Just Five More

With only five more shows left to go of Fiddler, I can't help but think that I'll miss it. It will, however, be awesome to just be able to rest nearly any night of the week.

Mmm...Rest. I'm looking forward to that. 96 performances is a freaking lot.

The Thing About Callbacks

I love acting; I really do. I derive great amounts of both joy and pleasure from it. As you may or may not know, however, in order to act, you must go to both auditions and callbacks. Sometimes these callbacks are far away, and you must drive for forty-five minutes to get there, and then drive for nearly an hour and a half to get home because Cal-Trans decided that last night was the opportune time to shut down Interstate 5 a few miles before before the exit to my apartment.

Sometimes the part that you make the afore-mentioned journey for only has three lines: "All right, knock it off," "Impossible," and "Goodbye boys." While you are thankful for the callback, you can't help but spend your minutes sitting around waiting at the callback trying to figure out just how much gas spent driving comes out to on a per word basis.

I love acting; I really do. But sometimes, just sometimes, I'd rather be taking a nap.

Advertising

And by that, I mean I did a commercial. It's going to air during Padres games. I'm going to be on tv.

That's kind of cool.

The Problem with Having a Bushy Beard

To the left is a picture of myself from back in December when I was in a great need for headshots, and ::mandy:: very graciously took a few.

The beard has not really been trimmed since that time, so it is, by now, very, very bushy.

A few moments ago, I turned my head to the left while I was sitting in my cubicle at work, and my heart started to race as I could have sworn that I had seen a dog run through my cubicle. This would have raised a variety of issues, not the least of which being the question of why exactly there was a dog in the work place.

However, there was no such luck. As you may have guessed, I had just seen my beard in my peripheral vision, and I mistook this for a furry quadroped.

I have to say that I'm glad that it was the beard, as the only other explanation is the massive amount heroin running through my system. And by "heroin," I mean love.

Starbucks Crumble Coffee Cake

The crumble coffee cake at Starbucks is delicious. I love it. Were it possible to marry a pastry dish without scorn from ignorant people who just don't understand our love, I would consider marrying it.

However, the honeymoon with my new infatuation has to end sometime, and mine ended this morning when I read that each piece of coffee cake has 500 calories. I'm sorry, but that is an exorbitant number of calories from something that doesn't even have frosting.

As you can imagine, this realization led to the first real fight in my secret relationship, which I will document for you here.

Me: Coffee cake! I love you! How can you be so bad for me?
Coffee Cake: ...
Me: How can you just sit there in silence? I demand a response!
Coffee Cake: ...
Me: Oh, I see how it is. Consider us over!
Coffee Cake: ...
Me: How can you be so cold and cruel?

In other news, the call back that was supposed to have been on Friday got pushed back to this coming Sunday. I was really hoping to get it out of the way on Friday, because then I would know one way or the other more quickly. I guess it's kind of exciting to still be in the running, though.

Unfortunately for me, I have verified that one of the two other actors who is still up for the same part is one who has already worked for the theatre. With this theatre liking to hire the same actors repeatedly, this doesn't bode well for the AC. However, I continue to think that the director is really interested in me for this part, so I guess we'll just have to see how this plays out. Theoretically, I have a 33% chance. I like those odds.

A Call Back for a Call Back

Yesterday afternoon, I received a call from the theatre company mentioned yesterday, requesting me to come in for another call back, which I will be going to tonight.

Based on a variety of things which may or may not prove to be mind games in my own mind, I really think that the director wants me for this role. As I have never been this far in this theatre's audition process, I don't know how odd it is for them to have a call back for a call back.

I REALLY want to get into this show. I'll keep you updated on how things progress.

Part of what makes me think that acting is a good career choice for me is that I love both auditions and call backs. For the most part, I am pretty confident in the abilities that I have, and I am very willing to work on the abilities that I don't have (see: dancing). With this in mind, auditions become less about self doubt, and more about just trying to do your best, which I think is a trait that all of us have had pounded into our little heads since grade school. Certainly I don't get cast in every show, but not every show needs my type of character. I can usually accept this pretty well.

Here's to hoping this show needs my type.

A Call Back

Yesterday, I had a call back for a part in a show about a certain Old Testament biblical character who had a certain coat of many colors.

While I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, I really think that I did a good job, and I also kind of think that they liked me. The only thing (and it's quite a major thing) not in my favor is that an actor that they have used before was also up for the same part, and this company tends to like to continue to work with people it has already worked with. This makes it so much more important that I get in, because then I stand a chance of them just calling me and asking me to do other roles.

