Answer me that, folks. In particular, if we're going to ban certain classic cartoons because of offensive racial stereotypes (and yes, the Censored 11 stuff is pretty bad).
Yet we're STILL being exposed to the stereotypical 1950s housewife types in the classic Twilight Zone along with Olive Oyl in the Popeye series, various bitchy housewives in the Looney Tunes cartoons that beat up on cats for daring to eat birds (usually it's Sylvester because he dared to eat Tweety, who's a freaking canary). When you get down to it, there's a ton of sexism in the old cartoons.
I was watching some Popeye cartoons earlier & my husband reminded me of a rant I've not done: I absolutely can't stand Olive Oyl. She epitomizes everything stereotypical & insulting about women. Cartoon Olive, at least. Comic strip Olive is less offensive since she actually knows how to take care of herself.
I thought my husband & I were the only people who hated Olive Oyl until we watched a special feature on one of the Popeye DVDs that came out. Fortunately, the entire era of the cartoons that we wanted was put out on DVD & we got to buy them. One of the women speaking on this particular feature said she hated Olive Oyl as well. I was like "YES! Finally, someone else feels like I do."
So, why my hatred? I'll gladly explain:
If you've seen classic Twilight Zone episodes, you should be familiar with the bitchy and helpless housewives. Apparently, Rod Serling was not good at writing women in his stories. He admitted this in the introduction of one episode (I believe it was from Season 1) that we caught on DVD. Spotting these characters is like spotting pornography: you can't define it but you'll know it when you see it.
I personally watch these women in action on a lot of them & there are some I don't feel any sympathy for. It's like if some guy were married to them, you could hardly blame them for wanting to beat the crap out of them. Now I'm not a supporter of domestic violence but I'd want to beat them since they annoy the shit out of me.
Olive Oyl in the Popeye cartoons is like these women & I'm going to give you numerous examples of why she sucks.
1. She is a fickle bitch. In most of the Popeye cartoons, she's dating Popeye then tosses him aside for Bluto because she thinks Bluto is more suave or has a clean shave or whatever other reason. In real life, she'd be knocking boots with this guy. You know what we call women like that in modern society? A slut. Loose. Plenty of other names that you don't want to be called if you're a woman. I wouldn't find "fickle" flattering, either.
2. She is a total tease. Probably wrote the book on it, in fact. She acts like she's interested & then when Bluto makes his move, she goes all helpless & whines for Popeye. Popeye, of course, always saves her in the cartoons.
You know what Popeye would have done in real life, especially in today's time if some chick was doing this Olive Oyl impression? He'd say "Fuck you, bitch! You wanted Bluto so have fun. Don't come crying to me!" I know real life men would say something similar. Even Superman did in one story, according to my husband the comics expert.
3. She's downright shitty to Popeye in plenty of them. Has zero respect or regard for that relationship & then has no regard for Bluto if she's supposed to be with him. She also laughs her ass off at Popeye's expense in many of them. Classless could be an apt description as well.
"So, you still want to save that bitch?" I ask Popeye in my brain. I wouldn't do shit for you if you had dumped me then laughed at my expense when your new significant other was mean to me. Popeye would have moved on in real life.
4. She's totally & completely helpless. You know what would happen if you went all Bluto on a natural redhead & hopefully most modern women? She'd hit you right in a sensitive area & you'd be traumatized from even thinking about sex for a long time. Maybe even years. No, I don't mean the crotch. There are other sensitive areas that work for both genders & any woman who took a self-defense class knows what they are.
Why is it that she can do a token hit but it means nothing? Why is she so damn helpless? I appreciate a guy intervening if some scumbag is bothering me but don't do it because you think I'm helpless! Unlike cartoon Olive Oyl, I'm not helpless.
Most women aren't Olive Oyl. Yes, I'm sure there are Olive Oyl types around encouraging wannabe rapists to hate & attack us but we have our own ways of dealing with them (wannabe rapists & the Olive Oyl types). If I knew any Olive Oyl sorts myself, I'd definitely handle that. No woman in my family fits that one, that's for sure. That includes me, my policy on date paying notwithstanding.
I had respect for men I dated & have respect for my husband. You wouldn't see me ditching him for some guy with more money, a better car, better clothes, whatever. If some woman is doing that, she's not respectable. If she knows about this guy's private parts, you're definitely better off without her.
I also was not a tease. I never led guys on. I was always honest & probably to a fault. That always pissed me off when guys did it so I felt it was uncool to do that to them. Certainly other women agree with me on this. Plus, I have a healthy sex drive (if Manswers is accurate, it's a natural redhead thing but you can't tell me that only the smallest minority on the planet has a healthy sex drive; otherwise, you'd only see natural redheads with kids & all the people in sex therapy would be natural redheads). Most women aren't frigid or asexual. Those are the people who should do their dating on Christian Mingle or create some new dating site for people like themselves since they don't fit the majority of us.
Furthermore, most of us are adults. We don't expect some guy to save us from a situation we created ourselves. Respectable women operate from a place of truth & don't go leading folk on. They aren't assholes or little kids like Olive Oyl. We don't need some pimp to bail us out & I really hope a pimp wouldn't do that.
Nor do they trash someone they supposedly care about with their new beau & later expect them to do shit for them. Nope, if I've insulted you not only have you deserved it but I'd sure not ask for your help later on.
We've already established my lack of helplessness. I'm also not a fan of helpless people. Actually, I really hate helpless people (that is, the ones who can't claim a medically diagnosed condition & have something so bad, they actually need anti-depressants). For one thing, it's a state of mind. Few people are truly helpless & even the people everyone thinks of as being helpless (those who've lost limbs or senses) are usually functioning better than the rest of us.
For another, I believe in being the change you want to see. If you don't like something, you need to get off your butt & do something to change it or shut up for good about it. You don't get the right to bitch about things you took no steps to change.
Finally, if you truly feel helpless & you aren't suffering from a medically diagnosed case of depression (WebMD diagnoses don't count) why are you still doing the same stuff? Take some personal responsibility for YOUR life & YOUR behavior!!!
Maybe that's the crux of why I'm not an Olive Oyl fan: she lacks personal accountability. You never see her making the connection b/t her actions & people's reactions to her. It's like "Are you that dim?" To me, if you're that dim how do you manage to function from day to day? Can you even walk & chew gum at the same time? Maybe we should euthanize you for your own good. Many people ought to be euthanized for their own good but that's never going to fly until laws are changed.
With all this though, you don't see me or some other women's groups sending down a shit storm on broadcasters or anyone else & demanding them to never show some cartoon because of the sexism to women. You don't see networks censoring that stuff but they'll do it for other groups & most recently have done that for Native Americans (yet, you could still see those stereotypes in old cartoons when they aired in the late '80s & early '90s; I know b/c I saw them personally).
How about some respect for women here? Or better yet, no censorship for anyone? Women, Italians, Irish people, no one else who didn't choose their status in life should get to be fair game while other groups aren't. To even encourage it just furthers racism & causes more problems. Discrimination is discrimination. Why don't you PC cops get that?
If you ask me, the portrayals of women you see to this day just further sexism & ill will toward us. I think it's totally undeserved when it comes to me & probably undeserved for many women. How about the PC police tackle that one instead of setting up barriers to honest discourse & meaningful conversation? Olive Oyl doesn't represent me any more than Mitt Romney represents most of the Republicans I know.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Saturday, November 3, 2012
6 Days After the Hurricane - Cabin Fever & Leadership
As we all know, Hurricane (or Big Ass Storm, if you prefer) Sandy came through here last Sunday night/Monday morning. Tons of people lost power, Internet access, TV signals, homes, etc.
The Angry Redheaded Lawyer was not one of them. Nor was anyone living on her block. Despite living surrounded by trees partially threaded with power lines, we didn't lose a single thing. We didn't even lose our TV signal & that's often the first thing to go. Last year, when Irene happened (a huge much ado over nothing) we lost our signal briefly but got it back. The real problem was the Internet & phone line. That started the ordeal that led me to the community board meeting & to call my local representatives; it probably also contributed to the presence of FiOS this year. We got it recently & have been fine.
We also engaged in prep beforehand so we've been fine with food & all that stuff. The big things affecting us are cabin fever & lack of meaningful public transit to Manhattan. I don't consider a 1+ hour bus ride to a subway station that's running to get into Manhattan to be viable public transit. I want my local subway back up, damn it!
There are also the gas lines. My neighborhood is not exactly close to the highway or way out in the suburbs but there are lines at our gas stations, at least 2 that I know of in the area. I passed by one of them on my way home after some neighborhood reconnaissance. If you have to wait in those lines for gas, you've got my sympathies. This is definitely a time I'm glad I don't live in the suburbs & have to drive to work.
I'm hoping the gas situation will be taken care of before 2 weeks from now since we are planning to go out of town & driving for that purpose. Due to the mandatory TSA groping of all people who dare to book an airline ticket combined with not getting to sit next to my spouse, paying to check luggage, ungodly flight delays and the increasing chance of lost luggage, you couldn't pay me to fly on an airplane. I refuse to get on one unless it's a private jet & I vowed years ago never to fly coach again after my luggage was in the wrong place 3 different times. Since holiday travel is a choice, I'll choose driving; we just have to make sure the weather holds for us.
Minor problems, don't you think? Now you see why I didn't do a post about it immediately. I know people who only today got their power back. I know people who know people who lost everything. Some of the folks I know who did fine even went to go volunteer to help those less fortunate.
As I'm not a brawn person & have no way to meaningfully get anywhere, I've opted to stay home & out of the way. I've also thought about the people worse off than me the second I think I've got it rough. I told friends if they were in my area, they could come here for a shower & some cookies (I made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies with oatmeal on Sunday; I'm told they came out good & I was trying to use up eggs in case our power went out).
After it passed through, I was like "That's it?" We'd done all this prep, had some non-perishable goods & I was ready for the worst. I figured our area got off lucky & asked others how they were holding up. Facebook was a good guide to see where people lost power, pictures of the damage, get updates on friends & loved ones, etc.
In the meantime, I didn't leave my house until today to assess how our area did. Yep, I was in my house for exactly 1 week. My husband was forced to go back to work on Thursday after buses in our area were running but he considered it a relief since he could get to his branch by taking 1 bus and it would get him out of the house. Eventually, cabin fever gets to you. I've promised myself when the transit system returns that I'm living it up in Manhattan. I did consider exploring more of our neighborhood in light of this situation to do something constructive if I got bored but my husband had taken out season 3 of Nurse Jackie on DVD before the storm.
Guess what I ended up doing when there was nothing on TV? Watching Nurse Jackie. If you haven't seen it, you should. Accuracy issues aside, it's a well written and well acted show. It's on Showtime, so what else do you expect? I've not seen many crappy shows on the pay channels. The style reminds me a lot of The Sopranos so if you like that show, you'll probably like Nurse Jackie. It does star Edie Falco, after all & you see Jackie do things you wish people would do in real life.
For instance, in one episode she's in a restaurant having lunch with one of the other characters. You overhear the waitress at another table being berated by this jerky business guy. Jackie, instead of leaving it alone as her doctor companion asks, strolls over, says she's the manager & makes this guy look like shit in front of the client he's trying to impress. The waitress is so grateful to Jackie that she comps their meal.
My husband sees this scene & says "You'd totally do something like that." Probably, considering I have & still do know people working in the service industry.
I also watched other DVDs of mine like the movie Casual Sex? (a film I learned about when living with my law school roommate who'd bought it for herself on DVD). Saw The Nightmare Before Christmas yesterday. My husband & I have a literally crazy amount of DVDs; my sister once said we were Blockbuster b/c we have so many. Except we have a lot of stuff you'd never see in the typical video store aside from any of my company's films. There's a decent amount of obscure titles in there & films from earlier decades. Most films we've seen today or in the past decade are "one & done"; you see them once & there's just no re-watchability to them.
I learned other people I know are in the same boat but it still makes you feel like a member of the 1% to have all that while other people have real problems. Unlike some of these 1% motherfuckers like that Mary Wittenburg, the president of NY Road Runners who apparently went on TV and bitched and moaned about how cancelling the NYC Marathon meant all this lost revenue to the city and how all the runners traveling from out of town lost money or Bloomberg (who we already knew was a scumbag), I have a conscience & enough class not to kick people while they are down by closing off roads, diverting resources, setting up generators for the media, etc.
I do agree that it sucks those people flew in from out of the country & all to run in it. I agree they should have been told sooner so they could change their plans. But I don't think they get to displace homeless storm victims for their little marathon or use up resources that could go to the recovery effort or divert police, sanitation workers, and others trying to help victims for a (as I read it in a few places) "frivolous event." The storm was announced everywhere & surely they could have read about the damage it caused. Would these people have gone to New Orleans a week after Katrina to participate in some event that would close off the few open streets, provide comped water bottles, generators, etc. right in the faces of people who don't have power, clean water, etc.?
I will say this: at least there is more leadership around here than New Orleans had after Katrina. Governor Cuomo also wrote a letter to the utility companies saying that they'd better be getting power returned ASAP, they knew about issues and had better fix them or he'd be revoking their licenses to work in this state. That should make you feel a little better about our leadership. I wish more politicians in all areas of office did that & followed through; I'd be a hard core supporter of someone like that. There's too much pussy footing around in government & really in all parts of life. More people need to grow some balls, say "Don't fuck with me or else!" & then follow through.
At this point, I'm just seeing what happens in the next few weeks. Oh, and there IS looting going on in parts of the city that were affected per someone I know who's out there volunteering. Social media updates from people who are present (especially those you know) are more accurate than the media or what some politician says. Don't ever forget that.
The Angry Redheaded Lawyer was not one of them. Nor was anyone living on her block. Despite living surrounded by trees partially threaded with power lines, we didn't lose a single thing. We didn't even lose our TV signal & that's often the first thing to go. Last year, when Irene happened (a huge much ado over nothing) we lost our signal briefly but got it back. The real problem was the Internet & phone line. That started the ordeal that led me to the community board meeting & to call my local representatives; it probably also contributed to the presence of FiOS this year. We got it recently & have been fine.
We also engaged in prep beforehand so we've been fine with food & all that stuff. The big things affecting us are cabin fever & lack of meaningful public transit to Manhattan. I don't consider a 1+ hour bus ride to a subway station that's running to get into Manhattan to be viable public transit. I want my local subway back up, damn it!
There are also the gas lines. My neighborhood is not exactly close to the highway or way out in the suburbs but there are lines at our gas stations, at least 2 that I know of in the area. I passed by one of them on my way home after some neighborhood reconnaissance. If you have to wait in those lines for gas, you've got my sympathies. This is definitely a time I'm glad I don't live in the suburbs & have to drive to work.
I'm hoping the gas situation will be taken care of before 2 weeks from now since we are planning to go out of town & driving for that purpose. Due to the mandatory TSA groping of all people who dare to book an airline ticket combined with not getting to sit next to my spouse, paying to check luggage, ungodly flight delays and the increasing chance of lost luggage, you couldn't pay me to fly on an airplane. I refuse to get on one unless it's a private jet & I vowed years ago never to fly coach again after my luggage was in the wrong place 3 different times. Since holiday travel is a choice, I'll choose driving; we just have to make sure the weather holds for us.
Minor problems, don't you think? Now you see why I didn't do a post about it immediately. I know people who only today got their power back. I know people who know people who lost everything. Some of the folks I know who did fine even went to go volunteer to help those less fortunate.
As I'm not a brawn person & have no way to meaningfully get anywhere, I've opted to stay home & out of the way. I've also thought about the people worse off than me the second I think I've got it rough. I told friends if they were in my area, they could come here for a shower & some cookies (I made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies with oatmeal on Sunday; I'm told they came out good & I was trying to use up eggs in case our power went out).
After it passed through, I was like "That's it?" We'd done all this prep, had some non-perishable goods & I was ready for the worst. I figured our area got off lucky & asked others how they were holding up. Facebook was a good guide to see where people lost power, pictures of the damage, get updates on friends & loved ones, etc.
