Indulge me... It's my birthday...

Advice from 30+ years in the trenches...

Vanilla Safeway sheet cake… the BEST cake, I will broke no arguments.

Here I sit, sipping tea and thinking.
51 years old today. And I’m ill. And melancholic. And nostalgic.
The purview of the agéd. Ha!

So today will be an indulgence and I promise to try to make it useful.

I thought I’d take the time to look over the best advice I’ve been given and the few pieces of advice (worth repeating) that I’ve managed to come up with from my:

34 years of artistic work and
36 years of learning/training and teaching.
(I’ll attribute the advice where I can/remember and provide a bit of context where it matters.)

The big one for me (and so generic I can’t recall where I heard it first):
1. Love the process.

I can’t express how much this defines me. And how much I can lose sight of this in our Capitalistic treadmill of a life. For whatever reason we got into this artistic life, it’s the process not the product that fulfills us, teaches us, gets us out of bed.

2. Do the work. (Again, too generic to attribute.)

Speaking of Capitalism… this can be used as a stick against us but, but, there is nothing like doing the damn work for artists to progress and get better at the actual art. No amount of studying, discussion, critique will yield the knowledge and the satisfaction to simply jumping in and doing the damn work.

3. Work leads to work – Christopher Morrison (I think.)
3A. Be indispensable – Suze Orman (betcha didn’t think she’d show up!)

This is especially true in group effort-oriented art… film and theater. It can take a surprising number of peeps to complete a show and you will groove with some and you won’t with others. But the ones you do groove with? They’ll call you, or you’ll call them. That’s how it works. So show up. And while I do NOT advocate for doing free work you gotta start somewhere when first starting out and/or breaking into a new market. Work leads to work.
About 3A… look no one is indispensable but if you have the energy go the extra inch, foot, mile, and you will appearindispensable. And, yeah, I heard it first from a VHS. So. There’s that.

4. There’s a line… so don’t leave the line if you can. – Late night Chicago radio lady

Very few people parachute into a market/art and immediately start getting enough gigs to support themselves. (Ofc, there’s some… it keeps the dreamers dreaming.) This means when you start out (or are joining a new market) you are at the end of “the line”. “The line” is a mythical, abstract queue that segments by job title: actor, designer, screenwriter, dancer, etc. You “wait” in the line so that decision makers can eventually see you and your work. You move through the line by doing the work and staying put. (I’m terrible at that last part as my 31^st move of my life is coming up… so I got lots of experience with various lines.) Those that kick against this idea probably suffer under the delusion of “meritocracy” in the arts. Again, there’s those stories of peeps jumping the queue because of their undeniable talent, but it’s the line for most of us.

(And, yeah, I heard a late night radio lady in Chicago one night expound this idea and it really hit home for me… no idea who she was… she did late night love song requests and bad, bad advice.)

5. We pull things from the void that didn’t exist before and drag it into reality – Sydney Friedman

My Independent Theater Studies advisor at Boston University. While not necessarily advice, it gives my life and my work meaning and a nobility that I carry to this day.

6. It’s okay to be committed yet uncertain – Adam Gelin (my cousin)/Christopher Morrison

Although discussing the renovations on his house, when my cousin uttered this phrase he encapsulated my entire artistic career. Being committed yet uncertain of the outcome, seems to me, the life that I’ve chosen to live… and I bet some of it’s yours too.

7. Life is about keeping track of three things: your Relationships; your Money; and your Career… be prepared for any two to be completely off the rails at any given time – Eddie Gesitas

Eddie was a facilitator at Boston University and loved by all… not an easy thing to do. A wise man who helped shepherd generations of students closer to their art.

8. Context is everything. (Too generic to attribute, but recently back in my life thanks to Mathew Salesses’ brilliant book Craft in the Real World.)

While impossible to always know all the context… the more you have the better off you are. Also be willing to let go of the context you thought you knew.

9. Be interesting – Anne Bogart

Some of us believe that in our art we are to be “good” or “great” or “accomplished” or any other such unattainable/unmeasurable thing. Anne Bogart the pioneering woman of American Theater taught me it was actually an artist’s job to be interesting. How do you do that? She let a colleague of hers complete that thought.

10. Your horizontal network is 10 times more valuable than your vertical… b/c they get you jobs – Christopher Morrison

Really part of 3 and 3A. And, seriously, my horizontal network has got me more paying and more important work than anyone in my vertical.

11. Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself – Miles Davis

Possibly the most innovative trumpeter to have lived (some say, musician) and this dude admits it took a while to find his own unique voice… be patient. You got you.

12. What you do with your interest is the only thing you can control – Leon Ingulsrud

It stands on its own, but is also the answer to Anne’s question in #9. See the video for full discussion.

13. Fuck ‘em… it’s their problem – Marguerite Marie Morrison (my mother)

Being an extroverted undiagnosed ADHD child raised in an Italian-American household I was a rather loud child. Now, I didn’t impose my loudness on others, I was very much occupied in my own fantasy worlds. Nevertheless, loud, and weird I was.

And the day I came home crying because I’d been told to be quiet again on the playground I was gathered into my mother’s lap as she locked eyes with me and said the above… to an eight-year-old. My mother is not a swearer (though I certainly fuckin’ am). Even then I appreciated the emphasis, the trust, and the equality she shared with me.

Most importantly, she didn’t tell me I was better than them. No better, no worse. No value judgement. Just that what they were pushing onto me said more about them than me. It’s been the gift that’s kept on giving my entire life.
Your expression is yours, and yours alone to do with what you will.

Fuck ‘em… it’s their problem.

14. Lastly: This is enough – Christopher Morrison

Oof. Big one. I urge you to try to understand that This Is Enough. It is. This moment. This art. This expression. This present. It’s enough.
For my paid subscribers here’s a video further exploring this and an extra writing exercise below.

Oh. And Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
I’m off to more tea and couch…

Here’s the free video exploring #9, #12, and #13.

And here’s a video just for my paid subs below:

Much love to ya’ll on my 51st birthday!
Here’s your video from your sickie old-man writing cheerleader!
This is Enough Video