All The Way Down The Wire

“The Talent”

Good God, that term has always confounded me. A million years ago, when I was just a 12-year-old reading Kid’s News scripts on camera for the local TV station, it bothered me even then. Nowadays it’s my official role in the events that bring us together, and I still hate it. “The talent.”

I mean, I get it. You need a term to define “the idiot on stage” who could be anything from a news anchor to an opera singer to a flow artist to a political candidate. What has always bothered me, though, is the implication that everyone else in the room isn’t as talented as I am. Maybe it’s just me, but when I look around at the technical skills of the lighting crew, the FOH engineer’s ability to turn sound into math, the producers coordinating a million moving parts… all I can see is talent.

Language matters. It’s the software by which we transfer thoughts from our brain into another. It’s why we’re eliminating tainted phrases like “grandfathered in” or “master bedroom.” More to the point, it’s important to recognize and call out the overwhelming amount of talent that goes into making “the talent” look good. We all wanna watch the Oscar for Best Actor, but the monkey on stage would be nothing without makeup, lights, and people who know which lens will make them look the best.

If you’re a performer like me, never forget that talent goes all the way down the wire. From your microphone to the sound engineers, up into the lighting rig, out into the phone networks where administrators and producers pulled strings to put you on that stage. Every time I see a good show, like the dances this past weekend at Midwest Fur Fest, I stand in awe at the army of people who made it all possible. This is why I make a point to thank them once someone’s foolish enough to hand me a microphone. And, in doing so, I’ve learned an important lesson:

Recognize the talent that makes you look good, and that talent will make you look even better.