Lorne Michaels On Here's The Thing

"If you look around the room, and you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room."

Whew!

First I listened to Alec's interview of Kathleen Turner. I'd like to say it's fascinating, but you don't really want to hear an actor interviewed, they go on about everybody else's work, the writer, the director... Actors are self-centered, better seen than heard. But at one point, Alec asked Kathleen if she ever burned out.

This is the secret. Do anything long enough and you go through periods where you don't want to do it anymore. Ms. Turner was so busy talking, she missed the question, so Alec asked it again. And she said she did not. But I do.

There was a moment in the 80's, after buying my Mac Plus, after starting my newsletter, that I thought of chucking it all and becoming a computer consultant. Progress was so slow and the music was no good.

It happens today. I'm inundated with so much mediocre stuff I want to move on to something more important. Then I go to a show or hear the right record and I'm reinvigorated.

Alec said the same thing... He wavers. It's a function of getting older, you gain some perspective, you ask yourself, is this it? Is this important enough, should I focus on this to the exclusion of everything else?

Then they referenced the wisdom of Lorne Michaels. Right there in the podcast. His aphorisms... Hell, the podcast is called "Here's The Thing" because that's what Lorne always says, before he drops words of wisdom.

And observe SNL and the penumbra of hype long enough and you come to hate Lorne Michaels. He's smug, above it all. But listen to this podcast and you'll be utterly intrigued.

He references Malcolm Gladwell, another Canadian, and his 10,000 hours theory...

Lorne is in L.A., working on a summer replacement series, doing twelve shows in ten weeks.

You've got no idea the amount of effort involved. And you can never ever get it exactly right.

But this is where Lorne broke through.

It's about the sheer effort.

Everybody's so busy getting it perfect today, that it's wrong. Whether it be artists in the studio or people making movies. That's one of the reasons TV is now so great, the constraints. Of both money and time. You've got to focus on the story, not the look... Anyway, people are seeing it on a small screen.

You should go into the studio with the people making Top Forty music. They're not trying to catch lightning in a bottle, they're busy sculpting Michelangelo's David. So busy getting it so right they sap all the soul from the endeavor. Whereas those great sixties hits still playing on the radio? They were cut quickly, some of them contain mistakes, easily identifiable, but their magic endures.

Then Lorne said "I really believe that if you're going to stay champ, you have to take fights."

What he means by this is you can't rest on your laurels. There's always someone younger and hungrier eager to take your job. He referenced the writers on SNL... Their offices were larger than their apartments. They didn't care about money, only the work.

That's what's wrong with the old farts. Especially in the music business. They're so busy resting on their laurels, they don't want to take a chance, they're eaten alive by youngsters experimenting in new forms, taking risks.

And Lorne goes on about loving L.A. and learning how to fire people, but what I loved most was the above quote.

It's hard to be around people smarter than you. Because you feel uncomfortable, you feel inadequate. We're wired to find comfort, to be accepted, but that doesn't lead to progress.

That's why people come to L.A. and New York. Now, with the Internet, you can make it from anywhere... But can you be stimulated enough to create great work? It's like going to an Ivy League college, discovering that even though you were the smartest person in your high school, you're positively middle of the road in your new environment.

And that's the secret to an elite college. It's not the professors, it's not what you learn in class, it's what you're exposed to in the student body. You learn how to interact. I grew up in the melting pot suburbs of Connecticut, I thought a doctor was rich, then I went to Middlebury. Eileen Rockefeller, Betsy Bass... The guy whose father ran Green Giant. I'm not telling you to impress you, but to tell you I learned how to interact with these people, such that when I'm with a rock star or world class manager I'm not a sycophant, but do my best to play on their level. That's a secret. Tell a rock star how great he is, go on about every time you've seen him, and you'll be brushed off and ignored. But relate to him as a person, and you've got a chance.

Everybody's so busy pooh-poohing the elite, the winners, that they're holding themselves back. If all you can do is criticize those who are on top, you're never gonna advance. Get to know them. Get to know how they got from there to here.

There's a story behind the story, always. Find the person who can tell it to you.

And know that if you're down the food chain you've got to earn entrance. Knocking on the door is not enough, it's closed to you. How can you open it? If you think persistence is the key, you're reading too many self-help books. What do you have that the person above you needs? A record exec is only interested in your music if it can make him money. Instantly. If it can't, if you just want kudos and encouragement, stay away. Money is always a good entrance point. But few have it. You've got to find your entrance point.

If you're hearing the same damn thing every day, having the same experiences, do something different. Take a risk. Take a class. Hell, I went to UCLA Extension not because I was gonna learn anything, and I didn't, but because I wanted to meet like-minded people, which I did... And it opened a few doors, but it taught me first and foremost that I could play.

Can you play?

Lorne Michaels learned he could play in Canada. But he found out it was a backwater, no matter how loyal to his homeland he wanted to be.

He agreed to do SNL live because that meant he didn't have to make a pilot, which he'd done before, which always failed and never made it to air.

And he learned if the audience for the rehearsal was too hot, the ultimate live performance sucked.

Hell, Lorne's full of insight. Listen to this podcast and see.

If only music was as smart.

"Here's The Thing," Episode 8, Lorne Michaels: http://wny.cc/w8PpjM


--
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
--
http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz
--
If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter,
http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1

If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25

To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25




--
Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com --