Saturday was magnificent and Sunday was beautiful, but Monday’s leaving me close to exhausted and I can’t decide if I’m grateful that Chris offered to take the VOM off my hands for the night because that means I don’t have to think, or feeling a little foolish because perhaps it’s the having-time-to-think that’s making me think too much and spiral inwards.
Basically – it’s the stress of being the nexus. I’m in the middle of too much stuff. And I’ve BEEN the middle of too much stuff forever – and it keeps me nimble! I dance betwixt Focus and IMT and ilyAIMY and the open mic and my marriage and being social and writing and the stuff I mean to be doing but never quite get around to if not gracefully then at LEAST with enough presence of purpose that people seem to think I know what I’m doing…
… and that hasn’t really changed, but within those interactions now I’m supposed to know a lot MORE. Not just about networking, copyright law and VPN tunneling… all of which I’ve picked up a working knowledge of. Not just about streaming, multi-cam and multi-track recording and compression, both digital and audio – I’m actually feeling like a god damned WIZARD on almost all of these fronts… no, it’s the stuff I’m supposed to have authority over but I don’t control.
It’s the lengthy negotiations with boards, bands, venues, staff, directors, door peeps, lawyers, Lovers and bandmates about what we’re expecting, what we receive, considerations that don’t get considered, and the things that no-one thought were important enough to mention. It’s the sealed windows that somebody allowed someone to open but are actually against venue policy to open so please don’t open them. It’s the number of attendees at shows (oh, what does it matter if we let in a few more people – that’s okay with you, right? I mean – we sort of just MADE UP that number!). It’s the assurances that surfaces are being regularly wiped down even though nothing ever smells of disinfectant anymore. It’s the “we’re going to ask for vax cards NEXT week because we forgot to advertise it this week, that’s cool, right?”
NO – no – NO – none of this is cool. I make an agreement with a venue. As a host, as a performer, as a presenter – and then I have to have FAITH in that agreement because I then am then the mediary to a community – an audience. ALL of us are making this up as we go along, but that excuse if getting old.
All of us are supposed to be trying to make our best choices, but am losing faith than anyone’s thinking about anything but the easiest path forward.
All of us are finding out what we’re comfortable with and all of us are tired of being uncomfortable. Some of us don’t care, many of us still do and we’re all struggling to find our way forward – but that means there’s GOT to be faith in our information going from one point to the next. It means that if I’M advertising “the venue is insisting on vaccination cards” they better fucking be looking at vaccination cards because SOMEONE is making a calculated decision that this makes it safe for them to enter a damned room. (New Deal was great about this, don’t misread)
And I’m trying my best, but I feel like no-one cares but me – and I know that’s not true – because the people that DO care certainly complain to me when things are out of place, but there will never, ever be points awarded for doing the right thing. The audience cares, the musicians care, but the venue so often just (hopefully) washes their hands of it and says “oh, I thought that’d be cool… “
No. It’s not cool. And all of the above situations have been addressed and fixed, but then they crop up somewhere else and I’m the minister of health, the sound guy, the streamer, the booker, the presenter, the advertiser, the musician and the patrician and I’m trying to do it all with a smile on my face – but I am STRESSED OUT by recurring issues that just shouldn’t be on my plate. Somewhere there’s got to be faith.
Heather celebrating Halloween in the manner of HER people. Nate And Amy celebrate Halloween with mixed drinks and glass pumpkins.
