Necessary Changes

Ok, so updating the blog at lunch time, although this won’t be posted until sometime tonight after work. I have my laptop, so I’m just writing on word, I’ll post it when I have internet access. For some reason the W key is not cooperating, and I refuse to continue fixing it. That will explain any missing W’s from here on out.

Things I must do to start reorganizing my life to make the Cirque audition more likely include:

*Finding a place to practice

*Beginning to get back into condition

*Finding more efficient usage of my time

These must be addressed if I have any likelihood of success here. So, finding a place to practice first: I have some chance of playing outside somewhere, but this will require use of the vehicle. This may be more difficult to arrange than I’d like to admit. I also have the ability to go to a practice space that has a drumset built in, which only costs about $20 an hour. Unfortunately, I won’t get paid before mid month, just under three weeks away. This is after I would like to have already posted my video. I may be able to practice in the house, but I think that means I need to send Dad and Susan out somewhere to get time at the house with no one there. Practicing at the house before or after work is not an option, as it’ll be too late for the neighbors. That leaves weekends. Not the most ideal circumstances still. Must think more on this.

Beginning to get back into condition: Multiple reasons for this, 1) People instinctively hire people who are more aesthetically pleasing, 2) Part of my sales pitch is that I’m young and a good long term investment, 3) Most of the people involved in Cirque are extraordinarily conditioned anyway, blending into an environment is always good, 4) It’s probably just time. Locale… there’s an elementary school right down the hill, could probably use their playground/field to great effect. This may require a small investment in exercise clothing/shoes, but it’ll be worth it. In the interim, I have enough to get by with.

Finding more efficient usage of my time: This one kind of hurts. I’ve never been good at this. Almost like the Gods are determined to point it out to me, my new job requires me to log time into a system that keeps track of how long I work on each individual project. This is far more detail oriented than is comfortable for me, but I’ll have to adapt, and it’ll be good practice for the rest of my life. I frequently lose track of hours by the dozen, and thank god I have no system to game on currently, or I’d just be fucked. But time that I’d ordinarily spend playing around online or watching movies is getting shuffled back to this focus.

This all brings together another point which is worth taking into consideration: I am used to having significantly more free time to spend on projects of my choosing. This is going to be a temporary push completely in the other direction. I have no interest in working 40 hours at an office, but it can’t be helped if I want to be able to afford everything else that will be required; I have no interest in exercising, certainly not enough to do what I plan to do; I have no interest in dealing with moving my drums around and finding opportunities to play without disrupting others (a constant battle, as a drummer). But these changes stand between me and doing what I want to do with my life. If I can muscle through these next few months, I may be putting myself in a position to finally do the stuff I REALLY want to do, surround myself with the kind of people I want to know, and to learn the things I want to learn about… acting, direction, comedy, stage performance, etc. This may be even better for my mixed education than WAAPA (a dream school I had to give up on a couple years ago).

So, once again, laziness stands between me and what I want to do. Have to find a way to make it work.

Stay Postive

The Fool

Next Steps

So I'm back in California after the trip out for Christmas. I start the new "real job" in the morning, exhausted after the car ride, trying not to think about it. I'm such a dork, I'm actually rocking two computers right now: A = netbook, typing to you on, B = running youtube videos of HGTV dream home 2011 (it's beautiful [what? I got dreams too]), and drooling over the holiday deal on Steam selling Borderlands for $10 (that I don't have). Probably for the best as I'm going to need to focus on the Cirque stuff with all my free time from now on.

Speaking of which, this is my new idea: There's a guitar player here who I've been trying to get together and play with. I may be able to cajole him into learning some of the other parts from "Are You Brave" so that I don't have to split audio tracks and double up the drumming. Will be working on that this week, I think it'd go over better.

Also, I need to listen to the Cirque tracks more. This was difficult as I had no comp to work with file transfers to my ipod. Now I suddenly have two. So, I need to get the itunes library working with the deathpod so I'll have them around more.

Also, I have realized it's poor form to name people in a blog. So I'll be working up names for everyone soon.

Stay Positive.

The Fool

The situation so far...

Alright, it's Christmas. We're all sitting on the couch, the tv is on, and no 1ne is actually watching it. My sister, Dad, and his girlfriend are playing Angry Birds on their phones, my brother in law is reading, and I'm on here, writing. The Knicks and Bulls are on, both playing like absolute shit, so this is as good a time as any to keep the post going...

