The Musician... see you among the stars

My cousin Joey’s wife just enrolled in college and I asked her how she went about doing that. She explained all in details and told me that basically financial aid was payig her to go to college. Wow! She then presented all the information to me, and suggested I do it also. I was worried about going to college at my age, but Joey’s wife was 33 years old and the college is paying her. Having no direction at this time I decided to give it a try. Thus, I did the same thing and enrolled in college and I was accepted. Since I wanted to stay in music I thought that I would get a degree in music and teach it. This way I could make a living and still be in music.

It was weird enrolling into college at my age. I was now 36 years old and I wondered where all the years went. I had no money, but Joey’s wife told me that if I applied for financial aid that they would pay me, and that I could get some good money from the college to sustain me. She told me that they were giving money to students like crazy. The college, Kingsborough Community College in Manhattan Beach Brooklyn was brand new and beautiful. The bus up the block from my house went directly there. It was easy to get to and convenient. I enrolled as a music major and I was surprised to find that there were many students my age. A few of the reasons for that were: There was an 802 program and a nursing program. The 802 program deals with music. The local 802 musician union had a special program for musicians that attracted older guys, and the nursing program attracted older woman. Therefore, It was wonderful to take part in a college where at my age, I didn’t feel like I was the only one. The college quickly enrolled me on the premise that I would receive financial aid. I started the classes and I quickly adapted to it. The teachers and fellow students were very nice and I received great vibes from everyone. The girls were young and hot looking, and I knew I was going to enjoy it.

I had quickly applied for financial aid by presenting all the forms. In about two weeks, I had been refused financial aid. I freaked out and proceeded to the financial aid office to learn why. They told me that I was refused, because I was living with my mother. I told them that my mother was not supporting me with money in anyway. They didn’t accept that. Frustrated and confused I desperately asked to meet with the Director of Financial Aid. They had set-up an appointment. In a few days I met the Director of Financial Aid. He was a black man. I told him the story of my situation and how I needed the money to attend college. I also told him that I would have to drop out if I didn’t receive financial aid. The Director was very nice and very concerned. He was not offering me very much information, except that he hinted in a way that, financial aid is mostly for blacks. Therefore I told him straight-out, “Hey man, It is not only black people that are very poor. I’m very poor also and I am white. I have no connection of any kind with anyone who could make my life easier in this world. One needs to know someone to get ahead in this world, and I know no one. My father was a barber and my mother was a seamstress. They were Italian immigrants without any connection to the Mafia in any way. Therefore, I need to see the way. Help me please.” The Director calmly pick-up my form loked at it and told me that the only way a person could get full benefits is that they needed to check all these boxes no. You checked a couple of the boxes yes, and therefore you were refused the financial aid. That is all I could tell you. I stood there for a moment staring at him while I was thinking. I had just realized that in a round about way, the man showed me the way. I had shaken his hand with warmth and thanked him for seeing me, and I left his office.

I then got some new financial aid forms and looked at the boxes. I needed to check all these boxes, no, to get full benefits. One of the boxes asked if I was living with my parents. Obviously I needed another address. The other box asked if I was sharing my living area with another person. I checked all the boxes no, but now I needed another address. I went to see Richie wheelchair.

I asked Richie wheelchair if he would let me use his address for financial aid. Richie had quickly said yes. I asked Richie that I needed a notarized note that I pay him rent. Richie and I quickly hopped into his Ford GTO and got the note notarized. With everything correctly in hand, I proceeded once again back to the college and presented the new forms. I was hoping that they would not spot my bad credit from the credit card or remember the first financial aid application. I had continued to attend classes even though I knew that it was dependent on getting the financial aid. I received a letter at Richie house a month later. It stated that I have been awarded finacial aid and that I will receive full benefits. I was in. Richie wheelchair and I celebrated. Richie was extremely happy to see me happy. What a wonderful friend. I had received full payment for my tuition plus $600.00 cash every six months for books and supplies. I had also received $1200.00 each semester for work study benefits. Work study is finding a job on campus and working at an hourly-rate. Fantastic!

I went to the music department to look for some work study. The told me that they had a position in the music library. I went to apply for it and from what I could see it would be a very boring job. I held off to try and find something else. I had heard that there was a photography department and so I went there. I met the director and I asked him for a job and he told me yes. The director was a wonderful guy. I would be a lab assistant working at the maximum 20 hours a week.

