Keeping Score in America: Chapter Six
By Michael Moriarty
web posted July 15, 2013
Since the next Presidential election is over two years away, it might be time to squeeze in a little autobiographical material in this chapter.
Why? If you're still interested, you'll find out why I "keep score" the way I do.
Why I'm not George Will on the sidelines of the Washington Nationals with a ballpoint pen?
Why I'm up here in the Canadian bleachers writing, at this moment anyway, for the Washington Times Communities?
Examining my photo on the most recent article for the Washington Times Communities, I happily realize that my added weight makes me look more and more like Winston Churchill everyday!
Obama's mortal enemy! The man whose bust Obama kicked out of the White House and sent back to London!!
Meanwhile, let's talk childhoods: Churchill's and mine.
Though from entirely different backgrounds: the British aristocracy versus the American upper-middle-class, the "LONELINESS" triumphed in both our childhoods.
"Churchy" is my very Irish familiarity with this supposed enemy of the Irish. Churchy's only reliable friend in his childhood was his nurse. My only friend had become the piano.
Then, in my 72 year-old opinion, is when God enters a young man's life.
God knows your loneliness and comes to comfort you silently and invisibly. Even if He has to assume the form of a piano.
That "Loneliness" is actually a training ground, a period of virtual addiction to loneliness.
Why? Because you've known little else aside from loneliness.
As one head-shrink suggested about man's obsessions: "You grieve for your illness!"
There are, however and indeed, "divine illnesses"!!
Loneliness and its most frequently self-inspired isolation is a divine illness.
Presently I'm in my final and most ecstatically enjoyed state of "loneliness". Both my wife Irene and I enjoy our state of isolation from most of the world. Man and wife are one flesh and therefore Irene and I are one, very alone but very happy aloneness.
I've just begun the second excerpt to my, God willing, First Symphony. Had begun numerous "Symphonies", only to realize they were either more concerti for orchestra and dance suites or ballets than symphonies.
Actually the dividing lines are growing more and more blurred. I only remain devoted to the symphonic form because of its purity.
Perhaps I no longer have any sense of real purity anymore. I've grown more and more like the United States itself.
A "critical" state of impurity is certainly America's plight today. My former homeland has, certainly since Roe v Wade, entirely lost touch with the meaning of "inalienable right to life".
However, the US was born similarly blind with slavery.
In their pre-Civil War condition, how did the Founding Fathers even come up with the phrase, "All men are created equal"?
A composer I admire greatly, Arthur Honegger, captured the inner, metaphysical combat of Civil War with two of my favorite symphonies: his First and his Fourth.
The style of his composing, first on two sets of piano staves, immediately appealed to me.
My symphonies are beginning to arrive in the same stages: piano scores and then orchestration. Not sure if it is more optimal than direct instrumentation.
Prior to that, I had written directly into a full symphonic layout.
It's a nice way to get acquainted with the orchestra but I'm not sure it is the best way.
On the other hand, I find my first opera, The Exile, shaping up in Etude form. Immediate, albeit sparse, instrumentation. These pieces begin in a small symphonic ensemble.
Then, if they seduce their way into my opera, The Exile, I further explore them with another small symphonic ensemble plus the all-important voices. I simply regret that Steve Rybicki's wonderful libretto can't be read or heard on 77gelsomina – Youtube yet.
Yet!
Once the first rough draft of The Exile is completed in late winter/early spring, I will find a way to roll excerpts of the complete score and libretto on screen with VSL playback!
With that promise made, I will now send this Sixth Chapter of Keeping Score In America off to its editor, Steve Martinovich. As gentlemanly a Third Millennium Man as you could ever wish to meet! 
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty.