Adam Street's Blog
The spiritual and practical path to freedom to do your art

Hall Passes after high school

I had a skill in high school that I did NOT put on my college applications.  I got really good at forging hall passes.  Hall passes were little notes teachers and faculty gave students to get out of class for a purpose.  Like going to the office, getting picked up early by your parents, and seeing your counselor, or another teacher.

There were a few faculty members who’s writing I could impersonate like a regular Frank Abagnale (Catch Me If You Can).  Me and my friends skipped class whenever we wanted to, we went to the gym, fitness center, the PE classes, etc.  Hall passes were usually delivered by other students and not adults so it was pretty easy to get away with.

I was the Da Vinci behind our mischief until I got busted.  My junior year I finally had a teacher who figured out my shenanigans and did a little research.  Luckily she only gave me a warning and told me to stop.  

Did I stop?  No.  But I did quit giving my little fictitious notes to HER.   

I was a pretty laid-back student.  On the outside I was kinda quiet but on the inside I was a bit mischievousness.  I was what Wayne Dyer called a “scurvy elephant”.  My friend Zeke used to say, Adam people think you’re so innocent because you’re quit.  But if they only knew you…”

I’m happy I learned early that there’s nothing like a good hall pass.  Sometimes you have to step away from your duties and tasks and do something that you enjoy.  Something that is fun.  There’s no need to put it off until your next vacation…

One “hall-pass” like habit I have is, when I finish my schedule everyday I DO NOT add anything else to it.   Back in the days if I finished my schedule early I’d think, wow, I have time to do even more work.  I could feel the productivity coursing through my veins.  Helpful maybe but boring.

Now when I finish I’m DONE.  Now it’s time to draw for fun, go online, exercise, or read something.  Play.  Have fun.  Declutter, De-stress, and enjoy the Endorphins.

https://www.adamstreet.net

Adam

How to get more Juice out of life

After college when I decided to get into the comic industry.  I sent off my portfolio to get a job freelancing as a color artist.  Some days I’d open my email with baited breath to see if any publishers wrote.  And then finally it happened.  I landed a gig!

It was a small publisher but the editor said I caught them at a great time because not only did they need a colorist for some new projects but the were colorizing some of their old titles too.  It was a match made in heaven.  I wanted a job and they had plenty of work to give me.

I had NO idea back then the kinds of books I was going to be working on, I was just happy to have a gig.  I was green, I was the new guy.  I was super happy working with them…until I wasn’t.   Most of the books I worked were full of violence (think Conan the Barbarian) and I didn’t enjoy showing them around.  

When I was out with my friends they would tell their co-workers or family that I was a comic artist and they’d ask what books I was working on.  I didn’t want to tell them.  I acted like I was in a witness protection program or something.  I didn’t mind the content I was working on I just wasn’t glowingly proud to show it to other people.  I eventually just started going thru the motions with every title I worked on.  And then it happened.

Me and my editor had ‘a talk’.  I wasn’t happy and he could see it my work.  In the end I wasn’t a good fit and we went in different directions.  I still thought he was being a little melodramatic though.

I looked back at all the work that I did for the publisher and…  Well, he was right.  My initial work was so much stronger.  My styles, color palettes, everything!  The most recent work I did had NONE of the creativity and NONE of the juice that my earlier work had.  It was embarrassing.  That was my first gig though so it was a great learning experience for me.

Author and marketing expert Sally Hogshead tells a story about going on an amusement park ride and being offered a green or an orange ticket version of a ride she wanted to go on.  The green ticket is the easy and safe version of the ride.  The orange ticket is the more adventurous version, complete with safety disclaimers.  She took the orange ticket and loved the ride.  She went back thru the line and took the green ticket version and learned it was basically the same ride.  

What blew her mind though is that everyone with orange tickets left the ride excited, amped up, and talking about the experience.  The green ticket holders were no where nearly as cheerful.  We could talk about expectations and why this happens but here’s the rub…  

My first comic book freelancing gig taught me that life is full of green tickets.  And when you get one, it’s YOUR job to change it to an orange ticket and enjoy the ride.

https://www.adamstreet.net

Adam

Sometimes you a need a good divorce

Thanks to Kevin Hart I now refer to COVID as ‘The Vid”. When 2020 happened and The Vid went thermonuclear around the world I tuned in. I’m not much of a news person but I wanted to understand what was going on.  I marginally tuned in until I saw about 60 seconds of a CNN RONA special. 

The set of this show was different. It was dark, everything was black and red. The studio looked like when Darth Vader fought Luke Skywalker at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Even Edgar Allen Poe couldn’t make that set look anymore melancholy and dangerous.

And just like that.  I divorced news coverage on The Vid. I was out. I never watched a watched a ‘news’ program or special report on The Vid again.  That’s not to say I stopped learning about it.  I just refused to buy into the fear.

