No, that’s not it…
What do I have, you may wonder?
Amoebas! A wonderful case of Amoebas!
.Starting on Monday, May 16th, I will rejoin the world of the gainfully employed as I make another foray back into music and start my next great adventure working for the world’s best record store, Amoeba Music on Haight Street. That ain’t hyperbole, baby, just check out Rolling Stone’s February 19th, 1998 issue proclaiming just that honor.
True to the Cherokee belief that you stand on the shoulders of all those who come before you, my work history has given me an insanely deep set of skills and experience to draw from. In marketing, branding, management, event production, customer service, nonprofit, for profit. The common thread, a passion for what I was doing. Music, an active lifestyle, AIDS and breast cancer fundraising.
It was definitely going to take a visionary company to appreciate and place value on the diversity of experience I bring, a work history driven by my need to feel passionately about my work and my life, and to effect positive change in our world. Amoeba “got” me, I also get them. And I’ve successfully avoided having to wear a suit yet again. Right on!
At Virgin, I had the great good fortune of working with amazing, passionate people like my former Virgin colleagues and now Amoebites, Kristen Frederick & Viola Galloway. Creative people. Funny people. Smart people. We were changing how music was sold. Obscure artists we loved sold in large numbers. We broke artists. We created trends. We believed it and we lived it until Virgin became a lifestyle.
Amoeba Music is very much the place that I had hoped Virgin Megastores could sustainably become—a tastemaker location with an unmistakable authenticity driven by a love of music, with integrity, and a desire to proselytize about the things they love so that others can love them, too.
Like my last waltz through the realm of retail, my beloved Sports Basement it is locally owned, doesn’t believe in titles, is enormously socially responsible (they’ve saved over a million acres of rainforest for indigenous people by donating a percentage of all sales to the Rainforest Action Network), with a total DIY ethic, and a staff FULL of expertise, personality, and heart. It is also a community magnet/gathering place of insanely loyal and passionate customers who are personally invested in the store.
What’s not fun about spending time in a place like that?
On a prophetic side note, on my last day at the Basement before joining the Breast Cancer 3-Day (anyone need a flow chart to track the “‘Where’s Craig?’ Wonderful, Wandering Career Path?”), I was given a gift certificate to Amoeba—how perfect is that? A similarity of culture, passion, integrity.
And because Amoeba does great work like donating to RAN and tsunami victims, it fulfills my need to be creating positive change in the world. After five years in the realm of non-profits, I’ve had three jobs and been laid off from two of them. San Francisco is a fairly toxic environment for folks who are laid off. Let me tell you, it is not easy. It’s stressful, makes you question your value as an employee and as a person. And it’s drained the bank account into the negative tens of thousands of dollars, twice. Let’s just say I didn’t thrive during those periods.
But, pish posh, enough of that!
It’s over! No regrets, and I have learned a lot about myself. If you release expectation and just let the future take care of itself, you will be where you are supposed to be. Life’s funny that way. If you stay open to opportunity, you’ll be provided the lessons you need in just the right time, challenging you to grow, and all the while taking care of you.
Here is one of my favorite monologues dealing with this phenomenon. It’s from the movie ‘American Beauty’:
"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing.
And there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it, right?
And this bag was just... dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes.
That's the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid ever.
Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember...I need to remember.
(distant)
Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it...and my heart is going to cave in."
I am glad to be rejoining the work force, reconnecting with my love of music, the rhythm and the beauty.
Thanks for being a vital part of my beautiful world.
Peace/Music/Heart.
Craig
____________________________________
"I hate quotations, tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
PS- Above is a picture of Fugee, who swooned upon hearing the news that he would not be spending 24 hours a day with me. Wish him well…
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.