So A Different Spin had an up-and-down summer:
-Fantastic weekend in Orangeville, Ontario that included hanging out and performing with one Jordan A. Campbell, awesome accommodations at both a B&B in Orangeville and Zoe's awesome loft apartment place, great pay and phenomenal feedback.
-No performance on 4th of July
-Our first military gig which was in NC at the Coast Guard's base in Elizabeth City. We put on a kickin circus arts show, taught plenty of kids some circus skills, got a great testimonial, were treated to drinks at the bar on the base and the three of us were out-foxed (or out-raccooned as it were) by Jeremy in a game of 'mystery truffle'
-Several well-received community events paid us very very little for the product they booked. Total good-and-bad there.
-Ricky, Tim and I created two-person shows that we can do if the gig is too low-paying!
-A couple of collaborative performances with other Boston circus performers (Draconik and the Boston Circus Guild)
-Even with Orangeville a very very poor showing in terms of total income.
-A great relationship with the Cambridge Arts Council has been forged! Julie Madden has gone to bat for us and is pushing hard to get us permission to perform fire in a large public place in Cambridge. Fingers crossed but within the year I see A Different Spin performing the first large-scale fire show in years (maybe ever) somewhere in Cambridge (would love to do it at Cambridge Common)
We also had a good old fashioned 'business meeting' where we laid out some ground rules/contractual obligations that we did a pretty good job sticking to during the end of the summer. Several pieces still need to be worked out (the biggest one being how to go about requiring a minimum hourly wage for youth workshops. This is especially an issue when they offer such a low rate and throw out the old 'it will help foster a good relationship with our program' line) but if we manage to continue this endeavor past January 1st I think we've made some really important strides. I won't whine and complain about the realistic worries I have about that happening but you, faithful reader, just know I may spout obscenities and insanely emo-tastic posts in the future.
As far as the college season goes, I worked my ass off (and still am) to get us a good lineup of performances. 7 college shows, to be exact, with 3 more actively in the works and another military gig in the initial stages (which, if it falls through, should still occur in the winter at the least). We've already completed two of them immediately following moving into our new apartment. I will give some detail of these forthwith (is that the right use of that word? I may never know...):
Randolph College
First on our docket was a flight to Virginia the same evening as our move-in day! We were driven by Kat to the airport (yay for more friends continuing to drive us to the airport! Janey doesn't have to be begged EVERY time, hehe) and arrived after hours of unpacking that saw Jeremy's knee go from uncomfortable to pretty daw-god awful. He manned-up big time for these two shows and will hopefully use the three days off before the next round to make some progress in healing. Annnnyway, the college was 2.5 hours away from the hotel we were staying at (as it was right next to the airport) so we drove at about 9am to arrive and spread the word from 12-1 in their nice little dining center. This school is 500 kids large and until 2007 was women-only...needless to say, word traveled fast about the show in the evening and our job of informing was mostly done for us. However, we did have a great time interacting with students in the dining center---I did plenty of card magic while Jeremy, Tim and Ricky took turns juggling in different places as well as teaching plate spinning and juggling. The second hour of promotion at 5:30 saw more of the same with several students returning to get some more instruction and many more people for me to be a goofball with...ah, my few abilities in card magic...
After a quick bite to eat we drove down to the absolutely gorgeous amphitheater where we were to perform our fire show. Our partner in crime for this endeavor was one Amanda Denny who was a pleasure to work with---she helped us get started with setting up nice and early, had a good sense of humor and was very flexible with all of our quirks. The performance space was simply amazing. It had two trees of halogen lights that each had a bulb on the stage AND the audience which allowed us to keep the audience visible and have a 'show starting' signal when we cut the stage lights (not to mention a much easier time setting up the fueling station, speakers and tools). So the lighting rocked, but it was nothing compared to the sheer amount of space we had. During my email and phone conversations with Amanda there had been some question as to whether we would have enough space and if the trees near the stone stage were going to be too close to our performance area. In retrospect this was a ridiculously silly set of concerns as we easily had a 40'x40' space clear of EVERYTHING to work with once we gave the audience their buffer, the trees a distance to avoid incineration and space for the fueling station and speakers. This was easily the best performance space we've ever had and probably ever will. I'm proud to report we also kicked some serious ass with our show, only a few torch drops by yours truly and Tim forgetting to get a set of lit torches offstage (he was busy getting the video camera recording and it got lost in the shuffle) were negatives in the fire show. The audience was really responsive, cheering at sections we've never experienced before and they absolutely loved the new changes we made to the three-person juggling routine. Overall the student body was really excited by us and we stayed after our show much longer than expected before we began our 2.5hr drive back to the hotel. A quick bit of sleep later saw us in the Richmond airport to fly back up to Boston...
