Chasing The Dream

Only In The Streets Of LA

2006-04-09T14:03:00.000-07:00

I was driving after work to the Hoya's place to go out to dinner. I was driving North on this street called Highland Avenue to get to the 101 North.

Just driving along minding my own business. I had the window down, playing some tunes, just driving.

I am stopped in traffic and I see about 8-10 police cars driving south on Highland. They were kind of driving slowly, positioning themselves around traffic, turning their lights on and off, but no sirens.

It seemed really, really strange, so I started to look around for some explanation. Maybe a police funeral, maybe a police escort, politician, something. But it was only police cars, a lot of them.

I was coming up to a street called Fountain. I was a couple of blocks south of the light and the police cars had just driven through the light coming toward me. There are about 12 cop cars or so.

All at once every cop got out of the car and draw their revolvers and point them at the cars in front of them. Then I take a look at MY situation.

The police cars are all about 30 yards diagonally to my left. The cars that they are pointing their revolvers at is just to my left and a little ahead of me. Since they all have their revolvers drawn and there are about 20 or so cops, this must be a serious situation. IF shots are fired I am just inside their line of fire.

I have my widow down so I can hear the cops shouting "Driver of the car, let me see your hands, put your hands out of the window."

The car in front of them is a big black SUV. A Yukon. BUT, there is a smaller four door sedan in front of the Yukon. Because he is in front of the Yukon, he can't really see what is going on in back of him. All he can see are some cops off to the side and hear a cop shouting to put his hands out. So the driver of the sedan puts his hands out of the window. The cop keeps yelling for the driver to put his hands out of the window. So the guy in the sedan puts his hands further out the window, and then sticks his head out.

The cops yells to the guy in the sedan to keep moving and then yells "Driver of the Yukon, put your hands out."

I see in MY rearview mirror that more police cars are blocking of the street behind me, closing off the street from the south. And two more cops cars have now blocked the street going in my direction and are motioning for my car and the cars next to me to move around him and get clear.

I follow the cops direction and drive around the police car. As I drove past the car they had pulled over, I looked and saw the guy they were worried about and it was just some middle aged guy. The whole thing only took a couple of minutes, but it was a STRANGE couple of minutes

Never did find out what happened.

Ups and Downs

2006-04-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

The Hoya and I went to California Adventure last week. California Adventure is the Disney theme park right next door to Disneyland. It has some fun stuff, but overall it is a poor man's Disneyland with none of the nostalgia that Disneyland has.

We were eating lunch at this cafe, I had the $8 roastbeef sandwich, and as I stood up this guy who was walking back from throwing away his food stopped me. He reached out his hand and said:

"I don't know where I know you, but I recognize you. I'm John Powers"

So I shook his hand and said:

"Hi, I'm Bryan"

Then I walked to the bathroom. In the bathroom, I kept thinking where I might have run into that guy, working catering, performing improv, but I couldn't place it. Then it hit me. John Powers thinks that I am someone famous. That he saw me on tv or in the movies and wanted to shake my hand.

I went back and discussed it with The Hoya and we both agreed that he probably mistook me for someone else. Maybe Patrick Swayze.

But on the ride home I started thinking that maybe I have a shot at making it out here. If people already think they know me from stuff, maybe I am destined to be on tv or in the movies.

Without knowing it, John Powers had filled me with confidence.

Then two days later I got this letter from my commercial agent.

After close review we have not been able to service you to the best of our ability. Therefore we are releasing you from your commitment to LA TALENT. We wish you the best of luck in the future.

I felt really bad after I got that, but then again, I only got 3 auditions from this agency in 8 months and 2 of the 3 were non-speaking roles. So maybe I am better off without them.

I have a lead on some other agents and maybe they will be better for me.

Can't be any worse. And if all else fails, I will always have John Powers.

The Headshot Saga, Part II

2006-03-03T22:19:00.000-08:00

The last time we left our hero, I had just been given the selection of two headshots that my agents liked. Now he had to get them reproduced. My incredibly kind girlfriend told me about a reproduction house that was 2/3 cheaper than the one I usually used. Being a cost conscience individual, I brought over the disc with the selections on them for me girlfriend to take a look at and alter if needed. I have dark circles under my eyes, thanks to my fathers genes. She was able to erase them on her computer and make me look young again. Then she noticed that the photos were very yellowish, so she altered that as well, and I was finally excited to get them reproduced.

We took them to the reproduction house and gave them to the lady to take a look at. She printed out some quick proofs and came over to me looking concerned. I wasn't worried because everything else had been easy, so this should be as well, right?

Wrong!

She came over and said that the color was all screwed up, that it was too blue and that my hair looked really read around my hair line. I asked what could do that and she replied that the photographer might have altered some of the color, or that the light might not have been right and that is why my hair looked weird.

So I did not leave them to be reproduced. Instead, my lovely girlfriend The Hoya took the files and left the color alone, but tried to make my hairline less red. It might have had something to do with the dye I used to color in my grey hair. Yes, I am graying, so what?!

So she fixed that and then I took them back. The printed off the proofs and they looked alright and I finally got my new headshots almost two months after I had them taken.

The better be worth it!

The Headshot Saga

2006-02-21T14:50:00.000-08:00

I finally got new headshots taken, approved and reproduced. But it only took 2 months to do so.

My original headshot was not getting me auditions. I was more concerned about commercial auditions because I trust my commercial agent more so than my theatrical agent. I asked him to recommend a photographer that they trusted and they gave me the name of a guy named Maximo. Yes, Maximo.

I wanted to make sure that these photos turned out well, so I set up a meeting with Maximo in December to talk over what I wanted, look at my previous photos, and generally get on the same page. He was a good guy and we could shoot pretty soon, so I set up an appointment for a photo shoot.

I hate taking pictures of myself. I feel uncomfortable and I am sure that it shows in the pictures that are taken of me. But, I went into the shoot with a positive attitude and ready to get at least 1 great shot of me that Casting Directors would go ga-ga over. One is all that it takes.

The shoot went well and I picked up my CD from Maximo to look at the shots. Here is where it starts to get frustrating.

He gave me a disc of JPEG files that had about 50 shots on it that were his picks for my commercial agent to take a look at. Then he gave me a DVD with all of the files of the pictures on it. The problem is that my computer is old and does not have a DVD player on it. So I could not view all of the shots. I had to call him back and set up another time for me to come get a disc of all JPEG shots on a CD, not a DVD. That took about a week to get that and when I did it was almost Christmas and work was really busy and I was getting a show together for Chicago in a couple of weeks. I did not have the time to sit down for hours and pour through all of the shots. But in mid-January I finally sat down and picked a bunch for my agents to look at. I emailed my commercial agent, but he didn't get back to me right away. No big deal, I will just go to my theatrical agent and get her opinion. I got in and had the best interaction I have ever had with her. She told me that she liked some of the pictures I had brought in, but she wanted to take a look at the whole shoot. She didn't usually do that for people, but for me she would. She wanted me to bring in the whole disc of pictures that she would go through and pick her final choices.

I copied the CD, and dropped it off the next week. I emailed her that I had done what she asked and she replied "We don't accept CD's of photo shoots, please pick out your choices and make an appointment to come and see me". That was more like the interaction that I usually have with them. I know they see tons of people and it is hard to keep track of what you tell everyone, but it was frustrating none-the-less. I sent her another email telling her the situation and that she told me to drop it off. A couple of days later she emailed me back that she did remember telling me that and she would look at my disc and get back to me in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, I finally got through to my commercial agent and set up a time to come in. I brought the 15-20 choices that I had printed out on my computer, using up a whole ink cartridge in the process, and presented them to him. No way. He did not want to see my choices, he wanted me to leave the CD with Maximo's choices at the office and they would look at them and get back to me the next day.

The next day, I had not heard anything from them by late afternoon. So I sent an email checking up on things. "Didn't have time to get to it. Will look tomorrow" was his reply. So I waited again. Sent an email again late in the afternoon the next day. Same thing. Wait until tomorrow. I didn't contact them the next day and instead waited a whole day until contacting them. "Come in around 2 tomorrow" was his only reply.

I go in the next day, almost a full week since I had set up the first appointment, and he hand me the disc and says "Our systems are down, we can't look at the disc." I don't mention that I see at least 4 people working on computers at the very moment the system is down. "Go next door to Kinko's and have them print off a proof sheet, only costs a couple of bucks and then come back and we can look at them."

Frustrated again, but with hope that I will soon have an answer, I walk a block to Kinko's and ask the very helpful employee behind the counter a question.

"Hi, I have pictures on this disc and I need a proof sheet printed out"

"I don't know what you are talking about" she helpfully replied.

"Oh, well I wanted to print off a proof sheet that has all of the pictures on it."

"We can't do that" she helpfully pointed out.

"It's just a sheet that has all of the pictures on it, so I can take a look at them."

"If we print a sheet with all of the pictures on it, each picture will be so small that you won't be able to see it"

"Well, they don't have to be regular size, they just need to be.....

"The only thing that can do that is that machine over there" she helpfully pointed out.

"Oh, that can print a proof sheet?"

"I don't know. It can print the pictures" then she helpfully turned her back and pretended to helpfully talk to someone else.

I go over to the machine, put in my disc and try to figure out the cheapest and easiest way to get what I want. I fail miserably. I end up paying $16, to print off 4X6 copies of each of my photos. All 55 of them. It takes around 45 seconds to print off 1 picture, so I sit on the floor of the Kinko's and catch all of my photos that print off.

I thank the helpful employee and walk back to my agents office. I am sure they are wondering where the hell I went since I have been gone over half an hour. I walk in, start to give my agent the pictures, when he gets a phone call from some woman who is a model with them. She has been offered $10,000 a day for a two day Panteene shampoo commercial. She is wavering because she just got a small part on an NBC show and doesn't want to do commercials anymore and not be thought of as a real actress. So I sit and wait as my agent is trying to get her to take the commercial and he can earn his 10-15% of $20,000. After a few minutes, this nice other agent tells me that she can take a look at my pictures and I take the 55 4X6 pictures over to her. She begins to go through them and I can see that she is getting a little overwhelmed by all of the pictures. So I tell her that I have my choices of those pictures that I printed out and brought with me. She tells me to show her those.

So I end up showing her the EXACT PHOTOS THAT I COPIED AND BROUGHT IT A WEEK AGO to choose my headshot.

She choose two. My agent got off the phone and told me that he trusts the other agents judgment and does not take a look at the ones she chose.

But I got my photo choices. Now all I have to do is get them reproduced. Easy right?

Wrong!

25th Century Heroes

2006-02-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

For the past four months I have been working on a show with two of my friends that moved out here last summer. I knew Alonzo and Buddy from Chicago where we all went through Improv Olympic together. I was very excited when I first heard that they were moving out here, because I had been itching to get something going myself to perform around town.

January 13, 2006 we made our debut at the Chicago Sketchfest.

We are the "25th Century Heroes"!!!

This is something that we are planning on doing for a long time. We are working on a website and videos and lots of other fun stuff.

The months leading up to our show were very, very hectic. It is always tough to write a show from scratch and get it ready to perform, but it was even more difficult because it was during the holidays.

But we prevailed.

Chicago was great. The Hoya and I flew in Wed night and then hung out with my sister. Thursday was a day of rest and watching shows and then Friday was the big day of our show.

The 25th Century Heroes is a theme that we have created so we can do something different than other sketch comedy teams. The three of us are from the future sent back to the present to observe humanity. We just wanted a way for us to have a show that just wasn't 10 funny scenes that had nothing to do with each other. People seemed to like the show and we got very positive feedback from everyone that we spoke with.

The Hoya was a valuable ally to the Heroes. She designed buttons that were a hit, she has designed merchandise that is available to purchase, and she sat in on our tech rehearsal and helped us to make the show look good. So the Heroes owe her a big thank you!

Expect more updates on the Heroes very soon. I am very proud of this and will continue to have fun stuff to show you soon.

Funny Taiwan Teaching Method

2006-01-21T17:58:00.000-08:00

One of my best friends from high school has lived in Taiwan for the past 5 years. He taught English to kids. He mailed me this sheet that is a teaching aid for the kids. It is a story that most of us will know from childhood, but with a little bit of a different ending. It made me laugh so I am sharing it with all of you.

One day, while the ants were going to work, the grasshoppers were going to dance. The ant's said, "We will work all summer, because we want to have enough food for winter." The grasshoppers laughed and said, "We want to be happy, so we are going to dance all summer."

The winter came. The ants had a lot of food and thought they were going to have a wonderful winter. They were very happy, and they danced and sang songs in their house. When the ants were happy, the grasshoppers were sad. The grasshoppers had no food to eat in the cold winter. They asked the ants for help, but the ants didn't want to give them food.

So, the grasshoppers were going to die. They said to themselves, "We will work hard next summer." But it was too late. After they finished the words, they died.

I guess they want to teach the kids the hard lessons early in life.

The Working Life

2006-01-21T17:12:00.000-08:00

The holidays are the busiest time of the year for catering. Everybody is having parties and so my company was sending out lots of people everyday. I ended up working in the office 4 weekdays and Saturdays for the past 3 months. It was nice money, but it really wore me down. Part of the problem is that catering attracts a lot of idiots. Most of the people we send out are fine and do an excellent job, but it is the idiots that cause all of the problems. Canceling on a job a couple of hours before you are supposed to start is a huge hassle for us, because there is no way that we can get someone else to take the job and get there on time. But when people cancel jobs, they act like we are the bad guys because we tell them it will affect their future with the company.

The other thing that really gets my goat is when people don't do any planning to get to there job on time. Here is one such exchange.

Me: How can I help you?
Joe: Yeah, I am supposed to be at a job and I can't find it?
Me: Okay, what is your name?
Joe: Joe.
Me: Joe who?
Joe: (exasperated) Joe Smith!!!
Me: Okay, so you are supposed to be at Cal Tech in 10 minutes.
Joe: Yes.
Me: Okay. Where are you?
Joe: I'm not sure.
Me: Alright. Do you have the address?
Joe: No.
Me: Do you have a map?
Joe: No.
Me: Did you mapquest the directions before you left?
Joe: No. I thought I knew where it was so I just got in my car and drove.
Me: Can you tell me the city you are in.
Joe: No sure.
Me: Can you tell me the streets that you are near.
Joe: I am on 1st street, passing Main st.
Me: Okay.
(pause as I try to call up a map on the internet)
Joe: You there?
Me: Yes, Joe. I am trying to find where you are. We gave you directions on your
calendar. Did you look at them.
Joe: No.
Me: Okay, hold on let me see if I can help you. You need to have the address
and directions with you when you leave for a job.
Joe: Hey man, if you don't wanna help me that's fine, I will just not show up.
Me: No Joe, don't do that, let me find where you are and get you there.

So I spend the next 20 minutes helping this guy to get to his destination, only to have him do it AGAIN the next time he goes on a job. Thankfully, he will not be working that much now that it has slowed down. When it is so busy during the holidays, we need every warm body that we can get. So, really shitty people work for us.

Now, I am not working in the office that much, which sucks for money, but is great since I have time to do other things. Like acting, which is why I moved out here.

Home For the Holidays

2006-01-21T15:32:00.000-08:00

I went back to Chicago for Thanksgiving. My sister still lives there and my parents were driving in from Pennsylvania to have Thanksgiving in my sisters new place.

I got there a couple of days before my parents did and it gave me some time to catch up with old friends. I saw my old roommate from college who now lives in San Francisco, another old friend from college who still lives in Chicago, my old roommate from Chicago, and some old improv friends. It was a full day, but it was nice to get to see everyone.

My parents came in and then we had family time. My mother and sister made Thanksgiving dinner. My mom makes the BEST turkey ever. Her secret ingredient is that she puts grapes and grape juice in the bottom on the pan you cook the turkey in. The grapes, along with some cranberries, makes the turkey really most because of the acid in the fruit. My sister had a friend over for dinner and she said it might have been the best turkey she had ever eaten.

After dinner, we went and saw "Wicked" in downtown Chicago. We all enjoyed it a lot, even my dad.

It was good to have a day of rest before heading back to Los Angeles.

Then I went to my parents house in Pennsylvania for Christmas. It is nice to go there because we don't know anyone there since they only moved a couple of years ago, so it is only family time.

I was really, really sick when I got there. I had a cold/flu from being run down and not getting enough sleep. After a couple of days I felt better and began to annoy my family again, at which point they wished I was still sick.

Christmas was fun and got some good stuff, but mainly it was nice to see my family again and to take a little break from the insanity that was work.

New Years was spent in Los Angeles. After work, I took the Hoya to a mutual friends house to ring in the new year. The Reverend and Rockstar met us there and we all had a good time hanging out and taking pictures. New Years came and then we left because I had to get up and work in Malibu early in the morning.

I love holidays, but I wish I wasn't so busy this year because it seemed like I never really got to enjoy them.

Hello Old Friend

2006-01-21T15:22:00.000-08:00

Well, as you can see I have not updated this blog in over a month. The main reason being that the past several months have been exceptionally busy. The holidays are the busiest time of the year for catering and I was working in the office just about every day, and doing other events in the field and doing improv at two theaters and getting a sketch comedy show together to perform in January. That, plus traveling for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and to perform this show, made my time at home minimal. But, things have quieted down and I will be back to writing several times a week to keep everyone updated with events going on in my life. For now, I will post several entries with what I have been up to the past couple of months.

The Chicago Bears Rule!!!

2005-12-04T23:58:00.000-08:00

I would like to congratulate the Chicago Bears on their victory over the Green Bay Packers today. The Bears really put it together and managed a fine victory. Green Bay had no answers and couldn't pull out the win. So hats off to Lovie et al for a hard fought victory.

I hope you are happy Mark M.

Bear Down

Magic In LA

2005-11-17T17:43:00.000-08:00

The past Monday morning, I was again reminded why LA is like no other city in America. I was getting into the elevator at the building where I work and right behind me walked in Tommy Lee from the band Motley Crue. He got on with a bodyguard and some "suit" type of guy. They chit chatted for the 10 seconds or so that it took to get up to the 5th floor. Being the gentleman that I am I let them get off first and when I followed them around the corner, there was Nikki Six from the band as well. Apparently there is a radio station on the same floor as my work and they do interviews there every now and then. Later on, Tommy and Nikki were joined by Mick Mars as well. All three looked like they had been doing some hard living. But it was Monday morning so I am sure that I didn't look so hot either.

I laughed so hard

2005-11-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

I was doing laundry tonight, when I discovered that I was 1 quarter short to dry my last load. I keep quarters in my car for meters so I went out to my car in the lot next door to get one.

As I approached my car I heard voices in an apartment above me. I don't know why but I stopped right by my drivers side door and turned to look where the voices came from. I was standing there turned to my left and looking at the 2nd floor of the apartment building. I guess I kind of zoned out and must have been there staring motionless for a few seconds, when all of a sudden I heard automatic locks click. I looked at the passenger side window of the car parked next to mine and there was a person sitting there looking at me. It is dark in the lot so I couldn't see what they looked like, and they in turn couldn't see what I looked like. So from their point of view, some strange guy walked up near their window and began staring at them. Probably freaked them out a bit. I got spooked when the locks were clicked and I knew I probably scared them, so I gave them a good natured wave and walked back inside my apartment laughing at the ridiculousness of the the situation. Then I realized that I hadn't gotten the quarter out of my car. If I had opened my car door, it probably would have calmed them down a bit. But I didn't. Cause I am an idiot. So I just spent 10 minutes looking for 1 quarter in my apartment. I found one in the bottom of my bag, thank God.

But I can't go back outside until morning.

Introducing, the 25th Century Heroes

2005-11-14T22:33:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in another post that I have been writing a show with two friends of mine that have recently moved out here from Chicago. Our group is called "25th Century Heroes". We have been plugging away for a few months now, and I am really excited by what we have come up with. I have been nervous because I was not sure if we would have a chance to perform our stuff in front of a crowd before our show in the spring.

But I am nervous no longer.

25th Century Heroes will be performing 2 shows at the 2006 Chicago Sketchfest in January.

I will have more details up for anyone who would like to come see us perform.

Right now I am just excited.

An Open Letter to African-American Men

2005-11-14T22:12:00.000-08:00

Dear African-American Men,

I am writing to alert you to a disturbing trend that I have recently noticed and I feel could become dangerous. Over the past six months or so, I have witnessed numerous accounts of white men referring to other white men as "brother". Two such examples are when I have gone to a bar, the bartender will say "What can I get for you brother", and when you do something nice for a complete stranger they thank you by saying "thanks, brother". Now I know I am not the only one that is bothered by this, but I think I am the first one to speak out against it. There are a lot of things that white society has usurped from the African-American culture. Things such as music, fashion, dance and Eddie Murphy. Indeed it is becoming clear that the African-American culture is the most imitated culture on the planet, but I say that this "brother" trend has got to stop. This is yours. You started it, you own it. Young white males might feel that they are cool or hip when saying this, but I think it comes from a place of insecurity. Young white culture today has really nothing groundbreaking going for it. So they leach onto whatever is thought of as "cool".

However, this is not only a young white male problem. I worked a catering event not to long ago for an insurance company. The average age of most males was around 40 or so. Now I know that insurance companies are thought of globally as being trend setters, but a lot of the older white males referred to each other as "brother".

"Profits are looking good, brother"
"Thanks for the gin and tonic, brother"
"Brother, you are never going to believe who I tagged last night"

I for one am sick of it. So I am calling for all African-American men to let white America know that this is unacceptable! Say that it is racist or something along those lines, you know how we shy away from that. Make it as scary as using the "n" word. See, I can't even type it in this scientific plea! I for one will applaud you and support you in any way that I can.

Another trend that is not prevalent yet, but could become so, is the pronunciation of the word "bro" as "bra". "Bro" is another word that has been stolen from you, and now is being bastardized by the white man. Perhaps the new pronunciation gives some white men a feeling of ownership, since it is new. I am not sure. I do not think this is as big a danger as "brother", since the word "bra" really just makes people sound stupid. Perhaps this was the plan all along? I do not know, but thought I would draw your attention to it.

You are welcome for the heads up, and I look forward to your action

Sincerely yours,

Sydewynder

P.S. While you are at it, can you make a final judgment on the Black vs. African-American thing? I would really appreciate it.

Evening Alone

2005-10-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy lately that I forgot how relaxing a night at home can be. Tonight was on of those rare nights that I got to do that and I am loving every minute of it.

I have begun working in the catering office full time now. They did not hire me as a full time employee, with benefits and everything, but at least I have a set schedule and can have a night or two like tonight every now and then.

Improv continues to go very well with both Improv Olympic and LA Connection Comedy theater.

But the newest thing is that I am writing a sketch comedy show with two friends of mine that recently moved out from Chicago. Both of them are friends of mine from Improv Olympic in Chicago. We had begun emailing each other in January about them moving out here and that we should work together on something that could be very creative and also something that we could sell ourselves in. As soon as they moved out here we began writing and working on our show idea.

We call ourselves, The 25th Century Heroes. Together our designations are 001, 002 and 003. It doesn't make much sense unless I go into detail about why we call ourselves that, but 002 and 003 and I are extremely happy with the way things are going. We have submitted to Sketchfest 2006 in Chicago this January and hopefully will have a complete show in the spring. Needless to say they have given me a much needed shot of creative energy.

Other than that most of my time is spent in the office, class, rehearsal, performing or some other task related to one of those things. That is why I have been so busy.

But I have some ideas for blog entries, so I will keep up to date with that.

Office Moron

2005-10-01T01:17:00.000-07:00

I work in the catering company's office a lot now, because it is the busy season and I have experience staffing from my time in Chicago.

We have snacks available in our kitchen to keep us going. Things like, nuts, goldfish crackers, granola bars, soda, etc. We also have dixie cups to scoop them into and also to drink water from should you choose too.

I grabbed two cups, one for water and one for nuts and set them on opposite sides of the computer. Peanuts on the left, water on the right.

Fast forward about an hour. I had been making phone calls and staffing people and while I was on the phone waiting to leave messages, I would toss a few peanuts in my mouth and then when I was done chewing I would drink some water. Well, I was on the phone and was leaving a message when I wanted some peanuts. I grabbed the cup on the right side and tossed the rest of the WATER onto my face and then it dripped down onto my shirt.

Everyone in the office thought it was one of the funniest things they have ever seen.

2 Cents, or 3?

2005-10-01T01:12:00.000-07:00

The other day, Rockstar and I were walking down the street and we passed a homeless man. Right as we passed him, he held out his hand and said,

"DILDO!?"

In his hand he was holding some sort of plastic shaft that looked like it indeed was a dildo, but it was the grossest dildo ever. Weirdly curved and kind of melted a little at the tip.

Rockstar and I both said no to the kind offer, but he wouldn't let us get away without one strong, last pitch.

"Come on, 3 cent?"

Which I found to be completely reasonable for a street dildo, but we passed on that exceptional deal.

Then we began to argue whether the man said "2 cent" or "3 cent". I thought he said 3, while Rockstar was convinced he said 2. Either way we agree that we live in a shitty neighborhood and need to get out as soon as we can make some better money.

Emmy's Galore

2005-10-01T00:51:00.000-07:00

There are two actual Emmy award shows. The first one is for technical achievements. Set design, wardrobe, makeup, that sort of thing. The second one is for the actors, shows, writers, and the stuff that people pay attention to. I was lucky enough to work both events at the Shrine auditorium.

The first event was pretty cool. There were hundreds of servers working, along with cooks, and event staff so it was kind of a crazy, cluster fuck, but I didn't mind. I was assigned to work a table and when all of my guests had sat down, I noticed that every couple had an Emmy. I had 10 people and 5 HUGE Emmy's sitting at my table, which equates to a 100% Emmy winner table. They were all very nice, and VERY happy of course and I was working for a different company than I usually do so I was making more money, which made the event a success in my book.

The following weekend, I worked the award show that everyone watches. I was doing the same thing, working a table in a particular section, but it was pretty cool seeing all of the celebrities. My table faced the exit of the theater into the dining area, so you name the celebrity and chances are I saw them. Highlights for me included, Ben waffle's, whoop Goldberg, quantum trending, Christian Slater, Blythe Danner, Oliver Platt, Conan O'Brien, Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, Ellen DeGeneres and Jennifer Love Hewett, who I don't really like as an actress but is just so cute in person.

The event was really crowded and we had to hustle to get people their food quickly but the people at the event could have cared less if they were in our way. Lots of lollygagging around, even though they could clearly see that there was a line of 20 waiters trying to get by to go to the kitchen. But people were having fun and that was the most important thing. At one point I was walking to the kitchen and this dude was ahead of me blocking my path. He was waking extremely slowly and because of the crowd I had no choice but to walk behind him and hope the he either sped up or let me by or turned. I decided to have some fun and invented a game called "kick the back of shoes". The rules of this game are pretty simple. You kick the back of the person's shoes ahead of you until they let you by. I kicked this guy four times before he turned around and glared at me. I said "I am REALLY, REALLY SORRY SIR" and he saw that I was all flustered and carrying trays so he let me pass by him. I laughed and laughed at my new game, but no one else that I played it with seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.

I did get pretty depressed at one point during the night. I was clearing away some dirty dishes and it just hit me that I am at the center of where I want to be, surrounded by working actors, and I was taking dirty dishes to be washed. Not that I wanted to be at the Emmy award shows, but just to be a working actor would be nice.

Next Year!

The Smile Was Worth It

2005-09-17T01:48:00.000-07:00

Couple of weeks ago, I took off four days of catering work and filled in for a girl on my L.A. Connection Comedy Theater team and did kids shows. We would go to 2 or 3 different YMCA centers and perform an improv show using the kids. I had a fun time doing them and it was nice to see kids laugh and have fun with us.

The owner of the theater is kind of a douche bag and gave us a bunch of wrong information, so for a couple of the days of shows we were given bad addresses and times so we looked like fools. But what can you do.

The best day was the last of them. There are 3 other actors besides myself who perform these shows. The leader of our group, The Hoya, came and told us that at this particular YMCA they had a deaf child in the audience and that he had an interpreter there who would sign to him so he could follow along. The Hoya told the teacher and the interpreter that she wanted to bring the child up to participate in a game with us so he could be included. The only game that he could really do is called "Fairy Tale". In that game we take about 6-7 kids from the audience and we stand in a line together. The Hoya is the narrator and she asks the audience to give her there two favorite fairy tales. Then she combines them to make a fun story. The narrator tells the story and speaks all of the dialogue for the actors and all we have to do is pantomime what she is saying and act out what she tells us too. It is mainly geared toward the younger children so they don't have to speak. She told the teacher and the interpreter that she could sign the story as she spoke and give the kids directions by sign language. Then she busts out and goes into advanced sign language. I was really impressed.

