**YE OLDE TOUR DISCLAIMER** The views and opinions expressed in this post are my own, and do not reflect the views or opinions of my employer. (get used to seeing this at the top of any tour-related posts.)

Jameson did too, tossing and turning next to me.
But eventually I did get some sort of sleep and my alarm went off at 5am.
I got up that early so I could have quiet time alone to drink coffee, eat breakfast, and FREAK OUT.

This is happening. This is happening!!

WEDNESDAY - TRAVEL DAY

Jameson got up around 6:30 and drove me to the airport. He dragged my bass trombone and I dragged my janky suitcase (it has taken a lot of hits in life.) Fortunately the airport was very chill, which is rare in Orlando let me tell ya. Checked both bags and they kindly slapped some bright orange FRAGILE stickers onto the bass case.

Jameson walked me to my gate, and we hugged goodbye.
Always the hardest part. We squeeze really hard.
At least this time I know he won't be totally miserable at home! He's got his exciting new job, too!

No line at all at security either...what an auspicious day!...so I had about 45 minutes to kill.
Spent most of it reading my book and checking that I'm not dreaming.

(The hideous MCO carpet)

The flight was very smooth and uneventful.

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CHECKING IN

Took a company Uber to the hotel...
...and LO, my trombone and accessories arrived right as I was checking in!

I had worried for nothing this time. But next time, I will make sure that there is a BUFFER DAY. Geez.
Used a luggage trolley to get everything upstairs and checked on both trombones. Both were completely unharmed!

My two trombones pictured with their respective foam cones, which are put inside the bells to absorb impact. The cases are also some of the best currently available for transporting trombones. Because if I don't invest in my gear no one else will.


My accessories also got here safely though the box was barely a box any more and had clearly been handled badly. But I'd packaged everything carefully, so no damage.

I fell right back into my tour routine: checked that the fridge felt cold, dug an aquarium thermometer out of my suitcase and threw it in there, grabbed some tote bags, and hoofed it to a grocery store! Well, this time I had to Uber because there aren't any within reasonable walking distance. I first went to Niskayuna Co-op because I remembered it being really good with lots of local products, but was disappointed to see that their selection has dwindled. Maybe the local stuff hasn't been selling well. But I got a bar of raspberry and cracked pepper dark chocolate which I'm very intrigued to try, and some house-made pretzel rolls.

Next, Market 32 down the street which is really just a fancy version of Price Chopper. Got everything else I needed there. I actually got more than usual because we're gonna be here through July! But the hotel only has a little box fridge so I still have to be careful about how much refrigerated stuff I get. That means mostly canned or shelf stable veggies this week.

Got back to the hotel, put the food away, and unpacked.
It is so weird...it feels like I never left. Unpacking and putting stuff where I like it is like riding a bike.



There's thankfully a lot of counter space here, so all the food is gonna live under the TV. There's a microwave so I won't need the Itaki this time. The collapsible silicone kettle is at the far end because there's an outlet there. That'll be my morning coffee or evening tea. And no, I don't use hotel coffee makers generally because have you ever looked inside one? They never clean them. Nope nope nope.

In the little box fridge I've crammed as much Greek yogurt as will fit, some cooked chicken, boiled eggs, pickled beets, and berries. I've left some room so that I can pack and refrigerate a lunch.
Choice shelf-stable foods include oats, tuna pouches, single-serve canned green beans, roasted hazelnuts, canned pumpkin, PB Fit, Core Power shakes, rice, and misc fruit. And of course I have brought Snack Pod loaded with roasted edamame, dark chocolate chips, Cheerios, Mike & Ike's, and peanut butter M&M's!

After unpacking everything else I lubricated and otherwise prepared my trombones for work tomorrow, and put my accessories and everything I'll need into a pile ready to go. Then a shower, and then we FINALLY GOT ONBOARDING PAPERWORK. MY GOD. Turns out we were supposed to get it a long time ago. I think someone forgot about us. It'll definitely get worked out, but will be keeping an eye on the progress of it.

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THURSDAY - FIRST REHEARSAL

Reminder: PLEASE DO NOT SHARE OR REPOST ANYTHING. Thanks!

I was awake early, nervous. Made breakfast in the hotel room (oatmeal with Core Power for milk, Fage Greek yogurt, blackberries) and packed my lunch. Since I don't know about our fridge situation at the theater I'm mostly packing nonperishables today, and will adjust as needed if there's a fridge. And I'm not packing dinner because we're supposed to be done rehearsing by 5pm, and since this is a union gig we WILL be done by 5pm.

Around 8:30am I loaded myself up with the two trombones, two trombone stands, bag-o-mutes, and my backpack with lunch and iPad and pedal...and realized that I needed to call an Uber. It's a short walk to the theatre but the combined weight of the trombones in their cases is about 50 pounds, plus all the equipment and my backpack...I would have been a sweaty mess. So I used the company Uber and just hoped they'd be ok with it. 

I've played at Proctor's Theater before. It's small and old, but beautiful. 
There's a sort of promenade just inside the entrance. To the right I immediately saw the stage door, and next to it this big poster. 


We had been instructed to go up a marble staircase and make a few turns to get to our rehearsal space. 
I found the stairs.


As I was staring at them and hyping myself up for dragging all of my equipment up there, a theater associate saw me and kindly directed me to an elevator. Which was also covered in a huge Beauty and the Beast decal, and which I couldn't photograph because my hands were full of trombones. Good lord, Disney does go hard on the marketing! 

The rehearsal room was like every other tech rehearsal room I've ever been in. It's always either a hallway, or a conference room, or a black box. The MD, keys, drums, and something called keycomp have already been rehearsing here, so everything was set up and ready to go. 


I quickly found my spot right on the end, and got set up.


They made us that HUGE and beautiful book of music, all printed on exquisitely thick cardstock, all lovingly bound in that heavy black folder. I felt like a poo-head, but picked it up and plopped it right on the floor next to my chair. We received PDF parts about a week ago, and I know that they match the paper parts (it's ALWAYS important to check that before ditching the printed part.) Plus, the digital part has all of my notes and I don't want to have to rewrite them, especially not if it's gonna mar these beautiful paper parts.

Anyway, here's the setup I'm going with for now.


The bass is at my left elbow since I use it the most and since it's the heaviest. 
The tenor is at my right-front, so that I can grab it cross-body with my left hand once I've put the bass down. This is normally where my Aviom would go but I should be able to put that kinda behind my stand when we start using mixes (we don't need them for rehearsals.)
My mutes are lined up on the floor to the right of my chair because I prefer to grab them with my right hand. Water bottle goes over there too.
...that's pretty much it. Mute bag will eventually live under my chair and/or to the right of the mutes when I'm ready to pack up.

The other musicians filtered in gradually, and we introduced ourselves and chatted while rearranging our gear and tuning up. When the MD came in, he rushed right over to me and we hugged excitedly. I am so glad he's here! So glad that someone I KNOW is here! And he had a big big BIG hand in getting me this job. I feel that I owe him a lot. Michael, our rehearsal keyboardist, is also a good friend from My Fair Lady national tour, and we hugged and exclaimed excitedly about this tour for a bit. 

Then it was time to rehearse. 

We "ran it down," meaning we ran the show from top to bottom, only pausing afterward for the MD to give us notes or for us to ask questions about our parts. When we broke for lunch I went to the management office to rustle up a backstage pass. I met some of our management team, and received not only the pass but also this very cool nalgene bottle and the ubiquitous gel luggage tags! 


Here is a better picture of the bottle after I took the protective plastic off, front and back. 


On the way out of the office I saw this red arrow that said "TRUNKS" and decided to check it out. 


Musicians are supposed to get trunks too. Sure enough, I quickly found mine! Luggage tag for scale. 


