Homecoming, part 2 (plus a little bit on SNL)
Yeah, it's about time I got to this. ;P
Part 2 happened after I spent the morning with Jeremy, Darren, and their cohorts. After I came home and ate the pummelo (bet you forgot about that, eh? It's like a super-sized grapefruit). After my parents came home with a U-Haul filled with stuff from Lake Geneva just five minutes before I left again.
The five-year reunion is always held at Lou Malnati's. It's a Chicago-area pizza joint that, honestly, I can do without, but it's within walking distance of the college (and conveniently across the parking lot from my old job, but I digress). However, it's also a popular dining spot, and seeing how it was a Saturday night, that meant half of Naperville was downtown trying to eat.
I couldn't get a spot in the adjoining lot--surprise, surprise--so I went over to the five-story parking deck. It's kitty-corner from my old job. I used to have to park there, and I'm used to it only having maybe fifty cars in it. No, no, no--not on a Saturday. Saturday is when you're lucky to find any sort of parking spot at all. I took the first one I came across, which was about the size of a sardine can. This big ol' truck was supposedly in the slot next to it, but both of its passenger-side tires were across the double yellow divider lines. Still, I was able to squeeze my Camry in and get out. That's when I realized the person on the other side of me wouldn't be able to get in his car--whoops. Well, unless the driver was a tapeworm. Back in the car, try to get equally in between the truck and the other vehicle. It was definitely better, but I still worried my car would get whacked by a door.
To Lou's. I had my name badge, I said I was an alumni, I was directed to the back. I said a mental "Ha, ha!" to the numerous people standing in the foyer/outside. But then, I couldn't get in the party room. No, really, the people who were there ahead of me were crowded in the doorway greeting each other and not letting anyone pass. Great. Thanks. There are windows to the room, and I could see Avery inside. We waved to each other but otherwise we couldn't say anything. Finally the people in the doorway--remember, college graduates--moved out of the way and I got in. Avery and I sat down at the table almost in the corner.
The table is set up in a U-shape. When you walk in the room, one part of the U is to your right; the bottom part of the U is on the far side of the room, and the other part is across from you. There are serving tables on the left wall. I would say the U seats 50 people. We did not fill all the chairs in there, but there were people who had to sit outside the room. Of course, those were the people I sort of knew. In the room: who knows? You mean to tell me I went to college with these people? Okay, so I did know some people in there; Jeremy, Darren, Dave, Lydia, and a few others were on the near part of the U. Avery and I were on the far part, across from the door. The people near us, never saw them before. Rats. Because I love hanging out with loud obnoxious drunk people. They made it really hard for me to hear Avery, who speaks in softer tones. Dude, I'm probably borderline ADD; don't throw stuff like that in my mix!
Remember how I complained about dinner being $20? The good news is that we did get a good amount of food for the price. We had appetizers (fried zucchini, mozzarella sticks, cheddar cubes, and mushrooms); salad; pizza (cheese, pepperoni, or sausage); pasta (which was weird--sweet tomato sauce, perhaps?); and dessert (a scoop of vanilla ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry; the surprise was that there was a soft chocolate chip cookie under the ice cream). Definitely doable. I had everything, though the pasta wasn't worth it. I sat in front of the appetizers, so I was the server for those. I didn't mind, really, especially because next to Avery at the end of the table was this couple with a very young baby.
After we'd had the appetizers and salad, a photographer came in to get a picture. Now, remember, not everyone was in the room. I don't even think we'd gotten the others in the room at all when it became clear we weren't all going to fit in the picture. That was fine by me, as I was squished into a corner of the table. Somebody of dubious graduation status (he didn't have a nametag) suggested we go outside, so we did. We probably could have fit under the awning in front of Lou's, and the lighting was decent, but the photog said, "I know, let's go down to the Riverwalk by the fountain." Um, okay. It's two blocks away and nobody had coats. At least it was nice outside. We still ended up having to squish together to fit everyone in, and the back row of guys had to stand on the rim of the fountain. What's worse: The wind was blowing to the north, meaning all those guys were getting wet. I was pretty close to Lydia and really regretting that I'd eaten the onions in my salad. The good news? I should be smack-dab in the middle of the picture. I say that because I'm not sure the people on the edges are going to show up, but then I wasn't the photog. The guy took lots of pictures, both with a regular professional film camera, and one with a much smaller camera--it seriously looked like a cheap, one-time-use thing. The NCC official dude with the photog kept saying, "I'm sure it's a digital."
