An Anthropology Assignment:
       
       G, S, and I engage in conversation for a while until B shows up. B notes the conversation and says “Well, if this is going to be depressing I’ll leave.” The other members quickly deny this and B sits down. I ask what the members want as their pseudonyms. “Billybob,” says B “I’m just kidding!” “How about B?” I ask “Just call him BS.” Says G “Hey! I went through a lot of BS to get my BS from BSU so don’t give me none of your…” begins B “You don’t give me any of that BS, I know you what you went through to get your BS…” I quickly lost track of the conversation as they proceeded far faster than I could write. Finally G beat out a drum cadence and ended it by saying “NO! BS!” with a final hit. Everyone laughed. The conversation turned towards romantic interests and I remarked that P (a friend in the same group who was currently in class) “Put nothing beneath Mr. G when it came to women.” To which B replied “Especially the women.” The group cracked up except for G who gave a long hard stare at B. Then he laughed loudly and everyone chuckled. “World hunger!” he says threateningly, suddenly becoming deadly serious and staring at B. B laughs and also turns deadly serious and says “Death!” Both try to hold the serious stare but eventually break up. G then grabs my notebook and starts telling me about short hand and writes some random gibberish on it. “Look, earth. wind…maybe not.” He says studying his handiwork. “Negative” I deadpan. Everyone laughs “Goodtimes!” I say. G replies with “Great oldies!” S finishes it with “97.3…KBSGGG!” 
       G suddenly decides that he has to leave for a bit “Scuse me for a moment.” B meanwhile is looking over the phone book in S’s cell-phone. “Dr. XYZ?” he asks. “That’s my reproduction doctor.” Says S nonchalantly. B and I exchange a puzzled and slightly confused look. Suddenly I get it and laugh. B looks at S curiously. “My dog” supplies S while playing with her phone. Drawing a deep breath and turning to face the side B blinks a couple of times and says “Wow….” 
       G returns and starts raising his eyebrows at S. S also raises her eyebrows at G. This goes on for a bit while B and I watch with confusion. B jokes and points to G’s eyebrows “See there’s this secret message going across here. ‘That’s disgusting’” he says imitating G. G repeats this with the voice inflection of Will Farrell and continues his eyebrow gymnastics. B looks at him and replies “Same to you!” G remarks “I just said you were a very nice person.” B leaves to get lunch and fortune cookies.
       The conversation continues and B returns. Everyone inquires about the fortune cookies. “You’ll have to search.” Says B. G is disgusted and silent, I am astounded “We frisked you!” I say. B leaves to get the fortune cookies which he has forgotten. G continues as Will Farrell. “Threeve, a combination of the numbers 3 and 5. And your wager? …Texas with a dollar sign. Unbelievable.” B returns and everyone proceeds to open their cookies. B reads “You will be successful in anything you adopt…in bed.” Everyone chuckles “Ringing testimonial” I remark. G suddenly turns to me and says suggestively “Hey! Nice scruples!” I’m not quite sure what to make of this and says “Uh…okay.” Meanwhile B is humming Tribute to Troy, one of USC’s fight songs. The rest join in: “This is the only song we know, And it’s boring and it’s slow, And your mother… isaverynice person!” B ends it with “And OJ shot Nicole.” G glances at the clock and says “Well, I must go. Cheerio! Huzzah!” I raise a fist in the air and also call out: “Huzzah!” 
       The conversation is less and turns to how to clean up food that has fallen off the table. S remarks: “See I have dogs. I’d be like: Dogs! Clean it up!” I nod in appreciation “Go dogs.” S and I exchange a glance and laugh. I look at the clock and decide it’s time to leave. S and B do as well. 
