Getting older

What is it like getting older? How about this?

I was talking to a medical person this morning about a procedure that I had had. I could remember the procedure perfectly. I thought it was maybe about ten years ago. Then I started running the numbers.

It was before I moved to Pacifica in 2010. In fact, it was right around the time I moved to Suisun. Hmmm, 2007? How many years ago was that? Almost 20! Sheesh!

For some reason, things that happened longer ago, like when I worked at the Opera, or moved to Grass Valley, are easier to rationalize in memory. 30 years ago? 40 years ago? Whatever. When something that at first blush seems recent and it turns out to be 20 years ago . . . Man, I’m old!

MTT is 80

The Symphony is having a celebration of Michael Tilson Thomas’ 80th birthday this weekend. It is bittersweet because he has brain cancer and is in bad shape. There was a rehearsal yesterday that was opened to certain people. I was invited but I chose to not attend. My little group of retirees had discussed this a few months ago and the consensus was that we preferred to remember Michael as he was and not how he is.

I found a post (linked here) that I had written in October 2023 in which I said he would never return to the podium. In fact, he did return to the SFS podium the following March and he appeared again yesterday (and presumably will for the concert tonight). Amazingly, he’s also continued to conduct other orchestras around the world as well.

In general, he does ok while actually conducting, but rehearsing specific passages is highly problematic as he can’t navigate the pages very well. There are assistant conductors to help him. Off the podium, he’s very spaced out. Even a year ago, when I last saw him, he seemed only dimly aware of his surroundings. His husband Joshua, along with other helpers, was with him constantly.

Michael was the Music Director when I was hired as Stage Manager so I had an interview with him. For complicated reasons, it was over the phone. I spent most of the time trying to establish my bona fides as someone who had long standing ties to the orchestra and understood the art form. He was cordial but nothing I said animated him. As we worked together over the next 9 months, it was more of the same. He was nice enough, but distant. He already knew it was his last year as Music Director. In truth, I already felt that he had been phoning it in for a few years.

All the plans to celebrate his last year at the Symphony were blown up by Covid-19. Our massive European tour was cancelled and the final Mahler 6 that everyone was looking forward to in June 2020 never happened.

So, Happy Birthday Michael! I do not wish him many happy returns because I don’t think there will be any. Spaced out does not mean unhappy, though. Even a year ago, with his mind failing, he seemed happy. So, I wish him what happiness he can find until his days are over. When that happens, the many people who love him will be sad. No doubt the Symphony will put on a big memorial to celebrate his life.

I will go to that.

Practicing

I’ve always found it interesting that making music is referred to as ‘playing’. I think, we ‘play’ music; we ‘play’ in the sandbox. It really isn’t the same thing!

Playing music – mostly in the context of along with other people – has given me a lot of pleasure in my life. But in order to get to the level of competency required to make good music, one has to practice. Practice can mean noodling on a guitar along with rock records, as I did in my teen years, or it can mean focused playing of all manner of excruciatingly boring stuff for hours at a time. As the Stage Manager for the Symphony, I never lost sight of the fact that every single player in that orchestra had put in unfathomable hours in the second type of practicing. While most, if not all, of those players have what most people would call talent, I would argue that the most important thing that got them to the big time was the ability to practice long hours in a focused way.

This all has come to my mind this week as I prepare for the Skyline Band spring concert in about ten days. As a result of some issues with the previous bass player, I found myself two weeks ago suddenly back in the bass chair. I had been playing guitar for a change of pace. Guitar in a big band is about 90% superfluous so I could mess around and no one would care. Bass is just the opposite.

So, I’ve had to knuckle down and really practice. I was talking to Sarah a couple of weeks ago and telling her I was practicing more. She asked me how many hours a day I was practicing. I had to laugh, knowing how much she practices. 30 minutes on a good day, I said. She let it go. It’s more than I was doing on the guitar!

Of course, the standards of the SF Symphony, a top-notch professional orchestra, are different from a Community College jazz band. Nevertheless, the goal is the same: to play it right.

I’ve moved beyond thirty minutes a couple of times in the last week, but I’ve missed entire days too.

I guess I better get back to it . . .

Termination Shock

I really love Neal Stephenson’s writing. I love his ideas too, which makes reading his novels such a joy.

I can’t remember if Termination Shock is his latest novel or if he’s gotten another one out since, but it is fairly recent. What brought it to mind was a story on the Bloomberg TV news channel that Sepi was watching this morning. It was about some people who are making efforts to mitigate the global warming disaster that is happening to our world.

In the current reality described in the news show, it is some guys with balloons filled with sulfur dioxide they are launching into the (hopefully) stratosphere and another team of people in Australia working on establishing blooms of phytoplankton in the central oceans. The phytoplankton sequesters the carbon dioxide and sinks it to the ocean floor.

When I saw what the guys were doing, I immediately said, ‘That’s what Stephenson’s novel is about!’ to Sepi. In the novel, it is a rich oilman in Texas who has built a system for launching giant pellets of pure sulfur into the upper atmosphere. The rationale is the same, though. The story is that while the giant pellet guns help the North American climate, it causes the monsoon to fail in India (among other side effects). Despite efforts – by governments and others – to build other, similar guns, around the world, India takes action to destroy the original launcher in Texas.

Towards the end of the TV news story, they used the words ‘Termination Shock’. Wow! Not in relation to the book – they didn’t mention that at all – but in the original sense of once you start doing these things, you don’t know what will happen when you stop. I would say this is also known as the Law Of Unintended Consequences.

Stephenson’s book is filled with interesting characters woven together beautifully in a gripping story. It is the best that Science Fiction can be. Read it!

MTT’s 70th birthday celebration

Joyce W was a guest at our bi-monthly retiree lunch yesterday. She has recently retired after 40 years at the Symphony. She was telling us about clearing out her computer files and emails. One thing that came up was MTT’s 70th birthday celebration which we were all stunned to realize was over ten years ago. (MTT is continuing to fail and although scheduled to conduct one last time at SFS in about three weeks, the thinking is that he will not be able to actually conduct. Most of those at the table who have known and worked with Michael for many years – basically all of us – said that they would not be attending the last concert, preferring to remember Michael in better times.)

Joyce’s question relative to the celebration was about a photo she had of the rock and roll participants. And therein lies my story.

In those days I was mostly working in the sound department as a part of Hal’s crew. For this show I was the monitor mixer. Who needed monitor? The rock stars, that’s who. The story is that Boz Scaggs, then a member of the Symphony board, wanted to perform a version of the Beatles’ Birthday for the celebration. I suppose he talked to someone upstairs to get it added to the program. We just had to make it happen. It was supposed to be a surprise and there were other, orchestral, things on the program so there was not much room to set it all up.

I think Boz had a relatively simple idea at first. Elvis Costello was in town doing narration for another Symphony program so he was added. Then Phil Lesh heard about it and wanted to be included. Luckily for us, Phil wasn’t going to be playing bass, only singing. Then Lars Ulrich heard about it and wanted in. I can’t imagine Birthday without drums, but when Lars came in, he brought his (large) Metallica drum set with him. Not to mention a drum tech who spent hours – literally! – getting it set up just right. Boz hired a bass player from the Union hall but also brought another guitar player whose name no one remembers.

The guitar players all needed their special processors and amps. Since there wasn’t room on stage, we had to set them up in soundproof boxes offstage with wireless links. So, wireless (radio) from the guitar to the processor and amp, which was mic’d, and wireless back to their in-ear monitors. Elvis was cool and worked off the wedges but in the end there were still about a dozen wireless links. Denise W did her usual outstanding job coordinating frequencies. All the on stage mics were wireless too.

Here’s a look at part of the off stage set up:

The rehearsal was hurried. Even though we only had one song to do, the setup was complicated and we had to wait until the orchestra was finished with their rehearsal.

At one point, Phil came over to me and said the drums were too loud in his monitor and could I turn them down. I told him the drum mics were all turned off. He’s technically savvy so I was able to show him on the mixer. He grumbled a bit but went away. Later, when I told Hal about it, he said, ‘What does he expect? He’s standing ten feet from the loudest drummer on the planet!’ Indeed.

