Boner? I hardly know her.

The universe has somehow decided to take mercy on my somewhat brow-beaten soul. It has finally thrown me a friggin’ bone.

My friend A. sings at Bayreuth and she is so very happy with her agent. This agent has done wonders for A. She is singing at the Vienna Staatsoper and has been invited for an audition at La Scala (in Milan). Being a good friend, she recommended that I send my stuff into “the agent”, as she thinks that he could help me, and that he would be interested in my voice. So, I sent him my CD, my resumé…you know, the works.

I was so very a-feared to call the agent to ask him if he had listened to my CD. What you maybe don’t know is that it is often hard even to get an audition for an agent--the middle-man between an opera singer and the opera houses. I think that the tension would have been palpable to an on-looker as I reached for the phone, muttering a kind of in-tongues pep talk to myself as I dialed.

You see, I have this sort of dream list of agents that I would really like to work with. The list is categorized hierarchically, in typical anal-retention à la J. This particular agent, A.’s agent, is on the top, the far top, as in hey, I would do just about anything to work with this person. He is very far above the others on my list, the equivalent of a great swami on top of a hill somewhere, kind of, well, unreachable. Seeing him like that, really kind of sitting on a cloud somewhere in the sky definitely opens up a whole lot of idiomatic worms based on the word “cloud”, but I will spare you this. Let’s say that his standing in my mind is like when Mel Gibson was in that Saturday Night Live skit called “Mel Gibson: Dream Gynecologist.”—so hot that your annual pap smear seems almost something to look forward to. “The agent” would play Mel Gibson in this somewhat off-kilter parallel galaxy. Getting in with him somehow translates into having a future, at least in my little universe. How I could possibly relate this to a pap smear, the thought of which, for a gay man, would be somewhat akin to just about any scene from “The Aristocrats.”

This overly dramatic profundity about a simple phone call is probably the reason that my hand began to shake whilst dialing.

I should have trusted A., who assured me that “the agent” is not, as I have painted him, a He-man to beat down all of my opera-biz Skeletors. ‘He is a sweet guy,’ she says…’honest, but sweet’ is I think how she put it. It rings on the other end and I immediately know she was right. He is totally nice.

He jumps right in, remembering my name from my info or his conversations with A. “I have listened to most of your CD,” he said. I believe this is where I gulped audibly. “I think that you have a very fine voice.” I begin to breathe again, yet not too deeply, as I wait for the “but.”

His only bone of contention (sticking with that tired metaphor) is that there is not enough legato in my voice right now. (For those of you out of the music scene, this means that my singing is a bit too choppy for his taste.) This is a comment I have received before. I’m thinking ‘ok, I can deal with that. That is fixable.’ I used to sing legato. I was always the one who got “most musical” as the runner up to the beauty queen coloratura trilling her little princess voice right up the judges’ asses. I regress. Again. Hey, there’s always time for bitter.

Overwhelmingly, the agent was positive with me. He swore that he will be in contact with me before the year is out so that I can come and sing for him live. A. said that he is swamped right now and warned not to expect too much right at this moment as his secretary just quit and he has a newborn at home. When he said that he wanted to audition me, for sure, I believe that some part of my subconscious was screaming ‘Goooooooaaaaaaaallllllll.’ The little Chilean sports announcer inside was waiting for this moment and just screamed, complete with Chavezian fanaticism and accent.

The agent said so much. I hung on every syllable of his every word, devouring it like the words of a letter to a ‘dead man walking’ as he discerns, desperate, whether he holds a reprieve in his hands or a farewell.

“The agent’s” other memorable comments include:

“A Heldentenor is not just something you can find on the street.”
“We just need to find you the right house.”
“You obviously have very good technique.”
“I get a lot of resumés everyday. I would say about 90% of them… no, really almost 100% have nothing to offer.”
“I am glad you quit the chorus. You do not have a chorus voice. Your singing in the chorus is probably what took the legato out of your voice.”

I am thinking about getting out the button maker that Chris bought for his niece (and shamelessly kept for himself), and printing a few of these cool catchphrases for buttons-as-accessories. I’ll wear them as badges of honor as I walk the streets, hoping quietly to meet up with old colleagues from the theatre. I could even make the first one out of gold and wear it, blatantly, at my next auditions. How quickly my little Chilean turns into Little Miss Tragic, about to have her gay card taken away by the gay fashion police. Damn.

