Recently, I was sent a job posting for an assistant position at a major music television network. A couple of weeks ago I was lamenting over the state of my life, why am I here, what am I doing here, where am I going, etc… (I teach dance here, in Los Angeles, not what I came here to do.) So, I called a friend to vent and she said she’d “keep an eye out” for me, then sent me the job posting for the assistant position. As I read the requirements for the job and the duties I couldn’t help thinking, “I don’t really want to do this.” Theoretically, I should WANT to do this, it is in the entertainment industry, I could make invaluable connections and there are possible opportunities for advancement. But the truth of the matter is that I don’t really want this position. Six months to a year ago I would have sent a resume the day I received the posting and added it to the hundred or so other resumes I have already sent for similar positions in and around Los Angeles. However, having friends in these positions has tainted my view.
There’s the friend who works for a large children’s television network that had a crazy boss who thought you could cue up a DVD like a videotape then hand her the DVD and say “Hey, I cued it up for you,” smiled in her face then wrote nasty emails about her to other execs and blame her when she neglected to do her own work. Then there’s the other friend who barely has a moment to spare during the week or the weekend. The same friend who has gotten two promotions but has not gotten a raise in pay! More work, even longer hours, same pay! She’s so busy reading scripts and writing coverage for her job that she has no time to write her own stuff. This friend is happy to have a job but not exactly happy to have this job.
When we moved to Los Angeles we all had dreams of stardom. We write, we direct, we have MFAs. At graduation we were told that the world was our oyster. We were commanded to go west and make our mark in the entertainment industry. If we didn’t have internships secured prior to our arrival, we did as we were taught in school. We called and emailed any and everyone that we knew asking them for advice, for their contacts and if they knew anyone hiring. We were lucky if for every five inquiries we received a response. Promises were made, most never kept and over time and several jobs (most gotten on our own and not through our “network”) some of us managed to break in to the complicated and duplicitous entertainment industry.
The most successful of us shunned “Hollywood” or traditional entrée into the entertainment industry and made films on their own, financing, producing and crewing (staffing) it with friends. They “made it” but not without heavy sacrifice. They lived in cramped apartments and houses with numerous roommates, sleeping on couches, driving a beat up old car or catching the bus, buying groceries at the 99 cent store or eating off the Taco Bell Value Meal menu, if they had enough money to eat at all. They finally get their film made, have an agent and have the all important buzz surrounding their name. The only drawback is, as one classmate put it, waiting for the next project because no one tells you that your next project is not guaranteed… you could go back to living on Taco Bell and your friend’s couch next week.
So what are we, am I, to do? Do I pack up and go home? No, hell no, I don’t do Midwestern winters. Besides, I came out here to do everything I did at home on a larger level, take my career to the national and international level and I will. Do I apply for entry level jobs as assistants? No… I mean yes, I mean I need to weigh my options. If it is an excellent opportunity for me at a company whose work I respect and/or love I will go for it. I don’t have a problem being an assistant I have a problem applying for jobs just because. Hey, I don’t want to work for the aforementioned unnamed music television network, it’s not even the cool one, trust me! So, I’ll continue writing and teaching dance around the city. I like it; I’ve met really cool people, made some lasting connections and lost some of my baby fat (from when I was a baby). Besides, Hollywood ain’t what you know it’s who you know and definitely not how you got there. Here’s to finding your own way!
Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Monday, March 16, 2009
Friday, March 14, 2008
Somebody should have told Sharon Stone…
It is the duty of a woman’s best friend to let her know when she needs a mint because her breath smells remarkably like fresh shit, when she’s had way too much to drink because she completely missed the toilet and pissed directly down the back of her pants, and when she is way too old to play a sex kitten even when you made the role famous 14 years earlier. Where the hell were Sharon Stone’s friends when she was asked to make Basic Instinct 2?
As a recent transplant to LA money is tight and I have found really great ways to save money, one of them is renting movies at my local library instead of Blockbuster or subscribing to Netflix. This often means that I watch movies that I have no real interest in but they just happen to be on the shelf. When I saw Basic Instinct 2 on the shelf I knew it was probably going to be bad, really bad, awful in fact but, I still picked it up. I was hoping it would be the kind of bad that makes something good, a masturbatory delight filled with great and lurid sex. Instead, I got an over the hill, robot like Sharon Stone whose acting consisted of icy stares and a throaty monotone paired with a hunky David Morrisey who looked uncomfortable having sex on screen. But I digress this is not a movie review.
