:: Richard Barrett's blog ::

:: Saturday, April 12, 2003 ::

Last night I did a musical theatre program with my soprano friend Christy Villareale and pianist Glenda Williams. We did it at the Sand Point Country Club, for a very appreciative audience of about ninety people. Beautiful location, very good money for really how little work it was, plus they fed us and gave us drinks. Program consisted of Wilkommen, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, A' vuchella, and Maria for me, and Think of Me, Quando m'en vo, and Art Is Calling For Me for Christy. Also included were Too Many Mornings and The Balcony Scene from West Side Story as duets, and then I sang Sit Down You're Rockin' The Boat as an encore. Really not bad. I liked the songs I sang for it - I really should learn them sometime.

The nice thing about jobs like that is at the end of the day, whatever my feelings about the artistic element of the endeavor, I feel like I've been paid to play with my friends. It's a good feeling to have after a performance - which is why I always try so hard to get along with the people with whom I work. If I'm not getting along with them, it feels a hell of a lot more like *work*.

I was buying comics just before the show, and as always, the girl behind the counter (a girl working at a comic book shop - who woulda thunk it) asked if I wanted sleeves, and as always, I declined. For some reason, I felt like I had to explain this time - "I'm really more of a reader than a collector," I said, "so the sleeves just get in my way, or they get left empty all over the house and they drive myself and my wife nuts." And actually, I decided, for now at least, that the idea of a comic book needing to look unread is really a crock. Comics published after the 1970s really aren't generally going to have any real collectible value, so I'm not going to feel bad about reading them, enjoying them, and letting them look like they've been read and enjoyed. So there.
:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 6:26 PM [+] ::
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We found a 1980 Mazda RX-7 that's actually in quite wonderful shape and that has far fewer miles on it than one might think for $500. We're buying it. We would've been willing to spend $500 (or so) to fix Megan's car if it were fixable, so it seems to be the best thing to do at this stage of the game. It will easily last us till September - it runs better than Megan's old car did before it died, even. So, no trips to the Woodinville Public Auto Auction for us. At this point, anyway.

I find today's developments with Turkey over the Kurds' assistance in Kirkuk to be, quite frankly, scary as hell. We've already screwed the Kurds once - if we do it again in order to appease Turkey, then I fear we will lose the hearts and minds over there that we so desperately need to win. I worry that this could potentially be the issue that blows this conflict up into something much bigger, something much more out of control.

Oh, and I have one word for the new Matrix Reloaded trailer that just hit the web: Again.
:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 10:18 PM [+] ::
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Turns out the car initially offered to us needs a new radiator, hoses, and windshield. Urgh. Next stop, Woodinville Public Auto Auction, I guess...

The opera chorus sang at the Mariners' season opener yesterday. When I got to Safeco Field, Speight was collecting choristers at the door and showing them where to go, and we had something of an amusing conversation. First of all, my name is evidently "Uh... Robert". That's fine, I suppose - *good* friends have managed to confuse "Richard" with "Robert" going all the way back to high school, and I have at least one acquaintance who instinctively wants to call me "Chris" whenever she sees me. (It's not exactly a surprise, either; Steve Wall is fond of noting that when he's doing a small role, he is "Stephen" to Speight, and when he's not, he's "Uh... Stephen".) Then we had the following exchange:

"You sang in Norma, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Are you singing in Fidelio?"

"Yes."

"Have you sung with us before?"

"Yes, I've been one of your regular choristers for two years now."

"Oh."

Evidently the three auditions he's heard of mine made a tremendous impact on him... The nice thing is that it proves my strategy of keeping my head down and staying off his radar the whole time I've been in the chorus has worked. Truth be told, I don't want him to remember who I am when I'm doing a principal audition for him in a few years. So, whatever. Like I said, it's funny, at least.

The experience itself was actually quite surprisingly emotional. A huge flag was unfurled on the field, and I said a little prayer for our troops just beforehand. I found myself becoming a bit overcome during the anthem itself. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it - pride, maybe? I don't know... anyway - it was a cool thing to be able to say I was involved with, at the very least.

