New Blog Post: The Entertainment Industry – who should you trust?

Trust. Not an easy thing you say. I’ll say.

I’m working with someone right now whom I don’t trust. Only one you say?? Actually yes, just one. He’s this kind of guy who is street smart and really not the most talented guy in the world but by mishap after mishap he seems to get things done. So, we keep letting him go with it until he either gets it done 100% or we’ve given him enough rope to hang himself.

He’s a producer/director who directed what I thought was a crap film a few years ago out of the country and came across one of my client’s very good thrillers and was so enthusiastic we thought we’d give him a shot. However, I have had to walk him through every step of the process of getting a script to actors and agents, how to talk to them, etc… It’s not my place really to do all that, after all, I’m just the writer’s manager and I’m not producing the film. If I were I could edge my way in but in this case I have to watch from afar, cringe a bit, hope he doesn’t make too many mistake (he’s already ruined his relationship with Australia’s top talent manager, who is a friend of mine, and hasn’t affected me) and people see past him and to the script. But then, of course, he is the director and he has to get approved, something he doesn’t seem to understand.

He is taking for granted the fact that he is from a country that has its own film industry and much funding through it and he has a leg up as both myself and my client’s attorney don’t know every in and out of the laws there BUT, I do know people who do and it’s not like it’s Russia, the dollar is pretty much the same here and there and making a movie isn’t that different just with different funding and financiers involved. And now, a studio.  So, I have to keep a close watch on him and pray he does well by us all but when it comes to negotiating for my clients fee we might be adversaries and we won’t back down.

Anyway, the point of this besides a mildly amusing tale? In the entertainment industry you’re going to work with people who say they know what they’re doing but don’t and who make a lot of missteps along the way. The best thing to do, if at all possible is to distance yourself. After all, my only real involvement here has to be for the best interest of my client. I am not the producer and he, as producer and director can make a lot of decisions without me. So, be safe and protect your interest and your relationships.

If you are working without representation, and someone has optioned your script or expressed interest, here’s what I suggest and I suggest it strongly. Make sure you have someone else involved. A lawyer, manager or agent. If you’re at the point where someone has seen your script and they are interested, then you must know someone and you need to ask that someone if they will be your rep on this and make sure things don’t fall through the cracks.

No doubt, if my client didn’t have me and his attorney this producer would be screwing him. Hard. Now, another thing to remember is that people may or may not be trustworthy, or maybe they’re just out for themselves and that’s the basic end of it – they don’t like it when someone who does know what they’re doing comes along. They like dealing straight with the writer because, in theory writers know nothing but writing and can’t represent themselves properly. Whether this is true or not, it’s important that there is someone on your side. Ask me if you need it, but make sure someone is sticking up for you.

Even when I’m sticking up for someone, as you can see, there are untrustworthy folk who find their way through. Some of them know what they’re doing, some don’t but it will help get you what you’re worth and make sure you know when to get involved and when to feed them more rope.

If you have worked this hard on a project; a screenplay, a pilot, something from your heart and soul, as exciting as the notion may be, do not give it away to someone who says they can get it made. This seems like an obvious statement but you’d be surprised how many people are just willing to do that on a wing and a prayer. Movies and TV are show BUSINESS and you need to approach them as such.

Again, if people need help, advice, please ask. I do not promise representation, but for a certain situation we can arrange a deal so you’re protected and you have a chance to have someone, a producer who believes in you and your project, whether they be good or just self-serving, help make your dreams come true.

Most good deeds go unnoticed (a Spice Girl and me)

“The road to misery is paved with reasonable expectations” – with lyrics

I was going through a box of mementos, when I came across this – this was a place setting for Geri Halliwell’s baby shower for her daughter Bluebell, which I threw in her honor before she left Los Angeles to return to London to give birth. It brought up some good mixed memories of that time.

The flowers were from the stunning Mark’s Garden www.marksgarden.com, the food was prepared by the brilliant and talented Kim Bowen (marvelous cook & stylist extraordinaire).

I had to break into Geri’s house that morning because she was at a doctor’s appointment and had forgotten to leave me the key so I could prepare the house (the whole estate has now been turned into a drug rehab). I must have run up and down the hill from the bottom of the drive to the top lining it with flowers and balloons five times. The cake was superb, we got the china and table rentals back on time minus one spoon and despite the silly party games, everyone had a great time. (“Never give up on the good times, livin’ it up is a state of mind!”)

