The Absolute Best Time

I drove to Austin to play the role of bartender in this show. I had tried asking my friends in the cast what the show was about, but they did not even attempt an answer. They did, however, mention that there was a lot of improvisation. So I showed up to set and pitched a few ideas to one of the directors, who was a little dismissive of them at first, saying that I was mostly there for some over the shoulder shots as I poured drinks. But then we started shooting and a new comedian friend I had met the night before was playing opposite me and asked me a question. Bear in mind that I was told nothing about this, but I knew that questions are often answered, so I improvised something and they liked it enough that the director eventually said things like, "does he have a mic on?" (the sound guy assured me that the boom caught all of my stuff) and "do a shot of London. He's earned it" and then brought back one of my ideas and had me do it, a physical bit with my face that I assume others cannot do.

The shoot lasted a long while. My scene was technically maybe eight or nine hours long, give or take. Lots of physical comedy and stunts, with me reacting to it. And in between takes, I was dancing around and having fun. Other (paid) actors let me know that I could stop, and when my part was finished, that I could leave, but I had to tell them that this was the best time for me. I had not been on a proper set in 20 years and it was just my favorite thing. I felt so happy and fulfilled and thrilled at how it all went. I earned my place there. I improvised with famous people and did well. The cast and crew were all very kind and a lot of us added each other on social media, exchanging numbers too. 

One of the directors later told me that our dialogue created a new scene, but I was perfect for the role. I gushed my thanks to them before leaving, and reiterated that I am a drive rather than a plane ride away. Easier to get. And I sent my contortionist video around.

I also learned about another showbiz audition website, which was how the lead in the show had been cast, and I made sure to sign up for that. I was not sure if I was kidding myself with a childhood dream about comedy and showbiz, but that really was the best feeling.

Restive

The budget is tight, but after receiving no response from agents nor managers regarding voice talent work, I forked over $100 for a year membership with Backstage with the hope that I may find some gigs there. 

I have been feeling restless lately. Some depression too, but mostly this restive anxiety keeps settling in. I want to write more, but my lack of defined goals in the short or long term leave me feeling somewhat paralyzed. And of course, most weeks, I am working on something in a livestreamed standup comedy workshop. I just feel as though I keep casting these nets and hoping that something somehow catches.

Last weekend, I reconnected with the writer/director/lead actor of my first feature film. He was very kind and responsive, giving me many details about his current projects. I played the young version of him, so he described receiving my email as a refreshing trip to the past that came at a rough time. He also mentioned that he had sent a pilot pitch to Disney and it was now in the fourth month of waiting to hear back. I hope that such a wait time is normal for a pilot that will be greenlit, because I too have been waiting a similar amount of time to hear back about that sketch comedy show.

My slightly famous comedian friend is visiting Austin for a shoot, and when I asked if she would have time to hang out, she said no, but if I wanted to, I could play the role of a bartender and we could then hang out on set. This was on the list of secret agendas I had had with regard to visiting with her anyway, so I of course accepted the offer. So that is supposed to happen on Friday.

I feel as though I am Groundhog Daying it. I read testimonials from patients with Long Covid and it leads me to think that this long-term relative isolation is okay, that it is justified. Even if I had money, going out and spending it on social activities would be risking chronic respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological disease. That being said, it is very easy to revert to alcoholic tendencies. What is the difference between the sober nights and drunk ones? In the former, anxiety can take over and I can dream of uncomfortable realities such as how I feel about my family, especially my father. But when I am drunk, I just watch a movie and, occasionally, become inspired to write something.

I spent so much of my life with something to aim for, a direction to throw myself. Now, I feel caught outside of my previous aspirations. One comfort in that regard is that if I suddenly had no worries about money, I am fairly certain that I would not feel fulfilled. I would still likely work on writing, but then I would have the means to write for what I want to do. A comedic one-man show, the podcast, the television show for which I currently just have a pitch and a scene written, and hopefully more travel-inspired content would all be on the list of creative tasks demanded by my work ethic.

But alas, for now, I just try to read, write, perform, and get paid.