The show plays at a local theatre company that, while it looks like it would not give me points for getting in the actors' union, pays its non-union actors pretty well. As we all know, supplemental income is always a nice thing.

The director said that the company would let me know within 72 hours, which is nice in that some theatres say nothing, and you are left alone to scrutinize why they aren't calling and how you could have possibly done better. This way, I know that if I haven't heard by Saturday, I'm probably out of luck.

Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles

My branch of the company that I work for has, probably, seventy employees. Nearly all of these employees at some point during the day need to use a particular database. Unfortunately, for some reason, this database can only accommodate 38 users at a time.

Let me be the first to say that the idea that 38 out of 70 workers can use this database at a time is EFFING BRILLIANT. This fact PLEASES ME, and doesn't at all make me want to SHOOT MYSELF IN THE FACE.

Ahem. Excuse me.

On the plus side, the company has decided to start stocking the fridge with cranberry juice again, so, uhm, I guess at least my kidney health will be first rate when the rest of my body goes into total meltdown mode.

If You're Looking to See a Bad Movie...

You should go ahead and rent the movie La Moustache. I originally read about this movie in one of the girly-froofy-"men's" magazines that I read (Esquire), and the premise of the movie that the magazine laid out sounded pretty interesting. The movie was supposed to have been about a man who, on a whim, shaves off the mustache that he's had for years and years to play a joke on his wife; the man is then thrown a curveball when his wife claims that he's never had a mustache. Based on this premise, I suspected that this movie would be whimsical and joyful, a la Amelie or something out of Monty Python, or at least poignantly beautiful, like one of the myriad of sad, yet achingly funny movies that Bill Murray has been making in recent years.

Boy, was I wrong.

The first fifteen minutes of the movie were just as advertised; that is, a man shaves his mustache off. The wife denies it. After that, though, instead of hilarity ensuing, the man and his wife just get progressively angrier and angrier with each other as the woman continues to deny the fact that he ever had a mustache. We do learn that the woman may be a pathological liar based on an incident that is revealed from her childhood by her brother. However, even if she is a liar, the man is still up a creek due to the fact that no one else he knows is able to remember that he has ever had a mustache either.

The anger continues, and the man jumps on a random plane which is going to Hong Kong. The narrative then moves to about twenty minutes with very little dialogue while the man rides in ferries. That's right; with the audience not knowing what is going on, the director opted to film the man taking boat rides. Eventually the man makes it to what we can only assume is Bali, which is based on the fact that his wife had a series of photographs that was marked Bali from a vacation that the couple apparently went on a vacation to.

The man lives in Bali for an amount of time equaling the amount of time necessary to regrow his facial hair, and, one day, he comes back to the hotel room he's been staying in to find that his wife (who he left in France when he travelled to Hong Kong and with whom he has had no contact with) is packing up clothes and saying that this had been a good vacation and that they need to catch the flight in the morning. She acts as if she has been with him the whole time. She then makes some comment about how he should probably shave before they go back to France.

He shaves his mustache again, and she likes it and she remembers that he had a mustache. The film closes with the man opening his eyes after being asleep with his wife.

That's it. That's the whole movie.*

Now, this film leaves the viewer with many questions, not the least of which is "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME JUST HAPPENED?" Is the man crazy? Is his wife crazy? Is she a pathological liar? If so, how did she find him in Bali? Was this some elaborate practical joke that went astray? Do I just not understand the conventions of French cinema? Neither my girlfriend, my engineer roommate, nor I (all of which are fairly bright, college-educated people) could figure out just what the point of this movie was.

If anyone out there in cyberland can figure this out and will explain it to me in a way that I can understand it (that is, with pictures and farm animal sounds) I will be forever grateful.

*We missed about three minutes of the movie because the dvd that we rented was bad, and refused to play those three minutes, no matter how much cajoling we offered. Perhaps everything gets wrapped up in those three minutes, but I highly doubt it as those minutes were towards the middle of the film, which is generally where the rising action of a narrative occurs, and not the climax or the denouement, which, come to think of it, I didn't ever find. Come on, French film makers! Denouement is even a French word! Use it in your movies!

New Commenting

I do apologize for having to now moderate comments, but it appears that too many people are now leaving links on this little site-e-poo trying to peddle their wares of viagra and celebrity sex tapes. While this was amusing at first, mostly because I figure that there are all of about 6 people who come here regularly, it has grown tiresome.

In other news, I still haven't heard back from my grad school audition. I kind of expected that it would take a few weeks for them to decide that I was the best choice, but even so, I still hoped that they would make their decision more quickly.

