Lee

I titled this blog post ‘Lighter Material’, since that’s all it is. There’s nothing adding to the national conversation here, and I can’t add anything better than what’s been said already. People need to treat people better.

To the lighter stuff.

Nearly a month in, and I’m pleased with the results. The audiobook portion of the biz has been pretty robust, and I’m becoming a hermit locked in the booth. Debating whether or not I should get a volleyball named Wilson. It really has picked up since going full-time, and I’m grateful that’s been the case.

Shuffling through my music on my phone, and I forgot that I had a dramatized version of “The Mist” by Stephen King. I believe it was from 1983; but it still kinda holds up. It’s a trip to listen to through your headphones. THIS would be something fun to do, an audio play of some sort. One of these days. That goes on the to-do pile along with the podcast ideas and vlog. Unless they’re casting for a Stephen King audio play, then I’ll make room. Especially if someone can figure out how to turn “Home Delivery” into one. That’s always been one I’ve been waiting for on the big screen.

We’re now entering June, and with it has come a tad bit warmer temps. For those that don’t spend half your day in a small booth, that means that regardless how much AC you have, you’ll be wearing shorts in the booth. Thankfully, my booth doesn’t get too bad, but still plenty warm. Funny enough, there was a point in my life where I’d never wear shorts…then living in Phoenix happened, and that personality quirk turned around quickly.

Ok, time to wrap it up here; so enjoy the warm weather (if you can), kick back, and listen to an audiobook. Fantasy land is a great place to visit nowadays, even if it’s only for a few listens here and there.

Hi everyone.

Week one of working voiceover full time has been pretty busy! Putting the finishing touches on an audiobook, beginning to work on another, and getting some corporate voiceover work, as well.

Biggest development this week: Getting my commercial, e-learning and medical narration demos recorded. Working with the esteemed J. Michael Collins, he’s been an unbelievable resource, help, coach…he’s been really great. Looking forward to the finished product, it’s (hopefully) going to open some new doors for me.

Loving the Sennheiser 416, it’s been a real treat to use. Didn’t know exactly how the setup would work with a shotgun mic, but it’s been a seamless transition from the AT4047.

I plan on keeping busy, so more here soon!

How’s it going everyone? Sanity is safe here, since there wasn’t much to begin with.

So, it’s now one week until I fin ally take the leap. I’m going to be doing the VO career full time. It’s a scary, but scary awesome leap, and it’s definitely time to make the move. I’ve been lucky enough to have a great wife who supports me in this endeavor, and encouraged me consistently to keep at it. Getting consistent work has been an obvious reason to make this decision, on top of other opportunities in the commercial VO world, medical narration, e-learning (which you’ll soon be hearing demos of on the website, produced by the legendary J. Michael Collins).

It’s going to be a tremendous shift; but I’ve been working at this in some shape or form since I was a kid. Whether it was recording myself doing the top 10 with my parents’ records, making bizarre talk show sketches with my brother, working in radio (for a brief, but incredible year), there was always some part of me that kept my toes in the sonic waters, so to speak.

So, once May 8th rolls around, \ I can officially say my job is solely, voiceover artist. Pretty damn cool.

I’ll be honest, the days are starting to blend together. I had to actually stop and think what day it was today, and finding out that it was Monday didn’t really disappoint me. They’re all just blending together.

Before COVID-19 hit, I wasn’t out of the house all that much, but then, once school pickups and dropoffs disappeared, heading to the record store, grabbing coffee…it’s weird. Then working 2 jobs, the day job, then working on audiobooks…it all blurs together. On the other hand, I’m thankful for even having the 1 job.

I have a feeling that once everything gets the all-clear, things will have changed for the better just a little bit, with either people learning to slow down a bit, or, just that the environment got a few months to collect its breath. Not expecting everyone to join arms and sing together, but the slightest shred of improvement is better than nothing at all. 2020 has made even the smallest silver lining look like a gold mine.

Anyhow, hope everyone’s healthy. Listen to some audiobooks.

Oof.

What else can you say? Since about 2015- onward, it’s been something every week. This week, it seemed like 30 things every day. And there’s really no precedent. A virus that moved across the world, and you could track it in realtime via twitter, right on the ground level. Then seeing other countries shut down. Then WE shut down. No sports, no major social gatherings, raids on grocery stores. Schools shutting down. Parents trying to figure out how to balance having their younger kids at home while trying to work.

It’s uncharted territory. Can’t say there’s many survivors that remember the 1918 flu epidemic, and even if there were, the world is nearly so completely different, we could barely relate. You had one source, the newspaper, and that was about it. Now, there’s so many sources, you don’t know what to believe. The best seems to be the CDC website, but there have been instances where even they’ve lagged behind. Then you have people like Alex Jones, trying to sell a “cure” when no such thing exists, whether you believe it or not. Or perhaps the response is to say that everyone’s overreacting. Doubtful, if the whole world is trying to work to get rid of it. The hardest part to explain is that if the prevention measures worked perfectly, then people SHOULDN’T be getting sick.

I’ll get off my soapbox.

But it’s a little scary. Understandable. Jobs, school, health, and hanging/chilling out are pretty much what we are as adults. And this screwed all that up.

But we have books. We have, ahem, AUDIObooks. Fire up the dvd player. Stream something interesting. Go work in the garage. Something to take your mind off of it. Or, if you’re a masochist, listen to The Immune (plug) or The Stand.

It’ll eventually pass. I have no idea when, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little freaked out myself. But I know it’ll pass. Things will be a little different. But hopefully, this is going to be one of those things you tell your grandkids about, and they’ll either be amazed, or bored to tears and telling you that your breath smells and to leave them alone.

If you need an audiobook to pass the time, reach out, I have some codes for free ones I can give away.

And we’ll be fine.