I agreed to do this story in the "Washington Post".<\/p>\n
I turned down the "L.A. Weekly".\u00c2\u00a0 I just about said yes, then I read one of the guy’s articles while feasting on a tostada in Burbank and lost my appetite.\u00c2\u00a0 It was snarky!<\/p>\n
When you submit yourself to others, you’re at their mercy.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re never one hundred percent positive.\u00c2\u00a0 They can’t be, it seems to be the journalistic code.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll comment on your appearance, even if they don’t twist your words, you’ll read and wince.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s their ego on the line too.\u00c2\u00a0 A rock star might be worth millions, but he’s an equal when speaking to a reporter.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe less.<\/p>\n
But this guy said he didn’t want to do an expose.\u00c2\u00a0 That he was genuinely interested in getting my story out there.\u00c2\u00a0 But did it make any difference?\u00c2\u00a0 Did my audience read the "Washington Post"?\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be that that was the only way to get the story out there, by playing with the major league gatekeepers.\u00c2\u00a0 I figured I’d get a ton of hits on my site, a hundred or two subscribers, most of whom would desert me once they got a taste of my act.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, it was the "Washington Post".\u00c2\u00a0 I’d be lying if I said my ego wasn’t stroked a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 So, after about four months of back and forth, I said yes.<\/p>\n
Then came the logistics.<\/p>\n
The "Washington Post" commissioned an army.\u00c2\u00a0 There was the photo editor who had freelancers on the west coast…\u00c2\u00a0 When could we do it?<\/p>\n
Well, I’m not going to let them come to my house.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want people seeing my true life.\u00c2\u00a0 But outside, the light fades.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ve been traveling, and hunting up some real money.\u00c2\u00a0 But this photographer…he called me on my cell.\u00c2\u00a0 And I almost always pick up my cell.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I give almost nobody the number.\u00c2\u00a0 I agreed to come to his apartment, this afternoon, after my shrink appointment, at 3.<\/p>\n
Where my doctor ended up raising my rate.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I agreed to pay.\u00c2\u00a0 I live frugally.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve saved just about every dollar I’ve earned.\u00c2\u00a0 But I had a bad year, I lost almost ninety percent of my income.\u00c2\u00a0 Through no fault of my own.\u00c2\u00a0 They laid off just about everybody I worked with at Rhino, and they sold my hours at KLSX to a psychic, for a glorified infomercial.\u00c2\u00a0 But the increase threw me off guard a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever I’ve flown on hopes and dreams, I’ve fallen flat on my face.<\/p>\n
I ended up finding a parking space not far from the photographer’s abode.<\/p>\n
I was less worried about how I was going to look than what the reporter was going to write, so I let him drive the shoot.\u00c2\u00a0 But while we were setting up, I engaged him in conversation.\u00c2\u00a0 I love to hear people’s stories.<\/p>\n
He’s a news photographer.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s his beat.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t fantasize about art, he loves the adrenaline of this fast-moving world.\u00c2\u00a0 He shot McCain last night, and then the Democratic debate.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s slammed through Tuesday, the election.<\/p>\n
And a bereted gentleman emerged from the apartment next door.\u00c2\u00a0 A sporadically working music video director.\u00c2\u00a0 He helped hold the giant reflector, to generate light in the late afternoon.<\/p>\n
And we’re talking about the program, about life, about getting ahead.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m living in an alternative universe.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the one of business, but art.\u00c2\u00a0 These guys weren’t solely in it for the money.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren’t at 9 to 5 jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 I realized…I was a lot closer to them than the people minting dollars.\u00c2\u00a0 The photographer told me he loved what he did, and that got him through.<\/p>\n
And after the video director asked the photographer if he could help him with his connections, I got back in my car and while driving up Pacific Avenue I heard "More Than This".<\/p>\n
It was fun for a while…<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I agreed to do this story in the "Washington Post". I turned down the "L.A. Weekly".\u00c2\u00a0 I just about said yes, then I read one of the guy’s articles while feasting on a tostada in Burbank and lost my appetite.\u00c2\u00a0 It was snarky! When you submit yourself to others, you’re at their mercy.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-hG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}