San Diego

New Grill

Kids in San Diego celebrating their second place victory. It was so much fun seeing them excited about doing such an awesome job and making wonderful music. It made me feel all warm like I'm doing a good job. I wish every time I did a concert we felt this way.

Baby Beluga in the tank at sea world.

The aircraft carrier my grandpa served on.

So I had an epiphany while on this trip with my kids. For four days, these kids' parents trusted me to take them to San Diego and bring them back alive. It really hit me like a ton of bricks on the night I confiscated some stogs from a kid. Rachel and I argued for a good hour about saying I shouldn't have told the administration that I should just let these kids off the hook. They signed a contract to go on this trip saying no tobacco, alcohol, or drugs while on the trip or they will be sent home immediately. I didn't send these kids home, but I did get them in trouble and call their parents. If I were a parent, I would hope the teacher would do the same.

Hollandaise sauce and excuses to eat it and mayonnaise

Hollandaise sauce is one of the most fattening sauces ever to be created. But it is so damn good! You take two egg yolks, whip them up and slowly drizzle in one stick of melted butter while mixing it in a double boiler. The trick is to make sure you warm up the eggs slowly without making scrambled eggs. You must take the bowl you are mixing it in on and off the water. I find that when using my metal bowl, if I can't hold it with my bare hands while mixing it, its too hot. Its possible that I don't cook the eggs long enough for our FDA standards, but that's why I make it myself. Never use a powder recipe!

I love asparagus, its a great and healthy excuse to eat hollandaise sauce or even mayonnaise. California is so cool because of its seasonal vegetables all year long. End of winter and beggining of spring is great for asparagus and artichokes. Artichokes are also a good excuse to eat mayonnaise. I like making a yogurt, mayonnaise, and dill dressing to dip my steamed artichokes. You can eat them hot or throw the leftovers in your lunch and have it cold. The best protein to have with these two delicious vegetables is Fish.

I recently planted some herbs: Thyme and Basil. Hopefully by the end of summer I will have enough Basil to make some pesto or maybe some caprese salads. I really should learn how to make cheese. Problem with cheese making in America is that the milk we get has been pasteurized way too much killing some of the key enzymes in cheese making.

Hopefully Mr. Woo will give me some more chantarelles. These are the tastiest mushrooms I have ever had. A mushrooms risotto with these would be quite tasty. Oranges are really sweet in California right now. Its the end of the naval orange season and all the ones left on the tree are filled with sugar making them some of the most delectable fruits in the world. I'm going to steal some from my dad and make some orange juice. Maybe even some mimosas or screwdrivers. A good screwdriver starts with great orange juice. No point in having one if it doesn't taste good.

Getting back to normal

After doing two months of Musical Theatre, I am starting to get back to my normal self. By no means is March offering a respite from musical activities, but it is a much easier life. Since the end of the musical, I have had more patience and a happier time at work. I have been working in the kitchen making wonderful culinary delights.

Today I made some striped bass. It was so good! I used dill and basil and lemon and rubbed the fish and stuffed it into every orifice the fish has. A bit of olive oil and some kosher salt and into the oven for 30 minutes. Made some jasmine rice on the side, some guacamole, and some corn tortillas. For some odd reason, I must have tortillas with my fish (unless I cook salmon).

Coming up is our silly st. patricks Pasta feed/concert. Its $10 for a lot of pasta, music, and fun. Included is two of Vivaldi's four seasons. Why am I serving pasta on St. Patty's day you ask? I wanted corned beef and cabbage, but the silly kids who run ASB and are in charge of catering the event decided they didn't like corned beef and made it pasta instead. Supposedly its really good pasta, but I will have my corned beef and cabbage going on in my crock pot.

Conducting Musicals

I discovered that conducting musicals are much more difficult than I had anticipated.

1. First, you never have enough time to teach the correct vocals. It seems as though even spending 20 minutes on 2 bars with 8-year-olds is not enough to learn 2 part harmony. Also if you are never given the opportunity to teach the correct harmonies to certain cast members, it won't happen.
   
2. Asking musicians to show up somewhere and on time is impossible. Part of that was my bad because I wrote the street name in the email as "park ave" instead of "Parkmoor ave."
   
3. Fitting an orchestra in a pit is rough. I didn't realize I actually have to plan that out.
4. Getting singers to follow you after they have learned choreography with a recording. What happened to the old days of piano accompanists? (they cost too much)
5. There is no downtime when you conduct, you are always anticipating the next musical cue and making sure everyone is going to come in on that.
6. Making sure that you have the right cuts and the musicians too.
   

