I am so terrible at everything

Well, I'm working on the Pride video all day today. It is so tedious. I hope the Fulop video will be ready on Monday. I am so upset at myself for not being better.

Not Famous Yet

I got a text message yesterday from my friend Kerri Pussy Knife. It said, "Saw you in the Current. You're a celebrity now!" I responded, "Wha??"

The Current, and The Jersey City Reporter, and up until last week, JC List and other online forums, will not print or mention anything about my shows. It's a combination of being wary of the term "BabyHole" and bad journalism. As a matter of fact, I had to lie about the name of my show just to get it listed in The Current. It's printed as B.H. Open Mic.

But after a successful year of BabyHoles, I've gained some credibility, and the managing editor finally sent me a response saying that they might be sending someone to cover my event soon. So I was surprised when I got a text saying that it was printed already. Not even an email interview? No request for photos? Wha??

I sent my boyfriend out for a beer and Current run. I requested a few for my press kit. He called me at the store to laugh at me.

I'm glad he picked up the beer. I opened the paper, and there I was, on page 2. There was blurb about me doing a comedy event at The Lamp Post beneath a lo-res picture of me from over a year ago at someone's apartment, I think. I've never seen that picture before, I don't know where or when it was taken, it was blurry, and I certainly wouldn't have chosen it for print. I DO have press pictures. Then, next to the picture, in the open mic listing, was the B.H Open Mic listing with outdated information, even though I've sent them the current details in my press queries.

So there was conflicting event listings within one inch of each other. Way to go, Current!

I wouldn't be so bitchy about it if there were more than four pages of content in The Current. Four pages of content is not hard to manage. You'd think that with all the real estate ads they have, they'd have enough money to hire a proof reader. Part time at least. I'd do it!

I worked on publications in college. I was editor in chief of a magazine, and was friends with both of the college's weekly newspapers, I had a column in one and hung out with the other, and we did a hell of a better job in college, as full time students with no journalism experience, than the Reporter does now.

Why doesn't the Reporter just become a Real Estate publication?

You'd think that with the Star Ledger going under, the New York Times pulling out of New Jersey, and the Jersey Journal totally sucking, and the fact that there's no event publication at all, the Reporter and Current might step up to the plate. But no.

Every city has to have a good local paper and event guide. If Jersey City wants to be taken seriously, it should get one.

Talkin' to Important People with Steve Fulop

I did my interview with Steve Fulop last night. It went over really well. Except the last shot was weird. And I'm kicking myself for forgetting to ask him if he preferred iceberg or arugula.

Hopefully I'll be able to get it up today. I have a job interview and I'm supposed to shoot Groove on Grove. We'll see.

You don't even want to know kind of bugs ate me.

Yesterday I went to do a quick calendar shoot in a garbage can. Eric Brown, the photographer, had a nice garbage can at his house. But it was too small, so we had to borrow his neighbor's. It was still a little small, but I crammed my knees inside. It's hard to find a good-sized garbage can!

It was a good shoot, and Eric has the coolest house out of everyone I know, and the cat that lives there is a model (it was JZ's cat in a photoshoot). But after shooting outside at dusk, in a garbage can, by a watery park, I am covered in slough of weird bug bites, some of which I've never seen before. There's a constellation of tiny blisters on the top of my foot. Gross, but beautiful.

Tonight I'm interviewing Steve Fulop. I think I'm going to call my interview series, "Talkin' to Important People." I need to decide this afternoon.

I'm also going to pick up a big vodka bottle as a prop. Surprisingly, I don't have one at my house.

Job Interviews

I had two job interviews today. I wore the nicest clothes I could find: A cardigan from high school, a shirt from the Salvation Army, some pants from the garbage, and shoes from Target. The first interview went really well. I rescheduled the other one. It was for a temp agency and I need to refresh my office skills before I take a test, and besides, I'm busy! That's why I'm blogging.

I've spent my entire afternoon working on the Pride video. So far, I've logged about half of it. We got a lot of B Roll. I haven't edited video in a few years and I forgot how tedious and time consuming it is. I'm like five hours away from the rawest rough cut, and I still have to do voice overs. I am so bored. Also, I binged on expired chocolate from the Dollar Store while working on it.

I have to go shoot some calendar soon. This is a busy week. I wish I could get paid for it. Can't I cash in artistic merit?

The Hatred Poll Results and I had a very good weekend, thank you very much!

The official results of my Hatred Poll's results are in. I am loved, not hated. Well, for the most part. A third of people hated me.

It was a pretty tight race. For a while, with 3 people out of 7 going for hatred, I thought I'd have to rule on general apathy. But then, out of nowhere yesterday, another 2 people voted, and they did not hate me. It was love!

And another thing: The weekend was pretty good. Friday sucked, but Saturday was awesome.

I woke up at 7 am, went the park twice, then to Staples and Target, bought Jumbling Tower (the generic Jenga), a printer and a microphone.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon researching Exchange Place online and getting a loose script together to shoot the Jersey City Pride Festival for one of my new video projects. It's a series of fake Jersey City travel guides called, "Hey! It's Jersey City." My boyfriend helped me by testing out the microphone and making a press sleeve for it. That way, people took us seriously. When people saw us shooting, they looked at the microphone and said, "Oh, it's 'Hey! It's Jersey City'." He also shot the entire thing, which was very nice of him.

I've never been to a Pride Festival, but this was the best one I'd ever seen. We had a lot of fun.

We got so many great interviews with big Jersey City people like Christine Goodman, Norm Francoeur, Beth Occhendsasd (from JCLGO I'll get spell her name right in the video I can't find it now) and the two hosts, Ben Lerman and Jackie Monahan, among others. I didn't get interviews with Napoleon Paul Mendoza and Miguel Cardena because they were too busy working on the festival. We also got some dick shots from the dancing crowd.

Then we stopped by the after party at Hard Grove Cafe. But we couldn't shoot too much of that because it got dark and we got drunk.

After going over ReOdorent Joe's house for a bit, we went up to the warehouse party. We took a cab up there because it's in such a shitty part of town. There were like 500 hipsters in the parking lot. A lot of people I know were exiting because of the heat inside and they'd ran out of beer. It wasn't even one in the morning. That means they ran out of beer in about 2 and a half hours! We were there for about 30 minutes or so, but I hate dancing so we left. Then we walked back downtown because we didn't want to pay for another cab. It took like 45 minutes, but no one tried to mug us (unlike the last time I walked up Grand Street).

We were hungry, so we stopped at the only place still open, the fried chicken place. There were some people there from Pride and one guy told me not to waste time on my boyfriend because he was a closet gay. What a dick.

We went to Lucky 7, but it was already last call, and we were drunk enough. We went home, gobbled our fried chicken down, got stomach aches and went to sleep.

Then Sunday, we were only a little hungover. We got brunch and played fake Jenga. I won.

What a great weekend. I'll start editing the video today and hopefully have it up online this week.

I think that in general in Jersey City, things are getting bigger and more legitimate and even sponsored and force politicians to endorse it. I'm so glad we have such a great scene of people who are artsy and like to party and make sure that the local government knows it and makes it part of its agenda.

2009 Calendar, the creepiest Melissa Surach Calendar yet

Yesterday I started shooting the new calendar. We made really good time and got through five scenes in two hours. Eric Brown was the photographer. This is his flickr page.

There were some scenes that we couldn't shoot because there were too many children around and I couldn't find a garbage can to climb into. It was garbage day and all the cans were full.

But I must say, 2009 is so far the creepiest calendar that I've done. Last year's was a little creepy with Jon Benet-like photos of myself, but this year's has blood and explicit images...you probably won't be able to put it up at work.