We’ve all had summer jobs, temp, seasonal part-time work and grunt employment. When I was 16 I had to swear to a hiring supervisor that my life’s goal was to sell Capezio ballet slippers at Lord and Taylor. Sometimes, though, the jobs were fun and taught us something about a trade or profession. Other times, they gave us a few life lessons on civilization and its discontents.
For aspiring writer and actor Jon Hart, such jobs finally furnished a book – a memoir of side-line or service positions that he survived and recast through a humorous lens. Mainly, he points out, he signed up because, as his title puts it, ironically, “Unfortunately, I Was Available.”
Well, of course he was, because he needed work and hoped for connections. Most of the jobs as crowd “background” for movies and TV required him to stand around the set, already a character known to the crew only by number. He had to supply his own wardrobe and be ready to roll at 3:00 in the morning. One day he had to be an Orthodox Jew, another, a blond guy with a bald spot. Does he have roller skates? Yes? Show up.
The chapters, aside from their hindsight humor, are instructive for anyone seeking and getting an entry-level position. Even if his wardrobe, physical looks and attitude were acceptable to the third-in-charge assistant director, he soon learned he had to deal with “others,” not to mention inane and insane working conditions, especially if one did not belong to the union.
In time, he finally decided to join, and it made good sense, spelled “cents.” Otherwise, there were even fewer hours of compensation and bathroom breaks, as well as more second-rate food. On this note, Jon wants it known that Steven Spielberg was particularly generous in providing high-quality snacks. Martin Scorsese was “an enormous disappointment.”
Clearly extras were a class below. Background often slept on chairs, if at all. Their world was take it or leave it, and they were lucky if they could catch a bus to and from the set.
Still, to judge from Jon’s playful, controlled sarcasm, there were memorable experiences. In an intro, Jon captures attention with a shocking opener: It’s midweek, fall, early morning, his character is leaning over a third-floor fire escape in Manhattan’s upscale Chelsea neighborhood. And the call is to do something “not nice” to young blond woman below.” Except he didn’t. The scene was simulation, via physical contraptions which he wore as a stunt stand-in.
The first chapter is about the third incarnation of The Pretty Things, a British rock band, to whom Jon got himself attached as some kind of “roadie” for an American tour. It was probably his most extensive job and gave him experience with, as he says, “the good, the bad and the ugly.” Forget fans and romance. It’s amazing he managed as well as he did with the older, stoned, comeback wannabes.
And then there was his time as an inspector, dishwasher, and ear to the misguided restaurant owner and oddball chef of great ego and little talent. But it was as “background” for movies and TV that defines most of the chapters. Jon learns to his dismay that being in a shot doesn’t mean it will stay in the production. Given today’s erratic and diminishing job market, especially for intelligent and sympathetic graduates, Unfortunately I Was Available has a lot to recommend it.
