Last night, as he handed me a free shot of Jameson, my bartender asked me if I had work in the morning. I said, "No, I'm freelance," and then we hammered them down. The shot was free, because the harder I drink, the better I tip (and I've been drinking hard at this particular bar every Monday night for years now.)
This is a picture of a bartender pouring shots, in case you needed the visual.
The question got me thinking though. Should I be offended at the subtle condescension in his tone? Something about the way he asked it, begged, "How the fuck do you get so drunk on Monday night and then go to work in the morning?"
Is that even a good response: "I'm freelance," like that explains it or something.
Who fucking knows. I might guess you think I'm a drunk and he does too.
All that said, I'm proud of what I do, and I'm glad that I'm not forced to work in some giant studio where no one knows who I am (or even worse, work in some profession, where I myself, don't even know who I am.) But it's hard. My clients all hit me up with aggressive regularity, asking about the movement of their projects. "Have you heard back from SyFy?" "Did [name actor] read the script yet?" "Have you sent that check out?" Et cetera, et cetera.
There's something profoundly awful about checking your email to plow through all the overnights, while taking your morning constitutional and having a client FACEBOOK FUCKING MESSENGER you: "Any news?" It makes a man want to scream.
This is NOT the face I make when this happens.
I can't respond, "No." But why? Why isn't that an appropriate response?
Because, there must be some reason. Some explanation, or justification for why, at 9:15am on a Tuesday, there's no answer from the person, or company that will change the life of the person asking the question. There's just gotta be, right?! And who am I to get annoyed at this? I represent them after all. I should be pushing and hounding and humping for them every second! That's my damn job!
Meant to make a comment on me humping for my clients, but then I found this picture and went down the rabbit hole for a bit on doggy sex dolls, made by who else, but the Germans! HAHAHAHA - Sexpuppe für Hunde
I love my clients. I wouldn't sign them if I didn't, and honestly, most of them are my friends. But what do I say?
Sometimes I wonder if I've made myself too available. I have clients whose biggest complaint of their last manager was that they could never get ahold of them. That an email would go weeks without answer. A phone call, a month before it was returned. "What assholes!" I exclaimed before thrusting a contract across the table and promising I'd be better. That I have my phone on me all the time, and I'm always available. But to this extent? Hangouts, text message, phone call, 4 Gmail accounts, Messenger, Skype, iMessage. I had clients at my New Years party asking me when we would hear back from a major producer about their willingness to push a project. Friends at my birthday party asking me to record their voice-over demo.
I make budgets for films, for cash. It pays the bills occasionally, and even more than that, I work these awesome (well not exactly creatively awesome, but good pay awesome) commercials sometimes that pay the bills for a lot longer. They take time, and focus, and energy, but at the end of the day, I'm handed a check. On the other side, I have clients I've rep'd for almost two years; taking meetings, buying lunch, giving notes, responding to messages, submitting to agents, validating, loving and nurturing, that haven't made me a single dime. And yet when I'm on set watching my director go take after take after take with an actor in a bear suit to get the intonation of the line, "Get your head in the game" right for the client before he puts his bear head back on; should I feel guilty for missing the call from one of them asking me "if there's any news?"
I produced this spot.
The long game I'm playing is that by having a bunch of clients and projects and potential, the odds of selling something or getting something made go up exponentially. It's my plan and I believe in it. But man the motivation is hard. It's hard because things get so close sometimes before they fall apart. So near to changing my entire life that I can almost taste it (I've already mentally tossed my whole wardrobe, set my couch on fire, and pushed my car over a bridge) and then the actor drops out, or the financier turns out to be a liar, or the writer tries to fuck us on the points of the deal. The emotional rollercoaster starts to take it's toll.
It's hard to get up, and to make the phone calls, and send the emails, and take the meetings. It's hard to force yourself to put in the work that you know you need to make, with only the possibility of reward. I sometimes drive for LYFT and UBER when the jobs get really far apart, but the bitch of that is the exact same problem therein lies. You still have to make yourself get out and login and go drive. There's no escaping it!
So I go play dodgeball, take some aggression out on the other team, and then go and get charmingly "toe-up" at the league sponsor bar. And if one hits me in the face and brings me back down to reality? So be it.
Look how FIERCE I am.
The rest of the conversation with the bartender goes like this:
Bartender: So, freelance huh? In what?
Me: I'm a producer and a manager.
Bartender: Oh, awesome! I'm an actor, but I've been trying to get a feature off the ground. Got a little money in it, and really think I can do it for cheap since I know so many people in the business.
Me: Well, we should get together sometime and chat about it.
Bartender: That'd be awesome, thanks!
Me: Can I get another Jameson.
Bartender: This one's on me.
Me: Thanks. Listen let's do lunch, but after two because I have a lot of [sleeping off this hangover] to do in the morning.
But who knows?!? Maybe his script is the one that's gonna make me! All kinds of movies get made. They don't even have to be good! Just got to stick to it.
Proof.