Gawker: defamer, death star

Whooop! Whooop! CAA Kitchen Fire! Just when...

Seth — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Whooop! Whooop! CAA Kitchen Fire! Just when you had been lulled into a false sense of Death Star culinary confidence—positive that no incendiary Chinese appetizers would again engulf the TV lit department in thick clouds of cabbage-and-pork-scented smoke—comes this CAA! Kitchen! Fire! Deathtrap! Exclusive! "Subject: CAA can't cook! they set fire to their kitchen and got evacuated!" We ask that you remain calm at this time, until we get a full headcount (just the agents, obviously—not assistants); commuters in the Century City area, meanwhile, are instructed to keep as far away from the scene as possible, regardless of how enticing those wafting, mouth-watering gusts of BBQ baby meat might be. [Defamer]

CAA Assistant Escapes Death Star P-4 To Tell Of The Parking Horrors That Lurk Beneath

Seth — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:20:04 EDT

Our noting earlier of a rumor that CAA assistants were now being made to park in a life-size Connect 4 board on the bottommost level of the Death Star parking structure brings us this report from an operative directly affected by the new policy:

Let me preface by saying as an assistant here, there isn't as much baby eating as the defamer HQ might think. It's actually quite corporate and business-friendly, and it's honestly a really good company to work for (especially when there are so few jobs out there overall).

BUT, this parking thing is really annoying.

Not only do we get packed in like sardines on p4, but many of us have emailed the hr department just asking why the change, but no explanation has been given. It easily adds 20 minutes of frustration to my day (I get enough the other 10 hours I'm here, I don't want to be frustrated when I shouldn't have to be), not to mention the time I spend stuck on the escalator behind people who refuse to treat it as anything other than a leisurely ride (STOP STANDING ON THE FUCKING ESCALATOR, IF YOU WERE THAT LAZY JUST WAIT AN EXTRA MINUTE AND TAKE THE DAMN ELEVATOR).

Ironically, if it is a cost-cutting measure, as I'm sure it is, much of the savings has to be spent on the 20 or so employees they have down there just directing us where to turn, where to park, moving the cars around, getting us our keys, and generally just standing around pretending to be busy. Not to mention all the little pieces of cardboard paper they're wasting.

Blech.

Blech indeed. We'd recommend downloading a PDF of the complete Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Metro Bus & Metro Rail System Map, but we understand how some agents prefer that their assistants not use public transportation, in case they get a mid-afternoon hankering for some green tea Pinkbaby ("Fool! I said Cocoa Krispies—not Cap'n Crunch!") and need to dispatch their employees for a quick run.

Previously: CAA Assistants Banished To The Darkest Reaches Of Death Star's Reactor Parking Core [Defamer]

CAA Assistants Banished To The Darkest Reaches Of Death Star's Reactor Parking Core

Seth — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:25:00 EDT

As if life wasn't hard enough for the Stormtrooping underclass aboard the CAA Death Star—one moment, they're required to spend an afternoon with their foot wedged beneath their boss's wobbly Aeron chair, the next, they're returning a baby coldcuts platter to Jerry's for not having "enough girl meat"—Deadline Hollywood Daily reports the agency's assistants are now subjected to this:

I'm told that CAA is making all their assistants park in the bottom level of their garage in horrid stack parking.

Plus, there's only one elevator that goes down there at 2000 Avenue Of The Stars. And there's some sort of tracking system to make sure the peons park in their pen. Also, some of the assistants have been stuck in the garage for 30 minutes because the valets lost their keys with the stack parking.

We're concerned. The Death Star's P-4 level is a dangerous place for someone to wander alone. Forget rapists—those guys are all upstairs—this concrete dungeon, a full level beneath the infant-blood-filled oak-barrels on P-3, is teeming with Parking Structure Trolls and the highly magnetized, tinfoil-wrapped remains of an other-worldly visitor the attendants call "the Ovitz." Just be careful down there, guys, OK?

CAA's New Way of Humiliating Assistants [Deadline Hollywood Daily]

None-Too-Bitter CAA Rep Has Some Choice Parting Words of Advice For Robert De Niro

STV — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Some accounts place Robert De Niro's recent defection from CAA to Endeavor as a move at least a decade in the making. That inevitability didn't lessen the sting for an anonymous CAA operative, however, who chimed at Deadline Hollywood Daily on Thursday with a poetic reality check entitled, "Why Did Bobby Leave Us?"

They promised they could turn back time. They promised they could get him 20m a picture.
DeNiro had a choice ten or so years ago. He could either go the Nicholson route - very selective, very particular, protect the brand - or go out sending himself up in tripe like Analyze This, which made money but turned him into that "old psycho guy." ...

Bobby blames everybody but himself for the way he's squandered his career, and refused lots of quality pictures because they wouldn't give him producer credit.
Good luck in the Hotel Business, pal.

The raw bile percentage of the rest — ripping up the Tribeca Film Festival, his persona non grata status among younger filmgoers — suggests the note really did emerge from within the Death Star. In fact, we suspect a memo pushing CAA's interoffice contest "500 Words or Less on Why We Won't Miss Bob De Niro" is floating around someone's inbox; we'd love to have a look if anyone will pass it along, or at least we'd like to know what the seething minions were playing for. "Star commenter" status on Nikki Finke's blog hardly seems worth the effort.

It's True! Robert De Niro Has Fired CAA [DHD]

In another case of life imitating art, The...

Mark Graham — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:40:00 EDT

In another case of life imitating art, The Death Star is under attack! By Hitchcockian birds of prey, no less!

There is a finch trapped on the top floor of the CAA building. I overheard an agent I won't name hollering about how a "hawk" had tried to take his head off. They got it out of his office and shut all the office doors on the floor, but there aren't any windows to try to get it out of on the top floor, so it's just been flying around the floor over the assistant's heads.
Ha! As I've been writing this the original agent walked out of his office and the bird flew in over him, causing the agent and two assistants to run screaming out of the office.

Hey Doug Ellin, did you get all that?

Sometimes, all it takes is something relatively...

Seth — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:44:58 EST

Sometimes, all it takes is something relatively insignificant—say, the firing of two proton torpedoes down a thermal exhaust port that leads directly to a reactor core, or an overcooked chinese appetizer—to fell the seemingly invulnerable. This just in from a Defamer operative stationed in the vicinity of the CAA Death Star: "Not sure if you heard, but apparently the caa bldg. was evacuated because someone burnt an egg roll in a toaster oven and it set off the fire alarm." We encourage further eyewitness accounts of the burnt-egg-roll carnage (and baby-flavored dipping sauces) that brought operations at Hollywood's most powerful institution to a grinding halt.

Sunset Tower Probably Not Leaning, But Definitely Caught Nailing The CAA Death Star

Seth — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 20:20:36 EST

Having received a tip that the building that formerly housed the 360 Restaurant and Bar is leaning, we threw it open to you, our intrepid readers, to send in photo evidence suggesting whether or not the angle was merely an optical illusion, or if in fact at any given moment There Will Be Blood patrons at the nearby Arclight Dome won't end up seeing far more blood than they had bargained for. More than one of you came through, and after a careful examination, we fail to see a significant tilt to the structure, and we thus really see no need for Hollywood locals to run screaming through the streets, at least any more than they usually do. And while we did request no Photoshop, one reader's submission so awed us with its erotic vision of the CAA Death Star getting the skyscraper-pounding it's long craved, we've included it above. The other photos are after the jump.

Previously: Leaning Tower? [Defamer]