Verdi, Verdi, Verdi, Verdi, Verdi

"I wish I was into jazz."

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean people who are into jazz are cool, you know."

"Says who?"

"Says me, that's who. C'mon man, admit it. Jazz is just so cool."

"I like opera, and the classics."

"Well so do I but face it - opera ain't cool. In fact, it's like 180 degrees from cool, man. It's like cool times a negative one, you know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, well so what. I still like opera and I don't care how cool it is or not. Besides, jazz ain't cool - rap is cool. Hip-hop is cool. Jazz is like, well, who listens to jazz anyways?"

"No, man, hip-hop isn't cool. Hip-hop is hip, but it ain't cool."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Hip-hop is the mainstream, man. That makes it hip, but it don't make it cool. If you want to be cool you got be out there on the fringes, you know, off the radar."

"Dude, what you been smoking? Hip-hop is mainstream, and it's cool. The clothes are cool, the talk is cool...it's just cool, ok. "

"Naw, it ain't. I'm telling 'ya. Jazz is cool. Hip-hop is the culture, it's what everyone is into. You can't be cool if your just doing the same thing everyone else is. But jazz... I mean, no one listens to jazz. That what makes it so cool."

"Now you're just being stupid. No one listens to opera either and that don't make it cool."

"Yeah, but people who listen to hip-hop and rock and all that stuff - they know deep down in their hearts that if they was really cool then they'd be listening to jazz. I mean, they know that if they was sophisticated and cultured and had lot's of women then they'd be into jazz too. It's like deep down they know that's something they should aspire to even if they don't like the music or understand it. But no one who listens to rock aspires to listen to the opera. Not unless they want to be a nerd."

"Yeah, ok, I get your point, but I still say that jazz don't make you cool. I mean you used to listen to jazz and that never made you cool, did it? Damn, besides, the only people who listen to jazz are college professors and black intellectuals and they don't seem very cool to me."

"Yeah, I used to listen to jazz but it didn't take me very far. Oh man, 'The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady'. Did you ever listen to that record? I swear, that was just too good to be jazz. If there was more like that I would have listened longer, but a lot of the jazz I heard just sounded like new opinions on the same old topics. It was still cool though."

"Whatever. You know what jazz don't have though? It don't have sex and violence, that's what. I mean, just go to the movies and turn on the TV and it's like the whole world is crazy for sex and violence. That's why people like the hip-hop and the rock, and that's what makes opera cooler than jazz. Opera's full of sex and violence. People want that. That's why people don't like jazz, it's TOO cool, man. People want a little heat with their music, you know what I mean."

"Now who's being stupid. Jazz is nothing but sex, man. Damn, people go to bars and get drunk when they listen to jazz. There's all kinds of drugs and violence and jealous lovers hanging around those kinds of places, man. That's why it's so cool. They aren't looking at sex and violence on some movie screen or on some stage - they're living it, man. When's the last time you saw a bar fight break out at the opera house."

"That's bull, man. That's just plain bull. You mean to tell me that when McCoy Tyner is up there playing and stuff that the people in the audience are out there murdering and fornicating and getting into bar fights? Right. I'd like to see that."

"Ok, ok, but still you know as well as I do that sex and violence at the opera ain't the same as it is in the movies or on TV."

"Sure it is."

"Bull. You been to any movies lately? When people die in the movies they show everything, man, and I mean everything. You get to see the flesh explode and blood flying and the brains and stuff all falling out. Man, you go the opera and some guy dies and all he does is lay down on the ground and start singing an aria or something. It's so phony, man. Nothing like it is in the movies."

"Well people at the opera don't want to see the tenors brains start falling out if that's what you mean. That don't mean that the opera can't be just as depraved as the movies, does it? Hell, what about Rigoletto? That's pretty depraved, isn't it? I mean you got kidnapping and rape and assassination and murder for hire and a deformed old hunchback and filicide and..."

"Naw, it wasn't actually filicide. Still, Rigoletto's pretty depraved. "

"Yeah, wouldn't that be like the perfect opera to go to for your first opera? Especially for a teenager. I mean teenagers are into that nihilism and death and maiming and stuff. They'd probably dig opera if it was really depraved like Rigoletto."

"Especially if they could modernize it, you know. Make the Duke a drug lord and make Sparafucile and ex-CIA agent who turned bad or something. Then at the end when Rigoletto opens the sack maybe you could have Gilda's guts spill out all over the stage..."

"You really got this thing for seeing peoples guts hanging out, don't you?"

"Naw, I just mean they should modernize it. You know how they're always talking about how they should try to introduce opera to younger audiences, well, you know, you gotta change with the times if you want to keep the kids interested."

"You mean if you want to be cool."

"Yeah, if you want to be cool."

"Then you're saying that opera is cool?"

"No, I'm saying opera is depraved. Jazz is cool."