tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17139493238615730162024-02-07T19:07:09.071-08:00Hollywood RailroadA personal look at the entertainment Industry - Hollywood's a state of mind. I was an award-winning patrol - I'll get you across the street. A collection of insights and personal thoughts.Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713949323861573016.post-71538729596060415362019-07-20T00:00:00.002-07:002019-08-01T20:42:31.636-07:00He<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhleadImEyFyj4Z3IC50j9SzE2hmFeKhLYa3TN9Cg0mLkmJwg2a4fWVH_O4KK2libEbk2PifSFeWoQ8DF58AExTS9X8BWbPNHswKyG8s0CHoU1mB-ScPF9Y1v8CWaTbu50C2h3Z6uHOnNjt/s1600/Heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="1600" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhleadImEyFyj4Z3IC50j9SzE2hmFeKhLYa3TN9Cg0mLkmJwg2a4fWVH_O4KK2libEbk2PifSFeWoQ8DF58AExTS9X8BWbPNHswKyG8s0CHoU1mB-ScPF9Y1v8CWaTbu50C2h3Z6uHOnNjt/s640/Heart.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u>HE </u></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by Karl Gibson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> didn't like splitting poles</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> said they separated you forever</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I'd walk back around if I forgot</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> not because I believed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I found it </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> poignant</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> somehow</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> steel in cement could </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> be thought to part</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> unbreakable unions</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> said he'd been a former slave</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> who rebelled and was killed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> rather than be subjugated</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> to unbearable</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> docile</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> insanity</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> not even for survival</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And now</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> he was back</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in a world</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> that could </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and would </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> have to</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> bear </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> him</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> became risible at the jocular slap</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> on the sole of the foot</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It ends someone's life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> he said </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and I laughed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> but I did it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">less and less</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> of course</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and found other ways</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> to show</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> contentedness</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> said people prematurely</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> end their own lives</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> becoming sick</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and shut in</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Later</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> he didn't want to take</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> pictures of me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> four years before</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> social media</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> on my way to work</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in clothes that competed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> with A-list </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> personages </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> whose clothes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> cost more </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> yet you couldn't tell</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> After all</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> he'd said before</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hollywood</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> ends at our front door </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And that's great</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> but it's all I </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> know </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in this </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> sad </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and vaguely</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> ominous</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> time</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> 70 hours </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> week</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> said </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> give me the camera then</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> agitated</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> annoyed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and I </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> sensing </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the unintended imposition</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> took my Nikon back</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> impudently</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> angry</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> hurt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> You used to love to take pictures</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> of me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> but now</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> not so much</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> An ending near</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I didn't see</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> my two selfies</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> filtered by fate </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and not knowing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> blurred</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in triplicate</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> told me that I didn't </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> sign up for this</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> I told him of course I </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> did</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Until death do we part </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and it's not coming anytime soon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> The husky </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> warm</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> laugh </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> from </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> telephone</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in the Valley</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> never to be heard</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> again</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> visits me sometimes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in dreams</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> sometimes lost</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> for directions</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> yet looking</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in a San Francisco</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> we never saw</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> together</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is immaculately dressed</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> big boys can dress right</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and smell terrific</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> He asks me what I want</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and he'll be right back</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> busy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Always busy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and I ask him</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> actually</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> implore him</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> can we just be</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> take a</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> nap</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> with me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> just </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> for a little</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> while</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> disappears</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and we both know</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> intuitively</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> that I cannot follow</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> but I know</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> he is</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> well</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and I am</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> haunted</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> no more</span>Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713949323861573016.post-23719118856267045452014-08-23T12:26:00.000-07:002014-11-20T22:41:47.388-08:00Hollywood 101: When Your 5-Year Plan Takes... Nearly 5 Years - Don't Give Up<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> If you work in the
media industry you need to have a plan. Not necessarily for every step of the
way, since the industry is fluid and seismic, along with a chance of
precipitation of corporate cliffhangers, mergers, buyouts, talent flaming out, talent
being fired/laid-off, executive rollovers, your boss(es) being fired – anything
can and will happen professionally. Whether you are just starting out in the
business or been to more dances than you've remembered, 5-year plans rely much more on faith, fortitude, your
own security in what you have to offer – and what you want.</span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> One big factor when it comes to 5-year plans is that so much of
what your plan will entail depends on the state of the Industry when you enter
it (read, take your place in line. It’s not even a Six Flags line, it’s one you
could be standing in for years). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> A plan for your
career is something that is personal and unique to you, so instead of a how-to,
I’ll share my five-year plan and how, despite constant effort, it didn’t come to pass until <i>the</i> last
minute – like a lot of Hollywood! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I went back to visit the East Coast, from Chicago,
before I moved to L.A. and spent time with my family since I
didn’t know when I’d have a vacation next. My big brother took me to dinner,
hugged me goodbye. His last words before I left: “Whatever you do, don’t do get out there and do porn!” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> My 5-year
plan was: to be working in the Industry in the L.A.-Hollywood market and drawing a steady paycheck from it by 2001. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I
didn’t know the capacity it would be in, if it would be from a TV role or from
an office gig, there was no way to tell. I figured no matter what job it was,
all I needed was an <u>in</u> and then I could prove myself professionally in
due time. I just needed to have it done in 5 years, by December 2001. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl6yj-e75kcMmvwItTHCK_cAoCW6Ge5sLSRtdJ-GxXc8Rd6OJ6inHr7sURQcCZuVJxoxPSCvaTWsAUOzsVwL9opa0nYnJxCsA8gLOgzZJsT8fIvIv-8Fjlxmu6We8xdyxH9QyScNnQ4u4L/s1600/ko+90s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl6yj-e75kcMmvwItTHCK_cAoCW6Ge5sLSRtdJ-GxXc8Rd6OJ6inHr7sURQcCZuVJxoxPSCvaTWsAUOzsVwL9opa0nYnJxCsA8gLOgzZJsT8fIvIv-8Fjlxmu6We8xdyxH9QyScNnQ4u4L/s1600/ko+90s.jpg" height="200" width="199" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">California, here I come! I really wanted to land one X-Files episode, a character who could levitate nightclubs with his eye or something 21st Century like that. Year 1 of the 5-year plan. 1996.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> December 1996, I
arrived to an unfurnished apartment in Los
Feliz, CA that I’d
never seen before and rented blind. I slept on my three-quarter length wool
trenchcoat in my bedroom until I got a bed. I was an actor, 27, with a full resume of acting
credits, mostly stage, from my career in Chicago
theater. I’d read up on California stats, pre-Internet, as best I could – how
the state of California was coming out of the recession, what the biggest
industries were, the huge book consumption by Californians, financial per
capita <i>everything</i>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The state of the
industry when I got to Los Angeles:
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i>
template for what casting directors were looking for, on the buzz of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Good Will Hunting</i>, taking a break from
the omnipresent Tom Cruise side-parted look that never went out of vogue in
casting. Male cast members couldn’t have mustaches at Disney. Sherry Lansing
was still at Paramount.
The town shut down from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. From May to August, there
was virtually no work in TV – the window lending itself to features, MOWs,
indies. Hiatus alone removed a good quarter of the year to get anything done –
a huge handicap, especially when you aren’t known and no one knows you. And I
needed all the time I could get.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The unseens came
quickly: the job I’d had when I moved out here folded 3 months later. My last check,
expressed from the East Coast, was in a mail bag that fell <i>out of the plane</i> into Lake Michigan. I kid you not. I received it by hand,
sopping wet, the four figures on the check barely legible. My bank, seeing the remains of
the fireplace-dried check, held it for 5 business days. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I registered with
10 temp agencies. T-e-n. I called them all every Monday – my version of rolling calls.
