Yesterday not long after I got home from an unexpected gig driving someone to the airport, I got asked if I wanted to perform today. I said yes and then realized I haven’t thought about performing in months. I’ve applied to a couple of things but hadn’t been accepted. I haven’t tried very hard to get booked.
There is a lot of work that needs to be done to clean up my brand. Lately, most of my energy has gone into money. Because of that, I’ve been able to start stabalizing that side of my life. While the work is in progress, both my suit jackets that fit proper were in a pile of clothes, wrinkled.
This is a blog article about not getting caught slipping when opportunity comes. To be clear, the suit jacket was it, I’m otherwise ready to go. But there is a lesson in this, because dealing with my suit jackets meant I spent an hour not driving Uber, thus it had a little cost on it. That hour needs to get made up for somewhere, that means less video games.
Dry cleaning takes time
It turns out the actual dry cleaning process may only be a few hours. It’s just a complicated process to get through. They deal with a lot of clothing. Each clothing has its own fabric blend and weight.
Items that are heavy cannot be dry cleaned alongside light items. They need to inspect buttons and assess what work actually needs to be done. Once cleaned they need to get it pressed and looking sharp. They may need to do some sewing or other patch work.Given the volume of clothing, they need to sort all the clothes into similar fabrics and weights. Then do the work. Then reassemble everyone’s items back to their original client groupings.
It’s not that the cleaning takes 2 days, it’s more that the process, done correctly, will take 2 days. That also means there are dry cleaners that do it faster, but Google told me they are all a solid 30-45 minutes away with potential paid parking.
My choices were to go pay more, for fast dry cleaning and lose at least 2 hours travelling. Or go check if Village Des Valeurs had any suit jackets that fit me. This only took 45 minutes and with all the luck in the world I was able to find something, wrinkle free, that fit.
Take a look at all your options. Sometimes the first option (fast dry cleaning to make up for my past negligence) was bad. Option 2, try and find something I can use second-hand, was valid.
Anything nice, and new, was also going to take longer than dry cleaner time. Given when showtime was, I am glad I lucked out. The risk was that I did not find something and then lost 45 mins. I swear I had tried on every single suit jacket in my size, and the one I found was the last one. Thank God.
Prepping my performance
As an artist it’s worth it to really memorize some songs. I mean perform them well over 100 times by yourself. Make sure you really know it. When I manage my time correctly I can usually commit a song to memory in about 3 weeks, rapping it 3 times in a row daily in full.
Usually what happens is I end up memorizing 90% of the song and there are about 4 total bars I struggle with. They aren’t connect, they are just lines that for the life of me I cannot remember and it fucks up my flow when I practice. Sometimes when I compare what I have memorized for live, with a record, there are differences. You’ll find 2-3 words that don’t line up, here and there.
That being said, I have a 5 minute set today. I’m going to start off the set with a preview of one of the songs I have with MCO. After about a minute, as I’m about 6 bars into the first verse, I will end it. Then switch into the main song we are aiming to release.
I already did the work memorizing that single. I know the hook for the other one and can get 6 bars down pretty quick. A responsible me will take a solid 30 minutes and depending on need, an hour, to practice the fuck out of this 5 minutes. I am rusty.
More importantly I don’t know where my current stamina matches with my current breath capacity. Like most people, we fluctuate in weight and fitness and this impacts your
performance. Sometimes the reason for practising your set is to find out how hard you can go without wheezing on stage or looking silly.
I will need to go buy a prop for the performance. I already have 20$ on me, so thankfully I won’t need to go to the ATM and pull that out. Every time you see my name on a flyer, which as you can see here is the case, someone is getting money.
Unplanned disruptions are worth prepping for
I got a ticket last week because I allegedly blocked a driveway. I can’t prove if I did or did not, they towed my car up the street. Either way I need to make an extra 250$ (before taxes) to make up for that. Life was way cheaper when I was a lowly cyclist.
I’m not looking for pity but it does have me on extra grind mode to make that money over the next two weeks. I have a minimum number I need to make off Uber a week in order to hit my goals. Last weekend I was sick and only made 40% of that number. So basically I have a fair chunk extra to make on top of that minimum number.
I was out both yesterday and Wednesday and they were not the greatest days for Ubering (better than not going). Had I not gone out, the stress of this show would be much higher. As it is I’m probably going to miss a good 4 hours of Friday night Uber (80-125$ gross) to perform. Plus, the location is downtown proper, so I will likely spend 8$ on parking.
The point here is doing that extra when you have that time will create cushions that let you take advantage of the opportunities that come. Maybe I will sell some merch, there is always potential. I’m likely not going to Uber after. I’ll go home, and hit it Saturday morning.
I will likely clock 12 hours Ubering on Saturday and another 8-10 on Sunday. Life will balance out.
I miss performing
I have been so focused on keeping my life running and maintaining these podcasts the music side has suffered. Podcasting has real growth potential that I will discuss at another time but the music is often not that profitable.
There are things I need to do in order to achieve music money. That will need to come after I finish the current grind I’m on. I’m taking a trip in July. I need some new life experiences like that, so that cost will delay all my debt clearing. Worth it.
I’m not sure I want to perform as often as I was, unless there are bags involved. If I was getting a bag every time, I would perform 3 times a day. I still miss performing. When I was asked, I didn’t even think about it, I just said yes, knowing the rest of the logistics (what this one ended up being about) could be figured out after.
The promoter involved has been good to me and I think it’s important to pursue relationships with people who make things happen. I can’t afford to go to shows like I was doing, literally, but I’m happy to see so many people out there getting their shine.
Every now and again I may pop out somewhere to keep the sword sharp, but it will be a long time before I find myself at shows regularly again. In the meantime I will write out my life and keep prepping for 2025.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone