It fundamentally doesn't make sense. You would figure, the more energy you spend, the less you have to focus on other tasks. Well, I would figure, and did, when I was entering college.
I got into an argument with Ana, a friend who lived in the dorms and was studying Kinesiology, about the subject. I told her that systems wear down with usage, hence the term, wear and tear. She said, no, the human body is organic, and it becomes stronger with usage, provided you don't blow out the system. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
The last year I have been testing her theory, and, provided I receive ample sleep and fuel, I've discovered for myself that she had been right those years ago.
It really started, as so much of my improvement has, with the website. When GTG was getting started, there was just so much to do. So many ideas to hash out, personnel decisions to make, layouts to comment on, events to plan and execute, content and content and content to slam into my head about all this Asian pop culture stuff I had very little background in at the time.
So I ran myself ragged. 90 hours a week between the site and the Coffee job, at the height of my obsession; 30 hours pulling shots and steaming milk, 60 hours talking with AJ and Sean at UC Davis, plotting with Jonas at the pad on La Riveria, clicking away on my desktop. Of course, that couldn't last forever, and I was blowing out...but I began to understand then the truth of hard work: the more you work, the more you want to work, and the easier each task becomes.
After management training, my world stopped for a bit, and I realized that there was a balance that needed to be reached. I was starting to resent working at the coffee shop, started thinking about escaping again, as I had every time I reached one of these crossroads where I felt external forces were holding me back. When Resident Services Coordinating started to sour, I escaped for grad school. When I worked straight through two weeks to qualify for bar and street marketing, I decided to go to apply to teach English in Korea.
But the colleges, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, they were experienced in people like me: people who were trying to use their organizations to hide from life, rather than to embrace a new change. I wasn't going to expand my horizons, I went to find a hole to crawl into. Honestly, if I was accept to Amherst or Florida, if I had gone to Korea, I wouldn't have learned what Mark and Joe learned in college, I wouldn't have flourished and developed as a more full person, as AJ and Jeff have.
Again, it was about learning what it meant to take satisfaction in one's effort, rather than needing other peoples' praise to power my work.
So blowing out with GTG, it was necessary: I had to let myself unleash the power within me, expend all I had, and learn lessons.
And I did. I learned that, the best thing to do when you're down was exercise: exert yourself physically, ESPECIALLY when you feel spiritually blocked. If it was the website, I would go play basketball. If I felt lagged at work, I would scrub the floors with a scouring pad, a bottle of simple green and a towel. The extra effort, the accomplishment of doing more than I otherwise would, and, most importantly, getting lost in the simple action of being, was enough to rejuvenate my system. I would then make sure to sleep extra and eat more, take care of myself.
I also learned that when I did this more often than that...I was ignoring a need in myself. I wasn't asserting my will in the places it was important. Usually, it has been that I need more rejuvenation reassertments when I've been isolating myself for a period of time. When I recognize this is the case, I make sure to hang out with friends...luckily, I have good friends who put up with my sometimes negligence (thanks guys!)
Working on what needs to be done, and accomplishing those tasks, really does more for you to utilize your free time than it does drain you. When you feel you are doing a bad job at work, or with your friends, or anything you view as important, that negativity does more to inhibit you than spending that extra bit to get through a rough day...especially when, realizing you had to put in the extra work, you feel accomplished enough, and secure enough in your autonomy, to reward yourself with a good night's rest. When I used to beat myself up, and "give up," I wouldn't be able to sleep...I would spend more time dwelling than getting stuff done, or using the time I wasn't spending getting stuff done to decompress.
Autonomy is so, so, so, so, so, so important. So important. Underline it. Italicize it. Surrounded it in parenthesis, brackets, and asterisks...highlight it in yellow if you need to.
Autonomy.
It is the chief gift of hard work, the blessing of human's sometimes maddening nature and wiring. If there is something you expect yourself to do, REGARDLESS if anyone is holding you to it or not, do it. Make yourself do it.
You'll be better for it, I promise you. And so will I, once I get to the point where I feel that I need to do Mike's workout three times a day.
I don't feel that way yet...and it's just something I'm gonna have to get used to. Like coming into work on a clean slate every day. Like this blog, writing every day. Like my desire to make people smile, and think, and my passion for thinking my way through problems, my obsession with self-work.
I'll keep working on those things I need to do, until, some day, when it clicks, and I realize I need to do the workout every day, I'll have the support of my deeds, the history of my accomplishments embodied in me, to achieve that goal as well.
Self-confidence. It's a step by step process. Day by day. Always.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
The Pleasures so Few Understand; On speaking a foreign language in English
I've come to the realization, and am comfortable saying that there are some pleasures I hold that, although totally uninterpretable to most of my friends these days, are nonetheless entrenched aspects that have guided and continue to direct the growth of my personality.
