Last night was probably my very last Topless Tuesday at House of the Rising Sun. It was a tough choice for me to make but after putting it off for a week, I finally made my choice and went through with it. Alobar, the owner, was not happy but very understanding. I will still be DJing the Nakie Friday night events but no more Tuesdays at this time. The reasons? Basically come down to free-time management.
For many years, I covered my virtual land rent expenses (tier payments) with money I would bring into Second Life (SL) from my bank account. The amounts are not much really. 1000 Linden dollars equated to about $4 US dollars. But after going over my expenses with a CPA recently, it was proven that my "hobby" of living my free time in SL was pretty pricey. So I have resolved to stop bringing money into SL and instead, earn it inworld and keep it there. I tried selling stuff I create. Selling stuff for other creators (affiliate program). Having a nightclub and shopping mall. But none of that worked out. The best source of income I could find in SL for me was DJing events at well known establishments such as Dolls of Death and House of the Rising Sun. This has been working fine for about six months so far. If I were to spend all of my time DJing or working in SL, then I would be in very good shape. But that's not what I come to SL for.
I come to SL to hang out and socialize with people, invent and create things, alter other things to see what will happen, listen to music, try things I cannot in 1st life, play games with people from all over the world and much more. While I do like to DJ and entertain, I'm happier having free time to myself. So I limit my "work" to three nights per week. Each event being two hours and one hour prior to that to setup a music playlist, equates to nine hours per week which do not belong to me in SL. I feel that's a reasonable amount. Anymore and it would be too much work and would not be worth even hanging out in SL. Any less and I would not be earning any tier money in SL. So when an opportunity presents itself to triple what I make in one two hour event in SL, then I need to take it seriously. I could quite possibly cut my DJing down to two nights per week freeing up at least three hours of more time to spend with my friends or work on my creations.
It would appear that a place which I thought was off limits to me, now is available. There will be no mention of this place in my blog until they tell me I actually do have the "job". You see, I'm on a three week trial period with them. It doesn't make any sense to me, but they have been at this type of work/entertainment for years so they must have been burned in the past by other DJs? I can only speculate. This place was introduced to me a while back by a very close friend who is currently an ex friend. We were seriously close back then and this was her "stomping-ground". So when we split up in a not-so-congenial way, I left the group and stayed away from the place. Well, my ex has since returned; showing up at one of my events at Dolls of Death with her man whom she's been with for over a year. So things are good for her and she's happy and she's been wondering how I have been doing. It has been delightful hearing about her experiences over the past couple of years and how happy she is. But this opens up a few of her current "haunts" to me, more specifically this swinger's place that needs DJs.
So last night I announced that it was my last Topless Tuesday night at Rising Sun. It was more difficult than I thought it would be because I genuinely enjoy it there and have known Alobar for fours years. Starie (my hostess at both Rising Sun and Dolls of Death) took it a bit harder than I thought she would but I have a feeling that this new place will be hiring her too.
The new place has lots of rules but one thing they do not have is a do-not-play list. This is going to be very nice. Being able to play what I want to is very liberating. DoD had a do-not-play list that included Nickleback. As you can imagine, I had to turn down a lot of people's requests. But that place is well worth it because the people there are wonderful, despite what images the name may conjure up, and they tipped quite well. House of the Rising Sun (HRS) has no real do-not-play list but they are a blues club so it's best to stick to that style of music. That's what most of their customers come there for, and they are a wonderful group of people too. A very popular place with a huge following meaning it was a tough decision to quit my Tuesday night slot there. The lack of a do-not-play list and the evidence of a great deal of generous tips makes this new place very attractive. We'll see if I can adhere to all their rules and if I can, and it turns out being as much fun as I anticipate, then this will be my new third event per week venue.