My attitude: may the first one with a gig win! I was an actor, which doesn’t
lend itself to day work when that's all your driven to do, and a broadcast journalism major didn’t lend itself
much bette. Still, I knew from my own ups-and-downs in entertainment to flow
with it. Thus, I’d be temping at Coldwell Banker one week in downtown L.A. and the next week be at a porn
studio in the Valley helping the mailroom out, discreetly boxing dildos of varying sizes and VHS
copies of <i>New Wave Hookers</i> and <i>Black Booty Busters</i> (mostly for the Midwest
market, if one wants to know). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I worked as a
seat-filler for $7 per show on <i>Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher</i> at Television City. I got signed to a manager in Beverly Hills who never
bothered to see all the gigs I got myself. Hair and makeup tests at Universal,
shooting for Fox at 3 a.m. downtown. A featured extra on-camera, onstage I was a
lead actor, something I’d worked for years to achieve. I got work in plays at
UCB and The Coast Playhouse that ran for months. But plays end. Still not at my 5-year
plan of a steady gig and by now it was 1999. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I got a day job,
during third-shift. Steady check, benefits, but not what I ultimately wanted to be
doing. It was on Sunset Blvd., right near The Hollywood Athletic Club. I
watched A-list party, after-party, from my office and the Blvd. on my breaks for years. I was
literally across the street from creative people I knew I could work for and
make a difference to their project if I could just audition or have an
interview. Talk about being Under The Dome – it was like being on the first
level of a video game for 3 years and wondering when the screen is going to
change. I sent out stacks of headshots and resumes every day – the only arrows
I had to pierce that invisible barrier keeping me from The Industry – the
entire reason I’d moved here. Crickets. I still remember the rejection letter Tracey Edmonds sent me when I submitted for a movie she was producing. On real-letter head, real pen strokes, with advice to keep going. I treasured it. It was proof from somebody that I wasn't out of my mind to think I could do it. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> By 2000, I was still working the same day job(at night) to pay
the bills in-between occasional gigs. I got an agent, who really wanted to push
me for music videos. I’d turned most of them down even when I liked the
artists, since the vogue then was to be as outlandish as possible – dancing in
a toga, eye makeup so thick it was like wearing Ray Bans, glitter in yer hair for days.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuWAk1o34kKY5-KeqHgNb82hd1A8gGQ3tvhOBtQ4rZDp3RtKpYlHLhyphenhyphenonOwoIxkJdG5oV3MvZAeW6wIRX5yiLdewSJCcez5zoZmkHIHCsnyxR__Tk1PG16AEjvQsuPwWFpd7kznAiXd8qx/s1600/karl-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuWAk1o34kKY5-KeqHgNb82hd1A8gGQ3tvhOBtQ4rZDp3RtKpYlHLhyphenhyphenonOwoIxkJdG5oV3MvZAeW6wIRX5yiLdewSJCcez5zoZmkHIHCsnyxR__Tk1PG16AEjvQsuPwWFpd7kznAiXd8qx/s1600/karl-01.jpg" height="320" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trying to throw off casting director ennui and get cast as anything in the Untitled Rick James Project. Yes, I sent this to Suzanne de Passe! Year 3 of the 5-year plan.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Then one foggy
Christmas Eve of 2000 – no, it wasn’t foggy, although there may have been a
marine layer –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got offered a part in
Marilyn Manson’s <i>The Fight Song </i>video that was filming at a high school in
The Valley. The premise given was Goths vs. Jocks, a twist on Columbine. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> It was
a great work opportunity but it was Christmas Eve – who works on Christmas Eve?
Marilyn Manson does (or did)! I was also told to expect an overnight shoot, for obvious
narco-pharmaceutical reasons, allegedly, that had to do with the band. I turned
it down. Again, great opportunity, and I knew you needed to be ready at the
drop of a dime, but I had no desire to be one of the few professionally sober
members of an overnight Christmas Eve music video shoot on a football field in The Valley
that could wrap who-knows-when. Not at my rate! It’s not like it was going to pay any of my
bills in a significant way, I politely told my agents no, and that was that. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> One night at my
day gig I was late by 10 minutes, a rarity since we all publicly clocked-in on a Rubik’s
Cube-looking Tron box on the wall. My supervisor, a former Marine who carried a
gun in his attaché case in the event of disgruntled employees - or their significant others - held a meeting with me and three other male co-workers. “You guys better step it
up is all I’m saying. Because if you don’t want to, you can all go right to Jack In
The Box and work there!” Not something you want to hear at midnight, at work,
at the age of 31. I told him I’d never have to work at a Jack In The
Box – and if I did, I’d be the hottest guy on fries and be out of there in 3
months. I quit the job in May 2001. No job in the wings. 7 months away from the
end of my 5-year plan, and with 37 cents in the bank – after bills – as I walked
out of the office on Wilshire Blvd. at midnight. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Back to the
drawing board. All 10 of my temp agencies were by now 4-year memories. I had to
re-register, except the demands were much more specific. I didn’t know </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">PowerPoint from an Avid deck. I was still an aspiring actor,
with two-tone hair. Acting work was out of the question as the SAG commercial
actors strike was in full-effect. Scores of people filed down from the Hills to
try to get some corporate work in the meantime. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I temped the entire summer of 2001, until I got assigned to <i>The Hollywood Reporter</i>’s
Wilshire Bureau. They needed a guy in the mailroom for one day. I worked that
day in the mailroom and got a call the next week to come back. I got there and
the mailroom employee who trained me switched me and another temp who’d been
double booked. I got sent to <i>The Hollywood Reporter</i>’s editorial newsroom and
the other temp went to the mailroom. Like that. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Now, <i>The Hollywood
Reporter</i> in 2001 was a daily trade making no less than $60M per year (I would
be there to see when it made no less than $73M in gross revenue per year). To
say it was nuts would be an understatement, but there was a method to it. I got
put on the phones covering three news desks and knew pretty much everyone on
the line – from years of reading <i>THR</i> and <i>Variety</i>, from submitting my
headshot-resumes to their production companies, from years as a professional
performer. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I temped there for 2
months and got made an offer, thanks to the Publisher, then-Deputy Editor and Office Manager who trained me
and went to bat for me. It wasn’t an acting role, but it most definitely was a
role in the industry. A company of that size and revenue is like a spaceship on
warp- speed, there’s no stepping off. I signed my offer on October 21, 2001 –
about 53 days short of my 5-year plan. I’d be there for nearly 7 more years and
over 1,400 daily printed issues. It changed my entire career. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">As for my day job manager who told us to go work at Jack In The Box? He landed at Toys R' Us.</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I early-on dissolved
all of my agency and management ties to ensure there was no
conflict-of-interest in my editorial work when I started. I
can do a play anytime for the rest of my life if I want that outlet, but I knew as a
Black actor there was no way I could take a gun-toting role (the majority of
those on-camera offers) and then wield a notebook or mike to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a studio head for a trade outlet with the same credibility. Hollywood would make me a thug, the Business of Hollywood would make me an analyst and a creative. It wasn't a hard decision. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I
understand talent inherently and I understand the executive process that has to
finance and make it – and the myriad relationships, praise and hostility that
exists between the two, both real and imagined.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> If I can help bridge those gaps with dual perspectives, then I’m
happy. The hucksters and monsters all fall off eventually. I've seen it up close and known it was going to happen before the first letter fell.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByRcLXWndnnfNJ2lt2fwf5fiQKJLS0DVbSh8cHCk0B3egTyDpyB2VGOhJY5BBt-pEoN5VJm67nvKfISyVB7RyyE33bhmbi4XeEpkQxNlg9-jzEnMOuEe7bFZ1XdZ-c5gBv9snlBUgdKH-/s1600/today.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByRcLXWndnnfNJ2lt2fwf5fiQKJLS0DVbSh8cHCk0B3egTyDpyB2VGOhJY5BBt-pEoN5VJm67nvKfISyVB7RyyE33bhmbi4XeEpkQxNlg9-jzEnMOuEe7bFZ1XdZ-c5gBv9snlBUgdKH-/s1600/today.jpeg" height="200" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Awards Season 2014, Paramount Lot</td></tr>
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</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I say all of this
about where my 5-year plan led to <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>because I know that there’s always aspirants you meet or people just getting into the
industry who look at you as Establishment when they really have no idea what your path was or entailed. I don’t malign or hate on the youth trying to make a career now. I
know what it’s like to be 26 years old and seen with a side-eye as nothing more
than shock value, a stock stereotype, someone only in it for the short haul.
The business is not what it was in 1996, no more than it was in 1976, 1936 or
how it will be in 2016. That’s what makes it exciting and the more prepared you
are the better – which can occupy any 5-year plan. You need to know in your
sleep the direction the business is going in, sometimes before the business
knows itself. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Easy for you to say,” one aspiring director with his
co-directing crew – a sideways, embryonic Funny or Die-ish collective – said to
me after a premiere one night in 2002. “You’ve got a job. You go to this kind
of thing every night, you’ve got it made.” I thought I detected a snort as he
exhaled his Marlboro Light. He was maybe 23. We were at a backlot in Westwood.
