Wayne Bush:  

During and after high school, I played and sang in several bands- Harpitture Complex, Harbinger, Crystal, Raintree, Pearl, Sky's The Limit and a few others. We played most clubs in VB and Norfolk, and I spent part of a year on the road, up and down the coast. I did a solo act in the mid-late 70's as well. Of course, returning to a First Colonial dance after I graduated felt like a coup...until I was told my zipper was down for most of the gig! You can take the boy out of high school but you can't... The band work was great, even when it was bad. Getting booked in a Pennsylvania ski lodge sounds like a dream gig until you realize it's July! Meeting people became much easier, and of course people = girls. Playing for a living was a dream, but I still recall the day I grumbled when it was time to get ready to go to work. Um, hello, you're living your dream! I wanted to do more than rock n roll, so I auditioned for a musical comedy, Guys and Dolls at VB Little Theatre. I looked like a dancer, so voila, I'm in the chorus dancing! I liked all the movement, especially the athleticism of it, and they sent me to a ballet school in Norfolk where I was put on scholarship. I'd started too late to be a dancer with a major company, but the teacher, Gene Hammett, worked me over hard to get me caught up and perhaps signed with a second tier company. I got a scholarship to Joffrey in 1978 but the living arrangements didn't work out in New York. Meanwhile I was working as a land surveyor, somehow finding time for work between 2-3 daily dance classes, the shows or rehearsals, and my solo gigs. I followed my girlfriend out to the west coast where we promptly broke up. I moved into my parent's walk-in closet in San Francisco. I did numerous solo gigs and continued the ballet work, taking 3 and 4 classes a day, as well as some modeling, theater auditions, and even street busking for tips. I auditioned for San Francisco ballet and was told I was too old for the student division and too good for the adult division- work my tail off all summer at nothing else, no distractions, and come back in the fall. Well that didn't work- my tail stayed on and I distracted myself with singing, bartending, girlfriends, jazz and tap classes and little by little my dance career evolved into teaching ballet at a local school. By this time I'd gotten a job working for a city in the traffic division. I thought the job was surveying and when they said it was in traffic engineering, I said, 'what's that?' apparently qualifying me. Still aspiring for the bright lights, I cashed out my retirement and at 29, moved to LA for my big shot. I put together a promo package of head shots and resumes, sent it out to all the commercial casting companies and sat back waiting for all the job offers....and waited. Yes, and waited. Finally one day I came home and the message light was blinking. Yes! And it was the biggest casting company. "We need your address." "OK! Is this about possible employment??" "Yes it is!" ...the next day the rejection letter came in the mail. L.A., what a concept. If it didn't exist, someone would have had to invent it. Truthfully, I didn't try hard enough. Had a girlfriend back in San Fran, family, and hated the LA traffic, air, and general plasticity. Crawled back home with me tail betwixt me legs and got a job working for another city as an engineering technician- essentially support to civil engineers. Meanwhile I saw what the engineers were doing and it didn't...Expand for more