I see dead people

For the past few weeks, it’s been extremely hot and humid here in Los Angeles.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s always hot this time of year, but the wonderful thing about living in an arid climate is that it cools off at night so, for a few hours, there is some relief. The important hours – when one is trying to rest without sweating like the proverbial whore in church.

Not lately.

It’s been so awful at night that sleep has been impossible – and not just for me.

Everyone on the crew (maybe the cast, too, but they have makeup) have black circles under their eyes and are downing coffee (iced, of course) as fast as they can.

It’s not just us, though. Tempers are flaring all over the city, as the police cope with near-record cases of cranky pants.

Excessive horn-honking, overly aggressive shouts of “points” when one isn’t carrying anything, passive-aggressive latte ordering, crafty grabbing*, scuffles over shaded parking spaces, crowded beaches,

Today, I snarled at a man in the grocery store for breathing.

No, really. That’s all he was doing. Through his nose, making that goddamn high-pitched whistle from hell.

I’ll kill him.

Wait…

I mean it’s cooled off tonight and maybe I can get some sleep so I’ll feel less homicidal tomorrow.

Although I have a 4 pm call in northeast Bumfuck, so I doubt it.

*Those peanut butter cups are mine. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Filed under: crack of dawn, cranky, distant location, life in LA, locations, long long drives, Los Angeles, Work, dammit, heat, humid, summer, Work

Oh, goody! Email issues!

For a long time, I’ve had a Yahoo email account, but now there’s a…complication.

Said account has apparently been hacked and locked down, and efforts to change my password have gone like this:

Yahoo: “Hi! Your account has had some suspicious activity! We shut it off for you! You should change your password.”

Me: “Fine. Change my password.”

Yahoo: “Awesome! We’ve sent your new password to an email account to which you no longer have access.”

Me: “I can’t access that account!”

Yahoo: “Bummer! Seems like you need to call the provider!”

Me: “They went out of business. I can’t call them.”

Yahoo: “Dude! That’s terrible! Maybe you can email them!”

Me: “They no longer exist. That’s like my telling people to contact me via TELEX.”

Yahoo:  TILT  TILT  TILT  “Log into your alternate email for your new password!”

Fuck.

Yes, I know this is my fault for not updating the contact email, but as of right now I’m locked out of Yahoo and probably can’t get access again, so the new email is peggyarcher (at) gmx (dot) com.

Now that I think about it, this might not be a bad thing – that account is so full of spam I can’t find the real emails, so it was time for a change anyways.

So if you’ve emailed me and haven’t heard back, try again at the new address.

 

 

Filed under: mishaps, Non-Work, Off-Topic, dammit, email, email account, fucking russians, hacked, locked out, password, Yahoo

Go on, say it.

Did I say I had steady work coming up?

Whoops.

What I meant was I thought I had a gig but the best boy made a change at the last-minute (as in the Friday before I was to start), and didn’t tell me.

These things happen, and I’m sure he had a good reason – there are so many folks who are really, really hurting right now. It’s possible that whoever replaced me is going to lose his/her house or insurance or become destitute save for this gig.

I’ll never know. It stings a bit, of course, but I just have to let it go and hope that it’ll all work out for the best.

It usually does (most of the time).

The first thing I did was get on the phone and start informing people I was available.

My “I need work” texts must have seemed sufficiently desperate as I’ve managed to scrape up one day this week, which is better than nothing,  but still…

Right now would be the appropriate time for the  ‘I told you so’ chorus.

Remind me to spend the rest of my life at financial DEFCON 1 no matter how well work is going.

On the bright side, I’m now officially too broke to drink so my liver gets a nice vacation. Hooray!

Filed under: mishaps, overspending, Work, changes, dammit, entertainment, Runaway Production, television, unemployment

Wait, what happened?

I was lucky enough to get a day of work last week, and figured I’d have the check in the mail and all would be good, and then today I got a call that I can honestly say I’ve never gotten before in all my time working in the film industry.

“They” lost my start paperwork.

When one starts working on a new show, one must fill out a packet of start paperwork. It’s always the same thing. Deal memo, some sort of confidentiality agreement, which name one would like for one’s credit*, any applicable equipment rental (if one has specialized equipment for which production must pay – like a dimmer board, certain tools for installing fixtures, etc…), and the promise that one won’t sexually harass one’s coworkers. Much.

The best boy didn’t specify who lost it, but I’m assuming it was somewhere in one of the maze-like offices on the lot where, apparently, paperwork goes to die along with dreams.

So, I need to redo the impressive pile of paperwork that I originally worked my way through last week.

That’s one seriously tree-killing pile of redundancy, but the upside is that I’ve gotten another day of work out of it (Boss: “You’re driving up here anyways, you might as well work.”).

Hooray!

*Despite my constant efforts to get a joke name (I.P. Freely, Heywood Jablowme, Michael Bay, Prince Albert of Cannes) as my credit, it’s never happened. They always just use my real name.

Is it too much to ask that my IMDB read “sometimes credited as…”

Filed under: mishaps, Photos, Work, dammit, drama, entertainment, paperwork, snafu, studio