NCC dude made us stay in formation so we could write our names down in the right order, although the list was started on the photo's right-hand side. I just hope he remembers that. NCC dude said something about sending an email out if there was a digital pic of us, and somebody asked, "So when are we getting our biography books?" Someone else said, "Yeah, I didn't know what it was, but I bought one anyway." "Yeah, I didn't get a biography form!" Then dippy reunion girl Lauren said something about there not being one, so that pissed off a lot of people--"But we paid for those books!" Turns out that was NCC dude's fault--his office does a general reunion form for all the classes, and the office gives each reunion organizer the option of doing a bio book or not. Lauren had said no. The blurb still appeared on our sheet. Aha. NCC dude said he'd send out an email to everyone through the alumni info page or something asking for information from us to make a book. I have yet to receive anything, but that could be because I did send in bio info.
When we were outside, we started running into the people from the non-party room table and we talked with some of them. One girl came up to me and said, "Hi, I'm Amy, and I just wanted to say I work with someone with your name and I have a student with your name!" She teaches up in Richmond. (I already knew about them. See under "School or Learning-Related.")
Back in the room, Avery and I sat back down just as the pizzas were arriving. Perfect timing. We sat and munched and tried to remember who everyone was. Luckily for me, everyone Avery asked about, I knew, or at least knew of. My brain is a vault sometimes, and cluttering up space in there is useless information like the full names of a number of my college classmates. She'd be like, I think that person is Jeremy, and I'd give the last name. Or she'd point and go, who's that one? And I would tell her. Did I personally know most of those people? No. But maybe I'd had a class with them, or they were in the paper, or something. One person she definitely knew was a guy named Rick. Not only did she go to college with him, but she'd gone to high school with him. (They still never had any classes together.) His dad was one of my favorite profs. He came over and said hello to us, and he talked to Avery for about five minutes. It was actually perfect timing, because we were waiting for more sausage pizza; when he left, the pizza was there. :) A girl named Katy also came over to say hi. I remember her as one of those super-nice people who was always smiling. We had two classes together during our first term there, Intensive Composition and Painting I, so we saw a lot of each other then. She even sent me a Christmas card that year. She was also a piano student who took lessons with my piano teacher, so we saw each other at our end-of-term piano classes. It was nice to see her again.
Hal, the president of the college, came by to say hello. He was very proud of our class; apparently this was the first time a class's reunion attendance passed 50 (hence the reason for the outside table). He was holding, not wearing, an NCC baseball cap. To tell you how odd it is to see Hal without a cap, I've made the comment that my college tuition went toward new hats for Hal. He asked for questions from us, so someone asked, "Why aren't you wearing a hat?" He'd given one to Michelle LaGroue at her send-off party before the Miss America pageant. There were a few other questions, but Hal said, "Somebody ask me about fine arts!" Okay, someone took the bait. The college just acquired a nearby church and will put the art center in there. That's actually really nice, as the old art building sucks rocks. I would know. *flashes art minor* This paves the way for building the new fine arts center, which has been on the table for a number of years *cough since I was a student cough*. The art building is on one corner of a block, and on the opposite corner is Schoenherr Hall, this renovated house that has several offices; the old coffee shop, Coffee Dregs; and even art classes (my sculpture class was down there). They didn't want to touch Schoenherr because the person after whom it was named, Gus Schoenherr, was still alive and active in the NCC community. But they wanted the Fine Arts Center on that corner because of its proximity to downtown Naperville and its original parking garage (the crappy scary one, not the one by Lou's). Gus passed away a few years ago, which saddened me. He'd come into the lounge at school and say hello, then ask one of two questions:
1. "Do you know what the name of the building on the corner of Chicago and Ellsworth is? It's named after me!"
or
2. "Have you ever seen The Challenger down in the bookstore?" (It's one of those wooden solitaire games; the pegs, I swear, are Lite Brite lightbulbs.) "I invented those!" And sure enough, he'd have an example, and there was his name and address on the back of the package. I still find it hard to believe he *invented* the pegboard solitaire game, but whatever. He made a good couple million pennies off of it, so cool. A few of my friends bought the games and he autographed them.
