And aye I’m in North London. I don’t need to think outside my face. I’ve got a huge great big mess of a pussycat. I’m literally watching where he shits.
I know this cat very well. You know him too, oh best beloved. We took this cat in when things were crazy, back the autumn before last.
A film producer had booked some people I love who make events. She had gone on to make them feel inadequate by playing status games. Rather than resist, my friend had totally bought into the status games and by the time I got onto the job they were already popping out. They had brought a close friend of mine into it and all three of them inexplicably ganged up on me. I let them do it when perhaps I should have held my ground. I wanted things to go as well as possible, but they absolutely treated me like shit and in retrospect I should have made it clear to them they were disrespectful and largely, wrongheaded. Even my friend bought into a horrible shared narrative against me. Of course they’ve left events now, that shit never tracks. I think my friend had inadvertently inherited the idea that events have heirarchy. You know the “I’m in charge” vocal tricks? They were doing them. All of them while talking to me. Bizarre.
It was tricky as I could see they were being manipulated by a producer who worked out they weren’t specialists and held every error against them. They responded by making everything shit for everyone, needlessly throwing their weight around because they’d been found out, going AWAY from trust instead of towards it. They had allies in the room, they alienated them. They couldn’t just go “yeah, we make events. that’s like a film set. What do you need?” The producer gave them too much fear of the unknown. They reacted largely by attacking people down the notional chain which worked out as me. It was supposed to be my “area of expertise” as far as they were concerned. I think that’s how they justified it. She was a Hollywood producer so to her mind all actors are shitmushrooms.
So they pitched cluelessly, gave me a vague job and then when they didn’t know the extent of what they had to do they outsourced their blame to me. I blogged some of it here. Was trying to be discreet. I don’t think they ever read it. If they did then it makes it even more egregious I was treated like I was treated and it was fucked. So many people in the crew saw it. I let myself be the whipping boy. Never got thanked for taking it for the team.
Boy moved in with me briefly during that job. I picked him up just before I went to Aberdeen and left him with Frank. I was treated like shit for the whole job and then the same people took a huge fee out of me and from the person who introduced me to them for every day I was at Paris Olympics even though it was nothing to do with them. I worked with people who did fuck all and were being paid twice as much as me on that job. It’s the wrong way round, they didn’t introduce me to kes. Sure they employed me in Aberdeen but they were absolute fuckers to me to disguise their own insecurity.
John I love. That’s the only reason I’ve never kicked off formally for the thousands they have taken in finders fee when kes is the one who found me. But… thinking about that job, some time ago – the wrong people were on it live. That’s all. Back end tried to come to live event. It doesn’t work. I’m kinda glad my friend has gone back to photography as for her own sanity and that of the live crew, events basically… didn’t suit them.
I’ve had a couple of people ask for someone and I’ve given them Ffion like a shot cos well, cos Ffion is excellent but also cos no massive howling insecurity. There’s no room for that shit in events. Events can carry a wide angle of people but bring in hierarchy or self importance and you’re basically just fucked. I’m sure they’ve learnt that now. But I suspect it was a hard lesson.
AlBarclay 