-Ok so, I just thought of something that happened to me that seems hysterical now:

I sought a job, any job (still a music one though) some years ago, at an after-school program, which, don’t seem to be the greatest thing ever, if you know what I mean (disinterested kids, glorified babysitting, as one employee in such a program once said (he was later fired), etc.
I got hired with flying colors (I guess I’m good, yes.)it was some kinda once a week, maybe twice, “lecture” for a large amount of middle school (pehaps even younger? can’t totally remember) in Buena Park, CA (“sorry, where?” yeah, I don’t know either.) but it WAS in conservative ORANGE COUNTY. (side note: I have since discovered a sizable amount of artsy liberal people (also burners) in orange county (props, Laguna. props.)
so

my first (and only) time working there involved, decided by me,
a “lecture/demonstration” on the awesomeness of James Brown and African Music (what the fuck else “is the coolest thing ever”, man?  wink emoticon what the fuck else would I want to teach kids or do with them or have them do or know about? hot crossed fuckin buns? playing quarter notes?
so…

I managed to show them how the different instrumental parts in a James Brown tune (some of them in particular (Give It Up Or Turnita Loose) are “very” interlocking, rhythmically.
how the horns play two notes, then the guitar played 3 notes, followed immediately by the horns playing their two notes again, etc…

(not to mention that Hip Hop and other things “come from” James Brown.

and how, exactly like in the West-African music we CalArtsians know and love so much, thanks to Ladzekpo and Co,

how exactly as in that,

James Brown would call the changes, to The Bridge, and it wasn’t “counted”, it was WHEN (and if) James called for the bridge.

he could (and does, in two different recordings of Hot Pants,)
go to the bridge
return to the main riff, for ONE BAR, and then
immediately call the bridge again.

so much like in an A/B call when you return to the A part, and then IMMEDIATELY go to the B part again; Alfred could (and did) do this on us sometimes, to “catch” us “not listening, not unlike how James Brown would FINE people if they fucked up (which I seem to recall, Alfred told stories of that happening where he comes from in Ghana as well.)
NEEDLESS to say, this “demonstration” involved “ME DOING AFRICAN DANCE” for these kids.
(oh I should mention, that they had a “dance recess party” or something “just” before this “lecture, which I heard, and one of the songs played was SEX MACHINE. (this told me that playing the version of “Give It Up Or Turnita Loose” that I did, (in which he says “like a sex machine” three times) was fine, (they just used the ACTUAL “Sex Machine” song at an in-school party for the same kids.)

well,

apparently I offended the conservative PTA and I was fired right quick, but I didn’t find out for days, I drove out there to work the next class, only to be notified they weren’t having it that day, and only days later that I’d been fired.

thing is:

the kids “fuckin ATE IT UP.”
they LOVED me.

so much they were “CHANTING MY NAME” across the parking lot after this event ended. (they were on some nearby field, I was “getting a drink at an outdoor water fountain, and I heard the chanting…. they loved me.

Fuck Employment by uptight people.
I’ll take influencing some kids’s lives positively (and “exposing” them to James Brown and African Music over pleasing a buncha conservative (and white) people any day.

Hell Yeah.

with me they got genuineness, honesty and coolness, not to mention James Brown and some African music and dance.
I may starve.
I will die.

but we shall sing and dance.

p.s.
next year, maybe the one after that,
maybe even after that still,

I applied for a job with the same company (unknowingly,)
and they too hired me enthusiastically, and they had, at the time, an earlier interview on file (the one from above), in which a certain word (a very positive one, but I don’t recall what it was) was used, (they used the “glowing prior interview” as a basis for hiring me this second time.)I had no recollection of working for them before at all.

I was hired.

(this time I had the job for a year (before I decided that it was too far to drive for too little money (which it was)
they eventually figured out that I had indeed been fired before, but just laughed it off. (wasn’t much of a big deal, it seems.)

‪#‎jam‬

a lotta things are average, middle-of-the-road, lame, boring, unoffensive, politically correct, easy-going, reasonable.

in this life somebody’s got to be awesome and real and mighty enthusiastic, not to mention “inspiring to others.”
that’s me.

(I always was inspiring, my 6th grade art teacher commented on how at that age, I was excited about art class, and other kids became so to, apparently, thanks to my genuine un-self-conscious enthusiasm.)
‪#‎win‬.
‪#‎I‬ win.

ok, this post is getting full of myself.

let’s stop.

#I still win.

guess life isn’t so bad after all.

could be comatose with no joy aside from drinking.

#I still still win