The picture is from the rehearsal and shows the unknown guitar player, Lars on drums, Phil with the Local Union bass player (name also unknown) behind him, Boz and Elvis.

At the concert, everything went fine. I think Michael must have gotten wind of it at some point but a good time was had by all.

There is one other story from that evening, though. After the rehearsal, we cleared off what we could for the start of the program and went to dinner. I was with Hal when we came back in the stage door and we saw Boz Scaggs with his wife arguing with the stage door guard. Evidently, Boz was not on the guest list and Byron (the guard) wasn’t letting him in. Hal and I got through and immediately went down the hall to the artistic people gathered around MTT’s office and told them to get over to the stage door. They got it sorted. We went on with our business.

some Zach thoughts

It’s not every day, or even every week. Sometimes a month may go by without thinking of Zach. But when it comes, it comes hard.

The three friends, laughing, then the yells of warning, then the sudden screen of skidding tires, the thump, followed by more yelling. ‘You’re not going to pin this on me, man!’ The sirens and the lights. And the realization that their friend was gone.

This reimagining comes without warning, at odd times. Most often in the wee hours but sometimes, like today, in the bright afternoon.

All I can do is grieve some more. And sometimes write about it.

There are other times, when I think of Zach and the insights he might have. Some profound and some just funny. That’s when ‘I miss you’ really has meaning.

some questions for my elected representatives

Musings from the wee hours. I sent these to my three Federal representatives this morning.

Many references are being made in the news to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). By what authority is this a government department?
I understand Elon Musk is very wealthy and probably isn’t drawing a salary, but I see references to other ‘DOGE employees’. Who are these people? Are they being paid by the Federal government? Who determines their salaries? Do they get benefits?
For years, the Republicans have used ruthless tactics to advance their agendas: gerrymandering congressional districts, the hanging chad riot, McConnell’s obstructionism over the Supreme Court to name but a few. I am a retired Union worker. I have voted Democratic almost exclusively my whole life. When are the Democrats going to show that they can act with similar conviction?

F. X. Crowley

FX died this week. He got a real obit in the Chronicle so he was really somebody. Leader of my Local Union, IATSE Local 16, business manager of another IA Local 119, member of the SF Labor Commission for many years, member of several important San Francisco commissions including the PUC and the Port Commission. It was as a member of the Port Commission that he got the America’s Cup to come to San Francisco Bay in 2013. Pier 27, now the cruise ship terminal which is right down the street where I live, was the center of those activities.

I met FX in 1979. I was working on the pre-Broadway production of Evita at the Orpheum Theatre. The set was primarily a raked stage but there was a small counter raked stage built into a track system that allowed it to moved up and down stage for different scenes. Nowadays, there would be a big electric motor hooked up to some cables to pull the stage up and down but at that time it was Gary Heider and me cranking on a manual winch. One scene had about a dozen people on it and Harold Prince, the director, was unhappy because it wasn’t moving fast enough. Enter FX. He was a college student on summer break from a Southern California school – I don’t remember which, not one of the big ones – and got sent out by the hall to add his muscle to pulling the stage.

I had done stage work with FX’ older brother Joe so I knew he was well connected. Their father was the President of the SF Labor Council at that time.

We got along fine. A couple of years later, I was running the Sound Department for SF Opera and FX got hired to work in the Electric shop. He was a full time stagehand now. We were doing a thing we called archive video where we ‘archived’ each production by making a video tape of the final dress rehearsal. Because the camera did not have a good dynamic range, it was necessary to have an operator move the camera to follow the action. FX was that guy.

The archive video thing turned out to me be more trouble than it was worth and the company stopped it after a couple of years. FX moved on to other work away from the Opera House and I lost track of him.

In 1990, I decided San Francisco wasn’t a good place to bring up my kids, so the family moved to Grass Valley. I found it difficult to get work and so ended up driving back to SF for stage jobs. In fact, I was floundering around when FX called me to see if I might be available. He was working as a dispatcher in the Union office and remembered me.

