It's a scary metric, to literally realize how long it has been since the last impetus to get off your butt and further your future.
What has happened in almost a year? Let's see:
November 2018 - Went to Sweden for three days as part of my uncle's George Graham Foundation big band. I originally went as just the arranger, but I ended up conducting a fair portion of the 2 hour concert and leading rehearsals. What a ride, getting a band, dancers, and a volunteer refugee choir to all be "fairly" in sync. The sun never really rose, it got dark at 3pm, I was tired a lot of the time because of it. I see dark skies, it must be time for sleeping haha.
The concert went well, met the sound guy working the venue. Turns out he was a Sami, which from what I was told is analogous to the Native Americans here; a people who live with the land, nomadic, and indigenous. Weirdly, however progressive the Swedish are, they have a really hard time getting over their preconceptions about Sami. He seemed legitimately surprised to be talked to, and for how long and interested I was. I asked him a bunch of questions, even showed him how to easily unscrew a mic clip from a stand.
Honestly, it was weird to me that people can tell Sami from Swedish. They perhaps have higher cheekbones? No idea. Still, racism exists everywhere, despite best intentions.
Which was ironically the point of the concert; to raise awareness and give support to local refugees, mainly Kurds. Humans remain tribal as ever I suppose.
December 2018 - Almost got fired from my job. Yeah, a real kick in the pants about how secure my job really was/is. I'm just a couple short hops from unemployment at all times, it weighs heavily on my mind.
A lot of the strife comes from a shift in mentality that I have to figure out. My school brain says to actually learn the material, and be honest about when you truly don't know the answer. The work brain teaches honesty, but only if the job can't be done first. If you can "cheat" but still get the job done well, who's to say you don't know what you're doing? Everything is about results. "It's the private sector, Vankman. They want results." No one cares that I have a beautifully written score; what does it sound like? No one cares whether I actually understand the theory; can you use it in practice over and over again?
January-March 2019 - My 2019 starts by stopping a drunk guy from grabbing my female coworker while cleaning New Year's. Luckily he's harmless, but he gets pretty nasty the rest of load out as I continually put myself between him and our LD. It becomes an inside joke, "I just wanna appreciate your good works." "Well, have a nice life! (said angrily)" "You see that guy on stage? He's a dick."
I become a "pod-mom" on a trip to New York with my mom's choir kids. They have worked stupidly hard to get to sing at Carnegie, but the other half of the choir is quite lackadaisical. A badass pep talk later, and it's their show now. Move aside, if you don't the part just don't sing it, I will cover you. I become quite close to many of the kids, luckily being able to skirt the line between chaperone and big brother. I can get respect when it needs to be said, but also laugh with the rest when an angry businessman absolutely screams," I said, Fuck Ya' Motha!" On the last excursion I have around 13 kids in my pod, from an original four, and I'm able to get to everyone's wish lists. And have them sing along the way too, which is that only way to travel.
First time seeing Ground Zero actually built up, with Freedom Tower finished and the new gorgeous train station that radiates warmth. I can't wait to see the new cube building that will house a stage and be an epicenter for the arts.
My best friend gets diagnosed with MS. He's my age. And of course, he had just proposed to his girlfriend of 4+ years. Oofta. He remains spirited, but it comes and goes; the pain, the laughter, reality. I love him as much as one brother can love another.
April-June 2019 - MADRIGALS. Yes, I'm actually able to be a very active part of the show this year, God I missed it. Nick and I are lovingly dubbed "the Wizards Beyond the Wall" and I take it to heart. I become Merlin, acting the crotchety Wizard that shouts for shrimp to power magic, misplaces my body by poking my head out of the wall, and even do a little action with a glowing orb. This is the most energy I've felt in a while, I feed off the cast and they feed off my fun.
I also begin playing D&D again, with Kevin's work friends. Bronk the Monk is born, as well as a 7 page, novelized backstory which I narrated. The ultimate creative exercise.
Obviously work continues during this time. I'm starting to get grumpy, though I'm getting better used to the rhythm of things.
July 2019 - Holy bejeebus July. We get two days off right at the end, and the rest is a blur of July 4th with three different setups, I work a celebrity golf tournament at South Lake and give the business to some NBC sound people, and a week long work-ation staying up at the lake and working on property for Discount Tire's nationwide company retreat. The last day ends with a 4pm-5am load out as we watch the sun rising and decide it's time to go to bed. Yuck. Made some money though, overtime from 60 hour weeks.
My laptop commits honorable seppuku and the graphics card melts. Another wake-up call to write music again, get my portfolio together, work on projects. It's time to get to the next adventure.
August 2019 - My best friend gets married. It's lovely, intimate, real. Not a big affair to display for dozens of people, but a true celebration with an entire family. "Michael, get me more wedding cake. It's my wedding day, damnit, and I'm going to eat more of my cake." He decides to make a YouTube channel, and the first episode turns out much better than I expected. I can edit fairly well as it turns out. (Though it took me a while to get a hang of it)
Starting to get on to the slow season at work, and I'm itching to leave. Clean up the resumes, bundle the portfolio, spit it out to whoever will listen.
Nowadays - I'm quite sore/tired most of the time. I've done my part as a labor man I think, lets get back to thinking and creating from a positive start, not from a negative reaction. That is to say, this job as an audio engineer is creative, but it's problem solving with glue and drills, not creating out of thin air.
I'll have the album up soon. An amalgamation of my interests, my abilities, that I can hopefully turn into a creative career. Maybe that'll help grow the rain-forest back and rebuild Notre Dame.
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