Thursday, July 22, 2004

Hunted

In my professional circle, there are relatively few people who do what I do and, I admit with little modesty, fewer still who do it as well as I. So it wasn't really surprising when, a few years ago, I received a phone call out of the blue from the man I've come to think of as My Pal The Headhunter.

We had a nice chat that first time. He lavished me with praise, embroidering my résumé more creatively than I would ever have dared, and I mostly sat on the other end of the phone and occasionally grunted non-commitally. At the end of it, he asked me if I'd be interested in coming to New York and meeting with a couple of people who might be very enthusiastic about hiring me.

Interested I really wasn't, but I was intrigued, and so I went. I had a lovely couple of days in the city, met some extremely solicitous people and, although there was no offer forthcoming at the end of the process, more or less completely enjoyed the courtship.

"It's just as well, though," I told MPTH when I'd returned to St. Louis. "I really have no burning desire to move to New York anyway."

MPTH said some stroking things back to me, asked if he could stay in touch and then vanished from my life for nearly two years. The next time he called, it was for a position in Minneapolis.

"No thanks," I said.

Two months later, Denver. A bit after that, Los Angeles. Then Chicago. Then Atlanta.

I demurely declined to pursue them all.

I was just beginning to worry about MPTH — it'd been nearly four months since his last "let-me-run-this-past-you" check-in call — when my cell phone rang Tuesday afternoon on the way back from lunch. We had this conversation:

MPTH: You're still not interested in moving to New York? It's a great gig.

Brad: Oh? Tell me.

MPTH: So you are interested? What's changed?

Brad: Since we last danced? My base has gone up 20 thousand.

MPTH: Not a problem.

Brad: I need another week of vacation.

MPTH: Easy. There's a travel allowance too.

Brad: Full medical and dental.

MPTH: Got it.

Brad: And I'd need a generous relo package. I couldn't possibly live anywhere but Manhattan.

MPTH: Doable, I think. Anything else?

Brad: Just one thing.

MPTH: Yeah?

Brad: Last night, I had this rather...involved dream about John Tartaglia and Craig Bierko.

MPTH: I see. Heh, OK. I'm gonna have to call you back.

Brad: I look forward to it.

I'm still waiting for his call. But that's show biz, kids.

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

Too far for me

There were about 45 seconds left in the commercial break, while viewers in Des Moines and Denver and San Diego were seeing a tasteful commercial for a feminine hygiene product, and I was dreading what was coming next. A handsome young production assistant chatted amiably with the host, and both his and her perfectly coiffed images were reflected on a monitor just outside of the range of the cameras.

I had already done my part, 14 minutes, more or less, of statistics, impact statements and practiced soundbites honed over the past two weeks, as the woman seated next to me on the set and I had made the rounds of radio talk shows from coast to coast. In the next segment, the focus would be on her. I just had to nod occasionally, perhaps amplify a point or two, smile for the camera. That didn't concern me a bit. I knew exactly what she would say.

What I didn't know is how she would say it, but I had a pretty good idea. Despite having the benefit of an Ivy League education, despite serving as the head of a major, national advocacy organization, despite being a respected and sought-after speaker, Elaine was a terrible interview subject.

Give her a prepared text, a stack of paper or a TelePrompTer, and she was golden; she could make you laugh, cry, open your wallet, phone your congressman. But ask her to extemporize and within five minutes, your ears were bleeding.

Elaine had an unfortunate speech pattern, one I was pretty sure no one had ever pointed out to her. Even on a subject she knew backwards and forwards, her answer to a question would be interrupted, every three or four words, by "you know?". Every three or four words.

A verbal tic, like nearly everyone has in one form or another. They're usually barely noticeable in casual conversation, becoming part of the rhythm, the background noise of chat. But in an interview situation, they are deadly. Something about the focus provided by a microphone or a camera just draws them right out to the forefront. You can't notice anything but "you know?", "you know?", "you know?".

I'd cringed, winced, grimaced and rolled my eyes dozens of times over the past two weeks but, since we were sequestered on nearly opposite sides of the country in different studios, Elaine and I had never been face to face until that day. After the first few radio gigs, I'd called the communications director of Elaine's organization, an old friend.

"You've got to coach her," I implored, "get her some interview training, something. Or you've got to replace her on this campaign." Joe waffled. It's a hard thing to do, hard but necessary. One of the most difficult tasks for any publicist is to select and groom a spokesperson for your organization. It's harder still when the best person for the job isn't your executive director. And you have to be the one to tell her.

So there we were, having arrived in Atlanta just a few hours before, sitting in comfortable chairs in a too-warm studio. I briefly considered saying something in the few seconds remaining before the red light came back on but immediately dismissed the idea. There was no point making her more nervous than she might already be. That would only make things worse, you know? (Damn! Now I was doing it, if only in my mind.)

As I feared, the show resumed and the very first question to Elaine, a softball, elicited a two-minute monologue punctuated with her unique style. The second question yielded the same. By the third and final query of the segment, I was thinnly smiling with gritted teeth, barely able to restrain myself from leaping up and strangling her, shouting "No! They don't know, Elaine! They don't know! That's why you're here! To tell them!"

But I didn't. I nodded, amplified, smiled and barely broke a sweat. The show ended, the host thanked us both for making the trip and passed us off to the dashing PA, promising a tour of the broadcast facility. And I breathed deeply, satisfied that the message we'd come to deliver had reached an international audience, albeit in a slightly mangled form.

Elaine and I went our separate ways after that. My contract was up and I returned to St. Louis and a regular routine of writing union agit-prop and dry technical manuals. Elaine did one more national TV gig after that, a similiarly befuddling five minutes on Nightline. Ted Koppel never flinched, but I could sense he wanted to throttle her too.

I hadn't thought of that in quite a while. Today, though, I heard Elaine on the radio, chatting with a talk show host casually and with an elan I would never have suspected from her. Her every thought seemed clear, her points were crisp, her answers to questions concise. She said "you know?" exactly once, that I noticed, and it made perfect sense in its context. It was not a tic, it was a challenge.

It took me a few minutes to unearth Joe's number in my Rolodex but I found it and called to find out how he'd finally managed to stand up to Elaine, finally convinced her to take media training or, at least, to practice some dry runs before going on the air.

"What did it take?" I asked.

"I married her," Joe said.

Just so. That may explain why, only occasionally, I'm frustrated in my job, in my ability to completely and professionally project a positive public face for my company. There are just some tactics I'm not willing to employ.

Monday, March 24, 2003

Anti-French

As a public relations professional, I am not proud of what I'm about to describe. In my defense, I can only say that war is hell and battle fatigue can sometimes bring out the worst in people. I am only human. I am no exception.

You see, my theatre opened a new comedy last weekend. A French comedy. Typically, I'm able to convince at least a few photographers and television producers that the first night of a production at a major regional theatre is a newsworthy event. Unfortunately, there's another little drama playing out around the world and no one seemed very interested in stopping by on Friday night.

Having worked as a journalist for many years, I understand the judgment that goes into making decisions about coverage allotment, particularly the often complicated and compromising arithmetic required to maximize attention to disparate events while juggling limited resources.

I can also use this understanding for evil. An illustrative example:

I spent Friday afternoon working the phones, vainly trying to drum up anything, anything to give the show a boost. Finally, I called the producer of a local entertainment magazine program who, in turn, transferred me to the assignment editor on duty.

Now, a word about assignment editors. There's a reason they act that way -- surly, I mean, and curt. They are the busiest people in a television newsroom, set upon on every side by people -- people like me, mostly, flacks with something to sell -- demanding their time. They are the air traffic controllers of the boob tube. When you get the ear of an AE, you have just a minute or two to make your case before they're off to the next fire, murder or celebrity gaffe. Seconds count. Guile becomes a tool.

