Tuesday

So Christi told me I could interview folks at her work for the transit project thignee, which is still not ready. I figured that it would be much less hectic now that the festival is over and since everybody got Monday off to relax. It was not less hectic. Nobody had time to talk to me but one of the volunteers and his friend. Fortunately, both were bilingual. I got the one guy speaking in English and Afrikaaners. I knew his national background wehn I asked if he was bilingual, and he said he was, but it was a language that nobody would want to hear him speak. I asked him to talk in it anyway. It has no word for “subway” or “metro.” (If you have an opinion of the politics surrounding this language and whether I should use any part of it, let me know. Since I don’t understand more than a word here or there of it, it’s going to be difficult for me to edit anyway.) I got the second guy, who is from Equador, speaking in Spanish. More samples is good.
then, I hoped I could get some of the women in the office to talk, but they were all very busy, so I did filing for them, hoping it would free up some time for them to talk to me, or perhaps make them feel guilty. Neither occured, but I filed more than a ream’s worth of solicitation letters.
Came home, answered old email. Did chores. Made dinner. Tiffany came home. Procrastination…. al la la. I really need to do it tomorrow. And the other thing due on the 15th, whatever it is, I’ve forgotten. And write more music for Seattle. And find out if Wesleyan wants me to take the GREs, since I told them I was going to (and if I could put that off for a bit longer). And the Aether Fest tape.

Monday

I woke up with Owen lying next to me. Matthew, Jenny and Owen stayed over with us rather than driving back to Mnt View late at night and Christi hijacked OAT to try to wake me up in the morning. It worked. All of us, including Tiffany and Christi’s mom went for breakfast at Tomate cafe, which has improved a lot recently. Then we returned and I complained that my relationship to Owen was way too complicated to explain, so Jenny said that Christi, her mom and I could all be godmothers.
Everyone went back to their homestates or work or whatever, and I called up Best Music about my tuba and they told me to go to Best Repair. When I lived in Cupertino, I got all my tuba work done by a guy named Sousa (what elese could you do with that name?) in San Jose. So I was wondering about Best Repair, since I was unfamiliar with them. When I purchased my tuba, the old owner told me that BOBO (the world’s greatest tuba player, who is with the La Philharmonic) had seen it in a shop after the 5th valve was added and tried to buy the horn, but the owner refused to sell, lending it to him for a couple of seasons instead. This story took place, I figured in LA, but the shop was called “Best” something-or-other. Anyway, I walked in with my horn and put it on the counter and the guy looks for about 5 seconds as I point at the worn cork on the valves and says, “I did all this valve work.” He went on to explain that he added the fifth valve. I asked him about the story with Bobo and he said that he knows Bobo, but the story was wrong. He also told me that he didn’t add the spring-loaded tuning thingee, so maybe that’s where Bobo saw it, or maybe the whole Bobo-connection is a myth. Anyway, I feel very good about having that guy work on my horn, since he’s already worked on it extensively and done a great job. I’ve left in good hands.
Then I came back home and got the mail, where there was a thin letter from Wesleyan. I feared the worst, but since I got into Cal Arts, I could go someplace if I wanted, and I’m not sure if I want to, cuz it’s a lot of money and who knows how valuable an M.A. in composition is anyway? Christi told me years ago that the average salry of a music graduate declines as their education increases. I’d do better financially if I just have a B.A. and not a M. A. and if I went back to high tech and anyway. Wesleyan’s short letter explained that they are happy to offer me admission,a full ride and a stipend. I started jumping up and down and jumped on christi and then ran over to my neighbor’s house where I jumped up and down and frightened her dog. Then I jumped up and down some more.
Then we took the framed fine-art scores to Christi’s office, cuz I always worry about things getting harmed when I have them and they’re not mine. when we got back, Christi told me that she had a long conversation with Lyn Liston of the American Music Center with at the Other Minds festival. Christi and I met Lyn at the Composing A Career confrence last spring. The AMC is holding three carrer building workshop thingees coming up soon. I think I posted the info to the call for scores blog, linked to in the left margin. Anyway, Christi and I will be unable to attend the SF one, because we have to play in Seattle right afterwards, but there’s one in Seattle the next weekend that we were going to go to. Lyn told Christi that the AMC has been advertising our “Meet the Composer” thingee in Seattle as an adjunct to their confrence. Obviously, they would comp us in to the festival since we’re featured, etc.
Blinking extensively at that news, I stumbled over to a computer where I had email from my dad telling me that he purchased me a whole case of Girl Scout Thin Mints.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a day quite like yesterday before. Certainly better than any day I had last year. It was just one good thing after another. My my fairy godmother’s sabatical just ended or something. I still have deadlines creeping up though, and yesterday was not a good day for working on stuff. I’m still blown away.

