Possumblog

One more time.

Yes, once more I feel compelled to act like a prissy little prig.

But let me say this to my fellow citizens of Trussville--sit down, and shut up, or the next time we have ourselves a high school choir concert, I'm recreating DeNiro's baseball bat scene in The Untouchables.

Oldest and her fellow choir members had their end-of-the-year concert last night, and the auditorium was packed with "proud" grandparents and parents and friends and siblings. I put "proud" in quotes, because let me tell you this--if you were REALLY proud of your kids, you would be more respectful of them and your fellow patrons during the performances.

When the choir director nicely asks before the show to silence your cell phone and to take flash photos only between songs and to refrain from getting up to leave the auditorium during the singing--even if you were completely devoid of any sense of decorum or etiquette--it still seems as though you would be willing to comply with those instructions. The fact that the vast majority of you DIDN'T can only mean that you're just a bunch of ignorant stupid pigs who don't deserve to have kids as talented as you do.

YOU! The old sack of bones in front of me! Yes, you--the hag whose digital camera beeped and blipped the entire G--d----d performance and even after you showed everyone in the rows behind you that when you take a flash picture in the auditorium with the lights off that NOTHING shows up on the screen, you CONTINUED TO SET OFF THE FLASH! What the *^%$ is WRONG WITH YOU!? Is it THAT much trouble to wait until the gap between songs? Or are you suffering from some sort of horrible head injury that has so impaired your judgment that you would walk out in front of a bus?

YOU! The parents with the whiny child in front of the old hag with the beeping flash machine! TAKE THE KID OUTSIDE! Look, I've got four kids, and every one of them has been two years old. I've missed plenty of things because I've had to take them out of a theater or auditorium--THAT'S WHAT I GET FOR HAVING THEM! It's my problem--"my baby to rock," so to speak--and I never thought OTHER people should be burdened with them whining and crying and jabbering during a time when it would be distracting. It's not cute or precious or sweet or anything else, TAKE THEM OUTSIDE.

YOU! The idiot-child-woman behind me who continued to talk the entire time in a whisper that tells me you must have been raised in a sawmill. SHUT THE F*** UP! Trust me, chick--you don't have ANYTHING important to say. I can tell.

YOU! The person who barged through the doors! YOU! The people who wandered in during a particularly emotional portion of a song and felt compelled to go all the way down to the front. YOU! The mental gimp who kept beating folding chairs together in the back of the auditorium. YOU! The consumptive who had double pneumonia and tuberculosis and pertussis and whooping cough and phlegmy discharge and post nasal drip and for all I know some sort of vile sexually transmitted disease caught from a wombat that causes you to heave up a lung with every breath--ALL OF YOU! SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!

Again--for the love of all that's holy--if you really had any love or affection for your children, grandchildren, or friends and their talents, you OWE IT TO THEM AND TO YOUR FELLOW PATRONS not ruin their performance with your constant noisemaking and distractions. Since you seem oblivious to reason and good sense, let me warn you of this--every time you hack up a handful of bronchioles, every time your phone rings, every time you talk to your neighbor like they were across a basketball court, every time you bang through the door, every time you set off your pan of flash powder--every time any of that happens, Satan kills a sweet little puppy and a furry soft kitten.

Do you really want that on you!?

I would hope not. SO SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!

ANYway, the performances themself were very good--there are actually two choirs--one all girls (which is the one Oldest sings with) and the other is mixed. As good as the mass choirs were, I have to give special recognition to the cute young lady who lives around the corner from us who sang "Daddy's Son." She has an incredibly rich and expressive voice, and it's only gotten better over the course of the year. AND, in addition to her performance, kudos to the young man who was given the opportunity to direct the choir in "To Love Our God" (arr. Mark Hayes). He's a senior this year and just a super kid. He's going to do well for himself no matter what he does, but he does want to study choral directing. I'd say he's well on his way.

And the highlight? Probably the combined choir production of "Bohemian Rhapsody" (arr Mark Brymer), which also included backup from some student rocknroll dudes on guitar, bass, and drums down in the orchestra pit, with the director on the piano up on stage. It was, to say the least--very lively. A fun one, done well--Freddie Mercury himself would be impressed.

Good job, kids, and to your director, as well.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 11, 2007 09:44 AM