Wow, this week flew by. I just realized I haven't showered in two days. I've gone outside only three times this past week. I went to see Frightened Rabbit/air plane crash, and I just went to the gym, where I ran for 30 minutes and swam for 30 minutes. I need to brag about my workout - it's a big deal compared to what I accomplished yesterday. Let's examine yesterday's schedule:
Monday, January 19, 2009
4:00 a.m. bedtime
12::30 p.m. wake up (i count this as a victory. i got eight hours of sleep, as opposed to twelve)
1:30 p.m. eat chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast
2:00 p.m. attempt to write up two paragraphs to introduce Frightened Rabbit Q&A
2:30 p.m. cook lunch - stir-fried bamboo with basil and curry paste
3:00 p.m. attempt again to write up two easy little paragraphs about Frightened Rabbit. severe writer's block with first sentence.
4:25 p.m. finally post Frightened Rabbit blog.
5:00 p.m. have forty-five minute g-talk chat with friend about the merits of marriage
6:00 p.m. quick run to Circuit City to see if they have the wii game Paper Mario for at least 20% off. they don't.
7:00 p.m. work on the short story i've been attempting to finish all week. this story is one of the main reasons i currently choose to be unemployed (i feel like this might be lost on some readers who haven't seen me in awhile - i am unemployed by choice! of course, that may change in the coming months...)
7:05 p.m. decide to change entire short story from first person to third person
7:32 p.m. change entire story back to first person - it sounded more genuine.
8:15 p.m. salmon dinner
9:00 p.m. brush teeth for first time of the day - whoops, way off schedule here. discover i never took a shower.
9:45 p.m. brownies
10:30 p.m. brush teeth as part of regular night-time schedule
2:30 a.m. bed
I am flying to Los Angeles tomorrow where I plan to be more productive and spend at least eight hours a day writing.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Q&A with Frightened Rabbit - Broke and Breaking
Indie rock is a mileau typically reserved for the young and people who want to be young. Over the past year I've watched one band bridge the gap between those who seek out new music and those who think all the music that's worth hearing has already been made: Frightened Rabbit.
After they released their sophomore album in April of 2008, Frightened Rabbit instantly became the darling of Pitchfork Media. 'The Midnight Organ Fight' was dubbed the "Best Album of the Year Thus Far." Catchy tracks such as "Modern Leper" transform heartbreak into rock and roll.
Make no mistake about it - this band is poised to break big in '09. Just one year ago, I saw them perform in a tiny Williamsburg venue called Death By Audio - a scuzzy unfinished building with cans of beer for sale out of an ice chest. They were opening for the more established Enon. Saturday night, Frightened Rabbit headlined a sold out show at the Bowery Ballroom, and I was lucky enough to spend 30 minutes interviewing drummer Grant Hutchinson (he's the one lying down on the bench in the above picture). Hutchinson discussed what it's like to be on the verge of breaking, and being too broke to pay the rent.
How do you get along on tour?
We have this unspoken rule in the band that we don’t speak during the days because the days can be long and everyone can get on each other’s nerves. We spend 24 hours together, but we’ve never had any physical fall outs.
Who’s the feistiest member of the band?
I don’t want to say me but I’m probably it. I’m not great in the morning which is obviously not good considering the amount of driving you have to do in the U.S., but none of us are particularly angry. We’re all pretty mellow people.
You have a sound that makes grown men want to wet their pants in excitement. How did you develop your sound?
There’s a definite Scottish folk influence for obvious reasons. Scott is the songwriter and he was listening to a lot of country and Americana. A lot of it is directly from Scotland. The rain and the gray days and the miserable nation that we are kind of helps. Live we try to put as much energy into it as we can and hope that the crowd feeds off of it as well.
You recorded “The Midnight Organ Fight” with in-demand producer Peter Katis. What was it like recording with him?
The first album we did in Glasgow with our friends, more like a demo. To go from that to Peter’s house is a kind of music producer, music geek heaven. He’s collected all this gear over many years and he’s just a big inspirational producer … I know through Interpol records and the National he’s got this sound that’s very individual for him, which I think is important on Midnight Organ Fight definitely. You can attribute the way it sounds to him.
You stayed in Peter’s house while you recorded. Did you do anything to piss off him or his wife?
