life moved north a bit
hello again!
i started my morning job as an accompanist at West High in bakersfield, which felt a bit like starring in an autobiographical sitcom pilot. when i arrived for my "interview," the asst. principals' secretary came out and mumbled, "Actually, she's kind of busy right now so she said to just go ahead to the room and come back later."
Next I spent a while with two clerical workers trying to figure out if the choir room was "S1" or "S2" until a random basketball coach walked by and offered the answer (who knew the coaches would have a better sense of the music building??). As I entered S1...or was it S2...I guess I'll have to find out again tomorrow...a student who was following me noticed that I was clearly not the right age to be attending class and commented "Yessssssssss, we have a sub!" *evil grin* I love getting students' hopes up and dashing them later. But that's another story :-)
Next I got to watch Warren (Mr. Dobson as I now get to call him hahaha) discipline students by threatening to sing loudly in falsetto if they refused to stand up and spit out their gum. Nice. Also, I learned from the beginning girls and guys that when you first learn how to sing, the best way to warm-up is to file your nails, pick lint out of your pockets, and do the NYC subway stare (first, pull all emotion out of your face. now imagine that you are running late for everything in life but you actually don't care. doing great. last, play showtunes on your iPod but hide your playlist because, even though everyone and their dog in NYC listens to showtunes, nobody really wants to KNOW that other people listen to them).
Of course, all of the classic high school sitcom characters were in class today: the skinny kid, the fat kid, the chic kid, the gang of goths, the girl who wouldn't shut up, the girl who made all her own funky clothes at home...
...I half expected Edward James Olmos to walk in the room with a TI-83 and start to encourage the drawing of parabolas. Or Whoopie Goldberg to come in and lead the room in "O Happy Day." Warren tells me that they think a West High student or students were responsible for a recent shooting in the Valley Plaza Mall. Ahhh high school! What a blast.
-----
In other news, I'm supposed to be playing (possibly with Jenny!!) a show called "Pageant" at Stars Dinner Theater next month I think...it's a 5-man show where the audience gets to judge the best--you guessed it--drag queen. Wow, I love Bakersfield! What's next, cool 24-hour eats and coffee/wine bars? Every little step makes it better.
i started my morning job as an accompanist at West High in bakersfield, which felt a bit like starring in an autobiographical sitcom pilot. when i arrived for my "interview," the asst. principals' secretary came out and mumbled, "Actually, she's kind of busy right now so she said to just go ahead to the room and come back later."
Next I spent a while with two clerical workers trying to figure out if the choir room was "S1" or "S2" until a random basketball coach walked by and offered the answer (who knew the coaches would have a better sense of the music building??). As I entered S1...or was it S2...I guess I'll have to find out again tomorrow...a student who was following me noticed that I was clearly not the right age to be attending class and commented "Yessssssssss, we have a sub!" *evil grin* I love getting students' hopes up and dashing them later. But that's another story :-)
Next I got to watch Warren (Mr. Dobson as I now get to call him hahaha) discipline students by threatening to sing loudly in falsetto if they refused to stand up and spit out their gum. Nice. Also, I learned from the beginning girls and guys that when you first learn how to sing, the best way to warm-up is to file your nails, pick lint out of your pockets, and do the NYC subway stare (first, pull all emotion out of your face. now imagine that you are running late for everything in life but you actually don't care. doing great. last, play showtunes on your iPod but hide your playlist because, even though everyone and their dog in NYC listens to showtunes, nobody really wants to KNOW that other people listen to them).
Of course, all of the classic high school sitcom characters were in class today: the skinny kid, the fat kid, the chic kid, the gang of goths, the girl who wouldn't shut up, the girl who made all her own funky clothes at home...
...I half expected Edward James Olmos to walk in the room with a TI-83 and start to encourage the drawing of parabolas. Or Whoopie Goldberg to come in and lead the room in "O Happy Day." Warren tells me that they think a West High student or students were responsible for a recent shooting in the Valley Plaza Mall. Ahhh high school! What a blast.
-----
In other news, I'm supposed to be playing (possibly with Jenny!!) a show called "Pageant" at Stars Dinner Theater next month I think...it's a 5-man show where the audience gets to judge the best--you guessed it--drag queen. Wow, I love Bakersfield! What's next, cool 24-hour eats and coffee/wine bars? Every little step makes it better.