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11:52 am - Weds 4.30.2008 Sun 4/27/08 (6:51 p.m.) I�d normally be at work right now, but they screwed up - again - and scheduled me for Sherman Oaks (And, as of this writing anyway, I don�t have to work at Sherman Oaks, since I started at ArcLight pre-Sherman Oaks). So I don�t have much doing for the next couple days; maybe going out with Cary and Kay on Tuesday (Nothing�s been finalized yet), a workshop on Wednesday, hopefully an audition or two in the interim, and a lot of �Jim time� in between. Haven�t done much today...Had my Weight Watchers meeting earlier (More on that in my next Weight Watchers entry, if you�re interested), got some groceries, and have pretty much been housebound ever since (Watching first Roger Dodger, then Hellboy, from the dozens of movies I have on my dvr). Since last writing, I had another audition (A rare feature audition, and, even more rare, an audition obtained by Vicki L., my theatrical agent). It didn�t go as well as I might have hoped - I�ll be downright shocked if I book it (They had me read it once - a couple lines as the desk manager for a seedy motel - and it went fine. But then they gave me a slight redirect, and as we went through it the second time, I screwed up, waiting for days, at one point, before realizing it was actually my line. And I�m guessing that very on-camera, very pregnant pause didn�t show me off to best advantage). Beyond the Chik-Fil-A commercial, where I have a callback scheduled May 9th, I don�t know how many, if any, of the auditions I�ve done this month are still �in play�. But it would be nice if at least one booking emerged from this flurry of activity. I�m starting to feel like I�m �behind the 8 ball�; we�re a third of the way through the year, and I�ve only booked one job. That�s not good enough. It might sound odd, considering that I�ve just referred to my auditions this month as a �flurry of activity�, but things feel very stagnant, career-wise. Yes, it could be worse - I could be crying in here about not getting any auditions - but it struck me the other day that it�s been a long time now since anything�s happened that represents clear progress. And I don�t know how to make it happen. And I don't know how to deal with it not happening. And that feeling of �stagnation� extends way beyond my nascent �career�; I don�t see any forward momentum in any aspect of my life. I�ve been stalled in my weight-loss for weeks now. I�m still muddling through at ArcLight, a job that feels more pointless and soul-crushing than ever, thanks to recent developments. And the only option for escape that seems at all appealing (Short of �succeeding as an actor�) - working at Weight Watchers - is an option that�s not available until and unless I lose the rest of this fucking weight. Socially, I�ve still got nothing going on in L.A., seven plus years since I moved here. A recent dearth of contact from Jane - first she was in a play, then in �getting ready to travel� mode (Her and Mark are leaving for France the day after my birthday)- and the difficulty of arranging play dates with Cary (Who works a gazillion hours a week, has a wife and child, and who, in the five minutes a day he has to himself, is trying to be a screenwriter), has reminded me once again that I need to either A) Get more friends, or B) Learn to live without friends. (It bothers me that no one who knows me really needs my friendship - I define �needing my friendship� as � strongly desiring regular contact with me� - but that�s just the way it is.) And even in here I�m feeling - yes, you guessed it - stagnant. I don�t totally understand it, but when I even think about breaking out of the routine I�ve set for myself in Diaryland, it causes me to freeze up entirely (That�s the reason for this recent break in writing. There are all kinds of things to write about, but the moment I think about writing about something I don't typically write about, or writing in some way I haven't tried before, or - and this is the big one - writing more honestly, something stops me cold. Last night, I watched the documentary Inside Deep Throat, about the landmark porn film of the early 70s. I'm fascinated by the phenomenon of porn - by the people who do it, by the people who object to it, by our society's attitudes towards it, by my own rather complicated responses to it, etc. - but I'll save most of that for another entry. The two main things I came away with from watching Inside Deep Throat were: 1. The huge success of Deep Throat - it was the first porn film to really enter the consciousness of mainstream society (And it's one of the most profitable films ever made, in any genre) - really proves the power of "being in the right place at the right time", and of having a gimmick, because it's a truly terrible movie. It looks like crap, it's badly acted, and it's not sexy at all (Thanks to the Internet, I've seen less arousing things in the years since - "Two Girls And A Cup" springs to mind - but there's just nothing there to get excited about, Ms Lovelace's singular "talent" notwithstanding). 2. The two actors - Lovelace and her leading man, Harry Reems - had a pretty bad time of it; Lovelace famously claimed she basically did the movie at gunpoint ("If you watch 'Deep Throat', you're watching me being raped..."), while Reems, unable to get work in Hollywood afterwards, and prosecuted multiple times for obscenity, spiraled down into drugs, alcohol and homelessness (Though happily, he seems to have emerged on the other side intact; Lovelace died in a car accident some years back, at age 53). And here's why we have unions folks; for this movie that's grossed millions upon millions, the two actors made, respectively, $1250 and $250. (Gerald Damiano, the director, was "bought out" by his Mafia "business partners", so also got screwed out of the millions the movie made, but continued to make films after Deep Throat, and from his appearance in the documentary, he seems to be doing okay.) Well, like I said, I find pornography interesting on a multitude of levels, but I'll save it for another time. Cause right now, it's nap-time.
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