I am much too tired to get into the analytical side of this, but tonight, after the Air Command Band concert, Kyle re-informed me that there was a reception for the musicians and some of the city employees at one of the local hotels. I would have been excited to know we were invited except this week's already been a clusterphuck of time managing, with rehearsals for the musical, various activities for the girls, various appointment cancellations, a vet appointment, an imminent birthday party looming around tomorrow's corner, two more shifts of work, packing and supper at a friends house on Saturday to compound leaving the house on Sunday and the overall mess that is my brain this week; and I really didn't think I was going to be able to stomach yet another handful of stupid people.
Let me side track for a moment and explain how much I love band concerts. I love symphonic concerts, orchestras, instrument ensembles of all kinds and of all forms, but I am especially fond of bands ensembles formed with traditional wind instruments plus or minus a rhythm section. I love how any piece of music can carry me away, going back to the simple days where I would just romanticize my life away and mull over the delightful way the music answered my pains, my joys. I love how there is always something in each genre, label, kind, brand, timbre of music that moves me like nothing else can. Clap, snap, dance, wiggle, gyrate, wave my hands, sing on the outside, but feel like there is planetary motion on the inside. I crave that band sound. I really feel like it's just something so integral to me that no one will understand, but I imagine there are others with the same feelings, that pertains to the sounds that only wind instruments can make. I love the mariachi trumpet feel, the light flutey parts, the rhythm trombones and tenor saxes, the character of the double reeds, the unmistakeable strains of guitar, drum beats, rhythms, and even like tonight, the added character of vocals. Truly I am a band geek.
That being said, I've established myself as a musician in this town albeit minorly, playing keyboards on (going on) four community productions, a host of accompaniment gigs and church services around town. I don't presume to have a title, because I don't. I wouldn't want one. I don't have to be known as any one thing. Because I am surely not an elitist. And it's not like I'm so good that I could afford to be anyway.
But...
...as sure as the day you were born (side tangent back on track), I went up to the keyboardist tonight at the reception and introduce myself (because I'm friendly and outgoing like that, fun and funky, fearless, down-to-earth, whatever,) and make a point of relating to her when she donned the snobbiest face I have seen on another musician in a long time. Maybe I have been too far removed both in time and in distance to remember what it was like to rub elbows with elitist musicians (and believe me, I knew a few in college!) and therefore put my dumbass cart before my retarded, socially awkward horse, but being that I was dressed up head-to-toe in great clothes, hair coiffed, ready with a smile and drink in hand, I was poised to approach this woman, only to be utterly and grieviously snubbed, bitterly put back into place by her blank stare, expectant eyes, and far less than subtle "yes, we'll talk later" (after I shut up) bite.
I was dumbfound. Astonished. Yes, astonished--truly (!) astonished--that this woman had the nerve to be so cold after I'd taken time out of MY schedule (yes, mine, the schedule of a lowly small town mom-ish thing living in the real world) to grace her with MY conversation. I was absolutely gobsmacked that such snobbery of that caliber would ever find itself in Flin Flon, Manitoba, that another woman could be so immature and yet seem so convoluted in her resolve so as to actually form words that were soaked in condescending vinegar. I just have nothing else to say after that. Except...
...wow.
