Thursday, May 13, 2010

Help me and my band go to Lilith Fair!

UPDATE (5/25/10): We've made it to the quarter-finals! But we still need you all to votevotevote for us. The process outlined below is still the same if you haven't already registered. If you have, please come back and vote some more! We are incredibly grateful for all your support that's gotten us to this point, and would be even more so if we could keep up the momentum!

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Hello all you extremely beautiful and generous people!

Little Red Wolf (my band) has submitted itself to play at this years triumphantly returned Lilith Fair music festival when it comes to Chicago on July 17. We think we'd be a pretty excellent fit, and they're holding a competition for one local band to get a slot on their Village Stage.

Not only would this be a great opportunity for us as a band, it would also mean a great deal to me personally. Playing at Lilith has been a dream of mine since the festival first made the rounds in the '90s. It was, in fact, while watching Sarah McLachlan play the Chicago show in '98 that I had my "I must perform music for ever and ever" epiphany.

To make this happen, though, we need people to VOTE FOR US in as great a number as possible. The competition is stiff and numerous, but we're hoping we have what it takes to rally the troops. You have to create an account at the contest website, but it's FREE. You can also vote more than once (it's once per day, I think)! Here's the only catch: you have to vote in at least 25 of the voting clumps (basically, there are four songs to a group, and you rate them from favorite to worst before moving on to the next 4). So it'll take a little extra work on your part, but you can take heart in the fact that you'll be doing a good deed for us and several other up-and-coming lady bands. To make it a bit easier to find Little Red Wolf specifically, though, once you're registered and logged in just go to our profile and click the button that makes us your favorite band. That way we're guaranteed to show up in your voting at least once a day!

Full voting instructions and details below. Voting ends MAY 31! Tell your friends!

Thanks so much!

TO ENTER: There are two ways to enter. One way to enter the Contest, is entrant can first create a free account by logging on to http://www.ourstage.com. Once you are on the Home Page, click on the word "Judge" at the top of the page. Then click "Lilith Fair Local Talent Contest." This will bring you to a page that will allow you to judge in any of the Lilith Local Talent Search Channels (for us you'll want to choose Lilith Fair: Chicago).

The second way to enter is by logging into OurStage using Facebook Connect and judging in any of the Lilith Local Talent Search Channels from Lilith Fair’s main facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/lilithfairtour.

To be eligible for the Best Predictor Giveaway entrants must:
• Participate in at least 25 Sort4 and/or 100 Head-To-Head battles. Both Sort4 and
Head-to-Head battles are acceptable forms of judging on OurStage.com. Additional
information on the forms of judging can be found on the OurStage FAQs,
http://www.ourstage.com/about/faqs.
• The entrant must vote within the Lilith Local Talent Search Channel and between
the Contest Period. There is no limit on the number of times you can vote.
3. BEST PREDICTOR GIVEAWAY CONTEST PERIOD: Best Predictor Giveaway begins
once the Contest become available on Web Site for entrants to vote on, but no later than
12:00:00 am ET on May 1, 2010 and ends at 12:01:00 am ET on May 31, 2010
(“Contest Period”).

Saturday, May 8, 2010

The Crayola Nation (aka WTF Arizona?)

The funny thing is that the white crayon has always been the most useless of the bunch.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Part-time pity party

Ugh.

Any half-sane person would anticipate that, upon quitting their perfectly good day job in order to pursue a career as a freelance anything, life would get a little more difficult. I did. But it turns out it's near impossible to fully anticipate just how mentally taxing the whole process can be. Especially if you're not, like, immediately just selling tons of work and getting mad advances for your totally genius book idea, et cetera.

Never knowing exactly when your next paycheck will come, or even how much it will be for; scrambling to pay bills on time, canceling various services to save money, being in near-constant hustle mode--that alone is exhausting.

Throw "no one will hire me for a crappy part-time job so I can at least make ends meet" into the mix and it's enough to turn even the most optimistic soul a little sour.

A friend of mine once told me that he thought there were two types of people in the word: those that just shut down in the face of adversity, small or large, and those who immediately say to themselves, "OK, how do I make this work?" and then just do. He said he thought I was the latter, and generally, perhaps somewhat egotistically, I agree.

And maybe that's why I have such a hard time coming to terms with those instances when I do let myself shut down. They don't happen often, and they don't usually announce themselves with any great fanfare. It's just, suddenly I'm missing appointments and having a hard time getting off the couch and am deeply, deeply mired down in an internal pity party that I can't seem to shake.

I've applied at something like 15 different places around town and, lo and behold the recession, no one yet is hiring--or if they are, they're getting a million applications and mine failed to rise to the top of the heap. It's rough on the ol' ego.

Fact of the matter is I've made it three months into this grand experiment and am now officially broke. It's not exactly how I planned it, and that threw me for a loop. But I woke up at the beginning of this week and simply said, "Emily, it's time to get this thing done." No more laying around feeling sorry for myself, no matter how rough things get. Because what does that accomplish? (other than a chance to catch up on episodes of The Wire)

So a word to the wise: If you're thinking of doing something similar with your life, be prepared. Make a schedule and a list of goals, large and small, and stick to it. And know that, unless you're just wildly successful from the get-go, it's likely you'll be dealing with some very low moments. Don't let them get the best of you. Frankly, it could always be worse - and the promise of something better should be enough to keep you rolling.
The Lost Albatross