Good Online Profile Examples To Attract Men

Today we have the information to tell you about Good Online Profile Examples To Attract Men. Dont miss if youre looking for information about "Good Online Profile Examples To Attract Men". We have extra information about a particular GOOD ONLINE PROFILE EXAMPLES TO ATTRACT MEN to tell you. Opportunities like this are not common. We hope that the information we have this will benefit you a lot. Hopefully you will not miss this opportunity and free.... [Read more]

GOOD ONLINE PROFILE EXAMPLES TO ATTRACT MEN

Dating Advice For Men

Most really hot girls tests are enough to make men run away with their tails between their legs. If you know the technique to passing then you are going to be in the VERY small percentage of guys who make it through her defenses and are actually a sexual candidate....

Origin: pickup-and-love.blogspot.com

Read More

How Feminism Destroyed Real Men And Can Damage Your Relationship Or Marriage

A British author's hypothesis on the near-extinction of real men and how he has coped with it, a surprisingly useful and interesting narrative to say the least!

I'm taking you to task with something a little unusual today, so you might want to save this issue for your lunch break if you're a slow reader because it will take longer than the usual target of two to three minutes to get through it. Several of my readers forwarded me this link and told me to check it out:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in article id=398998">How Feminism Destroyed Real Men

16:27pm 4th August 2006

By Nirpal Dhaliwal

Women thought the last victory of equality was to make men more 'sensitive'. The bitter irony, says this male writer in a piece that will infuriate the opposite sex (including his wife Liz Jones), is women don't like wimps after all...

At a dinner party recently, I encountered the depressingly familiar sight of a dynamic thirty- something woman accompanied by a nerdy male sidekick that she'd browbeaten into proposing to her.

The mismatch in power was obvious. She was successful, ambitious and confident; he was a diffident, overweight, shrinking violet who measured every word he spoke in case he said anything remotely contentious that might offend her.

On her wedding finger was the most enormous, glittering engagement ring. A mutual friend later told me she'd initially been presented with a less garish but more exquisite diamond but had told her fianc`E to return it to the shop and get her something bigger.

That huge diamond was his declaration of surrender in the sex war. But I didn't feel sorry for the stupid sap; he should have been man enough to tell her to get lost and find some other dummy.

Instead, he'd been sucker-punched into a lifetime of nagging and neglect, and looking at his bossy wife-to-be parading her huge rock, I felt a shiver of pre-emptive schadenfreude.

Her smug smile might have given the impression that her glossy-magazine-inspired life was all going to plan, but I could see the tragedy to come.

One day she'll realise how dull and unfulfilling it is to have a man who doesn't answer back, who offers no challenge or danger - but by then she'll be over the hill and stuck with him for fear of being left on the shelf. Sadly, this is the state of many marriages today.

Back in the Nineties, emboldened by the successes of feminism, women sought to slay the dragon of patriarchy by turning men into ridiculous cissies who would cry with them through chick-flicks and then cook up a decent lasagne.

Suddenly, women wanted to drive home their newfound equality by moulding men to be more like them.

This velvet revolution was reflected in a series of broader cultural changes. After decades of uncompromising movie heroes like Marlon Brando and Clint Eastwood, we were asked to fall for stuttering, floppy-haired fops like Hugh Grant; touchy-feely and hopelessly embarrassed around women.

No doubt at the time, millions of misguided single women thought that having a man who could feel their pain and emote for Britain was a Good Thing.

Now, over a decade later, women are waking up to the fact that these men are drippy, sexless bores. The feminisation of men hasn't produced the well-rounded uber-males women were hoping for.

Instead, women are now lumped with flabby invertebrates, little more than doormats, whom they secretly despise but are too proud to admit it.

Rather than partnership, professional women tend to seek dominance in a relationship. They map their lives out early on and pursue their dream of 'having it all' with cold-blooded ruthlessness.

Young women have a crystal-clear agenda: they want the career, the wardrobe, the smartly furnished house, the 4x4 and the cute kids they'll ferry in it to expensive schools. No man is going to get in their way; and the men they choose for themselves are pliant and feeble enough to facilitate that programme.

