brozinski

You know how sometimes everything seems to be going relatively okay and then you realize that nearly everything is really crappy and you just aren't noticing it because at least it's warm where your at?

Yeah.

Current Mood: drained

Really, is Sam Raimi's vision of Spider-Man so much better than this? Mechas are awesome.

I may be using my ignorance as an excuse. I keep reading books about music publishing and I keep thinking of things that I don't know that aren't being answered in the books and I say to myself, "Self, I want to do this right so I should know everything before I start." There are probably some things that I should know, contract and such, but I think that if I keep saying i need to know everything I'll never get started. So, we will begin. By the end of February we will have 5 books, pieces, concepts, something in preproduction. So it is written, so shall it be done.

One: I'm pretty sure I'm a lousy lyricist. Singer/Songwriter I may not be. I may just need practice at it though. Or, maybe, Mother's Day songs just have to be syrupy and sugary.

Two: Do you ever find yourself lacking patience with people who are struggling with the same problems that you struggled with earlier in your life but have wither overcome them or learned how to deal with them? I do. And I feel bad about it. But I'm beginning to really hate some people, and by some people I mean one person.

So, I'm Mormon.

Now that may or may not be any type of shock to anybody but there it is. So, being Mormon and having worked for some years at Deseret Book, the LDS Church owned (once or twice removed anyway) bookstore, and currently at the choral music supplier for most of the wards and stakes in the valley I am somewhat acquainted with the rare and mystical beast of music, Mormon Music.

Here is where I come out of the closet. I don't like the majority of Mormon Music. I don't actually like a fair number of our Hymns but that's a different post. Now the first Mormon Music that I was introduced to was back in the early '80s with a couple of musicals called Saturday's Warrior and My Turn on Earth. They are bad. Well, Saturday's Warrior is bad (not completely but the only recordings that I've heard have some of the most atrocious singers) and My Turn on Earth is marginally better. If you catch me on a more open day I'll tell you that I actually love My Turn on Earth, mainly because I think it takes itself far less seriously than Saturday's Warrior. I may post more on these later.

That's all there was for me until Junior High. 9th grade specifically and the Seminary Quiet Music. I was introduced to Michael McLean (don't get me started), Bryce Neubert, Kenneth Cope, and loads of others whose heart was in the right place but the music was so sickly sweet with saccharine lyrics that I started getting to Seminary late just so I would miss it.

I used to think that maybe I just wasn't spiritual enough. That perhaps my inability to like this lackluster music was somehow a failing on my part because I wasn't more closely in tune with the Spirit.

That's not true.

I'm pretty sure it's because I thought (and currently think) that I could do it better and was irritated that a series of quarter note block chords and obvious chord changes could get everybody standing up, holding hands, swaying back and forth and singing "we will be together forever once more." Don't these people listen to actual good music.

So this is my new project. I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. My friend and I are starting a music publishing company, which if anybody has any advice on contracts or anything I would love some 'cause I don't really know where to start, and I'm going to write some music that I would like to listen to.

I will keep you posted.

I'm sitting here reinstalling Acrobat and wondering to myself if people ever really grow up or we just pretend to.

There are two reasons behind my wondering.

The first is me. Now, I have pretty much concluded that I am childish. I really am. About a lot of things. I had hoped, however, that in my relationships with other grown-ups I was also grown-up. Now there is someone who wants to be my friend on Facebook and I don't wanna be her friend on Facebook. She makes me distinctly uncomfortable and loves on my boys in ways that are wholly inappropriate for someone who is not their parent. Both of these things I have told her. Plus the fact that she's the younger sister of a girl who I grew up with but never really got on with and she's the on again off again girlfriend of my former friend Raymond, who Puff and Jason know and the rest of y'all don't really need to know more than that, and I just don't like her but she thinks, 'cause we're in the same neighborhood, that we're like Best Friends Forever. So know she's on Facebook, I don't want to be her friend on Facebook, but we live in the same neighborhood and go to the same Church so if I don't friend her she'll be all angry and gunk and I'm not sure if not friending her isn't the easiest thing to do. I should be grown-up and just tell her I don't really want to be friends anywhere. GRRRR.