You guys, this is a BIG DEAL. 
Normally on tour (or at least all the tours I've done to this point) you get two 50 pound suitcases for your personal stuff, your "band box" which is a shared road case for carrying work-related gear and instruments...and that's it. Personally I don't care to drag 100 pounds of suitcase with me everywhere, so I usually opt for one large suitcase or that plus a carry-on at most. But this trunk means that I can bring lots more stuff! I'm actually a bit overwhelmed thinking about what I could bring. A full-sized Instapot! A bigger selection of clothes! And...I honestly don't even know what else! I'll have to think about it. But this is so exciting for someone used to living out of a 29-inch suitcase! 

Our rehearsal ended 30 minutes early, so we must be doing something right :) 
I felt that it went well and hope that others felt the same way. Everyone was so professional, and SUCH excellent musicians. When everyone in the room has that kind of focus, we can sound GREAT and be very productive. 

Someone had sent a picture of the new tour truck, so I went outside to see it in person. 
I've done lots of tours but never one with it's own truck like this. A very big deal!!





Selfie in front of the truck. I am so grateful to be here.


I walked back to the hotel, and Jameson and I sent each other audio messages about how our days had gone. 
I ate dinner and typed up this post for y'all. 

---    ---    ---    ---    ---    ---    

Welp. I'm exhausted. And still can't believe that I get to do this. 

To be honest, all day today I was freaking out inside. Absolute raging Imposter Syndrome. 
It felt like any minute someone was gonna say, "You know what...it's just not working out," and kick me out in favor of some better trombonist (there are plenty.) I was terrified of making mistakes; of disappointing or embarrassing the MD, who advocated for me to be here; of committing some shadowy faux pas that would offend someone in management.

Mainly, though, I am afraid that I haven't done a passable job on the bass trombone. It still does not feel very comfortable to me. 

Now, that said, NO ONE has given any indication that I'm doing a bad job. I got many compliments today from the other musicians and the MD. The MD even said to me, "This is your gig." But I have also been there on other gigs, when a musician was not a good fit for the group, and everyone was all smiles and compliments and then she was gone. 

Ultimately, all I can do is my best. And whatever the outcome may be...if they keep me for years, or if they approach me after a week and say, "Yeah, sorry but..."...either way there is very little that I can do about it, other than give them my best and hope it's enough. 

The problem is that the more you care about something--the more you value it--the more terrifying it is to think about losing that thing. And that is what I'm experiencing now. It was the same while i was on the circus. For the first 3 months or so I was a nervous wreck on the inside, constantly terrified that any day could be my last on the best gig I'd ever had. That day never came, and I eventually felt like I belonged. I will probably be a nervous wreck for at least a month or two on this gig...definitely until we get past the Chicago layoff. But it is my deepest hope that I'll get to stay, and that I'll get to belong here, too. 

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Friday and Saturday: Same schedule as today, rehearsing from 10am-5pm both days.

Sunday: Same schedule but after rehearsal we'll move to the pit!

Questions: If you have any questions about tour, tech rehearsals, music, etc, feel free to ask! Just please make sure your answer wasn't already given in the post, it'll save me having to repeat myself. Thanks and welcome along on this amazing adventure!!

Thursday,

EPIC STUFF

I was up early of course, and since our sets were an hour later this week I was able to visit Whole Paycheck to get my favorite Lemon Pepper Tofu Bites :)

At the park everything was normal except there were two trios there today! One set of us was there to work as usual, and the other was there to train our new subs! So of course the subs were there too and we got to meet them all. It was so cool and strange to have FOUR female trombonists sitting across from me in the breakroom! And I am very glad that our third party managed to find them. Hopefully they'll have fun at this job.

We had normal sets all day, with larger crowds than usual which was nice.
For one of the middle sets the subs came out to watch. The trombone ladies put themselves right in the center and cheered for basically everything I did, which was both flattering and terrifying haha. I didn't want to make any mistakes; I wanted to set them a good example! One tongue-in-cheek thing that I did for them was during the clarinet-heavy number. I have a lot of boring sustained notes in that piece, so I took one and popped it down an octave to make it sound big and fat. They REALLY cheered for that! Fun trombone nerd stuff :p

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JAMESON STUFF

Meanwhile Jameson was on his third day at Disney corporate. He updated me during his lunch break to say that things were going very well although he was insanely busy, basically doing introduction meetings all day long. But he is very excited about the projects he'll be on, and I am so happy to see him engaged and enthusiastic for the first time since covid. Thank god! He's needed this.

Here's the cruise ship he'll be "producing" on for a week at the end of this month! In the Bahamas! Lucky dog!

(photo courtesy disneyparksblog)

---    ---    ---    ---    ---    ---   

EPIC TEA

Another interesting tidbit from today: apparently the queue for the Ministry of Magic ride has been so ridiculous (often a 5 hour wait!) that Universal decided to try opening the Wizarding portal an hour before all the others so that the queue could form early. We weren't on the schedule that early, but when we came in everyone was talking about how the queue had wrapped around the entire park TWICE...

...and the wait time was EIGHT HOURS.

(stock artistic rendering)

The ride went down shortly thereafter, causing people to give up on waiting and "reducing" the wait time to "only" 5 hours...but either way, who WANTS that? That's LITERALLY the whole day spent waiting for a 4-minute ride!
I mean, Monsters Unchained is also a dark ride with a similar design, it actually works most of the time, the visuals and tech are just as incredible, and the queue is average for a new ride (2 hours or less.) Eh, whatever. I was blown away by how nutty things have gotten surrounding MoM. I know it's great but...c'mon.

---    ---    ---    ---    ---    ---   

POOL DECK STUFF

After work I got home and Jameson and I caught up with each other.

Sadly, the guy who sealed our pool deck did mess up after all (I had suspected something was wrong but he's the professional, so...) He fully admitted the mistake, and spent several hours this afternoon scraping and chipping the bubbled-up hardened sealant from between our pavers. I felt very bad for him, but also grateful that he is fixing the mistake instead of just screwing us over. He'll be back again next week to finish scraping.

Last few activities before going to bed included submitting my last transcription job,
taping up my trombone and equipment to ship to Schenectady tomorrow,
and drafting "thank you" emails to both Universal and our third party management for Epic Universe.

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Friday,

LAST DAY AT EPIC UNIVERSE STUFF

I was up extra early so I could load up the car and be at UPS right when they opened to ship my tenor trombone and equipment. Hopefully it all arrives on time and intact. From there I drove to Walmart and bought a bunch of treats for the other members of Place Cachee Jazz as a thank you/going away gift. I got full-sized candy bars, mini KIND bars, and assorted sweet and savory mini bags of crisps and cookies.

I was in for a surprise as well. When the boys arrived later on, Joe (clarinet) presented me with a small box.
Inside was this beautiful rose gold-colored Parker pen.


But even better than that, and very touching, was that most of the cast and management had signed the box!


On the other side of the box was this lovely quote that almost brought a tear to my eye. Goodness.


Working for Epic has not been easy. We essentially learned our show in a construction zone.
We were there before the buildings were painted.
We dodged cherry pickers while learning our choreography.
We yelled our lines to be heard over jackhammers.
Our very first audiences were the construction workers (and they were a great audience too!)

It was intense, stressful, and exhausting.
But the hardships were all worth it in many ways. I got to meet all of these wonderful, professional, hardworking musicians. I got to learn how to act for the very first time. I got to see the birth of a theme park...how many people can say they've been a part of that?!


I'm grateful for what I learned, and still amazed that I got to do this and be a part of something so rare and special.
And now, it is finally June. The time has come for me to close out my chapter in this story.
It has been fun, and I am grateful. But to be honest...I have QUITE the adventure ahead of me now, too!

The rest of the day was normal. We played sets for decent crowds, I made sure to say goodbye to as many people as possible, and wrote and sent "thank you" emails to both Universal and third party management. I received many wonderful compliments and well-wishes, which I don't totally feel I deserve as my heart was never here to begin with (Friends Only people, iykyk). But still...these are great people, and I'm very proud to have worked here. It was a perfect last day for me.

The best part of all was that as soon as we started our final set of the day...it began to rain!!!
We cannot stay out in even a light drizzle when Plume (our expensive animatronic creature) is with us, so the set was immediately ended and we got to pack up early! Wheee! What a great Last Day treat for meeeee! I hugged the boys goodbye, took one last look around...and walked out.

Thus ends my time with Epic Universe (for now at least.)

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Saturday was very chill. I got up too early, answered some emails, and didn't get much done at all until before lunch when I went to get ingredients for dinner. While Jameson was at a massage I practiced bass and finally started packing "for real," which at this point mostly means packing clothes and kitchen supplies. For dinner I made basic spaghetti with bolognese and a salad, and for dessert we had Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake bars because they're nostalgic and I'd wanted them.

That's pretty much it.

Oh, I wrote a big long blog post asking readers to do this-and-that when it comes to tour tickets/visits and avoid this-and-that when it comes to interacting with me. You might think I'm neurotic, but try putting yourself in my shoes for a minute. My lifestyle means that this is NOT a normal blog. Try to imagine what I see when I open my LiveJournal.

I learned some hard lessons when I joined the circus and my blog suddenly got HUNDREDS of readers. Every day, all day, I had messages and questions and ticket requests to respond to, usually from complete strangers or long-silent acquaintances who crawled out of the woodwork to beg for freebies. These interactions are the reason why I now have all these pet peeves around my writing. There are a lot of amazing and good people in this world, and I'd like to continue interacting with those. But there are also a lot of selfish, thoughtless, hateful, and creepy people, and I need to take steps to protect myself from those.

Ultimately the TL;DR is that I want to be treated like a human being on LiveJournal. I am not a TV program, a ticket dispenser, an AI chatbot programmed to answer endless questions, or a soapbox for others to stand on. I'm a real person, just like you, writing about her life. It's a weird and exciting life, but I'm still just a woman that eats and sleeps and cries and gets annoyed like everyone else.

Anyway there ya go.

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Sunday, up too early again. It is hard to sleep when every time I wake up in the night my brain whispers about Beauty and the Beast.

When Jameson got up we went for a walk together. Talking about this and that, but mostly about our hopes and dreams for our new jobs. Jameson's grandmother passed away a few nights ago (they weren't close) so he'll be flying home after I leave for the funeral. Mariah (trombonist at Epic) is looking for a new car and is interested in using mine in the meanwhile, so I'm gonna research how we can make that happen. Just things going on with our lives.

We got back and cleaned up and had snacks. I packed a little and practiced for a scant 30 minutes.
I'd thought to use today to go shopping or clean, but this is essentially the last day that Jameson and I will have fully together, so instead we just chilled quietly in each others' company, ate pizza and my much-loved air fryer wings, and watched the Tonys.

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Monday and Tuesday: Jameson has partial and full days at Disney respectively, so I will be using these two days to do my final tour prep. Cleaning around the house, doing some final shopping, packing, tying up lose ends.

Wednesday: Flying to Schenectady. Holy crap!

I've recently both added and removed friends here, and am about to go on tour again, so figured it's time to throw this out there again.

Here is a small summary-update, to introduce myself a little and share what kind of stuffs are in my posts.

INTRO

Name: Megan
Age: 41
Married: No, BUT my partner Jameson and I have been together for over 11 years. We met while performing in the circus; he was the keyboardist and I was the trombonist. You can read about my circus life starting HERE or on any post with a "circus" tag, i.e. "circus: elephants" or "circus: train"


Occupation: Commercial musician + random other stuff to fill the gaps between gigs. I am good at and enjoy tedious work like data entry and transcription, so am always on the lookout for jobs like that.
Residence: Orlando area, United States. Florida has a tropical climate so you will hear me talking about the heat, alligators, reptiles, strange plants, etc pretty often.
Hobbies: Reading, going for walks, amateur gardening, amateur cooking/baking, being a foodie especially while on tour, watching anime.
Family: I have four siblings (in order of age: a stepsister, a sister, and a half-brother and half-sister. This is because my parents married, had my sister and I, and then divorced and both remarried resulting in my other siblings. Hope that makes sense.) Both my mom and dad have passed away, my mom from pancreatic cancer in 2001 and my dad from COVID in 2021. My grandparents are also deceased, so all I've got for blood are some aunts and uncles, most of whom I don't keep in touch with, and my mom's sister whom I love very much and is very special to me. Because my parents had a bitter divorce when I was very young, and because of how some things went during childhood with my dad and stepmom having majority custody, you may sometimes see me write with residual bitterness about family things. I try to do this only rarely or in Friends Only posts.

(me and 3 of 4 siblings)

Questions: If there's anything you'd like to know about me feel free to ask! My social media and my journal are generally very open, and I post about most aspects of my life.


WORK HISTORY

MUSIC: I went to school for music, majoring in trombone. Some music gigs I've had include Knoebels Amusement Resort band; Busch Gardens Williamsburg band; Princess Cruises house band; Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Red Unit band (for five years); Tootsie the Musical National Tour (two years); My Fair Lady National Tour (one year); Elf the Musical holiday tour (a few months); Disney's Epcot Candlelight Processional, Disney's Main Street Philharmonic (as a substitute); and a variety of local theater, big band, and orchestral performances. My big orchestral claims to fame are The Florida Orchestra and the Orlando Philharmonic as a substitute trombonist. You can see pictures and evidence of pretty much all of these gigs on my socials (IG and Facebook)


NON-MUSIC, PAST: I've worked a lot in music retail (Music & Arts Centers) and have been a retail manager, and also excel at administrative work, especially editing, data entry, and transcription. Some of my favorite recent jobs have been CapTel Service Specialists, which was voice-transcribing live phone calls for the FCC; and TSOLife, which was data entry for nursing homes in order document the life stories of the elderly while also compiling information to enable a better quality of life. I've had a HUGE variety of jobs throughout my life, including movie theater projectionist; janitor; confectioner; kennel associate; courtroom hearing reporter; Director of Sales for a music retailer; assembly line worker; and probably loads more that I'm not remembering right now!

PRESENT: Currently I'm working several jobs. I'm a substitute musician with The Florida Orchestra and the Orlando Philharmonic, which means if one of their regular trombonists needs a day off I am on call to fill in. I'm a substitute trombonist with the Main Street Philharmonic and the Epcot Candlelight Processional, both of which hold regular rehearsals that I attend and am paid for whether I get called to play or not. Thanks to those jobs I am a Disney Castmember, and have free access to Disney World.


As of June 2025: I have just finished five months of working as a musician/actress/"streetmosphere" entertainer for America's newest theme park, Epic Universe! I was part of a group called Place Cachee Jazz (PCJ) consisting of a trumpet, clarinet, and trombone busking in 1920s Wizarding World Paris. My character's name was Phillipa. You can still catch this show if you visit the theme park, I just won't be back in it for a while.


My other job is working on and off as a contracted transcriptionist for the Department of Justice, processing federal hearings remotely.

(UPCOMING/FUTURE): In just a few days, I am joining the 30th anniversary production of Beauty and the Beast! I have done lots of touring with non-equity shows, but this is my first true Broadway production and I'm extremely excited (and nervous) about it! This is an all-new rendition with new costumes, orchestrations, and choreography. Stay tuned!

One last thing, a "negative" about me that you should be aware of:

Peeves: As a 41-year-old woman, a musician for more than two decades, and someone who has traveled extensively and worked many MANY different types of jobs, I am deeply annoyed by people who feel the need to mansplain me on how to do this and that, or who use the comments section of my journal for unsolicited advice. If I did not explicitly ask for help or input, I do not need or want help or input. It's a journal; I often write to vent just to get things off my chest and move on, NOT to solicit life-critiques from the Peanut Gallery.