Someone recommended that I take part in some student activities. The first thing I did after I had started my classes was to visit the student activities office and introduce myself. Shortly thereafter, I was knee deep in student activities. I attended Kingsborough Community College for the next two and a half years and finally graduated. Almost all the teachers were wonderful except for my Journalism teacher. That I will explain later. I had become a star in the photography department. I had won numerous awards in photography, including the President Purchase Award, and I was the Editor-in-Chief of the 1981 Yearbook, Odyssey. I was also a star student in the Student Activities Department which I obtained a Gold Star Award. I had made a tremendous amount of friends with the teachers and students. Everyone knew me throughout the college.

I also was the musical director to the college performance of
Godspell. The play was in rehearsal in the Theater Department and they needed a band. They had spread the word around the Music Department, but know one would get involved. It seems that the Music Department didn’t want their musical students to take part in a Theater Department play. I always do what I want, and I always buck the system. I went to the Theater Department and spoke with the director of the play, Mary Crowley. She was a most wonderful lady. She asked me to put together a band. I looked around the Music Department and found some other people willing to buck the system. I then learned all the music to Godspell, and translated it to the band. During the rehearsals, I had noticed a guy standing and listening at the doorway entrance. He was there at every rehearsal. Finally, I walked over to him and asked who he was. He introduced himself as Mitch Pabon and said that he was just a student who was interested in what was going on. I told him to come in the room and sit down. Mitch loved to watch me arrange the band. He found it most enjoyable. Mitch and I then became good friends. Mitch lived close to my house about six blocks away. I went to his house and met his father, Joe. It was weird, because I knew that Mitch was a Latino. However, his father was Italian. Then Mitch told me that he was adopted. I told Mitch that he should call him his step-father instead of your father. This way things don’t get confused. Mitch told me that he considered him to be his father. I said that it was fine whatever he thought, but when he explains it should be step-father. Mitch told that he met his real father and didn’t like him very much. He didn’t show him much love when he met him. This got into a heavy discussion which was not appropriate at this time so I dropped the conversation. However, I realized that Mitch was very close, in his mind, to his step-father. He seemed somewhat nice, but I could tell from the way he asked Mitch to do things, that he had tendencies of being a control-freak. Mitch’s father was starting a van of hire business.

Once the “Godspell,” band was happening, I borrowed a banjo from my nephew Thomas along with his electric Telecaster. I played
acoustic and electric guitars and I played the banjo on a couple of the songs. Two days before the opening of the play we were discussing credits. Mary Crowley told me that she was giving the credit of Musical Director of the show to this guy whom was apart of the play before I arrived. That started an argument. I had located and hired all the members of the band. I put the band together and rehearsed them. I also played my guitar with the individual singers of the show. I rehearsed them over and over for days so that they would be very sharp on stage. I told Mary that I would not accept giving a musical director credit to anyone else. I did all the work and I deserve it. Mary then split the musical director credits between the both of us. I was the Musical Director of the band and he was Musical Director of the actors. I agreed with that and the show went on. The play went off without a hitch and it was beautifully done. I had a wonderful time performing again, and meeting and working with all these wonderful student actors. Mary Crowley honored me with a letter of recommendation.

My mother knew that I was graduating. When I attended the graduation she was no where to be found. Then suddenly by surprise, my mother appeared. She had never come to any performance during my musical career, but she attended my college graduation. I was very happy to have her standing next to me and I was personally happy with the accomplishments and connections I had made at Kingsborough.

I took a journalism class and I did photography newspaper, “Scepter.” The professor of my Journalism class was the person in charge of the college newspaper. I had co-wrote a story for the college newspaper with a fellow female classmate. We worked hard on the story, but the female co-writer started having sex with this teacher’s best student. When the story got published the girl didn’t give me any credit for my part in the story. Instead she gave the credit to the teacher’s friend whom she started fucking. When I complained about the situation to the teacher, he refused to do anything about it. What happened to free press?

