Work 101 (with Zoey 101)

Ok, granted, working at Pepperdine has its advantages - seeing the beach every day, a Christian environment and community, etc., but it also has its disadvantages. Enter Nickelodeon's television show, Zoey 101. Now, living in Malibu, one becomes somewhat accustomed to seeing "moviestars" often. Pamela Anderson is at Starbucks all the time, while Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider seem to prefer Diedrich's. I ran into Pierce Brosnan at Blockbuster once, and have seen AJ (I think that's his name) from NSYNC at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Scores of others come and go- Ed Harris, Jane Seymour, Mel Gibson, David Duchovny - and for the most part, we don't think twice about it. Ever since the Star-Peon Cease Fire of 1978, our two social strata have lived in relative peace and harmony, with one rarely bothering the other.

That alliance is about to end. For those of you that don't know, (and believe me, I wouldn't if I didn't live with it every day), Zoey 101 is a Nickelodeon TV show that stars Jaime Lynn Spears (the youger sibling of Brittney Spears), who - guess what - attends "Pacific Coast Academy" as a middleschooler. I'm assuming the basic plot is something like: Jaime Lynn Spears has a ton of episodic dramas in her Jr. High years, blah blah blah, that take place at a private California prep school- by the beach, which happens to be the campus of Pepperdine University in real life.

I have nothing against Zoey, or Jaime for that matter, and I may sound like a royal whine here, but the filming is a real nuisance on campus. First, when we come into work in the morning and try to park, our beloved Zoey trucks take up no less than 20-40 parking spots. This would be minor, except for for the fact that missing a parking spot at Pepperdine, which is built on a mountainside, means hiking up a huge hill from the red-headed-step-child lots below. Once you are actually on campus, you usually have to sneak around like a ninja of the night: all must be quiet on set, afterall, and apparently, the entire campus qualifies as "the set." Today's filming was taking place at our outside coffee cart, which is located in the very center of campus. Not only does this mean that the coffee cart is closed, but it means that every time we need to walk by (which is basically any time we need to come or go from our office) we have to tip-toe around, lest we interrupt the filming for the sake of work or "academics."

Granted, the payoff to all of this is we have the priviledge of seeing Jaime Lynn Spears and the half-dozen other child television stars whisked around on golf-carts, forced to eat catered food, and pampered in basically every other way by child-television-star mothers, who I am sure will one day earn a classification as a completely distinct mammalian species.

The entertainment industry is a peculiar one indeed, and I'll have an upcoming blog dedicated entirely to it, as I have many, many friends (including my sister and her husband) who are making careers in it.

FYI: The picture on the right may or may not be one that was actually taken before someone I know was threatened with life imprisonment by a zealous stage intern, who informed said person that the set, which is located in the middle of campus in broad daylight, was "closed." The person in said photo may nor may not be Jaime Lynn Spears, whose is face partially obscured by a piece of set-equipment.