If you are one of those people who just can't help themselves, who NEED to instruct others on how to live their lives according to you, be advised that I WILL respond curtly/bluntly/rudely to advice that I did not ask for, ESPECIALLY if it's written using command language (i.e. "You SHOULD do this," or "DO THIS") or written to criticize past actions that I cannot undo (i.e. "You SHOULD HAVE done this" or "Why didn't you do X"). If you can, please refrain from using my journal as an advice dispenser to hear yourself talk.

TL;DR: I generally don't ask for or want advice, so if you feel a need to advise me, consider A) ASKING if I've tried/thought of doing something instead of assuming that I haven't, and B) Choosing your words carefully, remembering that you're talking to someone with a lot of life experience, not a child who was just born yesterday.

OK that mostly brings ya up to speed, thanks for reading!

Thursday, work at Epic, the usual routine.

Super hot. We had hoped it would rain but sadly it did not, so it was just stiflingly humid.
Our sets were well attended however, and I saw Small Bee Photography there again, so perhaps we'll have some nice photos of our sets too :) It is so incredibly awesome of these pro photographers to give us FREE access to the images that they take.

At the final set there was a "show dump" happening right when we were going out to start our performance.
A "show dump" just means the audience is clearing out of the theatre and back into the street. The circus was dumping, and all the people who had just seen that show were pouring into our performance space in Place Cachee. We only have one handler and there was no way she could clear all those people out by herself.

(photo courtesy touringplans.com)

So I went out there as Phillipa, ahead of our cart and the handler.
Saw our tech fighting the sea of people to get to his audio spot.
Planted myself in the middle of the square packed with people, looked around, and shouted,
"AH, SACRE BLEU! I MUST TEST ZE ACOUSTICS IN ZIS SPACE!"


Put my trombone up and started playing short loud notes: "BAP BAP BAP"
...and a few longer ones right at eye level for good measure: "BLAAAAAAT"
While doing that, swinging slowly in a circle, forcing people to move away from my slide.

They scattered like roaches!

"Jules" came up behind me and parked the cart. "Wow!" he exclaimed, in character. "Zat was effective!"
I gave him a pleasant Phillipa smile. "Well! I do my best."

When our day was done I got ready to go see Mariah's band play downtown. I wiped myself down with a "bathing wipe" that I picked up ages ago somewhere on tour. Quicker than a shower, and ensured that I wouldn't clear out the venue with my stink. Had started to drive over there when Jameson sent me a long audio message. Turns out he's already being poached by another branch of Disney corporate. This is only his second day of work!!

This one is called Disney Live Entertainment (DLE) which is a part of Imagineering and for whom Jameson has interviews MANY times. They want him to be a producer for them, temporarily, on the Disney Magic cruise ship at the end of June! The ship will be in the Bahamas and there's a band he'll supervise during rehearsals. How cool! He was SO EXCITED.

This is the thing about Disney. Once your pinky toe is in the door, YOU ARE IN. Buckle up and prepare for liftoff.

Feeling happy for Jameson, I continued on to Judson's Live, the venue where Mariah's band Raspberry Pie was performing.
Ages ago I promised to come see her play, and was glad to be able to keep that promise :)

( Raspberry Pie at Judson's Live )
I decided to leave before the end of the second set, having been up since 5am and knowing that Jameson would want to talk my ear off about his exciting cruise ship opportunity. Got home and as predicted he had a lot to tell me! I listened as he described the job and how it had been offered, his speculations about what it would be like, etc, until midnight when we finally wound down.

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Friday, Jameson had to pop over to Disney to work out some technical issues with his logins, but he was back by lunchtime.

I had breakfast and hydrated, washed our sheets, made the bed, did laundry, typed this post, got ingredients for sesame chicken salad for dinner, got the chicken marinating, and made the spicy citrus dressing. I "should have" practiced but was feeling cranky, don't wanna, didn't. I was in a bit of a mood, perhaps from drinking too much the night before and not getting much sleep.

Ultimately I'm grateful that our non-standard lifestyle does generally allow large chunks of time to rest if I choose. From 2pm to 4pm I was able to doze, read, decompress, and try to gentle myself back into a pleasant mindset. I was 50% successful. Cooked the chicken and assembled the salads, which are napa cabbage, romaine, the sweet-spicy chicken, mandarin oranges, pomegranate seeds, toasted nuts (your choice), crispy wontons, avocado, sesame seeds, and a tangy citrus dressing. Jameson loves it and that makes me happy :)

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Saturday. I was kind of a slug. Breakfast and mostly practiced, spending 1 hour on Beauty and the Beast and 1 hour on the Chicago tribute band stuff. I am starting to (barely, sort of) feel better about the Chicago music, but will be happy when that gig is over with.

Jameson went for a walk, and we both kind of lazed around, then decided, why don't we use some more of our Disney Dining Discount coupons? We looked at the resorts, and Jameson recommended Flying Fish which is at the Boardwalk resort.

Got our reservations and drove over around 5, enjoyed looking around a bit, and were seated very quickly.
Very cute steak and seafood restaurant with whole schools of glass flying fish dangling from the ceiling.
We each got a drink (sauvignon blanc for me, vanilla bean bourbon for him) and I got the following:

Strawberry Gazpacho (vegan)


Ash-crusted Salmon with Herb Risotto, maitake mushrooms, baby turnips, greens, and shellfish broth
(I got too excited and dug in before remembering to take a pic)


Matcha Bavarian Cream with guava curd, sesame white chocolate, and vanilla panna cotta


Jameson had the shrimp cocktail appetizer, "Frutti di Mare" entree (assorted shellfish with pasta and red broth), and this Hazelnut Chocolate Bar that came with a golden truffle.


All of it was extremely good. The gazpacho was visually stunning and also amazingly complex in flavor, herby and tart and fresh. There were tiny cubed vegetables hidden in it. The salmon was very interesting, I assume it's capped in charcoal powder with maybe a little salt. The crust wasn't very flavorful but did give a fun smoky, crispy texture. The risotto was excellent, and I could have eaten those baby turnips in a bag as a snack lol. The matcha guava dessert was VERY good, matcha and guava go together quite well. Jameson's favorite was the shrimp cocktail which featured plump white wine-braised shrimp, though he loved the flavorful pasta in his main dish too. We both felt "meh" about the choco-hazelnut bar as it was kind of one-note; a little fruit would have been welcome with it, that's all.

Once again we were able to use a 50% off coupon. With tip it was probably about $100 each (in other words it would have been $200 without the coupon!) Very, very grateful for our castmember perks.

Back home I took time to move some of the furniture off the pool deck because we're having it sealed tomorrow.

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Sunday, Jameson kept kicking me in his sleep and almost kicked me out of bed!
So I finally just got up ahead of my alarm. Poo-head!

Had breakfast and then moved the heavier pool deck furniture outside of the screen, swept the pool deck.
The sealant guy came around 9:30 and after an amicable chat he got to work.
I had hoped to go for a walk, but received a surprise transcription job so plugged away at that instead (it was supposed to be sent on the 30th so I'm a bit annoyed that I've lost those days to work.)

Pool deck dude was done a little after noon. He always does an excellent job and is THE only contractor we've ever called back (three times now.) I always write him a very good Google review with pictures, so this time he asked me to take photos while he was working and made me promise to add them to my review, which I'm very happy to do. His work was $$$$ and it made me cringe, but I definitely couldn't do this myself and it took him 3 hours, and we only have to do it once every 3 years or so.

After that, lunch and trombone practice, all three sizes of trombone. Then back to transcription while Jameson watched the Cubs game.

Checked my email during a transcription break and was thrilled to see that the music coordinator for BATB has finally sent our music, and play-along tracks!! There are only TEN DAYS until tour begins, and I am seeing our actual music for the first time. Turns out, it's exactly the same as the Australian version. Wooooo!!