What Peter does is he’s a big hockey fan. He goes out to play hockey once or twice a week and basically he gets his aggression out. He plays hockey and beats up his friends on the ice. So when he’s in the studio he’s a fairly mellow person.
Before signing with FatCat, you almost signed with a major label. What’s the story?
It’s this label called Fiction which is a subsidiary of Universal. They courted us for awhile and led us on. In the end they put a deal on the table that just wasn’t right for us. It was really non-committal. They were the ones that were going to be making money. We said we weren’t happy with their deal, so they said see you later. It was pretty horrible at the time. It was not a nice thing to go through but looking back they kind of saved us. I think this past year we’ve had with FatCat has been the best.
When did the band get its first big break? Was it when John Krasinski (“Jim” from The Office) discovered you?
That was probably our proudest moment of the year. Last summer we watched The Office constantly on our laptops.
Have you met him yet?
When we played in LA in October we emailed him and said yeah we’re playing we’ll stick you on the guest list. He never showed up, but he emailed us the next day and said he was stuck at work and he was slowly watching the time tick toward stage time. We haven’t met him yet, but it’s on our To Do list, maybe swap some autographs.
Which version of The Office is better? American or UK?
Oh, ah, gee. It’s a hot debate, this one. They’re so different now, I think the UK office still has its own sort of identity ‘cause they’re just completely different, but I think I found the US office more enjoyable to watch. There’s not as many cringe moments. I’ll stay diplomatic on that one and say they both have their merits.
What’s the worst job you’ve had trying to make it as a struggling musician?
I haven’t really had to do any bad jobs to be honest. I worked in Urban Outfitters, and it wasn’t great. Working at the supermarket, at the till, was probably the worst.
Andy (keyboardist) was telling us earlier that he used to work on the train lines basically him and this other guy and their job was to sort of throw these lines up onto the wires above the trains to cut the power so people could actually walk on the tracks and it wasn’t his responsibility to do the job. He was with the guy carrying the cables. Night shift. One night the guy said you give it a shot, so he threw them up and short-circuited the whole thing. He never went back and caused several thousand pounds worth of damage to the train lines, and I think the guy he was working with got demoted. That wasn’t a great job for Andy.
Billy (guitarist) used to put the metal bits on dental floss. You know the thing you snap the dental floss off with… Billy used to put them onto the plastic casing.
How does someone get that job?
There was a dental floss factory near where we grew up.
Have you experienced a Quarter Life Crisis?
Yeah, just before we left, I had to move home to my parent’s house because I can’t afford to have a flat in Glasgow. I was packing my boxes and thinking I really miss having a 9-5 job and having a wage coming into my bank every month that I can afford to pay my rent with and buy cigarettes. But then you go on stage for 45 minutes and it pulls you back in and you know exactly why you’re doing this.
Is the rock and roll life what you imagined it would be?
Absolutely not. It’s not what I expected. For our band, few girls, no drugs, no smashing up TVs, windows anything like that. It’s a job. It’s not paid well at the moment. We don’t have a tour bus yet either so we’re living out of a Ford 15-seater. Sticking all your clothes in a pillow case and hoping that the next hotel has a laundry that you can wash your clothes with. We don’t have a crew to load our gear or anything like that…
We stayed with our manager the other night and there were four of us. Most NYC apartments are really small so we were sleeping on the floor and looking at each other like in four days’ time we’re going to play a sold out show at the Bowery, and here we are sleeping on the floor in NYC. Hopefully we are nearing the end of it anyway. But I wouldn’t change it for anything.
You hear these bands who are now in tour buses and have all the perks and they say I wish we could go back to the days of playing the dirty rock and roll venues and sleeping in a van, and you just think, no you don’t. You don’t. That’s a lie. We’ll swap with you. We’ll take your bus and you take our van and see how you manage.
When will you start recording a new album?
We get home on the 4th of February and we’ll take time off. Scott, the songwriter, is going to go away for a month and try to get some demos together and then we’ll get together and solidify the demos and hopefully have it recorded by June. We want to get back into it and not lose momentum. I don’t like waiting three years for my favorite band to release an album. When you think back to the ‘60s and ‘70s and how many albums were released, like two albums a year for a band. We want to get it out as soon as possible, hopefully later this year or early 2010.
Where does Scott go to write?
