Something Which Shouldn't Bother Me but Does

[mrdankelly]

When actors who have done well talk about how fucked up it was to live in Chicago. Their apartments were always horrible, their landlord and neighbors were weird foreigners, everything smelled, etc.* Maybe I'm just sensitive, but there's this undercurrent of, "Thank God I don't live in that hellhole anymore." Right, because LA and New York are

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[txtriffidranch]

I noticed that in both Chicago and Dallas. In a lot of cases, it was with artists or musicians who managed to snag what they thought was a really good contract, found that what was a really good deal in Dallas was a pittance for New York or Los Angeles, and stayed until they were finally out of their golden handcuffs. The bitching about the excessive crime or filth of both cities is just a face-saving screen to conceal the fact that they got taken, they got taken for five years or three albums, whichever comes first, and that they didn't have anything as a followup to keep them there once the original contract was over.

In my case, I have two old friends who got caught up in the record deal insanity: in both cases, the labels paid them a huge amount to move to LA and New York for recording, and that's where they were stuck. One was able to get out of her contract after one album thanks to a management change, but the other was stuck in LA for five years. The huge advance her band was paid was contingent upon three albums, the first one wasn't promoted at all so it flopped, and her bandmates discovered that what would have been a king's ransom in Dallas was just enough to keep them from starving if they got a part-time job on the side between recording sessions. Besides having a complete lack of talent, that's why I've been staying here: one of the smartest moves I've ever made was turning down a kindasorta job offer from Film Threat back in 1991.

[little_octagon]

Way back in the d-iz-ay, I fancied myself a filmmaker, only I refused to move to LA. Unless I wanted sporadic PA gigs -- for which I'd need a car, for which sporadic PA gigs didn't pay enough -- my paid options in Chicago were mostly limited to painting animation cells or post-production editing. I lasted maybe about a year trying to do the latter. It was awful. The higher-ups and clients were monsters to work under, and if you didn't bring in enough bidnness, you got canned. (Why would I want to work for a production house if I had to get my own damn clients? If that's the case, why not just be an independent contractor?)

Now, if I couldn't stay afloat in Chicago's film industry, what the sweet fancy hell would make me think I could handle LA? Not moving to pursue a film career was one of my better choices.

I just wanna make stuff, and draw and write, is all.