The time has come

—After well over 40 years of membership with WXXI-FM, the classical-music public radio-station out of Rochester…
Yr Fthfl Srvnt has decided to move on.
I found an online classical music alternative during another of their dreaded fund-drives.
“454–6300! Your gift will be doubled!”
Whither Bach? Whither Beethoven, et al?
My clock-radio remains tuned to WXXI, but as soon as I get up I switch it off, and fire up this ‘pyooter aimed at https://www.yourclassical.org.
I got there roundabout, but quickly noticed the lack of program promos, and “this segment brought to you by Velmex of East Bloomfield” (????), etc.
I realized WXXI had become a radio station: Copeland, Ravel, and Stravinsky instead of some droning rapper — at least Little-Richard could hold of tune.
But promo after promo after promo.
My long-ago switch to WXXI came with my last rock ’n’ roll album by Def Leppard (“too loud”).
That’s eons ago. And I gave all those albums away. All vinyl. Had they ever caught fire, the smoke woulda blotted out the sun.
classical.org’s stream claims it’s “radio,” but it’s not over-the-air.
It comes via my Internet cable, and I stream it along with a railroad webcam out of Cresson, PA. (I’m a railfan.)
I can’t stream two video-feeds at the same time. Cresson disappears, perhaps crowded out by YouTube’s Horseshoe-Curve webcam, which might be prioritizing itself over Cresson.
Sometimes I could run both video streams at once, but not when the gamers are on up the street, around supper-time, or if it’s raining = they can’t buzz the pastures with their two-stroke ATVs.
My time with WXXI goes back to when WXXI-FM switched over to classical music in 1975. A local for-profit classical music station switched formats.
I switched maybe a year or two later.
I always was a classical-music geek. That preference was stoked by Houghton College, my Alma Mater, where Johann Sebastian Bach sat at the right-hand of Jesus.
After college I accumulated a vast stash of rock ’n’ roll albums: Led Zeppelin, Cream, Hendrix, plus Beatles and the Stones.
But with Def Leppard I lost interest.
I found myself returning to what I liked most: Bach.
I remember driving across Kansas with Copeland’s “Billy-the-Kid” wafting through my head.
I’m still not sure about “yourclassical.org.” I’ll miss my daily dose of “Hilda-of-Binghamton” (Hildegard von Bingen); plus Stravinsky, et al; which I haven’t heard much on classical.org.
But too many promos, plus an entire Saturday afternoon lost to screaming overweight blondes jumping 250 feet off castle parapets into roiling ocean below, hand-in-hand with yowling lust-crazed tenors.
Murders, stabbings, shootings! Do normal people sing at each other?
No hawking for money yet on “yourclassical.org.” (Fingers crossed.)
And sadly at classical.org I don’t get local content. Nor do I get “Exploring-Music,” a replay of Carl Hass’ “Adventures in Good Music,” which got me into Ravel, Debussy, and Vivaldi.
“1812 overture” began my preference for classical-music. But Bach at Houghton left 1812 in the dust.
Houghton also had a fabulous pipe-organ essentially aimed at Bach; 3,153 pipes, the Mighty Holtkamp.
“They let that pipe-organ fall into disrepair, and they ain’t gettin’ another red cent!”
And so WXXI-FM recedes into my filmy past.
It was just background music.

What happened?

“I think I hear music,” I said to myself at 6:40 a.m., the time to which I set my clock-radio.
It’s Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi, the classical-music radio-station out of Rochester I listen to. It’s Brenda Tremblay, a graduate of Houghton College like me. She’s 1990, I’m ’66. Her father graduated a music-major two classes before me. Her mother did too, but I don’t remember her.
Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Hilda of Binghamton. Much more bearable than what passes for music nowadays. “RACHA-RACHA-RACHA-RACHA! BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA! YADA-YADA-YADA-YADA!” Shouting and yelling, liberally sprinkled with F-bombs. Can they even hold a tune?
Every Monday night, as I begin collecting trash for the next day’s trash-collection: “Take out the papers and the trash, or you don’t get no spendin’ cash. Just tell yer hoodlum friends outside, you ain’t got time to take no ride! Yakkity-yak! Don’t talk back!”
Summer of ’63, driving home from my summer job in my parents’ ’57 Bel Air stationwagon, Baynard Boulevard in Wilmington (DE), pounding the dash to “Duke-Duke-Duke-Duke of Earl.” All the windows are down, the rear tailgate is open. Womp-womp-womp-womp! “Nobody can stop the Duke of Earl!”
The other day I went to pick up my dog at doggy daycare. He’s daycared at a grooming emporium next to a Dominos Pizza. As I got out of my car the pizza delivery kid parked his Volkswagen GTI next to me. “RACHA-RACHA-RACHA-RACHA! BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA-BOOM-CHICKA! YADA-YADA-YADA-YADA!” I had to walk away.
Recently I noted to a friend the last rock-n-roll album I bought was Def Leppard. That’s almost 30 years ago. Nothing since.
What happened? Whither Hendrix and Disraeli Gears, or Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis? “RACHA-RACHA-RACHA-RACHA!” is noise compared to “Goodness gracious, Great Balls of Fire!”

Yo Ludwig

On July 4th Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi, the classical-music radio station out of Rochester I listen to almost constantly.....
Aired Beethoven’s triumphant Ninth Symphony, the famous “Ode to Joy."
I had it on as background, keying in something on this laptop.
Much of Beethoven’s Ninth is in my head. Not note-for-note, but I can predict.
Bombing along, even the choruses, despite my dislike of singing. It’s a fitting tribute to the day.
But suddenly a baritone bellows over everything. “That’s it!” I say. So ends my reverie. “I’m not puttin’ up with that!”
I zoom into the kitchen, switch off WXXI, then back to my laptop to fire up Railstream: their Cresson webcam, which looks out over the old Pennsylvania Railroad mainline up Allegheny Mountain.
I’m a railfan, addicted to that webcam.
I can’t stand singing; especially single-voice shrieking and bellowing.
A guy with whom I graduated college, who sang in the college choir, recently noted he would attend a concert of Schubert’s Song-Cycles. I YouTubed it.
“Only one thing wrong Charlie, they were singing!”
On Saturday afternoon WXXI airs opera. No way José. Stringy-haired 350-pound blonds in horned helmets screaming “Ride of the Valkyries” at the top of their lungs.
And every opera involves murder, incest, stabbings, and star-crossed lovers jumping hand-in-hand 200 feet off castle parapets into roiling ocean.
“Uh-oh. They goosed her again.” The prima-donna just screamed her highest note ever, audible in 50 states.
And why can’t they speak English? I don’t know what they’re saying. And since when does dialog get sung? If I did that with my grocery checkout she’d turn on her alert-light.
The old Pennsy main sees a lotta trains through Cresson. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
“There’s another,” and “sounds like 07T (Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian). (Rumba-rumba = I can always tell a P-42.)
I also fire up iTunes railroad-radio scanner-feed from Cresson: “O7T on Three, MO, CLEAR!” Not far; I’ll see it shortly on the webcam.
I’m a railfan, and that webcam is much better than shrieking and bellowing.
So Ludwig, ya composed some of the greatest music of all time. “Ode to Joy” for example, until that baritone starts bellering.

• “MO” are the old telegraph call-letters of a railroad-tower once at that location. That tower is gone — the railroad is dispatched from Pittsburgh. But the location remains. It’s now just interlocked switches and crossovers = CP-MO. (Control-point MO.)

Louie-Louie

“The greatest rock-‘n’-roll song of all time is.....”
Suddenly the entire Messenger newsroom fell silent, 70-80 people — you could hear a pin drop.
“‘Louie-Louie’ as covered by the Kingsmen,” I said.
The newsroom erupted. Sheer cacophony.
“No-no-no,” people screamed. Hits from the ‘80s and ‘90s were loudly trumpeted.
The guy who day-cared my dog, ex of the Mighty Mezz, who I once worked with, says it’s “Johnny-B-Goode” by Chuck Berry. It is indeed one of the best. It has one of my three favorite rock-‘n’-roll lines: “Strummin’ with the rhythm that the drivers made.”
Ya gotta be a railfan to understand that. A two-cylindered steam locomotive — most are two cylinders — makes four chuffs per driving-wheel rotation: “chuff-chuff-chuff-chuff!” That’s four beats to the bar.
The other two fabulous lines are: -a) “just like a Willys in four-wheel drive,” from “Sugar-Magnolia” by the Grateful Dead, and -b) “roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair,” from “Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen.
“Louie-Louie” has no good lines. You can hardly understand it. What it has is that fabulous background riff that gets me swaying, that prompted sin-and-degradation among listeners. “Dah-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp.....” Bodies writhing in torrid sex-moves. (Gasp!)
“Dah-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp.” Hear that and I start groovin’.
Over-and-over I listened to it the other night, at least six YouTube clips — that headline and the first “Louie-Louie” are different YouTube links; click away readers.
I also listened to an interview with Jack Ely, lead-singer of the Kingsmen at that time.
“Greatest rock-‘n’-roll song of all time.” I’ve e-mailed that all over the planet. I’m not a dancer, but “Louie-Louie” always loosens me up.
It became a hit during my sophomore year in my Bach-worshipping college. I’d play Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring on our dining-hall upright, then segue into “Ba-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp.”
Ely said the recording engineer went out of his way to boost the back-beat, and thereby made the wording just about inaudible. Ely’s mic was on an overhead boom. He had to just about shout, and that was up into it. He was also singing through braces back then.
Lyrics were so slurred they became bait for the morality police. Wording was legit, but it was so garbled zealots could make it dirty. Even the F.B.I. weighed in; J. Edgar Hoover in highest dudgeon.
Salacious lyrics were posited, and “Louie-Louie” was banned here-and-there. I’ve gone over the wording the F.B.I. came up with. It’s pure fabrication, plus they missed what we always heard: “I’ll never leave her again” as “I’ll never lay her again.”
Even without the supposed dirtiness I think “Louie-Louie” could stand on its own. It’s that driving back-beat. Pity the poor keyboard player, like the snare-drummer in Ravel’s Boléro, doomed to no variation at all.
Check out that second YouTube Link, readers. There he is, over-and-over, slogging away at his keyboard.
“Ba-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp.
Ba-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp.
A-Louie-LewEye; oh no; me gotta go.”
What the marching sousaphones played in “Mr. Holland’s Opus.”
The greatest rock-‘n’-roll song of all time.
Sadly Jack Ely died in 2015 almost age-72. I read somewhere he got into Christian-rock, although to me that’s an oxymoron. My neighbor Sunday-School superintendent told me Elvis was “the bane of western civilization.” (Her exact words.)

