Adventures in Freelancing: Installment Five

I’m sure there are any number of unmarried matchmakers, housekeepers whose own dwellings are as tidy as Grey Gardens, and dentists with teeth that have more holes in them than a golf course.  I know for a fact there are therapists who are certifiably insane.  This, I can prove.

She called me from her office, and told me she was frantic.  Little did I know she was the type of person who would be frantic under anaesthesia.

She was taking an Adult Ed. art course, Art Appreciation I think, and she had to make a collage for it, which was due the next day.  The teacher had given them some ideas on how to go about it; however, this was all new to her what with her mother having been so unsupportive and domineering when she was a little girl that she’d never really had the chance to attempt anything creative before so she had no idea what she was doing and felt totally lost and frustrated and knowing it would be just like her to probably be going about it the completely wrong way she wanted the opinion of a professional because she was afraid of looking like a complete moron in class tomorrow and although she knew it was short notice it would make her feel so relieved if we could meet and she could get my opinion.

Even after I hung up, I still wasn’t exactly sure why she needed me.  It shouldn’t be that hard, especially for somebody who went to shrink school, unless the professor had been speaking some obscure dialect of Martian.  But since I myself teach an Art Appreciation seminar (visit www.genewisniewski.com for more details), and because I give private art lessons and she mentioned that she eventually wanted to take some, (visit www.genewisniewski.com for more details), I said I’d be glad to help her out.  Did she want me to come to her place?

“Oh, that wouldn’t work.  Too many distractions,” she replied, “If I’m going to get anything done, I have to be as far away from this craziness as possible.”

Hmmm…curious word choice.  All right then, she’d come to my apartment.

She was almost an hour late.  She arrived looking like she’d only moments before been rescued from a trapped elevator.

Apparently, she got off the bus about fifteen stops before she should have, instead of at the giant Exxon station on my corner that I told her she couldn’t possibly miss.  Regardless, it shouldn’t have taken her that long, unless she walked the whole way on her elbows.  Oddly enough, I got the distinct feeling she thought her doing that was somehow my fault.

She landed on the sofa like a forty-pound bag of topsoil, dropped her packages and briefcase on the floor with a thud, and hyperventilated.  Within about four minutes my living room looked like someone had broken open a huge piñata containing all her possessions.  The first order of business was to call her girlfriend and assure her that she wasn’t being carved up and packed away in my freezer.  “I’m in a relationship with a woman, so I guess I’m a lesbian,” is how she bizarrely put it, proceeding to make an incorrect assumption about my own sexual orientation.

That having been attended to (which, had I actually been a psychotic axe murderer, would have been my cue to start axe murdering), it was time to get to the task at hand.

But first she felt I needed to hear a telling of the incident that inspired her collage, a recitation on the unbelievable pressures of her job, and an explanation of why it was so important for her to have this as a way to unwind.

I listened sympathetically, although it occurred to me she probably would have been getting paid a lot more to do the same thing.

Finally, we were ready to begin.

“It’s all in a manila envelope in the front left compartment of my black bag,” she said.  “Do you see my black bag?”

“This one?”

“That’s it.”

I handed her the bag.

“I don’t see the envelope.”

“Maybe it’s in another compartment.”

“No—it’s not!”

She took on the air of someone looking for the ripcord.

“It’s not in here!”

“Are you sure?”

“YES!!!”

“Could it be in another one of these bags?”

“I told her to put it in the front left compartment of my black bag!”

She burst into tears.

“Don’t worry —the absolute worst that can happen is I have to help you make a new one.  It may not be what you planned, but it’ll probably come out even better.  I have plenty of old magazines we can cut up…”

“You don’t understand!  I spent HOURS on this last night!  She’s always doing this.  She doesn’t care about my needs at all!  I told her how important this was to me, and gave her very specific instructions to make sure the envelope was in the front left compartment of my black bag.  Why isn’t it here?  She’s so manipulative—she’s always finding ways to sabotage anything I might do that challenges her position as the artistic one!  She doesn’t seem to comprehend just how stressful my job is, and that when I ask her to do one little thing so I can have three hours a week for myself, I have to be able to rely on her to do it!   You know, I’m beginning to wonder whether we should even be together—because really it’s the same old pattern.  I thought being with a woman would change things, but I guess not…where’s my cell phone?”

Second verse, same as the first.  I of course could only hear one side of the conversation, but that’s all I had to hear.  Meanwhile, I continued to search.

