P is for...

PABLO!!

No, not that one...

And not that one either!  The Pablo I'm talking about is less of a person and more of an entity...

He was spawned in the summer of 2008.  He quickly sowed awe and fear and even hatred in those around him.  It didn't take long, however, for people to realize just how awesome he truly was.  Pablo completely transformed my first summer at drum corps.

Pablo was a piece of fabric.  An extremely LARGE piece of fabric, but fabric nonetheless.  He was the main feature to end the 7th Regiment's 2008 program 'Mexican Landscapes.'  In the show we had the desert, the green wood, and the river.  Pablo WAS the river.  After the three main movements were done, it was Pablo's turn to shine.  He sat waiting at one end zone and was carried by two colorguard members, weighted down by four more, to the other end zone.  He would first engulf the entire drum corps, and then they would run under him until it was their turn to drop out one by one, forming a river across the field.  The first time Pablo was used, in Rome, NY, the audience went crazy.  Which was extremely rewarding because we probably spent around 6 hours working on it that day alone.  By that point the six guard members (myself included) who had to run with him were hating the entire world.  Pablo would stick to people's sweat and it would transfer.  So then, when we were running him across the field and we'd get slapped with a sweat soaked piece of fabric in the face and it was not easy to dislodge.  Let's just say I wasn't a very happy camper.  On that note, are you ready to meet Pablo?

There he is.  The glorious, awful, pain in the behind creation that is Pablo.  It's hard to get a definite scale of him here so let's try this...

Okay.  So here you see him at Ames field in Michigan City, IN.  It is easier to tell his size as demonstrated here.  He was 10 yards wide and 30 yards long.  That's a lot of fabric to be pulling across a field, let me tell you. 

2008 was not the only year that Pablo made an appearance, however.  He was also present, very briefly, in 2009 when our show was 'Excalibur.'  He played the 'Lake' part of the Lady of the Lake when she bestowed the Sword Excalibur on King Arthur.  That lasted all of one show.  A very funny appearance, but definitely not what was wanted.

Yes, and so that Lady quickly turned into this Lady...

Much better.  So, no Pablo didn't really work in 2009.  But wait!  He was also re-incarnated in our 2011 program '(un)Square.'  In 2011 he was actually strips of fabric that the colorguard used to make squares on the field.  Check him out...

So yeah, Pablo has lived a long, successful, life.  There are murmurs about whether he will be incarnated again in future years and what he could possibly become next.  I don't know about any of that, but I'm sure he'll be good if he does appear.

You can watch his entire 2011 performance here-

Or just a little snippet of the end of the show where he becomes a triangle (gasp!)