It’s been a wild and woolly time for all us teachers: auditions, interviews, quotas, deciding who to take, and wanting to admit more than we have space for. On Saturday, I went out to a new restaurant and had a lovely salad. Three hours later I was in misery from intestinal cramps and, well, food poisoning. In bed for 48 hours, the clouds finally parted on Monday afternoon.

Still fragile, but much better, I gave a 2 hour presentation on my life as a composer to my class. It was a cathartic experience looking back on a pretty wonderful life. The students seemed to enjoy my talk and my music.

That night I attended a pre-concert concert for donors and citizens of West Hollywood given by Vox Femina, who, with funding from the city, had commissioned me to compose HEALY MADRIGALS for their March 20 concert downtown. I got to meet lots of donors, and was happy to meet Abbe Land, the mayor of West Hollywood–a vivacious and gregarious woman who has a big heart and a personality to match.

The venue did not have reverberant acoustics and I realized some of the phrasing was suffering as I had expected there to be a certain amount of reverb in the hall. I also realized how composers’ music changes when we set different poets. Setting Eloise Klein Healy’s poetry really brought out some different music in me. I listened to some of it thinking: did I compose that??

Yesterday I met with my guardian angel, RC, who has been on my case about being so terrible about promoting my music. We sat and listened to about 6 pieces. RC loved them all and will be working with me to get performances. What a gift!

Another week and a half of school, then we get a break. I can’t seem to ever catch up on my email. I’m sure I’m not alone. Daniel came back from the Philippines yesterday, so it is wonderful to have my spouse home again.

Off to school!

This long weekend, Daniel invited four friends he knows from up north to stay with us. We are all spending time getting to know each other and having a relaxing weekend. I had heard that these people were experts in RockBand, especially the Beatles. Instead of playing RockBand, we sat around in the living room, singing with me playing piano. [It was almost a Judy in Carnegie Hall night: "I'll sing all night!] Amy’ husband, Bill, was the most knowledgeable of them all in terms of knowing the Beatles songs. He seems to know all the tunes, a lot of the harmonies, and I hear he’s an amazing RockBand drummer. So the two of us were John and Paul last night. Probably more singing tonight.

I bring all this up, not so much of a “dear diary” thing, but because at the end of the evening, Bill had this huge smile. I asked him what for and he explained that he was overjoyed with the experience of reading from sheet music instead of following the words and playing instructions that go flying by on the monitor with RockBand. (We have paperback books of lead sheets of Beatles songs that we pass out on Beatles Nights.) The notion of someone celebrating the technology of music notation was a real surprise for both of us, and an unexpectedly happy one at that.

An intense day at the office. Some intense personnel meetings and thorny conversations. I passed on an evening concert to just stay home and lick my wounds. No, it’s not that bad. But STOP is good.

Chihara urged me to go have a martini and dinner and relax. I did just that at Ammo (Highland). Benny, i’m sure he did! put Rufus Wainwright’s latest in the mix, and I got to hear new Rufus during dinner. I texted with my honey as though he were with me. I checked my email and found one from an old classmate from high school.

Now get this: I’ve never been invited to, or been to a high school reunion. Tonight, over my Hendrick Gibson, I found out that since 1971 I HAVE BEEN MISSING. I’m sure my blood pressure rose a tad when I read that on my Palm Pre Plus. But now! Denise has found me, and I am now rejoined with my compatriots from high school.

There were two attachments to this a second email from Denise: one was a list of current known alums, their addresses, emails and such; and the second was “deceased or missing” and yours truly was on the MISSING list in blue.

After that whole rush, I looked at the living and realized that this was the wrong class. My [dysfunctional-or am I missing THERE too?] class of 1971 didn’t actually send me a notice for a high school reunion. I was stamped as the wrong year.

[Sigh.]

I went to the next email, from my mother telling me my father was in the emergency room and being observed. She rattled off the various tests they had already done, and all systems look good. But more tests tomorrow.

My medium rare Hanger Steak with fingerling potatoes, broccoli, and a Cab arrived with these hot rushes from the past hovering over me.

“Dessert, sir?”

No, I’m sweet enough darling, thank you; I’ll have the bill.

I have trouble sitting anywhere in the same place for a long time. That means long flights, plays, operas, movies, and concerts. It has something to do with my long torso.

For that reason, and a few others, I find myself preferring smaller portions of everything: food, material possessions, and music. Many times I find half a concert just perfect, especially when new music is involved. Sometimes you just don’t want the tasting menu; you just want to hear the new piece (or whatever you prefer). It’s like being a member of the clean plate club. Sorry, but I never have been. I eat until I’m full. And ditto with music.

It is common to have music on for parties and I find myself musically exhausted with all that music playing all the time. I guess I just haven’t figured out how to tune it out. Ditto with music and sex: I can’t do it.

