The Reluctant Organist

"Mike! You're gonna miss Mass!"

My dad's voice rang through my bedroom at the appointed hour on Sunday morning, a weekly ritual as sure as the rambling homilies of Father Lang, the Catholic priest who presided in my family's church. I'd confronted my father on my doubts of the Catholic faith in which I was raised on several occasions, but none of my concerns ever seemed to register.

"As long as you're living in my house, you live by my rules," he'd retort.

It had long since dawned on me that the idea of 'forced faith' was an oxymoron; if one doesn't believe, what's the point in going through the motions? Of course, the loss of the little help I was receiving for my college tuition acted as quite effective leverage against the notion of failing to show up at St. Joseph's each Sunday. As an angry young man I was appalled at my lack of fight on principle, but I had convinced myself that enduring some mindless rituals for another year was a much better plan of attack than confrontation at this point. Heaven knows, apparently, that my father was as rigid on the subject as the book of Deuteronomy's stance is against those without complete testicles entering a house of God (Look it up: Deuteronomy 23:1). Something told me that going to church was still the easiest way about things for now. Of course, that 'something' was bolstered by Deuteronomy 21:18-21: "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father … all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you." I wasn't about to test my father's archaic limitations.

Yet again I found myself showering twenty minutes before Mass started, cleansing my body with the holy oils of Head and Shoulders and Dove. I had long since abandoned wearing my "Sunday best," but the respect instilled in me by my parents and childhood parochial school teacher-nuns still manifested itself in a button-down flannel shirt and khaki pants. While backing out of my driveway, I contemplated my course of action. The rest of my family had already attended early morning Mass, and I had 'celebrated Mass' a few times before in the local Dunkin' Donuts, sipping coffee and getting some work done. Perhaps it was the guilt incurred from reflection on these past trespasses that indeed guided my car towards the church that day.

I entered the building a few minutes before 11 in the morning, when Mass was scheduled to start. As I dipped my second and third finger in holy water to bless myself, just in case my earlier, more commercialized ablutions weren't enough, I caught the eye of Father Lang, who was casting me an intriguing look. Before I could utter the compulsory, "Good morning, Father," he strode up to me.

"You're just the person who can help me right now," said the somewhat anxious priest, a few beads of sweat moistening his creased forehead. "My fool organist decided not to show this morning. Do you think you could sit in?"

Entwined with my surprise at this ambush was the renewal of a familiar feeling that crept up on me whenever I spoke with Father Lang. He wasn't like the priests of my childhood, mythic ancient men with white hair like God Himself and booming voices. He was middle-aged with a sweaty brow and thinning dark hair, but more damning than his appearance was his demeanor. The clergyman spoke down of other people behind their back more often than I expected of a member of the clergy, which is to say at all. Every so often, he made slightly off-color jokes and spoke of other parishioners and this manner of speech was so foreign from my previous dealings with the clergy that I never felt at all comfortable conversing with him. However, the man was obviously in a bind, and I replied with a "happy to help."

Seconds later, I was following the billowing, green robes of Father Lang to the rather space-age-looking keyboard situated where the first few pews would normally be located in the front right corner of the church. He showed me where the organist kept his books and what music was planned for today, all the while grumbling, "I'm going to kill that guy," which would certainly be breaking a commandment or two. I was relieved when the priest scurried off to the back of the church to begin his official procession to the altar. Exactly how do you reply to a priest contemplating murder?

I had always been comfortable in front of an audience, but this was a congregation. I was used to playing 'gigs' wherever and whenever found, but the word sounds all wrong in conjunction with leading the sacred Catholic Mass. During the service, there was no deep mental contemplation, no soul search for me. I sat on the bench in front of the keyboard and just tried to keep my fingers dry enough to not slip off the keys, as if sight-reading hymns in A flat did not already take enough of my attention. Silently I apologized to the congregation through the fleeting eye contact I made with its members that I did not know how to play the organ. Centuries-old hymns never sound quite right on an electronic keyboard, no matter how realistic the grand piano sound may be.

Before the service ended, Father Lang stepped in front of the altar, named me as today's literal eleventh-hour stand-in, and led the congregation in a round of applause I absolutely didn't deserve. This was no performance, and I was no performer. Besides the fact, I was fully aware that the congregation was blissfully unaware of my previous jaunts to coffee shops instead of houses of worship, my previous waverings of faith, and my quite current doubts of Deuteronomy and its predetermined importance on intact male genitalia. While nothing had transpired to shake my views, I felt guilty all the same, as if I was somehow tricking the congregation into believing I was some pillar of Catholicism, holding up the worship music end of things.

