"My life in Hollywood sucks" - July Calendar

Think your experience in Tinseltown is worse than everyone else's? Tell me how on the "My Life In Hollywood Sucks Because..." entry. Your tale of woe might just make it to the monthly calendar.

Copyright Infringement Theatre

Next time someone asks you if you're interested in an unpaid internship, consider sending this along as your counteroffer..

Ask Fake Ari Emanuel

Still not real Ari

Welcome to another edition of Ask Fake Ari Emanuel.*  Fake Ari will answer all of your questions because he's made it to the second highest level of Hollywood -- WME2.  And who knows? One of these days CAA might just hire him as a floater.  If you have any questions for Fake Ari, please send them to TempX@tempdiaries.com.

*Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.  No animals were harmed during the writing of this posting.  Please don't sue me.

ANONYMOUS READER ASKS: After graduating from college I landed a PA position on a reality show.  Like thousands of other people, I want to develop and produce television shows.  However, I've found that many people working above me don't even have college backgrounds. Is this common? And if not, am I doing something wrong by PAing on a show?

Like totally

FAKE ARI EMANUEL RESPONDS: Why do I always get stuck with questions from the newly graduated imbeciles?  Shouldn't you be Tweeting or Tweaking or Twating or whatever it is you people do?  You spent the last 16 years of your life fucking around and call it learning.  Now, after getting your diploma from some second-tier state school by the skin of your balls, you think you're worthy?  Piss off.

Oh don't look at me with those puppy dog eyes.  You know I'm a sucker for the pitiable.  Ok, just one time.  Here's the deal.  Television is like wine.  There's good wine, like the kind I drink -- Chateau Latour Pauillac 1978 ($450/bottle).  And there's shit wine, like the kind you drink -- Night Train ($3.69/bottle).  The skilled people make Latour.  The daft make Night Train.  The same goes for TV.  Only those with the capacity to understand the depth and texture The Sopranos or Mad Men work on those kind of programs.  The riffraff work on Cupcake Wars.

Make sense?  If you're good enough to work on a real show, you'll get a job on a real show.

One last tip.  You're a nobody.  Don't forget that.

Finding Nemo?
How about Finding Work?

ANONYMOUS READER ASKS: First of all, you should know how amazing your blog is. Completely kick ass. Your website has helped pave my way in Hollywood, and I am forever grateful for that.  I'm reaching out to you to inquire about work in San Francisco. I'm making my move to live out there this summer, and I'm really nervous about finding work in entertainment. Do you have any connections out there? 

FAKE ARI EMANUEL RESPONDS: First of all, I know this site is amazing.  And yes.  I know George (that's George Lucas).  And I know Steve (as in Steve Jobs).  But if you don't know them like I do, you're in trouble.  The Bay Area entertainment industry is basically George, Steve, John Lasseter and about 4,000 CGI programmers.  So unless you can code, you're fucked.  Or you could always work for...excuse me while I throw up in my mouth...Netflix.

End of 'The Streak' or is THR 9-for-9?

Alright, this is a tough one.  The Hollywood Reporter is continuing their roundtable series leading up to the Emmy nominations.  This time they're talking to comic actresses.  The question is, after eight roundtables featuring nearly 50 white people and not one minority, did they finally break the color barrier by bringing in Teri Hatcher?  You see, Teri is 1/4 Choctaw Native American and 1/4 Syrian.  So maybe that counts.  I do know that the rest -- Kaley Cuoco, Jenna Fischer, Amy Poehler, Julie Bowen and Lea Michele are excruciatingly white.

THR, if this is your best effort, you've got a lot of work to do.

Not Pictured: Eva Longoria, Mindy Kaling, Sofia Vergara

Old Habits Die Hard: Whiteness at THR

Perhaps you recall late in 2010 when I did a series documenting how few minorities The Hollywood Reporter involved in their Academy Award roundtables. It was an impressive streak in which THR did seven of these discussions involving 41 actors/producers/directors. Of these 41 people, there were a sum total of ZERO minorities.

