beautiful, funny, sad & true

This morning at work, I said good morning to someone I rarely see or get a chance to talk to, while I was loading paper into my printer. “Busy weekend?” she asked.

“Yeah. I have two big shows, actually.”
“Oh really? What do you. . .do?”
“Musician.”
“That’s a nice little hobby, huh?”

Nice little hobby, yeah. Thanks for reducing it to that.

I had a job a few years ago that I quit from because it almost killed me. I’m not exaggerating. It did kill my spirit; at least for a while. This was also just at the the time when I was getting into recording and music production. So I quit, and two weeks later, on the day that I left, a guy walked up to me and said, “Well. . .good luck with your career or whatever.” The funny thing is, he actually thought that he meant well.

For everyone else who’s reading this, I have two shows and a recording session this weekend. The first is with Stephanie’s band, as part of the Voices For Silent Disasters series that starts tonight. Tomorrow night is a Breanna Paletta full-band show, and then Sunday is an ‘acoustic’ recording session with Breanna. Last I heard I’ll be playing cello, and maybe accordion and xylophone; things like that.

Nice little hobby I’ve got going for myself. Hope it all works out or whatever.

To continue on a theme that I started recently, I’ve been feeling better lately; better enough, in fact, that I don’t want anything to mess up my equilibrium. So I’ve pretty much given up coffee for the last week and a half, and only had wine a couple of nights in the last two weeks. I’ve been feeling much more like my happy-go-lucky self again, and less anxious and weird all the time.
This weekend, however, I had a couple of funny things happen that upset the metaphorical apple cart. Joan and I went out to see Paris Je T’aime on Friday night, and afterwards we went for sushi. After THAT, we went to Pix Patisserie for dessert. It was pretty fantastic, of course, but we also had a couple cups each of decaf coffee, which despite its name actually does contain some caffeine, as you know. So that, combined with the super-concentrated sugar in the dessert, kept me awake until around two in the morning.

At noon on Saturday, I went to the studio to play some parts for the new Susie Blue CD. (I played accordion, xylophone and Omnichord, just in case you’re keeping track.) I felt all cracked out and anxious the entire time, in a way that was obviously brought on by our post-movie binge the night before. After we were done recording, Susie invited EngineerJason and me to her dinner party that night. She, Jason and a couple of other people had gone mushroom hunting the previous day, so mushroom ravioli was on the dinner menu. Everything was made by hand, and it was mind-blowingly good. Naturally we had to have good wine with it, and also naturally, we had way too much of it, especially considering my practically monastic regimen these last couple of weeks.

So yesterday I was completely hung over. Slept till eleven, then just kinda dragged around for most of the day. I did manage to clean my kitchen and bathroom, though, so the day wasn’t a complete bust. Joan called at around five-thirty, and then she and I went to dinner at a new vegan restaurant called Nutshell. The food was incredible, and the service was fantastic, but there were a couple of things I think are worth mentioning that would keep me from giving it the glowing recommendation that it would otherwise get. The two-person tables are about a foot apart, which some people may not be bothered by, but Joan and I both felt pretty uncomfortable and self-conscious. Plus, when customers are getting up to leave or wash their hands, or waiters are delivering food, you’re more likely than not to be bumped, or get someone’s ass in your face, or worse. Plus, the room itself is reverberant and noisy enough that it can be a difficult to hear your own conversation, but everyone else around you is extremely audible. Like I said; these things may not bother other people, but introverts may have a tough time at Nutshell. To be fair, the restaurant is brand new, and I’m sure these quirks–and a few others that have been mentioned in various reviews–will be worked out over time. The food really is unique and stellar, and I’m definitely going back, but it’ll have to be a time when I’m in the mood for that kind of environment.

Today I’m back on track with the aforementioned monastic regimen, and I’m finally starting to feel my equilibrium returning. It was interesting, though, to have a test to see how all of the new changes have been working for me. I wanted to eliminate things that have been acting on my body, and keeping me on the roller coaster, so to speak, and I think giving up the coffee has made the biggest difference. I feel like I’m getting my easy friendliness back, and my sense of humor too; not to mention the fact that I’m even sleeping better. Crazy, how much something that we take for granted as a part of daily life can have such profoundly negative and strange effects on us.

Crazy how serious and long this blog entry is!

Tonight I’m meeting Crystin Byrd and her husband for dinner, and tomorrow night I have a Breanna Paletta gig. Breanna has another multi-instrumentalist friend who’ll be joining us on mandolin, and I’ll be playing cello, so this should be a cool combination. It’ll be the first time we’ve met or played together. Fun!

Here’s to a good pre-birthday week. The Big Day is now only seven days away!

