Check your ego at the door.

I'm way ahead of schedule but I just want to make a few notes and clean them up later. Having just received the latest online Scene4 issue, I did what I always do which is glance through the offerings and maybe pick one. In 25 years I've kind of resolutely not bothered to read the magazine at all. I certainly recognize the names of the other writers and contributors but no. I'm not attracted to reading through a magazine per se.

I'm trying to think of I ever have been. The first thing that jumps to mind is LIFE but that's like National Geographic; you just look at the pictures. I have never had longstanding subscriptions to anything except a newspaper. For a brief time we subscribed to the New Yorker and I would read the poems to the old man and we would give 'em a thumbs up or down. Dissect them. That was a nice little Covid thing, especially for a poet bereft of his coffee shop meetings with other poets. In isolation it was comforting to have at least that routine. I recently stuck them all in my little Library, in batches. Unlike some of my other attempts to get rid of reading matter that stuck stubbornly—nobody wanted them—those New Yorkers disappeared, boom.

Anyway I don't have anything personal against any of the writers, I just was suddenly struck this time that for 25 years I've had this monthly ritual, only missed it half a dozen times maybe. Every month. Over time, I've had different approaches certainly. Hilariously some guy told me decades ago, very early on, that I was not in any way deserving of a pass to get into an opening night based on my press credentials; I wasn't a Critic I was a Diarest. I complained, but frankly I think he had me dead to rights. More importantly I don't give a fuck. Couple of times I've gotten a letter to the editor here. Meh.

***

This past Wednesday before Halloween we took our little 30 person ensemble to the Golden State Warriors vs Pelicans game and sang the National Anthem for Pride Night. So here we were, absurdly early at 4PM for a 7 o'clock game because we had to run through all of the security and placement of microphones and don't worry you'll have a green room for your stuff and where to get a snack, getting us comfortable with how to get on and off the court, which they are surprisingly fussy about. Stay on the line! (love that little guy who comes out with two rags to wipe up sweat every time a player falls down LOL. I get it it's a precious floor. Or is it? Every time there's a break—a Challenge to a referee's call for example—any break in the action, suddenly there's all kinds of people walking all over the place, who the hell knows who they are? And then they abruptly disappear and the game goes on.)

So, we've been run through our routine what to expect, what order we're going to be in all that good stuff, we're shown into a curtained area that has a sign pinned to it: Talent GSW Talent. As a matter of sheer luck the temperature is moderate in this cavernous space, protected by nothing but a concrete floor and some folding chairs. After a couple more quick run-throughs with our nervous stand-in conductor, inexplicably there is a panic amongst the altos. They retreat a bit off to the side and hunker down with their sheet music. I'm not with them; I feel quite assured. I didn't even bring any music with me. We're off book of course and it's the fucking National Anthem for crying out loud.

While they fuss over details, I fall into conversation with the ringers who've been hired (by our usual conductor who is happily off on his honeymoon, but that's a long story) to fill out our 30 person contingent. GSW will have their 30. Not 29. Not 31. We have also provided them with the required video of us singing OsayCanUSee with 30 people. Not once. Not twice. Three videos, all of which must have the correct contingent. However what they don't know and what we don't give a shit about is whether those people aren't just lip-syncing. As our Conductor tells us what they don't know…So ultimately, due to some calendar conflicts amongst our own, we've had to have some people from outside who have agreed to do the gig on the day of. I seriously doubt they were paid, although sometimes the church does give soloists (myself among them) a little stipend.

But these three or four—I lost count in the confusion—are established members of other choirs in our area and have nothing else to do.

I guess.

One guy has that look. The one I associate with men. (Not always of course, sometimes it's a soprano.) They know that they are able to write their own ticket. Conductors fall at their knees. Audition announcements specifically request baritones and basses. Girls can sing tenor, so, eh, not so much. This fella has kiss my feet written all over him. In the chatter which we've been repeatedly asked to keep down because there's a press conference nearby (!?) we lapse into conversation around random subjects. Who are you with now? What are you up to? Brahms? Again?

I make the grievous error of mentioning my process of memorization, specifically the Meredith Monk nonsense piece we open the 2nd Half with, while marching around the hall (mind you, that's not with the present choir, that's with another group which wouldn't be caught dead doing GSW, although 10 of them did recently hit a jazz club in SF doing a 7 minute opener for the headliner, so there's that.) Madam Monk has reduced me to concocting a set of lyrics to match her vocal line, a trick to ground what would otherwise be floating in mid-air. Once I've got the notes clearly, my knucklehead lyrics linger upstairs while my voice says ah ah ah ah ah aaaaah.Mr. Thing reacts strongly to my mention of using an online Music App for drilling a piece.

That's cheating, he intones.

Well.

We're done singing. In our lovely seats in the Pepsi Club, (no, it is absolutely not at all impressive), I sit with all three of my sons, and I split a pastrami sandwich with Ryan. Ben sits on my left with garlic fries and updates me on his son's progress as a junior in High School, where he'd much rather debate than play sports.

The Warriors win and then for fun, on Sam's phone recording I see myself exiting after our performance and high-fiving a player with a hand twice the size of mine. But after all this effort and planning, my ears recoil, oh my god, that familiar song, a massive crowd of howling fans. Maybe it's the recording quality.

We sound positively adolescent.