I'm so excited, concerts are over. Finals begin next week. I have graduation to conduct on Wednesday and a concert to play on Sunday and I'm done for a few months. My schedule will be to go to the gym, go to the pool, practice, and do some laundry. I would like to go on a trip, however, but not sure where. I will probably be going down to LA to look at some trumpets very soon. I'm looking to buy a piccolo trumpet. In October, I am playing The Queen of the Night Aria and Carnival of Venice with the Villages.
I must reflect on these kids this year. I think this graduating class is by far one of the smartest since I have been teaching. I don't mean smart as in book smart or street smarts, but this group of kids more than any of the past is realizing how much of a scam education can be. Many of them realize how much of a scam religion and politics can be. Even a couple of them are realizing that life really is meaningless and its the meanings that we give things that are absurd.
My little stoner kid (I talked about previously) and I had a conversation about the most obscene four-letter word in our lexicon...CUNT. I bet you shuddered just viewing that word! Isn't it powerful? It's way better than fuck, shit, or fag. In fact I'm only going to refer to it as the C-word because of fear of overusing it. We cannot overuse this word like we do with fuck. Every time you use it, it looses its power, so be frugal with your use of this word. Why we brought this up is because of the absurdity people have with language. We derive so much meaning from words and they are merely distinctions so that we may communicate. They are totally meaningless to animals and aliens who use telepathy and probably even to God herself (I plan on switching sexual distinction with God because English doesn't have a nuder pronoun). The C-word is powerless without Mormons and Conservative talk show hosts getting their underwear all in a twist when they hear it. In fact the stoner kid see's this weakness in these people and exploits it. What a silly weakness to have! Being offended at the sound of a word. This kid has learned stuff about life in his 17 years of existence that took me 29. There are alot more like him in the world graduating this year.
Imagine if we were telepathic and we merely shared thoughts to communicate. I'm sure prudes would probably not exist if that happened. Every person's sexual fantasies could be seen by anybody. If you thought somebody was a prick, they would know as soon as you came in proximity. Would we all live in one collective consciousness sharing information between one another like the internet? Maybe you would have to be in close proximity or touching somebody to share thoughts. I bet in the next thirty years we will have the technology to share thoughts with one another.
This is Ishaiah Michael Romina (They haven't decided on the middle name, but I'm sure he's going to give in). He was only 5 hours old when I took this pic. He's got his father's features, big chin and dimples. Poor guy was trying to come out since Wednesday afternoon finally came out Saturday morning at 7:30 at 6 pounds 3 ounces. He was three weeks early.
This baby came out of the back of my neck. It was a pocket of fat and some scar tissue they scraped out. Got the stitches removed on Thursday. They performed the procedure last Wednesday. I love medical insurance. I definitely am getting my money's worth.
These babies are Cilantro and Parsley in my mom's garden.
So I took the orchestra kids to CMEA on Saturday. One of my viola players decided to use his own viola instead of the school's viola that he uses everyday. Not using a viola for a year has some problems cause it goes out of tune quickly. This is bad for any player, let alone one that can't tune his own instrument. He had the nerve to ask me before the concert if I would take him to boiling crab if they got a unanimous superior rating (meaning all judges including sightreading give us a 90 or above). Knowing that my viola section was going to be out of tune and the basses can't sightread to save their lives, I took that bet.
As predicted, there were several instances during the performance that assured me that this was not a superior performance. Furthermore during the sightreading, the cello section fucked up the rhythm I worked with them on. The basses also got lost 3 quarters into the piece.
Final Tally: 94, 93, 91 for the performance and a 90 for sightreading...GODDAMIT. I had boiling crab today for dinner. Not to mention I shaved all my body hair except for my head and eyebrows (another wager I made earlier in the week). Looking at the score sheet, I agreed with their assessment, although I don't agree that it was an "exceptional" performance. We would have gotten a 92 on sightreading if it weren't for one of my cellist chewing gum.
The other day in my band class, the Mormon girl who is in my orchestra and the chamber choir sauntered in and plopped down to read her book. I looked over to her and asked why she was here (she TA's for an English class during this time) and she said the teacher was showing a rated R movie. So I was about to continue rehearsing when the rude stoner interrupted asking her what movie they were watching and she replied Waking Life. Immediately I exchanged glances with the stoner as both our jaws dropped and in unison asked "that's rated R?" I guess the movie is rated R because they say the F word more than 3 times and imply sex for like 10 seconds? By no means should this movie be rated R, its almost cartoon-like. But because of her silly rules, she missed out on a movie that could have changed her life and inspired her greatness. Watching this movie did that for me.
Last night I had dinner with my jazz combo after we performed a gig in which we were very unappreciated. (I'll save the letter I will send them for another blog). The stoner and I were talking about a few incidents that happened earlier this year and how he won one of them. Thinking about this kid, he is the complete opposite of me and yet we are the same. Where I spent hours practicing my trumpet in high school mastering being a "craftsmen" of the trumpet, he spends hours songwriting and jamming on his cheap acoustic guitar. Where I spent hours listening to Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Vienna Phil, he spends hours listening to the Beatles. On my free time I did my physics and math homework, he smokes pot, drinks, and parties. Where I respected authority and was devastated when I disappointed my parents, he laughs in the face of authority and challenges his parents. The common thread we share is that we are both on the same path of greatness in music. He contemplates majoring in philosophy, but when I was his age I contemplated majoring in material engineering.
This morning I woke up after a dream in which I was in Tahoe with my family and it came to me how life and music are the same. So I emailed the stoner the following:
The meaning of life and the purpose of music are the same. People give it all sorts of meaning, but in the end it's all meaningless. As musicians, we are like doctors because we keep music alive like doctors keep people alive. Just like we can't explain how and why we were created is there a real reason how and why music was created?
We don't need music and the universe does not need us, yet we exist.
I need to lose some weight. I can't do alot of the poses in yoga cause I'm too fat. It puts pressure on my lungs and I can't breathe in some of these poses. Plus being a bit lighter will help me with my rock climbing as well as being more flexible.
So 2 weeks ago I fell off my bike on Meridian and Hamilton. I hit the curb and flew over my handlebars landing on both hands. My wrists were sore for the next few days and I didn't have full range of motion either, but whatever. I go to the doctor on Friday to have a cyst on the back of my head looked at. When I go to take my blood pressure with the nurse, I cannot turn my left wrist all the way over without a lot of pain. So I tell the doctor what happened and that after the crash I had gone rock climbing three times and he ordered some xrays. As for the cyst, he referred me to a head and neck specialist to have it removed. Won't know the results until Monday.