Perfection. When you hear the word, what do you think about? What is the first image that flies across your mind? For some, it's the perfect body, with a favorite celebrity crush making a viewing. Maybe it's a Michael Jordan dunk for the Chicago sports fan, or Dwight Clark reeling in The Catch for those in the Bay Area. Maybe it's your childhood treehouse, and the view looking out into the wilderness of simpler times and impulses.
For me, there is only one answer: Toshiaki Kawada versus Misahiru Misawa, Tokyo Egg Dome, June 3rd, 1994 for the Triple Crown Title.
I see Kawada nailing a Yakuza kick out of no where, Misawa working on the leg, then the back, weakening Kawada's powerbomb. Misawa not being able to put away Kawada with Inoki's octopus lock, and being forced to unleash the Tiger Driver '91 from a wrestling hold warehouse hooked under lock and key for the final victory.
When I think really hard about it, and try to imagine someone NOT thinking this is the very image of all that is possible in the world, my head starts to hurt. What could possibly match its story? The telling, retelling of all their battles in every series of moves. The concessions to each others' that will that were only exerted by force in violent conflict, elbows and boots. What that ever existed was as elegantly crafted, and put under the pressure of live performance, and executed to the utmost of human potential? The in-match motifs, extemporaneously breathed into life, forming organic structures of emotion in the audience, suffering small tragedy's until the final denouement, when the man with the invinceable head was finally put down by the master tactician.
How many people to I know actually know the difference between a tactician and a technician in pro wrestling? A brawler and a striker? A hooker versus a grappler? A high impact offense versus a high flying one?
Wrestling is just the chief example, of course, of my many exclusive vocabularies. Quite often, I have awkward moments, especially when tired at work, or out with friends, where I made metaphors to concepts, events, etc. that no one around me gets. Especially when I'm tired, it's hard to properly contextualize an appropriate response, especially when I'm trying to clarify a point and reach for comparison to do so.
There's literary criticism, speed quantitative methods, Talking Heads song lyrics (or song lyrics in general,) early '90s country music, Korean Underground Hip Hop (I asked for that one,) coffee, management practices, even writing...it gets to a point where your help doesn't help: you want to explain something, but you start speaking in jargon other people don't have the background to follow.
When I'm awake, I guess, I'm okay at small chat. But when I'm tired? The first four things I think of seem to always relate to one of my narrow fringe interests.
I dunno. I'm probably just tired. In fact, I'm exhausted. Got four hours of sleep last night when I needed 10. Ack.
Better post tomorrow, I promise.
But seriously, Kawada/Misawa is the most perfect thing I've ever witnessed. Consolidate your image of my now, friend!
P.S. Number 2 is Oscar Wilde's behavior in court when he was tried and convicted for engaging in sexual acts with a male minor. If you can read any one thing in your life, when you're totally miserable and want to laugh AT the world rather than with it, read it sometime.
Perfection. When you hear the word, what do you think about? What is the first image that flies across your mind? For some, it's the perfect body, with a favorite celebrity crush making a viewing. Maybe it's a Michael Jordan dunk for the Chicago sports fan, or Dwight Clark reeling in The Catch for those in the Bay Area. Maybe it's your childhood treehouse, and the view looking out into the wilderness of simpler times and impulses.
For me, there is only one answer: Toshiaki Kawada versus Misahiru Misawa, Tokyo Egg Dome, June 3rd, 1994 for the Triple Crown Title.
I see Kawada nailing a Yakuza kick out of no where, Misawa working on the leg, then the back, weakening Kawada's powerbomb. Misawa not being able to put away Kawada with Inoki's octopus lock, and being forced to unleash the Tiger Driver '91 from a wrestling hold warehouse hooked under lock and key for the final victory.
When I think really hard about it, and try to imagine someone NOT thinking this is the very image of all that is possible in the world, my head starts to hurt. What could possibly match its story? The telling, retelling of all their battles in every series of moves. The concessions to each others' that will that were only exerted by force in violent conflict, elbows and boots. What that ever existed was as elegantly crafted, and put under the pressure of live performance, and executed to the utmost of human potential? The in-match motifs, extemporaneously breathed into life, forming organic structures of emotion in the audience, suffering small tragedy's until the final denouement, when the man with the invinceable head was finally put down by the master tactician.
How many people to I know actually know the difference between a tactician and a technician in pro wrestling? A brawler and a striker? A hooker versus a grappler? A high impact offense versus a high flying one?
Wrestling is just the chief example, of course, of my many exclusive vocabularies. Quite often, I have awkward moments, especially when tired at work, or out with friends, where I made metaphors to concepts, events, etc. that no one around me gets. Especially when I'm tired, it's hard to properly contextualize an appropriate response, especially when I'm trying to clarify a point and reach for comparison to do so.