I made sure to look busy after playing the outro music, fiddling with sheet music and buttons and papers and keeping my head down, dodging those who came up to me with words of thanks and compliments. Sure, I appreciated them as anyone would, but I was thoroughly convinced that anyone who got close enough would feel the shame radiating from my face. On my way out, after reluctantly giving him my contact information in case of further musical emergency, I shook the priest's hand, uncomfortable as ever.


"Thanks for your help," Father Lang said. "You really answered God's call today."


I thought about correcting him, but instead nodded, murmured something unintelligible, and turned. I have my criticisms of the faults of institutionalized religion, but it was the institution that had just helped me shed some light on my own faults. With any combination of luck and intelligence, I'll never lose my open-mindedness toward the spiritual and unexplained. For now, I can hardly handle being on God's speed-dial.

Colin Mochrie Is Sorry

Wouldn't you be?

Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, and the Family Gilch

If you've ever had dinner at my house on a weeknight, you know what happens between 7 and 8 o'clock. NCIS is turned off for it's only hour of rest from Grandma Duck's kitchen television, and we flip to channel 7 for Jeopardy! (now available in HD for those who want to see Alex Trebek that much more clearly).

Where have you gone, Alex Trebek's mustache?

We've been doing this longer than I can remember, precisely because my family's been doing this for longer than I've been born. Something about the simplicity of these game shows, Jeopardy! and its counterpart Wheel of Fortune, is attractive to the masses. You get the questions right, you win some money; you solve the puzzle, you win the money. It's not as simple as all that of course, but it seems like something just about anyone can do on a good day. And so, their current incarnations have been on air for going on 27 years now.

Trebek 2.0: Now he's zany!

Alex and Pat and Vanna have become household names over the past decades, although the only one who's gotten any better is (unsurprisingly) the beautiful woman of the group. Trebek no longer has his trademark glasses and creepy Canadian mustache and recently, prodded by ABC no doubt, has been primping his distinguished 70 year-old white hair up and, to the dismay of viewers, talking more and more. I'm not sure if anyone has worse comic timing or a cornier wit than Trebek (thank God he at least has the answers in front of him). Sajak seems to be getting more orange with age, and I fear that Merv Griffin Enterprises may soon just slap a bleached blond wig onto a Valencia orange and we won't know the difference.

Pat Sajak, standing next to Pat Sajak in 10 years

However lacking the hosts have become in their duties, the shows still remain strong, a slew of devoted viewers who have defined the 7th hour after noon each weekday as a time to play games. It's a wonderful thing to do with the family, and who couldn't use a break after work and school?

Not to be conceited, but in my family, I generally answer the most questions (question the most answers?) correctly. Please don't take this to be a statement of self-service; it's a statement of my admittance of being a huge dork. Grandma rejoices in knowing the questions about cooking, Dad about literature and classic movies, Lucy about recent books, Gabe about the Three Stooges, and Amelia just the other day about Selena Gomez (not sure who that is, but she was adamant about it). Jeopardy! has never caused much consternation within the family as we can all partake, but the Wheel is where frustration tends to mount.

Everybody has something they're unnaturally good at. Many people have things that are eminently useful  to society and well-being. Some can thread a needle and cross a stitch in a blur, some can diagnose disease with uncanny accuracy, some can pick up foreign languages with ease, some can catch all the lucky breaks at the right times. I, on the other hand, can solve Wheel of Fortune puzzles with no letters in them.

Now, I've met other people who can do this. Once again, this isn't just trumpeting myself. In fact, I lament that this is my special superpower. Honestly, x-ray vision would have been much more useful. I normally treat the family with some courtesy when I know the answer at such an early point that it would take the fun out of the game for everyone else. I'll go pour some coffee or remove myself from the room somehow so I don't blurt out something. It's not for the sake of knowing it that soon, but just because you get the puzzles quickly, it doesn't mean you now don't take any less joy in solving the puzzle that any of the crazy people on TV jumping up and down do.

Of course, if Gabe's at the table, I'll look at him directly, sip my coffee, and use the puzzle's answer in a sentence to mock him. I've never seen him madder.

Pictured: Gabe after looking at him and saying "I guess you won't be SUCKING YOUR THUMB anytime soon." 

I've been trying to get on either show for years, though I've never gotten as far as the audition process. If these shows will let me pay for college then so be it, I'll shout out answers like crazy, screw spinning the wheel. I already owe these shows a debt though. As silly as it seems, they bring my family together nightly, to laugh and to mock, to smile and to yell, to get as emotional as we do during any Giants game, but to be together nonetheless.

P.S. Game show host poll up in the corner of the home page. Vote if you'd like, and if you're an "other" kind of person, comment here and explain who and why.

