Ah, those were the days--me doing my make up back in college.

Remember when I was talking about how it would basically be impossible for mass transit to be a fully effective solution for people who need to jet across town at a moment's notice? Well, it's still true, but there's another side of it--everything is just so spread out here in LA. This morning I had an audition at 11:30 in Burbank, which is about 20 minutes with no traffic, and about 45 minutes with traffic. There would just be no way to get there as quickly using public transportation, unless I had several hours to kill. And then I had to go back to my place, change clothes, deal with work issues, then jet over to the office. Impossible without a fully pervasive and reliable public transportation infrastructure. But, oh, if we did--it would be so awesome. Ah well.

Had a solid audition this morning for a new show coming in the Fall. It went well; I mean, this is exactly what I am training for in class, going to theatrical auditions and doing well, but still, whoa, I was nervous! I am getting pretty good about nerves when it comes to commercials, mostly because I've been to a lot of the same casting directors and they all seem to know me and it's all quite comfortable, which it a terrifically big deal, as you might imagine. But when it comes to the TV/Film stuff, I have not gone to nearly as many casting directors and although the setup is basically the same, the stakes are different, primarily because these casting directors are the gatekeepers to the profession that I am working on. So, I get nervy. Everyone does, sure, and the trick is to go beyond the nerves when you are in the room, but that's a trick that you can only figure by actually going on a bunch of the auditions. But it went very well, I was actually quite relaxed and it was probably one of the better TV auditions I have had this year. Now the hard part--not caring, but having to care, whether or not I get called back to do the same thing for the producers, which would make my manager and agent very, very happy, because so far, that simple step up has eluded me (for a variety of reasons, none of which, I have to hope has to do with technical skill or even talent).

Okay, this weekend should be fun. It's Whit's birthday so we have a few things we're doing, which is good. Oh, I gotta say, I am really, really enjoying Weeds season 1, which Netflix has hurled at me. Recommended.

Tags: acting, auditions

They're fixing that restaurant in LAX because pieces were falling off. I think they should keep it this way.

All right, I have been thinking about writing this for a bit so I am going to officially rant a bit about what bothers me about my Mac, Mac OS X and other technical stuff that many of us have to deal with every day to see if someday these issues will be fixed up or not.

1 - The "reboot" experience in Mac OS X is abysmal. Yes, I know that stuff has to get cached, but, I mean, why is it that, for the first 3-5 minutes after you reboot, you get the spinning beach ball of insane rainbow frustration with almost every mouse click? Usually you have to reboot because something crashed or hung and you are just trying to get back to what you were doing, so this extra lag time just adds insult to injury. I hate it. I also hate how dashboard doesn't preload, so if you have a few widgets, you have to wait for them to ping out to the Internet, get their data, and then redraw. Yes, it sounds minor when you read it on some dork's blog (that's me), but when you have to actually deal with it often and it's pretty easy to address, it's infuriating. And yes, I know there's some shareware thing out there that will preload the dashboard for you automatically, but the OS should do it on its own.

2 - I hate how hot my Macbook gets. It gets so damn hot it's dangerous. The only way I can use the thing for any length of time (like work), I have to use an external keyboard. I mean, this is what's up with my machine right now, and all I am doing is typing while listening to music via iTunes (Marcus Intalex). Why is it over 100° on the bottom of the case? And why are my fans up so high? What the hell is going on? And it's not even funny when you are burning a DVD. I have to stack the machine on top of books to get proper airflow underneath. If you use a Macbook on a wooden desk, forget about it. So, yeah--and I also hate when it doesn't really go to sleep and I end up taking it out of my backpack and both fans are on and it's white hot and you feel like all the keys are just going to melt off when you open the case. That's happened to me quite a few times.

3 - I don't need to go into this too much because so many others are already ragging on Apple about it, but the new iMovie is a big piece of junk. And iPhoto's not all that hot, either. And guess what? I've been using 10.5 and I don't like that much, either (transparent menu bar? Coverflow? reflective dock? Can you say waste of CPU power which makes for an even hotter machine?). So, yeah, I am turning into a grumpy old man, I guess.

4 - The iPhone is great, but the EDGE network is, in my opinion, its Achille's heel. It's really tough for me to imagine getting that phone until that situation changes. Yes, I know, there's more to life than surfing the Internet and going on google maps and checking your email, but...wait--is there, really?

5 - All these billboards you see about cell phone networks having the least amount of dropped calls really crack me up. There should be NO dropped calls in the first place. "Hey, check us out! We suck just a bit less!" Ridiculous.

okay, I can't maintain the rant for that long, but still, I needed to at least get the first two off my chest. I've been rebooting a lot lately because my machine has been crashing, I think because I have had network volumes mounted and then did not unmount them before going home for the day, which should just result in a time out, but lately have been causing my entire system to hang. So frustrating.

I have an audition for one of the new network shows that I am pretty excited about. I am trying to be cool about it, but I am failing. I really, really want this gig.

hope you are well!

Here's a picture of the bridge that went down in Minneapolis. So crazy.

Tags: apple, macos, imovie, tech

So many different ways to think about weddings:

1 - throw a big party for all your friends, thanking them for the life they've helped you create, celebrate that love exists and share it with your friends and family
2 - do what your parents expect, do it at a church and somehow link your relationship with some kind of organized religion for legitimacy and hope or something
3 - not a big deal, who needs the stress, "we don't need some piece of paper from the state to validate our relationship"


There are other ways but I wanna get straight to #1, which seems to be the general trend of weddings that we've been attending (and, indeed, thrown). I'm on a flight returning from Bryan and Anna's wedding in Minnesota. Anna is Whit's cousin and I was very interested in seeing another side to Whit's family. There's this whole MidWest vibe in my life and it's really different, it's really, really interesting to be exposed to it. I mean, you know, I come from San Francisco, I've only lived in New York and California, and I don't have much exposure to the MidWest and when I hear about "MidWest values" when politicians speak I admit it, I roll my eyes and say something snarky about WalMart and chain restaurants.

Which is totally unfair, I admit! Totally, ridiculously, idiotic. Now, I will not say I was "surprised" by how great this wedding was, because, to be honest, I had no preconceptions whatsoever (that's another entry, I've kind of stopped doing that). I did assume it would be fun, I was very excited to meet Anna and Bryan, because I was very impressed with their wedding invite and the overall quality of the communications they had crafted (no surprise there, given my take on how to produce a good wedding).

The thing about weddings (and parties and events, etc) is, not surprisingly, attention to detail and to the quality of experience, something that Anna and Bryan really, really delivered. From the program to the music performances in the wedding, to the venues and overall tone of the event, it really went without a hitch. They were able to invite a good balance of friends and family and even though they had to contend with throwing an outdoor wedding under grey, rainy skies, the production never let up, the whole thing just worked, most likely because people believed in the couple so much.

Which is, the key, right? If your friend is in a great relationship that you believe in, everything is so much easier and better. Yes, that sounds obvious, but I think that feeling carries through and builds over time and forces you to either be grateful for the relationships you have in your life, or to reconsider what you have and make the appropriate changes. Life is hard enough on one's own, I think it's exponentially harder if you persist in a relationship because it's convenient or just easier to stay in.

Again, obvious, but hey, this is an called "On Weddings".

A few points:

- great to meet Anna and Bryan, as I've said. I am looking forward to seeing what's next for them. It's nice to meet a couple that just exudes comfort and trust in each other right off the back. Notable, so I am noting it.

- I was talking to Whit and figured that the whole idea about a great relationship with someone "completing" you is actually not the best sign. In all of the best relationships I have seen (and like the one we're in now), it's not about completion, it's about extension, meaning, being with so-and-so extends your life's experience in unique and fulfilling way. You experience more out of life by sharing it with this person. There's more to write on this but I'll have to deal with that later.

- Great to meet Whit's cousin (and Anna's older brother) Josh and his wife Holly and their kids. Josh works in Portland and deals with mass transit. Like, he figures out how to make mass transit systems work. How cool is that? I mean, really, when I realized that that was his work, I resisted the urge to basically interview him for two hours. Can a society go from mass transit to individual transit systems then BACK to mass transit? Is there an example of this? This is truly a question specific to our time and it's just need to talk to someone who is involved with that discussion. Mass transit, believe it or not, is a huge topic in Los Angeles, and it's something I struggle with a lot. See, it's one thing to set up mass transit for commuters, who have, basically, a consistent schedule that can be addressed. People to go the same places twice a day. But for actors and so many other independent contractors in Los Angeles, we have to be able to leave wherever we are at a moment's notice and go somewhere completely different, quickly. So, unless you are in New York or Chicago (and, perhaps, Boston and even San Francisco), where the relevant geography has clear and consistent limits and the mass transit is regular enough that you can rely on it to get you to your destination, you are screwed. You have to have a car. The infrastructure of LA is designed for cars, so all the snide comments about people being addicted to cars and all that is, for the most part, unfair. There is no choice for many people.

