Freelance Nightmares

So supposedly we have a new world order in the job market and methods of seeking income in trade for your skills and services. Sure, I have been a "private contractor" for awhile now getting hired to be a performer at parties or provide entertainment services or working as a brand ambassador or hired by temp agencies. This has been all fine and dandy however when I started a few weeks ago looking to supplement this meager income that's earned me no more than $10 grand a year EVER so that I might actually break out of mere starving artist status, IT HAS BEEN A FREAKING NIGHTMARE!!!

First of all there's tons of bloggers out there who live off of affiliate income and will affiliate with anyone. It's actually a lot easier and likely more profitable to just sign up as an affiliate and start recommending and funneling traffic towards a website from the millions of desperately seeking searchers online just like myself. Just because a blogger (or writer/reporter since there's no difference between news and "news") says that something pays people for doing things certainly does not mean it will nor that the blogger tested that aspect before saying it. So far from my experiences the majority that do actually pay you, only pay you pennies or are completely flooded with decently skilled workers living in India where pennies may work out to be of some actual value in currency exchange. In America where even the lowest minimum wages are $5 an hour which is still not anywhere close to substantial compared to cost of living, these are scams! Slavery has been abolished already...

I'm going to start blogging about each and every experience so that if you are like me then perhaps I can serve you with a warning to avoid them! None of us like wasting our time. 

Stress kills and this overwhelming feeling I get every day that passes me by that I have not achieved my goal of simply having more money coming in than going out of my bank account is not improving.

scam #1: Spare5

This one was recommended in a book I found on Amazon called Active Income Streams and as you can see after a good long hard evening I have earned myself 61 cents.

scam #2: Freelancer.com

Now this one I found surprising! I used this site to hire some Indian graphic designers and bought my logo, some posters, and other really cool designs from people before so I when I decided to give it a shot and turn the tables from being a cheap American starving artist/business owner to an "okay I'm really fucking starving now" freelancer willing to do just about anything for work it was not so pleasant. I got hit up to be a webcam girl aka "special chat friend ;)" on skype for $250 and #suckit I mean #shutup when I hit accept figuring that every hiring person would be as kind as I was when I offered to pay the runners up in my logo contest consolation prizes.. so nothing bad could happen if we just discussed stuff in sorta person, right? Wrong. I immediately received a notification from paypal that I PAID FREELANCER -$25!? Yup. Apparently they just go right on ahead and collect their 10% commission on your future to be completed and then approved and then transferred and hopefully released to you income!! Get this too ~ an employer can delete a job listing/offer for $5 so in theory you could potentially do the work or chat porn thing and then go to collect your completed payment and it's long gone leaving you with nothing to even try to dispute that you are owed. Omfg, and no.. this did not happen to me because I was already freaking out about my lunch money being gone to pick up my skype calls. I'm just sick that I'm going backwards and decided to quit for the night and write a blog instead.

PS. There's no affiliate codes in this blog entry but I think there's ads on my blog that have earned me a grand total of maybe 40 cents in the time it's existed so don't click em if you don't want me to get a fraction of a penny from google or amazon. Cheers ~

Organ Grinder Dance

If you want to book paid fire performing or stilt walking gigs because that IS what you want to do for a living and how you want to live...

then QUIT your day job now! when you're trying to live off of a paid gig every other week if you're lucky.. 

dance, monkey.. dance!

then tell me what it's worth to you and ALL your time spent working on establishing yourself as a business,
you put your whole soul and hope and passion into it but you can't compete with hobbyist who haven't yet committed their life to it and already have a sustainable source of income.

imagine if you built yourself an auto detail shop and financed all the painting equipment, you're currently living off of the fumes for food but the investment should eventually pay off..
then customers started bargain shopping paint jobs by joining the auto detailers and car washers fanatics club on facebook to ask if anyone would be willing to detail his ride this upcoming sunny holiday weekend and they were like "yeah, sure man! that would be awesome! I'll do it for $50 and sum luv" after cashing their $2500 bi-monthly salary check and you're past due your on your credit card bill the min of which is more than your buddy's asking while you spent all week working on throwing an auto detailing fanatic family picnic because you want to support the community even though they're driving you out of business because they think it's fun and it's cool to be seen in front of an audience of 10,000 people all weekend for $250...

you do realize they have the budget to pay industry standard wages and then some, and then a bunch, like fully squirting out their shorts! BUT you're not asking for it. if you're going to take paid gigs away from pros by asking for peanuts like a circus monkey's elephant then..

quit your day job! 

do it for a living like a professional performer if that's what you're pretending to be... 

try walking on stilts when you haven't ate food for 2 days because you're so broke and need the paycheck... now how much should it pay when your leg muscles cramp 2 hours into it and it's the only income you get to show for 2-3 weeks of doing nothing else but trying to get some work? now does $150 an hour sound pretty damn fair considering tickets are sold for $100 per person and the crowd is 10,000 people large? the staff standing around working security are getting $25 an hour which means by the end of end of walking on stilts for 10 hours they cash out the same as you...

see how talented you are at business? 

it's a privilege, huh.. being booked by somebody who pockets 6 grand profit and pays you like a janitorial temporary private contractor and they take pictures of you posing with mop buckets while they're at it! you should kinda be embarrassed, I know I'd be embarrassed if I let some used car salesman from Detroit pimp my image all over the internet earning $100 a min in advertising sales all year long while I didn't even think $100 an hour for 10 hours of walking on stilts while getting my picture taken by him without even putting my name on it for credit when non-stilt walking catalog models for Sears ask for more than that...

I'd feel like an idiot!

then to come to find my friend, the car working his ass of for me to be seen and have fun entrepreneur has turned into a starving ethiopian baby in africa because I thought a month's worth of nut nugget butter teaspoon a day rations was my post surf n turf dinner desert?!?! starving fucking babies, yo. ready to quit yet?
it's a cool life swatting off flies....

Free Actors Callboard ~ Seattle Casting Calls

We here at Heartsinspyre Entertainment believe that information should be free! While we respect the right of Juan from Performers CALLBOARD to ask for donations for his time, however having been the director of a low budget production before we know how desperate one can be in seeking artists to fill our casting needs. We don't feel that information should come with a fee between the people who seek it and the people it belongs to and to demand starving artists' pay out of pockets only further alienates the elitism between the non-union, non-fiscal, non-profit, non-grant winning, waiting for the final opportunity to bloom or gain experience and learn community at large. This is just another example of greed causing gentrification. So in the true spirit of capitalism a new list has been made to be owned and operated by the community and will remain FREE FOREVER as no one person will have total control keeping it unbiased and neutral and only moderated for spam. Join us now by sending an email to SeattleCastingCalls-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Post Casting Calls to SeattleCastingCalls@yahoogroups.com

Edit your settings on group home page

https://groups.yahoo.com/group/seattlecastingcalls

Once the list begins to grow an email will be sent out seeking Volunteer Moderators and feel free to make suggestion for improvement (positive only, please) to asraiya at gmail.com. 

Love is (sex) Art

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005PR28AS/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/190-2586103-0550568?camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005FJ7NII&linkCode=as2&redirect=true&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&tag=offbeatbrid0a-20

So rad!!! Someday I'll come up with an idea like that and make enough $ to just fuck in paint on canvases everyday for the rest of my life! That's a life goal if I ever had one ;)

FLASHMOB

CHOREOGRAPHY FOR PAID FLASH MOB ON 1/25/2012!!!

K first off since you can't see all of me in my "Born This Way" video.. Watch this one for what's going on in the first part (except the timing changed slightly so that you're wagging your hips until "right track" or 5, 6 and sliding down your body on "baby I was born.." 7, 8)



Then I think you can see the rest of it here. There's a 4 count just before we step together step touch (snaps) for you to just give some attitude like "yeah, we kicked ass.." heh




I am ready to record "Marry the Night" asap! But for now this is my inspiration version for you to watch and MIRROR until you get mine hopefully by the end of the night...



Check back here for updates! Costume details! Call time on Wednesday! Plan to meet up early that day so we can work out our formations, who starts when, and run it several times to make sure we're on the same foot/page!!

darlin distracting

I'm fucking around with these pictures of JJ and I from last night when we were "dressed up" as goth kids for a costume party we were hired to perform fire at.. due to a lack of time/planning we figured no one would know we're often seen outside of Halloween dressed quite similarly... instead of focusing on finishing my Demoness monologue.

*sigh

Gigs, gigs, gigs!

Tonight! Then Fri or Sat (gotta check) gig in the Bremerton area, Mike's friend's party of something to that extent.. Then Mon 8/15 ~

Then.. Aeterno Elementum III pay what you can ~

Then hopefully I'll get back to working on GSBL!!