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Monthly Archives: November 2014

Do You Actually Make Money as an Actor?

27 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by Jamie Lee in My Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

acting, actor's life, artists, job interviews, joe jobs

Whenever I interview for a “joe job,” I dread talking about being an actor.  It’s the first thing on my resume.  It has to be; it’s the only “steady” job I’ve had for the past fourteen years.  But they never want to hear about what it requires to be a self-employed actor in Canadian theatre (discipline, strong work ethic, intelligence, problem solving skills, a great memory, etc), and how I could bring those skills and my years of experience to the position.  They just want to know one thing: do you actually make money? 

In almost every job interview in my life since graduating from theatre school, I’ve been asked that question in one form or another.  The first time it truly shocked me.  I had been out of theatre school for three weeks and needed a joe job stat, so I applied for a hostess job at The Pickle Barrel (it was across the street from my apartment in Toronto).  The guy looked at my resume, “A diploma in theatre,” he observed.  “Well, that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on! Bahahahaha!”

“Ha ha!”  I laughed, “So true, so true.”  While inside, I was quietly freaking out.  Is that really true?!?  Am I destined for poverty?  What the fuck had I just done with the past three years of my life?!

(Ok, to be honest, that memory still stings a bit).

Today, I interviewed for a Clerk-Steno position at the city police, and at the end of the interview as they were copying my business college transcripts, the Director asked me, “Is acting lucrative?  I mean, can you actually make a living at it?”

I answered honestly, “No, it’s not lucrative.  Yes, you can make a living at it.  I’ve paid off my student loans, I own a car (no loan), I own a house, and I usually only work part-time.  Not that it’s any of your business.”  (Okay, I didn’t say that last sentence; it was a job interview after all.  No need to be rude.)

This question pisses me off.  I get annoyed when I’m asked.  Why is it okay to ask an artist how much money they make?  Or to even question that a professional artist gets paid for their work?  I wrote professional actor on my resume, not amateur.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think people in other professions get asked this question.  We assume that lawyers, for example, make money in their chosen fields.  No one would ask them if they can make a living at practicing law.  No one would insult their education or suggest they wasted their time and money pursuing a worthless career.  (Well, okay, maybe they would.  I’m thinking of all those lawyer jokes.  Maybe lawyers were a bad example.  Let’s say plumbers instead).  Why do people assume that actors cannot/do not make money, and why is it such a bloody surprise to find out that yes, it is possible to make a living from acting?

Most of the time, I try to use it as an opportunity to educate.  But I often feel like I end up pathetically defending my decision to choose a career for love rather than for money.  Because I’m in an interview, and I obviously want the job or I wouldn’t be there, I don’t feel like I can afford to be snarky and rude.  So instead, I humour them.

“Ha ha!”  I laugh, “It’s true.  I don’t make a lot of money, but whenever I have the privilege of being in a show, I wake up in the morning excited to get to work.  Not many people can say that, right?”

Usually that’s met with some variation of “Well, it’s also exciting to be able to pay your bills and buy groceries” (as if I don’t do those things already) or “Must be nice.  The rest of us has chosen to work for a living” (because being an artist is not real work).

So what am I saying?  I don’t know.  Mostly I’m just bitching because it’s fucking hard being an actor in Canada, and I don’t say that enough.  I don’t say it enough because I don’t feel like I have the right to complain about it.  After all, I am the one who chose this profession (no matter how much I believe this profession actually chose me.  Kinda like a calling, you know?  Like a priest?), I am the one with the worthless education, I am the one who persists even when kicked down, and I am the one who keeps coming back for more.  So why complain?  No one is forcing me to be an actor.  If I were smarter*, I would’ve walked away years ago.

I guess some respect would be nice.  Some validation.  Some recognition that acting is a real career that makes real, live money.  And maybe some manners.  Didn’t your parents teach you it was rude to talk about money, politics and religion at the supper table?  I’m sure it also applies to job interviews.  I wasn’t asked if I support the NDP (I do), or if I’m a recovering Catholic (I am), but it was perfectly reasonable to ask how much I made last year from acting (I’m not telling; it’s rather embarrassing).

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.  I will spend the weekend avoiding anything to do with Black Friday.

*I actually am quite smart.  My IQ is 130.  Apparently not smart enough to leave this fucking awful profession though.

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Winter is Bloody Here

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by Jamie Lee in Backyard Chickens, My Life, This Week on the Homestead

≈ 2 Comments

After enjoying a prolonged and unusually warm fall, winter has finally arrived.

