Where in the world am I today?: Vacationing in Peru
A few weeks back now I had a gig performing for the Small Ritual Coffee Society, a church based group who were opening a coffee shop in Whiterock. They had hoped to open in time for the annual Tour de Whiterock bicycle race because prior to the start of the race there’s a block party/sidewalk sale and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to launch the opening of the shop. Unfortunately they didn’t quite make the deadline, but having me come out to perform was still excellent public relations to drum up awareness of the soon-to-be-open Coffee Shop.
The person who contacted me to do the gig is someone I’ve worked with in the past and when the budget didn’t quite meet with my standard rates I made an exception and agreed to the performance under the condition that my older son Koji could perform as well.
Koji’s been demonstrating some interest in doing a bit of performing, so I’ve tried to find some opportunities for him to log some stage time and have been encouraging him to work on his skills. The picture comes from an appearance he made during the annual school talent show and I was proud as punch with the performance he put in.
Practice makes perfect as they say, so I figured any opportunity I could come up with to give Koji some stage time would help him develop confidence in front of an audience and encourage him to continue working on expanding his material…
So the big day comes and we drive out to Whiterock and the performance scenario is less than ideal, but I figure this too is a good part of Koji’s education, because sometimes flexibility in these situations is your greatest asset. We do the first show while the main stage is virtually blasting us out – challenging, but we survive. Nachos for lunch to celebrate! Show #2 goes much more smoothly and we don’t have to compete with sounds to actually do the show which is a huge improvement. The client is happy, we’re happy, we get paid all is good!
On the way home Koji turns to me and says –
Dad… I don’t want to say your a slacker or anything, but people pay you a lot of money for not a lot of work… I mean isn’t it like your actually playing???
I turn to him alarmed that he’s learned the truth, hold my finger up to my lips and…
“Shhhhhhhhh… DON’T TELL ANYBODY…”
him. Cheeky little monkey got the joke right away, but also realized that there’s some truth to it too. Find something you love doing and you never work a day in your life!
