Let’s Talk About Hollywood – Episode 8: It’s A New Ball Game Now
AUGUST 28, 2001, Tuesday
At ‘THR’ on my way to lunch I saw Sally Kirkland who was very friendly and sweet. She was leaving the building with a stage actress, Nancy Anderson.
First of all, you can’t miss Sally Kirkland – she has this look: teased, sideswept blonde hair, body-tailored black velvet top and pants, with an inquisitive, open face. We all met by chance in the elevator bank, and I knew who she was right away.
“Hi! I’m Sally! What’s your name?”
“Karl.”
“Hi Karl! This is Nancy Anderson, she’s in ‘Kiss Me Kate’.”
“Oh really?” I said.
“Yeah! I’m in it,” Nancy said, a wisp of a dynamo with short blond hair. She seemed very down-to-earth and swept by Sally’s force of personality. Sally is very proud of her, her voice gushing with introductions and mutual handshakes.
I told Sally I saw her in ‘Anna’ – she was nominated for Best Actress by the Academy in 1987 for it.
“You saw ‘Anna’! Oh, thank you! Tell Nancy to see it!”
“I am going to see it,” Nancy said smiling, while I replied, “It’s very good.”
“Come see ‘Kiss Me Kate’ – Nancy plays Bianca and stops the show two or three times,” Sally said, genuinely high on Ms. Anderson’s performance. [She does a great job of “Always True To You In My Fashion,” I’ve seen that. – link to show notes]
“Where is it being done?” I asked.
“The Shubert!” they offered in cheerful unison. I said I’d try to see it and Sally said, “Thank you for seeing ‘Anna’.” She seemed to like me.
AUGUST 29, 2001, Wednesday
I’m at ‘THR’ in the newsroom. The editorial assistant who trained me got a job as a director of communications at an outside organization and is resigning in 2 weeks. He drafted his letter of resignation and is waiting to give it to the top brass. He said he is going to personally endorse me to our supervisor and the deputy editor as his replacement. The editorial assistant who I’m filling in for now returns in 2 months.
Would I love the newly vacant job? Yes!
Still, this isn’t anything I can really get excited about because I don’t know enough about the tenor of management here or if they would even hire me – this is the Industry after all. I’m not worried about it; it’s all in God’s beautiful hands.
Meanwhile, no word back from the apartment that Bebbles and I thought we were approved for. I could smell it was going to be a long and unsure process. Bebbles is handling it and I know he’s busy, but the whole thing is taking too long.
AUGUST 30, 2001, THURSDAY
At work. Yesterday it was very hard to concentrate between the reporters’ needs and some of the temperamental callers. Stone and I didn’t get the apartment after all. We went there in person – the realtors loved him but cited my income as a temp as not being sufficiently creditworthy. Stone is a temp too, but he has been at one place the whole time and makes $600 more a month than I do; my summer income is from 4 different companies. It was embarrassing and there wasn’t anything more I could have said for myself. They would rent to him but not to me on the lease, so we’ll start over.
At THR I’m trying to make sure to walk a straight line between management potentially offering me the soon-to-be-vacant editorial assistant job and being careful I don’t burn my bridge with the Terrific Agency. I’m the Temp of the Month, plaque and all, two months running. I’ve made them a lot of money this summer, including right now.
What’s pending is if The Terrific Agency plays hardball in having my contract with them bought out, which is what has to happen for me to convert to full-time at The Hollywood Reporter. Terrific could ask for top dollar to make up for the revenue they’ll lose with me leaving their roster – and blow it.
Josie, the TV-actress-turned-owner of Terrific talked to me yesterday saying, “We’ve got your back, don’t worry about it. If THR wants to talk, go ahead and talk. They have a contract with us. If it’s a fit, it’s a fit.” Management here at THR likes me and God is handling it from here. I’ve done all that I can and should do. I can’t sweat it
About time to end my shift and I just got told that the magazine’s HR is handling my contract negotiations with Terrific. It’s already started.
AUGUST 31, 2001, Friday
It’s morning in the newsroom and the reporters are happy – payday! – but I’m sandwiched between stressed-out factions over logistics about the vacant role. No one is giving me any hassle, personally, but the tension is palpable. I don’t mention any of it because everyone is playing it cool. I’m neutral, Baby.
12: 25 p.m. A Black power mover just tried to read me over the phone in the newsroom and said I was “sarcastic” because we haven’t run the details of an event that doesn’t happen for months from now.
He took the tack that “If the L.A. Times can run it then why not The Hollywood Reporter when you have no problem running items about the Emmys, Grammys…” blah blah.
It’s valid point, but I told him that The L.A. Times is a general newspaper and ‘THR’ is a trade. No coverage would even be assigned to something this far ahead. He was basically calling me a “sell-out” for holding to an editorial standard that is about timing, not sarcasm or cherry-picking.
I informed him that at any given time, just from own observation here that, “There are 50 people, at least, who are ahead of you and equally A-list and want mentions and are pitching editors and reporters and even then it’s up to editorial discretion – that’s Hollywood.”
