First Gig Quotes

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Although security and warfare had never been my gig, vampire security was highly contextual and thus incredibly interesting. There were links to history (Vampires were screwed over yesterday!) and politics (House X screwed us over yesterday!), philosophy (Why do you think they screwed us over yesterday?) and ethics (If we didn’t bite, would they have screwed us over yesterday?), and, of course, strategy (How did they screw us over? How can we keep them from screwing us over again or, better yet, screw them over first?).
Chloe Neill (Some Girls Bite (Chicagoland Vampires, #1))
This is the tale of Magic Alex, the man who was everywhere: with Leonard Cohen in Hydra; in Crete with Joni Mitchell; in a Paris bathroom when Jimmy Morrison went down; working as a roadie setting up the Beatles last rooftop gig; an assistant to John and Yoko when they had a bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton; with the Stones when they were charged for pissing against a wall; the first to find and save Dylan after the motorcycle accident; having it off with Mama Cass hours before she choked the big one; arranging the security at Altamont; at Haight-Ashbury with George Harrison and the Grateful Dead; and in the Japanese airport with McCartney after the dope rap. He was the guy Carly Simon was really singing about and the missing slice of ‘Bye, Bye Miss American Pie’.
Harry F. MacDonald (Magic Alex and the Secret History of Rock and Roll)
Maybe I should let my faithful manservant answer the rest of your questions, since he seems to have all the answers." "I'm saving her time," Bodie replied. "She brings you a redhead, you'll give her grief. Look for women with class, Annabelle. That's most important. The sophisticated types who went to boarding schools and speak French. She has to be the real thing because he can spot a phony a mile away. And he likes them athletic." "Of course he does," she said dryly. "Athletic, domestic, gorgeous, brilliant, socially connected, and pathologically submissive. It'll be a snap." "You forgot hot." Heath smiled. "And defeatist thinking is for losers. If you want to be a success in this world, Annabelle, you need a positive attitude. Whatever the client wants, you get it for him. First rule of a successful business." "Uh-huh. What about career women?" "I don't see how that would work." "The kind of potential mate you're describing isn't going to be sitting around waiting for her prince to show up. She's heading a major corporation. In between those Victoria's Secret modeling gigs." He lifted an eyebrow. "Attitude, Annabelle. Attitude.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips (Match Me If You Can (Chicago Stars, #6))
We went to this stupid heavy metal disco after the first gig – which was awful – and the group all started dancing to Deep Purple. I told them to sit down, have some dignity.
Mark E. Smith (Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith)
I think Jonathan loved you before ever Clarkson did, Martitia. That first day when I lifted you down from the gig in front of our house here at Centre, Jonathan's face showed a new heaven and a new earth.
Kathryn Worth (They Loved to Laugh)
An essential difference between British and American punk bands can be found in their respective views of rock & roll history. The British bands took a deliberately anti-intellectual stance, refuting any awareness of, or influence from, previous exponents of the form. The New York and Cleveland bands saw themselves as self-consciously drawing on and extending an existing tradition in American rock & roll. (...) A second difference between the British and American punk scenes was their relative gestation periods. The British weekly music press was reviewing Sex Pistols shows less than three months after their cacophonous debut. Within a year of the Pistols' first performance they had a record deal, with the 'major' label EMI. Within six months of their first gigs the Damned and the Clash also secured contracts, the latter with CBS. The CBGBs scene went largely ignored by the American music industry until 1976 -- two years after the debuts of Television, the Ramones and Blondie. Even then only Television signed to an established label.
Clinton Heylin (From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World)
Our first gig was a battle of the bands. We did 45 minutes of comedy and never played a note - and we won!
Cheech Marin
We set up our gear for the tune-up and Tony [Iommi] launched into the opening riff of ‘Black Sabbath’ – doh, doh, doooohnnnn – but before I’d got through the first line of lyrics the manager had run on to the stage, red in the face, and was shouting, ‘STOP, STOP, STOP! Are you f**king serious? This isn’t Top-Forty pop covers! Who are you people?’ ‘Earth,’ said Tony, shrugging. ‘You booked us, remember?’ ‘I didn’t book this. I thought you were going to play “Mellow Yellow” and “California Dream-in’”.’ ‘Who – us?’ laughed Tony. ‘That’s what your manager told me!’ ‘Jim Simpson told you that?’ ‘Who the hell’s Jim Simpson?’ ‘Ah,’ said Tony, finally working out what had happened. He turned to us and said, ‘Lads, I think we might not be the only band called Earth.’ He was right: there was another Earth on the C-list gig circuit. But they didn’t play satanic music. They played pop and Motown covers.