When it was time for the game, she pointed out the child and signed to him that she wanted him to come up and join the game. The child looked surprised and then pointed at his chest, just to make sure he was seeing her correctly. When she signed yes, he SPRINTED up to the front and joined us for the game. Then we played the game with the kids and the child had the best time out of all of them. He was smiling ear to ear and having a blast playing the footman in "Sleeping Beauty meets Shrek". When it was over, he ran smiling back to his chair and I almost started crying. I was so happy that I could be a part of bringing joy to a child who has had a difficult life and was probably not looking forward to having yet another show at the center that he could not participate in. I told The Hoya that I was proud of her and that she should be proud of herself. I also felt inadequate, because I would have had no way to reach that child if she wasn't there.

Then the next school we went to had a child with Down Syndrome in the audience. We brought him up to play "Fairy tale" also, and he played Shrek in the story. By the way, Shrek was the suggestion for almost all of their favorite fairy tales. He was great as Shrek, even going so far as to imitate the mannerisms of an ogre while he was out there. He too ran smiling back to his chair after the game was over.

I also taught 45 minutes of improv games to kids by myself after one of the shows. I had 1st and 2nd graders in my group. I didn't realize that was the grade that everyone decides to kick and punch each other cause these kids were going after each other like it was an Ultimate Fighting Championship Pay Per View. I had to sit a few kids out, and tell some others to go to the bathroom to get them away from me for a few minutes, but overall it was fun.

The money that I earned from doing these shows and teaching comes off of my monthly dues for the theater. We didn't get paid much, but it was worth it just to see the smiles.

Improv Update

2005-09-16T22:28:00.000-07:00

Improv has be going extremely well lately.

At Improv Olympic, the team that I am on "Emperor Penguin" is starting to come together as a team and has been performing well.

I was having a difficult time with the team about a month ago because of little things that were bothering me. Mostly it was stuff like being late to rehearsal or warm-ups before the show, and not seeming to take an interest in the team. I had reached a point were I was about to stop caring about the team and just show up and do my best, when one of the guys on the team pulled me aside and we started talking. He mentioned to me that I was one of the people on the team who had been in improv the longest. I had been on a couple of teams in Chicago and had gone through the Second City program and that people looked up to me. He suggested that I start taking a more prominent leadership role and that people on the team would back me up 100%. So, I sent out an email a couple of days before a show suggesting that the whole team should be there no later than 30 minutes before the show so we could get a nice long warm-up in before we went on stage. Sure enough, everyone was there for warm-ups on time and it has carried through the past few weeks. We also don't have a coach at the moment and have been having to coach ourselves and I think that has solidified us as a team. Now we are working on one small goal each show so that we can build a foundation for ourselves as a complete and solid Improv Olympic team.

The last two shows have been really good. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I was in a scene during the last show that just KILLED. It was a simple scene where a one-eyed guy picked me up hitchhiking. Then we just started talking and it was so interesting and funny that the team let us stay out there a little longer than a scene usually goes. I felt really good about my performance and the performance of the team and am looking forward to continuing to grow together.

At the L.A. Connection Comedy theater that I have been performing at for the past 6 months, things are going well also. The owner finally got off of his ass and started doing something about getting crowds. A company contacted him and he sells them tickets at a reduced rate and then they turn around and sell them at the colleges around L.A., of which there are a lot of them.

The past couple of weeks we have had shows where the audience is close to 40 people, which may not seem like a lot, but when you are used to performing to 4 people, it makes a HUGE difference. Plus, I think my group is pretty good and we put on a good show and the crowds have really seemed to like us.

I feel very positive right now with improv. Which is nice because not much else is happening career-wise. But that will change also.

Curb MY Enthusiasm

2005-09-16T21:25:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a free improv seminar taught by Jeff Garlin. He is the Executive Producer of Curb Your Enthusiasm and plays, Jeff, who is Larry David's Manager.

I thought it would be fun and informative to take his class since the show is improv based and really, really funny.

The class started at 3pm, so I was in my seat at 2:50, ready to learn. There was one other guy sitting in the row ahead of me. We said hello to each other and then went into our own worlds, probably dreaming of Jeff picking us to be on his show.

3pm hits and no one else is there but us two. 3:05 and still no one. The guy ahead of me laughs and says,

"I forgot. Actors."

Which I thought was funny because it is true. I don't know how people expect to make it in this tough business when they can't even handle the simple things like showing up on time.

So around 3:10 people filter through the door and at 3:15 Jeff Garlin walks in and starts the class.

He tells us that he is going to teach us what he knows, and how to audition for Curb Your Enthusiasm using improv. Most of the day he hands out slips of paper that has a couple of sentences on it describing the characters or situation you will improvise. Then you went up and did the scene and he critiqued you and gave suggestions to everyone about how to audition better.

I thought it was really interesting when he told us that when people come into audition for CYE, they audition with the real actors from the show, and not just casting directors.

I went up a couple of times and he seemed to like what I did because he didn't have much criticism for me. Towards the end of class he was going to have us improvise situations from this movie that he just wrote and directed. He set up the scene and then it happened. He pointed right at me and said,

"I want you to do this, and you to do this", and he pointed at another woman that I thought had done a good job.

I thought that was really, really cool. He hadn't done that before and didn't do that after, so I felt proud that I had made an impression on him.

We do the scene and then more people do the scene and then class ended.

I walked up to Jeff who was getting his stuff together on a set of stairs that goes up to the balcony section of the theater, and told him thank you. I did so by raising my right arm and kind of giving him a little wave. He said that it was his pleasure and I brought my hand down and hit the tip of my elbow on the metal banister. HARD. It made a loud hollow noise and I just walked out quickly. Not sure if Jeff saw that, but I was pretty sure that I had destroyed any good impression that he might have had of me.

I walked out into the lobby and paused to rub my elbow because it hurt bad.

But not bad enough to ruin that day.

Retail Hell

2005-09-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

Most people at one time or another has worked in the retail sector. Either during high school, college, or in between jobs, so everyone has a working idea of how shitty it is to work that type of job. I thought that my days of working retail were far in my past. I was wrong.

Recently, my catering company sent me to work two days at Warner Brother’s Studio, for a job described as “coffee service”. When they found out that I had zero experience making coffee, they stuck me in the Warner Brother’s store. The store is just a big merchandise rip-off that the tourists go to after the tour of the studio. It’s full of t-shirts, mugs, key chains, posters, and everything in between that has either television shows or movies that WB makes.

To make matters worse, the boss was an incredible anal man named Robert, or Anal Bob as I referred to him. He would walk around the store and point out every t-shirt that wasn’t folded properly, every mug whose handle was not pointed out in the right direction and every person that we had not greeted properly upon them entering the store. I could care less about everything there, but I wanted to do a good job so I jumped right in.

T-Shirts

All of the t-shirts had to be folded in exactly the same manor so that whatever word was showing on the fold, was showing on all of the t-shirts in exactly the same manor. And when I say exactly, I mean EXACTLY. I can’t tell you how many shirts I folded because the “s” on a “Friends” t-shirt didn’t match up with the others. One time he took me aside and made me re-fold about 30 shirts that had the WB crest over the right chest because they were all not uniformed. So 30 minutes later, I had folded all of the shirts, they were looking good, and I was pleased. Until I turned around 30 seconds later and saw a woman who must have had NO idea what her size was because she picked up 28 of the 30 shirts and unfolded them to put them on her to see if they fit. Then she didn’t even buy one. She threw them all in a pile and walked away. I wanted to strangle her with a shirt, but I calmly walked over and re-folded them AGAIN. I figured out that if you are doing something to a pile of t-shirts or mugs, then people automatically are drawn to them and as soon as you are done, they mess them up. But I didn’t always have to fold t-shirts, I was put in charge of printing pictures for a while.

Pictures

On one of the parts of the WB tour, people stand in front of a green screen and look up at something scary. Then by the magic of special effects, they can pick up a free picture at the end of the tour that has the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard movie jumping over them. You would have thought that this was a picture of God himself the way people would carry on about them. The tours are pretty big, and sometimes it would take a while for the pictures to be sent to the server for the gift shop. Let me tell you, if you don’t have that picture ready for the family from Milwaukee, WI as soon as they walk up, they are NOT happy about it. One woman was so scared that we had lost her family’s picture. She kept going on and on about it being missing and didn’t even say thank you when I found it and printed it off for her, because she wanted another free one and we can only give one free per group. The other copies cost $4.99, which didn’t please her even though she had just plunked down $25 for a t-shirt that simple said “ER”. One man was so taken by his picture that he kept asking for more stuff. Thankfully he was not talking to me. Here is a portion of the exchange.

Man: This picture is really great. Any way you could email me a copy?

Worker: I’m sorry sir; we don’t have the ability to email the pictures.

Man: Huh? That’s weird because I know a lot about computers and it doesn’t
Seem that hard to email it.

Worker: We have an independent server and it only hooks the computers here
there is no outside internet service.

Man: Hmmm. Could you put it on a disc for me?

Worker: Sorry sir, we don’t have that ability either, but you could buy
another copy if you would like.

Man: Noooo. I just think that it would be really easy to give people a
disc or an email. I am really good with computers so it would be no
problem for me to get it.

Worker: I’m sorry to disappoint you sir.

Man: What about different backgrounds? Any chance you have anything else?

Worker: Well, we change the background depending on what movie or TV show is
Popular at the time, but we don’t have the other backgrounds now.

Man: Wow! I know a lot about computers and it would be neat to see this
With a different background and it doesn’t seem that hard to me.

Worker: Well, they are thinking or maybe having that option in the future.

Man: Really?! When?

Worker: I don’t’ know.

Man: Any chance it would be in the next week, we leave then?

Worker: No.

Man: If I gave you my email address, could someone could let me know
When that happens, cause I know a lot about computers and it would be
No problem for me to have this sent to me with different backgrounds.

Worker: I don’t know when that would be sir?

Man: Let me give you my email address and you can let me know when that
Happens.

Worker: Okay, sir. I would be happy to do that.

Man: That’s great, cause I know a lot about computers and I would love for
this to be a Christmas card.

By the third time he said he was “good with computers” I wanted to scream at him to just make the picture himself. I know people who can put your face on Captain Kirk’s body in about 10 seconds, but apparently this supercomputer guy could figure that out. Thankfully I didn’t have to work the pictures all day, we took shifts.

Loose Keys

I was working with a woman from my company that I am friends with. Her name is Eva and she is from Austria. I went up to her during the second day and asked her if there were a lot of loose keys floating around Europe. She asked me why and I told her that every European tourist that comes in buys at least 5 key chains. She told me that they are cheap gifts to bring back to people. The cheapest key chain that we had was $5, which if it was me, I would not buy a “Gilmore Girls” key chain if it was $5. But I am not very European.

So that was a re-cap of my two days of retail hell.

At Least It's Something

2005-08-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

I received a call last week from the agency that I read for and didn’t do that well. I had sent them a thank you note and wrote that I would still like to have a meeting with them since I haven’t met anyone from the agency. They wanted me to come in for a meeting and have a chat.

Having spit shined my shoes and put a fresh coat of pomade in my hair, I went to see them.

It started out in a very “Bryan” way.

The woman that I was meeting with asked me to sit down in her office and she was going to get my file. She looked and looked and couldn’t find it. This was the second file to have been lost by this agency. I was not getting a good feeling. She got up to go look in a different office and some stuff on top of her computer started to slide off. Like a gentleman, I stood up to grab it before it fell.

The type of chairs she had in her office were kind of like leather director’s chairs. They had the seat, which was just a piece of leather stretched between the metal bars, then there was not seat from my butt until the middle of my back. The back of the chair was a piece of material stretched across the bars vertical to the floor only touching my shoulders and going to the middle of my back. So there is no material in the small of my back.

When I stood up, the back of my belt caught on the bottom part of the chair back. Thus, the chair lifted off of the floor when I stood up, causing me to stumble a bit. The chair was at an odd angle so when I sat back down to unhook my belt, the chair slid out from under me a little bit. I didn’t fall, thank God, but I came close.

They didn’t have my file, and so I had to, yet again, fill out an information sheet. She told me that she remembered the comments that the guy I read for wrote down and that they were “fantastic”. I didn’t tell her what really happened. She gave me a bunch of information on the agency and then said, “Welcome aboard”. That was that. I was signed with that agency for theatrical representation.

I am not really sure how I feel about them. But, the agreement I signed is non-exclusive, so I can work with someone else, should that opportunity arise.

I guess with the television season just about the start, it is good to have representation.

Time will only tell.

Malibu

2005-08-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

It has been really slow working for my catering company these past couple of months. A friend of mine recommended my to another catering company that only works out of Malibu. Long story short, they hired me and my first job was two weekends ago.

Here are the events in chronological order that occurred that night.

11:30am – I arrive in Malibu, possible one of the prettiest places around. Right on the ocean, surrounded by mountains, it is just breathtaking.

12:00pm – I leave with the rest of the company to go park our cars and take a van up to where the wedding is. The parking lot is right by a small trailer that has a sign on it that says “worker placement agency”. The only people around it appear to by Latino men. One lady remarks, “I hope my wheels are still there when we get back”, she thinks this is a riot. Jose, one of our chefs, doesn’t seem to like it that much.

12:30pm – We begin setting up for the wedding. It is at a place called Castle Kasham. It is a building that looks just like a real castle. It has a breathtaking view of the ocean and surrounding areas, which include houses by Mel Gibson and Olivia Newton John, supposedly.

4:30pm – Guest begin to arrive and we have set up a lemonade and ice tea bar for them to have drinks before the ceremony. I am serving the lemonade and ice tea. The wine, beer and liquor bar is not open for business until after the ceremony.

4:31pm – Guests begin to pick up the lemonade and ice tea and start to mill around before the ceremony starts.

4:32pm – Good Looking Surfer Dude asks me if there is anything else besides ice tea and lemonade to drink. I tell him the alcohol bar will not open until after the ceremony, per the bride’s directions. To which he replies, “I don’t get that, this is Malibu, you know” to which I have no appropriate answer. He picks up a glass of lemonade and begins to drink it while giving me a look to let me know that he will drink lemonade, but he is NOT really going to enjoy it.

4:40pm – Good Looking Surfer Dude intercepts a couple of his friends going to my bar and tells them, “The real bar is not open yet, can you believe that. I don’t get that”. His friends don’t seem to mind since it is 137 degrees out and they will be sitting in the sun during the ceremony.

4:42 – Good Looking Surfer Dude again lets me know that he could really use something else to drink because the lemonade is “just not cutting it”. I tell him yet again that the bar will be open in less than an hour and he can drink all that he wants to then. He is not happy with my answer and shakes his head as he walks away.

4:47pm – An older man comes over to my station to pick up an ice tea and sample some of the cheese and fruit we have set up next to my stand. He proceeds to drop 62 grapes on the ground plus a couple of crackers with cheese on it. Then just walks away, leaving the huge mess for me to take care of.

4:52pm – A younger kid accidentally kicks a floodlight on the ground and it comes loose from its bracket. He tries to fix it for about 9 seconds and then moves away from it, hoping no one would notice.

4:53pm – I walk over to it and screw it back into the bracket. Problem solved.

5:00pm – The ceremony begins and we have a few minutes break before the cocktail hour begins.

5:30pm – Cocktail hour begins. I am serving wine and juice on a tray to help cut down on the rush to the alcohol bar.

5:45pm – I begin tray-passing appetizers on a tray to people.

5:48pm - I approach Good Looking Surfer Dude with a tray of appetizers asking him if he and his date would like one. He says “no, but if you could get the wine guy to get me another glass that would be good”. I don’t have the heart to tell him that I am the wine guy and that I am obviously not passing wine anymore. I also don’t have the heart to tell him that he has a completely full glass of white wine and should be good for a while. I also don’t tell him that he is a douche bag.

5:57pm – As I am passing some crab cakes a man walks up to me and asks if we have anymore coconut shrimp. I tell him I will check when I go back to the kitchen for another plate.

6:01pm – I come out with a plate of coconut shrimp and the man takes 8 of them onto his three napkins, leaving about 15 for everyone else to eat.

6:08pm – I go back into the kitchen and tell the boss what happened with the coconut shrimp and she wants me to point out to her who the guy was that took 8 of them. I jokingly ask if there is going to be a fight and she says, “No, I am just going to go up to him and say hey, there are other people here. Don’t take all of the fucking shrimp”.

6:30pm – Cocktail hour is over. People begin to take their seats in a different courtyard for dinner. The alcohol bar is being broken down and moved to the front courtyard so that people can have drinks during dinner and dancing.

6:37pm – A guy walks up to the back bar and asks for a rum and coke. The bartender explains that we are moving the bar and the front bar will be ready in about ten minutes. The back bar does not have any liquor now, only the soda and juices for making drinks. So the guy asks for a vodka tonic. The bartender patiently explains that there is NO alcohol at this bar, only the juice and soda and if he waits ten minutes the front bar will be able to get him the drink. The guy is not happy and replies “You mean I have to wait ten minutes to get a drink?” then walks off in a huff.

6:41pm – Good Looking Surfer Dude grabs me and orders a drink. I tell him that the front bar will be open in a couple of minutes and I can get his drink then. He says to me “This is Malibu, people like to drink. Why do I have to wait?” I explain to him about the moving of the bar and that it will only be a few more minutes. He shakes his head and I walk off.

6:41 and 10 seconds pm – Good Looking Surfer Dude grabs another server and asks her for the drink. She tells him the same thing, and he clearly thinks that we are lying to him.

6:45pm – The front bar is open, everyone is happy and Good Looking Surfer Dude has received his drink. The future is looking bright.

7:00pm – We begin to server dinner. The place settings with people’s names on them and their table have symbols on the back of them telling us what dinner they ordered. Heart for steak, silver star for chicken, green happy face for fish, and so on. All we have to do is look at people’s place cards and put down the dinner that is corresponds to. We are serving salad now, so that is easy since everyone gets the same salad.

7:32pm – We figure out that most people have not put their place cards on the table or have thrown them away. We have no idea what people are supposed to eat and they are not happy telling us what they ordered.

7:44pm – The DJ makes an announcement for everyone to put their place cards on the table, facing out so that the servers can give them the correct dinner. I see 3 people doing it, the rest could care less. This is Malibu after all.

8:11pm – We discover even though people ordered their meal, they often don’t want what they ordered and don’t get why we can’t just give them what they want. So, we give up on the place card symbols since the sun is setting, we can’t see them and people are bargaining with us as to what they want to eat.

8:23pm – One woman at the second to last table asks what the symbols mean, we tell her and she asks what the symbol is to get her a gin and tonic. Then she laughs one of those hysterical, drunk laughs that everyone thinks is funny except for the sober servers.

8:45pm – Everyone is served and is relatively happy. The dancing begins, and we start to clear dishes. This is usually the easiest part of the night because everyone is fed and drinking and happy. My feet hurt and I am a little sunburned and ready to go home and sleep, but I can’t. I have to be in Sherman Oaks to do an improv show at 10:30.

9:30pm – They release me, tell me what a good job I did and let me know that they are going to be using me again. I get to my car, which still has all of the wheels attached, and leave Malibu.

9:38pm – I hit Saturday night traffic back to L.A. make a phone call to a guy on my team letting him know that I may get there right as the show starts.

10:00pm – I am still in traffic, but this time on the 405 North, the worst highway in the world for traffic.

10:20pm – I roll into the theater and get ready for the show.

12:00am – The show ends and I am on my way home. Tired, but for some reason the Chinatown movie is playing in my head only instead of Chinatown, it’s Malibu. And instead of me being a private detective, I am a caterer. I try to fight what I see going on in Malibu, but my friend tells me “Forget it Jake, this is Malibu”.

For those of you who have seen the movie, you will get it. For those of you that have not seen the movie, you should. It’s great.

Mr. Romantic

2005-08-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

Rockstar and I have been trading off buying beer for the apartment. It was my turn to buy, so today I drove down the street to our local liquor store on my way home from work.

The counter is run by a Korean man who doesn't speak much English. The biggest pet peeve I have going there is that they have these really small black plastic bags that they use to put goods in. The problem is that when you buy a Miller Lite Fridge Pack of 12 beers, it is way to long for one bag, so they usually put two on it and you end up carrying it by the handles anyway and you have two small black plastic bags left over that are useless. Most of the time you have to tell him you DON'T need a bag and sometimes he puts one on anyway, and sometimes he doesn't.

Today I was behind a guy who was buying a magazine entitled "Exposed" that had two young ladies sitting on each other's laps kissing. It was a nudie magazine. The Korean man rang it up and it came to $10.21, which the guy buying the magazine thought was expensive and even I questioned that price. But, the Korean man said something in some language and pointed to the price on the magazine and that it was correct. The young man buying it looked down at his hand, I assumed he didn't have that much money, and mumbled something and walked out, not purchasing the magazine.

I bought the beer and kind of lost track of what was going on, still thinking about the high price of the magazine, and the Korean man bagged my beer, which I then carried out to my car by the handles.

As I was leaving the parking lot, I passed by this little flower shop that is on the sidewalk. Out of the flower shop came the same young man who was trying to buy the nudie magazine, but he was carrying one red rose.

I thought to myself, wow, that is a really weird thing to buy after trying to purchase porn. Then I thought, maybe he has a girlfriend who said something like,

"I like it when you are romantic towards me", and he immediately thought,

She wants some girl-on-girl porn.

Not being able to get the porn, he went with the old reliable single red rose. So the high price of that magazine probably saved his relationship.

But I still have that stupid black bag!

RPM

2005-08-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

In early June, I went to a seminar entitled "How to Jumpstart Your Career". It was an informational seminar for people who feel that their career has stalled somewhat. During that seminar, I was told about a new agency called "RPM". I sent my information in and they called me in for a reading.

Usually, they call people for a meeting first to get to know them, but for some reason they skipped that part with me. I went in and they didn't have a file on me and the person I was reading for was not part of their agency. He was filling in for a member of the agency who is an actor and was booked for that day. They had no sides, or copy, for us to read and decided that me and this girl would just do an improv type of audition. Perfect for me.

The girl went first and she was to come home and accuse me of cheating for the third time during our relationship. I was to respond to her, just sitting in the chair next to the guy we were reading for. She went, and I didn't think that she did a very good job.

I went and thought I did a pretty good job. The guy gave us feedback and told me that I was too "theatery", that I had to know where the camera was because I had to know about frame lines and angles and recommended that I take an on-camera class to get used to that. He also said that I wasn't loud enough, and that maybe it was because we were in an office. He gave me a 6 or 7 on his scale of 10.

Then he talked to the girl that I was reading with. She was a cute blonde girl, and he said "it looks like you waited to come out here until you were ready. And you are ready. I give you a solid 7"

Puh-lease!!!

First of all, he said nothing about my acting. Second of all, the reason I was not too loud was that we were not in an enclosed area. The room that we were reading in had an open doorway to the office WHERE PEOPLE WERE CONDUCTING BUSINESS! I didn't feel it was necessary to yell, when a person was on the phone 10 feet away. Third, there was no camera in the room, and if there was I would have made sure that it could see me at all times, but there wasn't so I just acted to my partner.

So I left the reading feeling really bad. Then I talked to my IO coach who is a working actor and I respect a great deal. He told me not to worry about it too much and that a lot of what I described sounded pretty amateurish to him. They should have had a camera there if I was not reading for someone in the agency and volume has nothing to do with acting because you are always mic'd and if you yell all you do is piss of the sound guy. He said that maybe they were not an agency that I needed to have represent me.

So I felt a lot better after that. I sent a thank you card the next day and asked for a meeting with someone from the agency just so they could see who I was and what my career goals were.

I got a call today from a woman at the agency asking me to come in for a meeting. I feel a little better, but I still don't know if they are for me.

I guess we will see after I go in and meet with them.

Special shout-out to my friend Dave P. who came to see me in one of my shows a couple of weeks ago. He sent me a comment through the blog site, and I have no way of contacting him. So thank you Dave for coming to see the show.

Great trip, gross ending

2005-07-26T21:52:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a 10-day trip to visit my parents with my sister. I flew into O’Hare and met my sister there, then we both flew to Harrisburg, PA and my parents picked us up there. We went to an all night dinner called the “All American Diner” and had a really late dinner. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of months so we spent most of the time laughing and having a great time. We spent the night at a motel and drove on to Delaware where our cousin Jeff was getting married. The wedding was a blast.

We hung out with cousins and saw a lot of extended family that I have only met a couple of times in my life. We drank at a bar called the “Rusty Rudder” and “The Lantern”. The hotel was right on the ocean and had a great view.

Our cousin Jeff has a cousin on his father’s side that is no relation to us. His nickname is JoMo and he liked to tell stories of his wild side. One of the best was when he told us about Jeff ‘s bachelor party in Vegas where they went to a strip club and stayed there for hours and hours. He said that one stripper that lived in Seattle, WA but was in Vegas for a show keeps calling him and asking if she could stay with him if she came out to Virginia where he lives. He got right to the point and told her “No way whore, stay at a motel” which became a rally cry for my family the rest of the trip.

We then drove back to PA where my parents live now for a week of relaxing. We watched movies, went to an amusement park and just had a good time.

One of the highlights was my father taking us to visit his college. My sister and I had been bugging him to take us there for the last couple of years because they only live a couple of hours away. He went to the United States Military Academy at West Point. You go to school there for free, but you then have to serve five years in the Army. It is a really difficult school to get into and an even more difficult school to graduate from. My father didn’t really enjoy his time there, and he was still a little uncomfortable being back there. The place is really beautiful and has an incredible amount of history to it. Statues of Eisenhower, Patton, and Washington are on the grounds as well as plaques that have the names of famous graduates including George Custer. I was really glad to go there, because the military is a big part of my family and I was glad I got to share a little bit with them.

After the week my sister and I flew back to O’Hare and said our good-byes. We hugged each other and went to kiss each other on the cheek but somehow our signals got confused and we ended up kissing on the lips. Let me tell you that was one of the grossest things that has ever happened to me. We both took a second to think about what just took place and then we both started gagging and wiping our mouths. Then she left. What a way to end a vacation.

Fucking Bait and Switch

2005-07-03T17:31:00.000-07:00

I received a job offer from my catering company that had this sentence in the details section.

"Super VIP birthday for mega-celebrity whose blockbuster movie opens Wednesday, June 29 and just became engaged to another celebrity"

Now does this sentence apply to:

A. Tom Cruise
B. Vic Armstrong

If you guessed A, you guessed wrong, but that is what everyone thought. People at the office were really jealous of me and other catering people tried to get me to trade the shift with them. I was not about to, because June 29 was my birthday and also my one year anniversary of my move to L.A., needless to say I was ecstatic to spend my birthday with Mr. Tom Cruise.

Even the event personnel at Paramount Studios thought it was for Tom Cruise, ladies kept coming by and asking, is he here yet, and we had to keep telling them no. I started to get a little suspicious when we went to the sound stage that the party was being held at and it was where they shoot "Soul Train" and they didn't have any sort of decorations up. I became convinced that I had been tricked when one guy put up two signs that said "Congratulations Vic on 40 years in the biz". But still people where convinced that it was all just a rouse to keep it in the dark. At 9pm my fears where realized when in walked Vic Armstrong. He is a guy who started out as a stunt man and doubled for Harrison Ford in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and became a stunt coordinator for such high profile films as the last three James Bond movies. His last job is being the stunt coordinator for "Mission Impossible III", which is probably where the mix-up occured.

Working the event was really easy, but I still felt let down. I had told a bunch of people and now I have to tell them I was fooled.

I kept thinking of the line from "Malcom X" when he says, "We've been had, hoodwinked, bamboozzled......" and indeed I was.

Tuesday, Bloody Thursday

2005-06-27T01:51:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday Rockstar and I went for a walk around our neighborhood. We were trying to find a parking lot that would let us rent a space for the month of July. Rockstar is taking a trip to Chicago from July 2-12 and I am going to a family wedding and visit my parents from July 14-24. Usually when we leave town, the other one takes care of the other’s car but since this is a much longer period of time that we would be gone, we decided to rent a space.

We walked all around the neighborhood and must have checked out at least 8 different lots around us. All of them did not offer monthly renting of spaces. Bummed out, we began to walk home. A low hanging tree branch caught my attention and acting like a child I reached out and smacked it with my left hand.

I immediately cried out in pain, Rockstar shouted too and ducked holding his right ear. I looked and the pointer finger of my left hand was gushing blood. I am not exaggerating either, my finger was covered in blood, hurting like hell and dripping blood all over the place. Confused Rockstar and I looked at each other then up to the branch. What I didn’t see what that the tree branch was covered with inch long curved thorns, one of which had torn into my finger. Rockstar kept holding his ear and saying that it got him too, I looked at his ear and there was BARELY a scratch on it, but since I caused the problem I told him that it did get him, apologized and then started walking home. My finger kept bleeding profusely and I had nothing to keep it from dripping all over the sidewalk. I saw a crumpled dirty napkin on the ground and I picked it up. Rockstar freaked out and said,

“Please don’t put that on your finger.”