Geri was slightly overwhelmed by the whole scenario and halfway through the party I found her upstairs in her bedroom packing up as she had to leave on a flight the next morning. (“There’s always tomorrow.”) She gave me a huge jar of Nivea, which was the basis of her facial beauty regime. I still haven’t finished it. Oh, she never thanked me or Kim.

I went to visit Geri in London a few weeks before she gave birth and helped her with some last minute preparations and just hung out and kept her company. (“Sparkle in the rain. Told me she needed a friend. If she’s going crazy, baby’s on the way”) Then I read about the blessed event in The Sun newspaper. I sent her a baby basket and later on, food from Villandry http://www.villandry.com/ on Great Portland Street near where she was staying.

When she got the food she called me and thanked me profusely – it’s always the best gift for a new Mum. I asked her about the birth and she cut me off saying “Read it about in Hello! Magazine. It’s out tomorrow.”

I did read about it and I did, at her behest come to London again two months later to stay with her and Bluebell. I slept on the couch, rocked Blue to sleep, let Geri get some rest and we saw “Superman”. We discussed how he was a metaphor for Jesus. In the TV room were several pictures taken at the second baby shower she was given, by her friend Kenny Goss, which George Michael attended.(“Do you think he’s cool and sexy?”) Lots of photos of those on the wall, none of ours. True, we didn’t have a pop star in attendance (well, I guess we did…Geri), just good friends wishing her the very very best from Los Angeles.

Later, that Christmas, I was invited again and she gave me a lovely framed photo of me and Blue, who then was unrecognizable as the gorgeous clever curly-haired girl she is today. I helped her unpack her new house, we talked about her career, we went shopping, should have been fun…Oh, did I mention that halfway through this visit she stopped speaking to me without explanation? (“Too much of nothing is just as tough”)

When I got pregnant a few months later I started to ask her some questions and she said she preferred I ask someone else. (“I won’t be hasty, give you a try. If you really bug me then I’ll say goodbye!”)

Bitter? Sure, on occasion, but more sad for her and angry at myself (“Giving is good, as long as you’re getting!”). However, in the end I don’t regret being of service to her and helping her out emotionally, physically with all the love a friend would give another (“Look for the rainbow in every storm?”). I guess I could get into all that and more, but instead I’ll just say..um…..GIRL POWER!?

Codependence and Anxiety – how to get help

I can think of someone who could easily apply the above cartoon to me.  Probably more than one, but one for sure. What a palaver!

It’s anonymous but I can out myself – I have been in a twelve step program for over 12 years. Not AA or NA, or OA or GA or SA or DA or SLAA (alcohol, narcotics, overeaters, gamblers, smokers, debtors, or sex/love). I have been in a program for friends and families of alcoholics, Al-Anon. You could also describe it as being co-dependent, overly enmeshed in someone else’s life to the detriment of your own. All you really need is to be overly obsessed with someone else’s behavior so that living your own life becomes unmanageable.

I went into therapy because I had general anxiety. I couldn’t pinpoint where it came from but I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop – I would wake up to the vulture at the end of the bed. I was really unhappy because I was, well, anxious all the time. I must begin by saying that not everyone with anxiety has an addict in their lives but Al-Anon can help regardless. Also, often when people start to think about those around them or whom they grew up with they find the addict and their anxiety can be traced back.

I found Al-Anon many years ago while in therapy. My therapist asked if I’d ever been abused. I said no, but he said I acted as if I had been. He suggested I go to Al-Anon. Often children of alcoholics have been abused, if not physically than emotionally and psychologically. Never knowing if it was going to be good mommy or daddy or bad one, walking on eggshells, having to clean up after their parent and assume adult responsibilities. Afraid a lot of the time. The same is true of siblings, spouses, business associates and friends. People in our lives whom we love or whom we are heavily involved with whose lives are out of control because of drugs or alcohol or any addiction really, have an effect on us and how we live our lives, the decisions we make and the relationships we have.