In the meantime, I didn't leave my house until today to assess how our area did. Yep, I was in my house for exactly 1 week. My husband was forced to go back to work on Thursday after buses in our area were running but he considered it a relief since he could get to his branch by taking 1 bus and it would get him out of the house. Eventually, cabin fever gets to you. I've promised myself when the transit system returns that I'm living it up in Manhattan. I did consider exploring more of our neighborhood in light of this situation to do something constructive if I got bored but my husband had taken out season 3 of Nurse Jackie on DVD before the storm.
Guess what I ended up doing when there was nothing on TV? Watching Nurse Jackie. If you haven't seen it, you should. Accuracy issues aside, it's a well written and well acted show. It's on Showtime, so what else do you expect? I've not seen many crappy shows on the pay channels. The style reminds me a lot of The Sopranos so if you like that show, you'll probably like Nurse Jackie. It does star Edie Falco, after all & you see Jackie do things you wish people would do in real life.
For instance, in one episode she's in a restaurant having lunch with one of the other characters. You overhear the waitress at another table being berated by this jerky business guy. Jackie, instead of leaving it alone as her doctor companion asks, strolls over, says she's the manager & makes this guy look like shit in front of the client he's trying to impress. The waitress is so grateful to Jackie that she comps their meal.
My husband sees this scene & says "You'd totally do something like that." Probably, considering I have & still do know people working in the service industry.
I also watched other DVDs of mine like the movie Casual Sex? (a film I learned about when living with my law school roommate who'd bought it for herself on DVD). Saw The Nightmare Before Christmas yesterday. My husband & I have a literally crazy amount of DVDs; my sister once said we were Blockbuster b/c we have so many. Except we have a lot of stuff you'd never see in the typical video store aside from any of my company's films. There's a decent amount of obscure titles in there & films from earlier decades. Most films we've seen today or in the past decade are "one & done"; you see them once & there's just no re-watchability to them.
I learned other people I know are in the same boat but it still makes you feel like a member of the 1% to have all that while other people have real problems. Unlike some of these 1% motherfuckers like that Mary Wittenburg, the president of NY Road Runners who apparently went on TV and bitched and moaned about how cancelling the NYC Marathon meant all this lost revenue to the city and how all the runners traveling from out of town lost money or Bloomberg (who we already knew was a scumbag), I have a conscience & enough class not to kick people while they are down by closing off roads, diverting resources, setting up generators for the media, etc.
I do agree that it sucks those people flew in from out of the country & all to run in it. I agree they should have been told sooner so they could change their plans. But I don't think they get to displace homeless storm victims for their little marathon or use up resources that could go to the recovery effort or divert police, sanitation workers, and others trying to help victims for a (as I read it in a few places) "frivolous event." The storm was announced everywhere & surely they could have read about the damage it caused. Would these people have gone to New Orleans a week after Katrina to participate in some event that would close off the few open streets, provide comped water bottles, generators, etc. right in the faces of people who don't have power, clean water, etc.?
I will say this: at least there is more leadership around here than New Orleans had after Katrina. Governor Cuomo also wrote a letter to the utility companies saying that they'd better be getting power returned ASAP, they knew about issues and had better fix them or he'd be revoking their licenses to work in this state. That should make you feel a little better about our leadership. I wish more politicians in all areas of office did that & followed through; I'd be a hard core supporter of someone like that. There's too much pussy footing around in government & really in all parts of life. More people need to grow some balls, say "Don't fuck with me or else!" & then follow through.
At this point, I'm just seeing what happens in the next few weeks. Oh, and there IS looting going on in parts of the city that were affected per someone I know who's out there volunteering. Social media updates from people who are present (especially those you know) are more accurate than the media or what some politician says. Don't ever forget that.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Get Your Tubal If You're Over 18: How to Deal with Paternalistic Asshole Doctors Who Think They Can Intrude on Your Private Life
With all the shit I've read about how there's no lawyer posting this guideline & after reading this Dear Prudence column yesterday where Prudence decides to just be another member of the "You're too young" chorus, I decided enough was enough. A lot of the comments on that letter really pushed me over the edge, particularly those by men who DO NOT have a fucking uterus & can NEVER be forced to carry an unwanted baby.
I even read a while ago in a LiveJournal community the lament of someone who claimed no lawyer cared about this issue.
Well, that commenter is wrong. DEAD wrong! Didn't you hear? I had a tubal at 26; in fact, the XX Factor blog published an essay I wrote on why I have chosen to be childfree. You can find the link in an earlier entry; don't be lazy. I don't abide that mess.
So, I'm going to write that guide. Feel free to pass it on far & wide. In fact, I encourage it. Remember, I want to inspire fear, dread & contempt in the hearts of OB/GYNs who want to create more problems by playing God with women's lives.
Before we get to those tips, some preliminary facts:
* Make damn fucking sure you do not want to have children EVER. Permanent solutions are nothing to mess around with. If the answer to "Do you ever want children?" is anything other than an emphatic "No!" you have no business asking for a tubal. You should get an IUD instead.
You also don't get to call yourself "childfree." You are what we call a "fence sitter," a "maybe" case. If the answer to that question is "Maybe someday," do not waste a doctor's time. A legion of childfree women who want permanent sterilization & can't get it will beat you upside the head (or at least, I'd like them to).
* If you think for even a second that you can sue the doctor if you "change your mind," also don't bother doing it. You are the bitches that make it harder for me & anyone else who has an old soul or sense of who she is to get any credibility or respect on the issue. I'd go so far as to say you're an enemy to women's lib right up there with Todd Akin, Paul Ryan and all the other closet rapists.
Plus, if you live in NY you only get 2 years to sue for medical malpractice. That's it. I forget if the time starts when the malpractice happens or when you discover the malpractice so don't quote me on this but I believe it is when the malpractice happens. You discovered it 20 years later? Tough shit, you've most likely waited too long. As my NY Practice professor in law school said, the doctors have a good lobby that made this the law in NY state. The doctors in your state may also have a good state lobbyist. Check your state laws.
* If you're not good with surgery & willing to sign a waiver saying you won't sue if you "change your mind," don't do it. More setting women back & causing issues. Let me just punch you in the face right now if you pull that.
So, if you are an actual childfree person who is hellbent on never, ever having kids no matter what & will never lament the loss of your unborn rugrats here is what you do:
1. Research, research, research! Research your local state & federal laws when it comes to this subject. Know how long the statute of limitations is for a doctor to be sued for giving sterilization to someone who later changes her mind. Research current news & know about mothers who killed their children, the harm done to children from resentful parents who didn't want them, the consequences of parenthood & what it does or doesn't make you.
2. Have strength in your convictions, no matter what. If anyone can talk you out of it, you aren't prepared to do it.
3. Have logical arguments prepared. Cite the laws on consent, voting, any professional licenses you hold like being an attorney & the process you went through to get that license, etc.
4. Use "Do no harm" to your advantage: ask the busybody doctor about violating that provision by allowing an unborn child to be born to a home where (s)he will not be treated well say not being fed, clothed, etc. Ask about the harm to society, the court system and everyone else who has to get involved in the abuse and neglect involving this kid. Ask about the increased crime rate & future victims of this child born to an unfit parent (and resenting or hating your child certainly qualifies you as an "unfit parent" in my book).
Cite any contacts you may have involved in sexual abuse who might still be in the picture if some unborn child was brought into the world if you had one. Furthermore, ask about the emotional harm being done to you with this paternalistic attempt to shove you into motherhood against your will.
5. Know the slippery slope argument like the back of your hand: when you've asked every single doctor who takes your insurance about this & go to your last ones or the last one, mention that fact. Tell them that all have denied you & they are violating your civil rights with this collective denial.
6. Do NOT, under any circumstances, be deferential to the doctor on this choice. This is YOUR body, YOUR health & YOUR life. Now that doesn't mean "be rude." It means don't act like this doctor is superior to you due to his/her education. Doctors will play that card without question. If you don't have a lawyer card to play, you need to get away from the "he's more educated so he's smarter than me" mindset. No one knows you better than you do. YOU live in your body & your mind. This prick doesn't.
YOU know your household better than any doctor does. (S)he wants to step in? Then that fucker needs to be held liable (maybe criminally in some cases) for denying sterilization & the consequences that result to the woman, family & unborn child. I bet these wannabe gods would think twice about such intrusions if that happened. Don't get sucked into anyone's God complex or allow yourself to be bullied!
Do this stuff before you ever call anyone. To continue,
7. Call the OB/GYN's office & ask the first person you speak to about this. Doing so will save you time, money & heartache. Sometimes, they'll have the answer & sometimes, they'll have someone call you back.
If you don't get a "yes," keep going. Don't waste your time going into anyone's office unless they will do it. If they insist, ask if they are giving you a free consultation or expect you to fall for their bait & switch tactics.
8. If you get push back, cite your valid reasons. Use these logical arguments I mentioned above. Also, ask this doctor point blank about the war on women going on in our current times & the lunatic fringe Republicans trying to outlaw abortion, make contraceptives impossible to get (such as allowing employers to dictate the uses for it in female employees), etc. If you've done that research, you can cite those instances in your state & elsewhere of such laws.
See what this doctor says when you point out that you may not have the option of less permanent contraception if Romney takes office or your local Republican representatives get those harsh, draconian, sexist laws through. Maybe even ask if the doctor is pro-life or pro-choice. That could even be done in the initial phone call but if the doctor says "pro-life" you can ask how bringing unwanted children into the world is in any way healthy or being "pro-life." You could even ask how taking free will away from an adult woman is in any way in keeping with his/her religious faith if the person cites one.
I was raised in an independent Baptist household so I know how the Christian fundies think. If you're also from a religious background, use it to your advantage.
9. If you are outright lied to like the first doctor I had did to me, don't you dare give up. Use Tom Petty's song "I Won't Back Down" as your mantra. You talk to the next doctor & the next, using the same approach. If you really want to get creative, you could even make up a story about having been raped by a family member that you're still forced to have in your life b/c other family members sided w/him & not you i.e. any unborn child would be exposed to a rapist.
Remember also the words of Malcolm X: By whatever means necessary. Considering the US may become just another 3rd world country on this issue soon, you may want to make getting permanent sterilization a high priority lest you end up being forced to raise your rapist's baby or give up your career and all you hold dear for some puking, mulling rugrat you never wanted in the first place. People who aren't uncivilized pieces of garbage will allow abortion for ectopic pregnancies (you know, those ones that have zero chance of viability). If they don't, well maybe these closet rapists should also decriminalize rape since they believe it's "God's will."
Personally, I think if you have to start lying to doctors the doctor/patient privilege is useless. Point out this hypocrisy if you need to.
10. Be civil but don't be nice unless the doctor respects you as an adult woman capable of living your own life & making your own decisions. If your logical arguments have failed, that says the doctor is NOT respectful of you. If you have children & some doctor is doing this, most definitely show no mercy for this blatant paternalism.
It's not just men who engage in this paternalism, by the way. I had women pull this on me as well. Be contrary & if you have to, be a bitch. No, not just a bitch. An unrepentant, bulldozing bitch who won't take shit off the likes of this wannabe God.
Propose that the age of consent, voting, etc. for women be bumped up & zero liability prescribed to you for anything if this doctor wants to deny you the right to make this choice for yourself. Cite figures about women who actually change their minds, the viability of such a lawsuit, whatever fits for the situation.
If you want to tell them not to bullshit you & just be honest, go ahead. Uncovering the motivations behind doctors acting like they know better than adult women is a good idea & should be done more often to assess whether some people should even be in the field in the first place. Would they deny abortions to 12 year old rape victims next? Are they THAT baby happy?
11. If the doctor doesn't want to do it but isn't a total prick about it, ask for the names of people who WILL do it. Not give you maybes or harass you about it but will actually treat you as an adult with a fully functioning brain and free will. Feel free to say that last part to drive your point home.
Maybe something good will come out of it, maybe not. Either way, at least you tried.
12. If you find a doctor who does your surgery & you're happy with the results, spread the word. Tell others about this OB/GYN who is respectful of women & isn't infantalizing adult women (defined as those over 18, not those over 35). I've been more than happy to ID my surgeon to women seeking this in NYC.
I have very little stock in OB/GYNs these days. Since my insurance no longer covers the one who did my surgery & another one I had vanished from the face of the earth, I've not found one who is respectful of women. My mom says that since I already had the tubal, it's too late to worry about that but I disagree. I don't want my copay going to some anti-woman dirtbag who belittles my childfreedom & insists that I'm not a full person or have some kind of mental defect b/c I'm not some baby crazed harpy who treats her husband like a child. No way do I want some gynecologist saying "You could get your tubal reversed. Let's see about doing that," when I'd violently object to it. This issue most certainly is going to affect that health care provider's medical judgment & treatment of me and I'm not interested in that shitty bias.
If you also had this done or are contemplating it, you should definitely consider a future doctor's beliefs on that issue for your future OB/GYN needs if you run into the situation I have.
Finally, I'd like to point out that by the time these objecting doctors think you're "old enough" for a tubal you're already in menopause or a stone's throw away from it.
I even read a while ago in a LiveJournal community the lament of someone who claimed no lawyer cared about this issue.
Well, that commenter is wrong. DEAD wrong! Didn't you hear? I had a tubal at 26; in fact, the XX Factor blog published an essay I wrote on why I have chosen to be childfree. You can find the link in an earlier entry; don't be lazy. I don't abide that mess.
So, I'm going to write that guide. Feel free to pass it on far & wide. In fact, I encourage it. Remember, I want to inspire fear, dread & contempt in the hearts of OB/GYNs who want to create more problems by playing God with women's lives.
Before we get to those tips, some preliminary facts:
* Make damn fucking sure you do not want to have children EVER. Permanent solutions are nothing to mess around with. If the answer to "Do you ever want children?" is anything other than an emphatic "No!" you have no business asking for a tubal. You should get an IUD instead.
You also don't get to call yourself "childfree." You are what we call a "fence sitter," a "maybe" case. If the answer to that question is "Maybe someday," do not waste a doctor's time. A legion of childfree women who want permanent sterilization & can't get it will beat you upside the head (or at least, I'd like them to).
* If you think for even a second that you can sue the doctor if you "change your mind," also don't bother doing it. You are the bitches that make it harder for me & anyone else who has an old soul or sense of who she is to get any credibility or respect on the issue. I'd go so far as to say you're an enemy to women's lib right up there with Todd Akin, Paul Ryan and all the other closet rapists.
Plus, if you live in NY you only get 2 years to sue for medical malpractice. That's it. I forget if the time starts when the malpractice happens or when you discover the malpractice so don't quote me on this but I believe it is when the malpractice happens. You discovered it 20 years later? Tough shit, you've most likely waited too long. As my NY Practice professor in law school said, the doctors have a good lobby that made this the law in NY state. The doctors in your state may also have a good state lobbyist. Check your state laws.
* If you're not good with surgery & willing to sign a waiver saying you won't sue if you "change your mind," don't do it. More setting women back & causing issues. Let me just punch you in the face right now if you pull that.
So, if you are an actual childfree person who is hellbent on never, ever having kids no matter what & will never lament the loss of your unborn rugrats here is what you do:
1. Research, research, research! Research your local state & federal laws when it comes to this subject. Know how long the statute of limitations is for a doctor to be sued for giving sterilization to someone who later changes her mind. Research current news & know about mothers who killed their children, the harm done to children from resentful parents who didn't want them, the consequences of parenthood & what it does or doesn't make you.
2. Have strength in your convictions, no matter what. If anyone can talk you out of it, you aren't prepared to do it.
3. Have logical arguments prepared. Cite the laws on consent, voting, any professional licenses you hold like being an attorney & the process you went through to get that license, etc.
4. Use "Do no harm" to your advantage: ask the busybody doctor about violating that provision by allowing an unborn child to be born to a home where (s)he will not be treated well say not being fed, clothed, etc. Ask about the harm to society, the court system and everyone else who has to get involved in the abuse and neglect involving this kid. Ask about the increased crime rate & future victims of this child born to an unfit parent (and resenting or hating your child certainly qualifies you as an "unfit parent" in my book).
Cite any contacts you may have involved in sexual abuse who might still be in the picture if some unborn child was brought into the world if you had one. Furthermore, ask about the emotional harm being done to you with this paternalistic attempt to shove you into motherhood against your will.
5. Know the slippery slope argument like the back of your hand: when you've asked every single doctor who takes your insurance about this & go to your last ones or the last one, mention that fact. Tell them that all have denied you & they are violating your civil rights with this collective denial.
6. Do NOT, under any circumstances, be deferential to the doctor on this choice. This is YOUR body, YOUR health & YOUR life. Now that doesn't mean "be rude." It means don't act like this doctor is superior to you due to his/her education. Doctors will play that card without question. If you don't have a lawyer card to play, you need to get away from the "he's more educated so he's smarter than me" mindset. No one knows you better than you do. YOU live in your body & your mind. This prick doesn't.
YOU know your household better than any doctor does. (S)he wants to step in? Then that fucker needs to be held liable (maybe criminally in some cases) for denying sterilization & the consequences that result to the woman, family & unborn child. I bet these wannabe gods would think twice about such intrusions if that happened. Don't get sucked into anyone's God complex or allow yourself to be bullied!
Do this stuff before you ever call anyone. To continue,
7. Call the OB/GYN's office & ask the first person you speak to about this. Doing so will save you time, money & heartache. Sometimes, they'll have the answer & sometimes, they'll have someone call you back.
If you don't get a "yes," keep going. Don't waste your time going into anyone's office unless they will do it. If they insist, ask if they are giving you a free consultation or expect you to fall for their bait & switch tactics.
8. If you get push back, cite your valid reasons. Use these logical arguments I mentioned above. Also, ask this doctor point blank about the war on women going on in our current times & the lunatic fringe Republicans trying to outlaw abortion, make contraceptives impossible to get (such as allowing employers to dictate the uses for it in female employees), etc. If you've done that research, you can cite those instances in your state & elsewhere of such laws.
See what this doctor says when you point out that you may not have the option of less permanent contraception if Romney takes office or your local Republican representatives get those harsh, draconian, sexist laws through. Maybe even ask if the doctor is pro-life or pro-choice. That could even be done in the initial phone call but if the doctor says "pro-life" you can ask how bringing unwanted children into the world is in any way healthy or being "pro-life." You could even ask how taking free will away from an adult woman is in any way in keeping with his/her religious faith if the person cites one.
I was raised in an independent Baptist household so I know how the Christian fundies think. If you're also from a religious background, use it to your advantage.
9. If you are outright lied to like the first doctor I had did to me, don't you dare give up. Use Tom Petty's song "I Won't Back Down" as your mantra. You talk to the next doctor & the next, using the same approach. If you really want to get creative, you could even make up a story about having been raped by a family member that you're still forced to have in your life b/c other family members sided w/him & not you i.e. any unborn child would be exposed to a rapist.
Remember also the words of Malcolm X: By whatever means necessary. Considering the US may become just another 3rd world country on this issue soon, you may want to make getting permanent sterilization a high priority lest you end up being forced to raise your rapist's baby or give up your career and all you hold dear for some puking, mulling rugrat you never wanted in the first place. People who aren't uncivilized pieces of garbage will allow abortion for ectopic pregnancies (you know, those ones that have zero chance of viability). If they don't, well maybe these closet rapists should also decriminalize rape since they believe it's "God's will."
Personally, I think if you have to start lying to doctors the doctor/patient privilege is useless. Point out this hypocrisy if you need to.
10. Be civil but don't be nice unless the doctor respects you as an adult woman capable of living your own life & making your own decisions. If your logical arguments have failed, that says the doctor is NOT respectful of you. If you have children & some doctor is doing this, most definitely show no mercy for this blatant paternalism.
It's not just men who engage in this paternalism, by the way. I had women pull this on me as well. Be contrary & if you have to, be a bitch. No, not just a bitch. An unrepentant, bulldozing bitch who won't take shit off the likes of this wannabe God.
Propose that the age of consent, voting, etc. for women be bumped up & zero liability prescribed to you for anything if this doctor wants to deny you the right to make this choice for yourself. Cite figures about women who actually change their minds, the viability of such a lawsuit, whatever fits for the situation.
If you want to tell them not to bullshit you & just be honest, go ahead. Uncovering the motivations behind doctors acting like they know better than adult women is a good idea & should be done more often to assess whether some people should even be in the field in the first place. Would they deny abortions to 12 year old rape victims next? Are they THAT baby happy?
11. If the doctor doesn't want to do it but isn't a total prick about it, ask for the names of people who WILL do it. Not give you maybes or harass you about it but will actually treat you as an adult with a fully functioning brain and free will. Feel free to say that last part to drive your point home.
Maybe something good will come out of it, maybe not. Either way, at least you tried.
12. If you find a doctor who does your surgery & you're happy with the results, spread the word. Tell others about this OB/GYN who is respectful of women & isn't infantalizing adult women (defined as those over 18, not those over 35). I've been more than happy to ID my surgeon to women seeking this in NYC.
I have very little stock in OB/GYNs these days. Since my insurance no longer covers the one who did my surgery & another one I had vanished from the face of the earth, I've not found one who is respectful of women. My mom says that since I already had the tubal, it's too late to worry about that but I disagree. I don't want my copay going to some anti-woman dirtbag who belittles my childfreedom & insists that I'm not a full person or have some kind of mental defect b/c I'm not some baby crazed harpy who treats her husband like a child. No way do I want some gynecologist saying "You could get your tubal reversed. Let's see about doing that," when I'd violently object to it. This issue most certainly is going to affect that health care provider's medical judgment & treatment of me and I'm not interested in that shitty bias.
If you also had this done or are contemplating it, you should definitely consider a future doctor's beliefs on that issue for your future OB/GYN needs if you run into the situation I have.
Finally, I'd like to point out that by the time these objecting doctors think you're "old enough" for a tubal you're already in menopause or a stone's throw away from it.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Extra Gig #9: Guess I'm Still Pretty Even in Glasses
While I was at Comic Con on Thursday's Professional Day, I get a call from a gentleman at Comer Casting seeking my interest in being an extra on The Good Wife. Since I'd never done a gig at Comer Casting & the gig was for the next Tuesday and Friday (when I had no other plans), I signed on. Generally speaking, if you give me advance notice on things I'm more likely to show up. I need to mentally prepare for things & as I mentioned before, I come from a sorority chapter where making people go to last minute, unplanned events was punishable by death (not literal but definitely metaphoric death). Maybe some of your Greek chapters also operated this way?
On Friday, I thought "Wait a minute! He didn't tell me what role I'm doing." I know the basic premise of The Good Wife, having read about it in various legal scam blogs so I knew it was a "lawyer" show. I asked & it turned out I was portraying a member of a courtroom gallery. Specifically, a Midwesterner.
I mentioned my concern in asking so I wouldn't be portraying a prostitute or a rape victim (as an actual, real life lawyer I wouldn't do such roles in an extra gig situation for a production not handled by people who know & respect me). I also told him he could make a note in the file that I'm an actual lawyer so those sorts of roles are out for me.
Another first with this gig was that the shoot was outside of NYC. It was in Mount Vernon, in fact so there was a courtesy bus for extras (as well as a van for crew & stand-ins). Both days had levels of interesting in them so I'll go through both here.
Comer Casting operates in a similar way to Central Casting with the calling in for details and the like. They also called me the day before the gig to make sure I was still available so if my company were in the market for extras, I would consider them based on this.
Of course, I reserve my final decisions on when I get my paychecks and if they are good. The same goes for Scott Powers; I've not seen that money yet and if I don't, I most certainly would file in small claims court if I didn't get any status updates or hustle on the issue. You don't screw over lawyers, as history has shown. Especially this one. I remember that stuff & would be telling that story far & wide. Plus, that's violating trust & if you treat ME that way, how are you treating non-lawyers? Likely worse. I suppose I may also have to give some leeway for this recent storm. More on that tomorrow but I'm doing okay here.
So, other observations:
1. Based on what the gentleman at Comer told me about glasses being good for portraying a Midwesterner, I decided I'd wear mine. This turned out to be a very good thing since A) shooting went into overtime & B) my eyes did not end up being in pain from doing this because of it. The glasses also made me different from the other redheads in attendance.
2. Yes, there were other redheads at this thing, though not a large number. Maybe about 2 or 3 besides me & I'm not sure if they were natural or not. It's not the same if you're a bottle redhead; you're CHOOSING that experience & could leave it when you wanted without being ostracized or harmed by folk. Plus, it's not tied into your identity like it is if you had to grow up with it & live it since your parents refused to let you dye your hair.
One had curly hair & remarked that my hair was "vibrant." Not "pretty" or "gorgeous" as I'm used to hearing but "vibrant." I said "Thanks," but went no further. I mean, how do you respond to that? I couldn't tell if she was being complimentary or insulting. I've heard both in my time. Plus, not sure if she was a natural redhead or not; if she was, she easily could have been jealous. Apparently, she was in the union as I learned later on in Day 2.
3. This show has some good PAs and crew. Our PAs, Self & I believe Andrea, introduced themselves right away to us. Self also complimented my looks even though I was in glasses (if you were being sincere, thanks since I think I look horrid in them). There was also Tom, our set PA and the assistant director, Colin.
Colin is the sort of AD I'd kill to have on a project. He actually made an effort to learn our names & learned mine right away. Tom told us that Colin did this on every shoot they'd had. I value that sort of humanity & with my company's reputation for it, I would insist on someone with that kind of humanity handling our background folk. Plus, being able to remember the names of even 20-30 extras is a skill & he was trying to learn names for about 60 or so on this set. I remember hearing he'd done this on sets with 80 something extras. If someone can do that, that shouts "detail oriented" to me. Plus, that person is perfect for sales roles & dealing with the clients. From what I saw, Colin deserves to go far in this business.
4. On that note, this was a very friendly set. I saw principle actors talking to extras during breaks & don't think extras approached them first. As I said before, our set folk were awesome (including the lighting guys who talked to me) & Self had to put up with a lot of craziness. Personally, if any PA can put up with the stuff they have to and not start hurting folk, that person's a keeper. That's true generally but especially if they have to deal with some of the the whiny & self-absorbed people I've seen doing background work.
Some of that "too close for comfort" stuff came up again. I thought the actress playing the DA looked familiar & on Day 2, I figured out why. She was on a show that someone my people know personally was also on. Not sure how close he is to this actress today but my thought was "This could be awkward in my exec life." More signs it's time for me to hang up the extra work.
The director, Griffin Dunne, is apparently notorious for meal penalties & going into overtime on folks. I learned the crew even had an inside joke around it. If you're paying me & I can get to food, I'm not worried about it but I know it can play a toll on you physically. This made me appreciate how hard a crew works even more than I had already (trust me, you do background work for TV & you'll get that appreciation).
I also learned that Julianna Margulies doesn't like working on Fridays (and who can blame her? I don't either) & does engage in the social graces, even with background folk. I was sitting in the same row as her at one point & had one of my sneeze fits; I'm not allergic to anything & it's not a sign I'm sick but do have those sneeze moments from time to time in a day. It might be slight weather allergies. She said "God bless." I said "Thank you," since I'm polite. Remember, I don't go around pestering people for autographs unless they pester me for legal advice or referrals.
5. I did get to sit down for most of this. That made me happy since oftentimes you stand up in extra work (often in high heels if you're a woman opting for those gigs). People warned us that we had to be in court & it was boring but I didn't find it nearly as bad as real court. In real court, you don't get breaks while they realign the shot. You don't get to clear out while they move the lights. You don't get to go back to holding while they're shooting scenes without the background.
Instead, you have to sit for 3 hours & pretend to be interested while the opposing lawyer is having a witness drone on about something completely dull and inconsequential to the proceeding at hand. It's worse when you're a legal intern for one of the lawyers/firms involved in the case since you can't just leave or fall asleep. I never felt like falling asleep when I was in the scene, no matter how many times they shot or rehearsed it. You get zero relief in real court so this was a picnic compared to my real life experiences.
6. TV vs. reality is still the same with this show. I also, in a twist of irony, picked a CLE disc on evidence to watch during breaks (disc 2 of the set I'd watched in Extra Gig #8). Since, after all, if I'm going to be confined someplace for a long period of time without Internet access it's a good excuse for me to catch up on CLE DVDs so I can get credit. The scene I was in would definitely have violated rules of evidence since you don't get those surprise moments in real court.
However, I totally get why writers do that. If they didn't, no one would ever watch a lawyer show where a lawyer had to go to court. In fact, the audience might never watch a lawyer show at all. You'd be bored to tears & want to chop your own head off to end the misery.
I do give this crew points for accuracy, though. The attire was 100% on point and the wardrobe people were extremely conscientious about that. They did not have the judge use profanity like I've heard of happening in scripts; in fact, that actor reminded me of a lawyer I know from City Bar's Entertainment Committee. Those two looked similar. It does seem The Good Wife wasn't taking too many leaps into utter absurdity from what I saw & were being as true to the courtroom lawyer experience as possible in the realm of a TV show.
7. As for wardrobe, I had to get more pieces from them since many of my clothes weren't Midwestern enough. However, some of my purchases were good (like my black plaid Old Navy jacket & these darker khaki pants I'd bought for working on Wall Street). They said "no trendy stuff" so I had a time scrounging for things though I opted for stuff I'd gotten from relatives that looked very conservative. I had a few pieces I bought for myself (like the black plaid jacket & the khakis) but generally, my style is more fashionable & doesn't fit into one box since I dress as I feel on a given day. Some days, I feel more conservative. I like to think of myself as a chameleon & stock my wardrobe accordingly so nothing seems out of place on me.
On Day 2, I had to bring more & different clothes (thinking I couldn't bring black dress pants on Day 1, I brought them on Day 2 since the wardrobe PA I dealt with on Day 1 asked if I had any). Turns out those clothes passed muster, including this pinkish/maroonish blazer I got at a thrift store that was a little big on me but that I'd never had an occasion to wear. When I'd seen it, I foresaw wearing it to court.
Day 2 was rainy & the forecast had called for a lot of it so I wore other clothes to prevent my good ones getting ruined. After we shot our first scene, it was pouring rain when we cleared the set. Since my plaid coat is wool, I left it handing on a rack at the window where I saw another coat hanging when I left for holding (I was wearing a hoodie over my other clothes though my dress pants still got messed up; both were machine washable, though). My thought there was "I'm not damaging my stuff in this rain unless production plans to pay for the cleaning." You have to take care of yourself in this life & when I got back, my coat was fine where it had been. No harm, no foul since it wasn't raining later on in the day & the coat didn't get messed up.
8. The first day's lunch was interesting since apparently, not only was production responsible for feeding the crew & extras but also had to feed the people at the church. I guess no one told the caterers about that since there were non-union people who didn't get food (I wasn't one of them, though annoyed with lack of dessert at the end even though I'd brought my own candy bars to snack on at my leisure). Day 2 brought much more food. I also ended up in the union food line by accident.
I was getting up & preparing since the union people had been called to start eating. A gentleman near me told me to go ahead. I figured "What the hell?" and went on. These union people should probably not be dicks to me, I thought, since I could torch their careers very easily if they messed with me. Self had said the day before that the union folk got to eat first since there would be hell to pay with their people if they didn't. Well, there would be hell to pay with me if you cause problems and seeing as I am an entertainment lawyer & have a company that is getting to higher levels it probably serves best interests not to get on my bad side. I don't really need people to raise hell for me since I do a much better job of it myself & have been doing it for others on some level for quite some time.
Plus, the crew eating first is one thing (I've gone over that before in this series). The union eating before non-union is a different story. Maybe there should be some classification for "people who can kill our careers in this industry" in the eating order.