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Monday: Transcription, rehearsal for the all-chick Chicago tribute band.

Tuesday: Transcription, and finally getting this Chicago tribute band gig out of my face.

Wednesday: Transcription, packing for Epic, getting my trombone stands and mutes ready to ship to Schenectady.

Thursday. Very very tired after 16 hours at Epic yesterday. I wanted to sleep in, but had to get up and go take care of my stupid mute situation.

Got to Ilan's house around 10 and he tried a smaller version of his mute, which looks like it'll be a better fit. We also tried each other's bass trombones, and I was annoyed because his felt much easier to play than mine. But five months ago I couldn't play bass trombone AT ALL, and would not have been able to tell which horns were a good fit even if I'd been able to try a bunch. Now I can tell, but can't do anything about it until there's an opportunity to try more horns.

Nerd stuff.

I got home around lunchtime, packed meals for Epic and practiced very minimally, then tried to rest.
I have friends out tromping around in this ungodly Florida heat right now, logging 10+ miles in the sun and then doing it again the next day or going to the gym same-day, and I wonder if there's something wrong with me that I'm exhausted after a fraction of that effort.

Around 8pm the "emergency" bass trombone mute I'd ordered showed up. It's a traditional aluminum mute, so it required modifications. While we watched TV I filed down the corks, cut away some of the felt around the base to allow the cup portion to move the way I'd like, and used a hammer and nail to slam a small hole through the bottom of the mute. All of these mods help the mute to sound better...and are also why Ilan's 3D-printed mutes are important. We shouldn't have to damage equipment to make it work properly!

Before bed someone shared this post with me, from the Harry Potter official Instagram account.
It's part of a post that you can see HERE titled, "How to Spend a Day in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Ministry of Magic."


This is important because the more Universal and "Harry Potter Official" acknowledge and promote the band's existence, the more job stability we have in the park. So far we have a small snippet in Universal's official Epic Universe trailer, and now this. Very good signs that Place Cachee Jazz might be sticking around!

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Friday morning, I felt exhausted but gotta suck it up. Time for a day at Epic.

I left earlier than usual because our set times are an hour earlier this week, and also with it being Memorial Day weekend and Epic fully open I wasn't sure how bad traffic would be. Luckily it was normal and I got there in time to get good parking and practice bass for 30 minutes. I had to practice in a stairwell again because the warm-up room was in use. As I was playing some of the wizarding students found me and perched themselves on the stairs to listen, lined up like little birds. They tried to guess which Beauty and the Beast song I was playing, and I had fun switching pieces for that game :)

Because park attendance is capped, it was not as crazy as we'd expected out there and our sets had "normal" attendance. It was extremely hot with heat indexes close to 100°F (37.7°C), and I felt awfully drained by lunchtime. Luckily there were many sweet treats floating around in celebration of opening weekend, so a small slice of cake and some butterbeer-flavored popcorn bucked me up!

We also received a few small mementos, including this touching card that was made using a pictures of our shows and rehearsals.
(Remember that you can click each image to enlarge)


And this picture, which was taken after a set on Grand Opening night.
This is our management and I think also the production team.


Before I knew it the day was done and I was packing up as usual.

Today I realized, I've only got FOUR more work days at Epic Universe before tour begins. Crazy!

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Saturday, managed to sleep until 8 and felt somewhat-recovered. But we were spending the whole day at Fringe Festival, which is outdoors. I made sure to hydrate extra before we left.

Boiling hot again, but we made the best of it. We ordered brick oven-fired pizzas from a food truck, they were delicious! Jameson ate all of his, I shared mine with two of his friends who joined us for the festivities.


We went to see four shows throughout the day. The first was Everfolk. It was a show about a failed attempt to start a fantasy-based amusement park in Utah, involving Taylor Swift!


This play was based on a real event, and now we are both interested to learn more about Evermore Park and how it almost came to be.

General sidenote: all Fringe productions are generally low-budget artistic statements when it comes to props, costuming, audio, and sound, but the artistry and vocal/acting/dance skills of the people involved ALWAYS shines through. I am always blown away at how much raw talent resides in the Orlando area, and always find myself wishing that there were more opportunity for all of us struggling to make it down here.

Before the next show we had time to kill, so went to the lawn/food truck area to grab a snack and drink. Canned alcohol was BOGO, so we got two nutrl seltzers, and Jameson got cheesy fries. I found a Vietnamese stand with a tiny old woman shaping dumplings, LEGITIMATE. I got her tofu summer rolls and they were excellent. We had a good time chatting and many of Jameson's theater and theme park friends stopped by to hug him and catch up :)

Next show was Ghost Stories by Paul Strickland. This was my favorite show purely because the timing of the light and audio effects was PERFECT. We found out later that this was because he brought his own sound/light crew, one of whom was his wife. Rarely at Fringe do you see GOOD audio/lighting; this might have been the first time I've seen it happen lol. It made his storytelling that much more immersive, and I sat perfectly still for the whole hour, entranced. Good stuff!

We only had time for a quick pee before the next show, which was outdoors. It was a stage combat version of CLUE! The "stage" was a dusty patch of earth under a big drooping tree, where we sat on benches and enjoyed watching CLUE characters pummel each other with everything from their fists, to knives and cudgels, to a garden gnome! But in the end it was POISON that "done them in," and the butler who finished the job with the candlestick (of course!).

We had a little time before our final show, so got ice cream sundaes. I asked for half the ice cream and double the toppings and got it! Lots of chewy brownies :D And yes, I took two Lactaid!

The last show was a condensed version of The Great Gatsby.


I think the music was all-original for this production. The choreo was especially impressive. The storyline got a bit lost--if you hadn't read the book or seen the movie you might be a little confused--and there were LGBTQ+ and BIPOC elements added that are definitely not in the original story. But Fringe is all about artistic expression and interpretation, and these additions were in good taste for this production imo. I wasn't too impressed by the music, but the other elements were very well done and it was a good show. Our friend Lea played an important role and did an excellent job.

We met up with Lea afterward to share a drink with her and other members of the cast. At this point my social battery was 100% drained, so I'm sorry to say that I just stood quietly and tried to survive the crush of people and loud guffawing and screeching of actors around me :p I am completely understanding of the extrovert need to be loud, central, and "on," especially after the adrenaline rush of a performance well done. But I'm not that person, and it was better for me to hang back and not be a killjoy.

Eventually Jameson was ready to leave, so we said our goodbyes. Got home around 11, asleep by midnight.
It was a fun night, we go to Fringe almost every year and enjoy it every time :)

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Sunday, breakfast, laundry, dusting our big bookshelf which is a tedious chore that I only do about twice a year.

After lunch Jameson went for a haircut and I practiced trombone, then relaxed for a bit. It was Sunday and a holiday weekend after all.

Dinner was Olive Garden. A nice thunderstorm rolled through.

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Monday: Memorial Day, I doubt I'll get much done other than cleaning, practice, and cooking dinner.

Tuesday: Day off, probably running errands in addition to the usual stuff.

Wednesday and Thursday: Working at Epic.

Thursday, working at Epic.

It was quite hot and no cloud cover at all. High of I think 92, with a heat index of 96 (33-34°C.)
And it is still MAY. By the time we hit July the heat index will be triple digits every day (41°C and up.)

All of our sets went just fine, we were sweating buckets and I drank a whole electrolyte drink which I don't normally do but it seemed a good idea. Not surprisingly most of the talk backstage is about the park opening, and the special event on the 21st. It's all very exciting but I'll be happy when the publicity part is over. They hype is well deserved of course...just speaking on a personal (introvert) level :p

Adrian (clarinet) has a garden which has produced a surplus of veggies. He gave me some!
The little tomatoes are called everglades tomatoes and are the size of blueberries.
Not sure what I'll do with everything yet but the tomatoes will likely be a weekend snack!


