4:07 pm - Sun 10/7/07
I'm Not Playing A Janitor. I'm Playing A \"Custodial Engineer\"

Fri 10/5/07 (2:05 a.m.)

By Wednesday afternoon, I found myself lamenting the fact that the weekend was going by too fast, and I�d be back at work on Friday. It�s not the first time I�ve gone through my weekend thinking about how I didn�t want to go back to work in just two days.

I�m not always very good at �living in the moment�.

But anyway...

I was having trouble just now thinking of anything to say about Wednesday...but I had my first therapy session in a month on Wednesday, which I guess is pretty �newsworthy� (Javier, my therapist, has been �on safari� in Africa the past month).

I�d missed going to sessions these past four weeks�I like Javier, and he�s made it clear on more than one occasion that he enjoys our sessions as well�and it was a relief to just get the chance to talk.

But there was so much ground to cover�the trip back to Michigan, Monk, the night the alarm went off at the theater (And my angry reaction to the Amazing Disappearing Managers), etc.�that the session was almost over by the time I started talking about my current feelings of...I don�t know... �existential angst�, I guess you�d call it.

But in any case, I�m glad we�re back at it. I�m sure our little session �hiatus� was part of why I�ve struggled lately; I�ve built up a big head of emotional steam over the past four weeks, with no place to vent (I know�You�d think this would be where I�d do that sort of thing. But at the same time I want to share my life with people, I wrestle with a fear of being negatively judged. What can I say?). Just having someone around whose job is to listen to me makes me feel a little better.

Crap...I�m fading fast here, and I didn�t even get halfway through my weekend (In contrast to Wednesday, Thursday was quite busy for me).

(9:25 a.m.)

So what about my �busy Thursday�?

One other thing I�d done on Wednesday was take my bike in to get a new rear rim (I�d been told I was going to need one at some point, and assumed that was why the ride was starting to get a little bumpy).

But turned out it wasn�t the rim, cause the bumpy ride continued. So I had to take it back in yesterday morning. But Latino Bike Guy didn�t know what the problem was�Latino Bike Guy has a little setup in the back of a hardware store near my apartment�so I ended up having to take it to Safety Cycle, which is nearer the theater than it is to my apartment�where Korean Bike Guy spun the wheel a few times, told me my rear tire had been put on improperly, adjusted it, and sent me on my way (Without charging me, since he mistakenly thought I�d gotten the tire at his place, since he recognized me from previous visits. I could have corrected him, and I'm mildly embarrassed over this ethical lapse on my part. But only "mildly").

When I got back to my apartment, I had to walk the dog.

For two days running, in spite of the fact that I was taking her out earlier than I normally do, she didn�t make it out the door, and instead, peed in the lobby (Previously, she�d had an �accident� when it was almost an hour earlier than I usually get her, so it�s hard to know when�s a good time to take her out).

This time we got out the door, and the lobby remained unsullied.

After that, I had to go to Brett�s house, to help out with the BCK binder mailings (During pilot season, when BCK was still PMG, Brett had sent out binders of his client roster to 30 casting directors, hoping to generate a little more audition action. So I guess he wanted to do it again, since things have now changed a bit).

The last time he did this, I got nothing from it�I didn�t expect to book a series regular out of it, but it didn�t generate even a single co-star audition�so I�m not exactly getting my hopes up here. But who knows? In the time since the first mailing, I�ve gone from three co-stars to five, and have gone back to the headshot that everyone seems to prefer (Even though it�s now four years old), so cross your fingers.

I was there for a couple hours, then came home in time to sit down for a sec and check my email, before heading out to a commercial audition for Taco Bell. Which was pretty disappointing--There wasn't much to the audition in question (I played a janitor who comes upon a crazy scene at the office, and says--deadpan--"I'll come back"), but I felt like I hadn't visualized the crazy scene in front of me well enough).
(END)

Well, under the heading of "Shows You How Much I Know", I have a callback for Taco Bell tomorrow.

On Friday, I had an audition for M&Ms, which would have been a nice one to get (Doing a little "scene" with one of the M&M characters), but I didn't even get the callback, which was the next day.

Work so far this week has basically been okay, but now I've put it in my head that even an "okay" night at work is "slow death" because "...it's a waste, and I could be doing a play or taking classes, or doing more workshops, or just enjoying some well-deserved down time because I'm making so much money as an actor, I no longer have to have a straight job...".

You get the idea.

Speaking of "money I'm making from acting", I got that residual check yesterday (From foreign airings of Nip/Tuck and Gilmore Girls).

They take a boat-load of taxes from these checks--the gross was $1510, and I ended up with $917--because, as Cary explained to me before, they're taking deductions as if I make that much every week.

(I'm going to have to get someone to do my taxes for '07, cause taking the standard deduction obviously isn't going to cut it this year.)

Add BCK's 15% cut, and it ends up being around the size of my monthly ArcLight paycheck--maybe a little less--which is "better than a poke in the eye", as Beth I used to say (Or was it Beth II...?).

It's interesting...You want to book co-stars roles, because they lay the groundwork, one hopes, for eventually getting guest-star and recurring roles, and that's what you came out here to do. But at this level, commercials are way more lucrative, and what you need to book if you actually want to be making a living as an actor, which is also what you came out here to do.

In an email to Kevin earlier today, I told him I didn't find the Taco Bell spot particularly funny--It's more like something that has the shape of being funny, if you know what I mean--but that it might still be a good one to get, because I could imagine some casting person responding to the sad-sack, deadpan "Janitor", and bringing me in for something that is funny.

It's kind of weird for me sometimes--Mr Pupo, my foster father years back, used to make up stories with his kids as the characters.

They'd all be cowboys, or spies, or what-have-you...while I'd be the "comic relief" character.

I remember, in one story, I was...the janitor.

Looking past the obvious-and-somewhat-inexplicable cruelty involved in basically telling your foster son you see him as a joke, you have to admire his skill as a casting director--He knew, some 35 years ago, long before I did, that I would never be the hero, even in a fantasy world.

Personally? I think it might have been nice if he'd lied.

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