"No Foolin!"

New York City. Winter, 1987.

I’d arrived from New Zealand a couple of weeks before and was crashing on my friend Andrew’s couch. It was a nice couch and life was a whirlwind of fun in the big city, but…

Things weren’t going too well, financially speaking.

I was broke. Every day I went out looking for work as an animator, but there was none to be found. 

So to make ends meet I applied for a job at Empire Messenger Service as, what else? A messenger. 

No experience needed, read the flyer taped to a lamppost on 8th Ave.

That’s good, because that’s just what I had. 

The head office for Empire Messenger Service resided in the basement of the Empire State Building, so it was pretty easy to find. After filling out a brief but surprisingly invasive questionnaire, I sat on a wooden bench with many others in the overheated room and awaited my turn for an interview.

It was good to sit down. I was tired. The night before some idiot (me) had borrowed enough money from somewhere for a couple of eight-balls and we’d been all over town, drinking frozen margaritas and jabbering like lunatic monkeys until dawn. 

Tired as I was, I fell asleep.

“YOU! Next!”

Someone elbowed me awake and said it’s your turn, so I rose and walked towards the manager’s office. 

I stepped through the open doorway into the tiny office and stood where I was, facing a middle-aged, balding man who sat behind a cluttered desk. 

‘Vinny’ read the plastic nameplate in front of him.

“Where’d you get the suntan, buddy?” he asked. 

He was suspicious from the start. 

“Suntan?” I answered. “What suntan, mate? I’ve been freezing my bloody ass off since I landed in this godforsaken shit-hole you freakin blankety yanks call the Big bleedin Apple!”

My sudden rant surprised even me. I didn’t mean to answer that way, it just popped out of my mouth! 

I really wanted a job. I needed a job. I should have simply explained how I got my suntan… that I’d recently arrived from a land down under where summer was winter and winter was summer. 

But no, not me. I was half asleep and I let loose!

(I’m never at my best when I first wake up. I’ll bet some of you… are like that too, sometimes.) 

But it was also something else, this letting loose of sour apples and freezing shit-holes into the face of Vinny the hiring manager. 

Something deeper. More personal. It was frustration! I was an out of work artist down on his luck… looking for a job every day up and down New York City… and getting nothing but rejection! 

Oh sure, they liked my work, those that looked at it, but they couldn’t use me at present. Animation? Not much call for that! Maybe in the future. Leave your name with the girl at the front desk… and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out! 

Hear me, Struggling Artist! You had better love your art, and love it madly, passionately, even desperately, because sometimes it’ll feel like that’s all you’ve got.

“You’re not from around here, huh?” asked Vinny. “You speak English? That was English, wasn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” I answered, calming down, waking up. “That was English.”

“Ya got a funny accent. You a Limey?”

“No,” I answered, “I’m a Kiwi.” I explained where I was from. 

He glanced at my questionnaire on his desk.

“It says here you’re an artist?”

“Yes,” I replied proudly, “I am.”

“Well,” he said magnanimously, “I think we can overlook that.” Then he asked simply, “Healthy?”

“Healthy,” I affirmed. Sure, I was healthy as an ox… and twice as smart, too, or would be later when my hangover was gone. 

To be continued...

“If I Hear of Anything, I’ll Let You Know.”

NYC 1987

“If I Hear of Anything, I’ll Let You Know.” 

We’d flown in from New Zealand and were sleeping on the floor of Andrew’s apartment on Seventh Avenue.

From there to begin our new life in America! 

But our money was going fast.

Of course, being artists, we didn’t have much to begin with. 

It didn’t last long in the city. We spent it like fools, of course, seeing the sights and having fun. Andrew knew some interesting people so every night it was something new! 

After only twelve days, we had spent about half of what we could spare. Arithmetic was never my strong suit, being as I said an artist, but at this rate I figured we’d be broke by next Tuesday afternoon, any way you added it up. 

So, with reluctance because it had been a great holiday, I realized it was time for me to start looking for a job. 

In a bookstore on 64th Street that specialized in the theater I found a volume listing New York City theater arts producers, film and TV companies, advertising agencies, and the like. It was a massive tome, ridiculously expensive, exhaustive in its listings, covering every conceivable kind of show business enterprise. 

Even wig cleaners and piano tuners were listed.

I hadn’t realized how much talent it takes to light up old Broadway.

I started calling them, one by one. Not the piano cleaners or wig tuners, of course, not at first, but I called any company that sounded remotely as if they might be interested in animation or needing an animator. 

Each morning after breakfast at the apartment I would take a stack of quarters downstairs to the Greek diner, say hello to Nick, have a cup of strong coffee and start dialing at the pay phone in the corner, pencil poised over notebook to write down any leads I might be given. 

Of course, non were forthcoming. I exhausted the actual animation production companies on the first morning. Even in a city as large as New York, there were just a handful. 

Then it was on to theater companies, film studios, advertising agencies, etc.

Nobody was very interested. 

Most of them didn’t even want to see my demo reel. 

“Why can’t I get through?” I used to ask myself. 

It was frustrating. 

You’d think I was trying to make an appointment to come in and take a big, steaming crap in the middle of the conference room while their dear old mother was forced to watch, after I had first fornicated, very verbally and roughly, with the office copying machine, the way they were responding to me. 

It was always, “I’m sorry, we don’t do much animation. Where’d you say you were from? You’ve got a funny accent. Australia? Yeah. Sorry.”

“I’m from New Zealand,” I said. “But I’ll change to an Aussie if it’ll help me get a job! Do you know anybody that’s doing animation? Perhaps you have a name of someone I could call?”

“Nope. If I do hear of anything, I’ll let you know. Good luck.”

“But you don’t have my telephone num...” 

Click.

And that was one of my more successful calls.

At least I got to talk to somebody.