After all why would they bring back someone they got rid of.  That would be like bringing  back the first Darren Stevens from Bewitched.

The other part of winning a big account is losing a big account.  It is inevitable, at some point, the ride will end, the bars will lift off and some kid with bad acne and no motivation will ask you to exit while someone else takes your seat.

“Easy Come, Easy Go.”

is easy to say when it’s coming.  Try it when it’s going.  That’s the hard part.

I was talking with another Voice Over talent today about “the going” part.  He said that he wished every voice over could get a big account and then lose it.  It provides a perspective that you just don’t get when it’s coming.

The tendency of big accounts is lazy and entitlement.

The hard work somehow doesn’t seem as important and you begin to feel like you deserve the checks.

When that goes, if you’re not in the right place mentally, it can lead into a major downward spiral.  Then you get desperate, and that’s the kiss of death for a read and a career.

I personally have had the big accounts and lost them, and have wrestled with every emotion that comes with that.

Luckily, I’ve now had the experience of having one of those big accounts come back, and having lost with the ability to say “Easy Come Easy Go”, while it was going, I can now fully enjoy the coming (back), with an appreciation and understanding that only comes from losing.

I was searching for some sort of shaolin monk to teach me “The Path”, but when I found out how much Monk’s were charging these days, I settled on an acting class on Pico Blvd.

The questions are:  Why? Why Know? Why an Acting class?

The answer:  Cause it was time.

I just knew it was time to get back out there, and you know what, I have no purpose other then that.  I have little idea where this is going to lead me and even less expectation.

All I know is I needed artistic stimulation with a little direction thrown in.  You know something to add a little flavor to the soup.

I think that at some point every artist needs some type of class, seminar, or workshop to reawaken vision, or on a less esoteric note, get some blood pumping into stagnant muscles.

Only thing is, that you have to be ready to except it’s consequences.

Side effects can include: Hard Work, Artistic Rebirth, Telepathy Powers, Success.

Hoping for two new pilots I just  did to get picked up.  Mall Cops “Mall of America”  a show that picks up where Paul Blart left off, but with less Blart and more officer.  The Pilot aired Thursday October 15th.  The other, as of now has no air date.  It’s called “Conveyor Belt of Love” and is just what it’s name says.  5 Women watch 30 Men come by on a conveyor belt and decide if they’re interested.  I want the show to get picked up simply for the opportunity to get a t-shirt.  Who wouldn’t want a “Conveyor Belt of Love” T-shirt?  Well, maybe my parents.

Just like On Camera actors VO actors have to sweat the networks suits deciding, in their infinite wisdom, whether a show is a GO.  Cool thing about VO actors is they can have multiple shows at the same time.

But just like On Camera actors,  just because you did a show that got picked up or renewed doesn’t mean you can’t be killed off.

Now maybe your character won’t die a tragic death in a freak Tea picking expedition on the tundra in Tibet, but there might be a producer who thinks they can do your job better, and it’s the same end result.

So keep your fingers crossed, have your family and friends praying, knock on wood, send bribes, or carve a tiki.

What ever you do realize it all turns to dust, the flowers die, and shows all get canceled.  

And yes The Simpsons, One day, will get canceled.

Normally a mess up doing Voice Over, is just that, but on occasion it becomes a monster threatening to send you to the Looney Bin.

Your Brain starts to sweat about not getting it right and you cascade into a down word spiral of self doubt and loathing.  You start to think about how dumb you are for not being able to say a stupid word or phrase that a 3 year old could.  in my cause “Toyota”

You start to wonder how stupid everyone listening  thinks you are.  About how stupid you’ll look when your ineptitude makes it onto some famous reel of stupid people.  If fact somehow you’re entire life becomes stupid in the wake of your complete failure to say one stupid, dumb, stupid word.

The question is not so much how you got here, but how you get out.

My advice: Do whatever you can!

Namely remember the song from Sesame Street.  “Oops I made a mistake that’s all.”

It’s life, it happens, and the only real way you’ll leave a lasting “BAD” impression is to panic and start acting like a weirdo.  Make fun of it.  Get goofy.  Breathe.  Think of playing baseball with Kangaroos.  Anything to take your mind off of your Brain Sweats.