Ozzy Osbourne (I Am Ozzy)
Living as an openly gay guy in a town like this means this isn't my first gig as the representative of the entire gay community. I actually like it when people want to talk about it. It's better than getting stared at like you murdered someone.
Haven Francis (Riding with Brighton)
We ran into them at a Goldfrapp gig. They attended it the way I go to gigs with my own husband now—fun, dinner first, home by eleven, something to do. There’s only a short stretch in your life where you can attend gigs with spiritual commitment.
Caroline O'Donoghue (The Rachel Incident)
One of the first people I interviewed was Alvy Ray Smith, a charismatic Texan with a Ph.D. in computer science and a sparkling resume that included teaching stints at New York University and UC Berkeley and a gig at Xerox PARC, the distinguished R&D lab in Palo Alto. I had conflicting feelings when I met Alvy because, frankly, he seemed more qualified to lead the lab than I was. I can still remember the uneasiness in my gut, that instinctual twinge spurred by a potential threat: This, I thought, could be the guy who takes my job one day. I hired him anyway.
Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)
After Frank came out, Amy would begin a performance at a gig by walking onstage, clapping and chanting, ‘Class-A drugs are for mugs. Class-A drugs are for mugs …’ She’d get the whole audience to join in until they’d all be clapping and chanting as she launched into her first number. Although Amy was smoking cannabis, she had always been totally against class-A drugs. Blake Fielder-Civil changed that. Amy first met him early in 2005 at the Good Mixer pub in Camden. None of Amy’s friends that I’ve spoken to over the years can remember exactly what led to this meeting. But after that encounter she talked about him a lot. ‘When am I going to meet him, darling?’ I asked. Amy was evasive, which was probably, I learned later, because Blake was in a relationship. Amy knew about this, so initially you could say that Amy was ‘the other woman’. And although she knew that he was seeing someone else, it was only about a month after they’d met that she had his name tattooed over her left breast. It was clear that she loved him – that they loved each other – but it was also clear that Blake had his problems. It was a stormy relationship from the start. A few weeks after they’d met, Blake told Amy that he’d finished with the other girl, and Amy, who never did anything by halves, was now fully obsessed with him.
Mitch Winehouse
The wave of pure outrage blindsided me. I shouldn't be here, I thought. This is utterly fucked up. I should have been sitting in a garden down the road, barefoot with a drink in my hand, swapping the day's work stories with Peter and Jamie. I had never thought about this before, and it almost knocked me over: all the things we should have had. We should have stayed up all night together studying and stressing out before exams, Peter and I should have argued over who got to bring Jamie to our first dance and slagged her about how she looked in her dress. We should have come weaving home together, singing and laughing and inconsiderate, after drunken college nights. We could have shared a flat, taken off Interrailing around Europe, gone arm-in-arm through dodgy fashion phases and low-rent gigs and high-drama love affairs. Two of us might have been married by now, given the other one a godchild. I had been robbed blind.
Tana French (In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, #1))
You’re goddamn right I’d fight him. But he’s got to promise to fuck first. If he ain’t going to fuck, I ain’t going to fight. You give up all your energy when you come. I mean, you give up all of it! So, if you’re going to fuck before a gig, how are you going to give something when it’s time to hit?
Mantak Chia (The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know)
Peanut butter, or turkey?” “Turkey. Soft on the mayo, extra mustard.” Rick lifted an eyebrow at her. “Do I look like a cook?” “You do until Vilseau comes back. Because anything beyond microwave pizza is your territory, sweetheart.” With a grin he began slathering mustard on one of the slices of bread. “Wonderful. So now I have to negotiate a multimillion-dollar deal and cook? Do you want tomatoes?” “Hell, yes, my darlin’.” “Ahem. Innocent bystander trying not to barf over here.” Stoney waved a hand at them from the doorway. “What’s the gig?” “Food first. Do you want Rick to make you a sandwich?” “Hey,” Rick protested.
Suzanne Enoch (Billionaires Prefer Blondes (Samantha Jellicoe, #3))
Want to be a great communicator? Try writing a screenplay. Even if your story is more hideous than the films Ishtar and Gigli combined, you’ll learn how to capture and hold attention. That’s because a screenplay forces you to make your point through visual description, action, or dialogue. Abstract or theoretical content is not allowed. The activity forces you to discover and develop visual storytelling.
