From: gds@york.cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner)
Subject: Re: Tha Bizness.
Originator: gds@york.cs.ucla.edu
Reply-To: gds@cs.ucla.edu (Greg Skinner)
Organization: in your face!
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 20:54:11 GMT

In article <0105009A.lbdl6j@david.roth-music.com> david@roth-music.com (David A. Roth) writes:
>I wrote:
>> Equally, you may be a struggling musician, thinking on the quiet
>> evenings about your friends in other professions, who are making
>> decent incomes.  I have a friend who is an aspiring actor who is going
>> through this.  He is thinking about going back to law school.
>This is the kind of thing that keeps people not to dare believe in
>themself.  You are missing the point.  It is not the arrival, that
>is the success, but the journey.  If you are judging success by incomes
>than I'm sure that rich crooks would be considered successful and
>the guy that runs the small local church a jerk because he didn't
>complete an MBA and get a "real" job.

I don't recall ever saying, or implying, that I judge success by
incomes.  In fact, I don't.  In the case of my friend, I feel he would
like to make enough money to be able to take care of himself
financially.  Right now, the work he has gotten from acting has not
enabled him to do this.  He sees going back into law school as a way
to do something he likes, that will pay him enough to take care of
himself financially.  He doesn't want to go into law to be rich, nor
is he pursuing acting now in the hopes that one day he will be rich.

>I'm sure that the struggling musician, actor, artist, salesperson,
>teacher, etc stories has helped make a lot of people who don't have
>the guts to dare to do things feel smug that they have a steady
>paycheck and fool themself for not following their trueself.

I'm sure it has.  I'm sure the stories of the struggling entertainer
have also helped a lot of people realize how difficult it is to make a
living in the entertainment business, and if there is something else
they can do (that they enjoy just as much) that will give them the
means to support themselves, they're better off doing it.

>> Yes, I agree that this applies to anything.  However, for several
>> reasons, breaking into the music business is much more difficult and
>> there is very little security, unlike becoming a doctor, opening a
>> store, etc.
>Most businesses fail within the first couple of years because of bad
>management and you think opening a store is secure?  Open your yellow
>pages and see the huge ads for doctors.  My attorney tells me about
>attorneys looking so hard for work that they go down to the court
>house records looking for people who had accidents and these guys
>write them letters telling them they may have cause for legal action
>to sue on their behalf.  Can't be all that secure competing for a
>practice. I'm sure the advise to "go to law school" didn't come from
>within.

Nothing is secure.  However, law, medicine, etc. are more secure than
music, generally speaking, because of the demand for those services,
and the way that wages are paid in those professions.

Do you feel that financial stability and security are worth having?
Dreams are nice, but reality says you need to make enough money to eat
and keep a roof over your head.

>The music business is like any other business.  You have to understand
>it and do your homework and follow through.  Simply saying it is diffcult
>is to say that to become successful in terms of income in any business
>is diffcult.  Placing music as something different shows a lack of
>understand of the business.  But like any business it will be the
>person taking action on their own and not by the tired old stories
>of how people just got lucky.

Well, I've done quite a bit of "homework", on the music business, by
reading many books, and talking to pro, semi-pro, and aspiring
musicians and music businesspeople.  I have found that many of them
echo my statements.  They also say that after many many years of hard
work, it still wasn't enough; they weren't able to make ends meet.
It was not because of poor business or money management that they
couldn't make ends meet.  It was that the cost of living exceeded
their income as musicians (and any other supplemental work they could
get).  They decided it was in their best interests to pursue other
careers.

>Something to fall back on?  Like teach.  This explains alot of the
>bad teachers.  If you are not willing to put your best forward than
>perhaps saying at home with covers pulled tightly over your head is
>what's best for you.  After all, someone has to deliver the mail.

However, you can still put your best foot forward and not succeed (in
being able to support yourself financially).  I see no shame in trying
something else that is more stable.  Perhaps you'd like to see all the
aspiring businesspeople out on the street.

>If someone enters college or starts a plan without even a thought of
>how to complete it, it's their fault not the industry they selected.
>It's also the fault of the school not to prepare them which leads
>it back to having to do this yourself.  Simply entering a field or
>industry because you can find a job in it, is a poor reason if you
>would really rather do something else.

However, if someone forms a plan and it doesn't work, they're entitled
to make a new plan.  Also, just because someone enters another field
after struggling in their previous field does not mean they're there
only because they were able to find a job.