Friday Fives

1. What if any instrument do you play?

I played the e-flat alto saxophone for 9 years....from 3rd to 12th grade. I was pretty damned good too. I played in the concert, marching and jazz bands ( the latter being my favorite ). I remember, one time in concert band, that we did this concert version of Careless Whisper and I got to do the sax solo. That was as close to musical stardom as I've ever come. I also taught myself to play somewhat good piano; at my pinnacle I had learned the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and now I'm lucky to be able to clack and peck through "chopsticks".

2. If you could choose to play an instrument what would it be?

I would love to learn to properly play the piano. I'd like to be able to walk into a bar--- or even better, a quiet hotel lobby--- and hammer out some boogie woogie in the manner of Chopin. How fun would *that* be? As a back up, the violin would be my second choice. I wonder if Sarah Chang is giving lessons?

3. If you were in a band, what would your band's name be?

I've never really thought about it. I will mull this over and get back to you through the power of the blog edit.

4. What type of music would your band play?

I like so many kinds of music that this is difficult to answer. I think I'd like my band to be versatile. That way instead of doing one 2 hour show, we could do 4-5 mini shows. We'd segue from synth-pop to shoe-gazing to goth to classical and maybe end up at swing. Think of the queue line for *that* show.

5. Would you continue to be good for years to come, or would you and your band end up in Branson playing for bus loads of elderly?

We'd be good for years to come because we wouldn't pigeonhole ourselves and could adapt. But when we did get old and the heralded gates of Branson beckoned, we'd just play things that Depends-wearing, intubated, oxygen-huffing geezers could enjoy..........like a looping TV commerical jingle CD.

When Doctors Go Bad...........

Bill Frist is an idiot. Notwithstanding that he is a staunch Republican, Bill Frist is an idiot for being an embarrassment to the medical community and to doctors in particular. Here's the latest statement concerning Intelligent Design from the man whose website proudly announces him as Bill Frist, M.D. ( as if somehow being an M.D. makes him a better senator ). To wit:

"I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith,"

He then follows it up with this intellectual gem:

"I think in a pluralistic society that is the fairest way to go about education and training people for the future."

Let's dissect the first statement shall we? I'm all for a pluralistic society having access to facts, science and even faith. And we do. We get facts and science in school and faith at church. But once again, this administration-- beholden to the right wing, bible-thumping, lobby-- seeks to introduce Creationism into our schools under the cleverly invented moniker of Intelligent Design ( ID ) after failing to do so using the oh-so-Christian Creationism label. Let's face it folks, Creationism isn't supported by facts, observations or testable hypotheses. As far as proper science goes, its loony and unsupported and it has no place being presented in a science class. Period. Now let's look at that second phrase. This strikes me as even more surreal as on the one hand senator Frist is touting the need to "train" people for the future and on the other is actually suggesting that our schools take time away from meaningful science to teach this religious mumbo-jumbo that is already taught in the church. Doesn't that strike you as odd? At a time when U.S. students are performing miserably in math and science, Dr. Frist would rather have us learn how God is somehow responsible for evolution rather than chance mutations, something generally accepted the world over. This sort of teaching will, of course, propel American students to the fore-front of science. The hell with Newtonian Physics and the Theory of Evolution, let's study how God made the sea snake! Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is looking better all the time.............

Here's more food for thought.......

• This is the same renowned cardiologist who was able to diagnose Terri Schiavo after viewing a video tape for just ONE HOUR, essentially refuting the observations, data gathering and expert medical opinions amassed over the past 15 years. Now that's some medicine!
  

• This is also the same guy who when asked by George Stephanopoulos (on his ABC news show) if HIV could be transmitted by tears or sweat, indicated that it could happen, which of course has been resoundingly refuted by almost everyone from medical groups to AIDS activists to those of us who have lived under the spectre of AIDS our entire adult lives. Oh, and he also said that condoms have a 15% failure rate, another outright lie. A doctor takes an oath to "do no harm"; clearly, Dr. Frist needs to review that oath as he is willingly spreading misinformation about this deadly disease and its prevention.
  

This guy is an embarrassment not only to himself but the entire medical community. I wouldn't let this hack near my heart if he were the last cardiologist on the planet. And besides, he probably wouldn't want to work on me anyway.......you know, he might catch "gay"...cause you know, in terms of infecting somebody, it would be hard, but possible.