Don’t call it Frisco

Fred Phelps is planning to picket El Camino Highschool in the South City during the month of May because it’s putting on the play The Laramine Project, which is about Matthew Shepherd. Phelps objects not only because he hates queers, but also because the play specifically depcits him as a hate-mongering jerk. Phelps plans to stand outside the highschool with signs that say “God Hates Fags” and “God Hates El Camino Highschool.” There’s a PDF of the flyer announcing this fun-filled event posted on his website GodHatesFags.com. I think, though, that most offensive thing about this whole evnt is that his flyer refers to the South City as “Frisco.” Some things you just can’t stand for.

More

christi just told me that the American Music Center is having a career advancement seminar for composers in Seattle the weekend that we’ll be there (which I already knew) and that additionally they’re advertising our Seattle thingee to their confrence goers and are comping us in to the confrence.
I’m blown away.
The only place where success comes before work is the dictionary and when oddball things happen.

Old News

In the old days of HTML, everything needed a title and when you send an email, it needs a subject, so I feel compelled to title every blog entry, even if the title is insipid. is this a dumb idea or good practice thinking up titles, since every piece of usic needs a title, no matter ow insipid. Of course, I’ve been titling some of those by date. Hmmm

Untitled Blog Entry

Wednesday

Last Wednesday, I did not go to work with Christi for some reason. None of my car pool really wanted to go to the Rorem reception, so I skipped it. I didn’t drink the good wine. I didn’t meet the composers or the board of directors. I didn’t hear Tom Armanio’s speech. He had two minutes allotted to him in the schedule. I understand he went somewhat over time. In retrospect, I have no idea why I didn’t just go with Christi to work that morning.
I did see the concert, although not the pre-concert talk. The only song of Rorem’s that I’d really heard before was I am Rose, which is not my favorite song, so I went to the concert with low expectations. It started and was very neo-romantic. His songs seemed to be composed primarily with intellectual conciet, to show off his skill at setting the words, rather than to highlight the meaning of the words. He used a whole bunch of poetry about love, life and death, mostly death. as the piece went on though, the power of the words began to build intensity and his setting seemed more to highlight the intensity. finally, by the third part, in the midst of a long and emotional, angry, worried poem about AIDS that the baritone was belting out with all the anger and intensity that belonged in the poem, the audience was moved to tears. There was a lot of sniffling in the auditorium. I reached for my hankerchief.
There was a lot of ego in the settings, but also a lot of artistry. The singing and piano playing was excellent. All of the songs were played through with only minimal pause. At the end, the applause was tremendous. the Palace of Fine Arts is not a resonant hall and applause tends to die very quickly, but the audience was very enthusiastic and clapped for a long time.
Then one of the opera singers, two pianists and the gay men’s chorus came out to play and sing christi’s arrangement of King David’s Lament for Johnathan by Lou Harrison. It was moving and fit very well with Rorem’s work. It also personalized and made immediate all of the song and poetry about death. Some of the poems were very immediate and personal that Rorem set, but Lou just died and many of the singers, players and even audience members knew him. He was featured in the previous year’s festival and spoke briefly at the film festival, so many folks there had at least seen him before. The song is a wonderful and beautiful lament and Christi’s setting flowed very well from soloist, to chorus to chorus and audience singing. The San Francisco Chronicle review described it as “moving.”
Christi, however, was not happy. There was no time for a tech rehersal, so the micing of the chorus was uneven and they were quiet (the acoustics in the hall are not good enough for anyone to sing unamplified, even a full chorus). the sound guy tried bumping up the volume and good a bit of feedback. Also, one of the piano players apparently did not have time to reherse. The piece opens with a piano line that continues throughout and some nice tone clusters. One of the pianists missed some of the opening notes and although the performance notes called for them to link arms, Christi said they did not do so. The piano part quickly came together, though. and the audience’s singing was surprisingly good, given the difficulty of the vocal line. There were clearly some excellent singers in attendance.
afterwards, I was listenign to what folks around me were saying and it was all good. Charles told me that he felt bad for Christi when the pianist missed the notes, but I don’t think many folks in attendance noticed it, or if they did, they forgot by the end.
All in all, and excellent evening and the largest audience of the entire festival.

