LJ Idol Week #18 - Topic "Sagayán"

[prog_schlock]

This is my entry for Week #18 of therealljidol. lordrexfear kindly defined "Sagayán" for us as "pre-war ritual," in case you weren't sure of its meaning.

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How I Become A GodI'm not a rock star, but I play a rock star. Whenever my small potatoes local bar band takes the stage, for 75 minutes I play the front man of the biggest rock and roll band in the world

Comments

[favoritebean]

Bravo! If I ever switch styles of music, I'll totally try this ritual out. For classical and jazz, I'm pretty boring in my pre-stage rituals. For pop/funk/musical theater, and such, I do a fair amount of listening and vocalizing. However, I've never fronted a band before. It sounds really cool though.

By the way, have you seen this? It cracks me up every time.

Wonderful use of the prompt. When I submitted it, I had been inspired by a piece of music with the same title, which went through many pre-war rituals. So I'm very glad to see it get used in a musical sense once more. I just have a question about the font size. Some paragraphs are in larger print than others. It's a very interesting visual. Was that intentional?

I owe you a play list, I think. Hopefully, I'll send that soon.

Again, bravo!

[prog_schlock]

I'll try and write a longer response a little later (heading to a meeting) but all of my entries have varied font sizes. I use a regular sized font for the bulk of the entry and the small tag for parenthetical comments. :)

Thank you so much for reading and I love those death metal vocal warm-ups!

[halfshellvenus]

Ahahahahaha! God, that video! I especially like the high-speed grunt-scale at the end.

You know, that kind of singing just makes my voice raw, so I'm not sure how you'd sustain that for a whole concert?

[prog_schlock]

I just want to add I'd love to hear a playlist from you.

[bleodswean]

Your life and it's translation through Idol has been an amazing thing to read about! This entry is both daunting and inspirational! Perfect use of the prompt and I really enjoyed reading about your process - both the bits you can control....and those other insidious parts you can't control. And yes, pretend until you make it real!

No videos of a performance by this rock god???

So much love for Paul and the Dodger together!

[prog_schlock]

Oh God, Tender, I'm going to die right here. I love that song so much and this is a great version of it. What is up with Jimmy Fallon being such a competent musician? It drives me crazy that he's so good at comedy and music. I love him and am eaten up with jealous at the same time!

I mention this in a comment a little further down on this entry (in response to HalfShellVenus) but I'm still being cautious about revealing too much about who I am in real life and who I was in early seasons of Idol. Nothing controversial, I just want to see how far I can go without feeling like I'm riding on my old coattails. And without feeling like I need to write the way I used to write. I was uptight.

Transformation is the most fun thing about performing.

Thank you for reading and commenting!

[rayaso]

This was wonderful. I loved the idea of a rock demi-god. Your warm-up ritual must be fun to watch -- the transformation from everyday you to rock god you was great! I would also have liked a video of you performing.

[prog_schlock]

Sharing a video at this time would be revealing a little more of my actual identity than I want (I expanded on this replying to HalfShellVenus in a comment below) but once I'm out, I'll share one of our less embarrassing videos. :D

I'm not sure how fun my warm-up ritual would be to anyone other than me, but I think a 60 second edited video clip of me in the different stages would probably be a hilarious vignette of a man in mental crisis!

Thank you so much for reading and commenting.

[kajel]

I sat here quietly laughing every few sentences. I enjoyed this and the idea of rock demi gods.

[prog_schlock]

I might even be a Hemisemidemigod. :D

Thank you so much for reading and commenting!

[halfshellvenus]

I think you should definitely have included video of one of your performances-- if only to justify wearing plaid pants in public! I don't care if it's a thing, PLAID PANTS!

Actually, "dank memes" are a thing at our house too, because we have a teenaged son, and god, you'd think those were actual topics of conversation or something. :O

I can fully understand why you would need to get into an alternate headspace to pull this off, and having an external "costume" would definitely help. I have terrible stage fright when it comes to paying the violin (thanks, Mom!), and had to resort to beta-blockers to quell the panic back when I was auditioning for orchestras and such. Getting out of your own head (your own stupid internal feedback loop of FAIL!) is utterly necessary.

Rock on, dude!

[prog_schlock]

Hahaha. The pants look plaid, but its just the lighting. I'd LOVE to have a checkerboard suit though - I saw Ray Davies of The Kinks wear one in the 80's and its one of my favorite stage looks! Maybe once I've gotten down to my target weight, I'll reward myself with a new suit.

I didn't share a video because I'm (badly) trying to maintain a degree of anonymity. Partially, its to draw a little bit of line between real life and online life and partially its because I've competed in LJI under another handle in the past and want to see how far I can ride this time with a different name and a different writing approach. I don't think more than one or two active people would remember me even if I did share a video, but I don't want to risk it. :D

Of course, its also possible everyone already knows who I used to be. :P

I guess I have to put on a face to compete in LJI too.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting.

[halfshellvenus]

Of course, its also possible everyone already knows who I used to be. :P
Except for the claims of living in Hawaii (as opposed to NC, I think it was), I was convinced I recognized you from the first post! But I have about an equal chance of being completely clueless, too. ;)