They looked like a nascent version of future Mumford & Sons and I understood the
sneer – they believed they had what it takes too and were tired of waiting. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“See that college over there?” I replied, pointing
over the palms to the visage of the UCLA
Education Building.
“That’s where I was evaluating elementary school writing tests for a month last
summer. Does that look like Hollywood
to you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I don’t go to these every night
and when I do you can bet that I’ve been at work for 9 hours beforehand. I’m
not in the movie, I didn’t just arrive fresh from bed. Do you have a 5-year plan?” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Of course,” he said.</span><br />
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</div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Good,” I said, adding, “And can you handle it if it takes 4
years and 10 months before you hit? Because that’s how long it can take. Sometimes it’s gonna suck and if you don’t work through it, you and your
friends here won’t even be friends by the end of it.” </span><br />
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I hope they made it. I know it sounded outlandish, but
sometimes it does take nearly 5 years to literally get across the street. And if it takes
5 more to get to the next one, that’s okay. From The Hollywood Reporter it took me 2 more years to get to The New York Times. And so on. But if you can get through the first 5-year plan, you can do it again. And again.</span><br />
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> As the late great Ernest Borgnine told me when he was nominated for a Golden Globe at the age of 90: “If
somebody knows your work and calls you and wants to play? It beats breaking
rocks!” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713949323861573016.post-49511687988183267722014-06-22T22:18:00.000-07:002014-06-23T14:43:52.296-07:00In Memory Of My Grandfather<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5XwUi8OPZLtD_0k6b_oILqbFnQO9Or_2qLswG616DFEiDYvwEXCT5b0LhJSn-eq5BcCck0mPhhWI0nZEVP99HVxvDMyEC5-1QowNrd0bEZVBy4AsgjflcXL2lqhkCpTm1wP2DmhJMMXcs/s1600/afi+boat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5XwUi8OPZLtD_0k6b_oILqbFnQO9Or_2qLswG616DFEiDYvwEXCT5b0LhJSn-eq5BcCck0mPhhWI0nZEVP99HVxvDMyEC5-1QowNrd0bEZVBy4AsgjflcXL2lqhkCpTm1wP2DmhJMMXcs/s1600/afi+boat.jpg" height="320" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My grandfather driving the family boat on the Chesapeake Bay, with two of my aunts. I'm happily by the steering wheel. 1974.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> My grandfather passed away this week at 91 years old. He was known as James - or Jim - both equally fitting, but I only called him one name: Afi - Icelandic for 'grandfather.' My paternal grandparents had both died by the time I was born. My maternal grandfather, Gisli, lived in Iceland. He loved to send me craft chocolates and books of fairy tales from there. I knew him and loved him his whole life, seeing him whenever I was in Iceland.</span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZwnAWrB4LUg-mNnbuEDySu87fj1duL1E-9qXiA44KM_JZLzbXl2O3MnHg4f0F-CXKNbI2SXtP4ehsX_GLK8AY7ydPM_W6t4ru5mnwyEq325rEvdBugsLvoQaVs-W86digw5tzGoXYFdz/s1600/Afi+Amma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQZwnAWrB4LUg-mNnbuEDySu87fj1duL1E-9qXiA44KM_JZLzbXl2O3MnHg4f0F-CXKNbI2SXtP4ehsX_GLK8AY7ydPM_W6t4ru5mnwyEq325rEvdBugsLvoQaVs-W86digw5tzGoXYFdz/s1600/Afi+Amma.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My grandparents, Ragna and Jim Ellis, with me. .</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">James was my grandmother's second husband. </span>We all lived in suburban Maryland and I saw Afi the most, since I was born in and lived in the US.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> He was a meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau in Washington, D.C. He worked </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">out of various</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> official-looking 1970s federal buildings with bureaus in them and had a station wagon full of spare parts, lumber, recycling and man stuff in the back for his workroom. We kids got paid good money whenever my grandmother had her fill of the mess and commissioned us to toss, keep or clean.</span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi797CiIzR6IraXrO99fWm6a7Mtq0ZD7O59wG1NJNBwykbuURFG-D44hfSI3dDdznLZC6wDo0l7GexzBfeqBBkV8GpAlaZwMFliWj2WB-UO8L4IiFWgDivIbqDle9N5WbmWY8vmgHK5O85E/s1600/family+3502.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi797CiIzR6IraXrO99fWm6a7Mtq0ZD7O59wG1NJNBwykbuURFG-D44hfSI3dDdznLZC6wDo0l7GexzBfeqBBkV8GpAlaZwMFliWj2WB-UO8L4IiFWgDivIbqDle9N5WbmWY8vmgHK5O85E/s1600/family+3502.jpg" height="320" width="315" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With my aunts and, lower left to second left, two of my cousins outside my grandparents' house. Easter.</td></tr>
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</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> He was one of the voices you heard when you called for the local weather report in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland: <i>my</i> Walter Cronkite. I took him to show & tell so he could show my classmates weather maps. I never went anywhere that could get rained-out without asking him what the weather would be like in advance, while he looked at the sky, squinted, and gave his personal forecast. He was never wrong. Sometimes he'd leave the bureau early, drive up to my elementary school and have me excused for the day....to go fishing. Doritos and Cokes for me while he had a beer or three at our favorite fishing spot, for hours, near a bridge bank in Wayson's Corner. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Afi was a World War II vet; he didn't allow toy or cap guns in the house. Period. Or chewing gum. But I think that rule had relaxed some by the time I secretly broke that rule at every turn. I was the only nine-year old defiantly buying Wrigleys by the case in Euro duty-free stores.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> He took me by myself to the VFW Post 9619 in Morningside, Maryland, where he'd let me hop up on tables with a corded microphone and sing all the songs the East Coast vets remembered. I'd be singing 'Five Foot Two Eyes of Blue' and 'Has Anybody Seen My Gal?' while doing my best Michael Jackson <i>Dancing Machine</i> robotics, stepping over ashtrays, beer cans and whiskey neats in mod stack boots. Vets smoking and drinking, cheering for a little kid being a huge ham: the best.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihqFT0WP_eRemrwWCnmZgD4n6JLGozX3UBktKVoOhLht3oZJG78xFRbvKB9Rgq9AZRoNXz03vIwhcotuqiV0FpTqyEhukHeA7bT42KJGQcCiI-5kvkbc02auMe8TY1E6KN7QWfDe97q_Ou/s1600/Sylvester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihqFT0WP_eRemrwWCnmZgD4n6JLGozX3UBktKVoOhLht3oZJG78xFRbvKB9Rgq9AZRoNXz03vIwhcotuqiV0FpTqyEhukHeA7bT42KJGQcCiI-5kvkbc02auMe8TY1E6KN7QWfDe97q_Ou/s1600/Sylvester.jpg" height="320" width="227" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My father, Sylvester Gibson. </td></tr>
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My grandparents and aunts lived not far from me, my Mom and my brother. We were one of the first interracial families in our neighborhood, a true blended family, and it is to my Mom and family's credit that the only time I was aware that society hadn't caught up to us was when I was faced with it outside our family. Our neighbors were great. I rarely got asked at school if I was adopted, more so when<i> Diff'rent Strokes</i> caught fire, but no I was not. It was not a writers room. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrLVsR6i3aylFTSSzh1dsKf8ivVDhwxy3Hi69VB_Z_QTmouiL9S-IZCQ1dGZa00HIbnRucE0bJfu-l8jeQh3Bio6xRAjOjkkbASGJIVN8mhJ2LrD20Dz0-vHK7OBwjMeUs9n-YAOEUz1Z3/s1600/Sigridur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrLVsR6i3aylFTSSzh1dsKf8ivVDhwxy3Hi69VB_Z_QTmouiL9S-IZCQ1dGZa00HIbnRucE0bJfu-l8jeQh3Bio6xRAjOjkkbASGJIVN8mhJ2LrD20Dz0-vHK7OBwjMeUs9n-YAOEUz1Z3/s1600/Sigridur.jpg" height="228" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Mom, with me on the way. Iceland. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> When my grandmother and high-school age aunts moved to a quiet town in Florida, my mother, my brother and I moved there the following summer. We were a strong family, we missed them, and off we went. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Florida was not the East Coast or Eastern seaboard, and that's not a diss, it's just what was certainly true for it in the early '80s. It was when I became 'Other' - the only black, bi-racial, Icelandic-American, African-American Icelander, you-name-it in most of my middle school classes, at the arcade, and for literal square miles. Older people, parents, some good Christians called me 'nigger' on the sidewalk like they were saying 'grass' or 'the sky is blue.' It happened a lot, never in front of my family, but in regular everyday encounters. Everyone wasn't like that, of course, and I have remaining friendships with the kids I went through teen-angst with, which is color-blind. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> In the summer we moved to Florida, I'd gone to Capitol Hill with my mom and brother to say goodbye to my father at work. I was upset with him. He'd missed my 6th-grade graduation and I was pissed in the way that boys are with their Dad when they miss important events for work. He hugged me goodbye and I hugged him with the half-hearted reluctance of an 11 year old's unspoken frustration. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Give your father a <i>real</i> hug," my mother demanded. I looked at her and I looked at him. My Dad looked at her and smiled - with the smile I now can see in myself - and said, "It's okay. He doesn't have to." He was saving face. And I didn't. He was dead less than 3 months later, from a stroke. To this day, I bear hug everybody who hugs me. That haunted me for years. My father, Sylvester, was far too young. I look a lot like him. I regret that moment of pride that meant nothing in the face of never seeing him again. It was over.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> When my mother found out my father had died, she called out, "Boys!", grabbed me and my brother and flew out of the house, sobbing, fumbling for the keys to our car. She sobbed so hard on the road, unable to speak, that I asked her to pull over, afraid she couldn't see from the tears and we'd crash. "Where are we going!?" I asked from the passenger seat, not knowing what had upset her this much. My Mom is incredibly strong, I hadn't seen her this distraught ever. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> We pulled in front of my grandparents' house and she went inside. Minutes later my grandfather asked me to come with him. He sat me down next to him, did a couple of stalled throat-clearings that I now know are the sound we men make when we don't want to cry. "Karl, today we lost a man that was very special and important to you and our family. Your father has died, Karl. I'm so sorry." Tragic. Unforgettable. It was horrible news, coming from anyone, but I'm glad it came from him. It was something I never forgot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> My Mom, my brother and I moved to an apartment complex on a street called... Main Street. A school bus picked us kids in the complex up and made a few more stops at other subdivisions on the route to school. Assigned seating.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> The first day I got on the bus, the kid I was assigned to sit next to looked at me and sneered, "I'm not sittin' next to no f-----n' nigger!" I was dumbfounded. I wasn't shocked. I just had no idea we were in a parallel Selma in the early 1980s. I called him a choice word in response, said I didn't want to sit next to him either. Glares. No fists. Just me standing with an arm full of books while the school bus careened down I-95. It was gonna be a long school year.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> As soon as the bus got to our middle school, the bus driver asked for the principal and told him I'd been disruptive and he didn't want me on the school bus from here on out. Two sentences was all we'd said, but I was effectively kicked off the bus that morning. The kid who started my day with what a f-ing nigger I was got a pat on the head. How I got to school from that day forward, school administration told me with an assured twang, was on me and my family.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> My Mom relented, after I swore I could do it, and bought me a BMX bike that I rode 4 miles round-trip, to and from school, for an entire school-year and some. Every day, deep in the panhandle. I volunteered at a nursing home that was on my way home, the better to constructively transmute my rage when the school bus would pass me and laughter would waft from the windows as I pedaled a bike, in traffic, in 90 degrees. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> In Florida the thunderstorms are Gothic and epic. It doesn't just rain, it literally pours. Riding a bike to school in the rain was out of the question. You'd be soaked to the Hanes for 2/3 of the day in air-conditioning, miserable. Without fail, anytime it rained, my grandfather - who knew I'd been kicked off the bus and was a post-retirement school bus driver himself - would come and put my bike in the back of his station wagon and drive me to school. All the time. That's the kind of man he was. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> His passing this week was sudden, but merciful to him, in his sleep.The thought of losing him last week made my mouth widen in a grimace of pain akin to a CGI-sequence, like my jaw would unhinge. I cried until I saw rainbows around any source of light and felt unmoored.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> He wasn't my father. He has children who love him dearly. He has many grandchildren who love him equally and have their own great stories. Generations of love. He was our grandfather and there was enough of him to go around. The grandfather you could hug anytime because he appreciated kindness and family. He confirmed you with them, easily.That's what went through my mind earlier this week. It'll never happen quite that way again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> A few years ago, I was visiting with him at his house. We were having a drink, some great Scotch. He offered me a beer as a chaser and I made a demonstration of tilt-pouring it into a glass, with all the elan I thought it intimated, and said, "See, Afi - I paid attention! It's just classier and old-school drinking beer from a glass, right?!" Man drinks. Ha! Isn't this the best?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "Oh, Karl," he laughed, "I started doing that in World War II because all the GI's used to put their cigarettes out in beer cans all over the place, without asking whose it was. Why, if you didn't pour it in a <i>glass</i>, well, you didn't know what the hell you'd be drinking! We just didn't want to swallow cigarette butts." We laughed our asses off. I thought it'd been a classy gesture all these years - he was the one who'd co-hosted <i>Mad Men</i>-style cocktail hours with my grandmother, right down to crystal lighters and ashtrays. Instead, he was just being practical. He was also a fountain of wisdom - you could ask him anything.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> We will all miss him but we know he had a great life. No family or person is perfect, but we always had and have metric tons of love. No matter what, ultimately, occasional furies and arguments aside. We will remain so: it's what we lived, what we saw, what we were taught. He is surely with my grandmother now, his lost loved ones, daughter, and God. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> One of the last things my grandfather said to me was, "I never worry about you, Karl." I thought, <i>that's impossible</i>. I chose two adulthood professions, theater and journalism, that were precarious at best. But he said it was true. And that my father couldn't say it and he did... it meant and means a priceless value. And he's right. So, to my grandfather, one of my heroes: I'm honored to have known you and been your grandson. Thank you for sharing and teaching me your love of books and magazines. There was information in there, he said, and there is. A world of it. Between my mother's gift of words, spoken and written, and his voracious reading, it became my passion. Thanks again, Afi. I love you. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Skaal!</span><br />
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">- Karl </span>
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Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713949323861573016.post-13502944596415276232014-06-01T18:12:00.002-07:002014-06-01T21:58:44.359-07:00Hollywood Prep: Turning Down A Three-Way<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Hollywood Prep</i> is a series of posts of musings/advice for industry folk/industry observers, just in case it comes in handy. If it happened in my own experience and I can share or shine a light on some of the ludicrous or pensive obstacles, challenges or kooky situations that can arise in the Hollywood veldt, I'm glad to! I know what I know... Here we go.... - Karl</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufQ5oM1VdOlUi3s6zuP9eXCs24Zzt2XvGU1GHRCG21yzTFT33c9pp8LSF-CIp2kukj3lm0E6f_Idh5MbEiIZXeaZp8_KFfkvNIUFbFG0JcCT2r2RkW7Jw9oKTj7s3P93CKNovU239jZ_Y/s1600/sunset+and+schrader-002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufQ5oM1VdOlUi3s6zuP9eXCs24Zzt2XvGU1GHRCG21yzTFT33c9pp8LSF-CIp2kukj3lm0E6f_Idh5MbEiIZXeaZp8_KFfkvNIUFbFG0JcCT2r2RkW7Jw9oKTj7s3P93CKNovU239jZ_Y/s1600/sunset+and+schrader-002.jpg" height="320" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Karl Gibson</td></tr>
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<u><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Situation: Turning Down A Three-Way</span></b></u><br />
