beautiful, funny, sad & true

Well, it finally happened; I and at least ten other people got laid off on Friday.

It wasn’t at all a surprise.  There have been many rounds of layoffs over the last six months, so we lasted quite a bit longer than most.  Two or three months ago, the company was taken over by another, and the new company seems to have decided to simply dismantle much of the original, and send the work elsewhere in the country, leaving us high and dry in the process.

I’m not bummed about this at all.  If anything, it’s a relief not to have to wonder what’s going to happen anymore, and I can put it all behind me and move on toward the future now.  I’m going to go on unemployment, like so many others are right now, and sort out my life while I figure what to do next.  I have a fairly simple and ‘low overhead’ lifestyle, and I also have friends, resources and talents that I haven’t had before.  I also know that it’s possible to survive on extremely meager means–I’ve certainly done that before–so that won’t slow me down much.  I’m not being a Pollyanna about it, either.  I think any of my friends could tell you that I’m good at assessing situations, and that I’m nothing if not a realist.  I think the glass is neither half-empty nor half-full, but that it’s twice as big as it needs to be.

I know; I’m clever.

I’m going to reach out and promote myself more for musical work.  I’m going to ask my friends and colleagues to refer me for producing, recording, mixing, et cetera, and I’ll also be available for playing with more people too.  I’m looking forward to all of this.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, and send me good thoughts throughout this transitional time, and don’t hesitate to ask me about musical endeavors, or refer me to people you think would appreciate my talents.

Thanks!

This whole getting-laid-off thing is going to be a blessing, I can just feel it.

p.s. – Now I’ll have much more time for blogging!

Today is Election Day here in the U.S., and this is one of the only times I will ever use this blog to write about politics.

I was old enough to vote in 1988, just barely, but I wasn’t politically aware enough yet to make any kind of educated decision, so I declined to vote. 1992 was the first election in which I participated somewhat actively. 1996 and 1998 were the first ones in which I was really old enough (and informed enough) to have my own opinions, and we also had some very important ballot measures here in Oregon (such as physician-assisted suicide) that I felt the need to weigh in on.

2000 was another milestone election, in so many ways. We had no way of knowing at the time, but it was full of many historical lessons and pitfalls that have been documented at great length, not to mention greater eloquence and erudition, elsewhere.

In 2004, I did my part, albeit somewhat grudgingly, but this is the first time that I’ve been very engaged in the entire process, from the earliest candidates’ nominations clear through to the end of the election process.  I feel that this is the most important election our country has seen in at least fifty years, and that we would be remiss if we let it pass without taking part in it.

I’ve never felt an adrenaline rush as I filled in the little oval on the ballot with my pencil before. I’ve never felt an adrenaline rush as I dropped my ballot into the mailbox before. I’ve never listened to every single newscast while biting at my fingernails before. This is the most important political time I’ve ever lived through.

Many people seem to be of the opinion that it “doesn’t matter who you vote for, it just matters that you DO vote.”  I’m not one of those people.  The Bush administration and their cronies have run roughshod, pretty much unchecked and without serious opposition, for too long over the country and the world, and destroyed our country’s status and reputation in the eyes of the world, and they need to be stopped. Those of us who consider ourselves progressives need to do everything we can to promote change.

Here ends the diatribe.

We now return you to the witty and insightful (and non-political!) blog you’ve come to expect and love, already in progress.

One of the things you experience as a cellist (aside from people constantly telling you how much they love it, and how it’s the sexiest instrument EVER) is the myriad of jokes about the case.  Every time I leave home with it, I get comments.

For tonight’s gig, I rode the bus because my Honda’s alternator is on its last legs, and I’ll be left stranded if I drive it too much.  So I got on the bus and the conversation instantly went like this:

Driver:  “I’m pretty sure that’s not a body in there.”

Me:  “Heh.  Yeah, it’d be a pretty small body.”

Driver:  “Well, you could’ve chopped it up into a bunch of little pieces.”

Me:  (awkwardly)   “Ha ha. . .okay, I’m just gonna go. . .uhh. . .sit over here.”

Luckily, one of the passengers struck up a conversation, asking if I’ve ever seen the movie August Rush, which apparently includes a cellist as part of the story.  I haven’t seen it, but I told him that it sounds really great, and that I’ll check it out.

My all-time favorite odd cello-related conversation took place a couple of months ago, when I had the cello in the back of the car, on my way to a gig down in Salem, and I stopped at CarapaceGasStation to fill up the tank.  The back seats were folded down, and the cello case was clearly visible through the window.  This being Oregon, where it’s illegal for us to pump our own gas, I opened the sunroof to tell the attendant to ‘fill it up with Plus, please.’  While he was doing that, he looked in the back window and noticed the cello case.  “Hey,” he said, “you got a body in there?  Looks like a pregnant woman.”

Me:  (nonchalantly; heard it a hundred times before)  “Nope, it’s a cello.”

Attendant:  “Oh. . .heh heh. . .cause it looks like you killed my wife and crammed her in there.”

Me:  “. . .”  (silent. . .don’t know what to say.)

