Live to live

I recently read a message that essentially said "Don't live waiting to die. Live life."

I sat back and reflected on this for a moment, and realised everyone is guilty of this. Everyone is guilty of waiting for something to happen. But it never does.

I've done it. Friends have done it. We all have.

I won't say much more about it. Just giving you time to reflect on that.

Newtown RSL gig

Craig emailed me just yesterday mentioning a gig he booked us in at the Newtown RSL. I was happy because it meant I got to try out my new cajon I bought.

When I got there it was empty. Then 5 minutes later Dennis rocked up and introduced himself. Dennis runs the show down there. It wasn't a regular gig, it was an open mic night. All the same to me. I still get up on stage and play music. So I'm happy.

Dennis asked me "What's in the bag?". "A cajon" I replied. He was confused. So I explained it to him, stopped talking and then said "Here, it's better if I just show you"

So I pulled it out of the carry case it came with. And he knew what it was then. Asked me to set it up on stage. We put a mic near it and I did a sound check. Then he said "stay there" as I got up to take a seat in the audience. All of a sudden I was playing some beats to his music.

I guess I can live up to the name my mates give me "band whore", especially as Craig and my wife walk in to see me up on stage playing music with yet another bunch of blokes.

Newtown RSL is one of the best venues we've played at and the guys who organise the event each week invited us back.

The Sando gig

Made it to the Sando for my first paid gig with Craig lat night, early it turned out. But it was okay because I ended up meeting some other good bands. One of which was Satellite. They were fantastic. I liked them a lot. Kelly, the singer apologies to me before getting up on stage saying they were going to be a bit louder than us. They were, but they were also awesome. They rocked.

Little do they know I listen to metal but seldom play it. I like hearing it but find it boring to play.

Met another guy, Andy who was on after Craig and me. At first I thought I may have booked us into a rock gig, which is weird because we'd get up there and play some acoustic stuff when people are expecting something a little harder. But Andy made it much better by arriving in the nick of time, because he double booked himself at the Gaelic Club last night too. So he raced over and played his set. Good acoustic sound, I can't wait to here more of him.

Craig and I played well. Audience input says I need to play more percussion. Not sure whether that means I suck at it or I need to do more in the beats department. Craig and I recorded ourselves and we both felt I should have played less than what I did, so I've held back a lot.

And by the time we left, even though the Chocolate Dog may have been shut.... I was really hankering for some good Mexican food, the cafe up the road had a massive serving of nachos of which I ate every corn chip, bean, the guacamole and meat.

The waitress had a breakdown, not sure why. But the kitchen staff came out and handed us the waiters book and said "write down your order please, the waitress is having problems"

The waitress came back, crying, but still serving. The guy next to us spoke to her, but before he did, he looked at me and asked, rhetorically, "What did you say to her?"

I love the blame. First I had to take down my own order, then I get blamed for a waitress crying. Nice. I'm surprised at myself for not blowing up about it. But I guess I'm in a different place now.

I enjoyed everything about last night, the bands, the music, the people, the cafe, nachos.

It was truly Bizzaro World, the friends that said they'd turn up didn't. The ones that said they can't make it, did. I had to take my own order. I didn't go off at a stranger for blaming me for something I had no involvement in. Weirdness all around. I hate being blamed for things I didn't do.

Writing

I appreciate all forms of creativity. It colud be singing, art, music, or just playing. It's why I love LEGO so much. Your imagination is the limit.

If you know me well, you'd know a person I hold in high regard is Sir Ken Robinson. The guy who thinks schools kill creativity. And I agree with him to the extent that I wish I came up with his ideas first.

Today I thought I'd talk about other areas of creativity that people wouldn't generally associate as being creative. The obvious one being writing.

Since sparking my interest in reading books again, I have also had a kindling to write. Hence this blog, while it started out as a form of easy to access journalism for my own benefit. I started to see the benefit of reading other peoples blogs and decided I wanted to share my thoughts rather than just keep them to myself.

As such, I have grown to appreciate writing as a creative outlet to myself, being a creative person. To promote further writing. I stumbled upon this blog with a brilliant idea. Write something, anything, in 60 seconds.

http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com

I have been writing my one minute brain farts on there for maybe just on a month, and have recently won an award for an idea I came up with under the guidelines of the topic of the day.

Here's what it looks like.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Today's Writing Prompt: Prescription

The pharmaceutical companies come up with such creative names for new medications. Dream up a new medication--its purpose (as realistic or outlandish as you want it to be) and its name.

One-Minute Writing of the Day:
Writer: Pipsqeek

Re-Lax.

The chill pill and constipation fixer-upperer.

Congratulations, pipsqeek! You may have a million-dollar idea there.... Feel free to put a One-Minute Writer WINNER! button on your blog!

Posted by C. Beth at 5:00 AM

I had in fact forgotten about the entry I submitted. Having been so busy setting up the music school, I have put a lot of things aside recently in order to get this business up and running so I can pay the rent for the place I've leased out.

It's funny, being an IT guy... or should I say, former IT guy.... People assumed I know it all about technology, but the whole concept of online marketing and networking with people is vague to me. Though I am learning. Yesterday I set up a Facebook page for Revolution Guitars, and instead... or more specifically, I got a personal page too.

Now I'm going to have ex-school mates contacting me and asking to meet up, even though we either never will, or it'll happen once. Or better still, existing mates who've all been talking about Facebook will now be able to include me in their conversation and jokes. To which I'll probably still not understand because I don't plan on being social on that particular time waster of a social network.

Now that I've gone waaaay off topic, I forget what I wanted to really talk about.... ah yes, writing. I think everyone should write. Even if you're not a writer. I think a diary is a healthy thing to have. If you're too manly to have a diary, you can have a journal. :)

Even if you're not creative. I've looked back at things I've written on a piece of paper in school that I found when moving house and thinking "Wow, how naive." But at some point you look at the note and wish you were back there.

I'll burst that bubble easy. All I have to do is think about the rest of my school life and it's easy for me to balk at the idea of wishing I was back there.

This entire journal entry is creativity itself. I'm putting a recollection of ideas, experiences and thoughts into a palletable order. I'm not a professional, but I try and write how I speak, rather than put on words that I never use in real life.

If you enjoy writing and can spare a minute, then maybe you should head over to http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com and starting replying to topics that interest you.