<u><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></u>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It was </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1998. I was working nights at an office on Sunset Blvd, right across from the Hollywood Athletic Club, on one side, and Cat and Fiddle Pub & Restaurant on the other</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> This was 1998, not 2008, so it was still dicey and skeevy sometimes in those graveyard hours, depending on events or parties happening around the area. I'd go out onto the Boulevard on my work breaks and see guys and girls getting arrested for roofing each other, scattered nickel bags in the grass if the fire marshall came to shut a party down, the occasional mid-level studio temp smoking crack behind the CNN building...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I'd watch the night life pass by as I willed my 5-year plan to come true ASAP and be a working member of the industry. 1998 was Year Two of my plan. I didn't know it but I had three more years to go before side jobs, night jobs, temp jobs would be a thing of the past for a good stretch of time.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> In the evening, before my third-shift job, I was acting in a play, <i>20 Questions</i>, that was in the midst of a six -month run, between the Tamarind Playhouse (now The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater) and the West Coast Playhouse. My dressing room at the Coast Playhouse had been the same one Samuel Jackson and David Hyde Pierce had used at points in their career, and if I could have said helpful prayers to their long shed sweat, I would have. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> And so it was one early morning, probably around 3 a.m., that I took a smoke break outside of my office on Sunset. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I had two agents, I'd let my manager go after she couldn't be bothered to see this long-running play I'd booked myself, and I was brainstorming when all of a sudden a huge stretch limo pulled over directly where I was standing alone in front of a huge, painted concrete plant enclosure. I tried to avert my eyes from the limo, assuming the pull-over in front of me had nothing to do with me. It was late, there was no traffic, the limo was idling. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The passenger door of the limo's backseat swung open wide and there he was, an actor I recognized from his past award-winning television run. Next to him was a blonde woman in a lipstick-red, rubber micro-mini. I thought they needed...directions?</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Hey, brother!" Actor X. said, leaning over in the expansive back seat to talk. "What are you up to right now?"<br /> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Hi," I answered. I didn't step up to the limo. "Just on a quick break." </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Well, fuck that!<i> I</i> think you should get in with us and we all go to my place and have a good time. What'dya say? Got me a prime piece of A-list porn star ass, right here," he pointed to the blonde, with a Charo-Angelyne disco ponytail, who flashed lacquered nails and teeth in a cheerful wave as he motioned to her vinyl-crossed cleavage. "Just the three of us."</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The limo engine was running and I looked at them both with a 3 a.m. on-the-clock gravitas and congenial smile. I could no sooner just leave work and have a threesome any more than I could build a hovercraft from scratch. Then I thought, is he high? I knew nothing of his personal life or anything - I hadn't watched his series in its prime or in repeats. He was a pleasant guy, but the whole proposition was ludicrous and indicative of time in the world I didn't have. Besides, I'd much rather have had the opportunity to act with him than have a three-way. It wasn't even a thought.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "No, I'm fine, thank you! But have fun you guys!" I said, sounding like a sitcom waiting for the laugh track. What do you say? This was Hollywood! Sunset Blvd! 3 a.m.! Nothing out of the ordinary with the Hollywood Hills looming. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "I didn't ask how you were," he laughed. " I can see how you are - you look pretty cool. All you have to do is come <i>on</i>! That's why we stopped!"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "No, that's okay. I'm on a break! You know, like a <i>work</i> break. I work here, upstairs," I said, miming an elevator bank, the big-storied building, my office row... responsibilities.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Well, you're no fun!" Actor X said. The blonde lady giggled. "Tell you what: we're not going to bed anytime soon, we'll definitely be up for a while. How about you take</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> down my number and call me when your shift is over and we'll take it from there?"</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I didn't know how else to say no without being harsh, so I relayed another truth. "I don't have a pen," I shrugged. That should do it, I thought, knowing I'd be seen as lame. Yeppers, I'm no fun, door closes, off they go to PNP. Instead...</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Well, guess what?" Actor X said, somewhat annoyed, rummaging through a compartment, getting out of the the limo, and striding past me to the concrete planter behind me. "<i>I </i>have a fucking pen, so now what?" He took out a Sharpie and proceeded to write his phone number on the planter like graffiti, in huge numbers, all except the area code. "See how we solved that?!"</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Now that's some serious chutzpah in a 555-5555 world. I couldn't believe he'd put his phone number out there for anyone to casually write down or crank call. He faced me and said, "Now there's no excuse. On your next break, write it down and call me when you're off." He didn't wait for an answer, just smiled, got back into the limo, the blonde winked, and he told the driver to go. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I went back into the office, the whole encounter surreal, and apologized for being late, told one of my cube mates, who'd just done a tv-movie with Cybill Shepherd, what had happened. "And you came back? <i>Here</i>!?" she swooned.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Hey, Ros," I called to my shift manager. "Clock me out for another 10."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I went to the break room, grabbed some 409 cleaning spray from under the sink, went back outside and spent my last break scrubbing Actor X's publicly scrawled phone number off the wall until it was a Rorschach blur. I neither wrote it down or remembered it. I <i>did</i> know he wasn't getting a call back and would think me an idiot, but I did him a solid. Friggin' actors, I thought, separated from him by a gazillion tax brackets and some practical thinking - it's always the cool people that save their asses- as I scrubbed his digits away before morning rush-hour traffic hit. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> My shift ended that morning, I went home and did what I always did after work: wrote cover letters, enclosed head shots (remember that?). No three-way, just my real-life in Los Feliz and the next professional step to get to. I chalked the whole thing up to absurdist comedy, A-list street theater. Seven years later I was inside the Hollywood Athletic Club covering premieres, after-parties and catching up with actors and producers I hadn't seen or worked with in years. Amazing to look across the street... just 15 steps... and know that's where I memorized lines and studied every trade magazine to forge a continuing creative, professional path for myself.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No short-cuts, just a plan. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> So, that's my A-list three-way-that-wasn't story. Trust me, I'm not judging. I'm just saying: whatever you do - stick to your plan. As for audacious, hilarious Actor X. - no harm done. Everybody's happy and working. And you're welcome, brother. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span>Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713949323861573016.post-17493218718285187052014-05-31T04:00:00.000-07:002014-05-31T04:17:10.815-07:00Where All The Old Hollywood Railroad Posts Went<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpRNTPc87st1QlPj51wvEs9jhGrPrTH8hqYqLjbV8qNa_GhNc7D2QjJllB0WBRx_gD2a96973IH1_eek_NuzZtntvDLPcDAaFGoXOuQv4Fok3sqFEmprf6go0WkJGWpzz5rGobbwQvfqF4/s1600/KG1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpRNTPc87st1QlPj51wvEs9jhGrPrTH8hqYqLjbV8qNa_GhNc7D2QjJllB0WBRx_gD2a96973IH1_eek_NuzZtntvDLPcDAaFGoXOuQv4Fok3sqFEmprf6go0WkJGWpzz5rGobbwQvfqF4/s1600/KG1.jpg" height="199" width="200" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Karl Gibson here, with a much overdue explanation,as far as what happened to all of the blog posts that used to be on this site over the last few years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Here's what happened and just follow me, I'll keep it 100% real, promise.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I started my Hollywood Railroad blog in 2009. The title came from all of the Industry inside jokes that I was a proponent for overlooked talent submitted to the trade magazines - and I worked for one of the majors in that space at <i>The Hollywood Reporter</i>. Here's why: I'd been an actor before I became a professional journalist. I'd been talent. I knew more about the round-file than the carpet the round file was sitting on. And I wanted to be the complete antithesis of that. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> In my 7 years at <i>THR</i>. if I was submitted a relevant, concise pitch that wouldn't make me look insane for forwarding it on, I would give it to the respective editors. I'd forward it or I'd write it up or present it. I did it on instinct and never had to argue with an editor when I did. That was how the nickname came about, because I wasn't putting my tastes first. I was objectively sticking to the editorial discretion of others in charge of their particular beat. I'm glad I had/have that sensibility and it helped me champion a lot of talent, with no agenda. If it's a well-written pitch, here you go, you decide. That's how I roll.