wilderworks

Here's my story. I moved to Los Angeles in 2005. On January 6th, 2005, I was in Las Vegas, taking down Christmas decorations from Caesar's Palace hallways and cypress trees (business, not pleasure). I took the Santa hat off of the mini statue of David's head. Just as we were finishing up, I was offered a three-month internship at a small LA management company. (Let's give them the codename Dryad Management.) All I knew about the company was the address, and that's more than I knew about LA. Dump was in Rhode Island. She and I had been waiting for this news. I got back to New Jersey on the night of the 10th and packed. Dump arrived in New Jersey on the 12th. And we started cross-country bright and early on the 13th, a caravan composed of my car and one U-Haul, with my parents, my brother, Dump, and my dog Baker. After a few hundred miles, Baker crawled inside the lining of my convertible's top and only stuck his head out. This is how he opted to travel the bu...

In LA, we have no weather. It's sunny and warm almost all of the time. For the most part, the weather is predictable and reliable. It's so agreeable, I've mostly forgotten that weather is a thing that happens. And thus, having been denied that outlet to deliver its reminders, here, it is instead through the traffic that the Universe makes its indifferent and chaotic nature known. The weather is almost always nice, so the Universe orchestrates the traffic to shout: "I'm still capricious and cruel, folks - and don't you forget about it!"  What a lousy drive. How much longer can I tolerate a life that it this bare-faced random, this boldly arbitrary? A person deserves the illusion of meaning and sense! If the traffic can't even bother to put on a show of making sense, well, then ... I'll do something, I tell you. I will do one hell of a something.

So, I've been at my new job for about a month. I almost have a clue what I'm doing now. Here's what it boils down to. ---> Car-pooling 12 miles, each way -- which, of course, takes about an hour or so, each way, up and down the 405. Not too bad, since I'm on salary now, and don't have to worry about being a bit late, which is like having a super power. Every day we pass a woman dressed as an old-style waitress, wearing a pale-blue gingham dress, a white apron, sometimes partially hidden under a black coat. She's maybe twenty-five with curly gold hair, and she walks west across the parking-lot that is Sepulveda, coming from an unknown starting point beyond the Galleria Mall and going to her bus stop on Venture Blvd, where the unhappy Mexican mother stand frowning at traffic. We wonder where she works, and why her glum, hurried march somehow brightens our day. She's the "Ruby Tuesday" girl. ---> Sending and reading so many e-mails tha...

Quite out of the blue today, my manager told me I'm under consideration for a promotion, hopefully a raise. And I hope, a substantial one, since I'm still at starter pay for a QC. Of course, the catch is I'll have to learn to open work orders, and thereby, I'll know how to open jobs, assign jobs to transcriptionists in-house and out, (both of which I recruit, test, and interview), and then process, print, and delivery finished jobs. Meaning, I'll have a hand in every step of the process, excluding sales and billing, the bookends. However, if that could mean a dollar or two more an hour (hoping for too much, I know), it'd be worth extending my stay there. I'm getting so close to paying off my credit-card debts, I feel it in my bones. Barring a tragedy, November or December, my car will be paid off, this laptop and my desktop will be paid off, and my other credit debts will be memories. Sitting on the balcony on break, eyes shut to the sun, I sometim...

I have to bite my tongue so that I don't accidentally quit work today. If this almost-week off doesn't reset the system, I'm not long for this position. Meanwhile, I was reading about alcoholics last night, and determined that I'm not an alcoholic. I am, however, a sleep-a-holic. How could anyone sleep only the amount that they need? Who wouldn't want that feeling to just go on, and on, and on?

After four years of intensive study, I have concluded that all day jobs are bad for me. Once again, this one is killing me. Quickly.  But I cannot escape it, because there aren't going to be any better day jobs than this. There's no place else to explore. Aside from the pay, which could be improved, this is as good as I'm gonna find. Thus, I either slowly tighten until I snap, or I find a way around this immovable object. Each day, I go to work, and by the end of my stay there, my spirit is 100% broken; I just want to go home, drink a few beers, and curl up for sleep. Even when I'm not physically drained, I'm soul tired, uninspired, angry, hopeless, and lonely. So, my plan is this: I'm going to get up early, and try to work for three or four hours every morning, before going to work and having my soul crushed. This is a terrible idea, but terrible ideas are the only ones that seem to materialize in this world, aren't they? We all know, this wil...

I wrote the following in my head last night, when I couldn't sleep.  It's about my job. Sometimes the Interviewer interviews six people a day.  Some are mothers looking for work, for a little extra cash, while their children are at school. Some are actors who want evening hours, so their days will be free, for the auditions that they're sure will soon be calling.  Some are new arrivals, seeking a foothold in the city.   The Interviewer is new to the city. Interviewing is his foothold.   Many of those new arrivals that he interviews soon find themselves in exciting footholds somewhere else, and they turn down the boring foothold that the Interviewer offers.   The Interviewer wonders why he never got any of those exciting footholds that he was interviewed for. The Interviewer hires transcriptionists to type what they hear....

So much to do, and so few people to share it with... Some people will follow small snatches of this update, but in whole, this post means nothing to nobody but me. I wish it did. I want to revise the main Misplaced Planet page (it's already 25% done, in secret). I want my sounds and audio page up, playing MP3s. I want lyrics restored to the writing section. I want my productions page upgraded. I want Storybook Park to have its own animation on WilderWorks . I want my Bio and Resume section to not look silly anymore.  I want Stirling to send me a new design for OMKF , so I can implement the many changes I've imagined for it. We have our podcast up, transmitting video, which for now means Brains!! We have the trailer up for the horror movie, Antebellum . We have a composer working on the score for Momentary Engineering . We have the script for the Sci-Fi Short Film Contest hammered out, and that's probably g...

So, I guess I got a job. And I guess I start Monday. And I guess it's not too far of a drive, and they won't make me pay for parking, and it's full time, and it's enough to pay all my bills, with a tad to spare. So I guess I should be pleased. But I wish I could get over this week's intense case of writer's block. I'm going to take a break from Storybook Park , I believe. At least until I get more feedback, more inspiration. It feels too much like beating my head against a wall, and I don't want to kill it. Caroline should soon be back from Peru and points beyond, meaning I can return to work on Insignificant Others . Meanwhile, I've been working on the Misplaced Planet Website . Once I have that in a presentable shape again, I'll move on to cleaning up my own website... Don't know why. Guess it counts as a hobby.

When the only thing standing between you and poverty is the script for Highlander 5 , you can't help staying up all night re-evaluating your life and watching pirated episodes of the Dave Chapelle Show . (Dear MPAA, I was kidding about the pirating. I only pirate software.)

Okay. I'd like a job now. Anybody?

What a week it has been. I had my first and last day of work on Monday.  On Tuesday , a management company requested one of my screenplays, one that needed revision.  Wednesday I had another interview, this one with a company I really liked (and probably will never hear from again) called Sobini Films.   Thursday I finished three non-stop days of revision on Storybook Park , though it was technically 8 AM Friday morning. And Friday I mailed it. Also, somewhere in there, news came down that the director is still interested in Insignificant Others after reading my writing sample, Ladies & Gentlemen . Which puts that on the pressure cooker for the next big race to the finish. Next week, I'm back to sending out resumes, and trying to get the car insured.

So I quit the job.

It is a sad day when the job you accept has only one benefit, especially when that benefit is that the hours will make it easy for you to interview for other jobs. Againt my better judgement, I've accepted a part-time, temporary, low-paying job in the accounting department of Sutton, Barth, & Vennari: Talent Agents. It will be an achievement if I can convince my brain to allocate enough memory to store those three names. The job market is shit. Months and dozens of interviews and it comes to this -- 9:00 to 1:00, 5 days a week, with 45 minutes driving either way. Which means, with gas prices, I might net two hours of pay a day. Which would make my take-home, at the end of the month, less than full-time minimum wage. Less than working at In-N-Out Burger . Not enough to pay the rent. It's sometimes hard to remember why I left New York and almost $20 an hour and people I knew. But given a chance, I still remember. I still remember... I am most disappoin...