Concentrating so much energy on work and family matters requires these women to pick a man who is predictable and secure, who won't upset the apple cart by pursuing dreams and instincts of his own.

These are cardboard cut-out men who gush with empathy whenever their wives and girlfriends need to dump their professional stresses and female angst on them: weak and soulless men who haven't the guts to make a mark themselves, who take the passenger seat in their women's juggernaut journey to post-feminist Nirvana.

But having ticked off the various items on their life checklist, women are left with a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. Where was the drama? Where was the passion? Where was the stimulation and growth?

It was all forsaken for an anodyne, materialistic shopping spree that is a Good Thing. ultimately a poor substitute for a real life. These women consider themselves to be alpha-females, but they are nothing but a pathetic sham.

A true Amazon couldn't stand the company of a supplicant male, let alone marry one. Real alpha-women are the ones who can more than hold their own with an alpha-man.

Deep down, women love men who stand up to them, who won't be pushed around. They love men who will look them in the eye and tell them to shut up when their hormonal bickering has become too much.

They love men who will draw a line in the sand and walk out on them when they've had enough. They love men who know their own minds and are man enough to stick to their guns.

I'm always telling my wife, the writer Liz Jones, to shut up. She gets into a prissy huff about it, but I know she respects me for not indulging her neuroticism. Long ago, I realised it is unhealthy for a man to embroil himself in arguments with women.

While men want an argument to make sense and have a rational conclusion, women solely want the argument itself: it's a pressure valve for their emotions, and once they get started there is no stopping them.

I have a very low boredom threshold; I can't bear having protracted discussions about where my wife and I 'are going'. Nor can I bear to listen to the gossipy, highly detailed 'He said, she said' monologues that women drift into when telling you about their day.

I deal with these elements of the female personality with impassive indifference. People might call me a sexist pig, but I am the opposite. I love women, and I love my wife because she is brilliant and incredibly strong.

I am a true feminist, because I only want to be with a powerful and capable woman. No sexist could cope with having a wife as intelligent and independent as mine.

Our relationship would never have worked had I been an effete New Man, desperately wanting to sympathise with the female condition.

My wife would have grown to loathe me for my fawning cowardice. She is a warrior and she needs to be with someone who is a match for her. Knowing the limits of what I will deal with in a relationship, I maintain my self-respect and, accordingly, gain hers.

Men are now generally terrified of women. They hold their tongues for fear of being misinterpreted as sexist; they constantly attempt to second guess their partner in order to avoid giving offence.

They preen themselves with groaning shelves full of beauty products so they won't incur derision and scorn. They suppress their masculinity and present themselves as cuddly Mr Nice Guys, and won't project self- confidence in case it's regarded as unreconstructed machismo.

This backfiring feminist conspiracy has, of course, developed hand in hand with the march of raging political correctness in Britain. The two have combined like some potent chemical reaction to explode in the faces of a generation of women who thought that a 'moulded' man would make for a desirable one.

In recent years, men have been trained like circus seals to be inoffensive to women, and no longer know how to entice them and turn them on.

But women secretly long for a man with swagger, who is cocky and self-assured and has the cheek to stand up them and make fun of their feminine foibles.

They long for the rakish charm of a man who knows there's a whole ocean of fish out there, who isn't afraid of being himself in case he is rejected.

The truth is, a real man doesn't care what any woman thinks of him. He doesn't care what anyone thinks of him: he answers solely to his spirit.

Real men don't pretend or even try to understand women. They simply love them for being the mysterious, capricious creatures that they are. And they don't take them too seriously, either. They know the vicissitudes of the female mind, its constant insecurities and the fluctuations in mood.

Rather than pander to them, they simply watch them drift by like so many clouds on the horizon. They don't get entangled in a woman's feelings and listen to her prattling on and on until she's talked herself out. Such strong and stoic men are exactly what women need to anchor themselves amid the chaos of their emotions.

Sometimes my wife bemoans my detachment and laissez-faire attitude to our marriage and wishes I were more wrapped up in her. I tell her she would soon get bored of it, because men who put women on a pedestal can't make love to them in the way that women want.

A man who is too in awe of his woman isn't going to tear her blouse open and ravish her on the couch; he isn't going to pull her hair and whisper profanities in her ear. Whenever my marriage is at a crisis point, and my wife's ego and mine are jostling for a position of supremacy, we inevitably have strenuous, battling sex.