“Is this it?”

Open it up—see what’s inside…oh my God, where did you find it?”

“On the table, under this other envelope.”

“Talk to you later.”

She hung up.

Her transformation back to what for the uninitiated could pass for normal reminded me of nothing so much as when the werewolf would turn back into Lon Chaney, Jr.  She was just as apologetic as he always was when he remembered he’d ripped out some poor guy’s throat.

“I don’t want you to think I’m crazy,” she said, without offering a list of alternate choices.

“Oh, I don’t,” is what I said.  “Oh, you don’t?” is what I thought.

A few last sniffles, and at last it was over.

She dumped out the contents of the envelope onto the table and began placing them on her collage.  I sensed a need for perfection that made Martha Stewart look positively indifferent.  I understood and appreciated her desire to do a good job, but this was, after all, a homework assignment for a Saturday enrichment course, not a Broadway opening.

Engrossed in what she was doing, she made happy gurgly Teletubby little noises, every so often looking up from her project in a way that made me feel it would be wise to say something nice.  Something really really nice.

When she was all done, I assured her she had no idea how glad I was to help her out.  I didn’t tell her I meant out the door.

NEXT INSTALLMENT—“Just Venice.”

Adventures in Freelancing

art, art class, comedy, crazy people, freelance, freelancing, funny, psychiatrists, psychologists, shrinks, struggling artist, struggling writer, therapists, therapy, work, working, writing

December 7, 2011

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Adventures in Freelancing: Installment Four

I saw her at the far end of the crowded coffee shop, sitting alone at a fourtop banquette, sipping a cup of coffee. She’d told me over the phone that she had been a musical theater actress at one time; I would describe her as looking like a more angular Carol Channing.

She had the air of someone waiting to be called on at an audition— poised in a posed sort of way, hair and makeup that mimicked Hairdresser and Makeup Artist, her reserved beige pantsuit serving as the backdrop for the slightly kooky hat and jewelry that announce “musical theater actress”.

I joined her, and we started talking about the job she wanted done—illustrations of an idea she had for a plush-toy hip hop hippo named Heavy H.

I was curious to know why she hadn’t decided on, say, a platypus doing “The Music and the Mirror”, not to mention how she’d gotten into designing stuffed animals in the first place, but without even asking she treated me to a dramatic reenactment of How It Had All Come About, complete with recollections of her days of walking the boards and her penseés about life.

Having spent a good amount of my time among show folk, I indulged her, although I have to admit to a moment or two of narcolepsy during the proceedings.

Long story short, she’d dropped out of the acting biz and gone into talent management.  One of her clients was a young rapper (?) whom she simply couldn’t get a recording contract for (this, I suppose, despite her intimate friendship with Kanye).  They’d grown close, so much so that he took to calling her “mama” (I didn’t think it was my place tell her that he probably called every female on the planet “mama”).

In a flash of inspiration (desperation?), she came up with the concept of using one of his rhymes for a plush-toy rapping penguin named Chill Will. I. Am.  According to her, every time he said he couldn’t do a rhyme for kids, she assured him he could, and when all was said and done, Chill had been contracted with a major toy manufacturer. I think the story was supposed to be heartwarming and inspirational, but somehow I suspected what really happened was less “mama” and more “Mama Rose”.

Sadly, the company went belly-up, as did Chill’s career.  But she certainly wasn’t going to let that one little setback keep her from attaining her goal of going for the gold because like she always said winners never quit and quitters never win it’s just like Sondheim says in “I’m Still Here” and besides—(from here on in all I heard was Charlie Brown’s Teacher).

A couple of things she said during her extended monologue made me question exactly how solid her credentials as a toy designer were, but I didn’t give them too much thought right then:

“Of course I don’t know anything about writing music, ESPECIALLY rap music, so [the young rapper] did that.”

“If the toy company told me to change something I did whatever they said.”

“Somebody else figured out all that mechanical stuff.  After all, I’m no expert!”

For the grand finale, she yanked Chill out of her tote bag, stood him up on the table, and poked him in the stomach, so he could go through his moves for the captive audience in the surrounding booths.

However overwrought and tedious the backstory, I was impressed.  He popped and locked as convincingly as was possible for a metal armature covered in polyester fur.  I thought it would be a good idea to take a few snapshots of Chill to use as a reference.

We discussed what my part in the project would be.

