an accounting

there's a reason I hid in accounting firms for years.

I didn't get the ESP position.

15 Other people did at Hollywood Death Cab.

I feel ... stupid.

The only thing worse then applying yourself to get a job you're overqualified for is not getting that job.

Wow.

It just fucking stings.

It was one of those occassions where I really felt I had it. I've deluded myself before, walking outta auditions, but this felt good.

I haven't hurt this much since I lost the part for Winthrop in The Music Man to an albino who's father owned half of our small town.

THIS is why stars act like muthafuckers. Because, as my pal Blankie told me: too bad, so sad. She walks outta auditions all the time thinking she's bagged it, and hears nary a peep. This is the life you've signed up for.

It's not like I was up for a sitcom part. Barely a raise in pay for what I was seeking. More the acknowledement that I'm fucking good at what I'm doing from someone in management. I know the folks in the Death Cab love me, I get props and compliments and tips all the time. Yet all their compliments are lost "like tears in rain" when they leave my Cab and return to Hollywood Boulevard.

Of course, now with the rejection, you asses all the things you thought were positive in your audition, and as you roll things over in the gem polisher of your mind, you see how every triumpant moment was actually your downfall. Maybe the poem should have been a haiku? Maybe you performed too hard? Maybe you weren't as erudite as you thought you were? Examine, mull, lather, rinse, repeat.

I went to sleep last night looking forward to that small moment of comfort in the morning. The moment when you awake, and you don't remember why it is you are a miserable wretch. Of course, within seconds you remember what transpired the day before, and go back to your writhing. But for that small second, you've forgotten your pain.

surge and purge

Had a big audition today. For me. Was auditioning for a Hollywood Death Cab's program called Extra Special People or ESP. It's our elite guides, they guides they let take around celebs, Saudis and rich people who live in McMansions. We charge more for a ESP tour, but you get to interact. We even have a hotel room rigged up, so you get to feel like you are overdosing on acid, like Sheldon Leonard did on his way to the grave. You're auditioning against your peers to get into ESP, so it's a different. I've had some auditions in this town, that I've approached anticipating all the negative things. Or just hoping to get-through them, to survive and feel it a physchological victory. But today, I wanted to show that I could book a job. Show my peers I was good. No one really knows if anyone is any good out there on the Tour. The last ghitng we want to do is take another guide's tour and hear the tour that torments us in our sleep one more time. If someone is funny in the breakroom, you assume there tour is good. I won't know until a couple weeks, but if I did not get this ESP, I'll be surprised.

The adrenline was surging through me today, I would find myself having to give war whoops during the day to let it out. I was to compose a poem for entry into ESP. The guy that runs it is VERY eccentric, even by Hollywood standards. Often goes around with a craveat or elizabethian collar. He used to require iambic pentameter for the poem, but now he allows you to do whatevever you want. The subject is taken from our training manual, a bit of fluff material we use if the traffic is especially heavy in Hollywood, and we are stuck. It's all about the stages a body goes through, from crime scene to burial.

I felt like I nailed it, I looked him in his beady eyes and just hammered home my limmerick on decline. I even called up friends of our who work in the funeral trade to make sure I had it down, and then I brought up real-life instances I knew, like what went on with Marilyn's body when she died.

So I learned all this new material that I wrote, I think that helps me over other guides who aren't good writers, and I puked it all out to Mr. Elizabethian. I've heard stories he can be quite brutal if things go wrong in your presentation, and he's also very competitve about his status at Hollywood Death Cab.

If I don't get this, then I will be quite surprised. Stranger things have happened in hollywood land, but it felt great to knock this one outta the park. Who loves and reads about death more than me? Who's more intellectual to get over in a morbidly funny way to high-end guests? I kept saying "just book it, baby," when I was getting nervous before the audition, and: I hope I do.

Blankie's conventional wisdom

Blankie has done a few pilots. She's not un-like the chick in Pulp Fiction, who's had her pilot moment. A pilot is like a gilded lottery ticket. You're no longer competing against the millions, you've reduced your odds to the 100s. If you have someone helming the pilot with a great track record, currently hot show, your chances increase. And still, I've had a pal on a pilot made by the dudes who made Cheers that was a dud. They call it "pilot season," and everyone gets all excited, thinking their show could be the next "Everybody Loves Raymond." I've been in Lost Anglos for quite a spell, and I've never even auditioned for a pilot. Of course, I've always played at the game, instead of being serious.

Blankie's been on some good shows, been on some good movies. But still, she has to work it. She does these conventions. Sometimes she'll have a table next to Larry Storch of F-Troop. Other times, the brother's from Scarface. The lower rungs of celebrity, trading on glimmer of recognition.

Blankie is very cute lady, so she's often in her bathing suit, doing bathing suit modeling. Weird scary dudes who rarely venture outside from their interior cyber-space pay money for a picture, or an autograph. One guy brought in a giant cardboard print-out of his room (complete with an Enterprise poster in the background) and asked her to pose in front of it. It was a backdrop essentially, to prove to his buddies that he scores with hot bathing suit budies. Take that cyber-pal, she was in my fucking room!! In her bathing suit!!!

You fly to the conventions ($$$) you need a hotel room ($$), cabs ($$), and of course your registration ($$) and all this is predicated on people wanting pictures with you, or your autograph. Willing to pay you for these favors. Sometimes its good: she made $500(+) many times. Other times, tiz bad: you end up making nothing, meaning you lose, based on all your expenses. Blankie had a decent role in Visionquest, but she's still just slugging it out to stay afloat. Peeps outside of hollywood see someone on TV or in a movie, and assume they're rich. Not so.

During one convention, Blankie bonded with one of the dudes from Stripes. I think it was Francis, the pyscho killer guy ("Anyone touches my stuff, I'll kill them."). Francis had not seen either the gravy or the train in quite a while. But, on a good day, he sez his old lines, arches an eyebrow, and walks with $500.00 ...

to the right, always to the right, never to the left. Sing Hosanah!

I have to admit, I love going into right-wing world on the net and trying my viewpoints out. To suddenly give their on-message world a counter-point. Newsmax is not the only source for news! Try reading the NY Times instead of the Washington Times! (why do you not trust a Moonie at an airport, but you trust him for news?)

It is, of course, a losing battle. They've got a million sites, a million arguments, and they attack in gangs. If you try to do some quick research on the net, you find that there point-of-view was the rage de jour, and looking for a rebuttal, or reasonable counter-attack takes you 20 pages in on Google. The first 20 pages are all the various right-wing boards trumpeting this outrage! I have to hand it to them: they are well-fed, they are passionate in a way that most liberals aren't (dare I use the world "zealots"?), they got game. They come up with what I call "older brother" arguments, arguments so audicious, you can't believe what you just heard.

One of my favorites: Ann Coultier defending Rush Limbaugh's fall from grace by saying "Why is it that liberals attack anyone who advocates decency and makes a mistake?" Maybe because when you attack others publicly for things that you do yourself is darn close to the definition for a word called "hypocrisy"?

Anyway, I have a few pals who have this sickness, to venture forth into the chat rooms, the internet bulletin boards that are strongholds of the right and try to goose them. Here is one of their stories:

Dear Friends

If you want to correspond with me, use my WORK e-mail. I was "permanently expelled" from AOL. I have had this bad habit of arguing in the "From the Right" chat room on AOL. Two days ago I started arguing with this woman in the chat room about something (I don't even remember the topic). When she told me to "shut the fuck up," I looked at her profile and found that she had a confederate flag on her profile. When I pointed out that I didn't give much credence to the viewpoints of racists as suggested by her profile, she told the chat room that I must be personally interested in her, and that she only "accepts cash." I responded by saying that I wasn't really into "dumb whores". I was reported "hall monitor" style to AOL police who told me that they were permanently canceling my AOL membership because I had been warned previously (four other times in 7 months) about offending people on AOL. Keep in mind that I have been an AOL customer for over 10 years and that I have all sorts of stored information, e-mail addresses, photos, etc. on AOL that I will lose permanently now. I spent hour after hour on the phone with customer service, and with customer service supervisors but so far I am without recourse.

It sounds funny but the consequences are actually pretty devastating as my internet identity and information of 10 years have been destroyed. The only real humor came from hearing an AOL customer service representative read my previous transgressions in his Indian accent. During the Presidential elections when some college kid, who had spent most of his time in the chat room trying to pick up women with lewd come ons, told me that he would never vote for someone who looked like Herman Munster, I told him, "Instead of you people spending your time sending pictures of your cocks and pussies to each other, you should read a newspaper so you actually have something to talk about in a political chat room." On another occasion, I called one of the fanatical Terri Schiavo supporters in the room, a "Rapture Right Retard". Again, I admit to making offensive comments using an anonymous screenname but bear in mind that the people I was chatting with often made comments equally offensive in my direction. My comments were not made to people in a church group chat room. The only difference is that I didn't feel the need to "report" their behavior to AOL Mommy and Daddy.

Just seems a bit hypocritical that AOL allows for "mature" chat rooms like. "DaddyLooking4Slutdaughter" and "Mom4Son", etc. but using the word "retard" was enough to take away my information and contacts, accumulated over a decade. There has to be some additional irony in the fact that ultimately I was told that my behavior in a political chat room offended people, at the same time that AOL parent, Time Warner, put Ann Coulter on the cover of Time Magazine this week. Which is more offensive, calling a bigot in a chat room a "whore" or publishing for millions the viewpoint of a woman who called overweight women who attended the Democratic National Convention, "Pie Wagons"? While censorship involves government activity, I guess we are in an age when mega-corporations can do whatever they want and cannot be held accountable and no one can call it censorship. I have to wonder if the person that made this decision at AOL took into account my political viewpoints and whether or not they would have made the same decision if they had agreed with mine. So much for Freedom of Speech. AOL Uber Alles.

Boozarelli's

A bunch of us went drinking the other night. Hollywood Death Cab folks. At Boozerelli's, the Italian shit hole on H-wood Boulevard. After a day of telling 'bout the excesses of star's that brought them down to earth, we are ready to test our own mortal coils. It's a birthday for one of the Barkers.

The Barkers and the Drivers at Hollywood Death Cab make the most money. The Drivers are union drivers, teamsters. The Barker's actually get a percentage of every person they pull in off Hollywood Boulevard to take the tour. If they have a good day, they can walk, easy, with $100 bux. In cash, as our tour takes only $$$. Because of this, they stand close to the Instant Tellar Machines on H-wood Boulevard, imploring people to take the tour. Sometimes the banks complain, but the smart Barkers actually give the guards gifts at the various banks. They are paid minimum wage for their shift, which lists them officially as a tourguide, so that all the $$ is essentially not being reported to Uncle Sam. Thus, when a Barker has a birthday, all the regular tourguides know they'll be drinking free.

This barker was a kewl dude, one of the funniest we have. Never figured out why he doesn't make it in stand-up, which he still does at Guffaws, on h-woood Blvd. He's about 300 plus pounds, but cuddly funny, not bitter funny. He told me he's got an internet girl in Ecuador he's thinking of visiting. I tell him as the night goes on, that he could just whip out his Visa Gold, his U.S. visa, and fly to Ecuador the next morning. He decides he's doing it. Flying to meet his internet, third-world Ecuadorian gal pal in the A.M.