St. Lawrence University
As soon as our plane touched down we sped back to our new apartment, took far too long packing an extra change of clothes and getting my headlight 'fixed' (read: needed to be refocused as Valvoline apparently skewed it way up. However, the nice mechanic at AAMCO---whom I wrongly had assumed was the culprit in the poor focusing---had a lot of trouble trying to do this and ended up losing one of the bolts which made the entire process take longer...and it didn't end up being focused properly) before attempting a maneuver that is so silly: drive west on the MassPike a few exits (in lovely rush-hour traffic) to get back on going eastbound so we could pick up a FastPass transponder for the trip to NY...which doesn't work in states other than MA for 3 days and didn't work in MA for 30mins. We ended up never having a chance to use it on the way to St. Lawrence and it was still not ready to play when we returned on Saturday. At least we'll have it for next week's trips to New Jersey and Pennsylvania...
Over 7 hours later we arrived at St. Lawrence University where we bumbled our way to the alumni house where we were being shacked up for two nights. We got in at about 1:30am and found pretty darn nice rooms---3 in total, each with its own bathroom. Since I am obviously the sexiest of the group I got the pimp room with the king-size bed, couch, flat-screen TV (tiny) and a desk. The desk came in handy 8 hours later when I set up my computer and played the 'call 15 colleges' game. Alas I made no more headway on more gigs but left several voicemails and messages with receptionists...which I really hate doing now that I've done so for well over a year.
We got ourselves out the door to get 'breakfast' rather late but still managed a quick jaunt to a diner (directed there by a friendly police officer) where we got your standard over-priced diner breakfast food. After speculating on the reasoning behind owner Kurt's decision to keep the name of his business 'Tracy's Used Cars' we paid our bills and wound our way through campus (after I embarrassed myself by slowing down in front of a house full of lesbians...don't ask) to meet up with Amy Saito---the organizer for this gig---and two members of the security staff. We got a quick look at the insanely nice student center we'd be entertaining outside of and proceeded out to a very oddly located area for our fire show: it was in a grassy area right next to a building...but there were several planters full of herbs right near the building as well as a few view-obstructing trees and a multi-piece monument to all the donors in SLU's history across from the building. This all combined to make for a fun time as we determined the best orientation for the show and tried our best to maximize the amount of audience seating that wouldn't push them out onto the stone pathway or force them into the small space below low-hanging tree branches. Oh, did I mention we once again had to have a 'barrier' between us and the audience? Security orders. All these things ended up being ok as the audience was not insanely big and we did a good job tweaking the performance space with speaker placement and adjustments to the rope-barriers. In any case, we passed the security personnel's test of competency and the head security officer and I briefly lamented how frustrating it is to be a Yankee fan in Boston.
Our roving/promotional entertainment for this gig was slated for the first two hours of the college's organization fair. Once again we had an overall successful time doing our own things---this time I did a whole bunch of glass walking while performing card magic---and even had some fun stealing a few students to do our volunteer juggling routines. We even had a chance to practice our choreographed juggling routine from our circus arts show and found we still had it all down but had a lot of trouble answering questions mid-routine. Learn something new every day, hehe. I didn't get any rounds of applause for my card magic as I did at Randolph College but had some of the best reactions to a few tricks I've ever had so another positive for myself. The other boys had a grand old time teaching several students the basics AND advanced tricks in juggling and diabolo. Ah, spreading the circus love...
