Now for some GOOD news! My baby got accepted to college! Here’s his acceptance letter, I am so excited for him!

Photo taken: February 14, 2020. A.J. Rubin on trumpet, Colescott Rubin on bass – at the Portland Art Museum’s opening gala for the retrospective exhibit of the artwork of Robert Colescott [my son Colescott’s grandfather!]. 

A.J. has been accepted to Berklee College of Music!

March 30, 2020 – Monday

Well… we’re all beside ourselves over here at the Rubin household! In these very dark times for our country and the world, we look for – and still find – so many things to appreciate, cherish and celebrate each day. Tonight we just got the e-mail that our second son, A.J., has been accepted to college [to his college of choice!]. This is definitely something to celebrate!

He will follow his older brother (Colescott, 23) in attending Berklee College of Music in Boston this coming fall. It is especially wonderful for A.J. to have received this e-mail tonight (even though the letter is actually dated tomorrow – lol), because this is the night that was supposed to have been big brother’s senior recital –  part of his requirements for graduation from Berklee in May. A.J. had originally been planning on being there and performing with him in Boston this evening! I had scheduled my March/April work trip so I could also be in Boston for the momentous performance tonight – I had also invited a handful of friends from the Boston area to join me tonight for dinner and the performance.

This, of course, was all cancelled because of #CoViD-19 [what I am fondly calling “The Zombie Apocalypse”, in a defensive gesture aimed at – for a moment – drowning out the unending terrifyingly somber drumbeat of this unfolding global tragedy with a meek injection of dark humor].

Thanks to #CoViD-19, Colescott’s five long years of hard work as a Presidential Scholar are unceremoniously and jarringly just…”done”.  The Zombie Apocalypse also led to the cancellation (postponement?) of what amounts to a “Rubin Brothers” cross country musical tour (including performance gigs in April and May in Rhode Island, Boston, New Orleans and Portland, Oregon) with Colescott’s band of amazing fellow musicians (including his little brother A.J. on trumpet and vocals). In the middle of all this the boys (along with a group of their friends) were actually scheduled to meet the Beach Boys and perform for them backstage at one of their concerts! All cancelled.

A few dashed dreams and goals have to be accepted as collateral damage from CoViD-19, including the cancellation of this much-anticipated senior recital performance (that was supposed to happen tonight) – making all of us more than a little sad…but also thankful — that we are safe (most of us sequestered as a family in Portland, and Colescott safe in Boston) and, “knock-on-wood”, healthy!

So to receive this e-mail tonight (scroll down to read A.J.’s full acceptance letter from Berklee), on a day that was otherwise a day of sadness and regret to some degree – makes up for some of what has been lost! We couldn’t be happier tonight as a family; we couldn’t be more proud! A.J. will have the opportunity to follow in his brother’s footsteps: and live his own dream, learning from and playing with and getting to know some of the best musicians in the industry!

A.J. is currently 17 years old. He will be 18 when he starts at Berklee in the fall. He is an immensely-talented, multi-genre multi-instrumentalist; super-smart, funny, warm, unassuming and gregarious polymath! Blessed with aptitudes and impressive accomplishments already spread evenly across many different disciplines [math, engineering, applied mechanics, bioscience, industrial arts, and music] – and his passion for all of the above – there were several obvious potential career paths from which to choose! A.J. has chosen to focus on his music and performance, and is committed to expanding his work to date as a professional trumpet player, band leader, singer and performance artist. He’s also has his sights on the possibility of a future as a talk show host / stand up comedian /variety show host (think Carol Burnett – but younger…and male!)…

And if we know A.J., while he pursues a career as a musician and entertainer, He will also continue (as a “hobby”), to indulge his irrepressible passion for designing and building amazing things (out of wood, metal, leather, fabric, paper, and whatever else he can get his hands on!) — with a likely “secret identity” / alter-ego of inspired mechanical engineer/inventor/fabricator (doctor?!), too! [We joke that A.J. really reminds us of Buckaroo Bonzai – or Leonardo Da Vinci, or Benjamin Franklin for that matter!]

I’m so excited to share this happy moment with you (my readers) today! I hope you are also finding amazing things to celebrate during this time — in spite of all the terribly scary stuff that is going on in our world right now. Please don’t forget to share those positive things in your life with your friends to brighten their days – sharing these moments with each other is what will keep us all going during this time.

Health and peace,

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

(Now we just have to wait and find out if he got a scholarship
– to see if this could really happen!)

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