Factory Girl

My roommate auditioned for a game show gig today and kept me up last night asking for advice on outfits. Then I was woken up this morning with a call about a temp job in Santa Monica at a clothing manufacturer; the position involved helping one of the designers prepare for a trade show. Again, a stretch for "entertainment," but my agency did say this was an unusual job for them to place.

I agreed to take it and spent the day steaming and folding clothes and creating clothing labels. It was actually pretty taxing, and I go back again tomorrow.

Here's an odd story. Yesterday evening I had a drink with a date in Westwood, and while I was steaming the shirts this morning, he rang me on my cell. I couldn't pick it up when he called but figured I'd call him back over lunch. After several bungled attempts at finding a place to eat, I ended up in the Yahoo! courtyard, and just after I ordered something at the counter and was digging my cell phone out of my purse, I ran into him. Strange, as he doesn't even work at Yahoo! He was standing around with his friends, and it was awkward in a "high school cafeteria" type of way.

I told him I was stalking him (he looked like he believed me). We had lunch together. When I got back to work and told the designer what had happened, he responded that it was "just like a John Cusack movie."

Or Maybe Not

After my interview yesterday I found out it was just a "preliminary" screening. In three weeks I'll find out if I made it onto a list of contenders that is active for six months. If an appropriate librarian position materializes within those six months, I will then be called in for an interview for that position.

I have gone from feeling like I have a pretty good shot at a position to assuming it is unlikely to happen and I need to move on to another plan.

I'm still taking a week or two off to regroup and then I'll go from there. Back to trying to get into the entertainment industry, I guess. The personal assistant thing is seeming appealing again. I have now met two people who are friends with people who were assistants to John Cusack. What are the chances, I ask you.

I'm coming to terms with the possibility of losing a large chunk of my life savings on this whole L.A. endeavor.

One more day at my current gig. Another possible replacement showed up today and I'm now training her (she's the third). She's just out of college and seems very bright. She really wants to do set design. She's been in L.A. a few months longer than I have but her experience in the job market here has been almost identical. She was temping for a while but kept getting sent to Santa Monica until she finally put her foot down and said she wouldn't do the commute anymore. She is equally dismayed at the pay rates. She finally decided to take something permanent because of the "stress" of taking short-term temp jobs, and now she is taking over the job that I am leaving.

And my Pointe is...

I'm planning on seeing Jake Kasdan's film "The TV Set" today. Kasdan was a collaborator on the supurb television series "Freaks and Geeks," and the film is a fictionalized version of the struggle to get a quality series on the air. I read in an interview with Kasdan that he would have no idea how to get a TV show on the air today, which is remarkable, when you think about it.

A friend of mine in Austin, who used to depend on my reader advisory skills, asked me to put more book recommendations on here. L.A. is poked fun of as a non-reading city, but supposedly people do indeed read books here, albeit in search of material for entertainment product. I have yet to see proof of this, but it makes sense. Here are some recs that are at least dimly related to my blog:

"But Enough About Me" by Jancee Dunn: Funny, insider look into celebrity culture and entertainment reporting.

"Sweet: An Eight-Ball Odyssey" by Heather Byer: I don't know yet if I will stick with this one, but I did enjoy the opening scene in which a film executive colleague of the author's throws a tantrum in an oft-visited New York restaurant because he is asked to wait five minutes for a table. The executive's quivering minion later defends the guy's behavior to the author, saying, "These things are important to Larry. Commitment is important to Larry. Loyalty."

"The Cigarette Girl" by Carol Wolper: It's been several years since I read it, but I remember enjoying this cynical novel about a single woman living in L.A. and working in the film industry.

As far as movies, I naturally recommend the L.A.-set "The Big Lebowski," although all my friends have surely seen it and probably more than once. Lately I have been recalling the scene in which Lebowski, played by that great, unsung actor Jeff Bridges, is shown a portrait on a wall of this wealthy man posing with Nancy Reagan. His reserved reaction in that scene is akin to my generally skeptical response to the job market here. Like, hmmmm, uh huh, I see.

I also have been thinking about "Sue," directed by Amos Kollek. I don't think it has ever been released on video or DVD, but I caught a showing of it in Paris around 1998, when I was travelling there. The movie follows a middle-aged single woman in New York City as she loses her job, runs out of money, becomes homeless, goes a little batty, and then keels over dead on a park bench in Central Park. I rather enjoyed the film, but I hope I don't end up keeled over on a park bench in Santa Monica.

Speaking of tragic women, a big glossy book and CD about Edie Sedgwick was just released called "Edie: Girl on Fire." I loved the Jean Stein "Edie" book when I was in college. I have recently tried to recall my mindset back then, when I was young and could afford to become obsessed with impractical things. Edie, of course, met her demise in Southern California.

I'll end this with a mention of "Grosse Pointe Blank," which I caught for the first time on DVD about eight months ago and was very affected by. In some indirect way the ennui and world-weariness it portrayed motivated me to make changes in my life and move out here.

On a related note, when I told acquaintances I was moving to Los Angeles, at least five people responded with "So who's the guy?" A friend told me I should have answered, "John Cusack."

Cue crazy music.