Charity Sometimes Begins at School

This isn't exactly how my male Cinderella tenor looked  tonight-- for one thing, he wore a tux -- but it's an adequate representation.

I made it very nicely through accompanying the tenor's recital tonight. My services ended up being provided free of charge. My buddy the cellist told me the tenor is not exactly rolling in dough. The tenor looked as though he might cry when I handed the envelope containing the cash back to him. I have three hundred fewer dollars than I had planned for expenditures on my upcoming Catalina trip, but I have a seldom-touched bank account that won't even notice if I raid it for an additional three hundred bucks. 

Sometimes it's OK to do a favor for someone simply out of the goodness of one's heart.  When the favor is unexpected and the recipient is genuinely grateful, the feeling one gets from being nice is sometimes worth more in the long run than the cash would have been, anyway.

The tenor did well in his performance tonight. I didn't cry during "Nessun Dorma,"  neither because the performance was  unbelievably great nor because it was mediocre, but I did thoroughly enjoy the rendition. It would be blatantly unfair to compare the guy to Pavarotti, Bocelli,  Domingo, or Josh Groban in his present state, as it would be unfair to compare any twenty-one-year-old who looks as though he is fourteen to such legends. He may not have been all that far inferior to Groban in his very early years, though. Will he one day himself be a legend? The odds are stacked against any entertainer not well-connected in today's world, but who knows?  Will he make a living at his art? Quite possibly. His voice will mature, as will his physical appearance.  With a little luck, one can never put a cap on his potential. Additionally, he very definitely has "cute" going in his favor, and I'm not particularly quick to classify a young man as "cute." I have high standards in that regard.

The tenor's adviser was carrying in his wallet nearly five hundred dollars in gift cards to a neighborhood pizza parlor, which he very generously donated for an impromptu post-recital reception.  I doubt that the presence of the gift cards in the adviser's wallet was a coincidence. I suspect he purchased them this afternoon because he knew the tenor lacked the funds to provide a reception featuring anything more elegant than store-brand Oreos and Hawaiian Punch. My respect for the adviser grew exponentially tonight.

This young tenor is not from skid row, but neither has he lived anything resembling the ever-so-slightly-above-the-mean existence that I  have taken for granted. Many of the male music majors by now own tuxes. The tuxedo the tenor wore tonight was rented. (It fit well, and he looked very nice.) I'd buy the guy a tux except that I don't think he's finished growing, and the price of a tuxedo is a lot of money to spend on someone who is probably still looking at a growth spurt. My brother owns a pricey and still stylish tux that he has outgrown that has seen only very light wear. Perhaps my mom will agree that we can have the pants and sleeves altered to fit the tenor so that his next appearance requiring a tux doesn't involve renting or borrowing. Perhaps we can even avoid pressing the ends of the sleeves and pants heavily so that they can be lengthened to accommodate the growth he'll likely experience.

I felt proud to be a part of this young man's performance on what may very well have been the greatest night of his life to this point. As a surprise, his parents flew in from the upper midwest to see their son perform his senior recital. It's good that he saw them initially a few hours or so before the scheduled start of his recital, because had he first seen them immediately before he was to perform, his emotions may have interfered with his ability to sing. His parents were able to accrue enough money to travel from North Dakota (he's here on scholarship) to be present for the recital. The entire extended family chipped in so that the parents would have enough money for the flight. They had saved enough money for five nights at Motel 6, but a music faculty member donated the use of her beach house, which will allow them to use money designated for lodging to experience some of our area's nicer restaurants, as opposed to subsisting on McDonald's and Burger King fare, which had been the plan. My parents are letting his parents use the car that Matthew and I drove before we each were given our own cars. It's at least as safe, reliable, and well-insured as a rental car would have been, but no one will be terribly upset if  it gets a ding or two because all  it's doing is taking up space in the garage and has to be parked on the street when Matthew or my cousin Josh are home. Josh went over it thoroughly yesterday to ensure that it is in perfect working order. The father of one of the viola majors owns several local gas stations, and she donated a gas card that will work for the time they're here at any of the stations owned by their family.  The tenor's parents will not be able to see him receive his fake diploma, but having them see his recital was much more important to him and to them.

The tenor has received enough scholarships and grants to continue his education here, and plans to pursue a vocal performance master's degree. Only time will tell where the future will lead him, but for tonight and for the rest of the week, he's experiencing a male version of a Cinderella-like existence. It was gratifying to see so many people pool available resources to make this a memorable experience for the young tenor and for his parents. You may know of him someday, but I'm not divulging his name, so if he ever becomes genuinely famous, you can only guess as to whether or not it was he.

We in our campus community desperately needed something positive to happen. For me, this was it.

He's NOT a victim, and PLEASE, let us not turn him into one.

Over spring break  a bit of  a disaster occurred in UC-Santa Barbara's off-campus residential community. In that particular case,  scads of high school students as well as a roughly equal number of young adults who attend other universities or no universities at al converged upon Isla Vista for some sort of event. Predictablly, things got out of hand rather quickly, and the "event" turned into a minor riot. Unfortunately for student of UC-Santa Barbara, blame for this was pinned on them when little evidence pointed to the the UCSB's student body having much if anything at all to do with the unrest.

Another incident took place last night. This situation was of a much more serious nature, and lives were lost. Six was the last body count I heard, although others may still be fighting for their lives.

I haven't driven anywhere near the crime scene today. To do  so would be painful and emotionally charged, and I'm sure that those involved with investigating the crime have plenty to do without curious rubber-neckers ogling the scene.