POSTSCRIPT: The concert actually had another new piece by Globokar for male topless percussionist, Joseph Pereira, who played his body as a percussion instrument. We were all amazed and entertained, although I doubt anyone needs to ever hear the piece again. The performance of “Eight Songs” was astounding, and especially the baritone, Thomas Meglioranza. The audience gave him five standing ovations. I decided my plate was full and happily left at intermission. Funny thing though: as I was leaving, David Lefkowitz waived me over to introduce me to someone. It was one of Schoenberg’s sons (Ronald) and his wife. Oops.

It was the quarterly visit from Matias and Jenny, with baby Katie (18 months) this weekend. As I’ve said before, having visitors in your home makes it feel like a vacation. The energy was dominated by Katie, who is now running and learning words at an amazing rate. Daniel, her godfather, was called “Tito Dan” (Tagalog for Uncle Dan) and that seems to have given away to “Daniel” pronounced quite well. And my name is now Rajhzi, as RoJER seems too tricky to say now. She chases the dogs — they tolerate it and growl from time to time, but nothing more. The entire house becomes Katie’s playpen, which is fun, although the silence of this morning is deafening, now that they have returned to Sunnyvale.

Lynn Harrell, photo by Christian Steiner

You’ve already read about part of the weekend (see “The New Couch”) and the remainder was also entertaining. Daniel and I were invited to Dale and Don’s for lunch on Sunday. I got to meet Lynn Harrell for the first time and his wife, Helen. Lynn is a real sweetheart and a true gentleman. We chatted about where he had been teaching for the past 15 years and confessed to missing it. We also are both in intergenerational relationships, and we couldn’t help but share stories about that. Rachael Worby was there too and it was fun to catch up with her.

Although full from the lunch, we had an early reservation at Mozza with M&J. On the way in I nearly knocked over Elvis Costello. Sitting across from me there was Lisa Loeb. We were surrounded by all kinds of celebrities, most of whom I could not recognize, but then the Grammys had just gotten out, so such is LA life.

Today I go in and talk about 3rd species counterpoint, visit with some students, and tonight go to the Green Umbrella series to hear two old/new warhorses– “Eight Songs for Mad King” and “Pierrot Lunaire” with my concert pal, Ronnie Rubin.

More rain headed towards SoCal and that’s a good thing.

A new commission is in the works where I’ll be composing a new piece for Vladimir Chernov. What a joy!!

While I go feed my dogs and birds and brush my teeth, here is a gem from Lynn, the Faure Elegie, Op.24.

Photo credit: Christian Steiner

Over the past 10 years we inherited four couches–all off white. The oldest used to belong to Michael Crichton (he wrote The Andromeda Strain on it), who gave it to Martin Nathan, who then gave it to my former partner and me. Bruce bought a Lady Kenmore sewing machine and reupholstered it. 20 years later it is now filled with old cotton and dust mite carcasses and needs a major reupholstering. The 2nd white couch was sold to us by Royana and Hal who didn’t have room for it in their new apartment. Then Bridget moved to Maine and gave us HER old white couch that wasn’t really very comfortable, but useful. Finally Ronnie gave us her little couch with the weird stains on it and rotting plastic zippers.

We have never bought our own couch, so we decided last week it was time to do so. We bought a corner couch that is amazingly comfortable. We finally have a place where people can comfortably congregate: even invade each other’s personal space by sitting so closely. I like.

The couch passed several tests this weekend: red wine was spilled on it two nights in a row (the material is wine proof). Last night, several of our friends had been out Karaoke-ing until 3:30 in the morning and, rather than driving home drunk, they crashed at our house. I woke up at 6 am to find three people sound asleep on the couch. All praised it for its great comfort. It will be great for writing melodies in my sketchbook.

I stumbled across a video clip from Nov.13, 1993. It was from a West Hollywood City Council meeting where the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles was receiving a commendation from the city. I was there as I was the Chairman of the Board at the time. Jon Bailey, the music director, was eloquent in summing up the chorus’s mission.

We spent a wonderful week in San Francisco, Belvedere, and then Sunnyvale California with three different couples: cooking, eating, watching movies, reading, sampling wonderful wines, visiting, listening to music and relaxing. Julia and I drove back today: a six hour drive from Sunnyvale.

I feel jet lagged, or more precisely, car lagged. Our UCLA Chancellor, Gene Block, whose expertise is the human biological clock, advises us to NOT make major decisions 24 hours after coming home from a different time zone–especially right when you get home.

Tonight, I wrote several difficult emails and ultimately decided not to send them. I DID decide to post this blog, however, and share a picture of a blurry Blue Moon from Belvedere, through our living room window.

