A day in the life of Ai

My music session with my B&B guest wasn’t going well. The background music I was playing on the piano wasn’t in the right key for her singing. I didn’t know any of the songs her friend wanted to sing.

Then, magic! Melissa McMurrick got out her phone and said,“I’m going to create a song right here on my Suno App. Watch!”

She dictated about 10 words for lyrics and then told the app how much guitar and drums she wanted and the mood of the piece. Out came an amazing song. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lennon and McCartney: You are obsolete.

Another song she had done about aging was so good, I asked her to send it to me. Uh-unh! She is having her friend sing it and hopes to collect royalties.

Educated by this experience, I went to my writers’ group that afternoon. One participant said she had written a poem and got AI to turn it into a sonnet, which has a more fixed structure. We decided we would rather hear her read her poem than a machine-written work. (No machines attend our monthly sessions.)

In the evening, I finished a new novel by one of my favorite authors, Michael Connelly, called “The Proving Ground.” An AI company is sued after a teenage boy kills his girlfriend, encouraged by a character in one of its apps. I don’t think this has really happened, but I understand there have been suicides by AI-using teens.

So, what do I make from all this? I use ChatGPT frequently to answer questions. So do 123 million people worldwide every day. It is just amazing! If I can’t work my coffeemaker, I don’t have to comb through the manual. I just ask ChatGPT a question. It’s not always right, but it is often enough.

There’s a lot not to like. Teachers hate it because kids use it to write essays and do other homework. Some teachers use it to grade them. So, it is a machine talking to a machine, but the grade goes to the kid. AI steals the work of writers, artists and musicians. With a voice generator, you can get anyone’s voice to say anything you want. And AI is eliminating jobs.

But I look at it this way: Blacksmiths didn’t like automobiles. Stagecoach drivers hated railroads. A lot of us wish there was no atomic bomb. But they aren’t going away. Boundaries need to be set, sure, but AI is here to stay.

 

 

 

Thiongs I will never do

In your mid-80s, you begin to realize that some things on your “bucket list” will never happen. I guess I will never:

—Run a mile again.

—Visit Japan or China. Too tiring and complicated. Not sure I wanted to do that anyway.

—Make love to Brigitte Bardot. What? She just turned 90? Nah!Too old for me. Your loss, baby!

—Have a hangover again. It wouldn’t be hard, but it would take a week out of my already diminishing life.

—-Climb Mount Everest. Even if I did, I would probably hear“You haven’t already? I did it last year.”

—Play second base for the Washington Nationals. I can’t even get a tryout!

—Win an Academy Award as James Bond.

—Win a Pulitzer Prize, though this column certainly deserves it.

—Become a trillionaire. I would settle for a billionaire!

—Be chosen for to the Supreme Court. Am I too old for that too?

—Parachute out of an airplane. George H.W. Bush did that at age 90, so there is still time. But I can get dizzy already just getting out of bed.

 

But there are still things I CAN do:

—Be a loving grandfather to children ranging from 9 to 18.

—Do Silver Sneakers three times a week at the YMCA.

—Walk 2 miles or bike 10 miles.

—Play in a cabaret at my own house.

—Make exotic, adventurous trips to Lynchburg, Richmond and Durham.

—Direct the music for a famous musical. Yes!

 

 

Memories, memories

• 
  Do you remember these? (Or am I older than you?)

—Test patterns on TV, when the three stations were off the air. The national anthem was played when their day was over.

—Rumble seats in the back of old cars. Kids loving to ride in them. Some old cars had running boards below the doors on the sides. Seat belts were unheard of.

—White margarine coming with coloring packages. You had to mix them up to make it yellow. I refused to eat white margarine! Yuck! And milk with the cream on top—you had to shake it up before they made it homogenized.

—Big John and Sparky on the radio on Saturday mornings. Jack Benny, Phil Harris and Fibber McGee and Molly on Sunday afternoons.

—Hitch hikers on the roads. I did it a few times myself.

—Milton Berle getting a 30-year contract with NBC in 1951, only to be dumped by the network several years later.