On the other hand, perhaps they, in looking through my transcript, have realized that I got that "C" grade on my under-grad senior recital (I wrote 45 minutes of original choral music for that dang thing...what does everybody want from me?), and they have decided that I am therefore too average to join the higher echelon of their student body. If this is the case, I will strike it up as yet another reason that I should have thought twice about trying to get a music degree from "Frank's Technical College of Applied Dentistry and Metallurgy."*

Sigh. Some day I'll get into grad school. Some day.

*The college I went to is actually a very fine college. Really.

An Apparently Bullet-Proof Get Rich Quick Scheme*

1) Write lots of bad checks for thousands of dollars to Indian casinos to get cash to gamble.

2) Get paid for the bad checks before they realize that they're bad.

3) When the casinos come a-calling wanting their money, tell them "huh-uh."

4) Go to court.

5) Let the judge rule that because the casino was lending credit to an American citizen on Indian land, the American courts can't force the citizen to pay for the checks because America has no jurisdiction in different sovereign nations.

6) Get off scot-free, with, hopefully, some of the money you wrote bad checks to get.

*This is according to a news report I heard on the radio, but haven't been able to find a link online. Kinda crazy, huh?

Random Burst of Creativity on a Friday Afternoon

The Reason I Will Die an Early Death from a Massive Coronary Explosion

In-N-Out Burger offers their fries "animal style." For a while, I had thought that this process, which involves adding grilled onions, extra cheese, and extra special sauce, could only be done to their burgers.

But no. Just say the word, and you, in an act of cheesy delicious gluttonous goodness, can get your fries animal style.

With this in mind, I will be updated/creating my will accordingly. If anybody wants any of my stuff in particular, leave me a message in the comments.

Grad School Audition, Or, Why I Didn't Get Much Sleep the Last Couple of Days

I had an audition for an MFA program for acting this morning. In case you don't know, an MFA is much like an MA except recepients of this degree tend to have slightly looser wrists.

Jokes in poor taste aside, the program that I'd sell at least one kidney to get into is small, and, due to the fact that it is run in conjunction with a regional theatre that every couple of years sends shows to Broadway, I suspect that this program would even make a happy man out of perennial sour-puss Richard Milhouse Nixon.

The audition itself went well. I had to prepare a couple of monologues, which wasn't a huge deal, and I think I played them pretty well. They said that they'd let me know in a couple of weeks, which is, of course, theatre-speak for "Your acting just threw up in my mouth a little bit," or, occasionally, "We'll let you know in a couple of weeks."

However, what did bring on a bout of existential angst was the few minutes I spent in a room with another auditioner prior to both of our auditions. I had been told to wait in a specified room, and upon my entrance, I noticed a woman in there, who was probably in a similar age range as myself. We said hello, and then went back to our respective personal bubbles.

Or at least I did. The woman got up and started to stretch, which I found to be a reasonable use of time. Stretching is a good way to loosen up so that you're at your best for all types of stressful circumstances, such as athletics or running from the law. While she stretched, I went back to going over the words of my monologues, hoping that I wouldn't have some kind of bizarre black out, and look like a goober in my audition. However, in her stretching, I noticed that she had bent over at the waist, which I just assumed meant that she had had some good dance training, because she was obviously very flexible, but before I could think any more about it, the woman did a somersault in the middle of the room.

As you may have guessed, I wasn't quite sure what to do with this, and this is where the angst enters this narrative. All of a sudden, I began second guessing myself. Should I be doing somersaults? Am I a bad actor because I do not do somersaults before auditions? Would I be a better actor if I did somersaults in rooms that have people that I've never met while wearing fairly nice clothes? Etc.

This is a definite point to ponder. I wonder if my gym offers tumbling classes. Perhaps that's what I'm missing.

Something I Don't Get About Myself

Nearly every day, I come home late at night, because that's just how I roll. Invariably, I am exhausted and seeking the sweet comfort of sleep. Nevertheless, lately, I have found a new addiction that robs me of my sleep.

Why is it that I find myself drawn, like moth to flame, to the History Channel? Seriously, can anyone answer me this question?

And, the thing is, I would understand this obsession if I were drawn to the supposedly "cool" shows that that channel has to offer. For example, if you were channel surfing, and you came across a show that had to do with secret societies, many of you would stick around for a few minutes to learn something that is fairly entertaining.