“So, what would Heavy H look like?”  I thought this would be my question, but she was doing the asking.

“Like a hippo dressed in rapper gear?”

“Yes, but what would that look like?  Can you do a drawing?”

“Sure.  What are your basic ideas?”

“Well, I don’t have any.”

“Can you give me a hint?  I mean, like, for instance, do you think he should have hippopotamus hands, or people hands like Bugs Bunny?”

“I don’t know.  You’d have to draw them and show me.”

“It would help to have something to go on.  I guess you want some bling, a baseball cap…”

“What’s bling?”

“You know, jewelry.  Gold chains or whatever.”

“I don’t know what he’d be wearing.”

“So you don’t really have any concept in mind of what you want him to look like.”

“Well, that’s your job.”

It reminded me of a famous story about the 19^th-century French painter Gustave Courbet.  When someone asked him to add a few angels to a painting he was doing for a church, he replied: “I’ve never seen an angel. Show me an angel and I’ll paint one.”  I wasn’t even asking for that much.

“Okay, then I’ll use my judgment.  I can have a sketch for you in a couple of days.  You can tell me what you want to change and from there I can do the final drawing.  I just have to ask for a 50% deposit.”

“Why can’t you do it now?”

“Um, I’d need to have a picture of a hippo in front of me.  I don’t remember offhand what hippo parts look like.”

“Just imagine it, and do a little drawing.  It doesn’t need to be perfect.”

“I can’t just make up a hippo out of my imagination.”

Blank stare.

Since I couldn’t think of any way to make it plainer, my only choice was to repeat what I’d just said over and over.  She did the same.   It was like a tug-o’-war, with both sides being pulled into the mud.

Finally—“What would this drawing look like?”

“It would look like the teddy bear you saw on my web site, except it would be a hippo.”

“I can’t picture that.  A bear is a bear, and a hippopotamus is a hippopotamus!”

Introduction to Zoology.

“I mean, it would be done in the same style.”

“How am I supposed to tell what a hippo would look like by looking at a bear?”

This was like not being able to figure out that Bart Simpson’s sister would probably be a variation on “yellow with big round eyes”.

I pulled out some samples, and explained that the ways in which they were all similar was called my “style”, and that Heavy H would be done in that “style”.

“And what if I don’t like it?”

“If you want I’ll do another draft or two.  If you still don’t like it, we can call it quits.  Or I can do more drafts till you’re satisfied.  But then I have to start charging for them.”

Why should I pay for something I’m not going to use?”

“Because it takes time, and since I do this for a living, I need to get paid for my time.”

“I don’t see why you can’t just do a quick sketch now.  We can figure out what it’s going too look like right here, and then you can go home and do it!”

I offered to ask the other patrons in the diner if they might by chance have a hippopotamus on their person.

Relations were breaking down.

I tried to explain again.

“I’m just not going to pay for drawings I can’t use!  That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Look.  I can’t just fabricate hippopotamuses out of thin air, especially if you’re not going to give me any notion of what you want, and unless you pay me I can’t keep doing one drawing after another until I magically stumble on what you have in your head.  If you want a picture of the inside of your head, go get an EEG.”

We wouldn’t be working together.

She made sure I erased every last picture of Chill off my camera, as if I’d be taking this highly classified information right over to Julian Assange’s house (wherever that is).

She offered to pay for my coffee.  I took her up on it.

***

CODA:

As I always do after meeting a “difficult” client, both for the purposes of these stories and to satisfy my own limitless curiosity, I looked her up on the ’net.  I discovered:

It seems that Chill’s demise wasn’t due to the toy company’s going out of business.  That company was bought by another company; but since it was still functioning under its own name, I can only believe that Chill had been discontinued.

Chill was easily found on the Internet (including pictures) and was being sold (where still available) for up to 60% off, giving further evidence that he had been discontinued.

A hip hop penguin named MC Ice Pop was on the market a year before Chill was.

The young rap artist made exactly one record.

NEXT INSTALLMENT—“Psychiatrist, Heal Thyself.  Before You Go Anywhere Near Others.”

Adventures in Freelancing

actors, art, comedy, crazy people, freelance, freelancing, funny, hip hop, struggling artist, struggling writer, stuffed animals, toys, work, working, writing

November 27, 2011

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Adventures in Freelancing: Installment Three

Tragedy can bring out the best in people. A plumber becomes a hero by rescuing a six-day-old infant from a tree. It can also offer windows of opportunity for the less noble—selling a glass of tap water for the price of a box of antimatter in the midst of a drought, for instance.

