|
6:53 am - Mon 5/2/05
If Not THIS One...
If Not This One...
Fri 4/29/05 (1:40 a.m.)
Over the past two days, I've been watching the dvd box set of Wonderfalls (Cary loaned it to me when I went to visit them last Thursday). A lovely, funny tv show that only lasted a season (Not even a season, really. It was cancelled after just four episodes).
Midway through the box set, I started feeling kinda sad, because I'd fallen in love with this "dead" tv show, and the 13-episode box set I was watching was all there was and all there was ever going to be.
I started hoping, as I watched, that they'd "wrap things up" at the end, and was glad they pretty much did (The creators knew in advance that the show wasn't going to be picked up for another season, so they made sure our girl got the guy by season's end).
(I take "loose ends" at the end of a tv series pretty hard. I still haven't gotten over not knowing what happened with "Brian" and "Angela" at the end of My So-Called Life).
Sun 5/1/05 (11:16 a.m.)
Well, not a very eventful week, really, but a couple nice things happened...
On Tuesday, I had a commercial audition at Skirts Casting, a promo for ESPN.
I thought it was an amusing idea. The premise, I guess you'd say, is that it's getting harder to escape the pressures of day-to-day life (As demonstrated by a jogger being accosted by contractors, bill collectors, accountants, etc, also jogging along the path), so you should just relax and watch a lot of ESPN.
Being a network promo, I assume that means lots of national, high-visibility "play". And it's a SAG spot as well, which is what we're looking for these days (Though the "down side" is that SAG will want $1400 from me if I book this. And it'll be the end, at least for now, of non-union gigs, until and unless I declare myself "financial core").
I was going in for the "jogging accountant", in suit and tie. And when I saw 25 or 30 other middle-aged guys in suits and ties, and saw the line we were supposed to say ("I'll need all your expense reports for 1999..."), I felt a little discouraged; I just couldn't see how I was going to stand out amidst the "clutter", and I felt like any number of the guys there looked more "accountant-ish" than I did.
(Whatever that means...)
When I got in the room, the audition consisted of me "warming up", then starting to jog, then saying the line.
Then they had me jog a little faster, and say the line again. Then, still jogging, they had me say my name, and I was done.
It occurred to me that being on the younger side of auditioning actors might work in my favor�I imagine they want a particular "look", of course, but I imagine they also have to consider whether an actor actually can jog on-and-off throughout the length of a shoot day (I'm not a jogger, but I do ride a bike quite a bit, and am sure I'd be able to do what was needed).
Anyway, I did get through the initial "clutter"�I have a callback tomorrow morning.
I like getting picked, even if it doesn't have much to do with acting. It means potentially making money, of course, but more than that, I see it, rightly or wrongly, as validation--I do indeed have "something extra", something that sets me apart. And you need "something that sets you apart" out here.
I really want this. I need to be booking things, things that have decent paydays. And I need to start booking things now, if I want to be getting residuals before the end of the year (I'm up for "going off the high dive" out here--by becoming a full-time "free agent"--but I'd like to know there's at least a little "water in the pool" first).
(The callback's tomorrow at 10:50.)
The other nice thing that happened this past week: On Friday, I got a package from Carolyn T.
She emailed me that she'd finished taping the first four episodes of The Shield, so I'd been anticipating that, but she also enclosed some "energy bars", and three blank books she'd bought at some point but had never got around to using.
(I'll have stuff to say about The Shield in my next entry.)
Getting the blanks books was interesting, and timely, because just a day or two previously I'd been thinking how I need to start keeping a private journal again.
I really enjoy Diaryland, and don't see giving that up anytime soon. It obviously fills, or at least partially fills, a need I have--for creative expression, for venting, for connection, etc.
But I keep writing things in my "pocket journal", things I intend to address in here at some point, about sex, about loneliness, about whatever. But I never quite get around to actually "addressing" them. Because I can't figure out how to say what I want to say, which is frustrating, or else I'm too embarrassed--I'm afraid if people knew "the real me", they wouldn't like that guy very much.
I feel like I either need to get over those barriers, or else just admit to myself that there's some things I can't "address" in here.
(END)
I've been up since a little before 6:00 , so I've gotta go back to bed in a few minutes. I need to sneak in a little more sleep before the ESPN callback (At 10:50).
I have to pick up my suit from the cleaners at 9:30, so I want to be cleaned up before then, so I can just come home, jump into my clothes, and go.
Not sure why I'm kinda psyched about this particular callback, more than others I've had.
But I am.
And it's nice to feel hopeful, to be excited, but I'm also feeling like "You know better than this, Jim. You're no more likely to get this than any other thing you've gone out on this year".
In other words, if I get it, that would be great...but I shouldn't build this up too much, because I'm setting myself up for a big crash if/when it doesn't happen.
If not this one, then the one after that.
Or the one after that.
Or the one after that.
previous - next 2 comments so far
|
