HELLO WORLD!! Are you listening? Is this mic on? (tap, tap, tap)
I could really use a good job! Really. And so, since we're spinning on the topic "The Perfect Job", I'm just gonna throw out some ideas to you, and if you like, maybe you could throw them back my way.
I should preface this by mentioning that my idea of the "perfect" job has changed drastically over the last...oh...8 years. Basically, since Jude was born. While at one time, I would have loved to be a movie star, travelling to exotic locations and working with exotic leading men, I now think that this would be really very difficult. Unless somebody drags their kids around with them back and forth across the world a la the Jolie-Pitt clan, your average movie star spends very little time with their kids. Leaving these kids pretty screwed up. I would never be able to leave Jude consistently for any extended time.
That said, I believe that the following jobs would be totally doable - great hours, and plenty of time for my life as mother/wife. So here's what I'd like to be...
1. An actress on a successful sitcom.
The biggest problem with being an actor, aside from the constant, daily judgments made against you, is the insecurity, the lack of steady employment. You never EVER know when the next paycheck is coming, or where it's coming from. It's all one big crapshoot.
The only really steady employment for an actor is to become a regular on a tv show. And while work on an hour-long drama would be a damned nice gig, the best gig hourwise is hands down, the sitcom.
Sitcom actors work a 5 day week. For 4 of these days you rehearse the show, working from 10:00 am to about 3:00 pm. Then on the 5th day, you shoot it in front of a live audience, like doing a little play. The hours on shoot day are a little longer, usually about 10:00 am to 8:00 pm. Every 3 weeks or so, you get a week off. You shoot for a total of 24 episodes a season, and have the entire summer off. These are hours I could live with! Oh, and the starting pay is about $25,000 a week.
2. A game show hostess.
Vanna White has the greatest job.
Wheel of Fortune tapes 5 to 6 episodes a day for a week, then takes THREE weeks off. At this rate, it takes about 8 months to tape a season, and then you get 4 more MONTHS off. That's a lot of OFF. Which is how Vanna has time to do all that crocheting and selling of weird stuff on HSN. And according to the trusty internet, she makes about $5000 an episode, so that's $125,000 to $150,000 a month for eight months = a buttload of cash. And all she does is turn letters and joke with Pat!
I could do that!! I know the alphabet!! I'd look good in the gowns! Really.
3) A published/produced writer with my own writer's shed.
It doesn't really matter if I'm a successfully published novelist or a successfully produced screenwriter. What really matters is the shed.
A while back, my friend Elizabeth of a moon, worn as if it had been a shell wrote a piece about writer's sheds, and I've been fairly obsessed with the notion ever since.
A writer's shed, or hut if you like, is a tiny building where a writer retires to write. A little space just for me. All alone. No interruptions. No distractions. Just thinking about it makes me slightly weak and tingly.
Here is Virginia Woolf's shed, the original "room of one's own"...
Aaaahhh.
Roald Dahl had one too...
Isn't that just the sweetest thing?
Now, of course, I don't live in Wales. So my shed wouldn't be quite so quaint. But I could at least come up with something as spare and simple as good old George Bernard Shaw...
Here's the inside...
I even looked at little buildings once at the Home Depot. They sell them ready made for about a grand...
Stick that baby in the backyard, wire it with electricity and a little WiFi and I'd be living pretty.
Just imagine. A little refrigerator. An electric kettle to make tea. A comfy chair. My laptop. No one asking me stupid questions. No one making me listen to them talk about their stupid day. No one talking to me on and on about some stupid video game...
Sigh.
So there you go World. Get to work on that, will you? I'd really appreciate it.
But before I leave, I can't resist sharing with you my Fantasy Dream Job of all time, for which I was born about 15 years too late.
If I could turn back time, I would want to be...
A backup singer on Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.
Yep, a member of the original Space Choir, who toured with Joe Cocker and Leon Russell on their legendary 1970 Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour which spawned the great live album of the same name. It was a crazy hippie commune road show, no doubt enhanced with a tremendous amount of recreational drug usage.
Here's With a Little Help From My Friends, which I do believe is a) the best cover song ever recorded. and b) the best backup part ever written. These women are WAILING. And notice that the beautiful brunette is Rita Coolidge, the original Delta Lady.
I know this is a long clip, but PLEASE watch the whole thing - the end is like a musical mutual orgasm!
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Please click around and visit all of this weeks Spin Cycle participants!
Kendra from Life in the Slow Lane
Vandy J from The Testosterone Three and Me
Claire from incognitus scriptor
Jan from Jan's Sushi Bar
Jen from Sprite's Keeper
Peg from Square Peg in a Round Hole - NEW on FRIDAY!!
Patty at Pancakes Gone Awry - NEW on FRIDAY!!
Sarah at 32 Flavors - NEW on FRIDAY!!
Ginny at Lemon Drop Pie - NEW ON FRIDAY!!
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Next week on The Spin Cycle...
Okay, remember how I told you the story of the nightmare that I had about Jen giving the Spin Cycle to a blogger who only wanted us to post recipes and craft ideas? Well, just to spite myself, this week...
Every Recipe Tells a Story
A while back, I saw some ladies on one of the morning talk shows who wrote this cookbook...
