So, as some of my "tweets" have been reporting, I have been running around with a cold and feeling generally just tired and coughy. I would stay at home and get some sleep, but they are renovating the apartment building next door, so it's nothing but sledgehammers and yelling worker types starting at 7:30 in the morning. So, I am here at work and, again, this week is already starting out very busy.

Obviously the issue of the week has been the fires that are seemingly everywhere. I mean, it takes 3 minutes for the local NPR folks to list all the various fires and associated road closures, evacuations, etc. At first it was like, "whoa, fire," and now it's like, "uhmm...these are going to go out, right?" The other day I was driving along the 405 and about 15 fire trucks went down the opposite direction, and it was actually pretty intense; people were honking their horns, etc. It reminded me of riding in the subway in New York and seeing the workers on the train with you. It's like, these are the people who are deep in the story, who are heroes of this drama...and it is a drama, I mean, it's crazy. The skies were orange yesterday and everyone is walking around with red eyes, coughing. Monday morning I got to my car and it was coated with a tiny little layer of dust; it reminded me of the snow in New York and I felt sad--instead of snow or even dew, we get ash. It's like the Earth is burning itself up because it knows that the rains are dying.

It's screwed up, I gotta say. Puts some things in perspective and other things to shame, in a way. Like, who cares whether or not one gets called back for a fast food commercial when people are losing their homes? Their lives? What?


Other than the world burning up around us, things are okay. I have been more busy than ever with the release of Mac OS X 10.5, which comes about 10 days after moving to a new building, so there are all kinds of things we are working on. Whatever. Work is challenging, but I am learning a lot and so far things are looking pretty good. It should be interesting to see how the 10.5 launch goes and what the response will be...

The past two times I have gone to yoga I have been stuck in traffic and thought that I was going to be late for class, and both times I just made it, even when I was late, the class was already starting late, so it did not matter. I thought this was kind of nice, because we spend so much time trying to get places and freaking out about being late, but it seems to me that oftentimes the events that you most need to make it to, for me these days my yoga and acting classes definitely fit that category, the timing just works out. I am not sure if you can rely on it, you can't just dilly dally and assume it work out, but if you make the effort, things seem to work out. That mini struggle seems to be applicable to many of the challenges we find in our lives. If you work on it, if you really work on it, you can do what you want to do. Though it's pretty much a refrain in every other house song, it's something that I need to remind myself of these days. The auditions have been slow for the past two weeks (which works out since work is ruling my school) and I have been kind of bumming, just a bit. I look at some of the shows on right now (Chuck in particular) and it's odd to see so many of my type on screen at once. I mean, those of you who know me, if I had said there was a show about a goofball IT guy who runs around fixing computers and then finding himself in dangerous (and apparently hilarious) situations...well, it's a near fit, the goofball IT guy.

whatever. it's all coming. Stay positive. Listen to this new Sharon Jones CD. Good.

Tags: fire, weather

Funny, I thought all clowns were scary.

Well, it's been 10 days since I have updated and I apologize, again, for the ridiculous delay. A few things:

1 - we moved offices, so that's been fairly crazy. I now work on a street named "Corporate Pointe" (shudder) in Culver City. The good news is that my commute is way shorter, like, 20-25 minutes shorter, depending on traffic. I can actually get here and back in ten minutes if traffic cooperates (ie, is non existent). The space is way more corporate but we have a crazy view of LA:



My group works right next to the window, which is a huge plus, especially during lunch:


So that's all nice.

2. Ever since we actually moved to the new building, I have been out of my head busy. Like, out of my head. Early meetings, conference calls, late meetings, late conference calls...and since they have been having to keep the building at less than 65° all week, I have been freezing. And although I hear that the temperature has nothing to do with getting people sick, I think I am now, actually, sick. I was actually going to work from home today, but they are gutting the apartment building across the way, so we have been waking up to jack hammers and bellowing workers. Miserable. Whit was pissed this morning; she was out late last night at the Mt. Wilson observatory observing things space and I guess she got a cold, too. Fun fun fun.

3. On a slightly more positive note, I have been spending a bit of time playing Halo 3 and it's been super fun. Nick took this shot from last night: It's pretty amazing, the Halo 3 thing, and I have zero time to go into it now, but you can get a sense of how deeeeeply nerdy it is by looking at my player page in the Bungie site. It's odd to say, but the game might actually work its way into being worth all the hyper surrounding it...

