Finally, I'm back to the same old shit.

Sometimes the work season starts off slowly, and I start to panic. I fret over how much money I've spent, how I've left the fans on when I'm not home and run up the electric bill (a big deal in California, but I worry about the cat when it's hot), how I've gone out for sushi once too often, how I'm going to have to buy another car in the next year or so.

This is the standard paranoia of the self-employed, and I'll certainly take it as a trade-off for a job that I really, truly do love. Somehow, everything always works out in the end, and although I may yet end up shuffling down Hollywood Boulevard with all my possessions loaded into a shopping cart, I'm reasonably certain it won't happen this year.

As I was standing on set today (grateful for that last-minute call which got me a day's work since I'd been kind of panicked about my not working enough last week), waiting for the gaffer to release the rigging crew (we'd stayed on past our allowed 8 hours to help first unit move from one set to the other), the rigging best boy booked me for tomorrow's rig on this show (some forgettable mid-season replacement comedy).

Not five minutes after that, a friend who's pushing* a crew on a Paramount show called me and asked me if I could work Wednesday and Friday for him.

Four days this week, which covers my rent. Plus, Paramout is super-close to my house so I have a five minute commute time. Okay, ten since I bet my ID card's expired and that means a delay at the gate when I'm trying to get on the lot.

Back to the same old shit, and I'm very glad to be posting it.



* "Pushing" a crew means being the supervisor of that particular crew. Generally, when a show has more than one rig going in at the same time and the best boy can't supervise them all, he or she will appoint a "pusher" for each rig.


Couch of the Day:

Semi all-purpose chain letter

So I'm lazy and don't want to write a new response for each angry email I get (you are of course always welcome to write and tell me how great I am - those emails, I love), so I came up with this handy dandy form letter which covers the most common categories of irate messages.

So, if the email you wanted to send falls into one of these categories, don't bother. Just print this out, circle the appropriate responses, and that'll be that. Really, I do this because I care.

Really I do. I swear.


Dear (INSERT YOUR NAME HERE),

I'm really very sorry that you:

a) think my blog sucks now and I've just been phoning it in lately.

b) hate all unions and feel compelled to tell me why.

c) are this month's victim of the "who's Mr. Movie Star" rumor mill.

I think the best way to deal with this is for you and I to ignore this and get on with our respective lives because:

a) I blame it on bad Feng Shui, and I'm too broke to buy all new furniture and a bunch of those eensy mirrors.

b) Really, you just don't understand what it's like to have your will to live nearly extinguished by a producer - one or two low-budget movies and you'll be screaming for that union card, buddy. Trust me on this one.

c) I think the only way to stop people from gossiping is to kill them - which I'm pretty sure is illegal, but feel free to test that out and get back to me.

The only thing I can possibly think to suggest is to:

a) Have you pay for a decorator - please send me your credit card number ASAP, so I can fix this problem and get back to being interesting.

b) Give your phone number to all those micro-budget producers and tell them you'd just love to work for them - be sure to keep me informed 'cause I want to be there the minute your soul rips in half, even if it happens at 4 am when you're knee-deep in shit on a feedlot in Acton. Especially if it happens at 4 am when you're knee-deep in shit on a feedlot in Acton.

c) You could call the stalker photographers and do something overtly sexual with a member of the same gender while they take your picture. Of course, then you'd have a whole new set of problems, but at least the hint of crew-cooties wouldn't be one of them.

But really, I don't think that's going to solve anything.

Do you?

a)Sincerely,

b) Up yours,

c) Do you have any cute friends? I'm single,

Peggy


Couch of the Day:

It was fun - sort of - while it lasted.

The past week has been very similar to a hurricane - mainly due to The Blonde having gone completely off the deep end and, as a result, my not having gotten more than four hours of sleep on any given night.

There's a thing that happens at networks and film studios: if an exec leaves under less than totally friendly circumstances, then all the projects associated with that person get buried - they get put in a weird limbo, where they're not going to get made, but can't be shopped anywhere else due to contractual bullshit ("Sure, you can shop the project elsewhere - if you pay us back ALL the money we've spent." "But if I get it made somewhere else, I can pay you back - wouldn't you rather take that chance?" "No, not so much.").

Three guesses what's happened to our show.

I'd seen the writing on the wall; normally every line of dialogue, every idea, every shot, every rough cut is second guessed by some level of network or studio jackassery - Standards and Practices (to make sure you don't do anything that will get the network fined), executives, executive's kids, the cleaning guy, various hangers-on, etc...

When all that stopped and we got no notes from anyone at all (even before we knew our exec was leaving) I knew we were doomed. Legally the only thing we can do is to wait until we can shop the show elsewhere - another year, I think.

I've turned my phone off tonight (and I'm holed up at a friend's house. The Blonde knows where I live and I'll bet that she'll be pounding on my front door at some ungodly hour), and I'm going to run the risk of missing a work call because I have got to get some sleep. I'm already hearing people who aren't actually there talking to me. I think - they might really be there and I'm just not moving fast enough.

Honestly? This whole process has put me under so much stress that I'm almost glad it's over.

I have to check with the lawyer to see how much of what happened I can write about. That may have to wait a year, too.


Couch of the Day: