Testing, 1, 2, 3, 4...

No real post tonight. I just want to see if the picture I added to my profile shows up like it's supposed to. If you're seeing my picture somewhere on this page then that means everything's working like it should. If not, then it looks like I've got some more work to do.

And if you are seeing my picture then I apologize for the poor quality. I'm afraid that other than my drivers license photo and my passport photo it's the only picture I have of myself. Still, though it doesn't even begin to capture the magnificence of my chiseled features, it must be obvious why women are constantly throwing themselves at me.

Actually, I've been checking out a lot of blogs lately and feeling a little ashamed at the plainness of my own little effort. The least I can do, I'm thinking, is add a picture to give it some kind of graphical presence.

And in one last little bit of housekeeping let me also add that I was going over some old posts of mine and noticed that a couple of comments were posted some months back that I never responded to. For this I must apologize.

The truth is that I don't read my blog. Once I write something there's no looking back - I just push the handle and flush it away, and the reason is simple. I don't pretend that this is a real blog with anything real to say, and I'm more than a little suprised that anyone would take the time to read it. But appararently a few people have and for that I am grateful and do appreciate the comments I've received. In the future I promise I'll check for such things and try not to act like such a heel.

As I Lay Dying

I am stricken. I noticed it last night, there on my right ankle, a little bump and an itching sensation that I knew could only mean one thing - a bug bite. A fatal, insidious, West Nile virus infecting bite that surely will mean the end of my days. And it just seems so unfair. Why now? Why, when I had so much yet to do, so much yet to accomplish. Oh, to be stricken down so young, this cruel poison coursing through my veins, so many questions still unanswered.

I should have known it was coming. Just today I heard an ad on the radio for the local grocery store chain which I knew was some kind of signal that the end was near. "Come in" the ad entreated, "and try our authentic restaurant-style soup." Immediately I was confused. Wasn't it just yesterday that they were trying to sell us their homestyle soup? Why, all of a sudden, did everything change? Is "restaurant -style" better than "homestyle"? How am I to know which to choose? How am I to know what is the right "style" of soup for me?

Oh, the futility of it all. Here I am at the end of my days, the West Nile already robbing me of my vitality and vigor, and I realize that I don't even know what style of soup I am- the old fashioned home cooked goodness of homestyle, or the chic and elegant sophistication of restaurant-style. I know I should have figured this out before, but you see I always thought there would be plenty of time. But now the time is running out.

Oh, woe to him who lives the procrastinated life. So many things left unresolved. I always wondered what the final days would be like and what thoughts would consume me at my final sunset. Would I think of the things I'd done and the women I'd had, or would I think of the things I'd never done and the women I'd never had? Does the old man lying on his deathbed think about the woman he married and shared his life with, or does he think about women who spurned him or perhaps only glanced from afar (like that girl he saw 50 years ago in the school library who never knew he existed and whom he later found out married a uroligist from San Diego).

These would be the things that I'd think of as I lay dying, or so I thought, but instead I find I'm just as confused about life as I ever was. Homestyle or restaurant-style, I don't know, I just don't know.

And just to to make things worse, I come home tonight (pale and sickly, of course) and there is a letter waiting for me in my mailbox. "Dear preferred customer", it starts out, "you have been specially chosen to receive this unique offer..." , and I immediately I put the letter down. With everything else that was happening it more than I could bear. Imagine me, a preferred customer, and specially chosen to boot. To receive such praise from a stranger, and me being such a cad, such an imposter, and so unworthy of such kindness and trust... well, the guilt was too much. I wanted to write these people and tell them "No, it's not right, I cannot deceive you this way", but the virus left has me weak and unable to respond.

So here I sit typing at my computer, my final hour approaching, feeling adrift and burdened by all my past transgressions. I've tried to live a good life, you see, but until that final judgement is passed how can you really know? And how can you know if there'll even be a judgement? How can you know that there won't just be darkeness? And worst of all, what if there is a heaven and your turn comes to answer to the almighty and they can't find your file? What if they can't find your file because you've never really given a good accounting of yourself? What if you find yourself standing in front of St. Peter and he demands "Well, what is it? Homestyle or restaurant-style?" with the difference between salvation and the infernal reaches resting on the answer.