"Jack," I said, "this is our last major production of the season and it would give you some beautiful pictures for Monday's show."

"Look," Jack replied, "all of our feature crews have been assigned to the news division for the foreseeable future. I can't spare a shooter tonight. Sorry."

I try never to put an AE on hold. They are, as I've said, busy people. But Jack is a friend. I can impose, just this once. "Can you hold on one sec?" I ask.

Jack assents and I mash the mute button, yelling to a colleague in the office next door. "Do you suppose there's any chance some anti-French protestors will be showing up for tonight's opening?"

She considers this for a second and then calls back, "I really doubt it but, you know, anything is possible."

I have Jack back on the line a moment later. "I've just learned there's the possibility of an anti-French protest here tonight," I say, more or less honestly.

"I'll schedule a crew," Jack says.

"Thanks," I say. "Curtain's at 8." I hang up the phone.

To my credit, I did not immediately pick it up again and arrange for a few friends to show up with tongue-in-cheek placards denouncing Moliere and his ilk. I may be a flack, but a man has to draw the line somewhere.

Thursday, January 16, 2003

Call me Scrooge

Call me Scrooge. I know it is intended to be sweet and funny, but every time an actor or artist writes in their Playbill biography that their "favorite role" is as father to dear little Hannah or that their most recent "production" is a beautiful baby boy, I just want to vomit. A little.

Wednesday, September 05, 2001

Miss Electra

It took me a while to get to this career, but I plan on staying for a while. There are transcendant moments when I absolutely love my life in the theatre without reservation.

Tonight, for example, when I stood in the back of a darkened auditorium, holding my breath and standing quietly still with only one question on my mind: Will her brassiere light up and twinkle on cue?

It did. The audience gasped. The audience laughed. Everyone applauded. I breathed. I loved.

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

In which I use the word “dongle”…

It's done, finished, over and out. In my line of work, it's axiomatic that "done is better than perfect," and tonight's presentation — the result of three weeks at hard labor slaving over a steaming pile of digital video and audio to cull eight brilliant minutes — certainly proved that rule. A few tips for those with corporate presentations looming in their future:

• Allow twice as much time to assemble the multimedia portion of your talk as you think you'll need. Then double it. Add four days. That should be almost enough.


• Have a dress rehearsal. No, seriously: put on a dress, preferably something like Jennifer Lopez would wear to the Grammys. It will prepare you for feeling naked and vulnerable during the actual presentation.


• Don't leave home without your dongle. No, seriously: If you don't routinely carry every variety of monitor cable, gender changer, triple tap, three-wire adapter and RCA audio wire, you're in for a world of hurt. (Plus side: The union electricians will learn some new swear words from you.)


• Finally, and perhaps most importantly: If you're using a new suite of video editing software and you want to experiment with its features before you receive the actual footage you'll be using, do not use porn as the sample footage. The Chi Chi LaRue corollary to Murphy's Law states you'll mix up the tapes at the optimally awkward moment.

Wednesday, January 31, 2001

Hey! Teach!

After a few weeks of negotiation, it appears that I will be teaching again this fall, at my alma mater of all places. When I was in college, it was a common joke that a degree from my university uniquely qualified a person to...teach at my university. There seemed to be a certain self-perpetuating machinery in place, since so many of my professors -- in the introductory level courses, especially -- held credentials from the place.

I've been invited to teach a mid-level journalism course, imparting my knowledge of writing and reporting to sophomores and juniors who have declared a major in my chosen field. This is my opportunity to shape careers, to mold young minds, to take my place in a tradition of scribes who have returned to the academy and insure the life of our noble profession into the next generation.

In other words, it's payback time!

Tuesday, January 23, 2001

Let your fingers do the walking

Unless they've seen the trailer personally -- featuring the company name in large red letters painted on the side -- parked on a job site, no one believes me when I tell them about this business.



