4:19 pm - Friday, Feb. 17, 2006
Too Small By Half

Well, there's happy financial news in Jimlandia--I got a call yesterday from Mia at SAG, letting me know they received my House M.D. check (She just wanted to double-check my address before sending the check on).

(This isn't my paycheck for the job--I got that a long time ago; this is the "improper cancellation" money, for not telling me the original shoot day had been changed. And happily, because NBC/Universal--the production company--didn't pay it in a timely-enough fashion, it comes with an additional $200 bonus.)

I called JS right after I got the call from Mia, to tell him the news, and let him know I'd get a check out to him--his 10-percent--as soon as soon as possible.

He said he was very happy to get the news, and that the money was all mine.

(Thanks JS!)

I wasn't counting on seeing this money for a very long time, so I'm going to say this is the actual "answer from The Universe"--when I said I needed some more money--and not the thing from Borders about "exercising my stock options" (My "take" from that, by the way? A whopping $48).

And there's some other happy news as well: I had a casting workshop on Thursday (One I really wasn't thrilled with, by the way), and I left a little early, before hearing the casting director, Rick Nicolet, give out his office number, and invite all of us to give him a call in two weeks (So he can schedule us to come in to read for him. One of the things his office is currently casting is a family-film, a "dog movie" called Atticus, which has, as he put it, "about 50 little parts". He's going to have us come in, read, and see if he can "plug us in" to one of those "50 little parts", I guess. It's the first time in my ACG experience that a casting director has done this.)

I'm not taking this super-seriously, but on the other hand, it would be cool to book a movie this year (That's on my list of "milestones", to be sure).

And while I'm on the subject of "career stuff"...

Two things have happened recently that demonstrate exactly why 1)I don't want to give up commercial auditions, and 2)I don't want to have to get another job during the day.

Thing #1: Even though the Washington Mutual thing didn't happen, the fact that the opportunity was there, the opportunity to "get out from under" in one fell swoop, is very compelling (I can take all the extra shifts I can manage at the ArcLight, and it just won't matter--I'll be lucky to get the rent paid, let alone ever "get out from under").

Thing #2: In the past two weeks, I've had ten commercial auditions.

That doesn't happen as often as I'd like, but it does happen. And if I'd had a day-time job these past couple weeks...well, I'm guessing I would no longer have a day-time job.

But man--or actor--cannot live on commercials alone. Commercials are how the vast majority of actors who actually make a living...actually make a living. But that's not enough: I should be taking classes and/or acting in plays. I should be going to workshops and showcases,and auditioning for tv shows and movies. And I should have an agent (The casting director at the last workshop made that very clear--He told us all our job was not to get to casting agents, but to get a theatrical agent. He said--and as much as I hate to admit it, it made a certain sense--that an agent is the "gatekeeper" in his job, otherwise, he'd have two-thousand submissions for every single part he's casting).

And forget "should"; I want all this stuff. I very much want my life to be way more "acting-centric" than it is.

But then we get into all the "where do I find the time and the money, and how do I get an agent when they want people with credits and I'm having a very hard time getting any credits worth having without an agent?" stuff you've heard me go on about before.

But somehow, I've got to figure this all out. Cause a long time ago, someone told me that my life was "too small" for me. And that was some 20+ years ago, and my life is still "too small".

Too small by half.

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