A. said that “the agent” would be good for me because he has a very good ear (getting his doctorate in Musicology) and has a very good instinct about people. It sort of started feeling a little like the old Hollywood star system when he then gave me the name of someone that he wants me to start working with. “Mr. Demille liked your screen-test, Ms. F. But he wants you to start working with a diction coach right away for your next feature…” Oh Jesus, Little Miss Tragic has become my inner-Vivien Liegh. I guess that’s tragic too.

Anyway, this voice teacher has produced some very notable Heldentenors. Cool. A teacher with Heldentenor as specialty. I had no idea such a thing existed. He rattled off her name and said that he would email me her info. And then, he re-iterated what he had said to me before, that I do not need to be worried, that he promises to be in touch with me.

I hung up and lost all control. I literally wept the craziest tears of joy! I think I may have been shuddering as I blubbered.

I NEEDED THIS GOOD NEWS SOOOOOOO BAD!!!!!

You have no idea. I feel like I have worked my fingers to the bone and gotten nothing in return. Truth be told, the J. has been not feeling so good about himself lately. I just started thanking God immediately. It all just seemed so right. Just real somehow, you know?

A testament to the “real” nature of the agent came when I got a call 20 minutes later. “I just talked to Frau K.,” he said. “ You can go ahead and call her; she is expecting you. This is her number…” Ok. So, this guy means business. He hears my recording, identifies what I am missing, recommends someone to fix it and even does an intro for me. Very cool. Very, very cool.

(I called the teacher and we will meet in December.)

Does this means that things are starting to “happen”?

A deep sense of relief came over me today, a feeling that seems so foreign I feel as though I don’t even possess the words to describe it. There is a part of me, a very deep part, that says “this is YOUR agent! All others will be mere imitations.” Yes, I will still audition with other people, I will still send out my resumés and will still be working to branch out and sing for as many people as I can. But a deep part of me will rest easier now, somehow knowing that what was meant to be has begun.

Pancakes

You know, I’ve thought about getting up and making pancakes just about everyday for the past two weeks. Really, I’ve dreamed about those pancakes, practically raped by the real maple syrup that drapes over them sitting in front of me, waiting to be bitten. I think I have actually been awaken from positively delightful dream states of some kind or another, beckoned out of my unconsciousness by the elusive pancake-for-breakfast fantasy. I, in my daze, am always quite intent on making those pancakes.

But when I wake, and think about the whole “pancakes for one” idea, I stop dead in my tracks, cut two slices of bread and plop them in the toaster, as my reasonable, and, yes, frankly boring, unimaginative brain takes over and pushes the dull, almost spirit-breaking toast-for-breakfast reality upon me. Damn you conscious mind.

One of these days, the pancakes will win. They will get made. And, viewing this as some kind of sign, a signal from the other dimension, my unconscious mind will, in a great break, simply take over. Then it’s just melting clocks, pink elephants and straight-jackets from there.

Maybe the pancakes shouldn’t be made.

Keep it in your pants

Just wanted to remind everyone that today (November 24th) is Buy Nothing Day. By buying nothing today, you are taking a stance against the rampant consumerism and the constant need of so many to buy more, more, more. If it is at all possible, try tomorrow, to buy nothing as a way to symbolize that you do not need to consume in order to feel better about yourself.

Beginnings

I came back from London on Tuesday. I had gone there over the weekend to sing at Covent Garden for a competition. There are very few competitions for which I am now not too old, but this one has a particular portion for Heldentenors, and I felt lucky now that I am singing more like I should to be able to slip in under the wire and see what compete. The competition has three rounds. I will hear whether I have gotten through the first round in January. Then, the second and third rounds are in Barcelona, the trip being paid for by the competition.

The best news of it all is, I rally don’t care whether I make it through or not. I am just happy that I sang well and presented myself well at the competition. I consider this the kick-off of my audition rounds, and am happy that it went well. This is a good sign. There were four people on the jury—two from Covent Garden (one was the man in charge of their young artist program), and two people from the competition. They seemed very pleased.

Snow, Dreams

One of the things that my spiritual mentor asked me to do is to write down what it is that I want to accomplish with my career, and to be specific about it. This was several weeks ago, and I, as I tend to do, have been chewing on it in my brain—the proverbial cow’s cud, sent only to the main stomach so that it can finally be processed to its bitter end once it has been brought to its final version. Simply put, being specific about what it is that I want to achieve with my voice while at the same time trying to release all of my holding mechanisms as life takes me down an unknown path seems a bit of a conundrum that I just can’t seem to solve.

