8:40 am - Monday, Nov. 04, 2002
Bunches of Unrelated Stuff (Unless A Theme Emerges By The Time I Get To The End)

On Saturday, I got fun news; My little piece/essay/"Letter To The Editor"/whatever it is, made it into The Sun!

They sent a complimentary copy of the magazine--I have the subscription Mark and Jane gave me, but still nice to have a pristine copy of the issue in question--along with a note saying they'll be extending my subscription another six months.

(It's in the "Readers Write" section of the November issue. It's really not that big a deal--I wouldn't rush out to buy a copy or anything if I were you, since it's pretty much what you're getting for free if you're reading along in here--but I got a big kick out of seeing my "byline" in a national magazine.)

Again, I find myself thinking the same thing as when they first sent notice the piece might be in the magazine; I did this as sort of a writing "trial balloon", to "run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes".

Well, someone saluted. So now what?

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I recently found out that Nick Begley at the store is the son of Ed Begley Jr. (Of St Elsewhere, and more recently, Six Feet Under fame).

I don't think it was any big secret he was keeping from me. It's just not something that comes up in casual conversation (His Dad was in the store recently, looking for Nick on a day he wasn't actually working. I didn't have a chance to "geek out" on Mr Begley, however, which I was tempted to do, because I was involved with other customers at the time). But it definitely qualifies as a "fun fact" about my man Nick.

(Nick is just about the coolest young guy I've ever met, btw. Smart, funny, and a good-looking sonofabitch to boot. I described him to someone once as "James Dean without the angst".)

Speaking of Nick...

A couple weeks back, I was talking to Kyle during a slow time at work, and the subject of my journal came up, I don't really remember in what context.

Nick overheard, and said, "Yeah, I've been reading it for awhile now. He's a good writer" (Okay, I might have made that last part up. But I'm sure he said something complimentary).

When Kyle left, Nick and I talked some more about my journal writing. He said he admired my openness, mentioning in particular some stuff I'd written about asking Astrid out (How I didn't want there to be any awkwardness afterwards--She turned me down, if you remember--but how there was awkwardness nevertheless, at least on my end).

We also talked about Kyle, who we both lust after (Seems a good time to mention that Kyle is a woman, in spite of the manly moniker), and how it poses an interesting dilemma; How "open" can you be, writing about your sexy boss in a public forum?

And speaking of Kyle...

I went out with Kyle, her boyfriend, and some people from work a week ago Saturday (We went to a nearby bar after the store closed).

Meeting her boyfriend--Who's a pretty cool guy and "cute enough to be gay", as I said to Kyle later on--made me feel old and foolish, lusting after this woman who's almost young enough to be my daughter (Kyle is 25. The boyfriend, whose name I've conveniently forgotten, is 27. I'm 41).

I like Kyle (Mostly. Sometimes she gets a major stick up her ass about Borders, but that's a topic for another entry), and I'm attracted to her (Which I think I've said before is interesting to me, since, as much as I have a "type" I'm physically attracted to, she ain't it), but that's going to be pretty much where it starts and ends.

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I'm pretty down on Borders Inc. these days.

I think I mentioned in passing recently that hours have been cut the past number of weeks, so that stockholders can get another penny a share, or what-have-you.

Now, I've done this dance with Borders before, so I wasn't surprised, but it did take some of the wind out of my sails on two fronts; Personally, it just makes life a little more difficult (It's not like I'm making a King's ransom here as it is!), and on the "wanting to have some pride in what you do and where you work" front, it's kind of sucked to see the store, which had undergone a miraculous transformation since Marie (The new GM) took over, slide back downhill.

The store has suffered, morale has suffered, and most importantly, Jim has suffered (As I said to Tim recently--the Cafe supervisor--This organization almost dares you to care).

But here's where things get kind of surreal, at least to me (Maybe it's just another day in the life of a heartless corporate behemoth, but if so, I just don't get it)...

Now, after weeks of making sure the store can't possibly run the way it should, making sure the staff completely understands that, to steal a line from North Dallas Forty, "We're not 'the team'; We're just the equipment," yet another corporate greedhead is coming to make sure we're towing the line (I don't know this particular fuckhead's name, but he's some bigwig in the "multimedia" division).

So management is running hither and thither, suddenly extra hours are available, and everyone is in "crisis mode" (A pretty much continual thing at Borders), all in order to create the illusion that the store runs completely according to the corporate ideal, when the corporation itself just finished kneecapping us.

It seems crazy to me. Beyond that, it actively makes me angry.

And that, my friends, is only one reason why I won't be moving up this particular organization...

