8 Truths I Learned From Entourage: No. 3
compromise
Rock music has the 27 Club a fateful sad collection of typically talented musicians who only got to 27 felled by drugs or alcohol, meh just name any vice really. Hollywood doesn’t have a club but it does offer its share of cautionary tales.
Tragically these tales unfold because there is just so much at stake: so much money, so much power. In Hollywood an artist can collect nos from studios and producers and agents and bomb audition after audition. But that’s during the day. At night the same artist can collect yeses from ez girls, drug dealers, rabid fans and other unsavoury temptations that ultimately take away from the final product.
The Kanye West song Can’t Tell Me Nothing asks:
“How he move in a room full of nos?/How he stays faithful in a room full of hos.”
Good questions. It’s not enough to be firm that you’ll be resolute in not compromising the values that got you to where you are. Truth is if you’re in demand you will be asked to compromise.
Compromising when it comes to the final product well that’s necessary and will happen. Sometimes this is a good thing it can make the final product better. It’s when you’re placed in a situation that asks you to compromise your ethics, your values…to do something that takes away from who you are and what you do (so well) that’s when trouble starts.
Even working outside the system is not a solution. They can come to you with their demands and temptations. The best defence is knowing who you are and what you’ll stand for. Being and becoming an individual with integrity. And sticking to all that like you’re Spider-Man. Or when the times become tumultuous latching onto that like it’s driftwood and you’re a shipwrecked sailor.
You figure if you just float here long enough you’ll be rescued. Reminds me of this song…
-28-
Also published on Medium.
