"They're Oompa Loompas."
This photo from last week hit hard. No one knows the Oompa Loompa Life better than struggling artists, because we've all taken jobs like this.
There was a two-year period where I signed up for this kind of thing on the reg. We were the Oompa Loompas passing out free condoms for Trojan at Ozzfest, and free Nesquik on the university quad. At concerts, we took Polaroids of fans wearing fake milk mustaches standing next to a cardboard cutout of Britney Spears.
We were the Oompa Loompas in the bars and clubs and big box customer appreciation events, embarrassing ourselves pushing promo and shwag no one wants in places that are too loud, wearing terrible getups just to make rent, offering games for sports-bar drunks and brushing away their abuse when they flexed for their ladies and made us the butt of their unfunny jokes. Just smile, give them a branded beer koozie, and hope no one you know walks through the door.
I never rationed jelly beans in a green wig for a crowd of disappointed children, but I once drove a van for Old Navy in a neighborhood 4th of July parade and a sharp-dressed man cussed me out through the window because he thought I was driving erratically. Turns out he was running for mayor and I was an unfortunate public target for his safety campaign.
Some gigs were downright shady, like the time following the ban on tobacco advertising where we were stationed in gas stations with a copy machine, forms and a questionnaire for people to sign a release saying they were "already smokers." We'd copy their ID, collect their info, and send it in to Big Tobacco who'd send them more coupons and the chance to win one of those coveted Marlboro jackets.
"If someone from the media shows up, pack up and go home," we were told. Nothing to see here.
But I was young. We all were, and fifteen dollars an hour was a lot of money back then. And I fought back in my own way. I read all of Stephen King's massive "Hearts in Atlantis" from a Flying J magazine rack one week while I was supposed to be harvesting data, and then George Orwell's "1984" the following week.
Shame.
Some people are gifted way too much, some people are born without it entirely. And for every shameless entrepreneur driving us into extinction on the back of a cheap dropshipping biz or a fraudulent Wonka experience, there are a hundred starving artists who just need money for a meatball sub, another tour, another day in the studio, a way to keep doing art for another month.
The days of selling my dignity in my salad days are long behind me, but the memory of the things we did in the natural desperation of that age will never leave. Kirsty Paterson's tired, cynical smile in a Glasgow warehouse brought back a slew of forgotten core memories and I'm proud of this queen.
Oompa Loompa solidarity forever ✊
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What I’m reading: Dubliners
What I'm listening to: Slowdive - Pygmalion
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