Working For The Mouse Very early on -- ChrisE -- an administrator once told him "I don't get the whole musician thing." He responds that since this person has worked at Disneyland for 20 years this statement is telling (read: self-incriminating). Upon overhearing the story of this exchange (when exactly it happened I can't be sure...sometime between a few months and a few years ago, probably closer to the latter as this would place it near the Dband schism), frankly I am inclined (granted after only a dozen or so working days as a Dland musician) to echo the sentiments of this administrator. At this early juncture I too am having trouble understanding the musician thing(s) I am observing. I have heard lots of complaints about the job and very little about its upsides, assuming for the moment that it has any, which is not always obvious from the general mood and specific discussions. As I finally write this recollection down, it has now been several months since I overheard the given statement, I have been full time for 6 six weeks now, and it is clearer now that much of this angstiness is coming from a few people. ChrisE in particular was quite hung up on the move to the temporary EOC break room and now seems quite hung up on the return to the renovated one back in the Old Admin bldg, which he apparently has recently had occasion to lay eyes on himself and which he forthwith declared "small" with the same tone in his voice as accompanied all of the other statements related here. FrankL is another source of angst, though clearly with a very different etiology. In my first days in the close quarters of the old OAB break room which was shared by Straw Hatters and Hook and Ladder Co., the ample supply of Alka-Seltzer visible in Frank's locker rather immediately caught my eye (and piqued my interest). Our "Monday" being their "Saturday," I once had occasion early on to find the locker standing open one morning, along with all manner of other assorted indications that the prior evening's exit had been hasty for the entire band. Equally clearly, the room had not been customarily serviced by the janitorial staff, something else that seems to happen periodically, certainly not to the point of arising to a grievance, but intriguing nonetheless, most of all for the lack of any discernible pattern, which implies simple forgetfulness by the staff which may or may not rise to the level of "incompetence" depending on where the bar for that used up term is placed. But in any case, this is not the last time I will notice that our break room, whichever room it is at any given time, has not been serviced, and in light of that, this is clearly an exceptional arrangment indicating a desire to GTFO as soon as possible. In ensuing months I make a couple of carefully calculated quips about the supply of Alka-Seltzer in the break room, always to just one other bandmate and never naming the supplier. These are met with a non-plussedness which I can't parse but which leads me to suspect that the remarks were received as untoward. At one point early on, Frank subs with us on drums for a day and I find him to be quite decent and interesting. And eventually I will piece together that Frank suffers from some sort of clinical anxiety problems, though the exact nature of them remains unclear. Now it dawns on me that Frank was Chris' interlocutor (or one of them) in the above related exchange, during which Frank related his own similar story of informing a low-level manager of precautions/preparations he was taking just in case he "had to get the hell out of here." Evidently the manager was worse than nonplussed but in fact seemed to take personal offense of some kind, which Frank and Chris seem to find uncalled for. But now I know that Chris knows better: he has since mentioned that we (AFM musicians) are among "the highest paid employees at the park." (I assume there are paper-pushers at TDA who make more?) This does not of course mean that we are Highly Paid in any abstract sense, especially given the current cost of living in SoCal. But even so, I would say that we are Well Paid for what we do, and in fact that we are quite privileged compared not just to other musicians but in fact to a great many of the low level administrators at the park, who I have since been led to believe (by Chris) make around $15 an hour, about half what we make after AFM deductions. ----- Sincerity is a biiig problem. This much is crystal clear to me before I have played a note with the band: my first tastes of the Straw Life are three "put-in days" where I alternate between shadowing the band for a set and playing a set. As a musically educated audience member, the unmistakable impression is of exceptional musicians giving unexceptional performances, of going through the motions rather than making music. After a few sets of this I also begin moving around a bit during my turns as a listener in order to get a sense of the (non-)acoustics of main street, specifically the Town Square and "Mid-Main Street" where the band plays most of its sets. I don't have to get very far away at all before all I can hear are low-fi bounces of trumpet and drums. Trombone, clarinet and tuba are quite faint, and banjo is veritably inaudible. Do the musicians realize this? I sense that they don't, but also that it would not matter much. The