4. Acting was crazy slow this week, which is actually a relief, to be honest. The move, which was really freaking me out, actually only adds 5-10 minutes to my "normal" travel time for auditions, and, in maybe a few cases, might actually decrease it. We'll see. My agency has been awesome about keeping the auditions during lunch time, so traffic tends to be pretty light anyway.

Actually, yeah, I have enough time to talk about something that happened last week. I got a message from my friend Kelly suggesting I get in touch with Caryne, who apparently had some news. I gave her a call, and she told me that she has decided that she was going to quit acting and that she and John were going to sell their house and live full time in Las Vegas (John lives and works near there in Pahrumpf), so they could all be together (they have a baby named Audrey). For years, John has been basically driving back for weekends so he and Caryne could be together while Caryne pursued (successfully, I should add) her acting career. But ever since Audrey arrived, Caryne has been spending much more time being a mom than a working actor, which obviously makes sense and is understandable. In fact the whole decision is laudable--leaving LA and being together just "fits" in all kinds of ways and makes a lot of sense for their family. I will admit, though, the news really has made a profound effect on me. Not only will I obviously miss having Caryne around--we have been friends (and have acted together) for many, many years, and having her in LA with me has kind of grounded me, in a way. Acting full time...well, it's basically a life decision, right? And it is nice to have other friends that are making the same kinds of experiences as you, so you at least have some comrades-in-arms in what is, in the end, a fairly frustrating and sometimes lonely endeavor. I regret that we were never able to book a job or do a play together in LA and now, well, I guess it won't ever happen. Caryne was so happy and I was so h

The choice to no longer pursue a professional acting career is always there, hovering behind the scenes. You hear about people "quitting" all the time, and for all the right reasons. I think one of the main reasons I have been able to confidently stick it out for so long is because I have always had another career to focus on when the acting slowed down. But for people who are able to make a living acting, it does become a grind when work starts to dry up. You do get tired of auditioning and not booking all the time. I mean, the past few months has been like that, many, many callbacks and no bookings. After a few years, one has to wonder, "What's the point anyway?" And when you have a truly meaningful alternative like Caryne does, to actually have a life with her husband and child full time...well, there's no argument, really. Still, when she told me about calling her agents and telling her them she was through..so crazy.

I was actually supposed to have uploaded this entry earlier tonight but the app crashed when I tried connect to my server...let's see if this works...

have a good weekend!!

my dad's cool 1967 MGB GT

Busy weekend. The talk at Santa Clara University went really well; Leanne and I had a great time meeting other SCU theatre/dance/tech grads and the whole affair went pretty well. I realize now that one of the tricks of teaching must be that tension between wanting to get all the information you want to share out all at once because of the time, but that not being possible due to time and the general flow of the conversations that take place. We had a really solid panel made up of actors, dancers, technicians and financial types, which was great, but I could see it being a little overwhelming. All of seven of us were pretty happy to talk about pretty much anything, but, you know, it's not like the audience knows exactly what questions to even ask. I can remember that one of the last things I would have wanted to do on a free Friday (and gorgeous) afternoon was spend my time listening to a bunch of old people tell me how what I need to do to survive in this crazy life. That being said, I would have gone anyway, of course..

It was really interesting to see how the general make up of the department had changed. There are apparently something like 54 female majors and 15 male majors, which is a real challenging situation for casting, especially given that there are approximately 20% fewer roles for women actors. Trip away. What was really interesting, however, is just how smart the students were. I mean, they were really thinking hard about what a life in entertainment would actually mean financially, and there were a surprising amount of students who asked about the technical and administrative positions, which offer a more stable and consistent income. I did what I could to offer substantial tips and suggestions, and tried to tell as many stories that illustrated the various aspects of working in LA and New York as I could. I had a lot more to talk about (I barely touched on headshots and reels and managers and agents, etc) but maybe I can go up and have a more actor-focused discussion in the spring. Regardless, I am trimming my notes to make a little handbook for the actors that might be of some use.

