Maybe a Drop of Hope

I need to be out of town next Christmas.

Meds are scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

Foreign film dubs today.

Have not been drinking alone. Want escape.

Making myself listen to upbeat music just so I do not immediately drop dead.

Brother is joining us in Costa Rica in February. I think I must cancel my ticket, lest it be a horribly stressful two weeks. Plus, that is historically some of the busiest time in the acting business.

That has me brainstorming more realistically the possibility of a trip to LA for pilot season. And guess what? Now I am not so despondent. I texted my mom about it, and she reminded me that her car can fit a mattress in the back.

Ordered Medication

Well, after I had those depression symptoms for a couple weeks, I asked a friend to prescribe me antidepressants. And I gotta say, just knowing that those are about to ship has been enough to improve my mood. I have been wanting to be on antidepressants for years, not just for the occasional depressive episodes, but for the anxiety. The constant ever-present anxiety. It used to help with performances, still does, but over time, it has had more negative effects than positive.

One of the few things that I have been good about the past couple weeks is practicing guitar. Just as with learning foreign languages or anything else outside my usual wheelhouse, I find that I maintain motivation if I can use it to deliver jokes. In French class, I learned much more slowly because I wanted to write jokes in French. So I would learn just enough vocabulatory and conjugation to say silly things, and this of course did not lead to a broad level of comprehension. For the guitar, I have some jokes that I am writing specifically with the instrument in mind, not just for musical accompaniment, but to use the guitar itself as a prop. All the parts of the buffalo come into play.

Just after I started feeling the depression symptoms, my brother yelled at me. Why? Because I asked him to fix the internet. But now he is scared of wifi waves, so he does not want a strong signal. So he yelled at me about the part of a room that has been used for storage (so it is not clean and tidy), saying that I refuse to clean. I reiterated that I need internet access and that cleaning that up is not an urgent need. He kept yelling and throwing things and was in tears, and I told him I would not talk to him about it when he was acting like this. After that round of verbal abuse, he left, then came back a minute later and apologized, proposing a realistic solution. Then a week later, my other brother blew up the group chat by telling me off for not showing up to family holiday events, and shared that he had been telling people bewildering tales about why I was avoiding them. My narcissister responded with what she knew, about the deeply hurtful superiority and condescension my dad had shown to me when I was fresh with my doctorate. Brother responded with something like, "feelings blah blah blah" and I decided that yeah, I will skip every holiday event I can this season. Narcissister and I then talked about it and meds last night, which was nice!

Not Doing Great

I feel awful.

I need a social life, right? Work?

Every job with decent pay requires years of having already had the job. Entry level jobs pay remarkably little.

Internet at home gets "upgraded" and the signal does not reach upstairs where I work. Brother suddenly decides that he does not want wifi signals physically near him, also upstairs, so he has to throw a tantrum (which involves literally throwing things and yelling), then when I refuse to converse with him in this fashion, he storms out, then later apologizes and offers an actual solution, to which I can agree.

I am already miserable. I cannot find work. Months after I played the role, I finally got the paycheck for my hourly work on the set off this indie show. Will anything come of it? Will anything come of anything?

I want to fly out to LA just for the sake of opportunity, but what will I do there? Sit in a library or coffee shop like I am doing now? Sure I would likely perform a few live comedy shows, but that is it.

I keep trying to pivot. I am bad at screenwriting. Okay, I will work on standup with guitar. I am bad at guitar. Okay, maybe if we dumb down our goals for that. Still frustrated overall.

A cute girl is sitting at the next table over at the library. I used to conjure up a pretend one-sided fake romance with tiny stolen glances, but now? What is the point? My brain cannot handle dating even if I did have a job.

I watch this theologian on TikTok sometimes. Hell as a concept is barely even in the Bible, and largely undefined. Even when Jesus talked about sheol, it was an understanding of the place where everyone goes when they die. Genesis 2-3 is a specific account of creation that was later most likely corrected with Genesis 1. What frustrates me about these things is not the inconsistency. I knew early on that there were inconsistencies. What throws me is that we were taught as if there are basic firm aspects of the Christian faith based in scripture, but on the contrary, they are often based in culture and discussion from centuries after Jesus walked this planet. Give us full context! It is tough to be a Christian when basic aspects of what you were taught were based in nothing but Dante's Inferno. I read that book. As I recall, it is fictional poetry. Also, no such thing as the devil, lucifer, or satan, not as an individual evil entity.

What do I even want anymore? I crave the time between action and cut. So really, what I want is to skip the holidays and go straight to when we shoot this short film next month. And lots of reddit posts said that they got their SXSW rejections last month, so I assume that the indie show I am in did not get its episodic premiere there. I would like a writing partner, to find "my people", but my little community remains quite little, and most within it are not wanting to collaborate more than we currently are.

Is this seasonal depression? Or just a long time between jobs? 

That street interview gig I did? I do not think that they will be using the footage. At least I now know that I can write funny questions.

Also, there is genocide actively happening.

I am so tired and trying to stop drinking (so much). There are people in far worse situations, so complaining feels stupid. But at the same time, someone else's situation being worse does not make mine any better.

I hate this.

A baby was crying at the library. A guy yelled at her to take the baby downstairs. That could have been handled better. There was also a book club that spent a good ten minutes talking loudly after they adjourned. One mentioned how they had hardly talked about the book. I was annoyed, but also jealous.

I am in better physical shape now than I have been for a couple months, but a big part of me wants to skip the gym today and flee somewhere where I can have a social life. My local friends do not invite me over anymore, in large part because I always declined when the pandemic was raging. But I also hesitate because most of them want to talk about normal boring things. Like life. I ALREADY HAVE TO LIVE MINE AND YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT?

Long-term isolation is bad for me. Yet interrupting that isolation costs money. What do I do? What do I do? What is there to do? Keep writing. Keep slowly draining my remaining funds. Keep missing opportunities because I lack representation and do not live in LA or NYC? Oh how I wish I could move to where my people are.

Angry

I was angry yesterday. And today.

Maybe it was that tiktok I saw the other day. Or the new year that threatens to rear its ugly head. But I was reminded of how, for years of hiding away during the height of the pandemic, I would wake up feeling absolutely miserable. And I would look in the mirror, only to be greeted by a bright, shining, youthful face. And I began to despise it. But over that year or two, I think I managed to age myself significantly through my drinking, because eventually, I looked in the mirror and felt like it matched better with how I felt. I no longer resented it.

How stupid and self-destructive. Now I resent the loss of my youth. There is no winning with this brain of mine.

Anger. Anger is what I continue to feel. I used to go out and yell at God when I felt this way. I guess I still can, but it feels kind of rude since I speak to Him so infrequently these days, years.

Years of working hard, investing in the ability to help the less fortunate in the future, tearful nights recognizing how my energy and talents could be so much better used in another context. And now what. Everything costs money. I have not found work, not beyond occasional small gigs.

After writing that, my mood is still sour, but buoyed by watching David Cross's new podcast (with guest Bob Odenkirk).

For the moment, I am able to make myself practice guitar regularly because I am still writing jokes that specifically incorporate the guitar.

Pilot Season?

True to form, I became frustrated with my writing of that screenplay, so I have pivoted back to writing standup. Part of my frustration grew from the fact that I had trouble suppressing my compulsion to add jokes and funny dialogue. In reading a little bit about Seinfeld, he admitted to having the same problem with his show, with figuring out plot and narrative arcs, but jumping at the dialogue and bits.

But now I am excited about getting to a tighter version of sets I have done before, in addition to one that I just started working on last night that I am trying to force into incorporating the guitar. Now I just have to, you know, get good enough at guitar to make it work.

That director I worked with last year got back to me to say that I got the part in his upcoming short film, and will be calling me up this weekend to confirm details.

