PLAYING THE VIOLIN AND HOW TO AVOID IT – REDUX

courtesy of: Copyscape.com

What a riveting start to a post. A list of the post you are about to read and the places you can currently read it. All are legitimate, with the exception of "Otto Benjamin Violins, blah blah." Unless you are fluent in Cowface and Dingbat the site is unreadable, but this is how my friends, Andi Roo and Aaron Brinker brought to my attention the fact that my deathless prose had been gasp! stolen.

(IT SHOULD BE NOTED, IN THE INTEREST OF OPEN AND FAIR DISCLOSURE, THAT THE READER WILL NEVER FIND OUT HOW TO AVOID PLAYING THE VIOLIN BY READING THIS POST)

I first unleashed this little gem on an unsuspecting world back in early August of 2012, and it went on to become one of my most “popular” pieces, right up there with my “nameless guy who fell down in the Falcons' Superdome and was horrified” and “E. T. Phone Home” posts. This piece also has the erm, distinction along with a couple of other nameless pieces of being stolen and sold on a now-defunct “for-content” website. How ironical, I jestically say, as I've never earned dime one for my blatherings. There's a reason for this. I get PAID (or I used to) to play music and not for writing verbiage. Maybe I should be paid to not write verbiage; I haven't a clue as to whether I'm any good or not as a writer, I just know that from the age of fifteen, I wrote, and understood English at a post-doctoral level.

Einstein wrote his “General Theory of Relativity” and I read an English translation of it. I cannot say whether it was riveting or boring; it got the point across, but it lacked something of the elegance of his little E = MC² equation by pages and pages and so on and so forth. I think my writing is a lot like that. It's kind of hilarious to me that someone “stole” my piece and sold it, when I wouldn't have the balls to try and peddle my own jun -, er, work, yet, in solidarity to my writerly friends, and I owe them much and they depend on their writing for a living, I went the whole route of writing the “publisher” and kindly requesting they remove my piece. I kept it light and airy and the piece was removed within 24 hours. The website disappeared shortly thereafter.

I'll bet he was fun in a string quartet!

I owe what little writing talent I possess to my parents who were very well-read, and downright scholarly in their own ways. My mother held two degrees, and my father, never having graduated from high school, lied his way into the Air Force, went to the Flight Academy and flew B-29s for roughly three years in the Korean action, until he mustered out on a medical discharge, after two crash-landings. That's two whole more flights than I ever want to have endured, WITHOUT the crashing. He continued to fly, privately, as did my mother; I think they were both a pair of loons. I loathe flying. 

 

 He was the epitome of cool; he brought me home from the hospital and was my primary caregiver until I started kindergarten. He and my mom were great together, until they weren't, due to her own mental illness, but she was a star, too. My folks had the hearts of lions.

He then attended college; went year-round and graduated 3^rd in his class. Maybe there were only four students, but he was pretty bright. He did all this while caring for me, as my mom was working three jobs. To keep me quiet, he played a combination of Glenn Miller, Beethoven, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Tommy Dorsey and Debussy on the Hi-Fi, but not all at once, so he could do his homework. I was a preemie and tended to be fussy. Music was the perfect panacea and the only thing I ever loved deeply and passionately. I love working with computers, but that is more about problem-solving and it kind of sucks as performance art; no one is going to pay for an evening of watching me code, or resolve a system issue caused by the r.schmitt trojan virus. Boring stuff.

My Ma was no slouch in the brains department, either. While working on her second degree, a B.S. in Psychology, she was programming in Fortran, a machine language hardly anyone uses. I found her books, after her death. Since she was taking no classes, she was either plotting a takeover of the world, or writing games for her own enjoyment. I would bet the former.

I went to college on scholarship, and was a lazy student, due to having perfect pitch. But, I have since learned that without music in my life, my life had lost it's anchor. To make this short and sweet, I was diagnosed with essential tremor, after having exhibited symptoms for years and harboring latent symptoms for decades. I finally had to stop playing altogether. This is a condition much like Parkinson's Disease, without the heavy medications; call it “Parkinson's Lite” if you like, but it can be every bit as horrible as Parkinson's, with core tremors and psychosis. I have all the inherent symptoms; tremors, drooling, no sense of smell, I stagger, occasionally and stutter when excited. It also has deep psychological components and at times those were ruinous. But, I found an awesome, awesome neurologist, who found a good medication that mitigates the core tremor and has allowed me to resume my mostly abnormal, life.

