I only did this for Karen.

You Are Breaking Wind

Strong and overpowering A force to be reckoned with, no one dares cross you You have the power to chase away everyone around you You are best known for: your wrath Your dominant state: commandingly stinky

What Type of Weather Are You?

There used to be no article in front of "wind", but that was too boring.

Remember that woman in the anti-smoking ads?

I was talking to a friend of mine about how difficult it is to get big projects done because one tends to overanalyze, and stop short, knowing that what one is making will never be perfect. I find that I need to take little steps each day in order to improve myself, especially when it has to do with projects seemingly without end. It is the culmination of the time spent that makes the difference, after all. I just whittle away at it bit by bit and, soon enough progress starts to take shape.

As for the fear of the imperfect, one should do things to enrich oneself, demonstrating the beauty of imperfection.

Suggestions:

1. Research some modern art and seek to see its underlying beauty.
2. Look at some photography from journalists specializing in people of the Third World--people without legs, old women with beautiful smiles but no teeth, this sort of thing. These people are beautiful despite what the world would see as their great physical flaws.
3. Participate in discussion groups that do not directly address your problem but get your juices (or, God forbid, venom) running.
4. Describe books recently read. Then, through this practice of analysis through objectivity, one can turn to one’s own work, with the goal of being objective about it.
5. Look at passersby. Are any of their features symmetrical? Are any of them beautiful in spite of or because of their assymetry? Ok, maybe they're not always beautiful, but they are interesting to look at.



My friend said that perfection will never be attainable for his/her own work. Well, I think that the very idea of perfection is a myth, the proverbial will-o'-the-whisp ne'er to be seen. It just doesn't exist. People will be drawn to certain work because it speaks to them, and in this admiration will feel that the work is nearly perfect. But, how many people do you know actually feel that way about their own work? If they did, wouldn’t that make them annoyingly vain? ‘Oh, yes, the last book I wrote was pure perfection.’ Somebody shoot that guy.

Duparc wrote 17 songs, all of which are highly revered as being great examples of Chanson. He actually tried to destroy several of them; they were later found and republished. Interestingly, when reflecting on this story, I am angry at Duparc. What if he had succeeded in destroying that which has enriched us all. What a bastard for trying to deprive us of desperately needed beauty in the world? One can see as an obvious example the correlation that I am trying to make. The more that the artist deprives the world of his talents and scholarly work, the more he denies the world what it needs. He, the artist, may, like Duparc, think that what he is doing is shit. We don't, though. And, frankly, we are the ones who get to judge it, not him.

Although, these were ideas originally intended for a friend, I, when re-reading them realized that they are words for myself. My only job is continuing improvement. I can achieve this by being critical of my work, yes. But, when the criticism becomes so great that I feel I should not go on, I know that I have gone too far. Way too far.

PS Note to self, singing is corporeal. That means that, when trying something out, you’ve got to give your body time to react and balance. In other words, don’t think that your world is shattering because you are trying something new and your voice is not the same old voice. Change hard, but change good.

The Future's Mysticism

Wouldn’t it be interesting to study which Children’s books were popular for which generations? I am going on Wednesday to see a rare viewing of a movie here in Pforzheim in its original English version—Narnia. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a popular series for one generation, whereas Harry Potter is extremely popular now. The question is: how would the popularity of a certain children’s series be indicative of the overall society.

Why did one generation prefer relatively realistic mysteries (Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys), whereas one generation may have preferred escapist fantasy (Narnia series)? One generation may have preferred funny themes on everyday life (Roland Dahl), whereas another may prefer thinking that there is a conspiracy of underlying, other-worldly goings on (Harry Potter.) Ultimately, the interesting question extrapolated from such a study would be whether the psychological tastes of the younger generation reflect the society they are in, or, rather, reflect the society the children will become as adults.

Please sir, may I have another?

Fidelio PM

I would just like to say that there can be nothing better for breakfast than an Italian espresso, and a couple of pieces of toasted potato bread with my homemade strawberry-blackberry jelly on top. Chris makes fun of me for it, but this is something that you will see me eating practically every morning, probably till death. When I’m not eating that, some Swiss müsli or a couple of fried eggs are good, too. Breakfast is just the most stupendous meal of the day, let’s face it. Everything just tastes so good after your body has been starving in its dream state for 8-9 hours.