Well, The Hollywood Reporter is at it again. This time they're doing roundtables leading up to Emmy nominations. In their most recent edition, they've gathered an impressive group of seven white comic actors -- Joel McHale, Chris Colfer, Ed O'Neill, Danny DeVito, Rob Lowe, Neil Patrick Harris and Jon Cryer -- to discuss the finer points of being funny on TV.  What THR didn't get was any minorities to contribute to the discussion.

Keep up the good work.

Not Pictured: Tracy Morgan, Aziz Ansari, LaVan Davis, Kunal Nayyar

Hollywood Dictionary: Volume 23

And now, a couple more entries into the Hollywood Dictionary. If there are terms you want defined, please send them along to TempX@tempdiaries.com...

My eyes are up here.

A-Story: If you're anything like me, when you got to the end of watching Transformers 2, you said to yourself, "What the hell was that?"  The reason you said this is the movie had no "A-story" or primary plot.  Sure it had Megan Fox running around in outfits that covered some, but not all, of her bodacious backside.  But it didn't have an A-story.  Of course it also didn't have a B-story (a secondary plot, usually a love story) or a C-story (you get the point).  No wonder Michael Bay called the film "Crap."  But I'm sure Transformers 3 will be a remarkable piece of cinematic art on par with Citizen Kane.

This is highly irregular Dave

Backdoor Pilot: Knowing the trouble Tracy Morgan recently got himself in, I'm not able to make the joke you're expecting.  So let's think if I can make a different funny out of this term ... Well ... Errr ... Oh, I know. How about? .... Wait, that's the same joke ... As you can see, there's really only one comedic opportunity here, so I might as well just answer the question.  A backdoor pilot is a Made-for-TV movie designed to test the market on a concept.  If the film does well in the ratings, the network might turn it into a series.  Because network execs are brilliant, the logic of the Backdoor Pilot always works as seen with the 2008 Knight Rider TV movie which was picked up to series (and then canceled after 17 episodes).

Summer Friday

It's Summer Friday at my job.  For those unfamiliar with this concept, here's a quick refresher.  Every Friday between Memorial Day and Labor Day, many entertainment firms work half-days (if at all) so people can enjoy a longer weekend.  This is a nice perk for anyone on salary.  But for hourly folks like myself, well we only get paid when we show up.  So I'm here today making my $103 (after taxes) and sitting around with nothing to do.

For the rest of today, I will keep you updated with the various things I'm doing to pass the time.  Check back often for updates...