Back home I caught up with Jameson and packed a small purse for Hollywood Studios tomorrow.
I'm very excited that we'll get to have a day just for us. For fun, for enjoying each other, for enjoying Disney, for celebrating having made it this far, and for the exciting job things that are hopefully to come.

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Friday was an INCREDIBLE day at Hollywood Studios! Full post HERE.

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Saturday. I got up and did laundry, hydrated a lot to make up for yesterday, vacuumed, ran the dishwasher, and practiced bass and tenor trombone. Ran through all of my Disney music in anticipation of subbing in at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow.

After lunch I drove out to my new friend Ilan's house to pick up the 3D-printed bass trombone mutes I'd ordered from him a while ago. Ilan is the founder/owner of Morningstar Mutes, among other things. And he recently celebrated the birth of a little girl. He's not new to fatherhood, but even a childless schmuck like me knows that a newborn baby is just as much work as a full time job. Therefore I was pleased and grateful that he'd managed to get my mutes finished in the original time frame.

I got to his house and texted "I'm here" rather than ringing the doorbell and potentially waking any little ones. That was a good call: the baby was dozing and the toddler was having a quiet storytime, and Ilan was able to bring me into the house without disrupting either. He went to go get my mutes while I looked around the foyer. There were mutes EVERYWHERE, and a 3D printer quietly humming away in the corner. Ilan informed me that there were two more printing night and day in his garage.


Ilan just recently started producing these mutes after years of testing and collaboration with other professional trombonists (he's a bass trombonist himself.) While trombone mutes are important for creating colorful sound changes (hear some samples HERE), many mutes do not work well across the entire range. Some notes can sound distorted, out of tune, or may not even sound at all if the mute disagrees with your horn. And the design and structure of mutes has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years.

The options available up to this point have been Humes & Berg cardboard composite mutes (virtually unchanged design since 1935) and a variety of aluminum mutes, all shaped like wine bottles and perhaps sporting a copper base if you wanted to get boujee. There were also mutes introduced by jazz artists, such as the plunger, bucket, and hat mute, and you can guess from their names where all of those originated!

To counter the problems of imperfect mutes, musicians have done goofy things like drill holes in them, wrap tape around them, intentionally dent them to change the sound, etc. And mutes freefalling out of your bell in the middle of a concert has always been a common problem thanks to the use of cork to hold them in; cork wears and chips over time, dries out and crumbles, and even filing cork down to fit your bell doesn't guarantee a good fit (especially if you get a new horn later on, or want to sell your mute to someone with a different horn.) So as you can see, all sorts of problems exist.

If you've read this far, congratulations, you total nerd.

Anyway, Ilan's mutes address a lot of these issues. For the problems with distortion and tuning, he's made the mutes larger than traditional ones which results in less backpressure and adds more resonance. He can do this because carbon fiber-infused plastic is even lighter than aluminum, so the size of the mute can be increased without increasing the weight. Additionally, carbon fiber does not dent or rust, so the mutes are more resilient. And instead of cork, Ilian is using a sort of soft synthetic material attached to the mutes via velcro so that you can move them around and adjust them without permanently changing the shape of the mute, as would happen with cork.

And on top of all of these improvements, you can add metal bottoms to the mutes which improves the sound. Copper is very preferred for adding warmth to sound, but he also offers brass or aluminum bottoms which usually offer a sharpness/clearer resonance.

Here are my two mutes, a straight mute and a cup mute for bass trombone.



The cup portion of the cup mute is a flexible plastic, which makes it easier to store and less likely to crack on impacts.
The straight mute has a small handle printed into the body on one side to make it easier to grab and remove (another innovation you won't find on traditional mutes.) Both mutes have a copper bottom. It's been a long time since I could afford a copper-bottomed mute.

In addition to these, Ilan showed me a tenor cup mute that hadn't printed quite right and asked if I might like to buy it at half price. There was nothing wrong with it other than aesthetics (some visible glue + it went a little wibbly on the cup portion) so I took it. In fact, since the cup is removable it's exactly what I need for one specific mute change on this tour. Yay bonus mute! It was great to meet Ilan and do business with him. He's a bit in the weeds with orders right now but I really hope that he'll get his feet under him because he's got a great product with innovations that a lot of trombonists really do need.

On the way back home I stopped at a Walgreens to get some special Snack Pod treats for Jameson and I!
He wanted Nerd Clusters, Mike & Ikes, Reeses Pieces, and Combos. I also got PB M&Ms again, sesame stick snacks, and Gushers. We weren't sure that all of these would work, and we were right: Combos are too big, and Gushers are too sticky. I tossed some Gushers in corn starch and we'll see if that helps. This is a fun experiment!

The rest of the evening was pretty chill, I just packed my Disney meals and tried (and failed) to relax.

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Sunday, up early for the Magic Kingdom.

(photo courtesy Disneytouristblog)

The Castle stage is under repairs right now, so they're having the band do more sets to provide more entertainment in the area. Five sets, one parade, and the flag retreat, which is seven sets total and two more than usual. It has still been very hot, mid-90s even without the heat index, and minimal cloud cover. Therefore I went into work bucking myself up for a long and sweaty day with shorter breaks between each set.

When I arrived, however, I was surprised to find Cory, another of Keith's subs, setting up. After conferring we realized that Keith must have double-booked us. This happens from time to time; Keith did book Cory first but neither of them remembered to tell our boss, and then Keith must have forgotten about it and asked me to cover later on.

Our boss walked in, looked at both of us, shrugged, and said, "Rehearsal day. You two work it out."
Translation: Neither of us needed to go home. We could both stay, get paid, and he'd just call it a rehearsal for one of us. Yay!!

We quickly decided to divide the sets evenly, and for the flag retreat Cory offered to play the 2nd trombone book so that Crash (2nd trombonist) could go home early. The result of this was that instead of doing 7 sets today, I only had to do 4! YAY!!

Needless to say I had a wonderful day and did not care one whit that it was hot and sticky work. I got to play all of my favorites including Be Our Guest, Hot Dog Dance, and the parade, had time to cool off and chat with the guys between sets, and did not feel overexerted. Truly lovely.

(Courtesy random IG account)

The tough thing about subbing right now is that I don't know which day will be my last before tour starts.

So, I treasured today. I noticed the smells of candy and popcorn and roasted nuts. I felt the little bubbles from the bubble wands pop on my cheek and hands as we danced with kids during our sets. I played "When You Wish Upon A Star" as we marched past the castle, and remembered how my heart had pounded and my eyes had welled up with tears the first time I'd gotten to do that, because it was a dream come true.

Things like that.

It was a good day. I'm sure there'll be more...just don't know when :)

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Monday and Tuesday: Days off. Now is the time to prep for tour. Practicing, packing, cleaning the guest bedroom, gathering supplies. Some cooking and cleaning too I think.

Wednesday: You guys. Can you believe it? Wednesday the 21st is the Epic Universe Grand Opening Celebration. I'll be at the park from 8am-9pm for this special event. The entire event will be livestreamed HERE if you'd like to watch (you do need to sign up.) Not sure if you will see me in the footage (or if you'd even want to) but there will certainly be lots of exciting stuff in store!

(random photo)

Monday, up early again for transcription. It was raining hard and looking like an all day rain, which is wonderful as we've been in a drought.

I transcribed and had breakfast, then shot over to Walmart for cough drops for Jameson and some special ice creams that we've been waiting to appear on shelves! Pop Tart ice cream sandwiches, and Butterfinger bars!


We have also been waiting for Rice Krispy Treat ice cream sandwiches and Eggo Waffle ice cream, but those have not been forthcoming yet :p Ah, it's good to be bad!

Back home to show the haul to Jameson. He was in the process of getting more info from Disney about his new job. He'll receive a work-only cell phone and a work laptop, his choice of Mac or PC. They are also working on setting up a music studio for his use. How official! How awesome!

