Powerful People...

So, last night I attended an alumni event for my good ol' alma mater, hosted by a certain television corporation, since one of the university's star alums is its CEO. I have to say, I'm not a big fan of regular television (other than it employs a lot of writers, actors, and lots of other creative types), and this particular station is pretty low on my "watched" list. Other than one of its NYC-based late-night programs (which happily rips on said CEO), I rarely hit any of the the corporation's stations. But the CEO gave a great speech and kind of sold me on his network. In addition to his anecdotes about of networking, he talked about the importance of content (admittedly, these channels seem to have the least amount of "reality" programming out there, which I commend).

So, after the remarks were finished and alcohol was poured, a new friend and I decided we'd go over and introduce ourselves. After all, he'd just basically said networking is key and that we should be open-minded. And I wanted to commend him on his content remarks. I introduced himself, and as soon as I said "freelance performing arts writer/editor" he glazed over. OK, so maybe I shouldn't have used the word "freelance," or "performing arts" (I think that frankly does more damage than "freelance"). But still, I was there, doing what he talked about doing, and he wasn't interested. And it wasn't just me, I noticed him doing the same thing with the other people introducing themselves. I tried to re-engage him by saying, "I wanted to thank you for caring about content," but again, no dice. He wasn't there... His eyes, his brain, had moved on. He's the worst kind of schmoozer--initial eye contact, and then they're off searching around for someone else...

WTF?