Someone just proposed a very crazy idea to me over zoom mere moments ago and it seems like it might actually happen and I am currently spinning out over my lunch break considering how exciting this possibility is.
I cannot say WHAT it is, or WHY it is, or WHAT I’m even talking about, but in a couple weeks I will know the answer and then I can point you to a neat little “I told you so!” But in the meantime, be cool! Let’s be cool.
It’s a neat job we have. Even if we aren’t paid to do the job, it’s pretty cool to be making believe with your friends. It’s easy to take for granted the parts that are cool, and instead focus on the many parts that are a pain in the ass (and it’s a lot of the parts) but… for just these brief few moments I have in my office between the job I have and the job I was on the zoom about and the job I’m going back to after writing this (is writing this also a job?) it’s nice to get to be excited about the cool stuff!
Then I got a text, about a DIFFERENT project, with bad news.
THIS is the roller coaster.
Working in film and television (and the arts in general) is a series of peaks and valleys, with very few calm flat stretches along the way. The calmest parts are the build up, the ratcheting up and up and up where you can hear and feel the gears grinding. In this roller coaster metaphor, that is the hard work.
Then you plummet.
Depending on your tolerance for roller coasters that is either fun and the point (yay) or very scary and not so fun (boo). You go up and down, you get turned around, for a while you are somehow upside down… and then you get returned to the station, where a bunch of new victims are for some twisted reason choosing to also take the ride. You walk around the theme park for a while collecting yourself, trying to regain your equilibrium, and then, sick freak that you are, you get on another ride and do the same crazy thing over again.
This can be crazy making! Or it can be fun!
For a long portion of my career, I would get on each ride gritting my teeth, not expecting to have any fun, bracing myself for nothing to happen at all. If anything, I was getting ready for one of those Drop Towers.
The rides where they just bring you up only to then DROP YOU. Nope. Not for me. No thank you! Expecting the worse meant that I would never be disappointed when all that happened was that I fell down and felt my stomach turn and then was deposited back on Earth with a swift “ride’s over, get off.”
Not my idea of fun! But… that’s not what most rides are. So it was a little bit silly to get onto every single one white knuckling it with a pit in my stomach and my eyes half closed. Doing that as you gently rock your way through the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland is the behavior of an insane person.
Makes sense when you don’t want to be surprised, or get your hopes up only to then get disappointed. Expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed. But, you also won’t enjoy the ride very much.
So… in the past, I probably would have had these two pieces of news come to me and I would have been very calm and detached about it all. “Sure. Whatever. We will see what happens when it happens. I bet nothing.” Pragmatic, but not a very fun way to live life at a theme park.
And living in Hollywood is choosing to live at the theme park. It really is.
So, I have been HARD AT WORK changing my attitude, and trying to allow for a little more openness to enjoying the ride.
I could feel the difference getting this back to back news. It was more of a roller coaster. It was more emotionally discombobulating. But that felt fun! I’d recommend it!
I have written before about my sick, twisted (and possibly evil) life philosophy “don’t expect anything good to happen.” And I would like to correct the record here. While I think that is advice that can keep you from getting too surprised by the roller coasters, I also think it’s advice that will 100% keep you from enjoying them.
I haven’t mastered it, but it’s nice to be reminded every now and then that we’re all on a crazy ride together.
Anyway, I’ve been having a nice day, and a nice week, and also working extremely hard, and am so so tired, and just wanted to share!
What do you guys think? Is Roller Coaster Tycoon an appropriate metaphor for Hollywood? How do you handle the whiplash that is constantly happening in this industry / life? Thoughts on the best roller coasters? I’m all ears!
PS: I am aware of the PERNICIOUS ACTIONS of the WALT DISNEY CORPORATION, both in the last week in the news (let’s not talk about the news) and in general. So, do not take my Peter Pan ride metaphor or use of NONBRANDED MOUSE EARS as any sort of endorsement of their actions or policies.
In Other Hollyweird News…
I will be doing a live Q&A with Russell Hainline (screenwriter of Hot Frosty) TOMORROW, Saturday September 27 at 10AM PT / 1PM ET on instagram. You can find me here, and Russell here. Come ask any/all craft, career, and roller coaster questions. Would love to answer them.
I caught up on Slow Horses. Love the new season pilot. Love Roddy Ho. Love it.
If you are a SERIOUS theme park person and have not listened to Podcast: The Ride… you are missing out.