The rest of my day was just plugging away at transcription. I was able to get most of it done, but even with going at it for 6-7 hours today I'll still have to spend 3 hours on the review and edit tomorrow. Argh. Didn't get to go for a walk or practice or plan dinner. We ordered taco salads and tried the Butterfinger bars. They are very good and were worth buying.

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Tuesday, up at 6am to finish transcribing and start the review process. I hate to get up so early on one of my few days that I COULD sleep in, but there is so much that I should be doing BESIDES transcription, and I need it out of my face.

So, coffee and an hour of typing followed by breakfast and almost four straight hours of poring over text and audio to catch errors. With breaks to pee and stretch and chat with Jameson, I finished it all at 11:30 and submitted the one job that's due 48 hours from now. The others I'll submit on one of the Epic days.

That out of the way, still a lot to do. To the grocery for dinner ingredients, then lunch. Packing meals for Epic, practicing for an hour, taking down my listings for my old trombone stuff and dragging said stuff out to the curb for bulk pickup tomorrow.

In the middle of all that I got a nice notice from LJ, about having won a year of professional service from participating in the LJ Birthday hashtag thing:



This is very nice, and I'm grateful :)
Because I'm American and can't pay like I ought to, I'd hoped to win, and put significant effort into the entry.
Just wish that I could pay and not be a leech, and not have to worry about it!

For dinner I made us a buffalo chicken recipe from Half-Baked Harvest that Jameson likes a lot.


He startled me several times today by laughing, humming to himself, openly smiling, and generally being chipper.
It's been so long since he's been actually happy about something that I forgot what it's like!

That makes me sad. But that's clinical depression.
Long-term. Hard to break out of. Always lurking, even when by all appearances things are going well.

He basically hasn't had employment-based validation since the pandemic.
And on top of that, his body has been betraying him these past few years (kidney stones, hernia, arm muscle atrophy and surgery.)
And on top of THAT, constant job rejections and interviews that led to nowhere.
All of this led to this depression in him, that has lasted for YEARS.

Like Jameson, I also get a lot of personal value from my work. Unlike him, I can glean validation from most any TYPE of work as long as it's useful to society OR I am appreciated on some level by bosses and colleagues. But Jameson has specific expectations of himself, or needs more specific validation...I don't fully understand, I just know that he needs something that he hasn't been getting since 2019.

For now, I'm grateful to have The Real Jameson back for a bit. I hope he sticks around longer this time :)

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Wednesday...

7 DAYS UNTIL EPIC UNIVERSE IS OPEN.

It seems like just yesterday we were crowding into orientation, excited and nervous, wondering how we were gonna memorize all that music, shocked that we were also being asked to ACT and do CHOREOGRAPHY. In just a few days this park will be officially complete and open; the rehearsal period will be over, and a new phase will begin.

It's been an amazing journey. I'm so grateful to be a part of this massive, exciting new theme park!!

---    ---    ---    ---    ---   

I drove straight to Epic and practiced bass trombone.

Right as I was wrapping up, Jameson sent a picture of his official offer letter for the position of Producer with Disney Event Group. He'd gotten it, and a contract to sign, this morning.

(this is the logo used at the top of his offer letter.)

Just a few hours after that, I received the American Federation of Musicians official contract for Beauty and the Beast.
Took a picture and sent it to Jameson. Signed it and sent it off.

Wow.
Life is SO STRANGE.

We are so, so fortunate.
Not only do we get to experience these monumental career highs...
...we also get to do it at the same time, and with the same company!!!

No matter what happens next, no one can take this moment away from us :)

---    ---    ---    ---    ---   

My day was normal otherwise. It was hot and sunny, we did all of our sets without the cart or Plume. The cart is supposed to be back with us by Saturday, so that's good.

Partway through the day Universal announced that they'll be livestreaming a special Grand Opening event on the night of the 21st, starting at 7pm EST.


We knew that there was an event planned; I'd already been scheduled to work that day and was asked to stay and perform three additional sets for a bit of extra money. So I'll be there for whatever happens, though I won't get to see much because I'll be working. YOU can watch the whole thing, though! I hope whatever-it-is is really cool!!

Additionally, I got a detailed route sheet from Beauty and the Beast. It's a document that shows which hotels we'll be staying in on tour, whether we'll be taking buses or flights between cities, and other small details like rehearsal days and some venue info.


I need this info to complete my Foodie Finds, but also to help plan whether or not to take buyouts and book my own travel or housing. And also, receiving this kind of detailed info really locks you into a tour; they only give it to people who WILL be traveling with them. It's a huge security risk otherwise. So, all of this makes everything REAL. It's really happening! I know I keep saying that but it's been so hard to believe without a scrap of paperwork.

(Regarding tour buyouts: When on tour, the production company books hotel rooms for the entire traveling company, but sometimes people want to visit with relatives, save money by pooling on an Airbnb, rent a car instead of riding the company bus, etc. To accommodate this, the company offers what's called a buyout, where you let them know that you want to book your own shit in X city and they give you the money that they would've spent on your housing or travel. It's really convenient!)

There are a few things in this BATB info that tells me this tour will be different, in a good way.
One of those is that we MIGHT get our own storage boxes that will travel by truck!!
That means I could bring more than what fits in my luggage! What a luxury!

The other thing is that nearly all of the hotels are EXTENDED STAY.
That means REAL REFRIGERATORS!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!

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Thursday: Another day at Epic.

Friday: Jameson and I celebrate our career success with a day at Hollywood Studios!

Saturday: Lots to do, but hopefully catching a little bit of rest too.

Sunday: Day with Disney and the Main Street Phil :)

Finally, I can share:

I will be joining the all-new Beauty and the Beast national tour!!


Cities list and tickets will be HERE for anyone interested.

---    ---    ---    ---    ---   

I think most of you kind of knew about this already because it was so hard for me to keep my mouth shut haha.
I was offered the trombone chair way back in December!
Today a casting announcement went up, so it’s finally public :)

Australian promo video. The show premiered in the West End and is now in Australia through July.
This is an all-new edition: new costumes and new orchestrations!



I want to explain a little bit why this tour is different from others I’ve done.

Think about The Lion King.
It's both on Broadway in New York, and on tour.

The Lion King national tour has been running for 23 years.

(image courtesy London Theatre)

I don't expect BATB to run for THAT long.
But the schedule that I was handed goes at least to 2027.
It DEFINITELY has the potential to go for years more.

Additionally it's a union tour, produced and managed exclusively by Disney.
That is a higher production value--and pay scale--than any other tour I've ever been involved in.

And finally, if they like my work, there is so much potential to be called for even more Disney musical opportunities. On tour, internationally, AND on actual Broadway in New York City.

Hercules the Musical is currently opening in the West End.
There is a Tangled musical being written right now.

You know?

I promise, I am not just playing this up to be a big deal.
It IS a big deal, for any musician.
It is potentially life-changing for me.

---    ---    ---    ---    ---   

On one had, I am very intimidated and terrified.

Most of these people have never heard me play before.
What if I'm not good enough?
There is a layoff right away in Chicago in July.
They could easily replace me at that time if they don't care for my playing.
Of course I can't control that, and worrying about it accomplishes nothing.

To be asked to perform with a tour of this level is currently the biggest accomplishment of my entire musical career.
Terrified and worried about it as I may be, every day I remember:

They could have asked anyone. And they asked me.

And THAT has already been given, and cannot be taken away from me.

---    ---    ---    ---    ---    

Warning: at some point I'll probably write a really sappy navelgaze post about all the struggles and hardships, the experiences and relationships and connections, that ultimately got me to this point in my career. But for today, it's enough to say that I'm gonna get to play Beauty and the Beast!!

Up early again for Epic.

This time I went to Sprouts before work, because they have Spindthrift sodas and it turns out Jameson likes them :)

From there it was a normal morning, I was able to get a full hour of bass trombone practice before our sets which made me very happy.

