Labor Day Recession

I want to take this time to talk about our servants.  You may not be rolling in dough like Coke McDuck, but even you have servants.  Your waitresses and waiters.  Your Duane Reade, CVS, Rite Aide checkout persons. Your bank teller.  All these people took jobs out of necessity or desire, consciously or unconsciously rooted in their ability to help people.

    These troubled economic times are a challenge to many of us.  Unemployment is touching 9.1% as of this Labor Day weekend writing.  Almost 1 in every 10 people in the country is out of a job.  Is that a lot?  It sure sounds like it.
   But challenges also represent opportunity.  This economic stagnation is a thinly veiled blessing for many.  I'm an optimist, so I assume even the most down-and-out American can find at least a kernel of growth from being put through the ringer as is.  Being forced into idle time that must be filled with only productive action seems to me a fertile ground to plant new ideas.  Finding new ways to feed thy self, new ways to find shelter or new ways to communicate-adaptation out of necessity is what we do.  Those who have nothing left have nothing left to lose.

We will prevail.

I've been in the food service industry my whole life.  I always comforted any fears of job security with my father's voice in my head, "You can tend bar anywhere.  You could bartend your way across Europe!"  The corner stones of every civilization: the church, and the tavern.  A blessing of a work ethic has allowed me to always find a job when I needed it.
   I'm not saying I've been everywhere and done everything inside the service industrial complex, but I know working in service has taught me more things about myself and my fellow humans than I could have ever learned at Phelan University City College.
   If not for the self-exploratory purposes, then for the backstage pass for food and drink considered expensive, even inaccessible to the masses/civs/suits. It's an admittedly intoxicating feeling.
 
   All this rambling had a purpose, I think - all I'm trying to say is if you happen to be in the food service industry, you probably have main pursuits that are your ticket outta that hellhole.  And even if you don't, if your means is your end, this is especially for you: You can change the world by actively intending yourself to being "of good service" twenty minutes before your shift.

Breath.  Think about all the people you will take care of tonight.  Think of how good good service feels, how a bad night can be turned on its head from a few minutes' action in the course of a meal.

Yes, there's asshole customers, bosses and coworkers.  If it's intolerable, you can always look for another job - and actively looking to improve your situation makes the situation much more bearable.  Maybe bearable just long enough for the asshole to sabotage themselves.  Nobody enjoys being reminded they're a  servant, but if you serve for pay, you have a job, and a lot of folks aren't even that lucky, so you might as well do your job well.  Leave more positivity in the world than there was before your shift.

To any customers: go easy on your servers.  Do you have any idea how much their job sucks?

Thanks for reading,
Aaron

‎"I’m goin’ down to the bottom, to the bottom of a hole goin’ down" Comin' out soon.

   An incredibly talented musician and good friend, Nathan Morgan, was jumped while he was in Harlem a few days ago.  Good vibes and prayers are with him through this very difficult point in his life.  He had to have some re-constructive surgery on some facial bone fractures, and hopefully he will emerge just as attractive and stronger from this ordeal.

   Nate plays a handful of instruments, composing for piano and keyboard, and can shred a mean guitar or bass. I think about all the talent wrapped up in his brain and how delicate is that machinery.  Vanderbilt University Research is just shedding light on the connections between music and the brain including increased creativity in problem solving, memory, and neuromuscular conditions.

   I lost my father one year ago, and playing music has been my one safe escape from reality.  I imagine Nate will, when he feels like it, use playing music as a relief from mental and physical pain, as a way to say things that need to be said that there aren't words for.

Just do you

The Busker

A bronzed pool of lamplight
Sirens blow by
A young man on the street corner
Giving all he's got

To whoever will hear
His story as best he recollects
His father was there
and then he was gone

This too shall pass.

His bike got stole
His job got sold
His shoes got holes
Water in a bowl

This too shall pass.

So he's facing the night
does what he knows to remind

Nothing changes but the leaves
Nothing returns but the tide
After the night, after his shoes
After the father, After the light

After the bugs
After the blues

This too shall pass.
By slowly or by brief
This too shall pass.

1) Set Goal. 2) Achieve Goal.

"..drumming can be used to shift through major issues such as fear, resentment, or anger...using your drum can help you pass through and accept the natural biological and spiritual changes that take place in the course of our lives.." - Steven Ash in Sacred Druming.

I've had a fair bit of anger, resentment and fear in the past four months. Tonight at band practice, after a four-hour session of rehearsing, criticism and fine-tuning our current tunes, we muted our critics and turned it out with this thumping dirty blues jam with Nate on guitar and Conrad on bass, Rocco improvising lyrics overs all of us. It sounded like a swarm of batsouttahell, but I knew as I was playing that I was bleeding out negative energy I've been storing up for months. I feel great knowing I left it all on the drum mat.

I'm not sure what I'm doing with this band or if anything will come of it apart from some sweet memories and fraternity, but I am having a great time, I'm not hurting anybody, and I sleep well at night, next to a lovely lady - so I ain't got much about which to bitch.