Lol fair

You mean Russian Oligarch and President of The United States Donald Trump works with Putin? I never./s

Can’t trust people. People listen to Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. Can’t trust em.

Yea, I made a post to my people to come to the fediverse. While we have capitalist and communist forums, ultimately the fediverse sits in the anarchist camp.

I like it because I’m suspicious of tankies and hate musk fucks. A nice 3rd option.

I was a band kid in school, so I do have a lot of mileage there, but I played horns and learned guitar on the side.

The thing with music directing is you need to be proficient in piano. I’m not a pianist, but when my friend invited me to shadow him at a show just a year and a half ago, I told him “I can read a keyboard but I don’t really play piano”. He said “neither did I”.

It’s amazing how fast you can learn an instrument when you are paid to do so. I can now play most any jazz standard and through teaching small children the basics, I’m able to sorta sight read melodies.

Oooof working for a friend can be tough. You think you’re going to have a boss who’s your friend but then your friend becomes your boss. If you need to leave that situation, remember to frame it as “I love our friendship and I don’t want this to hurt it”.

As far as ball size, I guess I think I’ve been stupid so many times I Jacques Clueseau’d my way to where I am, but also I have a personality that tends to downplay risk.

Here’s a story on that:

I worked in Seattle for a start up in “chemical distribution”. It sucked. Everyone was jaded. There was no culture. I was selling something I didn’t know, but the military seemed to want a lot of it. I was there for 2 months, 26 days, and 4 hours.

On my way out, one of the charismatic smiley hot shot salesmen invited me for a farewell drink, just me and him. When we sat down, his demeanor completely changed. He slumped and stared into his glass and said “I don’t have the balls to do what you do. I wanted to be a brewer, but the market is too risky. I’m afraid if never make it so I do this instead. Maybe when I’m old I could make it happen…”

I thought “damn. I don’t have the balls to do what you do”. I mean, putting your life on hold for ~35 years!? I can die so many different ways in that time. Then I get a small window to finally live, but for how long? If you ask me, that’s a MUCH bigger risk. Like be smart, but don’t throw away your passions.

Personally I decided I don’t want to retire. I want to build a life where if I knew I’d die tomorrow I’d do nothing different about my routine.

I’m a musician in Chicago, so I have the benefit of a vibrant industry with relatively low cost of living (compared to LA or NYC). My revenue is essentially 3 streams - education, gigs, and composition/ director work.

I have several private students and after school group lessons that make up 45% of my income. Gigs with my band and as a “hired gun” make up 25%, and working with theaters and film producers makes up 30%, and that sector is growing fast.

Since I have experience as an improv comedian and know my way around a keyboard, I’ve been able to get booked for improv shows to underscore the cast with either the right vibe for the scene or some sound effects that hit with good timing. Those pay anywhere between $50-$200 for an hour set. Those are the most fun too.

Side note: my degree was in political science, and I had a decade in marketing and sales roles. I just loved learning new instruments, writing music, and watching music theory YouTube videos. I’m not the best musician, but among musicians I’m the best comedian, and among comedians I’m the best musician.

This was me.

I now am free lance, so I don’t get any PTO.

I am seeing my family for 2 and a half weeks, went on a few vacations to Vegas, Seattle, Portland, Milwaukee, and Nashville this year, and I work <30 hrs a week.

I’m just a fucking musician.

Just gonna say it, the “stability” of full time employment is a lie. I learned that “fuck you” money isn’t a lot of money, it’s a lot of revenue streams. When money is freedom, letting one person control your money is letting one person control your freedom.

I’ve never made more money in my life, and even though I need to do my own taxes, contribute to my own Roth IRA, and have my own insurance, the freedom is so worth it.

Follow your skills and follow your passions- you can burn the midnight oil and do the things others won’t. Find a schedule or a method that works for you, and you will never have to send in a PTO request to “HR” ever again.

Employers only lie to you and underpay you. You do have skills. They are underutilized and undervalued. Employers will try to convince you that those aren’t your way out. They are.

Fuck it AMA

It is, and I think the novel thing about it is that it was a cyclone. Wind storms do happen out there and it’s normal to see a few trees go down, but a bomb Cyclone is a completely different story.

Ah, I thought it was also like “cherry bomb firework” that fuckin rocked but yea that too

I’m afraid not. Not even in the “I’m Matt and I work in sales but my dream is to do standup professionally so I started going to dive bars in Chicago but get absolutely shit faced before I go up and decide I can just whiff it to an audience of 3 who are in the same boat and aren’t laughing because they are all reading their own notes” kinda way.

Oh man I’m sorry that sucks. First thing I want when I get home from a trip is a meal :(

Oh yea, he never turned off his mic. Pretty sure I heard his mom come down with tang and Oreos and he cussed her out

His bite is like a vampire’s- those kids are about to become 80 year old politicians!

Okay but here me out, what if we 10^43 more monkeys to balance out the speed?

In fact, let’s push this to an extreme. We get enough monkeys that their mass turns them all into one black hole. Inside the black hole, the laws of physics get all fucked. Next we need to somehow dissolve the event horizon as explained in This Kurzgesagt video. Once that happens and we are left with a bare singularity, anything can pop out of it, including a copy of Hamlet.

The monkeys, however, will very likely be dead.

At least in this administration.

Don’t forget to vote in November. I know we all said we aren’t voting for Biden but the realities for project 2025 are beginning to set in.

We killed god and replaced it with Google.

People are saying get hobbies… And yep.

I’ve been very “successful” on the dating apps, but they almost always resulted in a one night stand or a fling for a few weeks. You meet someone with the expectation of romance and you never form a friendship because you see eachother as romantic partners first. That may work for some people, but I see it as a loss of foundation. When I don’t have a history with someone before being intimate, I tend to feel overwhelmed with the anxiety of expectations.

For me I found swing dancing was a great way to meet people. It’s fun, there isn’t necessarily an expectation of romance, but it also is a mood where romance can happen. I also thought to myself “I can either sit on my couch high AF while feeling like shit as I swipe left and right while trying to hold a virtual conversation that mostly goes nowhere, or I can go dancing. If I strike out on tinder, I feel like I wasted an evening. If I strike out dancing, fuck it I had a great time anyway!”

I hate that there is a loud group of people reverting to actual antisemitism in their criticism of Israel’s genocide.

I want to be arguing that a cease fire is necessary to save Palestinians. I don’t want to be arguing about a Jewish deep state that invented the Holocaust.

Frankly I never trusted Glassdoor. I assume most reviews are made by the companies HR department to lie about how great it is. I just need to look at the reviews of the companies I’ve worked for to see that it’s 99% bullshit.

Don’t trust employers. They lie to you and underpay you.