So far, the only thing that I can come up with is: “I want to express my soul through singing.” That seems like a pretty big step for me up to this point, as hard as it may be to believe. Music is just something that I do because I must do it. I feel it from the core--that I must be involved in it, that I must listen to it, create it, etc. I could go on, but it just gets like Kraft Processed if I do…

I only know that I would never have survived this world without music. It is what kept me alive in my childhood, listening to Public Radio’s classical station brought sanity to insanity. Music is the only means that I have to understand the world. The end of it would be the end of that meaning and, eventually, the end of me.

How, though, I am to fit into the crazy way that music manifests itself as a business is beyond me. I shouldn’t know my own future, anyway, even if my need for control is so great that if I were presented with the option of knowing all that will pass by simply by choosing the right “Let’s Make a Deal” door, I would do it. But, what costume would I be in? Maybe a giant chicken?

I am not saying that these are definitely a part of the goals that will eventually be a part of my list, but I definitely want to:

1. Sing at the Opéra de la Bastille in Paris
2. Sing the role of Siegmund in Walküre
3. Sing the role of Florestan in Fidelio
4. Sing at the Met
5. Sing the role of Siegfried in the opera of the same name.
6. Be a part of a mass-distributed recording of some kind.
7. Be a professor at a university.
8. Sing at Bayreuth.


It snowed for the first time yesterday while we were asleep. I woke up yesterday morning to see the world magically transformed to white, and this after just having dreamed about it… Warm feelings of wonderment (yes, wonderment) came over me, childlike in the presence of such beauty. There is nothing like the first snow and nothing like it appearing, transforming the world around you while you were away, asleep.

Vishnu! God bless you.

Somewhere, an Indian monk, locked away in his cell, insistent on the daily devotion to learning the ancient Sanskrit texts of his fathers and forefathers, very much removed from his overall society, caught whiff of a fantastic story of modern genius. Observers of Mita Jivru would have described his reaction to the little girl born with four arms and four legs as hysterical in the very minimum. Upon hearing of her, he ran with all the speed his own octogenarian limbs could muster, back to the ornate, dusty papyri as though his very life depended on it.

It was Jivru’s unearthing of the ancient story of the “healing of Vishnu” that, once picked up by the Indian media and, subsequently, the rest of the world, first brought the news of the real Revelation--the end of days. Tucked away in a text so obscure that even its own author may have soon forgotten it, a verse prophesies that Vishnu’s newest incarnation would someday be altered by a Man knowledgeable beyond his means, thus bringing the wrath of Vishnu’s sometimes-subdued spirit. The great lotus leaf of his/her left hand would raise to smite man into nothingness.

Professor Jivru had it within his power to come up with some kind of appeasement for Vishnu, some way to signal that man, in spite of living well beyond his expiration date, fattened on trans-fat, twinkies and coke, was still respectful of the great Creator and Destroyer. The professor could, presumably, have retreated to his studies, poured over his texts, sifted through his own encyclopedic of knowledge of Hindu history and folklore in order to find some rare and out-of-the-way, hidden verse revealing the perfect incantation, some “pull chord in case of Vishnu” stop-gap saving device. But, being what it is, the Indian media, hot on the trail of a real story, had found the tale of the century, one that could even turn the eyes of your every day teeny-bopper away from Brittney’s sad motherhood/incarceration. This was a story so good that the space where Dick Cheney’s heart used to be beat unexpectedly.

Professor Jivru was practically stolen, whizzed into the nearest TV studio for an in-depth 30-secnd interview where he would be expected to sum up his studies of the last 50 years in a sound bite digestible by his common non-Brahman counterparts. “Dumb it down, professor”, his diction coaches and make-up ladies would be telling him from the sidelines; Mita tried to smile in a welcoming way as he disseminated the altogether bad news—the destruction of all we know.

As Lakshmi Tatma, Vishnu’s 510th re-incarnation of the god/goddess Vishnu, did not see the abduction of her servant Mita Jivru positively at all, he/she simply decided, almost flipping a coin, practically on a whim, as is often the case with her/him, to smite all of humanity anyway. Unable to escape his new-found fame and manly allure, Professor Jivru will not be returning to his writing in order to save us all. He is sitting in a Baskin Robbins as we speak enjoying his first ever bubble gum sundae with a pretty stewardess, her heart all a-pitter-patter because of his grey matter. And since there is no one else that can save us…

I regret to inform you that tomorrow, at 3:23 PM Central Standard Time, the world will cease to exist. I brought a towel, but I scarcely think it is going to make a difference this time.