There's literary criticism, speed quantitative methods, Talking Heads song lyrics (or song lyrics in general,) early '90s country music, Korean Underground Hip Hop (I asked for that one,) coffee, management practices, even writing...it gets to a point where your help doesn't help: you want to explain something, but you start speaking in jargon other people don't have the background to follow.
When I'm awake, I guess, I'm okay at small chat. But when I'm tired? The first four things I think of seem to always relate to one of my narrow fringe interests.
I dunno. I'm probably just tired. In fact, I'm exhausted. Got four hours of sleep last night when I needed 10. Ack.
Better post tomorrow, I promise.
But seriously, Kawada/Misawa is the most perfect thing I've ever witnessed. Consolidate your image of my now, friend!
P.S. Number 2 is Oscar Wilde's behavior in court when he was tried and convicted for engaging in sexual acts with a male minor. If you can read any one thing in your life, when you're totally miserable and want to laugh AT the world rather than with it, read it sometime.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Of Growth - An Introduction
I woke up today, in my own room, woke up at my on leisure, took a shower, started my laundry, cooked some rice, ate half the pot, came to the coffeehouse, checked my Fantasy Football team, listened to the Garion vol. 2 in my headphones and logged onto my Blog.
Lately, I've felt like I'm in control of my life. A fiction among many fiction: tomorrow, North Korea could go to war with the South, and two of my best friends in the world would be on the border of bloody, horrible conflict. The price of the rice I buy might go up, MC Meta and Nachal could be enlisted into the service, the dollar inflated and the cost of my coffee rise as a result, California's water shortage could lead to rations and the fact our drier requires three hours to undampen a full load would lead to shorter showers.
But yet, I feel like I am in control of my life. I have my health in line better than it has been my entire adult life, especially physical, but also mentally and socially. I don't NEED people like I used to in my youth. I'm don't just enjoy writing, better, I am content with the action of it.
So, I was bumping Epik High Vol. 4 Disc 2 track 15 ("Fly" Remix) and I thought to myself, when did it all click? When did life get so much better than it was, when a good day was a special event, when contentment was a sour word...to where my bad days now are events, and thoroughly good days are the norm?
The answer is, it didn't really click at all. It's been, and still is, a continuous series of transition periods and habit reformations over the last two years that have allowed everything to come into place.
It started by denying myself the negative habits that had been part and parcel of my self-destructive tendencies. Quitting soda and replacing it with unsweetened herbal ice tea really was the beginning of everything. I realized soda was only serving one positive purpose: it kept me awake when I was tired with a mild caffeine boost. Other than that, it packed on extra, useless calories, killed my metabolism, and made me feel bloated...
After two weeks of quitting, and feeling better about the whole deal, I remembered Doug Rice's words, that he used for sentences in a short story, but that I transposed into life:
Everything in your life should be doing more than one thing for you.
So I started cutting back. I quit fast food for a two month period. I quit alcohol for eight months. I disconnected myself from those things that enabled more bad behaviors than good behaviors. I had to strip myself to bare materials so I could build on a new foundation.
And quite often, their were slips. I would fall into terrible moods for no reason. I would strongly desire to be like a person in ways I couldn't yet be: strong like my friend Joe, as easy with life as Chieng, as dutiful as Ken, as motivated as Autumn, as passionate as Inga, as brilliant as Kalan, as honest and sweet as Mark and Sarah Lanning have been with each other...this was not jealousy, but rather, my recognition that I was falling short of a ceiling, a ceiling external to my self.
But I wasn't there yet. And, quite often, these are the bar-setters, ideals; to aim for one would be to turn my energy into disarray, to make my growth inorganic. And frankly, experience, and the comfort with oneself necessary to properly contextualize these experiences, was going to take time.
So everytime i got anxious, that I saw myself not where I wanted to be, I reminded myself of a poem I read for my Prosody Final Paper...
In life, we may fly on a plane, and travel 3,000 miles in six hours, but in reality...how many steps did we actually take? How much did we actually travel, the sounds of children, the peanuts, the lunch? Six hours of life is all we lived, even as the world passed by below us.
We are human, and life is lived one step at a time. Be patient. Growth happens one step at a time.
The last six months has really seen me building on a foundation Stan Harms, my Precalculus teacher at Folsom High who re-instilled confidence into my academic endeavors. He once pulled me aside after one class one day as I was walking out the door, after everyone had left for sixth period.
"Big Boy," he said, "The only thing that matters in life is accomplishments."
When I had figured out what habits I had been using to enable my self-destructive moods, I was able to not just complete tasks, but, I can say, for the first time in my life, garner a real sense of accomplishment in what I do.
Completing tasks and accomplishing them are two completely different things, and achieving is a third...that's the lesson I learned the hard way. Completion occurs when an action is ended and the job done. In college, I completed assignments, often with vigor, resolve, and a mania bred from an obsessive need, and in doing so, I didn't just complete tasks, I achieved.
