Month: January 2008

Back when I was in high school and I had the same Spanish teacher (different classes). in pretty much all his classes, he made you memorize a poem in Spanish, which you had to recite to pass the class:
La Canción Del Pirata by José de Espronceda

I still have it memorized. I recited it at a poetry slam once, and, most recently at a salon held by one of my co-workers. Today, hit me with a youtube vid of the poem set to a sing, sung a la heavy metal, set to scenes from Pirates of the Carribean.

I like thier original music vid much better:

Either way, Tierra Santa is getting mixed into my music library.

I think José de Espronceda would either be amused or revolted by all the attention. I’m not sure which.

I can’t believe it is already 4:30 and this is the first chance today I’ve had to get all this down.

This was a really interesting weekend, overall.

Friday night I worked late, then met up with A. to see Next to Normal at the 2econd Stage Theatre. I have ecclectic musical tastes, but, generally speaking, musical theatre doesn’t come up too often. I was subjected to a few bad shows too many times for anyone’s sanity at an early age, and the scars never fully healed. I am always hesitant to engage in musical theatre for this reason. Despite the fact that I knew I would love both, I almost skipped out on Spamalot and Avenue Q for just this reason.

The show I saw Friday may have helped me renew my faith in musical theatre. The score was not perfect to my ear lyrically, but it wasn’t hackneyed, nor dopey, the way I’ve found most contempoary “smash hits” to be. The actors were engrossing, talented, and spun a story which was marvelously engaging and thought provoking. Serious without getting tear-jerky. Macabre without being dark. Musical without being nauseating. It was an unbelieveable show, really – brilliantly written, and a rather fascinating statement on modern family life. I cannot reccomend it enough if you are looking to try something that isin’t tired and rote a la Disney or Webber. It was a show with some solid heart, which left me thinking a lot afterwards.

Saturday morning found me at A’s place in the UES, in search of brunch. In recent months, we discovered a little place down the avenue a few blocks, which we decided to drop by at. The fare was its usual – tasty with nice service, not too pricey. After I paid the bill, but still puttering over the dregs of coffee, A. interrupted me and pointed behind me over my shoulder, asking “Is she O.K.?!” with more than a little urgency to her voice.

in the corner of the cafe, there was an elderly woman who appeared to be having some sort of seizure. She had average length gray hair, thick spectacles, and a face which was really a mesh of wrinkles and old lady whiskers in a nice coat of makeup. Her attire was very nice, but very 20 years ago, and she had a coat and cane resting in the chair across from her. Her head was tilted all the way back (As if she had fallen asleep in her chair), her eyes were glassy and unfocused, and she was panting, and having a hard time at doing that. I hopped across the cafe, and immidiately took her pulse, which was fast, but steady. She was not perspiring, wasn’t wearing a mediler bracelet or neclace, and her eyes came into focus when I cupped the back of her head and got her airway cleared a bit via posture correction.

By this point, the waiter dissapeared, saying he was going to call an ambulance, and one of the busboys grabbed a menu and started fanning the woman at 90mph trying to cool her off. Shortly after I got her head upright, I started speaking to her in a loud low voice, calmly, asking her if she was diabetic, if she had any medicine, if she needed a doctor, etc. The waiter (who is an older Spanish gentleman I’ve spoken to pretty much every other time I’ve been in this place for lunch/brunch) had been speaking to the woman earlier in Spanish, so I assumed she was ESL, and was repeating everything I was saying/asking her in Spanish.

After about a minute or two of this, she snapped back into it. I know that sounds like a cliche, but anyone who has ever dealt with people prone to seizures to any extent understands what this means. The eyes come back into focus, motor starts coming back, and self-awareness returns with a fury. Despite a trio of other seniors (one of whom had her cell phone out) seated nearby offering me insight, a busboy who I had shooed away, and a waiter who just plain panicked, but said he was going to call, nobody had called 911. It took probably two-three minutes between the time I got to her and the time she came around, which happened pretty much at the same time the manager came up from the back with a phone, saying he was going to call an ambulance, and making sure she wanted one.

Irma (names changed to protect the innocent) was outraged at the idea of an ambulance. Though she was so weak she could barely hold her head up without my help, she tapped at her bill and shouted to double the tax and charge the card, and she would be on her way. The manager was insistent about calling an ambulance, but with Irma now conscious and “with it” (though visibly weakened and not 100%), he was facing a cornered NY woman who was embarrased over the fuss, and adamant about making sure everyone in the cafe knew she didn’t need an ambulance.

