Berklee Rehearsal Rooms

I am a woman of a certain age. I have musician friends.I have dated musicians. My former roommate of many years, was a musician and worked at Berklee. I have attended events at Berklee. I have even performed on campus once or twice in my career. However, I had never been to any of their rehearsal rooms.
My young friend is attending Berklee. I have known him for 7 or 8 years. He has spent the last 5 or 6 Christmas Eves with my friends and I. We were all pretty excited for him to be attending Berklee. It has been a tough road for him, but I think he is getting his money's worth.
He is starting to play out and he wanted me to hear him play. He doesn't tell me when he's performing. I hear about it after the fact. Anyway, we headed over to a building that belongs to Berklee that is all rehearsal rooms. It's really a beautiful facility. The front desk is manned by foreign work-study students and the wall behind them has a bunch of symbols hanging on it (like drum kit symbols, not chinese tatoo models) that are cracked and have the room number they came from written on them. These cracked symbols serve 2 purposes. #1) It reminds them which rooms need to have the equipment replaced and #2) It is quite decorative.There are corrodors that look like they are lined with meat lockers. They are thick doors with thick windows that you can look through but can't really hear what is going on in the room.
As you walk down and look into the occupied rooms. It's like watching musicians in aquariums. All different kinds of "fish" -"Guitar" fish, "Drum" fish and a lot of "Piano" fish. The Piano rooms are really small and just have the pianos in them. I felt a lot of energy spilling into the hall. It 's exciting to be around artists working on their craft. Artists excited about being able to perform in such optimal settings. They don't need an audience, they just need the groove.
We found our room. The door was silver metal.It was white /egg shell colored. The walls were covered with those sound proof ceiling tiles, but the tiles looked more metal than that porous material I think of as a traditional ceiling tile.The floor was black and cushiony , it was remeniscent of ground up car tires.The ceiling had three really bright flourescent lighting fixtures. Not the most falttering light. The room itself was about 10 feet by 8 feet. Maybe about the size of a bath room. There was a baby grand piano, a full drum kit, 2 amps , 2 office chairs, a stool (for the drums) and the bench for the piano. With the door closed it was completely sound proofed.
My friend had brought both guitars. An acoustic and an electric. I carried the lighter of the 2. My friend started to noodle around on the piano. Good technique. The sound filled the room. The notes were clear because of the way the room is designed.Then he unpacked the acoustic. Again, started with the noodling and then segued into actually playing the guitar. He was great ! I was so impressed. It was mellow and smooth and I enjoyed it. He played his electric guitar and played around with the distortion which was interesting , but I enjoyed the acoustic more.
I was glad I was able to share this apportunity with him. He was great and I feel he is getting his money's worth. I look forward to seeing him play in front of an audience that has more people in it than me.

Owwwww!

Ow !
Ow,ow,ow!
Fuck!
Owwwwwwww!
I 'm tired of this crap!!!!!!
Ow!

More Tales from the Booth

I had tried to post during the major network overhaul the other day. Consequently , my finely chiseled phrases and elegenat paragraphs are now lost to the ether. Because, basically, I can't read the instructions . SO, forethwith. .. . .
Last week , on a gray drizzley day, 2 guys come into the booth. One was a short fairly well dressed kid. Baggy jeans , nice wind breaker jacket, non -despcript novelty baseball cap. Closely followed by a kid who had what could only be thought of as a bad dye job. When I say "kids" anywhere from 17-25.He had darker skin and frizzy brown hair, underneath the coppery blond. He had a big novelty t-shirt on and even baggier pants and had grand pa glasses on. You know , the kind of practical glasses your grand daddy might have worn or maybe you had to wear for safety in shop class. They walked at a brisk trot and we were pretty sure they were going to stay in there and do drugs. We were all looking, aware, even the cleaning lady. My manager looked at me and said "Uh-oh. I think we're going have a problem" . And as soon as this information had seeped in to us they both trotted back out into the park. We were relieved.
5 minutes later, the kid with the bad dye job comes back in. My manager had to go do do some paper work in the Ranger Station. Before she left she said "If he's not out of there in 10 minutes come get me." SO, I sat there watching the clock like a dog waiting to be fed-resigned that I could do nothing on my own. 1o minutes passed, as I went to get her she came back in "Is he still in there ?" "Yes" we replied. Okay, let's find a Ranger.
There were none to be had.
Tight budget.
They sent the most recenet , well -trained bunch-out into the unemployment line.
Fortunately, there was a Municipal Cruiser , cruising by in the park. My mananger waived them down. The 2 cops come in , go into the mens room and knock on the stall door. We hear a flush, he flushed the works down the toilet.The cops could see him do it through the crack between the door and the wall. (Don't ever stick your hand down a public toilet. You don't know what's down there. The city Plumbing guys are Saints , as far as I'm concerned).
The cops ask him if he's doing drugs. He can't really respond. These guys are really ruining his High. He is informed that they witnessed him flushing it down the toilet and they read him his rights and they cuff him. . . all on the bench in the center. .. with visitors coming in to look at pamphlets and to use the bathroom. There was one family came in to use the facilities and this little girl wearing one of those really nice Madeleine style coats, with white tights and patent leather shoes was watching with particular interest. Either because she likes cops, or was just really inquisitive or couldn't fathom the thinking that went into that bad dye job. It was not a proud day.
They took him away. All the while I was sure the kid who sold him the drugs was watching. Don't know why, I just knew he was.
Sure enough, at the end of the day, I was walking up to the train station and there's the guy at the corner of the park. He had to have watched the whole thing from a safe distance. I wasn't sure what to do. Confront the guy and tell him to never sell drugs in our bathroom again ? Call the Municipal police on my cell phone and tell them I saw the other half of that drug transaction ? Come get him ? I was conflicted. I made breif eye contact with him and kept going.
I had a train to catch and this isn't a network tv show. I'm not Angela Landsbury and this ain't a quaint fishing village.

Another Day

Well. let's see. . over the last 72 hours I have done 3 loads of laundry and read one magazine. I am unable to train my attention on anything for vey long. I shoveled the sidewalk and the drive way yesterday, I was late for work, I called to say I would be late and they said to stay home because the streets had not been plowed where yesterday' s job was. I put the jammies back on and stayed in bed.
The snow was about 7 inches deep yesterday. The weather reports didn't really talk about the snow in my area. I can only imagine that there was less snow in the neighboring areas. The street was slow to get plowed here creating a snowier atmosphere than there may have been a half mile away. Still , with all that unexpected time on my hands , I would think I would have taken advantage of it and got some stuff of a housekeepng nature done. Nope. Maybe I would have returned some phone calls ? Unh-uh. I didn't even shower. Thus planting the fear that I would never again bathe.
The benefit is that I feel so bad about getting nothing done , that I have tried to atone for my sins by blogging. It doesn't make my bed and it may bore anyone who happens upon this blog, but it some how makes me feel better. I am showered and have some of my make-up on. I am going to work at two different jobs today and get on with things.
I hope.

Unambitious

I am unambitious and I doubt my relevance to the world. I have no inspiration. I am getting fat and I feel ugly. My hair looks like a bad mullet. I spend a lot of money on my hair-NOT to have it look this crappy. I have had the day off and was unable to do more than read magazines. I have not read any real books. I have not watched any videos or DVDS, of which I have many -still unwatched. I have been unable/unwilling to make any phone calls. Though I go to work almost every day , I feel like I have withdrawn from the world.
I am a slug.
That is all.