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June 5, 2019 - Sean Hannity Show
13:53
On The Job Podcast: A Brush with Fame
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Time Text
Investing In Success 00:01:45
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Welcome to On The Job.
This season we're bringing you stories about people finding their professional stride by virtue of who they know.
Whether it's breathing new life into an age-old profession, taking the reins in a family business, forging your own path with a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something you'd never before even considered.
Avery Thompson grew up in Long Island.
Today he's a writer and radio producer, but his past is fraught with jobs that span the globe and made him into the person he is today.
He was a ski lift operator in Colorado, a line cook in Zurich.
Summer Job Hell 00:10:56
He's bailed hay in New Hampshire.
Today, a story from his early life as he pursued his dream of being a filmmaker.
Like most 20-year-olds, I had delusions of grandeur.
My particular delusion was that I was going to be a film director.
And not just any film director.
I wanted to be the next Orson Welles.
But with little to show besides some zany, no-budget student films, believe it or not, no studio had yet handed me a blank check.
So if I intended to direct my next film, I would need to fund it with my own money.
In other words, I needed a summer job.
I quit golf caddying after two days.
FedEx didn't think I was overnight box order material.
To work at the local movie theater would have been too large a slice of humble pie.
And so I called my friend Matt, another film buff, and complained about how the world didn't recognize my genius, how my talents were being squandered looking for a job.
Then Matt said, well, we can work for my brother.
He owns a landscaping company in the Hamptons.
The Hamptons, I repeated.
The following Monday, Matt and I talked about movies for the whole two-hour drive out to the Hamptons.
And as the roads gave way to leafy lanes and mansions rose above tall hedges, I knew we were exactly where I needed to be.
Here were the people that would change my life.
These people had taste, they had class, connections, but most importantly, they had the money I needed to direct my masterpiece.
I could already see myself smoking a cigar and yelling, action.
So you can imagine my shock when we pulled up to a barn and were told by Matt's brother to get in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of weather-worn Latino men.
For the first few weeks, Matt and I met no celebrities.
We attended no parties.
We worked like dogs as rich old ladies eyed us suspiciously from curtained windows.
We dug trenches, we built fences.
We were told to work faster and talk about Fellini less.
And all the while, no one recognized the geniuses toiling in their backyard.
No one even brought us lemonade.
Despite being the future of filmmaking, Matt and I were being treated like a bunch of day laborers, except by our co-workers, day laborers, who didn't appreciate these two pale giants who talked about wide-angle lenses and stopped every now and then to drink water.
And worst of all, these co-workers wouldn't take us to lunch with them.
Instead, every day on their way to some secret Latin food layer, Matt and I would get dropped off in the village of East Hampton, quite possibly the richest, poshest town in America, where the only thing we could afford was pizza.
And not even good pizza.
Because let's face it, wasps don't know how to make pizza.
So every day, we ate crappy pizza.
And let me tell you, for a New Yorker, few things are worse.
But one thing sustained me that summer.
For all the blisters and backaches, I held out hope that it was only a matter of time before I met the right people.
One day Jerry Seinfeld would need a new walkway, or Robert De Niro would need his roses cut back.
And somehow, I figured, that would be all it took.
But that didn't happen.
As the weeks wore on, Matt and I talked at films less and less.
We started crying more and more.
And just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, we got the job from hell.
Our task was to paint a quarter-mile fence wedged between two strands of overgrown hollybushes.
Now for those of you that don't know, hollybushes have little prickly thorns.
And as a grown man, I don't have a problem saying that thorns really hurt.
So the only way that Matt and I were able to paint this fence without bloodying our backs was to jam a piece of plywood in there, lean against it, and brush just in front of us.
Which worked, some of the time.
When it didn't, if we tripped or got a little tired, then the hollybush would shove us against the fence that we had just painted.
And that happened a lot.
By lunchtime, Matt and I were covered in green paint.
I mean, covered, head to toe.
And when the truck arrived to pick us up for lunch, the Latino guys can't help themselves.
They slap their knees and laugh big, gold-toothed laughs right in our face.
And then they drop us off in the center of East Hampton.
We'll get back to the story in a second.
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And now, back to our story.
Before we can even climb out of the truck, people were staring.
Not that I blame them.
We were two life-sized G.I. Joe figures.
And as such, our mission was to reach the public restroom to wash this paint off.
Except when we get there, the paint doesn't come off.
And I want to reiterate, we are covered.
Matt, who is 6'4, bore an uncanny resemblance to the Jolly Green Giant.
I looked more like Gumby.
So Matt called his brother, who informed us the paint thinner would take it right off.
But we were on Main Street in East Hampton, whose shops weren't exactly stocked with paint thinner.
So then Matt's brother says the gasoline would do the trick.
Yeah, gasoline.
So Gumby and the Jolly Green Giant go walking through a living J. Crew catalog in search of a gas station.
Let me tell you, being laughed at by a bunch of our day labor co-workers was one thing, but to be laughed at by people wearing boat shoes and pastel pants, that's a pain that sticks with you.
After a few blocks, Matt and I find a gas station, and then we start rummaging through the garbage because, obviously, we need something to put the gasoline in.
We find an empty Gatorade bottle beneath a rotten sandwich and then pump 30 cents of gas into it.
And then we pour the gas all over us.
And I know what you're thinking.
That's not a good idea.
But this story doesn't end with self-immolation.
Well, not literally.
Because as Matt and I stand in this parking lot, our bodies covered in a toxic smear of gasoline and paint, one of the most beautiful cars I have ever seen pulls up beside us.
And we look up to see a familiar face.
Gray beard, round glasses.
I'd know that face anywhere.
That's... that's...
Steven! Steven!
Matt yells at Steven Spielberg.
And Matt, who now resembles the creature from the Black Lagoon, starts running toward the car and screaming at him.
Stephen!
Stephen!
Now I don't know if Steven Spielberg saw us or not, but I do know that he didn't stop.
He kept right on going.
But Stephen didn't go far because down the street we see his brake lights come on.
Come on, Matt shouts, running back to the pump for more gas.
Pump more gas.
Stephen's getting pizza.
can catch him, but I don't.
I may have been only 20, but that summer I learned that no amount of gasoline would help Steven Spielberg or anyone else see through to the genius underneath.
Instead, I walked over to the little convenience store attached to the gas station, bought a Snickers bar for my lunch, and I decided, screw movies.
I'm going to be a writer instead.
Produced By Otis Gray 00:01:12
This piece was written by Avery Thompson and produced by me, Otis Gray.
You can find more of Avery's work at averyhompson.com.
We'll have a link over on our website, expresspros.com slash podcast.
Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.
Find out more at ExpressPros.com.
This season of On the Job is produced by Audiation and Red Seat Ventures.
Our executive producer is Sandy Smollins.
Our producer is Otis Gray.
The show is mixed by Matt Noble at the loft in Bronxville, New York.
Find us on iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts.
If you liked what you heard, please consider rating or reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
We'll see you next time for more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work.
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