A few weeks later, the Iranian hostages of Americans were released and coming home through New York. I and another female student went to the parade on Wall Street to cover the story for the college newspaper. We got the most wonderful incredible shots of the event. When we returned, we put together a wonderful story and the same teacher refused to publish it in the college newspaper. At the same time I was Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook, and I published the story in the 1981 Yearbook, “Odyssey.” Again, what happened to free press? If I hadn’t been Editor-in Chief of the Yearbook, all the work and hassle of putting together that story would have been wasted. I confronted that teacher about his fucked-up attitude and he gave me a “D” for the journalism class.

I didn’t realize until I became the Editor-in-Chief of the college yearbook of how many Jews there were in the college. They were completely overwhelming. There were two blacks that I know of and a few Italians and Hispanics. The remainder were mostly all Jews. 95% of the employees were Jewish. I had also learned that they were all brothers, cousins, or relatives of one another. If there was an opening at the college for a teacher’s position, then they would put an ad in the paper. The law requires the college to advertise the position. They already know who is going to have the position. That decision was made before the position became available. It is usually a cousin or brother or relative. They then conduct interviews of as many as twenty prospective fools. The fools think that they might have a chance for the job. Once the interviews are finished then they make their decision. The decision is their cousin, brother, or relative. The whole wasted process is because there is an Equal Opportunity Law because the college is apart of the City University.

The Budget scam is just as corrupt. In order for the college departments to spend their supply budgets they must put their needs up for bid to suspected suppliers of their choice. They call two suppliers for their bids. Once they have their bids then they can call the supplier they want to use, usually a Jewish supplier of course (the Jews only do business with the Jews), and then the tell that supplier what the two bids were. The paper work goes out and Walla, the supplier they wanted returns his copy of the paperwork with the bid he was told and gets the bid.

I didn’t like the whole system although I was trying to be apart of it. I had never thought of it clearly at the time. I just thought that it was just business as usual. I didn’t realize until later on of the corruptness of the system. There are many things that one does in life that they do not realize until later on.

I asked my mother who was now getting very old to buy me a car for graduation. My mother was finding it very difficult to walk to the avenue to shop for food because of her increasing arthritis. I told her that I would drive her around to shop for food. I told her that in the long run, the car would pay for itself. I just needed three thousand dollars. I wanted so much to get the car of my dreams, a 1978 Ford Thunderbird. In 78, when the car was released, I completely feel in love with it, but it was too expensive. Now in 1983, it was only $3000.00 used. My mother agreed to buy me the car and I bought one.

Before I had graduated Kingsborough, I had applied for entrance at New York University. The college of my dreams. I had a great grade average at Kingsborough including mostly “A’s” in music. I had the necessary letters of recommendation, and I was accepted. Now I had to hope that Financial Aid would cover the tuition. I sat with one of the people in the Financial Office trying to put together a package. The tuition was expensive. Finally, their final figures were $200.00 short of what I needed. I told them that I couldn’t come-up with the money. I was disappointed that I couldn’t attend the college and that I was only $200.00 short. I was getting ready to leave the office and the Financial Aid officer said that they could give me a $300.00 guaranteed student loan. I accepted the loan and I was in. I auditioned for the Music School of NYU, and I was accepted. I was happy that my dream had finally came true.

What a rip off! Out of my $300.00 guaranteed student loan I wound-up with only $200.00. With all the interest and taxes taken out I was left with two bills. What kind of loan is that? What a racket! I get the same rates as the Mafia or is the bank now the new Mafia? The banks are out-of -hand!

I had the summer off to relax and have a good time before starting school again in September. My cousin Joey drapes opened a recording studio. Actually, he found a nice size store room located next to a Laundromat. He rented it and turned it into a recording studio. My cousin was for a few years, buying hot musical instruments. He brought all the instruments into the studio and then he went out and bought a mixing console and an eight track tape deck. He then bought echo units and such to compliment it into an actual studio made for business. I went to visit Joey at his new studio and he had put Louie Valdes, the guy that recorded my song, “Do You Want To Love Me.” I hung out at the studio with Louie and Joey every night. It turns out that the studio wasn’t really a studio, but a hangout place where the boys can get away from their wives. We all hung out often, and had Dunkin Donuts and coffee together.