Tired

I was telling Nancy on Saturday that I was super tired from partying the last two nights and I would probably be partying that night too and so stay exhausted and she asked if I was whining or bragging. Good question. But I’m too tired now to update my blog except to say that I unscrewed the back of my tuba valves today at band practice (being very tired is as good as being drunk and anyway, if I combined the two, I might drop the tuba on the cement and harm it.) and the middle finger, ring finger and pinky valves all had green corosion in them. I put sewing machine oil on all of them. Tony Clements, my high school tuba teacher, told me to use sewing machine oil someplace on the surface of the valves, but I can’t remeber where, so I’ve just been putting sewing machine oil around the outside for the last two times I’ve played it. I think the valves are faster, but I’m not sure how to oil them and I’ve heard that using the wrong oil can actually hurt the valves. So I’ve decided to take my tuba to Best Music to get it serviced. It’s like a tuba lube job. I’m hoping that they will take it apart and clean it for me and I can ask questions about all the care and maintance things that I’ve forgotten. for example, I know you can’t get cork soaked, but I can’t remember what the inside of rotary valves have in them, so I don’t know if I could even submerge my tuba in a large bathub or not. You know that you’ve always wanted to sit in jacuzzi with a tuba. When I was a youngun, every couple of months or so, I would completely disassemble my trumpet and put all the pieces (except that piston valves, which have cork in them) and soak it in the bathtub. Then I would run a cleaning snake through all the pipes and clean the non-lacquered tuning thingees with brasso. I’d rinse the valves under the faucet and then I’d dry and oil the whole thing and re-assemble it. I’ve never done this with a tuba. First of all, I don’t have a snake that big. I could have used my parents’ giant bathtub. My high school tuba only got cleaned once a year, by a music shop. I’ve never cleane dmy current horm, as far as I can recall. And then I stored it a long time without planning to or preparing it, and now the valves are somewhat greenish. I only hope that it’s not damaged.
Right now, it seems like a good idea for me to become a professional tuba player and to get a harness for my lap horn so that I can stand up and play it at the same time. I’m also having thoughts of scheduling a lesson with Tony, so he can remind me of everything I’ve forgotten. I know that there’s work for tuba players out there. Yes there is. Maybe I’m just very sleep deprived. Apparently, when I woke up this morning, I angrily ordered Christi to sell the drumset on ebay. I have no memory of this, so my theory is that she dreamed it.
I’m trying to stay up till 10:00. I tried to explain why to Tiffany, but it didn’t make any sense. I’m sure I must have a good reason. Maybe to build endurance for when I’m touring with my tuba or something?

