Ok so some more good and bad things...
Bad things:
-I am getting stressed about organizing things and worrying about Tim's health and tracking down the W2s for my taxes and have been having a really rough health week. My Crohns has flared up a couple of times over the past week and a half or so. Not fun.
-As fallout from health concerns, I am not going to see the Barefoot Monkeys fire show nor am I going to attend the rocking show at the Juggle This! conference in NY. I miss juggling conventions and this one is so close by and has an insane lineup of talent at the evening show. Bah.
-*
Good things:
-Tim is doing really well! On Wednesday we got his butt out the door for his first physical activity in like a week and he took part in an intense club juggling session with us. It was rocking. We all agreed we missed the ~10am rehearsals and we wrote some great stuff for our circus show. Then on Thursday he had his first real performance-type test when we did dry runs of our fire show. With some extra work on a couple of the torch routines and the entire show twice it was quite the rehearsal. Tim rocked it and was confident enough to give me the green light for the next good thing...
-We are going to Georgia! The east-coast-boys' first non-Northeast gig is gonna happen in just a few days! Exclamation marks!!! Georgia Perimeter College didn't bat an eye at the high price tag to bring us down so we are gonna enter the wild and crazy world of traveling with fire performance equipment and tracking down fuel and some fueling-station supplies!
-Friends are great! Tracy and I are hanging out a bunch which is grand and who-knows-what-else-may-happen and can-I-not-screw-this-upable which is a ball of fun. But also there are lots of great people here in Boston. Janey, Zoe, Tomio, and company are grand and are a perfect fit for my desire to have witty friends that don't need to booze it up to have a good time (ok, it also helps that playing card games like 'Set' and doing crossword puzzles and playing video games are also quite fun in their minds even when hanging out in a group). And I haven't even gotten to see most of the other great friends I have here in Boston: Katie, Peter, Chad, Chuck, Morgan, Patrick, Roger (who ditched us for a crazy five month cross-country tour), Jaime, Logan, Aaron, Nick, JT, Dio, Laa...see how many awesome people I would love to spend time with? It's an overload of awesome...
-*
* This item kinda belongs in both good and bad. So A Different Spin was once again requested to perform for America's Got Talent. Yes, those fine readers who have read this blog before know that we auditioned in Boston for the preliminaries and were asked to be ACTUALLY part of the show and be filmed in front of the celebrity judges (including The Hoff) in NYC...but we couldn't make it because that was the time we were supposed to be at Atlanta for the APCA conference. Well they decided we were still awesome enough to bring onto the show and invited us to come to LA! We received an email just about two hours ago requesting our names and departure city so they could book us flights...but we can't make the date as it is on our very-recently-booked gig in Georgia! RAWR! So I wrote an email back declining but expressing our interest in being on the show if another date works out. This is insanely frustrating as we passed once and are now passing again so maybe they won't ask us back for a third time. And we may NEVER KNOW what could have happened. Ugh. On the bright side, if we ARE asked back for the Seattle filming or the Texas one or the quick second LA session we would have more time to prepare and Tim will be 100% healthy. Trying to find the positives...
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
A bit overwhelmed
Wow a lot has happened. Some good, some bad. Some as-yet-to-be-determined.
I'm a bit swamped and, as a product of that, I am also a bit spacey.
Bad stuff (cuz if you know me you know I focus on this stuff too much):
-Tim hurt his neck while practicing a partner balance last Friday with Jeremy. No fractures/breaks/dislocated vertebrae but it was an intense muscle/ligament tear and was far from fun for him. He seems like he's doing better day by day but I inherited incessant worrying from my mom so I'm not quite sure how many shows and/or backflips I am going to need to see him do before I lose the tension in myself.
-Jeremy's laptop was stolen while I was in charge of it at the conference in Atlanta. I was told the exhibit hall would be locked and stupidly left both his and Ricky's laptops (both were being used to show promotional videos of A Different Spin) on our table each day. Two uneventful days were followed by me entering the hall during the second exhibit hall session to find only one computer on the table. Hopefully I will be able to get the APCA to compensate us at least to get Jeremy a new computer but something tells me it won't happen. Plus I am not sure I will *ever* be ok with his loss of personal, irreplaceable files; music is one thing but creative works of graphic art and writing kills me to think he won't get back.
