even the trombone player has a 6-pack

I’m not capable of sexy. Not that I’ve ever tried.

I guess I have the Juicy Fruit approach to sex appeal. All the other gum companies use sex to define their image: Dentyne has practice safe breath, and 5 has a sleek design and is all about simulating the senses, and Stride has dancing Matt.  Far from seductive, the pineapple-peach flavor of Juicy Fruit is just cutesy, and it doesn’t try to pretend that it is anything different.

Let me do a little break down my anti-sexy indicators:

1) I carry a backpack around with me everywhere. No, I’m not in college, I just like my backpack.  And don’t casually sport around a lazy, corduroy backpack-purse like somebody who shops at Urban Outfitters.  For whatever reason, I’m always carrying around a bunch of stuff, like a giant turtle shell.

2) The only pajamas I own are oversized t-shirts and gym shorts.

3) The toe that’s next to my big toe is as long as my pinkie finger.

Nuff said.

  Well, over at the Baltimore Symphony, we’re gearing up for this one-night concert with the King of Salsa—Cuban dance group with a live band.  It’s a girl’s night out, shirtless men, even-the-tombone-player-has-a-6-pack kind of show. I thought that I’d be promoting Mozart and Wagner for my internship, and instead I’ve got the Latino version of Thunder Down Under.

Maybe that isn’t entirely true. Kings of Salsa is also a cultural experience. The choreographer, Roclan Gonzalez Chavez, is one of the best young choreographers in Cuba, and in this production he’s combined contemporary dance -like hip hop- with Cuban classics -like salsa and mambo.  With an all-Cuban cast, the dancers were selected from the nation’s top dance companies. And the 9-piece band includes horns, congas, vocals, and tres, a 3-stringed Cuban guitar that primarily functions as a drum.

Okay… no, I’m not comfortable with the fact that the men and women in this show will be dancing half-naked. But Strauss’ opera Salome has Dance of the Seven Veils. And some of the greatest paintings and sculptures portray the human body in ways that are less than modest. So you can't question the significance and value of art simply because of the performers’ costumes, or lack thereof. 

Kings of Salsa

press release autopsy

Last Wednesday, operations at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra came to a standstill for upwards of 3 hours. I was the first person in the PR office that morning, and after I had boot-up my computer, I came face-to-face with the worst nightmare of Americans born after 1983: No Internet. When the PR & Publications Coordinator came in, her computer was experiencing the same problems. No e-mail. No web. And limited access to shared files. She was unable to e-mail final drafts to the printers, and I couldn't access the hyperlinks on my Google Alerts. So what did we do? We started cleaning our desks. Ever since I got to the BSO, there had been a giant stack of papers on my desk -manila folders, glossy tri-fold publications from seasons long ago, and a ton of copies- which like the cranky cat of a deceased aunt, I had inherited but didn't want to claim. But since my desk is the size of a Monopoly board, and the stack of papers were occupying Park Place through Reading Railroad, I couldn't very well continue to ignore it. The contents were as follows:

1) Approximately 80 sheets of blank printer paper. Since I only have 3 more pieces of paper in the notebook I found on the intern desk, and I don't know if I'm going to be allowed to have another notebook when this one is gone, I decided to hide the blank paper in one of the manila folders. It's kind of like when a dog's owner doesn't come home for a day, so the dog only eats a few bites of the food in his dog bowl, because he can't be sure of when his owner will return. I'm rationing my office supplies, because I don't know if they're going to give me anymore when I run out.

2) Mailers from the 2010-2011 Seasons. I decided to keep these just in case I needed to reference past concerts.

3) A bunch of black & white xerox copies of articles about the BSO from 2010. PR people are always supposed to have these on-hand for when other people say, "What does PR even do?" and start talking smack, then we're like, "Well, just a little bit of full-color, feature coverage in the Washington Post with a circulation of half a million people stuff like that." But these articles are old news, and I wanted to put them in recycling, but the PR Coordinator wouldn't let me. I guess I'm supposed to cremate them or something.

4) Lastly, I stumbled upon a cemetery of edited press releases from past interns. There seemed to be hundreds of them, covered in red ink. Some of them were marred beyond recognition, and stained with the hot, painful tears of a once optimistic young student whose dreams of career and success were massacred with an ink pen and a New York Times Style Guide. Okay, that last part was complete falsehood, but I couldn't resist. Nevertheless, I studied over those drafts as if conducting an autopsy, so that I could avoid making those same mistakes: not bsomusic.org, BSOmusic.org; no comma before 'and' in a list; proofread artists' biographies; and above all, be informative and newsworthy, don't be a salesman.

