– An eager crowd awaits the band’s entrance

If you missed Orgo Night, fret not – the show was recorded and will be available tomorrow on CUMB’s blog. Now, the Bwog review:

After entering to the usual “Roar Lion Roar,” the Columbia University Marching Band noted that, due to the recession, this year’s show would be sponsored by the Columbia University Show. “We also thank the Varsity Show,” a band member opined, “for lowering expectations for the past 35 years.” As the Hillel-distributed stress balls flew in the air over the spectators (one eventually landing in a tuba sousaphone), many were still looking for seats, but the band told them not to worry: “if you can’t hear the jokes, there’ll be plenty seats open by intermission.”

Thus began one of the best Orgo Nights in recent memory, though, in typical marching band fashion, some of the jokes skirted the edge of tastefulness. Surprisingly, the end of the election and the departure did not dampen the band’s taste for political humor- the first two segments focused on Ann Coulter (simply described as “fucking crazy” and Fox News respectively (with “Beat It” and “More Than A Feeling” mixed in), and mostly had fun at “Coultergeist’s” expense, including asking “If she thinks kindergartners are being taught fisting in kindergarten, what are they being taught in high school?

But the satire soon returned home, with bits on the “fun recession,” new Dean Moody-Adams’s secret plan to make Columbia more like Cornell, and a well-received, epic narrative of the band being dragged home by “The Diana.” Jokes included Dean Cristen Scully-Kromm and her “eight hairy legs,” a scuffle at the Winter Formal coat check over people attempting to “smuggle out fun in their pockets,” and “The Diana” being described as “every Barnard girl: she was tall and short, slutty and a lesbian, fat and anorexic.” Appropriately the tale of hooking up with the Diana ended with a spirited rendition of “Love Shack.” The Cornell segment was perhaps the edgiest section, though, as jokes included “Columbia’s new mascot – the Suicide Lion,” and the building of a gorge on 116th Street where students can express their frustration and despair “the Cornell war: headfirst.”

The performance closed with a combination of the political and educational spheres, as the Marching Band took on Hillary Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama, and Eric Holder. Holder got the lightest treatment, his experience in Columbia College, Columbia Law, and the Board of Trustees making him “the only person Bollinger follows on Twitter.” Clinton became fodder for another Barnard joke, as the band expressed surprise that Clinton would return twice in a year when “Barnard girls don’t know how to make a relationship last more than three months.”

It was Obama, though, that led to a surprise, as the band announced that “Barack Hussein Obama, honorary member of the marching band, will be delivering the commencement address…in your fucking dreams.” Continuing to draw inspiration from that beloved alum, the band continued “we are not a liberal Columbia, we are not a conservative Columba, we’re just a mostly liberal Columbia” and, to even more applause, “we are not a white Columbia, a black Columbia, a Hispanic Columbia, or an Asian Columbia – we’re a mostly Jewish Columbia!”

With that, and a playing of “Jerk It Out,” the band departed, but not before one final Orgo-inspired shot: “a long chain of molecules is called a polymer, and a long chain of the same joke over and over again is the Varsity Show.” A final ovation followed, and, in Bwog’s opinion, the band deserved it all.

– JCD