I suppose the meeting went well. Traveling 3000 miles - by plane, train, and automobile - builds an event up beyond what any could really acheive. We decided that a partnership will be formed, and Misplaced Planet will become a legal entity. And we decided that we will do something . Write the script in the next six months, begin filming in a year or so. I hoped that a decision would be made about what that something should be, but it's been officially left to Caroline and me to create something for everyone to rally around... Cusp of Aquarius? Ladies & Gentlemen? The Jumpers? Storybook Park? Short films? If it works out, writing with Caroline could be very positive.... I would no longer face this daunting task alone... The vague goal of writing something "that people will like" becomes more surmountable with a fresh perspective... with someone to like it or dislike it as passionately and personally as I might... It is the minimum amount of teamwork p...

Tomorrow is my first day at The Steel Company, where I will be employed for approximately one month. I am overwhelmingly, almost comically sad about leaving Niad. I've never liked anyplace I've worked ever before, and I go and fall in love with a place that doesn't pay me anything . =sigh= At least I know I'm capable of liking a place I work. Sort of like my relationships: evidence that things are working, but not working out. Yet. More tomorrow.

My second job interview is tomorrow. It is with the Steel Company on Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood. They say there's parking without meters on the East side, on Corey. But they're just film aquisition & distribution people -- what do they know about parking? Still, they had their hand in distributing Farenheit 9/11 overseas, so I suppose they can't be all bad. Beyond that, I don't know much about them. It's a temporary position, which will probably involve more data-entry than script-coverage, so I slacked on the research. I'm meeting someone named Tyler, and he's in charge of "aquisitions." Wendi tells me that it's a good company, and I'll meet a lot of important people, which is important. Of course, what's more important, is if it pays >$10/hour, so I can cover my rent, my bills, food, and my gas, at almost $3/gallon... If it weren't for my tax refund, a rebate from Office Max, and a donation from my mother, I...

The interview with Linda McDonough went very well. But, as I've said many times before: that means I won't get it. Par example: I thought that the Niad interview, and the Hospital interview, and the transcription interview all went terribly . I got all those jobs. Yet -- no mere online journal could sustain the weight of the many interviews that I thought went swimmingly. And I got none of them. Anyway. After parking and peeing in the Beverly Center , I walked to their orange building on lovely, busy La Cienega. Their office was upstairs and across from a little theater stage, which they also own. The air conditioning was broken. It was stuffy and smelled old. I waited and read about dogs. The interview. We talked for about 45 minutes. We got along. I liked them. They were honestly interested in Darwin's Kids and my thesis, A Kingdom by the Sea, and with my hospital work too. But I soon sensed that they had their hearts set on someone who'd "...

Having spent almost 80 days at Niad Management (weekends included), having recieved from the bargain one futon with mattress, one feather couch, one chez lounge, one original movie poster from A Fish Called Wanda, over a dozen frames, uncounted free script copies, one trip to Disney Land (including California Adventure), and uncounted lunches... I am tomorrow going to my first interview that they've arranged for me. It is at Odd Lot Entertainment , (formerly Dee Gee Entertainment ) for the position of assistant to VP Linda McDonough. Here's an artcle from Variety about it: McDonough joins Odd Lot Linda McDonoughLinda McDonough has joined Odd Lot Entertainment as VP of development. McDonough was most recently VP of development at Flower Films, where she spent the last four years. Before joining Flower, McDonough spent four years at 1013 Prods. Odd Lot is a privately financed partnership of Gigi Pritzker, Deborah Del Prete and Patrick Aluise. Company plans to develop a...

We would like to offer you the intern position and thank you for your patience through this whole process. We would like your first day here to be on the 18th of January. Jennifer Graff Niad Management Ergo, life has become crazy. Ever tried to arrange an apartment and a cross-country move, 3000 miles from home, while working 14 hours a day? I'm going to arrive home on Monday night. Wednesday afternoon, I drive off for a new home.