This is about knowing when to stop. Did Sharon Stone really need the money they offered her for Basic Instinct 2? In our celebrity obsessed culture surely the story of her cash shortage would have been all over the press. So, if it wasn’t the money what possessed this grown ass woman (pardon the African American colloquialism but Sharon’s been an adult for quite some time now) to take all her clothes off for the camera, again? Okay, she is in great shape if you like that too thin waif look popularized by Victoria Beckham and The Olsen twins. But it was hard for me to appreciate her great shape in clothes that were too young for her to pull off, white shirts that showed off her nipples, and tight pants that showed that she had no ass. It was sad. I felt bad for Sharon… even her character Catherine Tramell could have told her that as women age what made them sexy in their twenties is not what makes them sexy in their forties. Having a great shape helps but women in their forties no longer have to solely rely on their bodies to attract men and the old adage “less is more” applies. (A hint of skin and a whole lot of experience and innuendo is all she needed.)
I see these older women out sometimes, clearly in their 40’s and beyond, wearing outfits from the junior’s section of Nordstrom or worse yet Forever 21. In clubs they are often the loudest and/or the drunkest. They usually hang out with much younger women and offer unsolicited sexual advice. They are the widowed, divorced, or never married women whose children are finally old enough to take care of themselves. And they spend so much time trying to look young that they actually look older.
My mother had a friend once who told anyone who would listen how she used to be a “baby doll” and how men used to love to take care of her. Her nickname was Legs Diamond. When she met her common law husband he was married to someone else but as she tells it she “had to have him.” Legs hunted him down… she went where he worked, to places he hung out and even called his house, where he and his wife lived. (Talk about a bitch.) Legs won, she got pregnant, he got divorced and they moved in together. They shared a home for over 18 years. He had other affairs, she had an affair. Eventually, like all good things it had to end. Legs lost her job and went from full time school administrator to freelance consulting. She got her own place and she started hanging out with my mom more. Enter my 26yr. old brother.
My brother can be an asshole by his own admission. He is 6’3”, big and black, and has traveled the world, living in New York and California at one point. Women, young and old, love him. He and Legs’ son (a couple of years younger than my brother) were friends. At some point they, Legs and my brother, started fucking each other. When I found out I was horrified much in the way big sisters are always horrified to find out who their brothers are fucking. My other brothers and I began joking that the one brother was a Geritol Gigolo. By the way, Legs at this point was in her late 50’s and she looked great with lovely silver gray dreadlocks.
Most everyone knew about the affair and we all knew it wasn’t serious, except Legs. My brother was seeing at least three other women that we knew of. All of the three other women were in their 20’s. Legs had met all three of the women before in various social and religious settings and slowly, before out very eyes she began to transform. She went from dressing in blouses and slacks to low-rise jeans and thongs. Her locks transformed from regal gray to dark brown and she got a tattoo.
To my brother and his friends smoking weed is damned near a religious rite and Legs Diamond openly partook. She also began giving my brother money and driving him around town in her very new and expensive car and for a time things were good. Until my brother decided to cut her loose for a younger woman.
My mother, bless her soul, actually thought she was going to stay out of this debacle until Legs began calling to tell her about how my brother was doing her wrong and used her. Immediately my mother began fussing at my brother who, of course, didn’t want to hear it. When my mother called me to vent I told her what I thought. My brother is an asshole and Legs is an idiot. Sounds harsh, I know. I didn’t then and I still don’t doubt that my brother had used Legs but she also used him… for sex and self worth. She could not have had any expectations of monogamy with my brother who told her and anyone who would listen that he believed in polygamy. (Don’t ask…) As for the money, hey, you can’t buy love and as a woman in your mid 50’s I would expect her to know that.
Her mistake was in thinking that transforming herself into this younger version of herself that my brother would choose her. But, why we he choose a copy of youth when he had access to the real thing. She forgot her power and it isn’t her sex but her experiences and wisdom.
What made her beautiful was her poise and grace not how young her face and slender her waist.
