Why I really got into show business…

I started out as a musician. 

6 years old with a 1/2 sized violin tucked under my chin. I was my teachers youngest student. She taught old school classical style. It was almost a Karate Kid kind of teaching … Hold this ball between the neck of the violin and you hand to make sure your wrist has the right curve. Place a glass of water on the back of your bow hand to make sure it stays level and smooth while you draw the bow across the strings. 
Trust me…That is right up there with catching a fly with chopsticks. 
I played all through elementary school and middle school, joining the orchestra as soon as I was allowed. While the other kids were learning “Mary had a little lamb” I was working on Schubert. 

Then we moved to a school district where there was no Orchestra…just band. I needed to learn a new instrument if I intended to keep myself musical, so I picked up the Tuba. From middle school to high school, that was what I played. I got good at that too. I even attended Interlochen Arts Academy during the summer to play with the best of the best. At school the band was very very small. At times we did not have enough students to cover all of the parts so sometimes I would fill in on drums or baritone. I loved it and was sure that I was bound to become a professional musician. It was my first love. 
My Sophomore year we had a change of band teachers. This was not a good thing. She was fresh out of college herself and lacked the experience and talent to run a small band like ours. She refused to help transpose pieces into the instrumentation we had and only allowed us to work on solo pieces. This was not what any of us had signed up for. On top of that she was foul tempered and lecherous. More than once I heard her drooling over some of the students out loud. It was crass, disgusting and just plain wrong. She was the only teacher I ever had a real confrontation with. Bad enough that I sent MYSELF to the office for my own safety. She had said in front of the class that I was talentless and had no reason ever touching a musical instrument again. This was because I had asked her if we could please work on something as a group and refused to work on solos anymore, I had accused her of not knowing HOW to transpose music. She threw a pile of sheet music at me and shouted the above.
The next year, there was no band class. It had been offered, but no one would take it. Not from her. Not ever.
My creative outlet was gone. 
People who say a single teacher cannot make a difference have no idea. One bad, very bad, extremely bad teacher changed the course of my life. 
I found out about an audition for a musical at the local community theater. Although at this point I had no faith in my musical abilities I decided to try out. It would give me something to do, even with a tiny bit part. 
I got one. It was not a huge part but at least I had lines to say and even got to sing a little. I was out on stage without my instrument to hide behind and I did ok. 
The next musical they did I got a much bigger part and was told that I had a really good singing voice. I was surprised by this but went with it. At 16 I was cast as a 35 year old Scotsman…I even had the dialect down. 
That is when I decided to be an actor. I loved being different people, loved the costuming, loved that I was part of a bigger story. Still…It was missing something. I couldn’t put my finger on it …
I went to college as a theatre major, concentrating in performance and dialect. I was cast in plays and musicals my Freshman year, even though I was up against students with much more experience and time in the program. 
Along that time I happened to see a television broadcast of David Bowie’s Glass Spider tour. It was good, I enjoyed it…Then it came to this part-

Watch it. Watch the whole thing.
There is a moment at the 2 min 50 second mark…A girl dressed exactly the same as Bowie…Saying each individual word as though she was singing the song herself. She is not just lip syncing…In those moments, deep inside her, she IS Bowie. He brought her along with him to the point that she is feeling the song, she is feeling what he is doing, she is not listening to the song she is transported by it. Transformed by it. 
I wanted THAT. That kind of power. To get that sort of energy from an audience. To give so much of yourself that the audience has no choice but to be one with you. 
In general I am a very closed off person. My emotions vary rarely come out and I don’t let many people in. To me this seemed such a dangerous concept, one that absolutely terrified me. 
I wanted it. More. Than. Anything.

Acting nudged at it. Since you are always someone else you can never really give everything that you are. Not entirely. 
I started to see my path when I joined the Rosier Players Vaudeville show. 4 nights a week we did three act plays. I would play in the pit and then run up to act on stage then back to the pit again. 

It was the 5th night where things became more clear. The 5th night (The Saturday night show) was variety night. We would do skits interspersed with musical numbers and other acts. The 5th night, I played no character. I was simply me on stage.