It is such a reward, though, to see the production come together. As the conductor of a musical, you are but one small part of a very big thing. The set, costumes, choreography, learning the scenes, tickets, marketing, the accounting, managing the actors, lighting, and sound make up this beast.

This week begins a marathon of 4 rehearsals and 10 performances. I need to stay focused.

Shave and a Haircut...12 Bucks

I got my first shave and a haircut. Yes, the barber, Sam, used a straight razor. He missed a spot on my chin, but I don't think anybody is perfect the first time they shave somebody's face. The barber in many different styles of art is such an important part of society. In Rossini's Barber of Seville, he is the guy that sets up Rosina and the Count Almaviva (disguised as Lindoro so he can gain entrance into Dr. Bartolo's house). The Barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd, kills people and chops them up to put meat into the meatpies. Ice Cube plays a barber who owns a barbershop in Chicago in the movie The Barbershop, where men gather to have lively discussion.

My barbershop might have lively discussion, but unfortunately I do not get to partake in the discussion because I don't speak Vietnamese. For me, this ritual of going to the barber is a peaceful one. I sit back and listen to the jabber of Vietnamese while watching whatever is on TV in the mirror. Today, they were watching Top Gear. During football season, its on ESPN or the football game and I can pick out words like "over-under", "Du Me!", and "touch down". It would be an interesting opera to write about my experience at the barbershop. There would be my barber who doesn't speak English, the tranny doing hair 2 seats down from me. The cholos coming in for their fade speaking Spanglish, the kid crying and his mother, the guy at the cash register who does speaks English and talks to me about football, and the woman shopkeeper who yells at everyone in Vietnamese. There would have to be a scene outside where the ghetto black guys come past peddling drugs, the other Vietnamese barbers taking a smoke break, and of course the scenery in the shop displaying signs in bad grammar about the minimum credit card purchase or the deal on getting a pedicure.

The hefty Performance Schedule coming up

I would love to see you all at some point. All of these musical events should be very entertaining and are going to be fantastic. I think I have one comp left unclaimed for the Musical.

February 25-28 Once Upon a Mattress, Children's Musical Theatre of San Jose, Conducting.

March 4 Leland Wind Ensemble, joint concert with Bret Hart Band, 7:00 Bret Hart Middle School. Works by Tichelli, Whitacre, and Swearingen (oh boy!), Conducting.

March 7 California Youth Symphony at San Mateo Center for the Performing Arts. Higdon: Blue Cathedral, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Resphigi: Pines of Rome, Trumpet.

March 14 California Youth Symphony at Flint Center, Cupertino. Higdon: Blue Cathedral, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, Resphigi: Pines of Rome, Trumpet.

March 17 Leland St. Patricks Day Concert, with food! Orchestra performing Winter and Spring from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Karl Nielsen: Bohemian Danish Folk Song, and some Mozart. Women's Choir doing music of Randall Thompson and Aaron Copland, Chamber Choir performing St. Patrick's day music.

March 19 Silicon Valley Symphony Choral with Special Guests Leland Chamber Choir. Singing American Music and Spirituals, Michelle Jordan, soloist.

March 21 Villages Concert Band at the Villages, Cribari Auditorium. Gershwin: Porgy and Bess, Music from Star Trek, a Mancini Medley, and some other goodies, Trumpet.

March 25-28 Leland Choir Tour, San Diego, CA. Competition at the Heritage Festival.

Spring Break April 12-16, going to need vacation after all this. Anybody down for a trip?

A psychic reading

Today I got a free fifteen minute reading from a psychic. Now for those of you new to me, I am very well informed about psychics and real spirituality. The dude that gave me my reading talks to angels. Keep in mind that when receiving messages from the spiritual realm, you don't get a text message or anything, it kinda comes to people by a mixture of senses.

So after I repeated my full name 3 times to him, he got an image of a Mayan temple from Mexico. He had no idea what it meant, I knew exactly what it meant. This was my Grandmother who passed about a year ago communicating with me again. The last few months, she has been coming into my dreams and stuff. So I told the psychic that she is just popping in cause my Dad doesn't listen to her and she knows my mom and I pay attention when she comes around. But he said that she is trying to show me not to give up on my dreams of being a conductor, you just need to take it one step at a time.

I then asked him about my random chest pains that I get. I told him that I know I don't need to go to the doctor because I am in good health and its common for people to have random pains, spasms, and itches. He said that he is very unfamiliar with past lives, but the angels told him it was a past life pain. I asked him which one cause I have lived almost 200? I then told him that in about 50 of them, I died on the battlefield...Immediately he said I got kicked in the chest by a horse. He says I need to make peace with something from that life. I told him I could probably figure that one out.

Then our time was up and I left for my rehearsal.