An Epic Week

as mentioned before, i don't really like doing the whole "daily/weekly" update thing on my blog. however, this week was one for the history books...or at least A history book...particularly one about me...which i guess is more of a biography.

hmm.

An Epic Performance

tuesday was my first performance with the paul bailey ensemble in five months. paul and i had a brief falling out a little bit ago. luckily, we have reconciled since then. (who knew that a bazooka joe bubble gum addiction really can ruin lives?) i have missed being in paul's group, and getting the chance to play with them again has been high priority lately.

the show was at los angeles community college at 11AM! needless to say, sitting in traffic from downey all the way to ventura blvd. was not very fun. by the time i got to the college and found parking i only had about 50 minutes to put together my vibraphone, wheel it over to the stage, set up, and sound check. this was particularly stressful because i did not get a chance to actually rehearse with the group before this show. when it was all said and done i had a total of 15 minutes of rehearsal time before the performance.

much to my surprise it was a good performance. we played well and the audience was more than enthusiastic. there is something that is insanely cool about playing "academic" music to an audience and having them hoot and holler after every piece. during the performance i could hear the people sitting near me giggling at my dancing shenanigans. laugh all you want, the vibraphone is a difficult instrument to rock out on and i fucking bring it. overall the whole performance really reinforced what the political goal of the paul bailey ensemble is: to bring classical music back to the people. after the show i went outside to smoke a cigarette, and i felt more satisfied than i have in a long while. then we decided to go get lunch...

before i move onto the next section, here was the PBE setlist as well as my listed biography in the program:

Cheap Admiration (p. bailey)
Fearless Leader (p. bailey)
An Eye for Optical Theory (m. nyman)
Principle of Sufficient Irritation (p. bailey)
Sweater Song (weezer)

Ryan Nunes, Vibraphone. Ryan recently received his B.A. in philosophy from Cal State University, Fullerton. He has decided to start his existential crisis a little early.

An Epic Lunch

when the pbe was done at our show, we decided to go get some food. paul looked up places on his cell phone and found a zagat top 100 restaurant just around the corner called Marouch.

when we got there i wasn't initially impressed. though the decor is nice, the strip mall that it is located in is far from appealing. we began to look at our menus, and i was leaning towards the vegetarian plate (as i am trying to watch my figure). however, when the chef arrived he convinced us that we should eat family style. paul agrees, and the waiter advises us to order the number three (pictured below) and the number thirty six, which was just supposed to be kabobs but we convinced him to give us shawarma as well.



the number three was a 15 course appetizer! this included hommos, mtahal, tabbouleh, lebneh (homemade, and rivaled that which me and my sister had mentioned in the blog below!), falafel, grape leaves, spinach fatayer, cheese turnover, fatayer sambousek, fattouch, and some other stuff which i can't remember or read from the .pdf menu i am looking at. everything was absolutely brilliant. everytime they brought us a new plate with another delactable our mouths watered. by the time we were done eating the appetizers, which we didn't finish, i was absolutely stuffed. but once the main course came i just had to try a little bit of everything. this included lamb shawarma, and chicken/beef/lamb kabobs. all of which were amazing.

during the meal we talked a lot about the future of the ensemble. we finished the meal full and excited for what is to come. tuesday was definately an epic day.

pictured above: The PBE vs. Mourach! Scott (scooter), Matt, Paul, Bruce, Me, Eric (from left to right)...mourach definately won.

An Epic 48 Hours (thursday through friday)

my evening began at 6pm. some of you may already know, but i am the new pit instructor at torrence high school. three years ago i swore to myself i would never teach marching band again. now, in an act of monetary desperation, i find myself back at the job i was doing when i was 18 and for an abysmally low wage! on my commute to torrence i was convinced that i would hate every minute of it.

i was wrong.

i really enjoyed myself. i really enjoyed myself. i really enjoyed myself, etc. i think the difference between now and then is my maturity level. i have a lot more patience, and i simply do not get mad anymore. in addition the kids are really well behaved (though young). i actually look forward to seeing them grow, and excited for future rehearsals and shows. after rehearsal i booked it back to fullerton so niyaz and i could go to csof together.

we arrive at the bar at about 10:30 to a desperately small crowd. overall it was a weak night for call sick. they booked horrendous DJs and a very forgettable band, so i decided that gin would save the night for me. since there was no dancing i got a chance to talk to one of my new favorite friends, Jaclyn.
this is a pic of jaclyn and i. she made it specifically for this blog!