A few years ago, there was a nursing home being constructed across the street from The Complex, one of St. Louis' more popular gay dance clubs. The Big Boy Steel Erection trailer and several trucks also bearing the name were parked nearly every night throughout the summer, just footsteps away from hundreds of homosexuals. I would point them out to guys on the patio who hadn't noticed them, and the result was almost always a spit-take.

Over lunch yesterday, I was looking for something else in the Yellow Pages and ran across this listing. When I saw the street address, I spit Mountain Dew all over my computer monitor.

Wednesday, January 03, 2001

The bright side

One of the surest signs that a job change or a career shift is in the works for me is the arrival on my desk of a new box of business cards. It is a practical certainty that within two weeks after I have ordered and received 500 or 1,000 new little slips of boardstock bearing my name, title, phone number, mailstop and e-mail address, for one reason or another I will no longer be employed by the company represented by the logo on the card.

I have come to look on this as positively as possible: I have not lost a job. I have gained several hundred bookmarks.

Tuesday, December 19, 2000

It’s very clear the holidays are upon us.

For the past two weeks, messengers and delivery vans from relatives, vendors and clients have been arriving at a rate of roughly one per hour, dropping off wicker baskets piled with apples, oranges, grapefruits and pears. They have brought a freezer pack of steaks, gigantic tins of gourmet popcorn, packages of cashews and pecans, Hickory Farms gift boxes and, even in these teetotaling, politically-correct times, a fifth of Scotch and at least three bottles of wine.

As a result, my office at the theatre is full of fruit, my house is full of meat, and I'm surrounded by nuts.

On further reflection, the holidays aren't all that different from my day-to-day life after all.

Monday, October 16, 2000

My debut at The Rep

I pretty much gave up performing when I moved to St. Louis, lapsing only occasionally for two plays, a musical and a couple of stand-up gigs over the past 13 years. It's always a little thrilling to step out onto a stage before an audience, though, even if the role is the human equivalent of set dressing. Last Saturday, I played "Juror #11" in my theatre's production of Inherit the Wind.

This is not a demanding role, it should be said upfront, although the jurors are on stage for several scenes in the first act and practically all of the second. During the run, at least four of the juror roles will be filled by (non-paid) volunteers and members of the administrative staff. Our primary purpose is to flesh out the stage picture and, by fanning and wiping our brows on cue, to convey the sense that the action of the play is, in fact, taking place in a sweltering Tennessee courtroom.

The character I played on Saturday isn't assigned a name in the script. In fact, I only extrapolated "Juror #11" from my position on the stage. I decided to lend authenticity to my performance, however, by giving him a back-story. The costume pulled from stores for me was a tasteful three-piece suit, necktie and hat, the latter of which I elected to wear at a somewhat jaunty angle.

My character would be "Ben" (or perhaps "Behn"), the lifelong bachelor who operates the tiny town's bridal shop. Behn shares a spacious farmhouse outside of town with a man everyone assumes to be his significantly younger cousin, Matthew, who moved to Hillsboro from Georgia a year ago and works as a hand on Jesse Dunlap's farm down the road. As I sat on stage and listened to the pro- and anti-evolution forces hash out their respective arguments, I could see the prim ladies of the town sitting opposite me, occasionally glancing my way with the thought, "Behn is such a good looking man, well-dressed, mannerly and such a talent for putting together a trousseau. And so charitable to take in that reckless, tow-headed boy cousin. I wonder why Behn has never married himself. Hmm..."

Friday, September 15, 2000

Are you playing a game?

So I'm standing outside the theatre reviewing my appointments on my PDA. Melissa walks by, sees me fiddling with the buttons and stylus and smirks. "Are you playing a game or organizing your life?" she asks.

I wasn't aware there was a difference.

Wednesday, September 13, 2000

When all you’ve got…

There are very few problems in the modern workplace so vexing that they cannot be either solved or mitigated by the suitable application of a claw hammer, the consumption of great quantities of beer, an hour-long nap, or some combination thereof.