| july | [These posts were generated on a Type Pad
Beta Test, which, after a month, told me I could continue using it for
$12 a month. I passed.]
Giving this thing a shot
Currently Playing: Mary Lou Lord, "I'm Talking To You" Well. This is what Type Pad is like. Create a form, someone will build the better mousetrap. Here, I'm just trying to see if the mousetrap is worth sticking my neck under. So it's like a test post. But while I'm here, let me just say that publicists are the devil incarnate. Perhaps worse: The devil is actively evil; to call these people active is like saying sloths are marathon winners. Through their inaction, they manage to screw everything up and everyone over. No doubt there will be details to fill in here, but for now, I'll leave that standing. Damn, it's hot here. Muggy. I want my promised thunderstorm. Night. Hot, hot hot
Currently playing: Neil Diamond, "I Am ... I Said" For some reason, I put this in the same category of "70s Pop That Tried To Be Profound And Still Sounded Like Bad High School Poetry" that I lump Paul Simon's "I Am A Rock" in. Then again, they both begin with "I am" and then have very pretentious metaphorical followup, so that could be it, too. That said, Paul Simon is a genius. Neil Diamond still has the jury out, despite songs like "Cracklin' Rosie." On that same note of cheesy pop, part of The Job involves sneaking around and checking out who might be hired on the show I cover. I have access to a site that provides "sides" -- that is, the short scenes actors need to know before auditioning. Downloaded one today for a character with an incredibly bizarre, hick-sounding three-word name. The entire side, instead of being a scene, was the lyrics for "All Out Of Love" by Air Supply. I am just old enough to be able to admit that, while I was about 9-12, Air Supply was IT for me. I was bowled over. Went to probably 4 concerts, one each summer. Then I grew up and moved on to vaguely less shallow waters. But the idea of somebody singing an Air Supply song on my show makes me queasy. I just can't imagine what the EP thinks he's doing. I just went to their Web site -- this is AS's place -- and it's a scary place to be. It takes me into depths of nostalgia that come just above my nostrils, and I hear myself thinking "What the hell did Russell Hitchcock do to his glorious white man's fro?" and then I gotta move on. Age stabs us all in the back, eventually. Fallout from the Evil Publicist rant of yesterday: Oddly, mine came back and was somewhat civil. I have learned that this means she's merely plotting more trouble. Waiting for the proverbial shoe. Still bloody hot here. Ran in the shower last night before going to bed, threw vague clothes over wet bod, hopped on top of the sheets. Surprisingly effective. I feel bad for the dog: She gets a cool fan all day, but not A/C. When we move into the big penthouse on the Upper East Side, she can be cool all day. Until then, we all suffer a little. Bush is in Africa. Let's all hope he catches something that itches very badly. Link of the day: Typical Music Reviewer Bile Coolio, man
Currently Playing: Nothing musical. Law & Order is on. Have respect. Who knew that by going into work in a sleeveless dress I'd actually be cold coming home? Major storm blew through midday, rain, wind, the works, and by the time I left it was 70 degrees. That plus the A/C on the 7 train meant I had goosebumps. Better than a major sweat, though. I think I'm gearing up to start writing again. I'm not one of those writers who gets up and writes for three hours a day, come hell or high water -- for one thing, I don't have three spare hours to myself, unless I cut out the things that actually make me sane, and if I got up any earlier in the morning there'd be no point in going to sleep. Anyway, I'm feeling the spirit move me, so to speak. Not sure if it'll be anything original -- I'll probably tackle an old favorite to see if it still works. The thing is, I've always written for myself. Then I got to the point where I had something I thought others would pay for, and I shined it up, sent it out and nothing. So then I started worrying I wasn't writing what people would read. And that shouldn't be the block. But I would like to make a living writing -- then I could have those three hours a day, if not more -- and writing fiction, not reviews of a dying television genre. So you have to think a bit in terms of how it'll sell. And then you're not writing solely for yourself. Vicious circle, meet muse. Have an interview with an actress tomorrow for a late breakfast. It almost didn't happen due to Evil Publicist -- who has been, eerily, kind and receptive for two days running. It makes me nervous. I give it about 3:2 odds that she'll be at the interview, despite not being invited. (She always comes to these things -- there's been maybe one I've done since she took over she hasn't come to, which is not only unnecessary but, in my opinion, major hubris, since she never volunteers to contribute to the check, which the magazine is covering.) No interesting links today. Wrapped up the afternoon playing QBeez, which is available here. Word Up, also available there, forced me to leave my computer on for weeks until I reached a million points. Great games, but no "save" function, even though you can easily play for an hour at a time, if not more. In The Eye
