A Good Starting Point for Karma...

It's not part of the gig - and completely unexpected - when the people who hire you treat you with a healthy dollup of kindness and generousity. It's a treat, and goes a long way towards making a professional musician feel pretty good.

Why isn't treating the band with kindness part of the gig? Simple - a band-for-hire is like a waiter or a busboy, a valet or a custodian. We ain't rock stars. We don't have possies leeching off us or personal assistants scheduling our next record signing or photo op. We're, essentially, hired help, there to perform a service as professionally and mistake-free as possible - to create some atmosphere, bring some smiles, get people feeling good and then split without being conspicuous. The event is NEVER about the band, much like it's NEVER about the waiter, or the busboy, or the girl serving bread or the waitress bringing you the next round.

It's cool, though. We know this. We accept it.

However, this weekend, we were treated like kings - veritable rulers of the universe, so help me. It was totally unexpected, completely wonderful and appreciated far beyond what I can type here. Needless to say from Martin the security guard at Metro Pointe telling me that he told the bigwigs in charge of MP that "Your band is the best band we've seen here - they're in for a treat!" to Chris, representing the Fountain Valley Pony League, bringing us water, Gatorade, lunch and offering to throw our trash away (!) - while hopping on the mic to remind the crowd how lucky they were to have Party Jones at the event...

...man. Kindess. Plain old NICEness, for no other reason then to BE nice. In that respect, this weekend really got to me - touched me. It's the whole "pay it forward" thing, I suppose. Showing kindness when it's not required is always a good starting point for karma. I hope the gang at Metro and the folks working for the Fountain Valley Pony League have massive amounts of good things happen to them this week and for many weeks after.

Thanks, you guys.