I had just had surgery and it added to my insomnia. The call came in late in the evening.
A cellist was sick -- and the contractor someone I hadn't seen in 5 years. A String Quartet job.
He said he was paying the others one hundred dollars and would pay twenty-five additional
dollars if I would perform at this simple engagement. . . . Basically, $125. for two hours.
All I had to do was dust off my tuxedo and show up at a chapel near the water in Hermosa Beach.
It's one of the beach towns which used to be known for its laid-back attitude, simple shacks, and
hippie surfers. Now the breakwater was gone. The shacks were replaced with ornate, multilevel
townhouses and estates, each with its own pedigree of snooty appeal.
Because I'd encountered an unusual amount of medical expenses the past sixty days, I said "YES."
What could possibly go wrong with an easy, two-hour chamber music job in lovely Los Angeles?
On this early Sunday afternoon, traffic was brutal. It used to be that Los Angeles was a large place,
but when you looked more closely, you could see small, separate towns, each with its own history and incorporated identity.
Now Los Angeles is inhabited by cars. More and more cars -- the predominant lifeform -- each one designed
to create more waste in the maximum amount of time, in order to go nowhere. Billions of cars, belching
into bright days which rarely see hues of blue, are singularly inhabited by a minuscule, captive lifeform.
These tiny captives are only released for short demarcations of time, then must return to their cars.
They are called humans, and it is their fate to be imprisoned as they travel over the required nihilistic,
gray cement and asphalt-blanketed spaces. I was one of the Los Angeles prisoners, driving straight up
Pacific Coast Highway to Hermosa Beach. I was in fact driving one of the antique models from
prehistory: a dirty red 1987 Toyota, which continued to leak oil from the time of the dinosaurs, millions
of years ago...
I thought this direct route would keep it simple, yet I fought my fellow lifeforms every stretch of the way,
every block of fast-food wasteland one less coffin of cement closer to my goal. You see, I wanted to arrive early at the chapel to warm up. I hadn't performed on my cello since the surgery.
There were so many SUV's on the narrow streets I wanted to strangle them. I detest Sports Utility Vehicles, and those who usually drive them. They remind me of humongous cows, bullying with expensive libido's, plowing rudely through traffic. Moo -- out of my way, you measly Toyota -- I'm a big ol' SUV with
a front bumper bigger than your kitchen! MOO AND OUTTA MY WAY, I SAY!
I arrive at the imposing church, fittingly titled, Chapel of the Armenian Martyrs. I'm there before the other
musicians. The music director for the sanctuary is there early as well, setting up microphones. What shall
we call him -- let's call him Attila. Attila is demonstrating his personal version of a Napoleon complex.
I'm a new face to him, yet he proceeds to insult all the other musical players -- but behind their backs.
I smile tightly and stay out of harm's way.
Just in time, the first violinist arrives, the man who hired me via the phone. He's a vocally unhappy
violinist whose wife recently left him. Oh, he drives an SUV, too, and drives like an idiot, in fact -- this
could almost be funny -- he almost plowed down two nuns. Right at the entrance to the Chapel of the
Armenian Martyrs, with its 42 steps leading up to 14-foot, ornate and exaggerated doors.
But more alarming is his attitude, like black tea that's been seeping too long. After calling his ex-wife
a "stupid slut," he remarks that marriage is "for idiots" and proceeds to put himself down as "a complete imbecile" for marrying her. I suppose his uncontrollable raving is designed to put us in the mood for the
sacred Orthodox Mass which we are about to bless with our music: A marriage.
His children are 10 and 12. They're with their mother, whom he describes as an ugly elephant.
When he talks, he addresses the air, as if the air itself is his audience. We just happen to be nearby,
and have to endure his outbursts. I've also seen homeless people speak this way, but they were ambling
along city streets, not wearing a tuxedo and holding a violin before a formal wedding is about to begin.