Bill McGowan (Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time (How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time Hardcover))
Frankly, the racial-harmony shit put Pepper on edge. The majority of the film crew were hippie freaks, but Zippo and the director of photography and Angela, the lady who did the wardrobe and makeup, were black. The white people did what they were told. This was America, melting pot and powder keg. Surely something was about to pop off. It kept not happening. Pepper had never worked jobs with white people before. Pulling shit in Newark, then uptown in those days, that was the reality. It was not done. Occasionally he'd get asked to join a crew with a white wheelman or a bankroll and that was a sign to wait for the next gig. His current refusals were simple common sense. Pepper barely trusted Negro crooks--why extend the courtesy to some cracker motherfucker who'd fuck you over first chance? Sometimes black people fell over themselves trying to vouch for a white man who hadn't wronged them. Yet.
Colson Whitehead (Crook Manifesto (Ray Carney, #2))
Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.
Seth Godin (Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?: And Other Provocations, 2006-2012)
One night, walking on the street in the Colonia Portales, I become startled by my own train of thought. I am desperately poor right now, surviving on coffee, orange juice, and beer ('grain juice'), and tacos. Gigs for writers don't come easy. I am angry and depressed and feverish. I had moved to Mexico City on a whim and I knew it would be hard. What I fail to expect is that the delinquency mind-set would take over my brain. Who would stop me, I think, who would catch me, if I hop into that cab coming my way and start barking directions? Who would know or care if I held a knife to the driver's throat, demanded all his money, and threatened to kill him if he made any further moves? How would I feel when I got home at night, finally able to eat properly? p 123-4
Daniel Hernandez (Down and Delirious in Mexico City: The Aztec Metropolis in the Twenty-First Century)
Standing at the prow of the pitching deck of the trawler, unscrewing the top of his flask, Frank Fontaine asked himself: Am I after fish—or a wild goose? Sure, he always dreamed about a big-paying long con, but this one was threatening to go on indefinitely—and though it was afternoon and supposedly summer, it was cold as a son of a bitch out here. Made a witch’s tit seem like a hot toddy. Was it worth giving up Gorland—becoming Fontaine? A city under the sea. It was becoming an obsession. Fontaine looked up at the streaming charcoal-colored clouds, wondered if it was going to storm again. Just being on this damn tub was too much like work. Talking to the men who picked up the fish for Rapture’s food supply, Fontaine had confirmed that Ryan had indeed built some gigantic underwater habitat, a kind of free-market utopia—and Fontaine knew what happened with utopias. Look at the Soviets—all those fine words about the proletariat had turned into gulags and breadlines. But a “utopia” was pure opportunity for a man like him. When this undersea utopia fell apart, he’d be there, with a whole society to feast on. Long as he didn’t step too hard on Ryan’s toes, he could build up an organization, get away with a pile of loot. But he had to get down to Rapture first … The trawler lurched, and so did Fontaine’s stomach. A small craft was being lowered over the side of the platform ship—a thirty-foot gig. Men descended
John Shirley (BioShock: Rapture)
QUICK TALK Kelis The 34-year-old singer first hit it big in 2003 with a single called "Milkshake." In the decade since, she's diversified her menu with a stint at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, a hosting gig for the Cooking Channel and a new album, out April 22. It's titled--what else?--Food.
Anonymous
The rest of August passes with Xerox monotony, each day a photocopy of the one before as I wait until my first gig. The only thing I’m learning working for the Agent of Evil is that bitterness is a contagious disease, a virus spread by aural contact. I try to remain immune by embracing my alter ego, telling myself that it’s not Edward Zanni who has to deliver a cup of Irving’s pee to his urologist on a sweltering subway; it’s Alan, Lucifer’s piss boy. It doesn’t work.
Marc Acito
How do you do? I’m Henry.” So he was Henry Jenkins. “I’m still Jane,” she said. Or, squeaked, rather. He was trying to fasten his seat belt and his look of confusion was so adorable, she wanted to reach over and help, but that wouldn’t be in keeping with the…wait, they were on a plane. There were no more Rules. There was no more game. She felt her hopes rise so that she thought she’d float away before the plane took off, so she pushed her feet flat against the floor. She reminded herself that she was the predator now. Tallyho. “This is a bit far to go, even for Mrs. Wattlesbrook.” “She didn’t send me,” said Nobley-Henry. “Not before, not now. I sent myself, or rather I came because I…I had to try it. Look, I know this is crazy, but the ticket was nonrefundable. Could I at least accompany you home?” “This is hardly a stroll through the park.” “I’m tired of parks.” She noticed that his tone was more casual now. He lost the stilted Regency air, his words relaxed enough to allow contractions--but besides that, so far Henry didn’t seem much different from Mr. Nobley. He leaned back, as if trying to calm down. “It was a good gig, but the pay wasn’t astronomical, so you can imagine my relief to find you weren’t flying first class. Though I’d prefer a cargo ship, frankly. I hate planes.” “Mr. Nob--uh, Henry, it’s not too late to get off the plane. I’m not writing an article for the magazine.” “What magazine?” “Oh. And I’m not rich.” “I know. Mrs. Wattlesbrook outlines every guest’s financials along with their profiles.” “Why would you come after me if you knew I wasn’t…” “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re irresistible.” “I am not.” “I’m not happy about it. You really are the most irritating person I’ve ever met. I’d managed to avoid any women of any temptation whatsoever for four years--a very easy task in Pembrook Park. Things were going splendidly, I was right on track to die alone and unnoticed. And then…” “You don’t know me! You know Miss Erstwhile, but--” “Come now, ever since I witnessed your abominable performance in the theatrical, it’s been clear that you can’t act to save your life. All three weeks, that was you.” He smiled. “And I wanted to keep knowing you. Well, I didn’t at first. I wanted you to go away and leave me in peace. I’ve made a career out of avoiding any possibility of a real relationship. And then to find you in that circus…it didn’t make sense. But what ever does?” “Nothing,” said Jane with conviction. “Nothing makes sense.
