If you have been following, I wanted to say thank you for your upvotes. It was very kind of you. If you have not, the scoop is, I attended and performed at this year's Richmond International Film & Music Festival and did some coverage while I was there, on Steemit. But the even better scoop is that I won an award!
Though I'm a musician, I did some film reviews during the festival. Check out my film reviews at RIFF here: RIFF coverage day 2 | RIFF coverage Day 3.
Best Americana Artist 2018 - RIFF
I so wanted to stay for the awards ceremony and to catch a friend—that I met at the festival—Lisa Eismen and her documentary "Shake Sister Shake". But sadly, the schedule beckoned me back to Texas, so I flew out the morning of the ceremony. Too bad, because I won the Best Americana Artist 2018 and would have got to walk up and pick up this beautiful award.
What Flight?
I almost missed my flight back to Texas. I'll tell you why, but first I have to set it up. I decided years ago to live completely on what I have—literally within my means (most times :). At the time it was a decision for my 'artist' lifestyle. And, it meant no credit cards, at all. And, that is why I almost missed my flight. Not completely ... in hindsight, it was bad planning on my side.
Also, in this musician's life, there are little bits of money flowing around from account to account, often. As musicians know, this is a 'penny's' game, so there are little stashes—besides my bank account—all over the place that I can pull from when I need some cash; usually when a transfer takes too long. It is not a problem... most of the time.
I carry a couple of debit cards and I realized halfway through the festival that one was running dry quickly; with all the Lyft'ing around. No problem! I had another card ready to go. Not!
I swiped the trusty card and got the dreaded look from the cashier as I was buying a coffee. I know the look too well. I paid with cash. Then I called the bank—surely they had just flagged it because I was out of state. Nope, much worse.
They told me they had sent a new card months earlier and email reminders to activate the new one. The card had been discontinued for the new 'chip card', on that day. I never saw the card in the mail. And, let's not get into my email situation.
No problem I thought. Being a dude who lives cash on hand I'm used to this stuff. I had another account stocked and ready to get me through, just for situations like this.
I transferred the funds to the working card. In all human history (my history with this account) transfers took only a few hours, at the most 24 hours... I was fine for that long. I still had cash. But this time, for some reason, the transfer ended up taking four days. I was home before it landed.
Long story short, this left me with a quiet desperate last 30 hours in Virginia. Surely the transfer would go through before my flight home. It didn't.
About 5pm the next day, I knew it wasn't going to happen.. the weekend was hitting. I called the airline ticketing place. Luckily I had taken THIER suggestion and bought insurance in case I needed to change the flight. I don't always do this because I've never had a problem catching the flights. Hu! funny enough, the insurance did not cover me changing my flight unless my liver had fallen out of my pant leg. Funny, because it even had a little slogan next to the check mark that said something like, 'make sure you're covered! Get Flight insurance.' I guess it said in small print somewhere ...if your liver is falling out of your pant leg. Oh well ... I'm not a screamer, so I just let it go. I was trying to change it thinking I could buy some time and make a plan. The flight was dealy early, a two-hour walk and I had no way to get there.
I was getting hungry. I kicked myself that I didn't fill my pockets with meatballs at the last VIP party I'd been to. I had $3.52 exactly left. Somehow I would need to get Lyft money to the airport, plus baggage checks money because I had to bring a bag for equipment.
But, first things first.. there was vending machine outside my room. I put the card in and lusted after a bag of carb goodness, swiped it and nothing happened. So I swiped it again. "No deal" again. Damn swipers on vending machines hardly ever work. There was a 7-11 across the street. I'd go get me a hot dog, I thought... I checked to make sure the $3.52 was still in the account. There was $0.02 in the account. The machine had stolen my money.
Did I say long story short? This was a long night. I had given the lady that cleans the room an autographed CD the day before and I was thankful to see that she had given me a bunch of those Kureg hot drinks.. much more than she was supposed to. (She knew I liked them because I asked her for one every time I passed by). Those Kuregs got me through the night. I did get a ride to the airport... I finally did something that I hate more than being stuck in another state, I called a family member and they ubered me to the airport. I ended up having to throw my luggage away, along with some pants, shirts and about 20 of my CDs because I couldn't afford the fee. But I did get something to eat.. Almonds. I devoured my Almonds on the flight... I never realized how wonderful Almonds are! They were so kind as to stock me up.
But you know, even if I had got stuck there, I'm sure it would have been an adventure... and that's part of why I live like this. There are adventures around every turn and Richmond Film & Music Fest was a fun adventure and well worth the almond lunch.
Till next time Richmond
Thank yall for reading. I know this post was a strange one. I'm kind of rushed tonight. I have a big video shoot in a few days and a few big shows looming. So I'm going to have to sign off without reviewing the tons of films I wanted to review. Really there were just too many I loved. And, in watching so many in one week, the details are now soggy in my head. I should have written the reviews that night I was sitting broke in my hotel room sucking the little nutrients I could from my tenth cup of Kureg green tea... but no, I ended up just binge watching music mixing tuts on youtube.
It was a lot of fun flipping the script, so to say, and writing film reviews instead of more about music. If you missed the reviews, check some out here: RIFF coverage day 2 | RIFF coverage Day 3.
I'm Ezra Vancil a Texas Americana artist / writer / and so on.. if you're so inclined, please UPvote, re STEEM and follow me 