Text 25750, 185 rader
Skriven 2009-07-07 15:28:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: 800 surreal July 4
==========================
My friend or conductor or landlord Bill has a July 4 party
every year - big old picnic followed by a trek to the concert
(a couple hundred feet). All the guests bring something, so
there are gallons of leftovers (we accuse Bill of holding the
parties so he can feed himself for a week afterward). An
eclectic very melting pottish assortment, mostly things I
wouldn't eat under normal circumstances. Here's what I
noticed and mostly tasted) -

ordinary green salad

chips and freezer-burned salsa (from the downstairs tenant -
quite nasty, but I noticed everyone else eating busily)

beet-nut-orange-feta salad (special version made for me by
the cook, my friend Linky, without cheese)

potato salad, German (no pork - a mistake, made by my friend
Paula)

potato salad, German, but with red Bliss potatoes instead of
regular, and ham and olive oil substituting for bacon (made
by me)

pasta shells with shrimp and I believe cream of shrimp soup
(actually not so bad)

meatballs in tomato sauce (from a bag - okay but you
could taste the TVP), served warm

these same meatballs, brought by someone else, in
grape-jelly sauce, served cold (utterly weird)

feta-olive-tomato skewers

ordinary devilled eggs

devilled eggs made with big chunks of green and red Bell
peppers (made by my friend Betsy, who likes to health up
recipes, much to my chagrin)

crab-and-surimi cakes (from BJ's or Wal-Mart - nasty -
two people brought these)

mini quiches (ditto)

mini mushroom turnovers (ditto only not so nasty)

cherry tomato and ricotta salata salad

crudite platter from the super (celery, carrots, cherry
tomatoes, radishes)

shrimp cocktail (thawed, from BJ's or Wal-Mart - mushy but
fairly okay tasting)

hot Italian turkey sausages and sweet Italian chicken sausages
(the hot ones were surprisingly spicy and not too bad)

cold sesame-soy chicken (made by me)

baked beans with lots of salt pork (made by someone on the
board of directors of the group that Bill conducts).

There were also a number of starchy creamy things that of course
I didn't pay much attention to.

Desserts:

a chocolate sheet cake for 100 (literally)(extraordinarily
sweet, from some bakery, courtesy of Bob Clark)

brownies (very good, made by my friend Paula II)

blueberry coffee cake (very good, made by my friend Peggy)

Bill, mindful of my exalted position as concertmaster,
forbade me from drinking before the concert, so I just had
about six alkies and one non-alky:

B&G Vouvray - pleasantly minerally, a bit sweet, good
balancing acid, one of two bottles slightly corked

Clos du Bois Chardonnay - quite mediocre - grapy and
a tad too sweet itself, thin in body: dumbing down
for the general public I suppose

Columbia Crest Grand Estates Merlot - cherries and
herbs, not bad, though a little cough syrupy

Columbia Crest Grand Estates Cabernet Sauvignon -
a bit more my style but not by much, berries and
black cherry, medium finish, nothing special. It seems
common these days for a respectable brand to bottle its
less good wine under a fancy monicker such as Grand
Estates, Vintner's Reserve, Special Cuvee, that kind of
thing. 

St. Pauli Girl - skunky and watery; how can anyone
drink this stuff? This was brought by Max, an old guy
who was in the German army in WWII, and his wife
Paula (there were 3 Paulas and 3 Nancys among the
26 guests).

Heineken was a great refreshment by comparison.

Polar birch beer - pretty good, big wintergreeny zing.

Polar cream soda - didn't get to taste this, the bottle
exploded.

I toddled over to the stage, and Jackie, as usual, gave
me a big momentary smile that evaporated suddenly, as if
to say, I like you, but I don't want you to know that.
This has been her consistent greeting behavior over the
last year plus. I waved at her but gave her at best half
a smile (my consistent behavior).

We were supposed to start at 7 (I tune them up at 1855),
but the jet flyover was rescheduled to 2015, so it was
decided that we would start with the color guard at 1920,
with the service song medley that is the first half
finale timed to the flyover. And so it was, almost.

A lot of tough tunes this year, and I don't know how we
sounded (everyone said it was good, but everyone has a
tin ear). This trombone player who used to play with us
but has moved out of state keeps sending us arrangements
that are unbelievably unidiomatic, but what the heck, I
can play them, even if my section generally can't. We
had two of his songs this year. And the Song to the Moon
from Rusalka, sung by a water sprite who wants to become
a mortal so she can court some guy: you can tell she's
not human, as much of the piece is in D flat. Tunes from
Indiana Jones and the something of some kind of material,
and Superduperman, and stuff like that. The theme of the
evening was "heroes," and I noted the irony that most of
the heroes we were commemorating were imaginary.

Dirk told us the flyover was at 2020, so at 2015 we were
about to start some other song, and guess what? The jets
came at 2015, the accompaniment being him pointing up at the
sky and saying, gee, here they are ... so we intermitted
without having played the armed services tribute.

A group from the local state college provided intermission
entertainment - songs from a musical called Footloose.

The second half was somewhat easier, the highlight, or
lowlight, depending on whom you ask, being a version
of Mack the Knife sung by our principal viola player.

The stage was duly rushed by his groupies. I kid you not.
Apparently in his other life he's a rock musician.

To give the concert a more contemporary feel, we did various
disco tunes from the 1960s or 1970s.

Some drunk guy started shouting and dancing out in front
between us and the audience. This is typical. He wasn't
too rowdy, so the cops didn't have to interfere this year.

We finally played the armed services thing.

The 1812 Overture in all its glory accompanied some
extremely noisy fireworks, which I was informed later by
some audience members were the equal of the downtown
Esplanade ones (the mayor of Salem having informed us that
our performance was the equal of the downtown Esplanade
one - we're really the Avis of the musical world).

The police estimate of the crowd was 15 to 25 thousand;
the city office of tourism's estimate was 60 thousand.

J., having become more out of sorts as the concert went on,
handed me my check at arm's length, averting her face from me,
as if to say, I hate you, and I do want you to know that. Ah,
well, it's no longer my problem. I skedaddled off as quickly
as possible back to the party, where many folks were chowing
on a second piece of sugary cake with their coffee. I had a
small serving washed down with the remains of a rather nasty
red wine that someone had brought - the wine improved the
cake, but the cake couldn't improve the wine. 
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