So obviously this week’s theme of “Farm Animals on Acid” has been reflection; reevaluation; self-discovery. Yeah, it’s pretentious, but at least not in a Hipster way. So don’t cross me or I’ll just snap in half.
Anyway, upon engaging total reflection mode, I’ve been thinking back to about 3 years ago when I first moved to Los Angeles when I entered the lovely world of internships. Now, I know this is Chloe’s thing… but honestly, I don’t really see where she has license to bitch as much as she does. I know Chloe and I’m familiar with the business that she’s interning at, and let me just say it’s prettttty cozy (that was said in my Larry David voice). Yeah, I figure she works for a bunch of asscracks, and the ever-flippant Doug (I know this guy and he’s more of an eccentric, over-stressed wannabe writer than a dude that would willfully jerk around a poor intern)… but she hasn’t really had (what I like to call) a “face grated against the asphalt” experience in the land of internships. On the converse, yours truly has.
So without further ado, allow me to present my top 5 worst internship moments in Los Angeles:
5) The Barefoot Interview – Upon my first visit to L.A. to get the lay of the land, I set up a few internship interviews. One was with this startup production company that was run by one of those actors who you see in a ton of movies and TV shows, but you never know their name, nor do you bother to explore who the hell they are in the first place. So anyway, I go to their “office” in Beverly Hills, which is actually just this actor’s apartment. Upon entering, I’m accosted at the door for not taking my shoes off downstairs at the front entrance of the building. Of course, I vehemently apologize (for all I knew L.A. subscribed to ambiguously Asian cultural rites on a universal scale), and then proceeded inside the “office.” I’m seated next to this incredibly attractive girl, who of course, wants to be an actress. Throughout the “interview” I’m constantly lambasted for wearing my shoes into the apartment, and the actor continually praises the girl for being “hot,” “totally beautiful,” “gorgeous,” and a slew of other phrases that probably made her tits sweat with anxiety. By the end of the interview the actor dude just talks about how much he wants the girl to be his “arm candy” for his “company,” and that I (upon learning proper shoe etiquete) should feel free to give him a call about editing his sizzle reels for no money. I leave, and steal a cantaloupe on the way out.
4) The Non-Porno Porno Gig – After I got to L.A. I made the executive decisionnotto reengage the “actor” – surprised? So I found this one company that’s famous for this one TV show that… let’s just say it’s about people riding in cars who say stuff… Anyway, they responded to an inquiry letter of mine asking about editing opportunities. So I go in for an interview, and low and behold, their office is a house, just a notch up from the apartment – needless to say I was like, “Well they must be legit since they’re in a house. I’ve hit the big time!” The interview goes well enough (mind you, withshoes on), and they tell me I can start as an editor’s unpaid assistant the following week. So I go in the next week, totally ecstatic. I’m introduced to the editor I’m supposed to be “working with,” and he’s obviously irked at my presence. Thus, he puts me in a storage room, gives me a bunch of DV tapes, and then hooks up a computer from 1995 and attaches a deck. He says to log and capture everything, that it should take me the entire week to finish. I get to it and soon realize that I’m logging and capturing footage of couples in their 60s having sex, intermingled with nude testimonial footage about the wiles of senior citizen Swinger culture. After a few hours, I go to my editor dude and tell him that I think they gave me porn, and that there must be some sort of mistake. He calls me an idiot and says that they’re doing a documentary special on Swingers in their 60s, and that I really needed to pay attention to the actual sex footage, as this would be the bulk of the documentary. I say, “So it’s porn.” He just shuts the door and I commence pouring through the non-porno porn footage for a week. I lose sleep…
3) The Skid Row Deception – After a week of watching loose, wrinkly bodies copulating over and over and over again, I go to the chick that interviewed me and tell her that I don’t think I can keep watching the non-porno porn footage anymore. She scoffs at me and says that it’s what I signed up for, and I adamantly disagree. I tell her that nobody mentioned anything about porn – so then we get in an argument about what defines porn as porn, and I win the argument somehow. She asks me if I have any interest in PA-ing on a shoot the next day. I of course make sure it’s not a porno thing, which she assures me it’s not – it’s a legit documentary they’re shooting mostly in Beverly Hills and the Santa Monica Blvd. area. “It’s easy – you just hold onto all the camera batteries and the tapes. That’s it.” I agree to do it, seeing as I’d only been in L.A. like a week and a half and wanted to get familiar with more of the city. I arrive at the “office” the next day and am immediately thrust into the driver’s seat of a van and told by the producer to head Downtown. I of course don’t know how to get there, so he flips out and says that they need to replace me. I ask if he knows how to get there, to which he replies “yes.” I tell him he can just tell me where to go, to which he agrees, and praises my intuition. The entire ride I’m yelled at for not driving fast enough, not knowing where we are, etc. Eventually we get Downtown and I’m told to head to Skid Row – needless to say, that didn’t sound like it was close to Beverly Hills. So then I’m told to go scout for and pay heroin addicts, prostitutes, and other miscellaneous junkies to do man-on-the-street interviews with us. I tell them I feel uncomfortable doing this, so I’m yelled at again and again, in spite of making it very clear that this isn’t what I signed up for. The producer calls me a “pussy” and we all scour for addicts together. In the process of all this, the camera person loses a tape, blames me, and I’m scolded in the van for being a “child.” The next day the camera person calls the producer and says she found the tape, that I must have put it in their fanny pack without them knowing…
