Career choice
Last night, we talked about the importance of song choice as regards American Idol. Today we will talk about career choice, as right now on the show they're showing us some of the worst and most arrogant performers.

One woman, in fact, just flailed around while bellowing a song from Flashdance with all the verve and grace of a drunken Soviet tank commander. She didn't take well to being asked if her act was just a put-on. (I thought it was a put-on myself.) She was absolutely serious, she said, started to cry, and demanded that the judges take her to Hollywood, because all they would need to do is get her synthesizers and a choreographer like they do with "all the other singers" and she would be just as good as they are. She was "willing to go out there." Of course, so is everyone else. That's why thousands of singers, many of them very very bad, try out for American Idol. Another very bad signer just demanded a televised apology for being laughed at by the judges. A third was very calm while droning on, but was disappointed that the judges failed to see "in his heart" and realize how important it was that he get on tv.

Time and again the judges say "This isn't for you," "Stop doing this," and "You are not a singer." Why? Why not just say that they aren't ready for a high-level competition and to keep practicing? Well, the answer is easy: because they have already failed. These people have failed to look reality square in the face and take the measure of their own talents and skills. In any job with a star system (only a few people earn lots of money/status; hundreds of thousands of others make nothing or almost nothing), knowing one's level and endeavoring to improve is not optional. It has to be the FIRST thing you do.

Because star systems have an element of arbitrariness and luck (just like crossing the street) people are convinced that it is not what you know, but who you know, that allows one to get famous, get a book deal, etc. Knowing people is better than not knowing anyone, but talent and skill are crucial. Getting a career in the arts isn't like winning a lottery or being struck by lightning, it's like getting into the best medical school in the country and becoming a top brain surgeon.

Every third kid in kindergarten wants to be a doctor. Most of them wipe out in the sciences and mathematics around seventh grade. A bunch of others freak out in college, don't get the right scholarship, discover the Gamers Guild and spend a decade stinking up the dorm room, etc. The only difference is that people who want to be singers or writers call themselves singers and writers before knowing anything. The average college sophomore bio major, on the other hand, isn't rushing into operating rooms and poking at the skulls.

Not surprisingly we see the same from would-be writers, especially those whose bibliographies are filled with material published by iUniverse, 1stBooks, and other POD vanity presses. They're paying to publish but they're already superstars in their own minds, though certainly not in reality.

One writes, At this point in my youth I was certain about two things. First, pen and paper were much cheaper than a movie camera and all that went with the visual medium; second, one good book made into a movie by experienced film makers was all that was needed for a foothold in life. Yep, write a book, option it to Hollywood, collect the movie money. Just like going to community college for a degree in Accounting (minor in Computer Applications).

Here's another fellow, who paid to have his books published by POD vanities: With another full length novel scheduled for release in the next year, and another one already written, along with a poetry collection, A.P. Fuchs will be rapidly ascending all the bestseller charts... And stardom is imminent...though hesitantly welcomed.

Here's another one so incoherent that all I can gather from it is that he thinks he has an audience somewhere: Brett has explained the concept of this and other future novels with many horror fans, and their reactions inspired him to continue with his literary endeavor. Although he cannot speak for them to provide a decent list of credentials, he can tell you honestly, that if it wasn't for the many mortal souls that cry out into the darkness for the terror he creates in his mind, he would not be this serious of a writer.

Along with statements like these comes the belief that all the greats --Whitman, Poe, Twain -- self-published their work. These 19th century figures used the now obsolete model of subscription publishing, which is hardly the same thing as modern vanity publishing. The few realistic and skilled self-publishers like Kelly Link and Carlton Mellick III have no illusions about Hollywood deals or the bestseller charts. Link published a collection because the larger publishers wanted a novel along with the collection. Mellick is a talented but resolutely anti-commercial writer. We also don't see a lot of death metal singers in American Idol for the same reason. Link and Mellick did the practice and developed the skills.

Career choice is easy. You make the choice to follow a career, then make all the other choices that accompany that as they come up. Missteps and wrong choices are common enough, but also easy enough to reverse, unless one makes too great of a bad choice. Wandering into American Idol auditions thinking one is hot shit when one simply cannot sing at all is one of those bad choices so great that one may as well call it in. It suggests a delusion as pure as expecting one's iUniverse poetry collection to find its way to the bestseller lists.