Daylight Nil
So Lazy
Signed a two-month blogging deal with DC Style; every Wednesday at 4:00, a couple-hundred word missive from me will be posted on their (ever-growing) site, to likely be met with thundering silence. Joke. Hopefully. In any case, a bit rushed to type the hyperlink to it (so far have done three), but they're up. Also, links abound to my City Paper piece of three weeks ago, the newest OnTap issue, and my Washington Post piece last Sunday. More deals developing. Have heard nothing about the book. Argh. Argh. Argh. Meanwhile, the day-job (ha!) plans on shipping me to...Nova Scotia sometime in the coming weeks. A lovely warm place with lots of sunli...wait, what's that you say? Oh crap.
The week in weirdness
So last Tuesday I go to a press screening of ‘The Fountain,’ and afterwards Darren Aronofsky answers questions from a few of us ink-stained wretches in the basement of the Four Seasons Hotel. He’s a month away from releasing a film that’s taken up six years of his life, gone through two cast changes, and been booed by part of the audience at the Venice Film Festival; in other words, he’s not taking any shit. He half-jokingly refers to another reporter as a bitch; and when I inadvertently keep up my steak of pissing off celebrities I interview by asking him about the reaction at Venice, he gets downright combative:
“Half the audience booed, but half of them cheered; but the lady from Variety didn’t report that part, and here you are asking your question.”
(I paraphrase that, not having my sound file of the interview handy.)
The issue is, while I wrote about Aronofsky for OnTap, I haven’t been able to sell a second article – written on spec – to anybody else. This is because everybody wants a piece of him at the moment; everyone from Wired to Stop Smiling had set up their arrangements with him halfway through the summer. But it imparts a valuable lesson about freelancing: get there first, get there fast, and hold your territory.
The words ‘hold your territory’ come to me again during the 1st Annual Usual Food and Wine Festival, held at a house off Dupont Circle. This is after I’ve consumed a fair portion of fried calf testicles, ostrich meat, and tripe (everything tastes vaguely like chicken or beef - strip the labels from the plates and you'd be able to serve it anywhere); I’m leaning against a pillar, jotting notes in my pad (this is for DC Style, but I'm also trying to pitch a longer version to CHOW) when a blonde woman my age with heavy jewelry and an expensive suit walks up and says,
“Look at you, taking notes. What are you, some kind of dork?”
I look up. She’s not smiling. She means it. Beside her, in a moderately expensive outfit, stands a blank piece of meat I assume is her boyfriend.
“I’m sorry?” I say.
She stares, still not smiling, and sniffs.
“I’m covering this for a magazine,” I say, considering my options:
A.) Let this slide.
B.) ‘Accidentally’ spill my glass of Greek wine on her pricey heels.
C.) Sucker-punch her boyfriend in the face.
But while the idea of this woman realizing her error every time she looks at her boy-toy’s broken teeth has a perverse appeal, I don’t want to be ejected before I’ve interviewed enough chefs about their philosophy involving the deep-frying of calf balls. Which I do. And then I leave, and head home, and watch ‘Lost’ while typing up everything, including this blog. Hours from now I’ll go to sleep.
Because it could be worse.
Jumping back in space-time for a moment to yesterday: the drag-queen race down 17th St., an annual event that attracts hundreds of people to watch men wearing tights and Hillary Clinton outfits sprint in five-inch heels for five blocks. At one point, standing on a stoop above the crowd, I see a police car roar past with a severely burly man in a skirt lying on the back bumper, flailing his legs; the cop inside howls something vaguely panicked or threatening over the in-car megaphone. You could always be that cop. Forced to do something you probably hate.
Signed a two-month blogging deal with DC Style; every Wednesday at 4:00, a couple-hundred word missive from me will be posted on their (ever-growing) site, to likely be met with thundering silence. Joke. Hopefully. In any case, a bit rushed to type the hyperlink to it (so far have done three), but they're up. Also, links abound to my City Paper piece of three weeks ago, the newest OnTap issue, and my Washington Post piece last Sunday. More deals developing. Have heard nothing about the book. Argh. Argh. Argh. Meanwhile, the day-job (ha!) plans on shipping me to...Nova Scotia sometime in the coming weeks. A lovely warm place with lots of sunli...wait, what's that you say? Oh crap.
The week in weirdness
So last Tuesday I go to a press screening of ‘The Fountain,’ and afterwards Darren Aronofsky answers questions from a few of us ink-stained wretches in the basement of the Four Seasons Hotel. He’s a month away from releasing a film that’s taken up six years of his life, gone through two cast changes, and been booed by part of the audience at the Venice Film Festival; in other words, he’s not taking any shit. He half-jokingly refers to another reporter as a bitch; and when I inadvertently keep up my steak of pissing off celebrities I interview by asking him about the reaction at Venice, he gets downright combative:
“Half the audience booed, but half of them cheered; but the lady from Variety didn’t report that part, and here you are asking your question.”
(I paraphrase that, not having my sound file of the interview handy.)
The issue is, while I wrote about Aronofsky for OnTap, I haven’t been able to sell a second article – written on spec – to anybody else. This is because everybody wants a piece of him at the moment; everyone from Wired to Stop Smiling had set up their arrangements with him halfway through the summer. But it imparts a valuable lesson about freelancing: get there first, get there fast, and hold your territory.
The words ‘hold your territory’ come to me again during the 1st Annual Usual Food and Wine Festival, held at a house off Dupont Circle. This is after I’ve consumed a fair portion of fried calf testicles, ostrich meat, and tripe (everything tastes vaguely like chicken or beef - strip the labels from the plates and you'd be able to serve it anywhere); I’m leaning against a pillar, jotting notes in my pad (this is for DC Style, but I'm also trying to pitch a longer version to CHOW) when a blonde woman my age with heavy jewelry and an expensive suit walks up and says,
“Look at you, taking notes. What are you, some kind of dork?”
I look up. She’s not smiling. She means it. Beside her, in a moderately expensive outfit, stands a blank piece of meat I assume is her boyfriend.
“I’m sorry?” I say.
She stares, still not smiling, and sniffs.
“I’m covering this for a magazine,” I say, considering my options:
A.) Let this slide.
B.) ‘Accidentally’ spill my glass of Greek wine on her pricey heels.
C.) Sucker-punch her boyfriend in the face.
But while the idea of this woman realizing her error every time she looks at her boy-toy’s broken teeth has a perverse appeal, I don’t want to be ejected before I’ve interviewed enough chefs about their philosophy involving the deep-frying of calf balls. Which I do. And then I leave, and head home, and watch ‘Lost’ while typing up everything, including this blog. Hours from now I’ll go to sleep.
Because it could be worse.
Jumping back in space-time for a moment to yesterday: the drag-queen race down 17th St., an annual event that attracts hundreds of people to watch men wearing tights and Hillary Clinton outfits sprint in five-inch heels for five blocks. At one point, standing on a stoop above the crowd, I see a police car roar past with a severely burly man in a skirt lying on the back bumper, flailing his legs; the cop inside howls something vaguely panicked or threatening over the in-car megaphone. You could always be that cop. Forced to do something you probably hate.
posted by NiK @ 5:18 PM
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