#MemoryCalendar

[songofmysong]

Memory Calendar

20 March 2004

This date in history marked the first day of spring in 2004. Nicole and I made our way to our friends Paula and JJ Chacon’s house in Willow Glen for our first of what turned out to be many Saturday morning jaunts to the Willow Glen Farmers Market. We’d gone in halfsies with Paula and JJ on a bi-monthly fruit and produce farm box that we would pick up at the market. We would walk from Chacon’s new home near Willow Glen Park over to Lincoln Avenue and down the street the playground of Willow Glen Elementary where the market stalls were set up. After a tour of the market vendors, we picked up our box and returned to the Domaine Chacon to divvy up the produce and drink some of JJ’s delicious French Press coffee offerings. We continued this tradition twice a month from March to October for the next two years. It was a ritual we treasured.

We didn’t dally in this particular day because we both had an 11am rehearsal call at the Opera San Jose rehearsal hall and offices on Paragon Way in North San Jose, just a hop, skip, and jump away from our Japantown apartment on North First Street. We were to run through Act I of Die Fledermaus, run through the Czardas dance sequence, and then after a short break run the Act II in its entirety. We’d be done by 5pm.

After rehearsal we headed home briefly to shower and change and meet up with my parents Mike and Kathy who’d driven down from Davis. Dad drove the four of us to Habana, Cuba Restaurant on Race Street to celebrate my 29th birthday with friends. In attendance were:

Joseph Wright

Lori Dector

John Easterday

Joe Meyers

Joe Muir

Christi Major

Mike and Kathy

Jason and Michele Detwiler

Carlos Aguilar

Jesse Merlin

Susie Uher Jimenez

Miguel Jimenez

Etsel Skelton

and Mimosa Iwamatsu.

I ate an order of the pechuga de pollo a la plancha with some platanos maduros and ate a piece of tres leches cake while being serenaded by 20ish opera singers who practically blew the roof off of the place singing “Happy Birthday.” The entire restaurant applauded.

Joe Meyers gave me an LP of the soundtrack to the Dean Martin movie “The Silencers” and the Detwilers gave me a cd of the Barenaked Ladies latest album, “Everything To Everyone.”

What an amazing way to begin the last year of my 20s and my last birthday as a single man. What an amazing end to a terrific day!

[songofmysong]

Memory Calendar

24 November 2003

On this date in history I was on performance 5 of a 6-in-a-row Th-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tues string of performances of Turiddu in Opera San Jose's double bill of Cavalleria Rusticana/I Pagliacci. On Thursday afternoon I was down the street from our apartment on N. First Street in San Jose Japantown/Civic Center at Hon's Auto Repair on the corner of N First and Hedding St when I received a phone call from OSJ's artistic administrator Matt Siek letting me know that my colleague Etsel Skelton was sick and that I needed to go on that night in his place in 4 hours. Turiddu is a bravura role, but it is nestled in a one-act opera that began the evening, so I wasn't too worried.

"I'll go on tonight and tomorrow, Etsel will feel better, and be able to go on Saturday and Monday. No problem," I thought. NOPE!

Etsel had a nasty cold and couldn't sing at all. So, after Thursday's performance, OSJ's general director Irene Dalis came to my dressing room and said, "Sweetie, be prepared to go on for Etsel Saturday and Monday, too." “OK,” I thought, “if I am smart, this won't be a problem. I can do this."

Normally, OSJ didn't perform on Monday nights, but we were headed into the week of Thanksgiving, so they shoehorned a Monday performance to make up for the Thursday and/or Friday performance they would be missing out on that week. So, 6 in a row it was (with a Saturday night to Sunday afternoon turnaround just to keep it spicy).

What surprised me most wasn't that I got through it, but that the final three performances, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, where my strongest of the whole run, with Tuesday being the best of those three. I might be able to do this Opera thing after all, I thought.

This is the nature of the art form. Exactly one year later, Etsel had to go on for me after Act 1 on the opening night of Tosca because it was my turn to have a horrible cold. Then, just a few months later, I went on for him multiple nights in a row as Don Jose in Carmen because he was sick. This is what performers do, because the show must go on.

What I learned was that some of my best work could be done when I merely responded with calm focus to the sh*t hitting the fan, and this has helped guide me through my most difficult challenges on and off the stage.

https://on.soundcloud.com/SSnyc

(Photo ©️ 2003 Bob Shomler)

[songofmysong]

Memory Calender

3 October 2003

20YearsAgoToday I made my first calendar entry on my newly-purchased Sony Clié hand-held digital assistant, Sony’s version of the Palm Pilot. This means that I can now look back in my digital calendar and see what I was doing on any given day for the last two decades. While I do miss my Sunday evening ritual of double-checking and adding appointments to my trusty At-A-Glance Dayrunner while watching the Simpsons, I love having the ability to look back at any day in the last 20 years on my phone and see what I was doing. Go ahead, throw out a date, and I’ll tell you my schedule.

Happy Adam’s Calendar Day to all who celebrate!