Hiatus Sucks

Day three of not having a job, and it sucks. I don't know why, but unless someone's breathing down my neck I can't get anything accomplished. I have a couple music videos I'm trying to line up right now, so hopefully those will fill me with the requisite sleep robbing anxiety that makes me feel like a productive person.

Last night I did a market research testing thing for a quick 60 bucks. I was pretty worried that it would be the most soul sucking three hours of my life. Lucky for me I've worked at Red Robin, so the market research ranked fairly low on the soul suckmeter.

It's one of those things where you sit and watch a TV show and then discuss it in a small group, so that producers know what the "average man" thinks about it. Because who knows more about the delicate workings of drama than freshly divorced housewives looking to score some Franzia money?

I got the tip from Ben who's done these off and on for the last five years. Not only is Ben one of the most opinionated people I know, but he's one of those rare people who's opinion is either correct or at least well informed and backed up by logic, years of good taste and common sense. He was warning me about the small groups afterward. He said the group invariably sends him into a rage. Trying to defend your aesthetic opinion before a group of philistine strangers has got to be one of the more difficult ways to spend a Tuesday evening.

I just spoke with him this afternoon. He just got out of a research group early. They kicked him out for being so negative. He had to watch some crappy sitcom called "Three" starring James Vanderdick from Dawson's Crack (aren't I hilarious?). You're given a dial with which to rate your experience from double negative to neutral to positive. The more you like a show the higher your rate it. Ben apparently spent way much time on the negative side, and they called him out afterward. "We really value your opinion, but we already have too many negative ones so we're gonna cut you loose.: They still paid him, which is cool.

The thing is held at the Televison academy, which I'm pretty familiar with now, since our company hosted the last Local Emmys show there. The lobby was full of people. It felt like a bus station. I ruffle at the word misanthrope, but I may be one.

There's a certain aesthetic that accompanies "The Masses". In American life, it's actually pretty rare, but you know it when you feel it. In Denver, the image that comes to mind is the Taste of Colorado Festival. Just a lot of people missing teeth holding plastic cups. The obvious one is the DMV. That random cross section of just people. Mostly poor, for whatever reason. Not smelling so great. A lot of sweat pants. A fair share of tatoos and long drooping mustaches. Or riding a greyhound bus. That's more the speed of this crowd. The same people who are willing to kill an evening for 60 bucks are also the same folks that would look at a big nasty bus and think, "yeah, I'd like to ride that for the next three days."

The men who work in market research are all gay. And the women are all impatient. No exceptions. I don't know what causes the gayness except that the ad must have called for something involving people and the TV industry and bossing people around. I imagine gay people love all those things. I really think that's what hell will be like. Just gay people bossing you around. Maybe that's why it's such a sin in the bible. Not that they're bad, but the devil needs more bitches in hell to sass heathens.

Now that I think of it, the whole experience is not that unlike riding on Frontier Airlines. Demanding queens, snarling women, bad food and rancid movies. That'd be a better racket, right? Combining those two. Get 60 bucks off your plane ride to watch the latest on the UPN conveyor belt? Damn, I'm a genius.

So after 40 minutes scarfing free cold cheese pizza and trying to not feel like a total tool for playing my gameboy in public, they called us into the theatre. It sat roughly 40 people and had two large television sets flanked by giant two-way mirrors behind which I imagine sat higher paid grumbly queens and frowning frumpy chicks with clipboards.

The show began to roll, and despite my initial bad mood, it was pretty decent. It was called "Love Monkey" and starred the guy from Ed. Pretty derivitave stuff, it's about a music obsessed guy that can't grow up who works as an A&R guy for a heartless record company. In a fit of conviction he is fired for "being in it for the music" and is sent afloat to make it alone. Pretty much About a Boy meets High Fidelity meets Jerry Maguire.

