Learning Curve

In my previous gig, new people used like to ask me how they were doing.

I would tell them that they were doing fine.

"Don't worry." I would say.

"It takes a least six months before you're anything more than useless." I would add.

"If you don't understand how to do things in six months, . . . well . . . that's when we need to talk." I would also add.

I didn't sound as draconian as all that (well, maybe I did), but it was always important for people to understand that judging who they are in the beginning tells me almost nothing about who they will end up becoming. It's like trying to judge a man by who he was in the third grade.

(I happen to have been a very mighty man in the third grade. A tower of awesomeness, a community pillar, the stuff of legend)

I have trained people that were terrible in the beginning and turned out to be some of the best people I've ever worked along side. Inversely, I have trained people that I thought were just magic and patted myself on the back for my own awesome hiring skills, for them to just turn around and become a terrifying hot mess.

Takes a while to get in the groove.

So today is my Day 1.

I set last week aside to decompress, drink copiously, and consume a plethora of fatty foods.

It was fun, but honestly, not really.

I had a few laughs, but I really just felt like spent the whole week a stinky Mr. Cranky pants.

Sleeping ten hours a day was pretty cool though.

Highly recommend.

But I marked today as my calendar Day 1. My beginning of the Common Era.

My Anno DooWahDiddy.

That's latin for: In the Year of Our DiddyDumDiddyDoo.

There I was just a walking down the street.

etc.

And as a new day of a new life has dawned, I've learned quite a few things in my new job as the super crazy dude who dropped his cushy way of life to hack his way into the jungles of artistic freedom.

Did you know that you can alter the images of a YouTube video, but you can't fix the sound?

And that if your gonna take video from an iPhone that was recording you at a coffee shop gig, then you're gonna have to record the audio separately otherwise you're gonna hear some milk steaming?

And that if you're gonna try and fix the terrible audio, you're gonna have to find a way to split it from the video and take it through a whole separate process and then return the fixed audio to the video through an entirely different process?

And you can't split the audio from the video in iMovies or GarageBand, but you can do it in Logic?

And that Logic also has all the stuff you would need to improve the terrible audio?

$499 spent very wisely back in the summer of 2011.

Even if it still doesn't sound very good.

Did you know that waitdad.com automatically updates my video page whenever I upload a new video on Youtube, but, and this sucks, it will not sync with any of my calendars, so if I wanted to add a show, say, Saturday 12th on the corner of 20th and L. in Sacramento, I have to do it manually?

I'm gonna have to send a letter.

Did you know that I'm playing a benefit concert on October 5th for the Sacramento Police Mounted Association from 12-4?

Of course you didn't, I haven't created the event on Facebook yet, but it is on my calendar at my website for those fans who like to check around.

So we're off to a very good start.

Just don't ask me how its going yet.

At least not for another six months.

Then we'll talk.