He’s actually going to a friend of ours’ house on the east coast of Scotland by the sea and he’s going to shut himself away for a month. It’s not like getting inspiration from the rolling hills and the sandy beach or anything like that. He just has to be alone and take the time to do it.
You’re a band that’s about to make it big. What do you want people to know about you?
Scott and I are eczema sufferers and it’s not easy being on tour with eczema. That’s what we want them to know. We have to get medicated cream and stuff.
And also that people should never stop approaching us and staying hi because that’s the most important thing about being in a band is speaking to the people who are paying your wages. We never want to be diva like at all and we never will be.
After they released their sophomore album in April of 2008, Frightened Rabbit instantly became the darling of Pitchfork Media. 'The Midnight Organ Fight' was dubbed the "Best Album of the Year Thus Far." Catchy tracks such as "Modern Leper" transform heartbreak into rock and roll.
Make no mistake about it - this band is poised to break big in '09. Just one year ago, I saw them perform in a tiny Williamsburg venue called Death By Audio - a scuzzy unfinished building with cans of beer for sale out of an ice chest. They were opening for the more established Enon. Saturday night, Frightened Rabbit headlined a sold out show at the Bowery Ballroom, and I was lucky enough to spend 30 minutes interviewing drummer Grant Hutchinson (he's the one lying down on the bench in the above picture). Hutchinson discussed what it's like to be on the verge of breaking, and being too broke to pay the rent.
How do you get along on tour?
We have this unspoken rule in the band that we don’t speak during the days because the days can be long and everyone can get on each other’s nerves. We spend 24 hours together, but we’ve never had any physical fall outs.
Who’s the feistiest member of the band?
I don’t want to say me but I’m probably it. I’m not great in the morning which is obviously not good considering the amount of driving you have to do in the U.S., but none of us are particularly angry. We’re all pretty mellow people.
You have a sound that makes grown men want to wet their pants in excitement. How did you develop your sound?
There’s a definite Scottish folk influence for obvious reasons. Scott is the songwriter and he was listening to a lot of country and Americana. A lot of it is directly from Scotland. The rain and the gray days and the miserable nation that we are kind of helps. Live we try to put as much energy into it as we can and hope that the crowd feeds off of it as well.
You recorded “The Midnight Organ Fight” with in-demand producer Peter Katis. What was it like recording with him?
The first album we did in Glasgow with our friends, more like a demo. To go from that to Peter’s house is a kind of music producer, music geek heaven. He’s collected all this gear over many years and he’s just a big inspirational producer … I know through Interpol records and the National he’s got this sound that’s very individual for him, which I think is important on Midnight Organ Fight definitely. You can attribute the way it sounds to him.
You stayed in Peter’s house while you recorded. Did you do anything to piss off him or his wife?
What Peter does is he’s a big hockey fan. He goes out to play hockey once or twice a week and basically he gets his aggression out. He plays hockey and beats up his friends on the ice. So when he’s in the studio he’s a fairly mellow person.
Before signing with FatCat, you almost signed with a major label. What’s the story?
It’s this label called Fiction which is a subsidiary of Universal. They courted us for awhile and led us on. In the end they put a deal on the table that just wasn’t right for us. It was really non-committal. They were the ones that were going to be making money. We said we weren’t happy with their deal, so they said see you later. It was pretty horrible at the time. It was not a nice thing to go through but looking back they kind of saved us. I think this past year we’ve had with FatCat has been the best.
When did the band get its first big break? Was it when John Krasinski (“Jim” from The Office) discovered you?
That was probably our proudest moment of the year. Last summer we watched The Office constantly on our laptops.
Have you met him yet?
When we played in LA in October we emailed him and said yeah we’re playing we’ll stick you on the guest list. He never showed up, but he emailed us the next day and said he was stuck at work and he was slowly watching the time tick toward stage time. We haven’t met him yet, but it’s on our To Do list, maybe swap some autographs.
Which version of The Office is better? American or UK?
Oh, ah, gee. It’s a hot debate, this one. They’re so different now, I think the UK office still has its own sort of identity ‘cause they’re just completely different, but I think I found the US office more enjoyable to watch. There’s not as many cringe moments. I’ll stay diplomatic on that one and say they both have their merits.
What’s the worst job you’ve had trying to make it as a struggling musician?