I had one solo song. The band would play and I would have the whole stage to myself and I sang.  It was one of the most frightening things I ever had to do. It was the song “Somebody Loves Me”. It is about a person looking everywhere to find just the right person…He knows that they are out there but does not know where. Worried that his one true love might pass him on the street without him noticing. 
I sang it and let myself be vulnerable. I let the feelings of that song come over me as I crouched at the front of the stage. I reached out and touched hands, I locked eyes with my audience plainly asking if they were the one I was looking for…
I frequently got mobbed after the Saturday night show. 
And I had a taste of what it is like to really connect with an audience. 
It was incredible. It was not acting, it was giving myself to the wonderful people who I hoped would want to come along…and they did.
This started me onto the path I am on today. Sure…It is a comedy show now but I am still trying to bring everyone along with me. The reason people cringe is because they can put themselves in my place. They can feel the glass under their feet or on the side of their face.  They imagine a trap snapping on their own tongue. They can feel how much I adore my partner and how much I really do trust her (Despite my protestations to the contrary). For the most part, they seem to enjoy the trip.
And every now and then if I have time before the show starts, I will tell a story. Quietly, sitting on the front of the stage I talk. I connect. I tell them of things that happened to me in my life…I look into their eyes and see that they are there. They are indeed with me.
It is amazing. 

 

Speak it and it shall be.

A few years back, I said to Sylver “You know…I’d like to move into an actual house some day.”
We did, even though at the time I said it, it seemed impossible.
I had thought it many times but had dismissed it as something that would never happen. I said it out loud and it happened.
Some time after that, Sylver said “You know…I’d like to go to Mexico.” 
Again, impossible at the time…We had just moved into a house. A bit after that we found ourselves in Playa Del Carmen Mexico.
“I’d like to start an aerial arts school”
Silly… We had no location or a way to get one. 
Two years later we are housed at the largest Gymnastics Complex in West Michigan with classes 4 nights a week.
A month or so after we started that “I’d like to do a week long run at a large county fair.”
We wound up in Iowa for a week at the National Cattle Congress.
Right after that “You know…We should find a way to get onto national TV…”
We wound up on a reality show that will be airing in May of this year.

We have said a few things out loud since then, and several of them are on their way to fruition.
All of these things seemed impossible and we had no clue on how to make them happen when we said them. Yet things fell together at just the right moments. 
Why is this? Magic? The Power of Positive thinking? Some amazing deity reaching down from the heavens to align things perfectly to make our dreams come true?
Hardly.
You ever have one of those days when every time you looked at the clock it was 1:11, 2:22 and then 3:33?
An obscure song comes to mind and then you hear it three times in the same day?
Thought of someone and then very soon afterwards get a message of some sort from them?
Your mind is very selective as to what it hilights. 
There is a 1:11, 2:22 and 3:33 occurring twice every day. Once this sequence is hilighted we tend to forget the times we looked at the clock at 1:24, 2:36 and 4:35.
When we hear an obscure song that we just thought of, we neglect to remember the 30 other obscure songs we thought of but did not hear as well as the 30 other songs we did hear but had not thought of.
We forget the other people we thought of but did not get a message from.

When we say something out loud, our subconscious starts to run programs to seek out things relevant to that statement. I mention going to Bali and all of a sudden *BAM* I see a travel advert for Bali. I had most likely seen that advert for Bali many times but now my programs are running- It jumps out. Pathways to make it happen start to appear and it becomes clear how to make it happen.
I am not saying it does not take work. It does. We worked our bums off to make the aerial school happen. It took sacrifice and hard work to get onto the TV show. What the process does is finds a way to make the impossible more attainable. It shines a light onto the path that must be taken to achieve the goal.

This is different from my previous blog about seeing what you focus on as that only deals with the present. It helps you look at your life and say “You know…This ain’t so bad.”  This is more aggressive, it helps to shape your future. It helps to pull you towards your goals. A race driver once said “You will always drive towards where you are looking.” You look towards the inside of the curve where you want to go. If you look at the wall, you are going to hit it.
Say what you want, out loud. Say it in front of people that you want to get there with. Apply the filter that will help you see the important stuff: The things you are going to need. When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Look at what you want and then find the tools. After that, everything seems to fall into place.

Just say it out loud.