Episode 15: The 2001 Season Finale!
November 27, 2001, Tuesday
I finished the first portion of my Oscar Screening Guide for The Hollywood Reporter. I also do birth and wedding announcements. It’s hard fucking work and deserves a byline for anyone who does it. It would be 31 feet of typed copy if you printed and scrolled it out. It’s exacting. My editor boss on the project has been cool to work with – he’s the one who said I was “featherbedding” at the Emmys. He’s old-school and he’s the type who knows this is testing my ass and I’m sure he’ll have props for me because it was a solid first effort and I caught mistakes. It’s screenings in LA, NY, San Francisco, Aspen, Maui, London. It’s the movie title, studio, time, theater, city and RSVP for Academy members and Oscar hopefuls. It’s every studio and it’s been huge pressure. Huge because I still answer 30 newsroom extensions, message reporters throughout on updates and calls, and do my hard-ass job on top of training a temp.
I don’t even know the temp’s name, but he was a very nice guy who really did his best. I made sure to give him ‘excellents’ all the way down his evaluation, wrote great comments and shook his hand on his last day. He appreciated it, visibly; for me it was just a way for me to use my teaspoon of clout to help a temp out, seeing as I was a temp very recently myself and have been one plenty of times before that. It’s a tough market out there and those kinds of comment cards keep you working and it was the least I could do. I was knee-deep on deadline and couldn’t really spend any time being other than a workhorse. I spared him some heavy-lifting and he kept the phone calls from swallowing me whole. He was a cool kid and told me he didn’t want to be in the Industry at all. I also called his agency and gave him high marks. He needs work. He’s got it.
The main temp for now, Roxanne, is back tomorrow with me for the rest of the week. She’s my cool Latina buddy! I bought her roses her last stint here because she was so incredibly helpful. I can take breaks, and she will hold that shit down. She’ll holler at the reporters if they’re ignoring their phones or her messages.
My supervisor and I get along well. She’s an extremely classy and caring person. She writes gospel music. If she left her job, I’d never take it. Yesterday, someone yelled out to her while she was working on some copy, “We’re out of paper plates!”
“And that’s my job?” she said, and he looked 8 years old, like a hilarious ape.
I don’t try to befriend anyone here. I treat them with respect and just try to stay of the noise. They rip on everybody. I never repeat what I hear about people, and I don’t kick it with the reporters. I talk the most to a film reporter and the TV editor. I talk with my supervisor but none of them know me.
No one there knows I could be a star myself. Cinderfella will get to the ball, y’all. It’s at least a year for me to stay here and really pay Industry dues in the news business. I’ll do it.
I like – and sometimes love – my job, but it’s hard and often thankless work. Editorial assistant is no joke; it’s a job that takes its pound of flesh. Two years here at THR and I could do PR, is the conventional wisdom. Not for me. I want a TV or film career; both, actually! My challenge is great.
I will do this. God is giving me this clearer vision of what I want because it’s hard to articulate. The petty Hollywood machine can obscure what should be clear paths. My path is clear. I have had and am living a life professionally governed by Hollywood. There are times I could walk out of that role and never look back. I struggle sometimes because I know I’m playing in steerage, okay? Shee-it. It’s true. I saved a breaking story about the post-war studio warnings. I interrupt star chamber meetings on sheer hunch, when I get a lead, and am rarely wrong. These are editors’ meetings where not even phone calls are taken. It’s a job, Baby. There’s the day-to-day life of a newsroom: the competition with Variety, our closest rival, not doing a Peter Bart aesthetic; stories get cut in lieu of breaking news, sometimes too much, stories get struck, there’s last minute things the copy has to deal with, from editing, layouts, more aesthetics, corrections.
November 28, 2001, Wednesday
Today was another busy as fuck day. The Oscar Screening Guide started running today. My editor told me I’d done a good job and then I got the correction, which was to list the movies by time start, not the alphabetical order I’d listed them in for over 30 feet. That task made for a dark and taxing afternoon. Roxanne was there, which was great. She’s down/
I’m always aware that there is a segment of this industry that are a pampered lot and then the segment of those who lack the manners and class you’d think would be included in there with the money. It’s a trip.
I had to work late. We had tech problems, and the TV editor couldn’t file her story, so I needed to be on standby in case she had to dictate the story to me while I typed. Her computer got fixed and I went home. Then I come home, and Stone gets huffy about something minor. I’m up to my ears in pettiness at work and to get it – even for a nanosecond at home – is just not happening. My director buddy that I temped with at UCLA went permanent at E! They just had layoffs. He was my boy during our gig together. I didn’t ask him about the layoffs – and if he was spared – until yesterday, when it was old news. I told him I hadn’t wanted to be reactive and call right away when the layoffs were announced. He appreciated that and it was true.
December 3, 2001, Monday
My train to Wilshire was a half-hour late and I was 15 minutes late to work. No one said anything and I wasn’t worried about it either since I always stay late and work late as it is.