Louie and I had become good friends. Louie was a very funny guy. I didn’t know that Louie was wearing a hairpiece. It looked so good I couldn’t tell. I could always tell when someone was wearing a hairpiece, but Louie’s was perfect and undetectable. I told Louie that I wore one in Colorado and we had a big discussion about hairpieces. He told me that the one he was wearing was a full piece held down with tape. Then he removed it to show me and he suggested I get one. He told me that his sister worked in a beauty parlor and that she could get me one for about $75.00 wholesale. I asked him to order me one and I would try it. He eventually got me one and it looked great on me. I looked about ten years younger. However, I wasn’t ready to wear it because I was still going to school. I would wait a while.

Joey also had other friends who were attracted to the studio environment, and who eventually stopped by from time to time. One of these characters, (I call them characters because they each had a sort of odd mentality) was Mark. Mark was a former drummer who now is an accountant. He is very Jewish. He has the heavy Jewish look and talk. He was also very hilarious and a wonderful guy. He was divorced with one child, a son. Mark fit right into the insanity around Joey Drapes studio once he appeared. He also often brought Dunkin Donuts with coffee. When Joey, Louie, and Mark were all together they would be saying crazy stupid things and stories to one another and the insane laughing would then begin. Even though I was there I could never take part in their mindless pranks and discussions. My cousin Joey had special names for everyone just as he did in high school. Actually, this studio was a reflection of Joey’s adolescents, and he ran it that way. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but I was interested in the studio and equipment.

A new kind of musical interface was appearing, and it was called MIDI. The letters stand for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. This new technology made musical instruments, that had this connection, able to talk with one another. It was brand new. Joey had a drum machine and a small keyboard which had these connections, but he didn’t know how it worked. No one else knew how it worked either. I however, was interested in this new technology. It was raved about in magazines that it would eventually replace musicians. That was great for me because I was a writer and I couldn’t afford to hire musicians. Musicians were also unreliable. I would love a technology that would eventually get rid of them. I then read the manuals to the instruments that had MIDI very thoroughly over and over. Joey was excited at my interest in them, because he didn’t have the time or interest to figure it out on his own. Joey then gave me a key to the studio, and showed me how to turn on all the equipment. With the key in hand I stayed in the studio all night long trying to figure out how this MIDI stuff worked, and I eventually did. All the future instruments would contain this new interface which would eventually hook into computers. I then showed my cousin Joey how it worked and although he wasn’t really interested himself, he was interested in building this new technology into the studio. However, not very many instruments had the MIDI hook-up so for now we had to wait.

I started NYU and it was tough. They gave me eighteen credits which is a lot and very difficult. I had to take the train to school. A forty minute ride, one way. I had to be in class at 8:00am. My classes were scattered around the village area. I had to walk 5 minutes to some classes, and I was slightly late for classes many times because of the walk.

I took part in the student activities at NYU. I did the same thing as I did at Kingsborough. I walked into the Student Activities office and introduced myself. After awhile everyone loved me. I also got a position as a photographer for the New York University newspaper in which I had many photographs displayed.

The music school was very costly. I had to rent a lot of instruments along with buying the mouth pieces that accompanied them. I was going through money real fast. This school is expensive. However, I hung in there with no problem.

I had seen in the window of one of the stores in Manhattan that the company Casio had a little mini keyboard about the size of two packs of cigarettes that could record a melody with drums. It was fantastic at $60.00, and I bought one. It was so cute and it helps me immensely at school.

I met a beautiful Hispanic girl in my musical instrument class named Nancy and a beautiful girl with tremendous tits in my theory class named Carey. They both played the flute. Since I had written two pieces of music for flute, I had asked each of them if they wanted to play flute with me on these musical scores. They had both said, "Yes!" This was a great opportunity for me to get to know them better. They each did not know or ever know one another. I practiced with sexy Nancy in a quiet hallway. I also practiced with big tits Carey at her apartment. The both girls loved the music and flirted with me constantly. Carey was a professional music student and she played a great flute. I coached her by telling her how I wanted my song to be performed, and it took her a long while to get the sustained notes down. Nancy wasn’t very good at playing the flute like Carey, but I wanted to fuck Nancy very badly. She was so fine.

