Talent
agency
“If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men will ever know.” ~ Cecil B. deMille
There are two projects that I’ve mentioned recently which are going to succeed if we have the right talent. The first of these is the Freedom Renaissance Films studio. The second is the Freedom Decentral Network for broadcasting truth. For them to succeed, many talented people are needed.
Thirty years ago I began writing for the online publication, which was based loosely on the format that science fiction fans call a ‘zine, of a very intelligent, talented author named L. Neil Smith. It was Anno Domini 1995. We corresponded quite a bit. Eventually, in 2002, we met at Ernie Hancock and Marc Victor’s “The Freedom Summit” in Phoenix, Arizona. A little later, I wrote an essay about the violence inherent in the circuit court finding that in no way were any police ever limited in coming onto private property to put tracking devices onto people’s vehicles. In that essay I provided carefully researched details about all the justices involved from publicly available information about their addresses, including Google aerial photos showing cars parked in the “curtilage” of their properties. To my knowledge it was the first essay that got the full attention of the US Marshalls service and led to the site being turned off by GoDaddy. Neil promptly contacted me and asked if I was okay with the essay being removed with a suitable replacement notice about the injustice being done, and I was. The essay appears in my third book which bears a cover blurb, “Included is an essay banned by the US Marshalls Service from online publication.”
Neil was murdered in a hospital during the Covid genocide. His widow, Cathy, and his daughter Rylla, continue to keep L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise online. You might enjoy some of the essays you find there. The site is free, has in the past been sponsored by some advertisers, and has been migrated with the talented help of the current editorial staff to a WordPress methodology.
One of the things I tried to do earlier this century was get some paid speaking gigs for Neil. It turns out to be one of those “harder than it sounds” activities. One of those things that I would like to see happen is a sponsor or group of sponsors coming forward to put the ‘zine back into full operation.
Talented people
Over the years, I have worked in many different industries. My first on stage appearance was fifty years ago. Since then I’ve appeared in dozens of plays, two films, and been stage manager for a production. I’ve worked in recycling, lawn and pool care, paper delivery, food service, banking, finance, business development, entrepreneurship, aerospace, healthcare practice management, software development, online presence, digital gold exchange services, cryptocurrency development, tourism, publishing, private equity, international logistics, and several other industries. I’m fairly well known in the science fiction, space settlement, free market money, and individual liberty “movements” and fan communities. As a result of travel and enthusiasm, I’ve met people in many different walks of life.
Here are some examples of people who are talented and looking for work. In each case I have someone in particular in mind, or more than one person in several instances. Some individuals fit into more than one of the below categories. These categories are not comprehensive, but they are a start. Some of these people are not on this continent but various communications technologies should allow for collaborations to be successful. My direct messages are open to further inquiries and for people who would like their talents showcased. Let me know if you want to be put in touch with prospective gigs or with someone of the sort listed below or want to be kept off the list or if you have any other suggestions. Comments are always open for further discussions.
Accountant providing automated reporting to limited partners in large scale investments, suitable to film productions, hedge funds, and other investment funds.
Actor with experience on stage and screen. Actor with experience on stage. Actor with screen appearances as extra.
Actress with experience on stage, screen, online.
Artist with portfolio, sales, and some following.
Audio engineer with home studio and expertise in sound recording including for remote audio production and in-studio production.
Author of essays, books, letters, fiction, non-fiction. Other authors.
Cabaret operator with extensive experience in budgeting, casting, show production, show operations, dinner theatre situations, other venues.
Communications privacy expert with experience in online anonymity, end-to-end encryption technologies, open source software, mesh networks, software defined radio, and other systems.
Cryptography expert with deep knowledge of cryptography software and methodologies.
Dancer with extensive experience in tap, ballroom, contemporary, and ballet.
Data security expert with practical and theoretical expertise in data systems.
Developer of software technologies.
Gaming systems expert with extensive knowledge of fan community favourites, gaming platforms, gaming technologies past and present.
Guide for help working through emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and practical situations.
Marketing expert with experience in pitch decks, online marketing, advertising, publicity, social media coordination, other marketing operations.
Market research expert with experience in survey design, focus groups, statistical analysis, validation of results.
Musician with songs, published and unpublished. Musician with film and television sound track repertoire. Musician with high energy contemporary lyrics and songs.
Producer for stage and screen productions with successful completion of profitable film and television shows.
Publisher of books, magazines, newspapers, online publications.
Screenwriter with series of screenplays in the works.
Singer for voice productions.
User interface developer for apps, online platforms, other systems.
Voice over actor for film, television, adverts, and other productions.
Voice over actress for film, television, adverts, other productions.
Zine publisher and event flyer aficionado with extensive portfolio.
