SLOPPY

posted by James Reel

    I'm making dumb beginner's mistakes this week. Because I didn't program one of the CD players the way I  usually do just now, the disc kept playing after it should have been history, letting my golden voice have the airwaves to itself. Yesterday, when changing my mind about where to slip in a little bit of fill music, I wound up not setting up the discs in my customary sequence, and consequently played a couple of seconds of the wrong piece before switching to the music I'd actually announced.
    Lack of focus, I guess, and it's probably going to get worse as the week drags on. Yesterday I had to record an interview with a member of the Tokyo Quartet during my air shift, then zipped out to the Tucson Weekly to take over while the top editor is on vacation. After that, I managed to get home long enough to shave before heading out again to teach an Elderhostel class on chamber music with UA professor Jay Rosenblatt. Today, from KUAT I go again to the Weekly, take time out for a doctor's appointment I scheduled six months ago, go back to the Weekly to put it to bed, then head downtown to give the pre-concert talk for tonight's Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival performance. Tomorrow, after KUAT, it's Part 2 of the Elderhostel class in the afternoon, then another pre-concert talk in the evening. Things may lighten up a little on Thursday, in the period after I MC the festival's kiddie concert in the morning and before the pilgrimage to the Tucson Symphony concert that night.
    Right now, I'm thinking about junking the music schedule, putting on an 80-minute Mahler CD, and taking a little nap. Thinking, not planning.