I have a whole bunch of things I’ve been wanting to write about, but they’re all very disparate and random, so I think I’ll have to settle for an update, at least for now.

Wednesday night I was invited to record some guitar parts and maybe other things too) by BassPlayerChris who plays in Breanna’s band. One of the other people he plays with is named Matt Vrba (yes, that’s spelled correctly; it’s pronounced VERB-uh), and Matt wrote a Christmas song, and he and the band were recording it. They needed some other textural instruments, so Chris called me. I ended up playing electric guitar, xylophone, and Casio keyboard on the song. It was a blast. First time I’d met Matt, but he’s a great guy. Can’t wait to hear how the song turns out. We recorded at Opal Studios with a guy named Kevin Hahn, and everything sounds really great. I’d recommend him without hesitation. It wouldn’t surprise me if our paths cross again.

Last night, Stephanie’s band played at the Hawthorne Theater. We played well, but it was kind of a tough gig. We opened for a well-known band from Canada, but I think we all kinda felt like we’d been jerked around, from the minute we walked in the door. The show was scheduled to start at 8:00, so we all arrived about 6:45. Well-Known Canadian Band was just starting their soundcheck. Someone came and told us that the show was scheduled to start at 9:00, but we’d been telling everybody to be there at 8:00. In addition to that, we were originally scheduled to play first, then a DJ would play for a half-hour or so, and finally Well-Known Canadian Band would play. This seemed like an odd choice of ‘flow’ for a show, so we asked if the DJ could play first. This was agreed to, but we still needed to have a soundcheck too. Fifteen minutes before the doors opened, Well-Known Canadian Band finished their soundcheck, and we were finally allowed to set up our instruments on stage. Luckily, their drummer invited DrummerDrew to use his drums, which cut down dramatically on set-up time, but we still had precious little time to test the vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, and accordion. Plus, can I just take a minute to mention that the sound guy was a complete amateur? Thank you; because he was. Steph’s acoustic guitar kept feeding back during the show, and I didn’t even get to test my accordion’s microphone before the show started. These things are all pretty much unheard of in professional venues. In any decent-sized venue where there are multiple bands on the bill, each band usually gets a half hour or so to test everything, so that the sound crew knows what they’re dealing with and they can make the groups sound as good as possible.

All that aside, the venue was also very strange. It’s an all-ages place, so what they’ve done is divide the room in half; front and back. The front (by the stage) is all-ages, and the back half is the bar area. While we played, it was still early, so everyone was still in the bar area, which meant we were playing to a great big hardwood floor and a half-empty room, which felt a little bit insulting. As performers, all we have to gauge our performance is the audience. If we feel like they’re distant and unresponsive, it’s a bummer, because we either feel like they aren’t enjoying themselves, or that we’re not doing a good enough job.

So all that, combined with the showtime issues, made for a frustrating experience.

The good news about the show was that BoringFish was there. It was great to see her, even though conversation was a little difficult; shouting over a band isn’t the most conducive environment. But she’s great, and shouting at each other is infinitely better than not seeing each other at all.

The other good news about the show is that the band played well. DrummerDrew and BassistWill are really fun to play with, and they’re getting comfortable and stretching out in a great way. Last night was also the debut gig for my new guitar amp (not to mention the new amp stand that I bought while I was on my lunch break), and it sounded fantastic. So that was really nice, but the gig itself was still really frustrating, overall.

This week at work has been infinitely more stressful than usual, too. Normally there are two other people (or sometimes even three) who work in my department, but this week one of them had her grandmother die, and the other has a daughter who just had her first baby. So Wednesday, Thursday and today I was alone. It was totally crazy, and I’m totally exhausted, which is why I’m sitting here writing in my blog and doing laundry on a Friday night, despite a couple of offers to go out.

In other news, I’m going to a Music Business workshop tomorrow afternoon, to learn about contracts, distribution deals, production deals, and all that sort of stuff. There’s a guy here in town who’s an entertainment lawyer, and he’s given workshops and lectures about these issues regularly (but not often) for two or three years now. He’s a really great guy, and I’ve wanted to attend one of his workshops for quite a while. This comes at the perfect time, too, because I’ve had lots of good opportunities come my way recently, and I hope to be able to capitalize on them.

And now I’m going to get off the computer, because I’ve spent all day using one at work, and I’m starting to get sore. Plus, I bought a DVD today called “The Legend of 1900”, which my friend Leila told me I need to see. I stumbled upon a used copy at Everyday Music, so I decided to go ahead and buy it. I think I’m going to go watch it now.

I hope all’s well with you.

