tigertail in new york

There are some things that are just standard in America - things that if you've lived here all your life seem normal and usual, and if you haven't, they take a little getting used to.

Toilets are designed in a way that makes them susceptible to easy clogging. This means that every toilet has a plunger next to it to be used in such circumstances. Now, given that back home a plunger is something you make coffee with (that's a french press to Americans) this is already strange enough, but it begs the question - why not just design them better so they don't clog as much?

When you buy a sandwich in a deli, it almost always comes with mayo, chips and a pickle on the side. This is fine with me - I like the chips and the pickle, and mayo's not so bad either. But back home we use butter, and I never had it on my sandwiches, so now I feel I'm getting just a little bit extra fat I don't need with every sandwich. But the question is: Who decided that chips and a pickle were the way to go?

"Regular Coffee" if ordered in a diner usually means with milk and sugar, and it's always drip filter coffee, which really does nothing for me. If you want to order any kind of espresso, you need to have a special long code at the Starbucks, or find a cafe where they serve proper espresso. My current order at Starbucks (embarrassingly enough) is either a double tall skim cinnamon dolce latte no whip or a double tall skim latte. I've heard orders that take longer to say than the coffee does to drink.

If you work in an office - regular or production, instead of going out to get lunch, a lot of people will order in. This means you have menus from local restaurants, and once you phone in your order, a delivery person will rock up with the food about half an hour later, for which he or she gets a tip. So when you are walking around the city at lunchtimes, you'll see all these people on bikes delivering food to offices. No harm, no foul (as people like to say here) but are you really that busy that you don't want to walk away from your desk and get some fresh air, even for 10 or 15 minutes while you buy lunch?



Picture Credit: Mark Kostabi, American Standards, 1988

Posted by Ness at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments

These are a few gems from my life in film the last month or so:

Director: I don't give a damn about [insert name of famous rapper/actor here] - I'm down with 5-0!!
talking to police assisting with shoot, followed by uncomfortable embarrassed silence by other film crew and police

Film Crew 1: I'm a huge supporter of [insert name of right-wing media organisation here]
Film Crew 2: Yeah, we're all right-wingers here - I'm a card carrying member of the NRA and everything!
talking to security guard outside aforementioned right-wing media organisation where we were filming, who then left us alone to film in peace.

A.D. to film crew: Action, vegetable!
Yes, our talent were vegetables

Police officer to me: You're probably the most well-protected woman in New York right now.
Yes I was! Having lunch with 7 police officers assisting with the shoot

Posted by Ness at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments

You Are Confident Sexy

You're one sexy chica, and you know it. You've got the confidence to strut your stuff... And approach any man who happens to catch your eye. You may make a guys run away, but the true men will appreciate your moxie.

Posted by Ness at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments

Apologies to those who thought I'd died and not had the foresight to tell them.. I've been in film-land, that magical place where you work long-arse days (16+ hours), get very little sleep (averaging 3-4 hours a night), have no food in the fridge (unless you count vitamin water, red bull, a jar of branston pickle, jalapeno slices and some sweet thai chilli sauce), have no social life, and don't get to respond to emails or texts unless they specifically relate to the project you're currently working on.

I actually got a text from a friend here that simply read have you disappeared? I had to reassure him that I hadn't been kidnapped by aliens. Other friends who knew the deal sent me encouraging "we're thinking about you texts" which helped keep me sane when things were totally otherwise on set.

So if you were wondering where the hell I was, the answer is something like:
Production Office / Queens / Brooklyn / Manhattan / coming home and collapsing and getting up in the morning and doing it all again.

Of course it's more complex than that, but the internet is a very big place and you never know who may drop by via a well chosen word in a google search, and I'm not the most anonymous of bloggers, so no juicy salacious info from me - sorry!!

However, some personal highlights include:
*learning my way around some obscure parts of the city to the point where I may even know them better than my own hood
*networking / negotiating / dealing with people and reminding myself I'm really good at it and have heaps of experience in this area, and haven't used it professionally for a while
*negotiating the ups and downs of film permitting in NYC and coming out the other side with a much better understanding of how it all works for next time
* becoming a new york driver in 1.5 hours while having to suddenly move 6 vehicles and personally re-park a 4 wheel drive / SUV in downtown Brooklyn in the middle of a week day
*remembering that I'm really good at training people and helping them get the best out of their experiences so they'll do an even better job next time (as long as they have initiative - without that, as Flava Flav says I can't do nothin' for ya man)
*pulling off a few coups that people didn't think were possible and getting praise for them and for the job I was doing from a whole bunch of different people.
*working with a great crew of people, and making some good friends and great contacts for the future.

Have lots more to write about (like how excited I am that my friends Tom & Ish are here!), but this will have to do for now... another 5am start tomorrow...

Hasta la proxima,

Ness xxx

Posted by Ness at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments