I believe I shared this incident with Knotty several months ago in the comments section of one of her blogs shortly after it happened, though I don't think I blogged about it here in great detail. If I did, just write me off as one of the old people who tells the same stories repeatedly. At the rate at which my cerebral cortex, hippocampus, medial temporal lobe, and basal ganglia system cells are being consumed and summarily killed off by the cocktail of drugs I'm taking, I'm going to have the mind of a very old person sooner rather than later. I may as well start behaving as though it is happening now. Let us, or at least me, hope that I can hold off on mail-ordering Depends (I'm not ordering those Tena Twist products if they're the last incontinence product on the market) until I'm in my residency at the very least. anyway. I'm sharing this incident to the bulk of you for either the first or second time, depending upon the rapidity of my decline in memory. I'm not sending the link to Judge Ferrer, as I seriously doubt that it impresses him in a positive way when his Twitter followers either quarrel with one another or essentially declare Twitter War. What happened was somewhere between the two extremes, though the incident was short in duration.
The nature of this dispute had its origin, in my mind, anyway, in two divergent circumstances. The first was that I made sent a tweet to Judge Alex to which the tweeter took exception, indicating that I was way out of line in making the comment. Judge Ferrer didn't seem to think so, though I cannot know his actual reaction. Perhaps he was either seething or foaming at the mouth over what I tweeted to him, and he managed to moderate his response so as to appear not offended. He receives so very many tweets, though, that I find it hard to imagine that he'd have the time to devote a great deal of ire to any given tweet that was not an ugly epithet directed at a member of his family. Furthermore, had this person been a close member of the judge's family, I would have taken what she said under advisement. There was no indication in any way that she was or is a close Ferrer relative. Had the judge's wife, daughter, son, brother-in-law, nephew, or any other bona fide relative taken exception to anything I tweeted, I would be very careful not to say anything along the same lines again. I don't have any desire to offend or to hurt the feelings of anyone in Judge Ferrer's family.
For the most part, I can say the same of almost anyone. As much as it seems I'm perpetually embroiled in controversy, since I've been about sixteen years old or so, I've gone through life walking on eggshells in effort to offend as few people as possible, with the obvious exception being a large selection of my paternal relatives and now this particular follower of Judge Alex's. I should note that from what I read of her between the time she first upbraided me over what she considered a seriously inappropriate tweet to the judge until the time the two of us blocked each other, she was frequently if not constantly embattled with other tweeters, and blocked someone on an average of once a day. She was upset with a particular TV journalist who had blocked her for some reason or other even after she prayed for his child when the child was ill. It seems, then, that if one prays for a family member of someone else, one is supposed to be granted a free pass from being blocked on Twitter regardless of how much one annoys or offends another tweeter.
As I briefly recounted, the first circumstance that made enemies of myself and a fellow tweeter was when I tweeted something to Judge Alex that this Tweeter seemed to find highly offensive. (Just to make things clear, it didn't even approach PG-13.) The second circumstance was that the rival tweeter tried to bolster a particular point with the assertion that she is a CONCERT PIANIST !!! I admit that at this point, I was lying in wait, poised for the perfect moment to go on offense. In this blog, I recently explained why the term means essentially nothing except in regard to an almost infinitesimal number of pianists. Taken literally, the term can mean virtually anything a user desires it to mean. A person who takes over the grand piano in his or her church's sanctuary after a Sunday a.m. service to offer an enthusiastic rendition of "Heart and Soul," with or without a duet partner, has a right to consider himself or herself (somehow it seems like more of a himself thing to do, though) a concert pianist. In a sense, I am a concert pianist, though I would never (except that I just did) use the term to describe myself. The attendance at my senior piano recital (for which I was given the honor of the outstanding piano performance graduate of my university for the year, and, following my senior violin recital at my commencement ceremony, was honored as the outstanding graduate of the music department of my university for the year) was too large to be accommodated in a recital hall. The university's largest concert hall had to be reserved for the event. Technically, recitals do not take place in that particular hall. Only concerts do. Even the cover of my program read "Senior Concert" as opposed to "Senior Recital." That would seem to make me a concert pianist.
