Andrew's Lunch Time Thoughts

It Came From The Pit – Keyboard Cat Gets A Day Job

(Click comic for full-size)

 

In many ways this weeks' comic is a scenario I am faced with often. Finding good (and reliable) musicians at short notice is no easy task. It often involves a type of Voodoo Magic that requires you to sense a musician's availability rather than know of it. It turns out "Voodoo Magic 101" would be a legitimate course at University should the institution choose to instil in its students some real world knowledge of the music industry.

Anyway, I digress...

Armed with my endless audition budget and tongue firmly placed in my cheek, I decided that I would not only hire a great musician, but I would hire a famous one too. And what musician could be more famous than the No.1 most viewed artist on the Internet? A musician of such depth and understanding that he has reached near cult status? A musician who has perhaps felt the cold harsh sting of fame's fickality*** and has fallen on hard times. A musician who would work for mere fish a day??

I give you Keyboard Cat!

It was at this stage that it occurred to me that Keyboard Cat's inherent skills at "playing people off" would work perfectly during an audition. Imagine if you will, the hilarity Keyboard Cat would provide to a situation if a candidate messed up a section or played a wrong note. The many hours of tedious listening would be momentarily broken up by a LOL or two I can assure you.

The possibilities are endless. I believe all auditions could be far more entertaining than they currently are.

As a result I propose a new format to all auditions around the world. Perhaps the first real change of this sort of thing for hundreds of years. Please leave your accolades of "Genius" and "Inspired" to the end of this presentation:

• Round One will be renamed "The Round of Death" to promote a type of danger and excitement to the proceedings.
• During The Round of Death musicians will be required to perform their pieces and excerpts whilst standing near something dangerous; perhaps a kiddie pool of piranha or maybe an iron will be left facing down on a freshly pressed linen shirt. Will it catch fire?? Who knows, but candidates will have to concentrate on their Mozart regardless, lest it sound like ducks screwing.
• After the Round of Death, successful candidates would move onto Round Two or "The Feats of Strength Round".
• This round would involve various types of heavy lifting and so on, to simulate the requirement of moving their own music stand in the pit (see here for more information).
• Once finished, successful candidates (ie ones not crushed by their stand and unfazed by a potential fire hazard) are moved to the final round, The "Round of Questions".
• This round would involve a type of lie detector being strapped to the candidate and the panel asking questions like: "How much did you really practise for this?", "What are your thoughts on the traditional tuning systems of Northern Europe?", "Who really killed JFK?" and so on and so on in this fashion until a final candidate is found.

A process like this would be easily convertible to a TV format and the resulting revenue would pay for all manner of music-making around town for years.

Did I just solve the "lack of funding" problems faced by almost all Arts organisations? I'll let you be the judge....

.....but yes.....yes I did.

***Not actually a "real" word. However the English language seems to be as fickle as the use of the term fickality will eventually be. Glad you bothered reading down to here huh?

It Came From The Pit – It’s All How You Spin It

Greetings and welcome to another "It Came From The Pit".

The comic below is something that I could imagine happening if a big corporation were to control an arts organisation. Hahaha pretty farfetched I know! But bare with me on this hypothetical.

I have worked the odd job before where obviously mundane tasks or insults were born anew as exciting things that I might want to be a part of. Cleaning the toilets could be described as "A wondrous introduction to the inner workings of the company" or getting coffee for assholes could be re-branded as "Smiley fun hospitality practical appreciation of both man and bean". My marketing skills are still in development. (Pun only intended as an inverse factor of its Ho to Hum ratio).

A classic example was one company I worked for (well, served in, like a war) that decided that employees were depressed about being on a lower floor while their oppressive Overlord managers were on the upper levels. In their mind the employees simply had to do the math to discover their place within a company hierarchy, their inherent worth to a company.

This was not acceptable. The fact that these same employees were paid minimum wage and were expected to do the most mind numbing jobs and unreasonable hours didn't seem to factor into their equation. To the powers that be, it was simply a matter of real estate. An employee simply had to count the floors and then assign a number to his or her company rank, something that was too obvious for the ley-worker to deduce. A solution had to be found!