My mom and I were talking about maybe sending me to LA for pilot season. Problems with this of course include the fact that I have no agent, I am cast in a feature film and an indie tv show, both of which are expected to film in Texas around the same time as pilot season, and that after this historic strike, I do not know if pilot season is falling into the same time period.

In any case, I plan to email my old manager again and maybe they will be more open to taking me on.

Restart with Proper Outlines

My friend finally got back to me about my comedy pilot. He unfortunately confirmed my fears, that it needs some major rewrites and structural changes. But he suggested that I turn it into a mockumentary feature film, which I had not thought to do. Gonna brainstorm that. Maybe instead of jumping straight into writing, I need to start with index cards on a corkboard to plan things out.

In other news, the indie show I am in decided to go forward without the original studio, which means without the director/screenwriter. Today, that director/screenwriter reached out to me to check if I was still interested in working on other projects. I told him that I am. Problem is, do I need to ask what happened? My assumption is that internal issues were related to creative differences, experience levels, general production disagreements, etc. Oh, and he wanted to launch his own indie streaming thing, whereas she had hopes to get us all on major streaming networks I think, so that could have factored into it.

Hopefully he did not get Weinstein'd or something. It had me thinking, "Well, where's my limit?" All the major studios are evil, but I would leap at the opportunity to work for them. And unlike the studios, I know that this guy is a creative. I just told my mom about it, and she was like, "Oh yeah, you should totally work with him." And also, I would go on Fallon in a heartbeat even though he is being sued for very bad and credible things.

Now I am working on outlining that mockumentary, finally getting back to cadaver dissection standup set again, readying myself to revisit the animated superhero concepts, and I think I need to start over that sci fi horror, because it really does not have a strong first act.  Finally trying to outline it and am admittedly relieved at this level of organization. Hated outlining in academics because I always preferred to jump into the writing, and most assignments had a natural progression, but this is big and complex enough that I confess the need for it.

Out of Town Weekend

I visited my friend in Arkansas this weekend. One side effect of visiting his family is that in part because of their young children, they go to bed early. And I was only socially drinking, which led me to dream. Dreams are frequently haunted by my father, but this time I was on a cruise ship.

As often happens on cruise ships, I met new people. Everyone was young, mid-twenties and idealistic. We were laying out on the deck at night, looking up and talking. Everyone else related. I knew these feelings, somewhat hopeless but bolstered by the relentless energy of youth. I kept my mouth shut, because all I could think to say was that being a decade older has robbed me of that force of willpower. I tried a path that seemed fairly clear cut, and it did not work.

I had posted on the social media app Threads about my skillset and voice acting, and someone reached out about an animated comedy pilot and sent me their last draft of it, which is really neat. Ben Schwartz got his role as Sonic just by lending his voice to a demo of it with no promise of going further. At the worst, I will have interacted with this guy who writes for The Onion.

When I asked that company I did street interviews for whether they wanted me to be working on more questions, they said that they were just now going through the footage, and got my info to pay me. So I guess we will see. The insecure actor in me now assumes that they hate all of it and that I blew my one shot.

Slow Going

I talked to that director friend about a number of things including making that sci fi feature. Having done work through bigger studios before, he said that they made him do a lot of rewrites to the scripts for no pay, and also said that decisions were made based on the cast photos that would be on the DVD box set. This implies the need for name talent, though we did have a good movie popster too.

The short film that we made together has been submitted to festivals, though he referred to it as more of a fun thing. But also admitted that he had been surprised by the films he had made in the past that had gotten into festivals, so who knows.

We also discussed my mom's properties in Canton as shoot locations. And now that I am thinking of this film, those spots seem like they could add a lot to the movie, and would be fairly easy in terms of only having one primary location.

The actor's strike continues, and updates indicate that they have lots of negotiating to go through still. I keep seeing tweets that indicate that there will be an industry contraction, less shows being made. But then again, the shows that were made were not paying. It seems like if I can land something after these strikes end, I have a chance at making a living.

But until that happens, I keep trying to work odd jobs. Maybe I can finish scripts. I feel like I am so slow about it, given the amount of time on my hands.

How to Make a Movie Happen

Yesterday, I felt knowledgeable. The gig was a trailer to use as a fundraiser. But the first 15 minutes or so was occupied by the writer/director figuring out his camera, and I found myself stepping in to act as a PA, sound guy, and playing multiple roles. The writer was a novelist who adapted the novel into a screenplay, and then thought he could be his own crew. This is possible for a trailer with a green screen, but I was pretty emphatic with him about how he needed a crew. He needed a cinematographer to deal with the camera while he directed, hair and makeup, set design, etc. He thought that he could do sound himself, but I tried to tell him very clearly that bad sound will take people out of a movie. You may not even notice sound, but if it is bad, it becomes the most noticeable part. 

I expect a call today with a much more accomplished director. Hopefully he can give me some idea (and possibly work with me) about how to make a feature film happen. I would hope to make this sci fi horror a SAG project, in part because everyone worked for free on the short film and should be paid well for the feature version, but also because we all want to be SAG eligible.

Getting Projects Moving

I joined a pitch meeting over zoom the other day, and just having the host of that ask me about progress on my sci fi horror feature script was invigorating. When I first sought to work on it, I tried to include the director in it, but he immediately went on vacation and has been unresponsive to my texts about it. So today I texted another writer/director who, unlike the other one, has plenty of excuses for being unresponsive due to a wife and young child, but texted back within the hour with interest.

So now I am working on that. Hopefully the original director responds to my request for the final cut of the short film so I can send that to the more accomplished writer/director.

I have not heard back since we filmed those street interviews last weekend, so I emailed them today to ask if any of the footage was useful, and whether I should be working on writing more questions.

Blocked

I did that street interview gig. It was a fun learning experience, and I think I could do better if I get another chance. That being said, I think my interview questions were very well written. We will have to see whether they bring me back, but even if not, I could stand to recycle the questions for my own purposes.

Now I have a week of mostly having the house to myself while my brother is out of town and my mom is in Costa Rica. I have had a general writers block for the past month or so, in part I think because every time I try to collaborate with another writer, they have thus far not looked at my stuff. The most rewarding writing has in fact been for that street interview gig, but I am also waiting to find out how the employer felt about it. No word yet.

So, I have been living off of the money my mom sorta inherits. It goes to my account first for tax purposes, and then she asks for some of it whenever she needs it, while letting me keep a small percentage. I am not supposed to touch it otherwise, but, well, I have not found work. My brother once spent all the money, and he subsequently stopped getting money.

Maybe the actor's strike will end soon. After the studios walked out last time, they are negotiating again today. Maybe this will finally give me work. Or maybe nothing will happen.

The other day, I got the script for the third episode of this indie show that has me as a main villain. In the second episode, I have no lines, but characters learn more about me and I make an appearance. In the third episode, we see me being cowardly with my superior and then creepy and dominant with my prey. It is difficult to navigate the character's journey, because I feel as though this could be a pivotal episode to reel viewers in. But it is highly dependent on my performance, on what exactly I do with this character. It is the first time since I got back into acting that I considered asking my old acting coach for some coaching. But in medicine, the temptation is always to refer patients to someone else, or to get help, when, if you apply yourself, you can solve the problem, diagnose and treat the patient. I was cast for a reason.

Anniversarial Need for Change

Today, I found myself applying for a part time university teaching job. Something about the changing of seasons, of the weather finally being cold enough to appreciate sleeves at night, the smell in the air, it demands a change in my circumstances. My annual subscription to Backstage came to renewal time the other day. I got a free extension, but it was a reminder that I have been serious about acting for a year. I began as a featured extra, then booked two short films, a commercial, one documentary role, a lead role in a music video, many foreign film dub roles, a featured role in a comedy pilot, and, most recently, a main cast role in an indie tv show. Judging it against my previous life as a child actor, this should all be considered a wild success. But I am still quite poor and losing money. I still do not feel as if I have enough footage for a decent reel.

