Performing on stage has gotten easier and easier. I was admittedly a bit stilted at first; unsure of how to move my body and insecure about every little movement I made and thing I said and how I said it. Singing was fine, it was everything beyond singing that gave me some trouble. I would just think of Walt calling everything I did during rehearsals "faggy", sometimes right in front of all the rest of them which made me want to die. The first few shows were a bit rocky, too; crowds far more used to the old sound of things disappointed in how it all is now, ugh. Understandable! And no tomatoes or anything, ha! But still not fun. The nerves have nearly all faded, now, though. The guys have all been so supportive, too. Minus Al, but that's a given. "Don't think, man, just lose yourself in the music. Y'know? That's what I do. Just have fun with it.", says Nate. I'm trying to follow his advice. It's easier than when Walt nitpicks me, and he still often does when he’s around. Something I wanted to say to Nate, but obviously didn't: what if the places I find when I'm "lost in the music" look different from the rest of yours? What if they're not the right places? At least, as I've said, that it's something I worry about less and less.
There's also one song in particular that Greg and I sing together, where he's out front instead of behind his keyboards, and one part of that song in particular where he's up next to or behind me, our heads leaning so close, sometimes my head literally against his shoulder, sometimes his hand on the small of my back or near my waist, me looking into his eyes, his microphone so close to both of our mouths, and it's the most erotic thing outside of the literal erotic stuff we've done already. The way he returns my look sometimes during that bit, I think he knows it too. It feels like getting away with something. I love it. I might be nervous about allowing myself to get "lost" the way Nate says, but leaning into moments like that has been truly wonderful. I can feel the growing trust Greg has for me as a performer, as a singer; there are other times where I can feel Nate's trust in a similar way, and things like that are what boost my confidence the most.
I was honestly not expecting to get this much attention from girls so I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it overall. A lot of it can be funny/sweet! I think it was a little overwhelming at first because it was so unexpected. Most of my life I've been the short, skinny, beaky, fey one (and that's putting it all nicely, which not all girls did). I'm still those things, but they're not the dealbreakers they were when I was a teenager somehow. I guess up on a stage, the shortness isn't so noticeable. And one thing I have learned about girls is that voices can be a big deal for them. I honestly can enjoy a good voice myself (I mean, sweet little 10 year old me fell in love with Sam Cooke's voice on the radio, so I can understand it!), but for girls n' women generally it can be a BIG turn-on to have a hot voice, like they can overlook a surprising amount if you have a hot voice. And I DO have that (at least, while singing-- I'd think my speaking voice is too high-pitched to be sexy, and I've been teased for it before, but who knows). They seem to like my hair and my eyes, too. That's nice of them! At a record signing event recently there was a girl that burst out, in shyness, "You look like an ELF!!!" And I truly didn't know that was supposed to be a compliment at first (thought it was a dig at my height!); I twisted up my face and said back, "Like, the KEEBLER guy??" She got so embarrassed that her friend had to step in for her and add "No, like a FANTASY elf!" I still have no idea what they meant or who they were referring to specifically, so I gave 'em a thin lipped little thumbs up and a quick half-hug each after signing their stuff, and we all moved on.
Some girls really do just throw themselves at you, though. And I was equally overwhelmed by that at first. I had no idea how to react (one time I literally physically dodged one, which was embarrassing...). I told Greg once that some of the ones that hung around the buses and such looked so young that I couldn't tell if they were of age or not, and he laughed really hard at that. "Christ, you really ARE green!", he said. So many of them ARE underage, and there's usually a very don't ask don't tell attitude around it all, apparently similar to how gay hookups are treated in this environment (And I dunno about that...). "I'm too old for most of it now, but shit could get wild in the Woodstock days! --Well, I guess I myself was only 21 at the time...." Weeeeell, not my cup of tea on a couple fronts. Not that I wanna be a cop. I just need to find a way to politely decline that sort of thing without making me look obviously gay or like a complete square. I understand the whole rock n' roll hedonism thing more and more as the tour goes on, but I haven't been able to indulge much in my own version of it. A shame! To be fair to myself I haven't seen many guys hanging around-- not in the way I'd like, that is.