Shannon Hale (Austenland (Austenland, #1))
No one is interested with your past, non-professional relationship with Agent Harris, Detective Garner.” I cut them off. Seriously, nobody wants to hear it (I know I do not), since it is probably a perfect fairy tale of a prodigy guy and prodigy girl, and together they catch bad guys while looking excessively beautiful at doing it. They look so majestic side by side, like prom king and queen from some cheesy coming-of-age movie where they dance flawlessly and sing like pro despite that it’s their first gig. Also, their eyes sparkle. It takes a long, sort-of out-of-sense explanation why eyes can figuratively sparkle, but it just does. You know in romantic comedy movie where the guy stares far away and then he is smiling when he finally makes a decision involving the only girl he wants to spend eternity with? And girl when she meets a boy band member? Yeah, that’s how they look at each other. Jemma looks at this guy like how girl looks at boy (ah, it even sounds sexist in my head), but not at me. She looks like me like I am a special case that she wants to solve. She looks at me like she's trying to find my eyes (which is, always there, I don't know why it is so hard for her to see a pair of black dots above my nose), and maybe I am a little bit irritated because this Harris guy breathes and just like that, you can see the grace in Garner--how big, mushy twinkie, of a person she really is. Also, I am definitely irritated because Jemma's ex is terrifyingly perfect, it's alarming, but then there's me. She's settling down with me. I feel insecure and I do not like that feeling. So, like a literal five years old child, I stroll between them, ruining their unexpected reunion (hey, doesn't anyone want to talk about how Harris tracked down all cases at JCPD so he can jump into whatever his ex is currently working on? This is not reunion, it's stalking) and offer him a handshake. At the time like this, I wish I had electricity running through my palm. I probably couldn’t end this Harris guy’s life, but at least I could give his perfect blond hair a ‘struck by lightning’ makeover. “Hi, Detective Irving. Homicide Unit. Strategic Expert. By the way, I’m good at combining them, you know.” I introduce myself. Which is true, I can be writing a mental note on how to eliminate this threat in my head for all he knows. “Strategy, and murder. I can mix them up.
Rea Lidde (Haven (Clockwork #0.5))
Funnily enough, the sheer absurdity of owning a farm felt just as comfortable and wildly unpredictable as my drag gigs in nightclubs. I was excited again for the first time in several years. I had so many new dance steps to learn, so many new costumes to try on.
Josh Kilmer-Purcell (The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers: An Unconventional Memoir)
through. A professor had met his wife years before at a Dresden Dolls concert, and now she was in a coma following a car crash; he sent me a necklace of hers as a keepsake. These were “real” people with “real” jobs, making society work. And there were a lot of them. I would take in all these stories, and one by one, ten, a hundred, a thousand stories later…I had to believe it. I would hold these people in my arms and I would feel the whole synchronicity of life and death and music envelop us. And one day I turned around and it had just happened without my realizing it. I believed I was real. I had just finished a gig in Perth and was driving to a fan’s house, to crash with the Australian crew, when Neil called me from New York. He said, My dad just died. What? He died. My dad just died. He was in a business meeting, something happened with his heart, and he fell over, and he’s dead. Oh my god, Neil. What could I do? I was about as physically far away from him as I could possibly be. We had only been dating for about three months, but it was long enough to have started falling in love. Do you want me to come to you right now? I’ll get the first flight out, I offered. I’ll just get on a plane and come be with you. No, darling. He sounded like a zombie. Stay there. Finish your tour. Go to Tasmania. No. I’ll come. Really. I want to. No, don’t. I’m asking you
Amanda Palmer (The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help)
Being the only girl in the gig was tough, so I appreciated Jacob's compliments and companionship. It wasn't necessary though. I could handle Sawyer. I grew up with older brothers and a father who didn't want me working in the family garage. They were horrified when I told them I was going to police college> They didn't think that was right for a girl, let alone a Carleton. I had to wake them up to twenty-first century. Still, there were times when I wondered if my father hadn't died before I graduated high school, he might have been abe to change my mind. Sometimes I wondered if I wanted to be a cop to make a difference or to make a point.