Anyway, so now that Gus is gone and they have places to relocate the stuff in those buildings, all that's left is raising the money to build the new Fine Arts Center. We're about halfway there, apparently; we just need $10 million more! Hal has a specific donor in mind, but "This donor is looking for big contributions from the Class of '99! Who wants to join the President's Club (of donors)?" Um, my pizza's getting cold. One of the science people asked, "When are we going to get a new science center?" I only had a couple of classes there--including an English class--but the building's not that hot. It looks like a parking deck. I seriously thought it *was* a parking deck the first time I saw it. Hal's response was it was next in line after the Fine Arts Center. Translation: In about 20 years.
While Hal was talking to us, dippy reunion girl Lauren kept interjecting stuff about the "Class of '95," how the "Class of '95" was so great, yadda yadda yadda. Um, dear heart, we're the Class of '99. Class of '95 was high school. If she'd only done it once or twice, fine, she's a little confused. But no. She kept saying it over and over and over. Ah, class unity at its best: The whole room would yell, "Class of '99!" when she'd misspeak.
A lot of people left by nine, nine-thirty, heading off to local bars and whatever. Those of us remaining at ten got kicked out so the waitress could reset the room. Avery and I went outside and talked for a little while longer before heading for home.
This is where I'm amused at what else transpired that night. (Note: end of reunion blathering.)
I figured I'd be done by ten, it takes about half an hour to get home, I could watch SNL like I normally do on Saturday nights. I didn't bother to tape the show. Well, I didn't leave until 10:10. Cripes. And when I got home, dad was up and flipping channels. Okay, so I wouldn't get to watch SNL right away. I think I checked my email and saw part of the ball game, and when dad got back to Channel 5 it was time for Weekend Update, so we watched that. (It will never be the same. I wish they'd stop making references to Jimmy. But I digress.) I went upstairs to brush my teeth and go potty, and when I finished up it was time for Ashlee Simpson's second number. I sat on the floor and saw the behind-the-scenes commercial shot. It then took a while for them to get back to the show. Normally it's a couple ads, BTS shot, a few more ads, then performance/skit. No, this time several minutes passed before they got to her second song. I thought that was odd. Then I heard the beginning notes of the song...and then her voice came out, but she clearly wasn't singing.
(Shades of Diana Ross at World Cup '94. I was in it, BTW, and Diana's entrance was to walk through us--700 people--as we formed an arrow. "I'm Coming Out" boomed from the speakers and she wasn't ready for it, so her hand was in the same position as Ashlee's: down by her waist. Unlike Ashlee, though, Diana brought the microphone up to her lips and acted like nothing had happened. Oh, to be a diva.)
It was so bizarre: The not-sung vocals, the freaky dance, the walking offstage, the watching of her bandmates just standing there playing--"playing"?--the song. After a few moments of just the band, SNL cut to commercial, then stuck in a couple strange pre-taped bear skits that seemed to have been in the vault waiting for a moment such as this. Then, there was the whole end-of-show apology which just made it worse--honey, if every viewer heard your voice, don't go blaming the band. And please stop talking. She just rambled on and on when she honestly didn't need to say anything at all. Jude Law's sentence was short and sweet: "What can I say?" Plus he added an adorable shrug. Yeah.
So, I'm not going to go into a whole browbeating of Ashlee for using pre-taped vocals. That's been done so many times in the past week already. What I will say is this:
I've been there.
I've had god-awful performance that were so horrible I wanted to run screaming from the room. The kind where it's fascinating: so bad, but you can't stop listening. I've even been in a concert where we started a song off so horribly that the conductor stopped and restarted us. Seriously. That was in grade school, at least.