Eventually, Carey got the flute part down very well. I brought her to my Cousin Joey’s studio and recorded, Truth, Love, and Happiness. Then I got in touch with Tommy Napoli who had now moved into Manhattan with his wife at First Ave. between 7th and 8th Street. I asked Tommy if he would play the drums while I played the bass on the song that Carey and I recorded. Tommy was honored and we went and put the drums and the bass on the song. Truth, Love, and Happiness was now on tape and it sounded very good considering how we did it. I then let Carey here the final result and she was very surprised and impressed.

My first semester at NYU was near the end and I decided that the school was too expensive for me to attend. Nancy told me that she had the same problem and that she was going to transfer to Brooklyn College. I told Nancy that I was going to transfer to Brooklyn College also and that I would run into her there sometime. Nancy had a boyfriend that she lived with in Staten Island, but I still wanted to fuck her badly. I knew that I could, and it was only a matter of time.

The decision was made and I was going to transfer to Brooklyn College. I had spoke with many teachers at Kingsborough who told me that I didn’t need to spend all that money on the expensive tuition of NYU. I would get the same amount of money that I was getting at Kingsborough. The Director of the Art Department told me that if I transferred to Brooklyn College that he would hire me back into the Art Department part time until I got my degree. Then he would hire me full time. I thought this was great and so the decision was made.

My theory teacher at NYU was very sad to see me go. This theory class was a very tough class at eight o’clock in the morning. The teacher gave me an “A.” I had received good grades at NYU in music, but my Sociology teacher, a female, hated my guts and gave me an “F.” She tormented me throughout the semester. NYU was also very Jewish. All the teachers and directors knew each other and they all, throughout the other colleges, knew one another. I had then realized that it was a close-knit-group. The University system, public and private was a big closely knit and connected organization and 95% Jewish. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was like that throughout the United States.

I started Brooklyn College and I quickly noticed that the majority of the teachers in the music department were woman. The Chancellor of the music department was a woman. I didn’t like it. Woman who hold positions of power are very difficult toward men since the women’s movement had progressed a few years earlier. In marriage, most women try to control their men as well as, the family. I see that happening all around with my friends, my family, and others I come in contact with. If some women don’t get what they want from a man then she doesn’t open her legs for the marriage. Most men think with their cocks and therefore, will give-in and do what they want. Some women then apply that attitude toward their careers. However, the attitude becomes more exaggerated. Females believe they have to prove themselves, and therefore, they become unreasonable and very undiplomatic. “Bitches” is the new name of this era. I am a man in the true sense of a man, and when they feel I’m a man, and boy can they feel it, they either love me or hate me. I personally don’t believe a woman can equal a man in anyway. I had dealings with men and had no problem. Yet I notice that women are mostly unreasonable. However, some women are wonderful to deal with, but there are very few. In general, I refuse to take any shit from a woman nor will I ever take their advice. I find them incorrect in their suggestions to other people. Now I had to deal with all these woman music teachers. Kingsborough was great, because almost all the teachers were men.

My first six months, January to June, was very wonderful. I had no problems. I got worried a little when my female music history teacher asked me if she could borrow five dollars from me. I had lent it to her and she never paid it back. She treated me very nicely in class and in the end, I wound-up with an “A.” I was also back at Kingsborough working in the photography studio and the art labs. That to was going very nicely.

I had never seen Nancy on campus, and I was wondering if she had ever transferred to Brooklyn College. I looked for her over and over, but she was nowhere to be found. There were no interests that I ever ran into. I needed to take some classes during the summer to catch-up on some of the credits I lost during the transfer, but I decided to take the summer off. I had Joey Drape’s recording studio to play around in.

