Cannibal in the Concrete

I have toyed with the idea of artists as cannibals in New York City or Los Angeles, devouring agents, producers, editors, underpaid editorial assistants, and overpaid personal assistants who seemingly take pleasure in rejecting fiction submissions, artwork, demos, and director’s reels.

What if artists treated those in power like they treated us? What if artists never returned power brokers’ phone calls and e-mails? If young writers or musicians treated their agents with disdain, treating them like spoiled children who needed a spanking, I think they’d at least consider their tone of voice.

I often times think of (bad) agents and others behind the scenes as child prodigies gone wild. They were once talented or believed to be talented children and teens (overbearing stage parents optional) who grew up to exact vengeance on other creative souls. This might be a very bleak picture, but visit a random office in New York and soak up the energy oozing underneath the door. It’s easy to walk away from the wheeling and dealing, more difficult to make it work in the entertainment/media industry.

In a parallel universe, I cast agents and others who control artists’ destinies in a production reminiscent of Mad Max meets Gladiator meets The Hounds of Baskerville wherein the aforementioned power brokers have to fight for their lives in an arena or coliseum against artists they’ve wronged or ignored, or run for their lives in a thick, wooded forest from hybrid artists/hounds with fangs and claws hell-bent on devouring their flesh and souls. I don’t know if there’d be prizes for outlasting the combatants in the arena, or making it safely to the end of the forest.