Me, the sole offspring of the two pilots above, on the left, with a touring buddy and my partner in crime, "Wolf", a superb viola made only ten years after the death of Beethoven in 1827. I'm happy, because I'm NOT playing the violin!

In fact, I have started playing AGAIN, and have auditioned and am playing in the Tampa Bay Symphony, a group I started with 20 years ago, when I first moved to Tampa. So, I'm currently practicing up a storm, and participating in some clinical trials that I hope helps people farther on down the road. The Parkinson's Foundation has been very, very good to me and I am fortunate indeed to have found them. But that is not what this post is about. It's about playing the violin. Now, that I'm back in the harness, I have to say once again, it is to be avoided; at all costs.

Ring ring!

Me: "Hello!"

Manager: "Hey, Mary. Are you doing anything the week of November 20th to the 25th?"

Me: "Well, let me check my calendar." Sound of pages flapping in the breeze. "Hmm, nothing but the “Merry Parade of Turkeys” and “Turkeys, We Got Your Turkeys Right Here with Skitch Henderson Sound Alikes." At this time, I am living in Charlotte, North Carolina. I am also still playing in Tampa and pretty much driving all over the south. I am also exclusively playing the viola.

Manager: "So, you have open time?"

Me: "Yes." To my everlasting regret, I said, "Yes."

Manager: "Great! I need a violinist for..."

I didn't hear the rest. I was in shock. I told people for years that I didn't play the violin. I never played the violin. I hadn't played the violin since I was sixteen, and here I was at 45. I play AT the violin. I still don't play the violin. I hate the screechy little suckers. They're all under your chin being little and screamy. What the hell is that? I just hate it. The only reason I started to "play" the sons of bitches is because I got sucker punched and caught unawares. I didn't even own a violin for years. I refused to buy one. I rented one for years and a student model at that. I figured since I didn't play the bastard, I wasn't going to be pretentious about it and get some big, souped-up Lamborghini violin or something. I have a Lamborghini viola. I rented a violin with steel tuners, tin strings, and tape on the finger board which I never, ever, ever allowed any of my students to use. That pussy Suziki shit with tape is beyond horrible. If you can't use hand-framing and play by ear, like the God Galamian intended, burn that hunk of wood. You don't deserve to call yourself a non-fretted string player.

courtesy of: collectibleviolins.com

Aargh! No, it's not "Talk Like a Pirate Day!" Those tapes! When you shift positions, the intervals change! It's impossible to develop your "ear" assuming you have one to begin with, if you're using tape as a "guideline" Fluidity counts. Not everyone is meant to play non-fretted instruments; those folks need to stick to "Guitar Hero!"

So, I'd rent these god-awful violins with tin strings and "play" in these violin sections, in the hopes that people would get the hint and quit hiring me to "play" the goddamned violin. I'd play loud. Real loud and shrieky, when the music asked for piano. I'd ask my managers shit like, "why the hell are you hiring me to play the violin? Did every other violinist in Tampa die/migrate/go on vacation?" They still hired me. I tried drinking my way through rehearsals and that didn't work, because everyone else was out smoking blunts during the breaks; they couldn't tell stoned from drunk.

People thought I was a good violin player; I guess because I didn't give a damn and was reckless; I was the Nic Cage of violinists raging around on my rented violins. I started ending up in first violin sections, so it got exponentially suckier. You know what really, really sucks? Playing Mozart on the violin. I hate Mozart. I hate Mozart, MORE than I hate the violin, if such a thing were possible. Because Mozart's a pussy. He gets right up to an idea and says “never mind” and plays mezzo-forte, before limping off into the 600^th pianissimo iteration of the same shit he wrote over and over and over and over. Yes sir, there is Hell in a barrel right there. Eighteen ledger lines above the staff and I'm playing "guess the note." I can't even read that shit. It's in soprano clef. I normally read the viola clef. Okay, I read soprano clef just fine, but when you're up towards the direction of the sun, weirdness starts to happen, physically. Purple becomes yellow. CRYSTAL-BLUE PERSUASION! Mountains walk. Cats do algebra. The horn section is being played by The California Raisins. I look down, unsurprised to find that the stage has turned to lava, when I hit some of those harmonics. My stand partner's hair catches fire. God knows my ears are still ringing.