My brother Patrick is a junior at SCU so he watched the seminar, and it was fun to have him there. SInce I last saw him he's cut his hair and grown another 4 inches and his summer job building an environmentally friendly house (to be show in DC) has made him very lean and apparently quite strong. Crazy! The theater staff were very happy to corner him and suggest the he audition for a show in the spring and to attend an acting for non majors class...very cool, I hope his schedule permits it.

The rest of the weekend was spend with the folks (saw a fantastic production of Sweeney Todd at ACT) and hanging out with Paul and Al. San Francisco was doing its best Spain impersonation, and I must admit as I sipped coffee and beer at the "Rev" down their block, I did fantasize about living there again. Someday. The Blue Angels were in town as well, which was loud and fun. I wasn't able to see James and the rest of the Isotope crew; I will have to plan something with them next month...

I think my ACL is all screwed up, which is really annoying. It was fine in my workout, but I took a yoga class last night and, oddly enough, plow pose tweaked it--like, my one foot could touch the floor, but my left one could not. Weak weak weak. I have had pretty good luck with injuries but I jammed it last week during spinning and I thought I had taken enough time off...oh well. The real bummer is that this is the last week that we're gonna be at our current building---the gym is literally downstairs. Nick and I are pretty freaked as far as figuring out a new workout schedule...friends will remember that I was not always in the best of shape and I admit, I am nervous about the new situation.

Today I actually have a gig--I am doing ADR for the Comcast spot, re-recording new dialogue for the spot that was airing earlier this year. Should be fun; I've auditioned for an ADR job in the past, but I have never done one "for real". Huh. Suddenly a little nervous. Gotta use it!

Tags: acting, fitness

We were hanging out with Hans and Isadora this weekend and we passed this gym. You gotta love the name; I guess the woman who owns this is a rather brusque Austrian, so we were basically barking "Do it NOW!" to each other all night. I mean, I get it, if one is going to "Just Do It" I guess "Now" would be the time. I wonder if they have yoga classes there that reflect that same intensity?

Still, it's effective to think about doing something in the present moment..perhaps the removal of the "!" would help, and I don't think you need to underline all the words. I can imagine driving by this place every day constantly going, "oh, man I forgot to do [that thing]! dammit!"
This is Whit hanging out while we were waiting at the Honda dealership. We went in to test drive the 2007 Civic Hybrid (Whit's got a 2003 model) and we ended up buying it! Madness. Still, it all worked out really nicely, and I am very happy she's driving a car that's heavier, has more horsepower, and much better handling. Good mileage is not worth having some underpowered tin can that can get out of the way of a hairy situation on the freeway. I'll put a picture or two up when I get a chance, but so far, Whit's really happy.

I am heading up to Santa Clara University on Friday to talk to the theatre majors regarding the "Business of the Bidness," as I have mentioned before. It's been pretty fun, I must say, prepping for it. I have about 6 pages of notes/talking points, and I honestly feel they are pretty valuable. I remember when I was a senior in college, though. Man, I could no wrong. I was getting cast in everything, I was painting sets every day, it was great. The last thing I wanted was to be told how difficult everything was going to be. No matter, I have been positioning everything in positive terms, more like "here's the real deal and how to deal with said deal".

The past couple of weeks have been heating up in both of my jobs, which is good, but it adds a layer of complexity that I am not really into. Usually I would complain about the scheduling, but that's not the problem, it's just both the acting and the regular job are just getting more involved, in all ways. I just need to think more and plan more and commit more of myself into everything, which, again, is good, but just tiring, I guess. The auditions are getting more frequent, but they are also getting better, in a way. Like, the roles are really good fits, which makes it all the more frustrating when I don't book them. I went out yesterday for this thing that if I got it, I would be filming a new spot each week until the middle of January or so. Yikes! So, waiting on that. Waiting.

Much to do, much to do. Ravi is Bali and the site's loading slowly for him, thanks to all the widgets on the side. Weak. I will figure out which ones to take off. You can always check out the RSS feed, but I agree, slow loading is irritating. I like the widgets, though, especially the map one, which surprised me with how many people are reading this from far off lands. The more dots, the more updates, I guess. I wanna film something this weekend and post it, so I guess I will DO IT NOW! Or then. But I will do it...

Tags: iphone, general