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 12 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well.) (“Canandaigua” is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)

Siri® versus Alexa®

(Screenshot by BobbaLew.)

“Siri,” I said to Siri, the voice-recognition personal assistant computer-thingy on my iPhone; “play ‘Louie-Louie’ by the Kingsmen on YouTube.”
Gotta say “YouTube” or she rifles through my iPhone music files, finding nothing.
“Here are some videos of ‘Louie-Louie by the Kingsmen’ I found on the web,” Siri said.
Nine clickable YouTube videos on my tiny iPhone screen.
Yowzuh! This is Dick Tracy stuff; utterly beyond imagining back in 1962 when I graduated high-school.
I fingered one — the YouTube link above.
“Dah-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp!”
Straight from “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” what the sousaphones played while marching.
The greatest rock-‘n’-roll song of all time!
Every time I hear it I start swaying to it.
What prompted this were two things:
-a) A lifeguard at the Canandaigua YMCA swimming-pool told me she’d try “See Ya Later Alligator’ with Alexa® on her smartspeaker, and -b) a fellow retired bus-driver said he asked Siri who was smarter, Siri® or Alexa®.
Siri’s answer was “That’s all right with me……”
??????
This began when I reported to that lifeguard one of her coworkers said “See Ya Later Alligator” to a young girl departing the exercise-gym. Her coworker got the look. The young girl was dumbfounded, and thought that exercise-coach weird.
That lifeguard is old enough to understand “See Ya Later Alligator,” so I asked if she knew what year it was a hit, and who sang it. “This is probably before yer time. It was a hit the year you were born.”
“Bill Haley and the Comets, 1955,” I said.
“I’ll hafta see if Alexa® can play it,” she said.
So after I got home I tried it with Siri® on my iPhone. Trial-and-error, as always; gotta say things just so.
But Siri® got it.
The other night I tried “Louie-Louie,” the greatest rock-‘n’-roll song of all time.
“Louie-Louie,” as covered by the Kingsmen, became a hit during 1963-‘64, my junior year of college.
I used to play Bach’s “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” on a college piano, and segue into “Louie-Louie.”
“Dah-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp!
Bah-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp!
Ah-Louie-Loueye; Oh, no. We gotta go.”
And Louie-Louie had a risqué reputation. Wording was slurred, so “I’ll never leave her again” sounded like “I’ll never lay her again.” The FBI analyzed the lyrics to prove the song was dirty, but missed “I’ll never lay her again.”
Years ago at the Mighty Mezz, in its gigantic newsroom, I once declared “the greatest rock-‘n’-roll song of all time is......” Suddenly complete silence — you could hear a pin drop.
“‘Louie-Louie,’ as covered by the Kingsmen,” I said.
“NO-NO-NO!” people shouted. The newsroom erupted. Hits from the ‘80s and ‘90s were loudly declared superior. Utter cacophony!
A friend who daycared my dog, who I once worked with at the Mighty Mezz, says it’s Chuck Berry’s “Johnny-B-Goode.” Yes, but “Johnny-B-Goode” doesn’t get me rockin’ like “Louie-Louie.” Not even Jerruh-Lee with “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.”
“So Siri, ‘Louie-Louie’ by the Kingsmen on YouTube.”
“Dah-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp!
Bah-Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp-Bomp! Bomp-Bomp!
Ah-Louie-Loueye; Oh, no. We gotta go.”
My guess is Alexa could play it too.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 12 years ago. Best job I ever had — I was employed there almost 10 years — over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern. (I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well. That stroke took away nine years of classical piano training.) (“Canandaigua” is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)

“What a long strange trip it’s been”

Jerry Garcia (deceased), long-time lead singer of “The Grateful Dead.”

