
I was going to get you something from Louis Vuitton, but I saw this in the Sears catalog and couldn’t resist.
Love,
Bob
Daughter: What’re you doing, Dad?Hey. Maybe Dad needed a little peace and quiet, a little alone time with his obviously pleasant memories of his deceased father. This chit of a girl comes in and judges him, and with a bitchy attitude at that. If it’s so silly, then give Dad back the damn sammich and leave him alone. Talk about ungrateful.
Dad (patting the space beside him on the sofa): Sit down. There’s plenty of room.
Dad generously proceeds to make his daughter and himself a sammich using one slice of bread for each. As she begins to eat hers open-faced, Daughter looks at Dad to see that he’s folding his bread in half.
Daughter (looking smugly judgmental): Why did you fold yours like that?
Dad: Well, when I was a kid, this is how my dad did it, and I wanted to do everything just like he did.
Daughter: That’s silly. (She turns her back to him and folds her sammich)
Remember when the Web was small and not every square inch of it was considered a billboard for kitschy, tawdry marketing? Remember when you could type in a search word or phrase and if you misspelled it you didn’t end up at a triple-X site that hi-jacked your computer and planted 215 spies on your hard drive? Remember when people on the web were friendly and helpful and didn’t take their personal angst and nastiness out on you? Remember when Yahoo! and AOL were brand new and didn’t think they owned the world? Remember when surfing, a link actually led you to someone’s site, not to a directory of directories that led you to even more directories?
I wouldn’t mind paying a small fee to have that back again.
Sorry I’ve been out of it a bit the past few days. I’m just so damned fatigued. I get up in the morning and everything I have to do — be the list long or short — looks like a mountain to me. Just the famous “Libra Lazies,” I guess. I still have the “All The Rest” archive page to rebuild. Meh. No one really cares, especially me, if it’s not done at this very moment.
I became a Live365 preferred member today. That means that for $26 every six months I have my pick of some great net radio with no visual or audio ads, and no interruptions. Plus, I now have access to hundreds more stations. I’m slowly building my play list and am enjoying that. I’ve been listening to Live365 for about a year, I think, my favorite station being an all-Mozart. That one, being a professional station, has no commercials anyway, but I also like a Baroque station. And since we’ve moved into the new bedroom and left the small stereo up in what is now the family room, we wanted to use my computer as our private music system, so that’s why we joined up. Now I need some better speakers.
It’s always something.
Sure hope I feel more lively tomorrow. I don’t like this sluggish crap. That didn’t sound right…
Hate-Mongering:
I have to shake my head in utter disbelief. Nathan came home from football practice last night and told us that there’s a play the team uses called, “Smear the Queer.” He doesn’t like it, so he doesn’t use it, but we’re wondering what we should do about it. If we make a fuss the guys on the team will make his life a living hell. It gets really difficult when you have to balance changing the world with protecting your kid. What the hell are they teaching at that school anyway? I’m increasingly growing discontented with this place. But on to other things…
Wal-Mart:
The evil Wal-Mart wasn’t at all bad yesterday. The trick, you see, is to go in the morning before the college kids get out of bed. It was actually like shopping yesterday, not like braving the L.A. freeway system. As much as I hate dragging my insomniac ass out of bed to take Lynette to work (we have only one car and six people, three of them teenagers), it’s worth it if only to ensure an enjoyable shopping experience for myself, not to mention the freshly stocked shelves and associates who haven’t yet grown grumpy from the dumbasses who flock there. When is this town going to give us a selection of super markets? Sheesh! We have a population of over 40,000 (without the OUS student body, I believe and the populations of tiny bergs like Perkins, Hennessey and Pawnee). Who does one have to sleep with to get another store? We have an Albertson’s (too expensive), an IGA (too small, not enough selection — a neighborhood grocer, actually) and the evil Wal-Mart. C’mon! There’s talk of another Wal-Mart going in here on the west side of town. While I’d rather have a Super Target, at least another Wal-Mart would cut the traffic in the ice cream aisle down by one half, and shopping for the week’s groceries wouldn’t take two full hours due to congestion at the checkout. I know what’ll happen though. By the time they start getting more selection in everything here (we have no really good places to go out to dinner either — everything is fast food and sit-down fast food, being geared toward the student population), we’ll be leaving for Vienna.