Chapped Choo Choo

Just read an interesting article in the Post about a 17-year-old kid trying to contract someone to kill his parents. Unfortunately for him, the person with whom he negotiated this act was an undercover officer as a part of a sting operation. This seemed completely unthinkable: some kid plotting to have his parents blown away.

Then, reading further, I see that the child was upset by the disciplinary measures his parents instituted for having made bad grades in school. They would ground him for long periods of time and, as punishment, remove from his room, one by one, his possessions. At one point, they said, there was nothing in the room except for a bed and a chest of drawers. Then, hidden deep in the article, near the end, was a little snippet of interesting info: the boy was angry that the parents, a year ago, when he was 16, kicked him out of the house.

Uh… It is true, they do not say why they kicked him out. But, isn't it illegal to kick your kid out of the house when he is only 16? I thought that parents had the legal responsibility to care for their children until they are 18…

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think that anything warrants a child finding a hit man in some motel somewhere so that he could promise his own father's truck as payment to knock his parents off. No, that would be insane. But, I will say that there sure are a lot of senseless, cruel parents out there who take advantage of the helplessness of childhood in order to mentally ravage their own young. I call into evidence the book "It", for instance. Now, it would be kind of nice, in my opinion, for those poor, abused kids, those that are not strong enough either mentally or physically to defend themselves, to get at least some kind of revenge against their parents. I am not that far removed from my own childhood to remember the injustice of it all, and wishing that my father would occasionally get a whack back for the many heavy-handed beatings he gave my sisters in front of me. That was not cool. But, parents, unlike their kids, do not seem to have anyone to hold them accountable sometimes, and they get to just do what they want.

I am just saying, what kind of fucking bitch would you have to be to have your kid actually try to hire someone to kill you? I mean, really.

On a different note, to try to satisfy an interested reader, I would like to comment on a part of German politics/current events that is on everyone's mind at the moment here: the strike of the train system. Now, unless you are living somewhere on the east coast in the US, and are reliant on the trains to get from one place to the next, I would imagine that you would not find it bothersome if the engineers from Amtrak decided to simply not drive their trains because of some complicated contract negotiation. I mean, who cares, right?

For years, the German government has done just about everything humanly possible to encourage people to, more and more, give up their cars, and use public transportation. Hell, Chris and I did it and we never looked back. There are very, very few places in the country, or the entire European continent, for that matter, that cannot be reached by train, tram, bus, metro, etc. So, cars are really luxury items and are taxed as such.

(A wonderful side effect of the non-necessity of cars in the country means that there are many fewer bad drivers on the streets and Autobahns. When someone is caught driving badly here, or in any way intoxicated, the police simply take away that person's license either temporarily or permanently. They can do this with ease, because drivers have a much harder time proving they must drive in order to get to work. "Take the train, you stupid drunk.")

Well, the engineers here want a contract of their own, exclusive from their other Deutsche Bahn counterparts. They feel that their job is much more stressful than the pencil pushers and, therefore, deserve more money and other benefits. In order to better negotiate, they have been, over the past several weeks, randomly choosing days to not drive regional trains. Regional trains are those between a major city and its suburbs or trains connecting cities of the same region. The national trains, connecting the overall country have remained in operation. Until yesterday. Yesterday, the courts decided that the engineers also have the right to strike on the national trains, bringing the national transportation system to a grinding halt.

Now, I am all for unions, and I especially appreciate the many rights that, over the years, they have brought our overall societies: you know, things like a 40-hour work week, the abolishment of child labor, the weekend (that's a nice one.) But, I do not believe that it is right for the German government to allow one group of several thousand people to completely sabotage the national meanns of transportation just so that they can get better benefits. This is simply not fair. Transportation cannot be hindered if a country expects to thrive economically. The German people are losing patience and understanding for the engineer's union, and now that the ports in Hamburg, etc. have started to fill up with goods waiting to be delivered, just about every sector of society is going to be completely fed up with these selfish few. Hospitals can't strike and close their emergency room doors, neither can fireman just put down their hoses in protest. Maybe pilots should just decide they need a raise in mid flight. Or maybe Homer Simpson should refuse to press that "cool the core" button at the power plant, causing a meltdown for Springfield. When I was singing at the theatre, the state would not allow us to strike as that would force whole productions to simply not take place. But, the engineers get to completely cripple the economy? I don't get it. Hey, I'm all for the free economy and its "natural corrections", but don't friggin get my ass to Hamburg on your train and then let me try to hitch my way back home. I am not living in Kazakhstan, for Christ's sake!