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> So, I had the title of my blog. I didn't start it with visions of any side income. I'm a trusted professional, I wasn't going to be drawing dicks over people's faces.It was a personal thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I created <i>Hollywood Railroad</i> to establish who I was as a person and professional, beyond brief passings on the 24-hour media circuit. I included journal entries, essays, links I liked, unpublished news coverage I'd done... freestyle. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I had tens of thousands of readers over the time of those posts, from 2009-2013 and I appreciated every single one of you. To share journal entries or write about what were extremely personal events in my life was an expansion I forced myself to do, knowing that my intentions were sincere in doing it. Your reader visits here and time gifted to me encouraged me to do it and to write more. I never worried about backlash for honesty or candor and I was supported. It was a very personal bond. Feedback through personal e-mails and social media check-ins where we could encourage our efforts and similar trajectories was amazing and we're still in touch.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Summer 2013: I went to make a post here - it had been months since my last one - and the blog was gone. I'd missed my annual renewal with Go Daddy.That simple/banal. I was in a work crush and I missed the domain renewal - as well as the e-mail reminder on my personal e-mail account. I could either buy it back for 10 times what I paid for it in the first place..or I could wait, lose all of the content, and buy the name back at auction. Yada, yada, I know - but this is for anyone else who may be waylaid by professional obligations. A friendly reminder, if you will!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I thought about it, I got links sent to me that could, in theory, retrieve my deleted blog posts from the maw of oblivion. And I couldn't. If the blog, and hundreds of posts, was gone, then I'd take my lumps.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> For one, the irony wasn't lost on me: I hadn't missed any work deadlines - I'd missed my <i><b>own</b></i> deadline to renew my blog domain. It wasn't cost-prohibitive, I just got sidetracked. And that sucked. And Go Daddy has no reason to care. It was my fault for not checking my personal e-mail for those days. Embarrassing somewhat, but true!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I made the decision to let the old content go. It had been read and it wasn't like I can't write it again, if relevant - and better. I put it out there.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I apologize for not addressing the lost blog archives sooner and for links you may still come upon in search that are no longer there. I'll write more and the lesson, a hard one I taught myself, is not to put every professional obligation before checking in on your own - be it a book, blog, or any creative endeavor. Me to myself: you lost your blog, your pride won't let you buy it back (this time) and it won't happen again.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I'm back and I'll be writing and sharing even more.I went from THR to the New York Times Co., to many other things and my current work over the time I started this 'niche' and personal blog. I thank all of the reader's community I got to know. I'll be starting again. I know I'm one online voice of millions - and that we get to kick it here and keep it 100 is amazing and I appreciate you incredibly. More soon... - Karl</span>Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713949323861573016.post-30008523168207287812014-04-07T15:21:00.000-07:002014-04-07T15:21:40.646-07:00Hollywood Stamina: A Few Words About Mickey Rooney<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">One of the great
things about starting in entertainment news with <i>The Hollywood Reporter </i>in 2001 was that the magazine itself
was a legacy publication that had been around as long as the luminaries who
used to make its pages from the start. As I started gaining more and more
entrée to the awards and event circuits on behalf of the magazine, it was
always a huge pleasure to meet and shake hands with Hollywood’s legends, people
who may not be getting the daily headlines but were Still Here - people who knew there
was really nothing new under the sun. The formats may have changed and the
technology with which to view it, but as I always say: ‘Same popcorn, different
box.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I last saw and
talked to Mickey Rooney in the winter of 2003, leading up to the Oscars at The
Kodak Theater. Hollywood
was going throwback with the upcoming Oscar show, eschewing red carpet spectacle and what-are-they-wearing
kitsch in solidarity with the rest of the country as the Iraq War loomed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The event was at
The Hollywood & Highland complex in a new restaurant-bar and somewhat informal. It felt more like a fast rest area from the six-month grind that is every awards season. I took stock of the room, picking a point to start a clockwise revolution around
the room, shaking hands, handing out business cards for editorial news,
checking in with talent and heading home after a 12-hour shift.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw an
Oscar-nominated actress of another decade having a drink. She’d been to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">THR</i>’s Wilshire Blvd. editorial offices before,
which is how I knew her. She’d been in the acting game long enough to not take much too seriously and I was a fan of her nominated work and episodic ‘70s TV
appearances. She asked me about work and I asked her about the upcoming Oscar
ceremony. This wasn’t an interview, just conversation, so I asked if she was ready
for the truncated red carpet?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“I’m STILL walking the red carpet, dear! I don’t care, war
or no war – why should<i> I</i> not be able to wear and show off my bee-yoooo-tiful dress?!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“And if there’s no red carpet?” I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Then I’ll just stay home! I mean, what would be the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">point</i>?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Uh..solidarity with the audience not even two years after
9/11? Layoffs, a war-time economy not affording most people the luxury of five-figure one-time wearables? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I didn’t
say any of this, just listened and smiled. She wasn’t buying Hollywood’s momentary tasteful moment for one solitary second,
at least on the surface.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Karl, I want you to meet someone!” she said, leading me
over to a seated older man whose feet rested above the floor. “Mickey, I want
you to meet someone. Karl this is Mickey Rooney. Mickey, this is Karl Gibson
and he’s from <i>The Hollywood Reporter</i>.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> In less than two seconds, the 82-year old Rooney was on his
feet in one upright movement and reached over and shook my hand. It still is
the firmest handshake I’ve every received from a man, the kind that squeezes
your entire hand to the wrist and could pop your arm off at the socket from sheer pressure. I was
impressed enough with that, much less to meet a man who’d been around since I
could remember turning on a TV.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> We shook hands and I sat down and talked with him for a short while. It’d been 76 years since he started in the business and I found
him fascinating. A short, weathered fireplug of a man, I remember being
extremely impacted by so much that Rooney represented professionally. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here was a guy
who’d seen every ‘disruption’ in the business there was: sound in films, color
in films, a multitude of wars (he served in World War II), TV, cable, VCRs, DVD
players, TiVo…and more... and he was still working. Did he want to be relegated
to loopy characters or America’s
jubilant grandpa? It didn’t matter, he was working. I was 33 years old at the time and had started
as a stage actor at scale at 14 – no stranger to the basic existential concerns of
anyone trying to work and maintain hard-earned credibility in what is an angst-ridden
business for many. Mickey Rooney had tasted plenty of success, earned it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Sure, he’d been a box-office star who’d been the top of his
era’s A-list for a moment in time, but for many of the decades he’d not been...
and he still kept working. All I could think was ‘Imagine 50 more years
of this!?' That's a <i>lot</i> in any media profession: remaining viable, supporting your lifestyle, keeping yourself and your family taken care of no matter the paradigm shifts
and maturation of subsequent audiences wanting to see their own stars get their moment.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX12HO8gLUO-FH1RtwTIe4W_ALvOxqj8IC7-mEuQtXcktuTMpoPZJh3y4j1HRx0vgjcQsqSRwItIlo0tLozNMjw9_C2EBwRwYlkcoC3MZzlS39s6YC4UfFJRSKLEXj4db9ULZnio4UEdwy/s1600/Mickey+Rooney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX12HO8gLUO-FH1RtwTIe4W_ALvOxqj8IC7-mEuQtXcktuTMpoPZJh3y4j1HRx0vgjcQsqSRwItIlo0tLozNMjw9_C2EBwRwYlkcoC3MZzlS39s6YC4UfFJRSKLEXj4db9ULZnio4UEdwy/s1600/Mickey+Rooney.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I remember A.C.
