"Don't Go Smelling Like a Rabbit"

Chapter Forty One

After four years my career was leveling off in Houston. A voice talent can burn out in a market by overuse over time.

Advertisers want "new" talent. It has nothing to do with personality or taste; it's the nature of the business.

There’s a joke in the “bidness” that there are five stages of being a “talent”:

“Who the Hell is J David Moeller?”

“Get me J David Moeller!”

“Get me a J David Moeller type!”

“Get me a young J David Moeller!”

“Who the Hell is J David Moeller?”

Working talents ebb in and out of "favor" over the years. When overexposure occurs a talent's business slows down for a few months or even years and then, hopefully, begins to pick up again.

I took the slowdown after four busy years as a good time to make my move to California.

Lesson: If you want to chop wood, you have to go to the trees.

I held a moving sale, bought the beat up 1972 Blue pickup with a bent hood, rented a U-Haul trailer, and headed west to Hollywood to continue my quest of becoming a great and famous actor.

In San Antonio the entire rear wheel and axle assembly of the U-Haul trailer just came flying off at 45 miles an hour.

It scared the living daylights out of me. The company sent another trailer and a crew to reload it.

But now I didn’t trust it and returned it for a refund. I loaded all my belongings into a storage room, took what little I thought I might need to get on my feet, locked the door, and headed west again.

They settled the lawsuit I brought later.

I'd asked the woman I bought the truck from if it would hold up on the long trip through the mountains and deliver me safely to Los Angeles. She assured me it would.

She was a bit off. It made it through the mountains and as far as Palm Springs when the transmission quit.

Lesson: P.T. Barnum was right.