met Russ Smiley purely by coincidence tonight.

[barry guerrero]

I was working at Rasputin Music tonight, and was talking Mahler with a regular customer who frequents the place. I was playing the Gergiev Mahler 8 (St. Paul's Cathedral), which I haven't played in at least several months. Then I started talking to my friend about the Markus Stenz "DKW". I did notice that there was another customer shopping in the classical area, but he was keeping to himself. At some point, I guess he saw my name-tag and put two-and-two together. It was Russ Smiley, who was in the Stanford area for business purposes. I very much enjoyed talking with Russ. As well as talking about Mahler, we talked a bit about the (French) Horn world some. The horn is my favorite brass instrument, so I enjoy horn talk. Small world!

Barry

[John Kim]

Good encountering with Russ!!

I am glad you two folks had a wonderful conversation.

John,

[sperlsco]

Great story.  I hope to meet you some day when I visit family in the SF area.  

[Russ Smiley]

Meeting Barry was the height of serendipity.

After a long day at meetings on Wednesday, I decided to grab a takeout supper before I dug into my final preparations back in the hotel room for the next day.  Maybe subconsciously I remembered that Barry worked at some store in the California (having asked him long ago about a horn player in the Redwood SO), but my business on Thursday at NASA Ames truly was the only thing on my conscious mind, day and night, and for weeks before.

In a fit of procrastination, I decided to extend my drive from the fast food joint.  As I drove with no destination in mind, I spied a "Cash" sign and saw it was attached to a CD store.  I surmised they sold used CDs and that was reason enough to drive around the block and park in their lot.  I found a giant place with all kinds of books, CDs, and videos.  Best of all Classical and Jazz were in a separate, big room to the side.  Amazingly, M8 was playing in the room.  It wasn't too long before I suspected it was the recent Gergiev performance, one I like (despite the heavy Slavic accent of the tenor).

I enjoyed browsing though the extensive collection of new and used CDs, when a couple of fellows entered and were discussing this or that recorded performance.  Because the one fellow clearly knew a lot about many different recordings and then identified the M8 that was playing, I judged he was on staff.  At some point he weighed in on a pair of M8 recordings that the other fellow was looking at in the rack, and I knew this guy really knew his Mahler.  I was quite intrigued, but being a transient with work to do that night, I wasn't inclined to join their conversation.

However, my head started spinning when this fellow started talking about the recent Stenz/Gurzeneich/DKW recording.  It wasn't in their rack, but he was really talking it up to the other fellow.  All of a sudden, I recalled that Barry had spoken equally well of the performance, and I started to "connect the dots".

This staffer left the room for up front, and I decided to learn his name.  As we passed in the doorway to the Classical/Jazz room, I looked at his badge, saw "Barry", and then asked, "Guerrero? Barry Guerrero?"

When he confirmed, I introduced myself, and we both were stunned at the coincidence of meeting.

As Barry already reported, we had a good chat there in the store.

I don't know when I'll next get a trip to NASA Ames, but when I do, I'll make sure I find out what night Barry is working at Rasputin Music.

[barry guerrero]

I was more than a bit tired that night, so I think it took a few seconds for things to sink in. Sorry about that.