The performance that popped into my head after this was one of my flute choir concerts. We did a piece by a composer we'd liked; we'd done another piece by her for a previous concert. This second piece was based on old American legends; one song was about Paul Bunyan's blue ox, Babe. It was also on the difficult side; we'd had to skip the first movement and just do the second and third ones. The second one was very lyrical but involved massive counting. When we started the second movement, an older woman in the group just kind of flipped out. I believe she was the only one on her part, so she was on her own with no one to rely on. It seemed like she just plain stopped counting and didn't bother to listen to anyone else's part to get back in--say, listen for key changes. She just got in her own little world. I believe the flute choir director was directing that piece (she'd also play with us) and was frantically trying to get the woman back where she belonged, but she was just buried in her music. It was so horrible. And when it was done, she was like, I wonder what happened in that second movement? It took all I had not to scream at her, IT WAS ALL YOU, YOU STUPID MOO COW WITH BLINDERS ON! And this woman was a music major! Um, hello, you can't be that good of a musician if you royally screw up a piece and do nothing to try to get it back on track! Ugh. The worst part? My boss's wife was taking classes with the local cable station and wanted to profile us so that we'd get more recognition and hopefully more members. She was there taping us that night. I never learned if the tape made it to air. She also never showed it to me, which bummed me out--not that I wanted to see the performance, but she'd also interviewed some of us. I would have liked to see the interviews.
Well, anyway, that may have been the last flute choir performance ever, or the second-to-last; turnout was so poor that the director didn't feel like it was worth her time, plus "I'm not getting students out of it like I thought I would." Right. Because some of us weren't doing it for the fun of it or anything. Hell, I was basically her assistant the entire time of the flute choir. She claims she's the one who came up with the idea for starting a flute choir at school (it was a community ed thing based through NCC), when in fact we students had brought up the idea for one before she even started teaching there. She was a horrible conductor who didn't deal well with large groups of people, particularly kids. And, after the conversation in which she told me she was discontinuing the flute choir, I realized she was only in it for the money after all that time. It surprised me that she didn't make me pay for any of it. But since I worked at the music store, I was sort of the store liaison for the choir. I also helped out with the kids, and worked to keep them quiet and calm when we had junior flute choir (junior high school kids--damn, could they be annoying). But I did it because it meant I could keep playing, and I truly enjoyed working with those kids (see also: camp, teaching). Now I have no group with which to play.
No, I'm not bitter. I'm not bitter at all.
And I'm also not bitter that I didn't capture SNL on tape for posterity. Oh well.
Sorry for all the cross-refs. Maybe I just want y'all to read my old entries. ;)
Part 2 happened after I spent the morning with Jeremy, Darren, and their cohorts. After I came home and ate the pummelo (bet you forgot about that, eh? It's like a super-sized grapefruit). After my parents came home with a U-Haul filled with stuff from Lake Geneva just five minutes before I left again.
The five-year reunion is always held at Lou Malnati's. It's a Chicago-area pizza joint that, honestly, I can do without, but it's within walking distance of the college (and conveniently across the parking lot from my old job, but I digress). However, it's also a popular dining spot, and seeing how it was a Saturday night, that meant half of Naperville was downtown trying to eat.
I couldn't get a spot in the adjoining lot--surprise, surprise--so I went over to the five-story parking deck. It's kitty-corner from my old job. I used to have to park there, and I'm used to it only having maybe fifty cars in it. No, no, no--not on a Saturday. Saturday is when you're lucky to find any sort of parking spot at all. I took the first one I came across, which was about the size of a sardine can. This big ol' truck was supposedly in the slot next to it, but both of its passenger-side tires were across the double yellow divider lines. Still, I was able to squeeze my Camry in and get out. That's when I realized the person on the other side of me wouldn't be able to get in his car--whoops. Well, unless the driver was a tapeworm. Back in the car, try to get equally in between the truck and the other vehicle. It was definitely better, but I still worried my car would get whacked by a door.
To Lou's. I had my name badge, I said I was an alumni, I was directed to the back. I said a mental "Ha, ha!" to the numerous people standing in the foyer/outside. But then, I couldn't get in the party room. No, really, the people who were there ahead of me were crowded in the doorway greeting each other and not letting anyone pass. Great. Thanks. There are windows to the room, and I could see Avery inside. We waved to each other but otherwise we couldn't say anything. Finally the people in the doorway--remember, college graduates--moved out of the way and I got in. Avery and I sat down at the table almost in the corner.
