1/1/04
When groups of successful New York writers get together, you can pretty much bet two things: they are going to talk shit about everyone they know, and they're going to be unbelievably funny whilst doing so. While I love hearing every detail, it's impossible for me to participate very much - the mere act of being published, or having an article appear anywhere is really such a HUGE SUCCESS that I have trouble being disparaging towards anyone. Getting in print is itself a Herculean achievement. Everyone wants to do it, most people try, and few are allowed any body parts in the door. The rest is just jockeying for position on top of Everest. YOU CLIMBED THE MOUNTAIN, you know? I think my early success and quick humiliation thereafter taught me quick appreciation for how fragile these worlds really are.
One thing Tessa has pointed out is true: New York offers the chance to be around people who have not given up on their adolescent fantasy of creating art for money. These people are writers; they deign to string words together for a living, and there's something so ballsy about that – it needs to be celebrated.
The rest of this country, from the top on down, wants you to stop being an artist. It's true. The Bush Administration told you to go to the mall after 9/11, not finish a sculpture or attend a lecture series at the MOMA. The government has always made it practically impossible to be a freelancer, by doubling your FICA taxes, giving you no affordable health insurance, and demanding that you file quarterly.
Some families do this as well: they just want to keep everyone in the fold. People are routinely discouraged from getting their M.F.A., told to go out into the real world and quick fucking around. Even as we obsess over shows like "Friends" and "Frasier," where nobody seems to have an actual job (or at least one with any time requirements), we live in a society that has a tut-tut attitude about true bohemians who want to remain peripatetic and sleep in on weekdays.
Even worse are people who used to have the dream of being an artist, but took a more "sensible" path down the road to a firm income and home ownership. They leave little messages, tiny hints in conversations that you should join them, get a little frustrated and bored with any rough patches you might go through. Readers of this blog aside (Tuesday's comments were gorgeously rendered), the same goes for having children, for similar reasons – they want their friends to have to make the same sacrifices.
It's a little patronizing, maybe even a little mean-spirited, but I understand where it comes from. I just wish that people were given more latitude to be a fuck-up at worst, and a free spirit at best. In this New Year, can you try to NOT talk someone out of a freelance writing career, can you actually ENCOURAGE someone to keep playing guitar? We are all going to get where we're going eventually, and the beauty of life is the myriad bizarre footpaths. Your cousin may be a shitty actor and you hate going to his plays, but jesus, let him figure it out for himself, okay?
Dude: You keep undermining your own argument about FREElancing. FREElancing means you are responsible for yourself, you get to choose, and you get to bear the responsibility, for better or for worse. Sometimes (most of the time?) that's hard as hell, but so is having to show up at a crappy job at 8 am each and every morning, so in my mind it's a fair tradeoff to have the freedom you seek. A true FREE-spirit FREElancer doesn't expect the government or The Man to provide for him, so quit making that whiny argument about how hard it is, you sound like you're trying to play both sides of the street. You want to be free to do your own thing, but you want somebody else to pay for it. Here's a secret that most of us learned in our 20s: Making a living is hard, no matter where your paycheck comes from. Embrace it, dude. Sure it would be great if we could ALL get paid for thinking Big Thoughts and feeling Deep Feelings and sleeping 'til noon. It simply ain't gonna happen. The teeming unwashed masses and George Bush and The Man aren't AGAINST you, they just don't care. But they don't care about me, or Chip, or my UPS driver, either. As much as you might like to think otherwise, you hardly have the market cornered in that category. That's why we all have to be responsible for making our own way in this world, and watching out for loved ones as best we can.
