7-25-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians – Starter Job #158 (The Washington Squares - On the Beach Boys Tour: Fun Fun Fun Continues)

We were particularly tickled that the BB tour included really good catering. Talk about your craft services. . . this food selection at a gig was beyond any that I’d experienced. I’m sure there was mixed salad plus a Caesar salad; three kinds of bread; two kinds of pasta, one of them vegetarian; a chicken piccata and some steak or other red meat; a salmon dish or a stuffed filet of sole (this was before the Tilapia craze hit the nation). Lots of other, interesting salad type dishes and gorgeous desserts, too -- which I rarely looked at except for an occasional cookie (I always adore a good cookie with coffee).

It was all quite elegant. Even though, of course, there were stressful moments especially when driving to the gigs, the guys and I had a great time, being well fed AND paid to perform a really pro, tight set of music, then be able to watch American musical legends, the Beach Boys, play songs we all knew and loved. What a ball!

I do wish I had a photo of me with my fave Beach Boy, Carl. I can see him, in my mind’s eye. . . . Carl Wilson made a point of finding us our first night on the tour, in the backstage catering-eating area and greeting us warmly. “Welcome, we’re glad you could join us on the road for this tour,” he said, shaking hands.

Such a sweet, good man -- he is sorely missed in this nasty world. The other guys in the BB band were really nice to us, too. Bruce Johnston and Bruce Paskow got along like peas in a pod. But Mike Love -- sadly -- showed us NO love, doing his best to ignore us any time he passed by. I just didn’t get it: how hard is it to be nice to strangers even just fleetingly? 

I guess it just wasn’t enough TM, eh Mikey?

(photos of the catering 1, 2 & 3)

(Below: chef, Bruce, Billy Ficca, and Tom loading up on the BB tour catering)

(Below: Bruce goofing around about how the food affected him. . . one fun guy, all right -- and can the mushrooms!)

1-5-12 Survival Jobs for Writer-Musicians – Starter Job #3 (Carvel)

Recap: Although making music and writing have always been my main talents and the most blissful things I can think of (out of bed), you just know I’ve had an amazing array of “day jobs” and assorted other gigs to keep the dough rollin’ in. Some of those gigs were on the books, some of them not. I can’t say I’ve made huge amounts of undeclared income (take that, IRS!), but in the past, a few hundred bucks here and there, sure.

So, going back to the ignominious start of it all, off the books I was a professional Dog Walker at age 12, and then, five years passed before I got another job in our neighborhood of Little Neck-Douglaston, in Queens. This was my first “real” on-the-books employment. People from the tri-state area (NY-NJ-CT) know of an ice cream franchise that was famous for its product as much as its spokesman’s gravelly/bizarre speaking voice. “I’m Tom Carvel. Try our delicious frozen desserts, especially our ice cream cakes, made fresh in our stores. . .” Tom Carvel’s big sell was a strange looking cake called “Cookiepuss” – kind of like a cross between Caspar the Friendly Ghost and a cartoon alien. At Thanksgiving, Carvel would hawk a turkey-shaped ice cream cake that was shaped suspiciously like Cookiepuss, only rotated at a different angle and decorated like, well, a Thanksgiving turkey. And at Christmas, the Cookiepuss became Santa Claus. . . what a versatile cake mold, that Cookiepuss!

At the Little Neck-Douglaston Carvel, I had to wear a uniform of sorts (definitely a hat and some kind of shirt), and clock in with a time clock. I was paid minimum wage ($2.30 p.h.) which, at the time, was sufficient to live on, actually (if you keep in mind that rent on a typical Manhattan apartment was $125, and probably under $100 in the ‘burbs). I was good at the soft serve machine and at scooping ice cream. . . but only the manager got to make Cookiepuss! He was probably around 20 years old, a sweet, dark haired, dark eyed guy -- looked like Bob Cowsill with a bad case of acne – and I always felt respect and humor from him. He had a girlfriend or a fiancé and was around the Carvel store half the time when I worked.

The boss, on the other hand, was a kind of creepy man, named Howie or something, a guy once rumored to flirt with and feel up some of the other female employees. As luck would have it, I was in the height of my post-anorexic phase, and too skinny to appeal to a guy like Howie. Or maybe he was afraid of my dark, flashing eyes? Whatever. I didn’t want to take anybody’s s**t, but most of all I’d have been so freaked out. . . I’m glad nothing happened.

At my Carvel job, it must have looked funny to have this terribly thin person serving big cones of ice cream and huge, goopy ice cream sundaes, but there I was. As employees, we could eat ice cream to our heart’s desire (in the back), but my special treat was when they had banana soft serve Carvel ice cream. I’d pour myself a big one in a sugar cone, lay it down on parchment paper, place it in a freezer, then have a treat for later that I could eat VERY slowly for dinner or lunch (always gave me a headache and made me need a nap, but it was yummy). I’d always ask for shifts when they were selling banana soft serve.

At my Carvel job, they knew they could count on me to do a good job with customers, run the cashier efficiently, work hard, and be ultra reliable. I don’t do sick days – mostly, I’m too healthy and besides, why let a little discomfort (illness) get in the way of making money? Especially if you didn’t want to lose your job, you just showed up.

I’ve been showing up for almost forty years now, every job, every single gig, every deadline. Maybe I’ve had five sick days (including one gig I had to miss with the Washington Squares on account of Chicken Pox!). ‘Tis the secret of my survival job success: be reliable and show up!!