Break a Leg

Every year around this time, I usually have a spate of bookings. I mean real bookings, not just Yuri calling me up and having me shoot something for the second time in his kitchen while a guy who lives behind the empty cardboard boxes in the living room walks through our "set" to cook him up some ramen noodles.

No, I mean paid work. See, there are these people all over San Francisco that own cameras very similar to Justin and Dashiell's, and they have lights and stuff too, and they have creative ideas like Yuri's and the skill and dedication to pull it all off, just like all of Late Again Films. The only thing these mysterious Others have that Late Again doesn't is... money.

It doesn't make them better people or anything, they just have money to pay their actors. Well, all other things being equal (as we have already established), maybe having money does make them better people.

Anyway, I usually nab four or so jobs back to back during the year, and right now seems like I'm in the middle of one of those times. I just shot a gig for Sony PlayStation Home (shot using a Red camera; it was somehow awesome even though it made absolutely no difference to me whatsoever), just got paid for a voice-over gig I did a couple of months ago, and have probably just booked another thing for Nokia next week.

So today I'm picking up the check for the voice-over thing, and I'm at my agent's office shooting the breeze for a few minutes. We start talking about this and that, and eventually this woman who works at the agency (who primarily deals with all of the actors directly) drops that only about half of all of the actors she calls and emails ever get back to her.

Just so you know, she's not calling and emailing to check in with them, see how they're doing, invite them into a game of Scramble. She's calling them because she has scheduled an audition for them and needs to hear back that they are available.

It's not just that they're not available (a lot of them are not, that's another subset of the group), it's that they just never call back.

How do you do that? How do you call yourself an actor and not return phone calls for auditions? This is a person calling you, telling you that they have done all of the leg work involved in getting you an appointment to be seen by somebody who needs actors to do paid work. All you have to do is show up! At the very least all you have to do is call back and say you can't make it.

I used to think I was totally unmotivated. To do anything. At all. Because I am. Unmotivated. Remember when I used to blog here weekly? Yeah, me neither. I always feel like as an actor I do the bare minimum necessary to retain the exalted title: I have some headshots (somewhere around here, maybe not on me, where's my resume?), I show up to auditions (usually on time... sometimes), I'm professional and respectful, charming, attractive. I mean if you're an actor that's just your job! That's what you have to be able to maintain just to say "I'm an actor".

So I've decided this: I will now become a vigilante. Kind of like Batman, but I will kill people and they will not be committing any crimes that I am aware of. So exactly the opposite of Batman. More like one of Batman's arch enemies, but not one of the good ones like Scarecrow, more like Killer Croc but not a Crocodile. And still a killer. And with full pants instead of ripped cutoffs.

Huh? Oh yeah... I'll be a vigilante! One that kills actors who have no right to bear the name. They'll call me Improv(e), because I improvise my killings and I'm improving the acting gene-pool. That's what THEY will call me. I will simply call myself The Thoughtful Thespian, but I'll always want to change it because it sounds like "lesbian".

Not much to report this week.  I'm still in rehearsals for The Great Books (Abridged).  If you ever have a chance to see any of the works by the Abridged Company, I suggest you take it. When done wrong, they're still good.  When done right (as is what happens when I'm involved) it's awesome!

But that's not really exciting journalism: "Here's what I'm going to be awesome at that you won't go see."  See, for me, there is so much going on in the world that is being thrown at me all the time that I can't, surely, be expected to go see all of it and make a judgement on all of it, while maintaining a job which allows me to spend the money to exist and then go and experience all these things I should be experiencing.... Yes, the answer here is "Get a Better Job".  We've been over this.  Another solution might be: "just go see the parts that seem like you would enjoy".  And SOOO many factors exist there.  I.E.

1.) What do I enjoy?

2.) What is playing?

3.) What do the critics tell me I will enjoy?

4.) What do my friends tell me I will enjoy?

5.) What percentage of the shows I have seen that the critics told me I would enjoy, have I actually enjoyed?

6.) What percentage of the shows i have seen that my friends told me I would enjoy, have I actually enjoyed?