Sara C. Walker (Adrenaline Rush)
Rick contacted me about the session, but he didn't know who in hell was coming in. I said, "Who you got?" He said, "Aretha Franklin." I said, "Boy, you better get your damn shoes on. You getting someone who can sing." Even the Memphis guys didn't really know who in the hell she was. I said, "Man, this woman gonna knock you out." They're all going, "Big deal!" When she come in there and sit down at the piano and hit that first chord, everybody was just like little bees just buzzing around the queen. You could tell by the way she hit the piano the gig was up. It was, "Let's get down to serious business." That first chord she hit was nothing we'd been demoing, and nothing none of them cats in Memphis had been, either. We'd just been dumb-dumb playing, but this was the real thing. That's the prettiest session picture I can ever remember. If I'd had a camera, I'd have a great film of that session, because I can still see it in my mind's eye, just how it was - Spooner on the organ, Moman playing guitar, Aretha at the piano - it was beautiful, better than any session I've ever seen, and I seen a bunch of 'em.' Spooner Oldham, the weedy keyboard player who is most known for never playing the same licks twice and who is ordinarily the most reticent of men, speaks in similar superlatives. 'I was hired to play keyboards. She was gonna stand up in front of the microphone and sing. She was showing us this song she had brought down there with her, she hit that magic chord when Wexler was going up the little steps to the control room, and I just stopped. I said, "Now, look, I'm not trying to cop out or nothing. I know I was hired to play piano, but I wish you'd let her play that thing, and I could get on organ and electric." And that's the way it was. It was a good, honest move, and one of the best things I ever done - and I didn't do nothing.
Peter Guralnick (Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom)
you’ve ever had in your hand ever, and more than your dad makes in a year, schlepping and working his fucking arse off. I mean, what to do with it is another thing, because I’ve got another gig to do, and I’m working. But I must say, the first taste of a few hundred crisp new bills was not unsatisfying. What to do with it took some time. But it was the first feeling of being ahead of the game. And all I did was write a couple songs and they gave it to me.
Keith Richards (Life)
time. The first Fairport Convention gig as a four-piece (with original, short-lived drummer Shaun Frater) took place on 27 May 1967 at St Michael’s Hall in Golders Green. Even in that momentous year for rock music, the date was auspicious: Are You Experienced? had been on the streets for a week and a half, and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was five days away. As they
Rob Young (Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music)
Just after that first gig at The Dugout, our friend Randy Blazak
Steve Gorman (Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes--A Memoir)
It's better to be treated as a paper airplane than a fighter jet. When you are disrupting, the best possible start-up scenario is to be dismissed, even ignored, just as Blockbuster ignored Netflix—right up until Blockbuster was "netflixed."17 Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is a good example of an organization that took on fly-under-the-radar market risk.18 A decade ago, SNHU was a two-thousand-student college with declining enrollment. Instead of trying to increase enrollment by competing for Ivy League-caliber professors at the high end or with government-funded community colleges at the low end, the university chose to play where no one else was playing—online. There was no guarantee that students would be interested in online degree programs. But because SNHU took on market risk, playing where no one else was playing, and there were many students looking for the flexibility provided by online courses, it is now considered the Amazon of education, with thirty-four thousand students enrolled. SNHU is in the process of jumping to yet another growth curve to decrease the cost of a college degree by measuring competencies rather than credits. One student demonstrated all 120 competencies in one hundred days. His associate's degree cost a grand total of $1,250. A good example of taking on market risk in personal, career terms is Amy Jo Martin, founder of Digital Royalty. In 2008, of the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on advertising and publicity by the NBA, very little was allocated to social media. Martin saw an unmet need, and leveraged her expertise to persuade the Phoenix Suns to hire her as director of digital media, a first-of-its-kind position within the NBA. Martin's clients have included Shaquille O'Neal, and she has more than a million Twitter followers. Her gig sounds fantastically fun, but at the outset people wondered if it was even a job.
Whitney Johnson (Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work)
Still and again, on the page, I smithereen the five-minute rule; I take my own damned time to stretch and look around. Because music is possible, I want music. Because I skated, I want ice and air for prose. Because plot bores me and knowing doesn’t, I write to find out what I know, or if I know, or if I might know sometime soon. “Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end,” Virginia Woolf wrote, in “Modern Fiction.” She thought it, she said it, and at the hand press she and her husband called Hogarth, the press through which she published anything she pleased as she pleased (after her first two books), she sat with the weight of the words in her hands, the Caslon As and Bs and Cs, and letter by letter she chased haloes.