I haven’t really had to do any bad jobs to be honest. I worked in Urban Outfitters, and it wasn’t great. Working at the supermarket, at the till, was probably the worst.
Andy (keyboardist) was telling us earlier that he used to work on the train lines basically him and this other guy and their job was to sort of throw these lines up onto the wires above the trains to cut the power so people could actually walk on the tracks and it wasn’t his responsibility to do the job. He was with the guy carrying the cables. Night shift. One night the guy said you give it a shot, so he threw them up and short-circuited the whole thing. He never went back and caused several thousand pounds worth of damage to the train lines, and I think the guy he was working with got demoted. That wasn’t a great job for Andy.
Billy (guitarist) used to put the metal bits on dental floss. You know the thing you snap the dental floss off with… Billy used to put them onto the plastic casing.
How does someone get that job?
There was a dental floss factory near where we grew up.
Have you experienced a Quarter Life Crisis?
Yeah, just before we left, I had to move home to my parent’s house because I can’t afford to have a flat in Glasgow. I was packing my boxes and thinking I really miss having a 9-5 job and having a wage coming into my bank every month that I can afford to pay my rent with and buy cigarettes. But then you go on stage for 45 minutes and it pulls you back in and you know exactly why you’re doing this.
Is the rock and roll life what you imagined it would be?
Absolutely not. It’s not what I expected. For our band, few girls, no drugs, no smashing up TVs, windows anything like that. It’s a job. It’s not paid well at the moment. We don’t have a tour bus yet either so we’re living out of a Ford 15-seater. Sticking all your clothes in a pillow case and hoping that the next hotel has a laundry that you can wash your clothes with. We don’t have a crew to load our gear or anything like that…
We stayed with our manager the other night and there were four of us. Most NYC apartments are really small so we were sleeping on the floor and looking at each other like in four days’ time we’re going to play a sold out show at the Bowery, and here we are sleeping on the floor in NYC. Hopefully we are nearing the end of it anyway. But I wouldn’t change it for anything.
You hear these bands who are now in tour buses and have all the perks and they say I wish we could go back to the days of playing the dirty rock and roll venues and sleeping in a van, and you just think, no you don’t. You don’t. That’s a lie. We’ll swap with you. We’ll take your bus and you take our van and see how you manage.
When will you start recording a new album?
We get home on the 4th of February and we’ll take time off. Scott, the songwriter, is going to go away for a month and try to get some demos together and then we’ll get together and solidify the demos and hopefully have it recorded by June. We want to get back into it and not lose momentum. I don’t like waiting three years for my favorite band to release an album. When you think back to the ‘60s and ‘70s and how many albums were released, like two albums a year for a band. We want to get it out as soon as possible, hopefully later this year or early 2010.
Where does Scott go to write?
He’s actually going to a friend of ours’ house on the east coast of Scotland by the sea and he’s going to shut himself away for a month. It’s not like getting inspiration from the rolling hills and the sandy beach or anything like that. He just has to be alone and take the time to do it.
You’re a band that’s about to make it big. What do you want people to know about you?
Scott and I are eczema sufferers and it’s not easy being on tour with eczema. That’s what we want them to know. We have to get medicated cream and stuff.
And also that people should never stop approaching us and staying hi because that’s the most important thing about being in a band is speaking to the people who are paying your wages. We never want to be diva like at all and we never will be.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Beef on the Street
I have been unemployed since December 12th. Technically, this time off is supposed to go toward my writing projects, but I couldn't resist the urge to travel. I grew up travelling quite a bit and spent six months living abroad. Since college, the chances to travel have come few and far between. When the end of my freelance job approached, I e-mailed all of my friends to see if anyone would be silly enough to come with me to Moscow, Kenya, Brazil, Antarctica, Cambodia... who cares where? I found a taker: my friend Blocks. We threw a few more countries out there, then decided on Argentina. Buenos Aires is cheap after all. We bought our flights, and ten days later we took off from separate coasts, headed to the EZE.
When I boarded my flight, I was excited there were so many exotic looking hip people on my flight. Everywhere I turned, men wore plastic glasses and argyle sweaters and yet managed not to look completely stupid. I had never been to South America and figured Buenos Aires must have been the hippest place on Earth. How could I have not come here before? I hadn't even thought about visiting Buenos Aires before I bought my ticket ten days prior. All I knew about Argentina was that Borges was from here.
