Some people have an option - some do not
There are performers out there, like me, who do not have an option.
We either perform - or we die.
Since I am 3-1/2 years old, I have been on stage. Doing solo work since I am 12, making money since I am 17, and never have had a job since I am 19 - I am now 54.
I honestly know little else. And when I am not on stage (or producing) I am depressed. It is not severe depression, but it is depression.
My sister deals with it too. She is an entertainer as well.
Why do entertainers, sports figures, politicians all have so many addictions? Shopping to the point of bankruptcy, religion, alcohol, drugs, over eating, multiple marriages, sex addiction, money addiction ... because we are trying to get HIGH. And we can't get the same high from anything else the same way we can get the HIGH from being on stage.
Everything else is temporary. The stage is our passion - and that is why George Burns and Sinatra were on tour till the day they died. And that is what killed Michael Jackson, Elvis and Marilyn - trying to maintain sanity between the highs of the stage and performing. The natural adrenaline - there is no better high. Why do politicians remain in office and fight to remain in office? Some thing it is power, and you are right - but really it is the "HIGH!"
Pursuit of the next gig will also help me - but it is an attempt to stay high. Find the fix, Get the Drug, have an audience that laughs, applauds and gives you their undivided attention for 60-90 or more minutes.
Do you want to get high with me? Come on stage with me. Better yet, do your solo - a song, a dance, a monologue, a routine - do an entire show. Let's get high together.
I go to other people's shows and I want to do the sound, work the video camera, be back stage - not in the front row ... I want to breath the show. Feel it, taste it, touch it. A show has a soul. Let me breath it's soul.
I live in a house - my sister's house. She is married to a performer and she is a performer and her five children are all performers - and why? Because it is in our blood. It is highly contagious, too.
We eat - drink - breath - sleep - discuss over dinner - discuss from the minute we awake - and we awake to answer the phone because ... it might be a gig. PLEASE - Get me HIGH!
Obsessed by it - we write about it - gig proposals or books or articles or blogs. We do all types of shows and we want to be around our own types - others who know the feeling, understand the addiction, support us - feel our pain.
We live together in Vegas, NY, SF, LA - because we support each other's addiction.
I went to dinner with Mitchel Barrett tonight and two other friends. Mitchel became quickly debilitated at one point and put out of business in less than a week. He talked about how he can't remember his last show ... and he wants to do a "last show" - Why? It is a passion. To run through a field with a favorite pet, to make love once more with the lover you remember best, to hike a mountain and camp in the wilderness with someone who you had the time of your life with - and to feel that applause, laughter and attention - to know you mastered that ...to remember your last show ...
Want to get high with me? I will turn you on to the most addicting drug in the world, and you make it inside of yourself - it is called adrenaline. Only Artists and presenters have the addiction. Politicians, Sports figures, Artists, Musicians, Performers - we all have a stage, an audience - the sound of the crowd... and it gets us very high. Very high. I will turn down anything to get on stage. It's better than sex!
No, really ...
Let me turn you on ...