7.) What, despite what everybody else is saying, would I like to go see?

8.) How far do I have to go so see it?

9.) Who can I get to go with me?

10.) Will there be booze?

11.) Have I subjected my friend to film shoot after film shoot at terrible hours again and again without pay and should I do them the courtesy of going out of my way to go support them just this one time?

12.) How far is it again?

13.) Can we carpool?

14.) Can we get comps?

15.) Can we get a group discount?

16.) Can we get a place to stay?

17.) Will there be drinking afterwards?

Jimmy, you can pipe in anytime here.

And SO, back to my original point, in a quite round-about way: there's been a lot going on, and it's only exciting to me, because it's only been happening to me and/or a small group of specific people which you only be familiar with if you hung out in radio kol chat for an extended period of time.

I am not excluding you.  I am inviting you.  Anything further will just sound creepy.

Happy Jenday

I would have posted this story last week, but since I've started rehearsals, my schedule typically goes like this..

6:30am Wake up.  It's not actually time for me to wake up, but I don't sleep well and this is typically when my body starts ramping up for the day...or something.  I'm pretty much in and out of consciousness for a while.

8:00am Alarm goes off.

8:00:01am Snooze button is hit.

8:09am Alarm goes off again.  I will usually get up at this point, unless I really didn't sleep well or I had a late night.

8:10am Find clothing suitable for going to work in.

8:12am Stumble to bathroom.

8:14am See how horrible I look at 8:14 in the morning.  Remove unwanted hairs.  Brush teeth.

8:17am Shower.

8:27am Dry off & dress.

8:40am Head to work.

9:00am Work.

5:15pm Get in car and drive to Sebastopol

6:00pm - 6:30pm: Arrive in Sebastopol.  Hopefully have either time or for though to have snack and drink for rehearsal.

9:30pm Finish rehearsal.

10:15pm Arrive home.

10:20pm Run turns on Kingdom of Loathing.

11:00pm Get in bed.

1:00am Fall asleep.

6:30am Start again.

• • •

Now, perhaps I could be writing the blog on the Tuesday night previous like a responsible blogger, but let's be honest, nobody's just itching for the next installment of Jenday, and at that point in the day my brain function is minimal as far as useful contributions are concerned.

Anyway...

The other weekend some friends were planning to come up from San Diego and hang out with us NorCal piplz.  These, for those of you that have been following the saga, are some of the same people that I went down to San Diego with Nate a few weeks prior to hang out with. Also, this particular weekend, Nate's parents were out of town, so we were going to have the party over there.

I will skip to the explosion.

We were hanging out, and suddenly there were Nerf guns.  My friend Scott and I did not have Nerf guns, but we knew that it was imperative to the good of all mankind that we get some. 

So we sang a song to Scott's wife demanding that she give us a ride to the nearest Target.  Part of this song was recorded on a friend's phone, which he then posted to his facebook page.  I have since posted it to MY facebook page.  I don't know how to post that video here, but just add me as a friend there and check it out.  Or maybe one of the more tech-savvy people can tell me how to do it.  Whatev.

Scott's wife refused, REFUSED, to take us to Target.  The nerve of the wench.  But shortly after we stopped singing, Scott's wife's brother Paul showed up, and even though he was sober, agreed to give us a ride to Target.

So we rolled into Target and went to the toy isle.  When we got to the Nerf section, there was a hot mom with child in tow.  She started pointing out which guns we should buy.  It was pretty hot.  We decided to go with battery powered, rotary, tommygun-style weapons.  And swords.  We got Nerf swords.  The swords did not last the night.  Paul and Bruce (who also tagged along with us) went halvesies on a friggin monstrous, belt fed machine gun.  The thing is sweet.  We picked up some batteries, purchased our goods, and walked out into the parking lot, where we proceeded to assemble and load and giggle.  We took pictures.  It was very dramatic.

Then we drove back to Nate's house.  Now, we knew everybody would be in the back yard.  So the plan was to walk in the front door, through the living room, out the back door, and open fire.