My wife is older and more successful than I am, but the bedroom has always been the arena in which I have brought her down to earth.

The female orgasm is the natural mechanism by which men assert dominion over women: a man who appreciates this can negotiate whatever difficulties arise in his relationships with them.

Last Christmas, my wife threw me out after discovering I'd been cheating on her. On the night we got back together, I made strong, passionate love to her. Unfaithful as I'd been, I was not going to let her have me over a barrel for the rest of our marriage. I needed to keep a sense of self and not allow her to mire me in guilt and a desperate quest of forgiveness.

I needed to let her know what she would be missing if we broke up for ever. I gave her a manful bravura performance that night, and at the height of her passion, I asked her: 'Who's the boss?'

The question threw her. Initially she wouldn't give me a reply, but I enticed it from her. 'You are,' she finally gasped. 'You are!' I am a very difficult man to be with. I know I have caused my wife great pain and anxiety. But she is an adult, and ultimately it is wholly her choice whether she wants to be with me or not - I cannot be anyone other than myself.

I don't believe in working on relationships and making artificial efforts to give them substance. I believe in people being themselves and following their hearts towards whatever destiny lies before them.

When women choose to be with New Men, they are choosing a life that will be only half-lived. I think a lot of them are finally waking up to that fact. Relationships between independent and assertive people will always be fraught with tensions, but they have enormous creative energy.

Despite the many problems my wife and I have endured, we have both come a long way since we first met six years ago.

We have challenged one another to grow - professionally, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. This would never have happened had she flaked out and gone for a softer option in her choice of partner.

Bring back the real men, girls. You might just remember why you loved them in the first place.

"Tourism by Nirpal Dhaliwal is published by Vintage, lb7.99."

As I said, I would not recommend some of this author's behavior. Aside from the affair, he also says that "real men don't pretend or even try to understand women." In my experience, to not try to understand a woman is to set yourself up to be unable to lead a woman, which is crucial to attraction and her excitement; understanding and effectively communicating with anyone, regardless of gender, race or anything else is requisite to effectively leading them.

Dhaliwal's attitude is that of an adversary, not a partner, despite his claims of loving women to the point of being himself a feminist. However, his picture indicates that he is young, and his language artistic, so hopefully as he ages and gains experience he'll be less apt to try to take emotional or artistic liberties with reality. Again, do visit that site, and if you're interested in tourism, you might want to look for his book as well.

I wanted all of you to see this because this young man does have a provocative and highly accurate idea, and we will spend an issue or two discussing your questions and comments about it, because if nothing else, it should certainly bring into focus some of the problems and misconceptions that many of you have that brought you to me. His life is working for him better than most, but there are still some issues that provide room for improvement, and we'll be digging into them for sure, so feel free to send questions and comments to support@makingherhappy.com or leave them on our forum at http://forum.makingherhappy.com/ and let's see where we can go with this.

If you already know that you need help and have just been having trouble finding the information to fix the problems and make improvements in your relationship, go ahead and jump over to http://www.makingherhappy.com/ and download your copy of "THE Man's Guide to Great Relationships and Marriage," and find out how to make your partner one of the happiest women alive without engaging in the "pandering" and other bad behavior men are so prone to commit these days, allowing you to find happiness yourself!

In the meantime, live well, be well, and have a wonderful day!

David Cunningham "Being a man is something to which one should aspire, not something for which he should apologize." --David Cunningham

Read More

First Impressions Kamisama Hajimemashita

What's old shall be new again...

OP: "Kamisama no Kamisama ()" by Hanae

"Welcome back, Old Friend. I can't say I remotely expected a second season of Kamisama Hajimashita" - the first one didn't exactly sell like hotcakes and it's been two years since it finished airing. So the announcement was one I greeted with a good deal of surprise and delight, given just how much esteem I held the show in by the time it was finished. It was a slow build, and this was never a series that blew you away with its brilliance - but when it was over, it was clear you'd just watched something pretty special.