I was laughing about it though, when I thought about all the variations and different types of gigs and positions I've held. I played with Styx and I can't remember how this came up, but it is also the same with a Johnny Mathis tune; one of his “Brazilian” set. "Sail Away" which is so lovely, is an absolute bitch to play. It consists of 64th notes, practically in its entirety. Denis Deyoung's father was part of the OSS in WWII and was one of the first to reach Paris, with the Allies. You can hear the Chopin and Debussy in Styx's music. An interesting little bit of trivia along with the silly today. There, aren't you edified?

Styx's music is challenging and we had a lot of fun playing it. But, one of the things that does happen with playing that type of music, is you lose the edge on your heftier musical "chops" as we call them. We were touring pretty extensively at the time with Styx and "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto" -ing all over the place and having a hell of a lot of fun. In the midst of this tour, we had a layover and and my trio, myself, a violinist and cellist, picked up this "fun" gig and none of us were exactly slouches. Being the, uh, "professionals" that we were supposed to be, we show up for this luncheon or whatever the hell it was to provide "background" music and proceed to play trios, for a couple of hours. I just grabbed a bunch of my trio music and off we went.

Beethoven is my muse; he's always been in my life. I auditioned on his 5th Symphony and won it. I am a rock-and-roll violist!

Now, it is axiomatic that the fewer instruments you have, the more difficult the music is going to be, especially if you are going to play, oh say, Beethoven. If we were going to play, Johnny Mercer, we might have stood a chance, or maybe, some Beatles transcriptions, but Beethoven? It was... interesting. I have played all of his String Quartets. They rock. His Trio in C Minor rocks. It also requires lots and lots and lots of practice. Playing Styx's "Mr. Roboto" for 18 weeks straight does not constitute practicing Beethoven's trio. We all learned a valuable lesson that day; leave the Beethoven at home, if you haven't looked at it in the last, say, week or so. Thank god the Luncheon guests were drunk.

BEGINNING 09/23/2013 - PERFECTION CHALLENGED BOOK PROMOTION

There are some reasons I have this picture of the beautiful Jade Kerrion and her books where I would normally display #ROW80. First, there's no #ROW80 going on, although when I first started #ROW80, I just kept on going. Second, when I uploaded the HTML code, for the images you see to the right there, I found this peculiar box, that could mean any sorts of things, and being me, I began to play, um fix. I discovered that the reason the picture does not display is that that is the equivalent of a “404, not found.” Rather like my head. I isolated the part of the code that was throwing the “404” error, and pasted that link into a new browser window. The picture you see up there is what came up, along with the “404” error. I made a note and emailed Jade. When the Magic Blog Fairy sets things a-right, it will be fixed. It wasn't the code; Jade sent me EARLIER a copy of the the book cover reveal she wished to be used in place of “404. Page Not Found." So, yeah, let's call it a "404-PEBCAK error. Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard.” I will honestly look for any pretext no matter how slight to get under the hood, when it comes to anything regarding systems, networking, applications and programming. Just keep the hardware away from me. I did make a copy and paste of the URL to get the image you see above; I would NEVER under any circumstances, touch anyone's code without their permission.

This is the scroll and serif of my viola, Wolf. Wolf was "born" in 1836, just 10 years after the death of Beethoven. I've had him since I was 19 and have never played another viola since, unless it was upon invitation of another player, who wanted to play Wolf. He was made by Guidantus Florenus and is of the Bolognese school of fiddle makers, not the Stradivari and Amati and Guarneri houses. At 15 7/8" which is small for a viola, he's got a huge sound. He was named by a luthier up in Royal Oak Michigan when I had work done on him. Nobody touches him but me, capisce? It's like computers, or workmen and their tools, ask first. I wouldn't have cared if it had been freakin' Jascha Heifitz; ask first.

