9:33 pm - Thurs 4/01/04
Tonite, For A Little Change-Of-Pace, I Think I'll Write About...Me

I take a couple days off, and all kinds of things happen...!

In happy, I-sure-hope-this-isn't-an-April-Fool's-Day-joke news, someone from JS called today to verify my address: My Hyundai check finally came in!

After I pay Cary back the $100 I owe him, and send Mark and Jane a little something (And pay Jim a little something, cause if I don't get a treat now, when do I?), half will go into my checking account, and the other half will go into a brand-new savings account.

A brand new, "I'll be putting Borders behind me before I know it" savings account.

Well, the play I was going to audition for ended up being a false alarm. They were looking for understudies, and I couldn't see putting myself out for weeks, dipping into a whole lot of goodwill at work, in order to probably not perform.

Here's the thing, though--I think the guy told me that when he called (The understudy thing); I don't know what my deal was--I think maybe he'd woken me up from a nap, or I was just excited or something--but I was basically in a fog, because it wasn't till some time afterwards that I thought, "Did he say they were auditioning for understudies...?". And by that time, I was too embarrassed to call him and say "I wasn't really listening when you first called, so could you repeat everything you said?" (I think part of my not hearing had to do with the fact that I would never had submitted for an understudy role, so it didn't quite "compute").

So I went, and indeed, they were just auditioning for understudies, so I babbled some sort of incoherent apology, and left.

(I sometimes babble when I'm nervous or embarrassed. I really need to stop that...)

From here on out, I'm going to get more organized about these submissions. I need to keep track of what I'm submitting for, because otherwise, I'm on the phone with these people, sometimes weeks after I've submitted for something, going "So...ummm...what is this thing again? A play, a film, a commercial? Help me out here...". Not to mention how awkward it feels to have to ask "Does this pay, or am I supposed to be doing this for love, and a tape which you'll never actually send me?"

This play thing might have been for the best, because a couple days ago, as I was getting home from work, George (One of the apartment managers) gave me some mail that had gone to my old apartment.

I have jury duty next month (The week of May 3rd).

I was kind of surprised--I lived in Lansing on-and-off for twenty years, and didn't get summoned for jury duty there till I'd actually moved out here--but I'm pretty okay with it; I've never done it before, so it might be cool to have the experience.

And Borders pays for jury duty, so I say "Bring on the civic responsibility..."!

My only real "issue" here is the commercial thing.

The vitamin commercial in Vancouver shoots sometime in "late April/early May"; while it doesn't seem likely, it would just kill me if I actually booked the gig, then couldn't do it.

Beyond that, I won't be able to do any auditions that week, or any auditions for things that would shoot that week, or maybe even anything that might have a callback that week.

And who knows? I may not have to actually serve, but on the other hand, I could get roped into a trial that goes on for months.

(Watch Jim spiral into "High Anxiety"...)

But I'm sure everything will be just fine. After all, I can't be the first actor in L.A. to ever have jury duty.

Here's a little something I'm grateful about...

For about a week, I've needed a new bike seat (The springs had broken on the old one, which pretty much made me feel like "The Fattest Man Alive"), and I thought I was going to need major gear work as well; a third of my gears were not "catching".

So yesterday I took the bike in to I. Martin, and got a new seat.

And happily, whatever the problem was with the gears, it was such a simple little tweak that the guy didn't even charge me for it.

Yay!

I was thinking about having a rack installed, or putting a basket on, because wearing my backpack while riding to work, the back of my shirt ends up ringing wet (And if you know anything about me, you know I'm all about looking good).

But apparently, the back suspension on my bike isn't conducive to a rack, and I'm not comfortable carrying my backpack in a basket in the front, because of all the "night riding" I do.

I have an audition tomorrow, a national for AOL.

The last two auditions I had, on Monday, were pretty interesting.

For the first one, a "spec" for the American Movie Channel, I had to do some famous movie lines.

For the second one, for Norris Bank (In Germany), I had to improvise selling a sexy woman a car.

The casting person had us do it once, then gave us some more direction (I think she said I was fine, and the woman needed to "vamp" me a little more).

When we were putting it on tape, the woman--An attractive, thirty-something brunette--grabbed my hands at one point, and put them on her ass.

And that's when I thought, "This acting stuff is pretty cool...!"

Looking on Backstage.com Tuesday night after work, I saw a notice for extras for a new Stephen Bochco show, Blind Justice.

So today, I went to that extra agency (Turned out it wasn't on Beverly, but on Beverly Drive. Ooops...!), and filled out an application.

Afterwards, I thought "That didn't make much sense..."--Extra work isn't much of a "career move", and non-union extras get paid shit (To give you some idea--I make more at the bookstore than I'd make in a day on the set)--and then I realized that it was a totally emotional, impulsive decision on my part; I was just responding to the name "Stephen Bochco".

And in a way, I think that's okay. I'm seriously deluded if I think I'm going to finesse my way into an acting career by a series of ingeniously well-thought-out moves. So that being the case, I might as well follow my impulses and see what happens.

Anyway, we'll see what, if anything, comes of that...

Well, I actually wanted to write a little bit about politics--that Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times" is kinda making sense to me in that regard--but I feel like I've droned on for days here, so that'll have to wait for the next entry.

Along with all the sex talk.

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