Speaking of Vienna:
Lynette and I have been discussing what of our belongings we’re going to have crated to take with us. Turns out, not much! Some things we’re going to sell and some things we’re going to give either to our friends or to the kids once they’re in their own apartments. I thought this would be a sad process, but we’re so looking forward to getting a fresh start and leaving the things behind that came from our past marriages (the dining set and hutch are from her marriage and the coffee table, stereo, and miscellaneous tables are from mine. The one piece of furniture I’m taking is my wingback chair, and that we’re going to have reupholstered once we’re there. Meantime, I’m clipping pictures from magazines and catalogs and putting them in a binder so that when the time comes, we can go out and find the kind of things we want for our Vienna apartment.
On the computer:
I got rid of the InsomniaCam until I get all the archive pages restored. I can’t even begin to think of trying to figure that crap out.
A word to the wise:
Never drink milk when eating broccoli at dinner.
(*To the tune of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”)
How long has it been? Doesn’t really matter, because Deni and I are the kind of friends who might go 5 or 10 years without seeing each other, but when we get together we pick up where we left off. If you’re not familiar with our legacy, click HERE and scroll down to “J.P. Deni.”
The good news is, Deni’s coming to visit me during the first week of August. The bad news is, there is no bad news. Last time we saw each other was, I think, in 1994. It has been far too long. I also spoke with Karma on the phone on Saturday. She and I met in 1985 when we were music students at Ventura College. She’s a very talented singer for whom I have composed a number of pieces. She has lived in London for about five years I think. Anyway, on the phone the other day she said that she might be able to fly to Vienna when we’re there, and spend an afternoon with us. Imagine! I’ll be in Vienna with two beautiful opera singers!
This is turning out to be a very exciting summer.
One of the pluses of being a musician (in my case a composer) is living in a constant environment of music. It’s everywhere, even when the stereo is turned off. In fact, I don’t play CDs as often as some people think, and that’s because music is in my head 24/7.
Throughout the day I’m constantly turning musical phrases over this way and that in my mind, even when I don’t mean to, playing with harmonies and contrapuntal lines, as well as the voices, or “colors,” of the individual instruments, or human voices. I think it could drive some people mad, but as a composer I’d go mad if my daily life wasn’t full of this. However, everything changes when Nettl begins working on a piece at the piano.
Then the buzz in my head fades and both my conscious and subconscious attention is drawn to what she’s doing. I don’t think even she knows what a respite this creates for me. As she works on the Mozart K.505, my mind creates the entire piece for me — the orchestration, the piano obbligato — the entire score. It’s like living in a concert hall. What a delightful accompaniment to my Saturday blogging!
Tonight we’re going to Ville and Beau’s house to play board games. Meantime, I have some work for Rhombus to get done and emailed.
A few years ago the kids started celebrating my role in their life on Fathers Day because (due to my gender androgyny) Mothers Day didn’t quite fit our situation. Of course, qualifying for what the Native Americans call Two Spirited, Fathers Day didn’t exactly fit either. Their solution? It’s Weirds Day! I love that. When you’re a person like me you have to have a healthy sense of humor. Anyway, the kids are in Wichita with their dad, so Nettl got up early this morning and got me a Weirds Day present from her and the kids: a fully-fitted aquarium and some fish.