Blame for my problems could be placed on the writer's and actor's guild strikes. The writer's guild has their fair contract, but based on the recent dumb moves by studios, we probably have another month or two before acting becomes a viable union profession again. Then again, it is not as if I was booking any union gigs before the strike.

I groundhog day my life. I wake up, brush my teeth, pick up some fast food on my way to a coffee shop where I try to write for a few hours, then go to the gym. Then I go back home, eat the same toasted sandwich, and shower. Then the next day, I do sit-ups, shower, fast food, caffeinated drink, try to write until evening, when I eat the same sandwich. I find guests for my podcast and then record once a week in the evening. And that is all. Life is on repeat. I start drinking too much, then I stop for a few days to a week, and I drink again. I drank last night after being on a short break and you know what? I like the sort of reset it does to my brain. I was apathetic yesterday, but today I am dissatisfied.

While the pandemic was at its peak with no end in sight, I had a very similar routine. At the time, the reason was because going out among people could kill me or them, or people I would later encounter. Now, I am freshly vaccinated, so the primary reason I do not go out or socialize is because I am poor with no source of income.

And I just copy and pasted much of those last two paragraphs to a new document. Who knows, maybe that will be good narration for the start of a short film. Or just another nothing that I start and leave laying around in my google docs.

Dry, But A Few Drops

Well, the writer's strike is over. Actors are still on strike. Work is still very dried up. But that pilot I was in is planning to shoot the second episode, and my role involves no lines, but three goons and looks that cause discomfort to their recipient. So I did what any actor would do in my situation; I asked if I could name the goons, and the director obliged.

That same director had also written a superhero cartoon comedy script years ago and I told him that I had written one too. So we exchanged scripts. I gave him notes on his (which was very dated in its references and had some glaring character and plot issues, but had built a whole world), which he said were good notes. And he sounded open to collaborating on it. And he had previously pitched it to Disney, but his partner, who was better at articulating the narrative aspect, had dropped out on him at the last minute. And I thought, "Well I can do that part of the pitch." And the voice acting as well.

I had a friend in med school on the island, one of the few other white people and a Texan, and his wife had done video production and music. They are now divorced, but I made sure to like all of her social media posts promoting her own music, and she was kind enough to recommend me to be the face for a social media campaign. It is street interviews, and they wanted zany answers from people. I told them that I could not just force people to have and share good stories, but I could write some bizarre questions. I pitched a couple options and they loved them, and said that this could be a recurring gig. I had fortunately already been thinking of doing something similar on my own, so this was easy to get my mind around. And I discovered that writing these questions felt like writing one-liners, but a little easier. Start the question in one place, end in a very different place as a punchline, and then the tag is the genuinely curious look on my face combined with holding the mic to them. So we should be shooting that soon. Oh, and it pays well! $500 for a half day, which is well above SAG minimum.

Today, I texted the guy who directs my foreign film dubs to ask him to introduce me to his voice actors who had found representation, or directly to that representation. I am trying to write my own opportunities to act, but it would obviously be so much easier if I could find some representation.

Something Soon?

The short film I was in had a fun premiere at a film competition. It was one of maybe two or three of the thirteen films that did not have audio issues, though it did have awkward shots that, as one judge said, could have been solved by bringing in a stunt coordinator.

One of the judges was an actor and director based in LA who exchanged info with me, emphasizing great interest in using my contortionist skills in the future. Additionally, there was a general sentiment endorsing the idea of our film being turned into a feature. The director seemed vaguely game, but I am trying to spearhead the attempt at writing the script. After all, here is my chance. Proof of concept is already done, just need to expand it. And I met with horror writers the other night who all gave me pitches for what they thought the feature could look like. Incredibly insightful viewpoints from everyone present, and they additionally recommended films to watch for comparisons and themes to borrow and inspire.

The other day, the director of this pilot emailed us to request invoices and to apprise us of an upcoming announcement next week regarding the future of the pilot. This is of course a subtle reminder to me to keep refining the cartoon script that I am hoping he will like. I have a 12-page draft written. I think half of it is good, the other half... is hopefully okay. But I also have no idea if our visions will match, so we will have to see.

I have a live variety show tonight. Four minutes to show off my comedy and contortionist skills, with other acts including musicians, comedians, and a magician. In preparing for it, I have found that the standup comedy portion is much more enjoyable. It involves the audience and involves my writing rather than just what I physically am. Tonight's show will be a little over a minute of my standup, then my dance routine. But having rehearsed it a little, I can say that I would only want to do the dance routine for charity or dance-specific events in the future. It just is not as much fun, and it takes so much more energy. Granted, if it opens lots of doors, it opens doors.

I was just cast in a trailer for a movie that will be used to crowdfund for a feature. The character is German, and the writer said that the accent is optional, and I told him I would work on it.

Pilot Mostly in the Can

We shot my part of the pilot! Light was failing, so we will be reshooting a brief portion of my role, but most of it is in the can. Then in a few weeks, we will have a wrap party for the pilot, and then, from what I understand, we will be shooting as many episodes as we can before SXSW, which is where they plan to premiere the first episode. And they said that we would be streaming, and since they were supportive of the strikes, I assume that it is part of their own streaming service.

Downside is that if we make more episodes before we show it off, I guess I could reasonably expect to continue to miss out on residuals?

I felt pretty bad about my performance. How many times did I rehearse that script, only to flub lines when we did it for real? I felt so amateur, as did my scene partners. But the director repeatedly said that we were fine, that he was getting the shots he needed. And then of course my character's romantic interest was incredible, crying on command, and that admittedly helped me to stay in the moment a lot more. I am used to thinking about how actors these days have scene partners consisting of a tennis ball on a stick, but it truly does change things when you are looking into a tearful pleading face. In any case, imposter syndrome is reportedly quite real. Jake Gyllenhaal said that right after doing a one-man show, he did the Spider Man movie and flubbed  his lines. I just need to use this imposter syndrome and redirect it toward trying to do better.

Tomorrow is a foreign film dub session, then my short horror has its red carpet premiere in a week and a half, and the following week, I am performing my contortionist dance routine for a variety showcase. So at least I have a few things coming up to scratch that performing itch. But my short-term goal was to get this pilot of mine written to a decent draft by the end of the month, and I am halfway through, so if my podcast cohost is not on board, I need to reach out to a different friend to get help with some of the dramatic portions.

Shoot on the Morrow

Well, this pilot shoots tomorrow. It is funny how I felt like I had the script pretty memorized for my audition back in July and now it is September, and I still second-guess myself about it, in large part because I am memorizing the gist of everyone's lines for the dialogue, not just my own. Additionally, now that I have the role secured, I will be breaking from what I was taught as a child actor by doing something different from my audition. But I am comforted by what Austin Butler said about working with Tom Hanks, that he was intimidated at first, but when it came down to it, everyone just wants to run lines.

So tomorrow, I plan to show up early, memorize the names of crew members that are not listed online, and get to work.

Upcoming Pilot Shoot

I finally started going through my pilot with my standup comedy workshop buddy, and my instincts were right. He is a pitching machine, coming up with ideas left and right to fill in the blanks. And just having to talk someone through what I already had made me realize that I had two info dumping scenes that were redundant, so those were easy cuts. That being said, I still wish I had another person in the mix to help with the difficult dramatic moments. Thus far, those are hard to write in a compelling fashion.

On Monday, I finally get to play my role in this pilot (the one that I did not write). Now that it is so close, I am of course making sure I have my lines down completely, but also trying to make sure that I know all the names of every cast and crew member. Why? Because this is what people brag about when it comes to saying how good a given actor is, apart from their actual craft. If you want to be famous, be the type of person that you would want to be famous.