And there are those who operate in a gray area, giving the appearance of beneficence while actually seeking their own self-glorification. These would be, for example, the Hollywood starlet who visits a famine zone, and then demands the publicity photos depict both the starving children and her as thinner than they actually are. As well as the following case.

His call concerned an ecological and human disaster of epic proportions that had been unfolding over the previous two months. I won’t get into specifics, but it involved petroleum and British people. Stupid, irresponsible, arrogant British people.

He described himself as a seasoned political prankster. He told me he was widely known not only in political prankster circles (which I don’t frequent, as a rule), but in the media and among certain government agencies most of us try to steer clear of, for his highly theatrical protests against All That Is Unjust.

He recounted the time he almost died when he dressed as “Big Banana” in opposition to the fruit industry in Costa Rica, and had himself symbolically flambéed to illustrate American corporate greed. Things got a little out of hand, and he was extinguished just in time. He reported to the papers later it was meant as a tribute to the Buddhist monks who self-immolated during the Vietnam War. One of his best moments—I could look it up on YouTube (why thank you, might just do that).

He was calling on behalf of a man he’d corresponded with online who lived in Maine and had come up with a remedy for this awful situation. It seemed appropriate somehow—New England getting us out of a mess Old England had gotten us into. The man had put up a web site that was eloquent in its feelings but not in its grammar and spelling. My job would be to turn all of the site’s content into a coherent, compelling narrative and come up with a press release, as quickly as possible, so that his obvious but brilliant solution would be seriously considered by both the U.S. government and British Petroleum, the perpetrators of this catastrophe (oops, sorry—slipped).

His angle this time was that he was wagering the US government everything he owned that the idea would work, although I seriously doubted he’d be able to ante up the kind of money they would. I found his manner somewhat confrontational and abrasive, but I attributed that to passion.

The plan hinged on having access to the world’s largest pump, which, as it happens, was sitting right there in New Orleans. By what elaborate mechanism had Mr. Maine Man ferreted out such sensitive information? Why, he just Googled “world’s largest pump”! Naturally, I wondered why out of a nation of 308 million people, including all those really smart ones that hover around places like MIT, no one else had thought of this, but Mr. Banana began spouting so many facts about things like particle flow rates I figured the two of them had some notion of what they were talking about. No matter—this was going to make Mr. Maine Man into a national hero.

Not being a civil engineer, I personally had no way of telling whether this scheme would work or not. But if by chance it did, I’d certainly be proud to have played some small part in rescuing the Gulf. We made arrangements to meet on 42nd St. and Eighth Avenue, in front of BB King’s Blues Club. The rain was slowing down traffic, so I left him a message to say I might be ten minutes late or so.

When I got there, exactly eleven minutes late (people who commute to Manhattan from New Jersey develop a sense about these things), I started asking every man standing under the club’s marquee if he might be Mr. Banana (using his real name of course, but even so getting mostly dirty looks).

I waited half an hour, and called Mr. B. I had Mr. Maine Man’s number, so after three-quarters of an hour I called him too, but once again got a voice mail. Once it got to an hour and a quarter (not including my eleven minutes), I figured anybody who couldn’t manage to travel fifteen blocks in ninety minutes might not be up for the task of mopping up millions of gallons of crude oil. I left messages informing them both that just in case they weren’t aware, I was wet and Mr. Banana was a loser. I headed home.

He rang me up about an hour later. If he knew the opinion of him I had developed, he didn’t let on. Sorry he’d missed me, but he didn’t think I was coming. Apparently he had all the patience of a man waiting for a net after jumping from a burning building.

Even if it had stopped raining, there was no way I was heading back into the city, so Mr. B. offered to come to me.

The man who appeared at my door turned out to be more potato than banana (I don’t like picking on people’s looks, but this IS being done, after all, for revenge). Foolishly, I invited him in.

It took very little time to realize that picking arguments was what he did for sex, and that he was looking for a sparring partner as well as a writer. I could tell my conversation with him would be as pleasant as sitting next to a vat of boiling paint stripper, and was just as likely to result in an explosion.

