Work, being boring and reaching 200

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post so I guess it's about time to write something again.

Even though I've finished school and most of my private students are off on holidays these past couple of weeks have been manic what with windband gigs, writing last minute parts for music and updating my professional website. The latter has consumed a vast amount of my time this past fortnight and I'm very glad to have finished the redesign as I don't think I could have coped with anymore html. If you know who I am then you can Google me to see all of my hard work. If you don't know me then...Think of a name, then Google that and pretend it's me. I'm very happy to take all of the credit for their life work and resulting website.

Surprisingly I've even had real life social events to attend, too! How cool is that?! I almost feel like a real boy.

My movie watching has remained at a reduced rate due to all of the important worky bits going on but I'm pleased or possibly slightly ashamed to say I hit the 200 movies milestone by attending a midnight screening of Harry Potter. I now have under 50 new movies left to watch to complete my challenge! Any suggestions for anything special for my 250th?

In other good news I've managed to eat healthily. Following the excellent Slimming World diet plan, I've lost half a stone already and become much more active too. I've taken up squash again and I'm going swimming lots. My next task for the summer is to fit in more practice while things are quiet on the gig front and then make a proactive effort to get some decent gigs again (Looks like there could be more orchestral work on the horizon and a fair bit more conducting too)

That's it really. Nothing's really happened. I'll try harder to do exciting things so I can delight you all with tales of a fun and exciting nature but feel free to make up your own story about the last couple of weeks of my life. Possibly one where I ride a horse/have super powers/hang out with Robert Downey Jr.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Reviewed Lost Penguin style

This week I got a boys' afternoon out with my brother, and what better way to spend a boys' afternoon out than watching a mindless action movie in 3D.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a huge improvement on Revenge of the Fallen, but let's face it that's hardly difficult considering Fallen was possibly one of the most half-arsed attempts at film making to ever call itself a blockbuster.

You have to know what to expect when you go and see a CG driven action film, especially from a director like Michael Bay. It's never going to deliver anything profound or win Best Screenplay Oscars, but it is going to be visually impressive if nothing else.

The plot is, of course, ridiculous. This isn't a bad point though. I mean, the film's about giant robots that turn into cars! An Autobot spaceship containing a technology that could have changed the outcome of the civil war with the Decepticons escapes from the Transformers home planet of Cybertron and crash lands on Earths moon. This turns out to be the reason behind the space race and a secret part of Apollo 11's mission. (I must say, this was the best bit of the movie for me as I love all the space race stuff and they did it pretty well. The real Buzz Aldrin was in the movie!)

The rest of the plot is pretty much a massive battle, with added padding because the actors need to flap their mouths occasionally.

We're introduced to the Autobots old leader Sentinel Prime (Leonard 'Spock' Nimoy) who we think is good but turns out is working with the Decepticons. We're also introduced to Sam Witwicky's (Shia LaBeouf) new girlfriend, thingy, whatsername, Miss Perkytits, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whitley — more on her later)

Megatron rocks up too and there's lots of shooty, shouty big badabooms.

Unlike Fallen, Dark of the Moon seems to just about manages balance explosions with humour, and there were several occasions where the whole cinema audience was laughing away. This was mainly due to the amazing Alan Tudyk, who for some reason is one of the most likable actors of all time. Honestly, this guy could kick down my front door, punch me in the face and set fire to my cat but I'd still offer him a coffee and a chat. John Malkovich is in it too, playing LaBeoufs weirdo boss — the only problem is there's not enough Malkovich screen time.

The last thing to do is point out this films main weakness...It does action well, it does humour well, but it does love terribly and part of the reason for this is the frankly terrible acting from newcomer Rosie Huntington-Whitley. A woman clearly hired for her body and nothing else, not even her weird model face. I wouldn't normally be this scathing about someone but she really has to be seen to be believed, and even LaBeoufs natural talent/cockiness struggles whenever it shares screen time with her. My scrotum has more chance of winning a best actress Oscar than this woman does. If she somehow gets another job in a film that requires some real acting skill and you end up thinking about watching it, I'd advise you to stay home and stare at a door.

I realise that I haven't exactly painted a positive picture, but it's pretty much what I both wanted and expected from this movie. I do wish they'd continued as well as they'd started with all the Apollo 11 stuff, but to be honest even I suffer from writing a tiny amount of okay content followed by absolute bollocks.

In summary Transformers: Dark of the Moon is pretty much what seeing film in 3D on a big screen is all about. Don't go expecting the King's Speech with giant killer alien robots. Allow your brain to power down and you'll be fine. It earns an action movie 6/10.

Countdown to Christmas

It's been a really busy week this week with gigs, rehearsals, and teaching. Then, last night was my first open evening at school. I still find it strange to have kids calling me Sir and Mr Penguin, it's even stranger when parents do it!