Anyway, it was fun to talk to Josh about that stuff.

post time!

Tags: people, minnesota, travel

Anna, the bride, with lil' Stella

Well, we got to the airport, we returned the car, we had our lunch, we got our coffee and now we're at the gate waiting for our plane and it looks like we're about to become a statistic--our flight is delayed. Now, granted, it's delayed due to weather, but not in the "taking off in hectic weather" kind of way, but in the "lightning might hit the ramp that people use to get to the airport" kind of way, which is actually a new way for me. So, w'e're hanging out and I have a bit of time to write, but not post, because I refuse to pay the wireless access fee! I'm telling you, we're living in one of those times where people in the future will go, "Oh, yeah, back in the day you actually had to pay to access the Internet from a public space, how weak is that, T-7 Service Droid?" I mean, okay, it's not technically a big deal, but still, it's so insanely frustrating--it's so cheap to offer free Internet access, I would argue it's more expensive to set up a payment system than to "just" install a T1 line and a network of wireless access points. Throw in a portal page with advertising, maps and directories of the airport and boom, everyone's happy. Provide an online coupon code to some cafe, all the better.

Whatever; I'm on the plane now--we ended up getting in the plane then waiting for 20 minutes before moving, and then another 20 minutes of taxiing and now, finally, we are flying and now I am trying to type this out, which is hard because, as is always the case, the person in front of me has put his seat all the way back and it is basically impossible for me to see the screen.

As usual, lots to talk about, I wish I could type out multiple strings of thought at once, to be honest. I have a few different storylines in my head:

1 - the wedding weekend and associated experiences, including running two red lights (one right in front of a cop!), a heated yoga class, seeing the collapsed bridge, the actual wedding, reception at the zoo, the importance of befriending the DJ and the bartender at all wedding receptions, the amazing amount of kids I was around and a freewheeling discourse of how the Mall of America (and, I guess, all malls) as the precursor to the modern day World Wide Web.

2 - the frustration of walking into a plane and passing by people reading scripts that I have read about but am not reading--how even in the middle of the country, you can be reminded how there's so much more to actually get DONE before my career is actually cooking. While it is simmering now, the bubbles are few and far between, and though I have had some fun this year, I need to book some work before the year is over, big time.

3 - the mixed blessing of being able to write scenes (or at least build scenes) that would be interesting to watch but are bereft of an actual story to be incorporated into. I have been writing these things down, but the only thing connecting them is that I am writing them down. This is pretty typical, I guess, for me--I can sketch for days, lots of little scribbles and mini scenes, portraits, buildings, whatever, but they all float on the page, each kind of interesting, but in that way that someone else's dreams are only so interesting--yes, neat, but, in the end, so what? Perhaps I am overly ambitous, perhaps the scenes need not be part of a movie, perhaps a music video or a short. As I write this, I otice myself thinking, "Yes, that's it! Make a music video!" But, of course, all the scenes I want to shoot take place over the last few hours in a plane taking off in the middle of a torrential downpour. No matter, no mater. I can inject them somewhere else.

4 - I am reading a book called The Sundance Kids by James Mottram. It's very similar to this other book, Rebels in the Backlot by Sharon Waxman (the books cover the same people during the same time, early 90s filmmakers like PT Anderson, Spike Jonez, David Fincher, Wes Anderson, etc), but spends a lot more time actually going into the movies and analyzing them, which makes the book both more interesting and sometimes a little irritating. I don't have a lot of experience reading film criticism, I admit, but I can't help but wonder why the ongoing discussions of color palette, themes and editorial comments on why a film was particularly "good" or not bothers me. I guess that's one thing that the passing of time provides: a comfy couch from which to judge other people's hard work and mercilessly categorize it.

5 - And, finally, I want to talk about how it felt to meet extended family members who have been reading these journal and viewing the photos on the flickr site, how it was really gratifying to know that people would visit from time to time, and how it was a very different experience to know that they knew me already from all my ramblings. While we didn't go into it too much, it changes, again, how I think about this site, which began as me throwing HTML to the world without any expectations of an audience in the first place, to knowing that once in awhile, someone will choose to visit with some kind of expectation of something new. What started out as an offline backup of experience has turned into a relationship, and like all relationships, I gotta make an effort to keep it interesting.

To that end, I am going to do something a bit different. I am going to write about the above topics now (well, as long as can stand it) and then release them throughout the week. A lot more manageable for both of us.

More soon.

Tags: travel, airport, people