Christopher F Reidy
Christopher Reidy
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CFR BLOG PAGE

The thoughts & Musings of Christopher F. Reidy*

NOTE: Apparently this webpage has some glitches. It tends to randomly switch out visual material.  Why?  Don't ask me.  So, if a pic doesn't match the text...it doesn't!  Rest assured I am trying to amend this problem.  When I get around to it.

*(may contain misuse of apostrophes, miss spellings, overabundance of semi-colons,  wrong word usage, etc.
Please pardon our appearance while we create a new blog experience for you!)

​ALSO: 
Please find a complete index of blog posts on the homepage, for your convenience!

AND YET ANOTHER NOTE:
The visual switcheroos on these blogs have reached a point where there's no way I can correct them all, so I'm just going to leave them be.  If they don't match the text, just think of them as whimsical funsies decorating the text.  I will continue to supply pictures; but I cannot guarantee their context: much like my mind.
Thank you for your patience!

A FURTHER NOTE:
I try to keep this website relatively free of anything truly morally reprehensible or obscene.  However, in the pursuit of honesty; I will be quite frank about sexuality; as I feel one should be.  To  wit: this website is not for children.  It is decidedly "adult"; although not necessarily not "childish."  I do not feel it is suitable, in some instances, for anyone below the age of 17.  Or maybe a very mature 16...or 15 even.  
THIS WEBSITE IS RATED: PG-15

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Mean People Pt. 2

4/26/2021

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The New York Times has published an article about the legendary meanness of Hollywood "luminary" Scott Rudin.  Talk about too little too late.  All the PTSD he's instilled in hapless underlings can never be undone.  When I worked at Paramount, Rudin had an office there.  I steered very clear of it.  At the time EVERYONE knew of his Olympian levels of dickishness.  The vibes from the building his office was housed in were not just palpable; they were visible.  A sort of ghastly greenish-gray gas hovered over that building (was it the Mae West building?  All the buildings at Paramount were named after Hollywood stars and/or executives).  I doubt now that there will ever be a Scott Rudin building.  As pages on the lot, we were encouraged to spread our wings and seek employment in the other branches of the studio.  Someone suggested I seek employment at Rudin's office.  I had heard the legends.  I already had adjustment problems with the lackey mentality of Hollywood.  Even I knew that that was a temptation of fate that was best left untempted.  

I suppose it's a good thing that Rudin finally has to answer for some of his past behavior.  I suspect that he was mean for meanness' sake.  It was a creepy power trip for him, I'm sure: turning people into puppets.  He got off on it. And now he's getting old and nobody is immune to the pitfalls of getting old in America.  Karma is indeed a bitch, isn't it?  I did know someone who worked for him and then didn't work for him.  "Kevin"* had been an office assistant.  An early version of texting, some of the higher tech phones back in the 90's had text screens.  Kevin told me a story that I have never forgotten.  Rudin would use the text screens rather than alert people with a phone ring.  So, you had to keep your eyes glued to the screens.  Rudin, apparently, was heavy into string cheese (at one time a popular food fad).  Kevin lost his job when he had the nerve to go to the bathroom.  Thus, he missed the message: STRING CHEESE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess in showbiz it really all comes down to the string cheese.  What surprises me is that Rudin seems to be caving in.  Twenty years ago I'm sure the NYTimes would get the double bird and a hearty FUCK OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from Mr. R.  Today, he's apologizing and promising he's going to change.  I doubt he's going to pay restitution to all the people he abused.  Cripes, I have PTSD from just having had to walk past his office.  In a way, it's kind of sad.  Scott Rudin's office was also a legendary crucible where people who were truly ready to put up with anything Hollywood could throw at them (in many cases, literally) to make it in that business; sought out employment.  I don't think even the most masochistic of them expected they'd get what they got.  But many of them survived, male and female, with the cajones (and cojones) to scale the scaffold to the top of Mount Lee.  And maybe many of those survivors realized that you don't have to be demon-spawn to get things done.  I mean, in life, ultimately you really do catch more flies with honey, as opposed to say...string cheese.

​I was just looking over Rudin's string of credits.  He produced a lot of stuff. Forty years worth. Much of it great; some of it schlock; some of it meh.  But all of it top-tier Hollywood.  A-list all the way; above and below the line.  Broadway too. So now they're trying to put Rudin out to pasture.  But all those true Hollywood luminaries (One Degree of Scott Rudin) who willingly worked with him, knowing full well he was a monster.  What will they say now?  How do they feel?  Would I have worked with him if he'd bought one of my scripts?  I don't know.  I avoided that office like the plague.  But that office held the Arkenstone, too...didn't it?
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*(I just read about the suicide of Rudin's associate Kevin Graham-Caso and his battle with PTSD.  The Kevin mentioned in this article was not him.  My use of the name was a completely random coincidence.  And I see now that I may have minimized the psychological damage Rudin may have done to certain people.  Apparently, it's even worse than I thought).  4/30/21
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    AUTHOR
    Christopher Reidy is from the Boston area.  He attended Boston University where he studied TV and film which eventually led him to Los Angeles.  There he did the Hollywood thing (which he wasn’t particularly good at) and eventually met his partner Joseph.  He was one of the co-founders of the short lived Off Hollywood Theatre Company which staged several of his original plays.  83 In the Shade is his first novel.  He also dabbles in screenplays, toys with short stories, and flirts with poetry.  Life brought him to bucolic Southwest Virginia where he now resides and is very active in community theatre. It may interest you to know Chris is officially an Irish citizen as well as an American. He also enjoys drawing and painting and looking after a passel of 
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    housecats and two turtles.

     

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