Another Barker is a hot girl. She dresses-up like Angalie Jolie in Laura Croft, and lures in tourists that way. Tonight at Boozerelli's she gets a little loaded and does a striptease to her panties. It's back in the corner, the place has a trillion VIP spaces, all designed for the old-skool hollywood daze, and we formed a ring around her for safety. She's really beautiful (for a straight girl), and I'm looking to my left at our guide Jad, wishing he would take his clothes off. He's making me crazy lately, but he's arrow-straight and I'm in a serious relationship. Lots of my pals in gay-land say they are in relationships, even say they are wed, but have all sorts of outs, rules and clauses to allow them to slut it up. My straight friend calls it "the international gay marriage rules." For me and my gay lover, however, we find that shit eventually chips away at your resolve in all things. So, I quit looking at Jad, and pretend to be excited about the strip-tease I'm watching.

I find drinking with work cronies dangerous, but of all the hokey management schemes to foster good work environments, this one really does work. Once you've heard a few drunken confessions, you get a much better idea of who your co-worker is. For me, it's the tendancy to go too far, and reveal too much about myself. A few folks know for sure I'm out, and I'm not really closeted, but I don't make the first words of any new person I meet as "Hello, I'm GAY!" So, it's that fine line I sashey.

I look back, and now the barely-clothed barker is wrestling with one of the drivers. She claims she was raised by brothers, and can wrestle. He's a big dude, and picks her up in the air and twirls her. The bartenders, despite cutting us tons of slack over the years, shoot us dagger-eyes. Finally, he pins her to the ground, in her panties and bra, and our corner of the room explodes in cheers! Or boos. There was a lot of betting taking place before this wrestling match. Hollywood Death Cabs has a huge betting culture, we are constantly betting on all sorts of shit, and our pool for which star is going to die next is way more accurate then any in the U.S.

I spend the night talking to one of our bosses who I like. Not "like-like," just think he's a cool dude. We talk about all the ills of Hollywood Death Cabs and how we'd solve him. I ramble and rage against all manor of peeps, I hope he's what he seems. If he gossips me out, I could be in some shit.

Finally, I'm getting so out of hand, I'm pinching random dudes butts at the bar. The bartender who shot us dagger-eyes earlier, comes up behind me with a firm hand on the shoulder. "I think Denny's is still open," he sez.

I'm too ashamed to answer, and I walk right out the door, up the street to Denny's. Another 2AM steak&eggs in my belly, and home to my gay lover.

I know how to shut that toilet up

Stage 222 at Worldwide Studios is very close to where I work, in fact our Hollywood Death Cab often goes on a quick pass through a part of the studio. We have a contractual relationship with Worldwide. Of course, when we go through Worldwide, we have to tone down our act, way down. Careful not poop on their party and lose our privilege. There's a new sitcom being made at Worldwide by two of the powers-that-be on the Johnsons, the longest-running animated show of all times. I have a "go-see" for this sitcom. I am to show up in my approximation of the character they are casting. It's a background character, but I guess more prominiently featured.

I've badly fucked my wardrobe. They asked for a "Sipowitz" cop type from NYPD, but I really didn't have anything that frumpy in my closet. I was frustated and getting late for the looksee, so I ended up being more "Hip-o-witz." Put on a shirt with Malaysian print, figured the show was set in Times Square, someone would do the tourist angle. When I arrived I saw all the other candidates were very bald, and wore short-sleeved white shirts with ties. Got a withering glance (the most ouchy glance of all), from the director, and then he stomped away. Come to find out, he's a relation of someone who I've studied under in impovisation techniques. Fuck. But, as a union member, I got $30 bucks for my trouble. As I leave the soundstage, a Hollywood Death Cab goes by with a buddy, and I wave like a star at the Cab. "Have you ever watched CSI-Miami?," my bud sez to his Cab crew, "well, that guy has too."

Later in the day I signed up for an extra's agency. I've been making the rounds, and dropping my $40 here, my $50 here to register with all these extra agencies, now that I'm union. All of them require a "photo" fee, where they take your shitty mugshot. At least the girl was honest at this agency, she admitted it's a total ploy to get cash-money that they don't have to report. If you don't ask for a receipt, they won't give you one. She told me she makes most of her money doing life-guard duties in the Hollywood hills. She said all the kids were no-biz brats, and destined to have a True Hollywood story about them on E! some day.

While at the agency, I stumbled in on an audition for a new Dr. Drew show. Dr. Drew is the pyschologist made famous from Loveline. Loveline answered teen's questions about sex and love. Funny and Blunt. Apparently, he's got a new show happening. So I was asked to pair with this lady and pretend to be a couple, being interviewed on the street about our love life. "Be REAL!" the callsheet said. Uh, okay. I thought we were real boring, the lady would not shut up and kept babbling. She decided that we had kids, and that would be the ruination of our sex life. "Yes, AND!" I said back to her, realizing I was not about to steer this ship with her as captain. We got videotaped and photographed from several different angles. Maybe they'll just build a computer model out of us and use us for eternity.

I went to Holllywood Death Cab under the illusion I would be reviewed this weekend. I'm trying to get into their Extra Special People program, where you take around the high-end clients. My gay lover had figured out through his contacts that I would be reviewed, if possible, since I hadn't been reviewed in over a year. It didn't happen, but that didn't keep me from not eating and having a nervous stomach all day. In the guideroom, everyone talked about the inequities of the review process. Completely arbitrary, random, and subjective. Nevermind all the people who leave your Deathcab saying "That's the best tour I've ever had." Those comments are lost like tears in rain, because a supervisor never hears them. I suggested doing gang-reviews with one of the right-wing guides ("From the left, it's Josh Ramsey, and from the right ..."). We also watched a commercial about a pesky talking toilet that wouldn't shut up. "I know how to shut that toilet up," I said quietly.

Then, I went to a party at a producer person's house, invite courtesy my gay lover. Gay Lover is an industry suit, so we get these sorta deals. It was Cupcake&Book party. Bring your unwanted books and bring some cupcakes. Several of the industry folks inhabit the higher rungs of No Biz, and were amazed to hear my tales of being background. They thought all background people were indigents, criminals, mental defectives. Which is partially true, but I tried to present a larger picture. One of the clowns, when he realized I was background, tried to stop talking to me. Early, he had been laffing at my wit, investing in converation with me. When I said I was background, he actually grimaced. He writes for a dismal show that I had worked "Deaf Court."