I had a really interesting conversation yesterday with somebody who's probably in his mid-to-late 50s (another chorister) about JFK. I made the mistake of telling him the joke: "How do we know the CIA wasn't involved in the JFK assassination?" "He's DEAD, isn't he?" It prodded a wound I didn't realize the poor guy had, and it got him talking. He said, essentially, that the assassination of JFK is one of the single most devastating things he's experienced, beyond even the death of his own parents. He explained that for his generation, Kennedy really embodied the spirit of our best and the brightest, that they didn't know the things about him then that we do know, and that the office of the President at that time was still pretty much sacrosanct. So, to have him just be cut down in his prime was a tremendous blow, and he doesn't think his generation is over it yet. He started crying at one point in the conversation - it was something else for me, since my dad, as a conservative, has always been pretty clinical and critical in terms of discussing Kennedy.

What struck me more than anything was his description of Kennedy as the USA's "best and brightest" at that time, and that there really hasn't been anybody since who even comes close to fitting that description. In my lifetime, the presidents have been Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. None of them jump out at me as truly being our "best and brightest", not by a long shot. They may have all had their strengths, but particularly in the last ten years or so, I really have to question the idea that the people elected President have truly been the best person available for the job. I generally support Bush and voted for him, but there's no way he was the absolute, hands down best guy around. Neither was Gore. I think people hoped Clinton would be the next Kennedy, but it clearly didn't turn out that way. Time will tell in terms of who turns out for the next round.

The images coming out of Iraq today are fascinating. We're definitely learning how to play the PR game over there, that's for sure - and that's A Good Thing. Somehow, though - when the statue didn't come down immediately, I knew somebody somewhere would make the analogy between the statue and the war, and sure enough, five minutes later, some commentator did. It was frankly a bit ham-handed.

At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, I'm going to go ahead and play the Devil's Advocate for a moment and ask this question: is there a possibility that the United States is simply a failed experiment in political ideology? Are we at a point where we have to admit that the notion of a country being formed around an idea rather than traditional ideas of nationhood just simply doesn't work? David Mamet once noted that we have a higher divorce rate today because in the old days, marriage was tied to property, and today it's about "love". That is, marriage was based on something solid and practical, rather than on some nebulous feeling in one's gut. Is that applicable in our case? Can it be argued that by basing the existence of our country on something insubstantial rather than on something clearly definable, we planted the seeds of our own ultimate destruction? I'm not saying this is what I think - I'm just asking the question.
:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 4:20 PM [+] ::
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Stressful weekend. Had to take Megan to the emergency room on Saturday because of a skin thing that suddenly got worse Friday night, and the doc decided I had to treat for it as well despite not showing symptoms. Plus, we had to tow her car home from the garage. With a performance Saturday night (a fundraiser for the Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society), it was a really complicated day. Sunday was all right - the good news is that a woman at our church has a car she thinks she can loan us indefinitely. It's her brother's car - he's been in Russia for a year and a half, will be there indefinitely, and his Ford Escort is sitting in her driveway for the time being. So, assuming he doesn't have any problem with it, Megan can borrow it as long as she needs. Talk about a Godsend.

On a totally unrelated topic - Phone Booth is a good flick. If Colin Farrell isn't a bona-fide star as a result (he's excellent), then I just don't know what it will take. Joel Schumacher directs it very intelligently by training the camera on Farrell and then getting the hell out of the way for the rest of the movie. We still get some of his neon fetish, but not enough to be annoying. Story-wise it winds up being a touch on the thin side - it plays very much like a "spec script" that happened to actually get made without rewrites - but it's still satisfying. And, even if it is just (mostly) his voice we hear, Phone Booth wouldn't have been quite the same without Kiefer Sutherland, who has continues to display just how strong of a dramatic actor he's become in the last few years.

Current reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman, True Detective by Max Allan Collins, My Life & Art by Nicolai Gedda.
:: Richard richardtenor@gmail.com 12:23 PM [+] ::
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