Lyles, the long-standing Paramount producer, telling me in 2009 about coming to
Hollywood on a train from Florida because he’d fallen in love with the
movies via the film <i>Wings</i>. He wrote letters to Paramount from Florida, looking for any minor job he could
get and ended up taking a train to Hollywood and being given a candy vendor job on the studio lot. Lyles was just two years older
than Mickey Rooney, by then studio royalty, and he said it was Mickey Rooney who
took an interest in him, saw to it that he could get rides to Rooney’s home and
start mixing with Hollywood’s younger power crowd. He recalled Rooney’s
generosity, comparing his tutelage under Rooney with that of someone coming to
town and being shown the ropes by someone of Tom Cruise’s influence. Lyles’
recollection was one of the surprising generosity that someone at the top of
their game can extend to someone with the same passion but no connections. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Back to the 2003 Oscar party: I left the event incredibly
impressed by Mickey Rooney, because his professional trajectory is what many of
us can expect if we’re fortunate to make a lifetime <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>working and living in a business <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>that we love. To many of my peers whom I told
of meeting him, there was some polite laughter -<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Mickey Rooney</i>? - the one who’d been a magnet of some of the town’s
legendary beauties (Ava Gardner!), the marriages, the drama, growing old, a skosh daffy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> All I saw was a man who knew this industry in his sleep, who
knew the possibilities behind a routine handshake, had an interest in people
who wanted to produce material he could have a role in. Someone who wanted to
work. It takes stamina, humility, and a hell of a lot of common sense and I am
glad to have met him. I have many heroes I've been fortunate to have the professional occasion to meet - Hollywood's legends of the past, the many African-American musicians and actors who remember closets as dressing rooms and entering through the back door, segregated casting agencies and worse. They're survivors and they remember history. Mickey Rooney's story was different, but he worked his ass off and you have to admire the kind of hustle and nerves that takes in a business that requires constant momentum.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> You won’t see a star like Mickey
Rooney anytime soon<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">. </span>Eight decades spent working in this business
deserves props, no matter how you slice it. Rest in peace, Mickey. Ya did good, kid. </span></div>
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Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713949323861573016.post-34593824655920416182014-01-25T17:32:00.001-08:002014-01-26T02:04:25.225-08:00L.A. On The Real, Vol. 1: Christmas In Babylon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Preface: This is a true story. Names have been changed, of course, but nothing else!</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></h4>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's December 23, 1996 - I've been in Los Angeles for 9 days by way of the East Coast and a nine-year theatrical career in Chicago. I have a roommate, in these early days, and we don't even have a refrigerator at this time (<i>Note to future settlers</i>: refrigerators don't come standard with L.A. apartments)</span>. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm living in Los Feliz and it's Christmas season, doesn't remotely feel that way; it's in the '70s weather-wise and most of the folks in the hills are in St. Barts, the East Coast, or the Midwest (quiet as it's kept)</span>. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> A present to myself is that I've finally made the move to Los Angeles and the sky's the limit. I'm unaware that my five-year plan will not come to pass until the fourth year and eleventh month of those 5 years, but that's the hustle: keep at it 100% until you get in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The roommate comes in this Dec. 23rd afternoon and says we've scored an invite to a Hollywood producer's house in the hills for Christmas dinner. He seems to not believe our luck. We'd be stupid not to go. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> My Afro-Scandinavian practicality and logic makes me question the largesse of such an invite. Producer X doesn't know us, but he is inviting us to Christmas dinner. Why? My roommate is older than I am, definitely handsome, and he's an actor, too. Producers like actors for the most part, and even if they don't, it's their business to keep an eye out for them. Maybe this is an in-road for my roomie? I've been invited out of politesse, I'm assuming, but it's still very considerate. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm reading a Bruce Wagner novel at that moment, so this ought to be interesting. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christmas with industry vets!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> My buddy/roommate tells me what Producer X told him: Producer X worked at Paramount in the early '70s during the Robert Evans-era, in legal, before segueing into producing with TV movies in the late '70s and mid-'80s. He's semi-retired now, a Black man who's made it in a tough industry that is far less color-blind than most of its consumers could ever wrap their heads around.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - feel free to look at it anytime. It's one of those stars you look at and don't know who he is, but he has one. He likes meeting other newcomers and, if he can be of any helpful advice, would like to get to know us and break bread. He's gay, nothing earth-shattering in Los Angeles, where sexuality is either one of three F's: financial, fluid, or fixed (wherever one determines they fall on the Kinsey scale). This is the intel Producer X shares. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Christmas Day: we arrive at Producer X's house where he greets us - he's in his early to mid-60s, slim, pleasant - and introduces us to the rest of the dinner party, which consists of his two nephews, both men close to my age in their mid-20s. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The nephews are nice guys: one looks like he could be a model for Karl Kani and the other is more of an eggbert, has a Southern accent and tells us he's back from a career in the armed forces. Producer X hands me and RM Christmas presents (!) and we all sit down in the living room overlooking the sweeping Silverlake, Glendale and Eagle Rock neighborhoods.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Dinner is ready. Producer X seats us in assigned placements at the table and tells his nephew, the model-looking one, to pour wine for us. We have general conversation and the wine glasses start to empty. "Would you like some more wine with dinner?" Producer X asks. I say sure and get up to bring the bottle from the nook to the table and am told, "You sit down. He'll get it for you.' This is said to model-nephew. "Go pour the man some wine!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Model nephew does as instructed. I'm only uncomfortable because we're the same age - who am I to have some dude my own age pouring me wine on command?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> My RM and I both have long hair. Mine is long and bleached yellow so I don't get typecast, as in Chicago, as the heavy, the gun-toter. My RM's hair is in long braids, to avoid being typecast as the Suburban dad or guy-at-the-poker-game. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Eggbert nephew, the countrified one with the military career, asks me, "Is that all your hair?" I'm a guy's guy, it's an innocuous question, but before I can answer, Producer X pounds the table with his hand and says, "Now why would you ask the man that?! That's the rudest goddamned thing to ask a guest!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I just was curious - "</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"You didn't ask his roommate that? All them braids? If anyone has extensions at the table it'd be him. Why didn't you ask <i>him</i>?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"His looks real," Eggbert nephew says sheepishly. I laugh.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Well, don't ask again. It's bad manners. I taught you better than that. Refill their glasses while you think of something else to ask," Producer X directs while I'm chewing at a snail's pace. What. Just. Happened? Again, this guy is my age being loudly chastised by his uncle. It's embarrassing to witness. The nephews don't really talk much after that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> After dinner is over, they're more talkative as we sit down to open presents. Our gifts are boxes of See's Chocolates, which was nice of him to do for virtual strangers. Eggbert nephew has gotten some nice clothes. He says he's ready to go to college now that he's out of the military. I ask him what he wants to major in. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Political science," he says smiling. "I think I'd like that a lot."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Political science?" Producer X all but sneezes with the theatrical disdain older relatives are prone to. "Man, you're going to get a degree in engineering. Something you can make money at."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"But I don't know engineering," Eggbert says.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"You'll <i>learn</i>. That's why you're going," Producer X says, ending the discussion.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"He can't decide for himself?" I ask Producer X, not in a funky way, just a rhetorical question. I'm a writer, I like to ask the tough questions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Not when I'm paying for it he can't!" Producer X replies. I decide I have no more questions, clearly this is a family matter, but at least I tried to speak up for him as someone his own age. Give Eggbert free!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It's getting late, I'm ready to go. Producer X was very nice to invite us, but I can see how he talks to guys my age, thinks we're essentially broke and misguided, so there's really nothing left to really make small-talk about. Besides, he invited my RM... that's his friend, luckily. Good luck with that one!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Producer X tells me I can go relax in the den. I go in the room and see the walls lined with beefcake photos of mustachioed Black men from the 1970s and the 1980s - all with that Billy Dee Williams-esque, smooth handsome look you'd see in... certain magazines?...back in the days. I don't recognize any of them as current personalities but this is either an honor roll of headshots or the greatest ever shrine to boyfriends past.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> RM is ready to go. I thank our host, Producer X, and warmly say goodbye to those poor nephews who get talked to like adolescents but don't seem to mind. After we get back home, me and RM talk about the night. Wasn't it weird how he ordered those dudes around? And they seemed fine with it? Maybe he raised them from infants and they feel loyalty to him? Or they're his nephews he deems most primed for his help and Svengali-ism? We can't figure it out and listen to Santana's <i>Welcome</i> on my boom box in the living room.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Three months later I'm on Olympic and LaBrea at a hair appointment I equate with going to the vet: not pleasant, but processed blonde hair takes a village, no matter what decade. I'm taking the bus - East Coast habits die hard - and headed back home to Los Feliz. I have on a hat and glasses as I walk down the aisle and see Model Nephew, from the Christmas dinner, with a big pack of Huggies diapers in his lap. I sit down as invisibly as I can - I still feel bad for the kid and imagine him replaying forced wine re-pours in his head and resenting me for it. I hope he remembers I was glad to pour my own, had that been possible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> He's on a cell phone and talking to someone, explaining how he just picked up his baby's diapers but he has to make a run first. "I'm heading up to Los Feliz. Yeah. I have this 'friend' up there. Yeah, he hooks me up after I take care of him first, ha ha. Me and a friend. He's a radiologist. Nothing major."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We're headed up Vermont Ave., toward Los Feliz Blvd. I get off a few stops early and hope he doesn't recognize me. He doesn't. Would Bruce Wagner appreciate this development, even if it's as old as humanity? The 'nephews' are really his paid escorts and do as they're told.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> RM talks to Producer X once more. Producer X is not a producer, he tells RM: he's a radiologist... but he loves the arts and beautiful men. The star on the Walk of Fame is real - it just belongs to the <i>real</i> producer, who just happens to have the same name, and is definitely not a radiologist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> He hopes they can be friends. </span><br />
