Time

So I guess this is what this blog is for so here goes. If you give me context and character I can give you a song in 48 hours. That is with working 12 plus hours of those days at the marvelous dayjobs. Catch me on a day off, I can have it done by the end of the day. I am confident in this now, through the unintended and exhilarating hazing brought on by recent events.

I don't have the luxury of hours at home with nothing in particular to do. I can't focus on video games for extended periods of time unless I'm really exhausted. I don't plow through entire seasons of television shows. I don't do any number of imaginable things that people do when their time is "free." Generally people don't like to admit to having free time. The buzz words or "too busy" get thrown around so easily. I particularly enjoy hearing them from those who are still in college. I, personally, never thought I would be as busy as I was in college. Silly me. People want to be free but they want to be busy, they'd do X Y and Z but they don't have the time.

So I wonder who would look at me and go "I just don't have the time to do what you do" meaning commit yourself to X activity or pursuit. My natural response is "How much time do you presume that I have?" I've averaged 4 hours of sleep in as many weeks. One day I made the mistake of only getting one hour, working for 15 and using the available nap time between to write. The next day I slept until 2:45 pm. My body took back its own time. I have to respect that.

Perhaps it's excuses. Perhaps it's rationalization. Do I demand that everyone sacrifice their health and sanity for whatever pursuit might be worthy? Of course not. It's all personal preference and how you work. However do I have to wonder just how much you care if it's more important to you to get 7 hours of sleep over 5, to scratch, say, an artistic itch?

Many people in the theatre business try to remain cordial with those outside the fold. We generally are not elitist. If you think that we separate ourselves it is because we are so often looked at as if under glass. Exotic specimens. But I assure you if you've ever said "One day I'll..." or "I always wanted to..." to many artists, the vicious, uncolored response reverberating in their head is "No you don't and no you wouldn't because otherwise you would do it, be doing it, have done it." People are generally unaware of how diminutive their actions toward artists are and I believe that results in much of the pretention that springs up.

All of this springs from no tangible source at the moment. I can't really put to fine a point on what my beef is. But there is a beef and I suppose the venting is productive at this point.

I have a couple of cute Christmas songs to tackle in the next couple days but by the end of the week I will be looking harder at Sweet Jane.

Because I will make the time.

Some Top 5s

Jason needs to relax his brain. So, strange as it may seem, I'm making top five lists.

Top 5 Andrew Lloyd Weber Tunes:
1. Gus the Theatre Cat
2. Tell Me On a Sunday
3. Point of No Return
4. Heaven on Their Minds
5. Evita Overture

Top 5 Sondheim Tunes:
1. Finishing the Hat
2. Franklin Shepherd Inc.
3. Send in the Clowns
4. Ladies in Their Sensitivities/Quartet
5. Ladies Who Lunch

Top 5 Rodgers and Hammerstein Tunes:
1. Edelweiss
2. People Will Say We're In Love
3. This Nearly Was Mine
4. Soliloquy
5. You'll Never Walk Alone

Top 5 Adam Guettel Tunes:
1. Fable
2. How Glory Goes
3. Riddle Song
4. Come to Jesus
5. The Beauty Is

Top 5 Stephen Schwartz Tunes:
1. Beautiful City (rewrite)
2. Meadowlark
3. Savages
4. Simple Joys
5. If I Never Knew You

Top 5 Alan Menken Tunes:
1. Bells of Notre Dame
2. Somewhere That's Green
3. The Meek Shall Inherit
4. Gaston
5. Kiss the Girl

Top 5 Kander and Ebb Tunes:
1. Maybe This Time
2. Nowadays
3. Sometimes a Day Goes By
4. Colored Lights
5. Cabaret

Top 5 Jason Robert Brown Tunes:
1. I Could Be In Love With Someone Like You
2. The Old Red Hills of Home
3. The World Was Dancing
4. Someone to Fall Back On
5. If I Didn't Believe in You

Top 5 Michael John Lachiusa Tunes:
1. Tom
2. In Some Other Life
3. Queenie Was a Blonde
4. The Smallest Thing
5. How Many Women

Inching Along

I've had some breakthroughs with software. I've been longing to be able to take these audio files with me because I do some of my best "editing" on this show when I'm bopping around the city. Thanks to a friend, I discovered Reason, where I can save all these lovely files as wavs and keep them on my psp as I alter them.

We like this much.

A song I wrote and one I co-wrote were featured in a performance in the city this past week. A first for me! This is a theatre group that I am a part of, a collaborative experience if ever there was one. The response was beautifully positive.

I also have some side projects, musically, that I'm tinkering with. But Sweet Jane is creeping along. I feel that snowball cresting the hill and I know I can be careening down it anytime now. Something is done to touch up a song every day. We like that as well. That is all from me for now.