played good enough for the band-director-from-hell.

Which brings me to another band-mare. I was on drumline. After the football season, the drumline had contests. The battery (snares, basses, tenors and cymbals) played while marching patterns in a basketball court sized arena. The pit (the musical percussion like xylophones, etc--the hard stuff) played music.

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This particular season we kicked ass and took names!

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We played *ahem* "Gandalf's Theme," "Rosemount Rip-off" (which is exactly how we got it--ripped off of Rosemount's drum and bugle corp), "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Sunshine of Your Love."

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Another guy and I spent hours rewriting and transcribing "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the pit. I admit to giving myself some good parts--but they were also duets with a xylophone.

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But then I had to teach another girl, "Elsie", to play the duet part. AND to play the xylophone. She didn't want to play the flat notes because it didn't "look pretty." This xylophone was painted like a piano with black and white keys. They black keys were, apparently, ugly.

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I finally taught it to her. Then, the day of competition, one of our three instructors (#2) came up to me with an "idea." He took me off the bells, the music I had worked on for hours and hours.

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He gave my part to a drum major (grrr) and Elsie.

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He gave me a quarter.

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Seriously. I was to use it to scrape the underside of a cymbal four times in the whole song. This was beyond humiliating. It was demeaning.

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I was section leader, I was a senior, I was scraping a cymbal.

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That was like making Shakespeare write a "Dick & Jane" book.

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Unbeknownst to me, I was being punished by instructors #1 and #3, who hated my sister because she had recently quit the drumline. #2 was just a pawn in their malevolent quest to leave me broken and bitter.

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But, ha ha! I am not bitter!

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Well, maybe just a little.

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Have a happy day!

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