“I’m throwing down the glove. This is my challenge to the US government! No one is innocent here! I want all of them dragged into this—Republicans, Democrats, the President, BP, the Congress—they’re just shifting blame, playing politics—and meanwhile the environment is being compromised for decades to come! There are things at stake here! Wildlife! God knows how many jobs! Miles and miles of shoreline! Thousands of gallons of oil are being poured into the Gulf every minute—and all these jokers can do is point fingers! Don’t they understand this is an EMERGENCY? We need to cut through all this bullshit, and show everybody what imbeciles all these people are being!”

“I’m not quite sure that’s the right tone for a press release.”

A spirited discussion ensued about who among us knew what they were doing.

A couple of hours later, my phone rang.

“New development. Did you hear about Sarah Palin’s comment?”

“Yeah, I did, as a matter of fact.”

He decided to tell me anyway.

“Hypocrite! She’s saying that if tree-huggers hadn’t put the kibosh on drilling in safe places like WILDLIFE PRESERVES this wouldn’t have happened in the first place! I can’t fucking believe her! That big fat media whore doesn’t care WHAT she says, so long as she sees her name in print! Guess it’s easier to clean the oil off one big moose than all those little ducks…and to think—just a couple of months ago she was raking Obama over the coals because he didn’t let them do MORE offshore drilling!

“I heard.”

Of course, she conveniently forgets to mention about how they decided not to bother with all that silly SAFETY EQUIPMENT…and you think we shouldn’t be ANGRY?”

I tried again to convince him that there was indeed a time and place for that sort of anger, but his web site wasn’t it unless he wanted to look like one of those underground bunker people who squirrel away canned goods. In the end, though, I was the one being hired. I went to my angry place and started writing.

The next morning, as I was putting the final touches on the venomous screed I had penned, he rang me up again.

“Um, we need to ease up on the Republicans. I want more focus on Obama’s part in this whole mess. Oh, and we have to take out the part about Sarah Palin.”

“What?”

“Any line that says anything about everybody needing to quit pointing fingers needs to be changed to Democrats needing to quit pointing fingers.”

“What?”

“We don’t want to risk alienating anybody.”

“You might still alienate a Democrat or two.”

“Um, that doesn’t matter right now. A kind of right-leaning paper in Mississippi wants to cover the story. I mean, not a really really right-leaning paper, but…”

“Excuse me, I need to go open a window so I can toss my convictions out of it.”

It was one of our briefer conversations, and our last. I knew then that I would never watch that YouTube video. I wouldn’t like how it ends.

NEXT INSTALLMENT–”You’re a Designer, Design.  You’re a Visionary, Have a Vision.”

Adventures in Freelancing

art, BP, British Petroleum, crazy people, freelance, freelancing, Gulf oil spill, politics, struggling artist, struggling writer, work, working, writing

November 19, 2011

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Adventures in Freelancing: Installment One

Years ago, when I first moved to New York, I cleaned apartments for a living.  This was in the Eighties, and everybody, no matter what their station in life, felt they needed, no, deserved as their birthright, someone to attend to the upkeep of their living space.  It was the first time I’d ever freelanced, and it didn’t take long to find out that freelancing has its downside, just like any career choice besides wealth.

I found out a lot of appalling things about people that I wish I never had—that an alarming number of them don’t wash the bottom of their dishes, for example, and that given enough time and inattention, coffee in its liquid form can grow mold.  Even in plain sight.

After an unpleasant introduction to the “real” working world, by way of a stint selling furniture for a family Eugene O’Neill could have used for material, I eventually had a string of administrative positions (if two can be called a string) that veered ever so slightly toward management.  I was happy for a time; I had money in the bank, I liked my bosses and my coworkers, I had time to make art in my off hours, and I got a certain fulfillment from the work itself (telling people what to do).

When the Reagan through Little Bush years ushered in a new era of prosperity for about seventeen people, and finding work, any work, became a matter of sixty hyenas and one carcass, I decided to go back to freelancing.  After all, I figured, if I’m not going to get a job, I might as well not get one for myself.

This time around I’m not cleaning; I’m cobbling a living together doing illustration, teaching classes and seminars, and, actually finding a use for one of the skills I learned on my day jobs, writing publicity materials.  I’m hired by a wide assortment of people; I no longer answer to a single individual.  However, this is not to say my life has become trauma-free.  My aggravations are just less centrally located.

***

THIS INSTALLMENT’S CASE STUDY involves a woman of God whom I will call _____.  _____ was the “Vision Leader” of her own ministry, and she wanted me to write a press release to promote her personal appearances, where she spread the Word by way of anointing, “predictions and foretellings”, “visions from beyond”, and “prophetic dance”—not my personal belief system, but I try not to judge.

