Slave Labor

I recently got an assignment from a small, but reputable, "hip-and-cool" arts magazine to write a 500-word piece about a "hip-and-cool" director. I emailed the editor to ask what the editorial rate would be, which means, how much are you going to pay me.

He responded, "$50"

So I wrote back, "Fifty dollars, how about a hundred?"

He replied, almost immediately, "No!!"

There really were two exclamation points.

Can I Interest You In Another Stuffed Mushroom Cap Perhaps?

I may be smiling on the outside but on the inside I am seriously considering strangling myself with this stupid red tie and/or poisoning the next cocktail of the girl who insisted I get in this picture. There is nothing -- nothing -- more depressing than catering. Watching everyone else get drunk and have a good time while you peddle pigs-in-a-blanket and get asked where the bathroom is.

My Cover Story On Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Anthem Magazine

(photo by dustin beatty)
I interviewed Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the star of the current indie darling 500 Days of Summer, a couple of years ago for Anthem Magazine. Click below to read about how much he hates the word celebrity and what it was like to kiss Topher Grace.

http://www.anthemmagazine.com/story/131

Pieces of Paper In My Pants Pocket

(this is becoming a fire hazard)
I just washed a load of clothes -- a dark load -- and they are dirtier now than they were before I washed them. There was a piece of paper, apparently, or a few of them it looks like, in the pocket of a pair of pants and after taking a swim in the hot swishy washing machine those pieces of paper disintegrated into a million tiny little flecks of whitish gray fuzz. My black jeans look like they are hairy. Now I have to wash everything all over again, and of course, whatever it was I wrote on those pieces of paper is gone, forever, though I am sure I will be picking it off my clothes for weeks.

Review of Stephen Sprouse Book for Interiors Magazine

Why This Stool Is (Was) Wearing Socks

That stool is wearing socks, see, because my downstairs neighbors (and I am referring to the definition of "neighbor" as in "a person who lives near another," not as in "a person who shows kindliness or helpfulness toward his or her fellow humans") banged a broom (I am assuming it was a broom?) on their ceiling (my floor) the other night, which is, of course, the universal apartment building sign for "Shut up." I believe, in this case, the bang-bang-bang of my neighbors' broom meant, "Shut up already with that horrible screeching noise," the screeching noise being the squeaking and scratching (it's almost a honk, really) of my four-legged painted-red wooden stool against the black-and-white checkered tile floor in my kitchen (sometimes at night, because there's better light, I like to write in my kitchen). It's a pretty offensive noise I have to admit. It surprises even me sometimes. So I can't really blame them, as it was after 11, and I assume they have normal jobs, and regular working hours (again, I do not know for sure because they are not particularly "neighborly" in the second definition sense of the word). So I suppose they were sleeping and did not appreciate me scooting the stool back and forth every time I wanted to get up and do something other than finish the assignment I was working on, which, incidentally, was about every six to ten minutes. See while I am "writing from home" and most especially while I am "on a deadline," I will find any excuse at all to do absolutely anything but write. So, showing "kindliness or helpfulness towards his or her fellow human," I put two pair of tall tube socks on the legs of my stool so as to silence the screeching and help them sleep.

"Blaaaahging"

Because, as a writer, I am so tired of the question, "Do you have a blog?" I have finally come up with an answer: "Yes."

So now you can waste hours of your time, reading about how I waste hours of mine.

Stay tuned like the Tin Man.