And then I threw all those press releases of past interns in a communal burial called the recycle bin.  I'm not heartless, I just don't have room for crud like that on my desk. Did I mention that my desk is the size of an airplane tray table?

here's a nifty little jingle to usher you to your untimely death

Did anyone else ever have trouble falling asleep the night before the first day of the new school year?  I would lay awake in my bed and worry about what my classes would be like and who I’d see and what I needed to remember to do.  And then the next day at school, I would be bored out of my mind and trying not to fall asleep because I had tossed & turned until 2a.m the previous night.  Classroom rules, syllabus, and pass out textbooks—that’s all that happens on the first day of school.  But my first day as an intern at the BSO made up for all the mundane first day's in my life. 

The Tuesday after Labor Day, I woke up 2 hours before my departure time. Put on my favorite outfit—gray trousers, lightweight purple blouse, and 3 ½ inch black wedges—and straightened every inch of my long brown hair (oh vanity!).  I grabbed my AP Style book and strutted over to the Meyerhoff.  It’s a 20 minute walk from my house, and it was pouring down rain.  Even though I had an umbrella, I got soaked.  And when I finally arrived (with a frizz-ball hairdo, soaked pants and soggy shoes), I couldn’t even get through the front door.  It was locked.  Thankfully another employee moseyed on over, and he let me in.  I gave him my thanks and climbed the stairs to the 2^nd floor.  Only, the door to the 2^nd floor was locked as well.  Once again, I waited until another staff member of the BSO could help me get to my office.

When I stepped into the PR suite and exchanged greetings with the PR & publications Coordinator, the fire alarm went off.  There were flashing lights and then a voice comes over the intercom, “We have been alerted of an emergency in the building. Please exit immediately.”  And then starts playing a pleasant little orchestral interlude.  So while the flames ravenously eat away at your flesh and you can hear bloodcurdling screams coming from your neighboring cubicle, here’s a little ditty from the BSO’s greatest hits to usher you to your untimely death.  Honestly, I like idea—of a fire alarm that doubles as Performance Today; I’m not so fond of being consumed alive in a violent inferno.  Anyway, the fire alarm was on the fritz and it went off about 20 more times that day.

I spent the first 3 hours organizing press clippings.  It wouldn’t have taken me so long, but the March 2010 through June 2010 book is really messed up.  And that’s when I got my first assignment from the Public Relations Manager: Pitch the James Lee concert to the Baltimore Times.    

!!!!!!

PR people pitch stories to journalists, in hopes that journalists will write articles about the organization that the PR people represent.  When I was interviewing for this internship, I was warned that pitching was going to be a big part of this internship; and sure enough I was assigned a pitch on the first day.  And yeah, I was pretty nervous.  I typed out a little script for myself.  I played it through in my head several times. Then I picked up the phone and dialed the number for the editor of the Baltimore Times:

Busy Signal.

I dialed again.

Busy.

Again.

Busy.

Wrote a Press Release for BSO’s OrchKids.

Dialed again.

Busy.

Transferred schedules from Word to Excel.

Dialed again.

Busy.

Again and again.

Busy.

Finally I sulk over to the PR manager’s office and tell her that I can’t get my call through.  She dials, and gets through on the first try. Yeah sure.  She pitches the story as natural as can be, like their best friends and they’re meeting up for coffee on Wednesday.  My script can’t do that!

So there. My first exciting first day: I looked like a wreck, I got locked out in the rain, I got locked out in a stairwell, the fire alarm went off 3 to 4 times an hour, and my supervisor doubts my ability to operate a telephone.

BSO Fire Alarm

my place in the PR suite

If you step into the Meyerhoff Hall at Cathedral & Biddle, grab the elevator and select the 2^nd floor, offer the aging elevator words of encouragement as it gradually creeps its way up the shaft, enter the rounding hallway through the maroon door, pass the wall plastered in florescent post-it notes, and pay a visit to the public relations suite, right there—inches from the door—there is my desk.  My desk at the offices of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. It’s not much. The desk itself is the size of a chessboard.  And I’m quite certain that the orange-upholstered chair is twice as old as me. But I’m hoping that this humble desk will usher me into the next phase of my career—that through this internship I will come a little closer to a paying job.

I went to office of the BSO for the first time this last Thursday.  There are 2 people in the public relations department, and 8 people total under the umbrella of Marketing/Public Relations. I was introduced to just about everyone, and did my best not to appear as awkward as I felt.  Thinking back on it, I wish that I had at least mentioned to these people how much I admire their work (sentiments that are of the utmost sincerity).  But there were a lot of thoughts going through my head; big, oppressive thoughts.

If I remember correctly, I only met one guy, all the rest were women. Successful, beautiful, confident, gainfully employed women. I couldn’t stop thinking, “How did they get to where they are?  How am I going to get what they have?  How am I going to get from unpaid intern to a full-time employee somewhere? How long’s it going to take?  Am I going to be happy when I get there? Is this really what I want?”

Heck yes, I want my hideous chair and pizza box table.

My Chair.