11:55 am - Mon 5.13.2013
"The Lull"

I wrote on Facebook recently that I was having a hard time motivating myself "to do anything I don't absolutely HAVE to do".

Like this, for example.

I feel tired and weak (To the point where I'm starting to think I need to go to the Doctor, though I'm cynical about getting any relief), and after a couple exciting weeks, things feel like they've seriously slowed down.

No auditions last week - and one on Friday the week before - make it feel like we've come to "that time of year", when shows go on hiatus and things slow to a virtual stop in LA (I'm hoping there's a little life left in the first half of the year yet, but it's probably better to assume "the Lull" has set in, and be delightfully surprised if/when anything does happen).

When I address "The Lull" with people - cause that's the primary way people try to engage with me (By asking "Any auditions lately?" or "Should I be looking for you on tv?") - the more media-savvy say "But isn't there a year-round season now?".

And it's true - While "back in the day" (When there were just three networks), shows started in the fall, stopped in the spring, and re-ran in the summer, now there are shows that start in the fall, there are mid-season replacements (For the fall shows that don't make it in the ratings), there are shows that start in the summer, and probably any number of permutations I'm not thinking of at the moment.

But take away reality programming, take away shows that don't shoot in LA (Cause no one's going to pay me to fly somewhere to shoot a three-line co-star), and take away the shows where I just don't really fit in the particular "universe" of that show, and add the shows with a traditional schedule of taking off for the summer (Like most network shows), and you've got..."The Lull".

(And really, just because new shows air year-round, doesn't necessarily mean bunches of things are actually shooting year-round. But anyway...)

I'm too lazy to get my calendar off the wall and look, but it doesn't feel like I've had many commercial auditions so far this year - If anything "The Lull" when it comes to commercials is much more mysterious to me than when it comes to tv shows - and that's what I'd really like right now, to book a "network national" (Because that's as close to a guarantee as I ever get that I'm going to be financially "okay" for at least a good year or more).

So I'm not really expecting a lot of excitement on the acting front for the next couple months, I'm already not feeling good physically or mentally right now...and it's my birthday on Wednesday.

Recently someone invited me to their birthday shindig, at a local hot-spot in Hollywood, and that got me thinking, for about a minute, that maybe I would throw a party for myself somewhere.

But I don't really have many capital-f "Friends" here in LA, and the one way I could see making a birthday worse would be to throw a "birthday party" for myself and have no one show up.

And that fear seemed pretty well borne out by the fact that I couldn't even get the three guys I routinely hang out with together on my birthday - Howard's game, but Pat can't do anything till after 8:00 (He's perpetually on a deadline for the LA Weekly), and Nathaniel's already committed to a movie screening (He writes an online entertainment column for a gay paper).

So I'm probably going to do something mellow with Howard, which is fine - The main idea, in my mind, is just to have something nice to do, and not be home alone.

And speaking of "not being home alone", I've got to start getting ready - I'm going to see "The Great Gatsby" at 1:00 with Howard and Nathaniel (I'm not expecting much, so I "expect" I won't be disappointed).

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