This fish thing went exactly as I predicted last month when I bought a regular gold fish (Abercrombie), a calico gold fish (Fitch) and an Algae-Eater — a Plecosaurus, or something like that — (Algernon) for the patio fountain. We were happy with those three, but then I went out and got four Neon Tetras. Bad idea. Fitch, who we now call Caligula, had a feeding frenzy after we went to bed that night, leaving only one (not really a Neon at all, but an Albino Tetra) the only living survivor. I moved him indoors into a fishbowl and named him Claudius. It was at that time that I told Nettl, “I know what’s going to happen. We’ll have an aquarium within the month. Wait and see. I’ve done this before.” Sure enough, Claudius looked really lonely, so I bought three more Neons and kept them all in bowl on top of the piano.
Fishbowls are a lot of work. You have to change the water every day. I moved Algernon to the bowl, but it didn’t really help. Thus, this morning we have an aquarium, another Pleco who we named Hoover, and five more Neons. We now have a total of 13 fish. Now I want some Ghost Shrimp and a couple of water snails. Nettl wants to get two Black Moors. This is exactly how it works.
I spent the entire evening on the patio listening to the fountain and music, and putting up little gold lights. I even played my guitar a little, but it hurt my hand, so I gave up. With the threat of below 50° weather over, I moved many of my house plants outdoors. It’s wonderful out there! Today it was in the 90’s, and I didn’t feel well. I think I mentioned that I tore the Thenar muscle in my left hand. Thenar… The NAR. LOL! Anyway, I strained it again last night when moving some boxes in the garage, and today I was in a lot of pain, so I just lay around watching telly. Sometimes there’s nothing better than HGTV and the Food Network.
I forgot to say that on Sunday, while Joel swept and vacuumed the storm cellar, I pulled up all the sod that was against one section of the back fence, made a flower bed, and planted Delphinium, Hollyhocks, Salvia and Sweet Peas. The Morning Glories I planted last week (which I sprouted indoors last month), have already grown about a foot up the strings I gave them. Our tomatoes are doing well, as well as all my kitchen herbs, which are now strong enough to live outside (Basil, Oregano, Dill, Parsley, Chives & Rosemary). The only problem I’ve had is that none of the Lavender seeds did anything. Must have been a bad batch. It’s supposed to be cooler tomorrow, so if I feel up to it, I really need to weed the flower beds in the front and side yards. Of course, it’s not easy with just one hand, but I love working outdoors.
The only problem between us might be the arguing, as well as that unibrow of hers. I’d have to get her really drunk, then shave it after she was good and passed out. Something tells me she’d be throwing pottery at me in the morning. As far as the other two ladies are concerned, Ms. Borgia sounded way too dangerous and Mata Hari turned me down flat. I guess the unibrow wins.
“Expect lots of drinking, smoking, and arguing. You’ll enjoy yourself more if you can hold your liquor and hold forth with strong opinions about art. There are some areas that interest Ms. Kahlo more than others, so you might want to brush up on your knowledge of socialism, indigenous Mexican cultures, and the various schools of 20th century painting before meeting up with her.”
Five-plus years ago I used to portray Mozart on a website I designed to provide an educational service for students. It got very popular and ran for about three years. My idea was that young people could learn about Mozart, not only via the material I provided (bio, pictures, all that), but also by conversing with him through email and a personal message board. It was very rewarding and I received tons of letters from students all over the world, asking Mozart sometimes funny, sometimes difficult questions. Some of the writers were young prodigies who simply needed a little emotional support from the ultimate child prodigy. Naturally, I kept my true identity hidden, not because I had anything to hide, but for the sake of those young people’s fantasy of actually communicating with the composer. Of course, they knew it wasn’t Mozart; it was a Santa Claus kind of thing. Everyone had a lot of fun.
Not long after I set up the message board it was visited by a group of women who at first pretended they didn’t know each other. One of them (I’ll refer to her as Sister Agnes of God) was the author of a new book on Mozart’s wife and she wasted no time in using my forum to promote herself. I didn’t have a problem with that, and we began what I thought was a growing online acquaintance. We even wrote to each other privately and she sent me a copy of her book in the mail.