If any of these gigs starts to pay off financially, I want to give a try at writing and going to the gym every day. But I write best when I am at the coffee shop, which means an extra five dollars. And that adds up if you do it every day. 

Scene By Scene

It is so hard to make myself go through this rough draft to make a scene-by-scene outline. Even if Cameron came around and decided to help, this thing requires organized structural changes, which is my strong suit, not his. In fact, from talking to him about it, it sounded like he was only really up for improvising things, for punching up what was already there with one-liners. Which of course is also more my strong suit than his. And this is just the latest opportunity that I have tried to hand to him, what with podcasts and standup comedy workshops that he has turned down. With regard to the script at least, he has said that every time he considers looking at it, he is too drunk or high for it. It reminds me of what Steve Harvey said to Jerry Seinfeld on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, that he does not know of any successful comedians who smoke weed.

I can hardly blame someone for being a real person about these things, but unlike him, I do not have an alternative plan. He should have just declined, but instead, I waited a little and let myself be a little upset. But I now know that I will most likely have to rewrite some, get this outline in order, and then pitch it to one or two other friends I know who do work hard and similarly do not have much of a life outside of the performing arts.

We have one family connection with a big time director in Hollywood, but only my mom and older brother have met him. She has sent him clips of me and he has been responsive, but ultimately, I do not know how to get from where I am to being on his show business radar. All I know to do is keep writing and acting and submitting to jobs at my level.

Oh the Pilots

I have not heard back about that commercial, so I presumably did not book it. But I did finally get the shoot date for this pilot, so I am booked on September 11, and then who knows. And until then, who knows.

I had not looked at the pilot I wrote since February, but these six months later, I finally remembered parts of it that I liked, so I opened it up. And I was pleasantly surprised by parts that made me laugh. It has giant issues, but maybe there is something there.

We may be three weeks from filming this pilot (that I did not write), but we are six months from SXSW, which is the event that they are targeting for publicity with it. And I guess for the tv pilot competition? I had never heard of such a thing before, but with the writers and actors strikes going on, I imagine that that is one of the few avenues available to shop a pilot to, apart from international markets, which the director brought up as another possibility. He said that it could be big... But I cannot be sitting on that for six months. I need to keep working, keep applying, and, hopefully, keep writing. I mean, what if we make this show and this small studio suddenly has money to make other shows? And then I have this idea for a tv show, and a script written for it?

It's Not Real Until It's Real

In my history class in like 7th or 8th grade, the history teacher made an exception for me. We would start the day with a quiz, and I would lament aloud about how I was going to fail it. Then I would get a perfect (or near perfect) score. The same would happen with major exams. The teacher said that she normally stopped students from speaking so negatively about themselves, but my performance clearly belied my own words.

Had she not mentioned this, I would have dismissed my words and actions as just a dumb bit. But looking back, I wonder if this is reflective of the attitude I have toward any acting role. When I auditioned for that pilot, I spent the two days between the audition and booking the role trying to convince myself that I had not booked it. And yesterday's commercial callback has me thinking that I just need to assume, once again, that I did not get the role. After all, I have auditioned for roles that allow me to show much more personality and acting range. This one is just facial reactions, eyes and eyebrows. And there were like six other people in the virtual waiting room for the audition. But if I book it, that would pay for the past few months of no work, and I would get a haircut, and a visit to Austin. But on the other hand, I could find out at any moment that I did not book it. So best to assume that I did not get it, and the real victory is that this casting agency now knows about me. Nothing is real until you are shooting it, and even then, the "real" part is the fun of being on set, and getting paid. What you shoot may never see the light of day.

What has been stuck in my head lately is what the director of this pilot said over zoom a few weeks ago. We discussed some of the technical aspects, that it would be a single-cam situation, and I noted that yes, that is all I have done in the past. And at some point, he referenced that I was plenty experienced for what we were doing. Which is is a point of validation that I had not given myself, in large part because I was 12 when I did most of what I have done. My mom always said that my festival win was the biggest brag, and it certainly deserves notoriety, but the feature film was the collaborative project in which I worked with a full cast and crew as the on-screen talent. Unlike my short film, that is the kind of process that required lots of planning and would have impacted the livelihoods of a lot of people had something gone very wrong.

Feelings, Dubs, Callback, All Out of Season

I went to see the Barbie movie yesterday. For budgetary reasons, I only see so many movies in theaters, but I think that every single one I have seen since I have allowed myself to get back into acting has made me cry. For years in medicine, I did not allow myself to feel too strongly. I remember a friend of mine saying that it is important to feel. And I corrected her, saying that I have tried feeling in medicine, and I could not study anywhere near as efficiently when I did so. I needed emotional distance to increase my proficiency, so now I am experiencing something of an inverse, where I need to tap into and explore the feelings of characters. And it is a relief.

Yesterday, I did another foreign movie dub (normal speaking voice as the lead for three movies), and I just got a callback for a Google Android commercial. I want so badly to keep busy, so I keep uploading little videos that I could swear should go viral, just based on how impressive it is to people when they see me. Like, at that table read, the director pimped me out like I was a secret weapon to do those contortionist moves. A short horror I was in has forbidden me from promoting it simply because who I am will give away the game.

I have to hope that it is all about remaining consistent, in season and out of season. Last night, I dreamed that I was collaborating with some comedian with a musical background, and we were working on some guitar riffs, and I was actively regretting all this down time in which I was not practicing guitar. I was slow and second guessing myself on the G7 chord.

Table Read

First table read of my life went well! I had read online that you can be recast even if you make it that far, and I therefore had a bit of anxiety over it. And my scene was read last, so that gave me time to have ups and downs in my confidence levels, but when my time finally came, it felt right and familiar during the delivery. And the writing and delivery created enough of a tone that it was getting reactions from my scene partners, which was not necessairly the case for much of the rest of it.

I am NDA'd out of revealing contents, even semi-anonymously on this blog that people do not read, but one thing I think I can share is that they have a 16-episode first season planned and scripted. And they have rewritten my role a little to be more specific to me.

They talked about going to SXSW next year, which now sounds far more realistic. So of course, that concept has me thinking of scenarios like "oh, we need to keep an audience entertained for a couple minutes while we work out technical issues" and then have some cast members perform a few of my one-liners.

I just love having something to aim at, to write toward. And when I do not have that, I do not know what to do with myself. Keep writing and editing jokes, keep auditioning for projects, keep submitting for auditions...

That being said, at least I can daydream about this show being a hit, even a niche one, about doing press for it, about both the glitz and, dare I say it, the glamour of promoting it. Every time I see videos of celebrities doing an exhausting amount of press interviews,  I now think of what jokes I could write and improvise specific to that situation.

Itch Scratched

Oh to have that itch scratched! Being on set again was so good. Did I get paid? No. Did they make excuses for some continuity errors in such a way that made me lose respect for them as filmmakers? Of course. But my contortionist moves were on full display to such an extent that I felt great about it, even after the hour and a half of makeup. 

I had also been insecure about my physical fitness, but with my shirt open for the entirety of the production and seeing a couple videos behind the scenes, it appears that I do, in fact, look pretty good. Makeup on my abs may have helped a little, but still. And I was quite sore the day after we wrappped.

Table read for that pilot is on Saturday, but then I have no more acting gigs, though that could always change if I book any of the two auditions I need to tape before the weekend.

My podcast sponsor renewed us for another three months, and our group is meeting at the end of the month to try to write and maybe film sketches. So that should help a little.