I can only imagine a meeting of some sort was called to address said problem and after many an hour of brain storming and deliberating an answer was handed to them by the God's themselves. An answer so simple in its concoction that it threatened the very fabric of space-time! Their solution was to put the very lowest of the low on the top floor and the very highly paid on the bottom, thusly creating a kind of illusionary business structure that would surely fool the masses into thinking they had received a stupendous promotion.

The masses were not fooled**.

Management were however, and congratulated themselves on their brilliance. I asked a co-slave what they thought of the plan and they simply replied "Who cares? So I still get no money and now I have to climb twenty flights of stairs to get to work instead of one."

On the flip-side some could argue that my fellow colleagues were now afforded a splendorous view for their trouble. These "some" would be sadly mistaken as all the windows had blinds on them (and a key locking them down if my memory serves me, which it doesn't during this hideous time). Instead our only source of light was my flickering CRT monitor and my view was of a depressed "International student" reading Manga.Surprisingly my "rise in the company" looked very similar to level one.

They were dark times friends. Dark times indeed.

Also that guy only read some weird fan-fiction Manga about a TV show I had never seen. He also ate a lot of cheese. Nuff said.

**Interestingly the workers on level 10 (of 20) remained unchanged. The recipients of some kind of twisted cosmic joke that seemed bent on reminding these workers that they were average and would remain average and unchanged for the rest of their days. These workers, friends, were the most damned of them all. Sort of like Faust.

(Click on comic for full-size)

 

It Came From The Pit – Timing Is Everything

Another week, another episode!

Have you ever wondered why certain types of instruments attract certain types of people to them? Well I have.

This week's comic focuses on an instrument family that consistently stays consistent. I mean seriously, Brass players are all the same. The easy explanation to all of this is how those kids are chosen to play a brass instrument in the first place. To cut a very long story short, the kid who used to sit up the back, picking his nose and flicking it at the girls in the front (who later become flute or clarinet players), who used to make fart noises when the teacher sat down, was given a trumpet. I'm not kidding you, they even teach that to *teachers*. Teachers are lazy.

"Hey that kid is already making fart sounds, just put a trumpet in front of him" ....and hey presto!

Don't believe me? Well here are the stereotypes if you are not familiar with them:

• Flutes: Scatter brain girls and guys with mum's who are scatter brains and forced them to do it.
• Saxophone: Someone saw a movie in the 80s and thought it would be cool. Turns out it's not.
• Clarinets: The kids who weren't allowed to play saxophone
• Trumpet: See above
• Trombone: The slower cousin of the Trumpet kid.
• Tuba: The kid, who early on in his music career, decided that crotchets were the only note for him.
• Violin: Kids of Doctors and Lawyers (who later are bitterly disappointed their kid made a career out of it even though they pushed them to practise 20 hours a day)
• Viola: They suck at Violin
• Double Bass: These kids are often the shortest in the grade and parents own a really small car.
• Jazz Double Bass: See above, however in addition they either can't handle a bow or like to wear pork-pie hats.
• Oboe: Sadistic kids with deaf parents.
• Bassoon, Bass Clarinet, Baritone Saxophone and other assorted "weird" bass instruments: The kids who felt that they weren't weird enough and thought they may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

Thus ends our music education.

Enjoy the next episode of "It Came From The Pit – Timing Is Everything"

(Click image for larger size).

 

It Came From The Pit – To Ere is Human, To Rieu Devine

Greetings everyone and welcome to the first 2010 "It Came From The Pit". I got the odd complaint about not updating this comic more regularly (but in my defence I thought I was the only one reading it) so I will try my best to make some more.

Here is a post Christmas special!

I was wondering through JB Hi-Fi and saw all the different "Hero" games there are now for PS3 and XBOX 360. I mean seriously, there are more Hero choices than there are Borg on a Cube (thank God I got a Star Trek reference in there) and it struck me why there were no "classical" instrument Hero games. I swiftly answered my own question by realising that a Violin Hero or Bassoon Hero game would be a tad dull......or would it?!

Imagine the entertainment your Grandmother would get as you flawlessly play a Mozart Concerto on hard difficulty. There is nothing to say that you couldn't provide a little show-biz along the way is there?! A little bit of kicking over your stand or pointing to the crowd with your bow after a high note. Classical music needs more of this in my humble opinion. But I digress...

It was at that point that it dawned on me that since great bands like Metallica, Aero Smith and Nirvana have Guitar Hero titles to their name, why not Andre Rieu? I mean he is like a rock guy with a Violin right?