       As most select groups do this one has a large variety of in-jokes, joking styles, and slang. When B joins the table he remarks that if the conversation is going to be depressing, he’ll leave. This is a cultural reference about this groups’ common mode of discussion; the fact that they rarely stay serious for long. Every topic of conversation leaves open a wide possibility of jokes. Most of which are taken advantage of.  A good example of this was when I requested pseudonyms and G and B got into a long joke about “BS” which ended when G delivered the drum cadence. Cadences are used frequently in band. The drum cadence used here can be heard frequently after a questionable call by the referee’s during a game. The drums deliver the cadence and at the end the entire section plus anyone else yells in defiance “NO! BS!” and then they slam the drums one more time. A newly adopted joke is the stare war that happened between G and B. The object of this is to laugh sincerely and then suddenly shout something that is a very serious issue in the world, usually one involving death in one form or another. The joker then becomes serious and stares at their opponent. The opponent then repeats this and they stare at each other. Most people cannot hold this for any appreciable length of time due to the absurdity of the situation.
         Slang in band is used for fun and to help keep things light. The “negative” comment is slang and an example of this. Marching band was originally a military organization and members, especially of the armed forces, will sometimes adopt a more “official” bearing to questions that usually answered with a simple “yes” or “no”. The “goodtimes!” comment was another form of slang. Needless to say it was adopted from a local radio station and is used to describe any particular time that was enjoyable. Sometimes, as was witnessed here, members will continue this to its advertisement conclusion, but not often. More slang is “huzzah!” and “Go dogs” comments. Unlike the others, the “huzzah!” comment is particular to this group and was lifted from “Mystery Science Theater 3000: Pod People”. It’s a general cry of “all right!” though it will also be used for “good luck!” and “I made it, yes!” Like any other word, context is what tells the difference between the definitions. “Go dogs” was an unintentional reference to the common battle-cry “Go Dawgs!” which is used in band and through-out the university. 
       Misdirection is a classic way of making jokes in band. Generally one makes a comment that taken out of context can lead to some form of sexual joke or innuendo. The comment about “My reproduction doctor.” from S was an example of this. Eventually the joker will imput the context to inform the other person of what they really meant. It is essential to do this because if you fail, other people will eventually consider these to be true and the jokes will lose their shock appeal. The traditional way for the other person to reply after they have been “let in” on the joke is an exclamation of some sort with a lot of “Wow, that sort of statement really isn’t in your character!” and relief thrown into the words. 
       Insanity is another way of making jokes. Randomness is a staple of this form and the eyebrow exchange was a great example of this. The purpose of this style is to cause the rest of the group to, momentarily, question the sanity of the joker. But nobody is willing to admit that a friend of theirs is scaring them, so they opt out with another joke that throws the original joker onto a different track. Also, sometimes the random act is so random it leaves the rest of the table in a state of momentary confusion and halts conversation. In this case, a diversion, another joke, is needed. This was the case and cause for the “secret message” comment by B. Occasionally a joke will be too random and the other person will just reply with “Uhh…okay.” Or “Okay then!” To inform the joker that their message could not be decoded and was not received. 
       Quotes and impersonations fall under the category “in-jokes”. T’s very untrue comment about having already frisked B was an in-joke taken from “Celebrity Jeopardy”. This joke was taken and run with by G who continued to impersonate Will Farrell who impersonates Alex Trebek on the show.  
       A favorite joking tradition in this group is fortune cookies. It is customary to add a suffix to the end of the fortune to make it more interesting. Some that are used are “…in your underwear.”, “…in the dark alley behind a 7-11” or the popular “…in bed.” The latter being the most common used. 
       Every college has alternate lyrics to their fight songs that are jokingly sung by other schools who will generally sing them while they are around, but out of ear-shot. The reason being that if you were to beep out the objectionable words you generally wouldn’t have any nouns left. USC’s “Tribute to Troy” however is something of an exception. The pause before “a very nice person” is a suggestive joke and signifies that this particular rendition is the cleaner version to be sung in public. 
       A lot of information was passed and references made during this observation through the ritualistic use of the language, in-jokes, slang, and joking in general. This sort of community formation is of course, not specific to band, but happens whenever a large group of people get together over a period of time.