music is already Correct without being particularly engaging. After doing a handful of full weeks with the band and eventually being offered the permanent, full time tuba chair, I have a bit more empathy. It is not easy to stay focused for 7 sets a day, 5 days a week. BobB, the outgoing tuba player, remarked at one point during my put-in that it was not always this way. For a long time, he says, groups like the Stawtters were breakout groups, configurations were more fluid, Dband musicians often formed backup bands for name artists doing one-off evening concerts, etc. He says only that this variety made the job more interesting, but I imagine that it also made it easier for musicians to stay engaged and give their all more of the time. ChrisE, the bandleader, also remarks on this periodically as I am being initiated into Straw Life. As I will soon learn to take in stride, he is somewhat more cynical and abrasive in his remarks whereas BobB is admirably equanimous for someone who obviously has plenty of grievances (45 years worth!) simmering under the surface. It is irresistable (ultimately futile, of course, but irresistable nonetheless) to speculate as to how such divergences between two people might arise. Undoubtedly it is due to things that happened to them long before either worked with the other at Disneyland. But the fact that ChrisE is an unusually accomplished and well-rounded player on an instrument where competition is intense while BobB is a solid but unremarkable player of an instrument where that is all that is expected seems to me to be part of the equation. As DannyH has remarked in his not-serious-but-totally-serious way, BobB did quite well to land a career tuba job and make a good career out of it. It occurs to me the ChrisE is also doing quite well for himself, but given his greater accomplishment this can never be better than proportional/expected. ----- "...written around 1919..." Lack of reverence for the repertoire AND the audience. It took me a while but eventually I realized that the dates were made up and that 1919 was something of a meme. ----- Finally, the new break room was finished, towards the end of August 2017. I had started as a sub in February and accepted the permanent, full-time tuba job with the Strawtters toward the end of June, at which point we had been in a temporary break room already for several weeks. This temporary space was the "Old EOC" which stands for Emergency Operations Center, a modular building built on the massive asphalt slab backstage from Main Street. It lies in fact two-thirds or so of the way directly in between the old (and new) OAB break room location and the various Main Street portals we use to go onstage, meaning that it was for all the groups to some extent but for us even more so actually closer to our various work sites, which is to say shorter walks with fewer stairs to climb. Rumor had it as well that the EOC itself was slated for demolition (disassembly?) following our stay there. As I write this it is still standing. But the shelf-life aspect also was a boon, for no one felt particularly obligated to expend much effort towards treating it like home, and this was remarked upon periodically though certainly not incessantly. For these reasons and more to be enumerated below, the move over to and stay at the EOC was actually for me more blessing than curse. The only curse aspect rising to any level of severity was trying to understand all of the fear and loathing I had heard expressed over the move. In short-hindsight as I write this, it occurs to me that the overwhelming majority of this came from ChrisE, and that much of the remainder was obviously inspired by his various proclamations rather than by any widespread general discontent regarding the move. All of that said, when we finally moved back into the "Old Admin Building" (OAB), into the unified break room which now stands where several smaller and older ones used to, and for which this socially fraught and historically rich corner of the basement level of OAB had been gutted and an entire new social, material, and historical blank slate laid down for all of us to inhabit (together as it were, though for each dimension given there is a notable exception to the ostensible togetherness: socially, the breach between the old and new DBand members remains fresh and seemingly irreconcilable; materially, the new DBand has had a hard time adjusting to the concept of sharing a space, as in leaving their shit everywhere; also materially, the new womens dressing room is, though much smaller in absolute dimensions than the mens, significantly larger per woman than ours is per man, which is to say that the aim of constructing and providing more equitable facilities has in this case, true to the old conservative harangue, simply resulted in reversing the polarity of inequitability against the men rather than in their favor. The historical aspect is obviously the most abstract but also the most interesting and multi-layered. According to lore, when once a group of male musicians were accused of watching porn in the old strawtter and SilverDollarSix/Hook&LadderCo break room, i.e. the one which was in use when I first started, the incredulous response of one is reported to have been: "Porn?! I got my first blow job in this room!" Stories like that, whether or