Back to THE INDUSTRY Review and a Flashback

SETTLING ON THE INDUSTRY

I found some resolve yesterday that compares to my decisions to go through with fixing the air conditioner in the car. After driving many long distances for practically no good reason and having filled the gas tank twice in a week for two weeks, I've decided that I really should just go back to doing insurance.

With the wedding in less than a year, not paying my share of the rent for the last few months, not being able to put money away into savings and calculating how long I have until my savings disappear when I get to depend on the fiancee, I'm convinced.

There's also the fact that the fiancee and I work on opposite schedules. Going to the Thievery Corporation concert and kayaking pretty much puts the cream on top of the cake.

I've gotten in touch with someone back in Massachusetts, who pretty much took some information from me and said he could something for me. Last night, I also sent an e-mail to my current agent. While checking out Kelly Services, I applied for a policy services position at one of their clients.

If, somehow, I find a really amazing job outside of the insurance industry, I'll take it. Unless that one shows itself, though, expect me to get back into an insurance agency sometime in the next couple months, hopefully just one month.

A REVIEW OF THIEVERY CORPORATION, GOVINDA AND SOMEONE ELSE

Frankly, the fiancee did a grand job reviewing the concert, so I'll just copy her words from her blog:

We went to see Govinda and Thievery Corp. at the Metro in Wrigleyville, a totally awesome club/performance venue (we saw the Orb there while visiting the city this past March). It's like Avalon in Boston - there's a main floor and a balcony overlooking the stage and bars on both floors - but it's internal architecture is like the Coolidge Corner Theater because there are these fantastic bas relief plaster ceiling tiles, classic-style statues/sculptures over doors and archways and a big stage with those heavy, crimson stage curtains.

Govinda opened for Thievery Corp., and if you ever get a chance to see him perform, I highly recommend that you do. I've heard a lot of his stuff on my various lounge/chillout mix CDs (he's on practically every Buddha Bar collection), but I didn't realize that aside from being a great DJ, his signature sound is a violin that he plays very Middle Eastern-styled music on that gets mixed into the rest of his music. Aside from his playing & mixing, he also had 2 exotic dancers performing on stage to his music.

Now, when I say exotic dancers, I'm not talking strip-club exotic, I mean REAL exotic - as in one belly-dancer/performance artist and an Indian dancer. They were gorgeous, graceful and had the audience eating out of their hands. It was a total trip watching them perform, because at the same time I was admiring their grace (I would LOVE to be able to move like them, playfull, aloof, seductive, delicate and powerful, all at the same time, instead of bouncing around like a head-banger wannabe), beauty (who wants to look like a swizzle-stick sleepy-eyed Victoria's Secret model when you can have a body with curves that are smooth and soft but still hard and strong) and hold on the crowd (practically every male in the place had their tongues lolling out or their cellphone cameras snapping away), I was also envious, mystified and somewhat depressed.

The envy, well, that's easy enough to get, right? How can a girl not feel even just a little envious watching 2 beautiful, exotic women entrance an audience with a perfect little turn of the hip or a teasing little twirl that somehow becomes a whirling blur of artfully curved hands, arms, color and light?

Mystified? Well, mostly because that analytical part of my brain was cataloguing their movements and desperately trying to figure out how it could coordinate my harder techno-dance/rock 'n roll-moving body to move like that. It hasn't figured out how to solve that problem yet.

And depressed? Well, the Indian girl was more smooth muscular curves (god, I envy girls with longer waists) while the belly-dancer had defined rock-hard abs. It's hard not to be when you're watching ladies like that and realizing that even though you're in the middle of a darkened room, squished by the crowd and probably too short for anyone to really notice, you're still wondering if the shirt you're wearing is adequetely hiding your none-too-subtly jiggling middle. I know I'm not ridiculously overweight, that it's going to take time and work to get myself back to where I was 2 years ago, and that really, it's not that much weight to lose, but who ever said one's body image was based on logic and rationale?

But to take a positive angle from the experience, it was also more motivation to keep busting my butt at the gym (the trainer has asked me to keep a food log to bring with me on Monday - oh dear, I HATE recording what I eat, it means I actually might have to THINK about what I'm really eating *disgruntled sigh*). And if it's grace I'd like to learn, there are always belly-dancing or other dance classes to be had. I'm not going to get anywhere by moaning about it. I have a friend who dances with poi - I saw her do it a few times, loved it, and after a little bit of feeling intimidated, decided to try it. I've practiced enough that I'm fairly comfortable with the basics - not enough to try it with fire yet, mind you - and it was definitely a much more constructive way of dealing with my insecurities.

Plus, I got some great ideas for jewelry and accessories for the wedding. The belly-dancer was wearing this fantastic headress/elaborate headband and upper-arm braclets, and the Indian dancer had what looked like miniature white lotus blossoms woven into her braid - definitely ideas I'd love to fiddle with in figuring out my bridal attire.

Speaking of spectacle, I think the Boy and I may have made one of ourselves a little bit during Thievery Corp.'s performance - and it was a blast! Who knew lounge music could be so sexy played live?

Sadly, making ourselves such a spectacle made judging and analyzing Thievery Corp.'s music and performance difficult. I have the feeling, however, that spectacle-making really has to say SOMETHING about a band's performance.

A CHARLIE JADE FLASHBACK

On the long drive to work Sunday morning at 6 AM, I started listening to a show on the Chicago NPR affiliate, 91.5 Chicago Public Radio about same-sex marriage and religion.

I forget the biscoiated context, but the first interviewee on the show got me flashing back to a Charlie Jade episode, the one in which he either hallucinates or imagines (who knows, these days, with TV?) that a recently deceased childhood friend, as the child (they had recently run into each other for the first time in YEARS according the story line).

Now that I start recounting the story again, I think I made the connection because the guy on the radio show was conservative, but he also seemed to show an atypical tolerance (if not endorsement) for a Christian media personality. Something about this man's tolerance and belief in his possible fallibility, even if he promotes a certain belief structure, really just brought to mind the scene of Charlie walking down the steps of a church, Amazing Grace going on in the background and his childhood friend memory/hallucination singing along with the choir, an interesting disjunction, in itself, just by the fact that she came from another universe, possibly never heard the song, herself, but sings it in the universe, as the remembrance of a dead person.

Then there's the thematic issue of Charlie pretty much going on his selfish path but on the verge of finding out what's really important. The placement of Amazing Grace at this point in Charlie's hero cycle could probably make an interesting essay.