The sets were all normal, but...there is already some pretty crummy behavior going on.
Universal is more of an "adult" park, which in some ways is a good and fun thing...and in some ways, opens the door to a lot of potential unpleasantness.

Today we had good crowds, but for the first two they were like TV audiences.
That is, we looked out onto a sea of phones. I felt like I was at a press conference or something.
And when we tried to interact we got no response or blank stares from most people.

Usually by the end of the set, if people stuck around that long, they'd start to warm up and clap and dance and whatnot. But not everyone stays that long; a lot of people take a quick video clip and leave. We're an ATMO band, which means we're supposed to add to the ambiance of Place Cachee, and make people feel like they're in 1920s wizarding Paris, and give guests an experience that they can't get anywhere else. But if you never once look up from your phone...what exactly did you pay for when you bought your ticket? You could have stayed home and watched videos of the park online, and saved some money. I guess that makes me old but, it was my thoughts today.

We had more questionable guest behavior in the form of a drunk guy who came running up to me during our performance and started yelling at me in Spanish. He didn't seem aggressive, just seemed to be acting stupid, but he was much bigger than me and got right up in my personal space. Our handlers were apparently too timid to do anything about it. The other two musicians immediately stomped over to "suggest" he step back...politely, and still in character. But they shouldn't have to do that in the middle of a show. We shouldn't have to stop a show to "handle" guests, that is what a HANDLER is for.

This stuff is only going to happen more and more, so we'd better get used to it and our handlers had better step up. I would hope that at some point we'll have training on how to handle negative interactions...but I won't hold my breath for it. I will simply have to watch out for myself. If I see that help is not forthcoming, I will act to protect myself...i.e., I will simply leave the set until the problem is removed. In the event that I can't leave because someone is trapping me or grabbing/touching me...let's just say I'm grateful to be holding a trombone. Which can be a VERY effective weapon. Which I hope no one will ever have to experience.

But you know. FAFO.


Aaaanyway, that was the excitement. Otherwise it was good sets and good crowds.

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I ate dinner in the break room and then drove to Will's for what was likely my final bass trombone lesson.

Chatted with him and his wife a bit, asked questions about his recent heart surgery which he said went really well, he's just a little sore and is recovering nicely. This is our first lesson in I think 3 weeks, and I was very gratified when Will exclaimed over the noticeable difference in my playing. I don't always practice as much as I should or work on all the areas that I should, but I do practice regularly and have worked very hard to be more comfortable with the bass, and it showed. I could feel it myself in the lesson, remembering how I'd sounded with Will previously. I'm still not as good as Will and probably never will be, but that's ok. I'll get better with time, and will continue to do my very own best :)

Back home the routine of unpacking and cleaning myself up and splatting on the floor.
Jameson had his last gig at Epcot tonight, and is tired but overall positive about his first performances post-surgery.
We will see how his arm feels over the next 48 hours.

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Friday I was up too early. Coffee and typing this and breakfast, trying to figure out what to make for dinner and settling on a cheeseburger fusilli bake that we both like. Got the ingredients for that. Did not practice, didn't feel like it.

Had an exchange of information with the upcoming tour management, and that made me feel relieved although they still haven't given us much. Now I've got flight and hotel bookings for rehearsals in Schenectady. What I REALLY want is onboarding paperwork and the dang music. But, gotta be patient.

The rest of the day was slow, I just did research related to touring, worked on foodie finds, and read my book to relax a bit.

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Saturday, up early for no reason again. I guess this is my life now.
Slept poorly too because had eaten too many acidic things all day yesterday, and felt mildly heartburn-y and nauseous all night. It happens.

Jameson had a playdate with friends this AM, so after he left I drove out to the nearest Michaels to look at foam inserts for my bass trombone case. The case is heavy-duty, but the padding inside is not the greatest so I need materials to cushion the horn further for transport.

$80 later I had some chunks of foam, some dark grey felt (they were out of black), two sheets of black craft foam, two foam cones, a small cushioned black case that was maybe meant for glasses(?)...and these adorable post-its, because they're fun and life is short!


Back home I chopped up the foam and put a chunk in the bottom of the trombone case to cushion the trigger mechanism, which currently is touching the hard side of the case and could be easily damaged as-is. I think the foam is perfect to protect it but we'll see. Additional foam in the more narrow section that houses the tuning slides. There was a lot of leeway for motion there that is greatly reduced with the foam.


The black craft foam, I cut a piece to put in the bottom of my mute bag to help muffle sound. I like to start packing up mutes before the show is over where possible, and this will help me not to make noise while doing so.

The foam cones are to be inserted in the trombone bells, to protect them from being crushed during transport. They extend slightly beyond the edge of the bell, which allows them to take impacts instead of the bell itself. The bell may still receive damage sometimes but odds are greatly reduced by using a cone (this is why my bass trombone's bell got crushed during shipping to me, because the idiot who packaged it did NOT follow my directions and did NOT use a cone.)


The small black case is for one of my small tuning slides on the bass, which must be removed for the instrument to fit in the case. It will probably also hold my mouthpiece once I get an appropriate sheath to protect them from clinking together. For the time being I cut a bit of the dark grey felt to go in there and provide extra cushioning, and threw random things in there like a mouthpiece brush and tape and spare trigger gummies.


More of the grey felt will be put in front of the bell-and-cone, just to snug it in there more tightly. I was very satisfied with how my little plan worked out here.

I practiced a bit but wasn't feeling great, so mostly tried to rest.
Later on we drove down to Colonial Ave to see a Queen tribute concert.
We've seen this band before, our friend Allen (whose nickname is Shrek) was a sound guy on the circus and now exclusively tours with this tribute band. It's good money for him and he absolutely loves it, plus they come through Florida once or twice a year and we get to see him! We had dinner together and got caught up, then Allen got us our tickets and took us backstage to meet some band members. Everyone was pleasant as always, and since Jameson is both a keyboardist and Queen fan he always has lots of nerd-stuff to chat about with the lead singer and the keyboardist :)

The concert was lots of fun. The theatre is old so it was warm and stinky, but that also made it feel, I guess "classic!" Like, this was a common live venue setting back in the 80s and 90s. Few people were looking at their phones or even recording...most were really interacting, cheering, and having fun. I feel like that might be a rarity any more.


After the show we said goodbye to Allen and thanked him for the tickets, and left so he could get started on loading out.

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Sunday, my brain finally allowed me to sleep through the night AND stay asleep until 9am.

This was partly because it was raining! It was darker than usual so I think my brain didn't know what time it was.
We have been in a drought here in Florida and BADLY needed this rain.



It also gave an excuse to have a nice slow morning.
I still feel kind of like, on the verge of having a virus, though I feel better than yesterday so that's something. I had an electrolyte drink, and waited a while before practicing bass, and then Disney stuff on tenor. After practice I had lunch with Jameson and then took a coffee grinder I'd sold on Ebay over to UPS so I won't have to worry about it on Monday. Then Jameson and I rested. He gamed and I watched Aladdin for no reason other than I felt like it. Maybe it's just comforting while I'm feeling under the weather.

Before dinner I cleared out the areas under the guest bathroom and kitchen sinks, and after dinner I did the master bathroom. Tomorrow we are having new sinks put into the bathrooms and new faucets in all three. Opened each box to make sure all parts are there and nothing is broken. We've had terrible luck with contractors and getting ripped off and/or paying for services that do not get completed, so please cross your fingers for us that we will just be able to get these installed without drama or issue.

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Monday: Three faucets and two sinks getting installed early in the morning. The rest of the day should be free. I'll probably practice and pack for Disney. If I'm feeling better I'll make something for dinner.

Tuesday: Rehearsal day at Disney.

Wednesday & Thursday: Working at Epic.

Blog post for LiveJournal's 26th birthday, about holidays and celebrations.
Read it HERE