The man oozes toxicity. Ironically, he is about eighty pounds overweight himself. So when he puts
his wife down for being fat, like most people who insult others, he only brings attention back to himself.
It's disconcerting to hear a human prisoner insult another prisoner when he himself is describing
the bars of his own cell.
Meanwhile, the height-challenged music director with the Napoleon complex is fidgeting. Are we ready?
Can we handle the music? It's nothing we haven't seen one thousand times before, arrangements of
overplayed classical pieces, with even the lyrical "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" reduced to an oddly truncated version ... sort of like a gorgeous Jesus melody by J.S. Bach chopped up into coleslaw.
Back to our bitter violinist: he can't stop. It's as if someone flipped the "ON" switch, then removed the housing
for the switch. He's a supremely gifted musician. He's toured with many who are notorious -- famous,
if you will -- on the level of Yanni. In LA, this is a violinist who does studio work for excellent pay --
which is about $200. an hour for a principal player. But his anger is consuming and he can't quite see it.
It's seeped into his viewfilter, and it's colored most of his reality a shade of scarlet vinegar.
There's little doubt that this man is overqualified to be performing today, yet what's telling is the way negativity seems to have corroded his core. At a time when many gifted players limit themselves to one musical style,
this is a soloist who can swing, read charts and effortlessly change musical hats with the best of them.
To top it off, he has a Ph.D.-- and he's a skillful composer and arranger. Acknowledged by his peers,
he's regarded as one of finer improvisers on the violin.
Most Americans would be thrilled to make $200. an hour for sufficient studio work. Apparently though, talent and discipline can be eroded by powerful emotions. He appears to have sacrificed his standards out of fear,
driven by more dollars. The inconsistencies of work, the lack of reliability within the musical marketplace, compel him to take dreck wedding jobs like these.
Personally, I enjoy the sacred rites and rituals of a wedding, and the kids getting married today look very sweet. Yet they're thrust in the middle of a large production, primarily for show. It's a Big Event, on a colorless Sunday in a giant chapel which looks like an aircraft hanger, dedicated to the memory of martyrs overseas. The deacon is overamplified and sounds like Charleton Heston on a really bad ego trip.
The altar boys wear odd dresses that somehow compete with the bride's effusive train. The mock-chandelier lights hanging from a five-story ceiling give an appearance of Denny's on an acid trip. I'm convinced
that the folks who design ceiling lights for large churches like these have a revolving account with 24-hour coffee shops. To add to the surreal quality of the decor, there are three life-size statues of Mary weeping,
at various stations of the sanctuary. I'm trying to take it all in, when suddenly my attention is diverted by
the hissing of our first violinist.
He's trying not to laugh, because the groom is unwittingly focusing his eyes on the deacon, and not
his bride. In a rote-like voice, the groom repeats the hallowed vows, but he is transfixed on the deacon.
The bride's eyes, fittingly, never leave the face of her beloved.
And our violinist is almost busting a gut with laughter, because it appears that the groom is stating his vows
to a priest. Finally, his bride tugs gently at his cuff, and jerks him back to reality: Dear God! I'm marrying this woman, and need to look at HER!
Were you to point out to our violinist that he's regularly verbally abusive not only to others, but also to himself, he'd express genuine surprise, since hostility appears to be one ingrained attitude he recognizes. "Lighten up, you moronic asshole," he'd say, "and be glad you're not one of the pathetic idiots which you and I
are working for today." Thanks. I needed to be reminded of the futility of life at this sacred occasion when
two young kids are expressing lifelong, sacred vows.
As soon as the wedding has finished, the problems began. Major problems, as any caterer will tell you,
are usually reserved for the reception. The gala wedding itself required over seventy-five bloated minutes,
instead of its promised half-an-hour.
