The auditions are done! What a relief. I can now go back to being hard-of-hearing in peace. (Okay, that's a lie, as I am feeling anything but peaceful about my inability to connect sounds to their origins, but at least I don't have to try to sell myself as a deaf singer, right?)
The first audition went surprisingly well. I explained my situation to the auditors, who seemed somewhat sympathetic (and perhaps just a touch concerned that I might be wasting their time) and had no problem allowing me to stand beside the piano. Fortunately, it was a grand piano, and it was loud, so I was able to move away and use the whole space. The audition was for a 60's rock review, and I started with Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love". I pretty much rocked it out. It was fun, and I could hear the piano well enough to go full volume with my singing. They then asked for a ballad, so I did Janis Joplin's "Me & Bobby McGee". The musical director, who was accompanying, played guitar on this one, and while it wasn't as easy to hear as the grand piano, I was able to play along with it and only lost it a couple of times. I also danced around and did some stomping and clapping, all while wearing high-heeled platform boots (which I was taking a BIG risk on, as my equilibrium is so out of whack that I am stumbling about even barefoot, but I think the audition momentum helped keep me upright). By the end, I was a sweaty mess, but I clearly showed them that not only can I sing, I can perform.
Yesterday's audition was not as successful. I mean, it was fine. But I didn't get much response from the auditors. This was a general audition for the 2011-12 season at Village Theatre, one of 2 big musical theatre companies in town. They wanted a short monologue and a verse & chorus from a Broadway show. Which is scary for me. I'm not a musical theatre singer. I can sing, some might say I can sing really well. But musical theatre has a specific sound, it's pretty and trilly and not really me. I've been told by a number of auditors over the years that I don't have a musical theatre voice. And as I waited to go in, I could hear the people before me singing their Broadway songs and sounding all pretty (or perhaps they sounded awful, but to my fuzzy ears, and my feelings of musical theatre inadequacy, they sounded pretty). I felt a bit like an outsider. And when I went in and explained my partial-hearing predicament, I received blank stares. Great. I did my monologue, which I thought went well, but again, blank stares. The accompanist then began playing my song (I chose "Solomon Song" from "The Threepenny Opera", which is a Broadway show, but it's Brecht, which is more my speed, and I know the song via Marianne Faithfull and Cyndi Lauper, neither of whom are pretty and trilly), and I had to stop and ask him to give me my note as I couldn't hear it (no grand piano this time). The second time, I got it, and I think I did a fine and dandy job. But again, blank stares. And when I finished, I got the "thank you" response that kind of feels like they're saying, "Thank you for wasting 4 minutes of our precious time." Blech. Whatever, it's done, and I am proud of the work I did.
And then I came home and decided to tackle my taxes. And you know what? Taxes are stupid. Our tax system is a joke. I made practically no money last year. I won't embarrass myself by telling you how little I made, but I promise you, it was next to nothing. And it took me HOURS to figure it all out. I had to fill out a schedule C, a schedule A, and a schedule SE. And, I owe taxes. Which is fine, except that I keep reading all these stories about all these billion dollar corporations who pay nothing, and frankly, it pisses me off. Yeah yeah, lower taxes on corporations keeps them doing business in the USofA, blah blah BULLSHIT. Pardon my language, but COME ON! When it comes down to it, the more money you make, the better tax attorney you can hire, the less you will pay in taxes. How is that fair? Forget fair, how is that LOGICAL? As far as I'm concerned, there should be no such job as "tax attorney". Because that job exists to keep people with money from paying any taxes. (I can speak about this, because Alex has been using a tax attorney for a number of years, and while he hired him to help him make sense of his very complicated tax situation, he pays him to help him legally pay as little as possible. To the extent that I am paying more in taxes this year than Alex's corporation is, and I can assure you, he made A LOT more money than me.) How can this convoluted tax system be justified? I had one measly 1099-MISC to report which required 4 additional pages of paperwork on my end. What?! Ridiculous! I know, I know, I'm a liberal bleeding-heart who likes teachers and doesn't blame them for the states' fiscal woes and thinks that corporate greed is FAR more responsible for the Great Recession than the greedy fat-cat parasitic union members of this country (I borrowed that description from a number of talking heads on CNBC who seem to think teachers and cops and firefighters are bathing in champagne and lunching on caviar whilst aboard their private yachts). I'm pretty sure that most union members aren't sending their taxes off to their tax attorneys in order to find all of the loopholes that will allow for legal tax avoidance. I know a bunch of union members, and let me tell you, they're not rich. They're not greedy, they're not fat, most of them rent tiny apartments and have to choose between cable TV and a gym membership, and all of them pay taxes. Just like me. We don't have the money to pay for legal tax avoidance. And that feels a bit like class warfare to me.
Yes, I'm angry. And I'm deaf. I bet if I had a tax attorney, he'd find a way for my temporary partial hearing loss to give me a rebate. Grumble.
On a total side note....I want to send some love to my lady Lola. She can't hire a tax attorney, either. No cable TV for her! But she is a gift to me in a million ways, and I hope that in the months to come she finds herself all smiles in her roller skates.
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