It's too much...too much.

Keeping Up with the Joneses

I guess I do a lot of braggin' in this blog, but that's ok. Blogs just seem to bring out the braggart in people, and better that I do my braggin' here than in public. What would you rather have - a blog talking a bunch of bull or some windbag sitting next to you on an airplane talking your ear off. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Anyways, I want to talk about the lady up the street with the perfect yard. I don't know if I've ever mentioned her before and I'm embarrassed to say I've never really met her, but even if you don't know her I'm sure you know who she is. She's the fifty-ish one who's always doddering about her yard with her gardening gloves and floppy hat, snipping and digging at all hours of the day, and keeping everything so perfectly neat and trim that the place looks damn near antiseptic.

And if it sounds as if I hate her, I really don't. Fact is, I kind of admire her in a way. She puts her heart and soul into that yard of hers and all things being equal it's probably the best looking yard in the neighborhood (except for the yard next door to mine, but that doesn't count. See, the people next door had their yard professionally landscaped and they have a gardener who comes out once a week and keeps it up for them. To me that's the nothing more than a "store-bought" yard and not the same as a yard that someone has put their sweat and blood into. There's a fundamental difference between a yard that's the fruit of your own labor and a yard that you bought at Sears, and if you don't understand that then it's time to fire your gardener and get a little dirt on your hands.)

But I digress.

Where was I? Oh yeah, I was talking about my roses. I know I've talked about my roses before and how, despite my best efforts, my rose bushes are the sorriest looking ones on the block. Or should I say, used to be the sorriest ones on the block, but that's all changed now. Let me try to explain.

For the longest time I couldn't figure out why my rose bushes always looked so scraggly and barren until one morning I was walking across my yard and noticed a pile of deer scat (or poop, as it's more commonly known) on the lawn. Aha, I thought, could this be the solution to the mystery of the roses? I set out to investigate and sure enough, about a week later I walked out in the front yard one night and saw two deer, a doe and a fawn, sniffing around my rose bushes.

So off I went to the local hardware store to look for a deer repellant and I found this wonderful stuff called Liquid Fence. And when I say wonderful I'm talking about the results, not the smell. To tell the truth this stuff smells awful - kind of like a dead body or an outhouse that's gone to seed, but it works great. The deer get one sniff of Liquid Fence and they pretty much lose their apetite for roses.

And now the results, I'm happy to say, after much watering and feeding and spraying and pruning are (here comes the braggin' part) the best looking rose bushes you ever did lay your eyes on. Ever! I'm talking whites and pinks and deep ruby reds on bushes so healthy and full of blooms that it almost make a fella' wish he was dead just so he could be buried under 'em. I tell you it's a wonder to me why Sunset Magazine hasn't given me a call to ask me how I did it.

Which brings me to the lady up the street. Tonight I was out doing some late evening pruning when she drove past the house and glanced at my yard the way she sometimes does in that sort of neighborly but slightly condescending manner of hers. I was expecting the usual friendly wave before she turned away and drove on down the street, but instead I saw something different when she turned and looked at my roses tonight. I can't exactly describe it as shock, and it certainly wasn't awe, but it was something and I couldn't quite figure it. Then it struck me and a big grin just broke out inside because I finally realized...

She was jell-ous.

Yeah, I know you think I'm just braggin', but I'm telling you that for at least one brief moment the perfect yard lady was jealous of my roses. And I mean isn't that what it's all about, really. All the laboring and the fussing over our yards. Isn't it there somewhere in the back of your mind when your sitting there sweating in the hot summer sun, that if you just keep at it and keep on going that someday you'll be the envy of your neighbors. C'mon, you mean to tell me that's never crossed your mind. That little thought that says "Neener, neener, neener...my yards better than your yard." It isn't? Well then maybe next time don't buy your yard at Sears.

But just to show you that I'm really not the braggart you think I am, that I am, in fact, really quite humble at heart, let me add as a final thought that as proud as I am of my roses, the perfect yard lady still has the best yard in the neighborhood.