Rock and Roll Lifestyle

I’m too busy living the rock and roll lifestyle to write about it (later), just want to talk about the ear thing. I’m not just randomly insane. A couple of weeks ago I remebered my mom telling me that she was having trouble hearing out of one of her ears. And I can’t remeber which one or if it got better after she saw the ear doctor or even how long ago it was, so I keep wondering if it was a an early sign of tumor or not (as compared to her calling me up and saying she thought she had alzheimers and me saying not to worry. i’m never telling anyone not to worry about medical stuff ever again. go to a fxcking doctor about it!) and late at night, “was that her tumor? Should I have seen it coming?” morphs into, “Wait, I can’t hear well out of one of my ears!”
I had dessert tonight with one of the members of the Kronos Quartet tonight, but I’m way too tired tow rite another paragraph. (Yeah, I’m so cool! woo!)

Email forward Questionairre

1. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS? lofty thing with Christi and tifanjo
2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? um.. reading? oh, maybe the Scarecrow of Oz
3. WHAT’S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Sibelius keyboard shortcuts
4. FAVOURITE BOARD GAME? Sweet Valley High!
5. FAVOURITE MAGAZINE? Um… Mother Jones, maybe
6. FAVOURITE SMELLS? sautee-ing onins
7. FAVOURITE SOUND? Bart train sounds, especially in the station. Prepared paino sounds. contact mics on machinery. Any noisy sound through a fixed filter bank, especially freeways. Ocean waves. Digital aliasing on mp3s, when emphasized a lot. rich baritones talking. digeridu. Moog spring reverb (if you put your ear to the reverb, you can hear the sounds you’re processing). the sounds some street signs make when you hit them. big trucks going by on the freeway, hitting a rough patch of pavement. my cat yowling. tea kettle whistle. bowed metal. Moog or V8 low pass filter. diesel engines. break drums. boomwackers. wineglasses. flutter toungue. baseball card in the spokes of a bicycle.
8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD? watching someone you love die and not being able to do anything to help
9. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP? “the alarm clock must die.”
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE COLOUR? yellow! no… blue! auuuugh!
11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE? the phone answers to me
12. NAMES OF YOUR CHILDREN? really, i’m not that kind of cat owner. They’re just cats, not children.
13. MOST IMPORTANT THING IN LIFE? music?
14. FAVORITE FOODS? Christi’s shepherd’s pie!
15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? is it any wonder that vanilla has become synonymous with “boring”
16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST? i like fast bicycles, fast trains and fast women.
17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL? does Christi count?
18. STORMS COOL OR SCARY? cool. we don’t have dangerous weather around here, although I used to knowa guy who was struck by lightening in Sunnyvale.
19. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? my first bike was a strawberry shortcake bike. My first roller-skates were clip on. The first bus I rode was Valley Transit. My first car was a 1990 toyota pickup.
20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE, WHO WOULD IT BE? Everybody says Jesus and Einstein. It’s proof she was lying to you.
21. FAVOURITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? mitch’s beer
22. WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN? aquarius
23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI? no
24. ANY JOB, WHAT WOULD IT BE? composer. maybe a professor too.
25. EVER BEEN IN LOVE? yes
26. IS THE GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL? Has anyone tested the glass to make sure it doesn’t have lead in it?
27. FAVOURITE MOVIES? Aelita: queen of Mars
28. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? no
29. WHAT IS UNDER YOUR BED? probably a cat, a dog or a dog toy
30. FAVOURITE NUMBER? 13
31. FAVOURITE SPORT TO WATCH? goooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallll!
32. SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU: he can play guitar with his teeth and i have the photos to prove it! Um, and he’s fun.
33. NAME A PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? to my blog? i dunno. Prolly jean. She’s cool. I whined about a shortage of peopel to record and she came over with somebody.
34. PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND: to my blog? I think I only have three readers. Maybe christi, since she’s busy right now
35. YOUR BIRTH DATE? Every year!
36. YOUR NAME AS IT APPEARS ON YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE? What is this identity theft stuff or something?
37. FAVOURITE SONG OF ALL TIME? The Mitch Happy Song!
38. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND START ALL OVER AGAIN, WHAT DATE
WOULD YOU GO BACK TO? Re-living the past doesn’t sound like very much fun right now.
39. WHAT IS YOUR NATURAL HAIR COLOUR? I have no idea. Probably the color of my roots right now. Brown
40. NAME ONE PERSON YOU ADMIRE: only one? um. Joan of Arc.
41. WHERE DID YOU SPEND YOUR BEST VACATION? I spent the summer of 2001 in (mostly western) europe. I want to go back. I wish I was there right now.