But achievement is a third concept, apart from completion and accomplishment. Achievement is inherently an external fulfillment from completing a task.
Accomplishment, what I've found for myself now, is internal gratification from a completed task. It is the satisfaction with my own efforts, without feeling like achieved something FOR the world outside of my reality, and without the cold immorality of completing a task. I know the difference between completing a task that sucks my energy dry, achieving a success by throwing energy for some purpose that enables co-dependence as often as it produces growth, and accomplishing a personal project that produces growth and asserts my autonomy in my own life.
Writing is breath, Doug Rice once told me. Funny thing: I haven't wheezed all winter. It might be the weight loss that's curbed my seasonal asthma. Maybe I finally learned to write for myself. But I know my writing doesn't have the manic energy that powered my prose when I used my assignments to act as a weapon, attempting to coerce me into respecting my effort. I know I'm not chasing the Lacanian object, unachievable, but I know, with my bare materials, I can put in a new kind of energy into my work.
An energy of accomplishment. An energy that utilizes my energy in an efficient, honed, delicately balanced and crafted way.
A sustainable energy, for a sustainable Frank.
Lately, I've felt like I'm in control of my life. A fiction among many fiction: tomorrow, North Korea could go to war with the South, and two of my best friends in the world would be on the border of bloody, horrible conflict. The price of the rice I buy might go up, MC Meta and Nachal could be enlisted into the service, the dollar inflated and the cost of my coffee rise as a result, California's water shortage could lead to rations and the fact our drier requires three hours to undampen a full load would lead to shorter showers.
But yet, I feel like I am in control of my life. I have my health in line better than it has been my entire adult life, especially physical, but also mentally and socially. I don't NEED people like I used to in my youth. I'm don't just enjoy writing, better, I am content with the action of it.
So, I was bumping Epik High Vol. 4 Disc 2 track 15 ("Fly" Remix) and I thought to myself, when did it all click? When did life get so much better than it was, when a good day was a special event, when contentment was a sour word...to where my bad days now are events, and thoroughly good days are the norm?
The answer is, it didn't really click at all. It's been, and still is, a continuous series of transition periods and habit reformations over the last two years that have allowed everything to come into place.
It started by denying myself the negative habits that had been part and parcel of my self-destructive tendencies. Quitting soda and replacing it with unsweetened herbal ice tea really was the beginning of everything. I realized soda was only serving one positive purpose: it kept me awake when I was tired with a mild caffeine boost. Other than that, it packed on extra, useless calories, killed my metabolism, and made me feel bloated...
After two weeks of quitting, and feeling better about the whole deal, I remembered Doug Rice's words, that he used for sentences in a short story, but that I transposed into life:
Everything in your life should be doing more than one thing for you.
So I started cutting back. I quit fast food for a two month period. I quit alcohol for eight months. I disconnected myself from those things that enabled more bad behaviors than good behaviors. I had to strip myself to bare materials so I could build on a new foundation.
And quite often, their were slips. I would fall into terrible moods for no reason. I would strongly desire to be like a person in ways I couldn't yet be: strong like my friend Joe, as easy with life as Chieng, as dutiful as Ken, as motivated as Autumn, as passionate as Inga, as brilliant as Kalan, as honest and sweet as Mark and Sarah Lanning have been with each other...this was not jealousy, but rather, my recognition that I was falling short of a ceiling, a ceiling external to my self.
But I wasn't there yet. And, quite often, these are the bar-setters, ideals; to aim for one would be to turn my energy into disarray, to make my growth inorganic. And frankly, experience, and the comfort with oneself necessary to properly contextualize these experiences, was going to take time.
So everytime i got anxious, that I saw myself not where I wanted to be, I reminded myself of a poem I read for my Prosody Final Paper...
In life, we may fly on a plane, and travel 3,000 miles in six hours, but in reality...how many steps did we actually take? How much did we actually travel, the sounds of children, the peanuts, the lunch? Six hours of life is all we lived, even as the world passed by below us.
We are human, and life is lived one step at a time. Be patient. Growth happens one step at a time.
The last six months has really seen me building on a foundation Stan Harms, my Precalculus teacher at Folsom High who re-instilled confidence into my academic endeavors. He once pulled me aside after one class one day as I was walking out the door, after everyone had left for sixth period.
"Big Boy," he said, "The only thing that matters in life is accomplishments."
When I had figured out what habits I had been using to enable my self-destructive moods, I was able to not just complete tasks, but, I can say, for the first time in my life, garner a real sense of accomplishment in what I do.