Oh, and you probably will find that you actually will begin to sweat for real!

I finally did say Toyota right.  My secret?  I took my  Left Shoe off and waved it in the air while I read the copy.

Seriously !

Whatever it takes.

I love working in Voice Over and that is why I do it.

Unfortunately  why most people get into it is for the lifestyle and/or the money.

Silly, Silly, People.

"I'm just in it for the Money!"

Though they both may be great products of a successful VO career, they don’t provide the drive for attaining a successful career.

The Hope must be fueled by the right desire.  In my opinion, that desire is the WORK itself.

Money and Lifestyle make for false hope’s that are much easier to disappoint.

Never get cast as the Dead Man in a movie.

Things are slow, real slow.  The office was scary quite, just as work for most is scary quite. The only thing you can do when it gets slow, is to get busy!

The more you think about the slow, the slower it’s gonna get.  So get out there and do what you always wished you had the time to do.  Do what you’re good at and get better.

Take a class, work on your craft.

One guy I know has dropped his golf handicap by 2 points.

I’m hitting the “To Do” list around the house, and our garden has never looked better.  Might even make it to the Ukulele jam session I’ve been meaning to go to.

Never let slow draw attention to itself.  It makes you do things like think about getting another job, and that’s almost as bad as thinking about teaching.

For the most part what I learned became part of my collective unconscious, however one piece of advise from some “How to Act” book from some unremembered partially famous actor, has continued to periodically surface in a check reminder.

No matter how good of friends you become with your agent, there will probably be a time when, for business reasons, you’ll have to leave for another agent.

It is a harsh reality that I never thought would apply to me, as my agent at the time was 150 years old, smelled of cigarettes smoked during prohibition, and could never remember who I was.  

Only you will know when it’s time to leave and hopefully after much thought and sought advice.  As a cartoon on the wall of a casting director reads:

Changing Agents is like changing chairs on the Titanic.

Rash and quick changing of agents in an effort to find the always elusive “Greener Grass.“, will more often then not make you wish you could Wonder Twins Power into the shape of a boomerang and find your way back to your old agent.  You can imagine that Humble Pie is a big ole’ slice of bitter.

When it’s the right time and the right reasons, changing agents, no matter how good of friends you’ve become, can be one of the most useful tools you have to further your career.  

Just remember

Be Good

Don’t burn a bridge if you don’t have to.  Your Old Agent may be your next best New Agent!

The Good

You show up to work in your T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.  You read a few words that you don’t have to memorize, drink coffee, eat free food, and then about an hour later go home to your fantastic VO pad, pour the Margarita’s and wait for the fat checks to come raining down like candy at a 4th of July Parade.

The Bad

You send out your demo, that cost you 1500 dollars, to potential agents for the 3rd time and for the 3rd time they tell you they have too many people with your voice on the roster.  You take class after class, go to audition after audition, and then finally you get a booking… and it’s to be voice #2 for Sun Drop Soda.  

It’s your big break!  Your part consists of saying “Awesome!” and the commercial is going to run in the SouthEast and Wisconsin.  You go home to your one room garden apartment, fire up the hot plate for afternoon Ramen and Beans and wait for your $250 check to arrive 2 months late.

The Ugly

Your Agent calls you in the morning (all good agent calls come in the morning), to tell you , that you just booked “The Voice Of…”  You have multiple recording sessions from your new home studio, and you know spend more time on the phone with your agent then your girlfriend/boyfriend.

You buy the car/shoes/house/boat/ski condo on the beach (just cause you can).  You pay for dinner… for the table next to you. The sessions just keep coming and the fat checks arrive in your mailbox like pre approved credit cards.

Then one day while watching your 70 inch Waterproof Hovercraft LCD that’s floating above the pool, you see your commercial… except the voice at the end isn’t you… somebody else is “The Voice of…”.

You call your agent, he says they went a different direction/lost the account/is as shocked as you.  

