The New Progressive

I put in the tapes today and got through half my radio footage. I fast forwarded through much of the The AM Conservative Talk station to the juicy bits -- the commercials. Yes, we (the royal We, I supposed) in the freelance jingle writing profession revel in the irony of cutting through the wheat to seek the chaff. As I listened to each ad for signs of a potential customer, I began to notice a pattern. My inadvertent research suggests that the entities likeliest to buy advertising space on local conservative radio are car dealerships, building supply companies and exterminators; in other words, participants in society's most manly stratum. If I write jingles for these people I'll probably need to crank up the guitar amp to 11 and hire a singer with a raspy voice. It won't be difficult music to write.

(Hey, I'm trying to pay my rent. I'll do anything.)

(Except the exterminator one.)

The little snippets of talk radio I caught were captivating, convincing, and completely one-sided. I did, however, hear one shining jewel of a comment by one host who lauded French Premier Sarkozy's foreign policy stances in spite of his being "a cheese-eating surrender monkey." For all that I tend to disagree with the thinking of many in the so-called Right Wing, I am continually impressed by the creativity of what they have to say and the boldness of how they deliver it. A part of me finds the candor of the other side genuinely refreshing.

On a different note, I posted ads on craigslist several days looking for college-age musicians with jazz chops. I had a terrific jazz sextet in college that doubled as a hard-hitting party band, and would love to start that up again. Actually, "need" is a better word. The resurrection of my chops is well overdue.

I've already received some interesting responses from my ads. I will look forward to documenting those in a future entry. By then, of course, I hope to have myself a band.

Victorville, Episode 1

Today, then, was my first day of work. I woke up at 6:00am and, after languishing in bed for one extra 'snooze,' left to embark on the great experiment that is entrepreneurship (or something like that). My travel companions were two old boomboxes with internal tape recording decks. My plan: to record local radio in hopes of hearing clues about advertisers who might be interested in a custom jingle. I took a class about jingle writing once, so this isn't simply a harebrained scheme. But almost.

I navigated the tangled web of numbered freeways--directions courtesy of google maps--to Victorville, California (I was shooting for a neighboring city called Apple Valley, but took a wrong turn somewhere around step 13 or so). Situated nearly 100 miles away from home base, Victorville is far enough to have escaped the mammoth radio aegis of Los Angeles County. After all, I figure, how many jingle writers are there in L.A.? If I want to find customers, I'd better seek them out where I have a prayer of offering a unique commodity.

The drive was a beautiful sleigh ride into the lost region of California known as the High Desert. The sun wasn't at full tilt yet and the chapparel landscape looked like a massive dustbin. About 15 miles outside of Pasadena the car radio began to fizzle; jazz and balanced news reporting gave way to country and Christian rock on the FM dial. I knew then that I was entering something like what Americans affectionately call "The Heartland." Actually, up until this morning I hadn't realized we even had any Heartland here in the Governator's Occidental Sunshine State.

(It just goes to show that this crazy undertaking will prove, above everything else, a learning experience for me.)

After combing several stores for a couple of cassette tapes, I parked my bruised 4Runner in the parking lot of a park on Amethyst Street. I set each stereo to record one of two popular local stations: Talk 960, an AM conservative political channel and Y120, a top 40 FM music station. Then, grabbing a water bottle and J. D. Salinger's "Nine Stories," I set off to relax in the park, catching a tan and observing the local fauna. I had some fruit with me but opted to leave it in the car; the awful pastry I had picked out from the local Stanton Bros. grocery store was holding my insides in check for the moment.

I returned to the car every 45 minutes or so to flip or change the tapes, checking each time to make sure they had recorded and troubleshooting my own mistakes with the equipment. Other than that I was able to while away the time in thought and observation. I wondered, for instance, whether how the denizens of the High Desert compared to L.A. people, if there even is such a thing as "L.A. people." While I sat there I heat of a full summer's day crept up on me; it took me an hour or two before I had the sense to put sunblock on and catch a bit of a tan, laying out on a beach towel I keep in the car for such emergencies.

My first day of work. Just sitting around, reading Salinger's short stories and watching the bees buzz by. Not too bad, although it remains to be seen if I can make any money this way. I returned at 1:00 in the afternoon bearing my very own nectar -- six radio hours total recorded onto four cassette tape. These I will comb for any faint sign of professional opportunity.

My First Blog

My name is Michael. I'm 23 years old. I graduated one year ago from a small college on the East Coast, and returned a few months later to Los Angeles, the city where I grew up. Three weeks ago I finally moved out of my father's home. I now share an apartment just north of Culver City with my best friend from school.

I want to be a professional musician. My dream is to make a living playing original music in a band. Which makes me, well, your average Los Angelino, I guess. Just another starry-eyed child with a guitar.

My problem is that I want to do it on my own. I don't want to pursue my dream on someone else's dime. I need to earn it fully, to be its sole investor and reap accordingly. And that means I need to make money and get on my own feet first. Only then, I feel, will I be spiritually ready to chase down destiny wholeheartedly. As though destiny were some quarry for the chasing.

A few days ago I ended my commitment to my previous job. I've decided, instead, to try to make money working full time as a freelance jingle writer. I'd rather be doing something at least tangentially related to music, something that will engage my chops in writing, performing and producing. This, at least, will get me closer. Plus it's relatively self-scheduled, allowing me time for my other (mostly musical) pursuits. The trick, of course, will be holding myself to a daily work schedule. Without discipline, I'm toast.

I decided to create this blog in order to keep me honest. By putting my fears and hopes into writing I commit to them. And by sharing my life's adventure with other people, I hope to escape from the kind of imagining-but-not-doing insularity that has made me waste time in the past (like this last year). I also think there's a chance somebody might enjoy keeping tabs on me from time to time as I document my voyage into the heretofore unknown realms of, first and foremost, financial independence; and, somewhere down the line, total and all-consuming rock stardom.

Alright. One step at a time.