[This ran as a Clubbed to Death column in the 2/28/01 issue of Honolulu Weekly. Enjoy.]

[Note: You can jump to the addendum of 07/14/01. Doug]

As a half-assed Marxist and full-time optimist I firmly believe in the impending triumph of Good over Evil. That means I feel an urgent need to catch all the really choice 18th century Viennese operas before they’re banned (as artifacts glorifying the bourgeoisie) and we all get conscripted into the annual staging of “Red Detachment of Women.”

Of course, I don’t have the credit line to hop a flight to NY and hit the Met’s production of Cosi fan tutte so I have to settle for Hawaii Opera Theater’s production of “The Marriage of Figaro.” Just as well. Four acts! That means three intermissions. Three opportunities to hit the bar! I figured I could leave the flask at home for this one. (Wrong! see notes below.)

Okay, The Marriage of Figaro – you know, the Viennese opera written in Italian based on the French play about Spanish royalty? The one with a 13 year-old boy played by a woman soprano singing in her underwear? O the glory of Vienna before Freud!

So I maxed out my MasterCard (pretty sure it was mine) and bought a couple of Row B (!) tickets. You really have to start doubting yourself when you have Row B opera tickets and can’t find a date. I figure it’s because the ticket is so expensive women think it signals their acceptance of an implied obligation to give up coochie. Luckily I was able to find someone who felt no such obligation, even in the face of my declared willingness to tear the ears off bunny-rabbits just for the opportunity to worship her butt (you know, the usual line). All to no avail (you know, the usual response). [Don’t worry Annabel, no one actually reads this column, it’s just a gray space they couldn’t sell to advertisers.]

Maybe I could make a few points with onlookers by being mistaken for a sleazy old rich guy who has some kind of Svengali-like power over tall blondes. I think she got the points, though, for being mistaken as someone taking her oriental house servant on a cultural enrichment outing as a reward for years of loyal service.

(Gotta take a detour here to point out that opera crowds are even ruder than the Snoop Dogg gangsta crew. Before the opera we have dinner at TGI Fridays. I gallantly hold the door open for Hans and Inga. Picture Hans as a Fabio who doesn’t work out and doesn’t get enough sleep. Inga must’ve looked pretty fab herself a few years and pounds ago. The thing is, as I arrive at the last two bar seats, Hans does a full-on end run and swipes them from me. Hans and Inga don’t seem very happy with each other. Good.)

Anyway, underwear is the key. To the opera. What made this opera famous in Vienna wasn’t the truly mind boggling arias with four, five, and six intertwining voices singing in celestial harmony, it was The Underwear Scene! The scene where Susanna and Contessa are undressing Cherubino (played by a woman soprano) and then dressing him up as a woman. In the HOT production this all happens behind the most opaque of screens!

Did you see the Svengali-like old guy with the tall blonde? Here are some of his notes: Annabel asks, “Why do only rich guys come to the opera?” She didn’t pay for tickets...Reed players should refrain from strenuous forms of oral sex before performing four-act operas...Orchestra shows heroic solidarity in ignoring conductor’s attempts to impose changes in tempo and dynamics...If intermissions are only as long as the juice break on interisland flights, where are the stewardesses to gather up the plastic cups?...Should I have a drink or take a leak? Had a drink last intermission, guess I’ll have a drink...Where’s Hans, in the cheap seats? Hans Hans Hans, that’s no way to save a crumbling relationship...Hey! What happened to the 3rd intermission!...Where’s my flask!...Hey! What happened to Marcellina’s aria!...Where’s my flask!...Hey! What happened to Basilio’s aria!...Did they misplace some pages of the score or is this the Reader’s Digest version?

But in the end it’s all good. Mozart and Da Ponte’s gorgeous gem is pretty much indestructible. No prince and princess, no mythical heroes, no blood shed over cross or country. Figaro, rightly famous for being about regular people like us looking for love and coochie, and our laughable attempts at deception.

When I get home, before collapsing into bed, I start undressing. When down to just underwear, I burst into song.

Addendum of 7/14/01:

People seem to like this article and have asked a lot of questions so I am compelled to straighten out a couple of things before they get out of hand:

First off, people ask how Annabel liked the article (hee hee). That's exactly how they ask the question. "So, how did Annabel like the article - hee hee." They ask this because I declare my willingness to "tear the ears off bunny-rabbits just for the opportunity to worship her butt.

Well, that statement caused no problem at all. She took it in the metaphorical sense. And in what sense did I write it? Well, metaphors depend on the similarity of dissimilar elements to convey meaning. Let's just say that the dissimilarity between elements is so insignificant in this case that it doesn't really matter. The statement is meant to convey the same worshipful affect (yes affect, not effect, as in "sunshine on my shoulders brightens my affect") as, say, Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in b-minor, or any of the more enduring expressions of Parliament-Funkadelic. I hope that settles THAT.

What did cause a problem is my quoting her as saying, "Why do only rich guys come to the opera?" She denies ever having uttered such a "dumb blonde" comment. This contradicts my notes for the evening, which, admittedly, follow the standard American journalistic practice of being manufactured out of thin air the night before. Anyway, I'd like to say that it is a well known fact that Annabel is not a dumb blonde. She is a lettered and honored attorney in our community. Why would I go out with a DUMB blonde? I mean, even if I COULD afford it?

That brings us to this question: Some have notice that that the title of the page is, "Not Sailing the Caribbean" and have asked me if that's just random wise-ass bullshit or if that has any real or personal significance. At the time, her boyfriend (chorus: "alas alas!") was sailing the Carribean and Annabel was scheduled to join him, which she did a little while after our big night out.

Okay, now backing up a bit to the butt statement. I'm kind of sorry for making such a big deal over her butt because there is another part of her anatomy which is the real reason I wanted to take Annabel to the opera. A few years ago there was a credit card commercial on TV which featured this gorgeous dark haired woman sitting next to an empty seat at the opera. The narrator starts listing, "Two row B tickets at the Met, three hundred sixty dollars; blah blah blah blah, X dollars," etc. Remember? Anyway, I kind of fell in love with the woman in the ad. I wanted to rescue her from the empty seat she was sitting next to. The woman in the ad had this really gorgeous neck. Neck. Which was displayed to good advantage in the evening ensemble she had purchased for X dollars via credit card.

So yes, Annabel really has a gorgeous neck -- a slim pedestal neck straight from the meticulously flattering oil paintings of the Viennese Bourgeoisie of the High-Classical period. Just like the woman in the ad. It fits the rest of her morphology, which is kind of a tall, slightly elongated soccer player from a 0.8 Earth Gravity planet. (For the curious, I would describe myself morphologically as resembling a being from a 0.5 Earth Gravity planet who has been on a rather long inter-planetary voyage - kind of a Greyling minus the abduction technology.)

Accompanying someone with such a gorgeous neck to the opera became kind of a goal in my life, in the same way some set themselves the goal of climbing Everest, or swimming across the pool the long way. If I could somehow manage this, my life would be transformed, and I would enter into the real (credit card validated) world by way of opera. I had actually seriously considered hiring an actress (or whatever) just to act the part for the evening. Really. I mean seriously. If da Ponte and Mozart were to create the aria of this situation, then you would believe and weep. Or laugh, they could do both even with such bad material.

So here it all is, offered up to you the reader in the most humble and confessional tones, to rectify errors, confess omissions, and generally beg your pardon. To do this is so important to me that I have decided that this will be the very last thing that I ever write in my entire life.

Up to now, anyway.

Still not sailing the Caribbean, and ever the Basilio,