Listening to tracks from Vegas by The Crystal Method takes me back to the year 2001. Driving around in the Integra was still a pretty new thing for me, and I remember in particular driving around with M. on a warm summer night. Keep Hope Alive was blasting from the stereo as we pulled out of the parking lot behind the Angelic to head east.

I don’t remember what we were doing or where we were going. The smart money is on “nothing in particular.” I idled away almost all of my time in the years since 2000 when I reconnected with M. in Madison. Lots of this, that, and the other thing. Countless nights spent either shooting pool at Cue-nique or drinking at the Irish Pub (usually both), forming no meaningful friendships with anyone new in the process. I didn’t really know much about myself or (it seemed) anything for that matter, so I figured I could just continue tagging along to experience whatever M. was up to on any given day. Turns out I was trying to be drinking buddies with an alcoholic.

Some people claim your early twenties are the best years of your life. Mine weren’t. They were the emptiest. I abused my body, and my spirit followed it down during those years when I just didn’t have a clue or much of a personality to speak of. I felt that way so through-and-through that I’m sure people could see it. I think that’s why I needed M…to have a reason to be doing something, anything.

After I quit my job, spent a few months in Baraboo, and moved back to Madison in 2003 to set about putting my life back together, things were different. I think it was then that I made the first strides toward really doing things myself — things that were in my best interest. I started writing in a journal. I started caring about my health. I got back into dating. I took up kung fu. I met a girl that I thought I might marry some day if only she wouldn’t move away. Things weren’t quite on the right track yet, but my life was far better than it had been.

That album is colored with recollections of a lot of following along, a lot of partying…a whole lot of nothing. To hear it again is at once sentimental and unsettling.

At 18, I was in college for the wrong reasons. No more high school girlfriend. No clear goals. No interest in academics. Socially paralyzed. Depressive.

At 19, I came home and started my career in IT. I was eager to appear to be mature and confident in a job surrounded by people twice my age…but I think I came off as more of a lanky, quiet kid with bad hair. Looking back, I think my life at that point could have easily headed down a number of paths — some disastrous — and I’m thankful that I ended up on the track I did.

At 22, I was a metal band front man with stage fright and writer’s block. We were together for about a year and a half and played all of 4 or 5 shows. We had some great stuff, but there wasn’t a whole lot of inspiration to go around. Even if there was, I couldn’t see it.

At 25, I met her and got engaged…for the wrong reasons. I didn’t know who I was, although I was definitely becoming something new. I found in myself what I hadn’t wanted to see. I saw much of the same in her, and more. I was able to deny both…for a while.

At 28, she left and conceived a child with my best friend. Now I really didn’t know who I was. It took 6 months before I realized how fortunate their departure had been. It took another few months to realize why everything seemed to be fitting into place, making so much sense…

At 28, for the first time in my life, I’m satisfied with it. At 28 I recognize myself. At 28 I’m who I was before the soft cruelty of elementary school, the ravages of adolescence, and the meandering self-denigration that was my young adulthood each had their turn.

It’s about time.

I finally got around to tweaking the site layout the way I’ve been wanting to for some time now. It actually looks the same in IE and Firefox now — a change that’s long overdue.

…have been incredible so far. Both Saturday performances are already sold out, and the first Friday is pretty close to being sold out as well. There are still tickets available for the first Sunday, the Thursday show, and the last Friday show, but they’re going fast…

Brother.

Last night’s despair may have been premature.

They called me this morning and asked me to come back for a callback for the role of Joseph. That surprised the hell out of me. When I arrived right after work, there were two other guys there for the same purpose — both excellent singers.

I’m really pleased that
a) I got a chance to redeem myself, and
b) I think that’s what I did.

I can at least walk away from this audition process knowing that I finally gave the performance that I wanted to give. And now, the wait…at most until the end of the day Friday, when the cast will be finalized.

I got there right on time at 6:30 and was ushered to a frigid room where the other hopeful cast members-to-be talked among themselves about the shows they had done together, how so few female roles are in Joseph, and how cold the room is.

7:00 passed.  So did 8:00.  I waited patiently, knowing that I was number 33 on the list.  Jesus’ age — lucky, right?  Except for the crucifixion thing, I guess.  Rotten luck, that.

Finally the other 4 in my group and I were called to the gym for the singing audition.  The gym was even colder.  I was the third to perform.  I watched as two women each sang their tunes to 4 people.  Without sheet music.  Check.  With some acting.  Check.  Apparently that’s how these things are done.

No problem, I thought.  I’ve sung this a hundred times in my car.  I know this tune.  I walked over to the pianist and pointed out the 32 bars I had chosen.  I walked to the free throw line and faced the table.

“Find…”

“Sorry, can I start that again?”  (that was in key, but the wrong note)  Hmm, starting at the second verse is proving tougher than I thought.  I jumped back over to the piano.  He gave me the cue note, and I hurried back to the hotseat.  Floor.  Whatever.

“Find glory in a song that rings true, truth like a blazing fire.  An eternal flame.”
“Find one song, a song about love…”

“…”

Ok, no big deal.  I’ll just jump back in.  Hearing piano accompaniment instead of guitar is proving to be more distracting than I had anticipated.

“a young man.  Find one song before the virus takes hold.  Glory before the sun sets.”

Ok, those are the wrong words.  By this time I was doing my absolute finest deer-in-headlights look.  Something tells me that’s not the way Roger is blocked in that show.

“One song to redeem this empty life…”

He stopped me.  I didn’t even get to do the money line.  The high note, the grit, the passion.  Denied.

Instead, he asked me to grab a score for Joseph and quickly learn the first few lines of One More Angel In Heaven.  This request came amid a flourish of apologies.  I noticed that no one else in my group was asked to sight read, something I do with the skill of a drunken ape.

I made it through, but there it was, written right in the score…”BROTHERS.”  By this point I figured my destiny was assured.  Brother.  One of 11.  Otherwise known as a chorus.

And why not?  I choked.  I would have been better off singing the climax of Close Every Door, although I thought that might have seemed a bit pretentious.  The truth of the matter is that I wasn’t prepared to sing anything from memory.  Actually, I could have used C’est Moi.  But Lancelot is a baritone.  Joseph is a tenor.  I’m trying to capitalize on the new notes I’ve found in my range over the last year or so.  I was totally going to do the Donny Osmond thing.  Uh huh.  What was I thinking?

I could have prepared a bit more carefully, but I was trying to go into it with a relatively carefree attitude.  It would have been nice if I had been honest with myself about what I was hoping for.  I felt something after that performance, for sure, but it definitely wasn’t carefree.

Callbacks are tomorrow.  Everyone will hear about the casting, yea or nay, by the end of the week.  I really wish I would have represented myself better.  I needed my A game.  I pinched off a C-.

And now I’m starving.  Maybe I can at least find some comfort in the pieces of Mediterranean Cylinder Beast that will be playing the lead role in My Big Fat Greek Sandwich.  That is, if I can hack my way through all this self pity to reach the door of my apartment.