Agreed. Sometimes the moronic questions precipitate fairly interesting discussions.

No blood pressure problems, Mack. Last check-up (a month ago) it was 128 over 76, danged good for the number of miles I've got on the clock. What yanks my chain is this:—

When you consider the longevity of these art forms (which means that centuries worth of patrons and audiences have felt they were worth supporting), the talent, effort, and dedication it takes for a performer to achieve the required skills, not to mention the talent and effort of the composers who wrote the music, the musicians who play it, the set and costume designers, and the support staff (carpenters, stage hands, etc.), and the fact that many people who really can't afford season tickets find ballet and/or opera enjoyable and inspiring enough to budget for them—and, incidentally, most of the audiences are made up of folks like this, not just rich, elite patrons—it strikes me that someone who dismisses the whole thing as "rubbish" is both ignorant and arrogant.

Sorry, but that's my sincere and considered judgment and I'm sticking with it.

I once had a U. of W. music professor ask me, "When are you going to stop wasting your time on these folk songs and start getting serious about your music?" He couldn't grasp the idea that folk music was anything one could be serious about. He may have had a PhD., but he was ignorant and arrogant.

Don Firth