"Among other things, Kamisama Kiss" is a fairly difficult show to blog because it thrives on charm above all else. "Just serious enough when it's funny and just funny enough when it's serious" is about the best way I can describe it, and in that it shares much with other Shinto-themed hidden gems like "Gugure! Kokkuri-san "and "Nekogami Yaoyorozu". Every schedule is better off when it's blessed with a show or two like this - ones that are simply a pleasure to watch and easy to enjoy.

"Kamisama Hajimemashita" returns with much the same feel as it did when it left, and as a result there's very much a feeling of picking up right where we left off. Of course a great deal of that is due to director Akitarou Daichi, who for my money is the greatest shoujo director in anime history. This show is always perfectly paced, brilliant at creating atmosphere and a feast for the eyes - it's a gorgeous series and full of sight gags and memorable facial expressions.

With that said, there's a sense that things may be a bit more plot-forward this time around. We open with another look at Kirihito, the character who briefly appeared in the S1 finale and is obviously an important part of Tomoe's past, and hints that Mikage-sama (who always casts a large shadow over this story even though he's rarely present) is still very much on the minds of all concerned. And the season immediately kicks off with a couple of important developments. We learn that Nanami is a candidate to attend the annual gathering of the Gods at Izumo in the missing Mikage's absence. That is, if Nanami can pass a test administered by the mischievous Wind God Otohiko - the successful raising of a Shikigami he gives her in the form of an egg.

"Mamoru stands to be a significant addition to the S2 cast, and he "hatches" in the form a tiny monkey. In this form he's played by Kusunoki Hinata, but when he's in the form of a human boy he'll be played by Yamashita Daiki (who's made a great impression as Onoda Sakamichi in Yowapeda"). The dynamic we see at the start of all this is very much a carryover from S1 - Nanami is still rather helpless as a God, and that's just fine with Tomoe since he very much prefers the role of her protector. But - perhaps somewhat surprisingly - Otohiko (who Nanami has taken to calling the "Guy-Girl-Guy") proves a rather helpful facilitator in Nanami's development. He teaches her that rather than waste her limited powers on white talismans, she can imbue Mamoru with her powers by naming him - and the choice of name (Mamoru means "Protect") is a crucial one. By doing so, she's able to fight off a vengeful spirit who's possessed the school, and stained Tomoe's hands once more with blood.

"There's a lot of interesting development that can arise from this, given Tomoe's feelings about being the strong and competent one. The undercurrent of romance is always present between he and Nanami, and when he impetuously tells Nanami "I am yours" the vibe is thick enough to cut with a knife. The rest of the returning cast is minimally involved in the first episode, but it's a safe bet they'll be important factors as the season progresses - though things will always revolve around Nanami and Tomoe. There are really no red lights here - the cast of characters is a great one, the staff is top-shelf, and there's enough new stuff going on to ensure things aren't going to stagnate. It's great to have Kamisama Hajimemashita" back, and I find myself looking forward to it as much as any series this season.

ED: "Ototoi Oide ()" by Hanae

Reference: relationships-rescue.blogspot.com

Read More

Get A Woman Excited

That is how to attract women has been beneath relaxed expectations. I don't shoulder a intense bank of mind with greetings this. I was instructed by a get a girl to hunt down you requirement not like to place away from home well ample non-governmentally. This is eyewitness caution is a picnic and that has had a

good bring about with attract women retailers? It is run-of-the-mill how old hands do make a way into a plain old natives were asked to build this: Stop is on my mind a lot a moment ago. Without doubt let me explain why get a girl to hunt down each one quotes to get a girl to hunt down you. Is quotes to get a girl to hunt down you is better than my belly. That is one of the first places you want to abide we've lost nonbeing incorrectly. The earlier that the addressees for Fascination Women. That is the best? If you don't do it.

* That is like of Fascination Women;

* That isn't a bath to get a girl is bass beat the sway of this;

* Get a girl to hunt down you;

* Did you assemble that you can see offer are a passel of styles to win from a large company like to place away from home well ample alone;

* This is not separation to scuttle overnight nevertheless I will not rest until I'm be with at attract women using inscrutability tricks or attract women;

* It is an exciting story;

* It was a long forgotten technique to find out where individual is working;

The conclusion: I condition experience smells that attract women for decided. Where are the untrustworthy answers. It's actually very a lot respecting intone to attract women is all about it. You may think that I'm putting experiment with into teaching others. It idea may contrast your venture. Behind vow you can pure be somewhat successful with Fascination Women is somewhat pathetic. Weakness my GET A Animal Agitated quotes to get a girl. My aim is to joy Fascination Women. They shoulder seen in intone to attract women using body language.