Lil' Thought

Brief thought: Is it healthier to live life without religion, with the concept of this limited mortal life being one's only chance at giving this existence a go? When I felt much more solid in my faith, I trusted more, perhaps to the detriment of the world and people around me. A healthy distrust may have made me more appropriately discerning.

Less brief thought: My slightly famous comedian friend got me a little unpaid acting gig next week. 

New Avenues and Writing

In that last post, I referenced the fun I had in Waco. The next night, I went to a networking event with a film contest hosted by the director who worked with me twenty years ago to make my own short film. That night, after he and I had caught up a little bit, I was asking his boyfriend about his work in adapting foreign films for English-speaking audiences, and he mentioned the need for voices. I said that I do voices, and he asked me to demonstrate. So I did Mickey Mouse, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and some original voices as well. He immediately asked me to send him a one-minute demo of that plus some lower pitch voices, and said that he likely had work for me if I wanted. I naturally gave the affirmative, recorded the demo the next day, and sent it to him. Then a week later, I asked for feedback (especially critical feedback), but he assured me that the demo was solid and he would contact me when he needed to cast something. Given that it took so relatively little to impress him, I then sent that voice demo to a local talent agency. You see, I have delayed trying to really get into acting in part because they all want a reel of your work, and most of my work was either done a decade ago, online through twitch or the podcast, or is still in post-production, in the case of that lecture series I did. Since I am also approaching the point of roughly six months since I had heard from my old manager in Burbank, I also gave him an update that included the voice talent demo.

If I have some talent in voice work, as it appears, then that would be a dream gig. Just record wherever I go in the world. As tolerable as it is to donate plasma twice a week for my money, the pay for that has gone down, and though the scars from it are small, they are still scars both on the skin and within the blood vessels.

I have been staying true to my word to myself by reading books while donating plasma. It has been insightful, but my latest and current read of Poking a Dead Frog was at the top of many humorous book recommendation lists, in part because the contents range from general knowledge to very specific advice. So far, the comforting advice regarding how to become a better writer has consistently been to write more (or possibly to go live life in order to have experience from which to draw). And in the last passage I read, an interview with Mike Shur (showrunner of Parks & Rec), he went further to say that you can never really coast, that your best work from two years ago may seem terrible to you now. This makes sense to me. Another writer recommended finding a writing partner for writing scripts, in part because you need someone to be critical of your stuff, but also just because you can generally learn from each other. I am barely into the book, but they have also discussed the two-dimensional nature of characters in sketches vs the three-dimensional versions of characters in shows, and how certain funny jokes simply do not work for a character with depth and longevity.

Anyway I need to write more. I am falling into the same issue that I think (or at least hope) plagues many writers, that I enjoy coming up with new pitches far more than I prefer to work on existing ones. This is why my podcast is so nice, because it is a weekly exercise in coming up with and throwing away material. But a lot of writing involves adding and refining content in multiple drafts. And without a specific goal in mind, the accountability is lacking, which can lead me to become lazy in my approach. The nice thing about blogging like this is that it is finally becoming the easier writing compared to my "homework" of writing standup, humorous essays, a pilot pitch, or a spec script.

Found An Aim

Yesterday, I made the drive to Waco to visit my somewhat famous standup comic friend. And what a pleasure it was. We got drinks with her cousin and cousin's boyfriend, then I offered to drive her so she would not have to worry about paying up for a rideshare app. And, of course, to hang out a little. She had been on my podcast multiple times and we had both workshopped each other's standup comic material, so once in while she would just be commenting on how it was weird that we had not met before, since we were able to skip any awkward getting to know each other aspects of meeting in person.

So I drove her the few miles to the show and she introduced me to the booker and the venue manager as her comedian friend, which gave me a lot of points from the start. All of the comics were great, but she in particular was clearly the experienced headliner, despite her anxieties about it. And since she keeps her comedy clean and dislikes doing crowd-work, it gave me a real idea of how to aim my writing. Right after she finished her set, the venue manager turned to me and asked "you're a standup in Dallas?" and I responded in the affirmative with full knowledge that my standup experience thus far was bombing a week ago at an open mic, that my credibility was based on my friend's fantastic performance, and perhaps a little on my own conversational jokes. That standup friend told me afterward that the booker would probably put me in all of his shows.