Wahhhhhiiiiinnniiiinnngggg

I talked to the writer and director of the upcoming pilot today. I asked about his one word change for my character, from "lean" to "weasel-like", and he assured me that it was not based on my performance. I let him know that I had been watching weasel documentaries since, and he explained a little further what he meant. And made a similar animal comparison to another character with which I was familiar. They have posted our photos and names on social media in their announcement of the cast, as did the director of the short film we are shooting this weekend. I finally get to be on set tomorrow! Which leaves the rest of today to go to the gym and then debate how much to study the script, since I only have a few lines, but will likely just be focused on physicality.

That will make two pilots and one music video this year. I need to get more work. And that is why I am taking real action by whining about it here. But really, maybe I just need to make myself go to the local open mics, just to be seen, to be doing something, and try to network. Open mics are just so depressing.

The director of this pilot said that he is working on making his own indie streaming service that allows for easier monetization compared to the bigger streamers like youtube. So there is that, along with Roku, and in January, he mentioned an event at which he could shop it around to some international distributors. After he explained it, he ended by saying that it could go big. And it is something of an ensemble cast, so it will be nice to see how everyone plays it out.

Upcoming But Not Enough Work

I need work. I am a few days from my next gig, but I do not even know if it pays. Maybe I need to try to write a short film that only has me in it, something I can shoot on my own. Or just edit the little footage I have into an acting reel. But I really do not think that I have enough for that, hence the urge to make my own something.

I mean, I have one solid 30 second comedic commercial ad. And one comedic scene in which I am overacting, along with another short one in which I make a brief appearance with lines that I improvised. And of course, the music video in which I alternate between just dancing while decorating and then dismembering a dead body. Even the short film I have coming out soon only features me doing contortionist moves, not really acting, apart from the last jump moment. This short film in five days should add something to my, I guess, contortionist creature reel. And then the show should have some actual bona fide dramatic acting.

I am still working on standup here and there, still impressing a few folks with my one-liners, but I still dread the idea of working my way up through the standup comedy scene. What I want to do is to keep acting and punching up scripts, and develop some degree of notoriety through that until I can bust out into the standup scene with a degree of fame already in place. But so far, every approach that I have had has been slow. Maybe with an agent, or if this short film hits festivals so I can do some networking, or maybe there is some other connection into which I have yet to tap.

I recognize that there are a gajillion actors who want to make it, but I do have a decent resume, and am a contortionist, and am a medical doctor, and I write standup. I can write. I collaborate. When I see a script, I tend to have well-received notes to improve it. But talent is not the only step involved in making it.

Table Read...y, Set, Go

Today, we received a time, date, and location for the table read for this television production. Until now, I had familiarity from child actor days, but I never worked as a main cast member on a television show. I was in a comedy pilot earlier this year, but we had no table read; it was fairly amateur. But this is with a studio that already has other productions underway in multiple genres.

It is of course just a pilot with no guarantee of being picked up. But hypothetically, if it does get picked up with a SAG interim agreement, my understanding is that we would eventually be retroactively paid according to whatever agreement SAG makes with the AMPTP. So if it got picked up and was a hit, I would be able to make a living off of it.

But at the least, this pilot should provide footage of me doing some dramatic acting for my reel. And since the last pilot I was in prompted my mom to ask "Did you forget what you learned in your acting classes?", I will benefit from having actual acting on my reel rather than just me being zany or overly expressive.

Also, I am a little nervous about memorizing lines! I got through med school through a ridiculous amount of memorizing and applying that memorization into real life situations, and even when I performed standup, I did it with almost exactly a word-for-word delivery. But still, this is the professional actor thing. I have to memorize the lines, get the character's motivations figured out, apply those motivations to lines as needed, and then be ready for everything to change on me when we actually shoot. Because on the shoot day, your scene partner may bring something different to it that changes the delivery, or a technical issue may be present so you are acting to a piece of brick rather than another actor, or any number of things. On the short horror shoot I did last year, we had a dog, two stray kittens, a very aggressive vole or mouse thing, not to mention a rattle snake, and all except for the snake seemed desperate to be in a shot. At one point, when the cat would not leave, we later used a yoga mat as a green screen to splice in where the cat was supposed to walk out.

For this production, it involves police, so who knows what will be happening with regard to firearms.

Booked It (Again)

I got the part! I apparently "WOWED" them with my audition, though I assume that it was more me pitching myself than just the scripted portion. It was a flush of unpleasant nostalgia in the room to perform to a camera and a conference table. It feels about as unnatural as acting can feel.

They said that they will send the contract and talk scheduling early next week. I spent the last couple days trying to research how to make sure that I do not get screwed out of residuals, but I learned today that non-union jobs like this one likely will not pay residuals. So the more realistic expectation is that we will shoot a few episodes, shop it around, and if it gets picked up, I can negotiate higher pay or residuals for the next ones we shoot after that.

In any case, this is finally a dramatic role, so I can actually have footage for that rather than only having comedic or contortionist or horror clips.

Trying Not to Care

I auditioned for that role I thought I had booked. Today is the last day of auditions for it, and I am trying to just assume that I did not book it, because I already spent too many months fantasizing with the role secured in my mind.

It is a dramatic role, which I do need to move forward as an actor career-wise. That being said, I do also have an audition for a comedic role that naturally fits me, and it would shoot in NYC, which would of course be a huge treat all on its own.

It felt like there was a dry spell for so long, but shortly before SAG went on strike, I started getting auditions for various commercial roles. And those things may not help much as an actor, but they do pay! And time spent on set is fun regardless.

I have not had hard liquor for a few days. I used to have a beer and melatonin before bed, and that is probably the realistic middle ground for me. It is easy to slip into drinking more heavily, but I am well-aware that that is very bad for me to do regularly. We have one more cider at home, and then I guess I will have to buy beer again. I have been more strict with my workouts again, with the built-in exception of days when I am going out to an audition, in which case I am permitted to skip the sit-ups in favor of doing last-minute memorization and preparation.

Insecurities & Roles

At peak pandemic, I would wake up hung over and drag myself to the bathroom mirror, and stare resentfully at myself. Why? Because I felt so awful, so depressed and frustrated at the world and my life, but my face still looked youthful and bright. It was so miserable to see a lie reflected at me. Now I feel a little better because for the moment, at least I get to dabble at trying to do what makes me happy. But conversely, I can see my face aging. Something about my skin and my hairline, somewhere in all of that, I feel like I look my age now, rather than the previous constant of five years younger. Or maybe I just look like I am in my late twenties rather than mid- to early twenties, and that is the frustration. Or I look fine. Or properly moisturizing my skin looks bad to me. Who knows. I am just unused to feeling insecure about my looks. In the past, I had assurance that my insecurities could be fixed. Bad teeth? Braces. Bad vision? Contact lenses. Bad body? Work out. I am not sure about the skin, but the hairline can be fixed, as can the worsening vision, and potentially the body can also be improved as well, but all of these things come with a price tag.

I have my first in-person audition in ages tomorrow. I have the lines mostly memorized, but I am struggling to pinpoint the mentality of the role, so we will see what I have settled on by the audition time. I also have two self-tape commercial auditions which, unlike the real acting roles, would be likely to pay a decent amount. And I have a trip to Costa Rica planned for next year, so decent pay would be great to allow me to get eye surgery while I am there, so I can fix one of my problems. The bad vision legitimately gets in the way of work when I have to put in colored contacts, which is the plan in three weeks when I play an alien creature.

Strikes & Need to Work

A historic strike in the entertainment industry has begun. It was looming for months, but now both union writers and actors are on strike. 

I have an audition for the role that I thought I had for eight months. This is the industry, and I have to remind myself to be thankful for the opportunity to audition. Auditioning is a privilege. I had my first callback in ages last week, which was nervewracking. I flubbed my lines a little after they gave me the usual note to tone it down. The adrenaline rush of actually talking to the director can make it hard to dampen that energy, but that is definitely something that I need to get over.