New News

Protools

Protools is softare that is used of sound editting. It does everything that you can do with a multie track tape recorder and a mixing board and a bunch ofthings you can’t. It’s got 24 possible tracks and splicing and just like photoshop quickly automates things that used to take hours with razor blades and splicing tape. It’s very cool.
I’ve got some heardware that lets me record up to eight tracks at once (actually, I could go 16, if I attached some other stuff, but only two mic pre-amps) anyway, I have two versions of protools. One for OS9 and one for OSX. I’ve been having problems with both versions. Right now, I can create a file and record to it on OS9 and play it back and edit it in OSX. I haven’t tried recording in OSX yet, but all the other things won’t work in theother operating sysem. I can’t create files in 10. I can’t play them back or edit them in 9. Just thought I’d share.

Installation

I finally got five minutes of bart sound mixed into a file. The file has problems, but we’re going to have the judges look at a websirte to listen to them and the mp3 conversion hides the flaws. Thank goodness, technology is working in my favor for once! The voice-over part is not finished being editted to pieces yet. I have have a very nice sample of jean saying wistfully, “well, i guess that’s unemployment.” My midiverb seems to be on the fritz (what’s going on with my equipment, anyway? did the pentagon test it’s EMP missle offshore or something?), so i added a 13 milisecond delay with 50% feedback at a 20% mix for reverb. Many, that’s got some aliasing… I’d use if for noise FX, but it’s wayyyyy to cheesy. URL of website will be posted here. We’re calling it “Mind the Metro” with a subtitle that somehow explains that metros are the same everywhere, even though they’re different and the universality of the urban commuter.

Other Minds

I spent all day yesterday working in the OM office. I processed email unsubscribe requests so they can send out their giant reminder email. And i put inserts into programs. about 2000 of them. And I put comp tickets in envelopes. I don’t want to speculate on the number, but I’ve heard a rumor that 25% of the audience is going to be comped in. Ushers get two free comp tickets for another night. It would be cheaper to pay the ushers a living wage than give them these tickets. It’s the most generous ushering thing that I’v ever heard of. Anyway, I continued helping Christi with comp tickets until midnight, when I fell asleep on the floor with my head in her lap. Maybe that was somehow helpful.
the festival starts today. they’re playing a piece arranged by Christi. If you don’t have a ticket and want to go to a night aside from tonight, I have an extra ticket. I’ll be plaing on friday night. Contact me if you want to go.

Brain Tumors

Somebody on one of my mailing lists might have one. I met somebody with a brain tumor when I was in Portland and I guess I looked visibly freaked-out when Renee told me because she and a number of other peope asked if I was alright.
The last holy candle has burned out.

Things that keep me awake at night

More brain tumors…

I can’t hear as well in my right ear as in my left. Normally, I just wonder why this is so (I always hold the telephone on the right. I’m on the right side of the band I play in… hrm, but I was on the left when I played in hgihschool band. My tuba bell was on the right though…) and make vague plans to get an earwax removal kit. but at 3:00 AM, it’s a brain tumor. “Can I see as well with my right eye? I don’t think very creativly! Maybe my right brain is being impacted.” Yeah, the thing that are giant at 3:00 AM are stupid by morning.