Second, is not me. I hate people who play the victim. I hate it 'cause I used to be that guy. I outgrew it. One of my four cast members in the show I'm music directing (more on that later) is in his late 40s to early 50s and I had to listen to him moan and cry about how rehearsal wasn't fun and how hard his life is and why can't we be nicer to him. He hadn't been nice to me since our first rehearsal and isn't doing anything I ask him to do musically but we have to nice to him. Double GRRRRR.

Oh well.

Grin and bear it I guess.

Current Mood: grumpy

I don't really want to say anything about this but I feel like I need to, if for no other reason then to sort out my own feelings. Now, by saying this I will probably come off as bigoted and hateful but please, believe me when I say I really am not. I am however a firm believer in my church and it's teachings.

I don't think we ought to allow gay marriages. At all. It hurts me to say that. I am appalled that the Utah constitution now has discrimination written in it. I want those who are close to me that are gay to be happy and have all the rights that I have. Except marriage.

Now, I don't believe gay marriage will open the door to legalized polygamy and inter-species marriage. I think those arguments are silly. I don't even think that gay marriage will effect my own marriage. It won't change how I feel about my wife or the vows we took. It may effect my kids' marriage. The LDS Church, at least in it's teachings (I can't vouch for some of the members), does not preach intolerance of homosexuals. It does teach that the central unit of the Kingdom of Heaven if the family and that the family is a mother and a father and there children. Marriage, as taught by the church, is given to us that we may find joy and rejoicing in our posterity. The LDS Church will never allow gay marriages in their temples.

So what happens if the law allows gay marriage? How long will it take for the LDS Church to be sued to allow a gay marriage in their temples. What will the LDS Church do? They won't allow it. Will they stop marriages completely? Being married in the temple to my beloved for time and all eternity was the most tender and meaningful and wonderful moment in my life. I try every day to be worthy of her. I want that for my children.

So, those are my thoughts. I am sure I have offended and I apologize. What I hope for most is calm discourse, though I fear that may never happen.

I feel that it is time for me to start doing this again. It gives me a chance to spill some of my vitriol on the unsuspecting people who used to read my blog but now no longer do, because, dear former readers, it seems to be months between posts.

Well, that will change. I need more practice writing. I assume it's something that I'm brilliant at and it would be a shame to deprive everybody of my brilliant and eccentric (perhaps egocentric?) but definitely esoteric prose. Additionally, my thoughts are so grand and wonderful and downright thoughtful that, as previously typed, it would be a tragedy not to share.

So....

The first half hour of Twilight makes me want to rip off my own ears (as I am listening to it on my Zune) just to get the sound of Bella's whining out of my head.

I hyperbolize. And I make up words. I'd never rip off my own ears. And it's still early in the book. There's plenty of time left to learn to hate her.

A few things stick out at me so far. First; prologues suck. This one especially. It tries to foreshadow, I guess, but just ends up ruining the book. Like "Kill Bill, Vol. 1" where the first 15 minutes of the movie is actually the last 15 minutes of the movie. Whatever fear or trepidation I had for the heroine is gone because I know she lives. Same thing here.

Second, why is she in Forks if she doesn't want to be. Probably, some major plot point later in the story. This is just slightly buggy to me right now.

Third, if you can get a sunburn on a cloudy day, real vampires will die on a cloudy day. That's all there is to it.

Lastly, someone who looks like they're just recovering from a broken nose is not gorgeous. I don't care who they are.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Schoenberg, Pierrot lumier No. 18

I don't want to get political but does anyone else think Stephanie Myers is being a bit whiny when she stops work on her 5th novel in the Twilight series because somebody leaked an unfinished manuscript onto the web and she feels sad about it?

Current Mood: blank

I am baffled. Just baffled.

There is a homeless man who lives around our store here. JR is his name. One day last winter our floor manager, Jared, found him behind our dumpster just sopping wet. Now to the credit of Jared and our boss lady Rosanne they have done everything in their power to make sure that he's been taken care of. But these people are staunch Utah Republicans. There's too much government and too many taxes and we can't have a Democrat in the presidency because he (or she) will make it a socialist state and we won't have any money of our own and so forth and do on. Which is fine. Those are their beliefs and they are entitled to them.