Previously, _____ had also had careers as a fashion designer, celebrity stylist, film and television actress, print model, event planner, and newscaster, according to the materials she sent me.

Her voice over the phone certainly gave every indication that it had been employed commercially.  The adjectives I would use to describe it could also be applied to the most agreeable qualities of molasses.  And, I’d have to add, “sultry”, since molasses is seldom thought of that way.

She had bookings all over this country and internationally, which she was looking to expand, she said.  There was a cable show in the works.  If she were satisfied with what I showed her, there was potential for a steady stream of assignments.

In spite of her credentials, which made her sound like the James Franco of the Righteous and Godly, I heard The Voice, as faint as the voice of the Who Horton heard, telling me every second of my life spent speaking with _____ was a wasted one.

Not that there was any indication that she wasn’t highly successful in her chosen field.  Or rather, the field she was Chosen for.  I’D never heard of her, but then again I’d never heard of Ted Haggard, either, until, well, you know.

If anything, her list of requirements for personal appearances (those she would accept) were evidence of virtually rock star status:

ARRANGEMENTS

• First-class air transportation, preferably on Delta or American airlines;
• Chauffeured sedan car on call for the duration of the engagement;
• Four- (three-, if four- not available) star accommodations, outfitted with two queen-size beds, private bath, and 24-hour room service.

IN ROOM, UPON ARRIVAL

• One-Case bottled Deer Park water, faintly chilled;
• 2-Red Bull four-packs, chilled;
• 4-20-ounce bottles Gatorade, Glacier Freeze flavor, deeply chilled;
• 2-Trays of assorted vegetable (broccoli and cauliflower to be steamed in advance), with non-dairy chive dip;
• 1-Bunch golden Muscat grapes, removed from stems, semi-peeled;
• 4-3” x 6” vanilla-scented pale blue candles;
• 6-Steamed white hand towels, lemon-scented;
• One-Six-foot table for the accommodation of offerings.

Freelancing introduces you to worlds you would otherwise never have the opportunity to explore, like kiddie martial arts (tragically, HE was too normal to make a good story).  Could I unforeseeably wind up in the exalted position of Press Agent for God’s mouthpiece?  Perhaps _____ would be able to stage a prophetic dance on my behalf…

I told her my decidedly reasonable usual standard fee, which had been considered acceptable by others far less exalted.

It was not to be.  A week after she told me she would put the first half of the money into my Paypal account, it still hadn’t appeared.  My phone calls went unanswered.

Thank God and Google I could get to the bottom of this.  _____’s name was not so unusual that it sounded like her parents made it up, but it wasn’t Mary Smith, either.  Shouldn’t be too hard to find her.

There were three, but one was in Georgia and one was in Kansas.  The one in New York worked for a large broadcast company.  I figured that was probably her.  I dialed the number, hoping I could get past her secretary.

What I heard on the other end of the line was that same cozy “slow jams for lovers only” voice I had heard two weeks before.

“Soandso Television Network.  This is _____ speaking.  How may I direct your call?”

NEXT INSTALLMENT—“Yeah, THAT One.”

***

Adventures in Freelancing

art, crazy people, freelance, freelancing, religion, struggling artist, struggling writer, work, working, writing

November 14, 2011

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Adventures in Freelancing: Installment Two

People always thought she had the same name as that damn Disney character.  Which she did, except for one letter.  But obviously none of them read Shakespeare, because if they had, they would have realized that that’s who Disney stole it from.  But did anyone ever ask, “Oh, like in Shakespeare?”  Of course not.  It was always, “Oh, like in that Disney movie?” If they were going to get her name wrong, couldn’t they at least…

She exhaled with disgust.  That kind of thing was so detrimental to her instrument (being a serious actor, amply trained in the _____ Technique, she had an instrument instead of a body). It was clear that her contempt for Disney and everything it represented ran deep, to the point of being a personal vendetta.

Lucky for me, I had just said, “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

After countless years of study, she had grown under her teacher, which sounded like a medical condition in a way I’m sure she didn’t intend.  But now it was time to break free. With his blessing, and as his star pupil and most fervent acolyte, she was starting her own class, instructing a whole new generation of young actors in the _____ Technique. I was to write a short blurb she could use for postcards and flyers and such, maybe seventy-five words or so.  Simple.