With our modified performance space we put on a very solid show yet again. Jeremy and I nailed stacks juggling probably better than we ever had and 99% of the choreography was spot-on. The fire swords are getting quite worrisome yet again though for a new reason---wicking is peeling off. It is getting time to commission Chad for a pair of his badass swords. Once again we had great feedback from the students and apparently even inspired one student to incorporate us into his writing (it's some fantasy novel in the Harry Potter vein where magic is split into the elemental schools...guess which part we'd affect :P ). The head of security let us know we performed well and exceeded all of his safety expectations which was a nice bonus.
This time we didn't stick around for an hour after our performance and actually managed to head over to a cafe that was recommended by students. We got in before their 9pm closing time and proceeded to make things interesting for our cute waitress and the very nice cook. I guess I should really admit that it was pretty much all my fault. My garlic 'allergy' proved quite the bitch as all the seasoned meats had a garlic rub/sauce which knocked out my second choice when the first had a garlic sauce...and then the rice ended up having garlic too so I couldn't even get a simple piece of chicken with a bed of rice and some vegetables. Take two included me ordering a salad that the chef found out had garlic in it's dressing. In fact, ALL the dressings had garlic. So salads were out. Fine. Reuben sandwich on Ricky's suggestion was the choice. The cook goes to get that ready, immediately returns and says he has no idea what is in the mustard they usually put on the Reuben. So I ended up having corned beef and sauerkraut on rye bread :) All was ok as I had the waitress get herself a desert on me under the pretense that we needed to balance out the business expense (the other boys got themselves more expensive meal/drink combos and each had a desert) between us all. She's also thinking of heading up to Boston in the coming years and we were glad to promote the city as we are want to do.
After the Great Dinner Debacle of '09 we rolled ourselves back to the alumni house to hit the hay as we decided to leave campus by 7am and avoid any Labor Day traffic. Whether or not we would have run into any in the areas we drove may never be known but we made it back in less time than it took to get there so all is well.
--
I'm now going to fix a late snack, watch the first episode of Mad Men and go to bed early as I need to drive to Cape Cod tomorrow morning for Max's wedding! Hopefully the extra 2 hours I am building into my trip will be enough to deal with any traffic that might exist on the Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend. I still haven't done nearly enough unpacking and we hit the road again on Tuesday morning so I'll be heading back home Sunday night after what is sure to be a great wedding ceremony and a kickin party. It'll be good to see people I haven't seen in forever and I'm happy to be invited to such an important day for Max. All in all, I'd say the wedding of a friend is a great reason to be overbooked in the beginning of our college season :)
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Hellz yeah!
So I've fallen off the face of the blog-earth. But with reason.
A Different Spin had an INSANE month of April (and a rocking weekend in May, too) as we traveled all around the Northeast + Georgia to kick some ass with our fire show and circus show. Check out this list of schools that saw us:
-Georgia Perimeter College
-Rhode Island College
-Mansfield University
-New York Institute of Technology
-Susquehanna University
-SUNY Delhi
-University of Delhi
Throw in a fun firejam at MassArt for Iron Pour and we had quite the time :)
But that wasn't all that kept us super busy. Remember, dear reader, all of those 'just missed' opportunities to be on America's Got Talent? Well we are flying in less to LA in less than 12 hours to go rock it hardcore. Our act is 100% bitchin'----so much so the 'g' in 'bitching' had to flee in terror---so there is no way we won't make it to round 2 and beyond. There's a possible showdown with Michael and Joanna (local Boston firespinners and friends of ours) in the offing which is a shame as they are fantastic...but we are gonna bring the energy like nobody's business. As exhausted as I am from traveling, rehearsing and apartment hunting (that is an ENTIRE blogpost in itself...5 Bedrooms to 6 to 7 back to 5) I am so ready to have an absolute blast on Wednesday. Those judges really have no idea what they are gonna see. Plus that theater is gonna go nuts when we are done with our act. We have to leave the house at 5am and I'm not sure I can sleep or eat before then, I am so freakin pumped!