I told him that to calm down and that I was just going to place it under my finger to catch the blood. We walked home and I put a band-aid on it. I am not sure if Rockstar did anything to his wounded ear. Sitting in my room the only thing I could to say was,

“Of course this would only happen to us”

We eventually did find a space that we could rent for the month of July thanks to our friend Mr. Smith.

Thursday I was driving to work in the office of my catering company. I started to drive away from my parking spot and I felt something dripping down my nose. I wiped my finger under it because I thought it was snot and I didn’t have anything in my car to wipe it with. I looked at my finger and it was covered in blood. “Not again” I thought to myself. Twice in the same week the universe has taken my life force. I reached into my bag and grabbed the napkin that I had wrapped my lunch in. I wadded it up and held it to my nose.

I was running a little bit late to my job, so I kept driving with the napkin held up to my nose. I bet the Korean’s in this town got a little freaked out.
The bleeding didn’t stop until I walked into my office. The young lady that sits by the front door asked me what happened and I explained to her my bloody problem. My nose had stopped bleeding and I threw out the napkin. Then the young lady suggested that I go check myself out in the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and noticed I had dried blood all over my nose and the top on my mouth. Then I looked at my hands and saw dried blood all over them. It looked like I had just murdered someone. So, I washed my hands and cleaned up my face and went on with my day.

I haven’t had a spontaneous bloody nose in well over a decade. I don’t know what is going on. Maybe I have some sort of brain disease, or maybe because this is Southern California, it is just dry and dusty out here and I was dehydrated. I will take the words of Ralph Wiggum’s to heart to try to prevent another episode.

“The doctor said that if I kept my finger out of my nose, it wouldn’t bleed so much”

Gettin' Jiggy Wit It

2005-06-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Rockstar and I worked a private event at the estate of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith. We were both really excited because it would be a party with a lot of celebrities and we wanted to see what a $20 million dollar movie star's house looked like.

We took an exit off of the highway and then proceeded to drive around an area where there wasn't much of anything except desert. We saw a huge wooden gate that was the entrance to the property. After buzzing in we drove along a street and passed a lot of little buildings on the property until we reached the main house.

Let me tell you, I have never really been jealous of what movie star's have, but this house made me change my mind. It was gorgeous. It was huge, and done in a Western style. The house looked like it was made out of adobe and it was so big and beautiful that Rockstar and I just had to take a minute and stare at it.

The event was a basketball tournament being held on father's day. A bunch of guys and their families came over to play ball and eat BBQ food. They had a full length outdoor basketball court with bleachers and a DJ set up. Down below in one of the driveways, they set up a tent with food and beverage stations that Rocky and I manned.

This was the COOLEST event we have ever worked. Everyone was extremely nice to us, the celebrities, the people that worked at the house, the kids. Everyone talked to us, made jokes with us, were very polite to us, and no one seemed to have any type of attitude that they were better than us. The people that worked at the house, our bosses, were very polite when they asked us to do anything. A lot of times when we work at an event where their are celebrities, everyone is really uptight and stressed and they don't treat you very well if you are the help. But these people were different. Right from the very beginning it was cool. Will Smith walked up to Rockstar and I and shook our hands and asked us how we were doing. Jada didn't shake our hands, but she was very nice every time she was around.

The only small problem was the other woman that we worked with. She was a real pain in the ass. One of the first things out of her mouth was "Are you a couple?" to Rockstar and I. I thought it was really funny, but Rockstar is perceived to be gay by people so he has a chip on his shoulder when people say things like that. After that she was one of those passive/aggressive people who always had to ask you if you were sure about something you are doing. Meaning that she had a better way, but didn't just want to come right out and say it. Things like "Are you sure you don't want to put the ice in first?", "Aren't you putting to much on the plate?", "Are you sure you don't want to put a tablecloth on the ground first?" Things like that, which might not seem like a pain, but after 8 hours of it, it got a little old. She was one of those people who thought she was always right and would let you know she disagreed with what you were doing without telling you right away. She even did it to our bosses and the guests, which really made me mad because I thought they might not use our company again because of her.

There were not that many celebrities there, Cedric the Entertainer, Eric LaSalle, Alphonso Ribero, Tisha Campbell, and a bunch of people that I recognized from "Third Watch", "The Chapelle Show", and commercials, but I didn't know their names. A couple of athletes were there as well. Mike Williams who was a stud receiver two years ago for USC and was drafted this year was there. He was about 6'5'' and probably around 230 lbs. Most of the cornerbacks in the NFL are around 5'10" which is close to my height and standing next to him I couldn't understand how a guy my size covers a receiver like him. There was also a retired basketball player named Mark Jackson who I was really excited to see, and they mentioned that Michael Vick was there but I think they were joking because I didn't see him.

At the end of the night, we brought all of the drinks into a really cool bar/game room area where a bunch of guys were watching the NBA finals. The room looked out past the pool to a lake up against mountains and I can imagine just sitting there and watching the sun set.

We worked about 9 hours and they gave us all a nice tip. I can't say enough about how great everything was at there place, and that not all celebrities are assholes.

This week at work I noticed that I had been added to the request list for Will Smith's place, so hopefully I can work there again.

Presenting - Emperor Penguin

2005-06-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

I had my first Improv Olympic West show two days ago. It was at 11:30 at night. I was not really sure how we would do, because we have only rehearsed three times. I was really nervous. I have not done long form improv like this in a long time. I have been doing improv at L.A. Connection Comedy theater, but it is not the same thing. That being said, we had an AWESOME show. The people in my group are incredibly talented and I feel like I am rusty and need to get better in a hurry.

The Reverend and Rockstar were both nice enough to come and see me perform. It was really cool because even though it was really late at night, we had about 75 people in the audience. It was a nice change of pace from the 10 we usually get at the other theater. I don't think I did that bad, but I could feel myself hesitating and not going with my instincts like I have in the past. It is just something that I have to get over and I will with time.

Our show was almost 18 minutes long which is pretty short for an improv show, but we were awesome. We were funny and smart and we got out leaving the audience wanting more and our coach very happy with us. I think this is going to be a good time.

After the show I had a Bryan moment. I didn't know if the bar was going to still be open so I told Reverend and Rockstar to go home. I was walking out the the lobby/bar with the team and just as we entered that bar area I said "Does anyone want to get a beer to celebrate?". Just as I said that every member of my team had split off and gone to great people who had come to see them. So I was standing in an area with only our coach and it looked like I was talking to no one. I kind of looked at the coach and he kind of looked at me and he said "I'm gonna take off" and then walked towards the door. I didn't want to intrude into any of the conversations that members of my team were having so I just left also. Then I felt like such a loser that I had to walk a different way to my car because my coach was walking the usual way and I didn't want him to think I was following him.

I kind of felt like an idiot, but still really proud of our show.

MTV Movie Awards = AWESOME!!!

2005-06-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago, I was scheduled to work the MTV Movie awards for my catering company. Here is some interesting trivia about that day.

- I sat in the back of the auditorium and got to see almost the entire show. The only thing I did not get to see was the Foo Fighters perform at the show, but I got to see them perform 3 times during the sound check.

- My job was to pass out drinks to the front row of celebrities during the commercial breaks.

- The drink menu consisted of Coke, Diet Coke, 7Up, white wine, red wine, champagne and water.

- My row consisted of, Ben Stiller, Nicole Kidman, Dustin Hoffman and Sandra Bullock.

- I only got to see Dustin Hoffman and his wife in my row because everyone else only stayed for the first part of the show and left before the first commercial, except for Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock who never sat in their seat.

- I gave Dustin Hoffman a Diet Coke and his wife a 7Up. She didn't seem happy that I didn't put the drinks down on the small table in front of them.

- Quentin Tarantino was not in the VIP section because he was not presenting an award, nor was he nominated for one. That did not stop him from coming up to me during three breaks and taking three glasses of wine each time.

- Yes, when he first spoke to me I said "Holy Shit, you are Quentin Tarantino" inside my head. But I played it cool, real cool.

- Each time he came up to me he was more red in the face and more hoarse.

- Later in the show he went onstage with Darrell Hannah and two stunt doubles for an award for "Kill Bill Vol. 2". He seemed pretty lit, and I was proud that I helped to accomplish that.

- I gave "The Rock" a glass of water, even though he wanted something with liquor in it. He was very nice to me and seemed like a cool guy.

- A woman bumped into me and said excuse me when she turned around. It was Hillary Swank. She has an amazing body, and seemed very genuine.

- Other celebrities I saw included Lindsay Lohan, The Breakfast Club cast, members of the News Team from "The Anchorman" and Jimmy Fallon.

- Jimmy Fallon has ZERO comedic timing. His monologue was horrible and all of the other skits during the show were equally as bad. I am biased against him because I hated him on SNL also. Oh, and when I tell people this, "But he is so cute" is not a good defense for him.

- The theater that the show took place in is a LOT smaller than it looks on TV.

- I would say that the people work at the show including crew, security, technical people and catering people, outnumbered the people attending the show by a 3 to 1 margin. You would not believe how many people work at something like this.

- Almost all of the celebrities in the VIP section, which means either nominated for or presenting an award leave right after their part of the show is done, or they never come to their seats at all. Most of the time there were "seat fillers" in their seats.

- By the time I left work, the show was almost over and the VIP section was about 80% seat fillers.

- I watched the broadcast and the times when they cut to the celebrities sitting in the audience, the shot of them sitting or laughing was from a different part of the show.

- I am pretty sure the shots of Sandra Bullock in the audience was CGI. She was supposed to be in my section and I never saw her once and I could see her seat during the entire show. She was there because she presented an award, but she was never in the audience.

- I don't blame the celebrities at all. They had a nice VIP room to retire to with a full bar, tons of food, and could watch the show on monitors set up all over the place.

- I am definitely one of the shortest men in Hollywood. I was as tall as Dustin Hoffman and he was one of the people I was counting on being shorter than me.

- Sometimes living and working in Hollywood can be pretty cool.

Cliffhanger: In two days I will be working at Will Smith's house for his Father's Day party. Should be LOTS of celebrities.

L.A. Talent

2005-06-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

L.A. Talent

My meeting with the L.A. Talent Agency went very well, although I thought it got off to a typical “Bryan” start.

I was scheduled to meet them sometime Friday afternoon. The agent that called me told me to give them a call Friday morning and check to see how the day was going. Then he would tell me what time to come in. I got up nice and early to get ready and placed a call at precisely 9:30. He was not in, so I left a voicemail. I waited, and waited, went to get an oil change, and waited some more. By 12:30 I had not heard from him so I called again to make sure that he was in the office. The woman that I spoke with told me that he was indeed in the office that day, but not wanting to seem desperate I did not ask to speak with him. I waited some more and then I called again at 1:30. I spoke to a woman and explained to her the situation. She put me on hold and then told me that I could come in anytime before 4:00. I didn’t want to seem desperate, so I waited ten minutes until I left. I got to the agency right at 2:00, composed myself and walked into the building.

The lobby was completely empty. There was a desk where someone could sit, but no one was there and there was nothing on the desk to indicate that anyone worked there. To the left of me was a set of glass doors that lead into the agency office. I could see the agents sitting at their desks talking on the phones. All of his or her desks were out in the open and I assumed that you just walked in to speak to someone. Then I noticed the signs. On either side of the doors were two big signs that read “Do Not Enter Unless You Are A Client – No Walk-Ins”. This really confused me. On one hand I was NOT a client of theirs yet, on the other hand I did have an appointment, so I wasn’t sure what I should do. Since I knew that they could see me and they had my picture, I was sure that they could tell it was me. I took a seat in the lobby and waited about 5 minutes. Then I got up and walked past the doors slowly, pretending to read the signs again, making sure they could see that I was still there. I passed the doors, waited a minute and then walked slowly past the doors again, slower still, re-reading the signs. Then I took a seat and waited another minute. By that time I had convinced myself that the people inside were asking themselves “who is the idiot that keeps walking past the doors”. I made a decision to take the bulls by the horns and walk in. I walked into the office with a big smile on my face and looked directly toward the only man in the office who I assumed was the person that called me for the appointment. He immediately held up his finger and mouthed the words “just a minute” to me. I mouthed back “Ok” to him and walked back into the lobby. Then I had a 30 second conversation with myself about how much of an idiot I was and I had blown my one good opportunity so far. Just as I was having this conversation and woman opened the doors and asked me if I was Bryan. I said yes, of course, and she told me it would just be a few more minutes.

After a couple of minutes the man, Mike, came through the doors and invited me in. I sat down and we talked for about 7 minutes. He asked me about certain things on my resume, and commented on how much improv/comedy training and experience I had. He was very impressed that I had dedicated so much of my life to doing it. There were other two ladies next to him and they all commented that I looked EXACTLY like my picture, which is a really, really good thing to be. He asked me how old I was and I told him 30. Like most people he didn’t believe me and was really impressed that I was older but could play much younger than I am. After that, he thanked me for coming and told me that they were very interested in me, but they had to talk with other people and they would be giving me a call either way on Monday. I asked him if there was anything else I needed to do for him, and he said no. This was just to see how I looked and to have a chat with me. I left the office feeling very good about it and hoping that I would get a call on Monday with good news.

I did.

As of Wednesday, June 15, I officially became represented by L.A. Talent for commercials.

I am incredibly excited about it. For one thing, at least I can now go on real auditions and hopefully start getting some work and making some money. Another reason is that this agency also represents people for theatrical projects. Theatrical is the area of television and movies. They do not represent me in that area yet, but if I do well for them, then maybe by next pilot season they will represent me and I can audition for television show.

One selfish I am excited is because I am a couple of weeks away from my one year anniversary and 31st birthday and I have accomplished a lot of what I had wanted to when I first moved out here. So I am feeling quite good about things right now. Which is usually when the floor drops out beneath me.

And David Slew Goliath....

2005-06-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

With but a single stone.

I have been in L.A. for almost one year now. In some respects I have come a long way, but in others I have not yet constructed a path to the success I seek. That may be about the change.

Last Friday I received a phone call from an agent. I mailed his agency a headshot and resume in one of the many blind mailings I have been doing over the past month. Many people I speak to say that blind mailings are a wasted of time and money. The chances that a an agency will be looking for new people, that a receptionist will open the envelope, that the same receptionist will pass on the headshot and resume to someone with power, and that the someone with power will be interested in a virtual nobody, is very low. Nevertheless, I kept the mailings up just to make myself feel better about being proactive with my career. It paid off.

He said he was very impressed with my improv training and experience and that many agents and casting directors are now looking for those people for projects. He also was very familiar with the University of Iowa, which I attended.

Long story short, he asked me to come into his office this Friday for a "chat". On the phone I think I was a babbling idiot, but he seemed to be a decent guy. I am trying not to get to excited about it, just so it would hurt less if they do not sign me. But I am very optimistic about the meeting. I have always felt that if I get a break, then I will make the most of it.

Well I just caught one.

Yoshinoya, Not Glad to Know Ya

2005-05-18T17:16:00.000-07:00

I spent most of yesterday with Rockstar. He had to work in the morning, so I just did laundry and picked up my shithole of an apartment.

He got home and immediately had bad news. He lost his cell phone while working. He called it several times, but no one picked it up and no one at Warner Brothers Studio had turned it in to the lost and found.

We had planned on going to get our haircut right when he got home, but he was emailing people about his episode of Blind Date that was airing that night. So, we were running behind schedule, which I was not happy about.

About a month ago, we both catered the same event and they gave us t-shirts to wear as part of our uniform. I happened to be wearing that t-shirt to go get my haircut and Rockstar became obsessed about wearing the same t-shirt so we would look like twins. I was adamant that we don’t wear the same t-shirt so we had a three-minute argument that went exactly like this.

“Bryan, come on”

“No”

“Come on!”

“No”

“Come on, Bryan”

“No”

“Come on”

“No”

You get the idea.

He took the shirt off and then pouted for the next few minutes about us not being “haircut twins”

We both went to this Supercuts the last time we got our haircut and Rockstar was very unhappy with how the girl cut his hair. What made it worse was that he was very jealous because he thought I got an awesome haircut. When we got there he was the first to be called and the same girl that gave him the bad haircut was going to be cutting his hair again. So he asked if I could go first and they said yes. I got in the chair and proceeded to get yet another fantastic haircut. He went to a different woman and again got a haircut that he was unhappy with.

Then we went to a fast food place called Yoshinoya that specialized in Japanese bowls. In Chicago, I would go too this Japanese place that made beef and chicken bowls for lunch and I had been telling him how good they were. We walked into the restaurant and immediately were disgusted. It was filthy and looked like they had really bad food. But since we were there, we decided to try it. It might have been the worst food I have eaten in a long time. I got a beef bowl and I am not sure if the meat they gave me was beef, but it did not resemble any kind of beef that I have ever had. Rockstar got a beef and chicken combo bowl and the chicken was equally as bad. The rice was really mushy and the vegetables were way overcooked. On top of that, nothing had any flavor. It was hard to distinguish the beef from the rice and vegetables because they all tasted the same. And that was how the Yoshinoya experiment ended.

I worked the Antonio Villariagosa election party last night at a studio right near our apartments. I had to be there at 6pm, and figured that it wouldn’t last much longer than midnight. At 2:45 am, we finally called it a night. It was really long and there wasn’t much for me to do because I was a roving bar back. Just in case the bar backs assigned to the bars had too much to handle, which they didn’t. The only thing that made it fun was the guy in charge of all of the bars was really funny. He loved to say the word “fuck” and had a lot of funny things to say about how the even was handled. The best one was when he was given inventory lists for the bartenders to fill out after the event. His words about it were exactly these.

“This is about as helpful as getting a fucking blowjob while trying to hit a fucking golf ball”

But everyone got a decent tip and a little overtime, so that was much appreciated.

Funny Stories

2005-05-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

Funny Stories

Story #1

I was working at a hotel in Palm Desert a couple of months ago. The event was for an insurance company and they were having some sort of company get together. I was bussing a couple of tables in the front of the room when one of the bigwigs got on the stage and proceeded to introduce some other people from their leadership group. I wasn’t really listening and I was bending over one of my tables picking up a plate when all of a sudden everyone in the room began to applaud. I looked up and they were all staring at me. For a split second I began to think that this was the moment you see in all of the movies when the underdog hero is finally recognized by the other people in the movie for being so great. I was about to give a little wave to the crowd when I felt something behind me. I turned around and the woman whose plate I was picking up was waving to the crowd and I realized they were all applauding for her. She was a member of the leadership group. I hid my embarrassment and took her plate to the back. I am a moron.

Story #2

One of my pet peeves is when normal white people start talking like rap artists whenever a black person they know come by. I was working one event and I was having a normal conversation with a guy when a black friend of his came up to say hello. Here is what happened.

White Guy: “So I decided to try and check out this theater that holds auditions once a month and (his black friend approaches us) ……Yo Patrick what’s happnin’ dawg. You know I’m just chillin with my peeps ova here, fo real”.

Because of this pet peeve, I guess I try not to change my language style no matter whom I am talking to. But one time I was washing dishes at an event and it was close to the end of the night and a black security guard came up to me to see how things were going. Here is the conversation.

Guy: “Hey man, how you doing?”

Me: “Hey, how’s it going?”

Guy: “How are things going here?”

Me: (becoming the whitest person on the planet) “Well, I think things are progressing quite nicely, thank you”

I guess subconsciously I became even whiter than I am to counteract the need to speak like a rap artist. As soon as he walked away, I said to myself “I am the whitest person ever, in the history of the world.” I am a moron.

Story #3

I was in the beginning improv class a few weeks ago and there is a woman name Laurie that is kind of strange. I have written about her before in this blog. We were doing a character game where three people come on stage and are experts in some sort of area. The audience gets to ask them questions about their expertise and they are supposed to give funny answers. Most of the questions were pretty simple, just dealing with whatever the person might know a lot about. But Laurie jumped up and asked this question.

Laurie: “Yes, this question is for the dating expert. I used to work for Kentucky Fried Chicken and I would be in the restaurant and I would give people samples of extra crispy chicken to see if they liked it. I had rubber gloves on my hand and they would yell at me because I would use my hand to open the door to the back when I would need more samples. They said that I kept getting the gloves dirty because I would touch the door handle. How am I supposed to get the door open if I have gloves on and I can’t take them off because I can’t not have the gloves on when I am giving people the samples of the chicken? So what am I supposed to do with the gloves”?

The dating expert had no answer that satisfied Laurie. I guess I am not the biggest moron.

My Kind of Town

2005-05-18T17:12:00.000-07:00

My Kind of Town

I went back to Chicago two weekends ago to perform at the Chicago Really Short Film Festival. I was super pumped to go back and see the city that I love. I am beginning to like L.A. more and more, but this city cannot compare to Chi-town.

I took the Blue line from O’Hare to meet my friend Patel at her place so that we could rehearse. Even though I haven’t seen her in a couple of months, we got right back into the groove of creating together. Since we have performed almost all of the sketches numerous times, we really didn’t have to rehearse that long. We did include one brand new sketch that we had to go over and I can’t describe the feeling when you are with someone that makes everything you say better and you never feel quite as good performing as you do when you are with her.

After rehearsal I went back to my sister’s place. I got to see her new ride and she took my by the place that she is buying. I am really proud of her. She is so much more grown-up than I am. She has a steady, relatively high-paying job, and she is about to buy her first place. Not bad for a 27 year old. We always have a pretty good time together, except that we can drive each other crazy in no time flat. We hung out and then went to bed. She had to work in the morning, so I had nothing to do all day. Let me tell you, it was great. I slept really late and then just watched TV. She has cable so there were plenty of movies to watch. She came home and the plan was that we were going to go to a nice restaurant for dinner. Right when she got home, she got a call from her friend that lives down the street from her. He had locked himself out of his apartment again, and needed her to drive him to where his landlord was so he could get a spare key. The landlord was way up on the North side, so we had to sit in traffic, get the key, then sit in traffic on the way home. We didn’t get to the restaurant until close to 8:30, and then for some reason we didn’t get seated right away. I am positive that the way I dress has an impact on how I get treated. Maybe it is my imagination, but it seems like when we go to fancy places I kind of get the cold shoulder. I might just be paranoid, or the whole world is against me. We had a nice dinner and then went back home to sleep.

I got up on Friday and took the train to my former roommate, Elvis’s place. The red line goes right by Wrigley Field and it was really cool to see it again. Elvis was in work mode since she is one of the creators and organizers of the Film Festival. She had a ton of stuff to do, but I jumped in and helped her out. It was awesome to see her and her cat Presley. We had a fun time together and it made the work go by quickly.

Friday night, I went to see my friends perform a show called the Dollar Store. It is a really neat concept created by Patel’s boyfriend, Buchanan. He goes to a Dollar Store and buys some crap for a dollar and then gives it to artists to create a piece inspired by the item they were given. The piece could be anything at all. A story, a performance piece, a song, a character monologue, anything. The place was packed and it was a really great show. I was kind of jealous that my friends were doing cool things without me since I moved, but I knew that was going to happen.

We met up with two guys that are moving to L.A. this summer and we all discussed our plans on performing when they get here. Then we all went up to Improv Olympic where I was going to be performing with a team called Rattlesnake High School that all of my friends are on. My sister brought a bunch of friends to watch the show then we all went out to a bar afterwards. I love going back because it is so easy to just go get a beer with a bunch of friends and hang out and not worry about anything.

Saturday was the big day. I got up early and helped Elvis with some last minute things. Then I went to Patel’s and we got one last rehearsal in before we left for the theater. We were not sure exactly where we needed to go when we got off of the train, but me being a guy said “I know the way, follow me” and then I proceeded to take us in the exact opposite direction the we needed to go, and didn’t discover that we were going the wrong way until 15 minutes later. Patel is never going to let me live this down.

We got to the theater and set about getting the stage and all of our props together for the show. There was this techie chick that was in charge of all of the sound and lights for the evening. She was all business and didn’t seem to like us at all. She had to get the stage ready for two bands plus our sketch show and didn’t seem like she wanted to give us much help. For some reason I decided to start joking around with her, and then it was like a light went off and she was really, really nice to us. She made all sorts of modifications to the stage, watched us rehearse and made lighting suggestions to make the show better. When Patel and I were done we went to get something to eat in the Irish bar right next door. They had excellent food! Patel said something to me that made me feel really good. She said

“I know you are going to make it because you are so charming when you want to be, without even making it seem like you are doing it on purpose. Did you see the way you charmed the techie? She wasn’t going to help us at all until you started joking with her”

That made me feel really confident about my abilities, since I always have doubts about them.

The festival started and they had a fantastic crowd. I was really proud of Elvis, she had worked really, really hard and it paid off. My other friend, the Ricker also did a fantastic job, but he MC’s the event, so everyone knows him. I wanted to give some credit to someone that many people may not know about.

I always get incredible nervous before I perform. Patel always has to calm me down before we go out on stage. But, once I set foot on the stage I am fine. We had a great show and the crowd really seemed to like what we did. We had a lot of people come up to us afterwards and tell us how much they liked our stuff. Including a really drunk girl, who told me she was going to be in L.A. in a couple of months and wanted my phone number. She was very demanding and wouldn’t take no, for an answer. Even when I wrote down the website where she can get in touch with me, that wasn’t enough. So I had that going for me, which is nice.

I drove Patel home in Elvis’s car with she and her boyfriend in the back seat. It is always sad when I say good-bye to Patel because I have a really good time with her. I could tell that she felt the same way, because when she leaned over to hug me good-bye she punched me in the face. She really got me right in my eye and it started tearing up and I couldn’t see very well. She said it was an accident, but I am sure it was some payback for me moving to L.A. without her.

I drove us home and got about 2 hours of sleep before I had to be at the airport. Elvis drove me and we said good-bye.

I slept all of the way to L.A. and because it was Mother’s Day, there was no one available to pick me up from the airport. So I took the crappy L.A. train system and it took me over two hours to get back to my apartment.

I love being in Chicago, but I need to get back to work here.

If At First You Don't Succeed......

2005-05-02T00:30:00.000-07:00

The past couple of days have been pretty good in some ways, and pretty bad in others.

The Good
On Saturday night I performed with the 7:00pm group at L.A.Connection Comedy Theater. We started out performing for 1 person in the audience, and she was there to tape the show for someone in the show. But by the middle of the show we were performing to 4 people so we quadrupled our attendance in a matter of minutes. Still the show went okay and we went out afterwards to a Sushi place. I only had a beer because I had to be back at the theater for the 10:30 show. During the meal, the team asked me if I was going to be a permanent member of the cast. I told them that I didn't know because of what was going on with the 10:30 cast, and that I might join them if asked. Then I performed with the 10:30 cast. The Reverend came and brought 3 other people and the show went very well. I was happy with everything that we did. There were four other people "trying out" for the team during that show and when we were getting notes afterwards all four of us were asked to become permanent members of the group. I really like performing with them, but it is a little disheartening that this theater never seems to draw more than 20 people and most of them are friends of people in the show. Never the less, I was happy to be asked. The other problem is that I have to pay to be a member of this theater and I just don't have the money to keep paying to perform. I will have to make a difficult decision whether or not to continue there.

I got a package from my friend Taiwan on Saturday. He told me a couple of weeks back that he was mailing me my DVD of "Fight Club" and a couple of Oklahoma Sooner football cards. He is a huge fan of Oklahoma and they are pretty cool cards. He also sent me his copies of "Field of Dreams" and "The Thin Red Line" which are both really good movies. Last, but not least, he sent me a little rubber key chain of a member of G-Force, which is a cartoon that we both watched when we were kids. The cartoon was called "Battle of the planets" and it was a Japanese cartoon dubbed into English. I still think you can see it on The Cartoon Network. I just realized I wrote the word cartoon four times in the last few sentences.

I also got a message from my friend and former roommate Elvis in Chicago. She is one of the producers of The Chicago Really Short Film Festival. I will be performing there next weekend with my friend Patel. Elvis also produces short films for Maia Entertainment. It is something that she started doing a couple of years ago and has quite a knack for it. The message was that the film that she produced is finally finished and will debut at the film festival. Last year was the first year that the festival was held and it was a HUGE success. She worked on it really hard, along with other people, and I was very impressed and proud at the job that she did. It was good to hear her voice and I am looking forward to seeing her in a few days. Information for the film festival is at www.maia-entertainment.com

Sunday, I auditioned again for Improv Olympic West. Before the audition, the guy running it told all of us that there were no open team slots right now on the schedule and they were not looking to add a new team, but maybe some people might be put on existing teams or if there were enough good new people, they would form a new team and put them on the schedule when there was an open slot. The first audition went very well. The call back went well again and I made it to the second call back. I didn't feel that I performed very well in the second call back, but I left feeling good about all of the auditions as a whole. Then at 9:30 this evening I got a call from a guy at IO that told me that I was a member of a new team. I don't know if they were just telling us there was no open slot at the audition to make people less nervous, or if we really were that good that they had to make a new team. Whatever the case may be, I was pumped that I made a team and will be performing at IO in the future.

