Breaking off the rust

So it has been a little over a week since my first "Gig" in San Angelo. If I use the word "Gig" really liberally that is. I decided that it would be a good idea to do the Open Mic Night at a bar here. All together I suppose it was not a terrible idea.... in theory. I guess it went ok, but here is a short list of things that I thought went poorly, again, using the word "Short" liberally....
First off, it marked the first time that i went in front off a crowd to preform my own music in almost...well..., 8 months I believe. Which in it self is not to hard of a concept but for the following point;
I hadn't really practiced my own material on a real schedule, or in a fashion by which I could call "Practicing" until about 3 to 4 days previous to said show.
And another thing that spelled catastrophe for this show was that I also thought it would be good to try and learn some new songs the day before preforming them.
I have to take a side point here for a moment if you don't mind. I used to play open mic every week in Utah. The crowd there knew me and was used to my shenanigans if you will. and I had on many occasions learned songs the day before or even the night of a performance there which didn't really ever prove to be to big of a deal. The difference for this most recent show being the following:
This was a new crowd, at a new place. I had no idea how my music would effect them or how it would go over. One thing you should always do for your first show in a new place is to be solid as a rock (God, how I hate that expression!) otherwise it all goes to crap pretty quickly.
And the most important detail, I was the first to go on. If you ever have a choice at an open mic event; NEVER GO FIRST. Even second is better because if the first person is crap you always know you can't do that bad, and if they were great then the crowd will be all warmed up. Cold crowds are NEVER responsive. The problem with this night was that I had no choice when I would play. Because I was in fact the only person preforming. That's right, I was to open it and shut it down in one fell swoop.

Now that I have set up the night I will give a brief lineup of how it went in reality. (and if your expecting this to be an underdog story where I over came the odds and became the hero, being carried off to late parties with scantily clad women throwing themselves at me... SPOILER ALERT!!! not going to happen, although that image is quite entertaining.... *sigh)

Ok so I went into the den with about a 35 minute set. I figured I would judge the crowd and decide if I should draw it out or chop it down. I had an even split of covers (most of which I had just learned) and originals (3 of which I had written the previous night) I started off with a cover "Glycerin" by Bush. The standard cover song of any Joe who has a guitar and intends to use said instrument for the singular purpose of lady-ing. As much as it compares to the commonness of "Stairway to heaven" I do like starting off with a stereotype as a precursor to my own material, it kinda throws people off, and is good gage of the crowd. I didn't do to bad and figured the night would go well enough. I then played one of my own, a newer song that I hadn't locked in. This was the pivotal moment in the show as I forgot the lyrics to my own song..... I'll let that one sink in for a second......... ugh...
So from there it went slowly down hill and I decided to chop the set in half, and to rush the songs that I did know. The whole thing began to play out like I was watching a car cash, the whole time wanting to stop it from happening, but it was like slow motion wreckage and there was nothing to be done that would change a thing. Like a car wreck, but less fun for bystanders. This show marks the only time in my life that I wanted to get off the stage as quickly as possible. I can however take it as a learning experience. I full well plan to do it all over again next chance I get, but I do hope it goes better. Perhaps once I knock off the rust and get comfortable with myself again.

