on mean people

There are mean people in this world. I am naive and have not wrapped my brain around this concept yet. Why they are mean is beyond me. Maybe insecurity, ignorance, who knows? Not to say that I am perfect, but I am still not over that rear view mirror thing, and I was cussed out on the phone tonight for trying to get money I was promised for a gig.

I have been accepted to Eastman School of Music to do a masters in jazz arranging and composition. They have offered me a 50% scholarship, plus a living stipend in return for working as a jazz band assistant as well as an office assistant to Bill Dobbins. I can swing that, but is it what I really want?

the twenty-somethings of cincinnati setting a new standard of excellence/ lament over my rearview mirror

So last night I was driving down a street in Mt. Adams at about 2:30 in the morning. I had just gotten off of a gig with Son Del Caribe in Newport, and Brian lives in Mt. Adams which is much closer to Newport than where I live, and we had to go do our church gig the next morning, so I was going to go crash at his place for a few hours before I had to get up. So all the bars in Mt. Adams had let out, and that place turns into a big, testosterone-filled frat party on the weekends, but was unusually busy last weekend, there were hoards of hundreds of people filling the narrow streets, walking in front of cars, stumbling, and generally being obnoxious. A mini mardi gras. I was stuck behind a car whose driver had decided to get out and have a conversation with a pedestrian, and a big, meaty guy in a white button-up shirt walked by my car and casually took a swing at my right rear view mirror with his arm, and knocked it clear off my car. I repeat, he just walked by and KNOCKED MY REARVIEW MIRROR OFF MY CAR WITH HIS RIGHT HAND. ~thwack~ Just for fun. Like, walking down the street..... ~whistling~.... ~THWACK~ Just because he could. I was in my car, my car was running, I was minding my own business. Maybe this is naive of me, but I am completely baffled. Who does that? Do thoughts like this really go through people's head? Do people really have little enough on their mind for the thought to cross their brain "wow, I am going to walk up to that girl's little red car and knock her mirror off". Never, ever, ever, in the 21 years of my life, have I ever had the slightest inkling of a desire to damage anyone else's property. Friends, enemies or strangers. It's kind of an incomprehensible thing to me.

I should also mention that there were three police officers standing on the sidewalk not five feet away from my car when this happened, who did nothing. They didn't try to chase down the guy in the crowd or stop him. I got out of my car and looked at them, and they looked at me like "what? what are you looking at?" Cincinnati's finest setting a new standard of excellence, as well.
So a message to the jerk who knocked my rear view mirror off my car with his steroid-filled arm just for kicks: I hope you feel really big and feel like a better human being for having done that to my car, because it is going to be an expensive repair. Actually, I just hope you broke your hand or arm, or both.