Last night (Saturday, July 4th, 2015) the national TV-news reported The Grateful Dead would perform its final concert after 50 years.
The end of an era, so-to-speak, except I always felt that era ended with the ‘70s.
About 50 long years ago I became friends with a guy named Al Stokes. Albert, like me, was a native of deepest, darkest south Jersey.
South Jersey is a den-of-iniquity, where Satan rules.
New Jersey is two parts: north Jersey is the dump for New York City, and south Jersey is the dump for Philadelphia.
On top of this, PA was hyper about liquor, etc. So south Jersey had lots of liquor-stores and road-houses to placate evil-starved Pennsylvanians on their way back from the Jersey seashore.
Better yet, Al was from Wildwood, a seashore resort, and the pink-flamingo capital of the planet.
His father owned a junkyard, and I remember Al telling me about burning wiring-harnesses from cars to get the copper.
Al was writing a weekly column for a small weekly newspaper in Rochester (NY) called City/East, and I was doing motorsport coverage.
(City/East later expanded to become “City” newspaper.)
We were a pair: bleeding-heart liberals, and we had plenty to munch on, particularly Nixon’s Watergate scandal.
Al was a “Dead-head,” and I wasn’t.
He was hot to make me a “Dead-head,” a follower of “better living through chemistry.”
He wanted me to try pot, and mescaline, and L.S.D.
And “The Dead” seemed to represent this — awash in psychedelia.
He tried mightily to get me to smoke pot. He’d invite me to parties where everyone was zoning out.
“Get me outta here! It smells like burning wood.”
Thud! Another attempt skewered by supposedly improper values.
Al worshipped a local band that mimicked “the Grateful Dead.” He tried to get me to attend jam-sessions. I never did.
Finally I said to Al “your worship of ‘The Dead’ sounds like religion — like the solution to all life’s problems is chemical-madness and ‘The Dead.’”
He was taken aback. I had him good. Point well taken.
“All I gotta do is worship ‘The Dead,’ just like running to the alter to become a Bible-beating zealot.”
Funny, the TV interviewed “Dead-heads:” tie-dyed tee-shirts on aging fat-ladies.
They claimed following “The Dead” was a religion. But they weren’t taken aback.
Here they were slavishly following a religion that went out with the ‘70s. Aging hipsters.
Al had a Buick he beat the daylights out of, a ’63 four-door hardtop with the big engine. It was probably good for 120, and he’d cruise at 100.
It finally blew the motor on the Pennsylvania Turnpike Northeast Extension, driving to Wildwood.
By then Al had begun a job at a tool-and-die machining plastics, and became friends with a coworker who owned a Saab (“sob”) — one of the V4 Saab 96s.
He became a Saab freak, and bought one himself.
One afternoon leaving work his Saab got clobbered in the rear. It bent fenders and screwed up the unpowered rear-axle alignment. (Saabs are Front-Wheel-Drive.)
Al fished around and located a wrecked Saab in a junkyard. We could take the rear axle off it, and the fenders.
I remember crawling around in the snow removing the axle.
We got it off, and Al repaired his Saab.
So much for Rochester. Al had decided to move to San Jose, CA, to live with his sister.
His attempt to convert me into a “Dead-head” failed.
I was leery of chemical madness, and was stickin’ to my guns.
I purchased a few “Grateful Dead” albums. But to me they’re more a party-band, than out at the edge like Hendrix or Cream.
But they have one of the best lines from rock-and-roll music. It’s from “Sugar Magnolia” — “just like a Willys in four-wheel drive.”
The others are “Roll down the window, and let the wind blow back your hair” from Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.”
And “Strummin’ to the rhythm that the drivers made” from Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
You have to be a railfan to understand that last one.
Now, of course, I wonder if Al is still alive. I did a Facebook search, but came up with 89 bazilyun Albert Stokes.

• The “Jeep” was first made by Willys in WWII. It’s been through various makers since, like American Motors, and now it’s Chrysler.
• I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2. A steam-locomotive chuffs four beats to the bar. Each driving-wheel (driver) rotation has four chuffs.

Bach’s birthday

Johann Sebastian Bach.

Yesterday (Saturday, March 21st, 2015) was Johann Sebastian Bach’s 330th birthday.
March 21st, 1685.
I don’t know what to say, since I blogged Bach’s birthday before.
I know as a classical-music junkie, I’m supposed to venerate the three “Bs,” Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.
Bach is a slam-dunk.
Brahms ain’t bad, although about the only composition of his I can identify is “Academic Festival Overture.”
To me, Brahms is comparable to Saint-Saëns, Ravel, or Claude Debussy.
Beethoven is more important, the best of his genre, which includes Tšaikovski and Rimsky-Korsakov.
I know quite a few of Beethoven’s compositions, like his symphonies and piano sonatas.
Bach I can listen to all day. Most of his compositions are extraordinary, especially the Brandenburg Concertos, “Sheep May Safely Graze,” “Air on a G-string,” and “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
I always like that filigree he puts on top of the melody-line, or sometimes underneath.
But anything of his is worth listening to. There is stuff by both Beethoven and Brahms I consider forgettable, but not Bach.
Perhaps my greatest joy in attending Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”) was discovering they were into Bach.
So began my feeding-frenzy, gobbling every Bach composition I heard.
If anything, their penchant for Bach made me a Bach-geek.
They went overboard about it.
Every four years they’d do a Bach-festival; mine was my senior year.
I was recruited to do a Bach poster, so I did one of Bach winking.
The powers-that-be were extremely incensed. It was as if I had pilloried one sitting at the right-hand of Jesus.
They didn’t understand — I thought the world of Bach.
Of course they misunderstood; I was a ne’er-do-well and of-the-Devil.
Pointing out my appreciation of Bach made no difference.
“That Hughes, he’s always mocking.”
No, they made me a Bach-geek, and I wasn’t mocking.
Almost 50 years have passed since that contretemps, and I’m still a Bach-geek.
The last rock album I bought was by Def Leppard in the ‘80s.
I still have my Bach albums.
Def Leppard I gave away.