New Location

So in the torrent of life's changes I often get swept along in a direction that seems to make little or no sense, but as it usually happens with a deal of ease I go along for the ride. One such example of this is that I am now typing this blog from San Angelo Texas....... Yes, any one who has known me for an extended bit of my life is either staring slack jawed at that last sentence, or laughing at my misfortune, but do let me explain..
So I left NYC behind my with a slight shrug of sadness because, lets face it, does anyone really like living in NYC? I mean, Anyone? I hoped on the bus headed to Boston to give it a final once over before heading to completely uncharted territory (in my mind at least) I had to have one of those majestic burritos from Anna's before completely turning my back on the whole state. Really, those tasty burritos are the single saving grace of that entire city, any way from Boston I hoped on a plane and began the great relocation.
I have flown a bit in my time and I rather enjoy it to be honest. Kind of exciting zipping through the air that fast and with that much ease. Granted due to my recent addiction to "LOST" I do board plans secretly hoping to crash on a deserted island (fingers crossed) The itinerary for this trip was a pretty simple one; Boston to DC, then on to San Antonio by way of somewhere in Georgia.
The first leg was quite easy, apart from the minor headache I developed from a tooth issue (more on that later perhaps) it went on swimmingly. It was just a short hop, about an hour and a half I believe. And wonderfully the plane to which I was to transfer was going to be in the adjacent gate at the Washington DC airport, which is nice because I do hate running from one end of the airport to the other with merely seconds to spare. Granted I did have almost a full hour until my next flight but that is besides the point. So I wait and then board onto my final plane, not my final flight mind you just the last plane. I will say, as we were taking off from the airport in DC I got a wonderful view of The Pentagon and I couldn't help my self from thinking "The damage doesn't look as bad from out side"
So the plan was for the plane to go to Georgia, all the passengers would get off and new ones would re-board and then it would continue to San Antonio. I was one of the lucky 5 or six that got both legs of the plane's trip. They did give me the option to stay on the plan at the changeover, but i had to find some pain pills as my head was literally throbbing from my tooth ache. fortunately they had some extra strength Tylenol at one of those "Book Stores" ugh, I hate what passes for "books" these days. Although I will say that for some reason I always am drawn into those little shops for some reason or another. anywho
With a higher concentration of acetaminophen in my blood i re-boarded the plane for a final time and swiftly fell asleep to the random tunings of my "ZEN." I love that thing. I awoke as we were apparently descending into my destination. I also love when you sleep away a 3 plus hour flight. Especially since my favorite part of flying is the bit where you slowly stop flying. I like watching the ground come up to meet me. Even more so is I'm flying into a place I have never been before. Unfortunately there was some amazing cloud cover and I could not make out a single thing from my window. Even the clouds themselves were seamless and indiscernible from each other. It really was more like fog white out. But the captain assured us that we were making our final decent which usually means 45 minutes to half an hour and your on the tarmac. I was a bit saddened by this. I would miss my favorite part.
A few time i was convinced that we had actually touched down as the plane preformed maneuvers similar to "right before landing" But then as I had given up hope of seeing anything, the clouds broke. I caught a glimpse of green. Green?! Good, the rumours were wrong. Then we shot back into the clouds for a bit as if the pilot changed his mind. This repeated a few times before finally brushing the white off completely and coming in for real. We were already quite close to the ground so I missed out on my favorite plane game "Squish all of humanity with your fingers!" and much to my distress, the young boy behind me kept kicking my seat and matter-of-factly informing his parents that "we are definitely crashing." We did not in fact crash though. At least not in the flaming wreckage and death way. We did "Land" quite hard and at a rate that would have killed most naked living things but that becomes a semantic debate that I'm not about to get into.
The moral of this story being that I am now living in Texas. And the outlook is not as bleak as you might expect. The rumours are in fact not true, desolation is not the only thing that is "Big" in Texas, and Tylenol Extra Strength Quick Dissolving Gel Caps are not filled with gel, and the do not work in the slightest.

Workout - Work-out

Well I achieved my goal yesterday, i was able to get up early enough to go running. Those shoes are pretty spectacular, sure beats running in skater shoes. I found a really good place to practice some parkour. At least balance and concentration. Basically i just climbed around on stuff like a monkey for about an hour. it was pretty fun. So after that i ran back home, it's about a half hour run from my house to where i was at. I got back home and stretched out, i realized that the after-run -stretch is one of the most relaxing thing. After this I learned some parts on the piano, and got dropped from the band i have been playing with for the past 5 months or so. So i spent the rest of the day trying to figure out where i stand in the other aspects of my life. And trying to figure out what i'm going to do with myself. Looks like i'm headed to Texas, but i think i will be going by Utah to see my parents and some friends befor i head off to another question mark in my life. I fear it is that time in my life where i have to "put away childish things" a.k.a Dreams.

New routine

Lately i have been going to bed around 6 am, and waking up between 1-3 pm. I have no good excuse for this. It isn't like I'm out at parties or running loose in the street. Usually i am just sitting alone in my room watching random Internet videos. As funny as YouTube can be, i feel i need to change a few things in my life. Starting by getting a sleep schedule that gives me a bit more day-time hours to work with.
Today when I got up I decided to walk uptown into Brooklyn to do a little shopping. I got some pens for writing, some superglue for a soundproofing project that i have been working on (only to find out later that you cant glue Styrofoam to itself with super glue, don't try it!) but the main thing i got were some new running shoes. I went looking for some specific shoes, i was looking for these:

the K-Swiss "Ariake" about 100.00 the reason i wanted these shoes is that they are made specially for Parkour running. For more on that click this link: CLICK HERE Basically i am wanting to start working out again, and this stuff is fun. Any way i walked into a shoe store that was supposed to carry k-Swiss, but they didn't have any in stock. i decided that since i had walked about a mile and a half to get there i might as well see what they had in stock. after looking for a while i found a good pair that were flexible, with good traction, lightweight, and snug. The problem being that they only had one colour in my size, so i walked home with these shoes for 99.99After trying them on in the store i knew they would work out well. I then walked home thinking the whole way that i would just re-paint them when i got there. when i got home i opened them to do just that. Usually i have this habit of buying things, then as soon as i get home with my new purchase i find all the stuff i hate about it and wish i hadn't gotten it in the first place. But as i pulled out my new sneakers from the box, for the first time in my life i realized that i quite liked what i bought. I put them on again and went up on our roof to work out with them. I now sit panting and sweaty to do this blog just to say that sometimes, if a store does not have what you want, they might have what you need. So don't give up.
I plan to go to bed early tonight and get up early tomorrow and start running and training on a regular basis, we'll see how that goes though.