10/16/2008

Because three "yays" out of an entire page of "nays" is better than seeing my entire future crumple in front of my eyes

A typical in-class critique for me means that I’ve brought in taglines and headlines, of which 99% I feel are crap; 98% on a good day. Last week, it was 102%. It was also the day my professor decided to “help me out” by reading every one of those crap lines aloud to get a “yay” or “nay” from the class.

I thought that maybe I’d die right then of mortification. Until I remembered the rehearsal at the music conservatory when Maestro Asshole stopped the entire orchestra, looked at me as if I’d just crawled out of a shitty high school orchestra, pointed his baton at me, asked me how I had the nerve to play this passage in the upper part of the bow and then in the next 20 seconds of silence, managed to communicate, “Your mother was lying to you when she said you were worth anything.” It wasn’t the first time he’d singled me or anyone else out in the middle of rehearsal, but it was the day* I first realized that maybe I didn’t love music quite enough to put up with this particular industry’s shit.

So last week after the afore-mentioned critique, when my art director asked me if I was going to kill her for making me put up all that crappy copy, I told her the truth:

“No, no I’m glad you did. Hell, that was FUN.”




*that day being one of the darkest ones of my life – so much so that I haven’t had the courage to write about it quite yet

2 comments:

Angie said...

Wow, I can't believe that maestro...

In a strange way, it helped you discover other interests though. You're a great writer!

Anna said...

Who does that?! He should have just been happy you didn't do something more PERSONAL with the upper part of your bow.