Dumbass.

Friday Fives

1. Flu season is around the corner. How do you handle the seasonal head cold?

I don't really get sick, and if I do its usually the "scratchy throat" sort of cold. So, head colds are sort of foreign to me.

2. Aspirin? Tylenol? Motrin? Which side of the line are you on?

I don't usually take pills. I should take an aspirin a day for my heart as I'm approaching 40, but I don't. I run, which has the added benefit of cleaning out my pores via sweat. I do take the occasional tylenol when I get the occasional hangover, but that's fairly rare ( although becoming a bit more common as I get older ).

3. What was your favorite meal served at your elementary school?

Wow, that would have to be a dead-heat race between the Mystery Meat and whatever gruel was served on fridays to clear out the kitchen for the following week of culinary atrocities. Seriously though, I did pack my lunch quite a bit, so my favorite "meal" was a ham and cheese sandwich with mustard, on white bread, with Lays potato chips added for that extra crunch. YUMMY. Damn, I forgot how much I loved those.......I may go home and make one this evening.

4. One preseason game is out of the way. Do the Broncos stand a chance this year?

Preseason? Are we talking fashion here? I don't know if the Broncos stand a chance........all I know is that Jake Plummer needs to get that freakin' lazy eye fixed. I can't be rooting for someone who looks like Quasimodo. In fact, can't we trade for Tom Brady? He's so dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeamy.

5. What does your mom do to make you cry?

My biological mother passed away when I was 4 and my stepmother and I haven't spoken for the last 7 years. So nothing.

Birthday Musings

36. Thirty-Six. 30 + 6. However you parse it, I'm rapidly approaching 40. I don't feel 36....more like 26, but Time is an insufferable bitch for details. So I grudgingly accept the fact that I'm a 36 year old who feels 26, and pays his friends the mighty sum of $1 to keep my public age below 30. Although, I guess by writing this, I'm sort of subverting the concept of said dollar. Sorry bitches, no more dollars for you!

That's me on the left ( with the unkempt hair) with my good friend Ed (foreground) & one of my other good friends Roy ( in the background). Eddie and I celebrate our birthdays together as we're only 5 days apart and this year marked the 4th Anniversary of the Minor Celebrity Birthday Extravaganza. This year, we went to a relatively new Czech sports bar down on South Broadway. The food was good and the Czechvars better. The surprise highlight of the evening was the karoke rendition of Strokin sung by a rather portly guy sporting white socks with sandals, who had clearly consumed a copious amount of alcoholic Czech goodness. Surprisingly, he was pretty good, even with his weird can can-like dancing. This was followed by an en masse re-location to Charlie's, the local gay country-western/dance/bear/twink/pick-up bar. No boot-scootin' took place, I can assure you, although I think I cleaned the house of gin. All in all, a good birthday. I scored great gifts which included a swanky dress watch, a distressed blazer, some music, and an ice cream maker. I HEART ice cream. Stay tuned for the upcoming "before and after" pics.

Now on to the musings, the subject of this tirade:

I'm not afraid of getting older per se. I find that as I'm getting older, I tend to take stock of things a bit more though. Where am I in my life? What have I accomplished? What do I still have left to accomplish? Am I where I want to be? What WILL happen when I die? As concerns the latter, I have a pretty good feeling that I'll be worm food, but that's for another day's post. Gone are the simple questions and musings such as "which action figures will take on my weeble army today? Stormtroopers or Shogun warriors?"

I find as I get older, I am preoccupied with things I never dreamt I would be. Case in point: Politics. I remember sitting at the Kids' Table with my brothers and cousins at Family Gatherings ( a euphemism for a DrunkFest to be sure ) and hearing the raucous and downright violent discussions over Nixon, or Carter or some such pol. I'd always wondered what all the fuss was about. Now I get it. As we get older, that blissful state of worldly ignorance which characterizes so much of childhood oozes away. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so our ignorance is replaced with all manners of detail on the environment, war, oppression,success, death, economics and race. Sometimes Nature forgets to do this I think; ergo the teeming masses of mouth-breathers breeding and voting today, which in the end, is just another thing for people like me to stress over.

