heres hoping yours dont make the front page of the paper.
hardest thing about working at the xbi is that theres no room for mistakes. it reminds me of marching band in high school.
like a dumbass i tried out for the band as a senior. they gave me the biggest bass drum there was.
the band director told me that there might be times when i would think that i could hide behind my instrument but that i should know, straight up, that there were judges everywhere, including at the top of the stands, who could see that huge drum and they could say, “why is that fool out of step,” “why is he hitting his drum out of sequence,” “why isnt he spinning on his head with the others?”
marching band in high school was the first time that i learned about how to be at 100% 100% of the time. i learned that it was impossible.
i also learned that you didnt really have to be at 100% 100% of the time, that sometimes you only had to be there, really, for about 12-14 minutes.
at the end of the football season our marching band was awarded second best in the state and our drumline was voted best in all of illinois.
since then ive been at 100% 100% of the time only a handful of other times: at the daily nexus at ucsb, selling hot dogs at candlestick park, at the dot com in westwood during the dot com boom, and now at the xbi. each time was a ballet of teamwork that resulted in wonderful rewards.
the troubling part about all of this, of course, is the morons of the world who wouldnt know 100% if it slapped them across the face 100% of the time got to enjoy the ride right along with those of us who hustled. and in many cases they ended up with far greater rewards.
even the good book says that this will be the case, which is soothing.
a little.
sucks, but whatev.