"An ever-changing mass of disembodied opportunity"
Part 1 of 2 about ~industry~ and Maino ft. T-Pain's All The Above
Est. Read Time: 4 minutes. Read Time brought to you once again by the Ashburton Energy + Hair Logistics Group, in association with the Bradley Hills Bureau of Corrections + Housing.
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SHOWS:
The Hollywood Comedy. April 20th at 7:30pm. Tickets to come!
Show in West Hollywood. May 2nd, deets tbd!
Comedy Loft (DC). May 28th. featuring for the great Sam Salem.
Hello Sternal Journalists,
A thing about living in LA is that the Hollywood sign’s mood changes with yours. That is to say, when you see those big gaudy letters while you’re having a good day, they seem to cheer you on:
“HOLLYWOOD! LOOK AT ME! I’M THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN! YOU’RE THE HOLLYWOOD GUY! WE ARE HOLLYWOOD, BABY!”
But when you feel beaten down by your dreams and strangled by your aspirations and you whip a left to go North on Vine and see it off in the distance, the letters seem just… disappointed:
“Look at you. This is HOLLYWOOD, okay? Do you see me? Do you see what I say? Why are you here? Why did you think this was a good idea? I’M Hollywood. YOU are something else!”
While others may not think quite as much about anthropomorphizing landmarks as I do, I believe that most people pursuing work in creative arts have similar experiences with this sign and that there’s plenty of the former days and plenty of the latter days for all of us.
This Tuesday, I was having a latter day. I will not get too into the details, but I was having a mostly great time at a comedy festival that I was very gracious to be a part of, but I was also processing the fact that there was a thing at this festival called "industry.”
For the uninitiated, “industry” is not one thing or one person. “Industry” is a shape-shifter. “Industry” is an ever-changing mass of disembodied opportunity and elusive promise.
When “industry” will be at an event, literally this means that there will be present at the event one or more (maybe two, maybe twenty, but probably not twenty) people who are professionally in the business of giving opportunities. These could be reps (agents! Managers!). These could be execs (Network! Studio!). Whoever they are, they are someone that you technically want to do well in front of.
Before I go too far past my earlier characterization about all the ever-changing mass and disembodied opportunity and all that, let me be clear: no individual is made better when scaled up to whatever group they’re being lumped into at that moment (“comedians” as a whole don’t have the best rep for instance). I know plenty of agents and managers and execs of all types who are caring, thoughtful, lovely people in their personal and professional lives.
I am not shitting on them and I’m certainly not complaining that they were there, because (a) that is their job, and (b) it is exactly where I want them to be. I am only saying that it is the nature of creativity to whither and change when business arrives to have a look, but that I would also like to make money doing this, so please, eyes over here!
Anyway, the way it goes is you want to do well in front of “industry” and you slightly resent that they’re getting in your head even though you also resent when they don’t come to things (so it truly is not their fault), so you keep telling yourself to just forget that they’re there. You do your little act and it seems like it goes well, but you also feel like you were just thinking about the industry of it all, and then you overanalyze every social interaction and ask yourself if you should have paid extra to have those business cards expedited and do people even use business cards anymore, one of your friends had business cards and she gave it to someone, but it’s okay because nobody has asked you for one WAIT WHY HAS NOBODY ASKED YOU FOR ONE BUT THEY’RE ASKING OTHER PEOPLE—
You spiral like that for 18 hours and the next day, you’re driving home from work and see the Hollywood sign. It absolutely taunts you like it never has before—”YOU SHOWED UP TO HOLLYWOOD WITHOUT EXPEDITED BUSINESS CARDS??”—and all you can do—all I could do— was blast the 2009 anthem, “All The Above,” by T-Pain featuring Maino.
And, dearest Sternal Journalist, when I tell you that it not only lifted my mood, it not only reminded me that the people who I was nervous around were also nervous around me, it not only gave me empathy for them and compassion for myself and a sense of equanimity that seemed to radiate out into the world, but it brought tears to my eyes.
I shed tears at Hollywood and Highland because of a T-Pain hook. Why? How? That we will get into next week, with a line by line breakdown of why “All The Above” is one of the best and most uplifting songs of all time.
BUT FOR NOW
Recommendations
Andrew Huberman’s Mechanisms of Control. Article. It’s unfortunately behind a paywall, but this New York Magazine article about the Stanford professor-turned-podcaster-extraordinaire reveals some wild stuff about a public figure who has convinced at least one of my friends to start doing dip because “Andrew Huberman says it helps you focus and has no downside.”
The Gentlemen. Netflix. I watched the first half of this Guy Ritchie pilot and its fun. I did not do a lot other than the festival this week.
LA Metro. Train. I took it this week. It’s great. If you’re in LA, I challenge you to try it!
Sora Blogpost. Blogpost. I am passing no judgment on this, but because I’ve rambled about ChatGPT in here a bunch and I know I may be some of your most regular source of AI news, it’s probably worth letting you know that AI-generated video is getting scarily better and, well, I guess I hope there will still be any human artists for industry to intimidate in the near future.
All the Above. Song. Of course!
Much love! Listen to All the Above! Be well!
Julian
P.S. because I forgot to include an image in this article, here is a shirt I’m thinking of selling:
Totally forgot about All The Above -- man, what a song.
I THINK OF OBAMA
Is that shirt available as a crop top?