Irma was embarassed, for sure, and combattive with both the waiter and the manager. I asked her if she had any family nearby, anyone we could call. She said her daughter was in the Hamptons, her doctor was not on call that day, and that she would be just fine, since she lived only a few blocks away. She said she just wanted to be left alone, so she could go about her business.

I offered to walk her home, since it was “on the way” as I told her. Though aprehensive, she agreed to that, mostly because it allowed her to save face without a fuss. The help had pretty much dissapeared when she started yelling in response to the offer to call an ambulance. I went back to talk to the manager, and he was busy arguing with the waiter, who he was trying to convine to go get Irma’s daughter’s phone number, so he could call her. I told him what she would agree to, and told him that if there were any problems, she wouldn’t be alone, and I’d call an ambulance right away.

I could tell this guy was really wrestling, but what bothered me was that I don’t think it was entirely an issue of what the right thing was. I think he was worried about liability, and losing his business of a weekend midafternoon brunch to an EMT crew carting a woman out the front door. The waiter didn’t have any luck getting the number, so the manager basically thanked me profusely for helping, and gave me a 25$ gift certificate “for doing a really nice thing”.

When Irma was ready to move, A. and I walked her back to her apartment, which really was only a few blocks away. Along the way, I discovered that she was not ESL, but rather an affluent Jewish woman, who spoke five languages! She had most recently been teaching French at a senior citizen’s home, but stopped when it “got to be too much”.

We got her up to her apartment, which she was very proud of. A prewar two bedroom, two bath in the UES. She was tickled by the fact that she hung on to it so long, and that the building owners hated her because of how much more they could rent it for if she moved on. Barely a quarter hour after I was pretty sure I might be taking a trip to a hospital with a stranger, A. and I were laughing with her while she rested in her easy chair.

After the brief tour, she called her daughter, who I left a message with, explaining the situation. She was very hard of hearing, and I was worried that she wasn’t getting everything we were saying (I later realized this was more the problem with communication, less the language). I left her my number, and after second thoughts, also took hers, so I could call and check up on her later that evening.

After that, we went back to A.’s place, collected some stuff, and relocated to my place.

, I owe you an apology – dinner plans got totally over the top, and I completely missed your farewell. I’m sorry I missed you, but look forward to possibly visiting you in an exotic location soon!

Dinner was in Morningside Heights with some friends, which quickly tunred into dinner and all sorts of conversation. At one point after dinner (and after what was probably one too many drinks to get into the conversation) we started down the road of Philosophy of the mind, which always gets me going on my brain in a jar stuff.

Ultimately, I took it too far, and was kinda mean to A. trying to get my point across. I can be a real sanctimonius prick when I’ve argued about something more than once with a bunch of different people, and she definteily got the broadside of that part of my personality Saturday night. We managed to make up without bloodshed, but not without some revleations on my part in regards to how much I need to pay attention to what, particularly when I’ve had a few drinks.

Yesterday, we went up to my folks place. A. had met my dad years and years ago when I was still in HS, but she had never met my mom. We had a great time. So great, I had to extend my Zipcar to make it back without a late penalty!

Overall, the weekend had a very surreal feel to it. As we were leaving my folks place, I was looking up at the stars walking down the hill (one of the things that I miss the most living in the city, clear, cold nights full of starts) and was looking at Orion’s belt. I got stuck somewhere between happiness and meloncholy – I was glad that I was in the diner to help Irma, I was glad that A. and I found a seperate piece past my verbal browbeating, and I was glad that things went well with my folks. Despite that, I couldn’t help but drift back towards the impermanence of existance in the face of the stars, if, indeed, this is all real, and the cruelty of the system designer(s) if this isin’t.


This is really hard, because I’ve been to some seriously great shows and events. In terms of Impact, I’d have to say Big Apple to the Big Easy. There were many reasons for this, but the foremost was Tom Waits.

I am an enormous Waits fan, and this was likely the only time I will see him in concert (though I continue to hope not). I went with , who actually secured the tickets after I bought seats to the wrong god damned day!

Waits played an unbelievable set. As a bonus, I ran into Stewart D’Arrietta, who was in town with his act, and was _also_ seeing Waits for the first time live.

• Jan 10th was the biggest day at our site last week, with 18068 visits – 12% of that traffic that day was referred to our site from PBS.org
•44.42% of that traffic was between 8pm est and midnight on January 10th. The peak was between 9pm-10pm was just under 9000 visits
•Aside from our root url (lincolncenter.org – #1) all of the top 15 pages visited on the site that day were related to LFLC or the Rob Kapilow podcasts – this amounts to ~ 15,500 visits!