• “Houghton College” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a ne’er-do-well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college.
• “Hughes” is me; Bob Hughes, “BobbaLew.”

B-A-C-H

The classical-music radio-station out of Rochester (NY) I listen to, WXXI, is public-radio.
Most of its financial support comes from memberships.
Since it’s the only radio I can stand, I listen to it all the time.
As soon as I walk in my house, WXXI goes on.
That is, everything except opera, which I can’t stand. Bellowing and screaming!
Uh-oh......... they goosed her again. Why can’t they let that poor girl alone?
I’m a so-called “sustaining-member.” I allow WXXI to charge my checking-account $50 a month. I figure they’re worth it, since I listen to it as much as I do.
I guess being a sustaining-member makes me special.
A matron from WXXI called me up to follow up a letter she sent.
.....to get my opinions, and see if I wanted to take part in planning.
I don’t remember no letter. I remember a previous phonecall.
This most recent phonecall supposedly wasn’t a solicitation, and she didn’t seem to be after my wallet.
I commented it was the only radio I could stand, and had it on right then.
Did I wanna take part in station-planning: a future phonecall.
I responded my input would be B-A-C-H. “I’m a Bach junky,” I said.
So in other words, I didn’t wanna take part in station-planning.
“Just keep the Bach coming,” I said.

Oh my aching Bach!

Yesterday (Wednesday, March 20th, 2013) was the first day of Spring.
More important to me is that today (Thursday, March 21st, 2013) is Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday. He was born in 1685.
Bach is my favorite composer.
I’ve come to like romantic composers, particularly Ravel. But Bach is a slam-dunk.
I was fortunate to attend a college whose Music-Department worshipped Bach, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” not “how” or “who”) south of Rochester (NY).
What a pleasant surprise that was. Although I’d say my love of Bach was fanned by that college.
I would have appreciated Bach, but Houghton was playing him all the time.
They loved Bach so much they held a Bach-festival every four years, the idea being to expose every student to a Bach-festival.
Mine was my Senior year.
Since I was fairly good at drawing, festival organizers enlisted me to do a Bach poster.
So I did. I redrew the typical Bach rendering, depicted above, with Bach winking.
The entire college was appalled. I had sacrileged Bach.
I’m sure their reaction was partly prompted by their perception I was an Of-the-Devil ne’er-do-well.
I’m sure if one of their favored ones had drawn Bach winking, they would have been more understanding.
A friend who graduated Houghton much later than me wondered about this.
“So Bach sits at the right-hand of God?” he asked.
I was surprised by the college’s reaction.
I certainly wasn’t making fun of Bach.
Thankfully the Bach-festival went on despite my poster, which was incinerated.
I used to play Bach on the college pianos.
My piano ability vanished with my stroke.
But back then I played “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring segued into “Louie-Louie.”
I think Bach would have liked it.

• “Houghton College,” is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college. (My wife, since deceased, also graduated there, same class as me.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.

I can’t believe it

Bach.

Yrs trly gets up each day about 6 a.m.
As a retiree, I don’t need to, but I can.
I also am a retired bus-driver, so I’ve had worse.
My worst was get up about 3 a.m., so I could pull out a bus around 5 a.m.
A lot of that time was getting dressed (uniform), eating breakfast, and then driving in.
Just getting to the bus-company, from out here where we live, took about 40 minutes.
When we lived in Rochester (NY) it was five minutes.
But we moved out here to the country because our house in Rochester needed total rehabilitation.
Plus its layout was goofy.
We wanted to build our own house, and the only available land was out in the country.
That was 1990; my stroke was ’93.
My stroke ended my career driving bus, although I eventually returned to driving.
My recovery was almost complete, although I have tiny stroke deficits.
I even went back to riding motorcycle, which my medical advisors consider miraculous.
It was a serious stroke, but apparently one you can recover from.
It was the same as that suffered by New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi (“brew-skee”), caused by a patent foramen ovale (“PAY-tint fore-AYE-min oh-VAL-eeee;” as in “hey”) in my heart that passed a clot.
That hole has since been sealed — open-heart surgery.
I actually get up about 6:05 a.m.
Our clock-radio comes on at 5:40 tuned to WXXI-FM, 91.5, the classical-music radio-station out of Rochester we listen to, publicly supported.
5:40 is still the nationwide all-night classical radio-feed out of Minnesota.
At 6 a.m. WXXI returns to local production, and it puts on recorded birdsong as it switches.
Then at 6:01 they switch to the NPR (National Public Radio) news-feed from Washington, DC.
That lasts about four-five minutes, and I roll out when they announce it’s NPR.
(WXXI is affiliated with NPR.)
Sometimes I don’t, but 98 percent of the time I do.
It isn’t that hard.
Today is Wednesday, March 21, 2012.
March 21, 1685 was Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday.
I admit I am very much a Bach partisan.
To my mind, Bach wrote some of the greatest music of all time.
It’s very orderly and devoid of emotion (at least in my humble opinion).
The college I attended, Houghton College in western New York (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”), was very much into Bach.
They held a Bach Festival I think every four years.
This was so a four-year student could enjoy a Bach Festival.
In fact, I was corralled into doing a poster for the Bach Festival.
I did a poster of Bach winking — an embellishment of the standard Bach illustration (above).
People were appalled.
I had committed sacrilege.
It was as if Bach was at the right hand of Jesus.
I wasn’t mocking Bach.
I loved Bach.
My greatest joy at Houghton was hearing Bach played.
Next to the Chapel-Auditorium was the original Music-Building, a brick structure that was always hot inside.
Music-students would have all the practice-room windows open, even in Winter.
A gorgeous cacophony of Bach music washed over us as we exited the Chapel-Auditorium.
(That Music-Building has since been torn down.)
The Chapel-Auditorium installed a mighty pipe-organ (3,153 pipes), and it was a baroque organ, not a Mighty Wurlitzer = schmaltz.
I’d listen in awe to students practicing Bach on that organ.
And if that college lets that organ go, they ain’t gettin’ another red cent!
That organ is the best physical asset they got.
A lot of my ancient record-collection is Bach.
And I have the entire Bach organ catalog.
Perhaps 12 hi-fi 33&1/3rd rpm vinyl records in a big green cardboard box.
Ya need two hands to lift it.
So I always remember March 21.
And for whatever reason there was no mention that today was Bach’s birthday — at least not early when I had the radio on.
Bach was the greatest composer ever.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
• We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)

