[color=orange][b][u]Snares Are For the Bears[/u][/b][/color] ----------- While COTS (Circus of the Superstars) is sadly no longer in business, our marching bands and/or drum and bugle corps, and our jazz band still perform for the public’s listening pleasures, and so it isn’t uncommon for people to come to me, Graham Gurdetha, and ask me about my ancestor, the half-crazed grizzly bear known as William Gurdetha. (You also know me as the G-52 Rhythm Bear, and to avoid confusion with my ancestor, the other William Gurdetha that is alive today goes by William the Bull. He and Judge Marcus are best friends.) We are very happy, however, to see that the legacy of the circus will not die, even though we are saddened at the same time to know the reasons why. Thanks to the successful influences of CNG, IC2, and IC3 (with the third picking up where the first two left off), show biz is dying, and so is the video game industry. (People still make those things, but their popularity is at an all-time low right now, just as it is with sports, because of specific people that did something rash.) As a result, we are returning to an era which people thought was dead, because more people are taking their kids to the circus in general (as well as amusement parks) instead of to the movies, the arcades, or other things of that nature. It’s why Circus Delights, based out of Canada, is the most popular furry circus in the world (while the humans can still brag that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is the best human circus in the world), although the U.S.’s top two, the Colton Brothers Circus and the Martinson Sisters Circus, are not far behind. --------------- Yet what do we all have in common? I ask this because both the Colton Brothers and Circus Delights use live marching bands and/or orchestras for their musical accompaniment, just as COTS did, while the Martinson Sisters don’t have the budget for that, so they just resort to recorded music. (Their strategy of using jazz fusion helps set them apart, though, so we applaud them for that.) All three of us have unconsciously followed the patterns that my ancestor had set when it comes to this, because he was a circus drummer himself. If you remember his bizarre beliefs, he wanted a world without humans, and his twisted mind, poisoned by figments of his own imagination gone rogue, campaigned for drummers on the march to be the most respected animals of all. “Remember,” he told his followers (and he did have them; all of them regretted it later on in life), “we live our lives barefoot because it sets us apart from these dreadful human beings who have no respect for anybody, not even themselves. In a perfect world, marching bands are the heart and soul of it, and drummers are so important, keeping time if nothing else. Because of this, I say to you that the snare drum is the instrument that should gain the biggest amount of respect. I see you have obeyed my every command to ensure that the bear has this position. So as a general rule, soldiers, snares are for the bears.” CNG must have been very delighted by this, because we have seen so many bears from those nine documentation waves in band uniforms beating these drums, even though there might be more brown bears than grizzly bears. As long as it was a bear beating the drum while parading on his bare feet, my ancestor didn’t care if it was a brown bear, grizzly bear, black bear, or polar bear. (The bulk majority of those who lost their humanity at the various circus conventions they attended, however, were either grizzly bears or brown bears.) This is why I feel led to point out this other question: “Was your ancestor half-naked?” CNG wanted to get its victims in trouble by making them real-life versions of the characters in the most popular children’s show Wildcat City ever made, “The Adventures of Drummer Dog” (TADD for short, according to its fans that use the slang to make it easier for themselves). This is why when it got Emily McMantis (Tempo Tigress) and her friends, they found themselves as half-naked tigresses in purple uniforms, and that elderly woman kept yelling at the police to have them arrested. (The police did nothing because this woman fit the “Karen” stereotype to a T. Shame on her.) This is because the characters on the show were portrayed that way, which was only because it was trying to be faithful to the children’s book series it was based on, in which the artists chose to do that. It was a fantasy setting, so it was okay. While my ancestor campaigned for an eternal world of barefoot animals, he did not specify what parts of the body had to be covered or not. However, he did have a period where he was appearing this way, although nobody complained about it. People were too busy complaining about his twisted beliefs. (Remember, while there are stupid animals out there, CNG was prevalent during my ancestor’s heyday, and it contributed to how hateful the humans were towards animals. To this day, we are still not certain what event began that hatred, unless the First Civil War had something to do with it.) In fact, when Leo Washington captured and threw my ancestor in the asylum, he