Purgatory

Fundamentalists have the death thing all figured out. You die (or get raptured) and go to heaven where you get to spend an eternity with people who agree with you about everything and get to bad-mouth all the folks in hell and occassionally yell down that they can’t have any of your bottled water.
Catholics always have to go and make everything more complicated. Because of that story with the grape pickers, whether or not you get into heaven has to do with whether or not you’re in a state of grace when you die. That’s it. If the pope cursed god as his last thought, he’d go to the fiery pit, whereas if Dubya Bush’s last thoughts were, “oh my god, what was I doing? Jesus, forgive my misdeeds!” he’d go right to heaven. Everybody is equal in heaven.
except that everybody is not equal in heaven. There are all these saints floating around. Saints are God’s special friends. You can’t square it, if St. Joan of Arc is God’s special freind, how can she be equal with Bob the foul-mouthed butcher from down the street? And what about Bob’s swearing? He was never sorry for it. It was a sin on his soul, even though he was good enough for heaven, he still wasn’t perfect. Hence: purgatory. If you didn’t finish your penance on Earth, you get another shot after you die.
Purgatory is the great equalizer. Basically, non-saints are imperfect and need to cleanse sin from their souls. So they go to a temporary hell for a while and burn for their sins. when a fundamentalist’s mother dies, he gets comforting thoughts of Mom having afternoon cofee with Jesus, bad-mouthing sinners, just like at home. But Catholics geet to lie awake at 3:00 AM wondering if their devout mother is burning for her sins. It can keep you awake for sure.

Say a Prayer

fortunately, like Americans have Mis Manners, Catholics have the Baltimore Catcheism to give us algorythms to handle problems. Your prayers can get folks out of purgatory faster. It’s like writing letters for convicts or something. This is the prayer:

Come holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful
and enkindle in them the fire of thy love
Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created
And thou shalt renew the face of the earth
Let us Pray
O God, who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful
by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in the same
spirit to be truly wise, and ever to rejoice in His con-
solation. through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

saying that prayer every day for a month gets you a five year plenary indulgence with the usual conditions applying. I don’t know what that means except five years less purgatory for mom. See, you can say prayers like that and transfer the indulgence to a nother person, provided the person is deceased. Also, in the Middle ages, thrity people fasting for one day was equivalent to one person fasting for a month. after a while, they decided that you couldn’t pay other people to fast for you anymore, so the group fasting fell out of fashion. but if they did it for free, it still counted.
this means that if thirty people recite this little prayer to themselves today, my mom spend five fewer years in purgatory. this is what the internet is really all about. Sending money to debtors, a dollar at a time until they can pay off their credit card debt, or saying prayers for dead people.
My mom sure believed in all this stuff. I’m not too sure about it. It all seems kind of overly structured and fair to me and I’ve seen no sign of anything else God made being fair, but at 3:00 AM, it all seems very reasonable. So maybe I could sleep better at night. Say a prayer for my mom. And that guy on my mailing list who might have a brain tumor.

My Dad

He’s taken up being a camera guy for pledge breaks on KTEH channel 54 in San Jose. Sometimes he films the phone bank volunteers and sometimes he films the host’s finger as s/he points at pledge gifts. One day, he may work his way up to being a sound guy. I offered him use of my mixing board if he wants to practice at home, but he declined. He’s also got a red BMW motorcycle. It’s a nifty looking bike. I haven’t seen his leather outfit yet.

Rock Band

I was drunk. I played the tuba instead of bas. If I’m drunk next week, I’ll play the tuba again. I think learning to play rock while drunk helps with the rock and roll lifestyle thing. I’m ready to be a rockstar.

ELNA

Ok, so I was sitting talking with Christi and Jenya last night about our installation plans when the phone rang. I answered it “Saluton!” since that seems to make telemarketters hang up. But then a strangers started talking quickly and fluently to me in Esperanto! I was flabbergasted. Not knowing what to make of it, I agreed to everything the person said, cathcing only that she was from ELNA. She thanked me about 100 times as she hung up. I have no idea what I agreed to. Maybe I’ll be cleaning restrooms at ELNA headquarters. anyway, I think I might have told her I was Christi. It was very confusing.

right now

Mate is a stimulant tea thingee from south america. It inspitres me to write too many words while avoiding tasks such as walking to the drugstore to get an earway removal kit or working on editting my 11 year old neighbor yelling VJ-style into a mic about how BART is dangerous for little kids.