The guy in the chorus about whom one the last blogs ranted has made another stupid statement. (Let’s call him Hick, just to make reference to him easier.) Last night was a performance of the Requiem--a work that would have been perfect to have given just one day before, in that it would have been a nice celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday. Bad foresight, theater, bad. Anyway, our Requiem, a collaboration with the Ballet, actually begins with the playing of a Mozart Piano Sonata.

The overall piece represents the lifecycle of man, with birth and death being important milestones (a word which, because the word mile, in ancient times, was also used in German, has an excellent translation of ‘Meilenstein’, for those who are interested.) After the Requiem is over, a portion of the Sonata is played again, as we all, both ballet and chorus, walk into a huge light with smoke swirling around it. The curtain comes down, and ‘La comedia è finita.’ It looks really cool.



At ay rate, after the Requiem is over, the chorus walks to the center of the stage in silence and then the pianist begins the Sonata. At one of the end rehearsals, somehow asked the question that begged an answer: ‘what do we do when the audience begins to clap in the silence before the Sonata begins?’ A perfectly valid question. The Ballet Master simply replied that the audience would, by this point, be so entranced that they would not clap. I laughed at this, knowing that the audience would, most likely, see the end of the Requiem as being what it was, the end of a large choral work, and would begin clapping, thus ruining the effect of the ensuing Sonata fragment and smoke wormhole. Well, last night that’s exactly what happened.

Hick came down into the dressing room immediately afterward, yelling about how stupid the audience was and that they should know not to clap at the wrong spot, that this sort of thing would only happen in Pforzheim and what a stupid audience it was.

Uh...

How can an audience be an entity and how can we say that an audience is stupid? What’s more, they were clapping because they were excited and wanted to show their admiration. How can we say, then, that they are stupid to have praised us? Doesn’t that make one seem ungrateful? We had like 8 curtain calls last night. They absolutely loved it. It’s not like it’s an overly-zealous, Italian audience, after all. I mean, in Italy, they clap practically after every high note. Should Pavarotti, put his hand up, and tell his admirers to shut their pie holes? Saying an audience is stupid for having clapped at the wrong time is like going up to someone who is laughing at a good joke and slapping them across the face.

Great heroes turning stone to sea

Great heroes turning stone to sea
Their divine touch
the harbingers of change.

So one touch to me
brought new life
Stone turned to new hope
to new dream
of new love.

A glimpse of sun
enough to spawn new flower, bud, bloom.
one ray
enough to foster Spring in me.

But you have gone
And so has my New Day


Horizon’s see shows flurry and darkness
It comes.
Bitter stone befells again its rest.

Within, it awaits
the storm’s next eye.
Just as I await you.

When will you quiet Nature?
When will you again illuminate the lands?

Wade in 'da Wader...

A friend of mine wrote me recently, wondering about whether there are other possibilities for me as a Heldentenor, so I thought I might clarify some things. One of the things about Heldentenors is that they are very highly paid for what they do because there are so few of them. However, their repertoire is extremely limited to music of the hyper dramatic. This consists of some, but not all, Verdi roles, and Wagner. That's pretty much it.

My reluctance to venture into these areas speaks to much deeper issues, though. It hasd been my lifelong dream to become a hermit, but becoming a soloist is to become an extreme extrovert, which is needed to be a singer. Basically it is a conflict of where I would like to go and where I am sent. My physical make-up and, with it, the physiognomy of my voice are things that I cannot change, nor should I. It is the physiognomy itself that determines a vocal Fach. In other words, I think the important thing is to accept what I am and work with that. And, because “what I am” is so specialized and valuable, I should not just accept it, but embrace it.

That being said, most of the problems I have with becoming a soloist are mental/philosophical ones. Why should I spend my time representing the typical hero, the Retterfigur, when I disagree with the whole principal in the first place? Besides, anyone who knows me knows that I am more someone with whom one can have a good laugh than someone upon whom one could rely to save the world. I am just not to be taken seriously. I know that about myself. My lack of talent in broadcasting a serious nature rears its ugly head every time I get mad at Chris and he just laughs.