My friend Todd–who is an actor and theater director–called and told me yesterday about a series of readings he and his group have been having for a few months now. They go to a friend’s house, sit outside on the back lawn and read completely through a play. It’s not a public performance, but it’s a chance to keep up everyone’s skills and find compelling new material at the same time.

The last reading of the season is this Wednesday night, so Todd thought it would be nice to have some musical accompaniment between scenes. Apparently there are lots of short scenes, so sometimes it will only be a few seconds of music, but it sounds very exciting.

He was originally thinking of accordion, but I suggested cello, and he agreed. So on Wednesday night after work, I get the opportunity to provide incidental music for a play, which I’m very excited about.

But that’s not all; there’s more good cello news. I got a couple more gigs with Breanna Paletta today, all of which will feature the Breanna/violin/cello trio, which if you’ve spent any kind of time on my blog lately, you know how excited I am about that particular combination. I’ll keep you posted about the shows as the time gets closer. So far, there are a couple in August, a couple in September, and one in October.

I’ll write more about my sadness et cetera some other time soon, but in the meantime, it’s like I’ve always said. If you’re having a rough time emotionally, it helps to have great friends and a busy, fun life to fall back on while your wounds heal.

The trip and the gig were both a total blast. Stephanie and I flew down to Reno, then drove four hours to Elko to play at Great Basin College. We played there last year with Dirty Martini, and Steph had played there twice before that, with DM and on her own. So she has a considerable base of fans there, and it turned out that I even had a small (but strong!) contingent as well, which was surprising and cool to learn. It was just an all-around great experience.

We played outside this time, in the ampitheater right in the middle of the campus. It was a warm, breezy night, and it was particularly beautiful. Steph played acoustic guitar and piano–they wheeled a real piano out to the ampitheater for us to use!–and I played electric guitar, accordion and piano on a few songs too. We were totally on. We barely missed a note, and we felt totally in sync with each other. After some of the tough gigs we’ve had lately, this was a welcome relief. Total blast, and I have a feeling we’ll be back down in Elko again before too long.

After dropping our instruments at the hotel, we decided to try our hands at gambling. I tried a slot machine at the first place; put in a dollar and instantly won eight dollars back, so I took that as a good sign and stopped. We walked through the rest of the place and were unimpressed, so we walked across the street to a larger, more bustling casino. We each got a drink, and she played blackjack for a while. I don’t know how, so I watched. She got on a nice little winning streak too, earning twenty dollars from the five she started with, but she left empty-handed after a few more hands, despite one of the other players’ advice, “Hey, you should quit now, while you’re ahead.” We walked around again, and I decided to try some slot machines again, since I’d had good luck with them before. I started with twenty dollars, got down to almost nothing, and then won thirty five, so I decided to quit too.

The drive back was really nice. Steph had about a million phone calls to take care of, so I drove the whole way back to Reno. We stopped at a wide spot in the road called Trinity, which I think used to be a mine, but has since been reduced to a rest stop on one side of the highway and a dilapidated truck stop sign on the other. We stopped for a few minutes so I could take some pictures.

At the rest stop there, we encountered the most foul and disgusting porta-potties either of us had seen in our entire lives.
Steph opened the door to one and instantly stepped back, hands over her face in horror. “I’ve never seen anything that disgusting before,” she said. With a statement like that, my morbid curiosity was piqued, so I took a peek. The inside was smeared with feces, and there was an enormous pile of it on the back of the toilet seat. Repulsive. We both cracked up laughing, and I said, “I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
Good-hearted Steph gave the unknown person the benefit of the doubt and said, “Maybe it was dark, and they just couldn’t see what they were doing.”
“But there are huge flood lights everywhere. I can’t imagine they wouldn’t be able to see. I’m gonna have to ‘poo-poo’ that theory.” (Now THAT’S good comedy.)

We arrived at the Reno airport and ate at a really good little brew pub there. The flight, however, was pretty rough. Despite the nice weather, there was lots of turbulence. We were all getting increasingly nervous as the plane kept shuddering and lurching. Finally it settled down and so did we. But once again, when we started our descent into Portland, it happened again. It was very nice to be down on solid ground again. And can I just say how nice Portland’s airport is? It’s really beautiful, especially in the evening sunshine.

I hung out with NeighborFriendSusan for a little while, since I hadn’t seen her for a few days, then I went to bed at 10:30. Slept until 11:30 the next morning, when BoringFish called to see how I was doing. We talked for a while, then I got up and decided that today is the day I’m going to get my pictures framed and hung in my apartment. I chose my favorites and took them over to the photo printing place, where they’ll be done any minute now, so I’m gonna head back out. I’ll take pictures of my new-and-improved apartment once I get them hung. I daresay you’ll be impressed with the new look.