11:00 pm - 11.10.2012
Middle-Aged Character Actor In Existential Crisis - Film At 11:00

Mon 10/29/12 (11:18 pm)

With Hurricane Sandy hitting the east coast today (Becoming�Non-Tropical Cyclone Sandy� shortly upon landfall), and killing 14 people (last I heard), this is one of those times where it�ll come off as I-don�t-know-what (Petty? Churlish? Solipsistic?) to complain about my own, storm-free existence.

I�m a little concerned about �my people� - in Virginia and West Virginia - but have basically told myself, without really knowing much of anything about it, that �they�re going to be okay�. Just because I want that to be the case.

With my mutant power to make everything about me - or at least mostly about me - I was looking outside at the beautiful sunny day we were having here in LA, thinking how �weird� it felt, the juxtaposition of that perfect day with what I was seeing on the news (from NYC, for example).

And then I thought, �Don�t worry, Jim - Your day�s coming� (We had a small earthquake yesterday morning, and it reminded me �The Big One� is due any day now. Then it�ll be someone else�s turn to feel �weird� about the beautiful day outside).

Thurs 11/8/12 (11:06 pm)

(Watching Last Resort, which I�ve been enjoying, but is apparently not doing too well in the ratings. But anyway...)

A lot of major goings-on going on...

The storm was huge, wreaking major devastation and pretty substantial loss of life - but since �my people� were all fine, and I made my small Red Cross donation early on, it�s quickly become �old news� to me (I feel a little guilty about that, but �it is what it is�, as they say).

The election, on the other hand, is still very much on my mind...

I don�t know if I was on Facebook when the previous election was going on - I don�t think I was - but this time out, Facebook played a pretty major role in how I processed/participated in this election season.

In fact, it was really the only thing I did regarding the election, other than actually voting on Tuesday (I applied relatively last-minute for a mail-in ballot, so decided to �play it safe� and �walk it into� my polling location instead of taking a chance on the mail); I didn�t donate money to anyone, I didn�t make calls or knock on doors or anything like that, I just posted a lot of liberal political stuff on my page.

I think it�s good that I cared - this election was worth caring about - but on the other hand, I don�t think I accomplished much; the majority of my Facebook friends fall on the �Liberal� side of the political spectrum, and the people I know on the other side were not going to be persuaded out of a lifetime of belief by my Facebook posts, any more than I�d be persuaded to suddenly join the GOP on the strength of their Facebook posts..

And even though we�re okay now, it still really bothers me that (my conservative brother) Tony and me were pissing each other off so bad over this stuff there was serious question whether we�d be able to even have a relationship going forward - And considering we just met each other this year, that�s flat-out insane, that we�d choose politics over having an honest-to-God brother (There were some other conservative �friends� that were upset over my views as well, but frankly, nobody who really mattered. Tony was the only person I wanted to work through this shit with. The rest I was pretty content to cut loose...or to have them cut me loose, whatever).

So I don�t know what the �takeaway� from this is, exactly...

...but I do think, when the next election rolls around, that I should do a lot less �Facebook-ing� about it, and more shit that might actually matter (Like making those calls and knocking on those doors that I didn�t get around to this year). Posting on a forum (mostly) just to have a lot of people agree with me and congratulate me on my beliefs...well, to use an old-fashioned word, it�s unseemly.

Particularly since I don�t really do much acting on those beliefs.

I am, of course, very glad the election went the way it did.

I�m not, when it comes down to it, a terribly deep political thinker. I would like to be able to claim encylopedic knowledge and intellectual rigor when it comes to the political issues of our day, but by and large, a lot of things, for me, come down to whether it seems �right� or not.

The policies of the GOP don�t seem �right� to me - They often don�t seem morally right, and just as often, during this election season, haven�t seemed to make intellectual sense either (While I�m not a �deep thinker� politically, I�m also no dummy).

I feel myself kind of getting �into the weeds� here...long story short, my beliefs line up pretty much on the liberal/progressive side of the spectrum, I am a lifelong Democrat, I tend to believe, or at least want to believe, the high-minded rhetoric of what this country is/can be. I want to be proud of the country I live in.

So I wanted to give the idea of �hope� and �change� another four years. And I�m glad the majority of the country did as well.

Fri 11/9/12 (9:31 pm)

Had a good, hopeful day yesterday, with an audition for Touch in the morning (As �Morgue Worker�), and a callback for a Wheat Thins commercial in the afternoon.

They both went all right, I thought; there wasn�t much to the Wheat Thins thing, so whatever, but at the Touch audition, the Director gave my second reading (after his �re-direct�) a distinctly interested-sounding, kind-of-speculative �Hmmm...� (I was disappointed the �re-direct� basically made the character another �dead inside� role like I�ve done many times now, because that�s not something I enjoy doing. And the fact that�s an �issue� for me - being asked to do something people have wanted me to do before, and a thing that�s gotten me work - seems like a serious problem...but more on that later).

I woke up this morning, for whatever reason, feeling like neither thing had �gone my way� (I joked on Facebook that I had to tell myself, �Jim, can you at least wait till the casting offices open before you reach that conclusion?�), so I decided to �give it the day� before assuming they, indeed, hadn�t �gone my way�.

Well, the business day ended...and I didn�t get any calls.

Which, of course, doesn�t mean they didn�t go my way - It�s just an artificial �demarcation� I feel I need to make because I can�t handle living in uncertainty (Cause if you don�t book, or at least get an �avail�, you never hear anything about a given audition) - but it seems fair to say they probably didn�t go my way.

I�m bummed that whatever positive feelings I get from auditions and bookings and such dissipate faster and faster these days (Or barely register in the first place). If I can�t get good feelings from auditions and gigs, which is why I�m out here in the first place, where the hell am I going to get my good feelings from?

But that said, it was nice yesterday that, while all this was going on, I got a call from Sharon for another audition this coming Wednesday, for Southland.

It�s a fun bit, and it would be nice to book Southland, which is another John Wells show (John Wells does Shameless); I had an audition awhile back for the show that I felt kinda �went South�, so to speak, so in addition to the credit and the money, it would be nice to get the bad taste of that audition out of my mouth.

I could dearly use a win or two before the year�s out - it would definitely help the finances, and I think it would help my mood as well - but I don�t think any one or two �wins� are going to be a panacea for what�s troubling me.

I don�t feel good physically - ever, really - I don�t feel good emotionally (Most of the time), and spiritually...well, it�s not like I�m going to shoot myself tomorrow, but if I�m totally honest with myself - and with you - there�s just no real reason for me to be here.

And that seems like a problem.

But for now, it�s time to (try unsuccessfully to) sleep...

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