And yeah, I'm a little jell-ous too.

When I'm Sixty-Four

Let's think about Social Security. I know, I know, just like dirty diapers or flesh eating bacteria, Social Security is one of those things that people don't like to think about. But, as you also may know, the system is going broke and it's worth at least one blog entry every now and then. In fact on the news they were saying it will be insolvent by the year 2042.

So let's think about it, ok?

First, before I begin, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all the twenty-somethings out there who think they are so smart and know it all and who will be supporting me when it's time for me to drop out of the race and go out to pasture. According to the news report, when that happens there will be two of you for every one of me, which says to me that maybe if you were a little smarter you would have been born 20 years earlier.

But that's you're problem not mine.

Before you despair, however, you should know that there is a plan out there called "privatization" that is going to save Social Security. As I understand it this is a Republican plan which means absolutely nothing nowdays since I can't hardly figure what's a Republican or what's a Democrat anymore. I mean the Republicans say they're for a leaner and meaner government but then as soon as they get elected they act like a teenager with a credit card. Buy this, buy that, ooh buy this and that - I read a prediction somewhere that by the time Bush finishes his second term he will have increased the size of government more than was done by the three previous presidents combined. That's a strange kind of downsizing, if you ask me. I mean, isn't it supposed to work the other way? Aren't you supposed to downsize to improve the balance sheet and work your way out of the hole, not load up with debt and sink even deeper.

On the other side you have Kerry who they are calling a Democrat. Now, if I remember right the Democrats were always the ones that said you should use government to improve people's lives, and yet here's Kerry talking about how America has to save and conserve and be more fiscally responsible. That's a democrat?

It doesn't really matter because Kerry will never be elected president anyways. That's my not so bold prediction at least and really it's kind of a no-brainer. America is never going to elect some miser who's always telling them to save and be responsible - that's what parents are for. America wants a president who gives them money and tells them to spend and have a good time and party like drunken sailors. Every time I see old grim-faced John on the tube I can't help but think his whole candidacy is hopeless.

Which brings me to Social Security and privatization - which is going to at least be discussed at some point in the second term. The idea, as you probably know, is to allow us working folk to withhold 25% of our FICA contribution (tax) and invest it independently for our own retirement in Private Investment Accounts. That will save the Social Security system because the higher returns we will be earning in the stock and bond markets will allow the government to reduce the size of the benefit payments and keep the whole thing solvent. That's the theory, anyways.

The reality, as I see it, will be something different. How is it, I ask, that millions and millions of people who can't even balance their own checkbooks are suddenly going to become financial wizards after this privatization thing becomes law? The answer, of course, is that they will not become financial wizards at all. Instead, they will turn over the management of their PIA's (as they're called) to private Financial Services companies who will gladly handle their money for them. For a price.

Well, suprise, suprise, suprise.

Guess that means privatization isn't just about savings the system but it's also about transfering millions or maybe billions of dollars from Social Security to the brokers and managers and all the other commission loving wheeler-dealers on Wall Street who are always willing to lend a helping hand to trusting souls with wads of dough in their pockets. Those politicians, I tell you, they sure know how to look after their special interests, er consituencies.

This will be, I think, the next big gold rush, and if this law passes it would probably be a good idea to have a brokerage stock or two in your portfolio. Personally, I can't wait till the spams start showing up in my mailbox offering me 100% returns -GUARANTEED!- on my PIA. I tell you, I can see it coming, and it's going wind up being one of the great scandals of the 20's or 30's or whenever it is that the whole thing busts wide open.

That's why it would probably be a good idea to have some kind of watchdog agency to oversee and approve the investments that people can make with the money. ETF's and other index funds would certainly be appropriate, as well as no-load low-expense type mutual funds. I mean a lot of investements would be appropriate, but there should be some way to keep out the "double your money in just seven days" schemes, that is if Social Security is going to continue to be thought of as a safety net and not as a roll of the dice.