• 9:30 a.m. -- I showed up on time.  Not sure why.  Boss isn't here.  Ate leftover Subway (meatball sub) and fixed a cup of cheap coffee.  
• 9:37 a.m. -- Since I had no emails to respond to and no work to do, I wandered around the office aimlessly to burn off a few calories.
• 10:01 a.m. -- Farted.
• 10:02 a.m. -- Left my desk for a minute to let the smell dissipate.
• 10:03 a.m. -- Checked my work email again.  Still nothing.  Decided to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg.
• 10:36 a.m. -- Figured out the answer to the Chicken-Egg question.  So obvious, I'm surprised no one thought of it earlier.  I'll give you a hint, you need to use Planck's Constant.
• 10:42 a.m. -- Came up with today's post idea.
• 10:58 a.m. -- Looked at the clock.  Only another 7 1/2 hours to go.
• 11:05 a.m. -- Can't believe seven minutes has gone by so quickly.  I'll never be able to recapture this time again.  Getting philosophical before noon can only lead to bad things.  What's the sound of one hand clapping?
• 11:20 a.m. -- Quick work related task.  Took two phone calls to resolve.  Probably could have done it in one call, but decided to spread it out to kill more time.
• 11:26 a.m. -- Bathroom break.  Might go to a different floor just to see if their toilets are any different than ours.  Variety is the spice of life.
• 11:30 a.m. -- Dropped the kids off at the pool.  Apparently this is a popular time to do so as two of the three stalls were occupied.
• 11:32 a.m. -- Did the double flush.
• 11:49 a.m. -- Decided to see how much of Atlas Shrugged I could type into the label maker before running out of tape or crashing the memory.  Got as far as "Pleas for dimes were so frequent in the streets these days..."  Realized that was too appropriate.
• 12:11 p.m. -- Got the green light from boss to take off early if I wanted to.  Can't decide if I want the extra $50 for staying here or not.  Being paid hourly sucks. 
• 12:16 p.m. -- Building security just left.  Time to find things to steal. 
• 12:28 p.m. -- Time to pay my internet bill.  Brushing up on my Hindi before I call. 
• 12:32 p.m. -- Whoops.  I just oprima-ed numero dos.  This could take a while.
• 12:34 p.m. -- Apparently my call is "muy importante" to AT&T.  That's nice to know.  Then why have they fucked up my bill four months in a row? 
• 12:37 p.m. -- Customer service rep is Southern.  This could get ugly.  She just said "kicks off."  Not sure what she means or how that relates to DSL in any way.
• 12:46 p.m. -- 16 minutes.  Issue resolved.  It was almost worth the $5.
• 12:58 p.m. -- To leave or not to leave.  That is the question.
• 1:07 p.m. -- Taking pix of my crotch with my cell phone.  Sending them to anyone who wants them.  Please send requests to TempX@tempdiaries.com
• 1:22 p.m. -- Decided to stay for a little longer.  Not sure why.  I probably just don't want to go home and clean my apartment. 
• 1:46 p.m. -- Lunch consists of crackers.  I need to make more money.
• 2:05 p.m. -- Apparently I drool when I sleep.
• 2:21 p.m. -- Either the building I work in has shoddy construction or my co-worker needs to lose weight.  Why do I say this?  The floor shakes when she walks by.

And then I got the go ahead to go home early...

So apparently there's this thing called Twitter...

Who to send wiener shots to?

Did you want more of Temp X?  Are my every day musings not enough to satisfy your cravings for everything unimportant in Hollywood?  Wanna know what happens during each unexciting moment of my day?  Well perhaps you should follow me on Twitter.  Here's just a sample of recent things I've been saying in 140 characters or less.

• Don't tell my boss that I'm slightly hungover. Of course, she'll figure it out because the quality of my work today is going to suck.
• If Santorum means that, I'd hate to think what a Gingrich is.
• Everyone that chose to show up has gone for the day. Summer Friday means it's me, the maintenance people and YouTube.  
• With Shaq retiring, this means that Baron Davis is now officially the most out of shape NBA player.
• Does it matter if those are Blake Lively's boobies or someone else's boobies? Boobies are boobies.
• My co-worker has at least four houses but doesn't know how to spell. Time for me to get stupid.
• I'm pretty sure my co-worker got stoned during lunch. Either that or he got attacked by a skunk.
• Ideas on writing Charlie Sheen out of 2 1/2 Men: Bored with his life, Charlie gets his PhD in physics and joins the cast of Big Bang Theory.
• Feeling a mild sense of satisfaction knowing the person I'm temping for has my site bookmarked.
• Some days I just have nothing to say.

And I promise, no pictures of my crotch...unless you ask nicely.

Celebs: They're just like us -- only better looking and dumber

If I only knew how to blink properly.

Fish, meet barrel.  I'm not quite sure how this happened, but in the 20+ postings of Celebs: They're just like us -- only better looking and dumber, I've never offered anything from the Queen of Stupid herself - Paris Hilton.  The one-time home porn actress and fading reality star with an estimated worth of $45 million (not including the family money), a $6 million home in the Hollywood Hills and a pink Bentley apparently has had a tough go of it.  She recently told Piers Morgan:

"Everything bad that can happen to a person has happened to me."

Oh really?  Have you ever temped?

"My life in Hollywood sucks" - June Calendar

Think your experience in Tinseltown is worse than everyone else's? Tell me how on the "My Life In Hollywood Sucks Because..." entry. Your tale of woe might just make it to the monthly calendar.