The Rant of the Web Series Creator

There are days you wonder why you do this. You sit around, perhaps in your cubicle, perhaps in your parent’s basement, perhaps in your one bedroom, roach-infested apartment and you think to yourself, “I should’ve been a hooker like mom said.”

The thing is, there’s no rationale behind being an artist. In this case, there’s no rationale being a web series creator other than, this is just the blood that you bleed.

There are days where nothing works out. Take the last two weeks in my world: we pitched Break a Leg, Season 2, to a very large advertiser (no names, but let’s just say you’ve shaved your pubic hair while humming their tagline) who seemed very interested. Unfortunately, it took roughly two months for us to find out that they weren’t so much into doing comedy anymore. Shaving, it turns out, is serious business.

I’m tired, I’m underpaid, I’m overworked and every job I do is a risk. Do I shoot a new show? Do I shoot a show for someone else? Do I go back to school? Do I start a blog? Which flying, arching, spinning ball that I’m juggling is solid gold and which one is an old man’s testicle?

A while ago, CBS Interactive was extremely interested in funding Lurker. A show that we wrote that I’m quite fond of. They were interested, they were excited, they were pushing for it — then they realized they probably couldn’t fund it. Which is too bad — I love the CBS brand, I love what they do, and I think Lurker would’ve fit them like a well-manicured, well-written, shining gold glove (and not a shining old man’s testicle). It was a punch in the gut — I really thought that one might work out.

I’ve never doubted that I wouldn’t make it, is it arrogance or is it the reason I’m still doing it? Whatever it is, I’ve gone too far, done too much, worked to hard not to make it, so I’ll either Van Gogh it or I’ll Beatles it and I’m hoping for the latter. God, am I hoping for the latter.

A big Break a Leg deal is in the works and while we’re learning a lot, the preparation to get ‘er done is like trying to swim swiftly through swampland. Every time we push forward, we hit a wall with another problem. So much work and so much frustration and a gnawing, biting, stabbing fear — what if this falls through?

A big Break a Leg deal is in the works and I tread carefully, I tread as if I’m surrounded by mines and I’m John Goodman, I tip-toe and hope and pray and beg and think — just work out this time. Over a dozen of our amazing fans are writing ‘continuity scripts’ for us — a tedious process, with 60 needing to be completed and our team being too small to finish them all. I worry about it not working out, I worry about the deal not being as big as I thought and then I step back and I think — our fans are working on continuity scripts, we’re doing a big deal with a network — these are words I never thought I’d say or think or write in my own fancily-designed blog. And then I think, wow. I never thought I’d be here.

There are so many maybe’s on my desk, in my email, in my brain that it feels like I’m a fish caught on a hook that a fisherman can’t, for the life of him, reel in. We’ve all been here — every single one of us pursuing this career have been here. We’ve waited for emails, we’ve waited for phone calls and we’ve nodded quietly when they finally came with rejection letters — it’s fine, we said, we’ll try again, we said… it feels like being stabbed in the eye a little bit, but that heals, and like idiots, we rush back in and wait, and wait, and wait, because maybe..

I take a step back and I look at the work and dammit, I’m proud. My show still makes me laugh — I’ve seen it a million times, and it still makes me laugh. Can it be better? I wouldn’t be an artist if I didn’t think it could. Am I proud of what we’ve done? The maybe’s and no’s be damned — there ain’t nothin’ in life that feels quite like a yes and it’s worth all the rejection in the world. Unless, of course, that yes is your acceptance letter to a Concentration Camp (it’s okay, I can joke like that, I’m a Jew.)

There are days you wonder why you do this. You sit around, perhaps in your cubicle, perhaps in your parents basement, perhaps in your one bedroom, roach-infested apartment and you think to yourself, “Well, what else do I do?”

And then, only then, you realize you’re an artist.

…and most artists get famous after they die anyway.