One thing I always vowed I would never let happen to me as I aged was to lose my sense of humor and that sense of playfulness which characterizes our youth; essentially, to never grow up entirely, to be a bit of a Peter Pan. I'm pleased to say that I've been true to myself and accomplished this quite well, balancing it effortlessly with my "adult" life. I'm a professional, I've always had a job and have never asked for anything ( well I asked once and was refused, so I vowed never to do it again ). I put myself through school, have been in the Army and live a decent life, pay my bills and taxes and do all the things required of a responsible adult. But I also do things that are downright silly and/or youthful. Go out dancing and drinking until 4am? Sure! Host parties at my place that last until the sun comes up? Why not! Enjoy turning my house into a danceclub using strobe lights and a fog machine? You betcha! Do silly things around the house which only my other half knows about? Absosmurfly! Enjoy Harry Potter? Sure! Conduct a symphony standing in front of my stereo? Sure! Roll around in the grass? Sure! Display toys in my office? Sure! ( I currently display a model of the Millenium Falcon and a lunchbox which says " Syphilis is the Enemy! " ) The list of silly things goes on and on and I've been blessed with friends, a partner and a brother who actively engage in these sorts of things as well. For instance, my friends and I have concocted no less than 4 imaginary characters of which, Patty the Triangle Player, is the latest addition. ( Patty is an alcoholic triangle player for the Denver Symphony Orchestra. She has just released the Best of Patty, her debut CD. ) "What's the upshot to all of this silliness?" you ask. All I know is that my friends and I have more fun than we should be having at our ages, and probably more than most people are right now. We are a shining example of what we call the "teen spirit", and only those able to enjoy our odd humor and wackiness get "in" with us. Many have been shown the door after only one introduction. Sorry folks!-- but I just don't have time to be reminded that I'm getting older. That bitch Time does a fine job of that every 17th of July and besides, I'm planning my next encounter with Patty when the symphony season starts. God I've missed her!

Friday Fives

1. Do you exercise on a regular basis?

I'm not sure if its "regular", but I try to exercise 3-4 times a week either by lifting weights, running or a combination of the two. I refuse to get that damned "spare tire" as I approach 40.

2. Name one person that raises your blood pressure.

Our Fearless Leader, George W. Bush.

3. You need to go up two floors in a building: do you use the stairs or the elevator?

Stairs. I even do push-ups in the dark room while I'm waiting for the film processor to regurgitate my film. Every little bit helps!

4. Have you ever participated in an "Extreme" sport?

Rock/face climbing is about as extreme as I've gotten.

5. Imagine that you have the opportunity to become a foreign correspondent for a week. Where would you want to report from, and what types of stories would you be interested in doing? (In honor of Peter Jennings.)

I want to start a male escort website and then get a White House Press pass so I can ask George questions. Has that been done yet? I hope not, 'cause that's what I want to do.

Beethoven As Muse

I was riding the shuttle this morning listening to music on my MP3 player knowing that I wanted to write something in my blog today. But what? The Colfax Soundtrack was a great concept, but in the end, it wasn't my cup of tea..........I'd found myself composing and arranging my playlists to fit the wackiness and grit that is East Colfax, and without spontaneity the whole endeavor lost its allure of the seemingly incongruous juxtaposition of my musical tastes and the Otherworld of Colfax; so I ditched the idea as a running feature. Now then, what to write about? And then it dawned on me. Music of course..........my first love. And not just any music, mind you, but the stuff that stirred me to discover the heights to which music can be taken and even transcend. If you know me, you've already guessed that I'm speaking of what has come to be known as Classical Music---a misleading term at best. "True" classical music is generally music that was written from 1750-1820, a time period which begins with the staggering geniuses of Mozart and Haydn and ends with the emergence of the Romantic Period via the revolutionary Beethoven ( consider Beethoven a cross-over artist ). So if we confine ourselves to true "classical" music, we restrict ourselves by quite some measure, missing out on the brilliance of Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Gorecki and a host of others, not to mention the entire Baroque period which paved the way for the Classical Period. So, when I speak of "classical" music, I am talking about ALL of the great instrumental music written over the past 500 years, including the music written for cinema. But I digress..............