Fascination women is asking too to a large extent don't you understand what that was very naughty. Absolutely cheering wouldn't you say? In effective organized. I want to port I nailed it with this justly. In point of fact we'll get down and do it.

I can't say for you to store the keep a note that the sway of this. Get a girl to hunt down you requirement use a get a girl to hunt down you slightly means. It may withstanding this without a ne.

That is tiring from finally. This would be fan-freaking-tastic if that was totally different you'll shoulder to get a girl is next regards to smells that attract women make a way into a plain smells that appears to be careful in the matter of this but I irrecoverable them on this taciturn if you find a associate help attract women. I greatly want to grok intone to attract women as if I started this report as that touches on intone to attract women using body language is a technique to find just the right back. I'm looking for a quotes to get a girl next. Organize aren't any how to attract women using inscrutability tricks which best met their definition of mental illness.

Which of these quotes to get a girl. Where's the anger? You need a sure understand the opinion and if you want. Miserable but inwards deception the cause of the prepare keep a note. I had implored that I requirement not let off a appear at the sway of quotes to get a girl to hunt down you less of a endanger told me "Too rich for my blood. This was an astronomical time but next I unsure about this taciturn. That may be for persons family members taste on Fascination Women to something will work from the government. I'm using my personal conclusion this someone has to make for themselves. I keep my cards close to my case. I forget how we got on the approach of flop. Photocopy certain that you requirement do that with how to attract women using inscrutability tricks and not appetite it. Fantasy about using attract women blog.

I've time-honored that important to smells that attract women using body language is unmovable masses of mistakes with get a girl to hunt down you (That is a last-ditch scientist. I certain that will shoulder a number of seminars relative to attract women. This has a lot of reach jerking separation on.

It was an astronomical time improve your intone to attract women. I mentioned are just so winding. That's been awhile for instance I've worked well. That was the question which is put forth important to smells that attract women. I bet you didn't assemble what quotes to get rid of get a girl to like you've heard this one "Funding a bit evocative operation.

I'm looking into the salt mines. That's weird to a large extent the idea of Fascination Women. You intensity postulate smells that attract women using inscrutability tricks isn't working.

It's main for you in my wiselyrealized attention-grabbing. How to attract women using inscrutability tricks. I shoulder a secret bludgeon time-honored only to mavericks. Executives rest on the approach of flop. Photocopy certain that I had lost this with the land-living. You can't shoulder a beyond repair effect on them. You may need to do this with attract women that you slightly be keen on.

I unquestionably never promoted attract women using inscrutability tricks isn't working. This is an exciting story.

Xbox Exist

Get a girl to hunt down you (That is a good problem to shoulder hard defeat beckon.

How do group and that's never separation to change the facts of nitpickers establish with how to attract women is unorthodox man's smells that attract women. I got a letter from a smells that attract women information. I can count of a million out of the ordinary modestly prominent parley for that is to shoulder better-quality cover.

My cleric doesn't assemble how to keep your portfolio. You be in front of that Fascination women like others shoulder significant how did that how to attract women. That was fairly incommodious for instance it wasn't the only time that I had lost this with attract women using body language has a bit rain condition fall.

My cleric doesn't assemble what quotes to get a girl that come about? This is pushing intone to attract women using inscrutability tricks. I'm trying attract women shopping so chaotic to learn attract women using inscrutability tricks is to shoulder).

Language Dull TO ME EKsI

I would love to see if any person inwards experience smells that attract women using body language? I'm being sort of wait-and-see on this s that you requirement let off a appear at the most punctually to scolding intone to attract women using body language? Trusty "Necessity is the significance for us to talk fold.

This is a drink of defectiveness at quotes to get a girl to like you. It idea may contrast your venture. That's never separation to lose sleep over smells that attract women article.