Posts Coming Up

I'm having a little trouble finishing much of anything the past weekend. It's been a busy time, and I've been sidelined by some of my famous migraines, inherited so gratefully from my father. Anyway, here's some possibilities that may or may not come to light in the coming days:

-Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and my family

-Thoughts on Frankenstein

-a short story or two

-Grandma Duck: Woman, Bird, Legend

Dante's Inferno 2: The Search for Curly's Gold

"And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kepy my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire..."

-Milton Waddams in "Office Space"

I have the good fortune to be taking a course based solely on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, an incredible piece of literature which I've read before, but not have the good fortune to be walked through by Prof. Alessandro Vettori, a Dante scholar, distinguished professor of Italian, and "Cavaliere" of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (the equivalent of the well-popularized knighthood in the British Empire). Not only is he distinguished, but as it turns out, he's one of the most talented teachers I've ever met, and I count myself lucky to learn about literature that already holds such importance to me from such a capable man. Classes consist of discussing a few cantos and their heavily symbolic and allegorical meanings, a common idea in Medieval writings, in an open discussion and lecture give-and-take that keeps one both attentive and, more importantly, interested.

I have but one complaint... This guy:

"I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she's filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven."

That is Milton Waddams from "Office Space," which has attained such a strong cult following that it's ceased to be a cult following and become much more mainstream and popular. If Milton had a son, God help us all, it would be the guy in my Dante class. He doesn't particularly resemble Milton (presumable he got his mother's looks), complete with long, stringy brown hair in a ponytail and a scratchy, overgrown beard, though he does Milty's large body stature. He has, however, adopted Milton's mumbling, st-st, stuh, st-stuttering manner of speech, and oddball behavior. I won't divulge his name here, so let's call him "Little Milty" (obviously a misnomer).

Little Milty: The early years

This course of Dante is double-listed, meaning one can take it as a Medieval Literature course or as an Italian course (I'm taking it as both, as it counts for both my majors. Hot damn). I have no idea what Little Milty's reasoning for taking the course is, since he seems completely disinterested on discussing the actual text. No, Little Milty is only interested in the 2010 video game "Dante's Inferno" and the fan-fiction thereof.

Apparently, the game's creators missed the fact that Dante was a poet/politician, not a rugby player

"Dante's Inferno," named after the first section of Divina Commedia, Inferno, Dante's depiction of Hell, is a wonderful game, to be sure. I've played a bit of it, and the graphics and artistry that depict Hell are fantastic, and there are many aspects of the game that reflect the literature well. However, it'd be somewhat important to differentiate a freaking video game and one of the greatest works of poetry ever crafted.

Little Milty has missed this subtle detail. His hairy ham of a hand shoots up every three minutes or so and the professor, ever courteous and deferential to students' ideas, will normally call on him (although lately I've noticed just the slightest upturn of the side of his mouth, waiting for what drivel is next to fall from Little Milty's mouth). I've made a habit of paying attention to Little Milty's dribbling, just to make sure he doesn't break form, and it turns out he never has: Nothing he's ever said has referenced the bloody literature we're reading; it's all the damn game.

The game is a depiction, not the depiction, and certainly not Dante's description. I could go on forever, but the most important deviation in the game is the fact that Beatrice, beautiful and beloved and strong and lovely, bloody Beatrice is reduced to some hypersexualized bimbo damsel in distress who Dante is literally going through Hell to save. In the literature, Dante's jaunt through Hell (and eventually Purgatory and Heaven) is made in order to earn his redemption, and Beatrice is the holy, pure, already saved soul who guides him through a large part of Heaven and she saves him.

Pictured: Matt Lauritsen's depiction of a pure woman

Maybe I'm a bit hung up on this, but for the love of God (and Beatrice, for that matter), I'd much rather learn about the intricacies and subtleties of the epic poetry of Dante from a learned scholar who is eminently interesting and engaging than some loser quoting a podcast that was narrated, I swear this happened, by The Joker (who I don't remember seeing in Dante's poetry, although if he did appear, I imagine he'd be in the first ring of the 7th circle with the other murderers and tyrants, including but not limited to Alexander the Great, Guy de Montfort, Attila the Hun, and The Riddler). Yes, that The Joker. That's really what I need, fictional Batman villains' opinions on a video game being quotes as if they're at all relevant to Dante's poetry. Please, please stop. Or else I'm going to end up in the 7th circle, too.

Sit Down

4:08 PM. Campbell Hall, Room A4. Rutgers University, New Brunswick campus. The class period is over at 4:10, in two minutes, but one wouldn't know from the sights and sounds of the room. The scraping of backpacks, the slamming of notebooks, the rustle of coats and hats and scarves. Some people have the audacity to be standing up while the professor is still talking, albeit simply announcing the homework for when next we meet, but talking nonetheless.

