There's the easy way, and the Max Power way!

Wow, what a crazy week it's been. Unfortunately, I can't go into too many details right now about why. Suffice to say, I may soon be back on the job search. So if anyone reading this knows of openings to be a PA, writer's assistant, or development assistant let me know!

Thank god it's the weekend. Even with a short week this week, with all the chaos it felt like it was never going to end.

Luckily I did have some time this week to do some reading, relax, and have fun after work. Last night for example, it was a reunion of the old-school NBC pages as Brian, Diane, Adriana and I hit up old town in Pasadena to say farewell to Adriana before she embarks on a summer-long semester in Hong Kong. That should be a pretty interesting experience and I look forward to hearing of her adventures. But old town is seriously great, maybe my new favorite area in LA that's actually within a reasonable distance of where I live. It's brimming with shops, restaurants, and people, and has a great feel to it.

The thing is that now, as I think about the job search, I just am not even sure what direction I want to go in. I think that I, like a lot of my friends out here, although probably me more so than some others, am desperate to get into the creative end of things here in the ol' entertainment biz. But how, exactly, does one do that? Even now, armed with a much better understanding of how this business works as compared to when I first came out to CA, the path to become a writer is still not all that clear to me. I have a general vision, sure. But the people I talk to seem to be in two camps. There's the "practical camp," first of all. These are people who work in the business and have probably not done much creatively. They will tell you that the key is keep moving up the corporate ladder and getting to a position at which you can leverage your contacts into a writing job. Sounds good, but how many ACTUAL cases have you heard about where a corporate guy (I'm talking corporate for a solid chunk of years here) goes on to become a creative guy? From what I can figure, these instances are few and far between. But the "creatice camp" is not really much better. I'm referring to all these articles you read and whatnot where creative people besically offer sage advice like "keep writing," and "write every day." Typical of many creative people, their advice is often short on practicality. Yes, writing every day is a good writing habit to have. But how does that help you become an EMPLOYED TV writer? The reality is that from what I can gather it's equal parts a.) having the actual writing to back up your desire to write, b.) making the right connections (or having them due to being a priveleged, as so many in Hollywood seem to), and c.) basically managing to be at the right place at the right time.

But the roadblocks are many. You have to avoid getting sucked into a longterm corporate rut of assistant jobs. Nobody wants to become a professional assistant, but that's what happens a lot out here, so it seems. And, you have to actually do the writing, which is tough when your soul is being slowly sucked out by one of the aforementioned corporate jobs and you come home at 7 pm wanting nothing more than to collapse on your bed and watch Simpsons reruns or something.

In the last few weeks, a few former NBC Pages have gotten hired to work as assistants on some very cool shows, and I think that is a great path to getting into the creative end of things. Now if only an opportunity like that could come my way. My ideal would be to be a part of a dynamic and quality show that had a feel similar to when I was at Conan - to feel like you were a part of a team that was doing great, funny, creative, cool stuff. Man, how great would it be to work on a show like The Simpsons or Lost or Veronica Mars or 24 or Family Guy or The Office? I wish I had some connections on those shows!!!

And then there's that connections aspect. Connections are hard to come by, especially when you work in an office located in a giant, empty floor with no one else on it. And I'm sick of sitting around and not being proactive. Like on MySpace, right now, there's a contest sponsored by F/X. Submit a 5 minute digital video that presents an idea for a sitcom pilot, and within a week find out if you're a winner. I know, chances of winning probably zero. But come on. Where are all the people out there who want to make this happen. It's 5 minutes! I have plenty of ideas. I need a camera, some actors, and some people willing to spend a little time doing something fun and creative. Am I the only one not content to be sitting in an office all day staring at a computer? I thinks not!

And that's my rant for now. This next week is going to be really interesting. I may have no job, I may be running the show here. Who knows. But I think that either way, the next step is coming.