It is axiomatic among musicians, computer engineers, writers, that OTHER PEOPLE KEEP THEIR GODDAMNED MITTS OFF MY STUFF! I came out of the ladies' room, during a break when I was in one of the nameless thousands of symphony orchestras I played in, to find a Russian woman, who had played in the first violin section of the Cleveland Orchestra, playing Wolf. I almost punched her in the eye. I don't get on other people's computers unless I've been given permission and only for repairs. I don't change what people write; that is the intellectual property of someone else. I certainly don't play other people's instruments, unless invited to do so.

The other reason, I must admit, is I am lazy and as per usual, it got hectic around here; when doesn't it? JC was supposed to have his wrist operated on for squamous cell cancer on Thursday, and the supplemental insurance company that provides the rides, never showed up. So, we have to reschedule that, which is so hard on him. He hates the waiting and is understandably frightened. He has a low pain threshold, but he wants it over with as well. We called 3 times, and no one ever showed up. I hate this. When did the world become so careless? After 7 weeks of wrangling with my psychiatrist's office, supplemental insurance office, pharmacy and drug-maker, I am finally back on my anti-depressant, Cymbalta, since Friday. I hope it works because, Damn! I am sick and tired of crying all the time over what seems to be nothing.

I understand that no one has a perfect life, that there are always bumps and stumbles and just plain driving off cliffs, intentionally or not. But there have been times recently, when just every stupid, malicious, mendacious and cowardly act has come back to haunt me. Is it because I've been depressed? Probably. Is it helping me now? Not one bit. Fuck guilt. At some point, after all the maudlin wallowing and all the mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, you have to suck it up and get back up on that horse.

Yeah, I am so so sorry, I smoked for about 30 years, but I am not nearly as bad off as my mom. Could I have done things differently? Why even ask. Everyone has things they wish they hadn't done. What I have to do now, is to keep going. And that has been the biggest hurdle for me, over the last 1 and 1/2 years. Since I have my psychotic break, and had to deal with tremors and weird sensations, numbness, loss of sense of smell, drooling. I've been legally blind for almost 10 years now and I don't even count that a deficit anymore. It's the recent stuff. The stuff that's slippery and hard to define.

I have horrible problems with my sugar dropping quickly, precipitously and within 20 minutes, to the point of dementia. One night I was here blogging, and I looked at Gina Valley's smiling face and saw God. For real. I knew it was time for some OJ. I know how to keep it from dropping, but now it spikes high, higher than it ever has been. 335, 158, 150, 168. WTF? What do I do to counteract that? Eat salt? Buy a salt lick? A bit more sinister, my white blood cell count is high, not high enough to think leukemia, or non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but something else. Having worked in a teaching hospital 35 years ago gives one just enough knowledge to put me firmly in the trenches with all the other hypochondriacs.

Comparing my past blood tests with ABC blood test Company (highly researched) all of my -cytes and various -leukos and trilobytes are just a teeny hair off, until we run into eosiniphils. Oops. I guess I've spent wayyy too much time out of country. Of course, RBC is practically in the negative range, because, redheads are almost always anemic and I have fought that since forever. Scratching around in my chart, which is conveniently online (what asshole thought that was a good idea? Oh! I know! Someone who clearly has no idea about how computers and networking works, and that people like me exist) I also discovered that I carry the diagnosis: childhood failure to thrive.