No one will necessarily know my personally weak character from stage, of course. Hopefully, by now, I have acquired a broad enough palate with which I can play even serious roles. (I have found, actually, that the hero is one of the easier roles to play, in that they do not tend to develop dramatically, but, like a Boy Scout, retain a steadfast personality.)

The other problem is the deepest set of all—my apparent distrust of society in general. I often think, why should I give back to society when society has done nothing but shunned my every fiber, and has rejected everything I have ever had to offer it? If singing is a sacrifice, where I subjugate my own, personal needs and desires to ones that will please the public, then I must be willing to obey the calling itself. When I taught high school students who were talented enough to go onto become voice majors, I always warned them about the possibilities of living their lives poor. They needed to have a “monkish desire” to perform their art, I used to say, their God being music, and them as often penniless, frustrated devotees. Well, penniless is a Bohemian concept that could only prove desirable to someone under 30, I find. And, after frustration takes hold enough that one imagines himself growing old a pilgrim pillaged and needlessly deflowered by his own Deity, one starts to develop newer ideals, ones based on simple things like paying rent and finding a mate.

Yes, music is, somehow, a black hole, gobbling up eagerly my every emotion, making me, in the end, some kind of skeleton with nothing left to give. I, then, am supposed to get naked in front of my fellow man in order to show yet even more devotion to this beast that continues to suck my lifeblood dry? Seeing some of the soloists of our house, especially the tenors, practically shit bricks before they go on stage day in and day out, makes me think that it is just not worth it, folks, and only a fool would think so. It’s funny to think of what the people that sing at Bayreuth must have given up to get there. The system so exists that one must sacrifice so much that, by the time someone actually gets there, there is nothing but a shell of the human left, I fear.

My views are extreme, I know. But, let’s not beat around the bush, music is a dastardly business, kids. Do not go where even heroes dare to tread.

This reminds me of one of my poems:

You no understand me smart?

There is one aspect of being in Germany that I really hate. Because I do not speak German like a native, people assume that I am stupid. The people who sometime assume this are Germans who have not had a lot of experience with other parts of the world; they are the German equivalent of hicks somewhere in the boondocks, uneducated and proud of it. This is especially insulting considering the fact that I am much more intelligent than them (sorry to sound conceited), am better educated, and, in many ways better informed. Yet, they insult me, cutting me off when I offer my opinion, saying, simply that I have no idea about Germany, or German politics, etc., because I am American. These are the same people that think they have a working understanding of what America is. These are the same people that are surprised that I dare return insults when insulted and simply reply “if you don’t like it here, then go back to America” when I criticize something the German government does. For some reason, I am not allowed to have opinions because I am a “guest worker”.

A man in the chorus, a really under-educated, Joe Blow kind of person, someone who has probably never read a book in his life, votes Republican in every election, and treats me more like a foreigner than any of the others, told me, bluntly that “I have no idea what I am talking about” when I complained at his calling ex-Chancellor Schröder a “prolli”—short for proletariat. Schröder, who is hyper-educated, models suits for Brioni, and is interested in culture, could never be considered a symbol of the working class. Sorry, but that is just not true. So, in what way do I “have no idea”?

Why is it that the most stupid people are often the ones most likely to express their opinions? I think that is just such an unfortunate combination. I don’t think they should be silenced or anything. They have the right to speak, or course. I just think that if there is a just God out there somewhere, He might let them know, every once in a while, how incredibly dim they really are. This might help temper their treatment of people who may not agree with them. You see, the thing is, these people, the dim ones, tend to be completely oblivious to the fact that they may not know everything.

Ok, maybe I am feeling a little sensitive. It is just incredibly hard to be made to feel stupid on a constant basis when I am, in fact, really smart. Again, sorry for the conceit.

The Unlikely Hero

I think The Onion dreamed up its best headline yet with “Casual Friday Claims Lives of 13 Nuclear-Waste-Disposal Technicians.” I needed that laugh. I really did.

I wish I could say everything is dandy here. I think I have a real bitchin’ case of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I feel like the ship stuck in the doldrums. The world’s supply of chocolate would not cure it, I fear. I spent 5 minutes looking into a fluorescent bulb, but that didn’t help much.