Except that I'm not. A pianist may be classically trained. A pianist may be a highly skilled classically-trained musician. For that matter, a pianist may be a highly skilled non-classically-trained musician, though the term concert pianist equates in the minds of most with classical training. A pianist's skill level may even reach the somewhat arbitrary distinction of "virtuoso." A legitimate concert pianist, however, would almost have to be person who pays his or her bills by doing nothing but performing solo concerts in concert halls to standing-room-only audiences. If there is such a thing as an actual concert pianist, that would probably define it. Merely being classically trained or even at the virtuoso skill level of such does not necessarily bestow upon a person the title of concert pianist, except that it's not a protected title; whomever so desires to call himself or herself a concert pianist may do so with essential impunity. Let me know when and where you plan to hold your next piano concert. I'll make every effort to show up with refreshments to share with others while we listen to your artistic interpretations of "Chopsticks," "Frere Jacques," and "Lean on Me."
She was public enough in how she conducted herself online (I would have no clue as to whether or not such is still true, as we blocked each other) that she could at the time be easily tracked as an actual person who conjoined her business Twitter account to her personal one. There was no indication in any way that she was or is a close Ferrer relative. She could easily be a fourth-cousin-in-law-twice-removed-and-thrice-divorced, but, as such, I won't consider that she has the authority to arbitrate the propriety of my texts to Judge Alex or to anyone else until I'm told so by Judge Alex, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, or at least Donny Osmond.
Even though it may make me look every bit a rude as I am capable of being in the first place, i'll recount what was said that escalated this war of words.
It was several months ago when, in an especially onerous mood, I called a fellow tweeter and Judge Alex follower who routinely proclaimed serious musical sophistication on a technical misuse of a musical expression. I could and arguably should have let it go, but this person had harshly criticized something quite innocuous that I had tweeted to Judge Alex, telling me that it was a terrible thing to have said. One wouldn't be too far from the truth if one surmised that I was lying in wait for the perfect opportunity to insult this woman. It came. The fellow Judge Alex follower used the word forte with a single quotation mark following the word, obviously representing the French accent ague, in the sense of indicating a person's (probably a conservative politician's, though I don't remember for certain) area of strength. Forte pronounced /for-TAY/ is derived from the Italian language, as are most musical expressions, and indicates that a note or passage is to be played loudly. Forte when used to indicate an area of strength is of French derivation and is pronounced with the e silent, as in /fort/, pronounced in its anglicized version as would be in Fort Sumpter or in Fort Knox. I called her attention to the discrepancy, which is something I would never have done had she not butted in between a conversation between Judge Ferrer and myself to tell me just how out of line I was in making a comment to him. The woman responded that she speaks fluent French and Italian and obviously knows the difference between the two terms. She continued that she didn't recall articulating the word aloud for me to hear which pronunciation she used. I then reminded her of her makeshift use of an apostrophe as an accent ague. She then attempted to trump (pun possibly intended; she's a HUGE Trump supporter unless she has changed courses in the ensuing months) me by letting me know that she of course knows the difference between /fort/ nd /for-TAY/ because she is (prepare yourselves to be impressed) a concert pianist!
Instead of leaving well enough alone, I told her that in an amazing coincidence, my cat Ashley Madison was a concert pianist as well (she does walk across the keys from time to time, especially if she's nervous because people she doesn't know are in the condo) -- that many people showed up for her impromptu concerts in our living room, but that she was going to give up the concert tour because it simply wasn't paying all that well. I asked my tweeter enemy how the financial side of her concert pianist tour was going, and if she had plans to give up her day job as a realtor at any time in the foreseeable future.
I'm not as unkind as I could be if I really put forth concerted effort into the endeavor. I refrained from noting the discrepancies between tweeting enemy's recently botoxed or perhaps retouched glamour shots she posted in her realtor ads and in the recent casual photos she posted of herself at a sporting event. i am an @$$hole, but I have my limits. I, too, will age eventually (possibly sooner rather than later at the rate this medication is taking me out of commission), and I'd probably prefer that not everyone on the face of the Earth take every available opportunity to point out the rapidity of my aging process. Furthermore, tweeting enemy is an attractive-enough woman, for her age or otherwise. It's just that I find realtors' glamour shots a bit amusing if not off-putting.
Tweeter enemy apparently read my profile. "You're in medical school," she tweeted. "Ugh!" At that point the two of us blocked each other. I'm not sure who beat whom to the punch.
If Judge Alex comes across this by chance, I can own my actions.. I like basically all of his followers that I know, but that particular one was one that I didn't really like. I'm not proud of my behavior, and I hope the woman is not a close friend of his, but she started it, and furthermore, sometimes it feels REALLY good to be a complete @$$.
You're earning your nickname , CTB.
ReplyDelete