His existing dilemma is one that is rarely discussed: when do artists cut their losses and abandon their careers? He has to cart around a boxful of unsold albums, and notes with grim blankness that his folk contemporary Al Cody (played by the excellent Adam Driver) has an exactly similar box. The cultural industry might lead you to assume that these albums are wonderfully precious and unique things, emblems of achievement: but from an unsuccessful insider’s view, these unwanted consumer items represent an abyss of failure much deeper than the disappointments of normal life.