Poor Self said he didn't even get to eat on Day 1; if that's not dedication & respect for background, I'm not sure what is. That guy should be commended since I don't think many in his shoes would have done that.
9. I still contend that actors as a group are whiny bitches. I heard people talk about their experiences on other sets. Some of them are things I would object to or walk from; no, I don't turn off the "lawyer" or "film industry exec" if I'm doing something unrelated to those. That stuff will come out if you start problems & it takes time to make me mad. At this point, I've seen enough of what goes on to know what is a good set or a bad set.
My major reason for this is that the same girl who said my hair was "vibrant" pointed out while we were on the bus to leave after midnight that they had to drop us off at either Grand Central, Port Authority, Penn Station or some other transit hub (I don't think she mentioned but apparently there's a 4th one they had to use) since some of them were union & it was union rules. The PA on the bus told us that we were going back to 96th Street, where the bus had left from on both days.
She goes "Oh, that's not near my train." I decide to chime in at this point & say "Well it's not near MINE either but it is a subway station." I pointed out that if she had the money, she could take a cab if she had to go elsewhere. I had no sympathy considering I had to take 2 trains to get home & wait around with my stuff; I'm also quite certain no one else hearing her had sympathy since they probably had places to go as well. She then gets all hyped up & says it's a union rule (which I didn't know about). I thought "Well, go take it up with them" but didn't say anything at that point since I figured she might know what she was talking about & if she got this victory, it would shorten my trip some.
At the end of the day, we did end up getting dropped off at Grand Central. My beef here was how she handled this. She could have brought this up in a much more diplomatic & polite manner than she did, perhaps citing the union rule first. Instead, she came off as a whiny, entitled bitch & that topped off my negative vibe around her.
10. On Day 1, I heard about another story that I was tempted to interject on but didn't. During lunch, a girl at my table was talking about a representative at a Comer set giving her the creeps and sexually harassing her and other women. I forgot his name; I want to say "Pedro" but don't quote me on that. One guy in particular was encouraging her to come forward with this but she said she wouldn't b/c she knew she'd be branded as a problem & never get work.
Had I interjected, here's what I would have said:
"I own a business myself and I'm the in-house lawyer there. It's my responsibility to make sure we don't have legal liabilities hanging around. If someone at my company was doing this, I'd want you to tell me. My colleagues would also want you to speak up since we don't want to be known as that place that lets creepers bother folk. I, in particular, take our reputation very seriously & don't tolerate BS in my business. Any sane business owner wants you to speak up & won't blame you for it. If they do, they are a pack of dumbasses who will ruin themselves since people like me won't work with them & let them drag us down. People also talk & you'll get a negative reputation in the actor community. Reputation is huge in this industry & "birds of a feather" is very true around here."
I would probably have also talked about my experience at the scam TV network & what I learned about the CEO's casting couch practices along with what I did as a lawyer who was talking to potential investors. I'd have also mentioned what the web designer did to fuck up this lying bastard (and the fact that he's got friends who were apprised of this guy). People thanked us for warning them about this scam artist & I would do that again if anyone scammed me or mine. If you employ the casting couch, I'm going to speak up since no one's going to lump my company in with that bullshit or the reputations of anyone I know for a fact isn't doing it. Why should the honest & ethical among us be punished for someone else's lack of ethics?
I think I'd have probably concluded with the fact that since I'm a lawyer/business owner in this business, I'm viewed as a person of trust in society (and especially in the entertainment industry) so I have to speak up if I hear about that kind of shit or risk harm to MY reputation & possible punishment by the state ethics committee if that silence would constitute an ethics violation. As any licensed attorney can tell you, ethics rules aren't just for your conduct in legal representation. They go to your behavior everywhere & at all times. I take that duty seriously at my company & as I've stated here, I don't use my position to cover up for or co-opt scumbags, cretins, etc.
Don't be a shithead in the first place & you won't have to worry about me telling your potential investors, my colleagues or anyone else that you're not someone they should be doing business with. I'd want my contacts to do the same for me.
For me, keeping your mouth shut on things like that is akin to not reporting a rapist who attacked you. You're doing a disservice to future victims & that's not right.
After doing this gig, I came to an important conclusion: the Hollywood route to acting isn't for me. First off, I'm facing too many of these "too close for comfort" moments in doing extra gigs.
Second, no manager wants to deal with me. I'm not going to "turn off the lawyer." That's one of my strengths. Why not just ask me to dye my hair blonde while you're at it? Reality is what it is & I'm not altering my career path to make some agent or manager feel better about himself/herself. Dorothy never had an issue with my being a lawyer & she's an industry vet. We got along fine & she was never nasty to me.
Let me also point out that being a lawyer in the entertainment field is not the same as being an entertainment lawyer & even being an entertainment lawyer is different from being an entertainment lawyer who has ownership interest in a production company. From what I'm hearing, it seems I can personally have a hand in helping some agent or manager that treated me well since I could get that person meetings with the proper folk & an "in" they wouldn't have otherwise had. I also have contacts that the average lawyer doesn't & am seen in a different way based on my looks (which are what they are naturally). I have gotten approached much more often, maybe because I have a creative background as well as a legal background.
With all that, I don't see where an agent or manager is going to be beneficial to me. That person would have to be at least as good as me; I'd want better but it feels like at this point, that might be too much to ask for. I don't think most people could advise me since who's actually done what I'm doing? I've yet to find anyone who has or is doing all that stuff.
Third, I've got a family & zero desire to live in LA. I'll visit if you can find a way for me to go without being sexually assaulted by TSA just to board an airplane but until you can, I'll stay here or take the bus/drive.
Fourth, I'm not shelling out a fortune for crazy stuff. I'll do classes for me if I see something I like & want to take it but otherwise, I'll use my money in more efficient ways. Pick things I like, not because someone else told me to do it.
Finally, can't really do the crazy set hours & demands that principles have to do. It feels more like the legal world with this striving to get a series regular & the like when conditions can be just like BigLaw: long hours, trading a ton of money for your soul, a pack of sycophants telling you you're awesome even when you're full of shit & in some cases, abusive treatment.
There's also the public recognition & at least one good thing you can say about BigLaw is that associates and partners aren't going to be mobbed for autographs or forced to wear disguises to go have a cup of coffee in their neighborhoods. Nor do they usually have to worry about being in the tabloids.
I could take on that commitment for my team or my projects, where people respect me & I won't be forced to endure massive discomfort or not get to see my husband. We know that wouldn't be the case on someone else's set.
I suppose my view there is much like my view of working for someone else vs. working for yourself. I have much more passion for my own business & will work harder for it than I ever will for someone else's. If I'm treated like crap in someone else's business, I won't even bother or would probably just walk away.
Now I still love this business & have a passion for it but like anything else in life, I'll be successful on my terms & with my way. That's just how it's going to be; life is too short to not live on your own terms. I'm not going to waste my time with people who don't respect that or get it. You can't really explain such concepts to them & if you're going to have power in life, you need to use it for good. I've managed to defy plenty of odds before so I really see no reason to change things. I'm open to opportunity but if it's not terms I like & find fair, I won't bother.
Want to convince me otherwise? Prove you know what you're talking about, get my personal situation (not generalities about being a lawyer or assuming things about my company that you know nothing about) & aren't full of shit. Those demanding pay for their services need not apply.
On Friday, I thought "Wait a minute! He didn't tell me what role I'm doing." I know the basic premise of The Good Wife, having read about it in various legal scam blogs so I knew it was a "lawyer" show. I asked & it turned out I was portraying a member of a courtroom gallery. Specifically, a Midwesterner.
I mentioned my concern in asking so I wouldn't be portraying a prostitute or a rape victim (as an actual, real life lawyer I wouldn't do such roles in an extra gig situation for a production not handled by people who know & respect me). I also told him he could make a note in the file that I'm an actual lawyer so those sorts of roles are out for me.
Another first with this gig was that the shoot was outside of NYC. It was in Mount Vernon, in fact so there was a courtesy bus for extras (as well as a van for crew & stand-ins). Both days had levels of interesting in them so I'll go through both here.
Comer Casting operates in a similar way to Central Casting with the calling in for details and the like. They also called me the day before the gig to make sure I was still available so if my company were in the market for extras, I would consider them based on this.
Of course, I reserve my final decisions on when I get my paychecks and if they are good. The same goes for Scott Powers; I've not seen that money yet and if I don't, I most certainly would file in small claims court if I didn't get any status updates or hustle on the issue. You don't screw over lawyers, as history has shown. Especially this one. I remember that stuff & would be telling that story far & wide. Plus, that's violating trust & if you treat ME that way, how are you treating non-lawyers? Likely worse. I suppose I may also have to give some leeway for this recent storm. More on that tomorrow but I'm doing okay here.
So, other observations:
1. Based on what the gentleman at Comer told me about glasses being good for portraying a Midwesterner, I decided I'd wear mine. This turned out to be a very good thing since A) shooting went into overtime & B) my eyes did not end up being in pain from doing this because of it. The glasses also made me different from the other redheads in attendance.
2. Yes, there were other redheads at this thing, though not a large number. Maybe about 2 or 3 besides me & I'm not sure if they were natural or not. It's not the same if you're a bottle redhead; you're CHOOSING that experience & could leave it when you wanted without being ostracized or harmed by folk. Plus, it's not tied into your identity like it is if you had to grow up with it & live it since your parents refused to let you dye your hair.
One had curly hair & remarked that my hair was "vibrant." Not "pretty" or "gorgeous" as I'm used to hearing but "vibrant." I said "Thanks," but went no further. I mean, how do you respond to that? I couldn't tell if she was being complimentary or insulting. I've heard both in my time. Plus, not sure if she was a natural redhead or not; if she was, she easily could have been jealous. Apparently, she was in the union as I learned later on in Day 2.
3. This show has some good PAs and crew. Our PAs, Self & I believe Andrea, introduced themselves right away to us. Self also complimented my looks even though I was in glasses (if you were being sincere, thanks since I think I look horrid in them). There was also Tom, our set PA and the assistant director, Colin.
Colin is the sort of AD I'd kill to have on a project. He actually made an effort to learn our names & learned mine right away. Tom told us that Colin did this on every shoot they'd had. I value that sort of humanity & with my company's reputation for it, I would insist on someone with that kind of humanity handling our background folk. Plus, being able to remember the names of even 20-30 extras is a skill & he was trying to learn names for about 60 or so on this set. I remember hearing he'd done this on sets with 80 something extras. If someone can do that, that shouts "detail oriented" to me. Plus, that person is perfect for sales roles & dealing with the clients. From what I saw, Colin deserves to go far in this business.
4. On that note, this was a very friendly set. I saw principle actors talking to extras during breaks & don't think extras approached them first. As I said before, our set folk were awesome (including the lighting guys who talked to me) & Self had to put up with a lot of craziness. Personally, if any PA can put up with the stuff they have to and not start hurting folk, that person's a keeper. That's true generally but especially if they have to deal with some of the the whiny & self-absorbed people I've seen doing background work.
Some of that "too close for comfort" stuff came up again. I thought the actress playing the DA looked familiar & on Day 2, I figured out why. She was on a show that someone my people know personally was also on. Not sure how close he is to this actress today but my thought was "This could be awkward in my exec life." More signs it's time for me to hang up the extra work.
The director, Griffin Dunne, is apparently notorious for meal penalties & going into overtime on folks. I learned the crew even had an inside joke around it. If you're paying me & I can get to food, I'm not worried about it but I know it can play a toll on you physically. This made me appreciate how hard a crew works even more than I had already (trust me, you do background work for TV & you'll get that appreciation).
I also learned that Julianna Margulies doesn't like working on Fridays (and who can blame her? I don't either) & does engage in the social graces, even with background folk. I was sitting in the same row as her at one point & had one of my sneeze fits; I'm not allergic to anything & it's not a sign I'm sick but do have those sneeze moments from time to time in a day. It might be slight weather allergies. She said "God bless." I said "Thank you," since I'm polite. Remember, I don't go around pestering people for autographs unless they pester me for legal advice or referrals.
5. I did get to sit down for most of this. That made me happy since oftentimes you stand up in extra work (often in high heels if you're a woman opting for those gigs). People warned us that we had to be in court & it was boring but I didn't find it nearly as bad as real court. In real court, you don't get breaks while they realign the shot. You don't get to clear out while they move the lights. You don't get to go back to holding while they're shooting scenes without the background.
Instead, you have to sit for 3 hours & pretend to be interested while the opposing lawyer is having a witness drone on about something completely dull and inconsequential to the proceeding at hand. It's worse when you're a legal intern for one of the lawyers/firms involved in the case since you can't just leave or fall asleep. I never felt like falling asleep when I was in the scene, no matter how many times they shot or rehearsed it. You get zero relief in real court so this was a picnic compared to my real life experiences.
6. TV vs. reality is still the same with this show. I also, in a twist of irony, picked a CLE disc on evidence to watch during breaks (disc 2 of the set I'd watched in Extra Gig #8). Since, after all, if I'm going to be confined someplace for a long period of time without Internet access it's a good excuse for me to catch up on CLE DVDs so I can get credit. The scene I was in would definitely have violated rules of evidence since you don't get those surprise moments in real court.
However, I totally get why writers do that. If they didn't, no one would ever watch a lawyer show where a lawyer had to go to court. In fact, the audience might never watch a lawyer show at all. You'd be bored to tears & want to chop your own head off to end the misery.
I do give this crew points for accuracy, though. The attire was 100% on point and the wardrobe people were extremely conscientious about that. They did not have the judge use profanity like I've heard of happening in scripts; in fact, that actor reminded me of a lawyer I know from City Bar's Entertainment Committee. Those two looked similar. It does seem The Good Wife wasn't taking too many leaps into utter absurdity from what I saw & were being as true to the courtroom lawyer experience as possible in the realm of a TV show.
7. As for wardrobe, I had to get more pieces from them since many of my clothes weren't Midwestern enough. However, some of my purchases were good (like my black plaid Old Navy jacket & these darker khaki pants I'd bought for working on Wall Street). They said "no trendy stuff" so I had a time scrounging for things though I opted for stuff I'd gotten from relatives that looked very conservative. I had a few pieces I bought for myself (like the black plaid jacket & the khakis) but generally, my style is more fashionable & doesn't fit into one box since I dress as I feel on a given day. Some days, I feel more conservative. I like to think of myself as a chameleon & stock my wardrobe accordingly so nothing seems out of place on me.
On Day 2, I had to bring more & different clothes (thinking I couldn't bring black dress pants on Day 1, I brought them on Day 2 since the wardrobe PA I dealt with on Day 1 asked if I had any). Turns out those clothes passed muster, including this pinkish/maroonish blazer I got at a thrift store that was a little big on me but that I'd never had an occasion to wear. When I'd seen it, I foresaw wearing it to court.
Day 2 was rainy & the forecast had called for a lot of it so I wore other clothes to prevent my good ones getting ruined. After we shot our first scene, it was pouring rain when we cleared the set. Since my plaid coat is wool, I left it handing on a rack at the window where I saw another coat hanging when I left for holding (I was wearing a hoodie over my other clothes though my dress pants still got messed up; both were machine washable, though). My thought there was "I'm not damaging my stuff in this rain unless production plans to pay for the cleaning." You have to take care of yourself in this life & when I got back, my coat was fine where it had been. No harm, no foul since it wasn't raining later on in the day & the coat didn't get messed up.
8. The first day's lunch was interesting since apparently, not only was production responsible for feeding the crew & extras but also had to feed the people at the church. I guess no one told the caterers about that since there were non-union people who didn't get food (I wasn't one of them, though annoyed with lack of dessert at the end even though I'd brought my own candy bars to snack on at my leisure). Day 2 brought much more food. I also ended up in the union food line by accident.
I was getting up & preparing since the union people had been called to start eating. A gentleman near me told me to go ahead. I figured "What the hell?" and went on. These union people should probably not be dicks to me, I thought, since I could torch their careers very easily if they messed with me. Self had said the day before that the union folk got to eat first since there would be hell to pay with their people if they didn't. Well, there would be hell to pay with me if you cause problems and seeing as I am an entertainment lawyer & have a company that is getting to higher levels it probably serves best interests not to get on my bad side. I don't really need people to raise hell for me since I do a much better job of it myself & have been doing it for others on some level for quite some time.
Plus, the crew eating first is one thing (I've gone over that before in this series). The union eating before non-union is a different story. Maybe there should be some classification for "people who can kill our careers in this industry" in the eating order.
Poor Self said he didn't even get to eat on Day 1; if that's not dedication & respect for background, I'm not sure what is. That guy should be commended since I don't think many in his shoes would have done that.
9. I still contend that actors as a group are whiny bitches. I heard people talk about their experiences on other sets. Some of them are things I would object to or walk from; no, I don't turn off the "lawyer" or "film industry exec" if I'm doing something unrelated to those. That stuff will come out if you start problems & it takes time to make me mad. At this point, I've seen enough of what goes on to know what is a good set or a bad set.
My major reason for this is that the same girl who said my hair was "vibrant" pointed out while we were on the bus to leave after midnight that they had to drop us off at either Grand Central, Port Authority, Penn Station or some other transit hub (I don't think she mentioned but apparently there's a 4th one they had to use) since some of them were union & it was union rules. The PA on the bus told us that we were going back to 96th Street, where the bus had left from on both days.
She goes "Oh, that's not near my train." I decide to chime in at this point & say "Well it's not near MINE either but it is a subway station." I pointed out that if she had the money, she could take a cab if she had to go elsewhere. I had no sympathy considering I had to take 2 trains to get home & wait around with my stuff; I'm also quite certain no one else hearing her had sympathy since they probably had places to go as well. She then gets all hyped up & says it's a union rule (which I didn't know about). I thought "Well, go take it up with them" but didn't say anything at that point since I figured she might know what she was talking about & if she got this victory, it would shorten my trip some.
At the end of the day, we did end up getting dropped off at Grand Central. My beef here was how she handled this. She could have brought this up in a much more diplomatic & polite manner than she did, perhaps citing the union rule first. Instead, she came off as a whiny, entitled bitch & that topped off my negative vibe around her.
10. On Day 1, I heard about another story that I was tempted to interject on but didn't. During lunch, a girl at my table was talking about a representative at a Comer set giving her the creeps and sexually harassing her and other women. I forgot his name; I want to say "Pedro" but don't quote me on that. One guy in particular was encouraging her to come forward with this but she said she wouldn't b/c she knew she'd be branded as a problem & never get work.
Had I interjected, here's what I would have said:
"I own a business myself and I'm the in-house lawyer there. It's my responsibility to make sure we don't have legal liabilities hanging around. If someone at my company was doing this, I'd want you to tell me. My colleagues would also want you to speak up since we don't want to be known as that place that lets creepers bother folk. I, in particular, take our reputation very seriously & don't tolerate BS in my business. Any sane business owner wants you to speak up & won't blame you for it. If they do, they are a pack of dumbasses who will ruin themselves since people like me won't work with them & let them drag us down. People also talk & you'll get a negative reputation in the actor community. Reputation is huge in this industry & "birds of a feather" is very true around here."
I would probably have also talked about my experience at the scam TV network & what I learned about the CEO's casting couch practices along with what I did as a lawyer who was talking to potential investors. I'd have also mentioned what the web designer did to fuck up this lying bastard (and the fact that he's got friends who were apprised of this guy). People thanked us for warning them about this scam artist & I would do that again if anyone scammed me or mine. If you employ the casting couch, I'm going to speak up since no one's going to lump my company in with that bullshit or the reputations of anyone I know for a fact isn't doing it. Why should the honest & ethical among us be punished for someone else's lack of ethics?
I think I'd have probably concluded with the fact that since I'm a lawyer/business owner in this business, I'm viewed as a person of trust in society (and especially in the entertainment industry) so I have to speak up if I hear about that kind of shit or risk harm to MY reputation & possible punishment by the state ethics committee if that silence would constitute an ethics violation. As any licensed attorney can tell you, ethics rules aren't just for your conduct in legal representation. They go to your behavior everywhere & at all times. I take that duty seriously at my company & as I've stated here, I don't use my position to cover up for or co-opt scumbags, cretins, etc.
Don't be a shithead in the first place & you won't have to worry about me telling your potential investors, my colleagues or anyone else that you're not someone they should be doing business with. I'd want my contacts to do the same for me.
For me, keeping your mouth shut on things like that is akin to not reporting a rapist who attacked you. You're doing a disservice to future victims & that's not right.
After doing this gig, I came to an important conclusion: the Hollywood route to acting isn't for me. First off, I'm facing too many of these "too close for comfort" moments in doing extra gigs.
Second, no manager wants to deal with me. I'm not going to "turn off the lawyer." That's one of my strengths. Why not just ask me to dye my hair blonde while you're at it? Reality is what it is & I'm not altering my career path to make some agent or manager feel better about himself/herself. Dorothy never had an issue with my being a lawyer & she's an industry vet. We got along fine & she was never nasty to me.
Let me also point out that being a lawyer in the entertainment field is not the same as being an entertainment lawyer & even being an entertainment lawyer is different from being an entertainment lawyer who has ownership interest in a production company. From what I'm hearing, it seems I can personally have a hand in helping some agent or manager that treated me well since I could get that person meetings with the proper folk & an "in" they wouldn't have otherwise had. I also have contacts that the average lawyer doesn't & am seen in a different way based on my looks (which are what they are naturally). I have gotten approached much more often, maybe because I have a creative background as well as a legal background.
With all that, I don't see where an agent or manager is going to be beneficial to me. That person would have to be at least as good as me; I'd want better but it feels like at this point, that might be too much to ask for. I don't think most people could advise me since who's actually done what I'm doing? I've yet to find anyone who has or is doing all that stuff.
Third, I've got a family & zero desire to live in LA. I'll visit if you can find a way for me to go without being sexually assaulted by TSA just to board an airplane but until you can, I'll stay here or take the bus/drive.
Fourth, I'm not shelling out a fortune for crazy stuff. I'll do classes for me if I see something I like & want to take it but otherwise, I'll use my money in more efficient ways. Pick things I like, not because someone else told me to do it.
Finally, can't really do the crazy set hours & demands that principles have to do. It feels more like the legal world with this striving to get a series regular & the like when conditions can be just like BigLaw: long hours, trading a ton of money for your soul, a pack of sycophants telling you you're awesome even when you're full of shit & in some cases, abusive treatment.
There's also the public recognition & at least one good thing you can say about BigLaw is that associates and partners aren't going to be mobbed for autographs or forced to wear disguises to go have a cup of coffee in their neighborhoods. Nor do they usually have to worry about being in the tabloids.
I could take on that commitment for my team or my projects, where people respect me & I won't be forced to endure massive discomfort or not get to see my husband. We know that wouldn't be the case on someone else's set.
I suppose my view there is much like my view of working for someone else vs. working for yourself. I have much more passion for my own business & will work harder for it than I ever will for someone else's. If I'm treated like crap in someone else's business, I won't even bother or would probably just walk away.
Now I still love this business & have a passion for it but like anything else in life, I'll be successful on my terms & with my way. That's just how it's going to be; life is too short to not live on your own terms. I'm not going to waste my time with people who don't respect that or get it. You can't really explain such concepts to them & if you're going to have power in life, you need to use it for good. I've managed to defy plenty of odds before so I really see no reason to change things. I'm open to opportunity but if it's not terms I like & find fair, I won't bother.
Want to convince me otherwise? Prove you know what you're talking about, get my personal situation (not generalities about being a lawyer or assuming things about my company that you know nothing about) & aren't full of shit. Those demanding pay for their services need not apply.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Should We Pierce Kids Too Little to Object? Musings While Waiting for the "Hurricane"
Or, if you like "the big, wet rainstorm" (thanks, Daria). Not sure what we'll be getting this time with Sandy but as you might already know, I'm not the type of person who freaks out about the weather. Go read that entry if you haven't already.
I still have that extra gig to write about. I've decided it's going to be my last one since now I've already worked with most of the bigger background companies in NYC, I've already gotten that learning experience I was doing it for & I'm pursuing other opportunities. More on that later, though.
Right now, it's been hurricane hysteria in my area. I figured while I was dealing with all this, I'd go on and write another of my many rants. Here's one such rant.
A while back I read this entry in a childfree community. Now, let me just say that I'm NOT a child hater & I stopped posting in this community ages ago when the PC police decided to get in my face.
This post brings up an interesting debate: is it cool to pierce a little child's ears (or anything else for that matter)? Or are you taking consent away from that kid or enforcing a gender norm that may not fit the kid as she ages?
The comments went in many directions & definitely made me think. One poster talked about how her earring holes were lopsided as she aged because of having them pierced so young. Others talked about how the practice was "cultural" and implied that those who'd claimed this culture used this to say that anyone outside that ethnic group/background had no right to a contrary opinion on the matter (which, if you try with me, I'm probably going to get in your face about if it's something I actually lived & might have some familiarity with). After some thought, I figured out my take.
I think you're a fucking moron with a lot of self-hate if you would pierce your little child's ears without that kid being old enough to ask for them. If you have other children under 5 and you're doing this, you're an even bigger moron.
If you're the relative of some child & get that kid pierced without the parents' okay, you need to be smacked upside the head & forced to have "inconsiderate prick" tattooed on your face. Painful consequences might make you think twice about making a parent have to deal with this.
Why do I say this? Because getting ears pierced isn't a painless process. It DOES hurt some. I have 3 holes in each ear; I insist on maintaining them. I got my first holes when I was in the 4th grade. You know, 9-10 years old when a kid's old enough to ask for them & take care of turning the studs, putting the solution on the piercings daily, keeping the holes clean, etc. One of those holes ended up growing back after I didn't wear earrings for a while & had a resumed interest in them in 6th grade.
I got the one hole re-pierced then got my second holes in 8th grade. I got my 3rd ones in the 10th grade (I'd have to double check this with class pictures but I'm pretty sure that's accurate; I waited 2 years between the second and third hold piercings). Paid for this stuff with my own money, by the way. I did babysitting when I was in 8th grade and did cat sitting before that. I also was very good about saving my allowance for bigger items.
Case in point: I bought Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1990 when it retailed for $50. I was in the 4th grade at the time & had paid to rent the game numerous times before I bought it with money I'd saved. I may have also paid for the tax but I'm not sure about that. I remember my parents being impressed with this.
My niece is 3 months old. I don't see my sister going & getting her ears pierced (even with her desire for that kid to be a girly girl). She already has one kid under 3 who's a handful; why would she want to add even more to her plate by piercing her little girl's ears? Do you want to add ear piercing maintenance to changing dirty diapers, feedings, burping, erratic sleep schedules, etc.?
Guess who has to clean the ears, turn the studs, put solution on, etc.? You do, Mommy & Daddy! Grandma probably won't have to. Auntie & Uncle probably won't have to. Don't let busybodies put more work on you! I say let the kid decide to do that & make sure they know THEY have to do the maintenance to keep the holes open, make sure the ears don't get infected, etc. If your child doesn't have that kind of personal responsibility, (s)he is too young to get pierced ears.
That entry dealt with ear piercings but could you see some parent getting their baby a navel ring or a tongue ring? I'm sure if that parent wanted to get a genital piercing for their kid, someone would be calling CPS immediately (I'd sure hope so anyway). Why is there a double standard for ear piercing? Why do people think it's okay to pierce ears without a parent's consent but would never think to pierce these other areas? I mean, when we're dealing with babies & kids who can't even speak in complete sentences, pain is pain is pain. Right? Someone want to explain this to me.
I'm just not convinced that a sane, rational parent has enough vanity to justify all that extra work to get pierced earrings for their infant or toddler.
Oh, and what if that kid's earring falls on the floor & (s)he likes to stick things in his/her mouth? You want to deal with that, folks? What if your child or a sibling died from that? Do you want that on your conscience for the rest of your life just because you were too lazy to find clip on earrings when you felt compelled to make your little girl dress like a child pageant contestant? Seriously, what child needs to wear earrings before (s)he can speak in complete sentences & not try taking them out or leaving them for younger siblings to think of as candy they can eat? Most aren't movie stars, pageant queens or even regular attendees of adult church.
Is it just another exercise in "keeping up with the Jones?" What if their kid gets a sleeve tattoo? Are you going to get one for YOUR kid next? Parenting, folks! If you can't do it, then don't procreate. We have enough neglected and abused kids already without deadbeats like you popping out more of them! No one wants to hear you bitching about what's on TV or who's doing a concert. No one is impressed with your imitation of a sprinkler; we just feel sorry for your kids & are pissed at you for draining society's resources by not bothering to parent.
I can also see the point of the female who is a tomboy or a butch lesbian that is as anti-feminine as it gets not being happy about a parent piercing her ears before she was old enough to consent or scream "No way, bitch!" I don't think I'd have liked someone doing that to me without my consent either. Most of us don't like being told what to do or having things inflicted on us without our consent.
Maybe the deadbeats in favor of this should ask how they'd like to have a tattoo they don't want placed in a location that they don't want while their lips are super glued shut, they are handcuffed and otherwise have NO way to tell anyone if they consent or object to that tattoo. They also don't get to shift to disturb the artist's work.
How about this punishment for those assholes? Then they might get what their kids feel about it. Have some damage to your career, self-esteem, psyche & person! Since your vanity runs too deep to think of your own self-interest, this might be the only way to bring home the level of harm a kid in this country could experience.
Note that I'm speaking of American customs & culture. That's where I live & it's my experience (as is everything I ever write about). If you want tolerance or at a minimum understanding of your culture, then you should start explaining instead of telling people they have no right to their opinion if they disagree. In America, that's how you get people to respect your views & values (unless you're dealing with total bigots, of course; that's a whole other scenario).
I still have that extra gig to write about. I've decided it's going to be my last one since now I've already worked with most of the bigger background companies in NYC, I've already gotten that learning experience I was doing it for & I'm pursuing other opportunities. More on that later, though.
Right now, it's been hurricane hysteria in my area. I figured while I was dealing with all this, I'd go on and write another of my many rants. Here's one such rant.
A while back I read this entry in a childfree community. Now, let me just say that I'm NOT a child hater & I stopped posting in this community ages ago when the PC police decided to get in my face.
This post brings up an interesting debate: is it cool to pierce a little child's ears (or anything else for that matter)? Or are you taking consent away from that kid or enforcing a gender norm that may not fit the kid as she ages?
The comments went in many directions & definitely made me think. One poster talked about how her earring holes were lopsided as she aged because of having them pierced so young. Others talked about how the practice was "cultural" and implied that those who'd claimed this culture used this to say that anyone outside that ethnic group/background had no right to a contrary opinion on the matter (which, if you try with me, I'm probably going to get in your face about if it's something I actually lived & might have some familiarity with). After some thought, I figured out my take.
I think you're a fucking moron with a lot of self-hate if you would pierce your little child's ears without that kid being old enough to ask for them. If you have other children under 5 and you're doing this, you're an even bigger moron.
If you're the relative of some child & get that kid pierced without the parents' okay, you need to be smacked upside the head & forced to have "inconsiderate prick" tattooed on your face. Painful consequences might make you think twice about making a parent have to deal with this.
Why do I say this? Because getting ears pierced isn't a painless process. It DOES hurt some. I have 3 holes in each ear; I insist on maintaining them. I got my first holes when I was in the 4th grade. You know, 9-10 years old when a kid's old enough to ask for them & take care of turning the studs, putting the solution on the piercings daily, keeping the holes clean, etc. One of those holes ended up growing back after I didn't wear earrings for a while & had a resumed interest in them in 6th grade.
