English: Nessun Dorma In a rehearsal for the R...

English: Nessun Dorma In a rehearsal for the Raymond Gubbay Classical Spectacular at the Manchester Evening News Arena. The tenor John Hudson sings Puccini’s Nessun Dorma from the opera Turandot, accompanied by conductor John Rigby, the Halle Orchestra and the ladies of Leeds Festival Chorus. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last night I got to hear Nathan Pacheco sing Nessun Dorma on Georgia Public Broadcasting television. It’s too beautiful. That song is too beautiful.

Many tenors besides Pacheco have sung Nessun Dorma (None Shall Sleep) including Andrea Bocelli and the late Luciano Pavarotti. But the Nessun Dorma performance I remember most is when American soul singer Aretha Franklin sang it at the 1998 Grammy awards. Her magnificent performance gave me chills and the audience gave her a standing ovation.

Some songs are too beautiful, so beautiful it’s joy and anguish to hear them. Beth Moore the Bible teacher teaches about how God gives us joy and anguish at the same time. A lady at an alternator shop here in Cleveland, Tennessee told me about that Beth Moore Bible study of joy and anguish.

Today in Cleveland the city is fighting, among other things. The Cleveland Daily Banner headline says: “Council, tea party leader argue over apology need.” The article by David Davis says Mayor Tom Rowland and Bradley County Tea Party President Donny Harwood “became embroiled” in a 40-minute argument Monday at a meeting of the Cleveland City Council. Maybe I can catch that fight on Channel 5 later.

In the Chattanooga Times Free Press, a reporter named Judy Walton is writing about alleged “impropriety” in the 10th Judicial District. It all sounds wild and crazy. Yesterday I read in The Times about how “investigators found a partial bottle of whiskey (Jack Daniels) and packets of pseudoephedrine, which is the key ingredient in meth, in 10th Judicial District Drug Task Force agent Angie Gibson’s truck after she wrecked it August 7, 2011, in Madisonville, Tennessee.” We’ll see what happens with all that.

It’s not even night yet and already I’ve seen a Very Important Person. I got heartburn after lunch and what’s better for heartburn than ice cream? So I was sitting in my car over by Cooke’s Food Store eating ice cream and reading the newspaper, when I looked up and saw a man in a business suit holding his Droid or Android or whatever away from his ear about three or four inches. He seemed to be listening very intently and you could tell it was a business call because he was looking Very Important instead of Very Involved. People are usually animated when they’re involved but they are usually important when they are uninvolved.

So I sat there a few minutes and just ate my little $1.31 McDonald’s ice cream sundae and read a little bit more of the Banner when the VIP came out of that store with a plastic bag filled with food items. This time he had that snazzy phone about one or two inches from his ear, perpendicular! Perpendicular! What is that?!

Then I was thinking how it doesn’t work when Very Important People try to tell us they’re important with Blue Teeth and things in their ears, all hands-free and disconnected. It seems like they are putting on airs and when that happens, None Shall Sleep. I wanted to tell that businessman and his phone to get a room.

So now I’m sittin’ here tryin’ to figure out how to love people when they’re all up in the air like that. Love seems to happen on the ground and it sure can get dirty. Never try to love anybody who’s way too clean. Love gets messy.

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