The art of the sell out…

Let’s face facts, not everyone can make a living out of their “dreams” - most have to settle for something a little less stellar.

Not everyone can be a successful writer, singer, actor, artist, whatever. Even if you have the talent, the breaks don’t always exist, opportunity doesn’t always knock, and sometimes, even when it does knock, you don’t answer - maybe you’re afraid of taking the leap, maybe the sacrifices would be too great, maybe a lot of things.

Some are idealistic (and they’re usually either very young, very inexperienced, or have no interest in anything other than “concrete” sciences and occupations). To these idealistic souls, it’s a cut and dry thing: If you have talent, then you can get the jobs and fulfill your dream. Fail to do so and it means you don’t have talent.

Well, bullpucky.

I’ve known plenty of incredibly talented individuals who were not “living their dreams” and the reasons had nothing to do with lack of talent.

Similarly, the cries of “selling out” are bandied anytime some reasonably talented person opts to leverage their talent into a more lucrative, but perhaps less artistically pure, occupation.

Again, bullpucky.

Folks gotta eat. The rent’s gotta get paid.

So the incredible musician who opts to do nameless, uncredited studio work is accused of selling out, just as are his brethren who choose to make a commercial recording, appealing to the many instead of the few.

The writer who pays the bills by writing ad copy is pimping herself; so is the author who elects to write a trashy best-seller rather than a more serious piece.

So, let me get this straight - According to these folks, unless you are suffering for your talent, using your talent in a non-commercial way, or at least, if you are using it commercially, you’re apologetic about it and make sure it’s social conscious, morally responsible, and critically acclaimed, but not widely received otherwise, you’re “selling out.” And these same folks will say that unless you are able to achieve that success, you haven’t the talent to begin with.

Wait a minute. That seems awfully contradictory now, doesn’t it?

Of course it does!

And such is the nature of  art.

Many genuine artists in their craft simply can’t afford to take the risk- they can’t give up the regular paycheck in order to devote more time to their craft, and rely on the sometimes (often) irregular pay of freelance work.

Most workers know from whence and when their next paycheck comes. They usually even have a good idea of how much it will be. No such luxury exists for the freelancer in any genre. Who knows when the next gig, assignment, etc will come? Unless you’re talented, lucky and ambitious enough to be earning royalties on some work (oh wait, royalties would mean a commercial work, that’s selling out remember?) you just don’t know how much is coming in and when.

Of course, the artistic type could always simply give up, since they haven’t gotten the breaks, they obviously haven’t the “right stuff” and should “not give up their day jobs.” Or they could do what many do - they take a commercially lucrative job in a related field and pursue their passion as a “hobby.”

Selling out? I don’t think so! It’s called “surviving.”

The Work Files … What do you get when…

You take the mailroom clerk’s four-year-old son, add in the “grappling dummy” we have here for evaluation and pictures, the former cop/marine and martial arts editor guy, and add in the woman who knows that boys like to play rough?

Well… ummm… The pics are blurry because it’s awfully hard to get clear pictures of a flying child (especially when the photographer is laughing so hard)!

Ready? Let the wrestling begin!

Ha! I’ve got you now!

Oh, wait… maybe I don’t!

Take that!

I win! Ha!

Yeah, this is how we spent the half hour before lunch… The mailroom clerk’s wife brought the munchkin in, he was rambunctious and evil little me dragged out the virtually indestructible, designed to be manhandled dummy… It really got fun when one of our editor’s decided to get in on the action and help (he teaches kid’s martial arts classes as well…)

There were the parents all worried I had wound the moster up…

Then came reality - he ate lunch and went out cold for a nap!

The Work Files - Where is my desk?

Once again, I am left to wonder…

Witness - the usual state of my desk. There are the usual items of a cluttered in basket, notepad, sticky note reminders and other evidence of work in progress.

Witness my desk on a recent workday when a pile of stuff to get shipped out got dumped upon me.

I love my job!
‘Nuff said.

The Work Files - Parlez-Vous Français?

Warning - this post contains some strong language - just not in English.

“Mon Dieu!” and “Je n’ai aucun sens de modèle!”

Those were the phrases greeting me within the first paragraph of an article I was busily proofing. Fortunately, my limited grasp of French was enough to tell me what my charming little writer friend was saying was, in essence, “My God! I don’t know nothin’ about style.”

I’m sure there is a more attractive way of saying it, although, French being the language it is, you could tell someone to “piss up a rope” and it sounds better in that language than in others. (Excepting of course those people to whom anything and everything even remotely French is distasteful thanks to politics, but that’s another can of worms, n’est-ce pas?)

But I digress.

Where was I going? Oh yeah. This blasted writer who kept insisting on peppering his otherwise good and readable article with cutesy French phrases.

This job requires a command of the English language - as spoken and written in America - nobody ever said anything about dredging up my abysmal French, which tells me that statement may be grammatically correct, it also just feels stilted, formal… just… blah.

All of which really gives me the mad desire to call the man up and start hurling expletives at him…

Connard! Tas de merde! Tu me fais chier!

J’essaie de bosser putain!

Hey, I did not learn my French in school, okay?

The Work Files - Wordsmithing

Sometimes, my job is too exciting! Really.

Oh, you want an example? But of course. This morning’s pre-break efforts included renaming about two dozen digital images that the author couldn’t be bothered to do himself, resulting in such helpful file names as “127/48_00892xjc.jpg” followed by a rousing discussion with no fewer than three editors and a writer over whether the correct term for that little stick you use when applying a tourniquet is “windless” (as they kept insisting) or “windlass” (as Yours Truly kept insisting.)

Not that anyone really cares what it’s called when they are either applying it or in need of its being applied. I can’t imagine being in a life- or limb-threatening situation and saying, “It’s windlass, you idiot! Not windless. Now get over here and help me before this guy bleeds out!”

But, as evidenced by yesterday’s indecent proposal, I’m the poor stiff who gets the outraged reader calls informing us of our stupidity (okay, so the guy yesterday wasn’t outraged… some of them are.) I am also the Chief Officer of the Grammar and Spelling Police here, so when an error does come up in that arena, it’s usually a case of, “She said so…” or “Why didn’t she say so…” I have a vested interest in these things, so sue me.

Besides, this particular argument was one time when I could “outgun” the guys. Hey, y’all may have been cops, and trained as first responders, and all that happy stuff, but I’m the one who spent more than a few years in the back of a rig actually using those first aid skills on a daily basis. In fact, I’ve had the misfortune to apply a tourniquet once in my life - it was a bloody mess, literally.

With a little digging, and a little help from more than a few Web sites, my point was made.

It’s “windlass” you idiot, now shut up and twist!