In three weeks, I have a role in a short film using my contortionist skills as an alien creature. The director sent me a script for it, and I immediately had notes. Generally a nice script, and my part has parts that I am excited for, but I asked if I could give suggestions, and told him one of them. He responded that he already has two writers, but then he saw my pitch and said I was right, and he would do some rewrites.

I have another audition, this one for a comedy series on what I just learned might be a kind of legitimate but small studio. And if I remember right, we would shoot in NYC and they would cover travel and lodging. Even if I hated the role, that trip alone would make me want to audition, but the role actually feels like a good fit. It is close to what my podcast character originally was, having to do a job and present information with an overly happy demeanor fighting through the terrible responses.

I have been drinking too much. That desire goes away when I am working. I need to work. I want so badly to work. Even my writing feels like it is stagnating some, because I need to feel it out on stage or camera since it involves so much physicality. But it is torture to go to open mics. Maybe it is not so bad anymore though, now, since I have done a real show. I am not desperate for open mic footage nor pressured to spit out all the words in a set.

Sick, Birthday, & First Standup Show

I finished up my time in Budapest with a stomach bug. It hit hard enough that I canceled my weekend in Paris. But I got the footage I wanted as my tourist character, then I did the same a little bit in London. I hung out with some fun strangers at karaoke for my birthday.

Then I got back to the States and caught a cold. So I rehearsed for my first paid standup comedy gig while fighting a cough, which is one of the worst symptoms to have for public speaking. Fortunately, I had just enough time to mostly recover and to get a solid performance on video. So now I am told that I can shop myself around.

As for the experience, I was well-rehearsed enough that it was a comfortable experience. There were only a couple paying audience members, but they laughed. I did my material with the appropriate amount of improvisation and audience interaction. Thanks to my recent karaoke time, my stage presence was fully engaged. And my material was practiced enough that I was already tired of it, which of course kept me from laughing at any of my own jokes.

So now the task is to get my other bits performance ready. And, of course, to try to write more new things.

I am still at something of a loss now. What do I do with myself to make money? I want to do entertainment, but opportunities feel lacking. Or at least, I do not know how to market myself.

I have auditions lined up this week, so that is something. One specifically wants me to have a reader, but I still only have family, which are people I do not ask because they want to make it their own show.

Apart from going jogging a couple times last week, I have not worked out for over a month, so that is next on today's agenda. Hopefully that will help kick me into a good work ethic as I try to search out opportunities.

Snog & Standup Show

Well, I finally did it. At the ripe old age of almost 33, I finally made out with a girl. After passing up so many opportunities to do so over the years, I was feeling increasingly anxious about any acting job that reqiured romantic interaction. But I went on a pub crawl last night and hung out with Irish med students throughout, and one kept gushing in comparing me to various celebrity actors. So we made out in the club, then again at the door after I walked her back to her hostel.

I was pretty unimpressed with the experience. Granted, I might have been a bad kisser, or maybe she was, but assuming that that was not the case, it makes me feel pretty okay about all those times I skipped over in the past. Previously, one of the reasons why I held back was because I did was afraid of how it would impact the other person emotionally. But fortunately, a pub crawl in Eastern Europe is a great place to find someone with whom to snog without significant consequence.

People in my shared room in my hostel have been sick for days. And yesterday, I was having chills, just laying in bed between trips to the toilet until it was time for the pub crawl. Going out was admittedly not the most ethical thing I could have done, but fortunately, I did feel better once I had a buzz going.

I have reached the point in this trip at which I am kind of tired of being here, which was one of the goals. I have seen enough of the city that I have little excuse to avoid working on writing. This is critical because I booked my first standup comedy show, and it is scheduled for a week after I get back to the States. And they want me to do 15 minutes, though they said it was not strict with regard to timing. I should have plenty written, but now I am also writing the delivery, and having to add checking in with the audience to prevent it from feeling like a monologue.

In Budapest

I have been in Budapest for six days now, and it is wonderful. I did some fancier activities and food with my mom for the first few days before she flew back to England for a cruise, and have since finally been able to think about what I want to do, rather than managing her things.

The ratio of pretty people here is highly disproportionate, with a walk down the street typically being very pleasing to the eye. It has been nine years since I last had an extended stay in a European city, and one aspect I have noticed is that I have some insecurities about my age. I gave up my 20s for medicine, and an aspect of this reality is that if it comes up, I am no longer regarded as a fellow young traveler, but rather am asked things like whether I am there on business or for pleasure.

The weight of age and my current professional insecurities all weighed upon me yesterday when I went on a free walking tour, but I fortunately got drinks with some Australian travelers afterward, and it was a day well spent, with us drinking our fill of the local beer and discussing cultural, linguistic, and geopolitical differences.

Tomorrow, I will likely head north to a smaller town that, like Budapest, is a melting pot of a few very different cultures. Then I will potentially hop over to Bratislava, because Slovakia is quite close to here, and I am told that one day is plenty to spend there.

Second Try at Standup

I realized this week one reason why that potentially career-making project has been so quiet. The writers strike had been looming and is now happening as of this past Tuesday. Last time this happened in such a big way, it ruined shows like Heroes. I remember it well. It apparently only lasted for four months, but it had a big impact. We all know that the union will win this, so it is just a matter of waiting. So hopefully everything will be full speed ahead once the strike ends.

Speaking of writing, I have been working on this standup for close to a year now, and I finally went to an open mic again for the second time. I hated it, but I achieved my goals of staying under five minutes and getting it on video with decent audio. But it was after 2 1/2 hours of mostly bad standup, so the remaining audience was understandably not happy. If I had been in the audience, I would not have been easy to win over. I got some laughs, but they they were sometimes at the parts that I did not think were as funny. Rather than pause for these laughs, I was nervous enough to push right through them, which likely cost me future laughs in the set. So we plan to review that footage tomorrow with a critical eye, and hopefully I will give it one more at an open mic next week before I go to Europe.

Just as when I went to Europe last year, this trip will be surrounded by financial insecurity. The hope is that I get some good writing done while I am there, along with some inspiration with all that comes with new cities and countries. And possibly hit up an open mic there to get another video.

Poor Limbo

Well, the only word from that project is that they will let me know when things are finalized. All this talk about an upcoming table read, about things finally happening, and then my inquiries requesting an update are all met with something like "we are working on it and will let you know."

Meanwhile, I am trying to plan this trip in Europe, but am hesitating at the nonrefundable things. Because what if this thing finally happens then?

I have two auditions sitting, waiting for my response. One of those has shoot days that overlap with this international trip. and the other one, well, who knows. I like auditioning, but these self-tape auditions are awful because for a minute-long audition, it takes an hour or longer to get it right by myself with the camera, lighting, memorizing the script, memorizing the delivery, then editing in voiceover responses for the other character responses.

Meanwhile, I feel at least a little productive if I am writing. But every time I go to a coffee shop to do that, it's a $5 cost. When you do not have an income, that adds up. So I at least need to consider donating plasma again, and possibly try to get a normal job too. Of course, if a pilot I am in gets picked up, that would solve so much. If this (hopefully) upcoming one gets picked up, I get to act on camera for it. If the comedy I am in gets picked up, I could have a chance at writing on it.

At the least, our podcast now has a trial run with a sponsor. It is a skincare company that markets to men, and since I had been dealing with dry skin for awhile now, I wanted to try something anyway. And this one fixed my issues overnight. If we get eight people to buy with our code over the course of the month that we run the ads, we get to talk about a longer term partnership. The company seems ethically sound, which has been a constraint for me. My guess is that I could have gotten a supplement sponsorship by now, but I would feel conflicted about such a thing, since most of those are a waste of money. In any case, we spent 45 minutes recording the four ads other day and I think that they are all good and funny enough to be their own social media posts. Once we have those edited and ready, I will go hard posting it around. Even if people do not listen to the podcast, they might want our discount code for a good skincare product.