Beth Kephart (Wife | Daughter | Self: A Memoir in Essays)
The Blasters proved to be the most prominent and popular of these acts by far. Originally a quartet, the band was bred in Downey, just down the freeway from East L.A. In their teens, brothers Phil and Dave Alvin were bitten by the blues bug; they became habitués of the L.A. club the Ash Grove, where many of the best-known folk and electric blues performers played, and they sought out the local musicians who could teach them their craft, learning firsthand from such icons as Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, and Little Richard’s saxophonist Lee Allen (who would ultimately join the band in the ’80s). But the Blasters’ style was multidimensional: they could play R&B, they loved country music, and they were also dyed-in-the-wool rockabilly fans who were initially embraced by the music’s fervent L.A. cultists. Their debut album, 1980’s American Music, was recorded in a Van Nuys garage by the Milan, Italy–born rockabilly fanatic Rockin’ Ronnie Weiser, and released on his indie label Rollin’ Rock Records, which also issued LPs by such first-generation rockabilly elders as Gene Vincent, Mac Curtis, Jackie Waukeen Cochran, and Ray Campi. By virtue of Phil Alvin’s powerful, unmannered singing and Dave Alvin’s adept guitar playing and original songwriting, the Blasters swiftly rose to the top of a pack of greasy local bands that also included Levi and the Rockats (a unit fronted by English singer Levi Dexter) and the Rockabilly Rebels (who frequently backed Ray Campi). Los Lobos were early Blasters fans, and often listened to American Music in their van on the way to their own (still acoustic) gigs. Rosas says, “We loved their first record, man. We used to play the shit out of that record. Dave [Hidalgo] was the one who got a copy of it, and he put it on cassette.
Chris Morris (Los Lobos: Dream in Blue)
The night of the Grammys, Los Lobos were 1,895 miles from home, in New Orleans, in the middle of their first tour of the East and Southeast, driving from gig to gig in a van and sharing a single hotel room on the road. They were to play Jimmy’s Music Club that night, but repaired to a local bar to watch the awards show on TV before their set. Berlin recalls, “[The announcer] said, ‘Earlier this evening, these awards were handed out.’ And sure enough, there’s a picture of Los Lobos. So we start flipping out—‘Oh, shit, we won this thing! We won a Grammy!’ And this old drunk at the bar said, ‘Yeah, right, buddy.’ We were all ecstatic. And we get to the gig, and there’s five people there.
Chris Morris (Los Lobos: Dream in Blue)
If whelk is the first name on the list, it will almost definitely be course number one – unless the chef sends out three or four unadvertised courses beforehand, boosting the eight-course lunch up to twelve. I realise that nowadays almost all five-course tasting menus are actually around eight courses, because the chef will send ‘palate cleansers’ and ‘amuse-bouches’ and ‘snacks’ and ‘extra courses’. This will seem generous but is actually just the restaurant buying time – a bit like when you go to a Beyoncé gig and three of the tracks are videos of her daughter at a family party, which is really cute, but it’s just filler so Beyoncé can sit down and change her wig.
Grace Dent (Hungry: The Highly Anticipated Memoir from One of the Greatest Food Writers of All Time)
Alice takes all our tapes and turns them into one top tape, and Bennie and Scotty drive from club to club, trying to get people to book the Flaming Dildos for a gig. Our big hope is the Mab, of course: the Mabuhay Gardens, on Broadway, where all the punk bands play. Scotty waits in the truck while Bennie deals with the rude assholes inside the clubs. We have to be careful with Scotty. In fifth grade, the first time his mom went away, he sat all day on the patch of grass outside his house and stared at the sun. He refused to go to school or come in. His dad sat with him trying to cover his eyes, and after school, Jocelyn came and sat there, too. Now there are permanent gray smudges in Scotty’s vision. He says he likes them—actually, what he says is: “I consider them a visual enhancement.” We think they remind him of his mom.
Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad)
I thought about my very first paying gig at Earnest Way and how nervous I was then and how I’m still afraid now...but for so many different reasons. I think in the beginning, I was afraid of failing. Now, I’m scared of the critics being right about me... I realize then... I need to stop running, quit being afraid and just surrender to my passion.
Sunshine Rodgers (Andrew's First Act)
Scott thrived on being a novelty, buzzed on being the latest, greatest person you’d met. He poured his energies into winning new acquaintances over like a top salesman with his most potentially lucrative client. He’d have effectively been auditioning as a future best man from their first handshake, whether he got the gig or not. Scott, she had realized only with hindsight, liked to overwhelm people.
Mhairi McFarlane (Mad About You)
But the best cover has to be D’Angelo, on his long-awaited 2012 comeback tour—within minutes of the first gig in Paris, the whole world was YouTubing his “Space Oddity” with our jaws hanging open. After all those years away, lost in his own personal tin can, D’Angelo came back to strum his acoustic guitar and work the hell out of “tell my wife I love her very much” line.
Rob Sheffield (On Bowie)
The great paradox of the age we live in, then, is that it’s one in which it’s exceedingly difficult to secure a record deal, and yet pursuing the path of an independent musician has never carried with it more potential upside. Another way to look at it: For the first time in the history of recorded music, you now have the astounding ability to become your own record label.
Scott Bradlee (Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession into My Dream Gig)
Over the years, I’ve made a habit of asking professionals with unlike areas of expertise for advice whenever I find myself venturing out of my comfort zone and into theirs for the first time. It’s a habit that’s served me well time and again—and certainly far better than letting ego stand between me and the information I need. There’s no shame in allowing yourself to lean on others’ expertise and become the student again; the only shame would be in not returning the favor should your wisdom be sought out someday. Most people—myself included!—love doling out wisdom, especially on subjects they’ve dealt with for most of their professional lives. It’s a big, confusing world out there, especially in the entertainment industry, and it’s important to actively develop for yourself a team of unofficial advisors that you can turn to for help in navigating the myriad decisions and dilemmas you’ll undoubtedly encounter in life. As
Scott Bradlee (Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession into My Dream Gig)
knowing that I wanted to be a piano player, and knowing that practicing, of course, was just something piano players did, I turned my daily practice into a habit. Now, habits get a bad rap; we tend to think of things like biting our nails or smoking when we talk about them. But really, a habit is defined as “a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.” Tooth brushing is a habit (for most of us). So is showing up to work on time. Those are some good habits. Habits can be good; say it with me. Once you’ve trained your brain to view practicing as a habit, the next step is finding the motivation to adopt that habit. The key to motivation, I’ve learned, is coupling your profound inspiration to a strong belief in yourself, and that’s not something even the best teacher is able to instill. It has to come from within. Building a strong core identity to drive your motivation requires first believing that you’ll eventually master the skill you’ve set out to learn—no matter how farfetched that might initially seem to yourself and others. Having the correct image of yourself is really key here; you have to think of yourself as the thing you want to be long before other people think of you as that. You may only have taken one trumpet lesson and sound horrible, but you still must think of yourself as a trumpet player in order for the habit to stick. You are whatever you do repeatedly. Practicing became such a constant in my day—and in such a natural, unforced way—that I hardly had to think about it. It had become, in other words, a habit.
Scott Bradlee (Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession into My Dream Gig)
Naskar is made by Naskar alone, not an industry or benefactor - or more importantly, by family wealth. I had a roof over my head, food on the table, and clothes on my back - that was more than enough. I started writing with literally zero dollar in my pocket. Let me tell you how it began, because for some reason, I completely forgot a crucial event of my life when I wrote my memoir Love, God & Neurons. I once met an American tourist at a local train in Calcutta. The first thing he asked me was, had I lived in the States? I said, no. Then how come you have an American accent - he asked. Watching movies - I said. We got chatting and he told me about a book he had recently published, a memoir. I believe, this was the cosmic event that planted the thought of writing my own books in my head - I had already started my self-education in Neurology and Psychology, and I was all determined to publish research papers on my ideas, but not books. Meeting the person somehow subconsciously shifted my focus from research papers to books. So the journey began. And for the first few years, I made no real money from my books. Occasionally some of my books would climb the bestsellers list on amazon, like my very first book did, and that would keep the bills paid for several months. Then the invitations for talks started coming, but they too were not paid in the beginning. The organizers made all the travel arrangements, and I gave the talks for free. It's ironic and super confusing really - I remember flying business class, but I didn't have enough money to even afford a one way flight ticket, because I had already used up my royalties on other expenses. Today I can pick and choose which speaking invitations to accept, but back then I didn't have that luxury - I was grateful for any speaking gig and interview request I received, paid or not. One time, I gave an interview to this moderately popular journalist for her personal youtube channel, only to find out, she never released the video publicly - she posted an interview with a dog owner instead - whose dog videos had gained quite a following on social media. You could say, this was the first time I realized first hand, what white privilege was. Anyway, the point is this. Did I doubt myself? Often. Did I consider quitting? Occasionally. But did I actually quit? Never. And because I didn't quit, the world received a vast never-before seen multicultural humanitarian legacy, that you know me for today. There is no such thing as overnight success. If you have a dream, you gotta work at it day in, day out - night after night - spoiling sleep, ruining rest, forgetting fun. Persist, persist, and persist, that's the only secret - there is no other. Remember this - the size of your pocket does not determine your destiny, the size of your dedication does.
