Here’s the scene:
I’m walking my dog along Ocean Front Walk in Venice Beach. It’s an early weekday morning, and I’ll be honest: I’m not looking my best.
I have on a pair of shorts that may be tattered. And a T-shirt that may have been used, recently, to mop up some kind of spill. But I repeat: I’m just walking the dog, not walking into the Met Gala.
As I’m walking along, I notice that there’s some kind of television or film production going on in front of me. Some project has commandeered a part of Venice Beach, and it’s setting up a shot. So I slip by them, but as I do, an assistant director stops me. I think he’s telling me to wait a second so he can finish the shot, but what he’s doing is talking into his headset and describing my dog.
“Hey,” he says to me. “We’re doing a show here, and we just love your dog. And we’re wondering if maybe we could use him in the shot we’re doing.”
“Her,” I say.
“Oh, right. Sorry! Her. Can we use her in this shot?”
“Um, no, thank you,” I say.
“We’d pay you,” he says, helpfully. “Somewhere around…” And then I notice him registering my outfit — the shorts, the dirty T-shirt, the cheap flip-flops. “…somewhere around $200?”
“I’m just too busy,” I say.
The AD talks into the headset again. “He says he’s busy.” Pause. “I know, but that’s what he’s saying.” Pause. “I told him.” Pause. “OK.”
He turns to me. “The director says to tell you that we’ll pay you in cash, and if you like, you can have lunch.”
Now I get it. They think I’m homeless — homeless and proud. And they’re sort of wrong on both counts.
“Who’s the director?” I ask, trying to sound like a rational, homeowning dog walker and not a derelict off his meds. The AD mentions someone I don’t know, which is not unusual, as I don’t know many people anyway. He points over to a small canopy about 200 yards away, where the director is sitting in front of a couple of playback monitors. The director waves at me.
“Oh, is that your video village?” I ask, trying to use the lingo and convey to the AD that if I know the lingo, then I’m a person in the entertainment business who just happens to look homeless for the moment.
“C’mon, man,” the AD says with a kind of no-nonsense sympathy. “It’s $200. I mean, maybe you can buy dog food with it or something?”
“Look,” I say, in a prissy and pompous tone of voice that surprises even me, “I’m actually pressed for time here. I have an important meeting at the studio later today, and I have a call scheduled with my attorney and other important high-level events to attend to.”
The AD looks sadly at me as I walk away. I hear him talking into his headset. “I said that.” Pause. “I know.” Pause. “What do you want me to do? Follow him to the shelter?” And then: “Look, some of these people don’t want to be helped.”
Now, the odd thing about this story is that I didn’t really have anything going on that day, anything so pressing that I couldn’t have stuck around there for a few hours, had some lunch, collected my scratch, and moved on.
But I think what kept me from doing that wasn’t pride, really. I mean, good Lord, I’m a writer in television — pride really isn’t really a factor here. And it wasn’t that the AD didn’t know who I was. He saw a derelict, delusional guy dressed in rags walking along Venice Beach who could probably use $200 when, in fact, I am a television writer and producer with a string of credits but no specific project currently in production. And those two things, sadly, are not mutually exclusive.
About 100 yards away, I had second thoughts. I said to myself, $200 is $200. I started to head back to the set and stopped when I saw the AD talking to another homeless-looking guy with a dog.
The guy he was talking to looked familiar. He may have been the guy who lives in a tent along Venice Boulevard whom I pass each morning. Or he may have been the guy who beat me out for a Golden Globe Award in 1994. And those two things, sadly, are not mutually exclusive.
Rob Long is a television writer and producer and the co-founder of Ricochet.com.