When I got off the plane, it was significantly less hip at the airport. I had boarded a flight from New York City, after all. That explained it. I looked around a few times and realized I hadn't actually made plans to meet up with my friend Blocks, who was flying in from San Francisco via some other city. I had assumed he would be standing at the gate waiting for me to get off the plane, arms open wide. That didn't happen. It took about ninety minutes for us to find each other between two terminals. We were both exhausted and starving because American Airlines had "forgotten" to load our vegetarian meal on our respective flights. Coincidence? I think not.
We took a two hour bus ride into the city. It was insufferably long, extremely humid, and I was cranky, already regretting the trip as the bus stopped at various playgrounds and gas stations in the country side to pick up more people. We finally arrived in the city and scavenged around for vegetarian food. There was none. This was more like it:
Eventually, we found some cafeteria spaghetti. It was the same story for dinner. And breakfast the next day. Bread, toast, croissants, pasta, more bread baskets, more pasta with cheese, more bread. Spaghetti may sound filling, but consider this: I ate carbs for every meal on my two week trip and dropped ten pounds. Does that sound like a vacation?
Now, I know Argentina is far from Mexico, and on a totally different continent, but I really expected there to be some Mexican food in Buenos Aires. It's a giant metropolitan city. No rice? No beans? I'm not asking for falafel. Every single thing on the menu is beef or lamb. I was hoping for some good street food, like in Europe, and lo and behold, I found it. Check out the beef on the street:
This is what we get for not doing research before picking a travel destination. Beef on the street.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
I'm Ric Flair
I went back to the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment - formerly WWF) for a second temp job. This time, they decided I should be the receptionist. This was not something I wanted to do - in fact I would rather shoot myself - but it was hard to turn down five days of steady work.
I really hate answering the phone. I also hate talking to people I don't know. At least while filing, I could ignore the outside world and be alone with my thoughts for eight hours. Not to mention, filing really masturbated the OCD part of my brain.
I sat down at the reception desk to find out I would be operating the switchboard for the entire company. Have I mentioned I'm bad with phones? At my former real job as a producer, I never once checked my voicemail. I barely know how to operate call waiting, let alone answer eight separate lines.
The minute I sat down, the phone rang. I picked it up. Someone with a distinctly southern accent was shouting in the phone. "Yeah, can I speak to Vince McMahon?" I looked to the girl who was training me. She explained, Vince McMahon is the C.E.O. of the company. He's also sort of a celebrity. While still on that call, another line lit up. "World Wrestling Entertainment" I squeaked out. "Can I talk to The Big Red Monster?" It was a twelve-year old kid. I put him on hold. The girl training me said, "We get a lot of crazies calling here. A lot of fans... Just do your best and talk to them. If they want to speak to Vince or one of the wrestlers, transfer them to fan services." The phone rang again. This time it was an eldery lady. "Can I speak to Sexual Chocolate please?" "Don't hang up," the girl mouthed to me. I transferred her to fan services.
After an hour, the girl training me said she had to go. Before she left, she warned me, "Whatever you do, don't transfer anyone to Vince McMahon. Anyone that needs Vince already has his number." "Got it," I said. All morning long, I got calls from little boys and rednecks. I only got a handful of calls from business people looking for executives. I couldn't help but wonder why the WWE takes fan calls on their main office switchboard. It seemed like a waste of resources. Some of these fans were persistent:
Redneck: Can I speak to Vince?
Me: I can take a message for you
Redneck: Sure. Uh... tell him that my name is Jeremy. I won a free rafting trip for two and i'd like to take him as my special guest.
Me: Mmmhmm. Got it
He left his number. Then, twenty minutes later he called back.
Redneck: Can I speak to Vince?
Me: Oh hi - we talked earlier?
Redneck: Yeah, I want to know if he got my message yet. Does he want to be my special guest on my uh rafting trip?
I transferred him to the fan hotline. He called back. It was like this all afternoon. Then I got this call:
Man: Can I speak to Vince McMahon?
Me: I can't transfer you, but I can take a message.
Man: Tell him I'm Ric Flair. I need to talk to him ASAP.
Me: I can transfer you to a special voicemail box.
I transferred him to fan services and googled Ric Flair - yup, it seemed this guy was impersonating a wrestler. He called back instantly.
