Monthly Archives: October 2017

new post

I see it’s been 8 days since my last flurry of posts following the death of my friend Robin. I haven’t been super busy, but I had the grind of showing up for work every day at Davies. On only one did I have to stay past 5 pm. I tried for two nights to go without sleeping pills and the results were not very good. The first night I did ok but the second night I woke up at 3 in the morning and was not able to go back to sleep. That put a bad spin on the rest of the day, as you might imagine. I started feeling like a cornered animal, desperate to escape but not knowing how to do it.

Today Sarah’s quartet is playing a very ambitious program over in the East Bay. One of the pieces, Steve Reich’s Different Trains, requires the use of amplification of the instruments along with the playback of a pre-recorded track of train sounds and speaking. I was able to arrange for the use of some of the Symphonyu’s sound equipment so in a couple of hours I’ll be going back to the hall to gather all that together and take to the concert.

The weather was hot earlier in the week but today the fog is in over Linda Mar. Windows that were thrown wide open just a couple of days ago are shut again.

I finished my jigsaw puzzle this morning. It was only 750 pieces and not too difficult. It took just under two weeks and that included not even touching it at all for several days. With no band music to prepare, I am hardly playing music at all. I might have picked up the guitar for a total of ten minutes in the last ten days.

Last Saturday was a nice day. My nephew Danny hosted a get together with just about all the Northern California Woods. The best part was seeing, and playing with, all the young kids – great nieces and nephews to me. In all, there were 5 under the age of 6 years. Here they all are with Mom and Dad.

Bilder von Franz

That’s the title of the folder I have on my hard drive. It’s pictures Wilfried got from his brother Franz’ computer after Franz died. Wilfried generously allowed me to copy them and they come up on my screen saver occasionally.

Here’s one that came up today:

For those that don’t know, Franz was the audio recorder part of a two man team that did documentary filming in Germany. Miss you, Franz.

the theatre

Yesterday, after getting the news of Robin’s death, I did fairly normal things which you can read about in yesterday’s blog post. Even before getting the news, I had been determined to get out of the apartment and go for a walk somewhere, so I did that. Just south of Half Moon Bay is a parking lot for a trail that leads 1/2 mile straight through some fields to bluffs overlooking the ocean. On one end are stairs that go down to a beach; on the other a couple of benches where you can sit and look at another beach that is protected for the seals.

There were no seals, and very few people. In two hours there, I saw five people (and one dog, which wasn’t supposed to be there, but that’s another story).

On the way back, I walked down Main Street and looked in the cute little shops. There is a nice card store there where I bought some cards, including a sympathy one for Kris. I was going to have lunch there but the cuteness of the street was bugging me. For that, I went back north of town to the Cafe 3-0 at the airport. Just your basic, no bullshit, greasy spoon.

I got home about 1 and was pretty pooped so I laid down and picked up a book I had gotten at the library last week. I’m not sure why I got it because I didn’t recognize the name of the actor who wrote it, even though he was evidently successful. He had grown up in San Francisco. I think that’s why I picked it up.

I never did sleep. I read that book from cover to cover. It’s called Are You Anybody? by Jeffery Tambor. When I was done, I just started sobbing. For Robin, for Zach, I don’t know, but it hit me somewhere deep.

I got involved in the theatre at DeAnza College when I was 18. I don’t know why I insist on spelling it that way. The spell checker says it’s wrong. I think I do it to differentiate between live theatre and the movie theater. Live theatre is just the best. Sort of like live music. It’s an activity that a group of humans take on for the purpose of presenting something to other humans in a communal setting. I’m sure there were aspects of theatre in caves thousands of years ago. I think it’s one of the most beautiful things that a human can do.

Anyway, I was at DeAnza, my local community college, because I had quit being a math major at UC Santa Cruz in favor of playing in my rock band in Cupertino. After six months of flailing around, my parents said that if I wanted to live at home I had to go to school. So, I went to DeAnza as a music major.

