Confused Children and a Cup of Tea

Children have the most amazing, innocent, humorous insight into life.  I recently listened to some elementary school children chat about music. It seems they had recently had the opportunity to choose what instruments they were going to learn to play.

I am a music afficionado. In fact, one of my very first blog posts was about my prowess as a musical expert. Check it out!

 One of the boys, in this group of students, said, “I am playing the drums.” Every word was punctuated by a slap of the seat in front of him.

A girl slid in with. “I am going to play the trombone,” she said, as she mimicked the motions of the trombone.

Another girl said she was going to play the violin. This caught my attention. Of all the instruments, the violin is one of my favorites, and I played violin through college. I listened closer as the girl explained, quite carefully, that she was going to play the music of “all those old dead guys. You know, like Mozart, Beethoven, and Washington.”

In addition to being the first president of the United States, a commanding General during the revolutionary war, and a member of the ‘old dead guy society’, he also, according to these young scholars, was a composer of violin music.

Not only can young people confuse classical composers with Presidents, they can confuse left and right. This is a very bad thing, especially when a young person is trying to give you directions.

As a substitute bus driver, I had just dropped half a bus-load of elementary schoolers off at their school when I looked at the mirror over my head, I noticed the bus was still half full.

“Don’t you people want to go to school?”

“Yes! But you have to take us there. This isn’t our school!”

When I asked where they went to school, they told me.

“I have never heard of that one,” I replied, in an outright, dead-panned lie.

They all groaned and fretted over how we were going to get to their school. I told them it wasn’t a problem, I would just keep driving around in bigger and bigger circles and eventually we would find their school, hopefully before the weekend.

After much worried hand wringing, one bright young lad announced, “Hey Mr. Rob, why don’t you just follow the bus in front of us; it is going to our school!”  Such great advice is not to be taken lightly, so I followed the bus in front of us.

That is until it turned left at the signal light, which turned red. As we came to a stop I moaned, “Oh no! We are never going to find your school!”

These brilliant young people consoled me with gentleness. “It is ok Mr. Rob, we will give you directions. When the light turned green, I went down the road in the same direction as the bus that had gone before me. As we approached the intersection where I needed to turn, I looked up into the mirror. “Hey folks, do I keep going straight?”

“No! You have to turn left up here.”

“Left? You want me to turn left into one of those driveways?”

It was at this moment my neophyte navigator realized his error and corrected his directions to have me turn right.

As we rounded the corner, I expressed my relief at not turning left, “since I would have driven up the driveway and crashed into the garage of that house and the man would have been angry with me and sad that he had a school bus parked in his garage.”

The young student consoled me. “Oh it would have been all right; he probably would have given you a cup of tea.”

I have a zit. Or tales of my present youth.

It was a day like any other day, ordinary in every way. After my shower, I glanced in the mirror. I say glanced, because looking in the mirror, for me, is an excellent way to ruin an otherwise wonderful day. What I saw was horrifying. I had a zit, a pimple, acne, a breakout, a blemish; the scourge of teenage skin everywhere. Dead center in the middle of my forehead was an eruption. Well, not dead center; apparently my blemish could not even be perfect. It was off center to the left a little bit.

I tried to adjust the thick locks of hair that cover my head like a lion’s mane in order to obscure the blemish, to no avail. Outbreaks like this are not supposed to happen at my age. In a few days, I will be celebrating my 25^th birthday. My children roll their eyes and protest when I tell them how old I am; therefore, to be precise, I will be celebrating it for the 22^nd time. I am too old to be plagued with these unsightly blemishes.

To make matters worse, later there was a commercial for some anti-acne creams and potions. The commercial featured a young pop star that I will not identify; I will only say that her name rhymed with Katy Perry. She complained about how her acne would break out, right where she held the microphone. I misquote her describing her acne attack, “All over my chin, boom, boom, boom, brighter than the moon. I would say to myself, Baby, you look like a firework, look at the colors burst, all my friends are gonna fall down.”

I could only groan. Acne is for teenagers. Not for fine, mature men like myself. I am old. Do the math, 25 years multiplied by 22 times is 550. That is old! Maybe even older than classical music.  

Then realization settled in. Acne is the bane of young people. I have an outbreak on my forehead. I am not old. I am a young person. Therefore, with great pride, and enormous swagger I greet the day. Wearing my zit like a badge of youth; sticking my forehead in people’s faces, silently bragging, “I am young and don’t you forget it.”

When south is north and north is south.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the shifting of the north/south pole, and the resulting impact upon the world of airports and professional hockey. Now it appears that this problem is much more troublesome than previously reported. It seems that the north and south poles are about to trade places.

Scientists say that this process is not quick, but may take thousands of years. They also indicate that the last time it happened was 780,000 years ago, which was about ten years before the invention of classical music. Most scientists are quick to deny that any of them are that old, which obviously brings into question the accuracy of their observations, since they have not actually witnessed the last great “Flip-Flop”. Scientists say the evidence for pole reversal can be found in rocks. This begs the question, “are they stoned?”

However, they still insist that the process will take a long time and that during that time there may be multiple north and south poles at different points throughout the earth, such as Tahiti, Moscow, or even Moose Jaw, Canada. The apparent reason for this “Flip-Flop” is the boredom of the poles. Being stuck in such cold wintery conditions with no variety for 780,000 years would bore even the heartiest of souls. So the poles start to do a polka and dance their way across the globe, until eventually, after ten thousand years of polar oompahs, at least according to scientists, the south pole is in the middle of the arctic ocean and the north pole has taken up residence at McMurdo station.

