“The first job I ever I got was in porn.”
I am sitting in my Donna Karan powersuit, my hairs is tied back in a tight bun and now I am hearing war stories from my interviewers days as a jizz peddler. And he hasn’t even looked at my resume.
My heart is beating from consuming massive amounts of macchiatos and frosted flakes but I try to remain as cool as possible and concentrate on his office to distract myself which is not the hardest thing to do. His office is one big bookshelf stuffed with books, actually comic books, I see some toys lying around on the floor. But what is odd is that his desk is completely impeccable.
He interrupts my game of clue as he continues his story.
“When I first got out of college I wanted to write for Batman. But I found out that even in the world of comic books is quite competitive. And no one took you seriously if you had no experience but the only way to get experience was to work on a comic book. It is just like getting a SAG card.
But I kept at it. I even took an unpaid internship at a comic book company and I learned everything I could about publishing and comics and created a network for myself. The fruits of my labot were three interviews from DC comics.”
He paused dramatically then whispered.
“Do you know what the result was of those interviews?”
I whispered back
“No.”
“Doughnut holes.”
“Doughnut holes?”
“Nada, zip zilch. They always found a way to hire someone in house. The funny thing is that a lot of those people don’t like comics, in fact the woman who interviewed me last never read comics and got the job at DC because her brother was a big time artist there.”
He leaned back in his chair and began stroking his beard.
“Then one day I was leafing through one of my roommate’s spank rags and came across the erotic story section. On a lark I called up the publisher and asked him who writes for him because the stories were horrible. Right on the spot he commissioned me to write a spring break gangbang story involving a mariachi band, a box of sombreros and three tequila worms. Two hours later I sent my piece of over and I got a check for 300 bucks.”
He paused for a reaction. I didn’t give him one.
“When I told my writing buddies what I had done they all told me that I was insane and I was going to ruin any chances of having a legitimate writing career. But as far as I was concerned I was legit, since I was getting paid for my work. Besides I was running low on funds and my unpaid internship wasn’t exactly brining in the big bucks.
It was a good year for gangbangs because a lot of porn stars were branding themselves as gangbang stars. A lot of sperm died that year.
At a party thrown by one of my publishers and I am talking to this guy about action figures, then onto cartoons. It turns out this is the publisher’s son and he had just got out of college and daddy was giving him some seed money for his start up which was going to be the NYC version of Aint It cool News. So I jumped on as managing editor. A year later that went under and he went to Harvard Business school.
It didn’t matter since I had reinvented myself and was now know as the big geek and served a consultant for toys and comic book companies. I wasn’t writing Batman but I got paid to read Batman and play with the merchandise. I was also hired to review their ideas to see if they were any good.
A couple of months ago I got an email from my old boss inviting me for lunch to introduce me to his friend G. We hit it off and when G told me about his media trends venture, I was hooked and here we are.”
He looked at me with a slight smile.
“Do you know what the point of that story is?”
“Go into porn?”
He laughs to himself.
“No. The point of that story is to show how goals can be achieved in the oddest of ways. Even in the places where you least expect.”
He looked down at his desk as if he was reading an imaginary book then locked into my eyes.
“I’ll be honest with you, you are not what I am looking for in a coordinator. I am actually looking for someone with a different background.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because I am intrigued by your situation. I know how you got screwed over at Angel Feathers, you have good references and from your reports you demonstrate a very keen mind. What I do admire that despite being treated so unfairly, you didn’t pull a Single White Female and go crazy. “
“Thank you.”
“I have to warn you right now, this group is focused on geek culture which is primarily the sci fi fantasy genre. It has absolutely nothing to do with fashion.
The position of coordinator means you will be assisting a staff of 5 guys, this means making sure our expenses are paid, packages are delivered and our travel arrangements are completed. At certain times you will be required to do research and analysis to pick up the slack. You will be in an environment where the staff will engage in lengthy debates regarding who is a better captain Kirk or Picard? There is one guy in our staff who thinks he is a Jedi Knight and we have one guy who clocked some time at Roswell looking for UFOs.
\“So basically I am going to be a nanny for a bunch of overgrown children.”
“Uhh, yeah.”
I suck in my breath.
“Do you need an answer now?”
“No. Take your time. In fact you can get back to me next week. I realize this is a complete change from what your goals are but as I said sometimes your goals can be achieved through very unusual steps. I mean look at my career. I started out writing sexual fantasies for 35 year old virgins and sexually starved husbands with frigid wives. And here I am making six figures writing about whether Batman could beat the Punisher.”
That was last week. I am still thinking about what to do next.
