It’s been exactly one year since I got cut from Blue Man
training in New York. Two years of buildup from audition to preparation to
arrival, and a paltry two weeks later, the whole thing died. In
the ensuing year, after spanning more miles than I ever thought to travel,
where am I? Where was I? What did I do with my dead dream?
“I guess I need to find a job.”
That’s where I left off. Let’s continue.
September 19, 2013 was a ghost day. After my brief and
unceremonious axing, I walked a half-mile up Broadway to the Strand Bookstore. I
spent too much money on books and continued on to Union Square, where I wandered
listlessly and chewed bitter pizza. I was a hermetically sealed sad-sack whose
attention extended not one nanometer beyond my doughy frame. Over the next few
days, I watched the first season of Orange
Is the New Black, wallowed, and made arrangements for my return to Torrance
– my childhood home, a bowl whose hopeful contents remained in a
thirteenth-floor meeting room at 599 Broadway.
Coming back empty meant two things, though: (1) I had
nowhere to go, and (2) I could get there however I wanted. So, that’s exactly
what I started to do. I got a job at my local Barnes & Noble (where I
earned my $8.50 an hour, thanks very much). I put the word out to everyone I
could think of that I was back for the foreseeable future, ready to move on
from the black (Blue?) hole that consumed the last two years of my life. I
quickly resumed accompanying modern dance classes, and shortly after I started
at B&N, two emails plotted my course.
The first was from the secretary of Chapman University’s
dance department, a lovely woman named Clara. She was one of the people I contacted
when I got back, and luckily enough, the school needed someone to accompany
beginning modern technique classes in the spring, four days a week from
February to May, for much more than I was making at B&N. This was good
news.
The second email was from an incredible musician named Brian
Wood, whom I had met a few times, but always in passing and never while
playing. He was taking over a department at Cal State Long Beach for a semester
and needed someone to cover his accompanying gig at The Wooden Floor, a
non-profit in Santa Ana that I performed with in June 2012. Three nights a
week, with good pay and the chance to work with a deeply and positively
influential program – this was very
good news.
Thanks to these openings, a little over three months post-New
York I started enjoying some semblance of a professionally musical lifestyle. I
had the day job, but it wasn’t a restaurant and the bulk of my income was
coming from genuine music making. This was fresh and satisfying, the way that
good salads look on TV. Driving all over the damn place wasn’t ideal, but I
grew up amidst Southern California’s hastily vomited civil landscape and knew
that to get anywhere – especially from Torrance – traffic was the
common currency. (Aside from totaling my car right after New Year’s and finally
replacing it on Super Bowl Sunday, the driving thing wasn’t all that bad.)
The following spring progressed explosively with three
regular accompanying gigs, Barnes & Noble, musical theatre pit work,
frequent appearances with a flamenco group in Newport Beach, performances with
two reputable contemporary music ensembles (Eighteen-Squared and the Los
Angeles Percussion Quartet), and the joyous occasion of getting to play on my
good friend Maria’s final violin recital at the San Francisco Conservatory of
Music. Sleep rediscovered its elusiveness of my college years but lost its
potency of absence against this unprecedented cascade of music. Many of these
opportunities came by way of my former percussion teacher, Nick Terry, and I
still owe him a good bottle of wine.
Then came summer. Some of my accompanying gigs continued, I
happily bid adios to Barnes &
Noble, and I got to work up my piano chops again to accompany ballet classes.
Most important, though, was my introduction by my friend Maria to a charter
school in Eagle Rock called Renaissance Arts Academy and the opportunity to
work their three-week summer intensive. Without diving into the insane details,
this school is non- (if not anti-) traditional. Summer intensive mornings were
spent thinking and discussing, and afternoons were spent rehearsing different
orchestras. I usually left early to drive down to Santa Ana and accompany at
The Wooden Floor, so I unfortunately missed most of the music happenings, but
at the end of the intensive, the two directors said that they would be happy to
bring me on full time in September. Bittersweet it was, however, that I could
no longer accompany at The Wooden Floor.
I want to touch briefly on The Wooden Floor. It’s an
after-school program that offers free dance classes, tutoring, college prep,
and family counseling to over 350 underprivileged kids. RenArts serves a
similar population, so I’m grateful to The Wooden Floor for the opportunity to
experience unknown backgrounds and approach those whose story differs wildly
from my own. I would be dead at RenArts if it wasn’t for the experiences I had
at TWF. Thankfully, both continue to do incredible work for their respective
communities.
Summer eventually wound down with no big pizzazz, and hey,
here we are. Today marks a year since I got on with my life. I’m still in a
happy relationship with the endearing Tina Persky (whose generous support
remains constant), I have a full beard, and I enjoy days filled with music. While
working full time at RenArts I continue to freelance – including a recent
psychedelic tropical kickoff event for an arts festival, and an upcoming
three-week Oktoberfest gig (lederhosen and full-size chicken suit included). Damn
good humans surround me and I finally moved out on my own.
My big New York dream collapsed under its own weight, but
the mental unshackling of two years of expectation freed me to explore a vast
landscape of expression, collaboration, and fulfillment. In short: the dream
died, and I woke up.