Another potential source of income would of course be standup comedy. I have enough written that I should start hitting up open mics. The main reason why I had not done so in the past month is that I was without a car. Now it is because if production on this pilot finally starts up next week, I would feel pretty stupid if I caught COVID. Then again, if I wear an N95 mask at all times when not performing, that would be decently safe.

I would put the pressure on myself for standup now, but next week, unless I hear back about shooting something, I will be traveling to Arkansas to be a guest speaker for the photography class my friend teaches at our alma mater. I will be there specifically to help them learn what things are like from the model's perspective. Apart from very specific things like "move your chin up and to the left," I do not know what insight I can add. But it will at least be fun for me!

New Prospects

The downside is that I have been stuck at home. I have progressively lost motivation with writing, an issue that worsens in times like the present in which I have neglected a consistent workout routine. But as I began to help my mom book her international accommodations for an upcoming trip, she suggested that I could join her for a leg of the journey using her air miles if I helped with her taxes. She has struggled to tackle the taxes for years, and I am no accountant, but I am all for helping her with it. So we have made progress with that, and since we have both been to Scotland, we decided that we would hop on over to Budapest, which, as it turns out, is likely a far more cost-effective trip. Plus, new country and city!

But first, I need to talk to the director of this pilot on Monday. Hopefully a lot of my questions will be answered then. If all goes well, I will be able to confirm shoot dates and get the okay to go on this international trip. Or be told that they will need me on set a lot more, which would also be great news. My current favorite thing to do is act on set, and my second-favorite is to travel to a new place. Since my first favorite thing will pay me money and has potential to make me significantly more money in the future, I will be happy to cancel or cut short my second favorite thing to accommodate the first favorite. An ideal situation would be that we shoot it, I go on this trip with some extra cash to burn, the series gets greenlit, and I finish up the trip while they write the script, and I come back ready to shoot the rest of the season. Oh what a dream it would be!

Also, my car should be finished tomorrow. It might even pass inspection, but if not, I am used to dodging the police. And at the least, I should be safe to drive around for acting roles in the area, which I was unsure about when I first left the car.

Finally Something

It has been weeks of sitting around. I submit for auditions and wait... wait... no car, so I just wait... I write jokes... I wait... I ran out of liquor... I wait... I still have not been doing cardio... I wait... Then last night, I got an audition for a movie role. And the casting director has worked on some major productions! Of course, this shoot potentially happens at the same time as my other one. But they said that they would work around my schedule for that one. So who even knows.

After sending out so many submissions, it is always encouraging to get even that one audition. It reminds me of why I am doing this. Having had the few chances so far to dip my feet back into the industry, to be on set, what I have learned is that it is euphoric. Acting on a set is drugs. I want to do the drug of acting to the point that it makes me physically ill. Pushing my own limits while coordinating and trying to empathize with everyone else involved, bringing something extra to the table when possible, all of it is just so good. It is a nice magical thing to me, because if I suddenly had plenty of money, most of what I can see changing is my geographic location, but it would not scratch that itch.

Comedic Breakthrough

In the last standup workshop I did, I had my usual, a list of new one-liners. When I organized my notes afterward, I was disappointed at first. Only a couple jokes seemed good enough to move into my "ready to perform" section. But when I rewatched the stream to take more thorough notes, I was much happier, because two of my jokes were okay as they were, but were also sort of begging to be expanded a little bit. So I did that. And wow, three jokes that would otherwise have lasted maybe 30-40 seconds altogether now could potentially make that time on their own. And best of all, two of them are very much in the style that I was originally aspiring to write for my standup, though maybe leaning a little more in the direction of Demetri Martin rather than Steve Martin.

The guy working on my car finally got back to me today to officially say that I either needed to sell the car, replace the hybrid battery, or see if the dealership can fix things. And since dealerships are expensive and I do not have a spare car sitting around, I said that we should aim for the hybrid battery replacement. So hopefully he can find one at a salvage yard for a decent price.

I still am not getting enough cardio in, but I am also not in that bad of shape. That being said, I really really hope that my car gets that battery replaced soon, because I really want to have a car that is not constantly on the edge of giving up.

Without Car Or Cardio

A week and a half without a car. It is rough. I have not done any real cardio since then, and workouts are never as thorough without a trip to the gym. Cardio is an antidepressant for me, so some days are harder now than they otherwise would be. The pilot that I have been writing is at around 40 pages, and so much of it needs to change, but it is so intimidating in its current format. I have at least two characters that I want to see more of, but how do I bring them back in? And when? I wish I had a writing partner who was on the same page as me, especially someone who wants to write and direct while I write and play the lead.

I would likely have started donating plasma again just to pay bills, but I cannot even do that without a car. So for now, the focus has been on writing more standup. I just keep trying to churn out one-liners every day, and hopefully that will pay off at some point.

Now that I have some idea how to turn anecdotes into standup, I do want to build them into a fuller act. At first, I just wanted to do the Steve Martin style, but as he said, it took a decade to build up that material. So pulling from life experiences rather than just a collection of nonsequiturs is likely a more realistic way to start. My idealized style of comedy is not necessarily what I get to start with.

Treasure Moments

After many delays, I have signed an NDA that now prohibits me from disclosing anything about the project, including the schedule. My car has been in the shop for a week, and will probably be in that situation for awhile longer because the hybrid battery likely needs to be replaced. The bright side is of course that after these repairs, I will not necessarily have to worry about the car dying on me at any given moment.

Another consequence of having no car is that I have not been driving to the gym nor to the coffee shop. I am unfortunately sensing a strong correlation between my motivation and inspiration to write and my time in said coffee shop. I have tried to work in the local grocery store cafe area (my current location), but my brain just is not on board. I am trying a new strategy today though. The seating is a little too low for convenient typing, so I brought a cushion. Will brilliance now flow readily? Not betting on it, but we will have to see.

From what I recently read about pilots, networks do not greenlight a series until like July. And even if they do pick up the series, they can replace cast members depending on a number of factors. So instead of thinking about how, if this works out, I will be able to make a living and make all of my short-term dreams come true, I need to just focus on the work and on enjoying the fact that I will get to be on set. That is a privilege that I thought I had given up and walked away from. Treasure every moment and let that be enough for now.

A More Defined Delay

Well, it turns out that the pilot was delayed. I was waiting every day to hear about it, to get a script so I could start getting to work, and then I learned halfway through the days that they had me block off that we would not shoot for another two weeks. I missed a lot of opportunities in these two weeks. Because I was hyped up and on edge for that time, I have found myself to be depressed, with symptoms that I have not had since before I decided to get back into acting.

This pilot could get picked up and be my chance to make a living. Or it could have booked up most of pilot season without much beyond some reel footage and the $100 per day that they will pay me. The fortunate thing is that they did finally send me papers to sign. So now at least I know that I will get paid (unlike the last time I worked for them).

After this pilot, I think it will be time for me to perform standup again. to get used to being on stage with these jokes. And because that can potentially pay some bills going forward. Not to mention that if it's a good quality recording, I can submit it to comedy festivals...

There is also that pilot that I am writing. The standup workshop fortunately has me churning out jokes that are a poor fit for standup, but seem to be a great fit for certain little spots in the pilot. So hopefully I will get it finished in a more organized fashion with the comedic blanks filled in after I complete this second draft.

Delays & Waiting

The wait is killing me. We were supposed to start filming the pilot this past Monday, but the winter storm last week delayed production by a couple days. So by my count, that means that production was meant to start on Wednesday. Too bad it is already Saturday. I just want a script so I can obsess over it!

