Age-Induced-Micro-Rant

Here’s a micro-rant for you:

(By the way, the uncontrollable urge to micro-rant is a sure sign that you’re getting old)

“Independent” used to mean something.  Not just from a business I’m-not-with-a-major-label standpoint, but musically.  Indy meant “This is how I see the world. This is how I express myself”, for better or for worse.  Now Indy means “This is how cool people see that world.  This is what Indy sounds like”.

Let’s build an Indy band together, shall we?  First, the look.  All clothes from boutique second-hand stores, of course.  Tight grey pants and a bunch of flannel.  Pointy leather shoes.  Now grow some stubble.  Girls, that goes for you too.  Let’s see… oh yeah, the glasses.  Thick frames.  Lenses optional.

Now for a catchy name.  Something with a vintage hipness that evokes a flair for the sardonic.  Let’s go with “The Dapper Pandas”.  That ought to stick.

Buy a ukulele, find a glockenspiel player, and work out some short, jerky movements for when things get really intense on stage.

There you go!  Wait, one last thing: make some posters with 1950’s blocky test, hand-drawn animals, and don’t be shy with the pastels and turquoise colorings.

(DISCLOSURE PARAGRAPH:  I own a uke.  I own flannel.  I’ve recorded with glockenspiels.  I’m blind as a bat, so when I wear glasses, lenses are a must.  I dance like I have epilepsy on stage.  I actually think “The Dapper Pandas” is a cool band name.  I’ve been signed to major labels - I think it’s cooler to not be.  If a gig in an “Indy” band opened up, I’d jump on it.  Just know that every time I say “Indy”, it totally has air-quotes around it, even if my hands are full.)

Eat. Sleep. Rock. Repeat.

When you’re me, there’s a real trick to answering the question “What do you do?”

 

Short version?  I’m a musician.  Or, “I’m in the music business”.  Whatever that means.  Most people, after hearing that, say “Oh.  How interesting…” (which either means they don’t know what that means or (more likely) don’t think it’s interesting at all.

“Wait!” my mind screams out.  “You don’t understand!”  Let me help you understand:

Being a musicians isn’t just eat/sleep/rock-out/repeat.  When I write “musician” on my resume, I’m implying qualifications for about 37 other job descriptions, some of which I’ll mention below.

 

Truck driver.  You think 18-hour hauls in a mega-van pulling a trailer through the most desolate parts of the country doesn’t qualify you?  At least a little?

 

Psychologist.  You think spending weeks locked in a car with 4 guys you spend more time with than your own family doesn’t give you some mad psycho-analytical skills?  At least a few?

 

Electrician.  I know stupid amounts of useless knowledge about amperes, ohms, watts, volts, impedance, and soldering.  Not by choice, mind you.

 

Flight attendant/Airline Check-In Counter Agent.  Seriously.  At this point, I could even give the little “exits fore and aft” in my sleep.  And do I know more about the rules and regulations about the sizes and weights of what can and cannot be checked than the guy behind the counter?  Yes.  Yes, I do.

 

Dietician.  OK, whatever the opposite of that is, I could be.  I can tell you exactly which combinations of fast-foot restaurants can make the afore-mentioned confined van travel a veritable death-sentence.  I can also tell you my pre-determined orders at any of the major chains that are guaranteed to keep you alive for $4 or less.

 

Multi-Level-Marketing Consultant.  I have performed for and received gift baskets from every soap/oil/juice/jewlry/spray/shoe/balm/scent/magnet/make-up/spice/clothing/candle/book/berry/scrapbook/kitchen-accesory business in the network-marketing world.  I’ve tried them all.  All I’ve gained from the experience is the bumper sticker idea “I don’t need friends; I have a down-line”.

 

Paralegal.  If there’s a way to cheat a contract, I’ve seen it, argued it, and usually won.  Yes, banjo players can read.  Small words, at least.

 

I could go on, but at 360 words, I’ve already exceeded the average Americans attention span.  In fact, I’m bored myself.