The attendant flitted between the various cars that were having their gas tanks filled, and when mine was done, he handed me my debit card and receipt through the open sunroof and called out, uncomfortably loudly, “Thanks a lot, sir.  GOOD LUCK DRIVING AROUND WITH MY DEAD, PREGNANT WIFE.” I laughed and gave him a half-hearted salute as I closed the sunroof and drove off into the twilight.

Luckily I got a ride home from the gig tonight, so I didn’t have to suffer the slings and the arrows of lame cello case humor.  And since we’re on the subject, here are some lame cello jokes that I just scrounged up from the Interweb:

Q: What’s the difference between a cello and a coffin?
A: The coffin has the dead person on the inside.

Q: Why did the cellist marry the accordion player?
A: Upward mobility.  [Note:  I’m both a cellist AND an accordion player!]

Q: Did you hear about the cellist who played in tune?
A: Neither did I.

Q: How can you tell when a cellist is playing out of tune?
A: The bow is moving.

Ah, praise the Lord for the gift of laughter.

Saturday I got up early to drive to tiny little Welches, Oregon to see my friend Andrea play and to hang out with my recording friend Jim.  (He and I produced Andrea’s CD.)  Since she’s living in Europe now, we’ll take any chances we can get to hang out with her.  Jim and I talked over breakfast, and she arrived while we were finishing up.  Huge hugs all around.

She played her set and sounded awesome.  There were a few songs that were new to me.  One in particular (which I don’t remember the name of, but I do remember that it was in E minor!) was especially stellar.  At the end of her set, I stood up and clapped, and then motioned with my arms for everyone else to stand up and join me, and we all gave her a nice, big ovation.  It was a great way to welcome her home and send her off again, all at the same time.

Tonight she and I got together for dinner at Queen of Sheba, one of the better Ethiopian restaurants in town.  Portland is known for, among other things, being a very ‘white’ town (to put it kindly), but for some reason we have a plethora of Ethiopian restaurants here.  In fact, another new one just opened up recently, and it’s not even very far from where I live.  Must. . .investigate. . .

After we were done with dinner, she asked if we could drive down to EliteHippieCollege.  She had just finished reading a book called ‘Blue Like Jazz’, the author of which had gone to that college, and had written movingly about a park with a little bridge.  She wanted to find it.  I said, “Let’s go.”

We drove all over and found nothing until we went around to the back side of the campus, and sure enough, we came to a large, forested area, replete with two bridges.  We parked the car and walked across one of them, and found a slightly overgrown path to walk down along the pond at the bottom of the ravine.  We ended up here:

The picture quality isn’t the greatest because it was starting to get dark, which meant that my poor little camera was trying to compensate, and it was hard for me to hold it still while the shutter was open.  (Have I mentioned how much I want a better camera?  And a tripod?)  But the place was beautiful, the conversation was great, and the mosquitoes weren’t too bloodthirsty.

It really started to get dark quickly, so we headed back up the forested path.  We stopped under the bridge to take more pictures, and here’s the best one:

It was just. . .an excellent evening.  I don’t want to trivialize it any further by reducing it to mere language.

OneYearAgo

Friday night was a gig with Breanna and Justin down in Salem.  Every time we play there, we play at a place called the Blue Pepper, which is a brilliant little music venue/coffee shop/lounge/internet cafe/art gallery where we love to play.  I arrived with my cello at a little bit before seven o’clock, put the cello inside, and went outside to talk on the phone.  I didn’t see Justin or Breanna, but there were two guitars set up on stage, so I didn’t think much about it.  I went back out to make a quick phone call, and a guy with bleached blonde hair came out and said, “Is that a cello in the case?”

‘Yup.”

“Are you playing tonight?”

“Yeah, with Justin and Breanna.”

“That’s interesting, because I’M playing from seven til nine.”

“Oh really?”  I laughed.  “Looks like I have some phone calls to make, then.”  I called Justin and said, “I’m at the Blue Pepper.  Are we playing elsewhere this time?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “We’ll drive around and meet you, and show you where the place is.”

So we caravanned over to a cool new venue called The Space, which wasn’t open when we arrived.  Turned out we were almost an hour early, so Justin & Breanna got out their guitars and sat on the sidewalk to sing and play.  I called J, and we talked on the phone for about half an hour, then I walked over to eat (since JustBre had already eaten) at McMenamin’s.  I had a surprisingly awesome combination of salad, tater tots and red wine.  Incidentally, that seems to have been a good recipe for better-than-average cello playing, because I really felt like my playing was ‘on’ all night, which happens every once in a while.

Inside, the Space is what I imagine the love child would look like if the Blue Pepper and Seattle’s Sunset Tavern ever hooked up for a steamy night of forbidden passion.  The walls are painted red with white trim, there’s a cobalt blue curtain covering the window behind the stage area, and there are large, colorful paintings everywhere.

Insted of playing until nine like we normally do, we finished at almost eleven.  The three of us were invited to get taken out somewhere afterwards, but I’d come straight from work, and I had an early morning on Saturday (more to come about that later), so I decided to ‘peace out’ and drive back up to Portland.

Suffice it to say that at first the evening seemed like a bit of a disaster, but it ended up being really great.