my feet hurt

Okay, so waitressing for a handful of clients on the first day the Pavilion opens is amusing, but today's Dreamworks party was decidedly unfun. First of all, after completely taking everything down yesterday, we had to set up the entire place all over again (think lifting tables over my head, carting crates and crates of soft drinks, stacking and unstacking hundreds of chairs) at 8am, and then stood with hands clasped behind backs for the next five hours waiting for the bigwigs to finish their food so we could lick up their garbage off the floor.

Now let's think about this situation. For one thing, I'm not complaining because I am opposed to manual labor or picking up after rich people. It's probably something everyone should go through at least once, to humble you or whatnot. What I am opposed to is that we essentially paid two grand to get filled full of crap about how this is our BIG CHANCE to meet filmmakers and make our BIG BREAK into the industry. While it MAY be true that we will be placed in the same room as the president of Dreamworks or the director of a big film through these jobs (not necessarily true, these parties are NOT that well attended) it is FALSE that we will be able to so impress them with our servile skills that they will ever want to hire us.

I love Cannes dearly, and my experiences here are undoubtedly going to be grand, but I'm going to wait to come here again until I can EARN a trip here on my own merits. I will never again pay to pick up the food scraps of some hoity toity executive, all the while aching and starving and wearing ugly tshirts in the hot sun, plugging my ears to most of what is being said. My mentor Walter comes up to us every day and says, "Who did you talk to today? Whose business card did you get?" and maybe really believes that these things are the key to success. But I say, become known for doing something truly great: make a movie. write a book. run for office. Then wait for the bigwigs to come to you, and when they do, they'll be asking YOU for YOUR business card. Won't that feel better? While I feel abysmally pessimistic and cynical, at the same time, I also feel like perhaps I'm the only one who really believes that this sequence of events could occur, which makes me the eternal optimist, no?

Here's my lesson for the day: The world is all about access, and getting ahead essentially means striving to gain better access than you started with. My take: I like the access I have in my own world. I think it suits me fine, and I wouldn't change it for what they have to offer me here.

As long as we're being brutally honest here, let's talk about the films. We're all salivating over the opportunity to sit in a darkened theater and get the first glimpse of a great movie, and we endlessly pore over movie guides and the daily magazines and pester our ticket boy Pip for the hottest tips. But what have I ended up seeing? The shittiest horror film I could ever imagine (it was 10:30 at night, and I willed sleep upon me to protect me from the sight of the film), filled with violence and guns and blood and fuckedupness. Then today I was told I would see Wallace and Gromit's new movie, but it ended up being a discussion with the directors, which was cool, but undoubtedly that means I have no chance to actually seeing the film. I also scored tickets to an Indian film that I hadn't heard of, but it turns out it's some boring movie from the 40's that, I'm sorry, but I think I would cause me to pass out from boredom and sleepiness.

The other problem is that we only work in the restaurant for six hours a day, but somehow that still blocks about 80 percent of the day's screenings. There are only so many time slots for movies, not to mention the fact that 11:30pm might be too late if you have to work the 8am shift the next day. Yes, there are about 18 workable hours in a day, but Cannes does not work on some magical Lori-friendly schedule. Thusly, I will not give up the fight, but do not believe for a second that anything is easy over here.

Whine whine bitch bitch la la la la la la. In happier news, I was moping about with a random guest at the party, and it turned out he was a Norwegian freelancer with a press pass, so we talked about journalism and film and everything for a good long while. It was nice to think that he had nothing to offer me, and I had nothing to offer me, but as two inividuals with the same interests, we could still share a conversation on the sunlit beach. I don't even think I asked him his name. Everyone saw us talking, laughing, taking pictures, and they probably thought I was working some hot angle, really getting ahead in the game. Boy did I show them.