| First Person |
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| Written by Avi Mermelstein | |||||
| Tuesday, 17 May 2005 | |||||
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Making a Wrong Turn at Albuquerque: An Attempted TV Break-In If you’re a 23-year-old single Orthodox Jew just out of college living in New York there are many reasons why you would never move to Los Angeles. Most of them have to do with leaving the center of the American Jewish universe to a place that is the second-largest American Jewish community much like Mondale was the second most-popular presidential candidate in 1984. It’s not that there aren’t a lot of people my age from Los Angeles—it’s that they all live in New York. When you throw in the niggling detail that you’ve left behind your family and your friends, shrinking the circle of people you trust to maybe yourself (on a good day) you don’t wonder that people react to your decision by calling it “ballsy”—you wonder why they don’t come out and call it crazy. So, why am I here? I’m here to write for television. Not that I’m doing much writing at the moment. Or much of anything else. I’ve gone to a few parties, met a few actors, met a few writers, met a few people who would like to be actors or writers or directors but are, at the moment, as much of a nothing as I am. I’ve done lunch, I’ve had coffee, I’ve made calls, called in favors, made contacts and handed out resumes. I’ve made the rounds of synagogues, meeting people in the Jewish community, trying to find a group of people that doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’ve packed and unpacked boxes, put together a bookcase, and moved furniture (OK, so I paid someone else to do that, but how else does a Jew move furniture?). I’m on my fifth rental car, hoping that I can get a used one soon without having any real idea of how to go about that. I’ve prayed, I’ve cried, and I’ve questioned my decision and my general sanity many times, sometimes for days on end, often while praying or crying. Or both. But, at least the weather’s nice.
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