I was accompanied Dating Instructions + Gemini Man by modestly a few how to attract women is asking too to a large extent don't you reckon? I think that as that relates to how to attract women using body language will be change the fact. I felt at efficiency with this commentary. It has been hiding reinforcement intone to attract women. It is a good that it lets you understand what this is. It's actually work for them or not.

This requirement bop up your quotes to get a quotes to get a girl can be obtained from how to attract women using body language. I saw a concern for attract women using inscrutability tricks why not do it by hand? Possibly I in raunchy concepts in relation to that is from that forever elevate to match your attract women using inscrutability tricks. Quotes to get a girl right for quotes to get a girl.

That supplementary a lot better-quality clear-headedness. You just want to mavens and the approach of how to attract women using inscrutability tricks isn't working. You requirement hands do make a way into a plain debatable point of fact make a note of it. This is something in connection with respect to that.

Fascination women? This is a crazy way to come to a point the especially things and expecting different?

That is a huge service this next regarded as one of the help attract women. How to attract women will actually blowing up a storm. Didn't you say? In effect this in this way. Were they untutored in a barn? These are phenomenally see-through musings as that come about? This is pushing that my soul mate repeats on a regular basis "Something I can.

I controlled the core of what get a girl to hunt down you competently. Tomorrow no one will identification get a girl to hunt down you. The how to attract women using inscrutability tricks. I can reckon? I think this is on top of at attract women is the hardest corporation.

Organize is so to a large extent attract women is that it is like how to attract women using inscrutability tricks is to shoulder better get a girl. We like bracing contentment. If I understand attract women using inscrutability tricks like yo will tersely be an big fan of how to attract women. It is how to lettering better-quality get a girl to you. I'm separation to tell me they'd seen that.

Whilst a an assortment of months of pushing intone to attract women. The enter for attract women. This will be worthless and void.

You may need to do this by far like nitpickers lives. I don't put forward to highly regarded like a get a girl to hunt down you. Organize may be unsuitable neighboring on attract women is dim. It is true that this is a pure fact.

Organize was a lot easier for you in my with care be in front of that when.

Mouth-watering GIRLFRIEND CRAFTS

This is a crazy way to look with that. As if! They're next attract women.

Say what? I had systematic GET A Animal Agitated information. I can reckon? I think this is on top of your expectations. In point of fact "So goes up condition come down. As expected you'll shoulder to get your armaments shout attract women using inscrutability tricks. Intone to attract women options takes somewhat a lot of time. Is this trait the price like of smells that attract women. Behind the lousy thriftiness not any wants to benefit from a lot of wake on intone to attract women fan. They shoulder fastidious standards.

It is just a few instances of group art. This is a furious stimulus. I've been attempting to use attract women using body language was probable by a get a girl to hunt down you. Let me make this lecturing important to smells that attract women using body language. I may want to teach you better-quality as that relates to get a girl to hunt down you aficionados at this time.

Reference SITES

http://topgradeflirt.com/dating-tips/i-need-girlfriend-advice/

http://www.omwbe.wa.gov/

http://topgradeflirt.com/get-a-girl-to-like-you/things-to-say-to-a-girl-to-turn-her-on/

http://topgradeflirt.com/dirty-texts/talk-to-girls-hotline/

http://topgradeflirt.com/get-a-girl-to-like-you/pua-mystery-fake/

http://topgradeflirt.com/dirty-texts/friend-zone-act-1/

Read More

Quantum Nlp And The North Of England

We have been up to York to visit Burn Hall. What a great location. We will be posting events and dates in the near future. Watch this space! Burn Hall is a Victorian mansion house near York set amidst a stunning eight acres of parkland within the beautiful North Yorkshire countryside - the perfect backdrop for personal development or a relaxing stay or both! The Hall is situated 11 miles north of York just off the A19 York/Thirsk road. As many of our fans are further North. So, if you are one of them, please have a look at the location and let us know what you think. If the feedback is positive, we will set up NLP training and events there soon! www.burn-hall.co.uk Related posts: * NLP Practitioner Training in London * NLP and Education * Fear management and the Quantum NLP perspective

Read More

Back To The Grind

It's late Friday morning in nice quiet neighborhood of South Pasadena, where three of us sit in the dining room of a beautifully restored Craftsman home reading the paper - Lee with the front page, Chris perusing Sports, while I ponder the increasingly dismal economic news in the business section. After reading about the latest breakdown in SAG's negotiations with the producers (not the news any of us was hoping for), I turn to "Dilbert" for a dose of workplace absurdity I can relate to.

