In the US Army Band of New York City, I played ceremonial music for then-President Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom), François Mitterrand (President of France), Jacques Chirac (Prime Minister of France), Corazón Aquino (President of the Philippines), Brian Mulro...

A bit more than a couple hours of driving from here -- but I was amused to see Benchsinger on the program because that is the warm-up piece for my quintet. We cannot, however, even approach playing the Arnold, and I would have loved to hear the entire thing. I don't suppose you recorded it? No reco...

I'm looking forward to seeing all of this go back together, Mark.

I am the very model of a modern Carmen Miranda…

HEY! YOU! YEAH, YOU, YOU WILLSON-TUBA-OWNING THUMB RING HATER! So you hate thumb rings. So you removed it from your tuba and it lives in the bottom of your junk drawer in your kitchen. I need it. Sell it to me. TODAY! SELL IT TO ME TODAY! I MUST HAVE IT! SELL IT TO ME! No, I have no child to trade. ...

HEY! YOU! YEAH, YOU, YOU WILLSON-TUBA-OWNING THUMB RING HATER! So you removed it. I need it. Sell it to me. TODAY! SELL IT TO ME TODAY! I MUST HAVE IT! SELL IT TO ME! Reply with offers for original Willson- or Kurath-made massive, ridiculous, teething-ring-like hunks of manly nickel silver, only, pl...

He did not actually sing it, but he danced to it, or stumbled around, more like.

Both of them went very well. Our programming is always pretty popular. And our personalities work well with the crowd as we take turns introducing the pieces. And everyone seems to really like my arrangement of "Tico-Tico no Fubá" and my story about Donald Duck singing it in 1942.

My mistake. Mine is 7454, which is 1971. I was thinking it was 2454. D'OH! But 12XXX was in 1980, and that was the SN series of the posted horn. I'm batting .500, I guess.

I sent him a fun email. I hope he enjoys reading it at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

OK OK, fine. ~50 year old Miraphone 186. Assuredly not "vintage." A 50-year-old one would have a serial number in the high 2,XXX to low 3,XXX range. Joe was talking about a horn in the 12,XXX range, which would have been made in the early- to middle-1980s, and to *us* would not be conside...

Southaven takes me 2 hours and 45 minutes. Baton Rouge takes me three hours. Monroe only takes a bit under two. But going to work takes me an hour.

We have no local Interstate. I live in the 19th Century…

It is about a 2.5-hour one-way leg for me.

Friends down in the South Mississippi area: The Mississippi Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet will be performing an excellent recital program at Trinity Episcopal Church in Natchez on Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. (THAT'S TONIGHT!) The program is about 90 minutes long, including a 15-minute intermis...

Honestly, that description sounds suspiciously like a cut-and-paste job taken from some corporation's website, and "ITEA" was pasted in place of the original company's name. This list does not sound like an accurate description of a part-time leader of a smallish, niche nonprofit for a rat...

tl;dr — That was tl;dr

Wow. I guess I should apply. It seems to be aimed at my specific demographic.

Yeah, I saw that one on Facebook, too. Hilarious!