Me Being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You by Todd Hasak-Lowy Page B

tenor sax
    12.  Bella McMutely, baritone sax

3 Elements That Every Single Caricature Artist in the Entire World Would Focus On in His/Her Drawing of Mr. Keyes
    1.  Thick head of black, almost curly hair
    2.  Round glasses, top half of lenses tinted
    3.  Well-trimmed mustache

6 Songs Played by the Ensemble during Their Spring Concert
    1.  “MOANIN’ ”
    Mr. Keyes snaps them in with some syncopated snapping, his snapping hand up by his head. The crowd isn’t that big, but Darren doesn’t care. Plus seeing everyone in the ensemble wearing black pants and a white shirt almost makes him happy. Because it really does help everyone focus, something he could tell a couple of minutes earlier just by the way Chris McMaster sprayed lubricant on his trombone and then moved the slide back and forth quickly to see if he sprayed enough.
    They open with “Moanin’ ” because Maggie always plays an awesome solo on it. And so of course Darren watches her when she solos; everyone does. Only this time, even though he’s playing right along with her, he isn’t paying much attention to the actual music. Because she looks even better now than she did at rehearsal, and she must know this, which has Darren wondering, why did she wait so long to do whatever she did to her hair? Plus she must be using some new skin cream, because there’s barely any acne on her cheeks.
    All of which means that she’s now actually hot and not just kind of attractive in a weird way.
    Not to mention, she’s playing extremely well, even for her.
    2.  “OLEO”
    A lot of people wouldn’t want to play the bass, because you wind up playing a lot of the same notes over and over. Plus no one pays any attention to you. But Darren doesn’t care much about that second part. And as for the first, there’s actually something cool about it. Because Darren can just stand there, moving only his fingers, his left hand, and his right foot, which he taps at the exact same rhythm Mr. Keyes snaps them in at, and still be able to think about other stuff.
    Only in this case, that other stuff is pretty much just: The guy near the aisle in the fifth row is gay.
    And: The guy near the aisle in the fifth row is my dad.
    3.  “LESTER LEAPS IN”
    Darren’s trying really hard not to keep thinking those thoughts, but it’s tough. Especially when his dad is sitting right there smiling at him and looking so damn happy.
    Darren tries focusing on Daniel Waxman’s foot, which is bouncing up and down on the bass drum pedal. He tries focusing on Ariel Berger and Noam Levitsky soloing back and forth, the two of them almost giggling for some reason.
    But nothing works, because Darren can’t avoid realizing that he really doesn’t want to go to Ann Arbor with his dad tomorrow.
    He really, really, really doesn’t.
    4.  “TAKE THE ‘A’ TRAIN”
    Finally, out of almost nowhere, something gets him to stop worrying about having to go to Ann Arbor with his dad tomorrow. It’s that Darren is stupid for telling Mr. Keyes that he doesn’t want to take a real solo at the beginning of “Footprints.” Because he could totally solo as good as most everyone here, except for maybe Maggie, who is totally on fire.
    So Darren starts trying to get Mr. Keyes’s attention, which is pretty impossible, considering Darren can only use his eyebrows and head for this purpose. Daniel Waxman does take a short drum solo near the end, but it’s not long enough for Darren to actually walk over to Mr. Keyes.
    As soon as the song ends, Darren quickly puts down his bass and hurries over to Mr. Keyes, who doesn’t see Darren until he’s right next to him.
    â€œHey,” Darren sort of whispers, “can I have eight measures?”
    Mr. Keyes slowly smiles and nods his head a couple times.
    â€œThanks,” Darren says, and pretty much runs back to his