A Stop In Texas

Significant update regarding those pilots. That showrunner wants to shop around both pilots. I had a much more significant hand in shaping the other of them, so much so that the writer changed the second half to include a role for me. This role is just significant enough that it could help give me a real boost as an actor, but is also realistically small enough that I would have a chance to book it while other roles are taken by actual name talent.

If both of them are picked up as pilots, I make six figures. If even one is picked up for multiple episodes, six figures. What I am saying is that I make like $50k per episode, plus the amount that I would make in equity afterward. Not to mention whatever I make for the acting roles. I have kept in contact, but really, the work is all on the part of the writer now, and I mostly offer some input, and will presumably be learning more about how to do my job in the event that the money comes in.

Also, I am currently doing reshoots in Dallas, but before I left LA, I had brunch with a special effects artist who is working on all the big movies and shows. We talked for hours and had a lovely time. She went to med school for a year and has plenty of mutual interests. She has a fetus foot, which had me loling. It is what it sounds like, and was prompted by her saying "sorry if I walk weird."

For well over a decade, I have used the same messenger bag, but the zipper began only working to open it. This is great when I want to open it, but on occasion, I do like to close it, so last night, I transferred my mass of books and electronics to another bag.

I have continued posting daily to TikTok on both my personal and my podcast account. The podcast account is growing in followers and engagement, whereas my personal one is more stagnant in both, though the personal one does have a head start in follower count, along with one fairly viral video. On the podcast one in particular, I think I have like ten song requests that I have yet to respond to, which is great. Having options allows some flexibility for inspiration to hit.

I have not worked out since I have been back in Texas, whereas in LA, I am at the gym daily out of necessity. Suddenly, I need to watch my caloric intake. I can look bad. These are problems that I had not experienced until I partook in the glutony of that transatlantic 14-day cruise.

Things Cooking?

As I am getting excited for this comedy special, a showrunner reportedly showed great interest in one of the pilots I am co-executive producing, and said that they thought Netflix or Hulu would be interested. So now we are scraping our contacts together to see if we could get a chance to pitch.

I am getting coffee with a prosthetics makeup artist on Saturday, one that worked on the latest big stuff like Fallout and the new Alien film.

With the podcast, we have started posting daily clips on TikTok, and it is working. We respond to comments so much, and it is so fun. And I started improvising songs with ukulele to reply to some, and it is so validating to hear positive responses from strangers online.

Writing to a Special

Brain has been a veritable hurricane since I started working on this comedy special. Since I do not enjoy performing standup, and I am certainly not up for the grind of hitting mics night after night, getting my material right just once on camera would be a good route.

And now, I play the ukulele well enough to write songs. And since I can mimic the signs of a stroke with my face, I made a little video with a song about recognizing stroke. And it's gaining a little traction on twitter, so that is neat. Best part is that it has the potential to prevent morbidity and mortality.

I have so many one-liners but feel that I cannot deliver them well onstage, so filming them all as little clips would be ideal. Cunk on Earth went viral through little clipped segments, and that was obviously a huge hit.

Also, people want to hear the same stupid songs a million times, unlike standup, in which you are not supposed to repeat jokes after they are released. And I think I would like performing those live. I certainly have enjoyed my limited experience with it so far. And songs are like poetry or one-liners in terms of writing, but easier to get people to listen to them.

Okay, just spent hours writing initial drafts of like five new songs, all from concepts that did not work in standup. Might be more among my failed one-liners too.

Thrice a Vomit Then a Show

Yesterday was a single hoot. Possibly even a double. Someone had canceled for a gig last minute, and I was asked if I could step in for them. It was a paid gig involving a hot dog eating contest, so I of course said yes. Remember that calories in LA are expensive. So I show up and learned that if I had already eaten two slices of pepperoni pizza for breakfast, as I had before I received the notification regarding this gig, I can eat precisely five hot dogs (and two bottles of water I think) before I projectile vomit not once, not twice, but thrice. Then I kept trying to eat, which alotted me a bonus $25 gift card as a "Spirit Award" for pushing through, even though there was truly no reason to do so apart from the need to perform.

Then I had an audition to record. I have found a place in a parking garage nearby that has bouts of relative quiet and a blank wall. The lighting is not great, but decent enough for the task. Or so I assume, though maybe it will keep me from getting booked. In any case, my insides were still working through the enormous input of food and water and the instability of the intestinal tract that inevitably follows a round of emesis, so I had a headache and felt less than ideal for the next few hours. This was a shame, because that night, I had a show. I wrote a song for the first time over this past month, along with standup about my friend's testicular cancer diagnosis (and removal). My intention had been to spend the day workshopping and memorizing what I had written, but my body had finally begun to earnestly decline approaching further cognitive efforts, and I thus was still reading from my script when I performed. It was alright, but like most times I have performed, I felt like it was sorely lacking.

