Season 2, Episode 2: If Hollywood Gets To Be Too Much
Tuesday, January 2, 2002
Back to work today. Took about 90 calls and got called kind names by the other Hollywood assistants, especially the stressed-out one who appreciate calm help.
I tried my best to have a positive day, and it was, overall. I still had my moments where I wondered if I could do this for a full year here, but I didn’t voice it. The editorial assistant I filled in for over the summer is back and we work well together. I finished THR’s Oscar Screening Guide for the week. My art director told me this is the smoothest the Guide has gone in years.
No industry people responded to my THR-issued Christmas card. Isn’t that classic? Working at ‘The Hollywood Reporter’ is like being in a very tall and expensive observation tower: you can’t touch, but you can direct the traffic. It’s all good. I’ve got a flawless rep with no bullshit. The other Black staffers in the parent company and THR here on Wilshire Blvd, plus me, comes to seven people. We’re in different areas from security to sales and the mailroom, the newsroom (me) and another in Features. They are nice, but I can tell they withhold around me because of where I’m positioned. One of the mailroom guys I trained with for that one day talks to me in the smooth and obligatory way you talk to someone you don’t trust but think you should be nice too. The other staffer who helped me get assigned to the newsroom could be a peer but won’t talk openly with me, so I don’t try. I can’t and don’t worry about it. I can represent.
Another Black actor and I were talking for hours tonight about the Industry and there are people who are treated just as badly by their own, including some of Black Hollywood. I’ve heard of some rough – meaning utterly dismissive – treatment. I just don’t see how people fixate on their own as enemies when they’re not.
I can think of key people who’ve done their best to make me miserable in the acting world. Time and greater fortunes will ease that rift. I pray for their success because I’ve seen this up close for over a decade now. They deserve their shot. The Black actor tonight said he’s written off other Black people in the Industry, won’t even submit his portfolio to them. That percentage of Black Hollywood that deals in equal pettiness and exclusion is beyond comprehension. We’re not each other’s enemy. Hollywood, internally, is a backwards system and it has produced social pathology across so many disciplines. It’s pitiful. I’ll survive it.
Friday, January 4, 2002
Nigel from Hawthorne treated me to lunch and a drink today. We had a lot to catch up on. He did most of the talking and that was fine. I’m so glad to not have additional drama of my own that’s it’s great to listen.
Tuesday, January 8, 2002
Work is great but it’s very tight with the dollars. I found out today that Roxanne, the temp, makes $1.50 less than I do and I’m full-time. My raise better be fierce. This is where agency negotiations matter, but that’s the offer I got. Oh well.
I’ve been doing well here at THR. I don’t let it get to me, and I welcome getting to know these people that I talk to on the newsroom phones. 30 extensions across two phones and all the reporters are right here in real time. A business book I bought spoke of the obvious logic of getting to know casual contacts and it’s true. Those casual contacts sometimes become greater.
Wednesday, January 9, 2002
It was around 4 p.m. today and my editor in chief was out sick, film reporters were at Sundance in Utah, and the TV editor was at the TV Press Tour in Pasadena. Around then, I got a call from an older HBO executive in New York City, she’s a legend – all the HBO ladies of a certain age are – who called the newsroom furious over a slew of incorrect information from a Sundance report/review that I knew nothing about.
The second I said, “Karl Gibson, Newsroom, “ she was livid. She said, “You have a story in the paper that has a glaring and gross set of errors.” She said those errors, referencing one of their films, made it “unrecognizable.”
One of the key issues was that the HBO Film we referenced was called an HBO co-production with a company that is actually a rival. She said, “It’s infuriating because they are a COMPETITOR OF HBO and we would never co-produce a film with them.”
I was writing this all down, letting her know I heard her – she was so mad, there was nothing to do but take it – and she said, “I’m so angry right now that I can’t even pronounce the author’s last name.”
I hadn’t read the story yet and couldn’t pinpoint who the writer was, but it’s clearly a freelancer because I know the staff reporters and editors.
I apologized just the same for the error and gave her the procedure for corrections. It’s not like I can write it for her.
