Hello, wonderful Lovely Simplerista,
I call it the food edition, since it seems the only photos I took this past week were photos of food. So there you go.
Monday was a big day for me personally. First I started working with a new personal trainer, Naphtali. Boy, does he work me hard. And I love it. After just four days, I can really tell the difference. Heck, after one day, I could feel a difference. He's a former football player. And big. And the nicest guy. Winces when I throw the f-bomb.
Later that night, I did a stand-up set. My third time at the mic. First time I felt really relaxed, and felt like I could jam with the audience. It feels like I'm getting into it now. It felt great. And I got invited back. Every Monday night, they're there at the Skinny (one block from where I live), and any time I want, the mic's mine. Yay!
That went on from about 7.30pm to midnight! First, they were delayed for over two hours, and then there were just a lot of comedians. After that show, I trudged through the freezing cold and the snow over to The Bitter End, where also every Monday night, Richie Cannata, saxophone player (claim to fame: was Billy Joel's original saxophone player), producer (produced Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, and many more). The big guys. Anyway, went there, and got up and played piano and sang a song (Angels).
The Americans, I'm telling you. They've never heard of this song. Never. It's voted the best song of the past 25 years by the Brits. The Americans? Never ever heard of it. You say "it's by Robbie Williams". "Oh you mean the guy that just died?" No! Anyway. They thought it might have been something I'd written.
I'd brought lead sheets for them all. Nine copies, just to be on the safe side. And Richie goes "oh I see what you're doing, you're turning it into a gig. God I hate that". So I'm off to a great start.
He asks where I'm from. I tell him I live on the Lower East Side, but I'm originally from Denmark. Then he points down at the table right in front of where I was sitting. There's a girl there. Turns out she's Danish too, and she's been up there singing a couple of songs with them right before I got there. What are the odds. So Richie gets busy trying to arrange a marriage between us :)
Anyway, I get up there, sing my song, and I guess it went alright, because they really wanted me to stay and sing another. I'm horrible without my sheets, but I knew I could do "You Are So Beautiful" by Joe Cocker, since it's so darn simple. And I knew they knew it, because I'd heard Frosty play it right before Christmas, the day after Joe Cocker had died. So I play and sing and they join in.
After that, both Richie and Frosty (the trumpet guy, who runs the jam) both asked me to come back, they'd give me stage time any time I wanted. I said thank you, and that this was my first time performing as as a singer outside of my home. Richie was like "you should say that into the microphone", so I did.
I stayed for about 30 minutes, and then left to go home. On my way out, they once again signaled to me: Come back soon, sing more for us.
Wow!
I was pretty high when I got home. Even though I'd been up early and gotten very little sleep and it had been a super long and hard day, I was still so psyched it took me a little while to fall down after that.
Could not have wished for a better outcome.
I want to go back to both places again. I want to play more with improvising as a comedian, and I want to learn more songs I can do by heart, and go to Richie and other open mics. It's really fun. If I keep at it, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get good at this.
I just watched the documentary about Eddie Izzard again. It's called Believe. I love it. Tears me up every time. Eddie is probably my favorite comedian, because he's so crazy, so unexpected. He takes these wild improvised detours and doesn't know where they're going to lead. He takes crazy risks. Even live in front of 20,000 people in Madison Square Garden he does this, and it's so fascinating to watch. His imagination.
One thing I really love about him is that he started out being really shit at it, and everyone told him so. He started as a really shitty street performer, then doing shitty sketches, and shitty comedy shows. And for ten years, nothing was working. It was all just crap. And then he started to find his legs, it started to work out for him, and he started to take off.
Then he decided to conquer the US. So he starts in a club with 80 seats and three people in the audience, one of whom falls asleep. And he just slowly builds it from there, to one day selling out The Garden.
At one point he wants to tour Europe. But he wants to do the show in the local language in each country. So he learns French and does a really shitty show in French. He could've easily done it in English, and it would've been fine, but no, he wants to do it in French, and it sucks. But he gets better, and then he gets good. On to the next country and the next language. As Lorraine, my voice teacher says: "Dare to suck". One must say that he does!
He starts to do acting. Someone asks him "why do you want to be a crappy actor when you're a great comedian" to which he replies "I was at one point a crappy comedian".
Believe that you can do whatever it is that you want to do. Protect that belief, even when people think you're crazy. If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you definitely can't.
And then there's the deciding part. Absolutely definitely deciding "I want to do this". I want to be an actor, or a comedian, or a _____ ... whatever it is for you. Deciding it. With your whole being. No "it would be nice if", "I wish I could", "if that were possible it would be great". Fully decide that you will make that a reality. You're willing to learn, to grow, to let go of old beliefs, to do anything, except lose yourself, to achieve that. Stay true to your essence always. But be flexible with your beliefs and your ego.
I can't think of anything I've fully decided in that way, that I haven't achieved. Having realized that, I'm going to make a habit of deciding firmly on the things I want to have happen, going forward.
I thought that was just going to be a quick update ... brevity was never my strong suit...
New Features in Simplero
I've made two new tabs for the "Charges & Payments" section on the Purchase screen. On is "Charges" the other is "Payments". So while the summary page tries to give you the big picture, sometimes weird things happen, and you need to dig deeper.
For example, when tax has been collected wrong (someone should've been tax exempt, or they should've paid taxes but didn't), there's now a new dialog to adjust the taxes really quickly and easily. It's on the Charges tab.
And Payments helps you troubleshoot which payment was applied to which invoice, when there's confusion around that. Normally there's no need for this, but sometimes sticky situations happen, and we want to make them as easy as possible to deal with.
Other than that, there were a bunch of small tweaks and bug fixes.
We also updated our terms. It's literally just about adding clauses that allows us to have our customers translate the user interface for Simplero, as well as guest bloggers. It was easiest to just include it in the existing terms, rather than come up with separate terms for those cases.
Finally, the
partner program now covers customers in any country worldwide. Before, there was an exception for Denmark.
Random Links from Around the Interwebs
Richie's studio. I want to check it out one day.
It's true. The word "assassin" comes from hashish!
It seems like light goes really fast, but in the big scheme of things, it's actually really slow.
My first computer. From RadioShack, no less, who just filed for bankruptcy. That they've stayed in business for the past decade or so is a complete mystery.
Next week I'll be off on vacation, skiing with my kids, so don't expect to hear from me (unless you hit me up on the support, of course).
Lots of love,
-Calvin