The Golden Age of Radio

I said I was going to take Classical Voices off the air and I will, but after putting so much effort into it I just can't shut it down without letting it run at least a little longer. Come Sunday it will have been up a week and I think that will be a good time for the station to take it's final bow. Like I said I've been suprised at how successful it's been. I checked the logs and it looks like there have been quite a few people who've stopped in for a visit. Of course, some just stay for a few seconds (the internet equivalent of Auto Seek I suppose), others for a song or two, but most tune in for around 1 to 2 hours at a time and and some for 6,7, and even 8 hours or more. Wow, I wasn't expecting that. I get a lot of one time visitors but also 5 or 6 who seem to come back from time to time. Last night I even found a message in the log saying someone tried to connect but couldn't because the server was full. How about that! Classical Voices was so popular that you couldn't get in if you wanted to.

Oh well, come Sunday it will be history. It was fun being the Rupert Murdoch of my own little media empire for a while, but all good things must come to an end.

Classical Voices

Let' talk about the Radio business, shall we? Notice I said radio "business", not hobby, not experiment, not dalliance or fling, but radio "business". I retired Radio 7 last week and began my tentatively titled Classical Voices station. I'll discuss the tentatively part later, but so far Classical Voices has been received much better than anticipated and I'd like to take this time to blog a few of my thoughts about the experience so far.

Shoutcast vs. Jetcast

In my previous post I talked about moving from the Jetcast platform to the Shoutcast platform, and that's exactly what I did. As I said before I think Jetcast is simple to use and a much better platform for the newbie broadcaster. There is only one piece of software to configure and all you really need to do is fill in the blanks and punch hole in your firewall to get up and running. Jetcast also supports multiple file types which is something I took for granted before I moved to Shoutcast. It's a very nice package and I just wish it had more support in the internet world, but, unfortunately, Jetcast listeners are few and far between.

Shoutcast, on the other hand, is practically the de facto standard for small independent broadcasters like myself. It's been around a long time and pioneered the whole concept of bringing streaming to the masses. It also integrates into the very popular Winamp player which puts your station in reach of millions of potential listeners around the world, and also puts your station into the Shoutcast directory which gives you a very visible presence on the net. If you want to reach an audience there are very few choices that give you the advantages that Shoutcast does.

The software, however, is a bit finicky at times and not as intuitive as Jetcast. There are two packages to be installed - the DNAS or server software, and the DSP plug-in which provides the connection between your Winamp player and the DNAS server. The DSP is much like Jetcast's software and is mainly just fill-in-the-blanks. The DNAS is a little more complicated and configuration involves using a text editor to edit the sometimes arcane and obscure settings contained in an "ini" file. Luckily, there are lots of FAQ's and how-to's on the net to help you along and the process is not difficult, especially if you have set up a Jetcast station before, but the process could definitely use some simplification.

Once you get the DNAS and the DSP set up and have the ports on your firewall configured, the first problem you'll probably have with your first broadcast is getting the the Shoutcast directory to see your station. I say you'll probably have this problem because I had that problem and after scanning the message boards I saw that a lot of other people had that problem too. The key is to make sure you have port forwarding properly set up on your router and to play with the Yport setting for the DNAS. After many starts and stops I finally got it working, and I can't really tell you why it worked one time and not another. It's just one of those things that you'll have to play around with.

The second problem you might have with your first broadcast is silence, as in dead-silence, as in a radio station that plays nothing but dead air. This is only a problem for those, like me, who made a choice at some point to go to a file format other than MP3, because, you see, Shoutcast only plays MP3's. Is that a problem you ask? Well, yes, if you have around 30 gigabytes of music on your drive and now need to take a significant portion of that music and convert it. I haven't done the math but I figure that an average of about 12 minutes per album to do the conversion, I should be done in, oh, about 80 years. Ok, maybe it won't take that long but I tell ya I really don't need this kind of misery right now. All I want to do was stream a little music.

So that's where things stand at the moment. I've got quite a bit of music streaming already but I've got a long ways to go, and any kind of organized playlist is out of the question until I get some more time to see what I've got and how I want to organize it. That's the big difference between us small independent program directors and those big radio station program managers - they get paid to figure this stuff out and we just get misery. But that may not be for much longer because of the last thing I want to talk about today.

