One of my all time favourite jobs was when I was an entertainment journalist years ago for a small newspaper in London. I loved going to press conferences, doing interviews and spending my nights walking along the queues outside clubs and restaurants and saying to security, "Bollybutton plus 1, I'm on the Media List." The job was a dream, but the crap money was only out-crapped by the chief editor who withheld all my bylines.
This afternoon I got to attend a press conference after years and years for the first ever world premier of a Bollywood film in London, and I got to meet one of my favourite stars. When I say meet, I mean I was within touching distance of him. Actually, he walked right past me and I could have sat on his lap in the moments before everyone else realised he was there, but I didn't. Professionalism and all that.
What struck me was just how short he is. How do they make these people look so tall in the movies? And why can press conferences never keep to the advertised time schedule? By the time they wrapped up, I was already an hour over my permitted one hour lunch break.
Tonight I was meant to go to the red carpet premier, but my co-conspirator was only able to secure one pass. So my question of what the deal is with Bollywood and curly haired girls (as in the lead is NEVER curly haired and the curly haired girl is always a home-wrecking seductress or the asexual friend) will go unanswered.
But it was a glimpse of a star and a glimpse of a really fun part of my past and that's enough for me for now. Besides, running across London, up and down tube station stairs and the adrenaline of pre-meeting-your-idol nerves and dealing with rude media types means I'm kind of deflated and my legs are killing me.
Hasn't moving to Greece cost me all that? Don't I wish I was still announcing myself on media lists and living my journalistic dream in London? No, because right now my life is exactly as it should be, and besides, where there's a will there's a way. No matter which turn I take in life, I can't let go of writing. And so I work to keep my dream alive, and up till now, it's going okay.
1 comment:
You'd be surprised what can of gigs you can gate crash here in Greece if you have enough attitude. Just walk in and look like you belong. Works for me.
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