Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
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Friday, March 18, 2005

Too shallow for this?

I sent an IM to $im_off.

Boys And Girls Together. Shanghai Baby. Running With Scissors. The Nanny Diaries. Confessions Of A Sociopathic Social Climber.

And now, The Devil Wears Prada.

All without touching Bridget Jones's Diary or any other tome destined to be made into a movie with Renee Zellweger because it's already easy to be adapted into two hours.

No, these babies are too complex. And I feel for them. No: I know them.

Like you know your own soul.

...Suffice it to say that storming to the end of The Devil Wears Prada is not just a relief, but worrisome too. How long did Nan take working for Mrs. and Mr. X? Andrea Sachs threw it all away spectacularly at the eleventh hour, in the eleventh month of a year's contract.

I on the other hand am signing on for more abuse... check that: have already signed on for more abuse, and can hardly wait for the real fun and games to begin so there can actually be the spectacular confrontation that ends in the enormous slammed door.

And yet it's not exactly like that. This month of odd schedule is both gelling and liquefying -- and I mean that in both the verb and adjective senses: the month is thickening into gel at the same time it is becoming liquid, and the experience is prodding me into a gelatinous and liquid form as well.

There is clarity. And haziness. All the silly words thrown into the mix of "Comedy Tonight" -- cupidity! timidity! tumblers! bumblers! shakes! fakes! no royal curse! no Trojan horse! And a happy ending, of course!.....

The thing about it all is that Lauren Weisberger's, Emma McLaughlin's and Nicola Kraus's protagonists... well, they were women, first of all. And my ego and what little savvy I have of the literary industry wants me to believe that young women with disposable incomes would be interested in the exploits of the world of TELEVISION... albeit local news... even though the narrator is a gay man.

Secondly, Nan and Andrea both had higher aspirations: Nan did her college classes and nannying in prep for a career in child development and psychology, while Andrea was a personal assistant at a fashion magazine in prep for a writing career.

But what's my next step? What am I doing this for? Do I want to be on television? I'm not sure. Am I trying to parlay this into an on-air radio thing? Not if I'm going to be paid even less than I'm getting now. Have you heard what's happened to the local radio industry? The local television industry is catching up. The cable radio industry is only a subset of the cable television industry, the Internet radio industry is only as big as the Internet television industry, and satellite radio is barely even born yet while satellite TV is tapping its foot impatiently.

Is "it" broadcasting? Or is "it" performance? Theatre? Music?

......... I know I was determined to leave. Maybe a more drastic change of scenery would give me a more drastic change of pace than what I'm getting in this month. It makes me want to cajole various bosses into letting me see just another day or two of workings inside another television station. Just for a different experience instead of this, this, this, this, this.

My apartment is a dump. But I have no-one to blame but myself. Until Patrick came in the other night and said, "Oh, Honey," I'd been the only human to see the disgusting floor plan for, oh, let's say 14 months -- returnable bottles, piles of printed pages, newspaper at random, bags of whatever, the baskets of clean clothes never put away, the boxes that should have been emptied almost two years ago when I moved in or discarded long ago for being empty, the desk piled high with receipts that should be filed rather than items of interest and the kitchen table that had been serving as a desk in its place rather than a surface for eating.

The bicycle in the middle of the room that's never found a proper storage space.

And the mounting, mounting, mounting, magalogs.

It seems trivial, ridiculous, cliched to think novelist. And something isn't quite making me think columnist.

I feel like I haven't had the "gunning" experiences yet. And yet, technically I have. Some of these, anyway.

Writing the show while it's already started.
Screaming at talent for being idiots.
Screaming at anyone in the confines of the control room.
Being told not to scream at people.
By the bosses who scream on a daily basis.
Spilling the coffee on the talent minutes before air.
Having the lengthy conversations with talent after a somewhat or particularly bad show.
Getting thrown out on the spot.
Arguing over something infinitely stupid with minutes before air.
Having the live shot die on you.
Putting the newscast together with paperclips and adhesive tape and tapdancing a tango with talent while unknown things happen out in the field.
Reconstructing high engineering tasks hours before a high-profile show, juggling two phones in both ears.
Bitching with the coworker who's both for and against you -- and him/herself.
Working with idiots.
Hoping they never darken your door again.
Then seeing them get hired full time.
Or just seeing them come in again and again and again and again.
Having the director have a heart attack on you.
Having the director start vomiting over headset on you.
Hearing hushed whispers about what happened when you weren't here.
Relating in high drama what happened when you were.

And answering every last stupid phone call from some idiot who demands something from you that he or she doesn't deserve but refuses to go away without it.

And am I too shallow for this?

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 3/18/2005 08:35:00 PM ... Email this entry ...
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