Queer n There	Queer n There Archive

New York-- Listen up boys-- Culture Appreciation class is starting! Today it's the history of musical performance. The earliest known instruments are flutes and drums. Relics are found going way back before Dionne Warwick, ante Judy Garland, even before there were math classes, or history.

The first flutes and drums came from stuff left over from the hunt-- bones and skin. People found they could put hollow bones in their mouths, blow on them, and make beautiful music together. For drums they spread animal skins tight over pots and beat off.

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What's that Timmy? No, the skin- flute is something else again. Yes, Roberto, sometimes people put that in their mouths, too. Ask your health teacher, Sister McGillicutty, about that. Or better yet, Father Masterson.

So anyway, after history began, there was lots of war, and around year 1200, Swiss fighters figured out you could keep troops in order by signaling them with flutes-- now evolved into fifes (except we say "intelligently designed")-- and drums. And this Swiss practice was adopted by the Germans, the French, and the English. And while the rhythmic racket of fifes and drums helped keep soldiers marching in line, in order to excite their eyes, flags were waved. That made the soldiers proud to be suffering sword wounds and dysentery for the Red Flag, or the Blue Striped Flag, or the Green and Gold Flag, or what have you.

Now that soldiers don't march anymore but drive in armored personnel carriers-- special shaped-charges not withstanding-- all this music and color-signaling has become useless. Which is another way of saying it's become an art form. For centuries, homosexuals elbowed their way into all the art forms, and by early in the 21st century-- after taking over ballet, disco, even the gay chorus-- they got around to Color Guard, and its close cousin, Winter Guard, dubbed "the sport of the arts." One of the first to advance in this area was the Big Apple Corps Color Guard, an offshoot of the eponymous homosexual marching band, which in fall 2005 began New York's first LGBT Winter Guard, dubbed En Guard.

Counting on the natural grace, rhythm, and showmanship of homosexuals, En Guard doesn't demand prior color-guard experience. However they do insist on "a desire to excel while having fun!" Humph, "fun." It sounds Godless.

Put that hairshirt back on Kenneth-- you know what I caught you doing yesterday! For more info, e-mail enguard@ aol.com and talk to artistic director Scott Redhead (which sounds like the nom de plume of some filthy gay pornography star). I hope none of you ever get involved with of that! Enough culture. Off with you buggers-- it's time for confession.