Scientists are conflicted over the results of this polar shift. Some believe it could be the harbinger of another ice age, some are convinced that there will be hurricanes more powerful than have ever been recorded. Others believe that with the confusion of north and south poles, navigation will be impossible and that all air travel will hardly be possible. Congress will launch an investigation to find out who is responsible for the reversal. The TSA has announced both stepped up pat-down searches to prevent any terrorist attacks on either the north or south pole, and is looking into establishing checkpoints at all highway toll booths due to the possibility of terrorists hijacking mini-Coopers.  The only thing for certain is that during this period, Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan will continue to spend as much time in and out of rehab as I do in and out of the supermarket.

I already wrote, in the previous post, about the effects of the pole shift on the National Hockey League, specifically the Penguins and the Lightning. With this new “Flip-Flop” information, I contacted other professional sports leagues for their statements. The National Football League’s response may or may not have been, “Per NFL policy we do not comment on matters of such magnetitude, however our head referee’s call is that the penalties for global warming and for the “Flip-Flop” would offset and result in no loss of downs.” Major League Baseball spokesperson, Ann Ominous (I think that is how she spelled her name) stated, “Upon the advice of our lawyer, MLB does not have a problem with steroids.”

This Flip-Flop could have some unforeseen positive impacts on the economy. All present maps would have to be reprinted. The flow of money to map makers may outweigh any negative impact of stalling the entire airline industry. I do not think it will, however, since the thrifty traveler could simply read his map while standing upon his head. This increase in blood flow to the head may increase intelligence and help bring an end to male pattern baldness.

Scientists are excited about what the future holds and encourage, “if you have the next few thousand years free, get ready for a once in a millennium event; grab a compass and track the movement of the magnetic poles.” As exciting as this invitation is for me, I am afraid I will probably have to pass. Although, I think it would be wonderful to lie on a warm beach in Tahiti late at night and gaze up at the northern lights as they dance across the sky.

The problem with classical music

There are several problems with classical music. I know this because I am a self proclaimed classical music afficionado. As I sit here writing this piece I am looking over at the piano, with a large classical music score opened on it. I can tell it’s classical music because there are no words between the line-thingys where the notes live. On the bookshelf next to me is a pocket sized Dictionary of Musical Terms, I think there is an old violin lurking in an upstairs closet, and at various places throughout the house we have four recorders, a couple of harmonicas, and a penny whistle.

I don’t think the harmonica and penny whistle are classical instruments. I wasn’t sure if recorders were, so I attempted to call an actual expert on classical music. I looked in the phone book and found no entries under the “Classical Music Expert” categories. So I did the next best thing and found someone listening to classical music on their MP3 player. I did this by going to a public place and randomly pulling ear pieces out of peoples ears and then listening to what they were listening. This endeavor proved to be fraught with peril as apparently some people thought I was trying to actually steal their music, and I apologize to the elderly gentleman whose hearing aid I accidently broke. Thankfully, before the police came to haul me away, I found a young man listening to classical music. “Young man,” I asked, “is this recorder a classical instrument?” showing him the recorder I had brought for illustration purposes only. He replied cautiously, looking around for hidden cameras, in case this was Candid Camera or some other show of that ilk, “Well, no, I think its baroque.”

“Umm, no, I think it works perfectly fine.” I replied, giving a couple of healthy toots on it to demonstrate its playability.

“No sir, not broke, baroque, b-a-r-o-q-u-e.”

That nailed it, recorders have to be classical music instruments, because everything about classical music is fancy, and if this young man insisted on misspelling broke in such a fancy manner then it only confirmed my theory.

That brings me to my second point about classical music; most classical music is old. My children say I am old, and classical music is even older than I am. Some of it was written before America’s revolutionary war. This is problematic for two reasons. I have noticed that as I mature and collect more birthdays, that I get forgetful; so does classical music. I have noticed in listening to an orchestral piece, that at times it seems to totally forget the melody and just keeps wandering around aimlessly looking for it. “Hmmm, now where did I put that melody, is it under the violins? Nope, its not there. Hmm, maybe in one of the big kettle drums.” Even when the man standing up front with the pointer keeps waving it around and pointing at where the melody is hidden, the music never seems to find it. On and on, it keeps wandering, until finally the melody is discovered. The second reason that it is problematic is (urgh, I forgot second reason, note to self: when you remember second reason, put it here before posting this).

Now most classical music was written by non-English speaking persons, making the titles hard to spell and pronounce. For instance my eldest daughter is playing a piece by D. Busy, entitled, “Clare the Loon”. I am certain that something has been lost in the translation of the title of this beautiful piece of music. It seems that the title would be more fitting for a piece composed by Mr. Yankovic, rather than the proper D. Busy. Some of classical’s composers were proactive enough to eliminate translation troubles that have brought irreparable psychological trauma to Clare, who by all accounts is definitely not a Loon, by simply using numbers. Beethoven is the most admirable example as he has all his works listed as numbers: Symphony #5; Piano Concerto #4; and Love Potion #9.

The last, and most certainly biggest problem with classical music, is that most of the men and women who compose it are dead. Not only does this mean they are no longer composing any great music, but as is proven scientifically, they now are decomposing. This writer has uncovered the horrifying truth that this is actually the reason for so many composers having unfinished symphonies. As soon as they died, they immediately began to decompose rendering once finished symphonies--unfinished. This has lead to the formation of the Society to Conserve, Restore, And Preserve Classical Music or also known as SCRAP Classical Music.