Bolero!

We rolled out of bed at 6:54 this morning (Tuesday, November 9, 2010).
I went into our bathroom, turned on the light, and then reached back to turn on our HD radio.
(Cue anti HD radio crowd; the people that have their computers set up to snag every mention of HD radio on the Internet, so they can loudly badmouth it.
I bet I get a response.
I guess I’m supposed to be paying for satellite radio, wherein what I hear is not local.)
Our radio is tuned to Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi, the public-radio classical-music FM radio-station out of Rochester we listen to.
Their morning announcer is Brenda Tremblay (“TROM-blay;” as in “trombone”), a really nice person who graduated the same college I graduated from, Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”), although much later.
I am Class of ’66; she is Class of ’90.
“Bomp-Bomp-Bomp; Bomp-Bomp-Bomp......... Dyaaaaa-Dyada-Dyada-Dee, Da-Da-Deee. Bomp-Bomp-Bomp!
“UGH!” I said.
They’re playing Bolero.
Visions of Bo Derek being sex-crazed in the ‘80s.
I wonder what she looks like now at almost age 54.
Does she still have her trademark pigtails?
Reportedly composer Maurice Ravel (“rah-VELL”) was miffed by the fame of Bolero; he felt it was the worst piece he ever composed.
Ravel wrote a lot better stuff, e.g. his “Song of Sirens” from “Daphnis et Chloé.”
I have that in my record collection, but not Bolero.
“Bomp-Blat-Blat; Bomp-Blat-Blat! Dyaaaa-da-da-Bomp!”
Thank goodness it’s finally over.
Time for the news.
I had almost turned off the radio.

• “We/our” is me and my wife of almost 43 years, “Linda.”
• “Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi” is WXXI.

