Why All the Fuss About Susan Boyle?

Enough already with Susan Boyle!!! Yes, she sings beautifully; SO WHAT? There are millions of people in the world that can sing just as well or better. In fact, any voice coach will tell you that anyone can sing like that with the proper training. The fuss about Boyle seems to be that she can sing beautifully yet is not beautiful herself.

Well, duhhh. Since when does physical appearance have anything to do with the capacity of one’s lungs and vocal cords to produce extraordinary music?

I think American Idol has helped create this mistaken assumption. For years I’ve been telling people who watch this show that you can walk into any karaoke bar any night of the week and see the same level of performance. It’s one thing to watch Idol for the entertainment value, although I’ve never found any; yet the slobbering masses continue to follow every episode as if something extraordinary is happening, as if it makes some difference in the long run who wins and who doesn’t.

Another factor that has shaped the public’s attitude toward music is Clear Channel, the company that controls what we hear on most of the radio stations in this country. For years they’ve been marketing talentless “divas”, like Celine Dion, Cher, Tina Turner, and Christina Aguilara and sugary bubblegum acts like Brittney, Miley Cyrus, and The Jonas Brothers to the point where people have forgotten what real music sounds like.

Or maybe the real decline of American popular music began with MTV back in the early 80s with the popularization of music videos and the emphasis on visual more than aural sensibilities. How much airplay did great acts like The Clash and The Blasters get compared to Madonna, Duran Duran, and The Thompson Twins?

If you want to compare how attitudes have changed over the years, go to Youtube and do a search for Kate Smith. She was probably the most popular singer in America during the 40s and early 50s, famous for her performance of “God Bless America”. She was also very round, the inspiration for Yogi Berra’s famous quote about how it “ain’t over till the fat lady sings”.

I suspect that many who grew up in that era are scratching their heads about our reaction to Susan Boyle.

A Lesson from a Boy

This is not a sports story.

This is a story of a boy who had a passion, like some of our own children. He was a good student in school, but he was a natural with a baseball, and his dream was to become a major league pitcher. By the time he was 15 he was considered the best high school pitcher in the country. Baseball America named him national Youth Player of the Year. He was expected to be a top draft pick in 2004.

Then, in a playoff game that year, his elbow popped, and he had to undergo reconstructive surgery. One major league team decided to take a chance and drafted him anyway...in the 14th round.

He didn’t quit. In the minor leagues he continued to rehabilitate his arm, and pitched with success until he reached the upper levels. He had a miserable season in AAA, and did even worse in three starts in the majors at the end of the season. He went home and spent the winter studying tapes of Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddux, and Sandy Koufax.

This spring his team had three starting pitchers on the disabled list. The boy pitched well enough to earn a spot on the major league roster.

Last Wednesday night he pitched six shutout innings against the Oakland Athletics. Everyone who saw him was impressed with how polished and confident he looked. His fastball was clocked at 94 MPH. He had fulfilled his dream.

A few hours later Nick Adenhart, promising 22 year old pitcher of the Los Angeles Angels, was dead. He was a passenger in a car that was broadsided by a minivan driven by a drunk driver.

Amidst all the sorrow and anger about a young life being cruelly taken, most people seem to have overlooked the lesson Nick taught us. A lesser person would have given up after the injury and told himself, “Well, I guess I can be a P.E. teacher.” Instead, Nick devoted all of his time and energy into achieving his goal.

We must live like every day is our last.

Were the Good Old Days Really That Good?

It's predictable. Whenever there is a media feeding frenzy over the latest child murder someone interviews a neighbor who makes a comment like this one (clipped from a news release about the arrest of a suspect in the murder of Sandra Cantu:

"Neighbor Barbara Sokoloski, whose home is behind Sandra's, described Sandra on Saturday as 'a friendly sweet little girl who always went around trying to find somebody to play with.'

'It's too bad that kids these days can't go out and play like we did when I was a little girl,' said Sokoloski, 69."

Wait a minute. I'm in my 60s too, and while it is true that parents were less reluctant to let their kids "go out and play" when I was a kid, I question whether this was because there was less of a perceived threat than an actual one. If a child was abducted and murdered it would certainly have made headlines all over the region. It would have been news on local television channels. It's doubtful that someone in New York would have heard about a child abduction/murder in California.