Completing tasks and accomplishing them are two completely different things, and achieving is a third...that's the lesson I learned the hard way. Completion occurs when an action is ended and the job done. In college, I completed assignments, often with vigor, resolve, and a mania bred from an obsessive need, and in doing so, I didn't just complete tasks, I achieved.
But achievement is a third concept, apart from completion and accomplishment. Achievement is inherently an external fulfillment from completing a task.
Accomplishment, what I've found for myself now, is internal gratification from a completed task. It is the satisfaction with my own efforts, without feeling like achieved something FOR the world outside of my reality, and without the cold immorality of completing a task. I know the difference between completing a task that sucks my energy dry, achieving a success by throwing energy for some purpose that enables co-dependence as often as it produces growth, and accomplishing a personal project that produces growth and asserts my autonomy in my own life.
Writing is breath, Doug Rice once told me. Funny thing: I haven't wheezed all winter. It might be the weight loss that's curbed my seasonal asthma. Maybe I finally learned to write for myself. But I know my writing doesn't have the manic energy that powered my prose when I used my assignments to act as a weapon, attempting to coerce me into respecting my effort. I know I'm not chasing the Lacanian object, unachievable, but I know, with my bare materials, I can put in a new kind of energy into my work.
An energy of accomplishment. An energy that utilizes my energy in an efficient, honed, delicately balanced and crafted way.
A sustainable energy, for a sustainable Frank.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Origin Story of a Lucky coin
It's tough right now to stick to the daily post goal I set for myself: our router's down at the house, so I have to go to a coffee shop to make these things happen. But you just got to push through the difficulty, get a double hammerhead at Midtown (Thanks Gayle!) and take a corner of the couch for yourself. And the fact it's half off ain't a bad deal.
Don't worry, CP. After doing a cost analysis of a cup, a coffee and a double shot of espresso, you still make money on my staffed beverage.
Anyways, I got a silver dollar in my venue tip yesterday...an old school one. One of the burly brutes that could be used for pre-kickoff festivities in the NFL. After AJ offered me the silver dollar from the tip jar, I donated the rest of my tips to her cause, not just because I had gotten 55 the shift before, but because I figured the minimal sacrifice of 5 dollars was worth it to add some stank to the coin's karma.
This is a true prize, and organically dropped in my lap. Going to the bank and asking for it would cheapen the experience of getting one of these bad boys first hand...especially with how the night went...it had a hint of the whimsical that made my sleep deprived actions seem to carry the weight of my new prize.
When I'm not acting as a barista for Naked Coffee, I'm the "sound guy" at the venue. In reality, I work a modest, but effective board, work the door, manage the event venue space, and keep things in general orderly and clean. I'm a noise and space custodian: I make sure there's no feedback in the speakers or the crowd.
One of the things I make sure to do before every shift is research the bands. I check out the schedule, bust out my netbook (best 300 bucks I ever spent,) and start google searching for, most often, myspace pages. Of the three different bands that had been listed to play, only one of them has a website of any kind.
The Capp Street Girls. Okay. Rock and roll, loud, 80s rock and roll. Alright. And they're all middle aged dudes from SF. Okay.
Checking the comments to see if they promoted the show, I then find out their lead singer had died five days before. He was nicknamed "Air Time Richie."
Whoa. So I call Inga, let her know that, hey, if the show gets canceled, I know why, and I let her know I'll hit her up as the night progresses.
Camporia, a replacement duo, comes in an hour early at 7:30 for a sound check, and I'm like: alright, there's a show, but it's gonna be last second replacements with no website to promote. The headliner is gone. Expect the usual crowd of, I don't know, 10 people at most. Usually, these shows don't do well...we've only been a music space for a year, and it's usually 3 years before you get any kind of a steady crowd who will walk into your shows just to see what it is.
So I'm surprised to see an old guard of KSSU and the Shennanigoats' long time drummer Scott there as part of The Meantime, the one of three bands scheduled to play. I know they'll draw a crowd. Okay. 25 people or so: solid show for our intimate space.
But there were more. They came for Scott, they came to see Nick and Nick of Camporia play, they came for Andy, the guy who brought The Meantime together so he could his songs played with a full band for the first time ever, and they came for The Kelps.
If you ever, EVER, get a chance to see The Kelps, and you like loud punk styled rock, you must see them. They brought friends, they rocked the place out, and, from what had looked like a canceled night, we had the fullest show I've ever been a part of. And it was chill. I had one douchy moment from an otherwise amiable dude (he thought I dumped a half full beer...there might have been five drops of backwash left.) but the packed house was happy to move into the rows, drink coffee, or beer, and watch the show. The bass player for The Kelps had his amp go out, and Scott got him a replacement. They raked in a sweet door, and AJ got some good tips. I got to see Scott, and his old Shennanigoat bassist buddy, Jim, and really felt I ran the place comfortably all night...I found my zen. It might have been because I worked 10 hours, because I only ate one meal, because I spent my break blogging and thus reduced myself to a relative dream state...but it felt magical.
