Penthouse Teleprompter Gig

Why did I give a Teleprompter Blog such a crazy title?

I don’t know. I’ve been trying to think of what to write for this blog for a while. Would that it were sunny!
It was a rainy Manhattan day. I was to arrive at a private penthouse residence in the Brooklyn at 9:00 in the morning. I was early. The residence was a penthouse. But not just one penthouse, it was three.

THREE!

Who gets three apartments and has them put together into one massive place with terraces on multiple sides and levels of the building?!
These people, apparently.

The other half live quite differently. That’s what I’ve learned this past year. Now I didn’t grow up poor, I was most definitely in the Upper Middle Class. We had a nice house. We all had cars. I wanted for nothing, well besides frivolities like TMNT toys. And yet, there is this whole other world of people. They may not be many in population, but they make up for that in property.

Am I jealous? A bit.

Not of their stuff, I have nice stuff.

But I am jealous of their apartment. I work hard. I save my money. I spend frugally. I went to college. And yet I can only afford my cheep, roachy, 4th floor walk up apartment in Queens. Did I miss a low time in housing? If I was here in the 70s or early 80s could I have bought 3 penthouses and had them put together, and now have a huge place in one of the most desired neighborhoods in the world?
Possibly.

But I got over that pretty quick. I was happy for the work. And I was surrounded by Tribal African Art. Which is definitely a first for me. The statues I was told, are going to be on display at Yale for the known future, so enjoy those Bulldogs. Lots of shrunken looking heads and large genitalia!

So I get all set up, and our talent is on his train from Connecticut, when we get a call. The train has broken down, and we now have to wait till another train arrives to pick up all the passengers, and then get to the city.

I’m told that we’re going to now be shooting at 1:00 instead of 10:00. I was supposed to be done by 2:00. Oh well, thems the breaks.
I thought I’d possibly get released and be told to be back at 1:00, but the director decided she wanted to do some tests. Fine by me. Not sure what good I could do, since I’m the Teleprompter Op, but I helped out the best I could and helped the time pass.

Then we broke for lunch, I wandered in the rain for a bit, sat in a crappy diner, and had an okay sandwich. Then I received a text message that we were pushing back to 1:30, so I had more time on my hands.

I decided to go hang out with my friends. They live not too far away in the village. So we played video games and had a good time and drank hot tea.
Then I went back and knocked out the gig, and called it a day.
So that’s my story about a Teleprompter on a rainy day.