And a few corrections to misnomers that you have now repeated twice: The government doesn't "double" your FICA taxes as a freelancer, it simply makes you pay your full share -- you are your own employer, and the government makes all employers pay half of FICA taxes for their employees -- one government protection for the poor clock-punchers of the world. You CHOOSE not to be a clock-puncher, ergo, you CHOOSE to cover your full FICA payment as both employer and employee. And the IRS "demanding" that you file quarterly is actually much EASIER than what they require of companies. Companies have to file witholding on behalf of their employees MONTHLY, at least. And the quarterly thing is truly for your own good anyway -- It's so that you don't end up with a huge unpaid tax bill at the end of the year with no means left to pay it. By filing quarterly, the government is merely helping irresponsible people cover themselves before it's too late. Plus, the penalty for NOT doing that is actually relatively small should you choose to only file once a year* (*this should not be construed as actual tax advice; consult a professional). As for the health insurance thing, well, that's a bigger issue than just freelancers vs. employees. It's a huge unresolved issue for everybody right now, as any CEO will tell you.
Now all that aside, you've got some excellent points: Be an artist, do great things, sleep whenever works best for you. That's a terrific freedom you've given yourself. Write blogs about how great that is, and I'd love to read 'em.
Yeah, that's the problem with the blog - I generally come off as petulant and whiny. I totally hear you on the "don't go to a brothel and expect to be loved" angle, I was more just talking about the subtle, society-wide stigma of Not Having a Real Job, and how that seems to be worse than ever in this culture that thinks that all things, including terrorism, can be solved by spending more time at Best Buy and Orange Julius.Plus, you have to admit that it is harder than ever to get funding for any piece of art - movies included - and I think there is a price to pay for that later, whatever that might be. Everyone talks about how bad TV and movies are, but don't examine why that may be true.
And I never said that having a real job was easier, I know it to be much, much, much more miserable. However, when I had a real job, many extended members of my family and community suddenly thought I'd come to my senses and welcomed me into The Club. It's that sort of shit that this blog was about.
Oh yeah, the FICA thing was more of a metaphor, but one thing I can tell you: the Man is out to get me. This I know for a fact.
Yes, perhaps everything including freedom has a price, but the fairness of a price is always debatable. You might say that people who don't invest time and effort into obtaining a professional degree must pay a cost in lower wages and more taxing work. But should they have to work sweatshop hours under unsafe conditions? Should people who are "paying the price" of their career decisions have no right to strike for higher wages, reasonable hours and a safe work environment?
I doubt all countries handle freelancing the same way. Governments certainly differ in how much they award in grants (the NEA is paltry compared to Euro equivalents, while the NSF and the NIH are huge). We live in a democracy, more or less, so if some of us like the way other countries are doing things or if we simply can imagine a better way to do things, it's our job to clamour for it.
The freelance vs. 9-5 is a big issue for me. I've always worked in restaurants because I felt as though that WAS freelancing. It took me years before I realized that serving is one of the harderjobs, emotionally and physically, and I am relieved to be done with that part of my life. I'm now doing a balancing act between part-time work and attempting to freelance, which means I have no insurance, no job security, a lower paycheck, but more time to pitch stories and work on my novel. But the thing is, I have to keep the part-time job, and hope I don't get in a car accident, because I could not afford life if I didn't have any semblance of a steady paycheck. Ian, I fully agree with you on the trials of being a freelancer, but you also need to be thankful that your living situation is such that you don't have to have another job, one that you hate, or worse, one you don't care about. I know you might have to eventually, but give thanks for the last couple of years that you didn't have to go work for The Man, that you could work for yourself, and on the farmhouse, and on your life. I've got a semi-free ride right now myself and, when I have a day like yesterday, I have to remind myself how lucky I am right now, too. I don't mean to undermine what you've said; I think you are in the right. I'm just saying, we have to be thankful for what we've got.
Oh, I'm extremely blessed to have some freedom right now. This blog wasn't really about me, it was about several people in my life who are feeling the dreaded tug towards being more "responsible," and how that almost uniformally manifests itself in giving up things they love (or at least living through the constant SUGGESTION that they should give up doing what they love).
Ian - Oh, if that's what you meant, then, Well Said.
And on a completely unrelated note, I really thought the Heels could leave Lex with a victory. Except for the fact that it looked like their Nikes were glued to the floor for most of the game. Old Well.