The bright side to production delays was that I got to see my somewhat famous standup comedian friend perform again when she was in town on Sunday night. She let me know that my stuff was good enough to be paid to perform and work out the little missing details on stage. I made excuses that included a desire to sell my one-liners, since I seem to have a knack for writing them, but in truth, I have read so much online about how it takes ten years to have decent traction when it comes to doing standup. But that is for normal humans, which is a group into which I do not fall. But then I watched Steve Martin's 1976 set at The Troubadour last night, and it made me want to do more physical humor, much of which one tends to figure out on stage in the moment through improvisation.

Then that same standup friend released her first standup special online, then was written up in the New York Times about it along with a show that was my most recently binged comedy obsession. I was so excited for my friend, but also kicking myself a little too.

The restive anxiety was really hitting me yesterday. It feels like I have been sitting on my hands for two weeks, just waiting to be able to work on this pilot. Last I heard was on Thursday, when the creator said that she would be sending forms to sign, and once I signed them, she would send me a script.

My frustration over sitting and waiting in the midst of the success of friends is getting to me a little bit, but I am trying to channel that frustration into writing more. And so far, it is working. Over the past week, I have finally written jokes that incorporate my contortionist skills. I do not know if they are any good, but maybe they are!

Sick in a Storm

I caught another cold, so I have spent this meantime just recovering from that. Then we had a winter storm come along, so those were a few days of not working out or getting out to write. And since I have been churning out these short standalone jokes pretty consistently, I have felt the loss. But the bright side is that I have spent time refining the jokes I already had, and most of them are now ready to perform. Perform when? At what venue? Well, when the opportunity comes knocking, I hope to have my prepared material smashing through that door in response.

During this sickly time, I had the opportunity to audition to be on a singing show. It would have filmed in Ireland at the end of March, and I would have had a chance for a million dollar prize. But it would have also required me to sign a contract saying that I would not appear on network television in any other capacity for a year. I asked the creator of this show that we are about to film whether that could be an issue, and she said that by the fall, she expects us to be on cable, possibly network television. So I turned down the audition.

And then I read about how much I could expect to get paid for such a role. With one episode as a lead (which I am), I could potentially make a year's worth of minimum wage. If we actually make a full season, that could pay better than any of the medical jobs to which I had applied last year. And unlike those jobs, this one is likely to regularly challenge my skills as an improviser. I know this because at our last shoot, the show's creator told my scene partner to improvise, whereas I had specific information from the script that I needed to convey, so I had to guide the conversation and keep up with the changes.

A Weekend of Wondrous News

Big things happened over the weekend. For one thing, the dramatic role I had been playing as a corrupt police chief went from shooting low production value short clips to now planning to shoot a 60-minute pilot in two weeks. It sounded like the SXSW plans might be out, but booking a lead role in a pilot is obviously a better gig anyway.

And then the following day, I played a significant role in the pilot for a workplace comedy, which basically functioned as the first major scene to set the tone for the show. And everyone was blown away. This was the zaniest character that I have been given to play, and I absolutely loved it. I was finally permitted to "over act" which my face and body are always craving. And the writer/director incorporated the jokes that I pitched. And the physical bits were so good that our part at least should be somewhat enjoyable on mute. Afterward, as I was sharing a little of my journey and the reservations I had had about getting back into acting, the PA for the shoot said, "What you did today is a sign that you are making the right choice" which was of course a lovely thing to hear.

With that upcoming dramatic pilot, I have to really get it together. Every production for them so far has involved short notice and then changes once we are on set. I of course practice improvising regularly, but I also want to be as prepared as I can be for a given role. I will consider this to be a chance to prove myself within the industry, which means that for the two weeks of shooting, I will be hardcore focused. Since the writer tends to make typos and those typos distract me, I will need to read digitally first, then correct and reword parts of it, then print it out and make notes for my character.

The Upcoming Season

Oh how the time goes. Last week, I was feeling a little down for not booking anything. This is apparently normal just after the holidays, but still a let down for me. Then out of the blue, a death metal band needed someone to play a killer. After seeing my contortionist dance video, the director cast me for that role, along with another one, all shooting that weekend. Everyone involved was kind, and the pay was pretty good too! And I should have some great shots for my reel when it comes out in June.

I also signed on with an agency. They have a nonexclusive contract, meaning that they do not get to take a cut of my check unless they specifically help me get the job. They were slow on a job today, so I paid up to use the website because it was requesting a contortionist. Only after I submitted did they send an email. Sorry buster!

In the weekly online standup workshop I do, I feel that I am nearly done with two different five-minute sets. But also importantly, I have been blowing away the host with my one-liners. They are apparently the most difficult types of standup to write, but I have been churning them out at a decent rate. They are also very useful for padding a standup set from five minutes to become six or seven, etc. And I realized that Steve Martin's standup was made up primarily of a bunch of that style of joke. Maybe not literally one line, but he had a lot of little standalone jokes.

I also thought of a short film idea. Really just a couple moments in it, and now I am trying to expand those very specific scenes into a larger narrative. My dad texted my mom with reasons to kick me out of her house that are all focused on the fact that I am a financial investment that is no longer focusing on studying medicine. Never mind that he would not listen to the counsel that came from such an education. He also listed all the jobs that I can get with an MD (as if I would not have tried to get those jobs already). The fortunate thing is that this inspired another scene in the pilot that I am writing. I still do not know where to put it, but it is nice to have that kind of material. It is also nice because when my dad similarly advised my mom years ago regarding my oldest brother, she declined his advice, and that relatively worry-free time is when he managed to plant the seeds that would get him rich from crypto. Good omen.

I had a callback today for that audition I did last week. Different parts, but they were all fun. Downside is that I misspoke a couple times in the callback, whereas my auditions were pretty flawless. The writer/director praised how I had a distinctive way of playing each character. I responded by telling him that it was in the writing.

Pilot season is upon us. I have an acting website up as of an hour ago. I have a podcast interview tomorrow, a free modeling session on Saturday, and a comedy shoot on Sunday. And that corrupt chief of police role is supposed to film next week... but it is frustrating because they ask us to block off a week. The last dates they told me to block out, they never followed up about it. Those days came and went. And the videos that they released still look shoddy. Slightly better, but the lighting was bad enough that I did not give it more than a couple seconds of attention. They obviously need a director of photography, a prop master, and the editing obviously needs attention. Lighting too, but that and the lighting might be done by the director of photography. And to be clear, other productions in which I have been involved have looked great, so it is once again just the contrast of appearing like a student film.

First Real Audition

I have had no new gigs this year, but I did have an agency accept me as a client. Others have yet to respond to my submissions after weeks of waiting while this one gave their response on the same day that I sent in my work. A web search revealed little in terms of public opinion, except for one client who could not get their representative to get on a zoom call with them. So I emailed and asked for a zoom call. We will see how that goes.

Today, I had what I think was my first normal audition in at least a decade. It was done online and they just had me read some lines, doing some dialogue with me. I made the project's leader laugh some with the main character, then he had me read for another character, and he was laughing out loud multiple times at my cold read delivery. I may have overacted a little with the main character role, but in my view, I can always tone it down if they need it. In any case, he said auditions will be ongoing for the next ten days, but I should know about callbacks within a couple days. It was a fun experience! I wish I had more auditions like this. This is what I enjoyed in my childhood. The affirmation of the director saying that they liked what I just did, the choices I made (which are all improvised and it makes me worry that I will not be able to recreate it if I am cast), all of it really hits in such a real way. I will assume that I was not cast, but that does not take away from the experience.

I thought of a short film concept today. I need to stop sharing my first draft pitches with friends, because they absolutely do not tend to get what I am saying until I have fleshed it out. And I like to think that I am critical enough of my own writing that by the time I share a finished version of it, it should be decent.