One's Own Destructive Behaviors

There are the times when the stars and military satellites align and open a corridor to hell.  This is when I relive almost all of my trying moments in my dreams.  These are moments during your job that create tension, because of other people.  While I don't have the right to paint myself as a saint, I have had a Christian upbringing.  I do have a value system, and I am honest.  The only time I have learned to tell a white lie is when I recognize my answer is going to cause unnecessary strife.  To thwart ensuing unwanted drama and angst I upon a short reflection lie.  "Paul, did you eat the last of the ice cream?"  "Yes."  In reality to keep the freezer uncluttered, and because two gallon drums of ice cream won't fit in the same space, I throw out the last small serving of yellowed frost-covered cream.  "Yes, I ate it."  End of story.  This is learned behavior, and I do not like having to lie.  This is the only time I lie.  I am brutally honest the rest of the time, and often my honesty creates tension with lesser experienced musicians, stage technicians, and musical directors.  In the process of working as a professional musician, I have learned not to lie, but when to lie down.  I have learned what fights to champion, and which to concede momentary defeat for the same reasons.  It thwarts unwanted drama, which is a huge waste of energy.  Your energy should be used for productive and creative purposes.  Always.  Basking in your own self deprecating behavior is a path to your grave and unhappiness.  You get up, shelf the recurring strife driven dreams, and create something anew in the midst of your non supportive environment.  This is what successful and intelligent people do.  This morning my recurring toil and turmoil was Tony.  Tony was the musical director on a ship to which I did not want to go.  My instincts about ships and musical directors are honed.  Always I am right, and I am a saint.  In this situation I needed a job, and a demotion was the path.  Usually I can handle most hostile work environments with learned political cunning.  Then I learned there are unworkable job environments that for personal reasons are not there to support your quality effort.  These environments employ insecure and often unskilled personnel.  When a work place is populated with these kinds of people, life for the skilled and talented folk often is unpleasant.  You can't do your best.  You can't create art to say the least.  You often can't even raise the bar of mediocrity.  You suffer, and you get out as quickly as possible.  What kinds of environments exist which do not support their workers?  I would say the Blohmberg of the Knees.  This was not a good working environment.  I don't even want to remember it, but I am being instructed by my  unsupportive environment to grovel in this horse manure.  I am being instructed not to excel, not to be productive, and not to be happy.  I am being forced to reflect upon my challenges which created unhappiness for me.  Hurray.  Unhappiness as a doctrine, kind of like Communism or even Fascism.  The life of a slave.  No freedom.  No free will, only penance for being unworthy in someone's eyes.  How can a musical environment be unsupportive?  Well if I must reflect back to times of strife, you can get a gig on a barge where they are so set in their ways, they are not interested in a new interpretation of the established music.  The gig has been played the same way for years.  Why change it now?  Why question the repertoire?  Why not just make the musical director the star he wants to be in the eyes of the guests?  Why contribute to the production show?  Why learn the music.  Instead only lip sync or fake playing the notes on the piano.  Certainly they did that on the Shendor.  Two of the working bands who had sparse hours, the keyboard players didn't play.  They faked their playing along with prerecorded MIDI tracks.  They did not do their jobs.  They masqueraded doing their jobs, and on this vessel that was what was demanded.  "Stand down, comrade!  You didn't really think you were going to get to play your instrument, did you.  Are you going to cry?"  I have two particular feelings about this behavior.  One it is fascist.  Strike one.  Neo-Nazi Hitler genocide.  Two it is gay in the most despicable way possible.  I am not a homophobe, but unlike the rosy pictured painted by LGBT proponents, not every gay person is happy, well adjusted, and content.  Often, and I have found more often they are hateful, self-absorbed, unChristian assholes.  It may not be surprising that an unsupportive musical work environment is cluttered with these types of people.  On this tug boat there are two I can recall.  Both were women, and both were gay.  They out of their own boxes were man haters, and I mean prescripted, hard wired, dogmatically man haters.  It didn't matter what you did, they were going to hate you with a vengeance.  This was their program.  This was their philosophy.  This was how they justified their on short comings and weaknesses.  They dog you, make it inpossible for you to be able simple to do your job, much less excel.  There you have it.  I had a dumb cunt man hater stage technician refuse to bring me a music stand for talent show rehearsal.  This was her job, but she refused for some reason.  I had to call our musical director, and he brought me the stand.  Of course he made me feel like an idiot for making him come bring me the stand.  It was her job.  I guess she wanted me to do it.  Then there was no bench upon which to sit to play the keyboard, no light, and no amplifier.  "Pull it out of your ass, Paul!"  Music is just magic anyway.  Just riff.  Riff it.  Then there was the Magistrate of the Bees, and Jesus Christ reported you to the office for sitting out large swaths of the production show.  There was no music for these sections in the keyboard book.  Just riff.  Make it up.  It was his responsibility as musical director to see to it that music was provided for the players in the orchestra.  That was his job, and yet he chose not to do it.  Instead he whined like a little baby and created animus in the work environment.  It is so easy as a manager to solve problems and avoid personal arguments, but like I have been writing there is a faction of folk who enjoy this filth.  These are the people that never will succeed in the world.  They may kiss ass long enough to get by for a while, but eventually destructive behavior (Trump) will be the death of them.