This particular tragedy was the work of one very narcissistic individual. I shall not mention his name here because he is not worthy of the publicity provided even by this lowly blog. I hesitate to touch upon the topic, but my conclusion is that those whose lives were lost merit  mention even if the amalgamation of lagoon scum deserves anonymity. The press is, as of yet, not releasing the names of those whose lives were lost. When the names are released, I will do what little I can to honor their collective memory.

This incident is neither the first nor the last of its kind.  I don't know enough about weapons to know if harsher laws in terms of the availability of assault-type weapons could have minimized the damage that was done, or if the weapon used was of a simple variety and is of the sort that will likely always be legal. Moreover, if I understand correctly, the BMW was the weapon of choice in the loss of some of the lives. I don't foresee BMWs being outlawed at any time in the near future.

Pond scum had apparently made a name for himself at several websites. my cousin showed me one particular off-tpoic comment he wrote at a particular board after which another poster commented, "Those sound like the writings of a serial killer."  The commenter probably truly believed pond sum's comments were stranger than garden-variety strange, but he/she probably had no clue as to how prophetic he or she truly was.

The perpetrator of this heinous act was twenty-two and was still a virgin, and for that, the residents of Isla Vista deserved to pay with their lives. he, the perpetrator, was, in his own words, a prefect gentlemen, but the ladies of a particular sorority were giving sex to other men less deserving than he. He had been in school two-and-a-half years - wait -- longer than that, and hadn't had sex. He attends a University of california and cannot correctly calculate how long he has been in attendance at the college or university level. Perhaps our requirements for entrance into the University of California are too lax if students there don't even know how long they've been there.

The whole dating quagmire is painful at the best, but many others before this amalgamation of pond scum have navigated it with the need to resort to mass murder.  My guess is that the perpetrator was aiming too high  in terms of those he wished to date versus those who wished to date him. Most of us figure this out very early in life.  When we first begin to notice the opposite sex (or same sex, for those who experience same-sex attraction), the venn diagram representing those we would choose to date and those who would choose to date us is typically two circles which neither intersect nor even touch. Eventually most of us become acquainted with reality. We socialize with others who aare not necessarily the girls or guys of our dreams,  but we learn a few social skills and have a bit of fun along the way. then eventually, if were lucky, something a bit magical happens:  the way we look in real life starts to a bit more closely resemble the way we looked in our imaginations, and people who wouldn't have given us a second glance in our earlier days actually notice us. That doesn't happen, in most cases, however, if we don't go through the motions and practice our social skills in our earlier years along with our fellow social inferiors.

The pictures I've seen of pond scum amalgamation do not portray a hideously ugly young man. Surely someone would have gone out with him, and might even have willingly had sex with him. I do hope they test his DNA, as a friend of mine was raped two years ago in Isla Vista, and if he's lying about never having had sex and happened to have been the perpetrator in her case, I'd like to see her get a bit of closure.

In any event, he appeared to have a type, from things he said in at least one of his videos.   It seemed tha he liked blonde sorority girls.  Though it's good not to get too heavily into stereotyping, I've not been a major fan of most of the sorority girls I've encountered in classes. Some have been merely snobbish, while others have been  outrightly nasty.  While no manner of rejection any of these girls gave to this man in response to offers of dates, sex, or anything else would in any way justify his actions, in this particular case, this creep's feelings were hurt, and he took it out on innocent bystanders.  if the sorority girls of which he spoke were the ones I knew, it's not hard to believe that any offer of a date (a more sexually explicit offer he may have made was sufficiently crude, in my opinion, that no response with which a girl might have come up would have been too rude for the situation)  might have been rejected in a publicly rude manner when a simple, quite, polite "no" would have sufficed. it's really no one's fault but his. At the same time, if he did make a polite request to one of those blonde sorority girls of his dreams for a date, and she rejected him in a loud and humiliating manner, I hope she's considering that she might have played at least a small role in this. I say this because I've seen the loud and humiliating rejections happen. Obviously, regardless,  that gives no one a right to kill anyone else.

This piece of pond scum seemed to think his BMW gave him  some sort of entitlement. I've never counted BMWs on campus, but I see them on a regular basis. I've read that the piece of pond scum's father works in he entertainment industry. That, combined with his BMW, would lead me to believe he was from at least a moderately privileged background.  While I have no way of  assessing relative wealth on campus, I'm comfortable in saying he is one of very many students from financially comfortable backgrounds. At UC-Santa Barbara, if a person wishes to distinguish himself or herself, it takes more than familial wealth in order to do so. Parents: don't think you can hand your kid the keys to a BMW and assume you've given him or her the keys to success in college or in life.

Spring Break Rears Its Ugly Head

unrest in Isla Vista created by non-UC-Santa Barbara students

A social media-promoted spring break gathering turned violent when a sheriff's deputy was hit in the head with a backpack filled with beer bottles in the UC-Santa Barbara off-campus residential area of Isla Vista. When an ensuing arrest was attempted, a riot erupted in which fires were started, traffic signs were removed, and projectiles were thrown at law enforcement officials. Law enforcement from neighboring Venture County was called in for reinforcement.  Hours later order was restored. Over one hundred arrests were made, and at least forty-four people were taken to a local hospital.

I'm quite familiar with the neighborhood, community, or whatever you'd care to call it, of Isla Vista. While I wouldn't willingly take my grandmother there, seedier places than Isla Vista exist within a ten-minute drive of my previous hometown, which is considered one of the safest communities in the U.S.

The spring break event -- what has become an annual street party dubbed "Deltopia," which allegedly morphed from the "Floatopia" spring break event of several years ago -- was attended primarily by high school students and students on spring break from institutions other than UCSB.  I'm sure there were UCSB student in attendance, but the majority have left the area for spring break. In this particular case, the reputation of UCSB students has been sullied by outsiders.