We're undeniably past our quitting time, yet there will be no additional pay. There's a pecking order,
just like any work hierarchy. As the musical engagement goes far over the two hours absolutely promised,
the violinist sees fit to flex his musical muscles. "Oh, just 30 more minutes, cello-head." In true LA style,
you're not even called by your name, but by some demeaning nickname. Let's not get too personal. The
other quartet players humor our leader, nodding, because they fear that otherwise he won't call them again.
I have nothing to fear. It's evident that I'm only a last-minute fill-in for their regularly tortured cellist.
But I agree, to a point, in order to honor the group will. Then, at about twenty-five minutes past the
promised stopping time, my stitches start hurting. Badly. As if they knew I'd been lied to and THEY
would have none of it. It appears that my stitches are speaking for me where I myself am reluctant to.
I stand up. Said I was in pain, and have to stop. It was one of those pointless society receptions, anyway,
and I'll try to describe to you why -- it may surprise you.
I couldn't fully use my cello bow, because we were lined like sardines adjacent to the dessert cart.
Absent-minded women with loud gold jewelry kept arranging the little desserts, colliding with my cello bow. We were not music, we were not ornaments, we were, in fact, accoutrements for the lavish dessert spread.
My attitude was not to be mistaken. YOU WILL HAVE TO MOVE, I whispered to a hovering society
woman who stood, without consideration, directly within my playing field, oblivious that a musician
was trying to play. She looked at me with feigned astonishment. My God, there's a live musician there.
Delores, did it speak? We thought it was a piece of musical shrubbery!
We were playing Beethoven. If you can call it that. When you line four players against a patio wall like
a firing squad, the opportunities for music to be made are minimal. Ludwig would not have been pleased.
It was evident that we couldn't hear each other. We could hardly see each other. In my case, I could
barely bow.
Meanwhile, our leader -- the angry first violinist -- let the second violinist lead, meaning she got to play
the main part. He did so for one salient reason. It no longer mattered, and he thought she was pretty.
She really couldn't play the violin, but was truly oblivious to the fact that she couldn't play.
It reminded me of a play in an insane asylum: You've been hired as an orderly, but no one else knows
that they're insane.
Ironically, as we carpooled to the reception, this was the same pretty violinist who told us that she plans
to be getting out of the music business. She'd been accepted to law school. Good for her! She's smart and pleasing, and in terms of her disposition, she was the least emotionally wounded of us four.
But even when she held the violin, it looked like an alien appendage on her, as if growing out of her shoulder, something the doctors couldn't quite remove.
She was just so musically . . . awkward. My own misery centered at the absurdity of playing next to
a giant tiered cart of cookies. My cello bow continued to collide with vacant women with dubious jewelry,
high heels, and Stepford Wife smiles. The fact that they pretended not to notice that my cello bow was poking their embroidered hips wasn't lost on me.
This had been made even more apparent by the Hostess of the Estate. She failed to take a moment to calculate that a String Quartet requires more room than, say, a vacuum cleaner. She actually made this statement:
"I didn't realize you used four chairs."
Our leader asked her if she was aware that she'd hired a Quartet.
"Yes, but....I thought you'd fit over there." And she had pointed to a little corner about the size of
a broom closet. And so we endured our second big compromise, performing past our contracted time,
on K-Mart plastic chairs, at her million-dollar estate, plastered against a patio wall like a firing squad, next
to a four-level cart of precious cakes, gooey truffles, heart-stopping pastries, and delectably deadly cookies.
They hadn't yet served the salads. The guests were still arriving, being bused up to her estate. Yet this owner and her girlfriends were inexplicably gathered around the bodacious dessert cart, layering pastries and cookies as if their actions were some mysterious Goddess bonding and ritual.
I kept hitting women in a Goddess Cookie Trance with my bow. One of them was the adult daughter of
the property owner, the same woman who hadn't figured out that Quartet = Four Musicians = Four Chairs.
"Look, Momma, it's a guy playing a large violin between his legs. And he's glaring at me!"
"Never mind, my darling Verushka, just PUT THOSE COOKIES DOWN. Pay no attention.
