Getting to the end of the tunnel but running out of gas.

Relief is coming, but not before a bit more frantic scrambling.

I have been handed an opportunity and a gift. After three years of things not clicking, something clicked! I’ve been cast to be on a very exciting and fun new show for a streaming network. I came on very last minute, so I haven’t had much time to organize my life around this month-long shoot. Which is why I’ve been so silent here. But this opportunity feels really big for me, really important. It feels like an ending to the last three years - a time to finally start over and heal financially.

I’m actually not sure if I’m allowed to say much about the show, its concept, or who is on it. But I don’t think I’m giving much away to say that it’s a feel-good home makeover show hosted by an incredibly funny, sweet, and charming PHENOM in her twenties. I met Emily Henderson under similar circumstances. I was cast to be her on camera assistant on her show “Secrets from a Stylist” thirteen years ago.

Despite the fact that she wanted her incredibly brilliant friend, the renowned stylist Scott Horne, to be her sidekick, I got the job. And while she was hesitant at first, we became fast friends. This new show has proven to be a lot quicker in pace than the makeover shows I have gotten used to working on over the past decade plus, but it’s also set up in an incredibly efficient and organized way.

After I spoke out over a year ago about the reality of my experience behind the scenes shooting my last show, I kind of thought I may never be hired in this town ever again. And I really want to be clear here about restating what I was saying. I think some people saw it as sour grapes, ie “that guy’s not on TV anymore and he’s whining about it.” But it wasn’t. It was about the fact that in all aspects of our economy, we are seeing the actual people doing the work being paid less and less and seeing a very tiny percentage of people at the top taking the lions share. It was about the idea that if we hold up milestones like having a TV show as something to strive for, there should be an actual “get” to getting one. It was not about hating my production company or anyone I’ve interacted with at HGTV. I love all of those people.

Still, I knew what I was doing in writing what I wrote. And I knew it would lead to a pause in me being on TV. Which is fine, I’ve always seen TV as a nice bonus, not a means of making a living. It’s just another form of communicating and for some reason I have a strong desire to communicate.

Or usually I do. For some reason I’ve had a really hard time collecting my thoughts about the past few weeks. What a glorious opportunity to be able to be on a set again after working solo for the past three years. The thing that’s nice about working on a set is that there’s a division of labor. There’s someone to do sound. There’s someone to do lighting. There’s someone to feed you. When I run shoots at my house, I’m usually doing all of those things and more. So being around a group of people with one common goal has been really nice after working in solitary for years.

But, of course, as with everything the past few years, there’s always a catch.

The catch here is that I am starting this job with a tank that is below empty. Like emotionally, physically, and most importantly, financially. As soon as contracts were signed I started bugging my manager about when I was getting paid. Remember, for so many of the types of jobs I do payment can be delayed for months. And so going into a production literally broke, I knew it was imperative that I try and get paid as quickly as I could.

As happy as I am to be working, I’m a little bummed about the fact that what’s going on with me personally is as stressful as it is. The filming of this show is incredibly fast paced and its my job to be light and happy on camera, but I have been having pretty frequent panic attacks about money for the past month or so. Relief is coming, and I think soon because production has rushed to pay me. But I have no clothes to wear on camera and I can’t afford to buy any new ones until I’ve gotten a few paychecks, at which point the show might be over. For the record, the show is paying me well and this is not the production’s fault, just more the result of when I was hired and all the negotiation that has to happen behind the scenes to get a talent contract put together.

My body has changed size and shape more times than I can count in the past three years, so none of the clothes I used for “Build Me Up” fit me correctly anymore. I’m muscly in places I wasn’t muscly before and thicc in places I wasn’t thicc. I’m fine with my body, but my wardrobe doesn’t fit it. And it’s a shitty feeling to go on TV not feeling great about what you’re wearing or how you look. It’s something no one on set would know, but something that makes me feel a bit self-conscious in a job where your appearance is judged so frequently.

It’s a really weird feeling to know relief is imminent but to also still be dealing with the aftermath of scarcity.