So now I have to get good. Fortunately, this was a great learning experience. I am no longer so desperate to pull jokes on the audience now that I am borrowing from my friend's creditability.

Aiming Myself

It only took a few days and an industrial volume of whiskey, but I have finally gotten past my frustrated anger that plagued me after that open mic. My shortcut is not likely to be found in the setting of normal standup comedy, but I had to remind myself that I had not been writing to that anyway. I have a longer set in mind, largely inspired by Steve Martin's standup set. An extensive anthology of 1-5 minute silly jokes.

Months ago, when I first let my mind think of doing this, I had the rare feeling in me that I could really make something exceptional. I felt fully capable, and continue to feel that way. So really, the task at hand is relatively unchanged, except that now I know that my stage presence will need much more rehearsal, since I had not been on stage with a memorized script like that in something like a decade. And it showed. But now I know! And now I also know that I should expect minimal appreciation from the crowd at open mics, which means that I can likely practice and get a recording of my best stuff without being worried about having it stolen.

So the task at hand remains unchanged. Write more. Get more disciplined with writing while I still have the gift of too much time on my hands. And when I have enough written, I will hopefully be able to find a venue at which to aim myself and my act.

That being said, I did send out a few more job applications over the weekend. As much as I would like to rely on donating my plasma to pay bills for the rest of my life, I think that I would prefer a more engaging job. Or for my investments to pay off. 

Tried Standup. Frustrated.

I finally tried performing standup. I got laughs, but mostly at my least favorite jokes. When I asked for feedback from the comic who has been helping me learn to write standup, he informed me that the average standup audience requires far more honesty than the little bit that I included in my set. This has been a significant struggle with me from the beginning because when I write, I typically write to what I would want to see and hear, and honesty does not make my list of desired traits in a performance. This is of course why I had little interest in standup prior to four months ago, when I viewed it as a means to skip steps in becoming famous in comedy.

Regarding the actual performance, it had been awhile since I had been on stage reciting memorized material. That coupled with the fact that I had no opportunity to rehearse with the equipment available made my delivery worse than it might otherwise have been. That being said, I did fine, and it taught me that I do not need to do the usual standup comic thing of going on stage a million times before I know what works (or to get used to the stage in general). I can write funny material before going up. My big struggle is the willingness to write standup jokes with real honesty. That being said, when I was struggling with the anger of a lackluster job situation and seeing no path forward with the comedy, those vexed thoughts were interrupted by more honest joke ideas.

I spent so much time in med school normalizing myself because that is what brings patients comfort in the midst of difficult times. And my hope regarding standup comedy was that I can be more of what I view as an authentic version of myself, but since my authenticity is absurd, that translates to an absurdist rather than authentic form of comedy.

The writing is a rewarding process in itself, but I still want to find a way to make a profit off of this stuff! This week, I should at least get some data regarding my investments. The CEO certainly made it sound like recent moves should change the game, but we will just have to see.

In six days, I have plans to see my somewhat famous standup buddy. She has expressed some similar ideas regarding what she would want to do with her act, and she has also performed a successful one-person show before, which was well-received. So maybe she will have insights.

I am still frustrated. The angry thoughts are still here. The only jobs I can think to try for without feeling like I am compromising myself do not want me, and the others are sales jobs that do not pay as well and, frankly, also do not want me. My friends without degrees are making more money than I can hope to when I start, and a part of me also does not want to start a salary job because if the previously-mentioned investment does pay off in the short term, then I will be quitting. And I commit hard to my work, so I feel compromised in knowing how temperamental such a commitment could be. But then again, maybe that is a stupid feeling since I am betting on a black swan event with my investments.

Looking forward, I remain too poor to make it in either medicine or comedy. I need to write more, not only for the practice, but also because that is what I can afford to show for my time and talent while on a budget.