Jaclyn and i have very similar personalities. we are both enfps, and find that we relate to each other fairly easily. she is also roommates with one of my other new favorite friends, Wendy.

this is wendy and i. jaclyn made this picture too...we should all probably get real pictures taken together.

anyways, jaclyn and i easily talked for most of the night at the club. we talked about a lot of things, but the focus was on relationships...go figure. i really like listening to her because i learn a lot about myself. also, she doesn't let me get away with nonsense i usually pull with most people. toward the end of the night, when Jaclyn and i actually went inside the bar, we had come to find out that the girl working the door (who was riding with Wendy and Jaclyn) drank a bit too much and was not feeling very stellar. once we left, we stood outside taking care of her and i had a decision to make.

the details are blurry, remember the gin, but what i remember is i decided to go back to Jaclyn/Wendy's despite my car being in fullerton, my keys being in niyaz's car AND my cell phone being in Niyaz's car. brilliant, right? i thought so.

we get back to the apartment around 2:30am and put the poor door girl to sleep. wendy goes to bed, and jaclyn and i go outside to continue our conversation. it should be noted that it was easily 50 degrees or below, and we sat out there until roughly 6:30am. we went back inside and talked in the living room for about another hour until wendy woke up to go to school. when she came into the living room she was surprised (but probably not that surprised as jaclyn and i are pretty insane when it comes to sleep) to see jaclyn and i still talking. eventually jaclyn decided to go to sleep, however, i was too nervous to sleep in an apt. with 4 girls in it. so, i decided i would walk wendy to her 9am class (she goes to CSULB and their apartment is super close).

i walk with wendy and we have a nice conversation about things. it was actually the first time i have really seen the csulb campus and i was pretty jealous when comparing it to my school. wendy and i get some coffee bean and tea leaf and she tells me i should go back the apartment to sleep. i tell her i am too nervous to sleep in her apartment and that i have to stay up to figure out a way to get back to fullerton so i can get home. luckily, she offers to help me out after her class ends at 1145. cool. so now i am in long beach with no cell phone or car and i have about 3 hours to kill. no problem.

i walk to a nearby shopping center where i find a little bagel shop. i literally ate nothing the day before (as sometimes i simply forget) so a toasted bagel with cream cheese sounded exquisite. while eating my bagel i decided i should probably read something. i ask a passerby if there was a borders or barnes and nobles within walking distance of the shop. first he notices that i have obviously not slept and so i explain to him a very abridged version of my situation. then he tells me that there is a place about a mile away with a barnes and nobles. i get excited and start walking.

friday was an absolutely gorgeous day. the wind was blowing, and the sun was shining. the mile walk seemed liked nothing because i was truly enjoying just being outside in such wonderful weather. when i arrived at barnes and nobles i didn't know what i wanted to read and so i headed straight for the philosophy section. i looked for Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, but they didn't have it. this is a good thing as i generally read too much non-fiction anyways. so i decide i will go buy High Fidelity. i also pick up a book for wendy to thank her for the impending ride home. in it i write "enjoy, ace. -Ryan Nunes 10/05/07"

next to the b&n there is a starbucks. i order myself an iced coffee (drink count: 1 coffee, 1 tea) and go outside to smoke, drink and read. normally i am a slow reader, but i kill off over a third of this book in about an hour and forty five minutes at which point it is time to start walking back to the apartment. the walk back was just as enjoyable as the walk before and somehow, despite being on zero hours of sleep, i am in a really great mood. when i get close to the apartment i notice that wendy and i are arriving at the same time. perfect! we drop off her stuff and take off to fullerton in her car.

the plan for the trip is to find niyaz so i can get my stuff, then eat some thai food and get some starbucks. in order to find niyaz we need to go to the CSUF library because i know for a fact he is at work. we arrive at the campus and i give wendy a breif tour (that's where i used to smoke cigarttes, this is the new music hall that sounds like shit, etc.). we go to the ILL office and see if niyaz is there. he isn't. but we do know that he is somewhere in the library. i ask wendy if she likes adventures. she says yes and so we venture to find niyaz. unfortunately, the first floor we go to he's there. not much of an adeventure. i tell him to find wendy and i at starbucks after work. he agrees and wendy and i head off to thai basil, one of my favorite thai restaurants.

we arrive and i immediately get self conscious that she won't like it. i know, stupid, but that's just how i am. we order beef pa-nang, chicken pad see ew and waters. it's really good, and she liked it. i end up accidently paying with my card. but wendy gives me cash. however, the bill was sixteen dollars and she only gives me six. i proclaim that it means 1/4th of the lunch was a date (the two dollars that i paid). we laugh. i'm happy. we then go to starbucks where i get another tea (drink count: 1 coffee, 2 teas, 3 glasses of water).

we talk until about 4:30 and realize that niyaz should have been here an hour ago. so we go and track him down at his apartment. he doesn't think he has done anything wrong by not showing up, and so i yell at him. we all laugh. at this point i need to go home and get some sleep, and wendy has to go to downey to see her brother's football game. we part ways.

i get home and sleep for about 2 hours. i wake up to about a half dozen text messages asking me if i am going out bar hopping. i sigh and agree that i will. i eat a really good dinner that my dad makes. around 10pm i am just too exhausted to do anything. i decide that i want watch high fidelity. jokingly i ask wendy if she wants to come watch it with me, and much to my surprise she agrees! i had figured she had gotten more than enough of me in the past 24 hours...but i suppose i was wrong. she comes over, we watch it, discuss it briefly and she leaves. finally at 3 am i go to sleep only to wake back up at 9am so i can go to a field show with Torrence High School.

alright, i don't have the energy to talk about Saturday and Sunday but here's a brief breakdown.

Saturday: field show (my kids took 2nd),. and an epic IM conversation that lasts until about 4:30 in the morning.

Sunday: up at 10am to go to beach with katie. important conversation. kick ass fish tacos. and late night smoke session (cigarettes).

so, that was my week. please make sure you comment so i can know that my efforts were not wasted.