After writing the above paragraph, I texted a writer/director friend about filming a comedy special, partly as a way to raise capital on the cheap. He is interested. Braining some storm about that now.

It could be so, so fun.

Technically Sustainable

I wrote a song on ukulele to accompany a standup set about my friend's ball testicular cancer. I am still unsure about how audiences will handle jokes about a cancer survivor, but in my defense, my friend and I were pretty immediately joking about it, even when things were uncertain. What spurred me on to actually write standup about it was the fact that that friend posted on social media a PSA to check yourself for lumps. I do not do it with regularity, which is dumb, so hopefully I can make this and other medical PSAs.

I have been going through my old xanga blog posts and apart from being horrified at how I spelled some words ("schedual"), I reference a girlfriend named Tasha multiple times. Since I have never had a girlfriend, I wonder if this is a repressed memory or a bit. I am leaning toward the latter, though knowing me, I might never actually explain it in the blogs.

New strategy since getting back to LA is to focus on doing background work to make money. You get to be on set, eat from crafty, and (barely) be on camera for a little bit. And it can pay $100+ a day, which is about as good a rate as a lot of other roles these days. You meet people and basically hang out. And if I can get enough of these gigs lined up, even just one every week or two, that might be enough to cover my overhead. Did one last week, and I have another one booked for Monday.

I have officially signed the paperwork to be co-executive producer for two pilots. I met the writer/director/producer through another project, and have since been going over the scripts with him and offering to help however I can. For myself, the script noting was, at baseline, a good exercise for me to do. But for him, especially for the dark noir pilot, the notes resulted in a rewrite of the second half of the pilot, and the introduction of a character intended to be played by me. Recurring role baby! He is chasing after funding, and I am trying to connect him to talented but undiscovered friends.

He set a deadline to get funding for October, which is, what, six weeks away. What is nuts is that if we do get funding, I will go from living in my mom's car in a parking garage to making six figures next year as co-executive producer. $50k per episode, and even at the low end of the projections for return on investment in the financial plan, I would literally become a millionaire. Crazy. Of course, because I am loving my current situation, my brain currently thinks that I should pocket the money rather than spend, what, half of it on rent. But maybe that opinion will change when I am not poor. I spend so much time writing that really, I imagine just traveling more. I daydream a little about going back to Isle of Skye just to write for a couple weeks. It was an incredible place. But then again, I could see myself going to any number of places around the world, including new spots, in the same way.

In the meantime, I will assume that such an idealized financial situation is beyond my grasp. Keeping working and writing, keep honing skills.

Back in LA

Well, things have changed a tad since my last post. I am back in LA after shooting a feature and short film, and also doing a standup show. I also talked to the writer/director of two pilot scripts and, since I am on board and helping so early, he offered to make me co-executive producer, which would turn into $50k per episode for me (with ten episodes planned for the first season), on top of whatever I make as an actor. 

Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, and it seems like the most politically hopeful time since before Obama. We get that it is a false hope, that it will only slow our descent into fascism, but it is still nice to see that Trump stands a decent chance of losing.

The standup show incorporated slapstick, which took barely any prep and was the highlight of the show. I had only thought of the bit a couple days before doing it, but it resulted in 16 seconds of laughs as I threw myself around. Very fun and easy, much easier than writing something clever, and it seems less risky. No one is too drunk to comprehend slapstick. So now I have to write to that some more I guess. Especially since no one else is doing it?

Now my brain is churning around my feature film idea. I am remembering so many little jokes from Hot Shots! that I would love to emulate in a glorious genre juxtaposition.

I should find out this month whether I made it into any of these comedy festivals. Kinda scary, because I now know that I need more stage time to get better. I have exhausted the writing stage. So the clock will be ticking if I get in. Time to start rehearsing those one-liners with a ukulele...

Last Independence Day

Yesterday was, as many were casually calling it, our last Independence Day. The Supreme Court has given great power to the president, and because democrats and republicans are essentially the same, the current lame duck president will do nothing of significance with those powers to fix anything, and the republicans will wait until their nominee is elected to office in November.

So now I am finally watching some WWII documentaries, since history is obviously repeating. First thing Hitler did when he got a decent chunk of power was to have his secret service just assassinate all leaders who posed a threat to his power, even if they were on his side. Will Bernie Sanders and AOC be assassinated next year if Trump wins?

I have a week to prepare for this standup show. I still cannot seem to figure out how to use my one-liners. I am now going to try to print them out in sort of flash card style. And of course, I have other sets that I would like to try out, but I keep editing and rewriting them. Plus I have to figure out the choreography and voices, depending on the one.