brettstrader.com

About 2 months ago I got my old mountain bike worked on in order to bring it back up to rideable condition. I went to the local bike shop, and they charged me $165 for new tubes/tires, a few cables (I think), and a new chain. What I got for free was a whole lot of bike-snob attitude. It started with the call (two weeks later) that my bike was ready:

“Your bike is done. Can you come pick it up real soon because we don’t have any room for it.” Okay, no problem. I ran right over just minutes before they closed. I took it for a test ride and was not impressed. The front derailleur cable was not adjusted properly. The front tire rubbed against the brake pads every revolution. The back tire had a serious bump in it.I rode it back over to the shop the next day and the guys looked at me like they had never seen me before, even though I had given them my $165 less than 16 hours earlier.

I mentioned the issues, and they told me that the derailleur cable and front spokes must have “settled.” Fine, what can you do to fix it? They trued the front tire and tightened the cable. What about the bump in the rear? Well, we had some trouble putting the tires on, and there’s probably a bulge. It’s because of the quality of your wheels. Oh. Would you suggest I upgrade them. Not really. OK, why not? Well it’s not really worth it for this bike. Whatever. I took it for another ride, and the front was much better. I came back and thanked them. The guys says, “Oh, there’s no charge for the adjustment.”What the . . . ?

As  if they would even contemplate charging me for making right the crappy fix job they did. Jerks. I walked out knowing I’d never set foot in their shop again.

I put the bad experience behind me an started riding again. Bumpy rear wheel aside, I fell in love with it again. The San Francisco Peninsula is one of the greatest places on earth for bike riding. One day I decided to see how to ride up to the Crystal Springs Reservoir, which I see nearly every day while commuting by car to SF State. The road I discovered, Cañada, takes you right up San Andreas Valley until you hit highway 92. I decided to head inland, so I crossed Interstate 280 on the bike bridge and trudged up the hill to San Mateo. A serious downhill ride on Alameda de las Pulgas and a quick view of Notre Dame de Namur brought me back to El Camino Real and a pretty boring ride home.

That ride totaled about 27 miles, and it became apparent to me that if I was going to do it again, I’d need to get a road bike. Anything over 25 miles on a MTB is just lunacy, especially if it’s on paved roads. While contemplating this, I got the crazy idea to commute the 33 miles up from our home in Menlo Park to SF State — three times a week. Perhaps it’s a character flaw of mine: I get crazy ideas and go for them. Some work, some don’t.

Today I made the ride for the first time on my new road bike.  I stopped twice to admire the beauty (and to take the iPhone pictures you see here) for a total of about 30 minutes rest. The whole trip took me about 3 hours. It’s a very doable ride: considering I’m not in the best shape, it can only get better from here. I took BART from Daly City to Caltrain in Millbrae, and that all the way home to Menlo Park.

I may post another entry about my bike selection process. Email me if you’re interested in my tasting notes.

SFSU City of Angels

Here’s one of the things I’ve been working on lately. This student production, directed by Barbara Damashek, opens May 2 in the McKenna Theater in the Creative Arts building at San Francisco State.

It’s rated PG-13, so don’t bring the kids.

My mom got me an iPhone for my birthday.

I think the statement speaks for itself. 

Ms. Lucy “Guffman” Simon did indeed show up for our production of “The Secret Garden”. She attended both opening night and the Sunday matinee. The weekend’s performances were near-capacity crowds, thanks to a blitzkrieg of PR about both Ms. Simon’s attendance and our use of the original orchestrations.

Apparently she was pleased with our work. She called lyricist and book writer Marsha Norman on Saturday to tell her about it. The cast lived up to our expectations, the orchestra played well, and the crew at Yerba Buena Center was first-rate. While our austere set is starkly different than the lush visual overload (albeit Tony Award-winning) of the Broadway production, it allows the story to be told by the beautiful music.

The picture above was taken at Sunday’s cast party. (Me, Lucy, and director Jane Hammett) 

Now that it’s gone public, I can say how excited I am that composer Lucy Simon will be attending our opening night (January 18) at the Yerba Buena Theater.

I remember my first exposure to this show — while a student at Biola (ca. 1992) I accompanied Dana Rouse (née Warren) on “How Could I Ever Know?” Seriously, how could I have known I’d be conducting the “West Coast Revival” of this marvelous show?

Ms. Simon will give a post-show public Q&A on stage at the YBC. Director Jane Hammett and I, as well as some cast members, will  participate as well. If you’re thinking about coming to the show, you should seriously consider securing tickets for opening night next weekend. Many from my choirs at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church are attending that evening.

Good all around. 

“Peace, Peace/Silent Night”
Photo from one of last night’s Christmas Eve (eve) services.
Five more services to go tonight.

Photo by Jack Marsall

Here’s the Menlo Pres Chancel Choir in action this past weekend.We were in concert black for our “Christmas Festival” weekend. Four services and an integrated sermon/anthem program made for a wonderful experience. I’ve been with this choir for just over five months, and we’re off to a great start.

Note Christian Elliott at the organ. Barely visible in the lower right corner is the base of Krista’s harp.

Next up is our marathon Christmas Eve service schedule:
December 23: 6:30 PM and 8:00 PM
December 24: 5:00 PM, 6:30 PM, 8:00 PM, 9:30 PM, 11:00 PM

Merry Christmas!