Literally my first quarter there I was just looking for a class to fill out my schedule and my eye fell on Stagecraft. I thought, ‘I’m going to be on stages for the rest of my life, I’ll take a class in stagecraft.’ I had never been particularly interested in theatre. I don’t think I’d ever even been to a play. I had no idea what stagecraft really meant.

The purpose of the class was basically to build sets and run the technical end of the play which the department was doing. My first theatre job was taking care of props for the play that fall. It was called Marathon 33, about marathon dancing during the 1930s depression.

Theatre at DeAnza was done in a facility then called the Box Theatre. It was a room roughly 60′ square which included the shop area. The was a grid for hanging lighting instruments over most of it at 16′ high and a lighting and sound booth overlooking the whole thing. Seating risers got pushed around to suit the configurations of what ever performance was being done.

Abutting the Box Theatre, touching but not really connected, was a 2,500 seat auditorium called The Flint Center for the Performing Arts. Actually, the Calvin C. Flint Center, named after the man who who had been the first Superintendent of the school district. After being in the school theatre for a while, I got to know the people running it and discovered they had student help for setting up community shows. Pushing the shell towers around and setting up risers and chairs, mostly. Incredibly (in my mind), rather than look to the drama department for workers, they had felt that strength was more important so they had football players working there. Oh, and the football players’ girlfriends . . .

Long story short, I eventually got on their list and joined the crew doing risers and chairs. That eventually led to a staff position and, later, getting overhire jobs with the union for the professional shows and, still later, joining the union and making theatre my career.

In all this time, I’ve done relatively little in what I would call real theatre. Plays. I worked at SF Opera for 13 years. I worked on lots of traveling musicals in Sacramento for ten years. The last five or six years I’ve been working pretty steadily for the SF Symphony. All worthy communal human activities. Just not really theatre.

In the relatively few times I’ve gotten involved in actual plays, it always felt like home. There is a certain kind of bonding that takes place with theatre people that I really enjoy.

Robin and Kris are theatre people to the bone. And Jeffery Tambor’s book is about theatre people. And maybe I have some regrets that I took the jobs that paid better and didn’t get so much of real theatre. And I thought of Robin being dead and how vibrant she had been, and how dedicated she was to real theatre, and how she was gone too soon, and Zach was gone too soon. So I was crying.

I eventually calmed down enough to go over and sit with Rose for a few minutes. She doesn’t get the theatre stuff but she gets everything else better than anyone. She had a lumpectomy and radiation treatment three years ago. We cried a little together, then I came home and ate some dinner and went to bed. I was beat but I ended up laying there reading posts on the guitar and bass forums until midnight.

Susie texted me last night that Kris is in assisted living because the left side of her body doesn’t work any more. Susie is another real theatre person. Today I hope to be making a call to Susie and perhaps to Kris. I couldn’t face it last night.

Robin Gray

Logging in to FaceBook this morning I see a note that Robin Gray died yesterday afternoon after a five year battle with breast cancer.

Robin was married to Kristin. Kristin was my first pal when I started working at the Sacramento Community Center (as it was then known) in the early ’90s. We had gotten hired at the same time and spent many hours trying to figure out WTF management was up to there. There was no discussion of sex, or sexual roles. I don’t remember the first time I met Robin. It may have been after the two of them came back from Florida around ’95 or ’96.

Whatever. The memories I have from the last ten years or so of my time in Sacramento are of the two of them being happy together and completely open about their relationship. I’ve always been pretty liberal and tolerant so I didn’t have a problem with this, but nevertheless, Robin and Kris showed me from a much closer perspective how two people can have a solid relationship regardless of what they do in the bedroom.

Robin had been a stage manager for many years and was one of the best. I found out she had stage managed the San Francisco Phantom Of The Opera show for its five year run only when she mentioned it in passing one day. There was no pretension, no bullshit, yet her wicked sense of humor was always ready.

I kept up with her through FaceBook, but I hadn’t spoken to her or Kris for a while. Three or four years, maybe. I wrote on Kris’ FB page today but I felt I wanted to put something more here. Robin and Kris were one of the very few bright spots for me in Sacramento.