It was about that time that one of the other women (one who pretended with her to be strangers meeting for the first time on my board when they’d actually known each other for a while) asked if she could read my manuscript, and I said sure. (I’ll refer to her as Sister Innocenza.) We’d been writing to each other for a while and were pretty good online friends. Remember that all this time I kept my true identity a secret, but I did use a male pen name with the adults with whom I’d developed a correspondence and who wanted to know who was behind the Mozart mask. I wasn’t ready to let them completely into my private life. Most people on the Web don’t. I was also trying to get my book published; my decision to use a male nom de plume was because in the Mozart world there is a great deal of misogynistic snobbery, and how could I possibly write Mozart’s memoirs? What could I know about Mozart as a man?
It turned out that this little clique had a different idea about the Mozart marriage than I did. So what? I didn’t care, but they obviously did. A lot. When Sister Innocenza read my book, she took it so personally that she told Sister Agnes of God about it, who in turn sent her copy back to me unopened and unread. I didn’t understand. These women then did everything in their power to discredit me, not only by bad-mouthing me privately to some of the young people who frequented my forum, but in other Mozart forums as well. And why? Because my opinion of Constanze Mozart was different than theirs.
Privately, I began to call this hen house “The Sisters of St. Constanze” because their vehemence about such a small matter bordered on fanaticism, and their devotion to Frau Mozart was worthy of a cult. Some of the things that were said about, and to, me were downright malicious. In an email to a mutual “friend” Sister Agnes of God called me, a “monster” and a “perverter of innocent youth.” WHAT? Why? Because of the conclusions I came to after years of research? It’s not like I wrote that Mozart and his wife ran a brothel, or an opium den, or were pedophiles, or into child slavery, or anything like that. All I wrote was that, as a man of his times, Mozart enjoyed a few extra-martial romps. For crap sake, his own wife said so in interviews after his death. Besides that, what’s it to these people? The man’s been dead for over two-hundred years.
This little cult very quickly ran the educators and their students off of my site. Some of the students were befriended by these women so that they could turn them against me by filling their ears with all kinds of nasty lies. It hurt. It hurt a lot. It broke my heart, to be truthful, and I closed the site down. And who really paid the price? Those kids who were having a good time.
The Scheisse really hit the fan, however, when I decided to drop the male pen name and pursue the publishing of my book using my own name. Now I really was a perv in their estimation. “Oh my god! Steph and Lynette are… are…” The Sisters of St. Constanze never forgave me for that. I mean, what does it mean when you find out you’ve had a crush on someone of the same gender and you couldn’t tell? Especially if you’re a conservative Christian, which they both are. It means I was a bloody good actor and that my Mozart was flawless, thank you!
Fast-forward. About a month ago Lynette joined a discussion forum where “The Sisters” dominate the members with the same old crap. If anyone disagrees with them about St. Constanze, they lash out with nostrils flaring and spittle flying. I don’t go there. I never want to see those crazy women ever again. They brought me too many nightmares that recalled the movie, “Misery.” I’d actually forgotten about them and figured they’d tired themselves out, but I was wrong. Now, it seems, they see me hiding behind every poster who disagrees with them. I’m being accused of posting under assumed names right and left. I mean, who the hell am I? Get over me! When Nettl told me about this, adding that Sister Agnes of God is throwing out passive-aggressive remarks like, “Who are you now, Stephan, or Steph, or Mozart…” So, what’s your point, sister? Do you think you know something about me no one else does and that you have some kind of power over me by holding my identity over my head?
This catty shit pisses me off. Who gives a rat’s ass about the Mozart marriage? I went into the forum tonight and read the posts for myself, then I wrote a simple clarification for the members, stating that I never post there and never will, especially hiding under an assumed user name.
Makes me kind of worry about what they might do once the Rhombus film is out, though. That film’s going to surprise a lot of people who think they know me, and some of those who do.
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind
and won’t change the subject.”
Winston Churchill
“There is no place in a fanatic’s head
where reason can enter.”
Napoleon Bonaparte