What stirred me this morning to write about this sort of music were two things: first, that I was listening to a piece of music that was over 200 hundred years old and second, the title of my blog. Without even thinking, I had incorporated music into the title, and this coupled with the fact that I was re-discovering a 200 year-old piece of music drove the point home. I should right about what I love.................so here I go.


But first, you may ask: why do you love classical music so much? It's simple really. This is music which transcends race, age, sex, nationality and more importantly, time. Beethoven's music is as relevant and accessible today as it was some 200 years ago because it appeals to our basest emotions: fear, love, hate, sorrrow, happiness. And because it is not limited in meaning by the addition of words, the music can mean many things to many people, further widening its appeal. Its always fascinating to me to discuss a piece of music and discover how each person related or withdrew something different from it. This is why we are still listening to Beethoven today, and while I'll be listening to him at the end of my days, nearly 300 years after he wrote it. But again, I digress.............


It was 1801-02 when Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his 2nd symphony. He was residing in the pastoral setting of Heiligenstadt outside of Vienna, on his doctor's orders, in the throes of a deep depression. Beethoven's impending deafness was getting much worse, so bad in fact that he actually considered committing suicide. In letters found written to his brothers at his death, Beethoven wrote: "How humiliating was it, when someone standing close to me heard a distant flute and I heard nothing, or a shepherd singing and, again, I heard nothing. Such incidents almost drove me to despair." Amid this turmoil and personal anguish, Beethoven composed his second symphony. While Beethoven's 3rd symphony-- subtitled the "Eroica" ( or heroic )-- is truly heroic in scale and in sound, his 2nd is much more heroic on a personal level. Even with a cloud of depression hanging over him and deafness squelching the thing he cherished most, Beethoven managed to compose one of the lightest and most capricious pieces of his life. It was if it had been written by someone who had not a care in the world, rather than by someone so unhappy as he had been at the time. Through this, one can see the dedication Beethoven gave to his art and one must assume that his art is what gave him the strength to live, for it was the one thing that sustained him and gave him happiness.

The second symphony is important for two reasons. Foremost, it is the first symphony written that does away with the stately and predictable minuet as its third movement, supplanting it with the playful and aptly named scherzo. ( Scherzo literally means "joke". ) The scherzo added more verve and energy to the piece and this was to be a hallmark of most symphonies written during the Romantic Period and was to pre-sage the radical overhaul Beethoven would give the traditional symphony when he unleashed his masterpiece, Eroica. Secondly, the symphony is of greater scope that previous symphonies ( although some could argue that Mozart's 40th and 41st symphonies influenced Beethoven in this respect ) with its codas, introductions and expositions being of greater lengths. This too was a portent of things to come as Beethoven would stretch the playing time of his 3rd symphony to almost 45 minutes, a feat unheard of in 19th century Vienna. The symphony was premiered in April of 1803 and Beethoven himself conducted. The critical response was expected: ranging from gushing adulation to the critique of one Leipzig critic who called Beethoven's finale "a repulsive monster, a wounded tail-lashing serpent, dealing wild and furious blows as it stiffens into its death agony,". History, has of course, proven this guy wrong.......which got me to thinking. Are there geniuses amongst us now, composing music that we deem too radical? Surely there are. Hindsight is always 20/20 they say, but I have resolved to be one of those to at least seek out the new music. I may not like it, but I'll at least give it a try. And if I find it objectionable, well, there's always Beethoven and the exalted company he keeps. They'll do just fine..................

Friday Fives

1. Given the circumstance that you would need to - how would you go about getting rid of the body?

Easy. Remove head and hands and throw into wood chipper; athough that means I'd have to "rent" one which leaves a paper trail...............hmmmm. OK, so I'd still remove the head and hands and dissolve them in some acid. I'd crush up the skull and use it as bone meal for my spring bulbs. The body? Drive up to the mountains and hurl it into some out-of-the-way ravine. Better yet, if I had access to an incinerator, I'd burn it. But how likely is that? Damn, getting rid of a body is hard work..........

2. Have any turn on? (not necessarily sexual) In other words, to answer the question, what do you dig?

Canine teeth on a guy. It makes me absolutely weak in the knees and brings out my most feral instincts. Hey, you asked..........