Con-Fessional Gambler

So, I’m at the Holiday Inn. As I told you earlier, I had just finished a hyped-up Hollywood bonanza of dubious real results. New Extra’s Casting Agency. Cast your line out in this town and reel in mostly old boots and kelp. But, cast you must, continue to move forward, as Fitzgerald sez “so we beat on, boats against the current.”

I’ve decided that what is more appropriate after a cheesy Hollywood moment, then to have a drink in the Holiday Inn lounge, euphanized as the showbiz graveyard by so many comedians. There’s a poster for a dude who’s THE MAN OF 1000 FACES. An impressionist. I used to love them as kids, now they make me nervous. Can’t put my finger on it, they just seem an inch away from being a mime, or a serial-killing clown.

I’ve gone to the corner of this totally empty bar. It’s a Friday, you would think they would have some trade. I’m sitting there, having my drink, and avoiding rush hour Friday traffic (which now goes all day on Friday. Friday traffic has no quiet period), when this weird dude sidles up. I didn’t realize there was a large screen TV by me, I just picked the diagonal to the furthest reach of the room. Habit of mine, musta been a mafia guy killed in a prior life due to not being able to see the entire landscape.

“Do you want to watch the news?” he sez.

“That’s fine, I was watching the ball game when I went to the bar.”

“Oh. Yes. The ballgame. I really would like to see the news, do you mind?” he sez.

“nah.”

So he proceeds to spin the dials pretty quick on the TV, and gets the news up. He’s in workout clothes. Mostly bald. Glasses. Non-descript face, but I get a corporate sense from him.

We chat about world events. He asks me why I’m here.

“I’m waiting out the traffic.”

“Oh yeah. Horrible. That’s why I left. Used to work in Insurance on Vermont Avenue.” he sez.

“Oh, that’s near where my gay lover works. [actual phrase I use: girlfriend. I’m out, but not so out as to tell random strangers at bars]” Then I ask:

“where are you now?”

“Vegas,” he sez.

“ahh. What do you do there?”

“professional gambler,” he sez.

Not looking like what we would think the stereotype of the professional gambler looks like, he’s actually closer to what one would have to look like: everyman. And it makes sense to me.

“Were you an actuary at the Insurance company.”

“Yep.”

“I knew it. Let me guess, you bet on baseball?”

“Yep.”

I had read once about true pro gamblers who stay in the game a long time. They bet on baseball, the favorites, and they bet on the good pitchers. Small margin of returns, but steady over the longhaul. Just the kind of thing a man who used to determine risk for a living would do.

“I hated the insurance game. You would have the sales force pushing you to insure people you knew were bad risks, and then if you did, and your fears realized, you would have management pissed off at you for doing so. Management never knew about all the sales you turned down that didn’t ruin the company. Those don’t show up on any chart.”

“I get it. Do you bet anything else?”

“Yeah, college basketball. I used to play. I played with Riley at Kentucky.”

He’s talking about Pat Riley, head GM of the Miami Heat. The guy sitting in front of me can not be over six feet.

“how tall are you?” I ask.

“Five-Eleven. I was a forward too. Had a forty-inch vertical leap.”

Maybe his lies are good and practiced, but I get the sense he’s the real deal.

“Betting college basketball is easy. As a player, you don’t care about the spread. Once you’ve got the lead, your focus will stray.”

“So a large spread is seldom covered,” sez I.

“Yep.”

“Have you ever been busted? I know casinos are not fond of losing their money, even to people who win legitimately.”

“Oh sure. I was stupid when I started. Blabbed a lot. Bot a lot of drinks, talked to the waitress. I got kicked out of Treasure Island.”

“yeah, I’ve heard that even if you beat Vegas legitimately, they can still can you.”

“Yes, they claim the gambling is only for “entertainment.” It’s entertaining to lose money to them, but apparently it’s not entertaining to consistently win.”

He tells me that now he bets at a different place, each day of the week. He doesn’t stay in that place and watch. He collects from a different shift then the one he bet with. And, he switches around the days of the week he bets at casinos so crews don’t get accustomed to him. He no longer talks to waitresses, he brings his own booze with him!

“Think about it, in Vegas you can buy a drink at a bar, and then carry it all over the casino. You get drinks so many different places in Vegas, no one knows where it came from.”

He also lets me know it’s a bad idea to bet baseball early.

“The bad teams don’t know they’re bad yet.”

He bets two months on, and then doesn’t bet for another two. Again, blend-in, don’t establish a recognitition factor. Of course, the question I should have asked him, is, with all the on-line betting now, why bet in Vegas and risk the goombahs giving you grief. I’m sure he’s figured out that angle to. He was also a commodities trader, so his love of risk and reward runs through his life.

“If you drive to Vegas, drive at 3:00AM on Monday Morning. You’ll make it in three hours.”

He leaves, and I realize he’s spent no money here, I actually bought him a drink I was enjoying his tale so much. He told me comes here most days when he’s in LA. He’s figured out this bar is a maseuleum, he can watch the news in the corner, and no one bugs him. Doesn’t have to buy a drink. I wonder if he rues talking to me? Even if you think it’s safe, I could have a relative at the sports book, one phone call, etc. I guess the burden of secrecy weighs heavily on him at times, so he picks and chooses who he tells. Or, he’s a world class liar holding court for a free drink. But then, I lied to him about who I fuck. Maybe you could go to this bar tomorrow, and he’d tell you he’s a rodeo clown.