Currently Playing: Nada. News is on. Dog is resting with her chewed up rubber soccer ball. My dog follows me like a shadow. I'm probably not the first person to notice this, but it's kind of fun in a weird way. It's like having a very personal fan club. Whatever I'm doing in any given room just has to be more exciting than anything else she can think of (like, eating) and so, if I'm over here, she's very soon over here. If I'm over there, there she goes. I've encouraged this a bit, since she's not totally housebroken, and if I know where she is, I know she isn't peeing, but it's a dependency which is at turns amusing ... and, when I sometimes nearly trip over her, downright dangerous. Went to see The Eye this afternoon after we got out of work early. In it, this Chinese (I thought Japanese, but now I think differently) woman regains sight (she's been blind since age 2) after a cornea transplant; alas, she also can see dead people. Where is Haley Joey Osmet? Right around the time where you're like "okay, kid, get a grip, they're dead, they're not going to hurt you, it's creepy but, you know, they're not real," the film takes a turn where she and the psychiatrist who's fallen for her (who looks too young to have graduated high school, much less therapy school) track down the family of the donor, and learn that woman could see dead people before they were dead. And then things blow up and there's fire and the world more or less settles back to where it was before the movie began. It was decent (I kept thinking there could be a fairly decent series in this concept, if well written a la X-Files or Buffy) and did well with tension and not talking down to the audience, but the music was so plinky and cheeseball and telegraphed every single emotion almost at every second that I felt very distracted, almost embarrassed. It was the kind of music a grad student could maybe afford. Except for one bombastic/metal theme that played once or twice, it was just dreadful. Outside the theater, before I went in, a guy was setting up all of these used books on a table. "I just got a whole major order of astrology books in," he started telling me. "So if you're into that..." He also held up an old book on how to assemble your pre-cut starter home. I always wish I could get into the whole talking randomly to people thing the way some of my friends do, but invariably if people just start talking to me out of the blue -- strangers, I should say -- I start measuring the situation: What do they want? Is this a pickup? Should I leave before committing myself to anything? It's stupid, but it's hard to step over that initial wariness. I maybe talked to this guy about five minutes and found myself peering into his car stationed behind him (trunk and back seat chock full of books, natch). He introduced himself at the end (his name was Roger) and asked me my name. Then I ran into the movie. Have had a few lovely conversations (though emails leave something to be desired) with a new guy I met the other weekend at a Green fundraiser. Much like the last guy I dated, he's not fully employed and clearly feels this means he has no metaphorical balls, ergo, we shouldn't be dating. Either that or he had beer goggles the first time we met and the second time decided to back off. In any case, he's been perfectly nice and wonderful except for that thing about not thinking he should have a relationship at this time due to various life changes he feels he ought to make. So, at this stage, we're talking on the phone and making plans to "hang," but, God forbid, not date. Well. We'll see. It's never cut and dry, is it? Phooey. Feh! Added new photos to the "album." Not sure if I can even put one in this section of things. Will have to look into it. Things I Learned Today
Now playing: Frazier Chorus, "Cloud 8 (Raid Mix)" According to Bush, the matter of uranium allegedly bought from Niger (side note: is it Frenchy-sounding "Neegehr" or as in "rhyming with Tiger"? I always thought the former, which means newspeople are driving me nuts) is now "closed." Well, as long as he feels good about it. Thank God that's over. Idiot. Went to the wonderful section of Brooklyn known as Williamsburg today -- there's a street there recently featured in the Village Voice on which there are several overpriced clothing boutiques; I went to look and to just see the place. I'd been twice before, but never to just hang out and do nothing in particular. While there I ate at a wonderful diner (the music was some crazy mix of 80s music with either new lyrics -- "Eye of The Tiger," but not, for example) which had an excellent veggie burger and onion rings. Outside sat a long line of choppers; across the street inside what appeared to be a storefront was some kind of repair shop. The whole area is a strange mix of the arty, the new, the old and the mix makes for an exciting blend. Who can explain why a sign of a green Pac-man "ghost" had been hung up on a warehouse? Not I. Lots of twentysomethings were hanging around outside with personalized garage-sale-type offerings -- books, clothing, various shit -- and one young woman had baked a lot of cakes and cut them up into tiny layered and heavily decorated art pieces (which you could eat). It was too hot to walk around with cake in my hand, so I opted for a peanut butter ball, but they really were quite adorable, these cakes -- as if someone with a very artistic bent had gotten a hold of an EZ-Bake. I also took a look in some of the stores in this mini-"mall" inside what is called The Girdle Factory (and probably once was one) and decided to get some gran padano (hard to find cheese) in this cheese store. They didn't have it, but sold me another kind of parmigana cheese. The sign on the outside said "Warning: It smells like France in here." Heh. I walked in and told the ladies behind the counter, "Hey, it smells like France in here." I amuse me. On the way back I stopped in Home Depot -- have finally decided to paint the foyer (sage-minty green) and hallway (dusky rose) -- to get the paint. They