25 days, $1080, And a Bucket of Stories - Day 25
Goal: Play in the Subway 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 25 days making at least 1080.00, which will cover all my bills for January.
Alright folks. I've procrastinated and put off this final post for almost a week and a half now. Though it feels like the better part of a month.
The long and the short - is I made it. By the skin of my teeth, I made it.
Total cash from the subway - 719
Total hours playing guitar - 52
Wage per hour 13/ hour
I had to call in on an early paycheck, and not pay as much as I'd planned on a bill, BUT - everything got paid and I made it through.
I learned a lot this last month. It wasn't like the 1st year I did this. I mean - there were similarities, sure - but, it was completely different. Much more of a grind, of a hard, hard grind.
A good friend of mine who was following the blog sent me a text just before I stopped posting back in January, and she said something like
, "Hey - it sounds like your having a rough time - a really rough time - if you wana talk it out - holler"
And it was the first time, seeing her text, that I really looked at what was happening, how I was feeling, and that - yeah - I was not the Ryan I usually am. Not the Ryan I am now. I was caught up in this death grind where all I did was eat, sleep, play guitar in the subway, and go to rehearsal. And I guess I forgot how hard that is. How absolutely challenging.
But what really hit me hard, smack in the face, wasn't that it was hard - or that I was over worked and exhausted. It was that - I'm pretty tired of playing in the subway. That's never happened before. Ever. In all the years I've been doing it. Its a hard hard job playing for a crowd composed mostly of people who barely know you're there. And you find the rare gems - you pull out the rare stories, and they're wonderful - but the hour to hour, the minute to minute of it - It's a hard hard thing.
Now - don't get me wrong - I'm not done busking. haha. That's just crazy talk. But the idea of making it my main source of income - That - just can't happen anymore. Because it ate me last month. It opened wide, and gobbled me down.
SO - Moving forward -
this month has a little different feel to it.
I'm working on three different projects -
James and the Giant Peach with Filament Theatre - Opening February 11th
Tounges - with a mystery director in an abandoned space - Opens in March
Spoon River Anthology - Oakton Community College - Music Directing - rehearsals start at the end of February.
As well as various gigs at City News, Underground Wonderbar and The Store
I'm learning buckets of music for Spoon River and I'll be posting em up on here as well as Soundcloud and some You Tube stuff.
So - There's gona be alot of music this month. Buckets of it. :)
Happy February yall.
Ryan