I got the one hole re-pierced then got my second holes in 8th grade. I got my 3rd ones in the 10th grade (I'd have to double check this with class pictures but I'm pretty sure that's accurate; I waited 2 years between the second and third hold piercings). Paid for this stuff with my own money, by the way. I did babysitting when I was in 8th grade and did cat sitting before that. I also was very good about saving my allowance for bigger items.
Case in point: I bought Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1990 when it retailed for $50. I was in the 4th grade at the time & had paid to rent the game numerous times before I bought it with money I'd saved. I may have also paid for the tax but I'm not sure about that. I remember my parents being impressed with this.
My niece is 3 months old. I don't see my sister going & getting her ears pierced (even with her desire for that kid to be a girly girl). She already has one kid under 3 who's a handful; why would she want to add even more to her plate by piercing her little girl's ears? Do you want to add ear piercing maintenance to changing dirty diapers, feedings, burping, erratic sleep schedules, etc.?
Guess who has to clean the ears, turn the studs, put solution on, etc.? You do, Mommy & Daddy! Grandma probably won't have to. Auntie & Uncle probably won't have to. Don't let busybodies put more work on you! I say let the kid decide to do that & make sure they know THEY have to do the maintenance to keep the holes open, make sure the ears don't get infected, etc. If your child doesn't have that kind of personal responsibility, (s)he is too young to get pierced ears.
That entry dealt with ear piercings but could you see some parent getting their baby a navel ring or a tongue ring? I'm sure if that parent wanted to get a genital piercing for their kid, someone would be calling CPS immediately (I'd sure hope so anyway). Why is there a double standard for ear piercing? Why do people think it's okay to pierce ears without a parent's consent but would never think to pierce these other areas? I mean, when we're dealing with babies & kids who can't even speak in complete sentences, pain is pain is pain. Right? Someone want to explain this to me.
I'm just not convinced that a sane, rational parent has enough vanity to justify all that extra work to get pierced earrings for their infant or toddler.
Oh, and what if that kid's earring falls on the floor & (s)he likes to stick things in his/her mouth? You want to deal with that, folks? What if your child or a sibling died from that? Do you want that on your conscience for the rest of your life just because you were too lazy to find clip on earrings when you felt compelled to make your little girl dress like a child pageant contestant? Seriously, what child needs to wear earrings before (s)he can speak in complete sentences & not try taking them out or leaving them for younger siblings to think of as candy they can eat? Most aren't movie stars, pageant queens or even regular attendees of adult church.
Is it just another exercise in "keeping up with the Jones?" What if their kid gets a sleeve tattoo? Are you going to get one for YOUR kid next? Parenting, folks! If you can't do it, then don't procreate. We have enough neglected and abused kids already without deadbeats like you popping out more of them! No one wants to hear you bitching about what's on TV or who's doing a concert. No one is impressed with your imitation of a sprinkler; we just feel sorry for your kids & are pissed at you for draining society's resources by not bothering to parent.
I can also see the point of the female who is a tomboy or a butch lesbian that is as anti-feminine as it gets not being happy about a parent piercing her ears before she was old enough to consent or scream "No way, bitch!" I don't think I'd have liked someone doing that to me without my consent either. Most of us don't like being told what to do or having things inflicted on us without our consent.
Maybe the deadbeats in favor of this should ask how they'd like to have a tattoo they don't want placed in a location that they don't want while their lips are super glued shut, they are handcuffed and otherwise have NO way to tell anyone if they consent or object to that tattoo. They also don't get to shift to disturb the artist's work.
How about this punishment for those assholes? Then they might get what their kids feel about it. Have some damage to your career, self-esteem, psyche & person! Since your vanity runs too deep to think of your own self-interest, this might be the only way to bring home the level of harm a kid in this country could experience.
Note that I'm speaking of American customs & culture. That's where I live & it's my experience (as is everything I ever write about). If you want tolerance or at a minimum understanding of your culture, then you should start explaining instead of telling people they have no right to their opinion if they disagree. In America, that's how you get people to respect your views & values (unless you're dealing with total bigots, of course; that's a whole other scenario).
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
NY Comic Con, Day 3: Is There Anyone In This Industry With a Name Who's Not an Asshole?
After our anniversary, we decided to go to Day 3 of Comic Con. For one thing, when you pay for a 4 day pass you should use more than 50% of it. For another, my husband says that's the day when you can get good deals from the comic book guys since they don't want to lug things back if they've traveled from far away to set up their booth.
Sadly, I bought nothing that day since things I wanted were long gone. Plus I figured I'd spent enough and seen enough. I chose to see about getting Chris Elliott's autograph since he was scheduled to be there and I didn't have any time conflicts pressing on me.
There were quite a few people with autograph tables & personal appearances at Comic Con. Most of the prices were highway robbery in my book. For instance, my mother's favorite Doctor from Doctor Who (Peter Davidson) was there but I didn't go get an autograph since his price was $40 & my mother's not big on celebrity anyway. My mother prefers him because, as she puts it, he's cute. This is certainly not untrue if you've seen '80s Doctor Who. I, however, was forced to watch it as a child along with my sister since we had one television set and PBS played it all day on Saturdays. After cartoons went off, we had to watch this all afternoon.
My mother is so not impressed with celebrity that she has zero desire to meet one in real life. If she happened to do so in her travels & that person was an ass to her, I guarantee you she'd tell that scumbag off. She is a natural redhead herself, after all.
Chris Elliott's autograph price wasn't ungodly & I figured I'd point out that I charge about 10 times more for an hour of my legal services than he was charging for an autograph and when you inevitably need the services of an entertainment lawyer, I'll be making sure you get no discounts from me. Maybe I'd even up the rate as a form of compensation for having you offend me in the first place by charging me for an autograph & likely not declaring that money as income to the government. Or, perhaps, charge you more as a means to have me behave myself & not hurt you if you do something slight to offend me since you already did something major to bug me w/that whole racket for your autograph.
Now, I'm being less that literal with that since I'd actually not bother doing squat for you in the first place if you're charging me money for an autograph considering entertainment lawyers are the ones who keep the talent from entering bad deals that leave them penniless. It's in any performer's best interest not to be an asshole to an entertainment lawyer.
Just as being mean to an agent or casting director can get you blackballed, so can doing so to an entertainment lawyer. Some of us DO have friends.
So as my husband was playing tour guide for those friends of his who only had Sunday passes and are much more into the comics & sci-fi scene than I am (that forced watching of Doctor Who & other sci-fi fare does play a role), I decided to start out in a line after the last people at the assigned table left so I'd be first or darn close to it & being certain to get the autograph. I would have considered doing this on Friday but I forgot the DVD booklet.
As I was standing in line, a gentleman in a press pass announced that Chris Elliott had been a no show for the past 2 days he was supposed to be there. A staffer at Comic Con even said that they had tried contacting him and his management with no word from either one. As people came into the line, we warned them about the possible no show. He was scheduled to be there from 2:15 to 3:15. I opted to wait until 2:30 under the 15 minute rule. One guy behind me told me that he'd lined up for both of the earlier days to see Chris Elliott's no showing behind.
As time moved closer to 2:15, no showing & no word. The staffers who were dealing with us even apologized for it. The guy with the press pass was quite mad & I talked about what I do and that it was highly unprofessional that NO ONE had told anybody about this whole thing & just did a no show. Press fellow told me that if he waited on Sunday, he'd have wasted a total of 6 hours waiting on this jerkwad & would be pissed. I wished him well on that & said at least I had come there mostly to shop and found stuff I liked. I would have passed on my business card but he left the booth before I did & I didn't see him again.
Since I have a life, I left at 2:30 & decided to start taking more pictures of great costumes and hang out with my husband and his friends.
If Chris Elliott could blow off Comic Con, a major event, there's no way in Hell I could trust him or any of his management team to show up for my company's stuff. If you own an entertainment company, you should feel the same way.
Funny thing: when my husband & one random guy in a group who came up to ask what we were waiting on heard about this, they both said "What does he have to do today?!" My husband referred to Chris Elliott as "that asshole."
Yes, Chris Elliott, I'm sure a multitude of Con attendees and the general public would like to know that one. I don't care if you were in the hospital or your grandmother died: you tell someone or have your manager do it. This is entertainment industry standard & a basic professional norm. Not doing it means you get a lot of people who won't take that shit.
This also says volumes to me about Michael Lasker of Mosaic & Christie Smith, who are both listed as his managers. Neither of them better be sending me or anyone I know solicitations for their clients since I will say "Your client Chris Elliott bailed on Comic Con with zero explanation or apology & none of you provided one either. Clearly you recruit unprofessional people, actively encourage it in your clients or refuse to effectively discourage your clients from doing this. Tell me, which is it? Why are you wasting my time? Do you think I'm stupid?"
There's no way in Hell I would have my company work with Chris Elliott and I hope no one else makes that mistake since it seems to be nothing but unprofessionalism if you make that foolish mistake. At a minimum, you can tell there's a lack of disrespect for the consuming public. Who needs that to dampen sales or harm public relations? While I can understand the fan hate & not wanting to deal with the crazies, you can at least tell someone if you can't show up to something instead of making people wait like they're a bunch of peasants & you're the fucking King of the Galaxy. That attitude will piss me off in about 5 nanoseconds & get you on my permanent black list.
After that whole Mark Bagley thing, I do wonder if there's anyone involved in Comic Con who is a name & is NOT a total asshole? I don't give a shit about your actions to an audience; I care about your behavior toward me specifically and toward the Comic Con staff, whom you are responsible to. How you treat them is a great indication in my mind of how you'll treat me & my business. I also think it's pathetic to be mean to the people who have the least amount of power in a given situation be it servers in a restaurant, extras on the set or anyone who already gets derision in some fashion for his/her mere presence.
Here's the sign we waited in front of:
To salvage the day some, I took some pictures of folk in costume. Here you go:
Here's Captain Planet! That Robot Chicken sketch with Ted Turner doing it also reminded me of that time Ted Turner came to speak at Oglethorpe. I think I wrote about that before but if I didn't, I will in the future.
Felix & one with his bag. I like Felix the Cat so seeing that did make me smile.
When I had nothing to do and others were taking pictures of folk in costume, I decided to just take a picture as well. Here's more:
Yes, Freakazoid! My husband remarked "His balls are hanging out!" Judge for yourself, folks. My husband also got the show when it came out on DVD.
Orko from He-Man! This Orko was cool & very happy to let us photograph him. This was a shot I got as friends were taking their picture.
After this, we went out to dinner as has become a tradition. This time, we chose 5 Napkin Burger. Service was SLOW but the food was pretty good. The burgers are very juicy so make sure you prepare for that.
My husband asked if I'd go to Comic Con next year. That's a good question since I'm not sure. There wasn't much of that networking I wanted (though I did get to confront that lying asshole who told my husband he had Rocko & Heffer plushes and NEVER followed up; I'll have to send him another reminder e-mail shortly). I think I will tell him "no sale" since he's obviously not bothering to follow up with anyone.
Shopping = awesome but will I find anything new in my second year?
Networking = nil; don't bother if that's your goal & you work in the entertainment industry
Panels = they were okay but not sure I can stand the obnoxiousness of fans & it's not even my property involved
Spending time with hubby = great
Seeing odd costumes & unusual stuff = some of what I saw & pics I got weren't half bad
I think the jury's still out on if I'll go again or not. At least I have almost a year to think about it.
Sadly, I bought nothing that day since things I wanted were long gone. Plus I figured I'd spent enough and seen enough. I chose to see about getting Chris Elliott's autograph since he was scheduled to be there and I didn't have any time conflicts pressing on me.
There were quite a few people with autograph tables & personal appearances at Comic Con. Most of the prices were highway robbery in my book. For instance, my mother's favorite Doctor from Doctor Who (Peter Davidson) was there but I didn't go get an autograph since his price was $40 & my mother's not big on celebrity anyway. My mother prefers him because, as she puts it, he's cute. This is certainly not untrue if you've seen '80s Doctor Who. I, however, was forced to watch it as a child along with my sister since we had one television set and PBS played it all day on Saturdays. After cartoons went off, we had to watch this all afternoon.
My mother is so not impressed with celebrity that she has zero desire to meet one in real life. If she happened to do so in her travels & that person was an ass to her, I guarantee you she'd tell that scumbag off. She is a natural redhead herself, after all.
Chris Elliott's autograph price wasn't ungodly & I figured I'd point out that I charge about 10 times more for an hour of my legal services than he was charging for an autograph and when you inevitably need the services of an entertainment lawyer, I'll be making sure you get no discounts from me. Maybe I'd even up the rate as a form of compensation for having you offend me in the first place by charging me for an autograph & likely not declaring that money as income to the government. Or, perhaps, charge you more as a means to have me behave myself & not hurt you if you do something slight to offend me since you already did something major to bug me w/that whole racket for your autograph.
Now, I'm being less that literal with that since I'd actually not bother doing squat for you in the first place if you're charging me money for an autograph considering entertainment lawyers are the ones who keep the talent from entering bad deals that leave them penniless. It's in any performer's best interest not to be an asshole to an entertainment lawyer.
Just as being mean to an agent or casting director can get you blackballed, so can doing so to an entertainment lawyer. Some of us DO have friends.
So as my husband was playing tour guide for those friends of his who only had Sunday passes and are much more into the comics & sci-fi scene than I am (that forced watching of Doctor Who & other sci-fi fare does play a role), I decided to start out in a line after the last people at the assigned table left so I'd be first or darn close to it & being certain to get the autograph. I would have considered doing this on Friday but I forgot the DVD booklet.
As I was standing in line, a gentleman in a press pass announced that Chris Elliott had been a no show for the past 2 days he was supposed to be there. A staffer at Comic Con even said that they had tried contacting him and his management with no word from either one. As people came into the line, we warned them about the possible no show. He was scheduled to be there from 2:15 to 3:15. I opted to wait until 2:30 under the 15 minute rule. One guy behind me told me that he'd lined up for both of the earlier days to see Chris Elliott's no showing behind.
As time moved closer to 2:15, no showing & no word. The staffers who were dealing with us even apologized for it. The guy with the press pass was quite mad & I talked about what I do and that it was highly unprofessional that NO ONE had told anybody about this whole thing & just did a no show. Press fellow told me that if he waited on Sunday, he'd have wasted a total of 6 hours waiting on this jerkwad & would be pissed. I wished him well on that & said at least I had come there mostly to shop and found stuff I liked. I would have passed on my business card but he left the booth before I did & I didn't see him again.
Since I have a life, I left at 2:30 & decided to start taking more pictures of great costumes and hang out with my husband and his friends.
If Chris Elliott could blow off Comic Con, a major event, there's no way in Hell I could trust him or any of his management team to show up for my company's stuff. If you own an entertainment company, you should feel the same way.
Funny thing: when my husband & one random guy in a group who came up to ask what we were waiting on heard about this, they both said "What does he have to do today?!" My husband referred to Chris Elliott as "that asshole."
Yes, Chris Elliott, I'm sure a multitude of Con attendees and the general public would like to know that one. I don't care if you were in the hospital or your grandmother died: you tell someone or have your manager do it. This is entertainment industry standard & a basic professional norm. Not doing it means you get a lot of people who won't take that shit.
This also says volumes to me about Michael Lasker of Mosaic & Christie Smith, who are both listed as his managers. Neither of them better be sending me or anyone I know solicitations for their clients since I will say "Your client Chris Elliott bailed on Comic Con with zero explanation or apology & none of you provided one either. Clearly you recruit unprofessional people, actively encourage it in your clients or refuse to effectively discourage your clients from doing this. Tell me, which is it? Why are you wasting my time? Do you think I'm stupid?"
There's no way in Hell I would have my company work with Chris Elliott and I hope no one else makes that mistake since it seems to be nothing but unprofessionalism if you make that foolish mistake. At a minimum, you can tell there's a lack of disrespect for the consuming public. Who needs that to dampen sales or harm public relations? While I can understand the fan hate & not wanting to deal with the crazies, you can at least tell someone if you can't show up to something instead of making people wait like they're a bunch of peasants & you're the fucking King of the Galaxy. That attitude will piss me off in about 5 nanoseconds & get you on my permanent black list.
