Bottom Of The Barrel.

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I am occasionally asked to answer questions by a person considering embarking on a career in modeling or acting. This post ranks as a bottom of the barrel item only because it largely consists of the advice I gave in a recent email. I have edited it slightly for general public distribution. It is my response to the query of a young person who knows almost nothing about the industry but knows they are attractive enough to be in print.

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Here are the lessons that too many models never learn, or get hurt learning. My career has been as Santa, a threatening biker, or a jovial oaf. Typecasting to be sure, but it bought me a new car over the last 10 years. Nothing to sneeze at since I drive an Explorer! Yes, there’s money, but it doesn’t come right away, if ever. So, some rules/ideas to live by. Please do not be insulted. I don’t know you at all, and you may already know all of this stuff, but I’ll assume that you don’t. I have no stake in this game, so you can take this as Gospel. Here we go:

Prepare a short letter of introduction. Include 3 photos – one of baby, one of you with baby, one of you. Google all the local agencies. Call the agency and ask to whom you should mail it. Then walk in around 2 pm on a Tuesday. That’s a dead time. Don’t show up Monday or Friday – crazy times. If they don’t want to talk, just smile and leave your envelope with the photos and letter. Make a follow up call in 10 days. That gives them a chance to look at the pile. Three days after that, send a thank you note for their time.

Never pay for modeling lessons or acting lessons unless it’s at a community ed program or college. No reputable agency will require you to take classes you pay for to work for them. EVERY agency that does that is a scam. Run away from them.

No reputable agency will require you to pay a large up-front fee to work for them. If they have a website fee of under $100 that may be reasonable. I’ve paid a few of them over the years. They do put work into promoting you and putting you on the website. But get them to agree to take it out of your first check. That’s what I’ve done with one exception – and that agency had already paid me over $500 that year. It was a steal to pay them $50 to be on the website. Use good sense, if it’s more than $100 it’s a ripoff. Most agencies won’t charge until you work a bit.

No reputable agency will require you to work nude. Let me repeat that: no reputable agency will require you to work nude. You will always have covering over your genitals when working unless it’s a big arty shoot – not very likely in the Midwest. Same goes for lingerie. It’s just not a real modeling job if you are to do a lingerie show for a business lunch – sounds shady, is shady. If you have any doubts about any assignment, make sure you take a friend with you. Having your baby along is no insurance against creeps. This goes double for Craigs list bookings. Only go through agencies.

You may not work for months or a year when first starting. But keep going to auditions. You won’t get work unless you audition. Don’t buy outfits or props for auditions or shoots. They will provide what you need. Auditions eventually turn into work if you have what they are looking for in this business.

Be on time. Models are a pain to work with because they are always late. I always a l w a y s find the place at least 1/2 hour early and find a place to park. I hit the bathroom before knocking on the door. Your being on time and professional will impress them – most models aren’t.

Don’t be a diva, be humble and cooperative. No director wants to work with unpleasant people. Hey, they’re paying you for the time so consider part of the fee to be polite.

Checks will come within 100 days. Yup, very rarely will you be paid right away. Most jobs I do I see the check in about 9 weeks. Good agencies will be up front about that little detail.

Pay varies for the use of the time. If you score a national commercial, it pays a lot of money – thousands. If you do a 1/2 hour photo shoot for a local store, it might only pay $200. Your agency has a vested interest in getting you paid well – they get a percent. Speaking of which, their share of the fee should be no more than 15% in most cases, 20% max.

Do not audition for things you do not want to do or can’t due for scheduling reasons. Let your agent know if you have a moral objection to a product. And conflict of interest comes in to play as well. Sounds crazy, but my employer would can me if I worked for the competition, and I won’t do work for products that I find objectionable. I have had offers to work on things I object to, and I just nicely tell my agent that it won’t work for my lifestyle. All of my agents are cool with it. I have an public image to protect and they usually respect that situation.

Do not offer suggestions to the photographers and directors until you’ve worked for a year. Some of the really silly stuff they have you do has a reason – you will learn them and then once you are experienced you can suggest things nicely – they like it when you help. But learn the craft first.