I ended up chilling him out and getting him onto my side of reason because I’ll not have some executive talk to me like I’m the sell out when the majority of Black folks with 100,000 times more clout and income have given me the closed door for the past 4 years. There’s no way I’m getting slammed for editorial protocol at a magazine that’s older than both of us combined. At least six executives that he mentioned have professionally faded me when I was an actor. Trust me, I didn’t go into any of that history, but he did end up thanking me.
I’m a strong communicator and I had to handle him with logic and explain my way out of his tirade since he’d gone off on me, a stranger he saw as denying him clout. His event will run when it’s closer to the premiere, my supervisor confirmed it with the same timing logic, but if I’m going to be permanent here then I need to have an understanding with people when they want to yell at me when I’ve been on the complete other end of things myself. They don’t know my history. I haven’t submitted for any roles since I started temping this summer and I was submitted for the TV pilot, which is not happening.
I was proud of myself for the way I’d handled my first crisis in a teacup and didn’t know the reporters had heard the whole thing. When I hung up the phone, some clapped and one of the reporters said, “He’s getting the hang of it! Karl, you’re getting the hang of this place.”
I appreciated it, but I’ve had the hang of this place – this town – and that’s what will make me do terrifically at THR.
SEPTEMBER 5, 2001, Wednesday
Spent my morning prep time listening to voice mails, calling my Mom and looking for my keys. Took a cab to work – Bebbles is in the Valley, so he takes the van – and came into the newsroom. I’m in a mild purgatory here. I’m being quiet and doing the best job that I can until there’s a little more leverage for me. I’m anticipating some FRESH pathways, ok? I’ll be 32 soon. It will be a nice beginning to have a secure and well-earned new role under my belt.
This week should be the week where my contract negotiations – which are happening without me between editorial and my agency – are finalized. My supervisor at THR told me last Friday that they just want to get the price right.
When I went into the Terrific Agency last night. I saw Lawrence there, the agent who signed me, and he was congratulating me on the THR buzz and said, “You changed the image of The Terrific Agency,” and that I was his first interview and have done great and noticeable work. He says the buzz in the agency is that I’ve got this editorial assistant job and that on Corrine’s power there’s a post it note that says: “Karl To Be Hired.”
This morning a news editor came to my desk and asked, “So have you put in for the job?
“Yes,” I answered.
“We wee taking bets on it last week on whether you would or not and we all agreed you’d make an excellent choice,” he said.
“Thak you,” I said, genuinely surprised. I’ll get the job and be a permanent member of this Hollywood trade and that will be terrific. One path arrived at: a permanent job.
It was almost 4 months ago I quit my job, and I hustled all summer and now I’m at a great company with a position I’d love to have. I’m fortunate. It’s a new ball game now.
SEPTEMBER 6, 2001, Thursday
Work is cool but will be a lot better when I am permanent and everyone’s agendas have been satisfied. No one has a vicious agenda; it’s all just about money and bargaining without me and I’m the one who is absorbing the immediate losses, which I do not like, since Terrific gets a commission on me – the pay rate difference, namely – every day this drags out
Josie, who is bargaining on behalf of the agency, just took an impromptu vacation and doesn’t return until the editorial assistant’s last day. Will I get hired? Yes. But it looks like I’ll be in a holding pattern for weeks to come. I’m being a pro, but I think there is a modicum of respect my agency could extend to me in this and right now. That they’re not doing it or keeping me informed is dismaying. I could just walk out the door on principle alone. More on this later when I’m not so mad.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2001, Sunday
Isn’t it amazing that I started this journal for my observations on the Industry and my experiences and here I am now, positioned to work at “THR” permanently?
I’m in the newsroom today working and I’m much calmer than last Thursday when I was pissed and in the dark. I’ll get this job; I’ve worked my ass off as a contractor and God guided me to all the right points that led to this opportunity.
It’s a total zoo in the newsroom right now and will be easier when I can get fully trained. I love that the editorial assistant championed me for his job and was so cool. He’s been miles away in attention span while prepping for his new director role; meanwhile I’m about 25% trained on the job, but he’s distracted and figures, I’m assuming, that I’ll learn by doing. There’s things I’m clueless about that he knows I need to be taught. He’s senior to me in tenure and pay, so when I’m doing both of our jobs, it’s not a pleasant feeling. I was venting so hard at home with Bebbles last week; I don’t want to bring my job frustrations and contract negotiations home like that. Stone didn’t mind and told me, “Let go and let God,” and I’m going to try harder. It’s so easy to be distracted.
We saw ‘The Others’ last night at Los Feliz 3 and it was excellent. I was completely floored by the originality of the ending and by the acting of Nicole Kidman and the child actors. Spooky and well done film. I loved it.
My relationship with Stone is great, and we get to chill a little more now but we’re both defensive when we don’t need to be and we get into rows because we’re battle-tested, period. It’s hard work, but it’s getting better. I also think that the less myriad business huddles – jobs, realtors – we have to discuss, overall, the better. We’ll get ourselves set in our professions and have fun (or more of it).
I’m interested and focused on a life not so mired in the petty and greedy aspects of L.A. over the last 4 years. God is on it and with Him anything can be done.