-We didn't rock our showcase at the conference like I know we can. It was still solid, but I am disappointed in myself for not doing a better job getting us focused and putting the laptop theft firmly behind us. Plus I screwed up several things I know I am better at including keeping the choreographed routine going regardless of drops. 'Deer in the headlight' moments were what I stressed we avoid and then I promptly have one myself...talk about insult to injury for that conference weekend.
Good stuff:
-Even with our sub-par showcase we still got a couple of gigs! And there is still the chance we will get more based on follow-ups with the colleges that didn't even sign interest forms but were in attendance. To think that I assumed this conference would mean an end to hours of phone calls to college activities offices...silly me.
-Another product of the conference was that we were seen by an agent and are now contractually involved with him! This means we can push a lot of the burden of finding gigs onto him which is a huge load off of my mind. I also was sure to have a clause included in our contract that we had rights to any previously established relationships with colleges and military event planners so I have the *option* of saving us that 15% he would get if we do the work. Flexibility is grand.
-I'm getting to know this super attractive girl Tracy...who may or may not ever read this so I think I will leave it at that >.>
-We have our first military gig! The four of us will be employed by the government at least once over the summer and maybe a few more times as well. We will be heading down to North Carolina in August to perform for the Coast Guard on their 'birthday'. A day filled with music, food and fun will get a little boost from our zany juggling and acrobatics.
-I am working on a gig later in August for an army base in Virgina as well as one in June in Germany! There is also a good chance we can get a gig in Japan as one of the planners at the conference seemed to like us and our new agent (Brian) has a few of his other performers headed there so a double-pronged-relationship-approach maybe in effect.
-The website and Tim and Ricky's brochure each won 3rd place for the graphics competition at the conference. I have no clue how many entries there were for each category but there were about 100 performers/agencies there so it's nice to know we rock even with the big boys.
As-yet-to-be-determined:
-The source of most of my being overwhelmed and spacey is that a college in Georgia is trying to get us to come perform in about a week. Problem #1 is that we can't put Tim in the position to say he will be ready in that short time. Problem #2 is that even with flying the awesome Alex Corby in for a crash-course in performing with us it is going to cost a ton to get us down there. Early signs say the college can foot the possibly double-cost of getting us (over $1800 to perform and about the same to fly us and shack us up in a hotel, rent a car, buy fuel, pay for parking, and possibly buy one or two fueling-station items that won't fit in luggage) down there so this could turn into a crazy fun experience. Or it could put a ton of pressure on us to put on a show not worth $1800 but worth $3600. Or it could just not happen. Ah, unknowns.
-Our new agent (Brian) is obligated to make promotional material for us, both contractually and seeing how he only gets paid if we do :) I am anxious to see what he comes up with.
-Tim's trip to the ER (precautionary as it WAS his neck and he DID pass out briefly twice from the pain when he attempted to test range-of-motion) gave me a chance to experience the wonderful world of health insurance. I think my extended coverage ran out a couple months ago so free (or even dirt-cheap) Massachusetts health care maybe on the way!
-I'm skipping Iron Pour (an event at MassArt where the Iron Guild shows off to the public how cool they are. Oh, and Boston-area fire spinners show off a little too in a casual setting) to go to a Celtics-Heat game with a friend named Alexa who is cool and awesome enough to share her raffle-y-won tickets with me. Hopefully KG will be playing at least some of the game as we apparently have great seats (16th row!!!) and it has the potential to be a great game. Plus I've been to very few non-NY sports arenas. Sad to miss the Boston fire and spinning event but many folk will be at the Boston Burlesque Expo anyway and I can't pass up a sporting event :)
I am desperately trying to establish some form of schedule for my life but am frustrated with my slow progress as big unknowns (Georgia gig? Tim's health?) come flying my way. Since I don't think many people read this little blog perhaps I will try and use it to create a schedule of sorts through accountability. Here's hoping...
I'm a bit swamped and, as a product of that, I am also a bit spacey.
Bad stuff (cuz if you know me you know I focus on this stuff too much):
-Tim hurt his neck while practicing a partner balance last Friday with Jeremy. No fractures/breaks/dislocated vertebrae but it was an intense muscle/ligament tear and was far from fun for him. He seems like he's doing better day by day but I inherited incessant worrying from my mom so I'm not quite sure how many shows and/or backflips I am going to need to see him do before I lose the tension in myself.