Feel free to indicate any interests or talents or categories in the comments or by direct message.
Agency
For several hundred years there has been a great deal of falsehood promulgated about what is and is not a “representative.” Everyone in congress, everyone in your state or provincial legislature, everyone in city or county government, who claims to “represent” you, your local or regional district, or your entire country in the case of certain illegitimate international entities, is a liar.
To represent you requires an agreement between you and your representative. Such agreements with legislators are illegal. Actually paying someone to represent you as an agent, or paying someone a commission on fees received as a result of agency negotiations is commonplace in the talent industries, in temporary workforce agencies, in real estate, in international logistics, in finance, and in a large number of other commissioned sales activities.
But if you pay someone in congress to represent you and do your bidding, that is illegal. It is regarded as corrupt. It is punishable by fines and imprisonment. Nobody in congress represents anyone else because to enter into an agreement to represent someone is to establish evidence of corruption. Legislators are bought all the time, and some even have the courtesy to stay bought for a time. But all the actual agreements are behind the scenes, mediated by “lobbyists” and other agents of corruption, promulgated by book contracts, speaking fees, royalties, payments after leaving office, insider trading, commodity contract profit assignments, and other shenanigans.
When Newt Gingrich and his cohort came up with the “contract with America” to refuse to approve an unbalanced budget, they knew that they were lying about the nature of the proposal. They knew that no such contract existed. They knew that no such contract could be enforced. And we all know that they set in motion fifty years of ever higher debt “ceilings” and other deliberate, provocative lies about the nationalist socialist war profiteer “debt” that is not your debt. They did so because they are not interested in solving any problems. They did so out of a profound hatred for you, your family, and any prospects for your economic success. The people who opposed their ideas were also terribly evil, hateful, and mean. Thus we see the oppression inherent in the system.
For the talent agency described in this essay to be successful, it will need to have agency agreements with talented persons, commission agreements with the people who are offering their talents, booking software systems, and connexions with a large number of enterprises that buy talents of various kinds. All of these things have been done, and have been successfully and profitably operated for decades. Anything that has happened is possible.
Hollywood, Nashville, and other communities have a lot of record companies, film production companies, talent agencies, and international conglomerates involved in putting together contracts. Many artists, singers, songwriters, actors, actresses, authors, and producers have been devastated by the ways in which they have been defrauded of their proper rewards by lawyers, agents, executives, and fraudsters of all sorts. So we need to be alert to the ways in which we get results.
Any contract that you don’t understand isn’t a contract you should sign. The longer the contract, the more likely it is that you are going to be harmed by agreeing to its terms. It is true that you don’t necessarily have to be bound by an agreement that is incomprehensible to you, since “knowing, willing, competent” entry are essential features that make a contract legally binding. But, the only people who always emerge from a contract dispute that goes to court with net profit on the disputation are lawyers. Enriching lawyers ought not to be your plan at the outset.
Complexities
Some things are simple. You make widgets. People who want widgets buy them. You profit. They get good results so they are repeat customers. You expand to make more widgets, or distribute them through more channels. Easy.
Some things are complex. You start with a screen play. You identify leading lady and leading gentleman. You identify a few others to fill key roles. You choose a production company or operate one in-house. You identify all the scenes, all the camera angles, all the equipment operators, all the machinery, all the extras and bit parts, all the dialogue. Someone has to know costumes. Somewhere you have to have outfits for everyone on screen. Power systems are needed. Batteries have to be kept charged. Video systems need to store film or data. Audio and video have to be edited for best results. A finished production has to have been marketed from the time it was green lighted or before, and has to be distributed to cinemas or home video streaming, or by other means (cassettes, discs, subscriptions, etc.). Costs have to be paid. Revenues have to be earned. Shares of gate, merchandise, and ancillary revenues have to be distributed. Maybe a profit is booked, maybe not, since Hollywood long ago mastered the accounting of “there is no share of the profits on Forrest Gump because there were no profits” to the alarm of the book’s author.
Also we live in a very strange time when parasites are not only tolerated but seem to be encouraged to find successful enterprises and latch onto them. Some places subsidise film and television productions. Many places tax them. Some places have low cost “location” services. Some places charge a great deal more. Some places are “union” and you have to pay “scale” to every extra. Some places are “right to work” and you don’t.
Navigating complexities is how successful films book billions of dollars in “gate” and other revenue. Smashing into the shoals of complexity is how productions fail, sometimes even failing to get the show completed.
Personalities can be vital to success. Some people are harder to work with, and some of them are hard to put up with. Some talented people know how to endure these complexities and pull through the production. Many people don’t.
It is possible to produce stage plays, films, television shows, audio recordings, records, and make money doing so. It happens quite often.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Come back next time when I have something new. Or old.