It was a Friday afternoon at 1pm and I was standing in the line at Jamba Juice making the most important decision of my life. Which energy boost should I rock in my Strawberries Wild? Energy is simply B12, there is a lot of it in 5 hour energies. It is quasi effective and also slides under the banner of healthy because, hey, it's a vitamin, must be an organic surge. But there is also the caffeine shot...they both cost the same requisite 25 cents and more or less cause the same effect, but for whatever reason this is always a very hard choice for me.
Caffeine just seems like it has a better chance of working, but California law also stipulates that the menu let me know that this will cause me to be ingesting an extra 25 calories...sorry I know I'm stalling and the line of impatient customers behind me is growing, god dammit.
*iPhone 5 with the new iOS text sound*
I look at my phone in a desperate move to find an answer.
"You owe me three bucks."
I knew immediately. I had lost my job.
See, I wasn't just out getting a smoothie for sport on a Friday afternoon, I was depositing my boss's paycheck at a Wells Fargo. It just happens by fortunate coincidence that there is a Jamba Juice next door. My boss and I have a cursory understanding that if I do her a personal favor and deposit her check, I can take an extra 5 minutes and get myself some fruity goodness.
I left the line, the gay aspiring actor asked me if I was all right? "You can have an energy and a caffeine, I'll only charge you for one." But I needed to go outside and sit on a bench to process the gravity of what had just happened.
6 Months ago I made 3 bets with one of my best friends:
1. Ironside would see episode 6.
2. Ironside would receive a back 9.
3. Ironside would be renewed for season 2.
We had oft made jokes about these bets and even that day I had told him, "if we survive the day, I think I'll owe you 2."
We did not survive the day, and while you might assume it was a shitty way to console a friend, there is no way he could have assumed that I had not heard. By the time I got in line at Jamba, Deadline was already announcing our doom.
Texts started flooding in from my coworkers, "fuck" literally within 5 minutes of our producer telling us it was over, the entire town knew.
Immediately everyone goes into a subtle depression. Even if you kind of expected it, you never see it coming. While working on a show everyone sort of brainwashes themselves into thinking, "this is it, this is the next big thing." You think of how you will rise the ranks season to season and eventually achieve your goal which is a vastly different position than whatever you are doing at that moment.
I got back and the doomsday mentality had already set in. A sense of shock transforming into "What now?"
I got back to my work and was immediately handed an adult beverage. While I sipped my champagne, I read the comments on ratings blog TVbythenumbers. Comments heralded the move by NBC, thrashing our numbers and lamenting the fact that it hadn't happened sooner.
"Thank God NBC woke up and cancelled that stinker, good riddance, what were they thinking even greenlighting this remake that NO ONE was asking for."
I have no idea who the fuck these people are that comment on tv blogs, because it is certainly no one in the industry. Because people in the industry would know that 300 people that were working their ass off at their respective careers just lost their jobs. It's morbid really to celebrate the cancellation of a television show. Can you imagine if an American company went under, letting go of all of its employees, followed by a comment section that said "Toldja Toldja Toldja!!!"
But it's the nature of the beast. I don't contend that the show was the greatest thing ever, but people gave it their all. I imagine folks unfamiliar with TV thinking that NBC execs just throw some money at a half assed idea, pick up 8 of their friends off the street and tell them to make it happen.
That's not how it works. Network writers make a lot of money to do what they do. But they are not hacks. 50% of the people in LA want to be writers, there is a reason the people that get paid to do it are employed. But sometimes, for whatever reason, it just doesn't work.
I've been "relieved of my duties" 3 times in my life. The first time it was my last day at The Gap before I started my Freshman year at IU. I was carrying a 50 pound metal sign and my boss did not like the form in which I was carrying it. I threw it over my back and said "I'll carry it like Jesus carried the cross then, God forbid I knock over any urban plaids." She fired me for insulting her Jewish heritage. The second time I was fired for writing this blog (which was totally warranted) and the third was after I was reassigned once one of my projects had ended.
There is a quote in The Mighty Ducks that goes, "Losing isn't that bad once you get the hang of it." And really it rings true. No one should ever aspire to lose, but the initial sting numbs and you learn to carry on.
No one on my show deserved to lose their job, but it happened. It's the nature of the beast. No matter how bad our ratings were, the construction guys were still building amazing sets. The special effects guys were making it look like people really were getting shot and the costumers were outfitting the cast in realistic hip modern outfits.
But it doesn't matter, because this is what you sign up for.
Once we realized that Friday would be our last shooting day, shit just kinda went off the rails. Our props guy informed us that all the "prop booze" was in fact real and we poured cocktail after cocktail telling stories about the past and what we planned to do next.
I am one of the lucky ones, I'm an office guy, so I will have 3 more weeks of employment to pack up the office and figure out my next move. Others were slowly sipping drinks while updating their resume and desperately making calls to see if they could maybe have a job on Monday.
It's a fucked up game. There is a reason so many people wash out of entertainment, it really is a crap shoot and the nature of the beast is soul crushing...but
There will be another show. Someday. If not tomorrow, television as a medium of entertainment is unlikely to cease to exist. There will be a bit of panic, but if you truly believe that everything will be ok, people are more than likely to land on their feet.
And sure, it sucks to start over. When you spend 70 hours a week with people, with one goal, it does become a family dynamic. Some of the people from the show I will never see again. But they'll rebound, or maybe they won't. Maybe all of this nonsense will leave them disillusioned to the point that they pack up their bags and head home.
But for me, that is not an option.
Everyone comes to LA dough eyed with dreams of becoming a star. Obviously it doesn't work out for most of them, if it was that easy everyone would do it. But for the people that KNOW, eventually, things will work out...their time is coming. Life is a war of attrition. A lot of people will decide that either their goals are too difficult or just not worth it, but if you find yourself in the minority of people that know they will succeed, it's only a matter of time before that rings true.
At 7pm I went to a buddy's place and played drinking games until the rose. Largely similar to any other Friday night.
"What are you gonna do now?"
I'll figure it out.
There is always a way to figure it out. Maybe you go back to shopping at the dollar store. Perhaps you file for unemployment, but if you keep on trucking there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
This is a small town and you never know could happen. If networks could read the future first season shows wouldn't have an 80% cancellation rate. Nor would a guy that pitches a series about show choirs have been laughed out of his first meeting.
It's a roller coaster ride for sure, and definitely not for the faint of heart.
So Monday morning I'll go to work and start carrying thousands of files out of the office and load them onto trucks that will take them God knows where. I'll answer all of the texts and emails offering me condolences by saying "it's all good, shit happens." And I'll start sending my resume to every show in town with a 1% response rate.
But in the mean time I'll be hanging out at the beach, writing my own material and then I'll unexpectedly get a call one day from a guy who was an assistant in the writer's office.
"Hey man, I sold a pitch, it's going to pilot, do you want to come work with me?"
10 seasons later we're vacationing on our yachts off the coast of Cyprus, because ya...that's how it works.
Keep your head up.
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