Hi!
It has been all too long but I want to catch up a little!
I am not allowed to properly announce that I have been asked to open for a band in a venue wherein we expect an audience of 3,000-5,000 people. I am not even sure what I will perform but I know they expect me to play for 45 minutes.
I have experienced this dynamic before and the lessons were pretty brutal despite my reputation for being able to predict the future. The hard reality is that, in this situation, folks didn't purchase tickets to see me. In most cases, they didn't even know I was going to be there. When it comes down to it, 99.9% of them have no idea who I am.
Beyond this, there is the matter of being just an animated speck on a cluttered stage that is yards and yards away from the bulk of the congregation. "Whoever this person is, he is in the way of what we paid to see." is what I imagine the distilled sum of their thoughts to be.
There I will be once again, cha cha cha!
Sigh. I had better be funny.
Here is today's confession. I am a Gen X person who was wildly influenced by the late 1970s and early 80s Punk scene and the anti-everything-mostly-convention movement it stood for. I admit that my father's career in law enforcement added fuel to that fire in much the same ways that caused the pastor's daughter to earn her hedonistically indulgent reputation and her status as an ism or adage. When you think about it, it isn't all that difficult to see how that has manifested in my adult years. After all, I don't have a real job and I have somehow managed to dine with kings.
In 2013 I headlined a new show in Washington and I toyed with different titles to have them hang on the marquee. One of my openly expressed ideas earned immediate scorn and scolding from an older magician who typed to me, "Never, ever use the word 'thing' in the title of a show!"
My show, "Professor Phelyx and the World's Most Dangerous THING!" was Sold Out before I landed at the airport and folks were standing along the walls and in the aisles when I took the stage. We dropped the curtain on two standing ovations. I never reported any of that to my naysayer. That it happened was all the satisfaction I needed.
Magicians joke about rookies and newbies failing to understand how to make sure that a performance "reads" well from the back of the house (meaning everyone can see and understand what is happening). In a punk rock act of defiance, I have committed to performing a demonstration with a single half-dollar coin for our few thousand guests.
The gig is about a month away.
I'll let you know how it goes.
See you in the funny papers!
Phelyx