The table is set up in a U-shape. When you walk in the room, one part of the U is to your right; the bottom part of the U is on the far side of the room, and the other part is across from you. There are serving tables on the left wall. I would say the U seats 50 people. We did not fill all the chairs in there, but there were people who had to sit outside the room. Of course, those were the people I sort of knew. In the room: who knows? You mean to tell me I went to college with these people? Okay, so I did know some people in there; Jeremy, Darren, Dave, Lydia, and a few others were on the near part of the U. Avery and I were on the far part, across from the door. The people near us, never saw them before. Rats. Because I love hanging out with loud obnoxious drunk people. They made it really hard for me to hear Avery, who speaks in softer tones. Dude, I'm probably borderline ADD; don't throw stuff like that in my mix!
Remember how I complained about dinner being $20? The good news is that we did get a good amount of food for the price. We had appetizers (fried zucchini, mozzarella sticks, cheddar cubes, and mushrooms); salad; pizza (cheese, pepperoni, or sausage); pasta (which was weird--sweet tomato sauce, perhaps?); and dessert (a scoop of vanilla ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry; the surprise was that there was a soft chocolate chip cookie under the ice cream). Definitely doable. I had everything, though the pasta wasn't worth it. I sat in front of the appetizers, so I was the server for those. I didn't mind, really, especially because next to Avery at the end of the table was this couple with a very young baby.
After we'd had the appetizers and salad, a photographer came in to get a picture. Now, remember, not everyone was in the room. I don't even think we'd gotten the others in the room at all when it became clear we weren't all going to fit in the picture. That was fine by me, as I was squished into a corner of the table. Somebody of dubious graduation status (he didn't have a nametag) suggested we go outside, so we did. We probably could have fit under the awning in front of Lou's, and the lighting was decent, but the photog said, "I know, let's go down to the Riverwalk by the fountain." Um, okay. It's two blocks away and nobody had coats. At least it was nice outside. We still ended up having to squish together to fit everyone in, and the back row of guys had to stand on the rim of the fountain. What's worse: The wind was blowing to the north, meaning all those guys were getting wet. I was pretty close to Lydia and really regretting that I'd eaten the onions in my salad. The good news? I should be smack-dab in the middle of the picture. I say that because I'm not sure the people on the edges are going to show up, but then I wasn't the photog. The guy took lots of pictures, both with a regular professional film camera, and one with a much smaller camera--it seriously looked like a cheap, one-time-use thing. The NCC official dude with the photog kept saying, "I'm sure it's a digital."
NCC dude made us stay in formation so we could write our names down in the right order, although the list was started on the photo's right-hand side. I just hope he remembers that. NCC dude said something about sending an email out if there was a digital pic of us, and somebody asked, "So when are we getting our biography books?" Someone else said, "Yeah, I didn't know what it was, but I bought one anyway." "Yeah, I didn't get a biography form!" Then dippy reunion girl Lauren said something about there not being one, so that pissed off a lot of people--"But we paid for those books!" Turns out that was NCC dude's fault--his office does a general reunion form for all the classes, and the office gives each reunion organizer the option of doing a bio book or not. Lauren had said no. The blurb still appeared on our sheet. Aha. NCC dude said he'd send out an email to everyone through the alumni info page or something asking for information from us to make a book. I have yet to receive anything, but that could be because I did send in bio info.
When we were outside, we started running into the people from the non-party room table and we talked with some of them. One girl came up to me and said, "Hi, I'm Amy, and I just wanted to say I work with someone with your name and I have a student with your name!" She teaches up in Richmond. (I already knew about them. See under "School or Learning-Related.")
Back in the room, Avery and I sat back down just as the pizzas were arriving. Perfect timing. We sat and munched and tried to remember who everyone was. Luckily for me, everyone Avery asked about, I knew, or at least knew of. My brain is a vault sometimes, and cluttering up space in there is useless information like the full names of a number of my college classmates. She'd be like, I think that person is Jeremy, and I'd give the last name. Or she'd point and go, who's that one? And I would tell her. Did I personally know most of those people? No. But maybe I'd had a class with them, or they were in the paper, or something. One person she definitely knew was a guy named Rick. Not only did she go to college with him, but she'd gone to high school with him. (They still never had any classes together.) His dad was one of my favorite profs. He came over and said hello to us, and he talked to Avery for about five minutes. It was actually perfect timing, because we were waiting for more sausage pizza; when he left, the pizza was there. :) A girl named Katy also came over to say hi. I remember her as one of those super-nice people who was always smiling. We had two classes together during our first term there, Intensive Composition and Painting I, so we saw a lot of each other then. She even sent me a Christmas card that year. She was also a piano student who took lessons with my piano teacher, so we saw each other at our end-of-term piano classes. It was nice to see her again.