Create a bag with basic wardrobe – a skirt, a blouse, a pair of tight jeans, a pair of loose jeans, a couple of t-shirts, a v neck blouse, a couple of scarves, a hat, some sunglasses, and some costume jewelry. Add a basic makeup kit, a brush and a comb, as well as a toothbrush, dental floss, and toothpaste. Seriously, this marks you as a professional. Iron the stuff before an assignment and make sure you have the wardrobe they request. Always bring a couple of pairs of shoes that match – they change that stuff all the time. Stick to basic colors – pastels, never black and white unless they request it- no corporate logos, nothing objectionable, etc. You’ll be glad you did.

Bring a book. You sit around a lot.

Bring a snack. It’s rare they feed you for modeling work under an hour or two. Then it will be grapes, cookies, and soda pop. Joy.

Learn people’s names. Send the director a thank you note if they were especially nice. Don’t ask for copies of the photos – big no-no.

Don’t gossip with other actors and models. It’s tempting but always backfires.

Have some fun. Where else do you get paid to smile?

You now have the sum total of my wisdom about modeling/acting. I hope it helps.

I Don’t Do This Very Often – But I’m Overdue.

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For all of you who get the vapors when you think about Barack Obama, you will want to wander off and fluff pillows today. I promise that I’ll be offensive to all of his fans.

For the rest of you, full scale mockery below the fold.

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Somebody’s Child – Another One Of My Infamous Reviews.

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Just in case any of you were wondering, yes I really do work on my novels from time to time. I do not spend the entire day in front of the television or reading someone else’s work. Mind you, it’s a close run race at times, but I really do write down some of this stuff for my own eventual use.

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One of the things I do like doing is watching some of the lesser known stuff on Netflix. The reason is simple: it’s some of the best stuff. I root for the underdogs in the entertainment industry. If Christian movies aren’t toward the top of the pile when you stack up underdogs I’ve missed something. Every time one of them does well the press goes nuts at the anomaly. I don’t see why it should surprise them so greatly, some of the movies are really wonderful. Somebody’s Child is a great example.

Here’s a link to that trailer if you’re getting this via email.

Before you ask, I linked the Christian Cinema link, versus IMDB, because IMDB has screwed up the entry for this film to the point where it’s useless. Cast is wrong for starters. Consequently I didn’t want to aim you to them and create confusion. So, it’s not so you buy the movie from www.christiancinema.com. Whew, that’s done.

On to the movie! Somebody’s Child is replete with good characters, interesting plots, and a great deal of faith on display. It’s one of those movies that the family will enjoy together, and you can leave the DVD out on the table top. It’s only lacking is that a couple of characters wound up on the cutting room floor and their character arcs are incomplete. It’s not all that jarring, but it would have been nice if they would either have been left out completely or at least wrapped up with a line of dialogue down the road.

This is a story of tough choices made with a great deal of thought and love. People getting second chances in this movie make it a tear-jerker in spots. We all need second chances and I loved the fact that the movie doesn’t skimp on that message. None of us are perfect, no matter how much we delude ourselves into thinking so.

The actors are the people you know – maybe not from this movie or that movie, but you know the faces. Journeymen, they used to call them. I like journeymen. I like these journeymen (and women) and love what they do with their performances. Sometimes it’s more impactful to have one of these movies populated with journeymen versus the marquee bill guys. You pay more attention to the plot that way. It’s a good plot. It’s a plot with twists and turns. Some you may guess right out of the chute. Others you won’t. But you will identify with the people.

These are the people of my church. The families that I know. The stories I have heard. The love that suffers from reality and the harshness of life. The triumph of God in people’s lives. The joy of overcoming the worst that gets dished out. The making right of wrongs. The faith in love and life that allows us to see another day.

It’s a good movie. If you have a couple of hours to spend watching Netflix it’s up there on the instant feed. Go to your microwave, pop a bag of corn and settle in for 86 minutes of good entertainment. I promise you won’t regret it tomorrow.

A Day For Teeth And Eyeballs.

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Here is Stormy. Stormy is groggy. Stormy is soft. Stormy has clean teeth. On the other end of the camera is Joe. Joe is not groggy. Joe can barely see the camera or the computer screen. Joe has dilated pupils the size of a wombat.

Recovery mode.

Recovery mode.

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This morning I dropped the girl off at the vet’s office to have her fangs done. Every ten years no matter what, eh? So she hung out with Dr. Mark and I went to breakfast.

Mickey’s, especially when my friend Francis is cooking, turns out some great pancakes. Today was no exception. Light, sweet, fluffy. Washed it down with plenty of coffee and then went to my own doctor visit.

