10:38 AM - Fri 2.14.20
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Valentine's Day.

I wrote the above as if I'd now have some commentary on the matter...but I don't, really.

It's been decades since I had a "Valentine", and I don't recall much about the days back when I did - Vague memories of one year buying a bag full of trinkets that I thought Beth I might enjoy, and of buying Beth II cheap jewelry I don't think she ever wore.

It's not like I have fond memories of romantic outings and/or hot Valentine's Day sex (Though both those things might have happened).

The day still registers as vaguely sad and unpleasant to contemplate (Let's just say I wouldn't mind having someone to love who loved me in return, and the day "lampshades" the fact that I don't), but at this point, it's pretty emotionally manageable. After three decades or so, if it weren't, that would be a big problem.

Anyway...

Though it still feels like there's not much going on, I did have an audition recently (A real one, where you drive to a place and do a thing). I think it went okay, but I don't think I booked it (While I want to book just about everything I go out on, this one was a low-paying affair, relatively speaking, and a not especially interesting bit, so I kind of don't care that I didn't get it. Though I think I came off well enough to now be on the CD's radar, which is a happy thought).

I did have a little mini-wave of Cameo activity leading up to the day, which I enjoyed, and got nice feedback on.

I've now made over $500 on Cameos, which I am of two minds about -

1. There's clearly not enough demand for my services to make this an honest-to-God side-hustle, which is too bad. I don't think this is going to be enough money to make much difference, in the scheme-of-things (That said, I think I need to "squeeze this lemon" a little more in the coming year, since, in all likelihood, demand for my services is probably going to drop off a cliff once Shameless is done...at least till I get my next series).

2. It's kind of amazing that I can make any money at all at this - It's basically "found money", it takes me very little time or effort, I enjoy doing it, and people seem to enjoy the results. It may not be "enough money to make a difference", but I've made $500 in probably less than an hour's time all-together, all in the comfort of my own home.

It does strike me that, if I could find something like Cameo (But just bring in a little more business), that would be amazing. I don't know that I'd say it's acting/performing, exactly, but it's certain acting/performing-adjacent, and I like that.

The thing I've really been hoping would turn into a decent side-hustle has been the voiceover thing, but much to my consternation, I"ve made exactly nothing happen. I haven't booked shit in the time since I "put out my shingle" (And between the "setup", coaching, and the Voice123 membership, I dropped more money on this endeavor than anything I've done in quite some time, which adds to the previously-mentioned consternation).

A particularly painful part of this lack-of-success, is that my appearance, which I've seen as a very limiting factor for me as an actor, is not at play here - Instead, I'm leading with theoretically, my strengths, which are my acting ability and my golden voice.

So what's the problem?

And there's the dilemma - I have no idea (If I knew, I'd be doing something about it).

It's not like anyone provides feedback on what you're doing/not-doing - No one has time for that shit - so you're just in the dark.

I imagine, to some extent, it's like regular auditioning - Usually, it's not that you're doing something "wrong", you're just not "The One"...but to never be the one, in more than a year?

That suggests something is going wrong somewhere.

Considering emailing my VO agent for advice/suggestions - On the one hand, find myself "not wanting to bother him", but should it really be a "bother" to ask someone "How can I help you make more money?".

Similarly, considering the same thing with my theatrical agent. I told him recently that the coming season of Shameless would be the last - In case he hadn't heard - and "joked" that "Now we've got a year to get me my next series" (To which I then added, "...actually, if that happened this year and they had to kill me off on Shameless, I could live with that").

(His response back was "We'll get you a new series this year", followed by the hashtag #whokilledKermit.)

So I give myself some credit for "putting that out there", but I really need to follow up with "So, all kidding aside, what are we gonna do?". I'm not really sure how he makes another series happen for me when he can hardly seem to get me auditions, period.

And I don't really quite understand, 1) Why I'm not more "viable" than I seem to be, and 2) What exactly I need to do to make myself more "viable" (By "more viable", I mean "How do I make them want to bring me in more?").

(As I write this, my phone keeps going off with messages that I eagerly-bordering-on-obsessively check...but of course they're just junk.)

Beyond working on consistently being very good when I do get in the rooms, all I have is a vague sense of "increasing my profile" somehow.

Brett, my former agent, once opined that it was possible I might be more viable after Shameless - That casting people might currently see me as "spoken for" by Shameless and thus were not considering me for bigger things.

I would like to think that (Another thing he once said that would be nice to believe - Once Shameless went to Netflix, it became exponentially more popular. So, that being the case, in a post-Shameless world, there will be casting people who grew up watching Shameless, excited to bring me in for things).

And find myself hoping the documentary will help my case somehow, though I'm a little vague on how that would work, beyond a potential increase in my name-recognition (As long as I come off as a basically pleasant, charismatic fellow who is only mildly dysfunctional).

I was about to say I was "panicking", as if "the day of reckoning" is upon me.

I'm not, and it's not.

But I am aware that things could get "dicey" when Shameless ends, and if it's possible to have a "plan" in place when that time comes, I should probably do that.

What else is going on...?

While I haven't heard anything about the Reeses spot, I'm happy to report that the Coke Zero spot has been spotted during prime-time a couple times now.

And while the version of the spot where I bellow "Energy!" at Jonah Hill seems to be just an online thing, I'll get something for that as well.

So while, as of now, I haven't received anything from either commercial, money is coming...sometime.

Realized recently that my Kryptonite, sadly, is the most common element of a working actor's life - uncertainty. "Not knowing" is very stressful for me.

And an even worse realization is that the uncertainty, the "not knowing" doesn't even have to have a negative element - I realized at one point recently that everything I was stressing about involved wondering when a positive thing was going to happen (When Shameless would start back up, when the documentary would be finished, when I'd start getting money from the commercials, etc).

This is something I devoutly want to work on. because it doesn't strike me as a terribly happy way to live.

But on that note, I think I'm going to cease and desist with this, and follow up this morning's viewing of Jo Jo Rabbit with an afternoon viewing of Parasite (I also want to, at some point, talk about the movie Auggie that I finished watching on Amazon early this morning - Like Her, it made me both wish for the AI companions in question, and feel sad that I would wish for such a thing).

Till next time...

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