That has got to be the single most depressing thing I've ever read about myself. Maybe that will teach people like me to keep my nose out of places it doesn't belong. It is true; I was a preemie, in the days that few survived, but not by much. I spent 2 weeks in an egg crate I guess, before my dad took me home, as my mother went back to work. He took me to class, the bar (where I learned to walk) and took good care for me. He was the ever-patient father. If I started to fuss and squawl during his studying, he just fired up the record player, either some Big Band stuff, or more likely, Beethoven and an-ever growing list of classical music from Johann Strauss to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. A lot of you know the rest, so maybe I should just be damned glad I've had the life I've had, and shut up already. I've got the coolest friends on the planet, so, I know I still have lots to do yet. My bucket list is to visit these mega-talented people, in no particular order, ANDI-ROO, GINA VALLEY, AMBERR MEADOWS, AARON BRINKER, NEYSKA, CATERUSSELL-COLE, ALBERTA ROSS, ROBERT LEE HAYCOCK, Baking-in-a-Tornado, Sundae Rye, YumaBev, Nancy Cooper, Cyndee Bowen, That DJPARIS guy, (who has apparently been booted from some kind of men's support group--sounds like me) and a bunch of other people that I just can't think of right now. They are probably heaving a sigh of relief. A visit from me is like a visit from a batch of confused Mongols, only slightly more polite; emphasis on the slightly. Nancy is about the only one of this fine batch of folks who blog and write books for a living who does not have a blog, but she is a first-rate writer and a wonderful, dear friend.

Anyway, while I was tap-dancing through whatever that was, Jade and I were emailing back and forth madly (okay, it was one email and an answer.) She had already sent me a picture of PERFECTION UNLEASHED. I uploaded it and away it went! Her books are awesome. She is awesome! For the next week, starting tomorrow, to help Jade Kerrion celebrate and launch the release of the FOURTH book in her DOUBLE HELIX SERIES, I will be posting a couple of the interviews that she put together. One is with the author, Jade, and the other is with Zara Itani, one of the stars of the DOUBLE HELIX series.

When I read the interviews, I was originally asked to choose one, but was so taken with both, I asked Jade if I may run them both. She readily agreed and for more than one or two days. I hope you have as much fun reading them as I did, and don't hesitate to leave comments for her. All of her contact info is to the right of this post – I've “tailored,” (read mutilated) this template so many times, we're lucky to have words to read. You also have the chance to purchase her e-books .99 (discounted from 2.99.)

Congratulations and kudos are due Jade. She is a marvelous writer and a wonderful person and I wish her every success in her book launch and subsequent blog and book tours. 

#ROW80 1ST QTR POST 20 – I’M DREAMING ABOUT WHAT EXACTLY?

For as far back as people have put chisel to rock and even earlier I’d wager, we’ve wondered about dreams and what they mean. For millennia, people have spent lots and lots of time and brain power analyzing and trying to interpret the meaning of dreams. The meanings vary from time, civilizations and continents and I wonder if there isn’t just a lot of wheel-spinning going on.

This was before the psychologists got involved and I’m sure there we also have the neuro-psycho spin, guaranteed to be verbose, obtuse and farther removed from day to day conversation, as we get closer to the ivy-covered towers of academia, before losing contact with the every day common sense approach altogether and just call it horse shit.

Of course, everyone now, thinks it’s as easy as looking it up on www.dreammoods.com, and for what it’s worth, maybe that’s just as well. The last I heard, our U.S. Congress wasn’t into slaughtering fatted calves or reading entrails, although our current economic policies, or at least the HuffPo headlines argue against that.

No, I’m talking about these everyday dreams. Of late, I’ve had a few memorable ones, and I’m sure they mean something. Just what that something is, though is arguable. I don’t usually remember my dreams, but earlier in the week, my med was changed and after a few nights of very vivid, incoherent, almost psychedelic and very beautiful dreams, I started having dreams like this:

I am on a beach, in Mexico. How I know this, I do not know, I just do. Several people have been warning me that I must be sure and remember to do this one thing and I must not fail. It is a very complicated task. It involves me going from place to place and making sure my secret assignations are met. There is surreptitious dialing of phones. Men and women in dark glasses and trench coats watch up and down streets, as I complete each not-completely-understood task, complete with coded message (“I am a ham”) at each stop.

There is a growing sense of urgency as this mission progresses and time grows short. The feeling of being watched. I fumble with the phone. It is a cheaply made Soviet-era model phone and plays the old pre-WWII Anthem “The Internationale” when it rings (this odd specificity is something always featured in my dreams.) Anyway, it rings like, every 10 minutes, or so, and it’s horrid. I keep trying to dial out on it, but the numbers are hard to punch and they jump around.  As I miss more and more of my assigned tasks, which I still have no idea of what they are supposed to really be, just pawn-type stuff (“Go to the statue of Zapata. There is a pooping pigeon and a newspaper in a trashcan. Talk to the leetle boy with the kite.) The leetle boy with the kite says (“Bite me, ya got the wrong kid, and that’s not Zapata, that’s Lindbergh. Go across the lago, you old bat.”)

So, I’ve messed that up. Eventually, after getting these phone calls, I keep passing this guy who is sort of Salvador Dali-ish, but not really. He is sitting in one of these chairs that lifeguards sit in. He’s got on his little Dali beret, with his stupid Dali mustache, and he’s laughing up a storm. I’m feeling this horrific sense of dread, one I’ve been feeling throughout this whole thing. Why am I here? I think I recognize some of these people, but am really not sure, but there’s a familiarity about this that is haunting me; the phone dialing for one thing. 

I’ve had that frustrating recurring dream for years, where nothing will sit where it’s supposed to be, coupled with the dread that I've forgotten to do something, or study. Not very long ago, I had that horrible dream where I was supposed to take a test in some kind of higher mathematics. I've forgotten to study, and not just for one night, but the whole semester. Sickest feeling. Ever. The fact that I NEVER did that in real life makes not one bit of difference.

An aside. Interestingly, since dealing with “Parkinson’s Disease or non-Parkinson’s Disease, that is the question,” this kind of thing does not frustrate me in real life any more. Well, for the most part. Dialing the phone, no. Trying to type? A whole ‘nother animal. I can get royally pissed if I have to correct. Typically in Chats and that includes Facebook and Twitter it’s stet.

The other frustrating, no, downright terrifying thing in this dream? I wasn’t able to complete this task. Faux-Dali was happy to tell me so. “You’re a failure. You should have just made the Payment when you had the chance. It’s too late now. What will happen if harm comes to them, hmm?” I stand there, head hung in shame. I am miserable.

“It will go worse for you too, if you do not make the Payment before they return home.” Hope. I lift my head and in that instant, understanding comes. I know what I must do. Only, will I have enough time? Will I have the courage to win the day and complete my mission and buck the odds. There’s just one way to find out! I absolutely must pay Andi-Roo’s car insurance, before the Roo family complete with kids drive home from Atlanta, Georgia! Then, I woke up. Thank God. Per dreammoods.com I feel I have let people down, or fell short of my expectations. Thanks, Einsteins.

❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦  ♆  ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦ ❦

This other dream is more like a typical snapshot and I awoke chortling and talking. In this one, I get the impression that I’m back in the Homeless shelter and it feels like it; chaotic and a lot of mouthy people. The usual. I know I’ve mentioned this, but homelessness isn’t exactly going to hone your Charm School manners, if you possessed any prior to finding yourself in that particular predicament. It doesn’t give you leave to be a complete asshole, although assholery does come in handy and I myself, have employed. I know, it is hard to believe I could ever act like that.

Well, it won’t take a soothsayer, dream interpreter, or any of that other babble to figure this one out and believe me this is not how it works in the real world. It would have been a lot calmer if it did in the Homeless shelter, but hey, you can’t have everything. Apparently, we’d all taken the Bus to the same head doctor at the same time and loaded up on our psychotropic meds for the month. Only in my dream, it looked like everyone had gotten at least one backpack’s worth of happy pills.

Back at the shelter, or our shelter, which is really an old converted Victorian-era house, they were all playing “Can You Swap 4 Xantax for 8 Ativans?” in a loud and exuberant fashion. For some reason, everyone was actually getting along! No fighting or anything, just the usual 24-hour, non-stop, par-tay, replete with blunts, malt liquor and I’m sure the crack-doers were there somewhere, along with the other drug-of-choicers. They were getting so loud however, I couldn’t concentrate on the instructions for some new stupid drug I’m supposed to start (something that’s always a problem, with my bipolar and Parkinson’s “features”) so, I hollered out finally, “WOULD YOU ALL SHUT THE HELL UP! IT’S GETTING SO A PERSON CAN’T THINK! Lo and behold, they DID. You could have knocked me over with a feather. This is all sheer fantasy. I don’t need to look at any guide about dreams to know what this represents.