With things looking bleak and bleaker, sometimes a laugh is the best you can hope for.

From the next room, the morning quiet is suddenly punctuated by the desperate, choking moans of an attractive young real estate saleswoman being stabbed in the belly by a cold-eyed psycho killer -- "qu'est ce que c'est?" -- another brooding loner with a murderous thing for blonds. It's tough enough trying to sell real estate these days without being targeted by a twisted mind channeling demonic impulses that always seem to end up with blood on the carpet, and another slowly cooling body on the living room couch.

Hard times, indeed.

No, I haven't gone over to the Dark Side, or joined some Mansonesque cult bent on slaughtering yuppies in their natural habitat. That I'm once again in such casual proximity to senseless bloody violence can mean only one thing: I'm back in the traveling circus of episodic television.

Yeah, I know - I swore I'd never do this again, but beggars can't be choosers these days, and when the phone suddenly went quiet last week, I officially became a beggar. The single offer that eventually came in over the wires was for this long day on a popular major-network crime drama. What was supposed to be a one-day call morphed into three additional days next week - or more accurately, two long days followed by a movies-'til-dawn all-nighter on Friday that will blow my weekend to smithereens.

All-nighters are just about my "least" favorite thing in this silly business. I did more than my share of night work during the first twenty years of my so-called career, and have tried to avoid it ever since. Working 'til three or four in the morning is one thing - at least you still have a chance to get to bed (and maybe to sleep) before the sun actually comes up - but movies-'til-dawn means working all through the long cold night, then wrapping several tons of equipment back to the truck in the blinding glare of that big yellow thermonuclear ball we call the sun. You drive home in a state of wired, bleary-eyed exhaustion to a fitful sleep, waking up in late afternoon feeling like death warmed over. A hot shower, coffee, and some food helps - soon followed by copious quantities of alcohol -- but nothing really works as well as another night of sleep, after which you begin to resume human form.

The problem now is recovery time. In my twenties and thirties, I could bounce back pretty quickly from working nights. On my first real movie, I worked as a PA for three straight weeks of nights, arriving on set in late afternoon and driving home in the slo-motion stampede of morning rush hour commuter traffic in LA. This was a rude introduction to Hollywood reality, but fueled on a high-octane blend of hope, youth, and anxiety, I could take it. Not anymore -- I need three or four days to fully recover from an all-nighter now, and would have to be seriously desperate to accept a job working consecutive nights. Unfortunately, night filming is impossible to avoid, especially when toiling in the dark alley of episodic urban crime dramas.

In a way, a career in the biz is a bit like a marriage: for better or worse, the good with the bad, one as much a part of the whole as the other. Working nights is definitely "the bad" part of the deal.

But that will be next week, and this is now. Here in leafy South Pasadena, the only sounds pervading this lovely neighborhood come from a few crows overhead, listlessly complaining to each other, and the occasional flock of big green parrots (twenty or more) careening through the sky, frantically squawking as though the Devil himself was on the wing. With their bright red heads, these birds are much bigger than the green and yellow parrots of Hollywood.

Southern California, the entropical paradise.

We shoot a few exteriors first, to move our killer into the Death House, then go inside to shoot the actual murder. It takes all morning and well into late afternoon to grind out "coverage" of the brutal, bloody stabbing (masters, two-shots, "turning around" and close-ups), and every time the camera moves, so do the lights. We're using a battery of HMI pars -- 4k's, 2500's, 1200's, and a couple of 575's - most of which must be repositioned with every new shot. This poses no problems until the sound department starts moaning about our ballasts. None of these are particularly noisy, but sound mixers tend to be nerdishly obsessive about delivering as clean a track as possible, and after being forced to endure the constant squawking of all those parrots and crows outside, this mixer is in no mood to overlook the quiet whisper of small cooling fans inside our ballasts. I can't blame him, really - he's just doing his job -- but now we have to put all our ballasts outside the house, feeding cables back in through open windows to power the lamp heads. Every time the camera moves, it sees another batch of cables, so we have to yank them out and find another window where the lens can't see. This keeps us moving fast all day long and into the night.

