SassyBlonde

Sometimes there are a lot of things about my job that just make me sad.

Opening a new show is always a dicey proposition: the actors have to know their lines, their steps, their songs; sets and lighting have to be aligned, perfected, and tested; costumes have to be fitted, prepared, and set. Musicians have the easiest job in a lot of ways-- we get the music in the mail and then show up at the eleventh hour to pull it all together, then just show up and play it down from opening night on. There are always things that go wrong in any production, slowing things down and moving rehearsal speed down to a snail's pace, but usually it doesn't happen the night before opening-- not in a professional theater, anyway.

The theater where I spend a lot of time is no exception-- usually things run fairly smoothly, but tonight was an unmitigated disaster on a lot of levels. Rehearsal started late, the parts weren't finished (meaning none of us saw the music before the downbeat), and everybody was overtired and frustrated.

It all kind of came crashing down on us when one of our fellow musicians simply bailed in the middle of rehearsal: he was tired, he'd been at his other job for fourteen hours today, and he put it simply-- "I feel like I'm letting you guys down, but my day job is kicking my ass and I'm only sitting here because I love you guys. This is the last place I need or want to be right now, and I need to go home, so I'm going." This guy is normally the backbone of our morale around there and it literally landed on us like a ton of bricks. Another of the musicians and I talked about it when we walked to our cars afterwards and of course the conversation veered off to the root cause. Was it the nature of the business? Was it just the nature of the DC area? Who knows, but he brought up some good points which have been dancing around in my head, too for the past couple of months.

He made the assertion that there's no way he would want to raise his kids in the D.C. area, simply because of the attitude present in this city, and I have to be honest, I agree. I've found in the past couple of years I have to get the hell outta here every few months for a while, if only to renew my faith that everyone in the world is not a self-centered asshole with the emotional maturity of a thirteen-year-old boy. It can begin to wear on you after a while, this competitive insanity, and it starts to color your whole perception of life if you're not careful.

He also talked about the way that this area weighs and works on you as a musician. This town can be very closed to new young talent in terms of getting work, too-- it's like they expect you to just wait around until you're 40 to get work no matter how good you are. It can become downright depressing, and we both agreed that neither of us used to be this cynical about life in general and definitely about work.

I hate being depressed, especially about my job, because otherwise I have no right to complain. I'm able to support myself doing what a lot of people only wish they could do, I have a great husband who's behind me in doing it because he does it himself, and most of the time I love it. Let's face it, I'm not always sunshine and light, after all, but I'm a generally happy person (even though there's been a more-than-usual amount of bitching here lately.) I just hate watching life chew someone up and spit them out the way it has these two guys lately, and it's kind of depressing to think I can't do anything about it.

*Above cartoon by Hugh MacLeod of Gapingvoid.com.