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Sep. 23rd, 2007 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraIt rained. It rained hard. First big storm of the season and it would have to coincide with Saturday a/k/a the Little Store's Big Money Day. I was up all night Friday, swilling scotch, gnashing teeth, watching VH1 specials on Britney Spears’ downward spiral and planning the new décor of my Box Under the Bridge.
And then we did really, really well. Go figure.
September over all has been a slow month. I haven't been freaking out about it because I've been distracted, some mysterious system process hogging ninety percent of my brain cells. I have no idea what this process actually does. Only that, in some way, it keeps me from falling off the spinning planet.
###
So. I may have been a good writer but I gave bad phone, and in the celebrity wrangling racket, phone skills are the equivalent of opposable thumbs.
The problem was I didn't believe my elevator pitch. Also I cared too much what the person on the other side of the invisible phone connection thought of me.
I wanted the snotty folks at Wolf Kasteler to know I was really, really smart, too smart to be calling for the sixth fuckin' time that day but hey! People Online was Drew Carey's biggest fan and therefore we wanted to give him this awesome opportunity –
"People Online? Wait. I thought you said you worked for People Magazine," said Drew Carey's publicist. A decade later I still remember her name: Chrissie Papadopoulos.
I pictured Chrissie Papadopoulos to be petite. Blonde. Impeccably groomed. In particular I was fixated on her – for all I know imaginary – perfect French manicure. This is because, even though it was three in afternoon, I was still clad in an unspeakably filthy flannel nightgown (I worked from home and had a one year old, after all) and had gnawed off all my cuticles due to the stress of being placed on hold five times already that day by the receptionist at Wolf Kasteler.
Placed on hold. And then conveniently disconnected.
"People Online is part of People Magazine," I explained. "The online part!" Duh!
"So-o, we'll get coverage in the magazine if we do this?" Chrissie's voice was increasingly dubious.
"Well, yes!" I said cheerily. "A big blurb on the table of contents page!"
"The table of contents page?"
"Why, that's the most valuable real estate in the magazine! I mean, think about it! That's the one page everybody reads, right? I mean, how else are you going to know what page the Princess Di profile starts on?"
"We'll get back to you," said Chrissie.
I called Drew Carey's publicist six times a day because Hala was fixated on Drew Carey. Hala was fixated on Drew Carey because a few weeks earlier she'd decided to go for bust and blow fifty thousand dollars doing live coverage of Los Angeles' very first Planet Hollywood opening.
Trivial Pursuit buffs among us may recall that Planet Hollywood was a celebrity restaurant franchise, akin to the Hard Rock Café in high concept, backed by Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and a host of other lower profile suckers – whoops! I mean investors.
For some reason this Planet Hollywood opening was a huge event. Rodeo Drive was closed to traffic, an enormous stage installed towards the Santa Monica Boulevard end of the thoroughfare. There were a billion neon lights, two billion banners, a fully equipped kitchen and a red carpet, three blocks long, upon which multitudes of celebrities sauntered, while hoards of fans screamed at them from behind barricades manned by cops in flak jackets.
A surreal scene.
Elton John was flying in from England to perform a set, and after that the inimitable Bruno himself – a/k/a Willis – was going to close out the evening with his band.
Hala had flown in three days earlier and installed herself in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I was hugely impressed by the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Dashiell Hammet wrote The Thin Man there. Plus Warren Beatty used to live there which meant Julie Christie was fucked there – possibly on the very sheets of Hala's unmade bed which now lay cluttered with the memos, faxes and pink will-call-back slips that were the matrix of Hala's existence.
Also the Beverly Wilshire Hotel had phones in its black marble bathrooms! This gave me even more opportunities to meditate on my own inadequacies: in a world where even taking a dump offered no respite from pitching or being pitched, I was truly in over my head.
I can't remember whether Hala offered to put us all up at the Beverly Wilshire or not. In general Hala was a generous boss who believed in percs for her staff. A few weeks earlier she'd even phoned me to tell me she was giving me a budget –
"What for?" I asked.
"For whatever you need," said Hala.
"But, I mean. I don't really need anything. I do everything myself," I said.
"Your time is valuable," said Hala patiently. "But not everything you're spending your time on is valuable."
"That makes no sense," I said.
"Damn it, Patrizia! Just take the fucking money and spend it."
I was being disingenuous, of course. I did know what she meant. I was staying up until after midnight redrafting the cyberchats into legible form, then waking up at five in the morning to format them in HTML and upload them on to People's Pathfinder site before I started my morning publicist calls. These were things easily delegated.
