An Assistant's Tale

In the late seventies I had one very brief career run as NYC's least illustrious photo assistant. One Sunday after straggling in around 6AM, I got a call some two hours later from this studio photographer I worked for once before. Of course, no amount of money was gonna get my sleeping, still drunken ass all the way back into Manhattan. N-F-W. But he pleaded, and pleaded, and pleaded some more, and not having any solid work dates lined up, I gulped down major aspirin and dragged my sorry twenty year old butt back into the subway.

Long story short, I go to collect my forty bucks at day's end (the going rate then for second assistant) and the SOB tells me he's only going to pay me... thirty. After begging me to come in, on a Sunday no less, the guy's actually gonna stiff me ten miserly bucks when he should have been paying me double! I look at the guy incredulously, ask for my money again, and get the same response.

Clearly, I had lost this argument. Leaning into his desk, I smiled into his self satisfied mug, yanked the cord and repositioned his office typewriter onto my shoulder (that's right kids, computers were just a gleam in your mama's eyes), walked out the studio, and slept soundly every Sunday morning since.