Pens?

I was on a shoot yesterday where I was background for a high school scene. I was pretending to do math with my prop notebook and my own pen. They moved our table out temporarily for a certain shot, and we were sent to holding until the next setup. When I came back to my table, my pen was gone, and someone had written some idiocy in the prop notebook. It was odd because it was done in graceful cursive. Beautifully penned banality- doesn't that just sum up L.A. perfectly?

The point of this story is that my pen was gone. That person stole my pen. MY pen. My FAVORITE pen!! My pilot G-2. The only pen that I like the way it writes. If you are the pen thief and you are reading this, please give me my pen back.

Many people could read this and be like, so what? If you are a server, though, you're much more likely to feel distraught about this. There are never enough pens! The ones you end up with always write crappy. Eventually you develop a system: there are the pens you let other people use, and there are YOUR pens. The one pen that only YOU are allowed to write with. If it goes missing, you will track it down before you shrug it off and figure you'll just find another pen. Working as a server gave me a total pen fetish. The one tool you really need for that job, and it is the hardest to hold on to. Give it to a customer to sign their visa slip- gone. Set it down by the computer- gone. Start with 20 pens, and you are still lucky to have a few left by the end of a busy night. So even now I'm super neurotic about my pens. I need to have more than one that I enjoy writing with. I need to know where they are. I have a separate pen I loan out to my fellow extras. All of this was realized yesterday after my favorite pen (the other one disappeared last week) was stolen. I was seriously upset about it and was suddenly 30% less invested in what was going on on set. Not saying this is normal or healthy. When everything is going wrong, we have little things we cling to. I guess a small portion of my sanity was attached to the pen that was pleasant to write with and made my handwriting look nice. So for Christmas, I would like 30 pilot G-2s so I can sort through them and come up with 10 that write perfeclty.

On that note, if everyone is always stealing pens (purposefully or not), why doesn't anyone ever have a pen? Where the eff are all of the pens? If we're constantly taking and having our pens taken, no one should ever have to buy a package of pens again. They should be circulating like currency. So where are they? Does anyone know? Does Stephanie Schwartz have all of the world's pens? Is there some crazy cat burglar for pens who goes home after each night of thievery and jumps into the piles and piles of pens kept in his walk-in safe? Do Bic and Papermate have people who go out and steal the pens so we'll keep buying them?

Should I post this and let the world see that I'm the kind of person who writes multiple paragraphs about my pen being stolen? Apparently so.

Every year, an average of 100 people choke to death on a ball point pen. This is allegedly an accident. I think not. "You want to take my pen, you son of a bitch? Here! How do you like my pen now!?"
I couldn't remember the number on this statistic, so I googled it. I typed in "people choke to death" and the first thing that popped up was this statistic.

< /banality>

The Fame

Getting paid to hang out in the background on camera. A hilarious parody of a job and the easiest money anyone could ever make. Free food, free coffee; zero responsibility. If you're close enough, sometimes you get to watch the process. Anyone can work as an extra, as long as you don't look like a creature from 300. Even if you did, you would probably still work occasionally. You don't need any skills; you don't need a resume. There's no reason to have any ego about it because anyone could do it. That being said, I've never in my life encountered so many divas and douche bags.

We all know that the more people are in a group, the dumber the collective becomes. Controlling them is only slightly easier than herding cats. Cats are a little more cooperative than extras, though. They have to be shushed every thirty seconds, they're always wandering around when they aren't supposed to be, and they get cranky when their every whim isn't met. Then they have the gall to turn around and complain that they're being treated like children or animals. If you want to be treated like an adult, how about ACT LIKE ONE!? The sense of entitlement is appalling. These people are worse than the actual actors on set. All they do is bitch about everything all day long. The food wasn't good enough, the hours are too long, the bathroom is too small, they deserve the same stuff as the crew and talent. Give me a break. If you were such an asset, you'd be making more than minimum wage and people would call you by your name instead of "lady in purple, yeah, you."

A little-known fact: Doing audience work or background does not mean you're the next Megan Fox. There's usually not such a thing as "getting discovered". You have to do a little more work to get to that level. If it were that easy, everyone in L.A. would be famous. And that doesn't make much sense, does it?

The favorite topic of discussion among most of these people is themselves and their "accomplishments". Oh, you worked on Transformers? So did 450 other people. Your friends from Nowhere, Colorado are impressed, but everyone else knows it doesn't mean anything. I don't want to hear your thoughts on the difference of directing styles between Clint Eastwood and Michael Bay because you don't know shit. Hanging out on set doesn't qualify you as some sort of expert or movie veteran. You are told what to do and where to stand by some nobody, and you're lucky if you can even figure out which one the director is. That's how much contact you have with the people at the top of the ladder. Yes, it's exciting to see celebrities, but it sure would make their job easier if you would stop staring at them like a slack-jawed yokel. Talk to your family back home. They think it's exciting. Leave me alone. I think you're a loser.

I'm a loser right now too, but I don't act like I'm God's gift to the industry. That's the difference.

Beautiful and Dirty Rich

When I drive around LA, I insist on listening to Lady Gaga. I have a hard time listening to anything else. She is my driving music. Always. Nothing else does the trick. I've finally figured out why that is. Completely subconsciously, it helps me visualize the fantasy of leading a completely different kind of LA lifestyle. One of success and glamour. My 2010 Corolla handles like a sports car, so I can pretend I have the need for speed. I can pretend I'm on my way to somewhere that is both awesome and important. I'm successful and in-demand. I have places to go; people to see. I look and feel amazing, and this isn't the same outfit, purchased three years ago, that I wear to almost every gig. I definitely have more than two outfits suitable for work. I'm always on the run, but I own this town. Then I park my car, make my way to whatever studio lot I'm due at, and stand in line to wait for instruction for 8 dollars an hour. Hopefully, more than six hours will go by before they feed us so we can get an 8 dollar meal bump. I hope the wardrobe person doesn't get cranky with me again because my clothes are wrinkled and I don't have a proper garment bag.

But while I'm in the car, that all goes away. I'm Sara Lynch, and that sure as hell means something. (yeah, I'm your hooker)