After that whole Mark Bagley thing, I do wonder if there's anyone involved in Comic Con who is a name & is NOT a total asshole? I don't give a shit about your actions to an audience; I care about your behavior toward me specifically and toward the Comic Con staff, whom you are responsible to. How you treat them is a great indication in my mind of how you'll treat me & my business. I also think it's pathetic to be mean to the people who have the least amount of power in a given situation be it servers in a restaurant, extras on the set or anyone who already gets derision in some fashion for his/her mere presence.
Here's the sign we waited in front of:
To salvage the day some, I took some pictures of folk in costume. Here you go:
Here's Captain Planet! That Robot Chicken sketch with Ted Turner doing it also reminded me of that time Ted Turner came to speak at Oglethorpe. I think I wrote about that before but if I didn't, I will in the future.
Felix & one with his bag. I like Felix the Cat so seeing that did make me smile.
When I had nothing to do and others were taking pictures of folk in costume, I decided to just take a picture as well. Here's more:
Yes, Freakazoid! My husband remarked "His balls are hanging out!" Judge for yourself, folks. My husband also got the show when it came out on DVD.
Orko from He-Man! This Orko was cool & very happy to let us photograph him. This was a shot I got as friends were taking their picture.
After this, we went out to dinner as has become a tradition. This time, we chose 5 Napkin Burger. Service was SLOW but the food was pretty good. The burgers are very juicy so make sure you prepare for that.
My husband asked if I'd go to Comic Con next year. That's a good question since I'm not sure. There wasn't much of that networking I wanted (though I did get to confront that lying asshole who told my husband he had Rocko & Heffer plushes and NEVER followed up; I'll have to send him another reminder e-mail shortly). I think I will tell him "no sale" since he's obviously not bothering to follow up with anyone.
Shopping = awesome but will I find anything new in my second year?
Networking = nil; don't bother if that's your goal & you work in the entertainment industry
Panels = they were okay but not sure I can stand the obnoxiousness of fans & it's not even my property involved
Spending time with hubby = great
Seeing odd costumes & unusual stuff = some of what I saw & pics I got weren't half bad
I think the jury's still out on if I'll go again or not. At least I have almost a year to think about it.
Monday, October 22, 2012
NY Comic Con, Day 2: More Shopping, Some Free Practical Advice & Calling Out a Famous Douchebag
For the second day, we got to enter on our own time and without having to stand in a long line. There was more of a crowd but we had things to look forward to: panels, more shopping & a special trip to Artists Alley for me. We'll get to those in a moment.
While at Comic Con on Thursday, I got a call about an extra gig for the next week (this past week). Being asked & because it was for a company and show I had not previously worked with as well as having free time, I chose to take the gig. When I came in for this second day, I realized I needed to know more about the gig. After all, I can't exactly do any old gig.
Fortunately, the guy I spoke with about the gig on Thursday called me again. I asked what the role was & said he could put in the file on me that I would not do rape victims or prostitutes b/c of my career path. I think it would be damn awkward for me to have to meet some celebrity whose first meeting of me is associated with me being in scanty attire or doing something gross. Not to mention legal ethics concerns with such roles.
That being settled, we started with some shopping. After all, we had The Venture Brothers & Robot Chicken panels to go to later on. To get good seating, you have to sit through things you don't want to see as well as stand in line. Unfortunately, professionals don't get priority over non-professionals. This was the start of the unwashed masses being here (some literally unwashed).
Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:
The same basic rules for walking in NYC apply at Comic Con: follow the locals, keep moving & don't be an ass.
While there were people in costume on Thursday, there were more on Friday. Friday started the picture taking for me.
For instance, these guys did Walter White & Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad:
Then I saw this one. She was creepy in her stillness. You weren't even sure if it was a real person or a statue:
I also decided to do a little more shopping. After buying those I Heart Guts plushes the day before, inspiration struck me on a little rant & I decided I had to get a plush uterus.
This will be part of a soon to be performed video rant. I've got a doozy, let me tell you. I told the lady who'd sold me the other plushes about the idea & she liked it as well. They will be getting credited for this one.
I also decided to buy another dress since the white one I got the day before fit me so well. I'd seen a black one with red design that I wanted so badly but the smallest size the vendor had it in was a small.
However, she had this blue one I'd seen and liked as well as the red one.
I didn't realize until I got home and hung them all up that I'd gotten dresses in red, white & blue like the American flag. My intent on getting the red one was that I didn't have anything in that color & I wasn't sure if it would flatter me or not with my hair. Traditionally, I've shied away from bright red, yellow & orange since I felt they didn't flatter me. When I tried the dress on for my husband, though, he said I looked good so I decided I'd keep it.
Also, since I couldn't get enough of the guy with the Clockwork Orlando shirts I came back and got this one:
After some shopping, we went to The Venture Brothers & Robot Chicken panels after sitting through one for Silent Hill 3. Before that time, they'd decided to throw an unscheduled panel for Kevin Smith's reality show on Secret Stash (Comic Book Men, I think it's called). So we had to wait in this long ass line while Kevin Smith droned on (as my husband said). More pics from that:
That was the view in front of us. We had big bunches of columns for a "line" and it was horribly disorganized. Despite feedback, apparently the folk in charge of NY Comic Con have not remedied this. My husband says this has become tradition.
In the meantime, some people farther back in line decided to toss a beach ball around. The crowd got into it & people started cheering. I said "You've got to create your own fun around here." Personally, I think being able to create your fun is a trait people overlook. After all, if you can entertain yourself and find positive things in a situation you tend to have a better psyche & an energy that attracts others.
We got in and finally got to get good seats for The Venture Brothers panel. My husband has never missed that one or Robot Chicken's and he's told me about them for ages. Part of my reason for going to Comic Con was to see what he was talking about & since he kept saying "You have to see them."
Here's a pic you can look at. That fat fuck was in the way of the stage but you can see part of it behind him if you look closely. I was trying not to be the asshole violating the "no photography" rule. There were quite a few of those, especially in the Robot Chicken panel.
My husband loved going to both. I, however, have a few things to say.
* First off, can't we get some intelligent fan questions? I could come up with great stuff but before I join a line, I wish to think things out & not resort to cheesy stuff like asking for hugs, sexually propositioning people or begging for jobs. I'm not your fan, I'm happily married & my record stands on its own. You can find me; I'm not about to beg anyone for anything. Not seeing my awesomeness is YOUR problem, not mine. I'm also not selling anything so you can take me or leave me.
I would have liked a forum to meet with these people in my industry in a professional, pros only setting where I could ask intelligent questions & have a real conversation vs. being subjected to silly fan stuff. I'll say this: some of these people have far more fan tolerance than I do. I'd call you out for stupid shit or disrespecting my spouse in his/her face.
I mentioned this about intelligent questions & my husband says "you can't ask those." So, when pray tell can I do so? My company's moving up in the world & I'm dealing with similar BS now; it's just going to get worse for me. Plus, entertainment lawyer: be nice to us. Business owner in your field: be nice since you're likely going to encounter me or a friend of mine sooner or later.
* Clare Grant, I understand you are Seth Green's wife. Let me just say I admire your patience & tolerance for the whorey female fans trying to proposition your husband. You're a much nicer & far more understanding person than a good 90% of us. I know my husband would never have the self-control you displayed at the Robot Chicken panel unless maybe he was heavily medicated (and this is a man who thinks maybe 95% of the men who strike up conversations with me want to sleep with me, either secretly or openly). He even comments to me after we left that he couldn't believe some of these fans just disrespecting you & your relationship like that. Seth Green is a lucky guy & I hope he's treating you right.
Working in this industry, especially if you're a household name, is hard & there's so much misconception of it by people who don't work in it. Even the entertainment law field is glamorized by lawyers who don't do it or know people in it.
Finding someone who gets it & doesn't get pissy at you for not having the traditional job or thinking like everyone else is a blessing; you don't throw that away or take it for granted unless you're plain stupid.
If I were doing stuff & someone tried propositioning me, I'm certain my husband would grab my boob or something. I know if someone tried that w/him, I'd have to employ that trick Simon Le Bon's wife used to deal with overzealous groupies. Putting your hand on your spouse's crotch is a pretty unmistakeable signal of "That's mine; back off, bitch!" Let's face it, you have to be primitive with some people since they have no respect for anyone or anything.
The fact that you didn't do it shows you are a much better person than I am.
* You can ALWAYS blame the lawyers for something that didn't come through for a fan like merchandizing issues. We're used to it. Little hint for you folks at Robot Chicken. If you don't believe me, ask your lawyers if they're used to being blamed for stuff. You don't have to name them individually: just say "the lawyers." God knows enough people blame us for stuff (am I right or am I right?). If my CEO wants to use a general "it's the lawyers' fault" in a fan event, that's okay. Part of being a lawyer is being "the bad guy."
* If you don't want to give jobs to random fans who ask, free advice to Seth Green: don't ask people about being in SAG, especially if you're in NYC. You could encounter someone who's SAG eligible, a SAG member or even someone like me who has their own company, their own contacts & could get membership easily. Plus, there was that merger with AFTRA recently & some people may have bought their way into AFTRA to now be members of SAG/AFTRA.
A better idea is not to ask it in the first place. I heard it as "an excuse not to have to audition these nobodies who might be psychotically obsessed with one of more of our team." Come up with a different excuse: say you're not hiring or you already have a pool of people you know & trust to work with. Even go with "Could you move to [where ever you do the show; is it LA or someplace else?]?" Most people can't or won't do that. Maybe even tell them the wage is really low or they'd have to intern first. Something that sounds more plausible, would be unsavory to most people & might not bite you in the butt later on.
Go with your gut on this one but as the person handling the HR stuff for an entertainment company (among my other tasks), that's my tip. Or just offer an e-mail address for later on & then make sure your gatekeeper doesn't respond. Maybe even a fake or spam one (think of it as a woman giving the phone number for the time lady or some Christian Tell a Story line to some guy she doesn't like but is being pressured to give her number to). There's plenty of clever dodges to things if you're smart about them.
Plus, anyone who's been in the business long enough knows that you can get SAG eligibility if you get one line in a SAG feature so if you really liked someone enough getting them SAG eligibility is nothing.
Hell, maybe you can blame the lawyers for that one as well. Just a thought.
If you're curious about the "Tell a Story" lines, ask (that goes for any reader of this blog). Me, I like a business owner who's got a sense of humor. Maybe I should remember this for myself in the future.
Before I went to the panels, I took that visit to Artists Alley. I had a particular guest in mind for that one. First, it's necessary to give you some back story.
During my college days, I was in a sorority (as I've mentioned before). Now typically, once you go through the pledge period you're in a sorority for life. However, you can kicked out of one for violating sorority by-laws or chapter by-laws/rules of conduct. One such member, in fact, did get kicked out of my chapter. I wasn't there for the event that caused it but I do know it involved alcohol, a fellow sister, massive intoxication & leaving a fellow sister in a delicate condition. Thankfully, the abandoned sister wasn't raped, sexually assaulted or harmed in some way. I'm sure that's what our brass was thinking when the decision was made to kick out this first sister.
I heard about it after I returned to start the next semester. I really didn't feel bad for the first sister since she was not nice to me. For one thing, she was the sort of person who thought you were nothing if you didn't dress like her, have her interests or agree in lockstep with everything she said & did.
In short, one of the types of people I hate since they shun everyone who is different from them & refuses to entertain points of view that are different.
She also used the phrase "redheaded stepchild" in my presence & had zero to say about it. Not even "no offense!" To a natural redhead, this is the equivalent of using the actual "n-word" in front of a black person or some other racial slur in front of someone from that race. The minority in those situations will generally get pissed. I was no exception & fair warning that if you debate me on this one, I will debate you on any slur that offends you as a member of any particular group.
She also got attitude with me when I'd not tolerate her BS or disrespect to me. I remember times when I spoke at events or gatherings & she'd try slamming me down with cutting remarks and tone like some clique bitch from my past.
Had I been asked about kicking her out, I probably would have been fine with it. Being shitty to your fellow sisters is certainly grounds for dismissal from a sorority. You don't have to like them but you do have to at least be civil & respectful to them.
She totally started problems with me, as it's against my nature to start problems with people who didn't bother me first. I even got her a birthday gift one year when I was working at Godiva.
In a random meeting one day, during the announcement period when members could share their news & what they'd done since the last meeting, she proclaims that her dad draws Spider-Man. His name? Mark Bagley, a name many have heard of.
When I've shared this story with people who read comics (including my own husband), they immediately get all impressed. I vowed that if I were at some event he was at, I was going to make a point to meet him. However, in my typical fashion, I wasn't going to lie about my experience with his offspring. She wasn't my friend & didn't even stay in my chapter.
In fact, after she got kicked out she refused to speak to anyone from our group & didn't bother keeping friendships she'd had with any of us. I went to a Halloween party at Georgia Tech with some sorority sisters & one happened to see and talked to her. This girl only spoke to her and did not even say "hello" to me. Gee, is it any wonder I don't like this person?
So I made my effort to go there. My husband warned me there would be some long line so I made sure to give myself time in case that was happening so I would not miss those panels. It turns out there wasn't one. I also noted that he was charging money to autograph things. I had nothing to autograph, as that was not my point in showing up.
I went in, did my thing & mentioned my connection. However, instead of calling his daughter a bitch outright, I said "she wasn't particularly nice to me." I also mentioned what I did, handed out my business card & mentioned that if you want to work with my company, you have to go through me. That if you tick me off or I don't think you're professional, you won't be working with us (which is true, by the way).
One observation about this guy: he's a guy who lies then plays it off like nothing. I saw him do that with people in front of me. He also did this in telling me what his daughter was doing now. His account didn't match what I knew so I said "Really?" (not with shock or anything but more neutral). I learned a little more about what she was doing & said there was no need to pass my info along to her.
The next morning, on my anniversary, he apparently calls my house at 8 a.m. to leave an angry, nasty message. I was asleep so I didn't hear the phone ring. I deleted the message after hearing him say "Thanks for coming up to tell me how my daughter was a bitch at 17." I felt it was unnecessary to listen any further.
Gee, when I was 17 I had some maturity. I also had some class & didn't go starting shit with people who'd done nothing to me. I'd even mentioned being an old soul forever when he'd talked about how his daughter had started college at 17. This probably explains how I dated a 35 year old guy at the age of 21 & later dated a 30 year old guy at 22.
I had told people I was going to do that if I met him but he'd have never known. I never told my sorority sisters or anyone who knew that crowd. I made that choice when I lived up here & was talking casually to people involved in comics, none of whom have any acclaim. My husband sure doesn't know him.
Now, you'd think if a person of acclaim was going to call up some random person like me (s)he'd do it with a non-listed number. You'd also think Mark Bagley would have much bigger things on his plate than dealing with some former college sorority sister of his daughter whom he never met before & would probably never see again.
Nope! Apparently, like daughter like father. I also have a phone number that must be a cell phone since I know he & the lady he was with (possibly his wife & the former sister's mother) were in NYC and the call came from an Atlanta area code. I highly doubt he'd have skipped out on Saturday and Sunday of Comic Con to go back to Atlanta & then call me up at 8 a.m. Saturday is the biggest day for it. I didn't return to that area but logically speaking, that would make no sense.
Did I have a nefarious intent? Perhaps. I was also attempting to invoke a teachable moment (basically, don't be an asshole to people since you never know what they're going to end up doing in life & how long they hold grudges). I don't regret doing it since I got it out of the way & I can close the book on the situation.
I had no idea what his relationship with his daughter was like either. For all I knew, he was an absentee father & didn't have involvement in her life. A lot of famous people are that way with their kids. He also could very well have hated her guts or disapproved of her behavior for all I knew. My former friend's father sure wouldn't defend her recent actions & would probably be the first to condemn her for it.
