Lunch With The Fatman | 1, 2, 3

"The 24 Levels of Rejection"

Hi. Sit down. What are you having? Welcome to Lunch With The Fat Man.

Your life in the music business can be viewed as a long series of rejections. The rejections come one after the other with no respite in between. Often the only sense of growth in your career will appear to be in the seeming importance of the party doing the rejecting.

Here is an opportunity to observe a practical application of The Fat Man's patented Power of Negative Thinking philosophy. Let's break down the various levels of rejection you will suffer in your career, and see how, through acceptance of the inevitable horror that is success, if you hang in there, you will be rejected clear into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1. The salesman in the guitar shop won't let you touch the instruments.
2. Your mom won't buy you an instrument.
3. Nobody will play with you.
4. Your parents hate your band.
5. Your band can't get a job.
6. Everybody hates your band.
7. The only people who go to your shows are from your class in school.
8. Your band breaks up. Your second band breaks up. Your third band breaks up. You go solo.
9. Your demo doesn't sound as good as your live shows.
10. Record companies send you form letters; "We are not accepting unsolicited tapes at this time."
11. Your personal friend at the record company gives you a cleverly veiled rejection; "You have just got to play this for some buddies of mine at Arista and RCA. Tell them I sent you."
12. The record company won't let you play on your own album.
13. Your album doesn't sound as good as your demo.
14. The record company won't let you write your own songs on your second album.
15. Your second album doesn't live up to the expectations set up by the first.
16. The record company won't let you produce your third album.
17. You don't win the Grammy.
18. Nobody can stand you since you "went commercial on them."
19. You come off badly on Arsenio.
20. The record company won't let you pose nude.
21. The press thinks you haven't changed with the times. Your comeback album reeks of nostalgia.
22. Your fans think you've somehow, well, changed. Your second comeback album reeks of selling out.
23. You look like a sorry circus freak, still rocking pitifully away at age 80, or you die tragically, a victim of your own fame and insecurity.
24. Of the thousand people who visited your grave this week, only four hundred noticed that your middle name was misspelled.
    

Say, this was great. Let's have lunch more often.