As a recent transplant to LA money is tight and I have found really great ways to save money, one of them is renting movies at my local library instead of Blockbuster or subscribing to Netflix. This often means that I watch movies that I have no real interest in but they just happen to be on the shelf. When I saw Basic Instinct 2 on the shelf I knew it was probably going to be bad, really bad, awful in fact but, I still picked it up. I was hoping it would be the kind of bad that makes something good, a masturbatory delight filled with great and lurid sex. Instead, I got an over the hill, robot like Sharon Stone whose acting consisted of icy stares and a throaty monotone paired with a hunky David Morrisey who looked uncomfortable having sex on screen. But I digress this is not a movie review.
This is about knowing when to stop. Did Sharon Stone really need the money they offered her for Basic Instinct 2? In our celebrity obsessed culture surely the story of her cash shortage would have been all over the press. So, if it wasn’t the money what possessed this grown ass woman (pardon the African American colloquialism but Sharon’s been an adult for quite some time now) to take all her clothes off for the camera, again? Okay, she is in great shape if you like that too thin waif look popularized by Victoria Beckham and The Olsen twins. But it was hard for me to appreciate her great shape in clothes that were too young for her to pull off, white shirts that showed off her nipples, and tight pants that showed that she had no ass. It was sad. I felt bad for Sharon… even her character Catherine Tramell could have told her that as women age what made them sexy in their twenties is not what makes them sexy in their forties. Having a great shape helps but women in their forties no longer have to solely rely on their bodies to attract men and the old adage “less is more” applies. (A hint of skin and a whole lot of experience and innuendo is all she needed.)
I see these older women out sometimes, clearly in their 40’s and beyond, wearing outfits from the junior’s section of Nordstrom or worse yet Forever 21. In clubs they are often the loudest and/or the drunkest. They usually hang out with much younger women and offer unsolicited sexual advice. They are the widowed, divorced, or never married women whose children are finally old enough to take care of themselves. And they spend so much time trying to look young that they actually look older.
My mother had a friend once who told anyone who would listen how she used to be a “baby doll” and how men used to love to take care of her. Her nickname was Legs Diamond. When she met her common law husband he was married to someone else but as she tells it she “had to have him.” Legs hunted him down… she went where he worked, to places he hung out and even called his house, where he and his wife lived. (Talk about a bitch.) Legs won, she got pregnant, he got divorced and they moved in together. They shared a home for over 18 years. He had other affairs, she had an affair. Eventually, like all good things it had to end. Legs lost her job and went from full time school administrator to freelance consulting. She got her own place and she started hanging out with my mom more. Enter my 26yr. old brother.
My brother can be an asshole by his own admission. He is 6’3”, big and black, and has traveled the world, living in New York and California at one point. Women, young and old, love him. He and Legs’ son (a couple of years younger than my brother) were friends. At some point they, Legs and my brother, started fucking each other. When I found out I was horrified much in the way big sisters are always horrified to find out who their brothers are fucking. My other brothers and I began joking that the one brother was a Geritol Gigolo. By the way, Legs at this point was in her late 50’s and she looked great with lovely silver gray dreadlocks.
Most everyone knew about the affair and we all knew it wasn’t serious, except Legs. My brother was seeing at least three other women that we knew of. All of the three other women were in their 20’s. Legs had met all three of the women before in various social and religious settings and slowly, before out very eyes she began to transform. She went from dressing in blouses and slacks to low-rise jeans and thongs. Her locks transformed from regal gray to dark brown and she got a tattoo.
To my brother and his friends smoking weed is damned near a religious rite and Legs Diamond openly partook. She also began giving my brother money and driving him around town in her very new and expensive car and for a time things were good. Until my brother decided to cut her loose for a younger woman.
My mother, bless her soul, actually thought she was going to stay out of this debacle until Legs began calling to tell her about how my brother was doing her wrong and used her. Immediately my mother began fussing at my brother who, of course, didn’t want to hear it. When my mother called me to vent I told her what I thought. My brother is an asshole and Legs is an idiot. Sounds harsh, I know. I didn’t then and I still don’t doubt that my brother had used Legs but she also used him… for sex and self worth. She could not have had any expectations of monogamy with my brother who told her and anyone who would listen that he believed in polygamy. (Don’t ask…) As for the money, hey, you can’t buy love and as a woman in your mid 50’s I would expect her to know that.
Her mistake was in thinking that transforming herself into this younger version of herself that my brother would choose her. But, why we he choose a copy of youth when he had access to the real thing. She forgot her power and it isn’t her sex but her experiences and wisdom.
What made her beautiful was her poise and grace not how young her face and slender her waist.
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