was dressed this way: top part of the uniform with shako, but no pants. When he was finally let out after having his epiphany and able to apologize to the humans later on, he was dressed this way, and nobody said a word about it. ----------------- Here was my point, though: when he was in the circus, it was a pure coincidence that all the percussionists were bears in the band. CNG unconsciously planted his beliefs in the minds of our circus, Circus Delights, and the Colton Brothers Circus, because all three of us were doing the same thing. I am a bear playing a snare drum for the circus who parades on my bare feet (or should I say, “bear feet”), and I am percussion section leader. Benjamin Andrews (known to superheroes as Snare Bear) plays a snare drum for Circus Delights, marches on his bare feet all the time, and is percussion section leader. Frederick Giles plays a snare drum for the Colton Brothers Circus, parades on his bare feet all the time, and is percussion section leader. (Frederick is a brown bear, however; Benjamin and I are grizzly bears.) When we, the marching band of COTS, introduced both Circus Delights and the Colton Brothers Circus to both Drumbum Village and Patriot’s Village, the purpose of which was celebrating Judge Marcus becoming a Drumbum himself, we stood barefoot like soldiers at attention while beating on our drums. During a break, though, each of us got to know one another, and Benjamin revealed that by accident, he and Circus Delights found another pattern. “Is it a coincidence,” he asked, “or did your ancestor wanted animals with hooves to play the kettledrums, or timpani? We have Mortimer Mertzon, the Tenacious Timpanist. He is a Minotaur (half-man, half-bull), and he’s always marching on his bare hooves.” (Morty played a bass drum when marching in parades, since marching timpani wasn’t practical anymore; props to the Kettledrum Cats and Timpani Tiger for reintroducing it.) “And if we ever used timpani, it was always either a buffalo or bison,” Frederick added. “As your ancestor said, ‘When the drums begin to beat, the bear shall march his feet.’ Every arrangement of a Sousa march we play has a timpani part to it.” “I don’t remember if my ancestor wanted that,” I said, “but I do understand your logic. We had multiple timpanists over the years, but the last one was a bull. He even said himself, ‘I was judged on whether or not I could join the orchestra by playing the snare drum, but evidently, snares are for the bears.’ You know that’s not true; just look at Corps Coon or Leo the Patriotic Lion.” ------------- When visiting Judge Marcus in his house, I was able to answer further questions the other two bears had, considering that my ancestor had unintentionally formed his own cult. “You show your obedience to the religion he formed not just by living your life barefoot,” I said, “but by showing that it’s always on your mind. Thus, the drum roll ritual requires you to first of all hup your paws.” (My ancestor only ever used “Attention!” or “Ten-hut!” for large groups. For smaller groups, he would say, “Hup your paws.”) The bears and bull (Judge Marcus) obeyed. “Then you look at my feet as I beat my drum, and then salute.” The trio obeyed, and I played a drum roll on a concert snare drum. They didn’t take their eyes off my paws until the roll’s conclusion, at which point they looked back up and saluted me. I returned the salute, and we waited for about 20 seconds before lowering arms. The rest of the rituals had to do with the specific music played while marching, which is why it was common for animals marching to a 2/4 time (or 2/2 or 4/4) to chant, “Bare feet! Bare feet! Marching to the beat!” A 6/8 march required a chant of “Bare feet! Bare feet! March to the beat! March those bare feet to the beat!”, or some variation thereof. (Corps Coon only says these things because he is autistic, yet super talented. We say it to acknowledge the rituals.) Another common 6/8 chant would be, “My feet! My feet! My feet feel the beat!” However, these chants do not get spoken through the whole march. Eventually a point in the drum solo of the march requires silence so that the marchers marching will commit themselves to obeying the rituals entirely. All musical G-52s and allies have the same batch of superpowers, so we humored ourselves by having Frederick play a military bass drum while Benjamin and I played our military field drums (rope-tensioned snare drums), marching in step all the while. The judge did not march because he was playing timpani, but it did illustrate how my ancestor was literally drumming these false ideas and beliefs into everyone’s heads with CNG’s help, and it had a lifetime impact on generations to come. However, we used these to teach others not to repeat the mistakes of my ancestor, and it helped that the curse had been broken exactly 100 years after it began. (Animals who refused to do these rituals died, and most of them were canines. It shows that CNG was guilty of taking animals’ lives as well, but they only account for literally 0.001% of all CNG deaths over the years. The other 99.99% were all humans.) ------------- Because our superpowers allow us to change clothes on the fly, we experimented with what it look if we appeared as half-naked animals just like on TADD. It made us uncomfortable to a point, but we got the message. It wasn’t unprofessional because we are animals, and our anatomy doesn’t match human anatomy. However, it was better to play it safe, so we usually still wore the pants when performing. (The nine golden retrievers in the Golden Fife and Drum Corps do the same, and one of them, remember, starred as the main character in TADD, a half-naked dog beating a magical field drum when drumming for a big top circus.) ----------- I would later take everybody over to Wonder Park, the park made in honor of Leo the Tiger, the Marching Wonder. Here you can find statues of the city’s most iconic historical figures, whether for better or for worse, and this included both my ancestor and Leo Washington. I used the statue to educate everybody about the curse, which now does not exist, because back in my ancestor’s heyday, there were other composers writing music with the intention of disrespecting him. CNG killed all those composers, even though it preserved the music, and it killed or cursed those that played the music afterwards so that it could work on getting its eventual dream world it did not know it wanted until Bendraqi and his cronies had destroyed Kriegland with their Laser Beam 5000. (This made CNG very cross; it only wanted itself to be allowed to kill people.) We did both the music that was played to respect my ancestor, followed by the disrespectful music, even though nothing happened after the disrespectful music, including a timpani solo. (Morty played the solo.) “It would make it storm for 24 hours, though,” I said, “and all who dared to play it suffered the rest of their lives if they weren’t outright killed, so I ask that we pay tribute to those who had died because of his cruelty.” The animals agreed, and we stood in silence as Judge Marcus figured out how to muffle his drum before playing a muffled drum roll. One of the trumpeters from the Colton Brothers Circus played “Taps” on his trumpet, and all of us gave the military salute as he did, facing a giant American flag waving over the park. Eventually he and the judge both saluted as well, and we stood in silence for about two minutes before moving on. We then got our minds off it by playing “76 Trombones” and other selections from “The Music Man.” My duty was complete. -------------- We spent the rest of the day taking turns playing our favorite music on Marching Greens, the park’s big section for marching bands and drum corps to perform. Circus Delights celebrated their Canadian heritage by playing their favorite patriotic songs, such as “The Maple Leaf Forever” (Levi the Mountee Lion’s favorite song, by the way), while we alternated with the Colton Brothers in playing Sousa marches and other American patriotic songs. All three of us combined forces to finish with a rousing rendition of “Thunder and Blazes,” which is the alternate title for “Entry of the Gladiators;” it was under this title that the march became associated with the circus. --------------- That evening, those that were part of COTS including myself took time off to rest, while the next day, the Colton Brothers joined forces with Circus Delights to put on a spectacular spectacle for everybody. While the main feature was the big circus performance, it did end with Levi wowing everybody with his amazing operatic tenor voice, and it had made such an impact on the audiences that came to hear him sing, it literally changed their lives for the better. Whatever misfortunes they were suffering, they no longer were. If they were in financial trouble, they suddenly weren’t. If they had any relationships that were struggling, they now weren’t. The families had reconciled and made up with one another. (The list goes on from there.) “Did I do that?” Levi asked in confusion. “I think you did,” said Leo (the Patriotic Lion). (His job as UN Secretary-General allowed him to work from home, but they gave him the day off to allow him to watch this.) “There is a reason the Marching Wonder says, ‘Music is magic!’ This is just the supernatural cranking it up to eleven. Know what I mean?” “I think so.” ----------------- Upon returning to Canada, Circus Delights clarified to Levi that he wasn’t contractually obligated to stay with them forever, since he did sign a contract, but it was only for approximately six to eight months in total. This would allow him a chance at true redemption in the event he were to get back into politics for whatever reason, or if other possible diplomatic jobs were open for him. However, the circus made it clear that its large orchestra/brass band always had a place for him, and anytime he wanted to sing, they would always accompany him whenever possible. ---------------- Meanwhile, the Colton Brothers took their circus down to Arizona to perform for the folks of Glenn View Springs, who welcomed them with open arms. ------------ Thank you for your time, and remember, contrary to what my ancestor preached, snares are not just for the bears. --------------- [color=black][b]THE END[/b][/color]