Fuckers
My upstairs neighbor and her boyfriend are having sex again.
I've gone from cheering her on to being envious to now just being kind of blase. The sessions aren't nearly as long or as passionate as they used to be, (although her boyfriend looks like he's been working out. Also, turns out she hasn't switched boyfriends. He just drives multiple cars. What's up with that? What guy, who looks like he's in his 20s, has multiple cars? The mystery of my upstairs neighbor's life grows curiouser and curiouser.) at least they don't sound that way from here. Okay, maybe I'm still a little on the envious side.
Oops. They've just stopped ... Oh well.
Things are pretty chill with me. Whenever I'm not doing a show, it feels that not much is going on, despite how true or false that is. Actually, I have so many things that I should be doing on a day-by-day basis ...
- Preparing my Thursday's lecture to my Theatre History class
- Cutting Othello
- Researching for my African American Theatre class this May
- Rewriting any of two or three plays
- Not to mention just taking care of the shit of life
... that it's getting kind of depressing, since it has recently become clear to me that I don't have the time to do everything I want to get done.
And the cat's started biting.
I don't know what's up with it. It's all kinds of biting -- playful, aggressive, communicative. I think it's just a further development of how comfortable he's becoming. Now he dials bites into his communication strategy. It's either that or the new high end/high protein/low or no grain food that I have him on has brought out the hunter in him. He hasn't broken the skin yet, and the reading I've done online suggests that it's quite normal. I just haven't encountered this in my cats before. Maybe it's more of a male cat thing. Fucker.
I've gotten myself involved in the production that my school is doing -- Medea. I have been producing it and not doing a bad job of that if I do say so myself. Plus, the cool thing about being the producer is that I run around during the day and make sure that stuff is getting done and that things are getting covered, and then I go home and leave those actor and director schmoes with the hard job of actually rehearsing the ferlushinger thing. That is until the director, my boss, decided that she wanted live music -- nothing fancy, just guitar and flute. She asked me if I could ask my guitar teacher.
So let me break here and tell you a little something about musicians and actors. Musicians, actors, dancers -- we're all performing artists, but we live in different worlds, worlds that intersect through production every so often, but different worlds all the same. The big thing with musicians is that musicians ... get ... paid.
While actors are constantly busting their humps and breaking their backs and baring their bodies and souls just for the opportunity to do so (and feeling grateful for that), musicians are like, "Sure, that sounds like a cool gig. How much does it pay?" And if it doesn't, it's "Adios!" And you've gotta' pony up, 'cause you can always find a do-it-for-free actor, but not so with a musician. So when you go see a musical at a community theater, the people who have been rehearsing for weeks and are now all gussied up, singing and dancing and jumping around making fools themselves ... they're gettin' nada, baby. The musicians who've gotten together maybe three times before Tech Week ... they're making bank. (Not much bank. Odds are they've agreed to do it for less than they normally would. Fuckers.)
(By the way, I can't believe that the Blogger Spell Check dictionary doesn't recognize "Fuckers." I mean if you want to be a language prude, be a language prude, I don't care. But don't go all 1984/erase it from the dictionary on us. Seriously. You're running a public blog service and you don't think someone, somewhere is going to write the word "Fuckers"?)
I think that part of it is that musicians have all this infrastructure that they have to support. They've got instruments and the upkeep of those instruments and the upgrade of those instruments and their amplification systems ... sheesh! I mean, I play guitar, but you can tell I'm not a musician because I only have one guitar -- one, uno, one-o -- and I've had that guitar for longer than some of my students have been alive. (Oy!) My guitar teacher, by comparison, brings a different guitar of his to each lesson depending on his whim. I've never known a musician who doesn't sound like a swap shop.
"That's a pretty nice looking piece."
"Yeah, I figure if I take that and this old 16-track board I can turn them in for a Jimhana KXY-50. Then I know this guy who's really into Jimihana's. He'll take that off my hand and he knows a friend who can cut me a deal on Rickenfelder XJ-2 Powerflash!"
Umm ... yeah ... In the last play I did, they asked me to bring my own bathrobe ...
By the way, just a moment ago my cat was stretched out to the left of me while I was web surfing and he felt the need to reach up with his claw and bat at my hand and the mouse. When I moved his paw away, again with the biting he was. Now he's on my left side, stretched out, complacently resting his head against my left hand as I type like I'm dad, like we're bosom buddies. What's up with this dude?
Oh, now, he's gotten up and is cleaning himself ... Oh well.
So as soon as my boss asked about my guitar teacher I knew the whole money thing (of which we have none) would come up. And partly to avoid the hassle (I can't believe that's how you spell that word!) I said, "Why don't I just take a shot at composing your music?" She said yes.
So I've composed three pieces that underscore people speaking (Again with the cat sleeping on my hand.) and have found a flute playing actor who didn't get cast (i.e. will not think twice about performing for free!) to play along. It's my first time writing for more than one instrument, my first time writing instrumental music, my first time "playing in the pit" as it were.
The other "partly" is that I've kind of always wanted to do this. It's pretty fun so far. It's really neat to hear something I've written played by someone else ... well kinda' written. I suggested some melodies to her which she modified, and one melody she came up with on her own. Still, Medea's Theme in general sounds really pretty and sad. At least my boss is pleased.
The downside of all this, of course, is now I'm attending rehearsals. They ... ahem ... we open this week, so I'll be playing each night. I made a half-hearted attempt to find a student guitarist, but then I just thought it would be less hassle (There's that word again!) if I would do it myself.
Okay, now the cat has climbed into my arms to snooze there. As I try to keep typing, he communicates his displeasure that I don't drop my blogging for him by -- you guessed it -- munching down on my arm.