My good friend Scott is gonna join my cousin Adam and a few other friends (including the amazing Mitch who we met at APCA and is a potential business-contact for the future---manager? agent? who knows. He's great) in LA to see us rock the house which will be sweeeeeeeet.
Only negative is that Tracy and I tried the relationship thing and I found I'm way too crazed right now to handle that. On the plus side, she is totally awesome and is cool still hanging out and such. Yay for reasonable, amazing individuals! Oh wait, crap, I lied...the other negative in my life is that my health insurance ran out and I was a dumbass who forgot to get on the cheap Massachusetts health insurance before my medication needed to be refilled. I'll be on the hook for $531 if I can't sort it out WHILE IN LA. Sigh...
Next post is gonna be about how much fun we had in LA. As a heads-up, we won't be able to talk about whether or not we moved onto the next round due to the fact the show is supposed to be surprising and all. But I really don't see any way we can fail. We are just too badass.
A Different Spin had an INSANE month of April (and a rocking weekend in May, too) as we traveled all around the Northeast + Georgia to kick some ass with our fire show and circus show. Check out this list of schools that saw us:
-Georgia Perimeter College
-Rhode Island College
-Mansfield University
-New York Institute of Technology
-Susquehanna University
-SUNY Delhi
-University of Delhi
Throw in a fun firejam at MassArt for Iron Pour and we had quite the time :)
But that wasn't all that kept us super busy. Remember, dear reader, all of those 'just missed' opportunities to be on America's Got Talent? Well we are flying in less to LA in less than 12 hours to go rock it hardcore. Our act is 100% bitchin'----so much so the 'g' in 'bitching' had to flee in terror---so there is no way we won't make it to round 2 and beyond. There's a possible showdown with Michael and Joanna (local Boston firespinners and friends of ours) in the offing which is a shame as they are fantastic...but we are gonna bring the energy like nobody's business. As exhausted as I am from traveling, rehearsing and apartment hunting (that is an ENTIRE blogpost in itself...5 Bedrooms to 6 to 7 back to 5) I am so ready to have an absolute blast on Wednesday. Those judges really have no idea what they are gonna see. Plus that theater is gonna go nuts when we are done with our act. We have to leave the house at 5am and I'm not sure I can sleep or eat before then, I am so freakin pumped!
My good friend Scott is gonna join my cousin Adam and a few other friends (including the amazing Mitch who we met at APCA and is a potential business-contact for the future---manager? agent? who knows. He's great) in LA to see us rock the house which will be sweeeeeeeet.
Only negative is that Tracy and I tried the relationship thing and I found I'm way too crazed right now to handle that. On the plus side, she is totally awesome and is cool still hanging out and such. Yay for reasonable, amazing individuals! Oh wait, crap, I lied...the other negative in my life is that my health insurance ran out and I was a dumbass who forgot to get on the cheap Massachusetts health insurance before my medication needed to be refilled. I'll be on the hook for $531 if I can't sort it out WHILE IN LA. Sigh...
Next post is gonna be about how much fun we had in LA. As a heads-up, we won't be able to talk about whether or not we moved onto the next round due to the fact the show is supposed to be surprising and all. But I really don't see any way we can fail. We are just too badass.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
@#!*%
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...
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...
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...
Thursday, March 12, 2009
What's that? We rock? True story.
So let's see, Tim and Ricky continued their amazing work with our promo material and created the below brochure:
(outside)
(inside)
Pretty sweet work, no?