That is pretty hot stuff!

I already thanked everyone for the aid/participation last Thursday. I got smalltime hero status around here as a result of the way that went down. I’ve had a number of people stop in and congratulate me, despite a lack of firm numbers.

Except?

This weekend, as part of a celebration of the culmination of my efforts, and in an attempt to blow off some steam, I was going to accompany and on a road trip to Toronto, and visit and .

Instead, I didn’t go. Why, you ask?

Politics.

My job here (in the door) is to support the three divisions of our fund raising office – more specifically, the system on which that office depends to do their work. I have no backup technologically, and there are no backups to me in terms of business processes at the moment, due to recent turnover.

The VP in charge of fund raising is close personal friends with one of the event planners. We do a lot of galas. Her gala is next week. The weekend before a gala, the special events staff generally does a lot of prep work.

This event planner found out that I was out of town. She flipped shit, directly to the VP, who had my boss in her office in short order. Her incompetence has led to a lot of repeat work and undo-work on my part in the past, and her fear was that, because she didn’t know how to do her job, there would be nobody there to cover her ass.

My boss laid it on the line – I needed to be on call Saturday, during the day, regardless of where I was, but, if I was in Canada, and something came up that couldn’t be fixed via remote access, I had to fly back.

Needless to say, I didn’t go.

The problems here are many fold. In the afterglow of my success last week, my boss and I had a conversation over drinks, and he pretty much reassured me that he and I are on the same page in regards to my direction and long-term role in the organization.

However, that is tomorrow, today, I’m still tethered to a group who make regular demands well outside of the course of reason, and who see it as o.k. to cancel one’s personal life on account of paranoia. Today is the foreseeable future – 6-8 months before there is going to be any changes, and probably a year and change for some solid transition.

For the record, nothing came up over the weekend that couldn’t be handled remotely.

Part of me wanted to quit, right then and there, out of sheer audacity at the bold-faced selfishness of the demand. I didn’t, ultimately, out of fear of the unknown (read:finance and long-term stability). I was rampantly pissed off – I let down and , and my whole weekend got turned on its head. I got angry, and that doesn’t happen often – when it does, it lingers.

Now, when I finally got into a place where I can get where I want to go, under a boss who seems to help me get there, I have to stick it out, or shove off again.

I’m not sure what to do. I’ve spent most of the weekend looking around. I’m still not sure.

I have meetings this week with all the major players. That should help, or not. Who knows?

I often talk about work here, but not out in the open – here is a high profile item for you, which I’m making public so I can cross link.

Tonight, for the first time ever, there is going to be a live webcast of the second half of Live from Lincoln Center. This is really going out to my NY-Metro area friends, but people elsewhere can check local listings to see when the first half will be playing in syndication on your local PBS station. Anyone, anywhere can watch the webcast starting at 9pm.

Tonight, from 8-9pm EST is the PBS on-air segment in the NY-METRO area. From 9-10pm EST will be the live webcast. I’ve booked over 100 hours on this project since Thanksgiving, and am really hoping it is a success. The live webcast will be up on Lincoln Center’s website from 9-10 EST. even if you don’t give a damn about classical music, I would appreciate whatever cross promotion and linkage you can spare on this, since it is a pretty big deal for me personally, and for the organization on a whole.

The url above (http://www.lincolncenter.org/webcast) will also host the syndicated feed for the next week, as the televised segment airs nationwide. The page will go live again probably later tonight, or early tomorrow.

I don’t beg often, but I am begging today – please tune in/click in and scope this out! I’m ditching my mom on her birthday to get this goose in the oven (I’ll probably be here until at least 11), and feel horrible for doing so. I’ve got my fingers crossed for some good numbers.

impressive numbers in iowa.
i have work drama and family drama undermining my foundations, coming up on a week where i really need to have a firm foundation.

i was thinking today about freedom of access to information, and how i take for granted my ability to make relatively “sane” choices in regards to what kind of content i consume, and what kind of people i expose myself to online consuming that content. it is interesting, to me, how against net censorship i am. even when the bad shit strikes close to home, my blame tends to be more with the irresponsible caretaker than the “big bad cesspool” of the internet.

i wish american idol had a president edition – then maybe more of the goddamn country would care.

i am jack’s black malaise.