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On Saturday, I auditioned for my "Untitled Drama" at The Complex on Santa Monica.

I thought about driving, but decided to take my bike, locking it up outside the building and taking the seat with me.

I got there ten or fifteen minutes early, and waited on some old movie theater seats in the hallway till I was called in.

I'd thought I was going to do a monologue from Other People's Money, but decided at the eleventh hour to do another monologue from the book I checked out, "Alvin" from The Balcony Scene.

My reasoning, as far as it went, was that the scene from Other People's Money is basically the character delivering a speech to a room of people (He's a corporate raider, trying to convince stockholders to sell their shares of the company in question, so he break it up and sell it off for profit). I really like the speech and thought I could kick ass on it, but there's not much emotional content there, while the other monologue is nothing but "emotional content" (An agoraphobe describes what happened when he left his apartment to go to the video store).

(My first thought had been to do The Balcony Scene monologue, then I'd decided to do Other People's Money instead, mostly because I was already familiar with the monologue, and knew the story.)

So anyway, I went in, shook hands with the producer/playwright and his female assistant, and did The Balcony Scene monologue. And I felt like it went quite well.

But remember how I said one of the challenges of finding a monologue is finding something that shows them you can do the role you're up for? Well, I completely missed the boat on that one!

There wasn't much of a description of the show in Backstage, just some crap about a brother and sister and "a dark secret", but the only other character descriptions listed in the notice were for a prison warden and a prison counselor.

The character in Other People's Money is commanding, forceful, persuasive. He's good with words, and obviously used to being able to get people to do what he wants.

So how did I think that wouldn't work, and doing a monologue with a character who goes to pieces trying to leave his apartment would? How exactly did I think the latter monologue would show them I could play a prison warden or a counselor?

In short, what was I thinking?

I don't know, and it was obvious the playwright didn't know either; After I finished the monologue, he said "That was really good, but it doesn't show me you can do this show".

He said more, which was basically a mild reprimand for my stupid choice, then asked me if I had anything else.

Fortunately, I did--The "Other People's Money" monologue, which I should have done in the first place, but talked myself out of doing somehow.

I kind of bumbled and apologized and did everything you shouldn't do at that point, which was stupid and amateurish of me, but at least I wasn't caught looking at him like a deer in the headlights when he asked for something else. I was at least able to say, "Well, I have this other thing..." (If you find yourself in this position, Young Actor, and they asked if you have something else to show them, don't complain and don't explain; If you have something--anything--just do it, and if you don't, just say you don't).

So I started to do the other monologue, and he stopped me after a few lines (He obviously just wanted to see if I could do other things, or if nervous agoraphobics were my specialty).

Afterwards, he told me a little bit about how rehearsals were expected to go, which I always see as a good sign after an audition (After all, there's no reason to say anything about rehearsals if you thought my audition sucked!).

And he kept using this phrase that made me want to laugh (Though of course, I refrained); He kept calling himself "an old theater dog" (And bestowed the title on me at one point--"An old theater dog like yourself..."). I found it kind of silly, though I guess it's less pretentious than referring to yourself as a "professional", or--God help us!--an "artist".

So I went home, and there was a message from him on my voicemail a couple hours later.

We played a little phone tag, but I finally got hold of him, and he told me he was having callbacks next Saturday, from 9 am to noon, and wanted me to attend.

You'd think I'd be happy about that, wouldn't you? But I kind of wasn't; I found myself actually a little annoyed. I wanted to say, "Oh C'mon! Cast me or don't cast me! What's the fucking problem here?" (I think that impatience on my part is residual bad feelings from the Corpus Christi debacle).

It's just hard for me to believe that there's going to be such a turnout for this non-paying show in this hole-in-the-wall theater that you can't make your decision after seeing two days of auditions.

But of course, I'll go, because as we've already discussed in here, one has to do something (I read the play after the audition. I won't bore you with a plot synopsis--This entry is overlong as it is--but I will say that, while it's nothing to write home about, it's better than the last thing I did, and I won't be playing an elderly black man if I get in this one!).

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Well, it's the 4th, which means I can set a date with Cressandra at some point.

Kristie thinks I should call tomorrow evening, which sounds pretty good to me. It doesn't seem over-eager, but also doesn't come off like I'm trying to be "cool".

Still not finding myself wanting to dance a jig over this, even though it's really a pretty major development (Can't recall the last time a woman said "yes" to me). Probably a protective reaction on the part of my psyche.

But, as I said at the end of my Sun piece, "It'll be interesting to see what happens".

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