Well, peoples, as Karen likes to call you... what to do?

I have been practicing a lot. I started taping my time in the practice room so that I could hear it and correct things if needed. I don’t know if any of you out there realize this, but you can’t really hear yourself very well when you’re singing. It’s because the ears were made to hear from the outside in, not the inside out. That’s why your voice on an answering machine sounds funny. Anyway, I am a pretty good voice teacher, and can diagnose vocal problems when I hear someone sing. I can do it for myself, too. But, unfortunately, I have a little bit of a problem being objective with my voice. I hear it, and I know what I should do to correct the problem. I just can’t help but thinking the whole time how unpleasant the voice sounds to me.



Amongst the other philosophical problems that I have with coming to the understanding that I am a Heldentenor is that Heldentenors tend to have extremely powerful voices, but beauty is not really a word that a lot of people would use to describe them. They sound heroic, thus the name. But, I grew up as a singer doing early music and singing all that Bel Canto stuff. I grew up singing almost everything in Italian, and now I sing almost everything in German (because almost everything for my Fach is written in German.) It is just a change that seems sad. I have always been attracted to music of the 20-th Century and music written before 1750. Now I am stuck in the 19-th Century Romantic shit and cannot escape. I am just complaining because I am depressed. There are about a million Mozart tenors out there who would give there right leg to be a Heldentenor.

I am filled with doubt of myself and my talents. I have GOT to get over this if I am going to be anything. Must believe. Insert grunting noises here.

The Black Forest

Chris and I went hiking yesterday. I just love the Schwazwald. I have never lived somewhere so beautiful.



Chris took these picture, by the way.

Kukuks Klatsch

Sometimes I wonder what people understand about what I do for a living. I guess it really isn’t important to people what it’s like. They know the basics anyway; they know that I sing on stage, that I have to be in costume and make-up, that people clap for me at the end of a performance.

One thing that I will never get used to, though, is the German unison-clapping thing. Every time that a German audience gets excited about a performance, they start clapping in rhythm together. When an entire audience claps, all together, in rhythm, as loud as they can, it is very loud, deafeningly loud. I know they are doing it out of admiration for us and everything, but, every time this happens, I just get so weirded out. I can only seem to think of the Third Reich and some march where Swastikas will fly and books burn. Even after having lived here for more than 2 years, it is just plain freaky.

So, we are all exhausted, standing there on stage in giant formations, sometimes with complicated orders on who bows when, the audience is clapping away...CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, and the assistant director, in charge of the Applausordnung, starts yelling, literally at the top of her lungs: “SOLOISTS FORWARD!!!”, “CHORUS FORWARD!!!”, “AND...BOW!!!” The curtain goes down. The roar is temporarily dulled. “EVERYONE OFF. REORDER!!!” The curtain swing up, “SUPERNUMERARIES ON!!!” And the whole thing starts again. German audiences are generally more subdued than others throughout the world, that is, they don’t clap unnecessarily during the opera. The good German just sits in his seat and shuts the hell up until the end. They see the end as the “correct” way they can voice their opinion. This means that, as a performer, you have no idea whether the audience enjoys it or not until the end. But, if you did good, know that the applause will go on and on for days.

Maybe it is just because, by the end of a show, blood sugar has plummeted, but this whole group-applause thing has to rank in the top 3 of the most surreal experiences of my life. It deserves a revered spot, on the list, though, because it is on-going. Bizarre. Truly bizarre.

Exeunt Monica

There are so few things that inspire one, really. Some people remain in awe for long periods of time, looking up to their newest hero like a jade God in some pearlen pagoda somewhere. I’m just not that type of person. Call it cynical if you will, it takes a lot to get my head to rise from its slumber and take notice.

But, today, I am proud. I am proud in such a way that my day will float right along in a happy pace. Monica has escaped, and knowing that, knowing that has made me a little light in my loafers today. Ok, wrong expression, and, yes, I think we all know that I’ve been a little dolce in the gabanas for quite a while (hardy har.)

I know that I have this problem that when, on the rare occasion, I am actually sincere about something, everyone thinks I am being sarcastic. I have always wanted a little sign implanted just under my skin that lights up in cases like this, saying “He’s serious.” It would really help in all those times when I lucked out and didn’t get backhanded by some poor, put-out soul somewhere. Happy alternating alliteration.