One thing Al's been doing that I thought might've just been accidental or coincidental at first-- but is TOTALLY not!-- is he'll radically change up a drum fill or add various flourishes to things that are COMPLETELY different from what we rehearsed. Now, I'm not against improvisation; I mean, my dad was a jazz singer, how could I be against it? But there's a time and a place. With vocal jazz at least, there are appointed sections and measures within pieces where an instrumentalist can improvise. The amount of measures doesn't change, it's the notes played within the measures that does. Al, on the other hand, will add in extra measures of bullshit or even try and change the damn time signature of a certain section on the fly, without even signalling ahead of time. Is this technically impressive? Yes. Has it caused me to fuck up my entrances or throw off my sense of tempo? Also yes.
I've TOLD him this before, very nicely and carefully at first, but after tonight I admittedly blew up a little and asked him what the fuck his problem was. That if this was some weird attempt at hazing, it wasn't cute. That we're all doing our damn best, and that the rest of the guys can show off appropriately and don't have a stick up their ass about any of it the way he did. "I'm pretty sure you're usually the one with a prick up your arse", he said. UGH I wanted to throw something at him. I just got in his face and called him an insufferable fuck before Nate and Rory pulled me back. I think we reached a decent compromise at least-- adding an extra little improv section for him between some songs in the middle of our set-- but if he's simply doing it to fuck with me, who knows. Ugh, nothing can simply be uncomplicatedly good.
TV show hosts and other press people don't know quite what to make of me yet and I'm trying to at least have fun with it. Of course, I have no idea what they were expecting to begin with. Maybe someone a little taller? Ha. A lot of people have been surprised at how high pitched my speaking voice is-- like my singing voice was all a trick (which, there ARE tricks to it, but)-- but I'm used to that. And I'm used to speaking a little more softly to preserve things for performances, and no matter how hard I try I can't keep all of the ~effete~-ness out of it-- like an old red wine stain on white that someone took juuuust a little too long to tend to (of course, Walt would very much like to throw bleach on it and have that be the end of it). Honestly, it's probably one of the things that made Walt clock me to begin with. My voice has always been a blessing and a curse.
But really, when I KNOW what people are expecting of me it's a lot easier for me to subvert that for fun (when safe to). When I don't know what someone's playing at, when I can't quite get a read on a situation, it can get a little hairy. It's been easier when some of the others are with me-- they can jump in and start talking and give me a break. Solo ones, though... ugh. I've been trying my best and I don't think anything's been disastrous. That's good, at least. And with time and practice I know I'll get the hang of it all. The period in between, though, is so painfully awkward.
A lot of it's either canned or bullshit anyway. I know. But still. Doesn't help that Al continuously gives me a hard time about how-I-am. The others keep saying he doesn't mean much by it but the more it goes on and the more he fucks with me the less I can believe them. Well, I can believe he's not like Phil. I really think it's all down to him not liking the poppier direction we've taken, and him making me the face of it all. Understandable in a way, but it's also not my fault? I was thrown into this just like the rest of them were and I'm trying to make the best of it just like they are! But I'm a little bugger, and that's just insult to the injury of having to listen to ~the new guy~, in his eyes, I guess. So fucking stupid. I really don't want to have to put up with it, honestly, but I don't have much of a choice 'til the tour's over and I can see where things stand.
Got cruised for the first time on this tour and it was so much more my bag than teen girls throwing themselves at me because-- well, duh! And so soon after I thought about how little action I'd been getting...! We smoked and felt up/blew each other in my dressing room (not every venue has separate rooms or partitions for all of us, but when they do...!). He was real cool about everything, had a nice cock (and was so into what I was doing with it!), was good at sucking mine. Best of all-- before all the cock sucking-- I told him it'd get me so hard if I could lick all the sweat from that beautiful pit of his, and he pressed my face right into it. He smelled and tasted so perfect and I was right, it got me exactly where I wanted to be, and he knew it and was teasing me so good with it UGH.
Something about fucking while stoned is so fun-- I hadn't done it in awhile! Everything feels just a little bit more and relatedly you're more likely to do whatever FEELS good instead of thinking too much (and I dunno about anyone else but it opens me up pretty well, too-- unfortunately no time or space for that with this gentleman!). I know I can't do that sort of thing all the time (smoking, that is) because of my voice, but it's nice to have fun when I can. Greg reminds me of that every so often and I know he's right. Now, the rest of the fun I had tonight is something that can happen a lot more regularly, and I hope it does!