Running On Empty

Ugh. That's about the only way to describe the past working week. It has just been a roller-coaster of successes and failures - mostly failures - in the attempt to procure celebrities for the scenes to be shot today.

It started off innocently enough, with an almost casual conversation the producer had with me on Monday. He said, maybe we could try getting some celeb cameos on Saturday. I said, I could try. He tossed out names, I tossed out names. Then I got the bright idea of getting two stars newly-thrust into the spotlight because of a huge mega-event. He seemed happy. I started calling.

Their agent said cool, but her boss tossed me back to ask the permission of a certain annoying Department within the Corporation. Now, even though we (and I shudder to use the word) are within the same Entity, I have an immense hatred of that particular Department because they can be the most dense and moronic people. Of course, because of those qualities, they are also a Department that wields considerable control. Such is life.

They required me to write a synopsis and other shit like that, which I dutifully complied with. Then I sat back and waited. And waited.

In the meantime I'd secured one celeb from elsewhere. That wasn't too difficult.

On Wednesday afternoon, after much harassment from my end, they finally agreed in principle to it. Of course, this being an idiotic Organization, I was promptly bounced to the very people I'd called in the first place, the agents.

The person whom I'd been dealing with all along wasn't there, so I left plenty of desperate messages. Finally, that evening, one of her colleagues told me the celebs weren't available because they'd previously agreed to appear at a promotion for a certain Telecommunications Provider all fucking day. I was flabbergasted.

I managed to reach the person whom I'd first called early Thursday morning and proceeded to alternately bitch at/plead with her. After all, if she'd only told me that on Monday I could've looked for someone else right away, and all in all, we only needed them for an hour or so, since we could cheat the shots. After all that bullshit, it was still a no-go. I was still stuck with finding two replacements, two days before the shoot.

After some screaming and bitching and lots of suggestions from various people and phone calls to various people, one was locked down yesterday. It was made doubly difficult by the fact that the management over at the Radio side were hesitant about letting any of their fulltime DJs appear on the same show as the celeb I'd already locked down initially, because of a certain Incident involving panties earlier this year. I tried a Chinese station, but apparently all their people were out on events and shit. Over on the TV side, almost everyone under the sun was involved with rehearsals for a charity show coming up. Typical. It's always the case - it's almost impossible to get help from within, it always has to come from without. At least, that's the way it seems to work in the Corporation.

Another was on the verge of being locked down when some colleagues raised a Big Issue which I was unfamiliar with. Apparently she'd Had Problems with the Corporation before, and Things Turned Ugly, and Very Public. That was late Thursday night. I slept on it, and asked around a bit more Friday morning. The impression I got was that I was treading on a minefield with a blindfold around my eyes, and almost any step out was going to get me maimed at the very least, or scatter my body parts around half of Singapore at the worst. I decided not to step.

So now it was noon on Friday, and I was left with one more spot to fill.

Someone recommended a veteren DJ. Apparently he wasn't as restricted by Evil Corporate Politics because he was freelance. Wonderful. And he was a nice guy to boot. A trip to the radio station and a few phone calls later I had him.

I had a breather, and possibly ten cigarettes. And thought about how much I'd smoked over the past few days, and felt mildly repulsed. If I had a peptic ulcer it probably would've exploded by now.

So now it's Saturday and I'm all good on the celeb front. I should go because I have to be on set soon. I didn't have to be, but the AD has been feeling a lot of pressure lately and I should go to help ease it a little. An actor has family issues so I have to take over a bit role. And finally the kids have been giving problems lately so I think it'd be good to have someone to rein them in a little. If those aren't reasons enough to go on set despite having only four hours of sleep I don't know what would be. So yeah, long day ahead and I'm pretty much running on empty right now.

Seeya soon, if I survive.