The image is from a real billboard for a real college.
And every time I look at it I get angry.
Perhaps I should be magnanimous…and careful. After all, the school did hire me for a TV voiceover last year. But look at this darned thing! What, exactly, is the message?
Option A: “Get it out of your system now, kid. Then settle down and get a real job! We can help!”
Option B: “Caution. If you waste your life on the performing arts, you’ll wish you’d chosen a safe, boring career someday! We can help!”
Option C: “Wanna be an actor? You’d better be good, or you’ll end up as a bean-counter somewhere! We can help!”
Or, Option D (unlikely): “Former actors make better accountants! We can help!”
Maybe I shouldn’t be angry. Maybe this is just a call for realistic expectations.
Of course, it doesn’t help that I can tell from the call letters on the microphones (WOV) this is a still from a production of “1940s Radio Hour”, a show I did myself some years ago (I played the sound effects guy).
And, of course, it doesn’t help that when it comes to crunching numbers, I literally don’t “have the chops”…even with a calculator!
Still… The concept seems to insult both professions: squelching the hopes of budding young performers…teasing future accountants with the thrill of enteraining audiences they’ll never know.
Nope. I’m still angry.
Do you see something different?
– over and out –
Ticked
That is an expression that I first learned in college in the early 70s. Meaning angry. That’s what my friend Rowell Gormon is. Ticked. Unhappy. Angry. All of the above. And, with pretty good reason, as you’ll see, when you read his post cal…