The Bad
I have been working my ass of the last couple of weeks at the catering job. I got my paycheck on Friday and I might as well have been working at McDonald's. It is really disheartening when you work so hard for so little money. I know I am not curing cancer out here, but a little financial cushion is not to much to ask, is it? I have to find something else to make ends meet, but it is going to be hard to find a job quickly that pays well and has the flexibility in the schedule that I am looking for. All in all there is much more good than bad, so I can't complain.

Plus I will be in Chicago performing in a week, and that really is good.

Overheard Conversations

2005-04-25T23:48:00.000-07:00

This one comes from my friend the Reverend. He was working as an extra on a show and met this young blonde girl from Southern California. Here are their conversations.

Rev: Hi, I’m (Reverend)

Girl: Wow, I’ve never met a (Reverend) before

Rev: There aren’t that many of us, our union is pretty small.

Girl: Ha, ha, ha. Wait, what’s a union?

Later on they were in line for lunch and this conversation took place.

Girl: What’s this?

Rev: Asian noodles. Japanese actually.

Girl: How can they be both?

Rev: Japan is a part of Asia.

Girl: What is China?

Rev: Asia.

Girl: What is Korea?

Rev: Asia. It is all the continent.

Girl: No, Korea is something else.

Then a guy who was listening in through his two cents in.

Guy: It’s Eur-Asian.

Girl: I’m not Asian.

Guy: No. EUR-Asian.

Girl: I’M. NOT. ASIAN.

Rev: Check please!

Girl: Ha, ha, ha. Wait, what check?

I know, I know.....

2005-04-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

I have not written in a long time, but in my defense I have been working a lot lately doing catering and my hours are screwy. Most of the time when I get home I just want to watch a movie and then go to bed. But Rockstar is always on me to blog so here is quick rundown of what went on the last couple of weeks. It is going to be long.

I have been working for the catering company that Rockstar got me a job with. Most of the time I am in the field, but since I have an office background, they asked me to work a couple of days a week in the office for them during the next couple of months. I really don't have much responsibility except to call people and let them know they have work. Everyone is pretty nice and it is good because I can mess around with my schedule and get one that fits with my improv.

I worked a charity event for the Los Angeles Lakers. Rockstar was there along with our friend Mr. Smith. It was in Santa Monica and it was really, really nice. They had a hangar decked out with a casino, DJ, food, bars and pics with members of the crappy L.A. Lakers. Celebrities seen include, Mimi Rogers, Jimmy Kimmel, Jeremy Piven, Farah Fawcett, Elisha Cuthbert and a guy from Star Trek Enterprise. I pretty much just bussed tables in a certain area but I got to walk around and rub elbows with the rich and famous. One note, the ladies of L.A. LOVE their breasts. They were on full display that night. Even older ladies had shirts that barely covered their "enhanced" mammary glands. And I saw a lot of really hot woman with older, ugly men. I will give you two guesses why they were with them, but you will only need one. I guess I better hurry up and get rich so I can get one of those girls and then dump them. Just kidding. Am I?

I also worked at the press premiere for "House of Wax". The celebrities were Paris Hilton, Jared Padlecki, Chad Michael Murray and Elisha Cuthbert. They all seemed pretty cool, but Paris was exactly what I thought she would be. She showed up almost an hour late, looking like she just rolled out of bed. Before she would come to her dressing room, she had her entourage come in and make sure everything was ready. They had to move chairs, mirrors and then whole dressing room before she came in. I was a "talent attendant". Basically I was there in case anyone needed anything. It sucked! I just stood around for 3 hours doing nothing because all of the stars had "people" there that did stuff for them. Finally Rockstar came to work and we got to pal around for a little while until lunch. When lunch time arrived, the shit really hit the fan. The studio people had put the lunch order in over an hour before but it was not ready. So the PR people for the stars were all over the place "Where is the salad, where is the chicken sandwich, THESE PEOPLE NEED THEIR FOOD". They were holding up the line to order food and everyone behind them began to get pissed. There were some crew guys that were laughing about it and now I know why the crew people don't really like actors. I was given a salad and told that it was from the order for Chad Michael Murray. I ran to the dressing room and was met by one of his people.

"What is that" she asked.
"It is a salad for Chad" I answered.
"What kind is it"
"I don't know, they just told me to bring it to him"
"Well, I guess we will have to open it up then huh?" (real snotty)

She opened it up and said "This is Chad's salad" and then stormed off into the dressing room. I silently gave her the finger, but she was cute so I will probably date her when I am rich and famous and then dump her right after we sleep together and the only thing I will tell her is "That is for Chad's salad". She won't get it, but deep down inside I think she will understand.

During this ordeal, Paris had managed to lock her dressing room and needed someone to open it. Her PR person came to my boss, who was waiting for food with us, and demanded that she get someone to open it. My boss, very nice woman, told her that they had to call security because they are the only ones that have keys to the dressing rooms. The mean PR person, replied

"The only reason I am asking like this is because I asked 20 minutes ago and nothing has happened" then she stormed away on her cell phone.

We all looked at each other and I said "that's a fucking lie" and my boss said "I can't believe that she just lied to us". The reason being was that not 5 minutes ago we had been running food in there and Paris's dressing room was open for business. Stupid people.

I left after that but it made me realize what NOT to be like when I get some sort of fame or power.

This past weekend I worked a private party in Beverly Hills. It was for a Jewish family and they were having a Seder Saturday and Sunday night to celebrate Passover. It was really interesting to me because I had never experienced something that intimate from a religion other than my own. Everyone was really nice to me and the family seemed really close. It made me miss my own family a lot. I basically washed dishes and did some light serving and dish clearing. The 3 kids really seemed to like me because they were always coming into the kitchen to say hi, and ask how I was doing. I left Sunday night feeling good and having an extra $30 bucks in my pocket as a tip. Very nice people.

This week my plan is to get an agent, or at least get stuff together to send to one. One of the people that works in the office with me used to work with casting people and he offered to look at my stuff and give me some advice. I am going to take full advantage of it. He is really nice and I will probably sleep with him and then dump him and just say "That is for Chad's salad".

Whatever works.

P.S. My apologies to any celebrity whose name I misspelled. I just don't care enough to check.

Lean Mean Machine

2005-04-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

A week and a half ago I finally got fed up with my computer. I don’t know what I did to it, or what kind of virus I got, but it was really making me frustrated. I won’t bore you with the details, but it was a real pain in the ass. So after consulting with some of my computer friends, I decided to take it to Best Buy and have their “Geek Squad” take a look at it. It cost a lot more than I would have wanted but they returned it to me in tiptop shape. I had my hard drive erased and re-formatted. I was lucky enough to have my friend Gill set up my computer for me before I left Chicago. He went above and beyond the call of duty setting it up. He installed Windows 2000, Final Draft 6, iTunes with a ton of songs on it, and Office 2000. He did all of this in the wee hours of the night right before I left. He was also kind enough to back everything up on disc so when I got it back I could install everything myself and save me some money. So hats off to you Gill! I owe you big time!

I am lucky to have a lot of good friends in my life and they have saved me time and money over the years. I hope that I have been a good friend to them when they needed it.

Since I haven’t written in a while I will re-cap the last week and a half to bring everyone up to date.

Last week was a tough week of catering. I received a call from my company on Monday afternoon that they had some shifts for me. I was really desperate for work so I took them. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were all working in Palm Desert, which is about 2 hours East of where I live in Los Angeles. They were paying $50 for travel time so that was the good part. The bad part was that Tuesday and Wednesday started at 4:30 in the morning, which meant that I had to leave my apartment at 2 am just to be safe.

Since I didn’t get the call until Monday afternoon and I had class Monday night, I knew I was not going to get any sleep. When I got back from taking my computer to get fixed, I took about a two-hour nap. I got up, went to class and then came home and relaxed for a couple of hours. I didn’t go to sleep because I knew that I wouldn’t wake up on time, and I didn’t want to mess this job up. My friend Rockstar put a good word in with the company, he works for them too, and it would reflect badly on him if I didn’t show up. I left my apartment at 2am and after getting a cup of coffee at a doughnut shop, I hit the open road.

I love driving at night. No one is around and you can just drive and think. I listened to the Garden State soundtrack, which is fantastic. My advice for anyone that is driving at night for a long distance, listen to this soundtrack, it really made the trip a good one. I got to the hotel with about 20 minutes to spare. However, the parking directions that my company gave me were completely wrong, so I drove around looking for this employee parking lot that does not exist. I finally had to go to the front desk and ask them where to park. They told me just to park in the garage attached to the hotel. I did and made it to work just in time. The job was really easy. There was a convention of lawyers that were there going to conferences and talking to businesses that support different companies, basically really boring stuff to me. My job was to prepare a breakfast and lunch buffet and then clean up dishes when people were done eating. The breakfast buffet was easy because not many people showed up, but lunchtime was crazy. They asked me to stay a couple of extra hours and I agreed to it. I drove home exhausted. I became delirious on the road the last 30 minutes and I kept myself awake by singing really loudly to Guns n’ Roses and slapping my face. I probably looked really stupid to the other drivers. I got home at 5pm and went directly to bed.

I woke up around midnight, talked with Rockstar for a little while, made some food, got ready and left again at 2 am. The next day went a lot smoother because I knew what I was doing. There was also this extremely cute girl working at one of the booths at the convention. I really wish I was one of those guys who had no problem walking up to girls and talking to them, but I am not. So I just admired her from afar. I got home from work at 3 and took a 2-hour nap. I went to improv class, came home and fell into a deep sleep. Thursday I didn’t have to work until 4pm, and I was lucky because some other people were driving from L.A. and wanted to car pool. So I met them and slept all of the way to the hotel. They were all really nice people and I was glad that I had some friends to work with.

Thursday we were serving appetizers at a function by the pool for Met Life Insurance Company. Let me tell you, if you think lawyers were a bunch of boring people, you should have seen these insurance folk. Real pieces of work. We served people by the pool for an hour and then we went inside to get ready for dinner. I was in charge of cleaning up two tables in a section. Not that much work. For the most part people were very nice to me and didn’t give me any attitude about walking around and clearing dishes. But there was this one guy who had the last two bites of a piece of pie sitting on his plate for a long time. I waited and waited until I was sure that he was not going to eat any more. He was listening to another man at the table talk when I approached him.

“Excuse me, are you finished with that?” I inquired.

No response for him.

“Can I take that from you, sir?”

He didn’t say anything to me again. So I reached over to take his plate. He immediately karate chopped my arm and looked nervously around as if someone was trying to rob him, but he never looked at me. Then he continued to listen to the man speak from across the table. So I backed off. It took this guy another half an hour to finish the last two bites of pie. But I still made sure I waited until he got up and left before I took his plate.

We finished close to midnight and drove home. I took Friday off because I need to get my body back on track after having all of those crazy work hours.

This weekend I played Halo with the boys on Friday night and had two improv shows Saturday night and one Sunday night. I will have another entry about improv later as well as some other goodies.

Winning, Receiving and Earning Money

2005-04-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

I’ve never really understood the obsession that some people have with Texas Hold’em Poker. I know people in Chicago that play it all of the time and make or lose some serious money. I don’t gamble that much and when I do, I don’t lose more than I can afford too. I guess it is because I never have had very much money and it seems stupid to me to risk losing it gambling. That being said, my friend T invited me over to his house Thursday night to play cards with some friends of his. We all put in $10 and would play until there was a winner. I had an appointment Friday morning to have my taxes done, so I didn’t want to stay out all night. But by the time it was around 11pm, I was the one with the most chips, and so I could not leave. I didn’t really have a strategy, I was just trying to make people bet a lot when I had a good hand and I would fold pretty quickly when I didn’t have a good one. Not to advanced, but it worked for me. I ended up walking away at 1:45 in the morning with $30 extra dollars in my pocket. I still don’t have to desire to gamble even though I won. But I had a good time, met some new people and made enough to treat myself to pizza the next night.

Friday morning I went to get my taxes done. This was the first time that I was going to have someone else prepare them for me. I had a TON of deductions from acting, moving and other industry related things. Some of the stuff that I could deduct as an actor were haircuts, classes, union dues, mileage, office and exercise equipment. I was even able to deduct my Netflix subscription because it goes towards my preparation as an actor. The last six months in Chicago I worked as a 1099 employee at an office. No taxes were taken out of my paycheck and I had to file quarterly estimated taxes. I didn’t send in very much because I needed the money for the move. So when I was looking over my taxes at home, I thought I was going to end up owing the government $800, of which I have none. But after I got through talking to the tax guy I will get a return from the Federal government as well as the state of California AND the state of Illinois. I won’t get it for a couple of months because they don’t file it electronically, but just knowing that it will be coming is a big relief to me. I even didn’t mind paying a pretty high price to have them done, just because I will still come out ahead.

Friday was also April Fool’s Day. I told my father and my sister that I just got my taxes done and that I was in a lot of trouble because I owed a lot of money. They felt bad until I said “April Fool’s Day” and laughed and laughed. They didn’t think it was too nice but deep down inside I am sure they thought it was a good joke.

Saturday was my first day working as a caterer. The event was a home party in Pasadena. It was a memorial party for a woman’s mother who had just passed and it was for friends and family to mingle after the funeral. The party was being held in a house and would take place inside and by the pool outside. I was there with 3 other people and I was very nervous because it was my first time and I had no idea what I was doing. Luckily the lead person from my catering company was a very nice young lady who helped me a lot. I was there to lend a hand to anyone that needed it. When the guests first arrived, I was to be with the bartender, who was also the young woman who was the lead. We were pouring drinks and making people laugh when the woman who organized the event came over and asked if the other main guy was around. The lead bartender said that they had to leave for a few minutes but they would be back in a few minutes. She told the lady that if there was a problem she would be happy to take care of it.

“I would like to speak with you in private right away” the lady said.

She took the lead bartender around the back of the house and spoke to her for a few minutes. When the bartender came back she informed me that the lady was mad at me because I was screwing the caps back on the coke bottles after I filled people’s glasses. At first I thought she was joking. But she told me that she was serious and that the lady told her it was totally unacceptable that I was doing that. I thought to myself that I was about to be fired from my first job within 10 minutes of starting it. But the lead bartender told me not to worry and that some people were just psycho about little things like that. She told me that she thought I was doing a good job and said that it was no big deal. So I tried to forget about it, but I was afraid to do anything the rest of the day because if screwing on bottle tops was so bad, what if I did something else that was horrible. I just wandered around and picked up people’s empty plates and glasses until the party ended. While we were packing things up, the main guy came up and gave us all a $20 tip from the client. It was a beautiful day and I drove home in a great mood because I had worked and was still going to be able to watch the NCAA Final Four.

Now if I could get another job, I would be set.

Family Visit

2005-03-30T23:38:00.000-08:00

My family was in town for Easter weekend. It was great seeing them. We did a lot of touristy stuff since this was the first trip to L.A. for my parents. The coolest thing that we did was go to The Getty Museum. This museum sits on top of a huge hill and is more of a compound, than a museum. They have gardens, multiple buildings with tons of different types of art, and one of the best views of L.A. The best thing about it is that it is free to the public. You have to pay $7 to park all day, but other than that you can stay there as long as you want and they have lots of places that you can sit and just be at peace. It was a very inspiring place, and I think I will go back there a lot.

My sister stayed with me in my apartment. We had a really good time just hanging out and watching Arrested Development. My sister told me about Arrested Development last year and it has become my favorite show. In my opinion it is the best show on television and if you are not watching it yet, you should be.

One of the WEIRDEST coincidences in my life occurred while my parents were here. About 5 years ago I shot a short film for a student at Columbia College in Chicago. His name was George and he was the writer/director. I can’t describe the experience in words, but if you ever watch those movies about the making of a movie where everything goes wrong, this experience tops all of those combined. I hadn’t really thought about it in a long time, except to tell people a funny story about being an actor. My family and I were driving up the coast to Malibu. The road you take is Pacific Coast Highway and it was under construction due to rain and mudslides on the highway. It was getting near to lunchtime and since traffic was really bad, we pulled into the first restaurant we saw, a place called Dukes. I noticed one of the waiters looked familiar and I asked our waiter what his name was. Our waiter said that his name was George and that he was from Chicago. It was the same guy. I talked to him after we ate lunch and the one of the first things out of his mouth was “I’m really sorry about the film”, which I found hysterical. He had moved out to L.A. about a year and a half ago. We exchanged numbers and I left it at that.

I really would like someone to figure out the odds of me running into him out here after all these years. I bet that odds are better that we would have lived out here for fifty years and never run into each other than to have randomly picked his restaurant to eat in with my family.

I strongly believe that things happen for a reason. I believe in the random acts of the universe having some sort of equation and that we need to be open to seeing them. I don’t really have anything in common with this guy and I don’t know if I will ever speak to him, but it is just too big of a coincidence running into him to not be aware of that.

My parents also got to see me perform in an improv show Saturday night. It was a really small crowd, about 8 people. The show went okay, but I have come to realize that I really don’t like to do short games for an entire show. I like the freedom of just having a half an hour and from one suggestion from the audience, the improvisers with me create a piece of art that will never be duplicated again. I think I am going to audition again at Improv Olympic out here. That is where I believe I can grow the most as a performer.
The catering company that Rockstar works for hired me this week. He put a good word in for me with the company and I think that is why they hired me since I have no experience in the catering world. I also have a phone interview with a company tomorrow for a job where I will be following up with schools on sample textbooks that this company has sent them. The good thing about it is that I can work from home and the money is really good. The bad thing about it is that it sounds too good to be true, and that means that it usually is.

This entry has been all over the place and for that I apologize, there was just a lot to write about over the last week. More movie reviews will be coming tomorrow as well as some more Overheard Conversations.

Great Week So Far

2005-03-24T16:15:00.000-08:00

My last day of work at the hell job was on Tuesday. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I feel like I didn’t accomplish what I set out to do, but it was really affecting my life much more so than I thought it would. The money was nice, but I am better off without it.

Every day before people can leave work, they have to get waved down by a metal detector wand. If you have a bag, you open it up, they look inside, then you hold your hands out to your sides and they give you a quick wave with the wand. Not many people knew that it was my last day. I only told my boss and he only told the few people in charge. I hate going through the “why are you leaving” story to everyone. And since I was leaving after only a month, I am sure that people would take it personally.

One of the guys he told, Sam, was the person that was examining people with the wand the day I left. I opened my bag, he looked inside and then I held my hands out to the side. I guess he thought that I was looking for a hug, because he kind of went in for one. I must have pulled back because he stopped and then held out his hand. I shook it and he wished me good luck. Lucky it was my last day or else I would have had to see that guy and wonder if he secretly wants to hug me.

I am so glad that I don’t have to go back there. But I bet you readers are happier that you don’t have to hear about the job anymore.

I had two great improv classes this week. Monday I did really well in the rookie class and Wednesday, I did really well again in the advanced tryout class. One of the guys in the advanced class came up to me during break and asked me if I wanted to perform with his group on Saturday night. My family is in town for Easter so that will be cool for them to see me in this new theater.

They are getting into town today and everyone is looking to me for an awesome time. I think everyone comes to L.A. thinking that this is the best place on the planet and that some sort of wild adventure is awaiting them. I only know the parts of L.A. that I hang out at and I don’t think my family wants to go eat take-out at the corner Chinese restaurant or go to a friend’s house and play Halo for 7 straight hours. I will have to come up with something, or this might be the last time they come.

Second Improv Show

2005-03-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

I had my second show tonight at the theater. I thought it went pretty well. We had a better crowd than the first show, with about 20 people showing up. I think I did okay, but still don’t think I did as well as I could have. Most of the people in the show did very well, so the show overall was funny and a lot of good people did a lot of good improv.

Here is my one overall critique of people doing “prepared characters” for an improv show. If that is how you want to perform, fine with me. I don’t choose to put a lot of time into a costume or props because that is not going to make your character or your show funnier. If you come out in a funny costume, you may get one first laugh but then you have to have some weight behind it. One thing though really is starting to annoy me. We all know that gay guys are HILARIOUS. Especially the “flaming” gay guys. They are the funniest of all. We all know it. They way that they speak with a lisp, they way that they all wear t-shits with slightly sexual titles on them like, “I’m with him, literally”, or “Call me Betty” or “My boyfriend has this same shirt”. The way that when they speak everything they talk about is sexual. All traits that have been bred for comedy. BUT CAN STRAIGHT GUYS PLEASE STOP DOING THESE CHARACTERS IN IMPROV SHOWS. Just once I would really like to see someone portray a gay guy as a completely normal guy, who happens to be gay. Who doesn’t talk with a lisp, who doesn’t bring up sex every six seconds. Please, I would really like to see that. But the audience loves it. It always gets a huge laugh when a guy walks out on stage with a really tight t-shirt, some sort of funny hat, some sort of jewelry and begins a scene talking about how he loves to go shopping, listening to Liza Minelli and having unprotected sex with strangers. But please give it a rest for a while. Thank you.

In case you didn’t get it, the description of gay men in the above paragraph was meant to be sarcastic. But I was serious about being tired of seeing it in shows.

Weekend Recap

2005-03-20T23:12:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was pretty good for the ole Bryster. On Friday night, I took my buddies Rockstar and the Reverend to a party for a friend of mine that I knew back in Chicago. It was a St. Patty’s Day / Housewarming / Birthday party. But I kind of forgot that it was her birthday until we got there and people kept wishing her a happy birthday. I felt like a dick. But I made up for it by taunting her that she was going to get back together with her ex-boyfriend. I am so great at parties. If you want a guest that completely alienates themselves from most of the other people within minutes of meeting them, I’m your guy.

Saturday was uneventful. I watched a couple of movies and college basketball until about 9 pm when the Reverend and my other friend Clark came over to play Halo at Rockstar’s place next door. I did some laundry earlier in the day and there was only one dryer that was available. I was 90% sure that it was the dryer that I used a couple of months ago that didn’t work correctly. For some reason the heater is broken on it, so your clothes just get spun in cold air, thus never drying. But since it was the only one available, I used it. Sure enough an hour later I came down and the dryer had not worked. All of the other dryers were occupied still and I was just going to leave my clothes in the dryer until one of the other ones opened up. But the acting building manager, Peter, came down to switch his laundry. He asked me if I was using the dryers and I told him that I used one that is broken. He has only been helping out in our building for a couple of weeks so he didn’t know about it. He asked me if I wanted to use it again just to make sure. I said that I was now 100% sure that the dryer was broken and didn’t want to use another 75 cents on it. He told me that he would give me the 75 cents to try it again. So I took his three quarters and started chit chatting with him about the building and stuff and I was not paying attention so I put the 3 quarters into the same machine that already was drying stuff. I realized my problem and so did Peter when I yelled out “Oh, shit I put them in the wrong one.” Peter took out his wallet and apologized that he did not have another 3 quarters to give me. I felt bad that I had wasted his quarters so I took out 3 quarters of my own and put them into the dryer that I knew did not work. Then I had to pay another 3 quarters to get my clothes dried when another dryer opened up later. That’s how a simple dry cost me $2.25, plus 75 cents of Peter’s money.

Halo was a lot of fun. We try to do it a couple of times a month. Basically it used to be just me, Rockstar, and the Reverend, but since Clark has moved here, he has joined us. We sit around for about 5 hours and drink beer and scream and kill each other. Nice way to relax on a Saturday evening.

Sunday was pretty much the same. I watched a movie, went to a new grocery store that I am pretty happy with and then went to my second show at the improv theater I have been taking classes at. A review of my show will be forthcoming.

Here are some quick movie reviews of movies I have watched recently.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow:
This movie came and went in the theaters rather quickly. It takes place in sort of a comic book 1940’s. If you every watched old science fiction / adventure movies or television shows from the 50’s, you would enjoy this. I would hesitate to call it an animated movie, because all of the actors are real, but they shot everything against a green screen and animated everything else around them. Rooms, cities, vehicles, landscapes, everything is computer generated. But it is not the usual computer generated images; it is some sort of new process that the director came up with. It gives the movie a whole different look and feel to it. Having said that, I really enjoyed this movie. I love movies like Indiana Jones, the Phantom and The Rocketeer. Sky Captain reminded me a lot of those movies. If you like this type of movies, or are in a mood to try something different I recommend this movie.

Alien vs. Predator
They titled this movie AvP to make it cooler. No matter what they titled it you can’t escape what a big piece of shit this movie really is. If you are a fan of either genre of creature, stay away from this movie. Some of the action scenes have neat special effects but it was not enough to keep me from hating this movie from about 30 minutes into it. I watched the “making of” documentary on the extra features and figured out why I hated it so much. The writer director of the movie is Paul W.S. Anderson. Now don’t confuse him with Paul Thomas Anderson who wrote and directed Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love. This Paul W.S. Anderson has made such craptacular movies like Event Horizon and Soldier. This guy should not be allowed to ruin any more movies. If you want to watch it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Iron Giant
This is an animated movie directed by Brad Bird, who just won an Oscar for “The Incredibles”. I LOVED this movie. It is about a little boy named Hogarth who discovers a big robot in the woods behind his house in Maine. When you were a kid, if you ever wanted to have a robot for a friend or have something unbelievable happen to you, you will like this movie. It is not a musical, but it does have a lesson to the movie that might not appeal to every adult. I recommend this movie to anyone that has a child around 8-10 years old, or can remember what it was like to be a child. You wont be disappointed.

The Straight Story
Some movies are so loud in both sound and visuals that you have a hard time remembering what the story of the movie is. “The Straight Story” is exactly the opposite of a loud movie. It is a really simple story about a 73-year-old man who lives in rural Iowa and his trip to visit his sick brother who he hasn’t spoken to in 10 years. Because he can’t see too well, and he is used to doing things on his own, he ends up driving his lawn mower across the state to make it there. In one sense it is a road trip movie, but it is so much more than that. You find out a lot about this man as he trip progresses. All of the questions you have during the movie are answered in there own time. It is a slow movie, not rushing to get to the point of the trip or to see if he makes it to his brother. It takes its time and just lets you follow the story. Richard Farnsworth is the main character and he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance. Watching it, I felt like the movie had more of an impact on me because it was Richard Farnsworth’s last performance. He committed suicide a little while after it came out because he had a terminal disease. I highly recommend this movie.

So there are some movie recommendations for you out there. I may just have a weekly movie review entry since I watch about 5 movies a week, but I may keep them in the weekend recap entry as well.

New Class, Surprise Visit

2005-03-19T20:12:00.000-08:00

My class on Wednesday went okay. It was supposed to be an advanced class, but it is a little different than that. It is basically a try-out class for people that have shown promise in the rookie classes. There were several people that I thought were pretty decent, but I still felt that there were some people that didn’t quite get it. The class itself was huge, with 22 people showing up on Wednesday. So there was not a lot of stage time. But I did okay in two games and not very good in one scene. The one scene we did was just a basic 3-person scene. I really love doing basic scenes and just seeing what you can build with your scene partners. My scene did not go very well, and I blame myself. One guy kept talking and didn’t give much space for me and the other guy. And the third guy kept just asking me questions so we didn’t make any headway in the scene. I knew this and I really didn’t do anything about it. So I was disappointed with myself.

If you are chosen to continue on from this class, which will be decided in the next couple of weeks, you are placed with 7 other people and that is your team. You rehearse with them and you perform with them all of the time. You have 3 shows a month and they are all Sat or Sunday night, which are supposed to be the theaters busy nights. I hope that I make it to the next level, because I don’t think it will be worthwhile to continue with other new people for the money that I am paying per month.

After class I drove to a Denny’s right by my place and met a friend of mine for a late meal. I met him on the set of “Drawing Blood”, an independent film that I shot right before I moved from Chicago. I really didn’t know him that well when we were shooting, but he seemed like a cool guy. He lives in Houston, TX and was in town for a few days. I was a little nervous because I don’t know him that well, but he is a really cool guy and we had a good time at Denny’s. I always like to stay in contact with people that I meet on projects because you can always count on a surprise visit every now and then.