It was your only account, the fat checks go anorexic.  Your monthly bills rivals the  GDP of Guam, but you’re so used to spending like Bradgelina and investing like Madoff that you find yourself sleeping in your friends garage next to his Ferret Farm wishing you could  go home to your one room garden apartment, fire up the hot plate for afternoon Ramen and Beans and wait for your $250 check to arrive 2 months late.

There comes a time in every VO’s life where the only person you can talk about VO is with another VO. And believe me, you will need to talk VO.  But, no matter how long you’ve been married, together, around someone, if they don’t VO, then they don’t really know VO.

It’s like being home schooled.  You just sit there learning from Mom, and if there’s no outlet with fellow students you become…well…home schooled.

A friend of mine once told me:

“The mind is like a dark alley way. A bad place to be alone.”

So too is the mind of VO actor.  You have to make time to sit down over coffee, wine, pudding, whatever, to talk shop.
There’s enough examples of VO actors who don’t find the time to socialize and self therapize. They sit at home and stew over every moment of every read.  They think of nothing but VO and tend to spiral down into actor self pity and/or self superiority.

These people tend to  part conversations like Moses parting the Red Sea.  We all know them and we all avoid them.

Telling your worries, problems, successes to a friend who is, say a Pharmacist, will get you pills not sympathy. (Most likely for treating neurosis.)

The need to vent about lack of auditions, bad agents, bad jobs, no work, is an important part of staying sane, with the most sympathetic ear always being someone who needs to do the same.

Open up conversation with a trusted VO friend and save yourself the therapist fee.

It was in Chicago that I learned that, for my voice, the closer the microphone the better. How to talk across the mic to avoid plosives (Popping syllables from letters like P.), and that my job description is to Show up, Be a good person, Do my job as quick and professionally as possible, then Leave.

Chicago was also the place where I realized that Voice Over was a business.

I was hooked on the life of an Actor from the first moment I stepped on stage to deliver my lines as a white 16 year old pretending to be Japanese in “Teahouse of the August Moon” If Brando could do it why not my suburban soccer playing self? The only way I can describe how I felt the first time the audience laughed, is that it’s like the first time you catch a wave when surfing. It grabs you somewhere deep in your belly and connects you like a Lego to something that is far bigger then yourself and it triggers your brain to start thinking about how it can connect more legos, and if there is truly anything else worthwhile, except connecting Legos.

Living in South Austin, Texas, and then Stuart Dybek’s ever changing Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, I felt my self growing as an artist, learning technique, and overall getting closer and closer to my inner artistic Lego connecting soul surfer. During that time I was also learning that this whole living thing tended to cost money. To others my 375 dollar a month apartment was a steal, to me a ridiculous obligation with no real return. Then there was the hard truth that Peanut Butter and Tortillas cost more when you don’t have roommates who buy them. What’s more all those acting classes cost as much as rent. Turns out my life as a budding artist had a direct reverse correlation with my income. I looked around at my brilliant artists friends and realized, They Don’t Make Money! Any Money! And Neither Do I!

It hit me, there is the Art of an Actor and there is the Business of the Actor and with out the Business, for the most part, the Art is Art for Arts sake. Conversely the Business without the Art is akin to a salesman without a product. It is, as in almost everything, all about the balance of the two in relationship to the specific artist.

With that I set out to educate myself. Earning a degree in Business from The College of Borders, a Marketing degree from Barnes and Nobel University, and, due to lack of interest and the prerequisite math, failed to finish a Finance degree from Amazon U.

After learning in my 5th year of College that you could test out of classes by reading the books and taking a test, receiving A credit for 3 units by studying for two days, I realized that learning on one’s own simply meant having the will and a book on how to. Add to that the amazing resources on the Internet and truly it is all there for the learning.

I’m still learning and unfortunately what I’m learning is that the learning can never stop. A business that ignores changing trends finds itself irrelevant. If Starbucks, McDonalds, and Coke can lose their way, (New Coke anyone?), so too can the Artist refusing to change, to reinvent their business plan, and learn about the prevailing trends.

Just a few years ago a headshot in color was a sign of someone who didn’t know what they were doing. Now color is a norm, and oft preferred.

Voice Over, like all Art, is a business, and as a business it is ever changing.

Just like a business, have a plan, research the market place, have a great product, be a good person and then leave.