SAME OL' SAME OL': SAME OL' SAME OL'

BARON AND SELF BUSKING

Suffice I used an idiom (title) adumbrating my blog for today.  I am at the age where I seem to need consistency at work and at play.  I am at that age where regimen rings reward.  I am at that age where I have just published the words and phrases to prove that I am delusional in my thinking about my customary and mechanical routine in my wakening and floundering world.

In my professional workplace I am a contractor.  I have a continuing meat and potatoes contract as a high school guidance counselor.  I have a dessert contract as a Psychology professor.  I have a client-demand academically-inclined hypnotherapy practice.  And I am a busker and a blogger.  (I used to refer to myself as a faux busker but came to realize there is no distinction between faux busker and real busker.  In this regard it is kind of like a pretend clown compared to a real clown, or kind of like using the words, moil and toil in different sentences – pun intended.  I know it seems rather weird to make such distinctions.)

All of these jobs for which I have just mentioned are very much same ol’ same ol’.  As a public high school guidance counselor and Psychology prof I am an empirical master.  As a private practitioner I am an eminent magician (but a tyro at marketing).  As a busker and blogger my performances are perfunctory.

Hmmm …

As far as my continuing contract as a high school counselor I’ve not a whole lot of control to where I’m assigned.  For example, this coming fall I am on the move.  I am opening up a new program entitled THE HIGH SCHOOL REGISTRATION CENTRE.  My new duties shall be to design and deliver INTAKES, ASSESSMENTS, and PLACEMENTS.  I am excited for a couple of reasons.  First, I get to create a new program; and second, my new office is right downtown.  I live downtown!

Also come fall I’ll be delivering a university course that I’ve never before taught, CHILD PSYCHOLOGY.  I’ve taught several Psychology courses over the last twenty years but CHILD PSYCHOLOGY will be a first for me.  CHILD PSYCHOLOGY does seem most appropriate -- pun (again) intended.

Regarding my private practice I now have a website, NEIL CHILD HYPNOTHERAPY, created by my geometrical genius friend, Kimberly.  I will soon be soliciting her to help me with my marketing.  Kim is an regular reader of my blog and so I know she’ll be privy to my wishes as soon as I hit the publish button for this particular entry.

My high school students, university students, hypnotherapy clients, and busking consumers are too, not surprisingly, same ol’ same ol’.  All come with different faces and different names but typically the same ol’ issues.  Most high school students have relationship issues sometimes with parents and teachers, but mostly with romance and peers (academic issues are counter pattern).   Most of my university students are female, between 25 and 30 years of age, having juggling problems with money (part-time and full-time jobs) and study and boyfriends (scholastic achievement is counter pattern).  Most of my hypnotherapy clients want to quit smoking or quit eating or start getting a good night’s sleep (past life regression is counter pattern).

Same ol’ same ol’.  Different faces, different names, same ol’ problems.

Hmmm ...

All these aforementioned professional endeavors are now, not necessarily by my design, changing, and this is a good thing.  My busking though, purportedly what this blog is about, has become, like I said, perfunctory.

Oh sure, I am successful at what I do for busking but … I have these past years been following a fixed program (by design).  I’ve become inflexible.  My busking routine is mechanical.  I have become a buskermonger.  I need to change it up.

Changing things up requires reflection and introspection.  Especially this summer I’ve thought and thought and thought about it.  I dusted off my didgeridoo, took it out a couple times but decided I cannot drone for ninety minutes straight.  I get too bored.  I even went busking with my banjitar, the sound of which is too intrusive on the street or at a market.  The best place for banjitar busking is in the middle of a parking lot, seriously!

Two days ago came an epiphany, my “aha” moment.  Rather than change my accoutrements of white shirt, blue jeans, and work boots, I decided to learn some percussion techniques on my guitar whilst strumming my guitar!  Percussion techniques are simple to learn, but difficult to master (practice, practice, practice).

After viewing several YouTube percussionist guitar performers I can conclude that maintaining a steady rhythm to be the most important task.  Being never a lead guitarist and always the rhythm guy, this can be easily accomplished.  Second on the important list is to keep it simple.  Simple percussion techniques such as the thumb-tap, nail-strum, and knuckle-slap are rather easy to practice. (I’ve just made up these mnemonic names for these particular techniques so that I can remember what to do when I’m practicing while busking.  Ha!  Yes, when busking -- I get paid to practice, and so can you!) Keep in mind that I long only to be a busker; I’m never striving to be in the limelight as a main stage percussion guitarist.

Now ‘tis time to write about my blogging formula. After 200 postings (this being #237) and a readership from 147 different countries (there are 195 countries on the planet), I have no plans to change. 

My blogging formula, comprised of mostly facts written by fictioneer, moi:

• Create a snappy title.

• Write in 600 to 1000 words about what that snappy title connotes.

• Post an interesting picture top left on the blog entry.

• Mention some people I’ve met during the week under my segment, CHAUCERIAN PARADE.  (For example, pictured above is my familiar drummer buskmate, BARON.  This picture was taken by another guitar buskmate, ANN-MARIE.)

• Post another interesting picture or two near the closing.

• Re-write.  Re-write. Re-write.

• Post a new blog entry the next week.  Same time same station.

SAME OL’ SAME OL.’
Thus my lifestyle essay, implicit in nature, comes to a close.

SAME OL' SAME OL.' 
SAFE ... VAPID ... COLORLESS ... HUMDRUM ... HO-HUM ...

HMMM ... 

SLACK ... STALE ... MORIBUND ... DEAD.
 
TRANSFIGURATION (GO FIGURE) ... STIRRING ... EXHILARATING ... ROUSING ... ADVENTUROUS.