Disc Golf

I haven’t quite reached the age where I buy a red sports car and pick up golf.  I have, however, reached the age where I drive a high-mileage Maxima and play disc golf.
What’s disc golf, you ask?
I’m glad you asked.
Disc as in “Frisbee”, but apparently the fine folks at Frisbee (much like the lame losers at Levi) don’t want their brand associated with the sport unless they get a royalty every time someone says “Dude, let’s go toss a Frisbee (registered-trademark-all-rights-reserved) around.”  Disc golf, at first blush, is a relatively simple and inexpensive game.  I got into it when, after flying with the band to North Carolina, we discovered the guy that hired us had cancelled the show.  With no money and two days to kill, it seemed like the perfect time to pick up a new hobby.  We dropped a couple bucks at Dick’s Sporting Goods and googled our way to a disc golf course, which in reality is just a city park.
Here’s where disc golf gets good.  Golf clubs are pricey.  Discs are cheap.  Golf courses are specialized, and expensive.  Disc golf courses are city parks, and free.  Golfers are well-dressed businessmen who schedule tee-times.  Disc golfers are unemployed musicians/hippies with nothing else to do.
The game is like this.  You all take turns throwing your little Frisbee™ toward the basket, which is, well, a wire basket with chains hanging above it to stop the Frisbee if you hit them.  He who gets his Frisbee™ in the basket in the least number of throws wins.
After half a day of that, we found ourselves back in Dick’s Sporting Goods, buying more discs – you see, each disc has a specialized purpose.  Some are designed for distance, some for putting, some for midrange, some to lean left, others right, some for rolling, and so forth.  Each disc is rated in at least four different categories, and measured in exact grams so you can choose the perfect disc for each situation.  By assessing wind conditions, distance, temperature, and relative humidity, a careful disc selection can make a big difference in your overall game.
I now own a fair assortment of discs and a neat bag to carry them in.  I also invested in some compact binoculars to assist in the game.  I’m also considering a new pair of shoes that provide extra grip and support through the lateral extension of my throw.  Polarized sunglasses, a new ball cap, and an ultra-accurate GPS to map new courses as I play them, and I think I’ll be set-up.   I’m also hoping to someday walk onto the PDGA tour.
The most satisfying part is knowing that I’m not as geeky as those goofy golfers in the red sports cars.  Suckers…

Open Seating, Part II

The rules of seating on an aircraft:

I’ve written, in the past, about how to best keep an empty seat next to you while flying airlines that maintain an “open seating” policy.  While that article will stand the test of time as the definitive essay on dumb things to do on a plane, I’ve discovered that it needs an update.

Update:

While the prospect of keeping an open seat is tempting, I’ve discovered a phenomena that I’ve simply dubbed the “Craig Principle” that has changed my entire approach to getting on an airplane.

The Craig Principle states that the longer you hold an empty seat on a plane, the larger/weirder/talkier/toddlier the person who will eventually take that seat will be.

This is not a simple matter or irony or fate; there is no “Murphy’s law” of seat saving.  The facts are these:  people who get on the plane first are those who checked in first.  People who check in promptly are likely to be prompt about other things in life, such as remedying a personal hygiene issue or nipping a Twinkie addiction in the bud.  People to whom it has not occurred to check in early are often the same people to whom it has not occurred that spitting their tobacco chew back into their clear plastic airplane cup may also cause their neighbor to put their FAA-approved barf-bag to immediate use.

What should you, early-check-in-person, do?  Well, as per my earlier essay, there are many ways to ensure you’ll have an empty seat to expand into during your long flight.  Should you choose to acknowledge the Craig Principle, you may be well served to clear the seat next to you, put a smile on your face, and extend a word of greeting to a fellow (early-check-in) traveler of your choosing.

Familiarity

I was born in 1980.  My childhood was filled with lots of great and marvelous new things like Transformers, G.I. Joes, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Smurfs, the A Team, Star Trek, and the Karate Kid.

My son was born in 2006.  His childhood is filled with lots of great and marvelous new things like Transformers, G.I. Joes, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Smurfs, the A Team, Start Trek, and the Karate Kid.

