Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The Queen Latifah Show

I continued to go on TV shows. Good Fun!
I called Jen the week I moved into Speed’s. She was disappointed that I was moving out of Man’s and that I wasn’t ok with watching him sleep with prostitutes. I guess she was hoping to live vicariously through me. My bad! She told me that she had a feeling I liked Speed that’s why I was moving in with him, she even assured me that I was going to sleep with him. Well, I had no intentions to and even if I did, it was none of her business. Sorry I didn’t sleep with your ex that you tried hooking me up with. My bad on that too!

One morning, after work, I had a strong feeling to go to the Queen Latifah show. I had never been before. It’s a little ways away;  a little more than an hour by bus. I had work that night, I thought it best to go to the first show taping at 11, so that I could get in a few hours’ sleep thereafter. I took a quick shower and headed to Sony Studios in Culver City. I was excited to finally have plucked up enough courage to go to the show. I was excited to be seeing the Queen for the first time. I remember in South Africa, my acting agent always sent me for Queen Latifah type roles. One of the casting directors in Randburg used to call me Queen Latifah. It was about time I saw this person with my own eyes! I followed my GPS, took the first bus across the street from my place, then another one thirty minutes away. That one took me up to 5 minutes away from Sony Studios. Everything is exciting to me here. A lot of the times when I go somewhere, it’s my first time, so yeah.

I arrived there, mind you I didn’t have a ticket. I had applied for a ticket to the show but not for that day. I was just following the feeling I had inside that day. When I arrived there, there were two long lines that went on forever. I asked if I could hang around until they’re done loading audience, to see if they need one more person. They told me I could. There were other people there that were doing the same thing. One of them was a lady  I had done background with before. She was a nice lady, Peruvian. She was there with her husband that day. They were also standing by. I was so excited to see a familiar face! Her husband is pleasant too. He’s American, he had recently been to Africa on a three month Safari/Business trip. He showed me pictures. It’s amazing the kind of pictures non Africans come up with from Africa. I don’t know anybody from Africa who has those kinds of pictures. Anyway, we all waited outside for the longest time.

Eventually, they took in all the ticket holders then they came to us and told us that they had a full house, they would take us in if we wanted to wait in the holding room and watch the show on tv. I thought to myself, I have work tonight, I haven’t slept a wink, I didn’t come here to watch Queen Latifah on TV. What the heck is this? I asked my soon to be friend if she though I should wait, she told me yeah, let’s all, we will get laptops today. She was just saying. I thought, sure, why not. We went in. The guest was The D Lister herself, Kathy Griffin. Love her! Alas, I only got to watch her on tv! But just knowing that I was in the next room to her, was nice enough. You take what you can get, right? She played some games with Queen, one of them had her revealing a Christmas gift for everybody in the audience. EVERYBODY WON HP LAPTOPS! The audience was jumping up and down for joy. We were not part of the audience. We had been told beforehand that we were not going to get any of the gifts. I tell ya, it ain’t fun watching people win gifts. A few minutes later, one of the Audience co-ordinators came to us and told us WE WERE ALSO GOING TO GET LAPTOPS. In fact, we were going to get all the gifts that day! It was the Christmas show! We all won up to more than $1700 (R17 000) in prizes! Can you imagine! I couldn’t believe my luck! Of course my friend never let me hear the end of the fact that it’s because of her that her husband and I stayed that day. And she foresaw that we were going to win laptops. We got HP laptops, Silver necklaces with the piece sign pendant, a face cleansing thingy, a nice smelling candle in a great reusable candle stick, a nice knife from a TV Chef who was the guest that day, ponchos, cashmere blankets, pots, one year Netflix, tons of popcorn, the best in the country, that was shipped to our addresses, a tower of snacks, that was shipped too, I got mine last week; all kinds of decadent snacks, nuts, choc brownies, popcorn etc, a Bluetooth speaker shower head, that’s like the coolest thing ever, never again will I not hear music while in the shower, what else? That’s all I remember. It was an awesome day. We left late that day, fortunately my friend’s husband’s friend was going to pick them up, they gave me a ride to my place.

I was so late,  I got home, took a quick shower and begged Speed to give me a ride to work. He did, that was nice of him. That night he sent me a text telling  me not to ask him again blah blah blah. See if I care, I just won a ton of gifts from the Queen Latifah show. I felt like I had just been to the Oprah show that day. I told Client that night when he asked me how my day was and what I did.