A horrifying situation for a family out in the bay led to a crazy, improbable night, blowing up a Downtown Venue in Sacramento.
And I got my lucky coin.
So if you see me flipping a silver dollar, and its girth and heft is such that there's a doppler effect in the pitch difference between the end of the coin facing you and the one facing me, you will know where he came from.
He? Yeah, of course he has a name. Air Time Richie.
Don't worry, CP. After doing a cost analysis of a cup, a coffee and a double shot of espresso, you still make money on my staffed beverage.
Anyways, I got a silver dollar in my venue tip yesterday...an old school one. One of the burly brutes that could be used for pre-kickoff festivities in the NFL. After AJ offered me the silver dollar from the tip jar, I donated the rest of my tips to her cause, not just because I had gotten 55 the shift before, but because I figured the minimal sacrifice of 5 dollars was worth it to add some stank to the coin's karma.
This is a true prize, and organically dropped in my lap. Going to the bank and asking for it would cheapen the experience of getting one of these bad boys first hand...especially with how the night went...it had a hint of the whimsical that made my sleep deprived actions seem to carry the weight of my new prize.
When I'm not acting as a barista for Naked Coffee, I'm the "sound guy" at the venue. In reality, I work a modest, but effective board, work the door, manage the event venue space, and keep things in general orderly and clean. I'm a noise and space custodian: I make sure there's no feedback in the speakers or the crowd.
One of the things I make sure to do before every shift is research the bands. I check out the schedule, bust out my netbook (best 300 bucks I ever spent,) and start google searching for, most often, myspace pages. Of the three different bands that had been listed to play, only one of them has a website of any kind.
The Capp Street Girls. Okay. Rock and roll, loud, 80s rock and roll. Alright. And they're all middle aged dudes from SF. Okay.
Checking the comments to see if they promoted the show, I then find out their lead singer had died five days before. He was nicknamed "Air Time Richie."
Whoa. So I call Inga, let her know that, hey, if the show gets canceled, I know why, and I let her know I'll hit her up as the night progresses.
Camporia, a replacement duo, comes in an hour early at 7:30 for a sound check, and I'm like: alright, there's a show, but it's gonna be last second replacements with no website to promote. The headliner is gone. Expect the usual crowd of, I don't know, 10 people at most. Usually, these shows don't do well...we've only been a music space for a year, and it's usually 3 years before you get any kind of a steady crowd who will walk into your shows just to see what it is.
So I'm surprised to see an old guard of KSSU and the Shennanigoats' long time drummer Scott there as part of The Meantime, the one of three bands scheduled to play. I know they'll draw a crowd. Okay. 25 people or so: solid show for our intimate space.
But there were more. They came for Scott, they came to see Nick and Nick of Camporia play, they came for Andy, the guy who brought The Meantime together so he could his songs played with a full band for the first time ever, and they came for The Kelps.
If you ever, EVER, get a chance to see The Kelps, and you like loud punk styled rock, you must see them. They brought friends, they rocked the place out, and, from what had looked like a canceled night, we had the fullest show I've ever been a part of. And it was chill. I had one douchy moment from an otherwise amiable dude (he thought I dumped a half full beer...there might have been five drops of backwash left.) but the packed house was happy to move into the rows, drink coffee, or beer, and watch the show. The bass player for The Kelps had his amp go out, and Scott got him a replacement. They raked in a sweet door, and AJ got some good tips. I got to see Scott, and his old Shennanigoat bassist buddy, Jim, and really felt I ran the place comfortably all night...I found my zen. It might have been because I worked 10 hours, because I only ate one meal, because I spent my break blogging and thus reduced myself to a relative dream state...but it felt magical.
A horrifying situation for a family out in the bay led to a crazy, improbable night, blowing up a Downtown Venue in Sacramento.
And I got my lucky coin.
So if you see me flipping a silver dollar, and its girth and heft is such that there's a doppler effect in the pitch difference between the end of the coin facing you and the one facing me, you will know where he came from.
He? Yeah, of course he has a name. Air Time Richie.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Done with a mid shift, two hour break before closing...
I said I would update daily, so I'm sticking to my guns, despite the fact I'm on break during my double.
I just wrote "so I'm stick to my guns" and just caught it, so that should tell you my current state of mind.
Anyways, my Thanksgiving was pretty fantastic, as you can see from my previous post. I felt really rejuvenated today, and I was really happy to share my joy with all the people pouring in from Black Friday. I talked about playing tackle with my nephew, reading Curious George to him, the good times, and I got to hear what other folks did.
All in all, I just took in over 55 bucks in tips. Pretty darn solid Black Friday to me: and I didn't even ave to stand in any lines.
