The Barricades of Freedom

I am walking into the lobby of a many storied office building on Hollywood Boulevard.  The building sits along the Walk of Fame across the street from the Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the L. Ron Hubbard Center.  I alight into an elevator car, press the 8th floor button and watch the doors woosh closed.  A few seconds go by and the car does a little dance, up and down.  The doors woosh open and I step into a new lobby, the lobby of my new office, my new job.  I swore I would never do again what I am about to do, but circumstance often overrides ethical fastidiousness and I have caved under the economic pressure.

My new job is telemarketing for a business called Watch That Talent.  Watch That Talent is not an agent or a manager or a casting director or a production house.  It is a very large,very dirty office space on the 8th floor, filled with and managed by society's rejects.  As I walk into the suite my nostrils are overcome by the smell of Cheetos, Diet Coke and poor dental hygiene.  My new 'Boss' is a Hispanic man in his late 30s, straight out of the video game Vice City.  He looks like an extra on Miami Vice.  His pants are loose-fitting, pleated and dart at the ankes.  His shirt is a Hawaiian print in blue and pink.  On his neck is a tattooed serial number.  I'm fairly certain that it is not only decorative, but that it used to serve a function.  Images of Jean Val Jean from Les Miserables fill my head, and I hear the song One Day More, but this time the lyrics are in Spanish.  Una Dia Mas!

My boss, Vice City, uses words like hesitational and motivationer.  Training for this job included a sppech from Vice City in which he said, "people are like hundreds of times of more likely to sign up if you can get them over their hesitational problems and stuff.  You have to be the motivationer in the situation and stuff.  Like tell them what is real and what is totally not real.  And stuff."

I pass through the rows of cubicles and find one that suits me.  Vice City told me that it didn't matter where I sat so I take a seat near the window. It occurs to me that the phone I am about to use for the next six hours has been used by hundreds of people before me.  I am totally going to get Pink Eye.

My job description is simple: call hundreds of potential models and actors who live in Tujunga and Valencia and convince them that they should become one of my 39,000 clients this month.  For the low price of $29.95 a month, I can gaurantee people named Yuma or Shunt or Gramach that they will be submitted for auditions.  Some of our 'Clients' have actually asked for our help by sending us their "headshots".  I have included one for your amusement that needs no punchline.  The background is particularly attractive.

I am sitting next to a man with the fewest number of teeth I have ever seen on a live person.  I imagine his toothless mouth using the phone I am on, perhaps on a day when I am not here and I cringe.  I am literally on overload.  The amount of material here is so great, I am having trouble keeping focused.  I am in a nightmare that is inside the head of a child in a horror film that is being shown in a small town in Idaho.

One more day before the storm
And the barricades of freedom!