Gee,
this is a great question, and before I ever wrote, all I ever did was
play the viola. Then, I came down with essential tremor, an inherited
neuro-muscular disorder (my mom was afflicted and never diagnosed,
nor treated, poor woman) and until I could get a proper diagnosis and
treatment, which normally takes on average six years, but was
accomplished in about five in my case, I stopped playing and started
blogging and also wrote and completed a NaNoWriMo book in 2013. THAT
still needs editing! I'm not sure that I'm cut out for long-haul
writing, but I'm damned good at seat-of-the-pants,
stream-of-consciousness ramblings. I submit to you this earlier post
about a playoff NFL game that somehow morphs into a symphonic
stare-down as proof that absurdity abounds and can be found anywhere
and is alive and well in my life! I'm back playing, but have writing
now for fun! What a great life!
originally posted 1/13/13
I'm
totally cheating here; today for the first time since I started with
the seizures, psychotic break and tremors, which is about 18 months,
I played my viola, and surprise of surprises, I sounded damn good
(for about 3 minutes; I have my work cut out for me!) So, that right
there is an achievement. My goal for writing still stands, although I
have edited nothing, but I'm so over the moon about being able to
play.
I
wonder if these are free-range violas, because the price has really
skyrocketed!
Q:
Have you heard about the latest form of urban violence?
A:
Drive-by viola solos.
So,
here's a little number I cobbled up during the American Football
season last year as we headed into our playoff season. Enjoy!
This
is not your typical Sunday check in post. Nope, first off, it's
Monday and second off, here in the good ol’ U S of A, it is Martin
Luther King Jr.'s Birthday and President
Obama's 2nd Inaugural Celebration! So, what better way for me to
celebrate, than to write about yesterday's NFC Championship
game between the Atlanta Falcons and the San Francisco 49ers that
featured guys
running over guys and plowing into unaware guys on the side-lines.
That’s right, “UNAWARE” guys on the side lines, during one of
two games that will decide which of two teams are going to the Hyper
Bowl, er, uh I mean, Super Bowl LXVII (is that 47 or 67? I failed
Roman Numerals in Ancient Times class.)
Sing
Along: "I see I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII,
XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVII Wheels"
Anyway,
dude got clipped below the knees and fell as if pole-axed, backward
onto that hard surface and landed backwards, head-first, with a
bounce or two and was thankfully unhurt. Apparently, he works at the
Atlanta Falcons field and this was their first ever(!) playoff event,
and really, he can’t be faulted for that part of it. The poor guy
had his back turned to the action and was most likely, looking at and
marveling at the crowd and all of their noise, hoo ha, folderol and
mostly, NOISE. And boy, howdy, there was a bunch of it, being as how,
my Google says, the Georgia Dome can shovel 71,250 people into
permanent seats.
The
first time I ever faced a crowd like that was when I played for
the Moody
Blues. I was in my mid-30s and had been playing viola
professionally for about 20 years, by this time. My performing
experience went from symphony-polite-coughing and maybe a standing
ovation, or two. Occasionally, the standing ovations were
prolonged.
Stunning,
wonderous. I love Mozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..... *snore*
Once,
during a Grand
Pause, or a fermata, where the orchestra came to a screeching
halt after a fortississimo passage and it was deathly quiet, I had
the great good fortune to hear a bellowed “I FRY MINE IN LARD…”
from the back of the audience and then, stunning quiet. Nary a peep,
cough, fart or rustle.
The
fermata fortunately, is one of those musical devices that has no
metered time, so as the Conductor stared us all down, daring us to
laugh, and we all played “one potato, two potato, three potato,
four…” Concert master and Principal Second Violin and Principal
Viola and Principal Cello all sitting there, giving one another, the
hairy eyeball, becoming rather like “High Noon,” and I and my
stand partner who are on the 2nd stand, not daring to
look at one another, because we are truly deranged idiots and jokers,
are puffing up like horses around rattle snakes, we’re both holding
our breaths, because HolyMotherOfGod, I’mSoGonnaLaugh… I see his
viola scroll start to shake out of the corner of my eye and just
then? As I start to go eeeeeeeeeee? As the air is leaking out?
Mercifully,
the Conductor gives the downbeat and off we go. To this day, I do not
remember what on God’s Green Earth we were playing, probably
Rachmaninoff. I’ve been ambushed by him a number of times. Him and
his G. P.s. Well, that was a digression.
