Remain Champagne

17th July 2011

Post with 1 note

OF NO AVAIL

The reasons why I don’t get a job are never interesting.  And I mean never.  I’ll come really close to getting something, not get it and then run into someone who was in on the casting or producing end of things and they’ll feel it’s customary or nice to explain to me why I didn’t get it.  They’ll start talking about things like “energy” and “carriage” and “naturalness” (a word that has no business being a word) and “picking someone who was totally different.”  They always say this: “They went with someone totally different!”  That statement is made to make the listener feel that there was absolutely nothing they could’ve done to get the job because they went with someone “totally different.”  Whenever someone tells me they went with someone totally different, I always go: “Yeah, they sure did.  He now has a job and I don’t.  He is definitely totally different.”

Here’s the thing: I don’t need to know why I don’t get a job.  I really don’t.  It’s never enlightening.  Everything I need to know I already know, which is that I didn’t get it.  There are two things that you’re told in this process: “Yes, you got the job” or “No, you did not get the job.”  Wait, actually—scratch that.  There is only one thing you’re told in this process: “Yes, you got the job.”  And that’s it.  That’s the only thing you’re actually told.  If the answer is yes, you will be told yes.  If the answer is no, you will be told nothing.  No one wants to say no to anyone’s face in this town.  It’s like the Internet.  You know how people feel really free to call one another “cunts” and “sack-suckers” and “dickheads” and “assholes” on-line all the time, but have no will whatsoever to say that to anyone’s face?  It’s kind of like that: People full of opinion and the will to express it to everyone except the person they’re talking about.  Why bother expending energy telling someone they didn’t get something when the message will be just as clear through silence?

An unreturned phone call speaks volumes.  People love not returning calls in this city.  It’s L.A.’s favorite move: you get to be lazy and productive at the same time.  Who wouldn’t prefer to not call you back?


I remain

Champagne