11:57 pm - Fri 7.30.2010
The \"Oldies\" Progression

Finished watching Friday Night Lights a short time ago.

It's never gotten very good ratings - it would have been canceled years ago, if not for the deal they made with DirecTV - and those poor ratings have always frustrated me, because I think it's one of the best things on television.

But that's not really what I want to write about...

I've probably always responded this way to tv and movies, but I've become very aware, now that I'm in LA, of operating on two "tracks" when I watch a show like Friday Night Lights (Or see a movie like The Kids Are All Right) - I watch and get involved as an audience member, while as an actor, it makes me hunger to do similarly great work.

(I don't think I'm terribly critical, though...unless the thing I'm watching isn't "working" for me. Then I'll try to figure out why. I think I'm much more a "fan" than a "critic".)

I want to be an important part of something great, something meaningful to people, something worth doing.

It embarrasses me to say this, but I ache for that.

I really do.

Talking about two "tracks"...

I think half the...emptiness I feel inside is the lack of intimacy in my life (Day-to-day, there's no one I love, and no one who loves me, and there hasn't been for 20 years now), while the other half is that, for the past ten years, the closest I've come to doing something meaningful as an actor is having a couple lines on Mad Men (...which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But it isn't nearly enough to feed my appetite for "meaningful work").

It's interesting - and odd - that, between the two things, it feels more likely that I'll find the "meaningful work" I'm looking for than the "intimacy".

That's because I have more faith in "Jim Hoffmaster, Actor" than I do in "Jim Hoffmaster, Human Being".

I think I mentioned in here that I finally "pulled the trigger" on $250 worth of Target gift certificates, and bought an electric guitar, and a Flip (tm) video camera.

So far, of the two items, I'm getting a lot more use/enjoyment out of the guitar.

I was a little afraid to buy the guitar - I thought I'd buy it, and it would just gather dust, mocking my good intentions every time I looked at it - but I actually have been playing it (At least "playing around" with it), and I think, ultimately, it'll prove to be a smart purchase.

(for the past day or so, I've been working on what Guitar for Dummies calls "The 'Oldies' Progression" - Because once you learn it, you can then play over 20 50's-era pop songs.)

Being a little "tech-phobic" - okay, a lot tech-phobic - it took me days to just take the video camera out of its box, then another day or two to put the batteries in and set it up.

Honestly, while I know what I want to do with an electric guitar - I want to learn how to play it - I'm a little less clear on what to do with my new video camera.

I have vague notions of Facebook and YouTube videos, but doing what?

Talking about what?

But I'm sure I'll "figure it out"...

It only ended up being $400 - Which is $400 I would rather have spent elsewhere, thank you very much, but it definitely falls under "Could Have Been Worse".

And the timely arrival of over $1500 in residual checks helped make it feel more like a $400 "bump in the road" than a $400 "kick in the nuts".

As I think I said in my last entry, there are things I could worry about, but in the here-and-now, I'm doing okay.

But I really should go to bed - Not a super-busy day tomorrow, necessarily, but I'd like to at least try to be awake for it...

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