For several years, I had season tickets to the Seattle Opera. The great thing about seeing lots of opera is that you're free to be honest about it. If you just see one opera every few years (or just one in your life), there's pressure to really get something out of it. But when you're trotting to four or five operas a year, there's a certain freedom to critique, as if seeing lots of operas makes you an expert. I've seen Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in its entirety over the course of one week. I've loved Die Fledermaus and hated Mourning Becomes Electra. After each opera finished, we kept a tradition of going to late-night happy hour at McMenamin's pub. Pit musicians were often seated at adjoining tables. One night, on the way to the pub, a downtrodden fellow asked if we wanted to buy some "kick-ass champagne" for $20. Maybe, if the bottle hadn't clearly been re-corked. Almost every time we went to the opera, we enjoyed a little free tuba music on the steps of the opera house. Before and after the performances, and during intermission, the same guy sat on a stool playing his tuba. Sometimes he'd play When the Saints go Marching In, sometimes he'd play motifs from that night's production. Always in a silly hat, always accepting tips. I always noticed him, always wondered why he spent so much time playing the tuba at the opera house. I wondered if he ever went in to catch a performance. It's hopelessly cheesy to say so, but he always made me smile. We stopped renewing our season tickets a few years ago, and I forgot about the tuba guy until today, when I read that he died last week, after being beaten and robbed at a bus stop near the opera house. It's awful to read such sad news on an otherwise happy day. I'm feeling infused with optimism, and it's a little shocking to remember that bad things still happen for no reason at all.