Man: Hi, this is Ric Flair. I really need to talk to Vince.
He sounded somewhat sane, so I reasoned with him.
Me: Look, Sir - I can't transfer you to Vince. If you were really Ric Flair, you would have his number.
He kept arguing with me. I had to cut him off and transfer him back to fan services. THEN, I got a message from Vince McMahon's office. Apparently Ric was on his way to the building, and I had dissed the WWE's most famous wrestler. Half an hour later, he walked in the door, carrying a bouquet of yellow roses for the McMahons.
On Day 2, I managed to diss another wrestler. A big burly black man walked up to me and said, "I'm Mark Henry. I'm here for Vince." I asked him to spell his name. "Mark Henry," he repeated. I stared at him with a blank look. "Sexual Chocolate," he said forcefully. "Man, don't you know anything?" he said, looking at me with disgust. I actually HAD heard of Sexual Chocolate. He should have just started off with that.
On Day 3, a huge guy walked through the door wearing various gold chains, blinged out to the nines. He said, "Hi I need to speak to Vince. I'm Junkyard Dog's son." I gave him the royal treatment and told him to have a seat. I quickly googled Junkyard Dog. Apparently, he's a famous dead wrestler. I called up Vince's office with a message about my guest. They had never heard of Junkyard Dog's son. I kicked him out. This guy was an impostor.
I really hate answering the phone. I also hate talking to people I don't know. At least while filing, I could ignore the outside world and be alone with my thoughts for eight hours. Not to mention, filing really masturbated the OCD part of my brain.
I sat down at the reception desk to find out I would be operating the switchboard for the entire company. Have I mentioned I'm bad with phones? At my former real job as a producer, I never once checked my voicemail. I barely know how to operate call waiting, let alone answer eight separate lines.
The minute I sat down, the phone rang. I picked it up. Someone with a distinctly southern accent was shouting in the phone. "Yeah, can I speak to Vince McMahon?" I looked to the girl who was training me. She explained, Vince McMahon is the C.E.O. of the company. He's also sort of a celebrity. While still on that call, another line lit up. "World Wrestling Entertainment" I squeaked out. "Can I talk to The Big Red Monster?" It was a twelve-year old kid. I put him on hold. The girl training me said, "We get a lot of crazies calling here. A lot of fans... Just do your best and talk to them. If they want to speak to Vince or one of the wrestlers, transfer them to fan services." The phone rang again. This time it was an eldery lady. "Can I speak to Sexual Chocolate please?" "Don't hang up," the girl mouthed to me. I transferred her to fan services.
After an hour, the girl training me said she had to go. Before she left, she warned me, "Whatever you do, don't transfer anyone to Vince McMahon. Anyone that needs Vince already has his number." "Got it," I said. All morning long, I got calls from little boys and rednecks. I only got a handful of calls from business people looking for executives. I couldn't help but wonder why the WWE takes fan calls on their main office switchboard. It seemed like a waste of resources. Some of these fans were persistent:
Redneck: Can I speak to Vince?
Me: I can take a message for you
Redneck: Sure. Uh... tell him that my name is Jeremy. I won a free rafting trip for two and i'd like to take him as my special guest.
Me: Mmmhmm. Got it
He left his number. Then, twenty minutes later he called back.
Redneck: Can I speak to Vince?
Me: Oh hi - we talked earlier?
Redneck: Yeah, I want to know if he got my message yet. Does he want to be my special guest on my uh rafting trip?
I transferred him to the fan hotline. He called back. It was like this all afternoon. Then I got this call:
Man: Can I speak to Vince McMahon?
Me: I can't transfer you, but I can take a message.
Man: Tell him I'm Ric Flair. I need to talk to him ASAP.
Me: I can transfer you to a special voicemail box.
I transferred him to fan services and googled Ric Flair - yup, it seemed this guy was impersonating a wrestler. He called back instantly.
Man: Hi, this is Ric Flair. I really need to talk to Vince.
He sounded somewhat sane, so I reasoned with him.
Me: Look, Sir - I can't transfer you to Vince. If you were really Ric Flair, you would have his number.
He kept arguing with me. I had to cut him off and transfer him back to fan services. THEN, I got a message from Vince McMahon's office. Apparently Ric was on his way to the building, and I had dissed the WWE's most famous wrestler. Half an hour later, he walked in the door, carrying a bouquet of yellow roses for the McMahons.
