We’re getting close people. There is light at the end of this bastard re-draft tunnel. Not close enough to be cracking the cerveza. But certainly close enough to be cooling them. Suffice it to say, the end is not just nigh, it’s downright adjacent.
In the meantime, and with five seconds of downtime, am compulsing myself to return to the story – the one that’s all about me. Not me now though. Me before.
In the last installment we had left me having struck gold half way through the alphabet with my genius plan to call every production company in the Yellow Pages asking for work.
So I shoved my interview attire in a rucksack, jumped on my trusty two wheeled steed and cycled like a bitch from SE1 to W11. After a quick costume change in a tiny cubicle at a local tavern, I entered the establishment and proceeded to seduce the shit out of the two lady manager bosses. Though not in a sexy way of course, I’d been around the filthy block enough by then to know that would not be appropriate interview decorum.
They were a small outfit, just the two of them. They repped a few directors and specialized in music videos. One of them was an old time producer who’d been in and around the industry for years – and remarkable as her career had been thus far (McCartney, Genesis, INXS), I was most impressed by her admission that she was the one who went to Tescos and bought the chickens for Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer’ video.
And anyone who knows me knows I’ve been in love with Peter Gabriel since I accidently saw him playing Wembley in nineteen ninety twelve. Similarly anyone who knows me, knows how I feel about chicken! So right there, that was two of my boxes ticked already.
They were looking for a full time production assistant / office manager. Someone to PA on the jobs as they came in and manage the office in the meantime. To this day I still don’t know exactly which of the skills I’d amassed up to that point they saw as being transferable. Five years at the Circus certainly didn’t qualify me any more than a year caption operating in cable TV obscurity did.
But I was uber enthusiastic.
And super passionate.
And ultra willing.
(If not quite able).
Plus I loved both Peter Gabriel and chicken.
And, I could type.
I could transfer the crap out of that one.
So I spent the next forty minutes convincing them that they were desperately seeking me. Then I jumped back on the steed, cycled the eight miles back to SE1 and waited for the goddamn-mother-fucking-bastard-bastard phone to ring.
Which of course, it didn’t. And didn’t. And didn’t. Until it did.
But when it did, it wasn’t quite the call I was expecting. Because a couple of weeks earlier I’d applied and interviewed for a caption operating job with Sky TV. Though I knew I’d nailed the interview, I also knew I was so incredibly under qualified that there wasn’t a chance in devil dwelling hell that I’d get it.
In fact, I was so convinced I was nowhere near who they were looking for, I’d forgotten all about it until the phone rang and the lovely lady said they wanted me. And it was about half an hour after I accepted that career changing job that the stupid phone rang again and the music video ladies offered me their career changing job.
So in the space of thirty minutes I’d gone from:
“Ring you bastard”. To…
“That’s great, I’ll take it”. To…
“That’s great, can I let you know?”. To…
CRAP! What the Meryl-Streep-in-Sophie’s-Choice hell was I gonna do now?
Breaking hearts, saving lives,
Judy