Turning Quid-Pro-Quo Pro

I’ve been running around trying to sign up with various and sundry new extra agencies. Once you’ve gone SAG, the world becomes a colder place. You must move to a new level of sucking-up for work. Signed up for this one ultra-pushy-agency today, where they had this overly hyper-glad-guy back-slapping you into their world. Dreadful dull storefront operation on Coldwater Canyon in the Valley. Lord, the Valley depresses me. I had a friend who become a successful lighting guy in H-wood, but once, when he was denied a job, this dude said to him, “Maybe your gig’s in the valley.” Ouch. Of course, much studio stuff takes place in the valley, but the coolest jobs are all wesssside. Anyway, all these extra places want $$$, and they usually want CASH only. I wonder if they report all this $$ to the IRS. Remind me to call the IRS hotline when I’m truly ticked off at one of these agencies.

Then, I had a second casting cattle call at The Burbank Holiday Inn. Few places are cheesier, then this double tower of baloney. The Background Agency was a new enterprise, started by these two gals from a successful agency. They had hired a stylist! Oh please! And a pro photographer, to take a crappy mugshot of us. All these places are hell-bent on THEM taking a picture of you. DO NOT supply us with your headshot, you know that thing you spent good money on to make you not look like a mongoloid? And all of these places ultimately charge cash-money for these pictures. It must be a scam to make $$ and not report it. But, there’s one site, Background Artists (http://www.backgroundartists.tv/join-form.php?location=Los%20Angeles) that has this brilliant idea: the World Wide Web! Yes folks, it’s the year of their lord 2005, and you can actually have a website where you-yourself, type in your information, you-yourself, submit a j-peg of your photo (tarnation!) and then you are in their data base. Therefore the background agency does not pay a minion to type in the information that you fill in on a form. They do not pay for the taking of your picture by said minion. And it all still works on their data base. The guy still charges a fee for this service, so he’s making money. This mugshot culture is intellectually bankrupt.

I got glad-handed by the ladies running the agency as they know my gay lover is a suit in the biz. They started bugging me for intercession on his part. He is supposed to recommend their company to his company as the newest and bestest background company. I said I’d have him send an e-mail to the appropriate department. I gave them my card from Hollywood Death Cab and said quite candidly “quid pro quo.” I’ve never been so blunt as I have been lately. My Nebraska background was not about saying things like you “scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” More based on merit.

After the event, I thought a drink at a shitty Hollywood Holiday Inn Lounge would be appropriate. Read tomorrow’s blog about this.

Midget in the Shrubs

The Big Boss Man is coming to Hollywood Death Cabs. We’re all on code-red-anxiety alert. They even put that fool Dirk, out by the Chateau Marmont. The fucking midget was hiding behind a shrub, and he was making sure that each and every Hollywood Death Cab that went by, read the new script for Belushi’s demise verbatim. We actually have to say the words “John Belushi, international comedic juggernaut. This was the day the laughter died,” and then be silent for about 20 seconds. Oh boy. We all had nasty riffs here, remembering we’re in the ENTERTAINMENT biz, not the eulogy one. And of course, each lil’ maverick tried to do a part of the spiel, but couldn’t resist adding their own fun (one loves to play this clip of Belushi in Animal House going “Guess what I am now?” and then scream “YOU’RE DEAD!!!”). And, of course, Dirk nailed each and every one of us. Me included. As we got back into dispatch, we heard that the dwarf-king caught us, we were all dinged 5 bucks pay for the day, and given the script to memorize VERBATIM!!! Apparently, the Big Boss Man, who owns are lil’ operation is on his way next week, and therefore, when he takes the tour, it needs to be as scrubbed clean, and boring as possible. To be a commercial for whatever we are whoring for the moment: BUY BAZOOKA JOE BUBBLEGUM!! Yup, we had to do a commercial for them during our tour, because they paid money to be advertised. Since we had to do this, I’ve taken to reading actual Bazooka Joe Bubblegum jokes on my tour whenever I don’t get a laff from one of my regular jokes. It makes people really appreciate my humor craft even more.

One of my cool new pals at Hollywood Death Cab got employee of the month. He and I did the Barker shift the other day (rope in the tourists on Hollywood Boulevard, see this post for def: ), and I think that’s why he got the prize. He’s really handy, and when we walked out to his car in the parking lot, he managed to unscrew his hood ornament on his 76 Impala, and put on the Employee of the month prize. It’s freakin’ awesome.

Despite Dirk, Hollywood Death Cab gave me much pleasure today. I had a crew of happy Hasidic dudes. They acted like the giddy dancing guys on the Chabad signs. LOVED me. Yes, they did. Also a nice lady from New Jersey. I had our whole Death Cab shout “New Jersey Rules!” to her when she left.

I never pimp my crowd for applause at the end of the tour. A lot of guides do. They play a clip of people applauding, or some other hackneyed device. Can’t stand that. So, when I get applause, it’s heartfelt. Sometime’s I’ll say, if particularly moved by the applause: “Party at my house!” This little kid answered me back yesterday:

“When?”

“ahhh, 6AM tomorrow morning ,” I said.

I had a five year old who slept through the entire tour, even when we went throught the boistrious Car Wash, where they found TV star Mango Fizzstein dead. I told my Cab that I was worried I was boring, but was glad to see that even car wash could not wake this lil’ guy. Also tried out my new line about Cruise and Travolta NOT being gay when we went past the Scientology place. I basically protest over and over that they aren’t. They aren’t. Really, they’re not. Gets a huge laff, but if there’s a dwarf hiding in the bushes, this joke is history.

I really do remember the great tours I had as a kid. I went on a visit to this picturesque island in Michigan, Mackinaw. No cars allowed. So, we got a horse-ride from the ferry to our hotel by this college kid. He was the funniest thing ever, making horse-fart jokes that date back to chariots, but I wanted to go home to his house and worship him. There was also the time at Yorkstown, where we were surprised in a small room by a British soldier. British! Telling his side of the story of the surrender at Yorkstown. These moments inspire me to want to make my tour as memorable and fun. Which I felt I accomplished today, did four tours, that’s almost four hours of one-man show, but felt I nailed it.