Now I work a venue, where I get to take people's dough, check their IDs, work the soundboard and be the vertex of multiple lines...if the show's busy, which I hope it is.
Hope you guys didn't get lost in Wal-Mart, or wondered into an abandoned Montgomery Ward's...egh.
My own personal Hell is being trapped in Montgomery Ward's for eternity, forced to stare at blank walls, with no where to sit in the entire store, forever Sunday afternoon after 3 hours at Church.
I guess that would be an irony: in Hell, it's always Sunday. I'll do better with that when I get some rest...maybe Sunday?
More irony?
-Frank
I just wrote "so I'm stick to my guns" and just caught it, so that should tell you my current state of mind.
Anyways, my Thanksgiving was pretty fantastic, as you can see from my previous post. I felt really rejuvenated today, and I was really happy to share my joy with all the people pouring in from Black Friday. I talked about playing tackle with my nephew, reading Curious George to him, the good times, and I got to hear what other folks did.
All in all, I just took in over 55 bucks in tips. Pretty darn solid Black Friday to me: and I didn't even ave to stand in any lines.
Now I work a venue, where I get to take people's dough, check their IDs, work the soundboard and be the vertex of multiple lines...if the show's busy, which I hope it is.
Hope you guys didn't get lost in Wal-Mart, or wondered into an abandoned Montgomery Ward's...egh.
My own personal Hell is being trapped in Montgomery Ward's for eternity, forced to stare at blank walls, with no where to sit in the entire store, forever Sunday afternoon after 3 hours at Church.
I guess that would be an irony: in Hell, it's always Sunday. I'll do better with that when I get some rest...maybe Sunday?
More irony?
-Frank
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Thanksgiving
The world got simpler today, for a few hours, and I am thankful for it.
Love is a simple thing, really. All the justifications and ramifications of our actions, the trials of everyday and the coping mechanisms and the suspension of disbelief and the power of belief are all various dressings which are applied unconsciously, freely, when interacted with people connected by blood, and time, and kinship.
The amplitude involved in understanding each other completely within the well tread routine of facial expressions reaches an asymptote where all there is is comfort.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, often, our conversations day to day are highly skewed by our mood. But when you see people you know well that you haven't seen for quite a while...mood has less of an impact than the familiarity of past interactions, gives way to a sort of watermarked nostalgia embedded into the way we communicate with old friends.
Yesterday night, I hosted a poker game with some folks I hadn't seen for a month or more. Ken had helped me moved a month ago, the Kevins and Steve I last saw...a couple months ago? They met at my place for a poker game, along with Alex Davis and Tanner Bright, co-workers and the latter being my roommate, and everything just seemed to fall into sync.
Ken, Murph and I set the tone early with easy talk and jokes, and everyone was able to fall in line with the discussion and get lost in the easiness we took the barbs. Even with the newer faces, it all felt natural, and for a while I forgot everything else in the world. The only burden was whether to raise or call or fold, and it wasn't a very heavy one.
Tonight, Thanksgiving, started with reading to my nephew, asking him questions about is well-worn Curious George book, trading tutoring stories with Barbetta's teaching conundrums, helping Jennifer whenever I could and talking e-wrestling with my brother Nick. Even when politics and work and business came up, I felt so at ease...the conversation would go where I knew it would, with a few surprises where everyone had learned, deepened their knowledge sources, where time and experience had wizened with context their insights.
Then, reading Jeff Normann's latest works, my great friend appears to become as great of a writer. I feel his voice in his writing, more than it has ever come across before, and it all reminds me of our late night/early morning talking over coffee the day he left Sacramento on his last vacation from Korea. He was there beside me again, telling me his thoughts about the culture shock, his perspective on the connections between the world's of the east and west, their perilous sense of work ethic, self-destructive obedience, and there, there in his writing he was with me again...but deeper. He shows me his world without preaching, his images are stark and tangible...I breathe in his conversation and forget myself inside his prose, like I did with Patrick Rothfuss, and, occasionally, George R.R. Martin (usually during Tyrion and Dany's scenes.)
Interacting with those you know best is like re-reading your favorite book in that every time you come back to the work, your increased experience and breadth of understanding allows you to find new things in the people you know best...and appreciate them more. Even more so, because they too are learning, and your shared amplitude is so great, you can walk alongside their energy, run with them as they run with you, and realize in that movement that all those adornments we live for day to day are just dressing, icing: if you ever felt incomplete, or lost, these moments remind you of your velocity.
I am going somewhere. I am moving forward even as the seasons cycle as do my relationships. This is not John Barth's mobius strip...yes, there are loops on the roller coaster, but it is not an ouroboros: it's a Sonic the Hedgehog level, and these moments amongst our closest friends and family are the accelerator panels that scream us into a blue haze across the scape of our imagination, our imagination the filter of our future, for what we believe is the scope of our vision, our bubble, which expands quickest, and best, when shown a path by those closest to us, that have access to our hearts, to inspire the soul with the synapses' rhetoric: our neurological pathways are worn to folds over time, and it is these we are closest to that saunter the treads of our life's crossing.