On Day 2, I managed to diss another wrestler. A big burly black man walked up to me and said, "I'm Mark Henry. I'm here for Vince." I asked him to spell his name. "Mark Henry," he repeated. I stared at him with a blank look. "Sexual Chocolate," he said forcefully. "Man, don't you know anything?" he said, looking at me with disgust. I actually HAD heard of Sexual Chocolate. He should have just started off with that.
On Day 3, a huge guy walked through the door wearing various gold chains, blinged out to the nines. He said, "Hi I need to speak to Vince. I'm Junkyard Dog's son." I gave him the royal treatment and told him to have a seat. I quickly googled Junkyard Dog. Apparently, he's a famous dead wrestler. I called up Vince's office with a message about my guest. They had never heard of Junkyard Dog's son. I kicked him out. This guy was an impostor.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Adventures in Temping
The past two years have been a whirlwind. In early 2007, I quit my steady job to pursue a career in comedy writing. Landing such a job requires writing sample scripts of sitcoms currently on TV, and then getting the script to the right person - usually the "showrunner" or head writer of a tv series - the only person who can do the hiring. I had been told that I would have a great advantage as a female and ethnic person. Comedy is one of the only industries still dominated by white males, typically from Harvard. Therefore, being a half-Asian female who attended Stanford, I was considered a minority who would round out a staff.
I had no qualms about quitting my job with a few grand in the bank with no back up plan. Since I am extremely smart and extremely funny, I figured it would be a year max before I landed a comedy writing job. After all, I had moved to L.A. after college and made some connections. Not showrunners, but revered comedy writers nonetheless. I had been quite successful at various endeavors from a young age - always a step ahead of where I should have been. In the first grade, I did second grade math. In the sixth grade, I got bumped up to the 7th/8th grade orchestra. The 8th grade I skipped entirely.
It turned out, though, that it wasn't very easy to land a comedy writing job as a half-asian female from Stanford with several writing samples of professional quality. When I decided to quit my job, either I didn't notice there were very few sitcoms left on the air (replaced these days by shows like "Deal or No Deal"), or I was just so sure of my own talent that I didn't care that there were hundreds of out of work comedy writers with credits like "Seinfeld" and "Friends" to their name.
By January of 2008, I ran out of money and was forced to take on odd jobs through a temp agency. At first, I took on mindless office work. Later, I ended up working in an assembly line at Pepperidge Farm making $12/hour. I was told by the temp agency that the pay was not great, but that I would find the job fun and exciting - not the typical office work. I figured it would have to be something mildly clerical - it is an OFFICE after all. When I arrived, I was informed I would be spending the day measuring and weighing "sticky buns" (_cinnamon rolls_), frozen and thawed. The kicker - my two colleagues were mentally disabled. Literally - sub 75 IQ. So disabled that they had to live with their parents. When the supervisor set us up for the morning, she suggested that I do the easy job of placing the sticky buns on the automatic scale, since this was my first time at the job. She would leave the more complicated measuring process to the other woman, and have the man record the numbers onto a chart. Nevermind the fact that I had graduated first in my high school class, or that the three of us splitting up duties in such a manner was slower than me doing the entire process myself. I went with her plan and spent eight hours silently putting sticky frozen pastries onto a scale.
I just sat there with my thoughts, stewing about how my life had hit a new low, and as bad as I needed eighty bucks post tax, I didn't need it so bad as to be measuring sticky buns with not ONE but TWO mentally challenged people,where I was the odd man out. What was the temp agency trying to tell me? Had they seen my resume? They thought I would "love" this job and have "so much fun?" The other two temps certainly were thrilled. They were really into the perk of eating the sticky buns after we measured them. They sucked up to the supervisor, hoping to land full-time jobs.
Up to that point, I sometimes enjoyed temping because it allowed me to be someone other than myself for a day - I revelled in the idea of feeling invisible - of no one around me knowing a detail about my life. A few weeks prior, I had worked for a shipping company. The office was so pleased with my sorting and filing abilities that they gave me bottles of wine and took me out to expensive lunches ("bet you can't afford this with your salary! eat up!"). They even offered me a full-time admin job and insisted several times that I take it -no interview, no resume. All based on my extraordinary filing skills. I felt guilty, like an impostor embezzling their money and goodwill. Yes, I was a temp and yes I needed the $80/day after taxes temporarily, but I didn't need that first leg up in the working world. I was broke by choice - taking day jobs so I could devote my time to writing scripts and one day become the creative force I had envisioned myself to be.