If you went to my parents & told them about my being a bitch to you, they'd probably say "That's our avenger." If it happened today, they'd probably think you were dumb for expecting niceness if you'd been a jerk to me or that I was going to kiss your ass when I'm a lawyer.
Plus, I kind of got the last laugh since I now have his number. Literally.
Oh, and when a famous person or someone well known goes off on a random person, who ends up looking bad? The anonymous person or the famous one? It's the famous one. They look like they've got nothing better to do than get into little battles with folk. Plus, you've made the combatant famous if you talk about it.
So, what did Mark Bagley accomplish with that phone call? Bad publicity, proof of being a jerk (ensuring my husband totally dislikes him), giving a personal phone number to someone who could easily give it out to others (he's not or ever been my legal client, his daughter's not my sorority sister & there's nothing on me to keep that secret) & getting on my permanent blacklist.
I share this tale since too many people have found me from the past anyway and I already made preparations ages ago to avoid having to deal with her. Plus, the public should be aware of douchebags & it's not my task to enable them or let them flourish. I also have zero hesitation to call out jerks since my stories are true & always have documentation and/or witnesses.
Final lesson: watch how you treat lawyers. If they didn't represent you or have any ethical duties to keep your information private & you are nasty to them without cause, you should just dig your own grave. Especially if that lawyer is a natural redhead.
While at Comic Con on Thursday, I got a call about an extra gig for the next week (this past week). Being asked & because it was for a company and show I had not previously worked with as well as having free time, I chose to take the gig. When I came in for this second day, I realized I needed to know more about the gig. After all, I can't exactly do any old gig.
Fortunately, the guy I spoke with about the gig on Thursday called me again. I asked what the role was & said he could put in the file on me that I would not do rape victims or prostitutes b/c of my career path. I think it would be damn awkward for me to have to meet some celebrity whose first meeting of me is associated with me being in scanty attire or doing something gross. Not to mention legal ethics concerns with such roles.
That being settled, we started with some shopping. After all, we had The Venture Brothers & Robot Chicken panels to go to later on. To get good seating, you have to sit through things you don't want to see as well as stand in line. Unfortunately, professionals don't get priority over non-professionals. This was the start of the unwashed masses being here (some literally unwashed).
Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:
The same basic rules for walking in NYC apply at Comic Con: follow the locals, keep moving & don't be an ass.
While there were people in costume on Thursday, there were more on Friday. Friday started the picture taking for me.
For instance, these guys did Walter White & Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad:
Then I saw this one. She was creepy in her stillness. You weren't even sure if it was a real person or a statue:
I also decided to do a little more shopping. After buying those I Heart Guts plushes the day before, inspiration struck me on a little rant & I decided I had to get a plush uterus.
This will be part of a soon to be performed video rant. I've got a doozy, let me tell you. I told the lady who'd sold me the other plushes about the idea & she liked it as well. They will be getting credited for this one.
I also decided to buy another dress since the white one I got the day before fit me so well. I'd seen a black one with red design that I wanted so badly but the smallest size the vendor had it in was a small.
However, she had this blue one I'd seen and liked as well as the red one.
I didn't realize until I got home and hung them all up that I'd gotten dresses in red, white & blue like the American flag. My intent on getting the red one was that I didn't have anything in that color & I wasn't sure if it would flatter me or not with my hair. Traditionally, I've shied away from bright red, yellow & orange since I felt they didn't flatter me. When I tried the dress on for my husband, though, he said I looked good so I decided I'd keep it.
Also, since I couldn't get enough of the guy with the Clockwork Orlando shirts I came back and got this one:
After some shopping, we went to The Venture Brothers & Robot Chicken panels after sitting through one for Silent Hill 3. Before that time, they'd decided to throw an unscheduled panel for Kevin Smith's reality show on Secret Stash (Comic Book Men, I think it's called). So we had to wait in this long ass line while Kevin Smith droned on (as my husband said). More pics from that:
That was the view in front of us. We had big bunches of columns for a "line" and it was horribly disorganized. Despite feedback, apparently the folk in charge of NY Comic Con have not remedied this. My husband says this has become tradition.
In the meantime, some people farther back in line decided to toss a beach ball around. The crowd got into it & people started cheering. I said "You've got to create your own fun around here." Personally, I think being able to create your fun is a trait people overlook. After all, if you can entertain yourself and find positive things in a situation you tend to have a better psyche & an energy that attracts others.
We got in and finally got to get good seats for The Venture Brothers panel. My husband has never missed that one or Robot Chicken's and he's told me about them for ages. Part of my reason for going to Comic Con was to see what he was talking about & since he kept saying "You have to see them."
Here's a pic you can look at. That fat fuck was in the way of the stage but you can see part of it behind him if you look closely. I was trying not to be the asshole violating the "no photography" rule. There were quite a few of those, especially in the Robot Chicken panel.
My husband loved going to both. I, however, have a few things to say.
* First off, can't we get some intelligent fan questions? I could come up with great stuff but before I join a line, I wish to think things out & not resort to cheesy stuff like asking for hugs, sexually propositioning people or begging for jobs. I'm not your fan, I'm happily married & my record stands on its own. You can find me; I'm not about to beg anyone for anything. Not seeing my awesomeness is YOUR problem, not mine. I'm also not selling anything so you can take me or leave me.
I would have liked a forum to meet with these people in my industry in a professional, pros only setting where I could ask intelligent questions & have a real conversation vs. being subjected to silly fan stuff. I'll say this: some of these people have far more fan tolerance than I do. I'd call you out for stupid shit or disrespecting my spouse in his/her face.
I mentioned this about intelligent questions & my husband says "you can't ask those." So, when pray tell can I do so? My company's moving up in the world & I'm dealing with similar BS now; it's just going to get worse for me. Plus, entertainment lawyer: be nice to us. Business owner in your field: be nice since you're likely going to encounter me or a friend of mine sooner or later.
* Clare Grant, I understand you are Seth Green's wife. Let me just say I admire your patience & tolerance for the whorey female fans trying to proposition your husband. You're a much nicer & far more understanding person than a good 90% of us. I know my husband would never have the self-control you displayed at the Robot Chicken panel unless maybe he was heavily medicated (and this is a man who thinks maybe 95% of the men who strike up conversations with me want to sleep with me, either secretly or openly). He even comments to me after we left that he couldn't believe some of these fans just disrespecting you & your relationship like that. Seth Green is a lucky guy & I hope he's treating you right.
Working in this industry, especially if you're a household name, is hard & there's so much misconception of it by people who don't work in it. Even the entertainment law field is glamorized by lawyers who don't do it or know people in it.
Finding someone who gets it & doesn't get pissy at you for not having the traditional job or thinking like everyone else is a blessing; you don't throw that away or take it for granted unless you're plain stupid.
If I were doing stuff & someone tried propositioning me, I'm certain my husband would grab my boob or something. I know if someone tried that w/him, I'd have to employ that trick Simon Le Bon's wife used to deal with overzealous groupies. Putting your hand on your spouse's crotch is a pretty unmistakeable signal of "That's mine; back off, bitch!" Let's face it, you have to be primitive with some people since they have no respect for anyone or anything.
The fact that you didn't do it shows you are a much better person than I am.
* You can ALWAYS blame the lawyers for something that didn't come through for a fan like merchandizing issues. We're used to it. Little hint for you folks at Robot Chicken. If you don't believe me, ask your lawyers if they're used to being blamed for stuff. You don't have to name them individually: just say "the lawyers." God knows enough people blame us for stuff (am I right or am I right?). If my CEO wants to use a general "it's the lawyers' fault" in a fan event, that's okay. Part of being a lawyer is being "the bad guy."
* If you don't want to give jobs to random fans who ask, free advice to Seth Green: don't ask people about being in SAG, especially if you're in NYC. You could encounter someone who's SAG eligible, a SAG member or even someone like me who has their own company, their own contacts & could get membership easily. Plus, there was that merger with AFTRA recently & some people may have bought their way into AFTRA to now be members of SAG/AFTRA.
A better idea is not to ask it in the first place. I heard it as "an excuse not to have to audition these nobodies who might be psychotically obsessed with one of more of our team." Come up with a different excuse: say you're not hiring or you already have a pool of people you know & trust to work with. Even go with "Could you move to [where ever you do the show; is it LA or someplace else?]?" Most people can't or won't do that. Maybe even tell them the wage is really low or they'd have to intern first. Something that sounds more plausible, would be unsavory to most people & might not bite you in the butt later on.
Go with your gut on this one but as the person handling the HR stuff for an entertainment company (among my other tasks), that's my tip. Or just offer an e-mail address for later on & then make sure your gatekeeper doesn't respond. Maybe even a fake or spam one (think of it as a woman giving the phone number for the time lady or some Christian Tell a Story line to some guy she doesn't like but is being pressured to give her number to). There's plenty of clever dodges to things if you're smart about them.
Plus, anyone who's been in the business long enough knows that you can get SAG eligibility if you get one line in a SAG feature so if you really liked someone enough getting them SAG eligibility is nothing.
Hell, maybe you can blame the lawyers for that one as well. Just a thought.
If you're curious about the "Tell a Story" lines, ask (that goes for any reader of this blog). Me, I like a business owner who's got a sense of humor. Maybe I should remember this for myself in the future.
Before I went to the panels, I took that visit to Artists Alley. I had a particular guest in mind for that one. First, it's necessary to give you some back story.
During my college days, I was in a sorority (as I've mentioned before). Now typically, once you go through the pledge period you're in a sorority for life. However, you can kicked out of one for violating sorority by-laws or chapter by-laws/rules of conduct. One such member, in fact, did get kicked out of my chapter. I wasn't there for the event that caused it but I do know it involved alcohol, a fellow sister, massive intoxication & leaving a fellow sister in a delicate condition. Thankfully, the abandoned sister wasn't raped, sexually assaulted or harmed in some way. I'm sure that's what our brass was thinking when the decision was made to kick out this first sister.
I heard about it after I returned to start the next semester. I really didn't feel bad for the first sister since she was not nice to me. For one thing, she was the sort of person who thought you were nothing if you didn't dress like her, have her interests or agree in lockstep with everything she said & did.
In short, one of the types of people I hate since they shun everyone who is different from them & refuses to entertain points of view that are different.
She also used the phrase "redheaded stepchild" in my presence & had zero to say about it. Not even "no offense!" To a natural redhead, this is the equivalent of using the actual "n-word" in front of a black person or some other racial slur in front of someone from that race. The minority in those situations will generally get pissed. I was no exception & fair warning that if you debate me on this one, I will debate you on any slur that offends you as a member of any particular group.
She also got attitude with me when I'd not tolerate her BS or disrespect to me. I remember times when I spoke at events or gatherings & she'd try slamming me down with cutting remarks and tone like some clique bitch from my past.
Had I been asked about kicking her out, I probably would have been fine with it. Being shitty to your fellow sisters is certainly grounds for dismissal from a sorority. You don't have to like them but you do have to at least be civil & respectful to them.
She totally started problems with me, as it's against my nature to start problems with people who didn't bother me first. I even got her a birthday gift one year when I was working at Godiva.
In a random meeting one day, during the announcement period when members could share their news & what they'd done since the last meeting, she proclaims that her dad draws Spider-Man. His name? Mark Bagley, a name many have heard of.
When I've shared this story with people who read comics (including my own husband), they immediately get all impressed. I vowed that if I were at some event he was at, I was going to make a point to meet him. However, in my typical fashion, I wasn't going to lie about my experience with his offspring. She wasn't my friend & didn't even stay in my chapter.
In fact, after she got kicked out she refused to speak to anyone from our group & didn't bother keeping friendships she'd had with any of us. I went to a Halloween party at Georgia Tech with some sorority sisters & one happened to see and talked to her. This girl only spoke to her and did not even say "hello" to me. Gee, is it any wonder I don't like this person?
So I made my effort to go there. My husband warned me there would be some long line so I made sure to give myself time in case that was happening so I would not miss those panels. It turns out there wasn't one. I also noted that he was charging money to autograph things. I had nothing to autograph, as that was not my point in showing up.
I went in, did my thing & mentioned my connection. However, instead of calling his daughter a bitch outright, I said "she wasn't particularly nice to me." I also mentioned what I did, handed out my business card & mentioned that if you want to work with my company, you have to go through me. That if you tick me off or I don't think you're professional, you won't be working with us (which is true, by the way).
One observation about this guy: he's a guy who lies then plays it off like nothing. I saw him do that with people in front of me. He also did this in telling me what his daughter was doing now. His account didn't match what I knew so I said "Really?" (not with shock or anything but more neutral). I learned a little more about what she was doing & said there was no need to pass my info along to her.
The next morning, on my anniversary, he apparently calls my house at 8 a.m. to leave an angry, nasty message. I was asleep so I didn't hear the phone ring. I deleted the message after hearing him say "Thanks for coming up to tell me how my daughter was a bitch at 17." I felt it was unnecessary to listen any further.
Gee, when I was 17 I had some maturity. I also had some class & didn't go starting shit with people who'd done nothing to me. I'd even mentioned being an old soul forever when he'd talked about how his daughter had started college at 17. This probably explains how I dated a 35 year old guy at the age of 21 & later dated a 30 year old guy at 22.
I had told people I was going to do that if I met him but he'd have never known. I never told my sorority sisters or anyone who knew that crowd. I made that choice when I lived up here & was talking casually to people involved in comics, none of whom have any acclaim. My husband sure doesn't know him.
Now, you'd think if a person of acclaim was going to call up some random person like me (s)he'd do it with a non-listed number. You'd also think Mark Bagley would have much bigger things on his plate than dealing with some former college sorority sister of his daughter whom he never met before & would probably never see again.
Nope! Apparently, like daughter like father. I also have a phone number that must be a cell phone since I know he & the lady he was with (possibly his wife & the former sister's mother) were in NYC and the call came from an Atlanta area code. I highly doubt he'd have skipped out on Saturday and Sunday of Comic Con to go back to Atlanta & then call me up at 8 a.m. Saturday is the biggest day for it. I didn't return to that area but logically speaking, that would make no sense.
Did I have a nefarious intent? Perhaps. I was also attempting to invoke a teachable moment (basically, don't be an asshole to people since you never know what they're going to end up doing in life & how long they hold grudges). I don't regret doing it since I got it out of the way & I can close the book on the situation.
I had no idea what his relationship with his daughter was like either. For all I knew, he was an absentee father & didn't have involvement in her life. A lot of famous people are that way with their kids. He also could very well have hated her guts or disapproved of her behavior for all I knew. My former friend's father sure wouldn't defend her recent actions & would probably be the first to condemn her for it.
If you went to my parents & told them about my being a bitch to you, they'd probably say "That's our avenger." If it happened today, they'd probably think you were dumb for expecting niceness if you'd been a jerk to me or that I was going to kiss your ass when I'm a lawyer.
Plus, I kind of got the last laugh since I now have his number. Literally.
Oh, and when a famous person or someone well known goes off on a random person, who ends up looking bad? The anonymous person or the famous one? It's the famous one. They look like they've got nothing better to do than get into little battles with folk. Plus, you've made the combatant famous if you talk about it.
So, what did Mark Bagley accomplish with that phone call? Bad publicity, proof of being a jerk (ensuring my husband totally dislikes him), giving a personal phone number to someone who could easily give it out to others (he's not or ever been my legal client, his daughter's not my sorority sister & there's nothing on me to keep that secret) & getting on my permanent blacklist.
I share this tale since too many people have found me from the past anyway and I already made preparations ages ago to avoid having to deal with her. Plus, the public should be aware of douchebags & it's not my task to enable them or let them flourish. I also have zero hesitation to call out jerks since my stories are true & always have documentation and/or witnesses.
Final lesson: watch how you treat lawyers. If they didn't represent you or have any ethical duties to keep your information private & you are nasty to them without cause, you should just dig your own grave. Especially if that lawyer is a natural redhead.
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