During the summer, one of the biggest music stores in New York, Sam Ash, was holding a MIDI show in Manhattan. All the retailers of MIDI instruments and computers were going to attend. Joey, Louie, and I all went to the show. Some of the keyboards were really cool like the Yamaha DX7. It sounded great. The other thing that was very impressive was the Artari Computer with Dr. T’s music software. Joey was so impressed with the same stuff that he worked very hard to buy the computer and software. Once he obtained it I had to learn to use it so I could teach Joey. He also bought a MIDI music module with hundreds of instruments inside of it which can be triggered by the computer. I was in heaven! The way I learned to use it was to actually write some songs. I had all the musical instruments at my disposal through the mini module and the drum machine. After awhile, everything was working together very well. I had showed Joey how it all worked and I let him hear what the result was. He was blown away. However, He was working very hard all day and he had little time to play around with all of it. That didn’t bother him because his main objective of the studio was to hang-out when he wanted away from his wife and to fool around with all the guys. Louie was listening to the writing I was doing on the computer, and he also was very impressed. He couldn’t believe how fast I was writing songs once I had the computer down. By the end of the summer I had written eight songs on the computer along with all the arrangements. The songs were: I WILL BE YOUR WOMAN, WITH YOU, COLOR, LOCKIN-UP MY DOOR, YOU COLOR MY LIFE, DANZA FUNK, I’M A BAP, and DANCE TO THE MUSIC. I knew I could write if I only had the music at my disposal, and this was the proof. I was getting ready to start college again, and I was hoping someday to make these seven songs a reality by finding a vocalist to sing them. However, now I was starting to return to college. I had to speak with a director to find out what classes I needed to get my Bachelors Degree.

A week before classes, I had made an appointment with one of the directors. He was a man who was very admired at the college and who would be retiring very soon. He straighten-out my credit list very nicely. I then had noticed that I was going to graduate very soon. Maybe by the end of next summer if I went to summer school next year. This made me very happy.

I returned to Kingsborough to sign in for the new semester of work. I wasn’t getting paid too much. I was making about $ 250.00 every two weeks part-time. However, I couldn’t put a price on the connections I was making with people from the school. They all told me that I was definitely going to be employed at the college full time when I graduated.

I started classes again at Brooklyn College and I had a couple of bad teachers. Look out! My female history teacher was a bitch. She had it all written all over her face. She immediately recognized that I was a man, and she started to break my balls. I tried to be as humble as possible in her class, and it was difficult. I also had a bad teacher who was a man. He taught conducting. I was a good conductor, and he didn’t like that I picked-up everything very well. I think he was jealous of me. However, the teacher was a great musician and conductor. I think that he was somehow frustrated. He did mention in class how it was very difficult to get a job as a conductor of an orchestra, because the orchestra was funded privately in the States. The people who funded the orchestra chose who would be the conductor. Therefore, a conductor had to have a connection with a backer. In Europe, the orchestra is funded by the government (people), and therefore any one has a chance.

The women history teacher got worse and worse as time went on, but I hung in there. She gave us a final report to do and my topic was the relation between Mozart and Haydn. I did a beautiful extensive report on the two. When I presented it in the class she cut me off every moment to interfere with my presentation to tell me, “It’s not Mo zart (Moe Zart). It’s Moz art (Motz Art).” I said to myself, “Fuck you Bitch. Who gives a fuck.” I just humbly pronounced it the way she wanted. Apparently, she had a crush on Mozart. If he was alive then she would fuck him madly. I thought this teacher was a fucking nut. I tried to explain the relationship with Haydn and Mozart and she was disagreeing with everything that I was saying, and what I put in my written report. I got the information in the library from the books. I asked her, “Are the books wrong?” She replied that some of the information was incorrect. I again humbly went along with her and she eventually gave me a “C.” However, I think that she felt my hidden dislike of her attitude, and I think that she told the other women teachers to watch out for me. I had felt a change in attitude toward me from the other woman teachers during the next semester. I didn’t like it.

The male conductor teacher stood next to me in front of the class. He then put his arm around over my neck and told the class, “ I have talent, and he, meaning me, has no talent.” I quickly said in reply that I had lots of talent. The teachers reply was, “Let me see you play the cello or violin,” as he pointed to two of the students with their instruments. I got pissed off and replied, “Let me see them write a beautiful melody with lyrics.” I then sang the first two lines of “With You.” Then I said, “It takes talent directly from God to do that. You can’t practice that, and you can’t learn that. It comes from the spirit. Anyone can play someone else’s music, but write it yourself!” The whole class was shocked and stunned. The teacher stared at me for a few moments while everyone was quiet, and then shuck his head in a yes direction, and continued on with the class. He wound-up giving me a “C.”

The whole classical music scene is stuffy. The music is not stuffy, but most of the people who teach it and attend it are. I don’t know why that is. When you go to a concert no one is supposed to clap or yell out until the very end. Classical music makes me alive. It inspires me to no end. When I attend an awesome concert I need to yell out and applaud. It is only right to express your feelings. Many times during a concert I was the only one caught clapping.