Yup, yer strutting like a rockstar, only to brought down by management’s ministrations, once you walk back in the office. Had fantasies all day about how I would love to make all the tour guides a character on the tour, help with the writing, have us dress in a fashion as someone who’s actually has some connection to Hollywood, instead of the greeter at the Soup Plantation.

Other than that, it’s gotten quiet in Extra land. I really need to step it up to the next level and try and get more work. More initiative. More rejection.

Got Killed Last Night

Knifed in the shower, a hack way to die. Tried to convince them to do something a little different, let me sit down in the shower at least, to make it more interesting. Nope. The blood: maple syrup with food coloring. I still feel it on me in some places, despite two real showers after the killing shower.

It was my second and last day on this movie a fellow extra is filming. I get to act and say lines. Slasher-boobie film starring his gal-pal and mother of his child to be. Her breasts were definitely bigger then the last time we filmed. We were all told to not mention the pregnancy on the set, one of their friends from their latenight skin-flicks was coming today to film a scene, and they didn’t want the company to know about the pregnancy. She’ shooting something for a company right now. I have to believe they will notice the breasts suddenly growing pendulous, I sure did. What I didn’t notice was that my shorts had ripped in the back, during all the mayhem.

The sound guy kept saying in a nonchalant way, “Ah, Josh, you might want to check, you have a little rip in your pants.” I was wearing just my boxers for the shower scene, the camera stayed above the waist. Finally, I checked, and realized he was fucking with me, I had a ripped them wide open. Can’t wait till that fun stuff gets out on the internet. Knowing these background jokers, they prolly couldn’t resist shooting my ass (and god-knows-what-else you can see) when I wasn’t paying attention. The gal who’s the star of the film has a website where she sells items from her movies. I offered my shorts. She declined.

Again, you have so much respect for actors once you do a scene like this. You’re all at the mercy of the technical considerations, they are working fast and furious to get everything done. They are shooting in chopped-up sequences for editing. Thus, you’re performing in bursts, trying to remember where you are emotionally as you die. And, fall in a shower with no room to fall. I stubbed the shit outta my toe once.

They used a real knife. That fucked with me. I know she’s gonna miss, but if she screws up just a little, it could nick me very easily. She could see I was scairt and tried to shame me “I do this all the time, it’s not a big deal,” but I said back:

“It’s okay that I’m scared, I’m gonna try and use it.”]

The look on her face was one of “oh, this guy’s really trying to act here.” And I was. I wanted to die in a realistic way, not the typical, stock way you see in the films, where you can almost feel the coregraphed movement of it take place. It was also weird, in that I couldn’t fight back with her, I had to be a tall, big dude, who just lets the stabbing happen because I’m so shocked, I never try and wrest the knife, block the knife, or stop her arm.

I have a friend who pulled a guy out of a burning airplane. He received a commendation from the LA Fire Department for his bravery. What he has to live with, however, is that he couldn’t get the second passenger out. For some reason, maybe his leg was pinned by the wreckage, the guy was stuck. And the fire kept going, and eventually my friend had to leave the second passenger to burn to death, afraid for his own life and possible gas tank explosions. He gets to take to his grave the sound of this guy whimpering, saying it sounded so sad, the guy was sad that his life was ending. I tried to use a little of that sadness, instead of only the shock part that peeps try on film. I doubt it will play, but I was in there, in a cheesy-dumb-horror-boobie film, working my craft. Trying to stay focused.

Even things like them getting wild sound of the shower, I would put my hand in the stream of water, to get some different shower sounds. Or, moving my foot, for a shot of the blood pouring down my leg into the drain, making the foot look like it’s squirming. One of the crew noticed that I was intent on even this small task and I said to him, “Fuck it man, I’m here to act, I’m gonna give em a full day’s work.”

I finally allowed myself to look fully at the gal’s breasts and be lascivious. She’s lathering me up in a shower, I felt it was important to really try and gross with her, and not spare her feelings, so that she has more impetus to kill me. For someone who’s been in a lot of movies topless, I get a feeling of anger in her everytime she has to disrobe. It’s very slight, but it’s simmering there under the nicey-nice.

Right when I got to set, I was told we would kiss in this scene. I actually felt like I was back in High School, in the school play, and forced to kiss the prettiest girl in school. Of course, I wanted to kiss her brother, and, I was sure she didn’t want to kiss me – so I tried to protest more than her. As in, Eww I don’t’ want to kiss you either! Which only made me look gayer. I really didn’t want to kiss this girl on set last night, even prostitutes don’t like kissing their johns, it’s too intimate, and with her topless – ahh, no. I’m in a commited relationship with another man, and it feels a lot like cheating. I can pawn it off as her just being a straight girl, so what: but like the straight guys who do gay porn know --- if there’s a dick up your ass, how straight are you really?

Typical Hollywood craziness: the guy holding the boom is a very wealthy dude. His dad invented and patented an erection cream, so he hasn’t had to work a day in his life. He was telling me about his bachelor party, replete with hookers, coke, pot&booze, and his wife saying to him before he left “just blow jobs. As many as you want. But, just blow jobs.”

Kvetch about Sketch

Had a meeting at Sketch. Sketch is the all-cartoon network. I’d met this alternative cartoonist at a party, and we had gotten along. He liked me telling him about losing my religion at “Honey I shrunk the kids.” I went from agnostic to atheist while watching that movie, because I got so attached to the little ant, that when the ant died, somewhere in the most quiet part of my brain, I had this shaming thought: I hope he goes to ant heaven. I no longer had the perspective I had as a human, looking down on an ant carcass, and knowing it was just an ant carcass. Through the movie, I had been shrunk into his ant world, and had put my empathy and thus ultimately my desire to trump the logic of his demise. So, this lil’ gem, got me a meeting. If anything ever happens out of this, I can say on talk shows “I owe it all to Honey I shrunk the Kids” and atheism. However, I doubt anything will happen, because ….