Hal, the president of the college, came by to say hello. He was very proud of our class; apparently this was the first time a class's reunion attendance passed 50 (hence the reason for the outside table). He was holding, not wearing, an NCC baseball cap. To tell you how odd it is to see Hal without a cap, I've made the comment that my college tuition went toward new hats for Hal. He asked for questions from us, so someone asked, "Why aren't you wearing a hat?" He'd given one to Michelle LaGroue at her send-off party before the Miss America pageant. There were a few other questions, but Hal said, "Somebody ask me about fine arts!" Okay, someone took the bait. The college just acquired a nearby church and will put the art center in there. That's actually really nice, as the old art building sucks rocks. I would know. *flashes art minor* This paves the way for building the new fine arts center, which has been on the table for a number of years *cough since I was a student cough*. The art building is on one corner of a block, and on the opposite corner is Schoenherr Hall, this renovated house that has several offices; the old coffee shop, Coffee Dregs; and even art classes (my sculpture class was down there). They didn't want to touch Schoenherr because the person after whom it was named, Gus Schoenherr, was still alive and active in the NCC community. But they wanted the Fine Arts Center on that corner because of its proximity to downtown Naperville and its original parking garage (the crappy scary one, not the one by Lou's). Gus passed away a few years ago, which saddened me. He'd come into the lounge at school and say hello, then ask one of two questions:
1. "Do you know what the name of the building on the corner of Chicago and Ellsworth is? It's named after me!"
or
2. "Have you ever seen The Challenger down in the bookstore?" (It's one of those wooden solitaire games; the pegs, I swear, are Lite Brite lightbulbs.) "I invented those!" And sure enough, he'd have an example, and there was his name and address on the back of the package. I still find it hard to believe he *invented* the pegboard solitaire game, but whatever. He made a good couple million pennies off of it, so cool. A few of my friends bought the games and he autographed them.
Anyway, so now that Gus is gone and they have places to relocate the stuff in those buildings, all that's left is raising the money to build the new Fine Arts Center. We're about halfway there, apparently; we just need $10 million more! Hal has a specific donor in mind, but "This donor is looking for big contributions from the Class of '99! Who wants to join the President's Club (of donors)?" Um, my pizza's getting cold. One of the science people asked, "When are we going to get a new science center?" I only had a couple of classes there--including an English class--but the building's not that hot. It looks like a parking deck. I seriously thought it *was* a parking deck the first time I saw it. Hal's response was it was next in line after the Fine Arts Center. Translation: In about 20 years.
While Hal was talking to us, dippy reunion girl Lauren kept interjecting stuff about the "Class of '95," how the "Class of '95" was so great, yadda yadda yadda. Um, dear heart, we're the Class of '99. Class of '95 was high school. If she'd only done it once or twice, fine, she's a little confused. But no. She kept saying it over and over and over. Ah, class unity at its best: The whole room would yell, "Class of '99!" when she'd misspeak.
A lot of people left by nine, nine-thirty, heading off to local bars and whatever. Those of us remaining at ten got kicked out so the waitress could reset the room. Avery and I went outside and talked for a little while longer before heading for home.
This is where I'm amused at what else transpired that night. (Note: end of reunion blathering.)
I figured I'd be done by ten, it takes about half an hour to get home, I could watch SNL like I normally do on Saturday nights. I didn't bother to tape the show. Well, I didn't leave until 10:10. Cripes. And when I got home, dad was up and flipping channels. Okay, so I wouldn't get to watch SNL right away. I think I checked my email and saw part of the ball game, and when dad got back to Channel 5 it was time for Weekend Update, so we watched that. (It will never be the same. I wish they'd stop making references to Jimmy. But I digress.) I went upstairs to brush my teeth and go potty, and when I finished up it was time for Ashlee Simpson's second number. I sat on the floor and saw the behind-the-scenes commercial shot. It then took a while for them to get back to the show. Normally it's a couple ads, BTS shot, a few more ads, then performance/skit. No, this time several minutes passed before they got to her second song. I thought that was odd. Then I heard the beginning notes of the song...and then her voice came out, but she clearly wasn't singing.