I had since been two more times to the Queen Latifah show, one of those episodes, we won snakeskin  iPhone 5 cases worth $150. The following one, the guest was Trace Adkins (sp???). Love him and his amazing baritone from Celeb Apprentice. He performed Little Drummer boy. We got the CD and Queen Latifah’s CD as a gift that episode. I played  little drummer boy all week long. And the week after! The following day, I went to the Chelsey Lately show (E! If you have Cable or DSTV). Guess who the guest was? Trace again! By then I was singing along to the song, he didn’t perform but they had it playing the whole time before and after the show. It was a nice treat to get to see him two days in a row!

My colleagues were always late, night shift is the only shift that worked 12 hours, the other two shifts split the other 12 hours amongst each other. I always showed up on time, I use public transport so you have to be early. I would sometimes sit on the bench outside Client’s place and smell the roses while waiting for my clock in time. Day shift would be up to 30 minutes late relieving me in the morning. It wasn’t cool. Client didn’t do much about it. He had to have someone there at all times, so I had to wait for my relief. My first week there, he paid me for the overtime. Second week, no such luck. When he didn’t pay me, I told him I would no longer be able to stay longer than my already long 12 hour shift. 

I got booked to do background work by an agent I have been dying to work for for a while. I was going to be off the following day. I finished work at 8am, would have to go home, more than an hour’s trip, get changed, then head to the studio. My call time was 9am. I was never going to make it. Before I committed myself, I thought I’d get to work first and ask Client if I could leave early the following day. I asked him and he said yes. I was so happy. I texted the agent back and told here I would be there. I was so glad to finally get booked by this agent, I thought I wanted to make a good first impression so that she could keep booking me. Who knows? Maybe I would get to quit that lousy job and just do background work. Something that feeds my soul. Client had friends over, they had their ‘bible’ study group. They left a couple of hours after I got to work. Client called me over to his room, he told me that he just remembered that he will need me there the following morning, I won’t be able to leave early. WHAT? I told him, I was sorry but he had already agreed and I had committed myself and I wasn’t about to cancel on that agent. That was the last thing I needed! He got excited and started yelling, talking about but this is your job, it has to come first! You can’t leave me here by myself! If you are not going to stay until 8 tomorrow morning, you might as well leave now! He started making phone calls to his friends and everybody. He has a baby monitor so I heard everything from the other room. He was telling everybody that I wanted to neglect him, he wanted them to come in and take over blah blah blah. I don’t think anyone was available at such short notice. Thing is neglect is a big offence in that line of work. I could lose my licence if he reported me. He doesn’t have anything else going on in his life, he would totally report me to the Health Dept.

He called me back to the bedroom and asked if I was really going to desert him the following morning. I was fuming! I hated the position he put me in. I told him I needed a minute to think about it. That to me was the final nail in the coffin. I knew for sure after that day that I was on my way out. Out of desperation, I texted Speed, told him the story, he told me that he was willing to pick me up that night if I wanted to quit with immediate effect. I told him that I would work that night, I thought it was better if I was going to work my entire shift but I needed him to pick me up the following morning at 8. He told me he would make an exception. That was very nice of him. He offered to bring me a change of clothes, which was even better. He really went out of his way for me that night. He was on the phone with me trying to find an outfit for me for the following, he couldn’t find matching socks for me, so he lent me a pair of his own socks. He even brought my wig haha. It was really very nice of him.

I told Client that I would stay the entire shift. He thanked me and apologies for the inconvenience. I didn’t care. It was too late. I was so tired that night and just drained from everything. I put him to bed and passed out in the other room. He called me in the middle of the night. Apparently he called me more than ten times and I didn’t hear him. When I heard him, I thought it was the first time! He told me he was freaking out, he thought I had left. I told him I had given him my word that I would stay that night, and that’s what I was going to do. He called me again after a couple of hours and I didn’t hear him haha. It was bad, I was really tired that night. And he needed more more than he normally does at night.

That morning, I used his wet wipes to freshen up and rushed out at 8:00am on the dot. Speed was waiting for me outside with my change of clothes. He got out of the car and let me change, had a smoke, got back in the car and wanted to talk about us. Looorrrddd! Not that dead horse again! He took me to set. When I got there the job was cancelled. We still got paid but it didn’t happen after all. I was still glad I made it! From then on, I was officially in that agent’s books. Yippee!



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