my cousin Patrick playing jazz at Socha in San Francisco. He's the hep cat with the beard, playing sax.

Oh, man. Merry Christmas.. I am at Socha right now:

where I was last night to see my cousin Patrick Wolff play some jazz with a few folks. I forgot my jacket and scarf last night so I had to come back here and see if they still had them--they did, and I am very happy. Not sure how I forgot it, but I guess that's the way it goes. It was a really great night, Patrick and his friends were really good (I haven't seen Pat play in years, so it was a treat) and it was a nice blend of family and friends. Super fun--I just wish I wasn't so damn sick, I gotta tell you. I am usually good about powering on when feeling ill, but it's hard to heal when you are just basically cold and uncomfortable all the time! I know, I know, what does a guy who spends his days in LA know about cold, but really--I am wearing a jacket, a coat and a scarf! That's gotta mean something, right?

So, I am that guy in the cafe with a small cup of coffee typing away on the computer. Cafe scribbler. I am having a great holiday; Christmas went really well, we had our normal massive family gathering at Toby and Catherine's and it was great to see everyone. It's good to see that everyone's looking healthy and doing well. We used to have these kinds of things all the time when I was a kid, now I basically see my extended family only once or twice, which is kind of depressing. Such is life, I guess.

San Francisco is nice, clear blue skies (quickly growing dark, gonna rain tonight) and I am doing fairly well balancing my time between friends and family, which is the trick. I'm going to be up here for MacWorld in a few weeks anyway. Everyone seems to be doing well...surprised, definitely, that a year has passed. Damn this cafe is cold! What is up with the front door wide open? The cafe is obviously open..it's a funny sight; everyone's in full jackets and hunched over their coffees while some kid pounds away on the piano.

What else? I am supposed to meet up with Oliver for lunch, but I am not sure what the story is. I want to swing by Isotope to hang out with James, then I am going home to my parents' place and just going to read some books and heal up. I woke up with a wicked headache which is retreating, slowly.

I just wanna go to Golden Boy and be warm. I am blowing steam from my mouth.

What else? Not much, I am sort of drifting, here, it's like that when I come to SF, I don't really have a homebase in the city itself, so I tend to bounce from cafe to store to restaurant to store to cafe and to dinner to bar, that kind of thing. I wanted to take a bunch of yoga classes this week but I haven't had the time and I just feel like crap.

Anything else, Mike? You are rambling a bit. Any comments on how everyone seems so young here? No? The seeming resurgence of beards on guys? Rants on traffic and how it's just as bad here as it is in LA and how it's frustrating that the car has been thrust upon us in this here state? how you wanted to see There Will Be Blood but it's not actually playing in San Francisco yet?

maybe later. For now, I will upload this and figure out what the hell is up with Oliver.

Tags: general, cold, sick

a really stunning piece of graffitti art on LaBrea. I took this while at a stoplight.
What really pisses me off is someone actually tagged it! Weak.


here's the other part of it

well.. I have started this entry about 10 times, and I might as well give it another go.

The real crazy thing about the past two weeks is that I have literally gone nonstop during the weekday. I get in, there's a tornado, and then I leave. I mean, sure, that's I guess how some people work, but one would think that the end of the year would be a bit more of a slower time, when you can chill a bit, but it certainly has not been the case this year. And when I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer, which means I slack on all the personal stuff I want to do, including Christmas shopping, writing in this journal, and editing Whit's band's videos. I am adding a page to the site today with four of the videos from Whit's work party, where their band, The RTG's performed nine songs. Whit did an amazing job, I gotta say. You can find the videos in the RTG's page, above.

Just when I was feeling a bit down, things start turning up. Last week I was invited to read two scripts, which was totally cool. I did two table reads for two very different scripts (one was a kind of family comedy, the other an action comedy), both very good; really fun characters, great pacing...both would make really entertaining movies. I was invited to read a lead character both times and I am pleased to report that the feedback was really good, which was tremendously encouraging. Hmm, perhaps that's not the right word, "encouraging"...gratifying, perhaps? That's better, honestly, because the goal is to really fill out the reading as best as you can emotionally so the writer can get some glimpses of how it might sound during filming, how some of the characters might look during certain moments how the flow would actually...flow. I really tried to read as best as I could, which was made difficult for the first script since I did not have enough time to read through it first and mark it up.

