Those Days That Make No Damn Sense, Natch!

We the unwilling led by the unqualified for so long, with so little, we now attempt the impossible with nothing!

The Tax Man Cometh vs. Evil Economy

It's tax time and the results are in.

Every year it's always shoulda, woulda, coulda…if only that booking had come through, what a great vacation I coulda went on. If only we had cancelled AT&T and paid the penalty for early contract termination...Shoulda dropped that client and smack my mouth for spending over $1K in postage and the post office is losing money because I email too much. I don't want to squander this great invention of the blog on venting, ranting and just plain being a sour puss. Sometimes I want to rejoice, jubilate and dance. But this is not that day. We are in our 15^th year of operation and so many, many aspects of this business have not changed or even evolved. A number of "that's the way it is" kind of stuff has gnawed on me and may eventually kiss the spirit of what this journey means to me, goodbye. It's just about to pick my bones dry. But I think about how far we've come in our own right, and I can get rejuvenated from time to time.

Every year is pretty much a wild ride. There's always the underlying excitement of the next big thing. One phone call or one email and there's a chain reaction of triumph or failure. It all comes in waves. The tide of gigs can ebb and flow in the course of a day, a week and so on. When the tumbleweeds blow into town that's when we dig deeper and deeper to find those jewels we call new clients. It's brutal. New clients are so gung-ho until the tide goes out. The lesson here is that we all have to find that "thing" that sustains us between opportunities. I personally hold it together by watching re-runs of the TV series "Mission Impossible", Burt Bacharach music (yes, I already have my tickets for "Promises, Promises") reading Jackie Collins' novels and the outlandish to the garden variety stage plays and screenplays that are submitted to our literary department. Come to think of it, I'm always going off on actors. I will blog very soon about our writers. I also have 5 lbs. of Aviv Passover Matzos that I get every year free from my supermarket that I nosh on for the next few months. This is my recipe for sanity.

It's getting crazy mad with the expenses and the time that is expended in scouting talent and supporting talent. Last year in particular, there was an influx of criticism about my phantom existence. The deal was that clients were getting downright disgusted that I didn't come to showcases, hold special individual meetings and other absences that got on their nerves. Let me explain. We lost our lease in 2008 to a public transportation friendly location in New Jersey. As the economy tanked, our search to find a new affordable rental office was not successful. So actually, clients with cars was the only way to meet at our main office in New Jersey, or we'd rent a studio in NYC for a couple of hours. Efforts to attend performances in NYC proved difficult because even though we are located 12 miles west of NYC, the traffic is horrendous in this area, so I have to plan to leave at the very least 90 minutes to two hours before performance time. What happens is that this ends up being a 5-6 hour excursion even if it's just for a one hour performance. Plus, the parking is costly. It's just not feasible time-wise during the work week especially since the bulk of the appointments come in after 5pm and at that time I'm on the road and unable to dispatch appointments to you rapidly. Hey, one day I'll have that income that affords me that pied a terre in the city where I can work during the week and scoot back to Jersey on the weekends to be with my friends The situation and Snookie down the shore.

I use to love when I worked as an agent in the city to go to all the hovels in the city that were doing theatre and screening films, taking my life in my hands. I miss it, but as always I'm there in spirit.

I will be writing another little eBook about the things talent reps REALLY don't care about and other things that actors offer other than their talent that is totally useless.

I don't post this to put anybody on blast or drop a dime. I just put it out there to give anyone who's following along a glimpse into my morbid thoughts.

Shout out to my longtime accountant STELLA! Every year, I come stumbling into your office like Stanley and you smile politely and tell me what and whose talents to build upon and what and who to vanquish.

www.soireefair.com

It's All Talk, Talk, Talk, And More Talk

So this NBC debacle with Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien is a wreck. It was a bold gamble to think that a 10pm talk show on weekdays would be a ratings draw. The deal is, we are saturated with talk shows. I personally don’t find very many talk show guests whether they be actors, athletes, authors, musicians or partridges in pear trees, fascinating, enthralling or easy on the eyes. This rumored deal for Leno is perfectly disturbing. It’s like the 15 minute “Nat King Cole Show” for white people in comparison to Conan O’Brien doing the “Tonight Show”.
I do like the “Wanda Sykes” show on Fox-TV. That’s primarily because she has vowed as executive producer and star of her show that she will not have celebrities coming on to hawk their movies, appearances and series with clips or other out of context malarkey that isn’t funny or compelling.

Oh boy, it’s a sorry state of affairs for network television when we’re hung up on whose talk show should stay or go. I miss my escapism TV shows. The soaps are getting axed and we’re forced to watch news programs, court shows and talk shows along with socially and medically informational shows that make you sick and possibly encourage you to put your husband in a headlock for working too hard trying to make a decent living. It’s preposterous what our fellow John and Joan Q. Public think are healthy habits as we slog through life.

Hey, I’m not adverse to all the dramas on TV, but Entertainment—yes with a capital “E” is gone. Most dramas are tutorials on how to outwit the system and outfox the fuzz (or so it seems).

Happy New Year—and as they said on the “Dr. Phil” show, “Don’t Do It Again In 2010.”