After about 6 months, I found work in Sacramento and lost touch with FX.

In 2006, through a series of coincidences that will be the subject of another story, I became Business Agent for Local 50 Sacramento, where I had been working. FX was by then BA in San Francisco so we reconnected as colleagues.

He was riding high. The Local had lots of work and he had a great team in place in the office. He had a grand vision for unifying the the Bay Area Stage Locals to provide more leverage with employers. Local 16 was already leading the way with technicians who were among the best in the country. I told him I thought it was a good idea but that there would be many pitfalls, not least of which was turf wars.

By 2008, I was a mess. I had been forced to resign the Sacramento BA job, my marriage was finished and the real estate ventures we had taken on were failing. Bankruptcy was on the table and it seemed that San Francisco would be a better place to continue my career. I got in touch with FX and he was very supportive. He got me work right away. After acouple of months, I knew I was home again and I asked FX if I could regain my status as a Local 16 member.

Without going into all the technical details, he came up with a plan, got all the necessary approvals, and I was a Local 16 man again. Thanks FX!!

FX’s time as the Local 16 BA was not without problems, and, not long after I got re-established, there was a revolt at the ballot box and his office team was broken up. Within a year, FX resigned that job to run for San Francisco Supervisor. He lost by a very small margin in one of the early tests of the ranked voting system.

I only saw him a few times after that. He was always upbeat, a very powerful presence. Whatever it was that he was doing at the time, he was enormously positive about his chances of success. For the last couple of years, I had been hearing rumors of his failing health and I kept thinking I should reach out to him. But I didn’t.

With my shiny new retirement last summer, I was invited to the Local 16 retiree luncheon in December. FX was there and I was able to speak with him. I almost didn’t recognize him as all his hair was gone. He was as forceful and positive as ever, filled with enthusiasm and plans for his job.

What a man! Rest in peace, FX. You left the world better than you found it.

Zach’s thesis notes

Yesterday I alluded to the fact that Zach was close to finishing his doctoral thesis. I remember it had something to do with sex roles in co-ed recreational leagues.

I know he had made video recordings of games as part of his research. I’ve seen the files in listings but never looked at them for more than a few seconds. Today I was looking through a set of folders that were from his iPhone. One of them was called ‘Notes’. It was an even dozen text files with dates in their filenames. The dates were all from the week before his death.

I’m going to share some of these as I think the insights are wonderful. Without looking at the videos, I’m not sure what sport he is talking about. Judging from the context, it could be soccer or volleyball or even basketball. The cool thing is that it kind of doesn’t matter. I suspect – and I think he did too – that the insights would carry over into any mixed sex game.

Here’s a sample from the first one:

Males start in serve for both
Both team have alternating and positions that appear to be set
Sayre comes up from the back line in front of the girl and makes the play. She is weak – he is hiding her.
What is the rule with people running up from the back line and getting spikes? Check on this
Male overplay on one side exposes the other, which is then exploited by opponent – it imbalanced the court and the team couldn’t recover.
Sayre continually creeping up – he would say that he needs to, and he’s not exactly wrong. But what does it say about coed that it puts you in position where gender is so polarizing.

Game two a girl starts at serve for both
Both of these teams are hopeless. Does it even matter to try and assess gender when everyone is so out of their element?

‘Serve’ implies volleyball to me. Here’s the next one, later the same day:

Lesser teams celebrate each other a lot more.
These teams are also dreadful. The guys especially. The girls on gold are significantly better than the guys, and they control the ball more. It’s a refreshing reversal.

Now the next day:

I’ve seen at least one of these teams before. They are terrible.
Guy starts at serve for both
The other team has only two girls
Shitty guy player tries to make a hero play instead of bumping it and loses the point instead. This is a running theme.
. . .
Two guys on the white team are literally running around in front of their girls, including one where the girl was standing still and the guy kind of bodies her out of the way. Wow.
Now, that girl is playing more tentatively, and they just lost two straight points because of her lack of aggression.
. . .
Interesting to watch a girl talking up a guy on her team – a role reversal all the way down to the encouragement for having done a basic thing right.
Now the guy is overplaying in front of another girl. Ironic.