This
all changed when we started playing in open-air theaters and
stadiums.
Okay,
I haven't faced Wembley and I'm sure I don't want to; actually, I
probably do. We rocked it at 1-800-ASK-GARY Field. A name like that
for a Venue just drips class. I can't wait until Kotex, or Fleet
Enema buys a sponsorship and demands to have it named after their
company.
In
the summer of 1992, the Moody Blues were in a resurgence and instead
of having a summer off, we had a tour around the Midwest for a few
weeks. We had an afternoon rehearsal with their conductor who told us
the basics, micced us up and off we went. We had a full orchestra,
and plexiglass partitions between each section. I felt like we were
in cattle pens. That night, the orchestra was in place, when the
Blues with Justin Hayward took the stage.
There
were 10,000 people in the audience. Up to that point, I had never
played with that many people in an audience. When that audience
roared and that sound hit the stage, the orchestra, who for the most
part had not experienced that before, was pretty well aware that this
night and this concert was going to be different. But first, we had
to get over the shock of all of those people yelling. If we had been
zebras, we’d have been dead ones. We all just froze for about 2
beats and then our training kicked in and off we went.
It
was an exhilarating experience I’ve always loved the Moody Blues
more orchestral stuff, but the conductor, Larry Greene is also their
arranger, and he had gone back and arranged some of their harder rock
stuff like “Ride My Seesaw” for strings and that’s a blast to
play as well. I’ve found that I like music with a harder edge to
it. I’m sure it’s one of the reasons I don’t like Mozart and I
revere Beethoven.
Mozart
gets right up to an idea and then backs away. Beethoven takes it in
his teeth and ragdolls it. I love that. I also love the fact that he
doesn’t bore the violists to death in his orchestral and other
ensemble writing. Mozart is precious, hard to play and there’s
damn little reward for all of that work; he’s insipid. Oops, lemme
get back to our sideline guy.
I’ve
enjoyed my rock ‘n’ roll violist career, which has also veered
off into blues, metal and a bit of rap, believe it or not. But, back
to our poor dude. Man, did I feel for him. Guy stood up; I was so
relieved, he fell hard. As he was turning around, the Fox Team,
(Terry, Howie, Michael, Jimmy and Whoever) were helpfully pointing
out that this was the Falcon’s first playoff Event ever. The guy
who had been knocked over was wearing a jacket that said “Event
Team” on it.
As
the man turned and looked at the camera you could tell what he was
thinking: “Oh dear, can I move to Saturn? Maybe to Pluto. Pluto
isn’t far enough away… My wife is going to divorce me. What was I
thinking, looking at that stupid bunch of loud-ass people? My ass is
on the line, here. My ass... is my ass too wide? My grandkids are
going to be talking about this and wanting to hear this story,
forevah!. This is going to be on AFV, isn’t it? Geez, on National
TV, no, INTERNATIONAL, TV! Gack! Did my Aunt in Outer Slobovia see
me? I hope I don’t get fired. Geez, does my head hurt. Can I go
home?”
Relax,
guy, if I hear you got in trouble over this, I’m writing a letter.
I’ve done so much stupid stuff in front of the public, it’s not
funny. I’ve fallen off stages, fallen out of chairs. Fallen off
risers. I very gracefully draped myself across 3 people once, along
with my viola and bow, held up over my head and rolled like a barrel
down to the floor, protecting my baby, my viola, Wolf. How I managed
that, I will never know. I’ve taken bows wearing Taco Bell on
formal, black velvet unknowingly, after playing a triumphant
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. To make matters worse, my stand
partner’s fly was open during the whole performance. I don’t
think Beethoven would have minded.
The
point is, a roaring crowd is pretty impressive; I was awed by it when
I was on the “receiving” end of it the first time. It does take
some getting used to. So, Guy Who Was Knocked Down and Was
Embarrassed, don’t be. I hope you get a chance to get used to
playoff events as more come your way. I hope you are okay. You
totally made my day!
So, I'm glad I got a chance to take up writing and I'm also glad that I got to play again, too. My playing career is not nearly as intense as it was in the earlier days and that is okay, but I'm able to play and enjoy it and it's fun. The writing is great, too. It's the best of both worlds; happy IWSG'ing all!