Support Needed
I wrote this in a time of need, but I’m doing much better now. I appreciate the love from everyone.
So there’s good news and bad news.
Today I’m launching this website, and with it, a series of new content that I hope you’ll support. Many of you have seen and bought creations on my new store; That’s still there, but it was only intended as an arm of the online brand, which I developed earlier this year when mask sales exploded, and I finally had some money to do that with the help of Bryan Marty.
There are three blogs I’m calling “columns” because they’re series of stories, both published online and in newspapers, and others existing solely on the site. I’ve uploaded many of my cocktail features, and I plan to expand my offering in this niche, on the website, beyond the two stories I write monthly in SF Examiner. Then there’s “Sincerely Saul,” which is essentially many of my essays from the past several years that I’ve posted, and also where I plan to write about my more intimate and existential feelings about the city, life as an artist, love, and community figure work.
The one I’ll get more into today is “Better Know a Drag Queen,” a series of profiles Hoodline assigned me several years ago that specifically featured local queens who weren’t in the press. I love this project but it never paid a lot. I’ve been doing my damnedest for more than a year to leverage it in various ways, and I’ll touch more on that below.
I’m grateful people read my extensively long posts but I don’t want to bury the lede: there’s a Patreon available to support these things with baseline chip-ins that support and unlock this content, between $3-$6 monthly— and also higher tiers if you want give more. But if you only want to or can afford to give a little, the $6 mark gets you the all-access content plus a monthly “Sincerely, Saul” postcard in the mail. Apparel discounts are in there, too. And if events ever come back, I’ll fold those into the benefits, also.
Deep breath, the bad news.
I am floundering financially in San Francisco, and without pretty immediate intervention, I probably have to go.
This has been true for many, many years. I came here to be a journalist; I only ever made a living wage in it before coming to SF, and that was nearly 11 years ago. I’ve had a lot of help along the way to make it work. Both full-time gigs had health benefits, and I found a post-recession rental in early 2011 with my then boyfriend. I still live there sans boyfriend, it is rent controlled, and I am the master tenant. The parents gave me a car and for many years insured it, and paid the parking tickets. I also once won a dispute with the landlord for overcharging rent, which helped for a minute.
The full-time gigs paid at their height $40k annual in this city, and that ended in 2016, when I became the sparkly creature, community figure, event planner, and apparel maker you see today.
Right now as a freelancer, I’m paid $100 per story at both my current shops, there are no health benefits and no expense reimbursements, and they both pay out a solid month after stories are published. There’s no job security and no raises on the horizon. Photography is seldom asked for but often expected, and they don’t pay for that either. I’m not singling them out so I’ll just say without naming: one of them in 2016 offered me $25 for my first story. During negotiation, the other one said a couple times that it offered essentially nothing.
I realize that’s still sinking in, but the pay isn’t even what bothers me as I write this: they own my content, contractually. I’ve gone to multiple publications about wanting to write the “Better Know a Drag Queen” series and later republish it into a book. Most want the profiles, but asked if I can keep the content for later use, the best answer I’ve gotten after “no” is “I’ll get back to you.” One non-profit didn’t mind if I owned the work. They wouldn’t pay me for a story, but said I could find grant funding under their umbrella— they wouldn’t help me do it and they wanted a percentage of the money I raised.
Admitting my situation I’m sure is a surprise to a few people reading; I feel like I have this magic energy and outward display of success that makes people think I’m this rare busy artist that’s actually making it work. That affirmation, the validation, and continued gratitude over my place in this community has fueled me to keep doing this work for half a decade. I have so much pride in what I do, and I really think an economy and market should support what art exists through the dollars spent on it. In that way, discussing the state of things feels like my most vulnerable admission. I know I’ve succeeded, but I feel like I’m failing.
The truth is though I’m in debt and have been. I can’t afford an apartment that isn’t much more than what a nice bedroom goes for nowadays in San Francisco, and yes, I’ve rented the other room this whole time. My healthcare is Medi-Cal, I don’t have dental coverage, the car is permanently broken. It really just gets darker from here.
The masks and apparel really have been amazing this year, and financially, those sales floated me from the summer through just now in the city. At peak times, I also hired a seamstress to keep up with the work; I bought a computer for the first time in a decade; I paid out thousands in licensing to artists and charity.
I regret none of it, very few of those dollars would I have spent differently. I feel like people are straight-up always preaching to me about hiring local, making local, doing things ethically; I actually got to do it and to make products I am genuinely proud of. And despite the low pay in events, the high-school politics, gossip, and rumors about how I ran them, I regret none of that either because I was actually there to see the community I made, the connections I forged for others, and generally doing what I wanted in making a more inclusive vibe at gay bars.
There are thousands more words I could write here but I think I’ll save that for the website.
I appreciate your support the past five years and hope you’ll give it in this moment. To do that: subscribe to the Patreon, buy a mask, Venmo me if you want: @saul-sugarman. I’d appreciate though—if you felt you needed to—to message me privately about welfare, jobs, grant programs, tax breaks, etc., and to not comment about those things here. I’m very happy this year I committed heart and soul to my art; I will assuredly reach out again for advice if I plan to pivot into a more pragmatic reality.
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