My brother Damon always said that if he ever made a movie about what it meant to live and work in New York City as an artist, he'd begin with a hamster in a Habitrail, running with a desperate fury on one of those round, spinning treadmills--the kind that's so hard to climb out of once it gets going. He'd show the hamster half-killing itself at different angles: from the side, from below, maybe a shot of the legs, but all you'd see is a blur because they'd be moving so fast. With the city skyline as a backdrop, Frank Sinatra would sing "New York, New York." When I would visit my brothers in Harlem while I was still a Texas co-ed, he used to describe this scenario in painstaking detail and we'd laugh our heads off.

Now that I've been living here for awhile and I realize that I'm that hamster,  it's not so funny anymore.

What does it mean, to hustle?  Here's my definition: I think it means having to pimp-think your way out of adversity (credit card debt, lousy roommate situation) as you juggle all of your necessary tasks (day job, voice lessons, weekly manicures) while ultimately appearing to be relaxed, styled out, in good health and basically on top of your game.  No easy feat, especially when you throw in the density of the neighborhoods, the cost of living, the crummy apartment you'll get, the cold winters, the pace, the pressure.  Everything around you is constantly saying hustle.  Hustle or leave.  Some people get here and go straight back home.  They never learn how to do it.

The good and the bad thing about learning how to do the hustle in New York City is that it's in the matrix.  You'll never stop doing it, no matter where your life takes you.

Here are my top five catch 22's that I hustled my way around:

1.  You can't get an agent unless you land work that garners enough interest to get you into their offices and (unless otherwise noted in the ad for the job in question) you can't get work without an agent submission.
 

2.  You can't get a decent place to live if you don't have good credit.

3. You can't get into any of the unions unless you get work and you can't get work that will allow you to support yourself unless you get into the unions.

4. You can't get a job without a phone and you can't get a phone without a job.

5.  If it's an open submission in theater, you can audition for the part in question if you aren't in the union after everyone else who is union has been seen.  (And that's only if they're in the mood to see nonunion talent after seeing everyone else all day and there aren't too many other nonunion people ahead of you on the waiting list.)

There's more...then again, none of these are hard and fast rules.  I took my non-union-affiliated  four-octave range vocalizin' self to the cattle call for RENT and landed a part in the first national tour, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me.  Just remember: if you really want to know what the city is like, remember my brother Damon's visual about the hamster on the Habitrail.  I think that's a fairly apt description.

And of course, it goes without saying that if you are from here and if you can simply move back in with your parents and pay no rent when life gets tough, I'm not talking to you.