"Sugar, Sugar: Every Recipe Tells a Story" by Kimberly "Momma" Reiner and Jenna Sanz-Agero. That picture's an Amazon linky if you're interested. While I have not read this cookbook, and therefore can't endorse it, I really love the concept - that "a recipe is like a family snapshot, capturing memories of a time and place, and the people that made it special".
So...this week, share a recipe and the story that goes with it. While these ladies only include desserts, feel free to dish up any kind of recipe you want, as long as you also share the story behind it or around it. The first thing you ever cooked for your spouse? Grandma's pot roast that your family came together around every Sunday? That comfort food you cook for yourself when you're feeling down and out? We want to hear all about it!
Let's all serve it up and dish about it!
Share your spin!
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How did it get to be Friday already and I didn't get my spin out? I actually had one planned in my brain. Oh well.
I really like the idea of the writer's shed. But I'd probably use it as a quilter's shed. Plus in Florida it would need A/C.
Posted by: Erica@Pines Lake Redhead | 01/27/2012 at 05:49 AM
Goodness, you've set me up for multiple Spins again NEXT week! :P
I like the idea of being the next Vanna White. That gig apparently comes with 6-margarita lunches, too.
Posted by: Jan | 01/27/2012 at 05:54 AM
Mark Winegardner, the author of that Godfather sequel, has a very cool writer's shed. I've seen it with my own eyes! He's faculty here). But I would love to have one. As much writing as I do get done, it would be far better to sequester myself someplace like that. Happy FRIDAY!
Posted by: Claire | 01/27/2012 at 06:32 AM
That writer's shed looks like a great location for our lawn mower. :-) I do my writing in the strangest places. If I were to tell you how most of my writing gets down in the fifteen minute breaks I allow myself at work, you'd probably roll your eyes and find a way to mute my mic. I would love to see you on a regular sitcom, mostly so I can tune in every week and sit John down and then prod him every time the commecial break is over with "That's Gretchen! I KNOW her!" Yes, I'd be a savage name dropper.
Recipes.. Heehee, I think I have a good one. A $350.00 dollar one.
Posted by: Sprite's Keeper | 01/27/2012 at 07:15 AM
Better late than never?
http://sarahs32flavors.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/spin-cycle-dream-jobs/
No kidding on Vanna - I say this to my husband all the time. She doesn't even turn the letters anymore. She just has to go near them. WHAT A GIG.
I think I might want a writer's shed. But I'm not sure I'd get any writing done. Maybe it would be a napping shed.
Posted by: Sarah at 32Flavors | 01/27/2012 at 07:33 AM
I'm not sure I could write without distractions. I study, write, read better with small distractions. Of course I have small boys who are more than happy to distract me.
I think a job on a sitcom would be fabulous.
Posted by: VandyJ | 01/27/2012 at 07:53 AM
Oooh, I sooooo want a writer's shed. Of course, living in the Midwest, I would definitely need a heated one. Heck, I would settle for an office that is really pretty and not crowded with all kinds of crap! Instead, when I do my freelance work, I write on the couch with my laptop, or sometimes I hide in one of the bedrooms, sitting on the floor, crouched over my computer.
I hope you land a sitcom or game show gig! You'd be great!
Posted by: Patty | 01/27/2012 at 09:33 AM
My cousin has an awesome writer's shed! Although I think it's more of an office shed. She lives in the UK so I haven't seen it in person, but I'm extremely jealous!
You and I almost have the same fantasy dream job! ;) I was frantically trying to finish this post between dropping off Emmy at preschool and volunteering at Lily's school:
http://www.lemondroppie.com/2012/01/back-up-singer-spin-cycle/
Posted by: Ginny Marie | 01/27/2012 at 09:46 AM
Great post, Gretchen, and the writing shed photos make me salivate all over again!
I think my ideal job would be something like what Terry Gross does -- interview interesting people every day.
Posted by: Elizabeth | 01/27/2012 at 10:17 AM
I would love to be a writer. With a shed. I've looked at those Home Depot ones. I could swing that. In fact, we can split the price and use of one. Three days apiece. We'll just drink on the 7th (and videotape our ramblings b/c everyone knows best ideas are derived from over indulging in tequila).
My dream job would be a fiction editor. Oh, and a song editor so that people aren't using incorrect grammar in music like some woman I heard the other day say, "It looks just like mines" MY EARS!
Posted by: Arnebya | 01/27/2012 at 12:38 PM
The Vanna White gig sounds pretty cush to me. And just on the Today show the other day they were talking about how Pat Sajak said him and Vanna used to get drunk on margaritas during commercial breaks. I could handle that!
Posted by: Kendra | 01/30/2012 at 10:52 AM
Love the writer's sheds! Vanna sounds like she has landed herself a pretty cool gig there. Too bad I couldn't have been a Vanna! I'd never seen that Joe Cocker video before and really enjoyed it. Thanks for posting it.
Posted by: Peg | 01/30/2012 at 02:42 PM
I am absolutely holding out for a sitcom for you. Ever since you told us about the near miss with "Raymond," I've watched the show through different eyes. (I though about boycotting in protest, but...it's Peter Boyle. You know.)
I believe your sitcom is out there, waiting. I really do. I feel it in my bones.
Sorry no spin from me last week. I just had no inspiration, even with your and Kat's prompts. Sigh. Maybe I need a shed...
Posted by: Aimee | 01/31/2012 at 03:33 PM