I realized that I did have some bad behavior in my family. My sister was a rage-aholic, slamming doors and screaming since I was very young and disrupting the whole family.   My parents drank a little too much, not that I’d label either of them as alcoholic, but certainly what they did was numbing something, and making them inaccessible to me. I craved approval, never knowing where the love was going to come from and therefore knocking on the wrong doors looking for it. A pattern of course, we go to what is familiar. In Al-Anon we call it “going to the hardware store for milk” eg; going somewhere where you can’t get what you need.  It isn’t there so why are we in the hardware store? Why? Because, as they say, there is a sale on milk 2x a year, meaning sometimes you get what you want from one of these addicts so you think it’s going to happen again and you set yourself up for a fall every time. Go to the hardware store for hammer and nails. The milk is in aisle 5 in the grocery store.

I would have likely killed myself without Al-Anon and the fellowship I received there. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I was plenty unhappy much of my early adulthood. I couldn’t have proper relationships, I was picking the wrong people in every aspect of life and I did feel abused, in fact I was allowing myself to be abused. Setting it up, which is all a part of the disease. I was knocking on closed doors, as addicts can only give a little bit, and are too selfish (but charming as hell) to care otherwise, even in sobriety (a broad generalization but we call this a dry drunk, no longer drinking but still acting like an active drinker) and so I was lonely as all heck.

I’ve spent a great deal of time in my professional life working with addicts, Addicts are often very creative and successful. The creativity is a cause and effect of the disease, whatever it may be. I don’t need to tell you the hundreds of actors and actresses, singers, musicians, etc.., who are addicts. The list is long and illustrious. Often as well, addicts are bi-polar so their creativity can flow and they don’t want it to stop so they don’t get help for the depression and thrive on the mania.

I gave my whole life over to take care of someone who was an addict. It was my fault, my old problems and I needed help. I got it thankfully but it was a struggle and took years for us to extricate ourselves from one another. Indeed, I was so fully enmeshed in their life that we would often say we didn’t know how we could live without one another (and this was a completely non-sexual, non-romantic relationship). It was the epitome of an addict/al-anon dynamic. One person needs to be taken care of, needs to be guided, and propped up, and the other craves doing it until they become so bitter and resentful at not getting anything in return that they blow up. Who’s problem is this? Mine. I could have left at any time. It was complicated. It always is.  But seriously, let it begin with me. No pining this on anyone else.

Addicts are inconsistent even in sobriety, even with recovery through 12 Step or another program (though honestly, I don’t think sobriety can be held without practicing 12 step every day). But it’s not a thing you do once in a while, it has to be every day. It’s a huge commitment and millions round the world have made it work for them, but it’s hard, especially when the diseases you have within would prefer to run rampant.

I interfered, I gave everything I had, physically, emotionally, psychologically. I let my mother die while I was too busy with the addict’s troubles to pay close enough attention, I walked behind the addict, was a doormat for the addict, sold my intelligence and pride for the addict and I felt completely comfortable doing all this until it made me so ill I wanted to die.

So I got help, I had to work it so hard I could almost do nothing else. There were terrible blow-ups and then reconcilliations, great understandings of one another, we were family, long-lost sisters and then…. horrible betrayals. Addicts are untrustworthy. They’d sell you down the river for a bottle of booze, right? Well, an Al-Anon is about as manipulative as they come. We will do everything to convince the addict we’re needed and it’s not hard to convince them; the addict can hardy take care of themselves even in recovery unless it’s been a long time and solid recovery. Al-Anon’s want to be loved just as WE need to be, not as an addict is able to. So, onwards goes the plan to change the addict into the person who will love us, make us feel how we need to feel – worthwhile. A pretty silly and destructive idea, right? We look for ways to fix, ways to solve problems, ways to make the addict look to us before and above everything else. We become indispensable and, of course, the erratic addict is never consistent, never on time or polite or stable, there is always something that breaks and make things so awful and terrible and self-involved (for that is the crux of addiction) that it cannot continue and everything falls apart in a terrible way. I suppose ‘never’ is incorrect, it’s just you don’t know from one time to the other that kind of behavior you’re going to get, so honestly, that counts as never to me.

I cannot get into details for private reasons. I have had several addicts around me, my family, some friends, even those in recovery, who have been on a very slippery slope that I had to extricate myself from to remain sane. The biggest exhibition of my disease came from someone whom I completely lost myself to when I became co-worker, friend, confidante, saviour, sister, mother, everything. I could not find myself inside that list but why find myself when I could gain the slightest bit of self-esteem when I had done something to help the addict? Problem is, the erratic nature of the addict would have me on a pedestal and then suddenly out of the blue my calls wouldn’t get returned for weeks. I was the enemy, I knew too much, had seen them at their worst, saw the vulnerability, saw the humanity. It was pain like nothing I’ve known, co-dependence -  and it took a good 8-10 years to extricate myself fully.