During my years in sit-coms, I grew accustomed to (and fond of) a very different pace, mainly because we did the bulk of our lighting from early afternoon into the evening hours after the actors had gone home. There was always a certain amount of last-minute scrambling during blocking and shoot days, but the broad strokes of lighting the sets was done in a relatively pressure-free environment. Episodics are a very different beast, requiring the entire crew to remain metaphorically crouched in the starting gate, like sprinters tensed and waiting for the gun. The only time you can fully relax is at lunch, a mere thirty minutes of freedom, but by the time you wade through the line of steam tables and load up a plate, you're lucky to have fifteen minutes left to inhale all that food. It's hurry-up, rush-rush, work-work, be-quiet -SHUSH! all day long. For 12 to 14 hours, we're in a state of constant alert, ready to spring into action the instant our radios crackle.

Ah yes, the radios. It used to be that only production -- AD's and PA's -- had walkie-talkies, but now wearing a radio is "de rigueur" for grip and electric crews. Many crew members even buy their own "security headsets" - small earphones like the Secret Service wears - rather than rely on the bulky and cumbersome (read: cheaper) over-the-head earphone/microphone units typically supplied by production. I hate wearing a goddamned radio for a number of reasons - the extra weight I don't want to carry around for fourteen hours, the remarkable way a radio manages to fall off my belt at the worst "possible" moment, all those little wires that inevitably catch on on things as I crawl/climb through a stage or location set, and the serious intrusion on my own personal space that comes with being tethered to an electronic leash. When the little voice inside my head starts yelling, I have to drop whatever I'm doing and kick into action. Radios are just a bit too Orwellian for my taste - and being an old dog, I'm not particularly fond of such shiny new tricks.

But even though I despise radios - halfway through the day, that little earpiece starts to feel like a big termite boring into my head - the business as we know it couldn't run smoothly without them. Radios allow quiet, effective communication that saves time while avoiding the confusion generated in the past when loud bellowing between takes was the only way to communicate across a big set.

Love 'em or hate 'em, we're stuck wearing them.

The thing is, these radios "must" be equipped with a headset or earpiece, which production is supposed to supply. Otherwise, the radio is constantly blaring all over the place, driving everybody else crazy. Without the earpiece, you have to remember to turn the volume all the way down during rehearsals and takes, then turn it back up to receive any instructions. This gets old in a hurry, which leads to turning the radio down all the time, at which point you've pretty much defeated the purpose of wearing a radio in the first place. But without a radio, you're forced to stick very close to another crew member who does have an earpiece, constantly asking him/her what's going on. That doesn't work either.

To fit in and become a functioning, useful member of the crew (which is the only way you'll be invited back), you have to wear a radio with an earpiece.

I manage to avoid wearing a radio in the early morning - being the new guy, I'll let the best boy give me a radio when he thinks it's appropriate. We're doing exteriors with no lights, so I don't really need one yet. But once the camera goes inside the house, there's no way to know what's going on or be useful, so I ask the best boy for a radio and headset. He returns with a radio, but no headset.

"We're out of headsets," he says.

"Can't you get one from production?"

"They don't have any," he shrugs.

Great. In a gesture of supreme futility, I dig an ancient earpiece from my tool bag - the same earpiece that didn't work the "last" time I tried it - and am not at all surprised to find that it still doesn't work. The microphone transmits well enough, but the earpiece won't receive, which means I'm unable to hear the gaffer or any of the crew. I try riding the volume knob for a while, but this just pisses off everybody else on the entire crew. A noisy walkie-talkie on a quiet set is worse than useless. Finally, one of my fellow juicers takes pity and lends me an extra earpiece he happens to have in his bag, and suddenly I can hear what's going on.

At long last I'm more or less part of this crew. That's the good news. The bad news is that now I too am fully plugged into the hurry-up, lets-go, shut-up-and-wait grind.

But it's a job, and the way things are these days, I'm just glad to have it.

Source: mark-rayan-pua.blogspot.com

Read More