She said, “It’s 4 p.m. your time, but it’s 7 p.m. here in New York and I want to go home, and I don’t even feel like doing this! What are you going to do? Bury it in the back pages somewhere? This isn’t as petty as a misspelling of an actor’s name. We are huge, big supporters of The Hollywood Reporter and right now I don’t even know how I’m going to face my boss with this! What are you going to do about it?”
Another Features editor overheard the snafu in passing and I printed the correction letter for her and for him and he said he would handle it, which he did.
Saturday, January 12, 2002
Stone had an interview with The Terrific Agency at their downtown office yesterday and goes to test this upcoming week. That would be too fantastic if they could have him working before the end of the month. He’s gotten three calls from submissions I made for him. It’s hard being the sole earner for the past three months, but we’ve gotten through it. We’re going to start doing our industry events – tomorrow we see “Moulin Rouge” at a general Academy screening. The 28th of this month we’re going to see Jenifer Lewis’s one-woman show at the Tiffany Theater. Tickets are $35 each but we’re going. It’s being produced by Iris Gay Parker who also produced Ruby Dee’s one-woman show last year, “My One Good Nerve.” I spoke to Iris yesterday and told her that I love Jenifer Lewis. It’ll be nice to support Ms. Lewis and the theater. I’m not one of those hard asses that doesn’t listen to general calls or pitches at work; I assist a LOT of people and their dreams every day so that at least they can get it in front of the right newsroom beat. From there it’s up to their respective editorial discretion.
It’s a New Year and I’m going to have more fun this year. I need to see outside of the newsroom, you know?
I’m in a mood today where I’m being more restrained and quieter, so I’m keeping to myself.
Earlier today I offered Stone something and he replied with a reflexive, “Oh, that won’t be necessary,” kind of thing. I told Stone that every day he tells me, even if it’s in jest, what I can and can’t do for him. Today I had to shut that down. Even if he was joking, I’m working hard and doing long hours and I’m not for any word resembling ‘can’t.’ I literally have no desire or patience to hear it. He just told me he can’t afford to go see “Moulin Rouge” tomorrow. Times are tough and I won’t dispute his decision. It’s not fun to go if you can’t be free of basic budgetary concerns.
Sunday, January 13, 2002
Yves Saint Laurent announced he was retiring at the age of 65. Here’s a quote I loved from his announcement:
“Every man needs aesthetic phantoms in order to exist. I have hunted mine out, pursued them, tracked them down. I have grappled with anguish, and I have been through sheer hell. I have known fear and the terrors of solitude…It was Marcel Proust who taught me that, quote, “The magnificent and pitiful family of the hypersensitive are the salt of the earth.” I, without knowing it, was a part of that family.”
Friday, January 18, 2002, Friday
Overall, at work, I’m very confident at work and it’s not getting to me like last year. Everybody is respectful of me, and I do my job. I’m well-liked. I haven’t had any corrections on my Oscar Screening Guide. It runs every day.
Also back from the other day is the HBO executive in NY who let me have it because of a story a freelancer wrote. I’d forwarded it to one of my editors to cover our bases. He told me to fire off a quick email to the HBO exec and I did, but I had more details that she’d let me know of for the specifics of the correction; it was the length of a standard paragraph. I took it to the editor to approve, as a courtesy since I could have sent it unseen, and he point-blank told me that “There’s some grammar errors” and circled a section with red ink and I was mortified because I’d spell-checked it and I know how to write. This wasn’t the Declaration of Independence, okay?
He went on to say that it would have to “wait until tomorrow when I can spend some time on it.” I was too galled to ask him exactly what the grammatical errors; I balled up the copy and called the woman at HBO on the East Coast instead. Not only had I been unfairly blasted by this HBO exec for something I didn’t do, but I also get slammed by an editor when I was trying to help. The editor’s last words were, “I didn’t know it would get this involved.” I’m thinking, “Sure, because you didn’t take the call.” That’s when I balled up the letter. What a dope.
