I'm not a big fan
of re-using videos, as part of the challenge of this
site is always coming up with new ones, but this is
undeniably the right video to end this month. Take a
gander at what I wrote 4 months ago on the first
entry of the year:
"Man
seriously, fuck that. No happy, stupid, positive
spins on the new year AGAIN. Not SEVEN times.
I've done it every fuckin year. Honest TO GOD
- and I'm not just in a bad mood, I don't
think it's gonna be a great year. In fact, I'd
venture to say that in one year I'll give
ANYTHING to be sitting here writing this with
a chance to redo 2006. LMAO. I'm mean, come on -
how fucking naive would I have to be to ignore
what's happened in the past 4 years... It's
ludicrous the quagmire I'm in and for all intents
and purposes it's a downward spiral. You lose it
all, you lose your wife - you lose your mind... I'm
in it. I have to admit that...to even get
OUT of it. I'm in it - I'm losin' it and
I haven't the FUCKIEST idea what will get
me out..."
WOW.
Just, wow. Back then, "How
Much
More?" meant
"How much more can I possibly
sacrifice before I lose my mind?" Now
of course "How Much More?" is this giddy
little statement of wonder at what's
coming next. Here's the thing though,
I wasn't wrong about what I said
in January. I honestly, just got
lucky. This is gonna be a hard thing to
explain, because it goes in the face of
every sappy A&E biography, but I gotta
do it.
I did nothing
different this month than any other month, in fact I
did less. I didn't work on the videos harder,
I didn't promote 4tvs better (hell, at all) -
shit just happened. I always work my ass off on
everything I do, just so happens that with "Let's Bomb
Iran" I had good timing. 4tvs is the same show
it's been for 5 years, just so happens that now
it clicked with something. It really is luck. Hard
work and talent is a pre-requisite to even play the
game, but truth be told there's an inordinate amount
of LUCK in the entertainment world. It's something
I've tried to preach from the mountaintops the entire
time I've been here.
Many of you have
read "GenuineChris" on the boards. A strange
fellow who spends more time trying to prove I have no
integrity
than adding to any meaningful conversation. He used to
harp on me constantly about how luck doesn't play a
part in this - that you could approach the industry
like the mortgage industry and have the same success.
I finally blocked him from my IM because it was
just too fucking draining to keep fighting with him.
Especially now that I've been in the mortgage industry
and understand why he believes what he does. Fact of
the matter is, all you can do as an artist is keep
creating / performing and stay in the entertainment
mecca. Period. And sometimes you can barely do that.
Some months, you just have to play videogames and make
campfires in your back yard...but you stay. The rest
is really up to luck and timing.
When I was
always successful, basically 1994-1999 I said
this ad infinitum: "It's amazing how lucky you
get when you work your ass off". But that's because
I was really lucky as a kid AND I worked
my ass off. It was understandable to marry the two.
Truth is, my talents were extremely well suited for
talk radio and I had an amazing Program Director in
Bill White who took me under his wing and let me do
whatever I wanted on the air. Man,
I remember asking him about moving up in the
company and he just looked at me and laughed: "Adam,
you're gonna move so far beyond this. You will out
grow us". Seems quite estute looking back, but at the
time - imagine this teenager doing talk radio, comedy
voices, parody songs, releasing an original music
CD... it's pretty obvious that radio would soon be
limiting, and he was right.
However in LA,
there was no defined career. I was a big mess of
random talents and without a path, you spiral. 6 years
of spiraling, stopping once or twice in 2001, then
back to the spinning. All I did was keep the journey
going, and stay in the city...that's it. For some
perverse reason, I enjoyed chrnoicling the
demise. It was interesting to me. Adam, get to your
point:
The point is, yeah
- I deserve a break. I sacrificed a bunch,
and worked my butt off... but I could just as
easily been here another 6 years without anything.
Kerry wins in '04? Simon Cowell doesn't make an
"American Idol" for variety acts? The "Spiraling
Journey" continues. I say this, not to undermine
all I've done, but to make you guys realize that there
are artists / performers who are just as talented,
work just as hard - that
DONT GET THAT BREAK. There is an
extraoridnarily high amount of luck that
doesn't exist in ANY other industry...'cept maybe
professional gambling. That's the truth. It isn't
fair. This isn't the American Dream, it's the American
Lottery.