My Troubled Scottish Roots

It’s a terribly sickening day for me with my Scottish roots. I’m ashamed of the Gunn Scottish Crest Badge that reads Aut Pax Aut Bellum (“In Peace and War”).

However, there are Gunn ties to Norway as well, so, I’d rather at this time embrace my Norwegian roots and do wholeheartedly support a travel ban to Scotland for the next year due to the release of the convicted Lockerbie terrorist bomber and wretched hero's welcome he received.

Sponsor Liz Lewis Casting--EIF Revlon Run/Walk For Women

Entertainment Industry Foundation Revlon Run/Walk For Women—SPONSOR LIZ LEWIS CASTING

Our great colleagues at Liz Lewis Casting Partners are participating in the Revlon Run/Walk for Women this Saturday, May 2nd (2009) in NYC. Please pledge your support.

You can click on Liz Lewis Casting Partners donation page at https://www.revlonrunwalk.com/ny/secure/teamwebpage.cfm?pID=46902

Soiree Fair, Inc. wholeheartedly supports and thanks the Liz Lewis Team for their charge in helping this most worthy cause.

Hey everybody—pitch in. It’ll fill your soul.

IT'S TOO MUCH NONSENSE FOR SO LITTLE...

For the love of Pete!
As we all try to stay afloat financially, mentally and socially I still have to take to my bed on occasion for having the last ounce of patience, hope and stuffing knocked out of me.

The most recent blow to the jaw (and you can't have a glass jaw in this racket) came when an ex-client (and he had to become ex after this crap) had booked a modest paying film and after a week of production delays decided he didn’t want to do it anymore, stating he “didn’t like the way he was being treated” and decided the salary was too meager for his middle-aged responsibilities. I was vociferously informed at that point that he lived in an $8 million dollar home and didn’t NEED to do this film. This was all news to me that I frankly didn’t believe or give a rat’s behind about. He knew the salary when he accepted the booking. My theory is, is that his wife or some other influential relative chided him for putting his J. Worthington Foulfellow, actor’s life dream ahead of his good sense and he caved under deep embarrassment.

I screwed up on this guy. I should have known when he started calling me sweetheart after a couple of auditions that this was the type of guy that would go out to get a pack of cigarettes and never come back. What a dump!

This was one of the extreme cases. I can usually nip this stuff in the bud. What usually happens is that I can smell the crazy burning when actors and actresses go on a series of auditions with great feedback and no cigar and then I start getting suggestions for other types of projects they should be getting seen for that they can book. It’s always the same buck and wing dance—when someone’s getting film auditions, they want voiceovers, and when they’re getting commercials they want TV and when they’re getting theatre they want print. Count to ten and think about it folks! Fear is the greatest eradicator of ego for some, and the greatest motivator for others. In this day and age of being an actor, it’s all about what you do during your “down” time to stay focused and fresh and ready for when your number is called. So, yes, essentially you are expected to be able to do any audition you are given in just about any medium—that’s why you are a Soiree Fair, Inc. client. I stay in the hunt for clients that have the ability to work non-stop. All I need is the second coming of Scatman Crothers. Careers are made through a laborious process. Yes, it is a process…so let’s all suck it up like a ShamWow!™.

Danke Schoen, folks.

Mrs. Gunn and Mr. President--The Winners!

Just like Barack Obama’s David Plouffe, campaign manager extraordinaire, Soiree Fair, Inc. has a secret weapon. It’s my Mother and she’s very hot right now—Not Paris Hilton hot, but topical--hot.
Here’s the deal—she’s voted in every general and primary election for over 50 years. Her aunt who raised her for a bit was a Republican, so how my mother ended up being a Democrat I don’t quite know. But what I do know like so many others that when asked that burning question of their respected elders at 11:00pm eastern standard time on November 4, 2008—“Did you ever think you’d see the day that an African-American President would be elected in the USA?” Like so many other respected and learned elders, she told me “no”. My mother is a Yankee and never had an affinity for the south with the stories of its racial injustices which made her all the more skeptical in the reality of this day. The bittersweet aspect of the Obama victory is that she was forlorn because with all ecstasy there is pain, and it was all about the ones who have gone on to their glory despite never having witnessed this historical event in their earthly lifetimes. The sadness is to not having experienced it with them here and now, especially with my Dad who was a southerner.

She’d throttle me as this implies that she is like 100 years old…oh, but she has always had the knowledge and foresight of Nostradamus. She’s a wonder and every business and hothead like me needs her. She has perfect common sense. Law enforcement could use her acute insights and uncanny ability to suss out evil motives and toxic human wastes. I’m truly blessed to be able to share this remarkable time in history with her. She gives me a profound understanding of all that is complicated in life due to her experience as my mother, a wife of 46 years to a man who had perfect nerves and diplomacy. My parents were world travelers and an all-around class act couple. I always said my parents may not have always been right, but they were never wrong. What an incredible life they gave me. They instilled in me that all things are possible. That is how I live my life.
I don’t have to Google anybody or Ask Jeeves anything. All I have to do is ask Mrs. Gunn. She’s that good.