It was quite a good night overall and hopefully all the preparation the night before, reading a BTEC syllabus cover to cover and coming up with various enrichment classes that could count towards the BTEC modules, paid off. It would have been nice to be given more than 24 hours notice to do all that, but that never seems to be the way it works.

It's the end of term for me now which means no more school until September. Yay? No. It means I take a pay cut over the summer and have to rely on private teaching and any gigs that come along. At least you'll have plenty of free time? Again, no! I have to prepare for September. Lesson plans for groups that may or may not happen and lots of writing music.

A big proportion of this summer is going to be spent arranging Christmas music for Steel Pan groups and the junior wind band. If I'm lucky I'll get a break from Christmas music in September, but by October nearly all of my music groups will be starting to rehearse for Christmas concerts. And I'll have all my own gigs to rehearse for by November.

This is it then, by next week it's my very own countdown to Christmas. If you see a curly haired musician beating the living shit out of a department store Santa for whistling Jingle Bells, come say hi.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

People, I'm excited. Luckily for you it's not sexually so you can take off the goggles and shower cap and gather round.

I'm excited about the new trailer released today for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. At this point let me clarify that like every other vaguely normal person I find Tom Cruise to be a strange, midget-like mental case, but I do love the Mission: Impossible films.

Right now I'm watching MI-3 and it's a pretty good film, largely thanks to director J.J.Abrams (and in my own geeky mind composer Michael Giacchino). J.J won't be directing number four but he is still a producer (and Giacchino is still scoring!) This time around Brad Bird will be at the helm as director — that's right, the director of The Iron Giant, The Incredibles and Ratatouille will be taking on his first live action film.

If you can put up with a two hour toothy smirk from the lead weirdo this should be an interesting movie. Oh yeah, it also has Simon Pegg and Lost's Josh Holloway for the ladies.

Now I just need to sneak out of the house when it comes out on boxing day...... Check out the trailer below.

People who Piss me off

Lots of people have pet peeves. Who knows, I could even be one of yours. As I get older I feel that I'm getting more and more grumpy about everyday things, and nothing makes me grumpier than people. When I inevitably at some point end up moaning out load about the things that piss me off, I then feel bad about moaning so it's a lose-lose scenario for me.

Now, before you get all smart arse on me and start thinking "people who moan piss me off" a) please see the irony in your own thought and commence with self-hate immediately and b) I'm not one to moan out load in public. I keep it inside and then bitch to family, friends and my long suffering partner.
Without further ado I give you a (very) shortened list of entitled 'People who Piss me off'.

• People who moan out loud in public
• Anyone who tuts in a queue
• The person who runs back into the shop to get that last item, holding up the line at the checkout
• Cyclists who ride side by side
• Cyclists without lights/helmets/reflective clothing etc
• Cyclists
• Caravaners
• Fat middle aged men who shout at sportsmen on the TV
• People who wear sports clothing for everyday use
• People who are computer illiterate doing jobs that involve computers
• People who are bad at their jobs
• Runners
• Bullys
• People who drive like dicks, inevitably in a German car
• Litterers 
• People who talk in the cinema
• Queue jumpers
• Male, teenage drivers
• Teenagers
• Anyone who rides a moped
• Cyclists again
• Stupid people
• Radio One presenters
• Everyone I didn't care about at school who added me on Facebook. And their stupid children
• People who send chain emails
• Telemarketers
• Politicians 
• Boy racers
• Anyone who goes door to door trying to sell religion
• People who deny evolution or the Holocaust (grouped together as they're the same kind of moron)
• People who own landrovers and don't live on the side of a mountain
• People who buy a people carrier because they have two kids and a dog
• The man who lives up the street from me
• People who talk just to fill a silence
• People who think you're sad or moody just because you don't talk to fill a silence
• Anyone who walks around shirtless in public
• Anyone who wears lycra in public
• Parents who swear at their small children in public
• People who walk the street with an open can of lager
• Women who apply make-up with a shovel
• Old ladies that don't wear bras
• Compulsive liars
• Psychics (see compulsive liars)
• People who, when they find out I'm a musician, tell me all about how they used to play an instrument and could have made it if they'd only kept it up
• Anyone who smells really strongly of weed
• Anyone who smells faintly like a bodily fluid/function
• Homophobics
• Tweenage girls who dress like hookers
• Justin Bieber
• People who are just too into fashion and dress like twats
• People who have no clue about fashion and dress like twats
• Anyone who shouts in the street
• White people who dress like rappers
• People who don't acknowledge wearing a football shirt is just as much playing dress-up as wearing a Star Trek uniform
• People with a stuffed toy collection on the parcel shelf of their car
• Cellists
• Me
• Cyclists
• Any group of people who share the same haircut
• Vegans
• Hippies
• Responsible adults with facial piercings
• Guys who hit on girls who clearly have a boyfriend (also see list entitled; Things that make me use my shotgun)
• People who stare at me
• Noisy people in the quiet carriage   

I think that's enough for now, but rest assured more may follow. Feel free to add to the list yourself.
If this list has offended anyone in anyway, well, it's kind of your fault really and you might want to have a bit of a rethink about your entire life.