On the other hand, the teachers are musicians. Musicians are temperamental and moody. Musicians think about and see life in a different way. Sometimes they are mostly spiritual. This is very understandable. I had worked with musicians all my life and I feel that I have gained the knowledge to understand them very well. One's attitude when dealing with musicians, must be diplomatic, considerate, understanding, and most of all, caring . Musicians will freak-out at the spur of the moment, and one has to be ready for that. A musician will say something very bazaar and unreasonable. One has to be prepared for that. Musicians in general have to go through a lot of harassment throughout their lives from family, friends, lovers, agents, owners, costumes, and lawyers. I had finally learned how to deal with it all. I am now a musicians best friend. I think that I would be a perfect A&R representative or a major label. Maybe I should think about shooting for that.

My next semester at Brooklyn College was now beginning. I was in my last Theory class. My theory teacher was a little strange. He appeared as if he was gay. He was a young slim guy with a short black beard. He wanted us to listen to the classical music station everyday, and he wanted us to write down the musical piece we heard, and the time we heard it. We had to write three of these each day. What a bore. Everyday I attended theory class, which was an hour a day, the teacher spent one half hour to learn what each person heard the day before. This was very annoying. It was annoying because I had spent four years in Music Theory. Music Theory is in-part, the analyzing of music during a musical era. It starts with Bach in the 1600 and the church. Each semester then progresses an era until you get to you final theory class which analysis and talks about the era you live-in which is the Modern Era. I just could not wait for the final theory class. I was ready to take everything I learned and apply it to the Modern Era. Now, here I am in my final theory class and this teacher is spending the first half hour of the class and wasting our knowledge by taking about what we heard on the radio the previous day. It was more like female gossip than anything else. Since the first half hour was gone on that bullshit, the next half hour was also wasted, because there wasn’t any time left to learn anything. That is why I attended college, to learn something.

Here is a typical discussion:

Teacher: OK, student, what did you hear and when did you hear it.

Student: I heard this at eight o’clock and it was really very nice.

Teacher: Oh, I heard that too. I was driving in the car and it came on the radio unexpectedly. I was with a friend of mine and we were going to get our hair cut. My friend was so excited because he loved this piece of music. It was his favorite piece.

Teacher: So where were you when you heard this piece?

Student: I was in the kitchen with my mom and we were talking about the gathering we had with my aunt.

I won’t bore you any more, but that is the way it went everyday for an hour, and everyday the time talking about this got longer and longer. Times this discussion by 20 students and you will wonder if this is a music theory class or a general discussion.

Finally, I couldn’t take it any more and I let the teacher have it. I raised my hand and I told him straight out, “Sorry, but I came here to learn music theory not to bullshit for a hour and more everyday about what we heard on the radio. Teach us something! I want to know about the theory of modern music.” The whole class was in shocked. The teacher stood there stunned. I knew that the other students felt the same way, but they were afraid to ever say anything. The teacher then replied stunned, “Don’t you think that the listening to classical music and talking about it is very important?” I replied, “Maybe in a classical music listening class, but not here. This is musical theory.” The teacher then came back with, “I don’t think that your outbreak was called for. I think you are being very rude.” The teacher then dropped the interview of listening to classical music and suddenly began teaching us about the 12 tone system. At the end of the class, and just before leaving the class I stuck my thumb-up to the teacher and said, “Right on!” I then proceeded to the men’s room with a fellow student and moments later the teacher walked in and everything got quiet in the toilet. Then the teacher came over to me and my fellow student at the sink and said to me that I had took a big chance by speaking out as I did. I then replied to the teacher in the bathroom, sincerely, “If you want to fail me that is OK. I don’t care about the grades. I came here to learn. Not to make a grade. What I told you is what all the other students felt. Not just I! Try not to take it as a bad thing. Maybe I embarrased you in the class, but try to take it as a good thing. We want to learn theory. It’s what we pay your salary for. Teach us.. we want to learn. There is no bad feeling toward you from me or anyone else in the class.” The teacher said that he understood, but he still thought that my method was inappropriate. From here on end we learned about Modern theory. Instead of giving me an “A,” though, because my work was excellent, he gave me a “B.” It cost me a grade point, but it was certainly worth the cost.

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