This is not the case with me. When I roll past the History Channel, and I see that it's a show on secret societies, I keep on a-flipping, because Lord knows I just don't much care about things that normal people find interesting. However, if I'm changing channels and I happen upon a show about the Presidency of Richard Nixon or just how was that the reconstruction of the South happened after the Civil War, brother, you've got my rapt attention for the better part of an hour.

I've found that the History Channel can only be trumped by something funny on Comedy Central late at night (which is unlikely), heavily edited for tv horror movies from the early nineties starring people who are famous today (see Leprechaun starring Jennifer Aniston in tiny shorts), or, if the mood hits me, any movie that I already own. Now, when I say that last bit, I don't mean the "good" version that I have on dvd; I mean the crummy version that has been edited for tv. It can be a movie that I haven't seen or wanted to see in years, but if I find it on television, I am compelled to watch it as well.

Ah well. At least I'm getting my money's worth for the cable.

A Response to the Woman Who Loudly Proclaimed During Yesterday's Performance, "He's Not Old!"

It's called the suspension of disbelief, lady. Deal with it.

Complainy Monday

1) Blogger just forced me into switching to the NEW Blogger as opposed to just keeping the old blogger. The biggest difference so far seems to be that instead of being able to log in with the name analystcatalyst, I must now log in with the email address analystcatalyst@gmail.com (please do not write me there unless you like that fact that I will likely not get back to you until the next time I check that address, which will likely be around the same time as the next ice age). I think that this is a genius tactic on Blogger's part because it has taken my login, which was already long to begin with, and made it longer. Because if there's one thing that makes a consumer happy, it's providing the SAME SERVICES UNDER SLIGHTLY MORE DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES.

2) The door that leads to the stairwell on my floor was, for a short time, repeatedly opened and slammed shut, and the handle was repeatedly turned with great force. Based on this evidence, I can only conclude that my company was providing an outreach on door-opening to the unfortunate people of the community who, for whatever reason, never learned how to open a door. Failing this, my only other theory is that mentally-handicapped rhesus monkeys have been let loose in the afore-mentioned stairwell.

While I'm on the topic of rhesus monkeys, please remember that:

Understudy Rehearsal Today

This afternoon, the show that I am in is holding an understudy rehearsal to enable the understudies to go over the music with the musical director.

I am the understudy for two roles, neither of which have solos, and one which is an entirely non-singing role.

I find this situation profoundly humorous.

The Return of Heartless McCrymeariver

This afternoon, NPR's local affiliate station, KPBS, ran a feature on economic inequality. That is, they talked about the fact that some people are poor and some people are rich, and how, they wondered, can the poor be helped into having more money. They offered opinions on a spectrum of ideas from tax breaks to improving and expanding the education that lower-income households receive.

Immediately after this segment, a KPBS reporter went on the air saying (to an audience that is, likely, primarily made up of upper income, leftwards leaning folk) that if you liked the previous program, please consider making a contribution to KPBS, as it is pledge week.

Man, KPBS is getting as good at making people give money as most churches.

You Know What's Funny? Pretending to Punch Women

There is a part in the show that I'm in where a large group of the cast gathers behind a see-through curtain and sings a little bit at the end of perhaps the most serious scene in the show. We enter to stand behind this curtain about forty-five seconds before we actually sing, and during this time, we are expected to stand quietly frozen while looking at the ground.

A few nights ago, a buddy of mine in the cast who is not a part of the group that stands behind the curtain was trying to make me giggle by whispering things like "AC is a sexy man," and various other items that are not necessarily repeatable in this context. This is what is affectionately referred to in theatre circles as "being a jackass." I managed to keep myself composed pretty well.

Nevertheless, our group sang our bit which was followed by a blackout that ends the scene. It was during this time that I decided to, on my way offstage, playfully pretend to punch my buddy in the stomach. I did so, and continued to pass the person who I had punched, smiling to myself at the playful banter. I continued smiling until I noticed that my friend who I had punched was in front of me. I found this peculiar largely due to the fact that I had passed the person who I had punched.

It was at that moment that I realized that I had just pretended to punch the midsection of the woman who plays the main mother in the show, who had also been waiting in the wings to make here entrance. My heart immediately sunk a little bit, and I figured that I had had a good run at that playhouse, and that my check would be in the mail.

The woman ended up being amused by the whole incident, especially after I explained what had happened, and, at the next performance, actually hit me back, which I guess was fair. In any case, all of this just goes to show that the old saying is true: when you pretend to punch someone in a blackout, you will sometimes accidentally punch the wrong person, and you will feel like you will get fired, but then that person will be okay with it.

Feel free to quote me on that saying. I might make t-shirts of it because of its inherent wisdom.