Penguin's been busy

Fear not reader(s), I haven't abandoned you. Yes, I know it's been over a month since I last wrote anything, but I've been busy. Not that kind of busy where I just say I've been busy and I've actually just been lazy and you can kinda tell by looking at my film list and Twitter feed and then call me on my procrastinating bullshit. I mean work related busy.

First of all, my big gig went very well. It was hard work filling in for someone and learning an entire album in a couple of weeks for the sake of one gig and having to rehearse Cajon so much that I ripped my hands apart, but my God it was fun. Here's a picture (I'm the one at the back sitting on the box)

In gig related news, I won't be doing the cruise ship gig this winter, but instead I'm now finally teaching in school. I'm only in one day a week doing instrumental lessons and hopefully groups, but hooray for some steady work. It's weird going into school and being called 'Sir' or 'Mr Penguin' (obviously my real surname isn't Penguin and the kids don't really call me Mr Penguin. If they did it'd just be a bit messed up) 

I've also been really busy with having to transcribe drum parts, arranging songs about Jesus for keyboard students, arranging Christmas music in June for brass students exams and writing out various exercises to use in my teaching. Given the amount of work I have ahead with all of that, I'm toying with the idea of putting them all in a book.

The great thing about being a freelance musician is at that I can spend a day in the studio recording a play-along version of my partner's favourite song to cheer her up during uni exams and I get to call it work. By the end of the week I was filling in with a big band performing Michael Buble songs. Who needs financial stability, eh? 

Oh yeah, and I've started a diet. I even go and get weighed every week. I know what you're thinking..."fatty fatty bum bum" well sod you! It's more a controlling my diet and getting back in shape now that I'm (mostly) in remission from my colitis. I'm cooking fresh stuff every day and being very good. I'm even teaching my baby brother, who's also in the group, to cook.

Hopefully with the summer holiday approaching I'll have more time to sit down and thrill my readership with the delights of my innermost thoughts once more. I bet you can't wait.

Gigs are like buses.......

........ They're big, red, full of nutters and smell of stale piss. Okay that's not what I meant, well some gigs.... never mind lets get back on track here.

Bad jokes aside I've had a real shortage of gigs since I've returned to being a professional musician, luckily for me most of my work comes from teaching anyway but getting the odd gig now and again is important for several reasons. Most of all cash, it's a necessary boost to the income when a half decent gig comes along. Just getting out there and playing is really important too just you keep your hand in as it's very easy to become complacent or even lazy if you're not performing. The other reason has to be self esteem, if you're not getting any gigs at all you really start to wonder why you're bothering.

What makes it harder for me is the fact that I'm completely freelance, I'm bandless so to speak and therefore have to rely on people needing a percussionist. When they do it's usually a last minute kind of job where I'm just filling in so it's high pressure but that's what makes it all worthwhile. 
I really enjoyed being in my last band but while bands and artists tend to get the odd well paid gig, or medium to high profile bit of TV work today's music scene is a pay-to-play culture and I can't afford to do that as music is my job and I have to make it pay or I'll starve. (For those aware that my partner is a food blogger replace starve with bitch a lot and cry)

I've already mentioned that this year I got orchestral work playing timps in a requiem and that I'm depping (the muso lingo for filling in) for a very good band at the end of May. It looks like I'm also going to get some dep work with a covers band containing members of the very good band and some work which will essentially be up-market busking. There have also be some noises made about doing some percussion at festivals too, it may not be glastonbury but it's high-profile enough and it's work. Of course as musicians we tend to live on the promise of work, 50% materialises and the other 50% doesn't but so far it's teetering on the more positive of the two.

The big news is that I've been offered a cruise gig at the end of the year. It's very early days at the moment and it may not happen as I haven't decided if I'm going to accept the offer yet. I have established that I can get the time off school and a friend who is also a music teacher has said she's able to take on my private students if I go. There's so much to consider with this one and while 10 weeks in the Mediterranean playing cheesy pop does sound cool It's not a decision I can rush into. Not least because it would mean being away all over Christmas and New Year.

The main thing is that I'm getting offers again and that's going to help fill the gap between now and reapplying to spend the rest of my career in the classroom.