Oh yeah I know why. Andre Rieu sucks. There I said it.

Also I'm pretty sure that Andre Rieu is actually Michael Bolton under some kind of witness relocation program. Or perhaps Michael Bolton and Andre Rieu are the fathers of Kenny G?!?! If I just blew your mind look away now!!

+=?

Moving along...

Please enjoy a return of It Came From The Pit – "To Ere is Human, to Rieu Divine"

(Click Image for Full-sized version)

 

It Came From The Pit - Amendment

So it turns out that my previous comic could be breaching some sort of copyright laws. Apparently one of the robots in the middle panel looks like "Bender" from Futurama. As a result my lawyers have advised me to compose this open letter to anyone from Fox who comes looking for trouble:

 

O Hai there 20th Century Fox overlord! You may have noticed some similarities between my "It Came From The Pit" robots with your heavily copyrighted Bender robot. I am here to assure you that this could not be further from the truth.

 

You see, my robot is from the past whilst your one is from the future (a place "most" scientists agree does not exist).

My robot is based heavily in "science fact" where your show (and by extension, your robot) is often located in the "science fiction" section at JB Hi-Fi. Can "fiction" ever be copyrighted over "fact" I ask you? Probably not.

I have also been lead to believe that "Bender" is in fact a cartoon character, no more real than the "Boogie-man", "Santa" or "Al Gore". My robot is real however, as is evidenced by its awesome violin-and-bow arms. Still sceptical? Well have you ever seen a violin or bow in real life? I thought so.

To paraphrase the judge who would oversee this farce of a lawsuit:

"Game, set and match goes to Andrew Pogson..."

 

So it is with great regret that I must ask you, powerful Fox warlord, that all Bender royalties be paid directly to me until further notice.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Andrew J. Pogson

 

 

That should cover all my bases...

It Came From The Pit - The Internet Never Lies

Another week rolls on and another episode of “It Came From The Pit” is here!

 

I was watching the Orchestra “stamp their feet” for every soloist at a recent rehearsal and it got me thinking; “Where did something like this originate?” Of course I set about answering my own question the best way I know how….(Click comic for full-size).

 

 

 

It Came From The Pit - The Devil's Workshop

Look out! Here comes another episode of: “It Came From The Pit”

 

 

As a way of collecting some extra money, I have started doing the odd casual Production shift at work. This involves helping out the real production people with whatever they might need me to do backstage and in the pit at the State Theatre. After an evening of bumping out, I was heard to remark on the weight of the musician’s music stands (seriously these things are stupidly heavy). I asked one of the permanent Production crew members what the deal was and his answer is below…(Click comic for full-size).

 

Updates - New Nork

So I will be leaving for a New York City trip in a few days and plan to blog-the-hell-out-of-it. Just a minor pre-warning.

If you are interested in being insanely jealous on a daily basis i suggest that you subscribe via an RSS feed or Atom etc so you don't miss the fun.

For comic fans; I have lined up a couple of new "It Came From The Pit" comics to be posted on Wednesdays for the next couple of weeks. I guess they should be called "Hump Comics" for Hump Day Wednesday (FYI don't Google image search "Hump Comics" with the filter turned off....)

Please feel free to post your "comments" or feedback below each post. I will be more than happy to respond. Negative feedback will be edited and then banned unless it is funny, then i will simply call the Police.

I look forward to talking to you soon (or the Police - it's your call buddy!)

It Came From The Pit - The Price of Art

I am pleased to announce the debut of my new comic: “It Came From The Pit”!!

 

I decided that I would try my hand at writing/drawing my own little strip for a while and see how it goes. Essentially all these comics are inspired directly by my dealings with “real musicians” and things that may have happened in my job with Orchestra Victoria.

 

This first strip was based on a real conversation I heard between two (young) musicians. With music so accessible now from the internet and the world’s best recording ready for download (or pirate) at the touch of a button, it would seem that the “Price of Art” is falling in value…(Click comic for full-size).

O boy...

So my wife Vanessa has the blogging bug, and seeing it was getting too hard for her to post on my site (well hard isn't the right word, more like giving her total control was impossible, which is what she wanted) she decided to start her own one. It is called Project Ness and can be found here.

I warn you though, the first post involes a wizard hat she just bought. I'm not kidding... I am the "normal one" in the relationship...