Open Mic Part II (Attack of the Blues Players) / Last Week Before DC

I’m getting pretty good at doing things alone.

We start the night at Michiko studios. Michelle’s run me through the ringer and had me practice Michael Jackson’s Love Never Felt So Good three times in a row. By the end of the session my voice is shot and I am physically fatigued due to all that damn breathing required to sing the song.

As the vocal lesson wraps up I debate my next steps.

Go home and watch Family Guy till I fall asleep? Go to a Japanese food meetup to have dinner with a bunch of randos? Or go to Otto’s Shrunken Head for an open mic?

As I juggle these options I hit up different friends to see if they’d go to an open mic with me last minute. Everyone’s busy.

I go with the open mic. It scares me the most (especially with the lack of morale support) and I’m trying to put myself into uncomfortable situations these days.

I stop by Union Square on the way to East Village. There’s an amazing band (Incircles) playing and as I watch the trio head banging their way through the set I realize that’s what I want to do too.

To go all out in front of the crowd with no reservations. What a glorious feeling.

I stop by Gorin Ramen for a quick bowl. I usually dislike eating alone at restaurants but luckily there’s only three parties there that night and all of us are solo diners. I make sure to sit parallel to everyone else so I don’t have to face anyone during my meal.

Kitakata ramen from Gorin Ramen. Kind of smoky/salty. I thought it was ok.

I get to Otto’s Shrunken Head and enter the back room.

Tiki bar decor. There’s a stage, drums, two guitarists, a bassist and a keyboard player.

The musicians are AMAZING. The bass player plays a beautiful solo in the midst of the raucous set with a string of chords and notes that make my heart swell. Possibly the best bass performance I’ve seen in my entire life.

As my name gets closer to the top of the list I realize two things.

One—it was called an open mic on the eventbrite page but it’s much more a jam session. At least ten people have cycled through the stage to play the blues. I’m the only person who came to do a singer-songwriter style open mic.

Two—the other musicians aggressively, adamantly just want to keep playing blues. No one wants to stop the flow to listen to me.

The organizer calls my name and I get up to the piano for sound check. The guitarists tauntingly play half assed solos over sound check. This goes on for a few long, uncomfortable moments and we keep having to restart sound check. Only after the organizer argues with them do the guitarists sheepishly slink back to the audience.

A terrible setting to start playing.

I remind myself that I wanted to find myself in uncomfortable situations and start my songs. At least half the crowd pull out their phones to ignore me.

I get mad and start spite singing. Whenever I see them not paying attention or trying to have a side conversation I sing as strongly as I can. As in their face as possible without derailing the song.

The spite singing actually helps a lot and the vocals for this performance are pretty good. My piano playing is shit though 😂.

I play Timing and Autumn (songs release tbd) and end the performance there.

I think I earned some respect from the other musicians. By the end of the performance they mostly pay attention to me and clap/give me fist bumps after my performance.

I watch some more blues, have a drink, and walk home. On the way back I run into Jacob Williams from Wild N Out! Past readers will know I’ve binged hours of Wild N Out clips on YouTube.

This strategy of doing uncomfortable things is paying off. I’ve wasted so many years being afraid of dumb little things like going to open mics alone. Even in a non-supportive environment like this I had fun performing. Why was this such a blocker for me?

The fear of the unknown dissipates and I’m left with the vision of what’s possible.

What if I go to an open mic every week and improve a ton? What if I keep pushing myself beyond my comfort zone?

Week In Review

I’ve been in NY around a month. Past few weeks have felt like settling in. I wanted to be more proactive this week.

Hosted some friends at Kelvin’s spot this past Friday. I’ve never taken the initiative to mix/mingle my different friends in NY. This time around I invited pretty much everyone I knew in the area.
- Hung out with Kelvin, CJ, Rupert, Jason and Nicole (everyone else was busy or bailed last minute). Kelvin’s roommate hosted some people as well so it turned out to be a huge group.
- Really happy I took the initiative. Will organize some more stuff when I’m back in New York. Not sure how well everyone got along with each other—that’s always a roll of the dice—but also don’t care toooooo much.
Had a great bowl of ramen on a night of rain ❤️
- 10PM. AC blasting. Rain dripping outside. Listening to jazz as I bask in the afterglow of this experiential bowl (spicy Tonkotsu) from Jin Ramen. A bowl so heart warming that I stopped watching whatever it was on Youtube and ate the rest in silence so I could feel the flavors. Pork seasoned soft boiled egg so perfectly jelly like and sweet. Chashu fat that melts on my tongue. Broth that enveloped and continues to envelop me in a warm hug. Wow. The flavor of the broth wasn’t exactly what I was expecting (less sweet, more on the salty side) but man I feel good right now. A great end to an extremely rainy evening.
Got closer to my volleyball friends
- Dunked on some fools during gameplay (as usual). There was a new team of Chinese players that joined us this time and they were fire. We beat them once to great surprise and delight. They proceeded to beat four teams in a row after that…
- Went to Amity Hall for drinks/food after our Saturday session. Surprisingly diverse group of occupations/ethnicities. At our table of nine we had people from Greece, Peru, Spain, America. We had a scientist, architect, construction worker, actor, non profit housing employee, some software engineers. What a mix!

Hung out at some diners
- Skylight Diner with Will
- Morning Star Cafe with Kelvin
- I love how extensive diner menus are. Page after page of items I’ll never have the time or will to order. There’s some great innovation in some diner kitchens. Had a pizza burger at Morning Star Cafe and it was sloppy delicious. Curly fries there were incredible at a drunken 2AM.

Caught up with Sherry post her move to England! She seemed pretty happy on the call. I showed off the latest food innovation I’ve stumbled upon: the pie crust cookie (great in theory, decent in execution)

late night hanging with Will. He always insists going to the water. Jersey looks beautiful from the distance

Music Update

Not too much of an update here. Moved on to Love Never Felt So Good. Highest song I’ve sung so far. I wanted to work on singing in the high range and pick a faster/upbeat song.

If I were more dedicated I’d spend more time producing but… I think it’s ok to focus on just singing for now.

I’ve signed up for songwriting lessons that start this coming Tuesday so I’ll focus on that for the next few weeks as well.

I’m off to DC for this coming week.

I’ve had a good time in the past month in NY.

I’m the most active I’ve been in years and I love that.

I’ve also been reigning in my fears and getting out of my comfort zone.

I did two open mics (trying to do one a week).
I befriended a group of four college girls singing Empire State of Mind on my walk home from Kelvin’s
- I’m pretty bad with complete strangers. My default is to be kind of standoffish and I’m working on opening up more.
Joined two different meetups.
Hosted people

I’ll take a refresher week in DC and hopefully come back even stronger.

I want to focus on

Building the friendships of old friends that have moved here
Making new friends in NY
- Especially in UWS
- OR friends that make music
Dating more
Performing more
Prepping for my Europe trip in November