The first thing Rosanne does though is find which government program and agency will take care of JR and all of his needs. And then she complains about the homeless shelters, which are indeed in dire need of funding, while simultaneously complains about how high her taxes are and wonders why these shelters can't be any better.

Today completely baffled me. I directly quote from her conversation with the food stamp people.

"You know what bothers me about programs like yours. He's afraid to get a job because then he'll be earning too much money to be able to get food stamps. It's his safety net"

She doesn't want a government that takes care of people, but then she wants a government that takes care of people.

Sorry. Venting. There ought to be a way to make this work but these double standards (help people we know not people we don't) just drive me up the wall.

Rehearsals began in earnest last night. The last three Mondays we've just been going over the music, twice with Suzanne and once with the conductor. Those rehearsals have generally not been very long, about an hour tops, although when you only have 54 measures (I counted) of singing that hour seems quite long.

Lot's of blocking and staging last night and I have learned a few things. One, I overact, which is probably not a surprise to anybody who knows me. Two, for Opera, which as we know is "serious music" acting is secondary to the sound that one can put out. Three, everybody at the rehearsal overacts. Fourth, this is very different than musical theatre and I feel like a straddling two entirely, seriously entirely, different worlds. There is hardly anything that touches. Yeah, there's singing and acting and dancing but it's completely different. And odd. I'm not sure I like opera. It will bear further research.

Last thing I learned, if you're nice and easy to work with the director will give you more to do. Lucky me.

I feel like I haven't seen my boys in a week.

Current Mood: sad
Current Music: William Shatner - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Not the cold calling. I'm still trying to figure a way around that. The outstanding accounts. They were very nice but I'm going to treat myself to lunch at my favorite place, East Coast Subs. Best fake Philly sandwich and the best real onion rings ever.

I feel like I'm going to be sick.

Current Mood: accomplished

I really do. I wonder if I'm just a whiny wuss or some such. I spent years on Paxil and it's assorted cousins for a panic disorder. Bad problems with them but at the time I thought that it was certainly better than the alternative. 2 or 3 years ago I found that the alternative had to be better than being on the pills so I went off them. Cold turkey. Something I wouldn't wish on my casual enemies. Worst enemies maybe, but my casual ones I like too much. Everything went fine. I'm doing things now that I never thought I would; singing in a professional opera, making money playing the piano, things like that. I've got more friends then ever before and I'm happy.

So why can't I make phone calls? Just can't. As my friend Jason will attest, I don't (read can't) make phone calls. I hardly call my own family because it is so hard for me to pick up the damn phone.

I come back to work after my operation and boss lady says that she can keep up on the daily balancing (which she can't, she takes the money home with her and does the balancing at night) and so what if I take over the school accounts.

Now the school accounts. They're kind of a special deal. We split our profit margin with schools that order their music from us. If we get 50% from our publishers, the schools get a 25% discount on there music, publishers give us 30% and schools get 15%. It's wonderful right? Anyway that we can help get more music in schools.

So I make a database of all the schools in the state, and some of the surrounding ones, and I mail out letters and I take orders and then I learn, which I really should have guessed except that we have someone else who takes care of accounts, that I will have to call all the schools with delinquent accounts. Boing! Heart in my throat. Oh, and by the way, would you call all the schools that you sent letters to. Boing! Oh, and will you call the publishers and make the orders and take care of return authorizations (story about that which makes me want to choke) and all that jazz. Boing!

How do it do it? I've been dragging my feet on a couple of other projects just so I won't have to do this? I know the worst that will happen. The schools will say no, the publishers will laugh at me after they hang up the phone, and neither of those things will affect me. What's the worst that could happen if I don't do this is losing my job, but it is so hard to make phone calls.

Current Mood: nervous

Well, my lady at the Symphony Chorus needed to know by Friday. I hadn't heard back from everyone on Friday so I sent an email saying how grateful I was to be considered but since I hadn't heard back from everyone I would have to decline but should further opportunities present themselves I would be pleased for consideration, and so forth. I find my formal writing skills are sorely lacking, oh what is the word, ... formality.