Stream a song - Go to jail

"Gee", I can hear you saying, "this running your own radio station sounds kind of fun. Is it legal?" Well, I'm glad you asked because yes, it's perfectly legal under the terms of something the government calls a Simplified Licensing Agreement. What is that, you ask? Well it's actually a lot like the Simplified Tax Code which, as you know, streamlined thousands of pages of overly complex Tax Law into one simple rule that the IRA likes to call "hire an accountant!" Similarly, the Simplified Licensing Agreement is a a framework under which small, non-profit broadcasters can legally broadcast copyrighted works and boils the whole licensing process down to a few, easily followed procedures that the recording industry calls "hire a lawyer!" If you don't believe me just visit BMI's site or ASCAP's site or the RIAA's site and see for yourself. Paragraph after paragraph, subparagraph after subparagraph, tables and calculators, geez, it just goes on and on and at the end they all say the same thing:

"If you are unsure what to do contact an attorney." Well, no kidding!

All I want to do is stream some of the music I love and share it in a non-threatening and non-infringing manner with like-minded people on the internet. Instead I find is a byzantine set of rules and regulations in an equation so bizarre and complex that even Einstein couldn't make heads or tails of it. Clearly the intent of the Simplified Licensing Agreement, at least for individuals like me, is not to simplify but rather to discourage from even trying.

Which I think is a crying shame. I could understand this if I was file sharing or passing out free copies over a peer-to-peer network like Kazaa or Edonkey. That's clearly illegal and I have no argument with those trying to enforce their copyrights on illegal sharers. But I'm not doing that. It's crazy to think that anyone would seriously consider capturing the low-quality 48kbps streams that I'm sending out and burning it to a CD or transfer it to their IPod's. I mean, let's get real. Compared to an actual CD it sounds terrible.

But that's not the point. The point is that people get paid when they're works are performed and no distinction is made between high-quality and low-quality or between for-profit radio stations and for-fun individuals like me, so although I personally don't see how I'm harming anyone with my measly little 4 slots of 48kbs music, the fact is that others probably wouldn't see it that way, and that means I'll probably have to stop doing this and Classical Voices will have go silent. It's fun, but it's not worth a lawsuit.

Of course there are alternatives and in fact a whole little cottage industry has grown around this issue. For a fee there are services like Live365 and swcast.com that will handle the legal paperwork for you and let you concentrate on your stream. But like I said they're not free, and they all have serious restrictions on what you can and can't do with your stream. I might consider one of these if I was doing this as a business and wanted to pay the money for the hosting and/or the servers and the licensing and the legal services and the accounting and the advertising and the marketing, etc..., but aw shucks fellers, I just wanted to do this for the fun.

So, Classical Voices will be gone pretty soon. It was fun setting it up and getting it running, but I have to be real about this. I may still put out a stream every now and then, but for now it's time to move on to something else. Oh, and it won't be called Classical Voices, either. I just found out that there's already a Satellite Radio service that runs a station called Classical Voices, so I'll have to come up with something else.

Huh, between my trademark suit and my copyright suit I should have just about have all the bases covered.

Radio 7

Radio 7 is officially on the air. Well, sort of. It's on the air whenever I remember to leave my computer running, which is not very often, but the fact that it's on the air at all is an achievment. The official launch date was last Saturday, and I'm happy to report that Radio 7 is now proudly streaming music off my hard drive to thousands of listeners all over the world.

Well, ok, maybe not thousands, hundreds would be more like it...oh ok, not hundreds either...yeah, I know, not even tens for that matter, but I did have 3 listeners on Saturday (that's 75% capacity!), and then not a single soul since. It's all my fault too. Everything was running perfectly until, for some reason, I started monkeying around with the playlist. I must have hit a button or changed a setting because all of a sudden my computer became possessed and began playing the same song over and over and over again. Nothing I did could stop it so I decided to stop the broadcast, close down the program, and reboot the computer. And, of course, anyone in the broadcasting business can tell you what happened next...

Dead Air.