Which is pretty much what we did.  Then chaos ensued.  Well, OK...we're pretty much a big sack of chaos wherever we go, but now we had more toys.  People started shooting each other pretty much continuously for the next 5 hours.  Many Nerf Duels were fought.  More weapons were acquired.  Wrestling ensued.  Bruises were handed out like party favors.

Later, in a moment of quiet reflection, I thought to myself: "Is this really how a 32 year old man should be acting?"  And the answer, of course, is "No, but it's EXACTLY how a 32 year old boy should be acting."  Being happy with that answer, I ate some chips and had a juice box.

Happy Jenday!

For reasons I would rather not go into, my wife and I have lately been  watching a lot of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. No, the Gene  Wilder one. We've seen it maybe 5 or 6 times in the past two weeks or  so. It sounds annoying, but it's really a wonderful break from the  usual assortment of Curious George, Caillou, and Showtime After Dark.  If you haven't watched it, or haven't watched it recently, I suggest  that you do. Gene Wilder is brilliant.

The film has sparked a lot of heated debate and analysis, and I think  that we have come to some radical conclusions about the story that perhaps a lot of people hadn't thought of.

For the sake of argument I'm ignoring the book; I haven't read it in decades, and I think a movie version of a story should stand on its  own. Besides, Roald Dahl actually wrote the screenplay to Willie Wonka, so holding the movie to a higher standard should be acceptable.

We started wondering: how did "Slugworth" know where all of the Golden Tickets would be found, and get to the children so quickly with his  nefarious offer?

Now "Slugworth" is of course not really Slugworth (I in fact have my  doubts as to whether Slugworth exists at all), but in the movie he  works for Willie Wonka. His offer to reward the theft of an Everlasting Gobstopper is really a test to see who has the integrity to be handed the Keys to the Kingdom.

But how does he get to the children so quickly; in Veruca's case even being in the factory at the moment when it is found, and in Charlie's case intercepting him on the way home immediately after he finds the ticket?

I think we've found the answer.

The obvious solution is that Wonka knows where each Golden Ticket will be  found, because he knows exactly where they've been shipped. The question of how he could have know where to send Slugworth and when is  answered simply by assuming that the tickets were not distributed simultaneously, but staggered so that Slugworth could mill about in the proper city until the ticket was found, then move on to the next place.

This holds up under minimal scrutiny, especially in Violet's case since her father had purchased such a large amount of Wonka bars.  Slugworth simply insinuated himself into the factory and waited until the proper bar was opened.

This answer does not however hold up in the case of Charlie Bucket.  How could Slugworth have known so quickly that Charlie had found the ticket, known his route home, and gotten into the tunnel to intercept him? 

There must be another solution.

We then moved onto a very elegant scenario: "Slugworth" is himself planting the Wonka bars! Willie Wonka knows exactly which children he believes he wants to evaluate for taking over his factory, and simply  dispatches his right-hand man to "deliver" the invitations.

There is other evidence for this theory in the film. Wonka has what you can only call a trap for each child, intended to trigger their most basic negative quality: greed. Each child is greedy in one way or another, but of course couldn't the same be said of Wonka? Why sell his chocolate instead of giving it away for free? No, greed alone does not disqualify any child from taking over the factory. 

What Wonka is testing for is actually not the presence of greed per se but the self control to overcome it. Is there a child in this group of five hand-selected children that can overcome their nature and take over his factory?

Why did he select each child? Different reasons. Each child has a parent that either runs a business or factory, or is in politics or otherwise well-connected, or is simply obsessive about something in the same way that Wonka is obsessive about chocolate. They all have a little of his qualities in each one of them.

Except, of course, for Charlie.

How could Wonka possibly have pre-selected Charlie, when his acquiring of the Golden Ticket was seemingly left to fate? He found some money in the gutter, bought one candy bar, then capriciously decides to buy  another. The second bar, the one containing his Ticket, is not even selected by his own hand but is taken off the shelf by Bill the Candy Store Owner.

The answer of course is that Mr. Wonka left one ticket unknown, a variable in his equation for fate to decide. He chose four children, and fate chose the fifth. Simple. And wrong. Because of Slugworth.

