Hi folks! I gather you're here to find out about Patrik Simpsonland. It's a place where you will be told plenty of things about how successful you're going to be, and off-handedly some things will be mentioned about how much you'll have to pay for pictures, shabbily-done makeup, trips to Mexico for photo shoots ("because the light is soo god there") and trips to NY or Florida where "All the agents are there at once."
You'll hear stories about Alexa and maybe one or two other people who had "success" in foriegn countries and got to do print ads. Nobody mentions that at best these people break even.
T
hen you'll be told that you can raise the money by getting people to donate to your cause since the MTA convention is a not for profit organization. You can go out and raise money from everyone and once you come up with the thousands of dollars it costs to stay in the Waldorf Astoria or in Florida, and pay for the pictures in Mexico, you're on your way to a big fat nothing.
I had the fortune of becoming close with Patrick's boyfriend of several years around the time that they broke up a handful of years ago. His boyfriend over time revealed to me what Patrick was doing with all these people who he would get signed at "agencies" in New York. Funny how when we went, everyone seemed to get an offer from the same place.
His boyfriend was supposed to be downstairs in the bar but he came upstairs and walked into a conversation that Patrick was having with these "agency" owners. The schpeel was this: they sign everyone to their "agency" and put them in "model housing" in New Jersey.
This means, apartments where the rent is actually way cheap, but they charge the "models" more money. Then Patrick and the agency owners would split this extra money 50/50. The "models" in return would get to pound the pavement doing auditions wherever they could find them, all day every day. Then the "agency" would get a cut.
In addition, the "models" would be told that they had to buy new Zed cards now that they were signed with this new agency in new York. Money from this income would also be split 50/50 with Patrick.
So basically folks, if you do your research on what an agency does, it's not this. They are supposed to take you in and have so much faith in their ability to get you work that they pay for the pictures of you themselves. Then they go out and pound the pavement for you to get auditions (other than OPEN CALLS where they invite everyone and their mothers) and then they take a portion of what you get paid when you work. They don't make money off your rent money. They don't charge you for zed cards. They don't charge you for makeup. They don't charge you to go to Mexico to get a photo shoot done because "the light is better."
Anyone who confronts Patrick better be ready for hearing an earful of made-up-on-the-spot highhorse Grade A B.S. Like, "I'm providing a service to those ugly girls who need pretty pictures taken of them to improve their self esteem." Or whatnot.
In New York, they require that everyone show up on weekends to rehearse the commercials that they are doing in a competition with a bunch of other people who are paying to compete from around the country. Commercials, radio spot, runway, best legs competition, singing, monologue, take your pick, you can pay to compete in whatever you want.
I went in 1999 and I won 1st place for best voiceover in a radio spot, 2nd place for best vocal performance, and 2nd place for my monologue. I walked around and showed my pictures to all the agents who were there. I was told by many people that they would use me if I lived in NY and to contact them when I decided to move there.
Unlike the other people, I kept my business cards when I did the walk-through. Everyone else was told to hand in their business cards and Patrick would put them in an envelope for each person, throw it in their file, so that none of the people who went were empowered to contact these people on their own, without him.in fact with many people he just would let it sit there and not act on it, because really, his money was made from scamming potential models, not from actively trying to help them out.
When his boyfriend tried to leave him, he came over to take some of his things and Patrick freaked out like the psychopath he is. He called the cops and the cops couldn't do anything about it, so they just said, how bout you come back tomorrow with a Uhaul? So he did.
By the time we came back the next morning, Patrick had, in the middle of the night, emptied out everything. Sounds exactly like the story of what he did in his newer house in Mesa when he couldn't pay his bills! Only he left behind a few things of his exboyfriends - mismatching shoes - one shoe here, another one there. He took all of his exboyfriends family heirlooms, everything.
Well Patrick had a signed document with his ex, which was notarized and said that everything they owned belonged to each of them equally, 50/50. So we had the Uhaul... His ex decided to take the Uhaul to the agency and clean out the entire agency in the middle of the night. This was hysterical. Patrick showed up to "work" (scamming work) the next day to find the place was ransacked. He called the cops but they couldn't do anything about it because his ex faxed them his paperwork showing that he owned 50% of everything. This is what had to be done in order to negotiate his heirlooms back from Patrick.
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