… the alternative cartoonist invited me to his place of work. Sketch. He really wanted to show me around. I tried to act excited. I’ve been to these places before when pitching ideas, or meeting friends of mine on the inside. My nose is forever smushed against the window pane of these emporiums, it is a kingdom I don’t have the keys to. So being on a day pass usually does nothing but whip up envy in me. Oh look, here’s a cute way I can’t decorate my desk. Oh look, here’s someone’s office where they have a basketball hoop and a fake corpse! Oh look, here’s the show that I don’t think is half-as-funny, or well drawn as my stuff. It’s better now that I don’t work in an accounting office, that I’m actually getting paid (ha ha, more like small bribes) to be in the arts. The gulag of my accounting office used to make these visits even more unpleasant, spending a dangerously long lunch-hour just to get to whatever fabulous creative culture I was visiting, and then walking around thinking, I need to leave this wonderful oasis of people-like-me-doing-jobs-I-don’t-seem-to-be-able-to-get, so that I can get back to the accounting office and get looks for my long lunch.

This guy is a reknowned alternative cartoonist, he’s actually been syndicated in various free weeklies around the country. His wife works for Smash, one of the art-house comic book purveyors. He’s friends with some of my contemporaries of the early 90’s zine scene. I looked at his stuff. Not really funny, but it hits all the right marks of cartoon snobbism, so that a graduate student at art school could give in approving nods. I read a few and laffed at none of them, but I could see he was intelligent and had craft. And we had enjoyed each other’s conversation at the party.

When I picked him up, outside Sketch, he was already telling me about job openings. Job openings I couldn’t apply for, however. It was for someone to do storyboards, and that’s way way outta my drawing league. I explained to him that “I’m like Mike Judge,” ya know? I can draw a funny character, but I can’t do it over again. My one hyper-snobby cartoon pal hates Mike Judge because he can’t do storyboards, because he can’t really draw like a draftsmen, and because his drawings are clunky, not easily replicated or rotatable, which is a key with animation. Lotsa circles that can go around 360 degrees makes the animator’s life easier. Mike Judge does not make their life easy. (“King of the Hill,” “Beavis & Butthead,” Mike Judge).

Anyway, the lunch goes well enuff. I try not to complain TOO much about all my near-misses with animation. Being in development at The Televised Music Channel for over a year, only to watch the animation department fold. Blah, Blah, it never happened, so who the fuck cares. Well, I do, of course, it was my chance to get a funny lil’ cubicle at one of these kindergarten play rooms in creative culture. As we part, I make a joke that I think is relevant to the storyboard for his cartoon he’s working on. It’s a joke actually I use on the Hollywood Death Cab tour, usually gets a laff. He said it was “cute.” Whoops.

So, I get home, write him a thank you, making fun of my anxiety over making a bad joke. I think it’s a clever e-mail, and I manage to shamelessly drop-in a few more of creative credentials. I’m a real Sammy Glick, I am.

He writes back a nice enuff e-mail, offering to hook me up with a guy looking for writers, but in the middle of this nice enuff e-mail, he feels the need to tell me that one of the pitch books I showed him (a pitch book being a somewhat realized look at a potential cartoon show), the pitch book where I did the character design was

TERRIBLE.

No real specific allusions as to why: just so bad that you had to call it “TERRIBLE.”

I was an adult, I responded with gratitude for offering to hook me up with a writer, I thanked him again for the tour, and oh, I also said that I thought most of Sketch’s shows look like they had been shat out of Ren&Stimpy’s ass. I’m sure the e-mail got me filed under the “buh-bye” folder in his mind’s rolodex. I should prolly picked one emotion: fuck-you-very-much or thank-you-very-much-can-I-have-another-swat. But instead, I tried to keep my hand out for a job, meanwhile telling him he could fuck off with his aesthetic, I liked what I had drawn.

Yup, the curse of the artist: sensitive enuff to feelings so that he can calibrate emotions into a medium, and, sensitive enuff to feel every bit of someone's rejection of their work.

If you weren't touched by criticism, you wouldn't have the ability to be an artist, most likely. There are those rare birds who don't give a shit, and still create, but usually an artist is looking for approval, no matter how much he denies it.

I should know better: the guy who gave me the harsh criticsm is ensconsed in the alternative-cartoon gulag, every bit a cartoon snob, like I tend to be a snob about rock. Krazy Kat is poetry! (he said that). I should have known better when I mentioned I'm closer to a Mike Judge, and the Sketch dude’s silence felt like an attempt to control his nausea to that name.

Yup, I was dumb enuff to write a screed back defending myself, and including the fact that I had a development person at the Space Channel who LOVED my desigins, etc., and oh, it was just fucking stupid of me. I can't change his mind, his aesthetic. I was reading about Maxwell Perkins (editor of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe) and how savaged his great three were, and how hard they took each hit, often times writing back critics. Mark Van Doren chastised Hemingway for always writing about himself. If only Hemingway had said back: Well, your son will grow up to be synomous with cheating, so I can understand why you wouldn't want to write about your miserable existence. HA HA! Fucker!

On the other hand, we've all known cases of where someone was irate about a particular criticsm of them, and thinking in our head "boy, they nailed you 100%!" so, I try to not discard the criticsm completely. but, there's not much one can do when someone uses the adjective "terrible" about your work.

Everyone wants to be a Barker

Got called into admin at work yesterday. Day is going fine, I’m hoping the hoopla is behind me, that I’ll survive my many fuck-ups, when: “Could Josh Ramsey please come into Dispatch?” Fuck-shit-damn. Like when I first started swearing on the tennis courts, the words releasing endorphins I would need.

I was sent upstairs to see the boss. The boss is actually upstairs. I like that. She had a very severe tone, and I thought I was in trouble. “You did the barker shift on Good Friday, riiight?”