Slugworth was waiting for Charlie within seconds after he had found his ticket. Even if Slugworth had prior knowledge of the fifth ticket's general wherabouts, he could not have intercepted Charlie so quickly. Assuming even that Slugworth knew which candy store the ticket would be sold from, he could not possibly have known who Charlie was or where he lived, in order to meet him as he ran home to tell Grandpa Joe the good news.

Which means that Wonka arranged that ticket to fall into Charlie's hands. But how?

The lazy answer is that Bill the Candy Store Owner is in cahoots with Wonka, and hands Charlie the chocolate bar when Charlie comes back for seconds (was there a moment of panic when he realized that he forgot to give it to him the first time?). Like I said, that answer is lazy and has too many shades of deus ex machina.

My final solution (sorry, Yuri) is to propose something radical that my 3-and-a-half year-old son has been telling me all along: Bill is, in fact, Willie Wonka. Gene Wilder is a showman, a figurehead, Ken Watanabe to Aubrey Woods's Laim Neeson. 

Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, Battlestar Galactica arrived at Earth in our past, Dumbledore is gay, and Bill is Willie Wonka.

The alternative of course is that neither of them is Willie Wonka, or that they both are, depending on how you look at it. Either way, "Willie Wonka" knew exactly who he wanted to take over the factory:  Charlie Bucket. Why invite the other children? Who knows? Fair play?  Balance? Just in case he's wrong about Charlie? Or perhaps he invited them, knowing they would fail, in order to gauge Charlie's reactions to the various tricks and traps in the factory?

We know "Wonka" wanted Charlie because we see how angry he gets when he reveals that he knows Charlie broke the rules. He's not angry at all that he has to clean the Fizzy Lifting Drink room's ceiling, he's angry because he thinks that he has misjudged Charlie. He is of course proven wrong when Charlie returns the Everlasting Gobstopper.

Special thanks to my wife and son for coming up with key aspects of this theory. Now go watch the movie again and see how right I am.  It'll blow your minds so wide open your brains fall out.

Let me know if I forgot anything in my theory, so that I can make  something up to plug the hole.

You know, I think I may have used that title before.  But I'm ok with that, because it's a good metaphor for my life at times.  See the following.

One of my roommates moved out two months ago and I haven't been able to find a replacement, which means I'm chucking an extra $625 out an open window every month because the lease is in my name.  My car has started hiccupping and occasionally loosing all power while driving, and something keeps coming up and keeping me from getting it checked.  I start a new show this week, which is actually a good thing.  However, look back at the point that my car is about to die and I'm quickly running out of the funds to fix or replace it.  I am tired of my apartment, but can't really move right now.  I can't sleep at night because I'm stressed about these things, which is affecting my job performance, and quite frankly, my health.  And I'm still bald!  Oh, and there's a recession or something going on.

There's more stuff, but, eh, it's mostly just stuff I know I should do but don't do or stuff I do do but shouldn't.

Yes, I said "do do".  Poop jokes are funny.

So that's the bad stuff.

The good stuff is that I'm starting "The Great Books (Abridged)" which is 3 guys on stage running around like idiots for about 2 hours.  I got the opportunity to do "The Bible (Abridge)" with the same company a couple years ago and it is one of the most fun shows I have ever done.  So I'm stoked on that.

And then immediately after that, I'll be Rochefort in The Three Musketeers.  That will be awesome because if there's a fight with a bad guy, the bad guy is usually Rochefort.  Stage combat is fun.  Additionally, there's this cool little twist: a couple years ago I was Lt. Kendrick in "A Few Good Men" (played by Keifer Sutherland in the movie).  Well, the guy who played Col. Jessup in that show is going to be Cardinal Richelieux...however the hell you spell it.  This basically means he'll be the head asshole - again, and I'll be his right-hand asshole - again...hmmm, perhaps those weren't two coloquialisms I should have used together.  Anyway, the guy is a great actor and a great guy, so it'll be cool to team up with him again.

If I make it through the week.

Oh, and if anybody knows an agent that needs any voice actors, tell them where to find me.  My demo is but an email away.

Happy Jenday!