3. Are you related to anyone famous somewhere in your family tree?

Not that I'm aware. My brother has tracked our family back to the 1500s I think. I was hoping that we had arrived in the New World with some fanfare, but alas, we came over on a boat just like everyone else. How pedestrian.

4. Real world filter: I drove upon a really bad auto accident last night and it got me thinking. What is the grossest thing you have ever seen?

This is an easy one, but first a bit of backstory. It was 1988 and I had just arrived in Wurzburg, Germany for my first tour of duty in the U.S. Army. I was a medical lab technician in a pathology lab which means I analyzed every concieveable body fluid the human body produces. Anyway, I think it was my 2nd week of work when the Lt. Colonel (who was the pathologist) came into the lab, pointed at me and said " Let's go. We got a body in the morgue. " This is the Army way: Trial By Fire. I dropped my work and followed him down into the basement of the old WWII hospital we lived and worked in. The morgue was something straight out of a 1950s horror movie. The walls were composed of crumbling stones, the floor was cracked and old with a rusty drain and there was only one light fixture dangling above the gleaming metal table in the middle of the room. The smell of formalin permeated everything. Against the far wall were the freezers, four as I recall. The Colonel walked over, pulled one of the doors open and yanked out the sliding table. There was no blanket over the body, so it became quickly apparent to me how this poor bastard had gone out as there was a rather large hole where his mouth had been. Oh, and the fact that half of the back of his head was missing sort of helped too. We heaved the body onto the center table and started the gruesome process of performing the autopsy. As I was weighing this guy's liver, I kept thinking that this was wholly unecessary. Wasn't it clear how this guy died? I think even Inspector Clouseau could've nailed this one. But we proceeded on, my gloves now blood-red and various organs strewn about the body cavity. When were done weighing everything, the pathologist declared the cause of death as severe head trauma ( really?) and we stuffed everything back into the body and sewed him up. That was my FIRST autopsy in a line of many to come. What I didn't realize is that almost all of the autopsies I would participate in would involve violent deaths. So, what's the grossest thing I've ever seen? Hold on..........wait for it...............

The Grossest Thing I've Ever Seen was an autopsy of a murder vicitm. But this was no ordinary murder. This guy had been strapped to a chair, doused in gasoline and set ablaze. His entire body from the waist up was charred black and his left arm had fallen off due to the intense heat that had cracked his humerous. It was rather eerie because the lower part of his body was otherwise fine, so all I could imagine was the fear and unfathomable pain this guy must have gone through. I doubt that I will ever see anything quite as disturbing in my life. At least I hope I don't.................

5. What is your favorite cover song and by what group?

I've always liked Echo & The Bunnymen's cover of People Are Strange

Let's go to the movies!................or maybe not.

I'm tired of Hollywood whining. I'm tired of it trying to create "events". I'm tired of TV commercials and "The Twenty" at the theatre. Most of all, I'm tired of what I call SAMs......or Suck-Ass Movies. While Hollywood runs around lamenting that Revenge of the Sith ONLY made about $103 million its opening weekend, they are clueless as to why their overall profits are down. To be sure, there a few factors here, one of the largest being the proliferation of the home theatre. I freely admit that once I got my 5.1 surround system and widescreen HDTV set up, I found that I went to the movies less, even though I watched more of them through the miracle of Netflix. But that's not the only reason I stopped going to the theatre. The reality is, I actually LIKE going to the movies. ............or at least I used to. Why the change of heart?

• I absolutely loathe the fact that we are now inundated with the worst kind of pre-movie drivel: TV commercials. That's one of the reasons I used to GO to the movies!! To escape TV commercialism. If I want TV ads, I'll tune in to network TV at home and enjoy my movie interspersed with the truly tasteless tampon ad ( have you seen the one where the woman plugs a hole in a leaking boat with her trusty absorbent tampon? UGH ) and ubiquitous sexy-car-that-I-can-never-afford commercial. This is perhaps my biggest reason for staying away from the theatre. Recently, I went to see War of the Worlds, and as the TV ads started, an elderly gentleman in front of me shouted rather loudly, " you've got to be fucking kidding me! Start the movie or the previews!" Clearly, he had not been to the cinema in quite some time.
  

