We are half way through the baseball season and my fantasy baseball team is in second place. I will admit we are struggling lately and I'm hanging on to pretty thin leads in several categories. As it worked out I have more offense than any other team and have several guys on the bench each night that other teams wish they had playing for them. But the pitchers are not doing as well as I expected. That is keeping us out of first and could drop us lower than second over time.

There is a lot of music. When you are going through literature to find magnificently beautiful things for your choirs, there is a lot to look at. I guess I have the same problem faced by English literature teachers--which books do you choose that represent the broad spectrums of the possiblities. Conductors should, rather must choose compelling things, life changing lyrics, unforgettable melodies, and moments of crashing climax and soothing balm. I find that it is difficult to sit at the piano and determine what music will sound like in the air. Voices often give a life to notation that is not reproduced any other way. I find that I'm a bad judge of printed music. I have a piece sitting in my stack, unused for years and then hear another conductor's presentation of it and say to myself. "Of course. I have to do that." Others are also afflicted with this disease. I have quite a few pieces in my repertoire that everyone should be singing that other conductors don't know at all. So I'm constantly selling the Brusa Missa pro defuntis, the Hanus Magnificat, and Psalm 23, by Imant Raminsh. Charles Davidson's songs I Never Saw Another Butterfly--shouldn't they be sung by all treble voices? The more I conduct these pieces the more I believe them brilliant works of art. There are others, but I'll not bore you.

Last week I worked with 28 young men at the GA ACDA conference. It was interesting to consider who they were. High school and college young men who wanted to take time out of the summer to sing some fine music together. You have to believe in those young men.

I am singing in a couple of weeks at a local cafe that features evening concerts with a couple of other howling baritones. It should be something else. It has sold out two weeks before the performance so I guess people are expecting something special. I am enjoying the rehearsals with these other operatic voices.

The preznit and vice preznit have sunk to new lows and that was difficult for them. They are clearly angry evil men at this point. I'm ready for impeachment trials. Can we wait another year and a half to be rid of them? I think not. Start with Cheny and maybe Bush will resign.