And another day:

Per usual, the really shitty guy overplays in front of a girl. Maybe it’s not a gender thing but a general sucking at sports thing
. . .
Second game when it’s close and late, the best girl made a couple overplays into her guys zone to keep him from screwing up the play.
I realize that i type that approvingly, even though if a guy did the same thing I’d take issue

Another:

Guy comes up from the back line, cuts in front of his girl twice on consecutive plays. Is literally ignoring her being there – no acknowledgment whatsoever. And in this case he won the point and is celebrated by his teammates for hos efforts (although the marginalized girl didnt say anything)
That is the quintessential anecdote for guys wanting to play an extra game and coed is that outlet, so they recruit female bodies to stand on the field for their own pleasure. If guys could play in unlimited men’s leagues, would coed numbers go down?
. . .
See a girl literally get down in basically the fetal position and her guy jump over her to make a play on the ball. Sounds crazy but it happened.

This sounds more like soccer:

Girl plays defense on a guy, steals the ball from him in normal fashion, and there is a chorus of congratulations and affirmation for her. The same level of affirmation does not occur when a guy does this same thing minutes later, despite the plays being quite similar.
Guy makes a normal play and trips up a girl, then instead of running on, stops for a second and looks to help her up
Guy runs from across the field to take an OOB, going past three girls and loudly announcing that he’ll take the ball. The girls don’t even look to do that. And then his throw in is a two foot toss to a guy. And then he runs back across the field.
Even during the championship team picture after the last game, the girls all group together, even though about half of them are bigger or the same size than the guys who are all grouped behind them. And the girls strike a stereotypical sorority squat.

And this is the last one in its entirety. It’s the first one I read and the one that made me want to write this post:

11/12/15, 6:35 PM

Guys play reckless when they low skilled. The low skilled over aggressive male is a unique and dangerous addition to coed teams. He has hero tendencies that lead him disproportionately into his female teammates. Oddly, i feel
Like i don’t see him crowding out his male teammates.
I’ve smiled more watching this game than i have any other. The VSA team is very genuine and positive. I’m rooting for them.
Other team confers on strategy before the third game and it makes me wonder about the thought process with gender alternating (as both teams are doing).
Is it really possible to assess strategy though? Or the merits of it?
Even on the VSA team…guy runs around, overplays, and screws up an easy point his girl was about to get. She looks at him disgustedly.

Two days later he was dead.

Zach’s computer files

When Zach died, I took control of all his computer devices and transferred his files to my storage system. I’ve carefully preserved them pretty much without any editing. I sent copies to Emily, Jeremy and Sarah. I did go through his writing and organized it into a couple of folders. For whatever reason, he used misleading folder and file names so that was an interesting exercise.

‘Corleone’ was the name of the folder where he wrote about work things. His personal diaries were in a folder titled ‘Appendices’. The sub folders and file names were headed ‘Statistical Appendices’. What does it mean? Beats the heck out of me! He loved the movie Godfather II but what did it have to do with thoughts about work? We’ll never know. He was consistent with his naming format which included the dates. That helped.

There were a lot of files relating to his academic career that I didn’t touch. For a while, I thought his advisor might contact me to get copies. That never happened. Whatever Zach had nearly ready for publication sits untouched on my hard drive Promises by LSU administrators to get Zach a posthumous doctorate never materialized.

I’m mostly over it now.

Anyway, today I had time and was thinking about it so I went through his files and found and eliminated a lot of duplicates. Broadly speaking, I now have his school files under ‘Academics’, his writing under ‘Diaries’, and everything else in a few other miscellaneous folders (texts, financials, etc). Any pictures I found – and they were all over – are in my pictures folder under his name.

I found evidence that Zach went to some trouble to maintain his papers from his entire college career. Papers from Xavier and OSU were saved in various folders that had clearly been copied more than once. I didn’t try to read any of them today but I will get to them someday.

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