Another Overheard Conversation

2005-03-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

In my Monday improv class there is a woman named Laurie. She is a complete weirdo. Most of the time she is doing scenes, she turns the subject into something graphically sexual. It can become very uncomfortable for the people on the stage with her. Topics she has brought up during scenes include telling a couple that the reason there kid is having problems is because he is autistic and not masturbating enough, so they should encourage that. Also, she sang a song about her partner onstage with her being her brother and that their relationship is strained because he made her give him oral sex when they were kids. I think that she has some issues that she is trying to deal with on stage. Her voice is annoying as well. She is blonde and has a very high-pitched voice. Much like Marilyn Monroe or Joey Lauren Adams. So when she talks, she sounds like an airhead. I never really paid her much attention when I wasn’t on stage with her, but I overheard a conversation she was having with a new guy in our class.

Laurie: What’s your name again?

Luke: Luke Barnett.

Laurie: Barnett. Isn’t there a famous stunt man named Barnett. Maybe in your family?

Luke: I don’t know. If there is someone in my family that is famous I hope I get
to meet them.

Laurie: So, no one named Barnett is a famous stuntman?

Luke: I don’t know. Not in my family.

Laurie: Well, stunt people like to remain unknown. Could that be possible?

Luke: Could it be possible that there is a famous stuntman in my family that I
don’t know about.

Laurie: Maybe your father?

Luke: Oh, uhh I don’t know.

Laurie: You don’t know who your father is?

Luke: What?

Laurie: You never knew your father?

Luke: Uhh, no I know my father; I was saying that I don’t know if he is a famous
unknown stuntman.

Laurie: Oh.
Luke: So is there a famous stuntman whose last name is Barnett?

Laurie: I don’t know. Why?

That was the end of that conversation. Class went pretty well. I don’t think that I did very well, but I did okay. I am looking forward to my advanced class on Wednesday. Hopefully I do well there and I can move on and rehearse and perform with some other people.

First Show

2005-03-13T15:39:00.000-08:00

I had my first improv show this past Friday night. I was coming from Beverly Hills because I had a job interview for Fogo de Chao at 5:30. The interview went well, but I don’t think they are going to hire me right away. The woman that interviewed me told me that when they open a restaurant they only hire the bare minimum number of people that they need and then as the restaurant grows they hire additional people. She knew that I had a full time job right now, but I told her that I could start immediately because I did not like my job very much. She also told me that she lived in Dallas, TX. I told her that I lived in Richardson, TX for a couple of years when I was a kid. Weirdly enough, that is where she lives. So we talked about it for a few minutes and I think it may have helped me in the interview so maybe they will call me in a couple of months to be an add on person.

I left the interview at 6pm and had to be at the theater by 7pm to get ready for the show.

When I was coming to L.A. the only thing I was really worried about was the traffic. Everyone always tells you that the traffic in L.A. is horrendous. It is bad, don’t get me wrong, but it is just as bad in Chicago. Only in L.A. you usually have a longer distance to go because this city is so spread out, so the traffic seems worse.

Well, I guess the worst place to be on a Friday in L.A. is in Beverly Hills. Everywhere I went I hit traffic. I tried to take side streets, main streets, highways, but everywhere I went there was a wall of cars. So by 7pm, I was still pretty far away from the theater. I called the director and he told me that I could still be in the show as long as I made it there by show time. The show started at 7:30 and I got there at 7:25. I was placed in a few games that I had done in rehearsal and one that I didn’t know at all. But I was not nervous because it’s improv, you just make stuff up.

One thing I did notice was that a lot of the people in the show were obsessed by costumes. The greenroom has a bunch of clothes and wigs and props that people can use as part of the characters that they are going to play on stage. I didn’t use any props or costumes because this is improv and you are just supposed to go with your gut reactions on stage and I think that if you have your character all figured out and dialogue all thought out that it really isn’t improvised.

Also, I don’t know if this is just this group of people or indicative of L.A. there were people that could not be quiet backstage while other people were on stage performing. I don’t get it. There is only a thin curtain separating the stage from the greenroom and people in the greenroom where talking, laughing and one guy was playing a guitar. One dude even tried to get me into a conversation and I was whispering to him, and he kept asking me to speak louder because he couldn’t hear me. I wanted to choke and say,

“Motherfucker, there is a show going on. If I am whispering, there must be a reason, think about it”.

But I didn’t, I just told him that I would talk to him after the show.

All in all, I was very happy with the show. We had a small crowd of about 8-9 people but they were pretty active in their participation and laughing. Our director was very happy and told us so during notes. I have always been told that while a director is giving notes, you just listen and acknowledge them. But the same guy had to talk during the notes and then if the director gave him a note that could be understood as criticism he would launch into a story about the reason that he did what he did, usually because someone else had done something wrong. I wanted to kill him then also. But the director was patient and we all went our separate ways after the show.

I was pissed when I got back to my car and saw that I got a parking ticket for being in some residential zone without a sticker, but I was pretty happy about the show and so I didn’t worry about it.

I went home and picked up my friends the Reverend and Rock star. We went over to my friend Clark’s house to play Halo. Clark just moved here from Chicago with his girlfriend a couple of weeks ago, so I wanted him to get to know the Halo gang because he will have fun with them. We played Halo until about 2 am and then I took the boys home.

Saturday was spent watching movies and writing and making some killer spaghetti sauce.

I have decided that this coming Friday is going to be my last day at this present job. I really just can’t stand it.

When We Practice To Deceive

2005-03-10T22:10:00.000-08:00

I finally figured it out! I know why this job has been so difficult and no one is helping me. The guy that had the job before me did a little bit of everything. No one else in the office really knows how he did some of the stuff that he did. He had to go back to the Philippines for about 6 weeks because of a visa problem. He comes back in a couple of weeks, and I am suspecting that I will be let go upon his return. If I am doing his job, what is he going to do when he gets back? They told me that he is going to be working on some other type of project, but never told me what that project was. If he comes back, and has been doing the job I am doing for about 3 years, why would they keep me. They have started giving me potential customers to sell our stuff too. I really don’t like sales at all. I did it for about a year and a half and hated every minute of it. So if they only want me to do sales I will quit. But I think I won’t have to do that. Wait and see.

I do have an interview for a restaurant position tomorrow. The restaurant is called Fogo de Chao. I don’t know if I spelled it right. There is one in Chicago. They are building one here now. I filled out an application to be a dishwasher during late shifts. I really wanted to have a job that I could do a couple of nights a week just to make some extra money. The restaurant is in Beverly Hills and it is pretty expensive. I kind of hope that they want to make me a server because I bet you could make some really goof money, but I don’t have any experience, so that is why I applied for a dishwasher position. How hard could that be?

Friday night is also my first improv show in L.A. I am looking forward to getting back on stage. I really am not that nervous yet, I usually get nervous right before I go on. Like sick nervous. Like I could just walk-off and never come back, nervous. But it always goes away once I step foot on stage. Other than that there is not much going on here.

My family is coming in a couple of weeks and it will be good to see them. I miss them a lot and we always have a great time when we are all together. This will be my parents’ first trip to L.A. and I am curious to see what they think of it.

One last thing for today is a piece of advice. Now I know that all of you out there like technical little gadgets. And most of you don’t have that much money. But I want you all to STOP BUYING CRAP! There is a reason that a store is selling a no-name brand DVD player for $20. It sucks. This is especially for those readers out there over the age of 70. I know technology can be scary. I am not looking forward to the next fifty years and how I will fall further and further behind in my knowledge of all things technical. It has already started. I don’t know anything about MP3 or WMA or IPOD players. But I am happy in my ignorance and if some business that has one of the following words in the title “Discount, Cheap, or Rip-off” I steer clear. I urge you to do the same. Otherwise you are going to get your new gadget home, realize that is does not work and then spend the next two months dealing with companies like the one I work for trying to get it replaced or fixed. Then you will have to pay more in postage to send it in than you did to buy it in the first place. It is worth it to pay a little more and buy something from a real store, than to deal with all of the cheap crap floating onto our shores. I feel really bad when I talk to someone who bought some brand I have never heard of and they want a refund but I can’t help them. They bought it at some Discount Expo or something and that expo has moved on. So they call me to see if I can help them. Well, I can’t. Even if I want to. So save us all a little heartache and your self a big headache and put in the extra money to buy something that will last more than 1 month.

Thank you.

Tomorrow Is Another Day

2005-03-08T00:21:00.000-08:00

I used to have a CD by Ice Cube that had a song on it titled “Today was a Good Day”. That pretty much summed up today. I started out the day at my crappy job, but somewhere along the way a feeling of peacefulness just came over me. I realized that I don’t have to work at this job any longer than I want to. That I will just keep my head down and do the job as best as I can for as long as I want. I am making good money and I can take care of some “life” stuff along the way. I just stopped caring about this job. That does not mean that I am not going to do it and do it as well as I can, but I am not going to worry about it.

I also didn’t hurt that I got my first paycheck on Friday. I am able to pay some bills that I would have had to put on my credit card, which is what I am trying to pay off. I am one of the only people in the world who like to pay bills. It’s not so much that I like paying the money, but I like the finality of it. Writing a check, mailing it and knowing that I won’t have to worry about it for another month. Somehow that makes me feel good.

I was also told about a simple opportunity at work that I can make some extra money with. Basically, one of my bosses came up to me and asked me if I ever sold anything on Ebay. The reason was that he wanted another way to move merchandise, and he didn’t really know anything about it. He wants me to place an Ebay ad for our merchandise and if I sell it, I can make a little extra money. I don’t know how much I can make, but it should be pretty simple to do, so that may speed up how long I have to work there.

On top of all of that, when I got to improv class tonight the teacher called me and the other new kid over and told us that he realizes that we are advanced for this class and that he is going to put us in higher level class for a couple of weeks to see how we work out. If we work out well, we can move up into that class and get some more opportunities to perform. He also asked us to perform in our first show in a couple of weeks. That started the night off pretty well.

Then I saw an ad in the window for some sort of Stand-up troupe. I think it is a class and they have performances at the same theater. I am going to give the people a call and see if I really have what it takes to do stand-up.

If that wasn’t enough, at the end of class he was asking some of the students in our class if they were available for a show on Friday. A couple of them were not, so he asked me and the other advanced guy if we were available. Normally, I don’t get out of work until 6pm, and the call is 6:30, so there is no way that I can make it, but on Friday’s we get out at 4:30 so I told him I could be there.

So this Friday will be my first performance in Los Angeles. I feel a lot better about life right now, just had to go through an adjustment period. But I need to give a big thank you to all of the people that have called or emailed over the last week. They were all just checking in on me to make sure I was doing okay. Thanks to all of them, I am.

Week's End

2005-03-06T23:58:00.000-08:00

The latter part of last week went by pretty quickly. Nothing new at work. I still don’t like it very much but I am getting used to it. I spent the better part of Thursday dealing with Jimmy from Discount Electronics. He wanted to order a bunch of televisions with VCR and DVDs, all different sizes. I gave him prices for every model and he wanted me to drop the price for every model 2-3 dollars. I asked my boss and he told me the prices I gave him were the lowest that we could go. Jimmy threatened to go to another company, wanted me to personally check our inventory, called me every five minutes to check on the discount price and then ended up ordering the products at the price I gave him during the first phone call. So I spent over two hours for what should have been a ten-minute phone call. But at least it killed some time.

I went to a get together for my friend T who was turning 33 this weekend. It was nice to catch-up with him since I haven’t seen him in a while. I met him while doing a “pilot” for a really bad television show in Chicago. We hung out for about 15 hours before we shot our 30-second scene. So we got to know each other pretty well. He was making a movie called “The Promise of You” with another friend of his. He thought I would be good for a part in the movie. I ended up shooting that movie with him, and some of my best friends came from that experience. I just watched it again recently and I was really proud of how it turned out. It is a really special time when you are working on a project with people who are doing it for no money, just because they want to be there.

I finally went shopping for some real food. I had been getting by on just sandwiches and microwave dinners for a while, but I was starting to feel unhealthy, so I bought a lot of good stuff for me. Veggies, fruit, chicken breasts, turkey meat, and tuna fish are all back on the menu at my household.

I have been really lazy lately about a lot of stuff. I haven’t worked out in God knows how long, but I need to get back into it because I can feel myself getting soft. So I am instituting a walking regiment for the morning, just so I can get my body started off right. I also bought stuff for breakfast, which is something that I almost never eat. I usually get by on just coffee.

Two new movies viewed this weekend. I will do a quick review.

Open Water: I had heard a lot about this movie when it first came out. It is a low budget movie, shot on Digital Video about a husband and wife who are left behind on a scuba diving trip and they spend most of the movie in the water with sharks. The big “story” about this movie was that the real actors were in the ocean with the sharks swimming around them. They were wearing “shark armor” which is a suit of chain mail that the shark’s teeth cannot pierce, but they were right next to them.
I really did not like the movie. For some reason the way it was shot and edited bugged me. It has nothing to do with the fact that it was Digital Video, just the way it was made. I also think some of the acting was bad, but who am I to criticize.

Comedian: This is a documentary of Jerry Seinfeld creating a brand new stand up act, since he has retired the old one. It follows him as he goes to different clubs in NY and tries out material. It also follows a young comedian named Orney Adams as he seeks fame and fortune. I really like this movie. It is really interesting to see how comedians get their material ready for big shows. Basically they just go from club to club and see how the jokes go over on the audience. Jerry is funny and you see him interacting with other famous comedians like Chris Rock, Colin Quinn, Robert Klein and Bill Cosby and talking about their lives as a stand-up and where they are today. Onery, on the other hand, annoyed during the first five minutes of him being on screen. He seems really pompous and arrogant and all he cares about is that he is a great comedian and people don’t give him his credit. He didn’t seem that funny to me, but he is a successful comedian.

So there are a couple of movie reviews for movies you might not have seen. I am heading back to work tomorrow and improv class tomorrow night. At least I have something to look forward to.

I'm The Real Slim Shady

2005-03-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

Everything is okay! The past two nights a couple of my best friends from college both phoned me because of what I wrote in the blog. They were worried about me. I still hate my job, but everything is fine. I will get through this, and things will go back to normal.

I do still think that this company is shady. They don’t at all seemed to be concerned with the customers and how their lives are frustrated by the pieces of crap electronics that they sell. I keep being told that I spend too much time on the phone helping people with the problems they are having. I guess they don’t care that in the instruction manual there is a listing for our company, my phone number and then a statement saying “If you have any problems, cal this number.” So I try to help people as best as I can, but sometimes things are out of my control.

A customer called in to say that he had bought a DVD/CD/MP3/radio player from our website. On the website, it had a listing for accessories for the player. One of the accessories listed was a TV antenna that works with the player.

The problem that the customer is having is that the player has a different input than the antenna has output. They cannot be connected together. Even though the website AND the instructions say they can. Because in the instruction manual, the player is listed as having an input that fits a 1/8th inch jack, which the antenna has. But the player has a completely different input that is not in the manual. So the customer asked if there was some way it could be done. I asked Igor and he told me the only way to connect the player to the antenna was if the person cut the antenna wire and bought an input that fit the player and then wired it up himself. I told that to the customer and then the customer asked me,

“Why does your company sell a product that is not compatible with the only other product that can make it work, even though your website and the product say that they are compatible.”

I thought that was a very good question and I did not have an answer for him. I went to one of my bosses and told him about the situation and how there was no real answer for the problem.

He said to me,

“Tell him that there is an adaptor at Radio Shack that can fit into the antenna that makes it compatible with the player.”

“Okay,” I said, “is there an adaptor that fits the antenna?”

“I don’t know”, he replied.

“Then why am I telling him this”, I asked.

“You know, play hot potato, keep it out of your hands”, was his reply.
I was not surprised that this was his answer. They don’t care that they keep selling stuff that they know is going to break, or never works. In the hopes that the customer gives up returning it, or the warranty expires.

I have more to do lately, so the days go by faster, but I keep hoping that something better will come along. Tomorrow, Igor and I get to have a training session with a representative of Emerson Electronics because they are convinced that we do not know how to work their Satellite Navigation system. They are convinced of this because almost half of the ones that we sell are being returned because they are defective. People can’t get them to work. Or if they do, the system can’t display the routes they want to take, or find addresses, or basically do anything that it says it is supposed to do.

I spent some time this morning installing an “Earthquake Detection Device” that they want to sell for $200. It is supposed to warn people when an earthquake is about to happen by sensing ultra-sonic waves that people cannot feel, but go out right before an earthquake. I put this up in my boss’s office to “test” it. So we now wait for an earthquake and see if the device can give us any warning.

I don’t think it matters if it works or not. I expect them to be selling it by summer.

89 Days Down

2005-03-01T00:41:00.000-08:00

I really did not want to go to bed last night. I was dreading going to work today. I have counted how many work days there are until my 31st birthday. It was 90 as of last Friday. I feel like I am serving a prison sentence. I know this is getting to sound like a broken record, but this is my life. I could have it worse though. Even though I hate my job, at least I have one.

Not much went on at work today. I actually got some stuff done and I felt like I was getting the hang of it, at least a little bit. Every one is still really nice to me, but I feel like a tourist sometimes. Wandering around lost, asking people directions, and having them speak to someone else in their native language and then give me an answer.

I did have improv class tonight, which went very well. There was a cute girl in the class, and she started to talk to me, but she didn't seem that bright and that is a big turnoff to me. Not that I am splitting atoms with my brain, but it would be nice to have someone get my jokes. Re-reading what I just wrote, I realize that I sound like an ass. Maybe I am.

I can't wait to perform. I really miss the old days in Chicago when I had so much stuff going on that I had to actually schedule time-off once in a while. With improv rehearsals, shows, sketch rehearsals, auditions, seeing shows, it can get pretty hectic, but that was what I wanted.

I have started to make some projects for myself to keep me busy. One of them is obviously this blog. The others are as follows:

1. Re-writing a sitcom pilot that my friend Patel and I wrote
2. Starting a book that is based on my move to L.A. but will change once I the character gets here because it has to have an ending.
3. I am going to submit some of my blog entries about extra work to a website for a weekly/monthly column.
4. I am writing some stand-up material because I have been considering trying that out, at least once.

So that is what I am up to at the moment.

In my DVD player is the second disc of season 1 of a show called "Dinner For Five". It is hosted by John Favreau and it is pretty simple concept. Four of his friends in the acting world have dinner and talk about their experiences in Hollywood/Acting. It gives you an inside glimpse into people who are not A-list stars, and what they go through to be an actor. Some of the guests have included Vince Vaughn, Rod Steiger, Peter Falk, Sarah Silverman, Safron Burrows, Marilyn Manson, Andy Dick and Michael Rapaport. If anyone is interested in stuff like this I highly recommend it.

1 a.m. and I am going to call it quits for tonight.

New Focus For Blog

2005-02-27T19:43:00.000-08:00

My friend started a blog a couple of weeks ago. He is my next door neighbor. I enjoy reading his blog and I think you will too so I will give you the link at the end of this entry.

In the past, I have only written entries for my blog once every couple of weeks because not much goes on in my life most of the time. One of the things I enjoy about my friends blog is that he updates it several times a week and I find it interesting to read what he does during his life.

So I am making a new pledge to the readers of this blog. I am going to write an entry as frequently as possible. Most of the time it will be kind of boring. But the point of this blog was so people back in Chicago, or in other parts of the country, could keep up with my life should they so desire. I got away from that when I started writing about my experiences as an extra. They are pretty funny and I became paranoid that no one would want to read the blog unless there was something really funny in it.

There will still be funny stuff that goes on in my life. And I will continue to write stories about life as an extra that I haven't written here before and maybe a few new extras.

Here is the link to my friends blog.

www.thelifeandtimesofbck.blogspot.com

Support System

2005-02-27T19:24:00.000-08:00

I am very lucky that I have a great support system in my life. Some people I know don’t have that. I have a very supportive family. My parents have always been great in letting me find my own way and in helping me whenever I need it. My sister is probably my biggest supporter. She is always coming to shows, bringing friends, telling people about me, and letting me know the truth about what she sees. She is not afraid to tell me if something I am in is not as good as it could be. That is a rare thing to have in a person’s life. I also have a terrific group of friends that are always interested in what I am up to and supporting me in any way that they can.

Just when I am feeling down about my life, I got a great phone call from my friend I will call Taiwan. I call him that because he lives there. He and I became friends in high school. We went to different colleges, but we kept the friendship up. We also lived together in Chicago for a year. He is the friend I have known the longest, and he also knows me pretty well.

He moved to L.A. for about 3 years until about 2000, when he moved to Taiwan. He called me to give me a little pep talk. He made me really feel good about my talent and myself. He told me not to give up. Never give up. He knows that right now things are not going the way that I want them too, but I have to do what I have to do to survive. At least I am pursuing a noble goal. Something other people do not do. He made me feel a lot better about what I am doing out here. He is also one of the most interesting people that I know. When I have more time I will write some more stories about him. But here is a quick one.

The summer between my junior and senior year, I would go over to Taiwan’s house just about every day. We would play Nintendo, and then we would go to the high school to practice wrestling because we were both on the team. At his house, we would usually eat lunch or snacks. One day I was searching in the pantry for something to eat and I came upon a bag of popcorn. I asked him if I could eat it. He told me to give it to him and he checked the bag. He then told me that I could eat it. I put a handful in my mouth and started chewing. It tasted really gross. I started coughing and spitting out the popcorn. Taiwan yelled at me to not spit the popcorn out, that there was nothing wrong with it. I checked the expiration date on the bag and it had expired 5 years ago. I told Taiwan that and he started laughing and saying, “I know I know”. Then I got pissed at him for letting me eat it if he knew that it was expired. He just laughed and kept saying “I can’t believe you ate it, I can’t believe you ate it”.

Sell Out

2005-02-27T19:21:00.000-08:00

Taxes are coming up in a couple of months and I have been going over all of the money that I made last year. I was surprised at how little I made. I mean really surprised. For a thirty-year old college graduate who is reasonably intelligent, I made no money. I would have made as much money if I worked at a fast food joint over the last year.

Taking a look at what I made, what I owed in credit cards and what I would continue to make if I kept temping, I had to bite the bullet and get a decent paying full time job. I found one that will allow me to make enough money to live and enough left over to pay all of my credit card debt that I have racked up over the last 7 months living here.

The job I got is working at a company that is a wholesale distributor of electronics. Their office is right outside downtown L.A. on the top floor of a warehouse. Right across the street is a scrap metal business and all over are trucking companies. Basically it is a shit box.

The owners of the business are 4 brothers from Israel. All of the other people working there are either from China, the Philippines, or the one guy who is Russian. That does not bother me at all. What bothers me is that everyone speaks in their native language except when they are talking to me. The problem is when they are talking in the hall way my name will come up. I think they are talking to me, so I go into the hallway and say “Yes” to which they always tell me they are not talking to me. This happens about 4 times a day.

The Russian guy is named Igor. Yes, I work with a person named Igor. He sits in the back and fixes equipment. He watches movies or Christian programming on TV while he is working. He tried to get me to attend his church, because I said yes when he asked me if I was a Christian. I am sure that it is going to come up again. Oh, and he looks EXACTLY like a poor man’s Ivan Drago, the bad guy in Rocky 4.

I hate every moment I am there. I hate that they really don’t know what I am doing. The guy that worked in the position before me did a lot of stuff for them. Fixed computers, sold product, invoiced product, talked to clients, talked to customers, answered the phones for technical support, and shipped defective products back to the producer. They really don’t know HOW he did this, but they expect me to do it. I am not trained at all on anything that I am supposed to do. The woman who is “training” me wants to go on vacation in a month, FOR a month. She will be going back to the Philippines. So every time that they ask her how I am doing she keeps telling them that I am doing great, and I am having no problem with any part of the job. I keep telling her that I don’t know what I am doing, but she keeps insisting that I am doing great.

And I also just found out that the only let people take vacation after working there for one year. And then you get 5 days. 5 DAYS. That is unheard of! Also we work 9 hours a day. In California there is a law that you pay people overtime after 8 hours every day. But it does not matter to them because everyone is salaried. So that is the kind of company it is. I hate it. I hate that I have to work there for at least a couple of months, but most of all I hate myself because I have to do this.

Nothing is going on acting wise. Not that it would matter, because these guys would never let me go anywhere during the day anyway. So I will have to get by with just doing my improv classes and hoping that I can perform soon. Or maybe I can get another job that is better and then I won’t dread getting up in the morning every day.

Back In The Saddle

2005-02-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

I have been itching to perform lately. I guess I am just tired of waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever does. It is pilot season right now, so agents and managers are busy getting auditions for their current clients and don't have time to look at new people who don't have any L.A. credits to their name. Either that or I am really ugly and every time I send my headshot to them they open it and have the dry heaves until they can throw it into the garbage. If that is the case then I am in some real trouble out here. Nevertheless I keep mailing them out hoping someone takes an interest in me.

Last week I saw an ad in Back Stage West for auditions for a place called the L.A. Connection Comedy Club. Back Stage West is a newspaper that tells you what is going on in the L.A. acting world. It is one of the "trades" as people here refer to that sort of thing.

I go to the theater which is in Sherman Oaks, not to far away from me. I really don't like improv auditions because I have to feel comfortable with a person to really have a good scene with them at an audition. There are only about 7 of us auditioning, including on Armenian kid who is 14 and he is only auditioning for school credit.

Sidenote: I am 30 years old and can barely grow any facial hair. This kid was 14 and had a five o'clock shadow that I could never get if I live to be 100.

The audition consists of a quick silent warm-up, 3 short 2 person scenes, and doing 3 character voices or imitations. I did not think that I had a particularly strong audition, but I was accepted into the theater.

I start out going to classes once a week, and when they think I am ready, they will start putting me into shows. My first class was Monday. It has been raining for a week straight here and everything is beginning to flood. I was driving up the 101 North and traffic was HORRIBLE. I had never been in traffic that bad. I was going to be really late if it kept going this way. A couple of miles up I found out why it was so bad. The 101 had flooded on both the North and South sides. In the direction that I was going, there was only one lane that was shallow enough for cars to get through it. This entire part of the highway was under water. I started to freak out. There way no where I could go. Everything was under water, and if I stopped, I would be holding up the already stalled traffic. I had no choice but to drive forward. I got in behind a mini-van and the water started to get higher and higher. My car is a very small 4 door sedan, and I knew if it got too deep, my car would stall and I would be up a creek. But I kept driving and the water kept getting higher.

I had a friend who went to the University of Illinois. One night around 3 in the morning he couldn't sleep and went driving out in the farmland of central Illinois. It was raining and the road he was on started getting filled with water. He thought it couldn't get much deeper, but it did. When he decided to reverse because it was getting to deep, his car stalled. Then the water got much deeper and his car sunk. Turns out a river had burst it's banks and the excess water all went into the road. His car was ruined.

This was the one thought that went through my mind as I was driving through this lake that was the 101. I kept screaming in the car "Let's go, come on, keep it up", just random words of encouragement for me and my car. When the water got as high as my headlights, I knew I was in deep trouble. But just as soon as my headlights disappeared under the water, they popped back out again and I was going up. I made it! Since there was no traffic after that I made it to class on time.

Class was pretty fun. I am not used to doing short form games, but I got into it and had a good time. I can tell you right now that I could perform tomorrow and be fine. I just need to learn the games that they perform on stage and then I will be ready. I felt good after class, like I was accomplishing something.

They finally shut down the part of the 101 where the water had collected. They also shut down parts of the 5, the 405, and the 710 due to flooding or mud slides. We have received more rain in the past couple of weeks than we did all of last year. I don't mind the rain, but it really makes things difficult to get around when they shut down highways.

But at least I have something positive to look forward to.

Buck Rogers Lets Me Down

2005-02-18T01:32:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite shows when I was a kid was “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century”. I loved it. I was so excited when they came out with a DVD box set late last year of the entire series. I was surprised to see that it only lasted one and a half seasons because I remember watching it for years when I was a kid. If you don’t know the show it takes place in 2491. Captain William “Buck” Rogers is an astronaut from 1987 who is piloting a shuttle mission when his life support freezes and his orbit takes him back to earth 500 years later. He lives in New Chicago and he works for the earth defense directorate.

It aired from 1980-1981. The first season is fantastic. It is real campy with bad special effects and real cool 70’s funk disco music for all of the action/fight scenes. They also had really bad stunt men and women who looked nothing like the actors, and all of the women in the 25th century are super hot and wear really tight revealing outfits. So it is a lot of fun to watch. In the second season they re-vamped the show. 2 of the characters from the first season, Buck and Wilma Dearing, are now on a space ship called the Searcher and they are looking for other earthlings who fled the earth after WWIII. There is no action, no hot women, it is not funny and the music is gone. To put it bluntly, it sucks. It was cancelled half way through the second season.