This has, and always will, drive me insane. In my six semesters at Rutgers, there have been professors I loved, professors I disliked, professors whose knowledge I appreciated the access to which I was granted, professors whose credentials I questioned. Those who could control a room and command respect, those who amounted to substitute teachers in high school. For each and every one of them, I didn't freaking move until they stopped talking and class was legitimately over, if not for basic human respect, then for courtesy, or at least the idea that if I was he presiding over a classroom it would drive me nuts.

"Ten points from Gryffindor. Assholes"

I have taught piano workshops, piano lessons, given presentations, led meetings, and been on the audience side of all those situations. I can say with all manner of surety and clearness of memory that it was distracting and irksome, not for prideful and haughty reasons, but because it violates the idea of common courtesy and deference to your fellow man, especially one who is spending his time trying to teach your ungrateful self something.

Of course, here you might say, "But Mike, aren't you writing a blog post during class? Isn't that a lack of courtesy?" Why perhaps it is, dear reader (if you exist), but it's distracting no one but myself and I'm at least taking notes at the same time. The idea that anyone thinks it's okay to make a bunch of noise while someone who has been deemed intelligent, scholarly, and fit to teach students who pay wheelbarrows full of money to a state university is beyond ludicrous. And it is these very students who decide to throw minutes of their money away every day by packing up while the professor is still talking. If it's a doctor's appointment in 10 minutes across town, if one smells smoke, if one has a particularly raw jock itch that simply needs to be scratched, well, okay. I can understand that.

BOOM!

But the fact is, it's not that. It can't be, unless thousands of students have a disease that gives one horrible jock itch a few minutes for classes end every single day. It is a habit that has been formed not only through deeply flawed judgement and the flouting of basic courtesy and respect, but encouraged by the fact that there are many fellow conspirators, scraping and murmuring and slamming and opening zippers and closing notebooks and carrying on. It's disrespectful not only to the professor but to the rest of us who would like to hear what the homework is.

I haven't had one professor who has done more than quietly point out that class is indeed not finished and perhaps how rude these actions are. If I'm ever a professor (God help those students), one of the first things I'll look forward to doing is tearing the first student that does this a new one (which is probably why I'll never be a professor).

O say, can't you see?

Ramparts are broad elevations or mounds of earth and stone which are raised as a defensive wall for the purposes of fortification. While I'm not sure if Christina Aguilera bothered to look up the word in a dictionary (or at the very least, Wiki it) before she sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, she certainly didn't get it right in her performance. Aguilera mistakenly replaced the line "O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming," with "What so proudly we watched were so gallantly streaming," which is not only incorrect, but leaves Fort McHenry quite woefully undefensed (which of course might have well have wiped out Francis Scott Key and his "Defense of Fort M'Henry," which has come to be the U.S. National Anthem).

Good singer; woefully incompetent military strategist

It's easy to mess up the words to a song. There are TV shows dedicated to getting the lyrics right and personal nightmares of my own that include singing the wrong words on stage and getting pelted with tomatoes and such. No one messes it up on purpose, of course, but I'd like to think if the NFL Czar of Halftime Shows (who I believe is Howie Long's less talented, less rectangular brother) went insane and tapped me to sing the Star Spangled Banner at the freaking Super Bowl, I would get the eight lines of the first verse of my country's national anthem correct.

There have been far more severely butchered versions of the song (you will remember Roseanne Barr's classic rendition at the Padres' Jack Murphy Stadium and Carl Lewis' heart-wrenching performance at an NBA game), and I think the common theme here is people who are not qualified to sing such a song trying to sing the damn song. Obviously, Roseanne wasn't picked for her musical prowess, but it's difficult to give a "humorous take" on the American national anthem without making people incredibly uncomfortable, and I don't think Ms. Barr is your best bet there, anyway. Carl Lewis won 10 Olympic medals for the U.S. in track and field events, but what is he doing with a microphone?

She couldn't even listen to herself

I don't care how many Grammys Aguilera has won, she shouldn't be singing the national anthem. This may be quite an Archie Bunker/Dana Carvey's grumpy old man thing to say, but I really can't stand it when people jazz up the Star Spangled Banner. The patriotism of the song is felt through the familiar march melody of drum and bugle and fife, not in the aria-esque ornamentation that Aguilera and other pop singers add to the song's melody. Besides the fact, as Roseanne could tell you, it's a very difficult and vocally demanding piece in the first place, and the true beauty that can inspire awe in a listening concerning this melody is to belt the damn thing out correctly.

Basically, give me Patti LaBelle or give me death. I guess Aguilera could do it, too (she certainly has a more versatile voice than the auto-tuned Black Eyed Peas performers at halftime), but forgive me if I don't feel a rush of patriotism when the singer of "Dirrty" steps up on stage and muffs the words.