I hate gambling.
Maybe "hate" isn't the correct word. Let's try something more along the lines of this:
"Boring."
Yeah, that's better -- it's such a standard, uninspired word to describe something that promises MONEY! SEX! BRIGHT LIGHTS! ADVENTURE! FAST TIMES! THE HIGH LIFE! and so on.
Promoting myself is a lot like gambling, it's two quasi related activities in which the gamer (or writer) hopes to advance in life, wealth, happiness, by means of making this small investment in the glowing machine with ringing bells and lights.
There are casinos all over this country, and I would go visit them, but not to play their games. I've visited one casino across the border in Oklahoma, and smaller ones in Colorado. I dropped five dollars in a machine just past the state line, pressed a button or two, and was immediately bored by the prospect of it all. I simply have no real affection for gambling.
Arguably, I saw past the neon induced haze of glamour and riches and quickly decided that the best way to get money was by having a job.
I make similar, uninteresting investments in the gaming machines of Hollywood -- a small investment comes by means of dropping money into envelopes, postage stamps, and other such means of this life I have.
I then take all that the money has bought me, place it in the machine of an Out Of Town box stationed at the edge of the local post office, and pull the lever. After ten years of playing this game, I'm bored.
To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if those on the receiving ends of our letters are also bored, as it's arguably a two way gamble -- Hollywood is place of glamour I'm not enchanted by and I, most likely, am just another strobe light and disco ball act these harried agents are likely walking by because they are unable (or unwilling) to make possibly unwise bets on.
I can't speak for those men and women, but I can speak for myself: this game is soulless. Sure some win, more of us lose, and it really doesn't matter how you play the game. I find I have more fun writing my actual scripts than I do in placing the bets.
In other words, I'm walking through the casino, and sure the lights are fun to look at, but they're really just blurred streaks of the visible spectrum as I make my way to the word processor.
In casinos, it doesn't matter how you play the game, because you can still lose. In writing, you can win or lose, and how you play that game is a determining factor.
In the Hollywood Gaming Association, it again doesn't matter how well you play, because winning and losing comes down to just pulling the lever and seeing what happens.
It's a shame the HGA isn't more like a video game, as then it'd be more interesting. A person could make mistakes AND learn from them, then alter how they play the game, while continuing to improve their game with every press of the button.
Casino based gambling isn't anything special to me. Hollywood gambling also fails to hold my interest.
A person can learn more from the games that offer both success and failure than the ones that advertise success with the odds stacked against them. And that is what maintains a person's interest and challenges them to improve their tactics. Gambling just to get ahead is a certain way of falling further and further behind, and I've no interest in that.
But there is one thing these types of gambling can teach you, if you pay close enough attention to the lesson: "winning isn't everything, and walking away from the table doesn't mean you're a loser."
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got literary games to play. And when those games end, there's always "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess."
--Updated--
Some reading this might feel I'm just "mad at the system," or otherwise angry\jaded. Some years ago, that would've been true.
Now these thoughts laid out upon your computer screen are carefully thought out to actually examine what it is like.
The above comparisons to gambling establishments are not incorrect. But there is one matter that casinos have that Hollywood doesn't -- the notion of the smaller wins leading to what some would hope to be even larger jackpots.
Casinos are there to serve as bait for your paychecks. You can put a little in and would actually receive a small amount back. This is designed to keep you interested, to keep you from becoming bored, so they can, in fact, keep you fishing in an increasingly emptying lake devoid of fish or treasure.
Hollywood can't manage that. It is just like filling a slot machine repeatedly in hopes of the bigger jackpots, when the smaller ones aren't there to entice you further.
This is simply how it works, and how it has been for as long as I've been making the attempts. I remain uninterested in the "payoffs," yet I keep stuffing the machine. There are times when one's mood will mirror that of the Jimmy Buffett tune "Defying Gravity," as in "I never dream I will win, and if it all ends tomorrow, then that's fine too."
If it all ends tomorrow...then I will simply turn away from the machine and be free of it. It isn't an addiction or a lesson in self mutilation, it's an (arguably) necessary evil.
But, luckily for me, every so often Life likes to smile down on me and grant me relief and respite from the ongoing madness, usually in the form of some perfect night's sleep and Technicolor dream sequences involving blooming Easter flowers and incomparably beautiful sunrises that George Lucas has tried to recreate on his many computers, and still finds himself unable to do so.
Its moments like this that keep me going -- not the need for fame, money, or such. It's the promise of happiness in a life (hopefully) well lived as we chart our courses across the cosmos or across state lines.
You can keep feeding the machines if you've got Dory next to you, because though her advice is necessary (not to mention potentially annoying) , its her smile and attitude that keeps you going.
That, Technicolor dreams, and Jimmy Buffett.
It's all good.