<Edit> One of my other good friends from my Sacramento days is Susie. I’m going to close with her words about Robin (I’ve taken out the last names and links):

Friends, loved ones, extended family and all who loved Robin…it’s my sorrowful duty to inform you that Robin passed away today at about 5pm PDT. She was surrounded by her partner and wife of 26 years, Kristin T., her beloved old chum and champion, Kiki W., and her tribe of devoted caregivers, Kathy M., Jamie J., Mindy G. and David G. Robin’s courageous and extended battle with breast cancer was one for the ages. Her work with UCSF in clinical trials not only extended her life, but IS extending the lives of thousands of women who survive today because Robin participated in that ground-breaking work. Robin was devoted to her work at UCDavis’ Department of Theatre and Dance, where she taught stage and production management, in addition to a variety of other courses. Her pride in her students, her respect for faculty and staff, and her affection for the campus itself was sincere and heart-felt. She loved working there. Robin called her last cue shortly before she passed, saying she was “done.” Shortly thereafter, to the sounds of songs and some laughter, she passed. More information to follow in the days to come. Tonight, as you all drift to sleep around the world, think of some time you had with Robin that made you laugh. She would love to hear you all laugh, not cry, tonight

jigsaw puzzle update

I’m just going to write this without going back to my earlier post about jigsaw puzzles. I’m just working off the little slip of paper that I note the start and stop dates of each puzzle with.

Since June, I’ve done 4 1000 piece puzzles. I finished the fourth last week. There were two gaps, which readers of this blog should know about. I finished Lochaven Cottage on June 24, then didn’t start Yosemite Valley until July 17. That gap was due to Jeremy’s move.

That one was finished the day before I left for Germany. It was three days after I got back that I started Lighthouse. That took 3 1/2 weeks to finish. Only two days later, I started Hummingbirds and Hosta, the last one.

That one was tough. It was a painting, but it looked like it was taken from a photograph, complete with out of focus red blobs among the green background. For about two weeks, the puzzle was about three quarters finished but the remaining parts were all the same shade of green.

It’s not about the results, I kept telling myself, it’s about the process. And I did enjoy it. Now I’ve started another one but it’s only 750 pieces. I forget the title but it’s a Scottish castle under a dramatic sky. More fun!

voice mail

My nephew Danny is planning a family get together this weekend at his house in Lincoln. Us Bay Area folks are planning on going but there are questions about who is staying overnight, how we can car pool, etc. Mom sent me an email yesterday with a bunch of things on it so rather than responding in kind, I called her. They didn’t answer, so I left a message.

I got no response until I checked my email this morning. She said she tried to call but my email was full. Full? What have I got stored . . .? Oh.

So, here’s my story. I save certain voice mails from my kids. The ones that seem indicative of milestones. I usually transfer them to my hard drive and take them off my phone to avoid just the problem that I now have but the last one I got from Zach and the anguished calls from Jeremy and Mom that awful night are still there. I just checked and I did transfer them but I didn’t erase them from my phone. There are a few other, more recent ones, saved.

It’s funny, I only had to hear the first couple of seconds of each one of those to bring it all back this morning. I didn’t get much work done for a while after that. Luckily, the theatre was dark and hardly anyone was around.

For months I was sure I had a early November voice mail message from Zach talking about his upcoming trip to California with Emily. When I finally went through them carefully, it wasn’t there. I guess I erased it by mistake somewhere along the line. Here’s the last one I have, from the summer before.

kidney stone

I knew it was in there. I passed kidney stones many years ago. I discovered a particularly large one residing in my kidney in 2011 when I had an X-ray for my back problems.

There was no pain associated with that one so it wasn’t until 2014 that I did something about it. Lithotripsy is the technique where high intensity sound waves are focused on the kidney housing a stone. In theory, this breaks the stone apart, allowing it to pass naturally.

