Aaaarrrrrrgggghhhh

New desk. Adjustable legs for optimal height. Fancy schmancy desk chair for optimal positioning. So why the fuck does my wrist and arm hurt all day and all night long? This is so depressing - it makes it so hard to have a desk job and makes working really painful.

American I-DULL

Don't you people get sick of "American Idol"? How stupid do the producers have to be to assign the wrong phone numbers to the wrong contestants? I watched one season of this show, season 1, then said "I've had enough". Each week, they each sing a song, they slap together some stupid montage, have Paula/Randy/Simon fight, and oh wait! Oh goody! AMERICA gets to pick who wins a crappy recording contract that means you basically sign your life away and have to sell over a million records before you'll even see one cent of earnings.

I was mildly annoyed - at my singing group's rehearsal (oh the irony) we HAD to delay warm-ups so people could videotape this week's show. They almost left the volume on during warm-ups. Are we serious? A group of singers want to watch these Disney-esque fabricated robots perform with waaaaay too many "swooping crane camera shots"... enough to make me nauseated from the motion.

Oh how I despise that show. But - at a rehearsal where the majority of people like it, I just sit in silence about it, which is a rareity for me. Even better - Frenchie Davis (yes, the infamous "I kinda did porn but not really") lives in my building, and she still turns heads! She was outside on a photo shoot with someone and had another person with a video camera filming her. My building has glass entry doors, and they stopped right on the other side of them. Here I am with dog in tow and a giant, awkward package that I had to pick up, and they STOP in front of the doors. I say excuse me, practically nailed Frenchie in her not-so-small ass with my box, and headed to the elevator. They followed me in and continued to film her documentary-style, so I made sure to say my dog's name very loudly and "good girl" so whatever footage that they had would go in the garbage. Luckily I was behind the cameraman. I guess Frenchie deserves a 'good for you' because she's on Broadway... oh wow. I had to check Justin Guarini's web site... he could've been pretty famous from Idol, and look - he hasn't updated his OFFICIAL web site in over 7 months.

Wow, I never realized how much I hate that show. Maybe I just love to hate it.

Living Up To The Length

After so many lengthy entries I'm worried I'll dissapoint myself with a short entry. So - I'm breaking the cycle and making this short. I visited my sister and her family this weekend with my husband, and my niece looks like a Cabbage Patch Kid. HUGE cheeks that make her facial features look smushed. So cute.

15 Year Friends

I have this friend Dave who I've known for 15 years. We went to middle school together, then the same boarding school, then stayed in touch somewhat during college. The last 6 years we've both lived in NYC and I can honestly say (which I told him) that he would've been a bridesmaid at my wedding if he didn't look terrible in purple (and a strapless dress).

It's so great when you hear someone has finally decided to 'decompress' (aka "leaving a 80 hour/week job at Goldman Sachs after 7 years") to discover what he's been put on this earth for. Dave, my husband and I all went to dinner last night and it was such a simple reminder to be sure to do what you REALLY want to do for a job... he said "I want to leave the world in a better place than when I got here".

So am I doing that by promoting music at the high school level (save the arts!) - definitely - but I still feel like there's more for me to be doing. Not just writing checks to charities, not just giving leftover food to homeless people... I think this is why ever since I left my life-sucking corporate job at a major record label I've been so torn with what the next step should be.

Maybe writing makes the world a better place because I can impart what knowledge I have to others. Too bad (or perhaps good?) that you will rarely, if ever, see anything about politics, current events or religion on here. Those are the futile discussions that go in circles for me... I'll leave it up to the people who are fueled with a passion to discuss those, not a "eew get me out of this conversation" mentality.

If only I wasn't such a huge ass procrastinator with so many things I do (insert fear of failure, rejection and no concept of how long things really do take... which is not that long) and had more of an explorer-type personality (insert insane love for dog and apartment life).

Why Do I Care?

