After I slapped myself in the face, trying to stay awake

As the year rapidly comes to a close, I figured I should contemplate, in retrospect, what I have done/haven’t done with those hours, days, weeks and months.

Sure, some if it was spent scouring craigslist, indeed.com, mediabistro and other sites for job listings that turned out to be meager. However, a considerable amount of time was actually spent doing part-time work.

The first job I got after lay-off was that of Background Actor. I had signed up with Central Casting at other times in my life, and had done a few jobs, and generally liked it. I figured since I was older and grayer now there’d be less competition in my demographic – what I remembered from the cattle calls in Burbank was that the vast majority of people wanting to be “extras” were between the ages of 18 and 30.

Perhaps one instance in which age worked in my favor?

This time I also signed up with a calling service that would book me so I didn’t have to spend hours each day using precious minutes on my cell listening to annoying casting directors rant. I got an age break here, too: since I was such a fossil, the monthly fee was reduced! Take that to Denny’s for your lunch.

I did a few movies, a few TV series, a couple of pilots – probably the only one you’ve all heard about is Entourage. I played the crucial role of a hospital administrator in the season finale. I was issued a badge and clipboard of my own.

I noticed a couple of things I hadn’t remembered from earlier stints at this: the pros bring their own foldable lawn chairs – or chaises in some cases. They get the best “base camp” spots. Background actors tend to segregate themselves as to age group – so there was no way I was going to infiltrate the cool kids camp – sort of like high school. Straight guys my age, unfortunately, tend to be blowhards who want to talk about politics or how bad this or that is, instead of more fun and youthful topics, like dick, what the leading lady is wearing, of figuring out the sexual orientation of the entire cast.

When I moved to Palm Springs, I stopped this work as the commute just didn’t make any sense. When I’m back in L.A., good chance I will sign on again.

What I liked about this work:

• Insanely easy. If you can follow simple directions as to what to wear, how to get there, and what time to show up, you can succeed at this job.
• It’s fun. I love playing pretend, I love even being on the fringes of acting. Doesn’t everyone?
• Truly temporary. Your job ends when you leave for the day.
• They pay quick, usually within a week or so.
• There’s free food. Beyond craft service, they give you actual meals, many of which were quite elaborate, considering.
• There’s really a lot of downtime where you can do other things: flirt, read the paper/book, work on your script or novel on your laptop. Yes, everyone brings laptops now.
• The AD’s. That’s assistant director, the person(s) who control the set. Without exception, in my experience these were professional, competent and enthusiastic people who treated us great.

What I didn’t like about this job:

• The hours suck. To make the takeaway non-union wage of about $100 a day, you got to work about 12 hours and maybe get lucky enough for meal penalty payments and other little bumps. If for some reason they let you go early, you might only get your minimum wage of $64 a day. Also, the call times are usually quite early in the morning. This didn’t bother me much as I’m an early riser.
• The pay sucks. See above. Then again, it’s really easy and you’re just sitting on your ass most of the time.
• You have to provide your own wardrobe. Which seems counter-intuitive – as if, we’re doing this as a lark! We’re all fucking poor, out of work or just out of school, and don’t have hugely diverse wardrobes full of many “looks” and “colors”! I learned that you can just bring what you have, and if they don’t like it, they give you something from the wardrobe truck after belittling you for not having the right clothes. “What do you mean, you don’t have a camel trench coat? What’s wrong with youuuuuuu?”
• You have to be available. You never know if you’re going to work the next day or not, but you have to assume that you are, so you can’t really plan anything (unless you’ve notified your calling agency in advance). This was difficult to get used to, and once I was not able to “accept my booking” and got put on probation! A scarlet letter! Again, it’s like being in high school.

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