On Monday, I found $40 for gas in a wallet I forgot I had and was able to continue driving to set this week. It’s that kinda vibes. Also, something insanely annoying happened with my bank account that led to a month-long fear that my rent check would bounce. It’s a long story, but basically my bank held incoming money for so long that even though I had made sure I had enough money to cover my rent, they bounced the check anyway, then cleared it, then bounced it again (all while there were sufficient funds in my account). It’s been sent back and forth multiple times at this point, for reasons I don’t totally understand, and finally got deposited yesterday, seventeen days late. The daily fear of that bounced check is the most concise way of explaining what the past few months have felt like - just a constant fear of running out of money. The constant obligation to explain your lack of money to total strangers who could care less (bill collectors, etc).

There is hope, however. It truly does feel like this is the end of much of the financial drama that’s been tying me down. I created a Kickstarter (which of course led to more stress, read on) and that brought the brand Overstock to the table to help sponsor my Londo Lodge Kitchen, which is bringing me hope that I will eventually be able to get that done so I can start making some income there. And a few other really great opportunities have arisen, adding up to quite a bit of income in late spring/early summer.

I’m planning to cancel my Kickstarter for a few reasons. The first being that it feels weird to announce I’m doing a show while also fund raising to get my vacation rental business off the ground (though, for the record, that is the type of thing Kickstarter is for). The second being that Kickstarter’s system isn’t as malleable as I need it to be. You have to raise ALL the funds to get any and yet the site added so many fees to the cost of my kitchen that it ballooned the price higher than I feel comfortable asking, almost double the actual budget I needed. But many wonderful people have already pledged. The reason I haven’t shut the Kickstarter down yet is that I want to make sure I offer to fulfill the rewards people signed up to get, which means I have to pull all their email, info, and record what they requested before I deactivate the fundraising drive. And I just don’t have time to do that because I’m filming an incredibly involved and engaging show.

My life has involved a lot of pivoting the past few years and sometimes pivoting means you don’t finish shit. That’s pretty embarrassing, especially if it happens over and over. The show is more important than fundraising on Kickstarter and will ultimately move me forward in a way that raising money for the kitchen will not. But it does feel stupid to be openly spinning in front of all of you. In front of people who have given me the grace of an open ear.

So right now I’m just trying to get through the next few months. Opportunities like this TV show are so rare that I really want to make sure I enjoy it, despite the fact that I’m quietly panicking minute by minute about money, how I can plan and execute my kitchen ASAP (with only a light understanding of when money is coming) so that I can get it up and running ASAP so that HOPEFULLY I can get out of this mess ASAP.

Because the past few years have involved me getting so few breaks, it was hard for me to be optimistic about this set of circumstances getting me out of the financial/career hole I’ve been in. But I realized I could either go into the filming of this show thinking cynically about it or I could go in allowing myself to just believe and hope that hard times were coming to an end. I could go into it thinking “Fuck it, nothing has been working why would this?” Or I could go into it thinking “This is my big break! This is my second chance!” I’m trying to embody the latter. I’m trying to make sure I conduct myself in a way that attracts more success, more work and shows the gratitude I have for having this work.

Now that I’m feeling a bit like I am coming out of a low point, I can see more clearly what happened. I put all my eggs in one basket, getting an HGTV show. Normally that pays off. But because of the pandemic and the subsequent financial turmoil, it didn’t pay off and I got caught with my pants down. I think most people who were in my position probably would have done what I did in the hopes of building a better future for themselves - how was I supposed to know that putting all my time and money, doing a job that didn’t pay much and took all my time, would be such a bad idea? I wasn’t told ahead of time the world would be stopping in 2020. So I’m forgiving myself for having that hope and ambition. We’re all just trying to go the best we can with the opportunities presented.

As for this current show, it’s definitely a challenge staying upbeat when I’m fretting so hard on the inside, but I’m doing my best to make it to the finish line. I’m just really grateful I can even see the finish line from where I’m standing.