Wait, what?  That’s right, no one has thought of any new ideas in the last 30 years.  Could this be true?  Let me tell you my theory – people like what they’re familiar with.  They don’t like new things.  So, if you were making a movie, and you had only so much money to advertise and convince people to like your movie, what makes more sense – an action flick about soldiers saving the world called “Army of Awesomeness”, or and action flick about soldiers saving the world called “G.I. Joes”.  See?  You already like G.I. Joes.  Waaaay cheaper. People like things they’re familiar with.

Now apply that to the music business.  It takes a lot of listens for the average person to get a song familiar to them.  That kind of presence and exposure costs a lot of money.  Top 40 radio hits, if they’re not familiar songs, are familiar names.  And the big labels can only afford to make so many musicians familiar in a year.  Without naming names, I think if you put enough money behind mediocre talent, good technology, and a pretty face, then you’ve got a hit on your hands.  It’s marketing.  People like things they’re familiar with.

Outside of this big machine you have the artists, filmmakers, and musicians who make wonderful art that’s not as familiar.  Presenting new ideas outside of the machine of pop art has its own challenges.  I respect musicians that can package innovative ideas and musicianship into a familiar looking package that people are comfortable with.  Most of the people I work with struggle with “being true to themselves” and “selling out” (i.e. making money).

The next time you go see a movie, take a chance on independents.  The next time you see a concert, support a local musician.  Maybe, by the end of the show, you’ll be familiar with it. People like things they’re familiar with.

Instruments

There’s an old saying: “you can tell a man by the instruments he keeps”.  Something like that.  I firmly believe it to be true, at least for most of the musicians I know.  Instruments represent you, they become your voice, the natural extension, the physical tool that creates the fleeting sound that is your art.

And they’re just freaking cool.

Victor Wooten said once that he thanks his bass after every gig.  I like that idea.  You see, I have an idea, and my fingers transfer the message to the instrument, then the instrument has to do all the hard work.  And, somewhere along the way, the instrument adds something unique to the idea that I wouldn’t have expected, and I’m always surprised when I hear my idea back.  Sometimes it’s cooler than I expected.  Sometimes not.

Every instrument I own has a story behind it.  I’ve gone way out of my way to meet the people who have built my instruments, or I’ve tried to build them myself.  I’ve dinged and scratched and whacked and cracked them.  I’ve re-fretted, re-strung, re-wired, adjusted, polished, and babied them.  And, now, I’m thanking them.

A Tale of Two Crises

Musicians have their own way of doing things, and a mid-life crisis is no exception.  Allow me to tell you the story of two men, both loosely based on people I have actually imagined up in my head.

A man graduates college.  He gets a desk job, benefits, 401k, and a mortgage.  He dons a suit, cuts his hair, and then spends 10-15 years going back and forth between home and work, listening to talk radio and reading Seven Habits for Highly Effective People.

Then, one day, the man wonders what’s become of his life.  What has he amounted to?  Is this monotonous routine how he will be measured when he dies?

So the man makes a shift.  He buys some jeans.  He grows his hair out.  He puts drums and amps in his garage and buys a sports car.  He fires up a MySpace page.  He starts bungee jumping or some other hobby that threatens to raise his health insurance premium.

And he feels young again.  Like the world is full of opportunity, and he is content.

Another man almost graduates from college.  He joins a band, buys some gear, a van, and rents an apartment.  He dons some jeans, grows his hair our, and then spends 10-15 years driving around the country, listening to indie radio and reading Rolling Stone and The Hobbit.

Then, one day, the man wonders what’s become of his life.  What has he amounted to?  Is this sporadic meandering how he will be measured when he dies?

So the man makes a shift.  He buys a suit.  He cuts his hair.  He pulls the drums and amps out of his garage and buys a minivan.  He fires up a LinkedIn Profile.  He stops base jumping and any other hobby that has kept him from qualifying for any sort of health insurance.

And he feels young again.  Like the world is full of opportunity, and he is content.