Youngsick, oldsick

Ventured out of the house this morning for the first time in several days -- and may regret it. Was feeling better, now feeling worse. Just ran a couple errands but that's all it took. Such is the difference between being sick young and being sick old. So I'm taking it easy the rest of the day.

But I did get my grades in yesterday! Next on the agenda, get the review ready to release and catch up on a couple reading things.

The paper ran a story about Thara Memory's struggle with diabetes, which has cost him part of a leg and a finger thus far. Thara is a jazz trumpeter who's been at the foundation of Portland's excellent jazz scene ever since I've been in town. He's in his fifties now, a fine music educator as well as musician.


I had a short collaboration with Thara over twenty years ago when we both were considerably wilder than we are today. He wanted to write a jazz opera and finally gave up on doing the libretto himself. So he approached me about doing it. I loved his story and we went forward.

After we had the first fifteen minutes or so, we applied for development grants. We even got the Portland Opera to sponsor us. We made the early cuts. We became a finalist for a national grant. We had an interview, both of us there, composer and librettist, and during the interview Thara threw a tantrum. He wanted in writing that no white man was going to change his music during development. Well, needless to say, that was the end of our application. Without funding, we both went on to other things after that. I still like his project. I wonder if he'd still want to do it.