Our a cappella group is trying to come up with a name for our CD. We formed a CD committee - three people in charge of the entire 'production' side of the CD. Thankfully I'm not on it since I'm busy mixing, but why do I give such a crap about the CD title? Maybe because the two options we were given to vote on were:

1) Flair - as in the choice red items we wore at one show. One show. And hello - "flair" as in the "flair" that Jennifer Aniston and her co-workers have to wear at their restaurant... a minimum of 15 pieces. Interesting - there are 15 of us in the group (or there were when we recorded).

2) Better Than Karaoke - ok that's just insulting. It's like saying "take a form of music that's really shitty, and say we're better than it". It's like "feel bad for us, buy our CD because hey - we're better than karaoke".

I went overboard sending suggestions, phrases that might spark good titles, and not to say my ideas are any better (because at the end of the day we all have our own opinions) but could someone please help me not give a rat's ass about this? If the name sucks, so be it - at least I'm responsible for the music part only.

On a non-music sucking topic, I went to see Duwende with my friend Sara last night. They were amazing. I sat there with a shit-eating grin on my face thinking "Now THIS is the level of a cappella I'd love to do" but then again, guys aren't as much fun to gossip with as girls. Then again, most of the gossip I do is whining and complaining about a very small number of people in my group (emphasis on small).

Tomorrow - our first gig since December. This is an easy one - 3 songs at a brunch. Phew - no solos for me to screw up!

Why cheap blogging sucks

I need a blog where I can have private posts instead of making everything public. The chances of certain people in this world of 6 billion plus reading my blog is not as 'slim to none' as you'd think. I've told a handful of common friends about my blog but haven't told others, knowing that I might want to bitch about them soon on this cyber-dumping space of nonsense.

I'm hitting that point right now with absolute amazement at how much people can annoy me. Staying as vague as possible for a slight fear of my oh-so-secretive blog getting out, let's just say that if you are an adult and decide to do an extracurricular activity (get your mind out of the gutter this is not a drug or sex reference), why would you be involved in it if you don't actually do the activity? Like why would you join a chorus, go to rehearsal, and not sing? I just don't get it. Especially when I'm the one teaching the music, I hate to sound like a school teacher and say "Now Susie - why didn't you do your homework"?

Maybe this cold is just getting to me. On a lighter musical note, check out MatisYahu who is this amazing Hasidic rapper who sings reggae like the best of the Jamaicans... it's incredible. Worth a watch, and no - nothing perverted or that the boss can't see.

Happy Birthday (yesterday - whoo hoo that I called her on time AND got a card in the mail) to one of my favorite lawyer friends, Grace!

Is 28 The New 65?

My husband is getting me hooked on NPR. Yes, National Public Radio. I have temporarily put my taste in music (Kanye West, Sade, any Chopin, etc) on hold to listen to two excellent shows in the afternoon:

The Leonard Lopate Show
Radiolab

Right now on Radiolab they're talking about the concept of time. The concept of the show is essentially discussing a topic and using various sound bytes to illustrate a point. Apparently some artist decided to stretch Beethoven's 9th Symphony into a 24 hour performance (imagine how slow that is?!?!) to show how to us, the piece feels painfully slow, you're waiting for the musical climax and it never happens. But - what about to a hummingbird? How fast/slow would it seem to them, because they beat their wings SO fast yet in 'hummingbird' perception of time, it's normal speed.

What an awesome mindfuck.

Celebrity Singer?

My Dad is throwing a 50th surprise party for his wife this spring, and she's not a fan of surprises... at least that's what I gather. Now the whole world will know how old she is, and for the longest time she seemed to keep it a pretty good secret. So - my a cappella group has decided to perform for all these upcoming gigs: bridal shower, birthday party, anniversary party, and we could use the money for our CD. So I asked my Dad if he wanted us to sing for her party.

Shocking reply: "Actually, I hopefully have a celebrity musician coming, I'm not 100% sure yet but it looks like it's happening." Me - the musician in the family, is dying to know who - and my OWN father won't tell me. He said "oh no I want it to be a surprise for everyone."

He's shelling out WAAAAY more than what my group would charge, I'm sure ;)