Monday Ruminations

So, homophobic Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died over the weekend, and lotsa folks on the left rejoiced. I didn’t. He was a human being, obviously flawed, badly flawed, but he was a human being.

So, I am sorry he died, but I am not sorry he’s gone from the Supreme Court. And I am hoping that now we’ll get a less conservative, less judgmental, less hateful voice as a replacement.

I did love, though, how the GOP immediately announced that since Obama is his last year in office and since this an election year, that he should not nominate a new justice.  Imagine the vitriol the GOP would spew had the democrats suggested such a thing. 

Oh, and this was another time that Ted Cruz lied. He said no president, in an election year, has ever nominated a replacement justice for the court except … lie.

It’s happened numerous times but Ted Cruz doesn’t care about hat; he just acres about the lie. Imagine a Ted Crux hissy fit — emphasis on hissy — if he were president and the Congress vowed to block him at every turn. His little head would implode and he’d turn tail, and head back to Canada, whimpering all the way.

And speaking of DetesTed, he’s visiting our little corner of South Carolina today, just a couple of miles from Casa Bob y Carlos. And last week, a woman appeared at my job with leaflets and invitations to hear Cruz speak. She asked me to give them to my boss and then said, Take one for yourself, too.

I replied, No, thanks.

Aren’t you a Ted Cruz supporter?

No.

May I ask who you’re voting for?

No, you may not.

But not Ted Cruz? Why?

Well, look, this is where I work, so I’d rather keep the conversation away from politics, thank you.

Oh, I was just asking …

Then I’ll tell you …

And off I went into a tear about Ted Cruz lies, about Ben Carson leaving the race so his people could scoop up those voters, about his mailer in Iowa suggesting people would be ticketed with voting violations if they didn’t show up to caucus. He lies, and we don’t need that as president.

I told her that I was a legally happily married gay man and that Ted Cruz has vowed to make same-sex marriage illegal and why would I vote for anyone who seeks to deny me equality and to turn back the clock on LGBT rights?

Thankyouverymuch.

Now, more pleasant thoughts …

Carlos and I are not big on the made-up holiday of Valentine’s Day … sorry Hallmark.

I don’t need a special day to tell Carlos that I love him, or buy him chocolates or flowers or whatever it is they’re selling. I can, and do, do that every chance I get.

But Carlos had a Valentine’s Day treat for us — mostly because it was one night only, on the fourteenth — so last night we went out to our local Fine Arts Center to see The Danish String Quartet, with Decoda with jazz vocalist and Sarah Elizabeth Charles.

The Danish String Quartet — four hotties …  violinist Frederik Øland, violinist Rune Tonsgaard, viola player Asbjørn Nørgaard, and cellist Fredrik Sjölin … with gorgeous instruments — appeared at the Louvre in Paris last Thursday and their next stop was, yes, Camden, South Carolina, before heading up to Lincoln Center for a performance.

How’s that for a cool tour schedule. Paris, Camden, New York.

And they were so good, first appearing onstage with Decoda — more on them — and then finishing out the show with a non-stop, one hour performance of Beethoven’s No. 16 in F Minor. As a musician himself, Carlos was amazed that they played non-stop for that long, even though it flew by.

We also saw Decoda, a large group of musicians who perform together, or in smaller groupings — we had six of them last night … cellist Claire Bryant, violinists Owen Dalby and Meena Bhasin, cellist Kris Saebo, bassoonist Brad Balliett and jazz vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles — who formed in the Ensemble ACJW fellowship program, created by Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.

They appear quite often in South Carolina and at our Fine Arts Center, and just last week held a week-long seminar and classes at the Lee Correctional Institution — yes, a prison — giving inmates help in writing and performing music as a way of expression.

They even performed one of the inmate’s pieces, Ecclesiasts, done as a spoken word price with the ensemble, though it was written as a rap by the author.

And the program ended with both groups onstage to perform a traditional Danish folk song … a very cool, very civilized, very lovely, way to spend the day …