I prefer classical music

I wonder at times how I came to prefer classical music.
It certainly wasn’t my parents.
Although they did buy a Reader’s Digest compendium of abridged classical music with their RCA 45-rpm record-player.
Remember 45s? —I still have a couple, and a turntable that will play them.
That compendium went unplayed for a long time, but in high-school, about 10 years after purchase, I began playing the finale of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture over-and-over.
My parents were not into classical music.
Sometimes I think it was my second piano-teacher, the infamous Mrs. Dager (“day-grrr”).
Mrs. Dager was the organist at the church our family attended.
She played a Hammond B3, not a pipe-organ.
She was also the church choir-director.
My first piano-teacher was Hilda Walton, our next-door-neighbor.
She was also the Sunday-School Superintendent.
Both Mrs. Dager and Mrs. Walton were severe taskmasters.
With Mrs. Walton it was “Curve your fIngers! Pretend you have a tomato under your hand.”
She used the John Thompson books.
Mrs. Dager’s greatest thrill was to get me and my sister crying.
She had me practicing Clemente and 32nd-note arpeggios. All extremely difficult.
She wanted to make me a Billy Graham pianist; flashy chords and florid rolling improvisation.
But I was hornswoggled by Jerry Lee Lewis.
“Come on over, baby. Whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.”
Mrs. Dager arranged for me and my sister to attend a children’s concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
I doubt it was Eugene Ormandy, but they played Finlandia and Dvorak’s (“dvor-ZHAK;” as in “ah”) New World Symphony.
By then I was 10 or 11, and tunes therein stayed in my head a long time.
I rode my bicycle on wooded trails to both.
But in high-school, in a different state (DE) instead of south Jersey, I gravitated to the 1812 Overture.
My band-director had a hi-fi in his office with the famous Mercury LP collection.
He let me play the conclusion of 1812 over-and-over.
I got so I could predict it.
His idea was to get our concert-band to play a band version of 1812.
An adjacent high-school had won the state band competition playing 1812.
But it was impossible.
Us reeds — I played Alto Saxophone — were playing the difficult violin parts, lotsa runs.
To play it would have meant hours of practice. We weren’t interested.
I would say where I went to college had a lot to do with my eventually preferring classical music.
It was nearby Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “oh,” not “how” or “who”), about 70 miles south of Rochester, in Western NY.
I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as somewhat a Ne’er-do-Well.
Houghton is an ardent religious college, and they didn’t approve of me.
But they did have a strong music program, with respectable professors who rubbed off.
Houghton had a fabulous pipe-organ in its large Chapel-Auditorium.
Every day they held a voluntary chapel service, and we students, perhaps 1,000, would sing hymns to organ accompaniment.
We were supposed to sing in unison on the last verse, and the organist, Charles Finney, would “hymn-provise.”
I never sung the last verse.
I’d stand in awe listening to Finney “hymn-provise.”
Often he’d pull it off, and sometimes he’d work himself into a corner.
Discordant chords he could’t prettily segue out of.
But most times he didn’t, and it was glorious.
I was probably the only one attracted to this — others decided he was showing off.
Chords of my own were in my head I hoped he’d play.
Which he might play, but other times he might educate me with something different but also glorious.
Most attractive was his pulling off discordances and then successfully segueing out.
And it was his pipe-organ. He designed it, designed as a baroque organ, not schmaltz.
As a result of Finney, I came to appreciate Bach.
After college, it was back to rock-n-roll, particularly Led Zeppelin.
Led Zeppelin was mostly okay, but there was stuff that was boring.
When we first got married in the late ‘60s (December of ’67), it was Led Zeppelin on my wife’s Sears phonograph, at full volume.
I had to tape quarters to the tonearm.
And WBBF AM-95 (950) on our radio.
Pop music, with rock-n-roll on the phonograph.
That lasted through the early ‘70s. I played WCMF — underground radio —in my photographic darkroom.
Joni Mitchell, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix.
But I was tiring of it, so I started listening to WXXI, the classical-music public-radio station out of Rochester, 91.5 FM.
It was easier to take than pop-radio, as long as they didn’t play opera in the morning (which they didn’t).
I started listening to Karl Haas, and came to appreciate far more than Bach.
So now I am probably the only child in my family who prefers classical music, although my sister in south Florida, the one who accompanied me on that Philadelphia Orchestra children’s concert, plays piano and loves 1812.
My brother-in-Boston prefers country — PLINKA-PLANKA-TWANG — and I should be like him.
But I’m not.
I prefer classical music.
Too many pieces are in my head, and I know what comes next.

• Evangelist “Billy Graham.”
• The “Mercury LP Collection” was a collection of classical music — this is 1961-1962. “LP” stands for “Long-Playing,” 33&1/3 rpm vinyl records. LPs became prominent after 1962.

Keyboard man......

....versus string man.
Yrs trly has nine years of classical piano training.
It was drudgery. Arpeggios and Muzio Clementi.
As such I’m a keyboard man.
W-X-X-I, the publicly-supported classical music radio-station out of Rochester we listen to, played a violin concerto this morning (Monday, October 11, 2010).
“Not this kid!” I thought.
“That’s string music. I’m a keyboard man, harpsichords and pianos and pipe-organs.”
My hairdresser has an Android smartphone.
He has an app that displays virtual strings.
Strum it, and guitar-strings sound.
Ugh!
I’m not impressed. I’m a keyboard man.
That always directs my musical tastes.
Keyboard concertos always seem doable — or so it seems.
Order is at work too.
The keys play certain definable tone frequencies.
That was not true of a violin fretboard.
The tone-frequency emitted is a function of where you fingered the string.
You could be sharp or flat. (Your ear would tell you.)
A keyboard wasn’t that way.
Keys sounded specific tones; you were never sharp or flat.
Unless your instrument was out of tune.
But that wasn’t your fault — it wasn’t a function of where you fingered.
Bring in the piano-tuner.
A keyboard could also be stroked much faster than strings — or so it seemed.
It took a Jascha Heifetz to play arpeggios on a violin.
But even the average dolt, like me, could do arpeggios on a piano.
Ya need Yo-Yo Ma to convey emotion out of a cello, but even I could convey emotion with a Steinway D-10 concert-grand — at least to myself.