In my case, the stone was so large it did not break up. In the post-op meeting with the urologist, I was shown an X-ray of my kidney. I could see the stone sitting in there with a neat round hole through it!

I think the doctor was stunned. He had no advice other than to drink lots of water and hope it would dissolve on its own. Other than issues related to the stent he put in, there still was no pain associated with this kidney stone.

Cut to about 6 weeks ago. One day not long after our brutal heat wave, I was horrified to see my urine come out a very dark red. Naturally, I got religion quickly and drank lots of water the rest of that day. The color subsided.

About ten days later I was awakened in the early hours of the morning by a pain in my lower back that I immediately recognized as kidney stone pain. My biggest fear was founded on the fact that I had no pain medication stronger than ibuprofen. After a couple of nasty hours, my heating pad and 4 doses of ibuprofen allowed me to get back to sleep.

The next day I wrote to my doctor. She knew my history of course, so it wasn’t a problem to get a small prescription of Vicodin to have in case the pain returned.

I only used it once, but I never went anywhere without it. My security blanket!

I had one more episode about a week after that of the extremely dark urine. No pain, but I upped my water intake again and it lightened up pretty quickly.

Last week I started getting odd feelings while urinating. Not pain exactly, but discomfort. Something was moving around in there! I doubled my water intake. I figured the bastard was in my bladder by now.

Today it came out. About 1/4″ long and maybe 1/8″ in diameter, it made a satisfying clunk in the toilet. I had no problem fishing it out. Woo hoo!

I’ll call the urologist tomorrow and see what he wants me to do with it. He’ll probably want to do an analysis. I’m willing to bet it your basic calcium oxalate stone.

Back in 2013 when I was first consulting this urologist about the large stone in my kidney, I asked him why it was important to do the lithotripsy procedure. He said that it was blocking the lower half of that kidney and it would eventually kill the organ. Recently (like in the last year maybe), I’ve been wondering if I should go back to him and find out what is going on down there. Is this stone part of the big one? Or am I generating new stones now?

Oh joy.

Zach’s journals follow up

I think it’s been a couple of weeks since I posted about reading Zach’s journals and teased that I would possibly post excerpts. Honestly, some of the things he put in them made me uncomfortable and I had to stop. Also, I was going through in chronological order and the closer I got to the end, the harder it was to read.

And I wasn’t even really reading them! I was just going through and writing down the dates of each entry. Things would catch my eye and of course I would read further but I wasn’t reading top to bottom.

My next couple of weeks are pretty open so I may get back to it. Stay tuned!

I quit jazz band

Maybe I had a short fuse last Monday night. For work I use the term ‘long day’ to designate a day that starts early in the day – usually 8 am – and continues until 11 pm or midnight. In reality, it can be anywhere from fourteen to twenty hours long, depending on whether you count meal breaks. A regular day plus a show means I leave the apartment at 7 am and get home between 11 and 11:30 pm. That’s a long day.

So I had a long day Saturday, then Sunday I drove up to Loomis to play with Loose Gravel. that was over twelve hours away from home. Monday I had a regular 8 to 5 day, but then had to rush to jazz band practice so I didn’t go home, I just wolfed down a chicken sandwich at Burger King on my way.

I knew what the rest of my week was going to be: long days through Friday, one day off, then another long day Sunday. That’s a grind.

In band this semester, I’m playing bass because Zack asked me to help with one of the other, less experienced, players. The rehearsal is supposed to end at ten, but he almost always takes it right up to ten or a little past. Monday, at about 4 minutes till ten, he called up a chart and Amanda (my mentee, as it were) decided she wanted to try playing it. Zack said some things about it while we were shuffling around and we thought he was starting in a certain place. We were wrong, though, and when the band was done he called us out for being unprepared. I didn’t get pissed right away but on the way home I decided that things were too confusing with three bassists and I would bow out.

I sent him an email right away but I didn’t get a response until last night. He expressed disappointment and hoped I would reconsider. I guess the bloom is off the rose. I won’t be going to jazz band tonight.