But the truth is I hated managing, hated telling other people what to do. And I loved the feeling of working too much, too hard, too fast. It was like being on speed.
And then we did really, really well. Go figure.
September over all has been a slow month. I haven't been freaking out about it because I've been distracted, some mysterious system process hogging ninety percent of my brain cells. I have no idea what this process actually does. Only that, in some way, it keeps me from falling off the spinning planet.
So. I may have been a good writer but I gave bad phone, and in the celebrity wrangling racket, phone skills are the equivalent of opposable thumbs.
The problem was I didn't believe my elevator pitch. Also I cared too much what the person on the other side of the invisible phone connection thought of me.
I wanted the snotty folks at Wolf Kasteler to know I was really, really smart, too smart to be calling for the sixth fuckin' time that day but hey! People Online was Drew Carey's biggest fan and therefore we wanted to give him this awesome opportunity –
"People Online? Wait. I thought you said you worked for People Magazine," said Drew Carey's publicist. A decade later I still remember her name: Chrissie Papadopoulos.
I pictured Chrissie Papadopoulos to be petite. Blonde. Impeccably groomed. In particular I was fixated on her – for all I know imaginary – perfect French manicure. This is because, even though it was three in afternoon, I was still clad in an unspeakably filthy flannel nightgown (I worked from home and had a one year old, after all) and had gnawed off all my cuticles due to the stress of being placed on hold five times already that day by the receptionist at Wolf Kasteler.
Placed on hold. And then conveniently disconnected.
"People Online is part of People Magazine," I explained. "The online part!" Duh!
"So-o, we'll get coverage in the magazine if we do this?" Chrissie's voice was increasingly dubious.
"Well, yes!" I said cheerily. "A big blurb on the table of contents page!"
"The table of contents page?"
"Why, that's the most valuable real estate in the magazine! I mean, think about it! That's the one page everybody reads, right? I mean, how else are you going to know what page the Princess Di profile starts on?"
"We'll get back to you," said Chrissie.
I called Drew Carey's publicist six times a day because Hala was fixated on Drew Carey. Hala was fixated on Drew Carey because a few weeks earlier she'd decided to go for bust and blow fifty thousand dollars doing live coverage of Los Angeles' very first Planet Hollywood opening.
Trivial Pursuit buffs among us may recall that Planet Hollywood was a celebrity restaurant franchise, akin to the Hard Rock Café in high concept, backed by Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and a host of other lower profile suckers – whoops! I mean investors.
For some reason this Planet Hollywood opening was a huge event. Rodeo Drive was closed to traffic, an enormous stage installed towards the Santa Monica Boulevard end of the thoroughfare. There were a billion neon lights, two billion banners, a fully equipped kitchen and a red carpet, three blocks long, upon which multitudes of celebrities sauntered, while hoards of fans screamed at them from behind barricades manned by cops in flak jackets.
A surreal scene.
Elton John was flying in from England to perform a set, and after that the inimitable Bruno himself – a/k/a Willis – was going to close out the evening with his band.
Hala had flown in three days earlier and installed herself in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I was hugely impressed by the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Dashiell Hammet wrote The Thin Man there. Plus Warren Beatty used to live there which meant Julie Christie was fucked there – possibly on the very sheets of Hala's unmade bed which now lay cluttered with the memos, faxes and pink will-call-back slips that were the matrix of Hala's existence.
Also the Beverly Wilshire Hotel had phones in its black marble bathrooms! This gave me even more opportunities to meditate on my own inadequacies: in a world where even taking a dump offered no respite from pitching or being pitched, I was truly in over my head.
I can't remember whether Hala offered to put us all up at the Beverly Wilshire or not. In general Hala was a generous boss who believed in percs for her staff. A few weeks earlier she'd even phoned me to tell me she was giving me a budget –
"What for?" I asked.
"For whatever you need," said Hala.
"But, I mean. I don't really need anything. I do everything myself," I said.
"Your time is valuable," said Hala patiently. "But not everything you're spending your time on is valuable."
"That makes no sense," I said.
"Damn it, Patrizia! Just take the fucking money and spend it."
I was being disingenuous, of course. I did know what she meant. I was staying up until after midnight redrafting the cyberchats into legible form, then waking up at five in the morning to format them in HTML and upload them on to People's Pathfinder site before I started my morning publicist calls. These were things easily delegated.
But the truth is I hated managing, hated telling other people what to do. And I loved the feeling of working too much, too hard, too fast. It was like being on speed.