Today, on the other hand, people from coast to coast are constantly bombarded with details of the Sandra Cantu case on all two dozen cable channels that feature news, on the internet, on cell phones that display news updates, radio, and, for those that still read them, newpapers.

Then consider that the population of this country has almost doubled since I was a child. The rate of abduction/murders could stay exactly the same, but the numbers would be higher.

I have two points. The first is perhaps our parents weren't cautious enough. Yes, Beaver Cleaver's parents let him walk home alone after dark. They didn't have seat belts on their family car either. Ward smoked a pipe when his kids were in the same room, and I doubt that Beaver ever wore sunscreen.

The second is, worrying changes absolutely nothing. Just like in the "good old days" a parent can only take reasonable precautions and let their children have as much room as possible to learn and to grow.

Terrariums

I’ve had concerns about the future of life on earth since the first time I saw a terrarium, probably in high school.

It seemed to me that the perfect terrarium would be a miniature earth, a closed system where nothing comes in except sunlight, nothing goes out except heat, and all living things worked in perfect balance. The bugs in the terrarium I saw provided just enough carbon dioxide for the plants, which provided food and oxygen for the bugs. All of the water from perspiration and respiration condensed back into liquid for the organisms to use. Theoretically, the terrarium could stay viable indefinitely without any outside intervention. The University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 is a large example of such a place.

I wonder, what would happen if those bugs had free will and an opposable thumb? Suppose the animals in the terrarium (I’ll call them territes) were consumers of dead and dying leaves who were suddenly given the intelligence and physical ability to manipulate their environment?

The miniature Eden would immediately be lost. The territes would quickly learn faster ways to access food other than crawling up a stalk or waiting for leaves to fall. Since more food was available, mommy and daddy territes would decide to have more maggots, or whatever. Soon their food-gathering technology can’t keep up with the population growth, and they discover how to cultivate. The population growth would continue. Finally the day comes when there is no more room for both territes and plants. The responsible territes start practicing birth control and eat no more than they need to nourish themselves; but some territes believe that birth control is a sin and others can’t control their impulses to eat food that is readily available. So the territe population continues to grow as the food supply starts to diminish. Out of desperation they start harvesting healthy leaves. Soon plants are leafless and territes are starving en masse.
The carbon dioxide in the air….well, you know that story.

It would make a great short animation.

Blessings

I realize that I have truly been blessed when I think of humanity’s suffering throughout the ages. My father was the town drunk, but he never beat us. We were poor white trash, but we never missed a meal or had to sleep in a car. I managed to keep a student deferment until I graduated from college, then drew 314 in the draft lottery. I’ve never had a successful relationship with a woman, but I have a brilliant, beautiful daughter.

And I have never found my true passion. But my daughter did.

It’s hard not to be jealous when I hear of her “all-nighters”, when she is working on a project and doesn’t dare go to bed because she later she may regret not making it a little better; or when she jabbers delightfully on and on about discussions she has with her instructors and peers in her chosen field. She knew what she wanted to do when she was three years old, and relentlessly pursued her dream to its fruition.

I, on the other hand, chose a career that was convenient. I wandered lonely roads in my youth, making one wrong turn after another, my options becoming more and more limited year after year, until I decided to commit myself to a career in teaching. For years I attacked my chosen profession with blind determination. I wanted to become a teacher of the year, a savior of errant, ignorant children.

It was not to be. Most of my teaching career was spent in a stuffy, windowless cubicle in an overcrowded school full of needy students and staffed by dispirited teachers and a principal who, like me eventually, was just thankful to get through the day. Perhaps, if teaching had been my true passion, I could have overcome all the barriers l and made a difference; but since I chose the profession for survival, survival became my only goal.

The other side of the coin is that I had a steady job and was able to help support my daughter and save up money for her college and my retirement. That’s more than many in this country are able to do in these times as unemployment nears ten percent. It’s a lot more than my own parents did, and it’s certainly beyond the dreams of most people living in what we call the third world.

Yes, I have been blessed.