not they involve sexual themes, will die a quicker death under present circumstances than if the old break room set up had remained the same. The new space was in its very first days of operation (I use that word relatively for reasons given below) most frequently compared to an airport lobby, to my mind an apt comparison. In other words, it is sterile and corporate: white walls, fluorescent lights, stock furnishings with absolutely no character and even less comfort, and so on. I suspect that if management were in any way sensitive to this type of issue the room would not have been designed as it was, but seemingly in response to it specifically there has since the room opened been a trickle of additions of memorabilia and photos to the walls, including a large axe, two bass drum heads signed respectively by the members of the former and current DBand (as if to create a daily, unignorable reminder of the breach! ChrisE is at least correct that the management is totally oblivious, which I doubted but can now see is more true than I could have imagined), some other very tacky paraphenalia related one way or another to music at Disneyland, and an ever-growing mosaic of photos from every era of the park which, it has been promised as if we had asked for it rather than simply being given it, will eventually grow to cover the entire wall. This collection of photos is in fact priceless and very much of interest even to me; and perhaps it indicates an isolated instance of foresight in that the airport lounge feel will, eventually, and probably only for those who did not experience the initial transition, give way to the rustic historical elan that it seems to be the aim of this photo wall to create for the room. But EVEN this is being done unilaterally and without any urgency at all (as I write this, one figures it could, like so many road construction projects, even by now have long been completed rather than by being worked on in the smallest possible increments over weeks and weeks).) When we did move into the new break room, there were many serious problems. Somehow there was only "hot" water in every fixture which meant that at peak usage times the drinking water had to be cooled by ice, for which the supply produced by the refrigerator was woefully inadequate. Conveniently, the move in preceded the hottest week of the year so far. This figures eventually to be fixed, though in nearly a month since move in it has not yet been. It has created a near-constant practical problem which serves as a constant reminder of...what exactly? The incompetence? But the lack of space is, if slightly less constant of a problem, certainly a more severe one in this sense of what it reminds you of when it does come into play. Which is to say that the new break room is the perfect size for the new DBand by themselves but much too small for two additional six-piece break-down groups and the odd Main Street Piano Player. This would seem to confirm exactly what ChrisE has been saying constantly since I was hired (and the one aspect of his complaints which are frequently echoed by all the other old DBand guys), that there is an ultimate intention to, at some point, terminate the break-down groups, leaving just the new DBand to eat everyone else's lunch. ----- Swapping out another musician's shoes for half-size smaller shoes every few months until one day he is walking with a limp and having problems with his feet/legs ----- 24Dec2017 -- FrankL (Hook and Ladder Company) is waiting to tell ChrisE a crazy story from two days prior: ubermanager ChrisJ exploded at FrankL after being sent a cell phone photo of FrankL "leaning" inside the firehouse as the band waited for a flurry of character activity to finish out front. The money quote, according to FrankL: "You can't be just a musician at Disneyland anymore." CR gridded trombonist NickD reportedly refused ChrisJ's later apology for his temper: "You need to find a better way to handle this kind of thing." Lots of fear and loathing re: our jobs in the wake of this episode, which happened on a TDYB off day, hence I wasn't at work the day it happened. 25Dec2017 -- Manager JoshuaH informs SK that jury pay will not be forthcoming as the company policy requires 1 year with the company. Later consulation of the AFM contract confirms this. Guess I should have read the contract. Not a single other person I consulted (BevC, JoshuaH, ChrisE, or TylerR in scheduling) knew this or mentioned it. There were several days throughout the course of the trial where I could have come to work, either because there was no court or because court adjourned for the day around noon and TDYB start time changed to 1400 a few days after the trial started. After a week of taking it day by day, ChrisE took matters into his own hands and gave away my Mon-Thu shifts to a sub. I ended up being available to work some of those shifts but couldn't because they had already been given to another AFM musician. ChrisE was sure "the company" would pay me for these days. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. ----- Feb 2018 -jakworth leader meeting: “Bands don’t need to play 500 songs.” Indicates desire to prescribe music as was the case during the holiday season. Others are mystified as to why he also wants to cull the most occasional subs from the sub lists of all the bands. Seems clear enough to me that a smaller, more regular sub pool dovetails perfectly with the move to prescribed repetoire. 