He's wearing a common tuxedo, and he is obviously not one of us."
"Momma, he keeps poking my hips with his stick!"
"Madam," I said, addressing the dubious daughter who continued to glance at me as if I was, indeed, a piece
of talking shrubbery, "that stick is called a bow. It's used to bow the cello." I endeavored to explain
Musical Physics 101 to the Verushka creature. I tried to use my best Mr. Roger's voice. "Should you insist
on standing right to the side of me whilst you arrange your cookies, you will collide with my bow.
It's a fact of life. I know this is possibly an unexpected experience for you, but I've been hired to play."
"To play music."
"Yes, I'm playing a cello."
"Yes, it IS like a large violin. That's very perceptive of you."
"No, I'm not part of the magician's act."
I glanced around Verushka, looking past her, beyond the narrow walkway by the pool, in which swam
two plastic swans. These were not rubber ducks. Swans. They were expensive plastic swans, floating
in a turquoise Hermosa Beach kidney pool. They were imitation swans, and they were beautifully rendered, and they were plastic.
It was a day in Hell. A day imaginable only in Los Angeles.
At last our trial ended. As we crowded out of the gussified backyard, the vocal first violinist paused
to fill his tuxedo pockets with as many hors d'oeuvres as it could hold. I'm not immune to nibbling at a gig,
but it must be done discretely, and never at the risk of embarrassing the caterer. Undisguised wolfing
of appetizers is a cardinal sin. The thought of brioche, or brie, in a tuxedo pockets was, in my experience,
a recipe for disaster.
Then, the day's true epiphany occurred. Returning to the Armenian Martyrs Chapel to reunite with our
cars, our leader informed me that I was stupid to live with cats.
It was not as if we were discussing Zen Buddhism, or trying to count the number of functioning
heart cells in Dubya's compassionate heart. Nor were we discussing the recent recording by the
Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, nor that revival of the rediscovered Stravinksy ballet.
He saw fit to share his encyclopedic knowledge of cats.
His bimbo ex-wife had them too. He informed me, clearly and without question, that cats were vile
and filthy creatures. In fact, they were the reason I had ever gotten sick -- they were carriers for all
*sorts* of diseases. He saw fit to tell me this twice.
My problems with health, and, in his mind, my cancer (in remission) and everything else I'd gone through,
were because I lacked HIS good judgment. This peerless judgment was because I was also too dimwitted
to realize that everything that had "gone wrong" with my life was THE CATS' FAULT.
In case I didn't understand him, he decided to rephrase his statements.
"Get rid of them," he said. I was silent. What could I say? So he continued to speak to the air, then intoned
the same thing five minutes later, with increasing emphasis. "Get rid of the damn cats."
His tone implied that I needed to be MUCH MORE CAREFUL to avoid future disease suffering in the future. There was also some unspoken hint that this was the key to my future success, and certainly, respect in his eyes. Were I to get rid of the cats, my life would certainly improve.
No doubt, he might even consider me for future engagements like today.
Yet the cats would have to go. Upon dropping me at my car he added some last ominous, parting words.
Like some unknown Mandarin dialect, it was all a matter of tone, pitch, and inflection.
"Be careful." I sensed him arch an inner eyebrow of patronizing disapproval.
I hadn't bothered to tell him that these indoor cats were flealess.
As I was searching to try to find something pleasant to say, the first violinist was roaring away in his SUV, pontificating on his cell phone. The other musicians had departed in separate cars, rushing furiously as Los Angeles musicians tend to do. They felt that they needed to subject themselves to additional dollars on this odious day. As if performing at a chapel called Armenian Martyrs wasn't enough for one Sunday afternoon.
Utterly exhausted, I drove home, taking a different route.
I collapsed into a heavy sleep, without color, without dreams.
(Copyright 2001 by Darius Gottlieb - No reproduction without express permission from the author)