We are fine-tuning our APCA showcase performance and I am much less stressed about it than I used to be. It's coming along fairly well but that's not what has taken away my stress---the fact that we rocked our audition for America's Got Talent is. Due to a surreal set of circumstances, we decided to write and rehearse an act to audition in about three days time (check out Jeremy's blog for the back story). We went into the audition, saw some other circus friends of ours, and proceeded to rock the producers' faces off. We were placed on standby and I received a call yesterday from our producer asking if we wanted to come be put on TV next week in NYC. Unfortunately, as those of you who diligently follow this blog know, that is the same time we are attending our super important conference. So we had to decline but there is still a chance we will be on the show in a different city's filming block. A pretty good chance. And in any case, it was a great vote of confidence in us as if our hastily thrown together act could impress them, we must really be awesome :)
On a related note, our good contortionist friends Tracy and Morgan who team up to form a duo called Bella Curva advanced to the filmed round in NYC! They are awesome and it would have been great to join them, but if all goes well we will both be part of this really fun show (seriously, the folk who work on this show are great!). I hope they have a blast and that we get to meet up and maybe cause some TV drama mwhahaha!
Pretty sweet work, no?
We are fine-tuning our APCA showcase performance and I am much less stressed about it than I used to be. It's coming along fairly well but that's not what has taken away my stress---the fact that we rocked our audition for America's Got Talent is. Due to a surreal set of circumstances, we decided to write and rehearse an act to audition in about three days time (check out Jeremy's blog for the back story). We went into the audition, saw some other circus friends of ours, and proceeded to rock the producers' faces off. We were placed on standby and I received a call yesterday from our producer asking if we wanted to come be put on TV next week in NYC. Unfortunately, as those of you who diligently follow this blog know, that is the same time we are attending our super important conference. So we had to decline but there is still a chance we will be on the show in a different city's filming block. A pretty good chance. And in any case, it was a great vote of confidence in us as if our hastily thrown together act could impress them, we must really be awesome :)
On a related note, our good contortionist friends Tracy and Morgan who team up to form a duo called Bella Curva advanced to the filmed round in NYC! They are awesome and it would have been great to join them, but if all goes well we will both be part of this really fun show (seriously, the folk who work on this show are great!). I hope they have a blast and that we get to meet up and maybe cause some TV drama mwhahaha!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
I believe...
...in what we can do. I believe we can succeed. I believe we are good enough, talented enough and creative enough to make this happen.
Now we just need some warm weather and a sound system for the amazing things to be shaped.
Now we just need some warm weather and a sound system for the amazing things to be shaped.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Steps in the right direction
So we were part of a fantastic cast of performers on Friday night that came together to celebrate Johnny Blaze's 25th birthday. The ~4minute act we performed was to serve as a 'check-in' for ourselves with regards to the choreographed juggling act we will be including in our showcase for the APCA National Conference. We did not give ourselves enough practice time to have the act ready so we made last-minute adjustments on Friday morning and *mostly* succeeded in our evening performance. On the one-hand, our early drops during the simple stuff were covered well and made the audience think they were intentional OR made them excited for the rest of the act as the saw the knives we preset and thought 'ooh, if these guys can't juggle clubs it is gonna be CRAZY when they try and juggle knives!'. Ah, the bloodlust of a good crowd :)
I know that most of my own drops during our show were due to my badly battered fingers---I've got one big split on the top of my left ring finger and my left thumb is raw and ready to give me three more lines of blood---but some were due to a different environment than we had practiced in which is a HUGE thing to know about. We are not going to have much practice time at all for the APCA showcase onstage so it stresses how ridiculously polished our act has to be to deal with a new stage and lighting setup. Good to know...
We were insanely well-received by the crowd even though we messed up several times which was a great confidence boost for us; sure, we had a few biased friends in the crowd and many liquored-up folk, Boston is starved for juggling and our dance-break is always awesome, but it was a great reaction nonetheless. If we stick to our plan of practicing three times a week at the YMCA and throw in a weekend practice or two between now and March 17th (when Ricky and I fly down to start the schmooze-fest in Atlanta) we should be ready to rock that section. The audience-volunteer section should be pretty easy to get solid as we have the skills down pat (and don't even hit our volunteer!) we just now need to get really comfortable with the dialogue and actually map-out our slow-motion movements in the finale. We performed this bit at our second gig of this weekend (another performer's birthday bash. Damn, Boston performers love to bring their friends in to make a fun party) without having ever practiced it and that went well enough that I could make those previous statements ;)
The other fantastic part to our Friday was that we all had such an amazing time contribuiting to a talented cast of drag kings and queens, aerialists, burlesque artists and our favorite acro-duo (yay Morgan and Roger! But boo for Roger leaving us for his crazy roadtrip :( He's lucky he and his girlfriend Ellen are awesome else I'd totally not allow them to go have fun). It reminded us all how much we want to make this project succeed however it has to---if the college circuit doesn't work we would love to do small-venue shows with crowds like that one. Oh, and did I mention that we also got to dance up a storm to the kickin tunes courtesy of Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band? We all looked around the room as we skanked, bounced and twirled our way around and saw such a wonderful range of people that were just enjoying the moment which gave us a bit of hope in humanity :) I know I need more chances to dance like that. Other than Friday and the night of the Dreamtime Circus dance party post-show I haven't had a chance to enjoy dancing. I'm so damn picky in my dancing music...
