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FRIENDS, Justin Guarini just reminded me of something very important. You remember Justin, don't you? He was the runner-up on the first season of American idol, that popular TV show where wannabe singing superstars compete against each other, the winner getting a recording contract. Justin lost to perky Kelly Clarkson, but seemed, at first, to get the same amount of attention and reward as she did. You remember his hair don't you? I mean, come on.
Sadly, I must report here that the perpetually cheerful Justin was recently dropped from his Record Company (RCA) after his debut album sold just 54,000-134,000 copies, depending on your source. While many of us in the Zine world would regard even 54,000 copies sold to be absolutely god-fucking amazing, in the big record biz this is apparently a huge disappointment. Since fellow American Idols Clarkson and the loathsome Clay Aiken have sold about 3 million copies of their albums combined, I'd guess I see the point. Poor Justin. I didn't much care for his persona or his music, but I guess the guy took his shot, and I have to respect that. Most of the losers who lined up to audition for American Idol got nothing but humiliation for their efforts, and even the ones who made the show got little more than incredibly restrictive contracts that own them in perpetuity, trapping them on the horrifying American Idol specials that air occasionally. At least Justin got to record and release an actual album, and as Clarkson and Aiken prove there was every potential to sell scads of them and start a career. Okay, maybe it wasn't the album he really wanted to make, maybe he was forced by Producers who own him lock, stock, and barrell to record stuff he didn't like. Maybe in a few years he'll pull a Vanilla Ice and release a Punk record, snarling about how Simon Cowel stole his innocence. At least he attained the stated goal of everyone on the damn show: He released an album with backing from a major label. You gotta give him that. Now he can get a job as a security guard and we can get on with the busy work of forgetting him and hunting Clay Aiken like a dog in our own version of The Most Dangerous Game. So, what did Justin remind me of? That I'm happy to be a nobody, of course. You see, Justin took his shot and didn't make it. Now, aside from his own internal feelings of embarrassment, failure, and anger, he has to deal with news stories trumpeting his downfall, listing his pathetic album sales, and opening up the online forums of the world to a sluice of Justin-bashing as the people who never liked him much anyway crow about his career stall. Now, I'm a writer who published a book a few years ago. Nobody bought it and now I'm once again a writer in search of a publisher-but at least I don't have gossip pages reporting my career woes, and at least I don't have to worry that someone on the Internet is going to list my pathetic book sales, encouraging people to send me snarky e-mails. It's good to be a writer. No one cares about us. Sure, I won't get rich, I don't think, writing books and stories and such. But I also won't have to worry about being humiliated in front of national audiences every time I experience a setback. Christ, I've already had publishers go belly up after agreeing to publish a novel of mine, magazines disappear without a trace after accepting stories of mine, and more difficulties in getting money owed me than any man should have to tackle. If all of this was published on the Internet or the tabloids on a regular basis, I'd likely have gone insane (or, insaneer) years ago. This, I think, is why so many in Hollywood are on drugs. What choice do they have? Now, of course, if you're a big-time writer like King or Rowling, anyone could probably piece together all of your career moments and your yearly income from publicly-available information. But these people are the exceptions to the rule. For the vast majority of published authors-even bestselling authors-very few people even know they exist, much less care much about their careers. There's probably ten writers in America who are well-known enough to worry the gossip-mongers. The rest of us, both those who are making nice advances and decent royalties and those of us who can still count our writing-related income on one hand, are blissfully ignored. And thank god. Jeff |
January 2, 2004
Now he can get a job as a security guard and we can get on with the busy work of forgetting him and hunting Clay Aiken like a dog in our own version of The Most Dangerous Game.