One of the things that loved about the show was that in the first season, before Buck would go on his missions, he would always say good-bye to Wilma and other people. He would walk out of the office and they would tell him to be careful. He would always turn and smile and give a thumbs-up. But the way that I remembered it was that he gave the thumbs-up in a special way. Usually when people do it, they have their hand in a fist and their thumb is extended completely up. But I remember Buck would cock his thumb at the first knuckle so that the top part of thumb was horizontal. I remembered it so clearly that I would tell people the story of Buck Rodgers every time they gave me the thumbs up or I gave them the thumbs up. I am sure that I bored everyone with the story. I told my friends whenever we were on the set of projects.

Since the box set is about $75, I have been renting them a disc at a time through Net Flix. When I got the first disc, I eagerly anticipated the show. I watched the first disc and sure enough in one of the first episodes he leaves for a mission and he gives the thumbs up. But he did it like everyone else does it. There was no cocking of the top part of his thumb. I thought that maybe it would come up in a future episode. So I watched the entire first season and no “cocked” thumbs-up. I was devastated. Something that I had believed in for 20 years was just all in my head. I also feel bad because I have been talking about it for so long that I know people might check out the show just because of it. That is the power I have over people.

So another fond memory from when I was a kid is now nothing more than a made up memory.

In For A Penny

2005-02-18T00:09:00.000-08:00

I have been temping for the last couple of weeks so I can pay my bills. Since I am union and not able to get much extra work, I have had to go back to working in an office, which is not what I want to do. But, you gotta do what you gotta do.

The first job I had was working for a company that ships pallets of stuff all over the L.A. area. They were going to be audited and they needed someone to go through ALL of their files for the past 6 months. Invoices, shipping receipts, employee files, ALL of it. So I spent most of my time looking through files to make sure they had signatures, dates, insurance forms, shipping receipts, and employee tax forms. Needless to say I was bored out of my mind and had to drink a LOT of coffee to stay awake.

The office I worked in was small, only 5 women were in it, and they were the Accounts Receivable department. The only good factor of this job was a woman named Penny. Penny is a Chinese woman. She came over from China when she was a little girl and had a very stereotypical accent. I don’t think she was too bright either, because she had a difficult time figuring out things in certain situations. Here is one of those incidents that I had with her. Because part of what is funny about it is her accent, I will type it as it sounded to me. You should read it out loud to fully get the idea.

I needed a notebook to keep track of problems that I came across. I was told to ask Penny for a notebook.

B: Hey Penny, do you have a notebook?

(Penny WHIPPED her head around like I had snuck up on her)

P: Wha? Oh, ya shoo. Ahhh, dis is the fi cabinet and you take da fies and you jus take da fies and you put dem in aphabetica orda and den you take dem and you, well afta you put the fies in dem you jus, ahh, well you jus take the otha fies and you, you know, you keep dem in orda, but be sure to jus make sure dat the fies are in orda when you put dem in da cabinet.

B: Uhh, okay. Well I have to do something first, so can I have a notebook?

P: Oh, a notebook. Ya shoo. Here, ahhh, take dis and den ahhh, jus keep track of what you want to in it, jus wri on each page, den when you aah dun, jus rip da page and put in trash. Okay?

B: Sure.

The other thing about Penny is that she will give me jobs to do and then a couple of days after I do it, she will come back and tell me one CRUCIAL instruction that she forgot to tell me that would have changed the way I did the job. I usually had to go back and do it again or just tell her that I did it the way she wanted so I wouldn’t have more work to do. She was also unable to get the printer to work almost every day, and would tell other people that they broke it, even though it was usually a paper jam.

So Penny kept me entertained almost every day as I waded through miles of paper work.

I hope I did a good job, because if I didn’t and they have a bad audit, I could be working with Penny again.

Will and Grace and Bryan

2005-02-08T22:36:00.000-08:00

Upscale is not a word that people usually apply to me, or the way I dress. Most of the time I am usually wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Nevertheless, I was booked on Will and Grace as an Upscale Classy Bar Patron. I was excited to work on W&G, because my friends who worked on it said that it is fun and everyone is really nice to you.

I get to the studio and report at my assigned time, 11:00am. I notice that there are only 15 or so extras and that this is the only scene that we appear in. I was hoping that we might only work a couple of hours and then go home. Usually, sitcoms tape on Fridays, but what I didn’t know is that W&G tape on Tuesdays, and that our scene was the last one. So I settled in for a long day.

The biggest excitement came when a small fire started on a curtain in the back of a set. A light was sitting too close to it. They cleared out most of the people from the sound stage and let us take a break, which turned into a 5-hour break because we never went back in to rehearse. We stayed in a room in a production building across that street from the soundstage.

They fed us a FANTASTIC dinner! I guess being one of the higher rated shows on television allows them to pull out all of the stops for their cast and crew. Then they started taping the show around 5pm.

What was really cool about that show was that they would shoot a scene, and then they would take a ten-minute break. During the break, a group of about 10 people that composed the writing team would stand around and come up with about 3 new jokes for the scene. Then they would shoot the scene again with the new jokes in. I was really impressed that these people could just come up with a bunch of funny stuff that quickly. It also seemed really cool that their job is to write funny television shows, which is something that I would love to do.

There is a person who “warms-up” the audience before the show and during the breaks in taping. They play games with the audience, talk about the show, and have people sing to the band that was playing at the top of the audience section. One of the things he told the audience was that the usual price to produce one episode of a prime time sitcom was usually 1 million dollars. The price tag for an episode of W&G is 4.5 million an episode, with most of that money being spent on the 4 principle actors.

The only thing of note that happened to me during the taping happened right before we filmed our scene for the second time. The writers had put their heads together and come up with some new jokes. One of the jokes was for Karen to say,

“I told her everything, except for the fact that I think Robin Williams shines in dramatic parts”

Then the last line of the scene they had for her was,

“I haven’t been this teary-eyed since Bicentennial man”
Debra Messing and Megan Mullally were discussing the last line with the director Jim Burrows. They both thought they could come up with a different Robin Williams movie that was funnier than Bicentennial man. They were standing right next to me and I heard them coming up with different movies. My first thought was Jacob the Liar, but I don’t think anyone saw that movie. So I thought Moscow on the Hudson was such and old movie and a funny title that it would be a good replacement, but of course I didn’t say anything. Debra and Megan kept trying to come up with another movie and Jim had moved on to get ready to shoot. They were discussing the movie where Robin was the teacher at a prep school and one of his students was Robert Sean Leonard but they couldn’t come up with the title.

I never talk to the actors on set, but for some reason I leaned over and said,

“It’s Dead Poets Society”

“That’s it” Debra said. “Jim, what about Dead Poets Society?”

“No,” he replied, “we’ll come up with something else.

Then they shot the scene and the last line was,

“I haven’t been this teary-eyed since Moscow on the Hudson”

I should stick to writing I guess.

Indebted to my sister

2005-01-05T22:56:00.000-08:00

I join the Screen Actors Guild on December 14, 2004. According to the literature that they provided me, I am now part of the most prestigious performing union in the world. The good news is that I can be taken seriously as an actor and that I am pursuing something more meaningful than just doing extra work. The bad news is that until I get an agent or manager, I have to find some other means of making money. I am not looking forward to working in an office again, but a man’s gotta do, what a man’s gotta do.

Joining the union is an important step in my career and one of the first hurdles that I have overcome while being out here. I am pretty proud of myself for getting in the union within six months of moving here. There are people who have been here for years and have not been eligible to join.

I should point out that my sister is the one who gave me the opportunity to get into the union. She works with a woman whose niece is an assistant director on Desperate Housewives. The niece was the one who paved the way for me to join. I owe both of them a lot, and I know my sister will bring it up for the rest of my life. But that is a small price to pay. So thank you sis!

Why Extras Should Not Act

2005-01-05T22:21:00.000-08:00

I was booked to play a theater patron for the A&E Biography of a man named Stanford White. He was an architect and had an affair with a married woman, whose husband ended up shooting and killing him at a theater. It takes place a little after the turn of the century so the people working were all dressed up in period costumes. There were only 7 of us. Everyone was a seasoned extra.

One gentleman was pegged to play Stanford White. If you have never seen Biography, they use voiceovers to tell the story of the individual and use reenactments shot in a very stylized way to show you what happened. This was where Stanford was shot in the theater. There were two couples, myself included, at tables and then one table with just the gentleman playing Stanford White. The tables were all dressed in period props. Each table had a big kerosene lamp in the middle, china plates, silverware, crystal ashtrays, and glasses with drinks in them. Very nice lace tablecloths coverd them all and the table and chairs themselves are authentic furniture from the time period. There is no dialogue so the director was talking us through it and giving us direction the whole time the cameras were running.

The man playing Stanford must have either been very nervous, or has never really acted in his life. He was about fifty and seemed to know what he was doing, until the cameras began to roll. The director was talking him through what he wanted the man to do and apparently the man needed constant talking going on because every time there was a lapse in the directors voice, the man would talk to him. Which would be fine except Stanford is at a table by himself and it would look like he was either talking to himself, or TO THE GUY HOLDING THE CAMERA IN FRONT OF HIM.

Here is one such exchange between Stanford, and the Director.

Director: Okay, sit down. Now look around to see who is there at the theater with you, no, no don’t look directly behind you because we can’t see your face. Just glance around, smile at someone. No don’t smile behind you, imagine there are other people around you. Now go ahead and take a sip of your drink.

(Pause)

Stanford: Was that good or do you want me to keep taking sips?

Director: Don’t talk, even though we can’t hear you we don’t want to see you lips moving. Okay, take one drink then just observe and enjoy the show. No, no, don’t clap, no one else is clapping.

Stanford: So I don’t like the show?

Director: Okay, no, you DO like the show but if we are going to clap everyone needs to clap. Okay, everyone, clap. There you go. Remember couples, talk to each other, and tell each other that you like the show. No, no, Stanford you are there by yourself so you don’t have to talk to anyone.

Stanford: Do you want to cut that one and take the clapping over again?

Director: No, no. Don’t talk. We can still see your mouth moving. We got the clapping just fine. Just enjoy the show. Maybe take another sip of your drink.

Stanford: Should I get another drink, this one is almost out.

Director: No, no. Just pretend to take a drink. No talking, we don’t want the people watching this to see your mouth move.

Stanford. Oh, oh yeah. Okay

Director: Okay, everyone is having a good time. Keep it lively; everyone is interested in the show.

(Pause)

Stanford: Should I take another drink?

Director: (sighs) No, no. That’s fine. Let’s do the scene where you are shot.

So we cut and go to the next scene, which is where the husband walks in and shoots Stanford. For safety reasons, they don’t have the guy doing the shooting aiming the pistol directly at Stanford. They have him shooting just to the side of him, which also gives Stanford a little room to roll onto the floor when he gets shoot. We are going to take it slow so no one gets hurt. With the style that they are shooting it in, no one is going to notice that we are going at half speed. So the husband slowly walks up to Stanford, slowly raises his gun, and fires. Stanford rolls out of his chair with such intensity that I thought he was jumping out of an airplane over Europe in 1943. His leg catches the tablecloth and pulls almost everything off of the table. The plates, silverware and his drink glass go crashing onto the ground. And we all look as the large kerosene lamp, which is lit, is rocking on the corner of the table. The safety guy goes running over and pulls the lamp off of the table. Stanford stands up and then notices that he has spilled his drink all over his costume. He has to go to the dressing room and clean up. Once he is gone the safety guy says to the director,

“Maybe we should have these lamps for this shot because if that had fallen, it would have exploded.”

So they remove the lamp on that table and shoot the scene at a different angle.

Before the next take the Director tell Stanford to take it easy, that there is no reason to hurry and hurt himself, just gently roll off of the chair. Stanford is thinking to himself and says to everyone,

“Could we move all of the tables away from mine about three feet, I want to have enough room to land. He only had about five feet already in between each table but I guess he thought that he might need more. The director told him no and that all he had to do was gently roll off of the chair. We do another take and Stanford again rolls out of the chair like he was in a John Woo movie. I could tell that the director was getting impatient because that was the last take of that shot.

The last thing we had to do was shoot a view of all of the feet running around right after the shooting started. Everyone in the theater is running for their lives, so they want pandemonium. They are only shooting our feet so it should be really easy. Should be. The director tells everyone what she wants them to do, when she wants them to run and in what order. She points to one of the woman and tells her that she is going to be the last feet we see so really run by quickly. We start shooting and the director is talking us through it.

Director: Okay action. Number 1 go, knock over the chair, Number 2 go okay, hesitate now take off, Number 3 and 4 go at the same time, good. Now number 5 run by. Run by. Number 5, right now! You, run through! Hey, run through!

The woman was standing there looking at the director like she didn’t understand English. Finally she understood and casually walks through the shot. The director wanted to do it again. She walked us through it and again, the last woman casually walked through. The director was not too happy and told the woman to not run through this time. We shoot it one last time and one of the guy’s knocks over the table, spilling everything on it. Except the kerosene lamp that they had already removed. Thank God!

That was it for the day. The director thanked everyone and said that everyone did a good job. But I could tell that inside of her head she was saying to herself, “That’s why extras should not act!”

Best Day Ever

2004-12-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

24 is a really great show. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be an extra on it. I have heard good things from other background performers that they treat people well, and that you get to do cool stuff. I was a CTA agent for the beginning of the day and the scene was that a double agent in the Counter Terrorist Agency was running out of the office building and is arrested at her car. Then the agents leave and take her into custody, but one agent opens her car and it blows up killing the agent. When I heard that they were going to blow up a car, I got excited and hoped that I would get to watch them do it.

In the first part of the scene, the double agent is running through the parking lot pursued by the good agents. The Assistant Director placed me at the back of an SUV and told me that I was just getting to work, and that I was supposed to be surprised that all of these people were running past me in the parking lot. We rehearsed the scene once, and the Director decided that he wanted more movement in the scene, and since it was a parking lot, he wanted someone driving a car that the people had to run around. For some reason they chose me.

Now, about the setup of the scene. The parking lot is a kitty corner to the office building that they are running out of. So they have to run out of the office building, take a left run down some stairs and they run into the parking lot. I noticed that when they placed me in the car I was supposed to drive that I had no way of seeing the people running out of the building. I was to drive the car and just inch the hood out into the passage that they were running through, and divert them into a better shot in front of the camera. The problem was that since I had no way of seeing them, and they were sprinting at top speed I had a split second to react to them running from behind a car, before I killed them.

I was very nervous about that and wondered why they didn’t have a stunt person driving. The Assistant Director came over and said,

“Okay, since you can’t see them, I am going to smack the roof when you are to start driving, just take it slow so you have time to brake before you hit them.”

This did not instill me with much confidence, and I was sure that I was going to smack into at least one person. We did a rehearsal and sure enough, I pulled up to my mark, and the double agent woman came sprinting right into my car, had to put her hands down to stop herself, screamed and then ran off yelling,

“That damn car was there too early!”

I backed up to my starting point and noticed that I had broken out into a cold sweat. The Assistant Director came up and said,

“How you doin’?”

“Okay, I’m really nervous”, I replied.
“Ahhh, don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine” he reassured me.

“Umm, shouldn’t we have a stunt driver doing this”? I asked.

“Nah”. He said quickly. Then he thought about it and called over the stunt coordinator to the car. He asked the stunt coordinator why they didn’t have a stunt driver for this. The stunt coordinator looked at him, then at me, then said.

“He’s going to be fine.” Then he limped away. HE LIMPED AWAY! A stunt coordinator whose job it is to keep everyone safe had a limp. Now I don’t know if this was a limp he had all of his life, or if he just got the limp the day before doing a stunt, but I was not filled with a lot of confidence.

We did the scene about seven times and after the first take, the people running knew where they had to go to avoid me. So we didn’t have the catastrophic accident that I thought we would.

With the first part of the scene done, we moved on to the car explosion. Which is what I had been looking forward to all day.

We had a safety meeting with the special effects guy, and you guessed it, the gimpy stunt coordinator. The told us where we could stand to be safe and how the explosion would go. Basically there were three explosions, one right after another. The first was to blow out the windows, so the air could get to the fuel that would burn the car. The second one was to blow off the roof of the car, and the third one lit the whole car on fire so it would burn real nice and pretty.

Everyone took their places, including a couple of crew guys who knelt down to the side of a car to take some pictures. They were outside of the danger area, so they were safe, but just to make sure one of the guys moved a plastic trash can in front of him for added protection.

They counted down and the car blew up. It was extremely cool. I saw a piece of the roof fly of and go sailing like a Frisbee right at the crew guys taking pictures. Only the plastic trash can saved him from being decapitated. I asked him later if he got a picture of it and he showed me a digital shot of the Frisbee piece of metal flying right at him. It was pretty cool.

A couple minutes after the explosion, an LAPD helicopter did a fly by. Just in case it wasn’t a television show, I guess.

They set up for the shot after the explosion where they had people run up with fire extinguishers and a fire truck pulling up to the car. They chose me to have a fire extinguisher. So they lit the car on fire and I ran up and began to spray it with the extinguisher.

At the end of the day, the Assistant Director put an extra fifty bucks on my paycheck for the driving that I did.

All in all, it was a cool way to spend a day.

Overheard Conversations

2004-11-08T22:48:00.000-08:00

Here are some more conversations that I have overheard and thought were funny.

Conversation #1

Two guys who knew each other are talking together on the set of "American Pie IV". Yes, they are making another one. But it is straight to video.

Guy #1: "Hey do you know Gabriel who worked with us on E.R. last week?"

Guy #2: "Gabriel, Gabriel, oh yeah, he's the guy with red hair"

Guy #1: "No, he has kind of dark blonde hair."

Guy #2: "Oh yeah. He's a big guy."

Guy #1: "No, not really big.

Guy #2: "But he's pretty tall."

Guy #1: "No, he's about our size."

Guy #2: "Yeah, I know him."

I am not sure if he just wanted to end the conversation or for some other reason, but it was clear he did not know Gabriel.

Conversation #2

A couple of guys who just met are talking together on the set of "Flight Plan". One of the guys wants a cigarette, but doesn't have one. He asks his new friend if he smoked, his new friend did not. So he asks a guy standing near him smoking if he could bum a cigarette off of him. This is what follows.

Guy #1 "Thanks man, thanks. Here I have to give you something because you gave this
to me."

Guy #2 "No, no, that's not necessary."

Guy #1 "Yes, yes it is. I always give something to people who give me something.
Here have a piece of candy, I always have candy in my pocket."

Guy #2 "That's okay, you keep it."

Guy #1 "No, no, I have lots of them. My wife puts a bunch in my pockets every
morning.

Guy #2 "My wife died."

Guy #1 "Oh, sorry to hear that".

Awkward pause

Guy #1 "Here, take another piece of candy."

I guess it was worth telling a complete stranger about a devastating event, to get another piece of strawberry candy.

Conversation #3

I was working on "Gilmore Girls" and there was this very manly looking woman who was annoying everyone there. She looked exactly like "Pat" from the old "Saturday Night Live" sketch.

Manly Woman: "Is Rhode Island in Conneticut?"

Person: "No, Rhode Island is in Rhode Island."

Manly Woman: "It's a whole other state?"

The manly woman got hers later one. She was standing in line to get some food and the person in charge of the food wanted her to let some crew members in front of her. She approached from the back and said....

"Excuse me sir, could you let the crew in first"

The manly woman was not happy to be called a man. But I think gay marriage is legal in Rhode Island. She should look into it, if she can find it.

The PS effect

2004-11-08T22:43:00.000-08:00

I may have mentioned this before, but there are three things that people are VERY concerned with here in Los Angeles.

1. Height
2. Age
3. Which celebrity you look like

I have overheard many in-depth conversations about celebrities and how people are mad or flattered, happy or sad depending on what celebrity people think they look like. In Chicago I was rarely compared to any celebrities. People just did not care. In L.A. people think I am a dead ringer as a younger version of a certain celebrity. At least twice a week, people say that I look like him.

Patrick Swayze

I don’t see it. My friends and family don’t see it. But apparently everyone else does. If I am having a conversation with a stranger on set, it always comes up. One girl on Dr. Vegas refers to me as “Swayze” even though I have told her my name repeatedly.

The best story happened when I was working on “Dr. Vegas” a couple of months ago. I was just sitting alone, reading at a table, and there were a couple of older women sitting at the same table as I. After a couple of hours, the older woman sitting right next to me kind of leaned into me and quietly began to speak to me. She had an accent that I would guess to be Italian.

Woman: “Excuse me, you look like the man from the dancing movie.”

I knew instantly what she was talking about.

Bryan: “Patrick Swayze”?

Woman: “Yes, yes, you look just like him. Are you his son or nephew?”

Bryan: “No, I’m not related to him.”

Woman: "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. You look just like him. From the
Dancing movie.”

Bryan: “Dirty Dancing.”

Woman: “Yes, yes, the Dirty Dancing. I was sitting here thinking you must
be his son, you look so much like him. I wanted to ask you sooner
but I was scared to talk to you.”

Then she turns to the other ladies at the table.

Woman: “Everyone, doesn’t he look like the Patrick Swayze?”

Everyone: “YEAH”

Woman: “You are going to be a mega-star, the Patrick Swayze is getting to
old to be sexy, you can take his parts. You are my mega-star.”

She continued to call me “My Mega-Star” for the rest of the day. She also told me that I was going to get many parts and be famous because I looked like the Patrick Swayze. When my age came up, she couldn’t believe that I was thirty. Then she started talking about her 24 year old daughter and how she thinks she needs to date older men. I was just waiting for her to “suggest” that I give her daughter a call. I had a choice, I could sit there and endure it, or I could be very rude and move to a different chair. I chose to endure it.

The whole rest of the day, I was called mega-star, sexy, and the Patrick Swayze. At the end of the day, she made me honestly promise her that I would not forget her when I was a famous mega-star. Which she predicted would be in November. I just saw her today and she called me mega-star once again. I wanted to remind her that it was November and I still wasn’t a mega-star. But, I didn’t and I also didn’t feel guilty about having forgotten her name.

Sexy for a day

2004-10-06T21:53:00.001-07:00

Last week I registered with the calling agency "Extras Management". I pay them $70 a month and they book me on shows. I no longer have to call hotlines or wait on hold to book myself, which frees up my cell phone minutes. One perk is that they usually book you for more exciting parts other than pedestrians, restaurant patrons or students. So the other day I was booked on CSI-NY as a fireman. I was excited because I would be shooting at the Paramount Studios lot on their NY street set. The set is basically about four blocks in the middle of sound stages that they have dressed up to look like NY's Chinatown.

I report in and they send me to wardrobe. These very nice ladies gave me a full fire fighters outfit. Boots, fire pants with suspenders, a FDNY t-shirt and a big fire retardant jacket. They ask me to put it on and come back for approval. The changing area is about a 5-7 minute walk in between other sound stages. I change and walk back to wardrobe. As I was walking back I passed several other productions outside of sound stages. I began to notice that a couple of women were checking me out. Not blatantly, like men, but subtlely. I thought it was my imagination at first, but it happened again. Then I thought it was because with the outfit on, I looked out of place. But since this was a movie studio and other people were walking around in costumes, I knew it must be something else. Then it hit me. Women love a man in uniform! Normally on my sexiness scale of 1-10, I am usually a pretty strong 6. I dip occasionally to a 4, but never below that. With the uniform, I think I was around an 8. I don't think I have ever been above that, but I decided to go for broke. That's why I moved out here right? I started to strut a little bit and puff out my chest. I passed a group of people with two women in it. They were looking at me, of course, so I shot them my 1000 watt smile and said "hi". They smile back and one looked down and shyly said "hello".

Oh baby, I just hit a 9! Brimming with confidence, I walked up to the wardrobe trailer, stood tall, held my hands out to the side and said "How do I look"? The first women looked at me and with lust in her eyes said "Oh, yeah you do look like a fireman". The second looked up and was immediately frozen, staring at me. "Yeah, you look good", was all that she could muster.

I just nailed the dismount and all of the judges gave me a 10 on the sexiness scale. I could have taken both of those women into the back of the trailer and made their dreams come true, but I had bigger fish to fry.

I was seriously strutting my stuff on my way back to the set. I was visualizing the scene in Saturday Night Fever where John Travolta is walking down the street in the beginning of the movie and the Bee Gee's "Staying Alive" is playing. I was walkin tall and livin large, and if it was possible to amend the scale, I was nearing an 11. I get back to the holding area and not being needed right away and just from the sheer energy I expended maintaining the high level of sexiness, I promptly fell asleep in my chair. I woke up in a panic that I had lost some of the sexiness, but after a quick self-sexiness check, I was still a 10.

I went over to the prop department to get my equipment. They gave me a Helmut, an axe that strapped on to my waist, a crowbar and an oxygen tank with a mask. Now I was in a different territory, the action scale.

Along side of the sexiness scale are the action scale and the charisma scale. Normally I rate pretty low on the action scale, around a 1. I am up around a 5 on the charisma scale all of the time, but I can get to a 10 on the charisma scale pretty quickly. When I am acting I use these scales to let me know how I am doing in a scene. Sexiness/action/charisma are all very important in my business and I need to keep track of all three. I was already at a 10 on the sexiness scale and with all of my equipment I was at a strong 9 on the action scale, and the charisma scale was holding steady at a 5. So I was hitting 24 on my scales and was ready to work.

The first part of the scene takes place after a fire at a bank in Chinatown. Myself and another extra were to walk out of the bank, take off all of our gear and then roll up a hose. First take, nailed it. 10 sexiness, 9 action, 5 charisma. Then the sun started to come out and it got hot. Very, very hot. I began to sweat, a lot. I could feel the scale beginning to become unstable. With all of the sweat the sexiness scale began to fall. 9 takes later and I was drenched. I had sweated through 2 t-shirts, and my hair was completely wet from the Helmut. Not to mention that my back was hurting from constantly putting on and taking of that damn oxygen tank. We finished the scene and I was at a 4 on the sexiness scale and since I was very tired my action scale had dropped also. I considered doing some push-ups to get both scales to go up, but I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do any, and that the scales would be damaged beyond repair. So instead I sat on the curb and drank Gatorade and water until I knew I wasn't going to throw up.

We did some more scenes and when we ended I had managed to to keep at a 2 on the sexiness scale and a 2 on the action scale. Charisma was about a 4 because I had not said anything witty all day. I went back to props and was standing in line to turn in my gear. There was one guy ahead of me. As he was turning in his props, the prop master said "You guys look like you could really handle a fire". I could feel the action scale begin to rise. Just then the guy ahead of me knocked me on my head with the giant hooked pole he had, on accident. Luckily I was wearing my Helmut or, and I am not kidding, I would have been seriously hurt. The prop guy laughed and said "Maybe not". I felt the bottom drop out of the sexiness scale as it hit 0. I went back to the wardrobe ladies ready for a sexiness bump up. I gave them my clothes and said "They're pretty wet", from all of my sweat. The lady held them like a dirty diaper and said "We'll send them for cleaning". The sexiness scale shuddered and gave a groan as it also hit 0. I tried to think of something witty to say, but just stood there silently. So, the charisma scale dropped to an all time low of 2.

So that's how the day ended. With a pitiful 2 on the charisma scale the only thing left. Oh, and a sore back. Then I got home at 8pm and found out I had to get up for the next day at 3:30 am to make my call time. I fell asleep and dreamed of my former sexiness.

* It should be noted that the sexiness/action/charisma scale was invented for me by my friend Brendan on the set of Tripod Film's "Drawing Blood"

Extra Moron's

2004-10-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

I do not consider myself an extremely intelligent person. I think I am smart, but I'll bet that there are a lot of people smarter than me in this city, but most of them do NOT do extra work. I run into people every day that I would never have a conversation with unless we were stuck next to each other for hours at a time. I seem to be a magnet for strange people who just like to talk to other humans. Most of the time, when I go to set, I don't know anyone and I sit by myself. A lot of those times I overhear conversations that people are having with each other and want to shoot myself while I am listening to them. Here are a selection of the conversations I have overheard.

Conversation #1

Two men are discussing the stock market. One man has made a lot of money in the stock market day trading and is therefore pro-stock market. One man has lost money in the stock market so he is anti-stockmarket. There is a lone strange female who is sitting near them listening to their conversation. When they are done the women starts to speak to the anti-stockmarket man.

Man:.....I just don't trust those guys running it. They are only out for themselves. They lie and cheat and that's why I stay away from it (the stockmarket)

Woman: The STARK market?

Man: No, the STOCK market.

Woman: What's the STARK market?

Man: STOCK, STOCK market.

Woman: Oh, STOCK market. Why don't you like it?

Man: The brokers who invest for you are a bunch of crooks. You can't trust them, they are only looking out for themselves.

Woman: Oh. (VERY LONG PAUSE) So, were you a stockbroker for a long time?

Man: No, I wasn't a stockbroker.

