"The Long and Winding Road" or "How I Stopped Worrying and learned to Love Not Knowing What The Hell I am Doing"

I feel like I have too many plans and desires for the future.  Hell, I have too many plans and desires for the present!

   Musically, I want to make a living playing drums at least part of the time.  Whether this means playing on the street 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, finding my way into studio work, club work, band work, pit work, or simply teaching remains to be seen.
   Playing on the street would be the easiest, it seems - pick up a few showmanship tricks and play around New York on my days off either to drumless tracks of classic songs, or with other musicians.  This will push me to get better in every area of percussion until my talent forces the hard-earned money out of tourist's wallets. This sounds ideal - at least part-time it could be a healthy chunk of supplemental change.

Alternatively, to get myself into studio or pit work, I will have to take lessons to get much better than I am now to keep up with the caliber musician with which I would be surrounded.  As I understand, getting a foot in the door is the slippery part - apparently remedied by taking on drum teachers in the NYC area involved in pit or studio work and ingratiating myself to them until a job comes down the line that could possibly be passed on to me.  

A busking or studio gig supplemented by tending bar sounds like a much more viable and satisfying option.  Getting a bar job in New York is, as one may gather, not a piece of cheesecake.  Apparently it helps to have an 'in' to the bars with which I'd like to be in, which involves no end of wheeling, dealing, and verbal canoodling.  Alternatively, I could drink repeatedly at the bars in which I'd like to work, hoping all the aforementioned schmoozing would lead to at least a barback position from which I could work up to bar tender.  This seems like a long and treacherous road, but maybe it won't be, if I'm lucky enough to woo somebody who believes in a long shot.

So I have unconsciously decided to do a little of everything - in bullet form!

• Build a travel-ready drumkit to take to the streets with optional musicians
• Petition connected drummers in the NY area for lessons - I'm looking at you, Tommy Igoe!
• Audition - who else but Blue Man Group would take me?
• Alternatively pay for lessons at a school - Bang!  In Brooklyn or Julliard Evening Classes?  Oh the options..
• Continue informal lessons with neighbors - also useful for bartering.
• Work with new bands and fresh artists for reputation building.
• Involve myself musically and bartendrally with local business .
• Fluff my resume with NYC bar experience - for the craigslist.
• Schmooze and booze at bars where I'd like to work - subject to financial and physiological limitations, inefficient, but fun.
• Start from the bottom again - In keeping with "never move backward, always forward" mantra, convince myself that a potential Barista job in Brooklyn is a step forward from Waiter in Manhattan (which I had to previously convince myself was a step forward from Bartender in San Francisco) and that it can eventually lead to tending bar - It's pretty much an assured natural progression
•  Step 9: Profit.

Yeah, so I don't know if anything I'm doing will ultimately lead to where I want to be, but it can't be any worse than graduating after years of school only to find the economy of your field has withered with the supersaturation of overqualified talent.  And at least my way is exciting sometimes.

I'd estimate about 90% of real life to be imaginary.

Listening: Ken Burns' Jazz  

   I find it important to name your dreams.  I don't see any point in running from what I really want.  How often have I dreamed about what I'd really rather be doing, then stopped that thinking in its tracks with mental roadblocks and diversion?  Many times is the answer, but I think I'm quite done with that.  If the roadblocks are only in my imagination then there's no reason they can't be swept away like a whisp of smoke.

   So I'm naming my dream here, if nowhere else.  My dream is to work hard, and for it never to feel like work.  I want my work to enrich lives and lift up those around me and, in the end, make the world a little better place than I found it.

  My dad once said, when I asked him about death and the afterlife, that "If you try to make a heaven of Earth, you'll have nothing to worry about."
   That's my ultimate dream: to lift others up with the blessings I've been given.  I suppose I'm going to get there in a roundabout way and at a glacial pace (Aaron Standard Time), as I've done everything my whole life, but there you go. 

   There are only only two jobs I've had that didn't feel like work.  The first was playing drums for Runaway Stage, and Artistic Differences - two theater production companies in Sacramento .  Even for all the drama that ensues naturally from dramatic companies, Runaway and Artistic Differences and the Baxters, Daniellses and all the other folks involved selflessly endeavor the lift people up to heights they couldn't have imagined.  So "pit musician" would be a job that would fit me like an old pair of jeans.
    I've got an alright resume, already: Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Nunsense, La Cage Aux Follies, My Fair Lady, Falsettos.  And sure, this was all for little theater companies in Sacramento, but it's not like the music I learned will change anytime soon, let alone that I was able to learn it, and that gives me faith that there is nothing separating me from my dreams. 

   The second job that I've had that didn't felt like work was tending bar in San Francisco.  I was blessed enough to have been involved with Bar Drake from its very first day in the Sir Francis Drake hotel, and discovered, with the help of the fabulous Diana Brent, that I had a taste for mad sciencery, patient conversation, and rhythm of tending bar.  And you better believe if somebody doesn't tell their problems to their parents, lover, soul mate or dog, they'll tell their bartender.  And being there for stranger when they need to say something to somebody, anybody - it's a blessed feeling.
   And why shouldn't it be?  The two cornerstones of any civilization is the Church and the Tavern.  The only two places where people are allowed to speak "easy" - talk with frankness about what ails them, weighs on their minds, and follows like shadows, with no fear of judgment.
   This second job would also fit like jazz in the pocket.  There is no better stage for me to lift people up, help folks see the better part of themselves, or that they can easily dispense with the worst of themselves.  Booze being a lubricant of thought, even if you can "touch" somebody in a real, positive way, they might go right back to disbelieving when they sober up.  But that touch leaves a mark that might make somebody think differently in the future.  Planting seeds.
   I imagine if I'd had a more religious upbringing, I may very well have been a pastor.

   But I was making martinis at eight years old every day at 5 o'clock, so I believe it's my calling to dispense wisdom from behind a dark, wooden bar instead of a dark, wooden pulpit.  It's the dispensing of hope that defines my Self, not where my piece of wood is located.  That doesn't quite read right.  Or does it?