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8:08 AM - Thurs 11.24.16
Sucking The Big One

Sucking The Big One

Thanksgiving.

I'm going to be spending the day - or at least a good chunk of it - with Cary and Kay in Santa Clarita.

I'm expecting to have fun, but am a little worried on one front - His Dad, whom I've always liked, has apparently become poisoned by constant exposure to Fox News.

Apparently, it's bad enough that Cary has instituted a ban on "politics" at the Thanksgiving table, so things don't get fractious (I promised to "not start any shit", but I don't know how I'll do if someone else "fires the first shot").

Anyway, I'll be leaving for that in a couple hours.

Speaking of politics...

It's been so long since I last wrote, I had to read my last entry to see "where I left off".

It was kind of heartbreaking - I was looking forward to things "getting back to normal" after the election, worrying what Trump voters might do when their guy lost, etc.

But in case you're not up on current events, things..."went a different way".

A horrible, "This is the worst thing that's happened to America since 9/11" way.

I don't want to make this entry all about "Cheeto Mussolini", so I'll just say this - there are any number of "adult concerns" to have about what's happened, and what's now been unleashed upon our country (A rising tide of racism and discrimination, the rich getting richer while everyone else suffers, having a dangerously unprepared, unbalanced guy as Commander-in-Chief, etc)

But beneath all that, Trump becoming president deeply offends my sense of right-and-wrong.

Cause in my book, you're not supposed to win big prizes for being a giant fucking asshole.

(And thus ends my Thanksgiving Day editorial.)

On the career front, I was very excited to experience a "wave" of auditions this month (I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure it's the most I've had this year).

(I had an audition for a low-budget film, and eight commercial auditions.)

Some auditions felt better than others, but overall, I remember being pretty pleased about how things were going, and my mood was generally pretty up-beat.

That's the good news.

The bad news?

I didn't book anything...and not only did I not book anything, I didn't get a single callback.

That's tremendously discouraging - Five of the commercial auditions were in the first week of the month, and I remember thinking, "Okay, if I get one callback, that'll be disappointing, if I get two or three, that'll be good, and if I get all five, that'll be amazing".

I didn't even allow for the possibility of not getting any.

In case you don't get what I'm going on about, let me explain my thinking here...

You get called in for a commercial audition off your agent's submission, so it's basically off a "look", and you can't really do much about that, other than have good, representative head-shots.

And when you get the callback, you're among a group of actors, any of whom could do the job, so again, the decision comes down to a "look", a "feeling", and a lot of factors you can't do anything about (All you can do is execute whatever-it-is to the best of your ability).

But "getting the callback" is on you-the-actor - They brought you in, so they think you fit what they're looking for, so it's your job to be interesting enough, to "pop" enough, that you get moved on to the next phase.

So it feels pretty terrible to have spent the year bemoaning how things aren't happening, then get my shot, and not deliver (And not really understand how or why I failed).

I may get another shot or two before the year's over, and I could pull off a win.

That could happen.

But considering we're moving into the traditional "dead zone" for the business, and I haven't been in huge demand this year anyway (Recent "wave" of activity notwithstanding), I'm feeling like 2016 is rapidly coming to a deeply unsatisfying close.

Seems fair to be a little down-hearted about my career - I seem to have all-but-died theatrically, I did nothing with the most opportunity presented to me in a month commercially, and even my Shameless "win" got taken away from me.

(I was very excited to have "broken my record" this year, with appearances in eight episodes...only to have more of my stuff cut than in any season previous. And I just got word that a scene in episode 10 was cut entirely, which I think is all I did that episode, so...no "record-breaking" for Jim.)

So, with a record number of good people dying this year, my shitty career fortunes, and the tragedy of the country being handed over to a giant orange baby and his band of "deplorables", I'm on-board with the general consensus that 2016 has, officially, sucked the big one.

 

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