See – You – In – Tee – Awanna, it’s payback day

I’ve often been asked during about 30 years of working on films and t.v. shows if a certain actor (or actress, although “actor” actually covers both) is, let’s say, “difficult” to work with. I had tried to be discrete, changing the subject when possible to avoid being bitten in the ass by my own words. Now that I’ve phased out of working as a still photographer and cinematographer, I’m not too worried about being haunted by those statements. I will add without a doubt that by far, most of the talent I’ve worked with over the years have usually been great people, or at the least o.k. to deal with on a professional level.

But then, some were / are just a major pain in the ass (on a good day) or much much worse. Names (sorry about spelling errors, I choose not to honor them by looking up their correct spelling) that jump to mind, a list that should start with the worst females to be used as examples; Sarah Michelle Gellar, Debra Messing, Shannon Dougherty, Raquel Welch, and I sure wouldn’t want to forget Teri Hatcher. I really tried, but couldn’t shake those memories.

I once read that Johnny Cash and his wife June had said that they wanted to put the “Christ” back in Christmas. Well, these miserable sub humans listed above could be said to be trying to put something back in Country, if you get my drift.

Examples? Well Ms. Messing, pre-nose job and all, was a pain to deal with on a show called “Ned & Stacy” with her endless bitching. She stayed the same on a doomed production called “Prey”, she made every day something to dread. Teri Hatcher started out as quiet little “Teri-Who?” on the pilot of “Lois and Clark”, but during the first year had so much smoke blown up her (I have to admit, fine) ass by publicists, agents and managers, who told her “The name of the show is ‘Lois and Clark’, and you’re “Lois”, you’ve got top billing!”. She began to catch crew people with her eye of death, and poof, they were replaced for having the nerve to speak to her, or be in her eye line. I somehow made it through the first and second season before rubbing her the wrong way. Shannon entered the world with her face warped, perhaps the doctor who delivered the monster tried to crush her head with the forceps after sensing what a monster she was going to become? Having worked on a feature in Indiana with her when she was about 16, it became clear just how much damage a stage mother from hell could do to a kid. Sarah Michelle could never fill the shoes (or bra) of the original “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, Kristi Swanson, and having that act to follow might be why she was such a unpleasant person to deal with. Or maybe she would have been that way no matter what, who knows?

More later, this rant is wearing me out, too much crap to have to recall and deal with.

To be continued…..

Ding Dong, the (son-of-a) Bitch is dead

Jerry Falwell is now far away and blowing dust farts, and not a moment to soon as had he lived any longer, John McCain would have to change his rating from brown nose to brown ears.

My only regret on the passing of this lying sack is that he wasn’t holding hands (or taking part in a circular reach-around) with Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, Tim LaHaye, James Dobson and Donald Wildmon, and then struck by lightning.

Good by and good luck

Hey, did you hear this?

Next week I’m doing an interactive video about speeding up the process within a company. The imaginary company created to use as an example is a call center for tech advice for cameras, but it could be anything.

In real life, it most likely would be located somewhere in India, but that’s another story.

The interesting part is what I’ve learned from reading the script for this project, that while I always thought I was listening to what the other person was saying, what I was really doing was waiting for my turn to speak and seem brilliant, not actually paying much attention to the content of what was spoken.

I had learned this lesson years ago when I took a coaching course from a guy named Paul Roth at his Coaching Exchange in Westwood, CA. The Coaching Exchange’s logo is CEX, which a Russian speaking person would pronounce as SEX, but that’s a story for another day. As I learned,Paul is a true genius, a guy who for whatever reason wanted to help people at the expense of his own financial betterment. This concept was one of the best things I got out of the class, and also one of the first things I forgot about as I moved on with my life. So it goes.

What I found was that you can’t use information that is given to you if you choose not to really listen to it. You need to take in each word and the examine the context of it as it’s given to you.

Try this: The next time someone speaks to you on a subject you know nothing about, really try and see if you can come away with a new feeling about that subject, or maybe take something from the talk and use it in an unrelated area of your life. Once you do this, you may find that an answer to something that you have had on your mind for a while will appear in the conversation, and this is true even if when it’s about an unrelated subject.

You have questions, others have answers, it’s just a matter of matching them up.