Abhijit Naskar (Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch)
The one thing he hadn’t been prepared for when it came to his role as a pseudodad was the wrenching contradictions that came with the gig. He wanted her to grow up, yet he didn’t. She was a child, yet not a child. She’d had her first period, yet there she was, part of a crowd of Munchkins, looking younger than her years.
Jenny Holiday (A Princess for Christmas)
Directors started to see it too, so I began to get gigs in music videos, not even to dance. I guess the scar gave me a “look,” or an “edge.” It made me look like the tough guy I wasn’t, but I was happy to pretend. That’s all it felt like at first—pretending.
Michael K. Williams (Scenes from My Life: A Memoir)
What’s your constraint?” I said, using some newly acquired memoir-writer lingo. He ignored the question. “I’m a career yearner. Women rule me. Of course, some of the material was covered in my first memoir, but this book more specifically parses my search for atonement in women.” Everyone in L.A. knew that Spade was a big-league, serial pussy hound. L.A. County was a veritable body dump of his exes. Maggie had bolted out of town not long after last year’s book fest, taking a teaching gig in a faraway state. An editor I knew was still haunted by a brief fling she had had with Spade back in the ’90s. There were literary ladies stretched from Santa Monica to San Francisco whom he had famously romanced, rolled, and rooked over the years. I didn’t know much more about his pursuit of women, other than it had left a high body count.
Erika Schickel (The Big Hurt: A Memoir)
It has been estimated by industry insiders in the US that relying on independent contractors rather than employees can lower direct business costs for companies by as much as 25 per cent. At least some of those costs are being offloaded onto the state, and by extension onto taxpayers and other workers. Due to the paucity of many people's earnings in the 'gig' economy, signing on for social security when you fall ill is sometimes the only option. Thus the taxpayer is essentially out of pocket twice over – first as employer national insurance contributions fall, and secondly as this casual workforce turn to the state to survive.
James Bloodworth (Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain)
The more I learned, the more I understood that the startup "future of work" story, as consoling as it was, was also incomplete. Yes, the gig economy could create opportunity for some people, but it could also amplify the made the world of work terrifying in the first place; insecurity, increased risk, lack of stability, and diminishing workers' rights.
Sarah Kessler (Gigged: The End of the Job and the Future of Work)
Iris Whitney, a former showgirl that frequented Malachy’s bar on Third Avenue, became my friend with a story. The same year that I had graduated from High School, she had been frolicking with John Garfield in her two room Gramercy Park apartment. On May 21, 1952 Garfield was found dead of a heart attack, in her bed. When I first met Iris I didn’t know anything about this but even if I had, all I can say is that I enjoyed her company and survived the experience. Of course she denied having been intimate with the actor the night that he died and added that John had not been feeling well. When the police arrived and had to break the door down, her explanation was that she thought that they were newspaper men. Several years later, in Connecticut, I had the occasion to talk about old times and some of these events, to the popular stage and screen actor Byron Barr better known as “Gig Young.” Sitting with my wife Ursula and Young at the open bar alongside the Candlewood Theatre, in New Fairfield during the summer of 1978, everything seemed normal. Coincidentally I also knew his former wife Elizabeth Montgomery who was married to him from 1956 to 1963, since she was my neighbor living on the nearby Cushman road in Patterson New York,. On October 19, 1978, two months after seeing Young, I read that he had shot his wife Kim Schmidt and committed suicide only three weeks after their marriage. Apparently Young had shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself. They were both found dead in their Manhattan apartment but the police never established a motive for the murder-suicide. I knew that he liked to drink and this may have been a part of the problem, but he always seemed congenial and there was no hint that it would ever come to this.
Hank Bracker
Doug started in the White House as an intern and became Bill Clinton’s closest aide in the post–White House years, parlaying his role into a profitable private-sector gig. One of the ’08 Guys used a Downton Abbey reference to sum up Doug’s position in the House of Clinton: “Doug forgot that he lives downstairs.” The Guys welcomed negative stories about Doug. He was the perfect scapegoat for all Bill’s questionable behavior, as if the forty-second president were just a lovable St. Bernard.
Amy Chozick (Chasing Hillary: On the Trail of the First Woman President Who Wasn't)
The gig was a disaster though as their singer Hendo drank a bottle of whisky before he went onstage. Halfway through the first song, he passed out, fell off the stage and didn’t get back up! Gig over!
Ian Glasper (Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980-1984)