My Disappointment in a Box

We're going to New York next weekend, because after three years of trying we finally won the ticket lottery for Saturday Night Live. On my birthday, no less.

Mrguy scored rooms at the trendy hotel where we stayed during the forklift exhibition. It was all coming together. Now, just like the last year that the Toronto Blue Jays were in contention for the pennant...a strike. That year I sat in the bleachers at the community baseball field in the Old Place and cried. This time I am just numb.

I get the strike. Doing work that's later reused in ways that make more money for other people and not you is a drag.

I know about this from personal experience. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, but I was the happy fan who answered the phone and came down to the studio to sing on a song that millions of people have since loved. Over the years the song has been on several compilations and now is a ring tone (a huge cash cow), but non-featured performers like me don't see any additional profit from new uses of the original work. I prefer to dwell on the happy part: I had the opportunity to sing with tremendous musicians whom I admire on a song that became huge.

Had I been trying to make a living playing music, though, I think I would have been mad enough to strike.