Anyway, I am serious about this Monica stuff.

I can only imagine, and, frankly, be jealous of, what Moni must be feeling right now at her liberation—to be in a new space, to have her own kitchen, to have lots of quiet, Monica time! These are things that the Monica needs. (I’m starting to sound like a veterinarian and Monica is a large breed, or something...) A first-rate flautist, though, and a high caliber musicologist with brain and whit does not need to end up on Walden Pond somewhere talking to the cows and chickens and listening to the John Deere Polka on some local radio station. No. Just, no, ok? She has to be where her creativity can flow. Circumstance was sucking her into its mediocrity vortex and she escaped it with one bold, karate chop and for that I am so very happy and so very proud.

My hats off to Monica...I propose a toast...to Monica.

PS If you want a good laugh followed by actual, cheesy admiration, look at Harajuku’s album “Just One Look.” It’s Japanese opera singer meets Technopop meets Muzak. Hilarious yet mesmerizing.

PPS For all of you as obsessed with cross-over and studies of strange dichotomies, I highly recommend the book I am reading: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything”. It has chapters like ‘What do school teachers and Sumo wrestlers have in common?’ and ‘Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?’ It’s a cool, statistical approach to things previously unrelated.

Simply Gorgeous, darlink.

Maybe I'm just a proud father, but I think she would make a great centerfold for Cat Fancy, don't you?

Drinkies

Is it any surprise that an old, neurotic opera singer comes complete with old, neurotic cat at his side. Batteries sold separately. Emma is about 13 years old by now. And, for most of her adult life, has been absolutely obsessed with water. Specifically, it’s got to be fresh, and by fresh I mean coming directly from the tap. Oh, let’s just be truthful, just about anywhere water may be, other than her own water bowl, is a good place for Emma to take a drink.

Chris just bought a new camera...a really expensive camera...a Nikon D50, for anyone who cares...and then he caught Emma at it, stealing droplets:

Waaaaa waaaa waaaaaaaa.

Idea for a story:

People speak slower from certain areas because of a taste of how the language should flow.

As God dies, and man no longer has any illusion that the time between birth and death is anything other than a waiting period, man sees the point of speaking quickly for better efficiency as a nuisance and against the pursuit of beauty. His language, ergo, becomes with time, slower and slower. In a thousand years, if we were to hear the language people speak, it would sounds like a whale call, or singing—slow and over-extended.

La Foule

There are really days when I feel at one with myself and, to at least some extent, with the world around me. The days are usually possible because of prayer and meditation of some kind. I have to really try to find my “center” (that old man that lives in my belly I have sometimes talked about.) Most of the time my real self eludes me, I think, staying away, or caught behind the normal flow of my life as it rushes forward, a freight train on its way to some undisclosed destination. I’m sure we all feel like unknowing passengers from time to time. I think that what differs, that is to say, what makes me an interestingly unique and, consequently, neurotic character is the constant need to feel in some way whole.

The second of the two life-shattering or life-altering things in my life of late is my last lesson that I had with my voice teacher. We got to talking about how I, as a personality, am a hermit of sorts, unwilling to trust things, unwilling to go headlong into what I see as dangerous situations, in short, fearful. This kind of personality, in my opinion, is one which is not well-suited at being an opera singer. We talked for quite a while and several issues, troubling ones, presented themselves that day, and have been bothering me ever since.

She asked a very simple question: ‘do you even want to be a singer?’ That is disconcerting in that I had/have no real answer to the question.

I see my singing, no matter if such a thought is to be ridiculed or not, as a sacrifice. I see the world as a somewhat desolate place in terms of beauty and kindness. I seek to give back, through music, what music has given to me. Being a country boy with two older, uninterested sisters, meant that I played a lot on my own. I loved Classical music from about the age of 4, when I would play the 2 or 3 classical, Fisher Price mini records over and over. I don’t know what it was; it was just an attraction that couldn’t be denied. I took piano lessons from the time I was 5, and did well at it. I just, for most of my life, have always had music there, and it always made me feel whole, alive. It allowed me to believe that there must actually be a god. It was a balm for a somewhat desolate place for a young intellectual to grow up—amongst the cornfields of rural Illinois. So, now, I try to offer this balm to others who might need it.