“Victory at Sea”

This morning (Sunday, December 7, 2008), I suppose in honor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on this date 67 years ago (“A date that will live in infamy!”), Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi, the classical-music radio station out of Rochester we listen to, was playing excerpts from Richard Rodgers’ “Victory at Sea” when I turned the radio on.
“Victory at Sea” was the most memorable piece we played in the Brandywine High School concert band.
And we really butchered it, of course.
Haven’t heard a high school concert band yet that doesn’t sound awful; reeds out of tune, horns imitating flatulence (especially the Sousaphones), and ill-timed cymbal crashes.
Cue clarinets (Janet Cline was first chair): “Beep-bee-bee-beep. Bee-beep. Bee-bee-beep. Bee-bee-bee-beep!”
The sound of Morse code radio-telegraph transmissions between ships communicating back then.
“Tyah-tyah-dot-da-dot, dot, dot. Dot-da-da-dyahhhhhhhh.......”
Up-and-down on the rolling sea.
“Dyat-da-da-dah; dyat-da-da-dah: da-da-dahhhhhhhh....... Boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba. Dyat-da-da-dah; dyat-da-da-dah: da-da-DAHHHHHHHH.......”
Old Diemer (“DEE-mrrr”) was trying to bring order out of chaos with his tiny plastic baton.
“Ya dropped your Sousaphone, Davis!”
“Hey, cut it out! Together everyone.......”
“Just put your chairs back on the platform, boys; and keep playing.”
“Let’s keep the trombone slides out of the flute section” (Anny Bither [“BYE-ther”] was lead flute).
“Careful where ya empty your drain-cocks, you French-horn players........”

I should add one fact.
Shortly after I started out at Springer I was named first-chair first sax.
By so doing, the guy who was first-chair first sax, a guy named “Sparks,” left in a huff. —This is eighth grade.
It was an attempt by Diemer to get Sparks to practice harder, but it failed.
I always felt kind of sheepish about that.
I couldn’t read music that well, my fingering was a mess, and I was getting by on my tone, which was only good because I was blowing super-hard reeds: #4 instead of #1 or #2.
Plus it was my sax. Others had cheap silver tinplate saxes rented from the school district, and they were awful. —Mine was a brass Selmer, the best at that time.
But then in my senior year I was replaced by a sophomore; Class of ‘64.
Suddenly I was first-chair second sax; still not very good at reading and fingering music, but picked to do solos because of my superior tone.
Nevertheless I lost interest, and essentially quit concert band.
I didn’t take my sax to college — I guess my parents sold it.
But I did take it to Sandy Hill.
Played a solo once on the Morning-Cheer radio broadcast, and blew reveille one morning.
Blew it as loud as I could; sloppiness didn’t matter, just volume.
“Where’s Toad?” all the campers yelled. Toad was the regular bugle-boy. (I forget “Toad’s” name.)

“Dubya-Hex-Hex-Hi” is WXXI-FM, 91.5, the classical-music radio-station in Rochester we listen to, publically supported.

“Diemer” is Mr. Wesley Diemer, our band-director. “Davis” is Paul Davis, Class of ‘62, a Sousaphone player.

“Brandywine” is Brandywine High School, north of Wilmington, DE; from where I graduated in 1962.

“Springer” is Springer Junior high-school, the junior high I attended. Our class was the third to complete high-school education in our area. Our school-district expanded because of the post-war baby-boom. First Springer was built, and then Brandywine Senior high. —At first Brandywine was grades 9 through 12, but switched to only 10 through 12 1961-‘62.

“Sandy Hill” is the religious boys camp in northeastern Maryland I worked at 1959-‘61. I was a camper there from 1954 through 1960. It was affiliated with the south-Jersey based “Morning-Cheer” radio ministry. The camp used a bugler to announce timed events, like dinner or flag-raising.

E-mail to WXXI

For me it’s the Saint Saëns Organ Symphony. (Take it up to about a minute everyone.)
I had a stroke October 26, 1993; fairly serious, but I recovered fairly well from it.
Shortly after my return home from various hospitals, someone, probably Mordecai, played the Saint Saëns Organ Symphony on WXXI.
“WHOA!” I said. “I recognize that. Soon-or-later an organ-blast will occur. It occurs here. Here we go everyone!”
I was introduced to the Saint Saëns Organ Symphony while a student at Houghton College in the ‘60s. Houghton has that fabulous pipe-organ, but it’s more appropriate for Bach or the Widor Organ Symphony.
The Saint Saëns Organ Symphony is rather turgid and overblown.
A guy named Baxter played it for me on his hi-fi.
Baxter was in ecstasy; conducting as it went along.
After graduation I bought the recording myself, and essentially learned it; as one does with just about every musical piece they appreciate.
This is the long prelude; then the organ-blast.
Every time I hear it played, I remember that “whoa” moment. It always chokes me up.

Radio-station WXXI, the public-radio FM classical music station in Rochester, NY, we listen to, has asked its listeners to detail their favorite classical piece, and why it turns them on. —Mordecai Lipshitz was afternoon announcer at that time. He has since retired.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993. It was caused by a Patent Foreman Ovale (PTO), a hole between the upper chambers of my heart, allowing a clot to pass to my brain.

“Houghton College,” in western New York, is from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I didn’t graduate with their approval. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college. —They had a fabulous pipe-organ.

Harold Baxter, Class of 1966; a music-major (I think). He lived in a rooming-house, and had a massive record-collection and a hi-fi.