I don't mind being awake this early.
I am filled with energy and high exuberance at the crack of dawn.
I am a morning person, some would call it, the rest, my wife included, call it annoying as hell.
This morning I am off balance while making my vitamin infused chocolate milk.
“What's that?” you ask.
Well here's the recipe. Vitamin Infused Chocolate Milk:
I tbs of L’carnitine
5000cc’s of vitamin D
5000cc’s of vitamin E
A cup of skim milk
One unmeasured heaping spoonful of nestle's chocolate milk powder.
Its a good recovery beverage.
I assume.
One I wish I had discovered while still running.
I haven't run since I fucked up my ankle, or a tendon in my foot, or some minor thing that an MRI at the V.A. discovered, but one no health care official cared to explain the impact of, if, continued to be abused while jogging. Maybe soon I will brave the Brooklyn Streets once again, regardless of explanation or not, but this morning even if I wanted to give it a shot, time and the festering blister would not allow it.
The reason I am up so early is I received a 5 am call time Sunday night about 9 pm.
Of course I couldn't sleep right at nine, so I lingered reading book three of A Song of Fire and Ice until sleep caught up with my intentions.
I did not notice the time when I did drifted off. It was late though, maybe after midnight.
It was a deep sleep the iphone’s little song pulled me from. One in which I was grabbed violently from the darkness.
Regardless of feelings I am up, I am awake, I am ready to do what needs to be done. I attempt to chase the milk with a cup of french pressed coffee.
The milk got drunk but the coffee remained mostly filled on the window sill all day. Time was my enemy this morning.
From 3:30 till 4:18 I floundered trying to get ready. I don't know why I thought I could do it in thirty minutes. I knew it would take about an hour to get from Carrol to Greenwich street. I knew I hadn't prepared jack shit the night before.
After showering and throwing on jeans, a douchey t-shirt and Chucks I grabbed my laptop, which I was told on Friday, “Is a necessary part of your job,” by Josh, my educator, and that he was “deeply disappointed I hadn't brought it.”
I had a moment after this statement was made, through the fake smile thrown across my face, where I wanted to grab the guy by the shoulders and shake him a little bit, and say, “you mother fucking want something? You mother fucking ask for it!” but I didn’t. I still had the idea I was going to learn something working for free on the production of a movie.
I guess I did learn some things when I had arrived Friday morning.
Right after walking through the door I was rushed into a car with Josh. Something had not been brought to the set that needed to go to the set right then and now.
Thursday, somebody had fucked up.
Who fucked up?
Someone else.
I learned two things in the first five minutes of my movie making career.
1: Everybody is always blaming someone else for a fuck up.
2: Nothing is ever done correctly, or on time, or within budget.
In retrospect I am sure this has something to do with the attempt to get as much free labor as possible out of an initially excited workforce. A balloon filled to bursting will always deflate no matter how much helium is placed inside it. The balloon will droop and stop doing its job. Thats why I got this opportunity in the first place. Someone drooped too much and either walked out or deflated to the point a trash can was it’s next home.
Craig's-List is good for these types of jobs here in the city. Filled with opportunities either nobody wants or jobs nobody can do.
The times we live.
So anyway, Monday morning, I grabbed my laptop and my book and my wallet and my keys and my power cord and my phone and it’s power cord all on individual attempts to get out the door. A process that should have been a grab and go, if i planned it through, turned into an 18 minute effort.
I love the cliche on-time is fifteen minutes late. I use it in every interview and honestly would love to live my life by it.
I try.
I really do.
This morning as I waited alone at the Union St sub-way stop I knew it wasn't going to happen.
The train came at 4:35.
It stopped at Whitehall at 4:48.
I walked as fast as my now swollen foot would allow and reached the 1 train two minutes later. The good news it was sitting there waiting for me. The bad news it sat there for ten minutes.
I was late when it took off uptown. There was nothing I could do about it. I relaxed into my book knowing what came from this would come no matter what I did from this point on. I had made my bed so to speak.
When the train stopped at Houston I had a three block walk. I started walking/limping in the direction of the production office and I got a phone call. It stopped the gaming podcast I was listening to. My ringtone is the theme song to Doctor Who. I love it. I want people to call me so I can ignore their call and listen to my ringtone. I couldn't ignore this call.
“This is Josh,” I said, as I always say when I know the person calling will be asking for me anyway.
The high nasally voice on the other end belonging to the production rat, who would not allow me to be called Josh, asks, “Hey whats up?”
I fucking hate him for calling, for doubting that I was on my way, for seemingly testing me with every task as if he second guessed hiring me to work for free on this fucking indy movie, “I am on Houston,” like the city in Texas, “House-ton” I correct myself, “heading to the office” I quickly add, feeling embarrassed and hating him more for making me nervous.
“Okay.” he responded and the podcast continues when he hangs up.
Just simply, Okay, but the intonation... I don't know.
On the drive to the set Friday we talked, it started out as a good talk, we talked about movies, we agreed on a bunch of opinions and eventually he learned I sucked at names and remembering details on the fly. After the drop, on the way back to the production office, he turned more inquistorish, as if a wrong answer would be deadly and he would be my doom.
It was beginning to annoy me, his attitude, it wasn't steady. It bounced from one extreme to another so quickly. He was cool.
He was a dick.
He was my boss.
He was one of the guys.
I was already feeling off balance when dealing with him.
His okay continued that thread.
My attitude was going from bad to worse and I knew this experience wasn't going to end well for anyone involved.
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