—Door to door salesmen, for the Encyclopedia Britannica, Fuller Brush and Watkins. They weren’t afraid of getting shot by residents.

—Milk delivered by the milk man. You left empty bottles on the front porch.

—Great cartoons in the Saturday Evening Post.

—Party lines on telephones. They were irritating when you wanted to call someone—but entertaining if you wanted to listen in.

—Soda fountains in drug stores serving chocolate coke or lemon coke. Did they have real food, too? I don’t remember.

—Before rock n roll, such bland singers as Frankie Laine, Patti Page and Guy Mitchell. I never liked Mitch Miller, Ray Conniff or Lawrence Welk.

—As long as we got home for dinner, parents not worried about where we went.

—Games played in the street. Red light/green light. Kick the can. Baseball.

—Roller derby and wrestling—all the rage. We didn’t know or care that they were fixed.

—Drive-in movies with double anod triple features. A portable heater with a long chord attached to a stand next to each car.

—In 1954, the NBA basketball league had eight teams: Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Syracuse, Rochester, Fort Wayne, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. I guess Chicago wasn’t big enough. The farthest west Major League Baseball team was in St. Louis. 

Am I longing for the Gold Old Days? Well, no. Kids got polio, women couldn’t get decent jobs. Racial discrimination was pervasive. Life spans were shorter.

Count your blessings!

 

 

 

Nw life for old actors

 

My brief acting career began at age 70 with Prizery Summer Theater. I just adored the mostly small roles I had in six musicals and mixing in with serious acting students from out of town.

But by 78, I abruptly stopped. I couldn’t remember the lines anymore. The 20-something kids were coaching me. I couldn’t remember when to get on stage as the baker’s father in “Into the Woods.” The schedule was brutal. Two shows on Saturday? What?

Then, just three months ago, came a life-changing bombshell.

I found out about new one-hour versions of Broadway musicals tailored for performing old people. My friend Monica Walter told me that Musical Theatre International, which owns the rights to the shows, was providing abbreviated scripts, scores and recordings at a low price. Just like the kids’ musicals, “Frozen Jr.” and “Little Mermaid Jr.”

Wow. We could rehearse between afternoon naps! No late-night tech rehearsals.

Monica asked me to be music director. What? I have never done that before. (But I have accompanied numerous singers on the piano.) Sure, why not? If I’m terrible, I’ll just plead old age. My life’s work won’t be measured by this show.

We decided to see if the Clarksville Community Players would give us a date to put on “Guys and Dolls Senior” at the Clarksville Fine Arts Center. As we came to the group’s board meeting, we were advised that the calendar was full for the 2025-26 year.

As we walked in, Charlie Simmons, the long-time chair, said, “You look tired, Mike. Have a seat.”

“That’s what I want to talk about, Charlie,” I smiled.

After Monica described our plans, she said, “Now Mike will explain why he wants to do this sooner rather than later.”

I have never been very persuasive, I thought, but here goes:

“I’m not getting any younger. I am in perfect health, but I’m almost 84. Who knows how I will feel a year from now? I gave up theater five years ago. Now I can do it again!”

I could feel the mood of the room changing.

 The board agreed to give us Saturday Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, for a 2 p.m. show. Perfect! Then we decided to add a second performance on Sunday, Feb. 15.

Then reality set in: We saw the abbreviated show performed flawlessly at the sold-out Raleigh Little Theatre in early October. How could we match them?

I told myself that the Raleigh-Durham metro area has 2.4 million people to draw on for a cast, volunteers and audience. We have about 60,000.  So, our sights aren’t as high, but it will be a great challenge.

We are holding auditions for 20 actors in “Guys and Dolls Senior” at 2 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday Nov. 17 and 18 with possible callbacks on the 19th. All actors must be at least 55 years old. Rehearsals will be on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. starting Monday Dec. 1, with a week-long break for Christmas.

We need a volunteer crew as well as actors and singers. Come on! You can be young again! To schedule an audition or volunteer, go to https://clarksvilleplayers.org/auditions I can answer questions or you can message the director, Monica Walter at monica.walter58@yahoo.com