My major in college was Theater, and although I’d dodged the Disney bullet, I made the mistake of trying to clarify things by comparing the _____ Technique to other techniques.

“So it’s all about drawing on your own past experiences and using them to develop your character.”

“Oh, so sort of like Method Acting.”

“No, Method Acting is something else entirely”, she retorted. “This coaches you in improvisation as a means of learning to respond in the moment.”

“Like Meisner?”

“Meisner?” she said, appalled at my ignorance and/or tremendous impudence. “No. You can’t compare this to Meisner.”  Apparently, in her estimation, Meisner was nowhere near as wonderful as Disney.  She continued.  “It shows you how to attain truthful performances through absolute openness, and the stripping away of all societal façades.”

“So, nothing like Grotowski.”

“No. I see we’re getting somewhere.”

She gave me a detailed—detailed—explanation of the _____ Technique. Twice, she was so overcome with emotion she had to stop and collect herself.

“If you’re savvy you can get this done in half an hour.”

“OK.  But we only have a hundred words, absolute tops.  I can’t include everything.”

“Just as long as you capture the essence of the _____ Technique, and what sets it apart from all other techniques.”

Fine.  Even including the longer-than-usual two-and-a-half hour interview, the job was still monetarily worthwhile.  Somewhat.

She was listed on the International Movie Database (I’d learned my lesson by now about Googling any and all prospective clients), so she was a bona fide actor. Even if her biggest credits to date were playing a rag doll named Mopsey in a twelve-episode kids’ show and “Victim (College Girl)” in a low-budget slasher flick some twenty years before.  Whatever—I had her deposit.

Savvy or no, I spent three hours on the first draft.  My hourly salary was now comparable to a sales associate at Macy’s.  Condensing everything she’d told me into two paragraphs was like trying to fit a rhino into Kate Moss’s underwear.

“You left out three quarters of what I said.”

I told you I’d have to cut some things.  You gave me enough for a Wikipedia entry.”

Another hour and a half of emotionally-charged discussion trying to get to the motherfucking essence.

Second draft. Hour and three quarters.  Getting savvier.

“It’s fine, but it doesn’t give an idea of how visceral the _____ Technique is.”

“I don’t think ‘visceral’ is a good word to use on a flyer.  You’ll scare people.”

Further discussion.  Third draft.

“We’re on the same page, but…”

Fourth draft.

“It’s better, except…”

“I’m sorry, but you know, if I spend any more time on this I’m going to have to ask for more money.”

Her reaction was immediate and, yes, visceral.

“Tell you what.  Let’s forget the second half of the payment and we’ll call it even.”

“But what about the money I already gave you?  I’m an actor—I don’t have that kind of money to just throw out the window!”

“Sorry, but that’s why I ask for a deposit.  So I don’t wind up wasting my time, which does count for something, you know. As it is, I could be making more picking rice in Cambodia.”

Once again, she became visceral.

“That’s it.  Gotta go.  Goodbye.”

Click.

Good thing I’m smart enough to turn my phone off after 11 PM.  Because the next morning there was a voice mail—from 3:30 AM.

I waited till I was coffeed up enough, and then listened, if for no other reason than curiosity.

There were sobs.  Self-incriminations.  A lengthy apology.  An acknowledgement of my talents.  A plea to call her back.

Delete.

Two more apologies.

Delete.

Delete.

Then, finally, silence.

One day it occurred to me that my enemy was a faceless one.  I’d never met her in person—all our conversations were over the phone, and her picture wasn’t on IMDb. I was curious to see what she looked like, what Mopsey looked like, and mostly, for my own sick pleasure, what Victim (College Girl) looked like.

There she was—as a head shot (alarmingly fresh-faced and wholesome), as Mopsey (alarming), and as Victim (College Girl)(even better than I’d hoped for).

I also scrolled down the short list of Google entries there were about her and found they were all, without exception, sprinkled with descriptions like “nut”, “nut job”, “nut case”, and “must to avoid”.  And so, once again, lessons were learned, if the hard way.

Lessons One—Make it known from the start that there will be a charge for additional drafts.

Lesson Two—IMDb does not include information on the mental health of those featured on its site.

NEXT INSTALLMENT: “The Strangest Bedfellow Ever.”

 

 

 

Adventures in Freelancing

actors, art, crazy people, freelance, freelancing, struggling artist, struggling writer, work, working, writing

November 14, 2011

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