-Jeremy's laptop was stolen while I was in charge of it at the conference in Atlanta. I was told the exhibit hall would be locked and stupidly left both his and Ricky's laptops (both were being used to show promotional videos of A Different Spin) on our table each day. Two uneventful days were followed by me entering the hall during the second exhibit hall session to find only one computer on the table. Hopefully I will be able to get the APCA to compensate us at least to get Jeremy a new computer but something tells me it won't happen. Plus I am not sure I will *ever* be ok with his loss of personal, irreplaceable files; music is one thing but creative works of graphic art and writing kills me to think he won't get back.
-We didn't rock our showcase at the conference like I know we can. It was still solid, but I am disappointed in myself for not doing a better job getting us focused and putting the laptop theft firmly behind us. Plus I screwed up several things I know I am better at including keeping the choreographed routine going regardless of drops. 'Deer in the headlight' moments were what I stressed we avoid and then I promptly have one myself...talk about insult to injury for that conference weekend.
Good stuff:
-Even with our sub-par showcase we still got a couple of gigs! And there is still the chance we will get more based on follow-ups with the colleges that didn't even sign interest forms but were in attendance. To think that I assumed this conference would mean an end to hours of phone calls to college activities offices...silly me.
-Another product of the conference was that we were seen by an agent and are now contractually involved with him! This means we can push a lot of the burden of finding gigs onto him which is a huge load off of my mind. I also was sure to have a clause included in our contract that we had rights to any previously established relationships with colleges and military event planners so I have the *option* of saving us that 15% he would get if we do the work. Flexibility is grand.
-I'm getting to know this super attractive girl Tracy...who may or may not ever read this so I think I will leave it at that >.>
-We have our first military gig! The four of us will be employed by the government at least once over the summer and maybe a few more times as well. We will be heading down to North Carolina in August to perform for the Coast Guard on their 'birthday'. A day filled with music, food and fun will get a little boost from our zany juggling and acrobatics.
-I am working on a gig later in August for an army base in Virgina as well as one in June in Germany! There is also a good chance we can get a gig in Japan as one of the planners at the conference seemed to like us and our new agent (Brian) has a few of his other performers headed there so a double-pronged-relationship-approach maybe in effect.
-The website and Tim and Ricky's brochure each won 3rd place for the graphics competition at the conference. I have no clue how many entries there were for each category but there were about 100 performers/agencies there so it's nice to know we rock even with the big boys.
As-yet-to-be-determined:
-The source of most of my being overwhelmed and spacey is that a college in Georgia is trying to get us to come perform in about a week. Problem #1 is that we can't put Tim in the position to say he will be ready in that short time. Problem #2 is that even with flying the awesome Alex Corby in for a crash-course in performing with us it is going to cost a ton to get us down there. Early signs say the college can foot the possibly double-cost of getting us (over $1800 to perform and about the same to fly us and shack us up in a hotel, rent a car, buy fuel, pay for parking, and possibly buy one or two fueling-station items that won't fit in luggage) down there so this could turn into a crazy fun experience. Or it could put a ton of pressure on us to put on a show not worth $1800 but worth $3600. Or it could just not happen. Ah, unknowns.
-Our new agent (Brian) is obligated to make promotional material for us, both contractually and seeing how he only gets paid if we do :) I am anxious to see what he comes up with.
-Tim's trip to the ER (precautionary as it WAS his neck and he DID pass out briefly twice from the pain when he attempted to test range-of-motion) gave me a chance to experience the wonderful world of health insurance. I think my extended coverage ran out a couple months ago so free (or even dirt-cheap) Massachusetts health care maybe on the way!
-I'm skipping Iron Pour (an event at MassArt where the Iron Guild shows off to the public how cool they are. Oh, and Boston-area fire spinners show off a little too in a casual setting) to go to a Celtics-Heat game with a friend named Alexa who is cool and awesome enough to share her raffle-y-won tickets with me. Hopefully KG will be playing at least some of the game as we apparently have great seats (16th row!!!) and it has the potential to be a great game. Plus I've been to very few non-NY sports arenas. Sad to miss the Boston fire and spinning event but many folk will be at the Boston Burlesque Expo anyway and I can't pass up a sporting event :)
I am desperately trying to establish some form of schedule for my life but am frustrated with my slow progress as big unknowns (Georgia gig? Tim's health?) come flying my way. Since I don't think many people read this little blog perhaps I will try and use it to create a schedule of sorts through accountability. Here's hoping...
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