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Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1713949323861573016.post-46439135765301779962013-10-16T21:44:00.000-07:002013-10-20T20:22:10.626-07:00Exhibit K: Kenan Thompson Said What?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1998: I've just finished a show at The Tamarind Theater on Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles (now the theater for Uprights Citizens Brigade) and my godparents came to the show. Both theater producers, they surprised me with dinner in Beverly Hills at an Industry eatery with late hours. We got seated, me looking at the photos of celebrities and iconic one-sheets lining the walls. We have a nice table and it's all good since I've still got on stage makeup and a wall of screaming bleached hair. The table next to us is empty until Kenan Thompson and Kel</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mitchell are seated next to us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> They're both 17 years at the time and have a couple of young lady friends with them. They're working teenagers with a TV series and, for the moment, like any giddy high-school age teens, except with more money. I clandestinely asked if my table could be moved. Not for any other reason than my table was talking pretty blue and it's awkward partying next to...teenagers! I'm 27 years old at this point and it's just odd, nothing personal. I'm sure they're cool but they're goofy and young and with our tables thisclose it feels like being at the kiddie table. There's no free tables so I sit next to them, silently happy for their success. They're Nickelodeon stars...and Black!...and God knows when I was of Nickelodeon age there was only like one Black kid on the whole thing, in<i>You Can't Do That On Television</i>, so Keenan and Kel must be rock stars -and there's two of them in one cast. Wow! As an actor, casting is never as blind as thought, so there's progress.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been able to earn a check in some aspect from the entertainment industry since I was 15 years old. My first director was Joseph Walker, a Tony Award-winner for <i>The River Niger</i> who quit the production I was working on at Howard University on the first day of rehearsal - with the cast's checks in his pocket, no less. Joe got seriously pissed with the show's producers... and so was my mother when she saw my empty hands on my payday. No Momager she, she refused to sign any work-release forms for me on any projects until I was of age to sign them myself. At the time it was a hard pill to swallow but no parent likes to see their kid taken advantage of, in any profession, and it only gets worse, so I worked on stage and did plays for years, into adulthood, in Chicago and L.A. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now there are theater companies and production offices in every city that any performer worth their salt wants to conquer that may not be and are not diverse, no matter what you as a performer do in your audition. I have heard explanations of why I wasn't cast for a role I'd audtioned for several times, like 'It would become avant-garde' and other esoteric drivel. .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I moved into editorial trade journalism and producing in my thirties and the same applies: there's companies by the scores, countless institutions and journalism outlets that are hardly diverse. The numbers and percentages are a pitiful blight. Making a living in Los Angeles for 17 years, I know this to be true. And It doesn't come up much. We all know it but no one wants to be blamed and no one wants their work preceded by color or gender codes. The reality is you'll spend many more years arguing about parity on other levels besides race. It's come up once in my career, with a former editor, over a contract issue, and while it was not pleasant we worked it out privately. Everyone just wants to work. That's why we're all doing this. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Speaking for situations I've seen in Los Angeles - and I've had entree to many of them in my own reality and having worked for <i>The Hollywood Reporter </i>for seven years (2001-2008) covering the event circuit at least three nights a week after a full editorial shift </span>- <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it's a reality not discussed and often masked by exclusivity. If you're at an Oscar party where only three hundred people, paying four-figures (tax-deductible) for tickets, are</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">at then it feels to some, at worst, like natural selection: i.e. if everyone could be here, they would be, but they're not, and we are! And it's not like L.A. media and entertainment is an easy business to break into</span> - <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">most people have had to pay some serious dues for years and make some miserable money before they enter any comfort zone in the Industry, so maybe everyone feels like a minority in that there's only so many jobs for a global number of aspirants and if you're on the manifest then that's the way it is. This is what can be rationalized in any business. However, rationalizing it to any modern person outside the bubble of the Industry is another story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I found this out one rainy Saturday morning in 2002 when<i> Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets </i>had its premiere in Westwood, on L.A.'s Westside. My spouse was someone who never wanted any part of Hollywood events or premieres, admittedly glad to be a consumer and not in the mix of it. At all.The exception was the second <i>Harry Potter</i> movie. I RSVP'ed, we parked and made it to the theater where the industry crowd was in a line going down the block, even in the rain. We were the only Black people there. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I was used to this as a general fact but <i>not </i>Bebbles (my spouse), a nurse and health-care worker. The rain worsened and we ended up all being corralled into a winding snake-like queue, full of people with wet hair, industry execs' scowling teenage daughters with their grimaces and sibilant 's'es from overpowering braces. We all wound closer in a coil as the rain came down and I noticed Bebbles sweating and saw their dilated pupils.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I asked what's wrong. "Where is everybody?" Bebbles asked. "Here, " I said. "No, I mean, like Black people, this is hundreds of White people and we're the only ones here. I don't feel comfortable."</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bebbles whispered, cold sweat forming. Now,</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd been to plenty of Bebbles' industry events in the healthcare industry... diverse, inclusive affairs at restaurants and The Queen Mary, etc. This was different. "These are powerful people - they are supposed to be modern. There's no one else qualified to be here except you?" Bebbles said, inverted as much as privacy would allow. At this point I understood what's being said but I don't have the answer, except the obvious one we witnessed, which was no one was really looking at if from an aerial, insular view. It was normal - for them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "Can we just leave? Seriously, just <i>leave</i> and see this when it comes out next week at Mann's Chinese Theater with, like, people in the real world? That'll be more fun."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We left. Walked in the rain back to our minivan and the relief was palpable. And depressing. Talk about a ride home! What could I say except that I knew it was fucked up but what could I do? At least we were two more Black people - okay, the only Black people - <i>there</i> and adding our own presence to the mix - a burden too weighted for my civilian spouse and the escapism promised by a fantasy film. It wasn't my fault and nothing I could defend or justify, but it was my professional reality. I was the only Black person in my daily newsroom (not counting Features, or the security guard, or the mailroom worker) but we didn't ever acknowledge it, we were too busy working on a daily magazine five days a week. I was there on my own merits but also knowing I'm not the only qualified journalism professional in town. Leaving the premiere, it was a dark moment in the car, making our way back to Los Feliz and talking intimately about a problem as old as our great country.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Which brings me to Kenan Thompson and his comments to <a href="http://www.tvguide.com/news/snl-diversity-issue-kenan-thompson-1072056.aspx" target="_blank">TV Guide yesterday</a> regarding the lack of a female black comedienne on <i>Saturday Night Live</i> and why it's been six years with no addition to the cast of such a performer. His money quote was </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"It's just a tough part of the business...Like in auditions, they just never find ones that are ready." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Viewers, civilians and people in media went viral in their outrage at what was just, well, ridiculous. Never mind that, depending on who you ask, <i>Saturday Night Live</i> hasn't been funny or watchable in its entirety since Toonces or the Tina Fey parts. Lorne Michaels, icon, mogul, gatekeeper, star-maker, is considered the Daddy of it all and is revered as anyone with his decades of achievements and Baby Boomer cred warrants. My sources tell me of table reads that are like church, that genuine laughs are the rule but everyone laughs anyway. I am one of millions of '70s kids who manually turned a TV channel knob to sneak whatever we could of the first cast of <i>SNL</i>'s Not Ready For Primetime Players in all their manic, stoned glory before our parents came home. Whatever the case or politics behind this institution of television, an employee essentially saying that in a country of hundreds of millions there's just not one prepared, funny Black woman who could add her talents to an arguably funny sketch comedy show sounded...insane. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I don't know Kenan Thompson, I don't know Lorne Michaels. But to hear such an explanation for a lack of a minority performer is just decades beyond where most modern audiences - and human beings - are at with this conversation. What Kenan Thompson did get right was the "It's just a tough part of the business" part. It is. Again, not knowing him, and as ludicrous and infuriating as his explanation was, maybe this is the sentiment of someone who's been working on sets and rarified environments for at least half his life? I'm at least 9 years older and while my career is completely different, I know how the sausage is made and the tough part of why this business isn't diverse isn't anything I would like to be asked to justify or explain when I didn't create the problem. I try, along with anyone else, to counter it with my work. It really was a question Mr. Thompson should have directed to Media Relations where at least the spin would have been less offensive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Here's what I know: diversity is a problem. People don't like being blamed for the lack of it. Some people have the power of their pen to change it, some do not. In a business that thrives on creativity and access, you have to produce, you have to supply the content, and the sometimes messy reality can't interrupt that suspension of belief that butters most of our bread. I think if you're lucky, you see your peers as just that and keep your eyes on the audience. Don't play to the room, play to the ones who pay you with their attention, and if you're lucky enough to work with really cool people, all the better. The diversity problem isn't the audience's creation, it's institutional as it is anywhere else. You can push for diversity while doing it with the truth being that this person is the best for the job. I've done it in past hires and it was seamless, rational, not a cause, just the actions of one person with the clout to do it and my teams were stronger for it. I can't and don't attempt to rationalize the irrational. I wonder if Kenan Thompson feels the same. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> It's 11 years since that <i>Harry Potter </i>premiere. Bebbles is gone to the angels. I just turned 44. I'm working. And my <i>Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets</i> DVD still sits with the rest of the DVDs on the shelf. I have yet to watch it. I plan to. But for now, it's too painful - not just for the loss of the soul mate I'd like to have seen it with, but for a painful, private, honest conversation in the pouring rain about...nonsense. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span>Karl Gibsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05442744265761795858noreply@blogger.com1