Mini careers?

[tofu]

Here ya go Bob:

http://www.chicagogentlemen.com/male-st ... hicago.php

Bring one of those Eb's along for your performances.

Think of it as "Brassed Off meets the Full Monty".

Plus it's a chance to meet boozed up "horny" broads!

How about "Low Blow" as a stage name?

I bet Sean would pony up a Tubenet Thong to get your "mini" career up and going.

[greatk82]

http://www.bands.army.mil

[Evil Ronnie]

A number ot the players in my orchestra went to school at Juilliard, NEC, Peabody, and many other very fine East Coast, big city schools. When I lived in Brooklyn I also did this for extra money:
Banquet Waiter
I waited tables for many years of my past. This was not the highest paying gig, but it was very good and it was BY FAR the easiest. A big town like Chicago probably has need of a tuba playing waiter at the big banquet halls. Much easier and cleaner than most waiting jobs.

Elephant,

Great suggestion. A harpist friend just worked her way through graduate school at Northwestern and earned a masters in performance, payed for by working as a banquet server at our club. Good, steady work. Do a good job and they'll ask you back. She's getting so many gigs around town now that she's been able to quit the banquet server job.

[tubatooter1940]

Down here in the deep South we invented mildew.
When in college I made money in a pinch by power washing dirty houses.
I would spot houses that needed cleaning and knock on the door. It only took a few seconds to offer to power wash the house and quote a price ($100-$200)-at the time. I would line up three or more homes to wash and rent a power washer and buy cheap bleach (bleach seems to be the same at whatever price). I could wash three to four houses in one day all by my onesies and clear $300-$400 after I paid for bleach and to rent the machine. The price for a power washer has dropped recently and the machines are smaller. It became practical for me to buy my own.
I later hooked up with a paint contractor who paid me to prep old houses for painting and no longer had to knock on doors. I began to paint houses for the contractor and found that job required only a small investment in tools.

[tofu]

If stripper is too public you could go the gigolo route.
You can even use the late great Louie Prima's "I'm Just A Gigolo" for your theme song! Just remember to Swing "IT"!


I'm just a gigolo, and everywhere I go,
People know the part I'm playin'.
Pay for every dance, sellin' each romance,
Ooohh what they're sayin'.

There will come a day, when youth will pass away,
What will they say about me?
When the end comes I know, there was just a gigolo
Life goes on without me.

I'm just a gigolo, and everywhere I go,
People know the part I’m playin'.
Pay for every dance, sellin' each romance,
Ooohh what they're sayin'.

There will come a day, when youth will pass away,
What will they say about me?
When the end comes I know, there was just a gigolo,
Life goes on without me.

Cause I ain't got nobody, nobody, cares for me,
Nobody, nobody, cares for me.
I'm so sad and lonely, sad and lonely, sad and lonely
Won't some sweet mama come and take a chance with me?
Cause I ain't so bad.

Bop, boze ziddy boze ziddy bop, zee bop.
I ain't got nobody, nobody cares for me,
Nobody, nobody,

(SOLO)

Mumbaly bibbaly zeebaly boobaly hummaly baybaly zeebaly bop.
I ain't got nobody, nobody, nobody cares for me
Nobody, nobody.
I'm so sad and lonely, sad and lonely, sad and lonely
Won't some sweet mama come and take a chance with me?
Cause I ain't so bad.

Nobody cares for me

or maybe you could model yourself on Midnight Cowboy with Jon Voight if that is more to your liking now that you too are in the big city.

[MartyNeilan]

See, I'm looking more for decent wages and a steady, sorta flexible schedule so I can do music/school stuff that I can start soon-ish.

I don't know what kind of build you have on your 7 foot frame, but if you work on your "guns" maybe you could get a job as a bouncer or some kind of nightclub / concert security. Good pay, easy hours / just look mean and never loose your temper.
Regular "security" jobs pay pretty poorly unless you have a firearms certification, so I would probably not recommend that route unless you were Gary Coleman.

[Alex F]

Bob,

I've got another idea for you. Since you seem to want to attend NEIU, go over there and see if there are any civil service jobs available. I'm talking building servies, parking, security, bookstore, general clerical - whatever. Advantages: decent pay, health insurance, FREE TUITION, and possibly meeting someone who can help you get in. I know a woman who got her piano perfromance degree there by working as a key clerk in campus security (big school = 1000s of keys which need to be tracked). She had to work full time for a while but eventually, with the HELP OF THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT, got them to give her a semi-flex schedule, allowing her to complete her degree requirements. If you can't get in by the front door, find an open back door - once you're in, you're in. It may take longer this way, but it's one way to get the job done.

BTW: at NEIU, take some lessons from Art Linsner - he teaches trombone, euphonium, and tuba (Not sure if he teaches the last two at NEIU). I take 'bone lessons from him at DePaul, where he's also an adjunct. Art got his degrees from Eastman (Emory Remington) and Northwestern (Peter Crisafuli), plays legit, jazz, and pit, and was an adjunct at Northwestern for 20 years. Highly recommended.

[WakinAZ]

Dang, several people beat me to the "man-ho" suggestion.

The pharmacy thing might work out if people don't mind talking to your abdomen as you stand behind the counter.

Seriously, this is a growing field with pharmacists (four-year or more? degree) in particular being in very, very short supply. Most community colleges offer a pharmacy technician (read assistant) program; you probably will not get any responses to applications unless you have a certification and/or experience.

Eric "who thinks the pharmacy field is an excellent place to be for the next 20-30 years, and has considered it himself" L.

[tubeast]

In university I did two things as reasonably payed jobs:

- work as "Studentische Hilfskraft" at one of the university´s institutes. That included preparing PowerPoint files for conventions, library research on certain topics the professor or his assistants were interested in, as well as driving to another university to pick up material samples.
They did this convention on micro milling, where I served as everything, ranging from handing out passes and forms, driving a shuttle bus between lecturing sites as well as preparing PowerPoint presentations that included data collected from the participants.
- work as a "factotum" at a advertising firm (they did the technical part, not the design). That´s where being good with a jigsaw and drilling machine as well as pop-riveting comes in handy.
Both were cool jobs far from boring or repetitive. Reasonably paid, too.
At the institute (part of the mechanical engineering faculty) we had one colleague who studied string bass, so common sense was more important than actual knowledge of mechanical engineering.

[MaryAnn]

Pharmacy pays, but it also blows. People who are on "mental meds" come in and regularly bellow in your face when they don't like what their doctor ordered, and you have to just stand there and take it and be nice back.

Stand there....pharmacy guys stand up all day, just like retail guys. If you've never done that you'll be amazed at how badly your feet hurt.

I made my part time income giving lessons. You can give guitar lessons to kids, and all you have to do is stay a few pages ahead of them in the book (of course you need to have reasonable basic technique to start with.) Lessons are pretty good hourly pay, you are your own boss, and if one person fires you, you have a bunch of others who didn't. And you can fire them too, if they bug you or cancel too much. It's also more rewarding than being a buffet server, at least for me.

You do have to be organized and reliable, and keep decent records for the tax guys.

MA

[BriceT]

Concierge at a big hotel = Big $$$$$