(Shades of Diana Ross at World Cup '94. I was in it, BTW, and Diana's entrance was to walk through us--700 people--as we formed an arrow. "I'm Coming Out" boomed from the speakers and she wasn't ready for it, so her hand was in the same position as Ashlee's: down by her waist. Unlike Ashlee, though, Diana brought the microphone up to her lips and acted like nothing had happened. Oh, to be a diva.)
It was so bizarre: The not-sung vocals, the freaky dance, the walking offstage, the watching of her bandmates just standing there playing--"playing"?--the song. After a few moments of just the band, SNL cut to commercial, then stuck in a couple strange pre-taped bear skits that seemed to have been in the vault waiting for a moment such as this. Then, there was the whole end-of-show apology which just made it worse--honey, if every viewer heard your voice, don't go blaming the band. And please stop talking. She just rambled on and on when she honestly didn't need to say anything at all. Jude Law's sentence was short and sweet: "What can I say?" Plus he added an adorable shrug. Yeah.
So, I'm not going to go into a whole browbeating of Ashlee for using pre-taped vocals. That's been done so many times in the past week already. What I will say is this:
I've been there.
I've had god-awful performance that were so horrible I wanted to run screaming from the room. The kind where it's fascinating: so bad, but you can't stop listening. I've even been in a concert where we started a song off so horribly that the conductor stopped and restarted us. Seriously. That was in grade school, at least.
The performance that popped into my head after this was one of my flute choir concerts. We did a piece by a composer we'd liked; we'd done another piece by her for a previous concert. This second piece was based on old American legends; one song was about Paul Bunyan's blue ox, Babe. It was also on the difficult side; we'd had to skip the first movement and just do the second and third ones. The second one was very lyrical but involved massive counting. When we started the second movement, an older woman in the group just kind of flipped out. I believe she was the only one on her part, so she was on her own with no one to rely on. It seemed like she just plain stopped counting and didn't bother to listen to anyone else's part to get back in--say, listen for key changes. She just got in her own little world. I believe the flute choir director was directing that piece (she'd also play with us) and was frantically trying to get the woman back where she belonged, but she was just buried in her music. It was so horrible. And when it was done, she was like, I wonder what happened in that second movement? It took all I had not to scream at her, IT WAS ALL YOU, YOU STUPID MOO COW WITH BLINDERS ON! And this woman was a music major! Um, hello, you can't be that good of a musician if you royally screw up a piece and do nothing to try to get it back on track! Ugh. The worst part? My boss's wife was taking classes with the local cable station and wanted to profile us so that we'd get more recognition and hopefully more members. She was there taping us that night. I never learned if the tape made it to air. She also never showed it to me, which bummed me out--not that I wanted to see the performance, but she'd also interviewed some of us. I would have liked to see the interviews.
Well, anyway, that may have been the last flute choir performance ever, or the second-to-last; turnout was so poor that the director didn't feel like it was worth her time, plus "I'm not getting students out of it like I thought I would." Right. Because some of us weren't doing it for the fun of it or anything. Hell, I was basically her assistant the entire time of the flute choir. She claims she's the one who came up with the idea for starting a flute choir at school (it was a community ed thing based through NCC), when in fact we students had brought up the idea for one before she even started teaching there. She was a horrible conductor who didn't deal well with large groups of people, particularly kids. And, after the conversation in which she told me she was discontinuing the flute choir, I realized she was only in it for the money after all that time. It surprised me that she didn't make me pay for any of it. But since I worked at the music store, I was sort of the store liaison for the choir. I also helped out with the kids, and worked to keep them quiet and calm when we had junior flute choir (junior high school kids--damn, could they be annoying). But I did it because it meant I could keep playing, and I truly enjoyed working with those kids (see also: camp, teaching). Now I have no group with which to play.
No, I'm not bitter. I'm not bitter at all.
And I'm also not bitter that I didn't capture SNL on tape for posterity. Oh well.
Sorry for all the cross-refs. Maybe I just want y'all to read my old entries. ;)