Oh my God, I've got Dead Air (or as we broadcasters like to say "technical difficulties"). I rebooted, launched the JetCast softare, and waited for my 3 listeners to come back to me.

And they never came back.

Oh geez, I lost my listeners and now my audience has been stuck at a big, fat ZERO for 3 straight days. Man, I tell you, this broadcasting business is tough. One little glitch and bam, there goes your audience. Problem is, once you lose them how do you get them back? I know a lot of radio stations do the Howard Stern thing to get listeners. You know, that's where you wag your tongue and tell lots of loud, dirty jokes, and if I had to I could do that. I know some dirty jokes, good ones too. Jokes that would make a sailor blush, but the whole thing seems pretty desperate to me.

I'll have to try a different approach. I think the major problem I'm having is using the JetCast platform. Not that there's anything wrong with the software. In fact JetCast is ridiculously simple and makes it almost effortless to get an MP3 stream out there on the internet. The problem with JetCast is that nobody else seems to be using it. I was looking through the JetCast directory the other day and there were only about 20 people total tuned into the 97 streams they had listed. That's not good. That's like having 97 hamburger stands out in the middle of the Mojave desert. Who cares how good the burgers are if there's no one around to buy 'em.

So, I'll be moving to the Shoutcast platform pretty soon. The Shoutcast directory always has hundreds, if not thousands of people tuned in to their streams. Of course, they have a lot more streams and it's easy for a little guy to get lost among all these professional businesses sending out thousands of high-bitrate streams. Who wants to tune into some guy broadcasting four 48kbs streams when there are these monster outfits putting out hundreds of 128kbs or 192kbs streams. It's like a little 10 watt pirate station going up against Clear Channel.

Still, I think Shoutcast is the way to go. You have to go where the listeners are, and just hope they like the choice that you offer. Right now I'm just broadcasting old 70's FM type Rock. Not because I want to but just because that was the easiest for me. It was enough of a chore just getting the thing running without trying to put together a playlist, so I just took some old 70's rock I had lying around on my hard drive, shuffled it up and sent it out as is. My real goal is to put together a 24/7 all opera and vocal music station, but I'll have to put some thought and effort into that. First I'll get the Shoutcast thing figured out, then I'll work on the playlist.

Which brings up this whole question of royalties. Damn. I don't think anyone will mind if I send out 4 puny little streams of 48kbs MP3 audio, but if decide to actually go with one of these shoutcast hosting services things could get a little sticky, couldn't they. Not that any of these other people seem to mind broadcasting pirated music over high-quality streams, but I couldn't do that ( I know, I'm just too good). I think I'll have to stay small and just beg for my listeners.

So I'm begging. Please, give Radio 7 a try. Please, Pretty Please, Pretty Please with Sugar on Top. I'll pay you. I'll do your dishes. I'll clean your house. Anything. Please, please, please, please, please....

(Okay, this is embarrasing. No more begging. Someone will listen. Someone's got to listen. Someday, somewhere. I can't stay at ZERO for ever - sigh)

(Did you notice all the hyperlinks - hint, hint)

If God had meant for men to live in heat like this then he would bring us into this world naked and wet, wouldn't he. But I'm not going to worry about that. Instead I'm just going to think of Christmas trees, and sleigh bells ringing, and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Unfortunately, with heat like this you don't need an open fire to get your chestnuts roasted. Just get into your car after it's been sitting in the sun all day and believe me they'll get good and roasted. But enough, enough I say. There's nothing you can do about the weather so why dwell on things you cannot change.

Instead, why not forget the cares of the day and just enjoy the cool of a summer evening. That's my plan and that's why right now you can find me sitting comfortably in the backyard listening to a live broadcast of the SF Symphony's Opening Night Gala. The heat has passed and I can't imagine anything more delightful than a little Debussy streaming out of my computer under a twinkling canopy of stars. I'm pretty old fashioned for the most part and like the old, familiar ways, but I have to admit this modern world does have it's conveniences.

And with that I hope you'll excuse me. I hear the orchestra tuning up and so I better get back to my seat. Not much of a blog tonight, but why blog on a night like this.