Woman: Right. So why didn't you like it?

Man: No, I wasn't a broker. I don't like them.

Woman: So you didn't like being a broker and that's why you don't like the stock market.

At this point I was ready to kill someone, so I left and went out into the hallway to get away from it. I went back in later and they had thankfully ended the great financial debate. But they weren't done.

Woman: It looks like you got some sun?

Man: Today?

Woman: You're sunburned.

Man: From today?

Woman: Was today the day you got sun?

Man: I don't know.

Woman: Oh. (VERY LONG PAUSE AGAIN) It was sunny today.

Cue another walk into the hallway.

Conversation #2

I was working on Cold Case and we were in a hotel ballroom waiting to go to work. There was a table of primarily African Americans next to the table I was sitting at. I was listening to their conversation because they were discussing racism. Here is where I stopped listening.

Man #1: I mean the fact that today we still have racism is wrong. People work very hard to make things equal and some folks still don't get it.

Man #2: Yeah. Didn't we take care of this in the 30's?

Man #1: You bet your ass we did!

And somewhere in heaven Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weeps.

Conversation #3

I worked on a movie called Sky High for the last three weeks. Most of the people working there were very young, around 19-21. I lot of them were stupid. There was an announcement to tell us the story of the film. Basically it is a high school where every kid has super powers. The high school is up in the sky, hence the name. I was standing near a group of girls who I KNEW heard the announcement, because I was near them when they told all of us. Apparently one of them hadn't heard and asked the others what the movie was about.

Girl #1: So, what is going on at this school?

Girl #2: Apparently we're in space or some shit.

Girl #3: Yeah, we're really high up. Like above the sun or something.

Above the sun indeed. I hope your looks last honey, cause you ain't got nothing else going for you.

I have a million of these. I will add some every now and then when things get boring in my own life.

Bulldog's Soundman

2004-09-19T23:43:00.000-07:00

I have always been a little self-conscious about my height. I am not super short, but I am of below average height. I am around 5’9, but everyone I see on television set’s is at least 5’11 or taller, everyone. So I have been worried that my height would be a disadvantage to me. It came in handy one time though.

I was working Dr. Vegas, again as a gambler, and the AD came up to me and told me I was being switched to part of a camera crew. The show was about a big Texas Hold’em tournament that the casino was having and they were broadcasting it on a network like ESPN. So they had a guy playing an announcer and I was supposed to be a soundman getting his microphone set up for him. Turns out the person they had slated to be the soundman was too tall for the actor playing the announcer, so I was picked to be the new soundman.

The person playing the soundman was the actor who played Bulldog on “Frasier”. His name is Dan. He introduced himself to me and we just chitchatted a little bit. He asked me if I was an actor playing a soundman, or if I was really a soundman they just put into the scene. I told him I was an actor and that they originally had a different guy to play the soundman but he was too tall. Dan replied, “Those son’s a bitches” in a joking manner, which I found really funny.

So we shot the scene, which consisted of me starting out at this guy’s crotch like I was plugging in his microphone and then sticking the receiver in his back pocket, so I was touching his butt a lot. Everyone was very nice to me and Dan even included me in the scene by speaking to me and asking me if I knew whom this other guy was in the scene. I am not allowed to speak so I just shrugged him off and shook my head “no”. Real great acting there, real great.

That one day turned into 3 days since they wanted the same people back as the camera crew for each shot in the casino. I didn’t have to look for work and I was happy that I was becoming more and more comfortable working on sets. Plus I am pretty sure that I will be seen in this episode also. I have not seen myself on television yet, but I am sure when I do, I will get that rush of adrenaline that everyone gets when they see their elbow on TV.

Also, I work Dr. V a lot because there is this really gorgeous woman there who chit chats with me from time to time. I only mention this because I don’t want you readers to think that I am not “putting out the vibe” when I am on set. I am. Big time. I just like the women to come to me. I play it real cool. I find it strange that I am often alone though.

Tons of stuff

2004-09-19T23:42:00.000-07:00

I know a lot of faithful readers have been anticipating the next installment of CTD, so here it is. My computer problems are under control, but I will have to have someone look at it because there is still some funky stuff going on with it, but I digress.

Lots of stuff has happened since I last updated the log, so here goes.

After my friends and I helped out the AD on Dr. Vegas, I was able to get work on that show whenever I want. The casting director at Central Casting told me to call in whenever I heard the listing for the show and he would put me on. That gave me a sense of relief because sometimes it can be difficult to get work due to the volume of people calling in to get work.

So I was working pretty regularly on Dr. Vegas, and since I was there so much the other Assistant Directors began to recognize me and call me by name, which was very nice. One day, I ran into my friend M who I knew back in Chicago, on the set of Dr. V. As he and I were catching up, the AD came up to us and told us to go to the soundstage where they were shooting a scene. When we got there, we were placed at a blackjack table with another girl. I knew something was up when the stand-ins for the main actors came and stood or sat next to me.

A stand-in is a person of the same height and build of the main actors that they use to set lights for, so the main actors can go and sit/eat/relax. They are referred to as “Second Team”.

I was sitting there thinking about how cool this was when they called for “First Team”. The stand-ins left and Rob Lowe, Fisher Stevens and Sarah Lancaster moved into position. The director told us that we were in a scene where Fisher Steven’s character was having a coughing attack at the blackjack table and they had called Rob Lowe to check him out. Sarah Lancaster plays a dealer on the show. I knew that I was supposed to be quiet and not talk to them, so I just sat there and listened. Rob Lowe was teaching Fisher Stevens a new way to memorize lines quickly. Apparently this is a technique he used on the West Wing because they would often get new scripts the day of shooting. Basically you write down the first letter of each word in the margin next to the sentence. Then you just concentrate on the letters and your brain will remember the words. I thought it was a crock, but I still remember the line of dialogue that they practiced on, which was “This is the best place in the city to get laid. Forget weddings or funerals, women are on to that”. So the next time I get a script I am going to try that out.

I was just being quiet and listening to them without looking like I was listening to them. I was praying that they would include me in their conversation. I was coming up with all of these interesting things to say, a funny anecdote or two and the fact that I just moved from Chicago. I was even trying to remember the name of the hockey movie that Rob Lowe made in the 80’s with Patrick Swayze, but I couldn’t do it.

We shot the scene a couple of times and then they asked for Joe Pantoliano and Tom Sizemore to come to set. They were in the last part of the scene where they walk by and say a line. But the best part of the whole day was when Tom Sizemore started talking about working on “Heat” with Robert Dinero and Val Kilmer. He started talking about how he would tease Val a lot and would get Robert, or Bob to him, to join him. He was doing a Dinero impression and everything. It was pretty bad, but he was so committed to it that it was really funny. So he is talking about how during the big shootout scene in downtown L.A. that they kept telling Val to call Robin and why were they running when they could just get the Bat mobile. Apparently Val did not like this very much because he asked them to stop. To which Dinero replied, “Why don’t you go get fucking Robin to save our asses here”!

While this was going on we were shooting the scene. So Tom would tell a couple minutes worth of the story and then they would roll and he would shoot his part and then would go right back into the story. It took about half and hour and everyone at the table was laughing the whole time.

The thing that hit me during all of this was that these were professional actors and they were screwing around in between shots, just like I like to do. So I was pretty jazzed about this whole thing while I was driving home. It was midnight here, 2am Chicago and the only person I knew who would be up was my friend R who is a waitress and gets off around 2am. So I called her all excited and started telling her the whole story. I am sure I didn’t make much sense and sounded like a maniac, but at least I got to tell someone right after it happened.

Oh, and I am sure that I will be seen in the episode also. Fisher Stevens plays a dying man and goes to the Casino for one last fun time. It should be the 2nd or 3rd episode. Check it out if you are interested in seeing me.

Dr. Vegas starts Friday, September 24 at 9 or 10 pm.

Oh, and it has been pegged as one of the first shows to get cancelled by the critics. I guess the Friday night at 10pm slot is not that great to get the 18-35 demographic they want. Go figure.

Computer Problems

2004-09-09T01:53:00.000-07:00

For those loyal readers of the blog, this comes as sad news. About 10 days ago my computer contracted some kind of virus while I was on the internet. Norton AntiVirus software and SBC AntiVirus software have not been able to fix the problem so I am not sure if this is even posting. If it has, I have tons of news to get to when I can.

Some of you might be wondering if I got the virus by downloading pornography. I wish. The virus takes over my internet and brings up all sorts of web pages for virus software patches and gambling sites. If it was bringing up porn sites, I would not be complaining.

I thank you for your patience and apologize for the fact that I do not know how to protect myself from getting hurt. It reminds me of the first time I had to wear a cup and jockstrap. Of course I put it on wrong. I put the jock strap on and the put the cup between the jock strap and my underwear. My father, sensing that I would mess this up, inquired as to how I had arranged it "down there". Upon hearing the answer he had to give me a quick lesson in how to protect my genitals.

So, I guess I just need someone to teach me how to protect my internet genitals.

One Good Deed

2004-09-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

I booked another day on “Dr. Vegas”. It was a Friday. Usually television shows shoot Monday through Friday, unless they are really behind. Starting times begin the week very early, around 6-6:30am. As the week progresses, depending on how fast they are shooting, the start times become later and later in the day. Therefore, Fridays are usually the latest days to work. Our call time for the show was 3:30 pm, so I knew that I would be there until the early hours of the next morning. Being an extra, you expect an average of 12-hour days. Being a non-union extra, you want those long days to make a decent paycheck. So, I wasn’t really too worried about shooting late.

I had my three friends there with me to hang out with. Most of the day was uneventful. The most frustrating time came during lunch. A lot of times, extras do not get fed a hot meal. They are given a “walk away” lunch, so you can leave the set and get some food. This Friday, they were going to provide lunch for us around 9pm at night. There were about 200 of us, so the line to get food was very long and people started lining up way before it was ready to be served. I was coming back from the set when they called lunch, and the stampede was on. People were sprinting for the line and by the time I got there, it was a mile long. So my three friends and I were at the back of the line. I walked up and took a look at what they were serving. I noticed that people were taking their sweet time getting food. Girls were building the “perfect salad” piece by piece. Guys were loading up 2-3 containers apiece then setting each plate down at each station to fill up more space. I saw one girl taking her sweet time putting on salad dressing. “A dribble here, a dabble there, maybe more, no I don’t need the calories, well I have been working hard, sure a little more won’t hurt a bit, a little more here, make sure to cover the tomatoes” JUST MAKE THE DAMN SALAD!!! I went back to the end of the line and told my friends that it would be a while. Then the Assistant Director came up and said that we could go into the crew area and eat there. REJOICE!!! We went in there and got in line. We got better food and a nice quiet place to eat, all for being last. As I was in line, one of the girls that had already been through the first line came in and started picking through the other stuff in the crew line. She butted right in and started picking up little pieces of extra food. By the time that she left, she had a whole other meal. I quietly prayed for her to drop her tray, but they went unanswered.

As the night went on, people began to bitch their heads off. Even after the A.D. told us we would be there until at least 3 a.m. I was talking to one of my friends and an older gentleman came up to me and stared at me and exclaimed “It’s 12 in the morning”. I didn’t know what he was getting at so I just said, “OK”. He shrugged and walked off to the bathroom. What puzzled me was the phrase he used. 12 in the morning? That and the fact that he came up to complete strangers and tried to rally us to his cause of disbelief.

We finally released around 4 a.m. Everyone wanted to leave quickly and there was a stampede to get his or her voucher signed. People were tearing out of there like their life depended on it. As my friends and I were getting ready to leave we took a look around the place. It was disaster area! Caps, bottles of water, plates, chip bags and napkins were everywhere. We pitched in and helped clean up the holding area. It only took about 5 minutes with the four of us working together. I could understand if a few people didn’t see napkins on the floor or left an empty bottle or two, but this was ridiculous. We found a full plate of food left on the floor. It contained a whole bagel and an apple that was cut up. They hadn’t served bagels since we first go there so I knew it had been sitting around for about 12 hours. We found a pair of men’s underwear and a pile of chicken bones lying in the middle of a table. Leaving the bones was just lazy, but forgetting you left your underwear? If you show up with underwear, and leave without it, I think you should know it. We finished cleaning up and started to leave when the A.D. came up to us and asked us to give him our names. After he wrote them down, he said to us “You guys can work here whenever you want, that was really cool to do.

So I left that night feeling like people here do notice when you are trying to help. That and sucking up a little bit works.

The OC, Part II

2004-08-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

The second day on the set of The OC was pretty much more of the same. I hung around with my guys and pretty much just had fun. There was no band, so it was a lot of pretending to walk around the bar and talk to people.

For those of you that don’t know me, I am a moron. Especially when it comes to women. Sometimes the moron part of my brain takes over and bad things happen. A quick example of this was the time that I was temping in Chicago and there was an extremely attractive girl working in the office. I never talk to strange women when I am temping because I feel that it is kind of sleazy. But one day I happen to ride down in the elevator with her. Since it was just she and I, and it was after hours I decided to introduce myself. She told me her name, shook my hand, and then it happened. I opened my mouth and the moron took over.

“My, that’s a very manly handshake you have there”. I am not kidding.

She said thank you, but I saw on her face that I had become the guy who told her she had manly hands. I never spoke to her again and she never spoke to me.

Fast forward a couple of years to the set of The OC. There are a lot of attractive women there, but there are two that especially stand out. A blonde and a brunette. Now the brunette was every bit as good looking as the blonde, but all of the guys were hitting on the blonde. I guess blondes really do have more fun.

Now to book yourself on shows to be an extra you have to call the casting agency. A lot of times you are on hold or it is busy, so if someone gets a casting agent on the phone, they just pass the phone around and you get on a show. Well my friend got through and after he booked himself, he passed the phone to me and as I was booking myself, the blonde sat down next to me and asked if she could have the phone right after me. She booked herself and went to sit down. She and the brunette were sitting close to me and my three friends. Two of my friends were trying to remember her name, when the brunette leaned over and told us her name. So my friends thanked her and introduced themselves to the brunette. They both stood up and shook her hand. I was sitting a couple of feet further from her and I decided that I there were too many hands coming at her so I played it cool and stayed in my chair.

“I’m Bryan, I am not going to shake your hand, but I’ll just…..” and then it happened.

I had been holding my hand up in a kind of wave and when I finished my sentence I bent my hand at the wrist and gave her the finger pointed like a gun. As soon as I did it I dipped my head in shame and everyone began to laugh at me and ask me why I did that. I could only tell the truth. Because I am a moron. The brunette laughed also, but I could tell that I had become THAT guy once again.

At lunch, my friends and I had a discussion about whether the hand gesture I had given the brunette would be a deal breaker if I had given it to her in a bar, or another “pick-up” situation.

So I asked her when I got back. Both she and the blonde agreed that it was not a total deal breaker, but if a guy did that then he would have dug himself in a hole and would have to do a lot to get out of it.

So I raised me head knowing that I was only a partial moron.

One other funny thing happened that day. The night before we had shot a scene on the catwalk above the club. We were all in a line and two of the principal actors were on one end of the catwalk having a conversation. I was on the other end of the catwalk so you probably couldn’t see me very clearly. The A.D. told us to remember who was on the catwalk so they could match the shot the next day. I was standing next to a guy who was Johnny Talkative the whole night. Every time they told us to be quiet, he would ask me a question about something. Not wanting to get in trouble I would just mumble “I don’t know”. So the next day they announced that we would be matching the catwalk shot from the night before and for everyone who was on the catwalk to go into the sound stage and wait against the wall. I saw Johnny talkative milling around and made sure to steer clear of him until we get up to our positions. Somehow between waiting to go up and actually going up, he disappeared. I was up there and they asked me if anyone else was next to me. Not wanting to get him into trouble I said “No”. They ended up shooting it from a different angle so me, and the guys on my end, were not needed. For some reason I had to know where Johnny Talkative went. I was obsessed with it. But I couldn’t find him. I looked everywhere and he had disappeared. I finally ran into him a couple of hours later. The following is the conversation I had with him.

Me “Hey man, where did you go? We were up on the catwalk and you were supposed to be standing next to me.

Him “Dude, I don’t know what happened”

Me “Oh, because they asked me if there was anyone else up there and I didn’t want to get you in trouble so I didn’t tell them you had been up there last night.

Him “Oh, man. I don’t know where I went”

Me “Cause I saw you right before we went up and I was looking all over for you”

Him “They must have place me someplace else”

Me “Oh, they put you on the floor of the club”

Him “I don’t know. I really can’t answer that. I don’t know where I was”

Me “Oh, cause I kept thinking you must have gotten lost or something”

Him “No. I didn’t get lost, I just don’t know where I was”

Me “You don’t know where you went?”

Him “No. Take it easy dude” Laugh.

Even though I was not satisfied with his answer, I knew that he was incapable of giving me an answer to that question.

I kind of hoped that he snuck off to get high, but I am afraid that he really didn’t know where he was an hour ago.

And that ended my second day on The OC.

The OC, Part I

2004-08-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, August 11 I worked on the set of The OC. I was a little surprised that they cast me in that show because it is about a bunch of kids in high school. Nevertheless, I woke up early and drove to the Manhattan Beach Studios. The hotline stated that there would be specific parking instructions on a different voice mailbox, but as of 5:30 in the morning, they had not left those instructions. So, I drove up to the entrance and asked a group of people that I assumed were extras. They told me to park in the Office Depot parking lot and enter through the front gate. I did that and walked around to the building that we were shooting in. I got to the building and the P.A. checking us in asked me where I parked. I told him and he told me that we were not allowed to park in the Office Depot parking lot and why hadn’t I checked the voice mailbox for the instructions. I informed him that there were no instructions. A couple of other people backed me up on that and he told me that I needed to go back to my car and park in the Marriott parking lot.

So, I got to the holding area about 30 minutes late, but they understood because everyone had parked in the wrong area and had to go move their car. There were about 100 other extras in the holding area. I noticed my friend from Dr. Vegas was there as well. So we began to hang out and talk about a lot of the other extras. We went in for our first shot of the day and it was a club called “The Bait Shop” inside a sound studio. It was pretty cool, but there were a lot of us packed in there and with the crew and cast it was probably close to 200 people milling around. Most of the people that were extras were around 20-25, so I felt like I was the oldest one there. But I didn’t care, because like Dr. Vegas, it was populated with a lot of very attractive young women.

A couple of hours later, I was placed in a group of people for another shot and one of the guys said,

“You look very familiar to me”

I told him that I was from Chicago and it turns out he lived in Chicago for a couple of years up until last November. Then he said,

“Wait a minute, weren’t you on “Brain”?

Brain was an improv group that I performed with at The Improv Olympic in Chicago. It turns out that he was the roommate of a guy I know on the team and he and I had met a couple of times at parties there. So I had run into another Chicago boy.

There was also another guy who I recognized as a bar patron on the set of Dr. Vegas. He was really cool also, so the four of us became our little group. We hung out most of the day and made fun of each other and of the other people on set. We came up with little nicknames for everyone that we did not like.

One of the guys we nicknamed “The Hulk”. Why? Because he looked just like The Incredible Hulk, in a 5’10’’ size. He had the same hair and facial structure as Lou Ferigno when he had the Hulk prosthetics on. I guess wardrobe had noticed this also because they gave him a Hulk green shirt to wear. It was like a long underwear shirt that was skintight, which made him even more Hulk like.

There was also “Bicycle”, who was a young lady with humongous fake breasts. I mean grossly out of proportion with the rest of her body. And she wore a skintight top and bent over all of the time. We nicknamed her “bicycle” because we said that everyone had had a ride on her. Not very nice, I know, but what are you going to do to keep yourself occupied for 13 hours.

There was also Johnny New York, who was a guy that had the quintessential New York accent. He also sweated a lot, which has nothing to do with NY, but I thought I should mention it. He was one of those guys that had done a lot of extra work and had no problem telling anyone around him what he had done, what directors had told him that he was great, and in where you could see him in the movies that he had done. He also thought he was better than everyone, so much so that when one of my friends saw him eating an ice cream cone and asked him where he got it, his reply was,

“It’s not for you, boss”.

Which we found hysterical because that had nothing to do with the question asked.

We spent most of the day doing this.

The last 4 hours of the day was spent with us around the stage listening to a band called “The Killers” lip-sync 2 of their songs and we danced and swayed around like it was a real concert. We did this 3 times to each song. It was kind of fun the first time, but then it got old. The songs were pretty good and the band did a really good job pantomiming their parts.

The day ended around 9pm and we headed home. The call time for the next morning was 8am. So I was going to have to go to sleep and get right back up and do the same thing all over again. But at least I had some friends to hang out with.

Bartender for Hire

2004-08-10T00:54:00.000-07:00

I worked on the set of the new television show “Dr. Vegas” today. I was slated to be a gambler, with about 100 other people. It was non-union, but it was work and it shoots on the Warner Ranch studio, which is a smaller studio than the Warner Brothers main studio. So, I put on a happy face and wore my one gambler outfit, but brought two other gambler outfits.

“Dr. Vegas” is a show that takes place, obviously, in Las Vegas. The casino that it involves is supposedly a very trendy, beautiful place. Where glamorous people go to gamble and drink. I had heard the need for extras on the hotline before but they always prefaced it with “Very good looking people” so I never called. Not because I don’t think I am good looking, ladies, you could do a lot worse than me. But I knew the kind of guys they were looking for, tall and handsome, by today’s standards. I just don’t fit into that category. I guess I am more of a cute, goofy guy, who has a good personality that puts me into the good-looking category. Believe me, my personality has made me attractive to women who were out of my league more than once. Unfortunately, personality doesn’t quite cut it when you are an extra. They just want the people that fit the part. So when I was calling in to be an extra on a different show, the guy that answered asked me if I wanted to do “Dr. Vegas”. I said yes, and felt good that some strange man, who was probably tired and wanted to go home, thought I was a “very good looking” person. My ego inflated, I went to the set.

I got through security and went to the holding area for the extras. It was in a very nice building that had a large central area, with a couple of changing rooms and another room where the food was set out. I took a seat and started to look at the other people who were slated to shoot this day. I looked at the guys and I had nothing to worry about. I could spot the ones that were supposed to be pit bosses and dealers, they were older and looked like they had been doing this awhile. The other guys were supposed to be gamblers; most of them were schlubs like me. There were a couple of guys who I would classify as “very good looking”, but for the most part it was a group of guys who got sweaty palms around beautiful women. And believe me, there was a lot of perspiration in the palms on this day. A lot of the women there were extremely attractive. They fell into three categories. The ones who were just drop dead gorgeous, the ones who were attractive, but made themselves more desirable by dressing really slutty, and the ones who were a little older and clinging on to the good looks that they used to depend on.

For some reason, all of the really good-looking women congregated into one section of the room. I dubbed this area “The Hot Corner”. And then I positioned myself so I could gaze upon their beauty and not be obvious. The P.A. came in and told us to get our vouchers and go to wardrobe and have them choose our outfits. I was standing in line to get my wardrobe approved when an A.D. came over and grabbed me out of the line and told me I was going to be a bartender today. I went to wardrobe and was given an outfit of black pants, a blue shirt, and a stripped vest. I started talking to the other guy who was chosen to be a bartender and it turns out we had the same first name, just moved to L.A. within the last month, and both came from Chicago. He is a lot younger than me, but he was a cool guy and we hit it off right away. I guess you could call him my first “extra friend”

I got changed into my outfit and went back in to wait for the call. I noticed that a lot of the gamblers were given outfits to change into also. The guys got regular clothes, but the women, especially the good looking ones, were put into outfits that accentuated what the good Lord had given them. “The Hot Corner” was especially appealing in the outfits they were given. But the people that won the prize for the most attractive and the most degraded were the women who were the cocktail waitresses. I have never been to Vegas, but if this is how the waitresses dress, then I am going tomorrow. Their outfits consisted of a sleeveless vest that had two buttons right below their chest and above their navel. The navel was exposed, and so was most of their chest. The women that were not heavily endowed were given cups to put into their bra to squish the breasts together. Let’s just say that if they needed a different name for this show, it would be “Dr. Cleavage”. But what I felt the worst about was the skirt that they had to wear. It was a mini-skirt that ended about eight inches above their knees, which meant that the back of the skirt was just below the butt. So most of them tied a shirt or a sweater around their waist until the cameras rolled. Although there were a couple that felt comfortable enough to just walk around like that.

Three hours later we were called to the set. We all went into the stage and walked onto a fully dressed casino. It was really cool looking. It was fully stocked with slot machines, craps tables, blackjack tables and a really long bar. We positioned ourselves behind the bar and everyone got set-up for the first shot. Basically we were to pantomime serving drinks to the patrons and the waitresses. So we got ready to shoot and in walked Rob Lowe. He plays the central character in “Dr. Vegas” and in this shot he was sitting at the end of the bar and looking up at the television above the bar. He was about 5 feet away from me and getting ready to go, when the director came up and they talked about the shot. I guess this show is all Rob’s baby because it seemed to me that he was calling a lot of the shots. Or maybe he is just a seasoned actor who knows what he wants. Even though I’m not that excited about being around celebrities, it was still pretty cool. So the cameras started to roll and we did the scene about 5 times. Then we moved on to the following shot where he leaves the bar and goes to a blackjack table. While they were setting up for this shot, Tom Sizemore walked in and started chit chatting with Rob and some of the other actors. Aside from some of the negative press that he has received the last few years, Tom Sizemore seemed like a very easygoing guy to work with. He was joking around with everyone and seemed like he was a good guy. So we finished the shot and we were all told to go to holding.

There I started talking to a young woman who was sitting at the bar in the shot we just finished. She was really cool and found myself really liking her. Surprise, surprise she is not from L.A. She is from the East Coast. So we talked for a while and then I was called back to the set. Before we got to the set, a guy came out and told us all that we were wrapped for the day. So I headed back to change out of my outfit and get my voucher signed. I had just changed out of my bartender outfit, when the A.D. came rushing in and told me and the other bar tender that they needed us on the set right away. We changed and went back to the casino. I guess this scene takes place after a fight in the casino, because the crew had over turned all of the tables and chairs, and had thrown cards, chips, and pretzels all over the floor. We are supposed to be picking up the bar after the fight and Rob and Tom have a last scene together. Tom looked like he plays some sort of cop in the episode. We shot that scene for about 2 hours; most of it was with a steady cam, which I had never seen up close. So it was cool to see that being used. After we finished, we went back to the holding area and saw that everyone else had left, even my special lady friend from the East Coast. I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Because it was so late, the craft services people put out sandwiches for the crew and we were told that we could help ourselves. I grabbed a sandwich and headed home.

I did not get a call to be on “Desperate Housewives” on Tuesday, so I am still waiting to get my last SAG voucher.

I bet I will dream about “The Hot Corner” tonight.

The Postman rings twice

2004-08-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, I worked another day as a union extra on the set of “Desperate Housewives”. I felt better getting to Universal Studios because I had been there before and knew what to expect. I got into the van with a gentleman whom I recognized as being on many television shows. I sat next to him and listened as some of the other people made chit chat in the van. We got to the wardrobe location at 7:45 and the Production Assistant told me to go get some breakfast because the wardrobe people would not be ready for me until 8am. So I walked down the hill of Steven Spielberg drive and got to Colonial Street where the set was for the show. They had moved catering to the end of the street. I walked there, grabbed some coffee and looked at my watch. I had about 5 minutes to get back to wardrobe. I started walking quickly back down the street towards the hill. I couldn’t go very fast because I had a cup full of hot coffee and I did not want to spill it on the set. I got to the hill and started walking quickly up it. If you ever want a challenge, try walking up a steep hill quickly, trying not to spill your coffee or look like an idiot. I failed at both. I guess I could have poured out some coffee on the way up since it was no where near the set, but that didn’t occur to me at the time. So I just plowed ahead, remembering that it is much more difficult walking up a hill than down it.

I was out of breath when I got back to wardrobe, but I made it on time. They gave me my mailman uniform and I changed into it. Another van took me back to Colonial Street and I sat in the holding area for extras. I sat, and sat, and sat. Around 10am I got up and walked to where I could see them shooting. A Production Assistant came up to me and introduced himself. I noticed that he was wearing a Cubs hat so I asked him if he was a fan or just liked the hat. He told me that he went to school at Northwestern and lived in Chicago for 3 years after that. We talked about the trade for Nomar, the differences between sports in L.A. and Chicago, and other stuff like that. I realized that I really missed talking Chicago sports with people who knew about it. Even though I am a Green Bay Packer fan, it is always nice to talk about the Chicago Bears once in a while.