I am blessed by my friends, my family, those who I am coming to know and those I have long known.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Love is a simple thing, really. All the justifications and ramifications of our actions, the trials of everyday and the coping mechanisms and the suspension of disbelief and the power of belief are all various dressings which are applied unconsciously, freely, when interacted with people connected by blood, and time, and kinship.
The amplitude involved in understanding each other completely within the well tread routine of facial expressions reaches an asymptote where all there is is comfort.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, often, our conversations day to day are highly skewed by our mood. But when you see people you know well that you haven't seen for quite a while...mood has less of an impact than the familiarity of past interactions, gives way to a sort of watermarked nostalgia embedded into the way we communicate with old friends.
Yesterday night, I hosted a poker game with some folks I hadn't seen for a month or more. Ken had helped me moved a month ago, the Kevins and Steve I last saw...a couple months ago? They met at my place for a poker game, along with Alex Davis and Tanner Bright, co-workers and the latter being my roommate, and everything just seemed to fall into sync.
Ken, Murph and I set the tone early with easy talk and jokes, and everyone was able to fall in line with the discussion and get lost in the easiness we took the barbs. Even with the newer faces, it all felt natural, and for a while I forgot everything else in the world. The only burden was whether to raise or call or fold, and it wasn't a very heavy one.
Tonight, Thanksgiving, started with reading to my nephew, asking him questions about is well-worn Curious George book, trading tutoring stories with Barbetta's teaching conundrums, helping Jennifer whenever I could and talking e-wrestling with my brother Nick. Even when politics and work and business came up, I felt so at ease...the conversation would go where I knew it would, with a few surprises where everyone had learned, deepened their knowledge sources, where time and experience had wizened with context their insights.
Then, reading Jeff Normann's latest works, my great friend appears to become as great of a writer. I feel his voice in his writing, more than it has ever come across before, and it all reminds me of our late night/early morning talking over coffee the day he left Sacramento on his last vacation from Korea. He was there beside me again, telling me his thoughts about the culture shock, his perspective on the connections between the world's of the east and west, their perilous sense of work ethic, self-destructive obedience, and there, there in his writing he was with me again...but deeper. He shows me his world without preaching, his images are stark and tangible...I breathe in his conversation and forget myself inside his prose, like I did with Patrick Rothfuss, and, occasionally, George R.R. Martin (usually during Tyrion and Dany's scenes.)
Interacting with those you know best is like re-reading your favorite book in that every time you come back to the work, your increased experience and breadth of understanding allows you to find new things in the people you know best...and appreciate them more. Even more so, because they too are learning, and your shared amplitude is so great, you can walk alongside their energy, run with them as they run with you, and realize in that movement that all those adornments we live for day to day are just dressing, icing: if you ever felt incomplete, or lost, these moments remind you of your velocity.
I am going somewhere. I am moving forward even as the seasons cycle as do my relationships. This is not John Barth's mobius strip...yes, there are loops on the roller coaster, but it is not an ouroboros: it's a Sonic the Hedgehog level, and these moments amongst our closest friends and family are the accelerator panels that scream us into a blue haze across the scape of our imagination, our imagination the filter of our future, for what we believe is the scope of our vision, our bubble, which expands quickest, and best, when shown a path by those closest to us, that have access to our hearts, to inspire the soul with the synapses' rhetoric: our neurological pathways are worn to folds over time, and it is these we are closest to that saunter the treads of our life's crossing.
I am blessed by my friends, my family, those who I am coming to know and those I have long known.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Tell me, what's the why and wherefore?
I don't know exactly how this blog is going to be formulated.
Will there be short stories? Sure, I'm hoping so.
Will there be random thoughts and musings about the world? It wouldn't be me if there weren't.
Will there be anecdotes, plots to change the world, updates about where my writing is going? Almost certainly.
Doesn't that mean I should create multiple blogs for my various interests? Perhaps, some day, I'll do that, but until then, this will be a one stop-shop for Frank Demola's various pursuits.
Since I have internet at my house now, the plan is to update at least once a day.
See you in cyberspace, folks.
Will there be short stories? Sure, I'm hoping so.
Will there be random thoughts and musings about the world? It wouldn't be me if there weren't.
Will there be anecdotes, plots to change the world, updates about where my writing is going? Almost certainly.
Doesn't that mean I should create multiple blogs for my various interests? Perhaps, some day, I'll do that, but until then, this will be a one stop-shop for Frank Demola's various pursuits.
Since I have internet at my house now, the plan is to update at least once a day.
See you in cyberspace, folks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)