Divorce is a strong word and can be an emotional experience, especially for anyone going thru a divorce from a marriage.  But it can be a pretty handy tool.  I took a Perry Marshall course called 30 Day Reboot.  The course is about getting more of your time (which is to say your life) back.  The first thing I did was I emancipated myself from a butt-load of email lists I was on.

Other relationships I’ve broken up with over the years is.

My cell phone.  I can’t do my art if I’m typing, texting, and looking at notifications.

Social media.  I “check in” but I don’t hang out like I used to.  I check the “pulse on the street” if I have down-time and that’s about it.  Facebook used to send me emails to lure me back and I unsubscribed from that email list too.   

The old Ray Charles song comes to mind…

“Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back 

No more, no more, no more, no more 

Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more…”

What habit, tool, system, or app could you tell to hit-the-road so you could get more time back or live a more fulfilled life?

Divorcing one of these little crumb snatchers could save you a few minutes a day.  And that would get you back almost one full day a year.

https://www.adamstreet.net

Adam

Flabby creativity

I’m not much of a complainer.  Honestly I hate complaining.  And I hate using the word hate ironically….  But like the “f” word, sometimes you need to use it every now and then like an Allen wrench.

And then I thought, what do I complain about?  

Traffic?  No.

The escalating cost of gas?  No.

Politics?  Oh, hellz no!

And then I thought about Star Wars…  I’ve been watching The Book of Boba Fett on Disney+.  It’s descent.  It’s no where near as good as the Mandalorian though.  The Book of Boba Fett falls flat.  The characters aren’t that interesting or lovable.  It’s like watching an old jaded married couple do their taxes.

I realized what I complain about the most is a lack of creativity.  The Book of Boba Fett isn’t horrible it’s just not as fresh and seemingly as thought out as the other Star Wars shows.  But this happens all the time…

Pixar showed Disney in the beginning how to make great kid 3D movies.  Yet Disney pumped out mediocre film after mediocre film for years until they finally got the hang of it.  

Marvel did it too starting with Iron Man.  Yet DC Comics didn’t make a great movie till Wonder Woman.  And then Wonder Woman 1984  happened so apparently DC still didn’t learn their lesson yet.  Though, I do give them full credit for the Batman films…

The same is true with your marketing.  I’ve seen way too many people get WAY too carried away with ‘swipe and deploy’.  Yes, we all have to start somewhere but the key is not getting lazy.  If you don’t exercise your creativity it WILL get flabby.  

One of the godfathers of Internet marketing is Ken McCarthy.  He said a lack of creativity is the number one thing he sees missing from great ad copy.  And I agree.  

So…  When you dig around for ideas and you find something you want to model, focus as best you can on swipe-and-deploying ‘the structure’.  Then be creative as hell with everything else.  What do I mean by this?

I listened to a program and learned The Lion King was based on the structure of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Didn’t see that one coming, eh?  Well, neither did I.  How creative of them!

If the writers of CSI can reuse the same framework and turn out cop shows like New York city churns out rats.  You can do the same thing.

Find a structure or framework that works.  And then, put your stank on it!

To the end of boring ad copy, emails, and blog posts,

https://www.adamstreet.net/

Adam

A South West Side Story

I live in Arizona, in the South West, U.S.  I was drawing a married couple at an event and we got on the subject of music.  I told them how much I loved it!  How music was initially my college major and how I pursued being a “pop star”.  She got excited!

She started suggesting ways I could still follow my dream.    She brought up The Voice, American Idol, and America’s Got Talent.  She mentioned ways I could go viral.  It was adorable!  Keep in mind when I was in college the Internet was barely a thing and singers weren’t uploading videos to YouTube and TikTok every five minutes.  

I told her thank you and that I appreciated the support.   But I figured I should stop her because I was a bit of a lost cause.  In the few years I pursued music I learned what I already knew about being an artist.  I told her, “I learned what it took to be a great musician and I wasn’t willing to pay the price.”  

That’s why I was cool with shifting gears and changing majors.  Happy about it, really.  To me it was like going to a bench press at the gym and loading it up with 400 pounds of plates.  I’d LOVE to be able to bench press 400 pounds but if I tried it today I’d become VERY familiar with the inside of an E.R. at a hospital.  

That’s why I sometimes laugh when people preach about monetizing doing what you love.   I LOVE music.  As much as I love art but I never studied it until college.  I think I wrote good lyrics but I was mediocre with the music part.  On the other hand I love art AND I was already good at it because I drew since birth.  Really.  My mom told I came out the womb and snatched the nurses #2 pencil and I started scribbling.

Ok, maybe that’s not true.  

But my point is this.  

All success has a price.  When it came to art I knew the price I had to pay to be good at it and I chose to focus on art instead instead of music.  By the time I was 18 I had thousands of hours clocked in as an artist.  By the end of my first college music theory class, do you wanna know how many hours of music I had?  One.

Find out the price you need to pay and do the work.  And you’ll find a way to love it.

https://www.adamstreet.net/

Adam