Artistic Happy Hour

The other night I went out with some people from the local theater community. It was a Happy Hour put together by a friend of mine from a Theater I volunteer at. I have to say that it is great to have artistic friends. They are great and outgoing people, and the conversations are always interesting, even when the subject isn’t Art. There is that certain back and forth and tangents and play on ideas and words in the conversation that I just love. There is a certain spirit and aura of being around artistic people that is quite inebriating.

It’s great to have an outlet for your artistic side. I joke with many of my friends that I am glad that I got into the Arts after I declared my Major. I was always this artsy guy waiting to get out. It started my freshman year of High School when they made us go see a play, and I saw Miss Saigon and loved every minute of it. Then my junior year, I took an intensive English program, where “love classic literature or die” was the name of the game. I mean, isn’t it kind of sick for a 17 year old kid to name Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle as one of their favorite books?

The summer before my sophomore year in college, Les Miserables was in town. I saw that, and it sparked this world wind of love for Musical Theater. I went to New York every Wednesday and saw a Musical. Then the next year, almost simultaneously, I got into Drama, Independent and Foreign Films, Classical Music, and Avant-garde Jazz.

So I might actually be in a good position. I am in a career that I like where I can make a good living and actually afford to appreciate the Arts. But at the same time, I’m kind of jealous of some of my friends and acquaintances. I mean they are making their living as actors, directors, artistic directors, educational directors, general managers, lighting designers, set designers, and musicians. Sure, they are not eating at Le Bec-Fin every night, but they are living as artists, and they don’t have to completely whore out their artistic integrity for a paycheck.

It is weird, because being good can actually get you a weird sort of job security. It’s a lot easier for the guys behind the scenes because it is much more about the quality of the art than how big your tits are. I talked to a guy who is a freelance lighting designer, and he says that he books 2 years in advance. I think that it is kind of ironic, because I am a programmer, and I don’t even know if my job will exist in a month. He said that it was weird to know that on April 17 2008, he knows that he will be on a plane going somewhere for a week or two to design.

All I know is that it is great to learn the artistic process, whether it be by taking down a set, licking envelopes, or having drinks with your friends bantering about things from top to bottom and inside out. My friend once told me that John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme was structured like a Concerto, and I listened to it again and almost had an out of body experience. That kind of stuff is cool, having people who can help you in your development. Or maybe it is just cool to know that you are not the “only one”. There are people out there just like you who have the same eclectic interests. It makes you feel a part of the world and not separate from it looking down with righteous indignation. It makes you feel alive.