16Feb2018 -- Danny messing with Jimmy re: character set, ends up messing with Pat instead. Tells band that character set resumes the following day when in reality it is the very next set to be played. When Ryan tells Danny that Jimmy would have to go get his drum harness from the locker upon learning of the gag and that this would delay the start of the show, Danny realizes he has to tell Jimmy, which he does. For a moment Jimmy claims he doesn't have the proper set up because he thought the show started tomorrow; this is hysterical in its own right, since everyone was told earlier in the week to be ready to do the character show today and the news that it was not starting until tomorrow was brand new to everyone. But then Jimmy says he can do it. No one tells Pat of the gag, assuming (seemingly rightly based on others' reactions) that only Jimmy was stupid enough to fall for it. But as we head out on stage, Pat realizes we are doing the show. -Danny: “You don’t want to sound too good out here.” The standard-issue evasion of sincerity. 1Mar2018: I ask SamK about the dissonance between what everyone in the office thinks of our E1 manager JoshH (gushing reverence) and our experience with him (literally weeks to even get a response on simple day to day issues). SamK's answer is that JoshH is "doing 4 people's jobs" and is being "groomed" for higher positions, hence it would behoove all of us to stay in good stead with him. It will no doubt be interesting to see if/how all of this plays out given that ChrisE has accused JoshH of being an airhead who is using his good looks to his advantage in absence of substantive qualities. -With a new Pixar Pier band starting up soon and several Dbanders joining up (as well as, it is rumored, DevonT (tuba/bass) and MikeR (trumpet) from CalArts dayz), there has been lots of break room chatter. A few people have mentioned that there is a trend away from music and bands which require both reading and improvising toward reading-only situations, this because it is harder to find the former type of musician, hence less casting flexibility and more difficulty filling out the sub pool. This hits close to home for me too as I have only two local subs whereas other Straw Hatters have many more than that. Such it is, then, that no good deed goes unpunished, the specialists win again, quantification and control trump creative ferment, etc. If the versatility I've cultivated ends up hurting rather than helping, then it's time to fold the tents. 2Mar2018 -- CindyG: "If they can't tell what you are, you're hired." Referring to ethnicity. ---------- May 2018 -- DannyH: "Nothing you say or do here will be forgotten." ---------- July 2018 -- Fatigue attacks August 2018 -- aftermath -- deliberately holding back physical effort while playing -- I have become the thing I recoiled at upon hearing it during initial put-in days -- also, fri aug 10, worst such day, coming on the heels of a particularly bad attack the previous Sunday which was followed by an eegg runout to phoenix that monday and drive back for blue whale gig that tuesday...called out sick wed and thu, returned fri feeling wretched but determined to power through...managed to accomplish this via aforementioned rationing of physical effort, esp. by playing almost entirely in 2 rather than 4...anyway, this friday aug 10 was the day I first heard that Hook and Ladder Company (JGrinta, BWilliams, PKrawzak, FLenz being the old D-band regulars, plus a rotating cast of piano and trombone players) had been given their end on run notice a few days prior...hence a sickening feeling in more ways than one. ---------- satirical scientific journal paper on making coffee using the company-furnished coffee and equipment...emphasis on codification and achievement of the Krawzak ratio = 1.57 packages of Joff ---------- DannyH 12Nov2018 -- "This isn't a job for musicians, it's a job for working guys who can play." Seemed to walk back somewhat upon being asked about it later. Probably was quoting someone from past years whose identity he couldn't remember. But perhaps it's an insightful statement. ---------- 30July2019 -- Third day back from nearly 3 week layoff for dentistry and scrabble...word came down the previous afternoon that KurtC has been given the legacy award, we were informed so we could decide whether to stay after our shift for the official awarding...no one stays, but today there is more than half of the very large cake remaining, unrefrigerated on a breakroom work table with an off-gold tablecloth underneath. People are apprehensive but as the day goes on gradually start having pieces of cake. I finally go in around noon...it is actually quite good, seemingly has real raspberry in the inner frosting, hence prolly also real dairy, which is relevant given the time it has sat out. The cake has been cut right up to the chin on Walt's face...I go for the next piece, which includes his moustache. I consider this a first communion of sorts, my confirmation as a mouse minion. No discernible ill health effects in the immediate term, though the long-term effects of all the breakroom treats we are presented with is bound to be bad even if not terribly discernible in the moment. ----------