Tonight, when we left practice, it started flash flooding, heat lightning and thunder, water up over the curb in under 20 minutes. Al gave me a ride home, and the wipers synched up in time with the tape in the deck, and the world seemed to shift a little. It did not stop the war, but it was an okay thing.
Today, my primary client - who has been my employer in large for the last nine years, let me go, in part due to my touring. This saves me the hassle of quitting. I am sad not to be working with all the bands -- though, this being the label that the band I play in is on -- I may get to keep representing my own band, none the less.
I freaked out for about seven minutes, as I have never been fired before. I thought about a quote from a Robert Bly interview that was in the new age magazine on the plane - about how losing a job is great opportunity. Fucking A right. I have been waiting 11 years to go down to part-time.
Now, finally , like the rest of my friends, I am a barely employed touring musician that writes on the side.
Before practice, I went over to the band house, to learn Milemarker songs (Sex Jam1 and Sex Jam2) for Japan, as per our Japanese promoter. Milemarker is "popular" in Japan, Challenger is not -- and so away we ride on gilded coattails all the way to Osaka. We leave Sunday. Al gave me a matted photgraph he got at a thrift store for me today -- a still of the phrase "DREAMS COME TRUE" written in the sand, about to be erased (ominous foreshadowing or meta-statement on American consumerism?) by a foaming wave. It's the sort of present you might get a 17 year old girl for getting a National Merit Scholarship, or maybe the sort of person who has like, kleenex box cozies... I carried it around with me all day and whenever someone would ask how I was doing -- I just flashed them the picture.
Posted by Jessica at May 21, 2004 12:28 AM | TrackBack