2) Accused of Battery – After the Skid Row incident, I decided to tell the non-porno porn company that my uncle died and I had to go take care of my aunt for an undisclosed (possibly indefinite) period of time – yes, this was a total lie – yes, it was random and weird – yes, I feel bad about it… only sort of. I get another internship doing script coverage for this small production company… but it’s on a studio lot. It was my first look at a company in L.A. that didn’t operate out of a private residence – my prayers had been answered. Again, it’s without pay, but I get to read scripts all day, so it’s kind of a dream come true (I got to cover Milk and gave it a recommendation to produce – boo ya!). Anyway, we shared office space with this really famous film producer who was basically a walking, talking David Mamet play – he wove beautiful tapestries of profanity. So one day he comes in and tells my boss that his latest film is premiering that night and that he should go – I of course am ignored completely, albeit an occasional, “Who the hell are you?” from the producer, even though I’d been there every day for about a month. So the next day he comes in and looks FUCKED UP – somebody had obviously beat the shit out of him. My boss (who didn’t go to the premiere) asks him what happened, and he says that some guy told him his movie sucked, so he told him to fuck himself, then the guy went nuts and kicked his ass. While he was telling this story, I’m of course listening with everyone else in the office. He says something funny, so I laugh, but made the mistake of making my laugh audible. He snaps and comes over to me and starts yelling that I was the guy that kicked his ass – that he was going to sue me into perpetuity and that I should just tear my dick off and put it in my butt because that was my inevitable future in the entertainment industry. I give him a “Um…what?” look and he proceeded to slam his fists on my desk and tell me that I was going to burn in the flames of hell with the guy that actually kicked his ass. None of it really made sense, but from then on he definitely remembered me and would introduce me as the guy that vicariously kicked his ass who would soon have his own dick in his butt.
1) Seizure on the 405 – This is by far one of the most fucked up experiences I’ve ever had, let alone in the world of internship land. After a hot minute at the coverage gig, I got picked up as an unpaid editor’s assistant for a documentary about this really famous dude who did some badass stuff a long time ago (vague enough for you?). Basically my duties consisted of scanning this guy’s old documents, as well as a plethora of hand written creative notes he’d made for himself back in the day – it was pretty fucking cool, but incredibly tedious. So one day one of my producers comes in the editing suite and is like, “Hey Leroy, you wanna get out of the office with me for a while?” I jump up, totally stoked to get out of my windowless cave for a while. He tells me he needs me to drive him to Burbank to get some camera equipment. Our office (yes, a real office in a high rise office building this time) was in Westwood, so the route was the 405 to the 101. I of course don’t ask why he needs me to drive him – why should I care? So we’re on the 405/101 interchange, and he’s telling me about how the mall across the way is where Terminator 2 was shot, and I feign interest, just kind of nodding along, trying to stay sane amongst the 3 o’clock early rush hour traffic (it was a fucking Friday, of course). So we’re going along at about 35mph, bumper to bumper, when all of a sudden my producer makes a high-pitched squeal that sounds like a dolphin. I kind of giggle, thinking he’s fucking with me, but then I look over and he’s totally tensed up, foaming at the mouth, and slamming his head into the back of his chair. He keeps squealing and rips the seatbelt out of the door, and starts hitting his head on the dashboard. I of course freak out and start screaming “What the fuck?!” Suddenly he calms, but looks dead. So I’m dodging traffic, trying to find an exit, nobody will let me over to the shoulder, so I just weave and honk and scream out the window. I yell his name at him and he’s totally unresponsive – I check his pulse, but then realize I don’t know how to check a pulse. I don’t know if he’s dead or what. So I call 911 and tell them what happened. Luckily, I pull off at the Van Nuys exit off the 101 – the gas station I pull into is just a few blocks from the Sherman Oaks Hospital. The dispatch asks me if he’s epileptic or whatever, and I tell her I have no idea, that this happened out of nowhere. The ambulance arrives at the gas station and I follow them. I get to the ER and call my other producer and let them know what’s going on. Their really calm response: “Awww shit, I knew that was gonna happen. Just sit tight, I’ll be there in 20.” When my other producer gets there, they tell me I did everything right, that this happens from time to time and that they figured it would happen today. I of course ask why I wasn’t told, and they’re just like “We don’t want people to know this happens.” I’m obviously rattled, but it doesn’t matter – they ask me to go get the equipment from Burbank. I do it, and am then repaid with an ice cream sandwich when I get back to the office 2 hours later.
There you have it.
So Chloe, next time you’re given ambiguous info or you’re doing your Ninja stuff, remember these little ditties. The grass is a little greener on your side of the yard, more than you think.
Some internship haikus:
Your wish is my task
I’m the turd on your heel
Pay me with ice cream
He looked like he died
But it happens all the time
Maybe tell people…
It’s non-porno porn
The swingers flap in the wind
I puked in my sleep