I still slip here and there but essentially I have detached enough (with love) that I am no longer affected by the addicts in my life and whatever it is they do that is going to fuck up whatever opportunity they have, the lies they tell, the way they treat people. I no longer have to clean up their messes and worry half the night if they’re going to make it til morning. I have a child and I worry about him in normal and healthy ways. I take care of myself. I don’t let any relationships overshadow those two things. I care, I help, I am there for you but not over me. Not before my family and my needs.

With the addict I became gaunt and weary. I was in constant anxiety and fear. I was afraid for them and myself. I was unwanted, but needed, I was unloved but cherished and I was alone but constantly with them until I was thrown to the curb only to be asked back the next day. I walked the mountain for the addicts in my life and I was proud at the time. There was nothing wrong with being kind and loving to someone who craved and needed it from a fellow human being but not at the expense of my own dignity, not by being yelled at and used, not by putting my own mental health in danger. My disease of co-dependency changed my life immensely when I got help and worked the 12 Steps. I got back on my feet and today, recovery is a constant state of being in my body and soul.

I am open to hearing from anyone who is suffering within themselves because of an addict in their life. Addicts are not necessarily bad people. They have a disease and they can get help for it but they need to want it more than anything else in he world. It has to be the most important thing on their list and you cannot make it so. They have to show up for themselves, you cannot do it for them. But, you can do it for yourself and it doesn’t mean you have to leave the addict – it may mean you should, but there are many paths to take. I am happy to say I have guided several down the path to emotional sobriety. If anyone wants a hand you know where to find me – @tryingtrue

Twitter: @AlAnon_WSO          www.al-anon.alateen.org                  www.al-anonuk.org.uk

How to not lose yourself – Part 1

I spent a good deal of my life knocking on doors that were shut in my face until they opened just enough so I could become indispensable and try to fix whatever situation was going on. It was a great way to distance myself from my own problems and put the focus on someone else. We tend to have romantic notions of people, especially needy ones – and of ourselves, as saviours – as someone who will be adored and loved if we fix the un-fixable. Well, only the person needing to be fixed can fix themselves. It’s the hard fast truth. I am a firm believer in helping, offering suggestions when asked and of being of service but if the door doesn’t open for me, I now move along.

This is by far NOT giving up but taking care of yourself. People who need fixing do often bring a lot of drama and bullshit. How can things have gotten so bad that you need to fixed and more so you need someone else to do it. If someone cannot take care of themselves, someone  and reasonably intelligent and competent, then they are using people and besmritching their own responsibilities in life

If learned a very hard way to stop helping, well saving (or trying to). Firstly, though they think they do, people don’t actually like being helped after a while. After the help is done, and you’re still there, they want you gone because you have seen their weaknesses and they are uncomfortable. Of course there are people who accept help willingly but those who need fixing often have a tool box of options and the first tool out of the box says it’s an inside job. Talking it out, needing a friend – all good things but don’t forget yourself in the process.

If you are a caretaker in nature, as I am, and are fulfilled by doing something, start with looking within and find what you need to fix in yourself or someone in a hospital or old folks home or children’s hospital where well, you cannot fix, but you can sure help someone, and someone who’s really in need.

Make suggestions, but do not take action without approval for then you cannot be blamed for sticking your nose in where you weren’t (but you were! ) wanted. Make sure you get thanks. If you don’t get thanks, finish up and move on. I wish I had. And do remember this first and foremost, all the time and energy you put into fixing someone else only works if 1) they want to be fixed 2) they listen to your suggestions and implement them 3) you do not lose yourself in the process. Do not spend time fixing someone if you are missing work, you are losing money, you are losing too much sleep or you are becoming too stressed and unhappy. YOU ARE NOT THEIR SOLUTION. They are. If you are not there, they will find someone else. That sounds harsh but it’s true. We are all dispensable in people’s lives, especially people you need this much help – you are not a professional and maybe that’s what they need.

I lost myself for several years. I don’t blame anyone but myself. I tried to fix something but that person is still broken. I thought I was the answer to all their problems but they still have problems. Give love and care, let them know you’re there but stay strong and don’t be a doormat. Saying ‘no’ is often more than enough to get someone to open that tool box and take the steps they need to get well.