Hot Music

Ah, is there anything compares to bloggin' on a hot summer's night. 'Course not, but excuse me if I get a little delirious and start to mumble. My brain can't really function when it gets this hot, and tonight has t0 be the hottest night of all since this heat wave started. The truth is it's been so hot that I haven't really done much of anything lately except swelter, and althought that doesn't leave me much of anything to talk about, well that's never stopped me before.

I guess the big news, as far as I'm concerned anyways, is the start of a new opera season out here in the Bay Area. The big event is up in S.F. with Renee Fleming performing an opening night gala for the SF Opera. Damn, wish I had tickets. I can't believe she's going to be in the Bay Area and I'm going to miss that booming, rich soprano of hers again, but that's the way it goes.

I've got a couple of her DVD's though and I highly recommend them.

The first is a Glyndebourne Festival production of Le Nozze di Figaro that dates from early in Fleming's career. Her interpretation of the Countess is not particularly memorable and has a "deer caught in the headlights" quality to it at times, but her singing is incredibly beautiful and leaves no doubt that this is a soprano destined for superstardom. My only complaint with the production as a whole is Marie-Ange Todorovitch's Cherubino which seems more mannered than comic to me, but there are those who would disagree. All in all, though, this is a DVD worthy of any opera collection, or Mozart collection for that matter.

The second is a Met production of Otello with Placido Domingo in the title role, James Morris as Iago, and Renee Fleming as Desdemona. This DVD, in a word, is outstanding. Opera critics (and there are many) all seem to have their favorite Otello's, but Placido Domingo almost seems born to play the role. Likewise, it's hard to imagine a more sinister or conniving Iago than James Morris and Renee Fleming more than holds her own with a really memorable Desdemona. I know the word "memorable" is overused, but this DVD shows that she has the dramatic chops to match the singing and you'll be hard-pressed to imagine anyone else in the role.

Which all just makes me wish I could make it to the gala. Oh well, I guess I can always rent a tux and find a scalper with an extra ticket, but probably not. Maybe the local radio station will broadcast it someday and I'll get to hear it that way. They do quite a few symphony broadcasts and they're going to do a rebroadcast of the Opera in the Park, so who knows. But then again, probably not.

Panning for Gold

Speaking of opera, nothing beats the heat so well as popping in a DVD and enjoying a little Puccini, does it? I guess not, but I got this new DVD of La Fanciulla del West with Placido Domingo as Dick Johnson and Mara Zampieri as Minnie, and that just so happens to be how I spent my sweltering afternoon. Given the circumstances I probably shouldn't give an opinion on it until I have a chance to clear my head and watch it in a more comfortable climate, but what the heck.

First of all let me say that I'm not familiar with this opera at all. Yes, I love opera, especially Italian opera, but I haven't seen or heard them all. I understand Puccini considered this one his favorite and everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I'm kind of a Tosca man myself. As far as La Fanciulla del West is concerned, however, I thought the score was outstanding, maybe his best, but the drama was a little flat with the second act the strongest, the first act the longest, and the third act the strangest. In other words, this opera takes its time getting started, peaks in the middle, and finally falls flat into a tub of mushy sentimentality at the end.

Mara Zampieri heads the cast and I can't say much about her performance other than it seemed okay to me. Nothing special, but certainly not terrible or distracting. Placido Domingo, on the other hand, seemed remarkably weak in the Dick Johnson role. Now there are a lot of Placido Domingo performances on DVD and I know this because I've got quite a few of them (in fact, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that if you've got an opera DVD somewhere at home Placido is somewhere on it), but this is the only one I can recall where he looks so ill-at-ease. It's strange because I remember him saying that this was one of his favorite roles, but he doesn't show it here. Maybe it was just an off night.

The opening is also a little off-putting with all these Italian singers strutting around trying to look like American cowboys, or something, but looking more like the guy in the Lennox Air Conditioning commercial instead. You know the guy in the bib and overalls who's supposed to be some kind of turn-of-the-century Dave Lennox type. Well the chorus are all supposed to be California gold miners but unfortunately whoever did the costumes must have been watching that commercial because these guys looked more like blacksmiths or housepainters. But you get used to it and I think what's more important is that credit should finally be given to Puccini, Civinini and Zangarini for writing what must certainly be considered the first spaghetti western.