Photo by Jack Marsall

From Kindergarten through the 10th grade I went to a private Christian school in Sacramento. When you’re a kid you don’t really think about all the stigmas that come with the “private school” label, especially when your family is blue-collar middle-class. True, I had neighborhood friends that went to the local public elementary, and we’d pass each other walking in opposite directions to our respective campuses every day.

For the most part my elementary years were blissful: I had a string of great teachers, good friends, and just enough dirt to play with in the abandoned cement-box planters dotting the church parking lot that served as our recess playground. Come 7th grade we all had to go to the big kids’ campus, where Junior High and High School met in a modern sterile box of a building that had 6 classrooms, 2 hallways, and a gymnasium.

It’s hard to remember a lot of the details, likely because I blocked them out the year I left to go to Public High School. But at some point I realized that this private school was not like other private schools. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but one day I came to the conclusion that this place was just as much reform school as it was a house of education.

Here is my reasoning: there is no possible way on God’s green earth that my parents could have afforded a proper private prep school. But being a relatively young believer, my mom was bent on protecting me from the world’s evils, and this school was close, christian, and relatively affordable. The trouble was this: while my mom was protecting me from the evils of the world by sending me there, other parents were protecting the world from the evils of their kids in the same way.

Fortunately there weren’t a lot of them in my class. And the “bad kids” are not what this post is about.

I left the school at the end of my sophomore year, and I like to think I beat them to the punch before they expelled me. I was a serious threat, with all my open-minded, free-thinking, “speak truth to power” ways. I had tried to get my mom to let me leave several times earlier, even appealing to her sense of fiscal responsibility: “Just think of all the money you’d save if I went to public school.”

What finally set me free was an incident that pissed my mom off. I was on the JV basketball team, and in the middle of a game I loudly told the ref that he “sucked”. I won’t bore you with my air-tight defense of just exactly why he sucked, but you can trust me on this one. You see, the word “suck” was not to be taken lightly by anyone within the ultra-conservative, fundamentalist sphere of this school’s influence.

I genuinely felt bad for what I had done, accurate as I was in my profession. As soon as the game ended I walked into the bleachers, still in uniform, and apologized to as many people as I could find. Then I found the ref and told him I was sorry. He was actually totally cool about it. I listened to a major lecture from my coach, got suspended for 2 games, and was told by the administrator that if I ever did that again I’d be permanently banned from scholastic sports.

OK, so I took my lumps.

Then a few months later at the annual sports awards banquet they handed out the usual awards: Most Valuable Player, Most Improved Player, and Most Inspirational Player. That season I had, by a huge margin, the best stats on the team. This was due to the fact that the other tall player had been bumped up to Varsity early in the season, leaving me with all the rebounds and most of the points in the paint (I played Center).

Every team had the same awards category, but that year the Junior Varsity Basketball team didn’t have an MVP. The explanation was that “JV is a learning phase and we don’t want to single out any one player” — like they did every year before, and the years thereafter.

No big deal to me. I was focused playing the role of Jack in the school play “The Importance of Being Ernest” and basketball season was so three months ago. On our way home in the car my mother was fuming. I thought she was mad at me all over again for what I had done in the game. Not so. She had seen the collection of trophies in the back room before the banquet, and there was one with my name and Most Valuable Player on it. Obviously my coach had awarded me MVP, but an apparent last-minute administrative intervention and retcon had prevented me from receiving it.

My mother had finally witnessed something I had grown accustomed to: the raw power of fundamentalist forgiveness. Sins go on being punished for all eternity and no amount of true penitence can atone — Bob Jones Senior would have been so proud! Mom couldn’t reconcile this behavior with the truth of the Gospel (interestingly, the same phrase I had used on multiple occasions with the administration about their dogma).

She asked me if I wanted to go to public school the next year. I’m not sure exactly what I said, but I think it went something like this: “Hell yeah, mom. This place sucks!”

I don’t know what made me think to look for this, but I just checked the iTunes Music Store and Krista’s first solo CD, “The Journey” is now available for purchase.

We produced this CD last year, but I never took advantage of Oasis’s (our manufacturer) promotional opportunities, so my entrepreneurial wife signed herself up for CD Baby. I forgot about it until just now.

If someone wants to buy the album and post a review, I’d be very appreciative. Meanwhile stop by her website and blog.

Last weekend I had a great time in Sun Valley, Idaho with “The Three Tenors: World’s Greatest Hits”. These are Dennis McNeil, Jose Medina, and Jorge Lopez Yañez.

We performed to 2 sold-out audiences for the Sun Valley Opera, which, according to SVO president Frank Meyer, was the first classical concert in Sun Valley to sell 1,000 tickets. Fortunately Bruce Willis’ gig down the road was scheduled for the night after us. =)

This is always a fun concert to do, especially when we use the two-piano version. Less stress for me as Musical Director (no unruly cellists to tame*) and more freedom to create an intimate collaboration with these great artists. Speaking of two pianos, we hired a fine player from Salt Lake City, Lawrence Gee, who sits on the keyboard faculty of the University of Utah.

We told the SVO board over and over that this kind of concert is our reward for a season’s hard work. They treated us like rock stars, and we had one of the Best. Audiences. Ever. This was my first time to Sun Valley, and I hope to go back again next year. I just hope the owner of the vacation house we rented didn’t mind all the broken furniture and spilled wine on the carpets. We *were* rock stars after all. . .

* Steve Velez is my favorite cellist to roust, and I waste no opportunity to have a little fun at his expense. He’s coming to Milwaukee with us in two weeks, so if he reads this (which he might, given his proclivity for Googling himself) I better prepare for some serious payback.