Also on the APCA front, Ricky and Tim are doing some rockin work getting our promo material looking sharp. Below is a copy of the full-page ad that is included in both the online journal and the hard copy sent out to all the APCA colleges. Those two artists are also hard at work making a sweet brochure to hand out at the conference. I wish I could contribute more to the graphic design stuff but it's great to know that they can create such wonderful things. To pull my weight I'm just gonna have to be 'the man' during the conference and sell us hard.
I am itching to keep refining these juggling acts and finally revisit our fire show once the weather warms up...
I know that most of my own drops during our show were due to my badly battered fingers---I've got one big split on the top of my left ring finger and my left thumb is raw and ready to give me three more lines of blood---but some were due to a different environment than we had practiced in which is a HUGE thing to know about. We are not going to have much practice time at all for the APCA showcase onstage so it stresses how ridiculously polished our act has to be to deal with a new stage and lighting setup. Good to know...
We were insanely well-received by the crowd even though we messed up several times which was a great confidence boost for us; sure, we had a few biased friends in the crowd and many liquored-up folk, Boston is starved for juggling and our dance-break is always awesome, but it was a great reaction nonetheless. If we stick to our plan of practicing three times a week at the YMCA and throw in a weekend practice or two between now and March 17th (when Ricky and I fly down to start the schmooze-fest in Atlanta) we should be ready to rock that section. The audience-volunteer section should be pretty easy to get solid as we have the skills down pat (and don't even hit our volunteer!) we just now need to get really comfortable with the dialogue and actually map-out our slow-motion movements in the finale. We performed this bit at our second gig of this weekend (another performer's birthday bash. Damn, Boston performers love to bring their friends in to make a fun party) without having ever practiced it and that went well enough that I could make those previous statements ;)
The other fantastic part to our Friday was that we all had such an amazing time contribuiting to a talented cast of drag kings and queens, aerialists, burlesque artists and our favorite acro-duo (yay Morgan and Roger! But boo for Roger leaving us for his crazy roadtrip :( He's lucky he and his girlfriend Ellen are awesome else I'd totally not allow them to go have fun). It reminded us all how much we want to make this project succeed however it has to---if the college circuit doesn't work we would love to do small-venue shows with crowds like that one. Oh, and did I mention that we also got to dance up a storm to the kickin tunes courtesy of Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band? We all looked around the room as we skanked, bounced and twirled our way around and saw such a wonderful range of people that were just enjoying the moment which gave us a bit of hope in humanity :) I know I need more chances to dance like that. Other than Friday and the night of the Dreamtime Circus dance party post-show I haven't had a chance to enjoy dancing. I'm so damn picky in my dancing music...
Also on the APCA front, Ricky and Tim are doing some rockin work getting our promo material looking sharp. Below is a copy of the full-page ad that is included in both the online journal and the hard copy sent out to all the APCA colleges. Those two artists are also hard at work making a sweet brochure to hand out at the conference. I wish I could contribute more to the graphic design stuff but it's great to know that they can create such wonderful things. To pull my weight I'm just gonna have to be 'the man' during the conference and sell us hard.
I am itching to keep refining these juggling acts and finally revisit our fire show once the weather warms up...
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