Fucker.
I've gone from cheering her on to being envious to now just being kind of blase. The sessions aren't nearly as long or as passionate as they used to be, (although her boyfriend looks like he's been working out. Also, turns out she hasn't switched boyfriends. He just drives multiple cars. What's up with that? What guy, who looks like he's in his 20s, has multiple cars? The mystery of my upstairs neighbor's life grows curiouser and curiouser.) at least they don't sound that way from here. Okay, maybe I'm still a little on the envious side.
Oops. They've just stopped ... Oh well.
Things are pretty chill with me. Whenever I'm not doing a show, it feels that not much is going on, despite how true or false that is. Actually, I have so many things that I should be doing on a day-by-day basis ...
- Preparing my Thursday's lecture to my Theatre History class
- Cutting Othello
- Researching for my African American Theatre class this May
- Rewriting any of two or three plays
- Not to mention just taking care of the shit of life
... that it's getting kind of depressing, since it has recently become clear to me that I don't have the time to do everything I want to get done.
And the cat's started biting.
I don't know what's up with it. It's all kinds of biting -- playful, aggressive, communicative. I think it's just a further development of how comfortable he's becoming. Now he dials bites into his communication strategy. It's either that or the new high end/high protein/low or no grain food that I have him on has brought out the hunter in him. He hasn't broken the skin yet, and the reading I've done online suggests that it's quite normal. I just haven't encountered this in my cats before. Maybe it's more of a male cat thing. Fucker.
I've gotten myself involved in the production that my school is doing -- Medea. I have been producing it and not doing a bad job of that if I do say so myself. Plus, the cool thing about being the producer is that I run around during the day and make sure that stuff is getting done and that things are getting covered, and then I go home and leave those actor and director schmoes with the hard job of actually rehearsing the ferlushinger thing. That is until the director, my boss, decided that she wanted live music -- nothing fancy, just guitar and flute. She asked me if I could ask my guitar teacher.
So let me break here and tell you a little something about musicians and actors. Musicians, actors, dancers -- we're all performing artists, but we live in different worlds, worlds that intersect through production every so often, but different worlds all the same. The big thing with musicians is that musicians ... get ... paid.
While actors are constantly busting their humps and breaking their backs and baring their bodies and souls just for the opportunity to do so (and feeling grateful for that), musicians are like, "Sure, that sounds like a cool gig. How much does it pay?" And if it doesn't, it's "Adios!" And you've gotta' pony up, 'cause you can always find a do-it-for-free actor, but not so with a musician. So when you go see a musical at a community theater, the people who have been rehearsing for weeks and are now all gussied up, singing and dancing and jumping around making fools themselves ... they're gettin' nada, baby. The musicians who've gotten together maybe three times before Tech Week ... they're making bank. (Not much bank. Odds are they've agreed to do it for less than they normally would. Fuckers.)
(By the way, I can't believe that the Blogger Spell Check dictionary doesn't recognize "Fuckers." I mean if you want to be a language prude, be a language prude, I don't care. But don't go all 1984/erase it from the dictionary on us. Seriously. You're running a public blog service and you don't think someone, somewhere is going to write the word "Fuckers"?)
I think that part of it is that musicians have all this infrastructure that they have to support. They've got instruments and the upkeep of those instruments and the upgrade of those instruments and their amplification systems ... sheesh! I mean, I play guitar, but you can tell I'm not a musician because I only have one guitar -- one, uno, one-o -- and I've had that guitar for longer than some of my students have been alive. (Oy!) My guitar teacher, by comparison, brings a different guitar of his to each lesson depending on his whim. I've never known a musician who doesn't sound like a swap shop.
"That's a pretty nice looking piece."
"Yeah, I figure if I take that and this old 16-track board I can turn them in for a Jimhana KXY-50. Then I know this guy who's really into Jimihana's. He'll take that off my hand and he knows a friend who can cut me a deal on Rickenfelder XJ-2 Powerflash!"
Umm ... yeah ... In the last play I did, they asked me to bring my own bathrobe ...
By the way, just a moment ago my cat was stretched out to the left of me while I was web surfing and he felt the need to reach up with his claw and bat at my hand and the mouse. When I moved his paw away, again with the biting he was. Now he's on my left side, stretched out, complacently resting his head against my left hand as I type like I'm dad, like we're bosom buddies. What's up with this dude?
Oh, now, he's gotten up and is cleaning himself ... Oh well.
So as soon as my boss asked about my guitar teacher I knew the whole money thing (of which we have none) would come up. And partly to avoid the hassle (I can't believe that's how you spell that word!) I said, "Why don't I just take a shot at composing your music?" She said yes.
So I've composed three pieces that underscore people speaking (Again with the cat sleeping on my hand.) and have found a flute playing actor who didn't get cast (i.e. will not think twice about performing for free!) to play along. It's my first time writing for more than one instrument, my first time writing instrumental music, my first time "playing in the pit" as it were.
The other "partly" is that I've kind of always wanted to do this. It's pretty fun so far. It's really neat to hear something I've written played by someone else ... well kinda' written. I suggested some melodies to her which she modified, and one melody she came up with on her own. Still, Medea's Theme in general sounds really pretty and sad. At least my boss is pleased.
The downside of all this, of course, is now I'm attending rehearsals. They ... ahem ... we open this week, so I'll be playing each night. I made a half-hearted attempt to find a student guitarist, but then I just thought it would be less hassle (There's that word again!) if I would do it myself.
Okay, now the cat has climbed into my arms to snooze there. As I try to keep typing, he communicates his displeasure that I don't drop my blogging for him by -- you guessed it -- munching down on my arm.
Fucker.
posted by - caj at 9:29 PM
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