Now, it's been almost a year since that job at Pepperidge Farm. The second half of '08 was more fruitful professionally. I finally did land a stint writing comedy for an animated show. But I find myself entering the New Year totally unemployed (by choice) and perhaps eight weeks away from another Pepperidge Farm-esque experience. All of this, I suffer through in order to keep my days free and devoted to my writing. Someone said to me that this is the story that will be told when I make it big.
I had no qualms about quitting my job with a few grand in the bank with no back up plan. Since I am extremely smart and extremely funny, I figured it would be a year max before I landed a comedy writing job. After all, I had moved to L.A. after college and made some connections. Not showrunners, but revered comedy writers nonetheless. I had been quite successful at various endeavors from a young age - always a step ahead of where I should have been. In the first grade, I did second grade math. In the sixth grade, I got bumped up to the 7th/8th grade orchestra. The 8th grade I skipped entirely.
It turned out, though, that it wasn't very easy to land a comedy writing job as a half-asian female from Stanford with several writing samples of professional quality. When I decided to quit my job, either I didn't notice there were very few sitcoms left on the air (replaced these days by shows like "Deal or No Deal"), or I was just so sure of my own talent that I didn't care that there were hundreds of out of work comedy writers with credits like "Seinfeld" and "Friends" to their name.
By January of 2008, I ran out of money and was forced to take on odd jobs through a temp agency. At first, I took on mindless office work. Later, I ended up working in an assembly line at Pepperidge Farm making $12/hour. I was told by the temp agency that the pay was not great, but that I would find the job fun and exciting - not the typical office work. I figured it would have to be something mildly clerical - it is an OFFICE after all. When I arrived, I was informed I would be spending the day measuring and weighing "sticky buns" (_cinnamon rolls_), frozen and thawed. The kicker - my two colleagues were mentally disabled. Literally - sub 75 IQ. So disabled that they had to live with their parents. When the supervisor set us up for the morning, she suggested that I do the easy job of placing the sticky buns on the automatic scale, since this was my first time at the job. She would leave the more complicated measuring process to the other woman, and have the man record the numbers onto a chart. Nevermind the fact that I had graduated first in my high school class, or that the three of us splitting up duties in such a manner was slower than me doing the entire process myself. I went with her plan and spent eight hours silently putting sticky frozen pastries onto a scale.
I just sat there with my thoughts, stewing about how my life had hit a new low, and as bad as I needed eighty bucks post tax, I didn't need it so bad as to be measuring sticky buns with not ONE but TWO mentally challenged people,where I was the odd man out. What was the temp agency trying to tell me? Had they seen my resume? They thought I would "love" this job and have "so much fun?" The other two temps certainly were thrilled. They were really into the perk of eating the sticky buns after we measured them. They sucked up to the supervisor, hoping to land full-time jobs.
Up to that point, I sometimes enjoyed temping because it allowed me to be someone other than myself for a day - I revelled in the idea of feeling invisible - of no one around me knowing a detail about my life. A few weeks prior, I had worked for a shipping company. The office was so pleased with my sorting and filing abilities that they gave me bottles of wine and took me out to expensive lunches ("bet you can't afford this with your salary! eat up!"). They even offered me a full-time admin job and insisted several times that I take it -no interview, no resume. All based on my extraordinary filing skills. I felt guilty, like an impostor embezzling their money and goodwill. Yes, I was a temp and yes I needed the $80/day after taxes temporarily, but I didn't need that first leg up in the working world. I was broke by choice - taking day jobs so I could devote my time to writing scripts and one day become the creative force I had envisioned myself to be.
Now, it's been almost a year since that job at Pepperidge Farm. The second half of '08 was more fruitful professionally. I finally did land a stint writing comedy for an animated show. But I find myself entering the New Year totally unemployed (by choice) and perhaps eight weeks away from another Pepperidge Farm-esque experience. All of this, I suffer through in order to keep my days free and devoted to my writing. Someone said to me that this is the story that will be told when I make it big.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)