I look at my wall of books, and my wall of LPs, and my rack of CDs, and my drawers of VHS tapes, and my shelf of DVDs and am staggered by how much time it would take to read, watch, or listen to all of my amassed media. I wonder whether there really is enough time in the rest of my life to read/view them all again. It’s not that I will need to actually revisit every one of those documents, but rather have the option. Each one is a little snapshot of the memory of experiencing it, accruing to a homey warmth.

VACATION: We realized that many times we can have as good of a vacation staying home and pretending we are “on vacation.” Avoid doing the stuff we always do at home. Treat it differently than you usually do. “It’s all in the mind y’know, huh huh, yeah” said Ringo’s cartoon character many years ago.

But sometimes, it’s good to just good to get out of town. It almost doesn’t matter where you go, as long as it’s out of the city limits. We ALL need to do that as often as we can. Day trips and overnights can be amazingly refreshing.

CHRISTMAS: We stopped doing the present-thing years ago and have spread the spirit throughout the year. Because I don’t do any Xmas shopping I was able to avoid all the Xmas music in malls. This year we visited Angus and Thom who played Christmas music all day. It was piped in courtesy of the Mormon Church who owns the SF classical music station. It was actually really nice. All played by the out-of-work classical musicians in some city playing smart arrangements of Christmas music for classical ensembles: string trios, piano quartet, quasi Baroque concertos and so on.

I wish Christmas were celebrated every five years–so that it might be special again for us older, jaded types. A friend pointed out that the national economy would have an even larger financial breakdown than the one we just experienced if we eliminated Xmas presents. So just remember the corporate feel-good slogan that everyone has embraced: “Giving is better than receiving!” You see, this point of view guarantees sales, whereas one has no control over what one receives. As my dear friend Del dramatically proclaims from time to time: BUY! BUY! BUY!

I know: I’m a Scrooge.

And then tonight I heard Howard talking about the beautiful scarves he bought for his sisters and realized that giving IS a good thing. And, I guess, focusing it during one period of the year is good for the economy–and we can use all the good-for-our-economy that we can get.

My family started a tradition of “soul presents,” presents that, although not necessarily expensive, are thoughtful and reflect something about the inner nature of the person receiving the present.

There is a downside of a life of receiving presents for holidays, birthdays, tchotchke’s from travels, and other inherited goodies: one ends up with tons of STUFF. Some of us love being surrounded by our stuff, others feel smothered by it. As I learned from two close friends who died this year, it’s a good idea to give your stuff away, if you can, as you see your end approaching.

GENEALOGY: As a break from my life, I started working on our family tree via ancestry.com. As my Chinese friends pointed out to me, it is the eldest son’s responsibility to do so, so I’m doing it.

The first thing I realized is that it really doesn’t matter what famous person is in your family tree in terms of their influence on you. There are so many ancestors, they ALL potentially influence you.

I took a nap last week after doing genealogy for three days in a row. I had a little dream that all my sperms were different potential-people in our family tree. And my mates eggs were also potential-people; so that every person born was a mix of those two people. Each of the sperms had different faces; some with mustaches and big cartoon-like faces. They swam around and would flash these funny smiles as they swam around. The eggs had big eyelashes and big smiles, each with a different look. I woke up and cracked up laughing. I realized I needed a break.

ENNEAGRAM: Daniel and I took the Jungian Enneagram test on enneagram.com. It also gave us our Meyers-Briggs test. Funny thing: when we first met many years ago, we had different results. For the past six years our results have been the same: ENFJ.

I turns out that I’m a type-Nine in the Enneagram world: the peacemaker. One of the downsides of being a 9 is that we avoid conflict. I think I learned that lesson in my last relationship, so I hope that that trait is not still lurking. Moral? Ya need to learn to fight.

WHAT SHALL I COMPOSE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE? I’ve come to the conclusion that the best advice for a composer of modern classical music who wants to be famous is to compose orchestral music. Today, this is the measure of success for composers in our society. Once that fame is achieved, he is free to compose operas (whether they have any ability to write for the voice or not), chamber music, films, and anything else the commissioner might imagine.

The day of charming pianists who play for wealthy patrons is over. Rarely do composers become well-known by writing choral music or chamber music.

So, as I have just turned 57, I ask myself: what shall I compose for the rest of my life? If I want to be more famous, I need to do a better job of writing fabulous orchestral music. But the truth be known, I prefer writing for the voice, and I write great tunes. So, with that I ask myself: Why not compose three or four more huge operas before I die? In that I haven’t earned by Great-Orchestral-Composer badge, I would need someone to give me a chance, or a break. That IS possible. The other less-ambitious goal would be to write songs for the rest of my life. Hmm, sounds good. Who needs fame anyway?

FAITH: Finally, here is a touching video about a dog and a family who had hope, or faith that their new rescued and deformed dog could get along in the world.

[Photo by RB of Angel Island from Belvedere, CA]