have a self-checkout area, and it's convenient yet aggressive: The computer voice keeps telling you to "bag your items" and if you move something to another section it says "unexpected item on platform. Please remove." It's very anxiety-producing. So I bagged a gallon of paint in one plastic bag and lifted. Note to self: A gallon of paint is not held up by one wimpy plastic bag. The bag broke, the can fell, burst open and spread sagey-mint paint all over the floor and my sandaled foot. They were very nice about it, though, and I got another can plus a lot of lemon-scented wipes to get most of the paint off. What a mess! The cabbie I flagged down on the way back from the Depot turned out to be some guy I'd seen around the neighborhood for ages, but had never approached. He always wears the same long white T-shirt emblazoned with a graffiti-tag kind of spray paint design that seems way too complicated for someone like me to figure out, since I'm trying to head the other way. He seems disheveled and as if he plays a lot of Quest online or something. Anyway, turned out he was my cabbie, so we got talking, and he was nice enough, but as I noted yesterday: Every time some strange person talks to me I get anxious. Like, is this where the Dateline episode begins? No reason for it, but there you are. Again: Paint is heavy. All or Nothing At All
Currently Playing: Will Smith, "Gettin Jiggy Wit It" Na na na na na..... The painting continues. (Wonder if reading about painting is as interesting as watching it dry?) Actually, what takes so long is the masking tape that goes around any border you don't want to paint, and since this room has one big arch and three doors (one doorway, two actual doors), there's a hell of a lot of taping. So, no painting tonight, just taping. More paint tomorrow. And some spackle in a place where the paint was so thick it bubbled and broke off (well, I broke it off after it bubbled). Dirty lying spackle! Said it would be ready to paint on in 10-15 minutes. An hour later, it's the consistency of firm-ish sand. Ugh. Why does the dog chew her own paw? Nothing wrong with it. I'm trying to break her of the habit, so she's now dozing on my lap. I have happy news! The Tornado has moved! That's right, she got promoted (ain't that always the way) and relocated to a corner far, far away. She came in this morning (today was the big move) and noted that because the Princess and another editor were both out it would be like "tumbleweeds" here. Can't disagree. Talked to the other editor in the hall with me and we were both so relieved. It wasn't so much that she might cry out someone's name in that Volume 11 voice, or that she'd call friends or publicists or anyone and just boom out whatever she was saying, or that you thought she might hear what you were saying -- it was all of that together, this tension that was constantly going on. Let the others have her, I say! In other interests, I've been following this Blair Hornstein case. She's the New Jersey high schooler who refused to share her valedictory slot with a fellow student -- despite her finding a way to get a higher GPA by taking home schooling and skipping Phys Ed with a dubious "illness" that nevertheless didn't prevent her from hours of volunteering and winning all sorts of awards, including ones that required physical exertion -- and so sued the school when they refused to let her share the slot. The rules may have been on her side, but morally, she was so wrong. In the end, she won the day, but skipped the ceremony. All of the attention to the ridiculous suit meant people began examining papers she'd written and posted online, many of which directly lifted from such sources as President Clinton's speeches. In the wake of all of this, Harvard has now rescinded its acceptance. The whole gory saga is outlined very well here. Follow up here; see July 12. I keep waiting for the 20/20 expose. At the bottom of the page there are lots of great links; work your way back up the page. On the one hand, I feel a bit sorry for her -- no matter how smart you are, 18 is not necessarily socially ept -- on the other, at least she learns this hard lesson before she goes out and does even more damage than she already has. We hope. Where does the day go? Ugh, 10 pm already. And They Called It Dusky Rose
Currently Playing: Dateline Real life imitates a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. It's actually kind of sad; if the guy leaked I'd like to think his conscience couldn't stand the hypocrisy of the leader of his country (and that other cowboy across the pond). If he didn't leak, that's even sadder. Dateline did a quick blurb on him and noted that everyone now thinks it was suicide, the man driven to take his life after being "caught in a media frenzy." Then, without pause or irony, they immediately went into how Kobe Bryant is being charged with sexual assault. Hello? Sing hallelujah, the foyer is painted. And while I was dubious about "celery green" with an earth tone, green/brown rug, it's looking pretty good. Brings out the green quite nicely. At every point when I've painted the walls I've thought to myself: "This is going to be butt ugly!" And then, once everything's back in place and my anal sense of neatness is re-satisfied, I end up thinking, "Hey, nice choice of color!" Next: The hallway. Dusky rose. This guy I'm kind of sort of seeing -- I told him about the color -- and he made a comment abou thow it's good that's going to just be the hallway, because a color by that name should only be in a bordello. I have this sense we're not going to be dating all that much longer. Yesterday, went with The Artist Who Doesn't Want To Date Due To No Job to see several storytellers do their thing at the Central Park Summerstage, which was both free and a pretty sweet deal. It's sponsored by a group called The Moth, who hold these monthly "story slams" at a small club in the lower East side. You put your name in a hat, and if they pull it out, you're called up to tell a five minute story. They always have themes. Anyhow, due to nice weather and having a kick-ass park to use, they brought in about 1000+ people to hear these stories on a much bigger stage. Weather was perfect, I was with a totally rockin adorable (if non committal) guy, and the stories were mostly quite good. The them was "You Talkin' To Me?" and we got a woman who lost a lot of weight and gained self esteem by taking a need-the-money-job as a stripper ... for a day. Another guy told about being the Yankee bat boy as a kid and on his first day being sent on a goose hunt for a "bat stretcher." And the final cap of the night was the about-as-lucid-as-Ozzy-Osbourne Jim Carroll, of The Basketball Diaries. He might have been nervous, as the Artist suggested, but he seemed totally wasted. Anyway, he took a way long time to tell a story about a roadie he used to torment who one day needed a hundred bucks. And he offered it to him if the roadie would get a high colonic. Prior to this, he'd meandered into a tale of the joys of plastic toy soldiers and how, as kid, "everybody had 'em, everybody chewed 'em." Needless to say, a full and complete toy soldier emerged from the roadie. Ewww. Then he tossed one into the audience, crying, "And this is the one!" Free does have limitations. Still, now I know what Jim Carroll looks like. Dusky rose my ass.... Thieves Like Us
Currently playing: "Thieves Like Us Instrumental" by New Order Interesting congruence there, consdiering subject matter. Gah, the more I do it, the more I find reasons to dislike what I'm getting paid for, which is unfair because most of the time, it's a darned good gig that's not too difficult. But then there are the crazies: Over the weekend, a woman who'd written a very detailed series of historical recollection about the show I cover made a particularly nasty post on a message board claiming I'd stolen some of her stuff for a character history that recent went up on our Web site. Now, I can see if someone gets a little ticked if someone else takes whole copy, but the truth is while I did use her site for research (it's the best and most detailed out there -- the book is only half-useful), I did not write anything exactly the way she put it. She based most of her claim on a disease she'd written about (mistakenly, as it turns out, which she later found out but never got fixed in the file), which I'd re-printed as is. I mean, come on, if the source says someone had terminal brain cancer, that's what you write; no way to finesse that one unless you want to lose the detail. So. I dithered over whether to write her and explain, and say her pages had in fact been a big help and I was sorry there'd been some problem, but was talked down from that ledge: Crazies don't always adhere to a code of conduct with emails; my luck that email would have gotten posted next. Still, I feel badly, even though I'm innocent here. (I did go back and compare hers to mine and figured it couldn't hurt to re-tweak some sentences; they weren't the same, but a slight whiff of familiarity clung to it. So they've been adjusted -- and the disease is airbrushed almost completely out.) The topper: She started off by saying my name was clearly a pseudonym; other follow up posts then went ahead ragging on my name! Now, agreed, I've joked about it myself -- and the way the English interpret it -- but jeez, man, get a life. Seems to me these people obviously don't read the magazine, or they'd have been familiar with it by now. Ugh. What a mess. With luck, it'll just fade. I'm not quite sure what to do if it gets bigger -- I mean, the bosses are apprised, the issue is smoothed over in the text -- but if she were to post on a more permanent forum, like Usenet, I'm serious: Libel is not out of the question here. This is my job, my career, my reputation, my ethics. These morons just stomp on it. And talk about Freudian omissions: I just realized I missed my chat today for the show -- I'm supposed to do Tuesdays at 4:30, every other one, and while early in the morning I'd worried idiots might show up and start up this whole topic, it just went out of my head! Erk.... On a whole other note, Painting Is 99.9 Percent Done! On a whole other other note, I'm looking into getting my masters. How I'll do that at night, and in what subject, I'm not sure. But I'm looking. COMMENT:
Exit
Currently Playing: U2, "Exit" And like a boil, everything has to burst eventually. When I first started at the soap mag, they assigned me to cover a show called Another World. I grew to like the show and most of the people on it, though the hike out to Brooklyn to the set was something of a pain in the ass and took most of a day. The publicist was no gem, however; unlike publicists in the music world (with whom I'd mostly worked before this), she wasn't friendly, particularly helpful, and often could be spiteful and withholding of information. That she'd worked at the magazine for a while made me somewhat cowed -- maybe everyone would side with her, not me, in altercations. Well, this went on for a while. I pretty well understood that everyone knew she was a jerk, but I didn't know how to fix it. I can be all sugary, but not for an extended time. I just don't like playing around with bullshit. Tell me what I need to know, then we can figure out how it should come out. (This ain't the real world news, after all.) Every week, we have to write up synopses. Every show gets short summaries of each day, some maddeningly vague, some consciously omitting story. Because the head of our magazine had a sister who wrote for Another World, it had been worked out some time ago that we got actual scripts, not summaries. This was not information to share generally, and it required a fuckload of work every week, to read five scripts and summarize them all in about 250 words total. Then, one day the executive producer of the show was changed. And then we were asked to speak to our EPs to get information for an upcoming "fall preview" section, which every show would contribute to. I got mine on the phone, a guy who'd seemed pretty relaxed and easygoing and smart. But for this preview, he was giving me information I knew would have already aired by the time the issue came out. I was about a week ahead on scripts, which was a boon to me, but knowing how things worked, this was not advance information. So I gently prodded him to tell me more, further along. And when that didn't work, I jumped into a little hubris and let it slip that I knew those things would have aired by then. How did I know? Because, as I stupidly told him, I'd read the scripts. Oop. He didn't know we got scripts, and was furious that we did. Instead of backing down and claiming insanity ("did I say scripts? I meant summaries!"), I went the other way and acted like it was the most normal thing. Well. A day or two later (I immediately informed the Princess about this, so I wasn't hiding anything), after their higher ups had talked with my higher ups, it was determined that I should no longer cover the show. It was like having your first boyfriend break up with you. I was embarrassed and disillusioned and angry. (I was also told that at least one actor had reported I was too "aggressive" in interviews. Children.) And then the issue was compounded because I still needed a show to cover, and I'd basically blown it with the P&G-owned shows (As The World Turns, Guiding Light, Another World). So they took a show (One Life To Live) away from one editor (which I felt terribly guilty about), gave it to me, and gave her another. She left a few months later. The show was cancelled a little over a year later. And I have been covering One Life To Live since then. Until today. Though vague, it's pretty easy to tell in the last few posts that I've had frustrating issues with the woman who does publicity for my show. She was supposed to be good: She assisted the other publicist I worked with so I knew her before she was In Charge, and she had this real "this isn't my REAL job" attitude, since she wanted to dance full time and did it in her off hours. The other publicist was a real gem. That one redefined passive-aggressive; one time, after I called her with a statement an actor had made to me that we wanted to put into a news story, she snapped, "Thanks for ruining my day." Much later on, when I called to ask her something, she said, "Who's the most annoying person? Randee." I mean -- professional or personal, what kind of person says these things? This bitch got pregnant and littered two pups and thankfully never came back. Which left the Assistant in charge. Oh, happy day, I thought. She'll know how to handle things; we'll get along famously. The sister pub to my magazine had a One Life To Live editor, too, and she and I even took the Assistant out to lunch and said how pleased we were to be working with her, etc. It took about six weeks, maybe more, maybe less, for her to turn out to be the head that sprouted from the severed neck of the bitch. For some reason, in this industry, almost to a person, the publicists who represent the shows always act as if they have something better to do that to assist the people at the magazines that cover the shows. The Assistant gradually -- and possibly through some overwork on her side, not that it excuses it -- got less and less helpful, less and less friendly, and it wasn't just me: Our photo department noticed it, too. Phone calls weren't returned; if I called her in the morning with a cheery "Hello" sometimes there'd be just silence. Inch by inch, I realized we were getting more "not happenings" or "they didn't call me back" or excuses, rather than interviews. I keep every interview I do in a folder, by month, and all of those in a year. I typically do between 10-15 interviews a month, from short to long. I was now having 5, or fewer. I also realized it had been five months since the show had a new pair of Head Writers, and I'd only talked to them once. (At least, officially: I had been in touch with one of them for some time before he was hired; we'd had a non-official meeting to chat about things once during that period.) The turning point came at the Emmys, in mid-May. I ran into the Head Writer I knew personally and he asked how I was doing. I joked, "Just fine, thanks -- you're a busy man! We've been trying to get you on the phone for months." (The assistant had been telling me the two of them were "busy" or not returning her calls.) He then looked puzzled and said that the Assistant had said I'd cancelled a few meetings and that once she said I was sick. Was I feeling all right? I assured him I'd never, never cancel a meeting, and ran back to our table where I told the Princess and the Hurricane, who reacted with proper astonishment. The next week I wrote up a summary of the problems I'd had with the Assistant (a classic is this: Every Wednesday I call her up to ask if there are any comings, or goings, from the show we should know about for our page on that topic. I have insider info, but she's the real source for those details. The Princess wondered to me about a particular actress who hadn't been on screen much lately, and I concurred, and called The Assistant: "Is she still with the show?" No, apparently she'd left "weeks ago." Huh? Why in the hell wouldn't she say something when I speak to her on this very topic every week? To what end is it to not reveal this information? I said something, stunned, and she laughed, "I guess we scooped you this time!" Which is wrong on so many levels.) and handed it in to the Princess, who said she'd pass it to the head of the magazine, who would be talking with the Assistant's boss. (I was told not to confront The Assistant with what had gone down at the Awards; I agreed, because the way she works, she'd yell at the Head Writer and he'd be mad at me. Somehow.) I then went on vacation. Day after I get back, the Assistant calls, fuming, and we try to have this long involved conversation about what's wrong and how to fix it. All of my ranting and letters and Emmy issues had boiled down to this (I still think she never knew we knew about the lying on the phone calls): How can we get more coverage of the show in the magazine? Talk about whitewash. Anyway, we came away from the conversation with -- well, I did -- a vague sense that if I was just more open with her, she'd be more open with me. So I emailed. I called. I asked. I was patient, gave specific information when things were due, and so on and so forth. Not only did things not get better, they got worse -- with a few good days thrown in. I became gradually aware that now her tack was this: "I've put a call into them" but, in fact, she had not. I printed something in the magazine that was a rumor about one half of a married couple on the show (married in real life, not the show), and knew I was scheduled to get the other half of the couple on the phone, so I could get a sense of what she wanted us to say. That call never came in, not that week, not the next. That Other Half got so ticked at what we printed (which was nothing more than something she'd said at her own fan club luncheon), she called the head boss, saying she was never asked for comment. Now, that could have just been a childish actress stamping her foot, even if she had gotten calls from the Assistant. But we'd had one actress on the schedule for months for a full interview, and when it wasn't happening and wasn't happening (but was promised it was) and time was running out, the photo deparment got frustrated and looked up old art of her, which they'd have to use if a shoot couldn't be set up. They spoke to the photographer, who said they should just contact the actress. This was the first time the actress had even heard we wanted to do an interview. "And I thought it was just me nobody wanted to talk to!" she wailed. So, independently of the Assistant, we set up a time to meet, the Assistant insisted on coming, but we got it done. I decided I'd just have to do that from now on -- find my own way to make things happen, because I couldn't rely on the Assistant to do it. (Another bonus: A young actress called me one day, saying she wanted to add a few things to a conversation we'd had the other day. After that, I asked her to pass my number onto another actor I needed to speak to, "because while we have a publicist who's very nice, she's a little slow sometimes." The young actress said, "You're so right -- I had to call her three times to get your phone number.") Then yesterday, while fishing around with an actress first for a quote for a special photo section (because of course I couldn't rely on the Assistant's promises to get me quotes, and guess what -- none came in) I learned a young actor had been let go. I was told by this source that he'd had time off to work on personal problems and came back and they let him go. Instant story. I decided to wait until this morning to call The Assistant, so there'd be no reason to connect the information to my source. When I did, she said, "Oh, I thought you already knew." How the hell are we supposed to "already" know if she doesn't tell us? Once we think we know, we ask. Before then? Again, the idiocy doesn't even follow a logical path that's arguable. Talking with her I feel like one of us is on a junk and one of us is on a tramp steamer and there's miles of water between us. She keeps going into areas that have little to do with the conversation. Anyway, I let that slide so that I could just get the right info from her. I then wrote the story and started handing it around. I suppose I should have run the "personal issues" from a source quote by her first, but frankly, I knew what her response would be: "Take it out." She'd have a million reasons why, but there'd be no parity -- if you take it out, we'll give you an interview -- so why even ask? It was true, after all. (I didn't know how true, though.) A few hours later I get a call from her out of the blue. "What are you putting in your story?" Fine, okay. I go through the quote she gave me, a speculation on the recast, etc. She keeps asking, though, "What else?" and once adds, "I feel like you're pulling wool over my eyes." And I knew: Somehow, she knew about the source info. I feared for the source; I feared for me. But the page hadn't even been printed by art and circulated in the office -- there was a limited number of people who could have possibly read it. How did she know? We went off on another long tangent about how if she'd just tell me things ahead of time, we could hash out how they could be put up there; I felt if she was honest with me I wouldn't have to probe sources and she could help fix the show leak, but she didn't feel that way: "I appreciate your desire to have that kind of communication, but I just don't have the time," she said. And once, while listing names from the show -- just throwing them out there in case these people were let go -- I transposed an actor's first name with his character's first name: "Kevin Gauthier." She says, "I don't know any Kevin Gauthier." I snapped, "Oh, please. You know I meant Dan Gauthier." (It's that kind of petty.) But during this conversation, I'm so pleased: I actually had the presence of mind to wonder -- just how the hell did she come to call? So I asked: "What prompted this call?" and she, taken off-guard by a rare show of connecting the dots in present time by me, said "a little birdie told me." Ah. So, at long last we got off the phone. A flurry of activity at the Princess's office -- she, the Hurricane, the Head were all lunching with The Assistant's boss, in from L.A. The Princess had already asked me what, if anything, I should pass on to her, I gave her a summarized list of complaints, but she knew all of that anyway. So, the Princess has her bag, the Head is standing outside her door. Though I don't know it, the Hurricane is coming down the long hallway to meet them before they leave. I get inside and say to the Princess that I just got off the phone with The Assistant, and she wants us to take out the "personal issues" section. That somehow she knew. That "a little birdie" told her. The Princess blanched at the idea that someone in this office had clearly passed on information. While this is going on, the Head has stepped into the office: "What? What is this?" and the Hurricane has arrived. The Head turns to her and says, fairly incredulous, not accusing, "Did you tell [The Assistant] about our [young actor] article?" And at first, the Hurricane denies it. Then, realizing (probably to her horror) that her "good buddy" has dimed her out even without mentioning a name -- because the Assistant is too impatient ("I don't have the time," remember) to wait a reasonable period of time from when she finds out to when she yells at me -- she starts saying to the Head, "Isn't that what you told me to do?" And while all of this is going on, the Princess and I exchange glances with blank faces, but we're clearly thinking the same thing: "Oh, my God, the Hurricane is in a shitload of trouble." She no longer works for our magazine -- having been thankfully promoted to another end of the building as the head of the sister publication -- and has no standing to tell anyone about an article in our magazine. As it turns out, her "in the know" status that she lords over everyone had gotten her in trouble: The executive producer had told her the night before about the ouster, and added that the kid was despondent about it -- he's a troubled kid who makes trouble, but the actor had even told his co-star he might commit suicide over it. So that's why "personal issues" is not a good idea. Which, if the Assistant had even hinted at this, or hinted that there were huge issues involved, I would have said, fine, we'll take it out. But she did not. And meanwhile, The Head and the Hurricane are getting into it, the Head laying into her, really. "You have no right to...." "you don't work for this magazine...." and so on. It was still partly in the hall, and the nearby editors heard it all. Later, The Princess and I were mutually thrilled/amused/horrified (she said: "It's like mom and dad fighting!") by it all, and glad that karma had come back and bit the Hurricane for once -- she's always yelling at people, in public. So, the whole thing got the Head so upset she turned on her heel, said "I'm too upset to go to lunch," and went to her office. The Princess and the Hurricane left. The Princess called me minutes later from the restaurant: While they waited for the Assistant's boss to arrive, the Hurricane had gone outside to call The Assistant on her cell. "Can you fucking believe that?" the Princess asked me, and quickly clicked off when the Hurricane came back in. Well, they talked. And in the end, they agreed: This relationship -- the Assistant and moi -- was never going to get any better. And since the Assistant was beloved and so forth and didn't want to switch shows, I was going to have to be the sacrifice. I told one of the editors who'd heard the hallway exchange that either nothing would happen from the incident, or there would be blood. And so there was: Mine. On the one hand, I'm embarrassed again. And I hate being the cause -- indirect or no -- for causing my bosses worry or issues or whatever. But since I'd kept the Princess up to date all along, she knew what was going down. Now, the next issue is where I go next within the magazine. Unlikely that I'll get another show, and that's probably for the best -- but I may end up running the Online department. Hard to tell as of yet. I'll miss the show and most of the people. I will never miss not having to call the Assistant. Karma's a bitch. She'll get hers. Maybe it'll have to do with dancing.... Thirteen