• The price of tickets is ridiculous. Even matinees are $7 a person. And let's face it, there's precious little being released that's even worth matinee prices, let alone a full price admission. $9 to watch the latest Hollywood celluloid shitpile scraped from the editing room floor? I don't think so. I'll rent it on Netflix risk-free; that way, when I stop the movie at chapter 2, I'm not out any money. Even worse are the food prices; people often spend more on food than they do just gaining admittance to the theatre.
  

• The utter lack of creativity being peddled to the movie-going public is absolutely astonishing. Think I'm being dramatic? Witness the glut of TV shows that have been translated--badly I may add-- for the big screen: Charlie's Angels I & II, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, The Dukes of Hazzard, and many more. And there are more on the way! I'm surprised Hollywood hasn't approached Jim Nabors for Gomer Pyle USMC: Iraqi Invasion. Ninety minutes of bad marching and a lot of " well, gawwwwwww-lees". Jesus, take me now. Not content to just pillage the archives of TV, these over-paid studio execs are rummaging through their own archives to re-make films from long ago, or in some cases, not so long ago ( Charlie & the Chocolate Factory ). I have mixed feelings on the remake. I think some are well done and are in some ways justified when a prior film fails to capture the potential that lays buried in the story or that in some other way falls short ( again I use Charlie & the Chocolate Factory as an example of this as I think the recent Tim Burton film far surpasses the 1970s version ). Its also sometimes interesting to see how another director will re-interpret a story; Steven Spielberg's take on War of the Worlds is much different than Byron Haskin's was back in 1953, but we live in a different time and Spielberg made the film relevant again by telling the story within our contemporary, post-9/11 world---- and the movie was good to boot. Most remakes are SAMs though. The 1976 remake of King Kong? Dino de Laurentis should've been shot for producing that film. Here's a group of people who managed to take one of the all-time great American films and butcher it. I, even as a 7 year old, realized that this "re-invented" Kong sucked. I am eagerly awaiting Peter Jackson's film though. I have a feeling this one will rule.
  

• Continuing the lack-of-creativity theme , another phenomenon plaguing Hollywood is the current trend of turning to books for source material. Even the archives of Marvel and DC Comics are not immune to this. While I don't patently object to this, the sheer volume of films being released which are based on books seems to be increasing. Literature has always been a source for movie screenplays, but it has become so pervasive in our culture that when a book becomes a National Best Seller, you can almost guarantee that some movie studio is snatching up the rights to the book(s). To wit: The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, The DaVinci Code, Ender's Game, seemingly the entire comic book catalog and numerous others. To be fair, The Lord of the Rings and Narnia don't quite count as these movies were, or are being made decades after the release of the novels; and the translation of comic book heroes to the silver screen has as much to do with the comic book industry making money as Hollywood's. But it still drives home the point that creativity is lacking in Hollywood. Make what you want of George Lucas, but he has given us some of the most original and fun movie-making in the last 30 years. His original characters are world-wide icons: Darth Vader, Indiana Jones, Princess Leia, and even the reviled Jar Jar Binks. While rooted in age-old myths and 1930s cliff-hanger serials, his movies still managed to create entire new worlds and bring us something fresh, something sorely lacking in today's Hollywood.

• The inevitable sequel. Some sequels are expected, like the Star Wars movies or Indiana Jones movies as they are filmed as episodes in a larger story arc. But do we really need Friday the 13, part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan? Or The Ring Two? When I see these ads, I just roll my eyes. Someone is getting PAID to make these films and even more to the point, some studio exec is getting paid for suggesting the idea. Where do I sign up for that job?
  

What to make of all this? Well, all these points really distill down to one salient fact: that most movies churned out by Hollywood these days just plain SUCK. This is why their profits are diminishing. Add to that the variables of home theatre, a not-so-pleasant theatre experience and high ticket prices ( not to mention the food prices ) and you get a recipe that further contributes to keeping people away from the theatre. There will always be movies you just "have to see" on the big screen, but these, for me anyway, are becoming fewer and fewer. I venture to guess that I go to the movies about 4-5 times year, but I easily watch upwards of 100 films a year and that's sad, because as I said, I used to enjoy going to the movies, settling into my chair with my popcorn and waiting for the curtain to draw. Remember that? The curtain? Do they even do that anymore?