What's good about this is that you are being given the opportunity to add to the initial definition of the story, of the character. The writers can now go back to the script and use what we did as a baseline, which will help them make the appropriate changes. It's kind of a cool responsibility, because up until the readings, the writers have heard the characters in their heads, or just read a few scenes with the other writers to get the kinks out. Both writers brought in some really great actors, really driven actors who all were taking it very seriously and obviously trying to bring as much to the reading as possible. It was very cool and it was quite a cool way to close out the year, to be part of this collaboration. Reminded me of some very good times in New York, and I am stoked I have some folks around who want me to participate in this kind of thing.

Work has been crazy, as usual. We released a product and I have been getting really great responses from people who have actually used the software, but for every one positive piece of feedback, I get 5 intensely negative, fanatically nasty rants about why the software sucks...from people who have never actually even seen the software. I try not to take it personally, but I honestly wish some of the more passionate users out there would give the stuff a chance so they can see that I'm not some dumbass who is making lame crap, but someone who actually cares very deeply about this stuff and whose crew has made something very good, relevant, and effective. Whatever. I deal with this stuff enough in my "other" life, so I will just drop it, but I am looking forward to seeing how the reviews go. It's weird; for better or for worse, this new product is pretty much my fault. I was the one who pushed for a total redesign and for the addition of a completely new additional feature. We could have easily just updated it to work with the new operating system but I felt it was really important to make a full on change, to really draw a line and say "the old stuff is the old stuff, this is the future". We'll see, we'll see. I never expected the work to be so personal but I guess that's good.

On the acting front, all of a sudden, I am busy as ever. Two auditions yesterday; 1 callback (from yesterday), 2 auditions and a voiceover audition today, one audition tomorrow. Uh, what? I haven't gone out more than once a week in 2 weeks! It's great, but really unexpected and kind of crazy making with the week I am having. But we were able to schedule everything all out, so it's fine. My agents are really amazing, it's just crazy how hard they work for me.

I have more entries but I really have to sleep. I just apologize for being so late on this. I wish I just had more time. Perhaps I can write a bit more during the holidays. I have been taking notes on my phone when journal entries come to mind--I've got some good ones--so hopefully the week off will encourage me to invest a bit more time into this. I have been really bad about using the camera (except for the videos I took of the RTG's) but maybe I will bring it up to the city. I dunno. We'll see.

Regardless, hope all is well.

Hollywoodland in the early 1920s

Tags: general, tech, acting, auditions

Here's a shot from Whit's performance at work--she was awesome fronting for The RTG's--the work band.

Well, we keep
on trudging. My product went out last week and I gotta admit, it's been kind of crazy watching how people react to it. Some folks are going to hate it no matter what, so I do my best not to take it personally. This time around, I tried really hard to make a product that was low impact and really, really easy to use--we'll see how regular folks react to it. The interviews I have been having with the Mac press and other security publications have been really engaging; it's nice to have thoughtful conversations about security issues on the Mac. (I know, I rarely talk about my work life on this site, but I figure my name is getting out there a bit with the reviews and such and figure I might as well address it a bit.) All I know is that we've made a really solid product and I am pretty proud of it.

Other things? So busy. As you can see above, Whit rocked out at her holiday party. I will have some videos up later this week (I literally have the clips open behind this window)--they are pretty good. We had a great party at Noah's, then a birthday party for Abby (3 years old!)--I guess we're knee deep in "holiday cheer" right now. It's going by so fast!

Actingwise, it's been slow, but, at the same time, things are opening up, too. It's kind of odd. I made enough money acting this year to qualify for SAG health insurance, which is actually kind of cool. I don't need it right now, but it just shows that things have been moving along pretty well. I am doing some table reads of people's scripts this weekend, and I actually even got a nice email reply from a director I really admire. The small things count a lot.

Let's see. I have a magazine interview followed by a full on Internet Radio show right after....should be fun.

Hope all is well.

It's Monday and I just want to get something in before this week goes into overdrive. One would think that work would be a bit more mellow now that we have shipped the products we have been working on for the past year, but nope...for me it's just starting up. I have a few press interviews this week (including one with an public radio show called Future Tense which I hear occasionally), which is fun, but I must admit, I want a few days off. Problem is, the construction across the way is moving into the "saw everything you see" phase, so there's no "just take a day of and relax" option at home at all. Whatever.

Good weekend, if all too short. Saw American Gangster and was a bit disappointed, to be honest. The film is almost 3 hours long and at no point was there some kind of reversal or surprise. Totally by the numbers. Oddly, the movie's pacing was great and the story was pretty engaging, it just wasn't super awesome, which is what I wanted from Señor Scott. The theatre we saw it in was freezing cold, which might have effected the "experience" I guess.

Tags: general