Currently Playing: Peter Cetera, "Big Mistake" Went to a screening of the Sundance-award-winning new film Thirteen tonight. I am lucky enough to occasionally get to go to advance screenings; in addition to being free, they usually only have 25 people tops (this one had maybe 10) and the seats are all big and cushy and you start thinking, "When I have my mansion, I too shall have a screening room like this." No previews (which thanks to the state of previews today, which reveal everything, is not so much a loss) and no commercials (sigh, as grandma, assuming I am one, I'll be the one saying, "I remember when movies didn't have three hours of commercials first...."). The film touts itself as really getting into the lives of 13-year old girls, who these days are (says the literature, and I don't doubt all of it) sexually active earlier, dealing with terrible pressures and girl-aggressiveness that has no outlet (unlike boys) and who desperately, desperately need our help even as they tell us they hate us. The problem is then the film goes to show us how, in the space of approximately 4-6 months, one girl who was "playing with stuffed animals and Barbies" before she started 7th grade has glommed onto the most popular, beautiful girl in school, transformed her wardrobe, gotten tongue and navel piercings, smoked pot, tripped on acid, sniffed something that looked like coke but could have been ground up OTC, huffed and played a game with the friend in which they kept hitting each other in the face to try and feel something, and blown a guy ("but it tasted yucchy!"). Oh, and if that prize package wasn't enough, she cuts herself -- we're made to believe -- because her divorced father has a new family elsewhere and doesn't come to see them, she hates her mom's new boyfriend, mom and new boyfriend are both recovering addicts, mom is a "cool mom" who lets homeless friends sleep over and doesn't mind that her son smokes pot. Phew. I'm exhausted just listing that litany. While I'm willing to concede that teenage girls may have it harder than any of us did back in the long-ago innocent, freakin' 80s, and that perhaps there are some teenage girls who have these issues, there is perhaps a miniscule percentage that has all of them. And all of them develop in a matter of months. And that this popular girl gloms right back and all but moves in (when she asks to, and mom denies her, the friendship goes to hell). The more the story goes on, the more specific and unreal it gets in an attempt to be so "real" and "now." The truth is that while teenagers live dramatic, angst-ridden, exciting lives, they're generally only interesting to those specific dramatic, angst-ridden teens at the time they're happening. There was a lot of drama when I was in junior high and high, and most of it was either self-derived or concocted by our sexually innocent yet fumbling small clique. The popular kids weren't necessarily the best dressed or even the best looking; they had, however, developed some kind of otherworldliness years ago in elementary school when they first met -- and there was not just one group of them that everybody knew. Plus, this school she goes to is either right in or right outside Los Angeles; going to shop on Melrose is common and the girl can take a bus to do it. That already makes the story hard to identify with; by the time she's hoovering up things in her nose and the boyfriend (mom's, that is) has slammed out the door, all I could do was roll my eyes. By trying to be Dickensanian, the story turned into a soap opera. (And I mean that in the kindest, yet truest, way.) Then, as if that wasn't enough, the film craps out: The popular girl naturally goes back to being popular (apparently dumping all of her friends along the way to hang out 24/7 with the other girl wasn't an issue) and immediately starts shitting on her friend -- a bully approaches the girl and threatens to beat her up based on something popular girl lied about; popular girl turns in the other girl's fake ID to the school to score brownie points. This is all feasable; this girl's life is pretty hellish because she's not only not better off, she's now a target. She'd have to switch schools, possibly, or face the next few years with her head down. Instead, the popular girl's "stash" is found and she rats out the other girl's hiding places; there's a confrontation and the popular girl's guardian/cousin/mom figure says they're moving to a different town because the other girl is "a bad influence." Come on! Even if stuff is found, even if there is a confrontation, life isn't that easy -- people don't just pull up stakes so fast. I expected the girl to be sent to her father's (he was very reluctant to take her, but could have been talked into it) and we see her at her new school: Will she fall into the popular trap again? And end the film. Instead, there's the confrontation, mom holds her a lot, mom kisses her slash marks, they fall asleep, fade to black. Fade up: girl is now a little older, on one of those outside jungle gym spin things, going around and around, and screams -- delight or fear or both? And then to black. Bleah. We passed notes. We made out with each other. We cut class (me less than the others). Yes, I did dump some old geeky friends in a not kind way for the semi-popular set; however, the ones I picked up were much more like I wanted to be -- and I'm still friends with them to this day. My friends did things mom didn't approve of, like drive, or smoke, and somehow I was not corrupted. It is possible to not have every rock in the world fall on your head during adolescence. Yes, this was one instance. But it didn't have to be every instance. Bleah. So I went back to work today thinking: So! What do I do? Turns out I had one more swan song for the show -- I had to write an Editor's Choice; the Head was very nice and wrote me that the show will miss me more than they can comprehend now that I'm not covering it. And one of the actors called: I'd asked for him Friday; Monday the Assistant told me she was calling him, he says he got a call Tuesday night. (And she knows we have a Wednesday deadline. Freak.) Anyway, I cleared him up on deadlines and we talked a bit and now I have a news story for next week. But it's still up in the air what I do until assigned elsewhere. We'll see on Monday..... My dog and I have a new trick! She turns on her back for
a belly rub and lets me spin her around on the linoleum floor. Talk about
passive!
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