The Barker shift is where you cruise Hollywood Boulevard with just your voice, no amplification, and try and get fish in the net. A direct descendent to “step right up folks!” It’s brutal, but can be fun, interacting with the teeming humanity, riffing, impoving, making moments outta the mamen. You’re supposed to be trained for it, but they were short on Friday, so I got my first nod.

We had a little director’s chair to sit in, so I kept getting up and seeing if someone would sit down. When they would I’d say “Cut&Color 50 bucks,” and start touching their hair. “We could do highlights …” This was a good gag. I would also tell people “There’s no food allowed on Hollywood Boulevard, new city ordinance, here, let me just store your food in the handy compartment,” and then pat my belly. Or, “90 years of film stars dying: 45 minutes to tour their demise!” “Come see the stars crash and burn! Hollywood Death Cab, where the meter has stopped for the stars!” All-in-all, our attendance was up 60 percent. Some of it was the holiday, but they felt that I was responsible too. Not to mention I walked with $125 cash-money in comissions. Everyone wants to be a Barker.

So I got a nice dinner coupon for Boozerelli’s. Boozerelli’s is the mausoleum on Hollywood Boulevard all the guides go to drink at. It’s close, it’s dank, it’s dark, you know all the rats on a first name basis. Italian food outta can, they never heard of a pomadori sauce. The waiters are all ex-felons, the owner was a felon himself, and runs an out-reach program with the state. My gay lover is a foodie of the highest order, so I can’t wait to foist this place on him. Taking him to bad restaurants is my sneaky way to get him to cook good meals. If we go to bad Italian joint on Friday, rest assured on Sunday, he’ll cook Italian, to show me what good Italian should taste like. Some bad restaurants aren’t as painful to me. You have to fuck up spaghetti pretty good for me to be offended. Meanwhile, I’m much pickier about Sushi. Will only eat at high-end.

I coulda worked today, but my lover’s schedule has been crazy lately, and it was our first day to hang out, so I wanted to do so. The Easter vacation rush is over, so it’s gonna be harder getting shifts now. That gave me pause, but fuck it, I wanted my lover all day.

I was hung-fucking-over yesterday at work. Remind me not to do that again. You’re riding backward in a giant-extended-yellow-death-cab, flying around Hollywood, regurgitating much information, and hoping not to regurgitate or deficate until you can get to a toilet. A friend’s band played on Friday night, and I was there forgetting that I had to work in the morning. Plus, there was some sort of pub crawl organized, gay lover has a house near a bus stop, so peeps were coming off the bus to go to all these different bars. Upped the drinking atmosphere. Next thing I know, it’s a bad buzzy morning, I’m taking folks around Hollywood, telling them about the star’s deaths, and wondering if mine’s next.

I film my death scene tomorrow afternoon for the slash and gash film I’m in. No “gash,” actually, just jug love, boobies, I’m talking texas titties. It’s me, a shower, and a knife. Getting killed in the shower feels like being tied up to a train track by a guy twirling his mustache. A scene that’s been hammered into Sir Reality’s Liar, by it’s over exposure and repetition. Has anyone ever been killed in the shower I wonder?

Why be just April's Fool?

Hot blonde soccer mom in my front seat on the Hollywood Death Cab Tour. Just luvely, with her two boys and beer. I can smell the beer with every big swig from her Sponge-Bob 32 ouncer, the other arm supporting a kid. She sez the boys like it here. She likes her beer. It's a good match. Daddy has no idea how she spends her daze. She misses her sales job, takes a weird Hollywood tour more than once, always with a cozy buzz. Can she handle her high? For now, the two 32 ouncers of beer, are followed by a large Sponge-Bob container of soda over the last part of the tour. It used to be a longer cooling period, but she thinks she has the science wired now. "Maam, is this your child?" She was looking at the spot where Belushi ordered his last hit of cocaine, when she hadn't noticed lil' Jenson wandered away bored. Fuck, fuck, fuck she thought to herself. Must handle my high. She was the queen of organizing her drunk life once, taking the thrill as far as it could go before endangering her sober world. She got the soda a half-hour early today, a thanks-offering to her god Bacchus.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the shit to storm. I feel like it's a matter of time before I'm outed as an evil force. Before things I blabbed when drunk get communicated to various and sundry. It's one chatty coven at Hollywood Death Cab, and when some of the word-bombs I lobbed at this part to one of my fellow Cabbies come rolling back towards me, I'm gonna lose some limbs. Went to our ESP meeting tonight. Extra Special People is the name of our program for the guides who lead royalty. The Sultan of Brunei, the Prince of Bel Air, the Captain of the Airwaves. All these goombahs need a captain of their Death Cab, and we have an elite fighting team of guides who shuttle them around Hollywood called The Extra Special People. I submitted tonight for the clan, but I fear some of my higher-ups may give me the kibosh, the stink-eye for my recent interaction with administration. I went too far in typing a verbatim transcript of my interaction with a Cab maintenance supervisor, and then quoting it back at him. He's hating me right now. I was just reacting like I was still in accounting culture, where you are held accountable for every utterance. I went overboard, but I thought I was being so thorough. I have this ability to engender hate for myself, when I get this precious. And since there's nothing more subjective then a review of my speil, I feel like I'll be gone when they hit and run me out. Oh well, it was a fun year. The Extra Special guides talk about ESP like it's Harvard. The guy who runs the program tells me he plans on dying at Hollywood Death Cab. Yes, mom and pop raised me to take folks around a scuzzy town in a shitty outfit that makes me look like I work for a Pork Chop Restaurant. Green Polo shirt and courdaroys. Not what an emissary to hollywood should dress like in my mind, but in this costume, I will be the best of the best. A guide, showing all the other outsiders, what the inside of Hollywood looks like when you are about to die, the Hollywood-inside that I wasn't good enuff to be a part of in any long-term way. Great summer job for a 22 year old, but is this the pinnacle of my life? Fuck. Me.