They didn’t use me once the entire day. I sat and read for a long time. I talked to my parents, my sister, and the other extras. Lunch was really good, but we didn’t eat until 2pm. I got the feeling that they were running behind schedule. The guy I rode up with in the van plays the husband, or ex-husband of Teri Hatcher on the show. I got to see Teri up close and she is a VERY skinny woman. I also was watching where the husband had to change shirts for a different scene and he is really built well. I started thinking about how I should start working out and eating better so I could have a body like that. Then I walked over to craft services and ate pizza and an ice cream bar. I will start working out tomorrow.

The day ended at 8:30pm. I had been there over 12 hours and they didn’t use me in one shot. Not that I am complaining. I made some decent money and now I only need one more union voucher before I can join SAG. On the van ride down to the parking garage, I heard someone ask over the radio when they would need the mail truck again. The reply came back that they would need it next Tuesday. So, I may have my final voucher in a week.

Things are looking good.

Tuesday, August 3

2004-08-05T02:56:00.000-07:00

The set of “Jack and Bobby” was at a school in Long Beach, which is about 30 miles from where I live. I got there and went to the check-in for extras. I noticed that most of the extras there were in fact kids just out of high school. Most of them were around 19 or 20. All of the girls were wearing what they would wear to school. I felt really old for the first time in my life. I wish that I were going to school now because if they do, in fact, wear to school what they were wearing to the set, school is a magical place. It is a place where young ladies have the tightest pants on and no visible panty lines. Where they can be free to have there breasts hang out at odd angles and not be afraid that they would be persecuted for showing the top of their ass crack. I also felt really dirty that I was looking, but glad that I choose acting as my profession.

I noticed one of the guys there immediately. He was a tall blonde that fit the “California surfer” type. He had on a t-shirt that did not have any sleeves. And it was obvious that he worked out on his arms quite a bit and I guessed that this t-shirt was pretty typical of his wardrobe. He became Johnny Biceps. Johnny Biceps had a big chain around his neck that hung down to his mid chest and he had on a HUGE belt buckle. He had tucked in his shirt just around his belt buckle; I surmised this was because he was very proud to display the state of Texas, which was on it.

After we all had gone to wardrobe to have our outfits picked out. I noticed that Johnny Biceps was given a letterman jacket; he was part of the track team. I also noticed that they made him change into a different t-shirt, one that had sleeves. I felt a little guilty about nicknaming him Johnny Biceps until he took great care in rolling up the sleeves of the new shirt so he could expose the world to his most prized possession. He also tucked in the front of the new shirt to expose what I guessed was his second most prized possession.

The first scene I was called in to do was taking place between classes, with all of the extras just walking from point A to point B. I was assigned to walk with a young girl who immediately asked how old I was. Age, or how old you look is a really important topic in L.A. That is usually one of the first questions I am asked by people I meet.

An A.D. came up to us and asked if we had any books we could carry with us. I had with my black bag that I keep my stuff in and I told her that I had a notebook that I could carry. I opened my bag and took out the notebook. She looked into my bag and saw a book that I had brought with me to kill time between shots. She grabbed it and said, “Here, hold this too”. She turned the book over and saw the title in big letters, “How To Make It In Hollywood”. She kind of paused and handed me the book and gave me a look that I took to mean, “you are an idiot”. But in her defense, I think a lot of people give me that look.

After lunch, we were set up for a pep rally in an outside eating area. All of us were sitting at picnic tables with trays of cafeteria food in front of us. We were given direction to pantomime clapping, yelling, whistling, giving high fives and whatever else you do at a pep rally. We did a rehearsal and it was obvious that not everyone understood what pantomime meant. So after a quick explanation from the A.D. we did it over and over again. I was looking at the other extras and I remembered why I am glad I am not that age again. Most everyone that age thinks they are to cool for whatever an adult tells you to do. So there was not a lot of enthusiasm from the pep rally crowd. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but if anyone sees me in this scene they would have thought that the Green Bay Packers won another Super Bowl. I was going nuts each time. I am after all a professional.

In between shots, we had time to just sit and wait. I stood up at one point and felt something weird on my butt. I looked down and noticed that I was sitting in gum. I was pretty mad because I just bought these jeans the day before, and I might have already ruined them. I checked out the damage by feeling where the gum was and then trying to scrap some of it off with my fingers. The gum was on the lower part of my butt and there was quite a bit of it. So I began to scrap it off. I was about 2 minutes into it, when I stopped and thought about what I was doing. From other people’s view I was sticking my hand into my ass, picking at it for a while, looking at what was on my fingers and then wiping it on the underneath of the picnic table we were sitting at. I am sure a few of the cheerleaders were getting a big kick out of watching this. Who says you can’t go back and relive high school?
Then, during one of the breaks in between shots, it happened. I man came up and started talking to me. He was about 5’10’’ and had a beard and a huge beer belly. He spoke with an East Coast accent. He came up and said,

“Don’t think what you’re doing isn’t going unnoticed, you’re very enthusiastic. Keep it up”.

I thought to myself, “This is it. This is what you hear about in the Hollywood stories. You do your job and someone notices and you get on a television show. This guy is going to make me a star, I finally got my big break.”

Then the guy walked away, put on a pair of work gloves and helped another couple of guys move some light stands. He was part of the crew.

I stopped imagining my Oscar speech and laughed to myself. At least I was doing a good job.

A couple of shots later, the same guy came up to me and said,

“The camera is pointed right at you, I don’t want to spook you but keep doing what you are doing”.

The camera was about 30 feet away from me. But I kept on cheering like my life depended on it.

The last shot of the day was the end of the pep rally with all of us standing on a hill with the track team, cheerleaders, some of the main characters and all of us had banners or signs or something to cheer with. I was standing next to a guy, Johnny Hilarity, who was must have been the class clown of his high school. He spent a lot of time telling the people around him why the Groundlings made a big mistake not hiring him and telling us his best comeback to people who give him shit is “You know, I crap bigger than you”, which he thought was hilarious. I didn’t have the heart to tell him he stole that line from Jack Palance, I was just ready to end the day.

Right before we did the last shot, the sprinklers went off and you would have thought someone had just released a dirty bomb. Girls were shrieking and running away, guys were pushing each other into the water and Johnny Hilarity made sure to tell the guys around him that he always made the ladies wet. Order was restored and we finished the scene. Time to head home.

As I stood in line to get my voucher signed, the girl ahead of me told her friend that she was going to ask for a “water bump” on the voucher. A “bump” is when you get an increase in pay, over your base rate, for some special reason. Suck as a special skill or prop that you provided for the shoot. Her friend asked her why she was going to ask for a bump and the girl replied,

“Well, I did get wet didn’t I? These are my shoes”.

And she was right in front of me. That means I would have to listen to her argue with the A.D. about why should would not be getting more money for the sprinkler mishap. This sort of thing always happens to me. The next time you are in a grocery store line and you notice a person arguing about the price of the grapes they just bought, and how they are not getting the sale price and how they have to send someone to go do a price check on those valuable grapes. Look directly behind that person and you will find me.

Thankfully another A.D. came over to help sign vouchers and I was able to get out of there quickly. The girl did NOT get a bump, and she was NOT happy about it.

I went to my car and discovered that I had left my lights on when I got there in the morning. My battery was dead. A very nice young lady let me jump my car with her battery and I headed home.

But there was some good news at the end of the night. I was called back to be the mailman for another episode of “Desperate Housewives” on Wednesday.

That means after Wednesday, I would only need one more union voucher to be eligible for SAG.

Just be patient.

Monday, August 2

2004-08-05T02:54:00.000-07:00

I didn’t do much the rest of last week after my one day of extra work. I was calling the extras casting hotline and nothing much fit my description. So, I decided to go and register at another agency. What a lot of people do is register with a number of agencies and then employ a “calling service” that does all of the calling for you. The service then books you on jobs and you don’t have to sit and make phone calls all day. So the first step was to go and register with another agency. I went to an open registration at Bill Dance Casting. I was expecting a lot of people to be there but there were only 3 other guys in the office when I arrived. One of the guys was talking to another one and was telling him the ins and outs of being an extra. He seemed to know a lot about it, so I nicknamed him Johnny Extra. The owner came in and started to give us his spiel about how they work as an agency and what to do to work for them. He then excused himself to go to a dentist appointment and very nice lady took over and continued from where he left off.

When I am new to something, I usually keep my mouth shut and just listen. I knew that these people give this talk everyday to new people and they were probably tired of going over the whole thing, so the quicker they got through the bulk of the info, the better. So I just listened and smiled when it seemed necessary and nodded my head when they were looking directly at me. Johnny Extra must have wanted it known that he was an old hand at doing this because he would throw his two cents in whenever he thought it was necessary. At one point the woman was explaining how their agency would be fined by SAG if they ever sent a union extra to do non-union work. One of the other guys had a question about it, but before the woman could answer Johnny Extra spoke up.

“It means that when you go, if you go there, then they…..wait what is it again?”

The woman just looked at him and answered the guy’s question. Way to go Johnny Extra!

Then the woman was explaining that they recently worked on “Spanglish” which is an Adam Sandler movie. Without missing a beat Johnny Extra piped up.

“I worked with Adam Sandler on “The Waterboy”, Adam is such a cool guy”.

I immediately wanted to kill him.

Towards the end of the information, the woman was speaking about how what they do is important because casting the right extras makes it a movie not a play. Here comes Johnny.

“Makes it a movie, not a play. That is a really good analogy.” He really must have thought so because he let loose with a laugh that can only be described as a cross between a Hyena and a psychopath.

First of all it is not an analogy. And second of all, I knew that I was going to meet a lot more Johnny’s than I wanted to.

I registered, went home and then called a hotline to see if I could get work. There was a posting for “Gilmore Girls” that fit my description. I received the notice at 2:30 and started to call the number for the job. Busy. I called again a couple of minutes later. Busy again. So I put in “The Godfather” and watched while calling every couple of minutes and it was always busy. I guess I feel asleep because I woke up at the part right after James Caan is killed and the phone is on the floor. I pick it up and decide to call one last time. I got through and the only thing they had left was to be a high school student in a new television show called “Jack and Bobby”. A thirty-year-old high school student? They didn’t seem to mind. So I booked it and got my high school outfits together.

I prayed that Johnny Extra would not be there.

Desperately Seeking Mailman

2004-07-28T16:07:00.000-07:00

Monday was my first day working as an extra in Hollywood. I was excited to get started working and on top of that, I would be earning my first union voucher as an actor. I only need three to be eligible for SAG so I was anxious to get started.

We had to be on set ready to shoot at 6am. Which meant that because I had to park, take a van to the set and then change into my mailman uniform, I had to be there around 5:30 am. I was worried about sleeping in so I set two alarms and went to be early. I woke up about 3 times during the night and looked at my clock, sure that I had missed my alarm somehow. I got up and took a shower and left my apartment around 4:30, just to be safe. There was zero traffic and I got to Universal Studios at 4:45. So I had some time to kill. I just pulled into a residential street and had some breakfast, a balance bar and some water. I listened to morning talk radio for the first time here, and it is as bad as Chicago.

Long story long, I get to the parking garage and walk outside to wait for the shuttle van to take me to the set. There are a couple people also there and I asked a young lady if this was where the shuttle van came to take us to the set of “Desperate Housewives”. She said yes, and then turned to me and said,

“This is ridiculous, it takes an extra half an hour to get to the job because you have to take a stupid van and you have no control over it, and you might be late and it is all bullshit”.

I guess I must have given her a look because she then apologized and told me that she was not a morning person. I told her that was okay and slowly inched my way away from her in case she snapped.

The van came and took us to the wardrobe area. We drove through the backlot of Universal Studios, right where the tour goes. The set was close to the “Jaws” exhibit, so I thought it was kind of cool that I was going to be working here.

I got the wardrobe location and went to get my uniform. The woman who was having a bad morning was the wardrobe person. So I smiled at her, and thanked her for giving me the uniform and she told me to change in the “honey wagon”. So I did, and that was when I discovered I didn’t bring anything to put the clothes I was wearing into while I was shooting. I had my leather shoulder bag packed with stuff for the day, so I just crammed everything in there including my shoes and came out looking like a mailman.

I was then directed to craft services to go get breakfast. I grabbed a cup of coffee and then I was taken to the set. The set was on a street called “Colonial Street”. It had about a dozen or so houses on it and there were about 50 people getting the set ready to shoot. They had people raking the lawns, they had people securing the rose bushes together so they looked really good, people moving cars, and the regular crew of lighting, camera, and prop people all running around getting ready to shoot.

An Assistant Director named M came over to me and took me to the side of the mail truck they had parked on the side of the street. I was given a mailbag with lots of mail in it and a mace container that clipped to my belt from the prop department. Then my friend A came over to introduce herself. She is the one who is helping me get my SAG card. I actually remembered her from working on Early Edition in Chicago about 6 years ago. She said hello and asked if everything was going okay. I said yes and thanked her for helping me. She then disappeared into the crowd of crew people.

The first shot was of one of the characters driving up to his house, getting out of his car, getting his mail and then going inside the house. I was told to walk to three different mailboxes and then continue down the street. We did that about 5 times and then I was told to relax for a little bit. It was around 7:30 am. I didn’t get into another shot all day.

I didn’t mind. I was watching people work, reading and generally taking it easy. All the while I was making good money.

The coolest part was that when we broke for lunch, we were walking to the craft area and a tram full of people on the Universal tour drove by and the guide said,

“Here is the set of “Desperate Housewives” and new series starting this fall”.

Everyone on the tour was looking at us and I have to say that I felt pretty cool. Lunch was really good and I noticed that the two cast people that were working at that time didn’t eat with the crew. The grabbed their food and headed off someplace else. I did get to walk by one of the woman on the show, I don’t know her name, but she was STUNNING. I knew I got into acting for a reason.

The rest of the day went by pretty quickly. I was not asked to be in another shot, but I just sat around and listened to people talk and watched them shoot.

At the end of the day, I was taken to a new wardrobe area, by Stage 5. On the way there we passed the “Meet the Fockers” set. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of someone but no such luck. The wardrobe trailer was there and the guy there told me that the honey wagon was on it’s way. Or I could change in the bathroom around the corner. I didn’t want to look like I wanted more money, so I went to the bathroom to change. I met a janitor coming out and he told me to be careful because he had just moped. So I went into the tiny stall and started to undress. The I noticed that the floor was all wet and my shoes were getting it all dirty. There was only one hook and if I put the clothes on the floor they would have become dirty and wet. I didn’t want to turn in my mailman uniform dirty and wet because I am sure that it would piss those people off, so I balanced on one leg and removed my shoe and sock and one pant leg. Then holding on to the top of the stall, I put my bare foot on one of my shoes and balanced on it to take my other shoe, sock and pant leg off. Then the stall door popped open. The latched was crappy and because I was shaking the stall holding on to it, the door wouldn’t stay shut. So now I have no pants on, with two pairs of shoes on the ground, leaning on the stall door and holding on to the top of the stall to keep my balance as I threw my uniform over the stall divider and tried to change into my regular clothes. I prayed that no one would come in because I probably would have been asked to leave and register as a sex offender.

I get changed and walk back to the wardrobe area. I give my uniform to the same woman I first met that morning, and she was very impressed at how neat my uniform was and that I had given it to her in exactly the same way that I had been given it this morning. She said most people just throw it all into a bag and then they have to sort it out. So I felt good about leaving a good last impression, that is unless they have cameras in the bathrooms.

My friend A came up and said good-bye, I thanked her again. She told me that they would have me back as the mailman soon. I left having worked about 13 hours, made a decent amount of money, and feeling like I made the right decision to move out here.

Getting Started

2004-07-24T00:16:00.000-07:00

I am getting more and more comfortable in my apartment. I have been spending a lot of time here and I haven’t gone crazy, yet. I guess it is good that I enjoy being by myself, because that is who I spend most of my time with. I got a new cell phone, home phone, internet and have started changing my address with the companies that I do business with. Other than that, I have been shopping for stuff to fill out the apartment.

I went to IKEA for the first time out here. I really liked it. Lots of good stuff for cheap prices, right up my alley. I got a bookcase and a desk so I could unpack some more boxes. So I feel like I am really living in a place instead of out of a suitcase.

I was a little down earlier this week, just sort of bored, worried about money, a little lonely and I didn’t really have a way to get out the frustration that I was feeling. So I went to see a couple of movies. I saw I,Robot and Anchorman. I,Robot is a renter. It is a decent summer action flick, but nothing special. Some of the special effects were poor and Will Smith was playing the same old Will Smith summer action movie character. Streetwise, witty, sarcastic and able to kick major ass when he wants to. In this movie the ass of choice was robot ass, all CGI, which bugs me.

Anchorman was a very funny movie. I had low expectations for the movie, and not because I don’t like Will Ferrel, I do. But the trailers just made it look like a really DUMB movie. However, it was really good. Will was his usually self but the three guys that made up his “Action Team” made the movie. There were three of them, but I only know 2 of their names. Paul Rudd and Steve Carell. They were both terrific and I thought the movie would not have been nearly as good as it was without them. Just goes to show that movies need talented secondary players. Kind of gives me hope.

I got a call on Wednesday from the Central Casting agency, which is the agency where people go to be extras in movies and television. You know those patrons at restaurants, or the people walking around the zoo, or the family on the bus that never talk. They are extras, and television shows and movies need a LOT of them. So there is a whole side business of working as an extra. A non-union extra makes about $54 per 8 hours of work. So, a little above minimum wage. I did some extra work in Chicago and hated it. You usually sat around for 3-4 hours in a room. They you were moved onto the set and sat/stood around for another hour then did the scene for an hour or so. Then you left with a story to tell people about. Most of the people I met doing it in Chicago were not actors, they were teachers, parents, garbage men, who just wanted to say to their friends, “Hey in Mercury Rising, I was in the library scene, you can see my suit walk right by Bruce Willis. He was kind of an asshole”. But in L.A. most of the extras are actors just hoping to catch a break.

My friend who is working on a television show entitled “Desperate Housewives” called the agency and told them to sign me up for Union extra work. Union extras make around $115 per 8 hours. Not bad. Plus, if you get three days of union work, you can be in the Screen Actors Guild, which is key to getting ahead. So she pulled some strings for me and they called me in to register.

I drove in and saw a long line of people waiting in line to get in. The woman who called me told me to go past the line and tell the person at the desk that I was here to see her so I wouldn’t have to wait in line. Smiling to myself I walked past all of the other schmucks to the front of the line. I told the woman who I was and who I was there to see. She made a call and said “She is out and won’t be back for 20 minutes or so, wait in line”. So I walked back past all of the smiling schmuck’s to the back of the line. I am sure there were some “rookie” comments. I got an application and filled it out. But in one part of the W-4 it asks for your first name and I was not paying attention and put my full name there. I started to panic thinking that my filling out the form incorrectly would be a deal breaker. The pencils they gave you to fill out the application are the little golf pencils with no eraser, so I asked a couple of people around me for an eraser. No luck, or at least they weren’t going to help the “rookie”. I really started to sweat it. I even ran out to my car hoping that for some unknown reason I had decided to stick a pencil with an eraser in my glove box. No luck there. Then I was sure that I had put a pencil in my trunk a couple of years ago. I didn’t. So I went back in ready to look them in the eye and tell them that I would be great as an extra but I can’t fill out a government form for shit.

My contact had arrived by then and I met her. She was very nice and walked me to the front of the line again, take that smiling schmucks, and told the woman that I was to be signed up to be eligible for union work, even though I wasn’t union. The woman at the desk looked at me and asked “Is he political”? I thought she was making a joke and started laughing. She wasn’t. My contact said “Yes, he knows so and so”. The woman at the desk continued to stare at me then she filled out my application. I decided to go for broke and said “I made a mistake on one of the forms, do you have an eraser”? The desk woman didn’t even blink an eye and said “No, no one cares, just cross it off”. So I did. So now there is a form that the government has that clearly indicates that I am a moron.

I got my picture taken and then my contact told introduced me to her associate. He was a nice guy who quizzed me on my sizes and asked if I was available either Friday or Monday. I said “Yes” and he told me that I would be playing a mailman in a scene on one of those days.

A mailman?

Well, it’s a start.

A setback and a new address

2004-07-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

My gut feeling came true and I did not make an Improv team at IO West. It was not a surprise, but I am dissappointed especially since I had a shit audition. I am better than that. I just have to prove it.

My friends internet connection was down earlier this week and by the time he got it fixed I had moved.

That's right, I have my first apartment. It is small and cheap, but it is nice and I have plenty of room for what I have, which is not much.

So the past couple of days have been spent moving in and cleaning. The people who lived there before me didn't believe in cleaning up much, so I had a lot to do.

More life stuff begins on Monday.

First L.A. audition

2004-07-11T23:34:00.000-07:00

I had my first audition here in L.A.

It was for Improv Olympic West. They were having auditions for a new team at the theater. The first round of auditions went very well. I was in a group of 6 and was the only one out of my group to get a call back. It seemed to me that a lot of the people were very new to improv. Still in classes and such.

The callbacks did not go as well. I didn't get out on stage as much as I should have and the one scene I was doing got cut short by a walk-on that I thought halted the scene immediately. Maybe I am being to hard on myself, but I thought I did a poor job showing what I can do.

I am not holding my breathe for the phone call to let me know that I have made a team. Oh, well. There are plenty of other opportunities here, I just need to go out and find them.

I will find out about my apartment tomorrow. Hopefully I could move in by Wednesday.

New Place to Call Home

2004-07-09T01:45:00.000-07:00

I checked out a couple of apartments today. My friend "A" knows a guy who manages a building and he had a couple of openings for studios. One is really nice and has a full kitchen with a refridgerator. I guess that a lot of places don't have them here. People take fridges with them from apartment to apartment? That is just plan weird.

So if this guy pulls the strings, I can move in to my first L.A. apartment next week. It will be really great to be on my own. I don't feel good unless I have the "life stuff" taken care of. Apartment, bank account, new cell #, etc. So this will be a step in the right direction.

I also called my assistant director friend who can get me on the television show she is working on as a SAG extra. So when I get my 3 vouchers of work, I can be in the union. Which is key out here. My next step is to get an agent. Easier said than done.

A new segment that I will be adding to this journal will be tips/ advice for other actors. Things about L.A. or just general tips I feel are important to being successful in this business.

TIPS FOR GETTING HIRED AGAIN BY THE SAME PEOPLE

1. BE ON TIME!!!! I cannot stress this enough. Sure everyone is late every now and then. But you should ALWAYS be on time when somone else is paying the bills. It just creates headaches for those in charge and makes you look really unprofessional.

2. BE PREPARED!!!! The Boyscouts have it right. Know your lines. Bring what they tell you to, and bring extra stuff that only you know that you will need. Books, music, cellphone. You need to be able to take care of yourself while you are there.

3. BE FUN TO WORK WITH!!!! Nothing is worse than someone who bitches on set. Everyone is working hard. Chances are there are 20 people working harder than you are. So be able to roll with the punches. Joke around, make people smile, but get the work done too. Stress turns people into someone they usually are not. When you have 15 minutes of light left and your running out of film, and someone forgot a prop, and the boom keeps getting into the shot, keep your cool. Remember, your acting right? So have fun, be enthusiastic and people will hire you again.

4. TREAT THE CREW LIKE ROYALTY!!!! This is coming from an actor but I am a big believer in this philosophy. The crew gets there before you do, works harder than you do, and don't get the credit they deserve. So when the food is served, let the crew eat first. And get to know them. They are all cool people who have other projects. You never know who might remember you as a jerk, or a great person to work with when they get ther next gig.

5. THANK EVERYONE!!!! After a long day, everyone wants to go home. But people like it when they are shown respect and are thanked for their hard work. So do that.

One week down

2004-07-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

It has been a while, so I will update everyone on my progress so far.

I left Chicago on Thursday, June 24 and after picking up my laptop from my friend D, who upgraded it for me, I hit the road. I had everything I could fit into my Mazda Protege including a rooftop pack that weighed a ton, so my car was running heavy and I couldn't go more than 70 miles per hour because of it.

The drive was very nice. A good calm that followed a hectic couple of weeks. I reflected on all of the experiences and people I know in Chicago and I decided that I had a pretty good life there. Made me a little sad to go, but hopefully this gamble will pay off.

I stopped in Devenr, CO for the weekend to see college friends. The first day I stayed with some female friends that haven't changed a bit since collge. Well, maybe a little bit. Then on to my former roommate and the boys I hung out with. The last time I saw everyone was on a ski trip about 3 years ago when we drank until dawn and went skiing hung over. Now everyone has at least one kid, except for one couple, and they liked to talk about Harry Potter and diapers. Needless to say it made me wonder if I was going in the right direction with my life.

So back on the road early Monday morning. I drove until I reached Baker, CA. If you go there, the Wells Fargo Motel has horrible rooms for $37, with the AAA discount. But there are only 3 motels in the town, so it was better than nothing.

Tuesday, June 29, my 30th birthday. I rolled into L.A. around 2pm. I dropped my stuff off at a Storage USA in El Segundo and headed to Hermosa Beach. I was staying with a friend of a friend. He was very cool to let me stay with him even though he has a studio and no couch. I met him, changed and drove to Beverly Hills to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for a special screening of Spider-man 2. I am a huge geek when it comes to Spider-man so my friend that works for Sony got me a pass to a screeing for his company. We caught up and then watched the movie. I am not going to give a review, but it was FANTASTIC.

Then I drove back to Hermosa Beach, smoked a cigar and had a drink of Cognac to end my birthday. Needless to say I was very proud that I made it out here no matter how hard it was to say good-bye to Chicago.

Wednesday, I did nothing but sleep and watch cable. A welcome break from all of the traveling.

I moved in with my friend T on Thursday and I am still there.

He is selling a house in Encino so I have been helping him paint to get it ready to show. The weekend of the 4th of July I just spent painting and getting to know my way around this LARGE city.

As far as acting is concerned, I registered with L.A. Casting and Actor Access. They are two online services that you can get auditions through and have agents look at your stuff to sign you.

I also have an audition at Improv Olympic West to get on an improv team. I performed at the Improv Olympic in Chicago for 1.5 years so I am hopefull that I can make a team and start performing again. I really miss performing in front of a crowd.

My thoughts on L.A. so far.

1. Really different vibe than Chicago. It seems like EVERYONE is tied to show business or wants to be.
2. EVERYONE is on cell phones. EVERYONE. But it seems like the cell phone etiquite is much better here. I don't hear people's phones go off, even in the two movies I have seen so far.
3. L.A. is really, really big. Hopefully I can find out where I need to be and stay in that area. I like to keep a good home base.
4. I was spoiled with having available parking in Chicago. There is parking here, but there are at least 3 signs that you have to decifer before it is safe to park.
5. I really miss my friends and Chicago more than I thought I would. I left a lot of special people back there.

I will be keeping this journal more up to date in the future. Just had a lot going on the last couple of weeks, or haven't you been reading.

I'm alive

2004-06-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

I made it through the last five days and am ready for the home stretch. This past weekend I shot Saturday and Sunday on "Drawing Blood" an indie horror film that my friends are making. On Saturday, I met Joe Estevez, who plays the police chief in the film. Very nice guy and was a lot of fun to hang around the set with. My parents came into town to see my last "Patel Leads" sketch show. Since we wrapped a bit early on Saturday, I was able to drive back downtown to have dinner with them and my sister.

Sunday we shot out in Romeoville. Another long day, but we got a lot done and I am almost wrapped on the film. Sunday night, by the time I got home and got stuff ready for the next couple of days it was late and I made the decision not to go to bed. So on Monday I am going on zero hours of sleep and I have to work all day downtown at a furniture trade show. I hook up with a couple of guys and our "post" is the El train platform at the Merchandise Mart. And since we were not allowed to approach people we sat and read and talked all day in a comfy chair and made a lot of money doing it.

Monday night, still on no sleep, I had the last "Patel Leads" sketch show that went very well. My friend "M" and I had worked very hard on the show and people really liked it. We were a little sad when I drove her home, but we knew going in that I was moving to L.A., so we just decided that we were glad we got to do a show together.

Got home Monday night and crashed. I topped out at 40 hours of no sleep. I got about 3 hours of sleep Monday night and then back on the train platform on Tuesday for another day of sitting around. When I got done with that I went home, ate dinner and went to sleep with my body slowly shutting down from lack of sleep.

T-minus one week and counting. I have my going away party this Friday.

The countdown has begun

2004-06-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well, it is T-minus 2 weeks until the big move and I have almost nothing done. In the next 5 days I have to shoot 2 days on a movie, work 2 days at a convention, perform my last show in Chicago, have a quick visit with my parents who are driving in to see the show, and move all of the furniture in the apartment because our landlord decided the week before I move,is the week he installs central air and heat in our apartment.

And on top of this, the good-byes have begun which adds a whole set of emotions on top of the stress that I am having.

Things are getting tight.