The Oscar Screening Guide is going along well. “Variety” messed up Miramax and New Line. My editor showed me the memo. “Keep it, as proof of your efficiency,” he said. I will! Glad it wasn’t me who fucked up.
December 4, 2001, Tuesday
In addition to the Oscar Screening Guide, I got assigned the events calendar this year from the art department. It was a hard project but looks great and I’m glad it’s off my plate. The Oscar Screening Guide project won’t end until March. One of my assistant buddies at one of the studio contenders wrote me a nice message about it and I appreciated that. His boss is fucking crazy. It was nice of him to do.
December 5, 2001, Wednesday
A 2-hour meeting with our parent company today in the newsroom with all of the employees of every magazine and paper under the umbrella. A lot of excu-piffle. There will be a re-org. Layoffs are sure to happen, although they didn’t want to put any adjectives in front of it like ‘potential’ or ‘future’. The reporter shouldn’t face any major shakeups at a newsroom level. But I can see layoffs on some levels throughout the organization. There are soft markets now, not to mention subscribers with their own financial stress. I don’t want to see any layoffs happen but you could see the head-nodding, stoic yet quiet faces of various sales staff who couldn’t get a straight response to their questions.
We were told why we’ll have no Christmas party. The combined budget for the entire worldwide titles, for respective Christmas parties, would have been in the 9 figures. The amount will be matched and donated to charity. A reporter from another magazine asked, “But doesn’t charity begin at home?” The voice-lowered answer was, “It seems the right thing to do.”
I wasn’t impressed with a lot of the rest. I think I heard the words or numbers “9/11” about 40 times and I’m just tired of that horrific event being used as a blanket excuse for every corporate issue. You there are plenty of selfish people out here don’t give two spits on a flying cracker about the actual reality of geo-political concerns and consequences and the way that everyday people have been paying the price by working harder or working harder to fins some way to support themselves. Patronizing editorial pros while standing in $1500 shoes just rings hollow and I don’t buy it. No one cared that we weren’t having a Christmas party but I think staffers wanted a better answer than “No one was in the mood.”
Just now I had to all but produce a story for THR’s Australia bureau because their writer just waltzed out to cocktail party and couldn’t be bothered to call back on breaking news.
December 6, 2001, Thursday
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman divorced this past August. I got in this morning and sat down to listen to all of my voicemails from overnight. This was the first message I got from an irate Australian:
“Yeah, g’day Karl. I was having lunch in Hollywood today and I saw Nicole Kidman get kicked out of a restaurant. I’m visiting from Australia and I was absolutely DISGUSTED. Nicole was told to leave her table. I don’t know why. Mate, I’m on my way back to Australia. I’ll be tilling the Aussie press that you guys are a bunch of LOSERS over here. You should treat the stars – especially from Australia – with a little more RESPECT. You might want to call her publicist and APOLOGIZE on behalf of Americans for the way you treat Australian film stars.”
The end. Lovely, huh?
December 16, 2001, Sunday
Stone and I argued at the train this morning and before it escalated we parted ways. Stone has been out of work for 7 weeks and it’s getting to him. I understand it, but we’ve been there and I need him to rebound faster and not take it to heart. Whatever this argument was about, I walked off and we were on the same train and I turned my back. We have enough on our plates without arguing at a subway station. It was for the best. All was fine when I came home even though we shouldn’t have acted like strangers. That could be dangerous, but we’re fine.
Work is cool. I’m going to see it through another year. It’s a great brand to work for; it’s instantly recognizable. I’ve established my reputation there; yesterday marked 4 months of being there – and I did it in a very quick amount of time. It’s a hustle. Hollywood is a hustle. I’ve reached a point in my quest for a place as an artist where I am having to learn something else. It’s like working tech instead of being in the show. It’s hard work being an editorial assistant and I have to do it right because this is the greatest opportunity I’ve had to align things.
December 25, 2001, Tuesday
It’s Christmas Day. 20 centuries and one year since Christ was born. He prevails, praise God. I worked Christmas Eve at 5THR. Came home tired. Stone was cooking Christmas dinner, and we got to talk and chill. I’ve been in L.A. for 5 years. I feel them too. I’m blessed, but tired. I’m working hard these days. It will all pay off and get easier.
December 30, 2001, Sunday
Word is we’ll be working in the newsroom until 7 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. I hope that is not true. I’ll have to psyche myself up to handle this job for a year. Some of the helplessness and pointless stress of Hollywood and being the only Black person in the place is daunting, you can’t afford to not know what others don’t have to think about, and that can be stressful a lot of the time. I can use my confidence and ascension to other things as a tonic and keep doing my job honestly.
At 4:17 a.m. this morning, New Year’s Eve morning, Stone and I lay under an overcast sky made silver and navy blue by a near full moon. You could feel God’s presence in beauty that way; everyone asleep and us admiring it from bed. We talked about our challenges this year. I was able to see that I truly did raise my earning power by $15,000 between the temp jobs and landing The Hollywood Reporter. That’s a real accomplishment. I’m really proud of myself. Truly. I can face anything with God and I want the blessings and a more relaxed life.