It did get more involved. Our boss, the editor in chief, said, “I have more authority here. Karl, write me up a report of what happened.” I did and my supervisor said, “You did good work.” The end results were good, and the importance of the correction wasn’t swept under the rug. My letter had no errors, by the way, and my boss told the editor who red-inked my letter not to fuck with me when I hadn’t made any mistakes in representing the paper. A lot of heads rolled, and I think it shocked some of the people involved that the newsroom came to my defense. My supervisor is going to be on vacation and so I have to assist the editor in chief while she’s out. Roxanne, the temp, will be doing my job until the 30th of this month. As for the editor who red-inked me for kicks, he’s not anyone I trust or give much credit anymore in relation to my job. These areas are their kingdoms, and I respect his work but he got his chance to diss me and so I don’t really say any more than is necessary to him. He can tell. Good!
Sunday, January 20, 2002
I work tomorrow for Golden Globes coverage for Tuesday’s paper. I’m facing a week as my editor-in-chief’s assistant. He’s cool, but my supervisor has a more doting shorthand with him. I can’t do that as well, plus I’m a guy. I’ll just do my job. It’ll be phone intensive, and I’ll be sure to take lunch every day to be out of the newsroom.
I’m not ungrateful. The contrasts between the world I work in and live in is obvious. My biggest to-do list at home is I need new pillow cases. God will allow me to be a successful actor and writer, outside of news. It takes faith and patience.
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
I came home and had a shortage of nerves. Friendships fading, bills. I’m doing the best I can to keep me and Stone afloat. Mom talked me down; she says I have anxiety. I do. I’m scared of blowing up like my father. My father died very young. He had stress problems. I don’t want the same.
Friday, January 25, 2002
After the Golden Globes events this week and being out on the circuit and seeing on the outside some of these guardians of the industry, I think it makes for a dull and boring state of affairs for all involved in certain circles. Some of the older men in question all run their fiefdoms while their partners or spouses stay home and get cheated on. How boring and regressive is that? A lot of myopic tendencies, they don’t talk about women like they like them on a multi-dimensional level, and you can see it on them like a blue light dust. Why any bold person would be attracted to that type is just the antithesis of cool and yet these people who want their favor think they’re cool, forward people. All I get is a paternal vibe, like guys who’d be cool to see at parties for a brief chat. They’re all like semi-endearing school principals.
Meanwhile, at work, a star reporter told me that there were raised eyebrows that I’d received a gift bag at Christmas of Oscar Screeners from DreamWorks. Why? Because they overheard someone in my matrix say, “He’s just an assistant.” The way it was relayed to me was that my position was being trashed and how another film reporter came to my defense behind the scenes and insisted that I get the gift bag for Christmas. I had gotten the vibe that people were surprised I’d gotten a gift bag, like them, but I had no hint that anyone had tried to withhold it or questioned it.
Not long after the reporter told me this, an editor looked at me, motioned to her keyboard, like look down, and messaged me that she couldn’t let me believe what the reporter had just said. She said they’re always saying what a good job I do and that I don’t get enough credit. I believe that.
I was more embarrassed that I was being mentioned in a lie and a power struggle that I care nothing about. Who cares what the truth is? I know I’m the only person of color they see all day, and they have the smallest clue about me. I’m getting my resources together and supporting a household. I don’t give a fuck about the Hollywood power plays. I’m out here explaining Mike Ovitz’s shit, correcting people – helpfully – about who the new chairmen are at these new companies and what the divisions of agencies are, explaining acronyms, things I know by heart. The last thing I am is an overpaid hack.
Saturday, January 26, 2002
My free-time weekend is drawing to a close. Working in the newsroom tomorrow. It was a nice couple of days off of work. Ate, drank and was merry. Things will get better. I have to have myself in shape and not be distracted by opportunists and assorted bullshit. I can deal with everything as long as I keep faith and God first.
I found out Friday that my step-grandmother who I’ve known since I was two, my Granmama, was moved into a nursing home at age 91. She was found in her apartment under a radiator, didn’t recognize anyone, and couldn’t talk. It was very sad news. What a lovely woman. I always loved her. She loved me. I spoke to her recently and sent her pictures. She asked if I needed money. I said no. She told me how smart I was (“You was always in them books”) and she told me to remember that, “If Hollywood gets to be too much, you always have a place to lay your head here at Gran’s. You hear?” So sweet. Granmama. I’m glad she knew I loved and missed her. [End]