Last week I had my annual eye exam. Vision largely unchanged. Except for that little hemorrhage in the right eye. Really small. Miniscule. But something to look at, since the pathology of the eye indicated some complications from my high blood pressure (Who would have guessed I get wound up…) It’s called hypertensive retinopathy

My eye doctor, being a very good doctor, shipped me off to the specialist right away. After Mickey’s I got my pupils widened enough to drive a spike into my head. And that’s what bright light feels like at the moment. I verified that when my lovely wife gave me a present and made me keep my eyes closed until she’d given it to me.

I must admit, I thought she was trying to snug a too-tight baseball cap on my fat head. Until she told me to open my eyes and hit the switch. Yes, it was a Black Diamond Headlamp. And the thing was angled slightly downward – right into my ginormous pupils. I may be a bit off, but I suspect you could sit on the hump of a 747 on a foggy night, turn this thing on, and have enough light to land that airplane if it’s electrical system had failed. I am still seeing spots twenty minutes later.

So here we sit – the dog is dopey and I’m blind. But between us we have some shiny white teeth and a headlamp that shows them to perfection.

Oh – don’t worry. I’m taking care of the blood pressure thing this week. Turns out the eyes are in good shape but I’m going to go that extra mile to keep better control of my pressure. Do any of you have any leeches?

Love Child. Are We Really Better Off In 2014 Than In 1968?

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In 1968 Diana Ross and The Supremes had a hit with Love Child.  Forty-six years later I have to wonder if we’ve done the right thing for children conceived outside of marriage.

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In the world where this song ran to the top of the charts, it was not the norm, or even acceptable, to have a child out of wedlock. It unfortunately wound up hurting a lot of kids when they were viewed as “Love Children” who didn’t have the same status as other kids with two parents.  Listen to the words of the song. They speak of poverty, shame, isolation, and loss.

Four decades and change later, chronologically only, we’ve made a societal decision to accept this as part of who we are in the United States. I would beg to differ, and point out that it’s a detriment to everyone involved to allow this to be an honorable, and financially subsidized, part of our culture.

One of the reasons that illegitimate births (yes, I know, stigma, cruel, etc… hear me out) were so frowned upon had nothing to do with our puritanical heritage. Most people, deep in their hearts, understood that premarital sex was more common than discussion around the donut table at church might indicate. What it did indicate, and still does, is a lack of maturity and love to create a child and then flee the scene as though it were a traffic accident.

Yes, young men and women have sex out of wedlock. But they move to the level of acceptance if they provide for those children as a couple. Providing two parents rather than one. Two incomes (or a shared one with one spouse staying at home) is a far better situation than being cast into the thrall of the government and the welfare system. Does anyone truly want their young girl aspiring to  “baby-momma” as her identity? It turns her into a throw-away vessel used for one purpose only. No engineers, bus-drivers, doctors, technicians in that description – chattel only. Not a very pretty term, but accurate.

I don’t agree that it takes a village to raise a child. Speaking as the village idiot, do you want me raising your child? My views, my rules, my program? No? Well then, please do not expect subsidies from me either. Will I help you if you’re in a jam? Yes. But when we allow the negative to become neutral, we do the same to the positive. Not judging means everything is of equal value. That’s a concept so wrong that we reject it in our every day lives hundreds of times a week. Is steak better than ground chuck? Are fresh beets better than ones in the can for a year? Is a 2011 Maybach more comfortable to drive than a 2011 Focus?

I’m not advocating a return to calling illegitimate children by a name to demean them – it’s not their fault and that is just wrong.. But I see so many young women in my universe giving birth with no father in sight. The struggles, degradation, and misery that brings into her young life are enormous. The child suffers as well. We may have officially removed the stigma by not talking about it, but the inky tendrils of poverty and lack of upward mobility associated with no father in the household have taken hold of our hearts and hardened them.

Worst of all, for many the solution to a love child is an abortion. No worse solution exists to a child conceived by a boy and a girl with hormone issues. But it is viewed as a form of birth control by all too many. Give that some thought – killing a baby to keep it from being born is as acceptable to some as a condom or a hormone pill. That’s the ultimate fate for many children hastily conceived when no stigma is attached.

Was a pop singer from nearly half-a-century ago telling the truth, or are we living in a fools paradise? Do we love children, or just love making them. And, in all honesty, do we really love making children when abortion is so widely used to end their lives?

No final answer here, just a question.