11:30 am - Thurs 8/23/07
I'm Really More Of A \"Juicy Fruit\" Man ANYWAY

Well, I didn't book the Trident spot.

I just posted an entry about it on my MySpace page (www.myspace.com/jimhoffmaster).

I've blogged before about the danger of getting your heart set on booking any particular gig--I think the best mindset to have is to believe you're going to ultimately "win the war" while losing most of the "battles"--but it's still hard to quiet that little voice inside that sometimes says, "Jim, I really want this one...!".

But booking or not booking aside, it's the third callback I've had in my last five commercial auditions, which means I'm "doing my job".

Getting the callback is about as much control as you have over these things--It's your "job" to be interesting enough to merit a second look, and to do your best with it when you get it. If you've done that, it just becomes about what "flavor" they want, and it's out of your hands.

(And as if the Universe was sending a message that "life goes on", I just went out to check my mail, and there was another Propel check from JS--the gig that keeps on giving. Not a big check, but it'll do in a pinch.)

(And "big" is relative--This "small" Propel check, one of many Propel checks I've gotten, is close to what I make in two weeks at ArcLight.)

If things continue the way they've been going, I probably won't have another audition before I leave for Lansing next week (And I definitely won't be booking a gig before then), so I can put career stuff on the back burner, and just look forward to my trip.

One more "career thing" before I do that, though--I had a good workshop last night, with Angela Campolla-Sanders, from the casting office that does Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office.

She wasn't the warmest person we've ever had at ACG (She had, in my opinion, good pointers that were hard for some people to "hear" because of her not-completely-pleasant delivery), but that doesn't matter--I don't need her to be my new BFF, I just need her to like what I do.

And she did.

When she handed out the scenes, she said they were all from comedies (Though not the previously mentioned ones), so I was a bit disappointed when me and my scene partner got a scene that wasn't particularly funny.

But we did well with it. It wasn't a wildly funny scene, but it was nice scene nevertheless, and we even got a few laughs that weren't really "on the page".

And the casting person had no redirect, which as I've said before, always makes me feel good (A "redirect", for the uninitiated, is what it sounds like--Typically, it means you didn't show the casting person something they wanted to see in the scene, so they have you do it over).

Went out afterwards with Molly, Zack, Gloria (Is that her name...?), and Sylvia.

It was...okay. Which is better than I sometimes feel when I go out

I had three beers (Along with some chicken flautas-sp?-and a "Brown Sugar Crumble"), and for the first time in I-don't-know-how-long, was worried about driving afterwards, (Not because I was drunk, but because I don't drive at night very often; I was afraid of getting stopped for a violation of some sort, then having the officer ask, "Have you had anything to drink tonite, Sir...?"). But I was fine--I was going from Universal City to the parking ramp at ArcLight, which isn't far--and took the Metro home from ArcLight.

The bulk of the hour was spent talking about the AMG meeting that had made me so unhappy.

I thought it was helpful to talk about it, and he gave me good advice (Basically, to use my intelligence and acting skills to rehearse how I'll handle that sort of situation in the future, so I'll be ready for it, and it won't "push my buttons" the way it did this time).

Well, I could babble on, but then I wouldn't be napping...

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