Is the DVD worth buying? I don't know. If you've just got to have everything Puccini ever wrote then I suppose it's a moot question. Personally, I'd wait for a better production to come along. On the other hand, at under $20.00 you haven't really got much to lose. And besides, on a hot summer afternoon what else is there to do?

If God Didn't Want Them Sheared He Would Not Have Made Them Sheep

Victories come so rarely in life, but when you do win one it's oh so sweet. My little victory came in the form of a check I received in the mail today, and even though the amount was small the pleasure I got from depositing it was enormous. Let me tell you the story.

About a month and half ago I went into a little quickie lube establishment to get new belts put on my car. The belts had about 85 thousand miles on them and they were looking a little worn, so I decided to pay the 30 bucks or so I figured it would cost me to get them replaced. The guy at the quickie lube wrote me a work order for the belts and told me I could wait inside until the car was ready. I should have known something was wrong when I looked at the work order and noticed that no price had been quoted for the job, but I put my suspicions aside and sat down to wait things out.

Well, about 45 minutes later the lady at the counter told me my car was ready and sort of off-handedly remarked that the amount due was $125.00. Coolly and calmy I politely inquired "$125.00 FOR BELTS!!!", to which she offered no response. I then asked her how in the world they arrived at a figure of $125.00 and again she stonewalled by saying "Sir, that is the charge. How do you want to pay?" I wanted to tell her what she could do with her belts and leave the shop without paying them a single dime, but they still had the keys to my car and I wasn't about to hoof it all the way home.

So I payed them their blood money and picked up my keys, but before I left the shop I decided to pop the hood just to see just what kind of belts you get for $125.00 these days. I was half expecting to see platinum and diamonds when I looked in the engine compartment, but, alas, all I saw was plain old rubber V belts staring back.

After I got home my blood pressure just kept rising and I figured that rather than have a stroke over this I could either swallow my pride and forget about it or I could do some serious complaining. That's when I got on the internet and discovered this wonderful little place called the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office and a little department called the Consumer Fraud Unit. They had a complaint form that you could download and instructions on how to file, so I printed it all out and proceeded to vent my anger.

To make a long story short, the quickie lube shop soon received a copy of my complaint along with a letter from the District Attorney's Office saying that they were referring the matter to the California Department of Consumer Affair's Bureau of Automotive Repair. Although this didn't seem to garner much of a response from the quickie lube, subsequent letters and phone calls from this nice lady I talked to at the Bureau finally convinced them that it would be in their best interest to settle this matter.

Which takes me to today and this nice refund check I just received. Ah, sweet victory, and let me tell you it is a sweet victory indeed. However my purpose in relating this tale is not to gloat (ok, maybe just a little) but rather to serve as a lesson to anyone who might someday read this. You know, usually I'm pretty content in the knowledge that no one ever reads my blog. If no one reads it then I don't feel compelled to write anything worth reading. But just this once I have to say that I wish I actually had an audience, and I say that because as I was depositing the check tonight I had to wonder how many others had gotten ripped off by this shop and not fought back. And worse, by not fighting back and teaching these guys a lesson, how many more would this shop feel free to rip off in the future? It can become a self-perpetuating cycle unless people put a stop to it.

And so that is my lesson for the day. Yes it was important to get my money back, but just as important was the satisfaction of knowing that somewhere deep in the bowels of the District Attorney's office a file has been started with this shop's name on it. And as more people fight back and complain that file will grow, and someday it just might reach the critical mass necessary for the D.A. to pursue these guys and shut them down once and for all. That's the real lesson I want to pass on. If someone rips you off you have the responsibility to fight back, not only for your own sake but for others who may find themselves in the same situation. Just remember that the law is on your side and can work in your favor, and it is only through your own inaction that we all become victims.

And as I step off my soapbox let me add one last thought - beware of Marlee's Speedee Oil Change on Trade Zone Blvd. in Milpitas. They're a bunch of crooks, and I've got the evidence to prove it.