Derivative? Sure, but I like those movies. At least the Hornby ones. And I'm a sucker for a show that name checks Run DMC and plays Badly Drawn Boy. The only downer was the co-starring role of Jason Priestly as the Ed guy's pal. Boring. Of course they now know my opinion, because every time Priestly was on screen, I cranked down my dial.

The show must have been good because we were given a button to push the moment that we felt like we would have changed the channel. I never pushed it once. Which is partly because the show was descent, but also because I never really sit down to watch full shows. There are the ones that Ben Tivos or that I rent on Netflix, but rarely do I just sit down and become engrossed. I imagine that most shows are okay, I just never see them.

Which is a whole other funny thing. When I called the place, they asked me how much TV I watch at night. Scanning my mind for the appropriate lie, I said, "Two hours?" That was okay with her. Then she asked me what my three favorite shows are. "The Office." I said immediately. "Uh, the American Office, I mean. I like the BBC one better, but yeah..." That was appropriate. Then I faltered and asked, "What other shows are on TV?" She gave me a list and I chose from there. "CSI Miami and Joey."

Then she asked what I did for a job. I had already been prepped on this one. I knew not to say that I work in TV, so I gave her my last job. Starbucks. You could hear her frown over the line. "That won't do." I asked why and she said that most people in LA who work in the service industry are also actors and stuff. I told her that I just quit and that I'm going back to substitute teaching. She said that was fine.

After the screening, we were broken up into groups. I was placed in a group of eleven other men, thus strenghtening the jury duty motif. Not unlike the ridiculous "training" day I had working for Starbucks, we all had little name tents to emblazon our monikers in the ever durable black marker.

The discussion group lasted maybe 20 minutes, but it felt more like 5. The discussion was led by a woman that was probably attractive 20 years ago, but now has a wrinkly upper lip with dark peach fuzz in it. He name was something very Mexican, like Yesenia or Inez, but her accent was more Wisconsin than Guadalajara.

She asked us to number how much we liked the show on a scale of 1 to 10. In the scheme of things, I probably would put it a 6 or a 7, but considering that my crummy vote may have been the dutch boy's finger in the dyke of cancellation, I chose to give it my best, a 9. Which instantly teamed with this squinty faced stoner with spikey died red hair.

The other men in the room, to give a quick test of my memory: An obviously gay older man with a black mustache. My spikey haired pal. Some hipster dude in a track jacket, possibly the only other guy there that made any sense. An orange faced mist tanner with wispy yellow hair, a double chin and bulgy eyes. A red headed guy that enthusiastically agreed with every mundane comment. Someone named "Demien" Yes, that is the proper spelling. A super horny Jewish guy who was really bent out of shape that the male characters didn't instantly bed any available female. A mexican Korn rocker with a long goatee and braids. A burnout hippy, 50plus with a scruffy beard and long hair. That's all I can remember.

The discussion quickly revealed that most everybody pretty much enjoyed the show, so the job of the moderator was to decipher why. The problem being, normal people don't know why they like a show. They simply don't know. They think they like Alias for the boobies and the spy crap, but they really like it for the betrayals, the tearing of moral fiber, the high stakes and the long term developement of the characters. It's not non-industry people's job to worry about that stuff, but it is the writer's job to see through it and hit for something human and lasting. So what happens is the woman would ask us questions like, "Would it be sexier if it was at 10 oclock and allowed to get away with more?" My answer was yes, it would be sexier, but it wouldn't be better. Network TV isn't for titties. Porn is for titties. Network TV is for bringing interesting, challenging programming to the masses.

I didn't get kicked out, or engage in any fights, but I did drop a few word bombs that fell on deaf ears. When prompted to describe the show, I said that it felt like Nick Hornby had been given a single camera comic drama.

Bad answer. The whole room looked at me like I was a freak. I imagine a bevy of queers behind the glass miming that my days as a research subject were numbered. And they were. Eventually we go through the questioning, were ushered into another room to receive our checks and out the door we went. Into the night, 60 dollars richer. Happy that we didn't have to give any bodily fluids for such easy cash. Yet.


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EYES:Salaam Bombay