vibinc

Most of y’all don’t know much about me because I don’t like writing about myself. You may have some idea what I do, or that I travel or that I work in the event industry, but you don’t really know that much about me. I’ve gone to considerable lengths to stop myself from writing about myself because I find it somewhat masturbatory. Maybe that’s good, maybe it’s bad, maybe it doesn’t matter, but I’m breaking that rule right now.

When life gets complicated, different people do different things. Some go outside themselves and deal with it/avoid it that way, others keep it close to their vest and hope it goes away, still others damn near disappear until the coast is clear. I’m not sure which, or which combination of categories I’m falling into right now, but my world has become increasingly more complicated over the past several months, and even though I knew some of it was coming and tried to prepare, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of being uniquely unprepared to deal with much of what’s been thrown at me.

It probably all started long before last July, but that’s the closest thing to a beginning to all that’s going on that I can identify.

Around that time I made a conscious choice to work myself as much as I could. It was relatively evident by then that things in the financial world were taking a turn for the worst, even though the worst had yet to come. Fortunately, partially because of the industry I work in and partially due to dumb luck, I was able to work pretty much straight through until the beginning of April. In that time I was able to bank a pretty good nest egg.

The unfortunate consequence of doing what I do is that working that much pretty well keeps me out of town for the bulk of the time. This isn’t a big deal if you’re single, but as I have experienced time and time again in the decade I’ve been in this business, you can’t do that for too long and have much of anything to come home to.

Folks in my business try to rationalize this with declarations about money or this or that, but the truth is, at some point you will make the choice between being with your friends and family, or being gone. That’s what it comes down to. You don’t have to take every gig, and up until the middle of last year, I didn’t, preferring to spend time at home to have a life. I wasn’t getting rich, but I was, by and large, happy and able to do just about everything I wanted to this side of buying a tropical island.

The issue comes when you set up this “normal” of working a little more than enough to get by, and then flip everything around. Most of the time it’s not what people signed up for. Most of the time, even though you have common goals and wishes and hopes and dreams, those things are less important than the time you can spend with the people you care about. Nearly all of the time, when you make that conscious choice of far-away work over loved ones, you set yourself up for two things; 1. That you also unintentionally neglect them when you’re home even though you’re not trying to, and 2. That they’ll stop seeing the long-term benefit of the arrangement. The worst thing that happens more often than not is that path becomes the excuse to not deal with things that ought to be dealt with.

So, back in March, after traveling for the majority of the previous 9 months, StacyMac and I broke up after over 5 years together.

No one’s mad at anyone as far as I can tell. There was no major drama or cussing or fighting or any of that. We just parted ways. She’s still my friend, and I’m still hers. Sure things are weird. You can’t spend 5 years of your life with someone and then just turn off a switch like it never happened. You can’t always stop yourself from reverting to long held behavior sometimes, which can also sometimes be awkward since things are different, but you have to find a way to make things feel normal and make sure that you do everything you can to respect the friendship that was an integral part of the overall relationship.

That doesn’t make it easy either. See breaking up with someone, middle finger held high and with a litany of expletives is actually pretty easy. Any jackass can do that. Breaking up, but making a conscious decision to respect the friendship is hard. It’s harder when you haven’t quite reconciled your feelings about the way things turned out. But I’ve been through enough of those explicative laden endings, and quite frankly, as “easy” as they are, they don’t solve much or make you any better, so as uncomfortable as it all is, I’m damn sure going to make sure the friendship works, even if the relationship didn’t.

So now I’m here at home after the last show I have for almost 6 weeks, which means I’m functionally unemployed, thinking about just what the hell it is that I want to do with my life. I think when you lose a “constant” you HAVE to take time to reflect, to reconsider. I’ve spent the majority of my off time the past several weeks, when I wasn’t just sitting there being depressed, reconsidering myself, who I am, where and what I want to be, and it’s not all black and white and easy to figure out. I love what I do, but I want to either do it closer to home more often or think about doing something else to fill the gaps.

Part of this is by necessity. The business is getting tighter now, a result of the 6-8 month lag that IS the industry. People are trying to negotiate on rate (for the first time in my 4 years freelancing which either means I am underpriced, or everything’s about to go to serious shit), which actually just degrades EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in the industry. But cash flow is cash flow. I can probably limp through the summer until things maybe get better and hope for the best, but it might end up like the 8 months after 9/11 where my income dropped by 60%, and that bugs the shit out of me.

Some of my friends in the industry are taking on day jobs, and trying to work in theater at night. That works in larger or more robust markets, but I’ve been out of theater for 12 years now and I’m not in any hurry to go back.

Doing sports production is an option, but until football and basketball season starts back up, there’s really not so much out there for a guy that’s not been working that segment of the industry. Sure, all the gear is close to the same as what I deal with now, and a “show” is a “show”, but this is a people business and if you don’t know the right people, and have their confidence, getting hired is harder than you think, and there’s always the “who am I replacing/displacing” factor that bugs the shit outta me.

Then there’s other stuff. This is where it gets really limited. I didn’t finish college, and it’s been 16 years since I quit, and while I’ve batted the idea of going back to school around, I’d basically be starting from scratch, because I sure as hell ain’t majoring in Music, like I was 16 years ago. The biggest problem is, all the things I’m interested in aren’t big time demand/money makers either, and would likely have me in an office environment, which is kinda like caging a rabid possum on meth and poking it with a sharp stick.

My “last hope” options are even worse. Now that you can’t say “hobo” anymore, and being a “hobo” isn’t nearly as appealing as it was made out to be in old school country music, one of my childhood fantasies is probably a no go. I’m no longer athletic unless there is a 12oz curl contest somewhere, and even then, I’ve lost my edge. I’m an all right cook, but cooking is one of those things I like to do when I want to do it. Cooking all the time would be dangerous to other people, knives and all.

But I have this blog and I have 20 years of paying A LOT of attention to politics, process and policy. I don’t know how much this means because there are a million other people who have more hands on experience than I do that are in a similar position.

And who the hell do I think I am anyway? I don’t think I get anything any more right or wrong than anyone else, and from looking at my traffic, it wouldn’t matter much if I did, but I’m passionate to a fault, and bang out these 2000 word screeds with some irregular regularity. Maybe they have some impact, maybe they don’t. I don’t know. I know I have the ability to piss everyone off all at once, a talent that has only served to allow all the factions that I deal with to both distrust me, use my name in vain, and at the same time, lobby me on their behalf. What a country!

One thing I do know that this post has been keeping me from posting about anything else, and it’s been driving me crazy, so I better get it done so I can get past it.

The point is that there’s a lot of transition going on here, and just like any transition, it can be hopeful and daunting at the same time. So bear with me while I get my bearings again. Hopefully, before too long I’ll be pissing everyone off at once with little effort again. Maybe I’m already hard at it…