"HI!!! PERSON!!! PERSON!!!"

"Would you like to speak with..." The recorded woman's voice continued.

"LIVE PERSON!!! LIVE PERSON!!!"

"You have reached the membership department of the Screen Actors Guild..." She seemed to have a different agenda than mine and had for the last three minutes. I was at the end of my rope. I struggled desperately for the right word to derail her.

"AGENT!!! RECEPTIONIST!!! OPERATOR!!!" I hit double zero. It did nothing but mock my futile effort with an excruciatingly annoying high pitched tone which split my skull.

NEEEEEEEET!!! NEEEEEEEEEET!

I didn't want to be doing this fucking acting job in Albuquerque that was making me have to call SAG in the first place. So this call was even more untenable, like when you drive twenty minutes in the wrong direction and you just have to eat shit every fucking broken white line back the same way you just came feeling like a fucking cunt.

I hate that feeling maybe more than anything in the world. Inefficiency. Inefficiency because of a mistake I made.

Thank you, I love you in that moment doesn't seem to work very well, unfortunately. Not there yet.

Finally, a little light at the end of the tunnel. A different recording.

"Press 1 for new memberships. 2 for present members..." I don't know which command had gotten me there but I wasn't looking a gift horse in the mouth. I acquiesced and used the touch tone system lest I be banished all the way back to the beginning of the maze. I pressed two.

"One moment please." Oh my God. It was ringing. I might have a chance of talking to a real person again. I say again because I had gotten to this point THREE FUCKING TIMES BEFORE and the phone rang and rang and no one picked up. I mean I put it on speaker and made a fucking salad and let it ring and no one picked up. What business just lets a phone ring and never answers and doesn't even put you into voice mail? Fucking SAG. What, I get health insurance and free movie tickets two weeks a year and for that they take 3 percent of my salary and sue me if, after losing half a million dollars of my own money on a movie I've made, I chose to pay my rent so I don't have to live in the subway rather than pay residuals to actors who got more from being in my film than they would have gotten had they not but because they're selfish and small minded and have nothing better to do than cry to mommy daddy SAG and tattle on me about the 358 bucks they're owed because the movie came out on DVD?

Thank you, I love you. Happy Thanksgiving.

"Membership."

"Hi. I think I'm station 12 and I have a job tomorrow in Albuquerque so can I take care of it over the phone with a credit card?"

"What's your social?" I rattled off my number and she clicked her keyboard and I waited for the grand total of money I owed SAG for back dues. Every actor does this. They are happy to pay when working but when those quarterly bills come from SAG requesting hundreds of dollars in dues when you're trying to cobble together rent and food money and money for really necessary bills to keep the lights and the cable on, God bless SAG, but they go in the trash until the next audition you win puts you in a movie or TV show and gets you paid. When you're delinquent, you're what's known as "Station 12" and forbidden from working until you're all paid up and in good standing again which you're more than happy to do because it means you're gonna get paid and got a job.

So station 12 is a right of passage of sorts.

"Eric Schaeffer?"

"Yeah?"

"You're not station 12."

"Really? Great." I must have accidentally paid without knowing it. I'm getting better and actually doing the right thing more of the time than I thought. Awesome.

"You're terminated."

"Excuse me?"

"You're terminated."

"What does that mean? I mean it can't mean what it sounds like it means so I'm just curious what it really means?"

"It means what it sounds like it means. You're terminated from this union. You're not a member of this union anymore."

"That's crazy. For not paying dues?"

"Yup."

"But that's station 12."

"Until it goes to termination."

"And when does that happen?"

"After we've sent you many letters over a number of years warning you that if you don't pay your dues you'll be terminated."

Two sizes of envelopes come in the mail from SAG. The big ones are happy ones. Residual checks anywhere from 59 cents to 24 thousand bucks (those big ones are extremely rare). They arrive arbitrarily and are like Christmas when they do. Great presents you wanted or shit ones from uncles you regift, but exciting none the less.

The other envelopes are small ones. They can be nothing you care about. At best, ballots for SAG awards you're not nominated for or announcements about strikes you don't support because you aren't part of the 1 percent of famous actors who are rich enough not to care, and bills for dues at worst. Either way, you throw them out immediately.

"I never got those letters you sent." Lie. But not really. Maybe they were in the envelopes I threw away without opening. I'm not culpable. Spiritual loophole. If a tree falls in the woods and no one saw it... I once got a letter from a company saying they had found 6 thousand dollars of money owed to me by Warner Brothers and for a ten percent fee would get it for me. All I had to do was give them my social security number and address and drivers license. An obvious scam? No. I checked them out and it turned out they were legit and had found this money from years ago. See I used to throw away ALL the SAG envelopes before one day, on a lark, I opened one and a residual check was enclosed. Apparently I had tossed 6 thousand dollars worth of checks away in the trash before that.

Who's cleverer than me?

Since then I even open the small envelopes now.

"Do you still live at 465 West 112th Street?"

"Yeah."

"Do you receive residual checks there?"

"Sometimes. Not many recently."

"Well, we sent you a bunch of notices."

"Okay, well what do I have to do to get unterminated?"

She took an ominously long deep breath and said, "Well..."

To be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 6:59 AM

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