7:14 pm - Weds 10/8/03
Governor Schwarzenegger (Now try to read it without laughing)

"Governor Schwarzenegger"...

It's going to take some getting used to.

In the days before yesterday's California recall election, when it looked like "Ah-nuld" was likely to win, I began to steel myself for the inevitable.

I'm not a "political animal"--As I've said before, I consider myself "liberal" but don't really work at it very hard--so I don't know why the idea of "Governor Schwarzenegger" was bothering me so much.

But it was.

(Let me clarify--I knew why it was bothering me. I just didn't know why it was bothering me so much.)

Then it struck me--Just like the commercial auditions, this was a situation where the only thing to do was try and make things go in what I thought was the right direction...then let it go.

So yesterday I voted. I voted "no" on the recall, and for Cruz Bustamante (There were also two ballot initiatives--One for an increase in spending on highways and infrastructure, and the other to prohibit medical data collection based on race/ethnicity).

Hearing snatches of the news while at work, I realized things were not going to go my way. The only winning side I ended up on was voting "no" on Proposition 54, the prohibition on collecting race-based medical info.

But I did my bit. I tried to make things go the way I thought they should.

And it didn't work out. But life goes on.

(I could get more politically indignant here, but that would sort of defeat the idea of "life going on"...)

Well, I had high hopes for the McDonald's spot, but it's looking like that's not going to happen.

The shoot was originally scheduled for today, but when the callback was moved back, I thought the shoot might have been re-scheduled as well. But at this point I have to assume I didn't get it.

And once again, life goes on.

So now, the only thing potentially "outstanding" amongst the recent spate of commercial auditions is an industrial for Lockheed (Callbacks for that would be this Tuesday).

But checking my messages while at work Monday, I had one that put any commercial stuff way on the back burner...

Tomorrow, I have an audition in Venice for Godzilla's Return.

A movie.

A big-budget movie.

A big-budget movie where they'd have to pay me. In money.

American money.

Awhile back, Backstage West starting running lists of movies that were "Currently Casting", along with lists of "Pilots" and tv shows "in production".

(These are in contrast to the usual casting notices; they're just a list of projects, with no cast breakdowns. So you have to find out if there's a role for you in a given project from some other source, or else submit blindly and hope for the best. So far, I've been doing the "submitting blindly" thing.)

So anyway, I submitted for Godzilla's Return. Not so much because it's a "dream project"--It's a sequel to a bad movie I didn't see--but because I thought there'd be a big cast (Scientists, military/government types, victims, etc), and the idea of making my film debut in a "monster movie" amused me.

And I like Matthew Broderick.

But what I'm most excited about is that I submitted myself for a major, big-budget movie...and got a response.

I'm going to a casting agency called "The Big House" tomorrow evening, to audition for the role of "tired middle-aged father".

That's pretty much all I know.

So I'm just going to go in and be as charming as can be (I don't know what this "audition" is going to entail--I'm assuming they just want to get me on tape--but needless to say, whatever they want me to do, I will do it to the very best of my ability).

Wish me luck. I'd really like a day or two on a movie set (But what would be even better would be a week or two!).

Finished Traveling Mercies recently, and started A New Christianity For A New World.

(Watching tv. They just had a Disneyworld commercial on. The one I auditioned for a long time ago. The one where I went in, much to my consternation, for the role of "Grandpa". But anyway...)

I don't know if I can successfully, articulate the nature of Anne Lamott's relationship to "God", beyond the fact that her God is apparently a woman, but there was a certain "knockabout" quality there I found pretty appealing. Lamott's "God" seems to be much less stern than the God I grew up with. A God you could have a laugh with now and then.

I'm only 27 pages into the Spong book, but already I'm intrigued.

He goes on at some length about what he does not believe regarding Christianity as currently and commonly practiced, and even more than before, I'm struck by how he believes absolutely nothing I associate with "Christianity", beyond a general belief in "God" (Though not a "theistic" one), and an assertion that "the Christ-figure was and is a manifestation of the reality that I call God" (But a "Christ-figure" who was not divine, did not perform miracles, and did not rise from the grave and ascend to heaven after his death on the cross).

What was interesting to me, on the one hand, is that all the things he doesn't believe are the same things I don't believe.

But he calls himself a "Christian" and I don't.

The other thing I thought was interesting is that he acknowledges what I was thinking--"Can a person claim with integrity to be a Christian and at the same time dismiss, as I have done, so much of what has traditionally defined the content of the Christian faith?".

It's an interesting question...

My knee-jerk response is to say "No, you can't", but after my knee quits jerking, I find myself thinking "Well, why not, really?"; after all, the Christian church was a creation of men--it really was--so why can't this guy come along and propose a radical reformation of an outmoded and outdated belief system?

You'll probably hear more from me on this, but right now, I've got "post-nasal drip" like you wouldn't believe (Either I waited one day too long to clean my CPAP tubing--I've been trying to do the CPAP thing again lately--or else I'm having the world's worst "bounce back" effect off the nasal spray I've been using), and I'm feeling distracted in the extreme.

I think I'm going to lie down and feel sorry for myself for a bit...

previous - next