We get home from Idaho yesterday and sitting in my email box is a letter from my last obligation paraphrased thusly, "That is so cool, let us know your schedule and we will work around it." So I quickly sent another email saying I could do it and I hope this isn't too late and please let me do it, I'll wash your car, I'll be your best friend, and so forth. I don't think I came across as whiny and needy.

So now I wait at work, wondering if I really want to do this, because I'm not operatically trained and I know a lot of musicians and some aren't very nice if they think your getting special treatment especially if they don't think that you know what you're doing, and I kind of hope that Susanne won't let me but at the same time really wanting to do it.

I feel odd.

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Music: Don Giovanni (thought I ought to listen to it at least once)

A few years back, pre-Puffbird in fact, I was a member of the Utah Symphony Chorus. We sang a lot of great stuff, Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" is the one I still talk about, and I had a great time. While I was singing with them though was during my time on the Paxil. I met Puffbird and my coping skills changed focus.

I ended up dropping out of the Symphony Chorus and another choir that I was involved with at the time (which is really OK because the conductor was, perhaps he has changed, an unbelievably emotionally manipulative person and I'm better to be done with him) and not doing very much with music for a good while. I played the piano and taught the odd, and sometimes even, piano lesson, but I missed my time in the choir.

Flash forward to a couple years ago, Puff sends me an email saying the Utah Symphony Chorus has a new director, Susanne Sheston who is really good, and they were having auditions and that I should try out or penalties would ensue. I try out, I get in and I immediately flake out. It's not entirely my fault for there were a number of upheavals going on in our lives at the time. I thought that I had made very little impression on Susanne, and if i had it would have been a bad one.

So, yesterday I get an email from Susanne. There's been a last minute opening for the chorus of Don Giovanni with the Utah Symphony Opera and she wants me to do it. I am floored, due mainly to the fact the I previously stated: I didn't realize I had made any impression on her, least of all a good one.

The reason I'm not jumping at the chance to do this is now that I'm making a fair bit of money accompanying, I'm also spending a lot of time doing it. I have previously committed to being rehearsal pianist for "Sound of Music" with our local arts council and I have recitals at the end of April and beginning of May for the students I accompany, and two students that I work with at the Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts are going to the State Solo and Ensemble Competition. All of these are smack dab in the middle of Don Giovanni. Which bums me out. It would be a $400 dollar check and I'd be in a freakin' opera. A professional opera at that. It is so cool. Whether I like Mozart or not, it's a frakin professional opera production with a professional check.

My day will be spent planning the next month to the minute to see if I can do this.

Current Mood: determined

If this is true I will have to do some terrible things to somebody somewhere somehow.

Madonna wants to remake Casablanca

I know, I know. Happy thoughts. Happy place. Watch my DVD of the original when men were real men, women were real women, and small furry animals from the Andromeda Galaxy were real small furry animals from the Andromeda Galaxy.

(Weeping silently to myself in the corner)

Current Mood: depressed

I don't think I'll stay very long today. Already in more pain than I've been in for a week. I fear what has happened for the last week. They weren't sure I was coming back today but it was still 10 minutes after opening that anyone else arrived.

I think not fun work is a bad influence on me. I've been pretty happy. Now I'm grumped.

Hmmmm.

I need to figure this out.

Current Mood: annoyed

I've been home/in-laws for about a week now. I guess you count this as day 7 after surgery. I still can't sit up for very long which will make both work and fun work (which actually pays me a lot more than real work) quite difficult. Oh well, at least the wound isn't itching yet.


Oh crap.


Scratch scratch scratch.

Not that I'm really scratching of course, but oh how I wanna.

On a lighter note, taxes are done, check from Gypsy is in the mail, and I guess that I will finally see "The Sound of Music" all the way through for that is my next musical.

Hope everybody is well.

I'm back from surgery. I may be dead but I think I'll get better soon.

All well wishes are now being accepted.

Current Mood: blah

Sometimes I'm a pig. I'm not sure I should be allowed in civilized society.

I'll go hang out with the Grammy crowd where my petulant childish behavior should go unnoticed.