Rejection of the Week: Typed Out

by George Reddick

Back in my actor days, I got pretty used to rejection. But one audition I attended was particularly rejection-tastic.

It was a cattle call. Hundreds of people show up for these open auditions so you have to get there really early if you want to get out in time to work the dinner shift at your restaurant that night.

On these days, I usually was going on about three hours sleep after working late the night before and schlepping home to my tiny one-bedroom apartment I shared with a roommate out in Brooklyn and then schlepping back to get to the audition site by 6AM. The doors didn’t open till 9, so those of us who got there early had to form a line and rely on each other to honor the line order as we were taken inside.

When I arrived, I was twelfth in line. Three hours later, they finally opened the doors. By then the line was snaking out behind me all the way down and around the block.

This particular audition was being held at Chelsea Studios in Manhattan. To get up to the floor where the audition is being held, a moderator sends people from the line upstairs in two rickety old elevators.

The first six people in line were put in the first elevator and the next six people, including me, were stuffed into the second elevator with some other people who worked in the building.

And then my elevator got stuck. We stood there, body to body for a solid half-an-hour while one woman cried and we punched the alarm button.

Finally, they got us upstairs. While we had been on the broken elevator, well over two hundred people had been brought up in the working elevator. I was now 275th in line. The six of us who had been stuck pleaded with the moderators to be let in early and they told us they’d do what they could.

Six hours later, I was finally brought into a room with fifty other hopefuls. The men behind the desk were in the process of “typing out.” This means you line up in groups of ten and each line steps forward toward the desk of judges. The judges look for about thirty seconds and then choose if they want to keep anyone from the line. The line then disperses and the next line steps up.

I was typed out. This means I did not sing or read. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. And I was late to my dinner shift and caught hell at the restaurant.

Yeah, that profession was awesome.

rejection novena

by hossannah asuncion

Those who can't, curate.

I'm in Chicago. It's 2001. I hear about a gallery that's showing 'emerging' photographers. Ok, I'm emerging, like a snail from its shell, or a worm from the ground, or some other lowly creature. This sounds perfect. I make an appointment.

The gallery looks official. It has white walls, framed photos, giant flat drawers, hardwood floors, all the requisites. Upon closer inspection, I note that the framed photographs seem to have been taken by the owner of the gallery. They are blurry fashion shots. Even in my callow youth this gives me pause. But I remind myself that I can't afford to be a snob. And if her own work is on the wall, she's probably some rich kid right out of Columbia or SAIC. Maybe we can form a bond.

Then she comes out to meet me. It's Cruella Deville with an eighties hairdo. Huh.

We sit and she looks at a few of my pictures.

"Well," she sighs deeply, "I don't know how I could sell these."

Ok.

"They're so depressing. Who wants to look at depressing stuff? And they have this theme," she flutters her hands, "All this stuff from the 1950's. Who wants to look at her mother's house?"

Not my mother's house. I didn't grow up in the 1950's.

I move to close my box of prints, but she has picked it up and has her nose about an inch away from one of my pictures. She reaches out and pushes some invisible specs of dust around with the tip of her finger. "You're going to have to learn how to print," she says, looking at me pityingly.

EXCUSE ME?

I wish I could say that I shot back something like, "And you're going to have to learn how to shoot if you ever want to show anywhere besides your own gallery," but my inner bitch was asleep at the wheel.

Rejection is like eating your vegetables. Your angry, dismissive, psychotic vegetables.

Your piece stinks. We fed it to the turtle. --David Holahan

I get rejected a lot, but not nearly as often as I should. If I really wanted to make it big, I'd be going around getting rejected at least once a week. Instead, I've been on the rejection wagon this year. I've been hiding in my apartment, not sending anything out, and not, God forbid, making appointments and walking places with my portfolio. My portfolio is dusty.

So this blog is going to knock me off the wagon, or get me back on the horse, or do some other antiquated, travel-related metaphor to me. Everything is either a good time or a good story, right?

The sad thing is, I haven't entirely avoided rejection this year. There have been little farts of it from some very small potatoes places. I hate small potatoes.

For example, an online business that accepts t-shirt design submissions rejected my submission of a high-contrast face as 'needing more work.' This from an organization that is actively marketing a t-shirt that features a rainbow-colored Native-American head in full feather headdress on a teal background. In the parlance of our times, WTF?

Turns out it's better to be rejected by the big boys.

So, in this blog I'll to catalog my encounters with the gallery and publishing worlds instead. No more t-shirt companies. Only Ahhht. As my friend in Chicago says, 'you gotta go balls out!' (She was talking about applying for apartments, but what the heck)

Soon you'll be reading about galleries like Waspylastname&Waspylastname. (On the extremely slim chance that anyone in Chelsea actually reads this thing all names will be changed) Each week there will also be an open call for 'rejection of the week.' Send me your stories and I'll post them here.