Great episode, but I completely disagree with Trey's suggestion, and everyone else's complicit agreement, that you can't be married and have kids and do the freelance showbiz life.  I do it.  I never sleep and I am often baffled that the day is over when it is, but I can make it work.  Sometimes, just barely, but it is possible.

I am freelance but I am incorporated.  I do my own retirement, pay for my own health insurance, and have earned enough cred in my corner of the industry to where I have a steady rotation of employers so that I'm working about 42 weeks of the year.   Yes, I have long hours.  Yes, I had to go to Miami for 6 weeks once, and yes, I often have to come home and be super dad and super husband to make up for the time I'm gone, but It's totally doable.  What I have had to sacrifice the most, is idleness.  Lazy Sundays are a rarity.  So is any sense of spontaneousness in how I fill my time.  But I would argue that having a wife and a child HELPS me in my day job.  I have no choice but to get shit done at the office.  I have no choice but to maximize my time at work, because its my family that suffers when I don't.

I realized early on in college that if I had to sit behind a cubicle all day counting reports or crunching any kind of number (which I was doing during college) that I might as well blow my fucking head off.  Working as a freelance editor and aspiring writer/director/fight choreographer/everyfuckingthing else has its challenges, but my wife and son benefit the most from a father and husband who takes pride in what he does and has passion for his livelihood.  That's the best lesson I can teach my boy.

America is scary. No Hollywood for me

Hollywood is not that scary actually.  It's kinda gaudy, often dirty, and a bitch to drive in sometimes, but I choose to live here.

I' m still working on that whole 'steady job' thing. Other than that I'm good

Is there any weird stigma against people who start their careers in porn? Working for Vivid strikes me as more interesting than live sporting events which is currently the bulk of my miniscule experience. And before I get ahead of my self is the barrier to entry higher or lower in porn, and can I use it to springboard into television? I might be over thinking this.

Wally Pfister started out shooting soft-core porn

Heyyyo!

...says the guy who lists "fighting" as a hobby.

Pfists.

My first gig as lead editor was for Playboy TV, yes.  With that said, I have a few friends who have edited adult (and one old Jiu Jitsu friend of mine who was actually a big name porn director) and while it doesn't necessarily HURT them, it doesnt help either.  Its just not a good indicator of skill set.  Most porn is just very basic paint by numbers assembly, without much story skill really needed.  The shows I did at playboy were 1) a music video show hosted by Ed Lover 2) a scripted faux reality show that had only simulated sex, and 3) a Punk'd style hidden camera show.  If you removed the presence of boobs and taint, they would still be fully fumctioning shows.  So I didnt mind putting those on my resume because they still demonstrated skill (sorta).

You have posted that in two separate threads, Zarbs, does that count as trolling? 

You get what you contracted for, like everybody else.

/just wants to get the hell outa here, all right?