So, in order to get an audition with Cirque, I need to do a few things:

1) Create a Cirque account on their site. Basically just fill in background info on myself. This, somehow is the most horrifying aspect of the whole thing to me, as I've never been good with red tape and I get frustrated with all the paperwork and just stop doing it halfway through. Gonna have to get over that for this 1ne.

2) Make a couple of videos of myself playing. This is not as terrifying, but I have like no infrastructure in place for it, i.e., nowhere to play and nothing to record it with. In the interim, I had to decide on what to play for auditions.

I talked to Biggie Fries, my old drum instructor about it, and he sent me 5ive charts of Cirque's music with 2wo tracks for each, 1ne with drums and 1ne without. That's kind of like the illest audition prep pack ever. So, I figure I'll use one of those for one of my videos and I'll make another of something else.

Selecting a track for this is complex. Firstly, they stated on their site that they prefer instrumentalists who can also sing, so I wanted to pick something that would allow me to do both. But drumset ain't exactly the friendliest instrument for accompanying a vocalist. So, that limits the field significantly. I also wanted to show off my strengths, obviously, and they are independence, an understanding of odd and compound meter, and the ability to play musically, making things groove. They also focus a lot on "percussion." I had done a ton of musicals, and I got used to playing multiple percussion instruments at the same time as the kit. So I wanted a track to do that too. Lastly, I wanted it to be pretty short. I could play "Close To The Edge" by Yes, and that'd show off my skills, but no one's gonna watch the video for twenty minutes.

So, I spent like a week working on listening to music to pick for this. I was watching a video on youtube to listen to a piece of music, visualizing a scene for a movie I want to make (separate story for another time). The dude's name is Gavin Castleton, he's brilliant, was part of my favorite-band-that-no-one-has-ever-heard-of, Gruvis Malt. He also made one of my favorite solo albums a while ago. Anyway, he released a couple videos for his newest album, and one of them contained the music I was using to visualize that scene. It's like 12:45am, and this is what I like to do before I go to sleep - the creative ideas flow really well when I'm tired. Anyway, for my sixth or seventh consecutive listen, I accidentally clicked on the wrong video, a making of for his album art (if interested, you can see it here: http://bit.ly/bpQmpP). The whole things is over the first track, called "Are You Brave," and it's amazingly perfect, it just clicked. I probably listened to that like a dozen times before I decided to just go to sleep.

So, now I have my track. I've pretty much learned to sing and play the whole thing at this point via air drumming (weak, I know, but don't have anywhere to set up the drums). I did get to play on a kit once, but I need to dig up an egg shaker and a tambourine to really do it right. But the clock's running, and I need to get moving on this if I'm gonna get an invite to audition. Thank god all the technique I've learned over the years allows me to get warm quickly. The plan at this point is to set up my drums in a park somewhere. This will allow me to play without blowing out the mic on a camcorder which WILL happen in a practice space. Plus, I don't have anywhere else to go. Along with the shaker and tambourine, I need to set up a mic and amp for the vocals. Playing around with recording settings is going to be a bitch. But these things happen.

So, that's what I'm thinking about. I've gotta be ready to move quickly here, we're getting a little close for comfort. Stay positive.

The Fool

In The Beginning...

Ok, so this being the first post on this blog, I suppose it needs to be a manifesto of sorts. So here's the basic idea: I'm a bohemian. I've been a drummer my entire life. I love performing, whether it's being on stage playing music, or just making my friends laugh. Unfortunately, with my romantic ideals and philosophy, I was born in the wrong era. I want to be surrounded by bohemians like myself, who want to create, who want to live art, love without fear, and inspire others. And there just aren't a lot of places to do that in the modern world.

The last few years of my life have been a bit challenging. I've felt pretty alienated from people like myself, I haven't been able to play barely at all, and I'd almost just given up on the idea entirely. Over Thanksgiving though, one of my old drum instructors basically talked me into auditioning for Cirque du Soleil... apparently they pretty much restock on musicians every February, and he thinks I'd have a really good shot at making it. After doing a bit of research, I've decided that it's worth putting my efforts towards.

This blog will be a method for me to track my progress in case I get discouraged through the audition process, and - I hope - to record my life with the circus if I get the gig.

There is more to be said, but it will have to wait until the next post. Until then, stay positive.

The Fool