Not to worry, we do live outside San Francisco so how hard can it be to find a concert of some sort on short notice? We ought to be able to find some left-handed accordion recital or something, right? Well, here's what I quickly learned about concerts; everybody and their dog has a musical performance in December and then take the month of January off. The best I could find was a Spandau Ballet concert in Sacramento. Well, hell. So John did some googling and found a small ensemble performance at a church in Portola Valley for Sunday.
Come Sunday, we loaded up the boys, grumbling and groaning like this was our idea or something, and headed off. After about 40 minutes, I turned to John, "So, where are we?"
John, "We just crossed the Dumbarton Bridge. Over that way is Menlo Park and Palo Alto is over there."
Me, "Oh. Okay. So where are we?"
John, "About 10 more minutes."
Me, "Okay."
So we drove through Stanford, to see all the smart people, and drove along the Linear Particle Accelerator. "See, it's that long building over there." "You can still see it." "Dad's been in there." "Get off your phones." They didn't care. And finally we arrived at Valley Presbyterian Church. A very cool A-Frame church. Not real big but the entire front wall was glass, looking out at these gorgeous cedar trees, and there were skylights all along the sides and real shrubs and plants along the walls and up in the altar area. It felt like you were outside. AND, they had a bar set up in the back for intermission. Do all Presbyterian churches have bars? I don't know but I'm converting just to be on the safe side.
So the assignment was for the boys to attend a concert and write a two page paper about it, in no larger than 12 font. Clearly this was not Mr. Rugani's first rodeo.
Kid, <whining> "But I did turn in a 2 page paper."
Mr. Rugani, "It was in 48 font, Howard! Nice try!"
Now, I don't know anything about music, but 2 pages? Really? My report would be something like this:
I went to an Ensemble Concert. Before the performance they announced that if we had any questions about anything at all, we could text them and they would try to answer during intermission. This was a first for me. Usually they get all attitude-y about turning off your cell phones.
There were 3 ladies on violins. One could have been a Viola but I get those confused. There was also a guy on cello and another guy playing clarinet. The guy on clarinet was very serious and got very red in the face like he was going to have an aneurysm or something. After the first song the clarinetist left, probably to get a CT scan, and was replaced with a guy playing double bass. I was rather disappointed with the double bass because it looked just like a regular bass and I was expecting something, I don't know, double. But he did look a little like Peter Capaldi so maybe it was bigger on the inside.
After the first song, we applauded and the musicians all got up and left. This made me wonder, are they going to get up and leave after every song? because that is rather inefficient. Now I don't know much about musical performances but I do know something about manufacturing flow and you can't sew one zipper and then get up and leave the room. Sit your ass down and keep sewing.
Then I fell asleep.
The End
P.S. I texted, "What's up with the double bass? I demand a refund." but I didn't get a response.
And when we got up to leave I heard the old guy behind us say, "Are they serving wine back there?" Another convert. Hallelujah.
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