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View from my living room window. Ugh.

I’ve been in full home reno mode since the foster baby left.

I finished installing our new (to us) engineered hardwood floors.  We bought 650 square feet of engineered hardwood maple flooring off Kijiji.  It was only two years old, and the homeowner didn’t like the colour of the stain, so she replaced it with a whole new floor and gave the old floor to her friend’s son to sell because he had just bought a new car.  We paid $2 per square foot, whereas to buy it new would’ve cost us $7 per square foot.  Total score.  (I have to say, I was super proud of myself for installing this floor even if it was designed to be super easy to install).

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Zig likes the new floor, too.

I removed the hall closet that I’ve been wanting to rip out since the day we bought the house.  (It was too shallow to fit a hanger so everything had to hang sideways.  What a pain).  Unfortunately, that was like pulling one loose thread and having the entire sweater unravel.  Ripping out the closet exposed a huge whole in the wall (that was cut out to install the bathtub in the 1940s when plumbing was finally put in the house), as well a bright, shiny section of non-popcorned ceiling.  I patched in some drywall – very badly – and attempted to match new popcorn texture to 40 year old popcorn texture – also very badly – and got so fucking frustrated, I almost called my real estate agent to put the house up for sale rather than deal with solving those two problems (can we say misdirected anger?)

Solution? – this inspiring photo:

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I heart apartmenttherapy.com.

We stained slats of knotty pine to resemble aged barn wood and used it to cover the awful ceiling.  Then we nailed up two panels of faux brick (yes, that crappy stuff people loved to put up in basements in the 1960s).

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Next, I’m going to prime and paint the panels to look like old, painted brick.  I found this technique years ago in a Debbie Travis book, and I’m going to give it a try.  You can check it out online here.  As for the seam, we have a strip of stained pine to go down the middle and hide the seam between the two panels.  Some people caulk the seam, but I think that would just crack and look weird.  I thought of notching out the bricks so you could fit the two panels together like a jigsaw puzzle, but then Will thought of this brilliant solution with the strip of pine to match the pine on the ceiling.

This little area will be my home office area.  We bought a gorgeous, early 1900s Clerk’s Desk from a vintage market a couple of weekends ago, and Will’s going to weld an iron base for it.  I’m also looking for a set of old school lockers for storage.

Taken from a local rural printing shop.

Taken from a local rural printing shop.

I feel like we’re finally starting to design the house to our taste and style (which, but the way, is Warm Industrial – thanks again apartmenttherapy.com).  When we bought the house nine years ago, we had every intention of it being our starter home.  We painted in neutral colours and purposely didn’t decorate in our style because we planned to sell the house in five years.  Then the housing boom happened, and now we can’t afford anything but our little house.  No complaints here – I’m just so happy we bought the house when we did.  It has almost tripled its value in less than ten years.  It just means that even though we could sell it for an enormous profit right now, we really couldn’t afford to buy anything else.  Plus, I would really like to be mortgage free as soon as possible, and we’re on track to have this house paid off in about another ten years, which is freaking awesome.  Besides, small house = no room to store excess stuff.  And stuff really weighs you down.  So who wants more stuff, anyway?

Oh my goodness, this post is getting really long.  I’ll wrap things up.

The girls are adjusting to their first winter quite well.  We let them “clean up” the garden for us after the final harvest.

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Barbra and Judy. So big now!

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My sweet Ginger.

The coop has been fully winterized (check out what I do to get the girls ready for winter here), and I just de-wormed them all a couple days ago.  Both Barbra and Judy are laying now, and laying really well. Barbra laid sixteen days in a row before taking her first break!  Ginger stays in the coop most of the day.  The cold might be aggravating her injuries.  She’s almost four years old now.  It’s possible this might be her last winter.

The days are getting shorter, the weather is getting colder, and I’m now itching to take another foster baby.  We’ve had a couple calls since the Bug left us, but neither one felt like a fit.  I’m ready now.  I distracted myself with home renovations, I nested and cleaned, and now I feel ready to take another child.  So keep your fingers crossed for me that I get a call in the next couple days – I’m going a little batty waiting for the phone to ring.

Have a lovely (and warm) week!

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Hey. I’m Jamie.

This is my blog about whatever I feel like writing about.  Usually about chickens.

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Good morning chickies! First batch of littles entering the awkward teenage phase. • • • #chickensofinstagram #chickens #lovemychickens🐓 #saskatchewan #sparrowhillsk #sparrowhillhatch2018 #littles #smallfarm #ameraucanamix
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