But it is my inherent distrust of people that stops me from really giving of myself, through music, to them. Why should I open myself up and give a piece of myself to those people, the crowds and their fickle natures, who have hurt me so much. It is a conundrum that I can’t seem to solve for the moment.

Rent asunder

I’m starting to think that I should have a website just devote to the funny things that I say. Ok. Maybe they’re not so terribly funny. They are, nonetheless, funny enough to sometimes put a smile on my face as I recall them on waking occasionally from a deep sleep. Whatever.

So, if I am manic depressive, this must be the manic part, because I have confidence and could actually play things well with the left hand when I practiced the piano today. I digress. But digression is fun, so why not, I ask you (does that sentence require a period or a question mark?) Good, I get to use one in any case.

So, more jokes on my progress to acceptable Germanhood:

A man in the chorus has to play a cook in the second act of Wildschütz. His hat kept bending over, unable to stand up straight. Someone suggested that they use more starch for it in the wash to which I promptly retorted:

“Starch or Viagra either one.”
A woman chimed in “Viagra, that stuff doesn’t work anyway.”
“Really? How do YOU know?” I replied.

Ok, it’s not that funny. It’s not even funnier in German than in English. I just laughed and laughed at it, though.

I think a couple of the most troubling parts of my recent history have been virtually unmentioned in this blog. Let’s start with the older of the two stories: “the bill.”

The problem started when I received my settlement from a motorcycle accident that I had in 2002. It was always agreed that when the payment came in, I would pay ma Father back the $5000 (plus interest) that he had loaned me to come to Germany. I had a little meeting with Dad before the settlement was finalized, and thus begins the story.

I had gone to our hometown bank and asked that my account there be made private (the account had previously been accessible to both of my parents.) I wanted to making sure that Dad did not have access to my account, therefore ensuring that the amount of the settlement remain secret from everyone in the world except Chris and myself. I think that this is the best philosophy, in that it is no one’s business, and jealousy is a terrible thing. Even now, we are the only two who know how much the settlement was. But, because of the account, and how it was set up, I had to have Dad sign a paper to have his access to the account taken away.

Dad agreed to sign the papers relinquishing the access to the account. Unfortunately, though, Dad saw this as an opportunity to also push another issue, that of “the bill”. The bill is a paper that my Father has been keeping on me since I was about 23 years old. It totals money that he has loaned me through the years. It includes everything from money he loaned me to buy a car so that I could travel to my associate professorship and hour and half outside of Kansas City, money to pay rent when I ran short, pretty typical graduate student burden on the parents kind of stuff. The total of the bill is about $14,000.

Since that day, I have asked everyone that is in any way close to me to give their opinions on “the bill.” I didn’t want to think that, because I have many other problems with Dad, that I also saw this bill as an injustice when it wasn’t. The comments that I heard from everyone definitely gave some light on the subject. Most people that I have asked could not imagine their parents taking down amounts they have been loaned in the past; they could not imagine their parents even making a bill. The overall consensus of the people asked is that there should never have been a bill in the first place.

These events, and the past, unaddressed emotions I have about my Father made September until December rather troubling from a psychological standpoint. I originally wanted to see a counselor for it. But, as time passes, my venom’s edges have flattened a bit. Time heals all wounds is one of our most valuable adages, I find.

Scary Texas

My sister sent me the link offered by the State of Texas to those people who are interested in knowing if there are any convicted child molesters living in their neighborhood.

See: https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/soSearch/soSearch.cfm

I just think that it is so scary that someone that has committed a crime, has served his time, and has been allowed back onto the streets can then be potentially harassed for life. If the argument is that child molesters are typically not cured by incarceration, then the system by which they are sentenced for their crimes should be changed. The principle, not matter what the crime, remains the same, though, once you have served your time, your slate has been wiped clean, and you can make good on your previous mistakes. That is also a Christian ideal, just to remind those of you out there on your high horse about now. We ask for forgiveness, and the slate is wiped clean. In the penal system, once the punishment has been served, there should be forgiveness.