Would You Stop to Listen? Baum would.

Drowning under a sea of excel, I sit miserably at my desk until the HAWK throws me a lifeline. It is vintage Dave-Matthews-Band-crying Alex Baum-gina. This is how it went down:

Hawk: Fucking baums emails should go right into my trash bin
Hawk: what a dick, tell him to email you
Smasher: huh
Hawk: dude
Hawk: i just got this email from baum, post it immediately
Smasher: ok
Hawk: with a picture of a gay guy playing a violin
Hawk: im going to get some chips

Hawk forwards me the email copied below. I have annotated the article with my remarks in red.

From: HAWK
Subject: Fwd: Would you stop to listen?
Date: January 14, 2009 4:29:58 PM EST
To: SMASHER

Put this directly on baumthewine and make fun of it...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alex Baum
Date: Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 4:24 PM
Subject: Would you stop to listen?
To: HOT GIRL #1, HOT GIRL #2, SISTER BAUM, FATHER BAUM, RANDOM GUY, O-DOG, HAWK

Cheesy ending, but interesting to think about... {I can already tell this is going to Suhuck Cohocks! Classic Baum email ensuing}


Who is he? {…KEYSER SOZE!!!!!}

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin {he had shit stained pants, has clearly been homeless for years, and keeps asking for money to get a train ticket because his, “car broke down on the way to his dying grandmother’s house but he just happened to have his violin”} ; it was a cold January morning {sucks for him}. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes {What a classically trained hobo-dirtbag, impressive. Baum's probably jerking off to his monitor at the point in the email}. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work {All thinking ‘I wish that dirty asshole playing the violin would shut the fuck up’}.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule. A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till {Sucker} and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work {This statement makes no sense to me. Why would he lean against the wall for a while if he were late? I don’t know about you but for me it’s get rich or die trying. If I am running late I am either running red lights while avoiding strollers and sweating my tits off thinking of a legitimate excuse… or I call in sick and get a god damn bacon egg and cheeee and go back to fuckin sleep. This story is bullshit lies}. The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy {Little dickface}. His mother tugged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist {Mommy, why does he have so many crumbs in his beard?}. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time {Because his mom wanted to violently beat the shit out of that side of his little prepubescent face}. This action was repeated by several other children {all orphans}. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. {Nice Bro! After doing some math, which is probably incorrect, that’s almost $43 bucks an hour. Almost seven times minimum wage… I mean he’ll get raped after taxes, but I bet he wouldn’t make that much singing all of Kevin Klein’s show tunes in Pirates of Penzance} When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition {But he got that paper paper so he can get his next fix}.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell {a.k.a. verbal kent, a.k.a. KAISER SOZE}, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars {That is just wrong. Mozart better have wiped his nuts with that shit for 15 years}. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100 {Every one of them getting ripped off, Boston has the worst fans on earth… they only know how to root for losers}.

This is a real story {who fucking cares}. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people {during rush hour?}. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour {oh ok, my bad}: Do we perceive beauty? {In the form of ass and titties, you betcha} Do we stop to appreciate it {Maybe if you had Kate Bosworth pole dancing topless to Lady Gaga instead of some obscure dickhead}? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?{I thought a conclusion was the summing-up of an argument or a text. This piss-face has clearly never been to fifth grade since he’s just asked a question or made some kind of irrelevant hypothesis (I didn’t pay attention in fifth grade either) in hopes of making this literary piece of garbage seem significant. If the moon were made of barbecued spare ribs, would you eat it? I sure know I would}

As we all begin this New Year 2009...let us take time to be fully in the Present Moment and not miss the small and exquisite things in Life {Amen, you one-eyed piccolo puckering pussy}. May we be like little children in spirit ... once again {Some of us still are, every day}.

{Of course this liberal hippy has to post some inauguration link. Fucking Dick.}

Inauguration '09: Get complete coverage from the nation's capital. (http://news.aol.com/main/politics/inauguration?ncid=emlcntusnews00000003)

--
Alex Baum

{Of course he follows every email with this quote}

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude"
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

{hatchet wound}