Did the Child Pass?

There was a little doubt, but finally, this week, Erika and got affirmation as to exactly why we left lovely Seattle, and moved to Los Angeles.

Now, as I mentioned in my previous blog entry where I pwned GoogleMaps (then taught my sister how to say the word "pwned"), I managed to drive from Seattle to LA in one day. Not an easy task, and my brain was pretty much mush by the time I arrived here, but I now know it’s possible.

Anyhow, nothing really important happens over the weekend in Los Angeles – TV shows rarely shoot, and no one posts auditions. I didn’t think the entertainment industry was on a Monday to Friday kind of schedule, but apparently it is. So I got to relax over the weekend…reacclimatize myself to this lovely metropolis.

On Monday morning, I was ready and rearing to start up with the acting. But, instead, we went to the beach, because it was really freaking hot outside. At the beach, I called into our background casting agency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_casting, and booked myself on a Jerry Bruckheimer pilot called Eleventh Hour, that apparently takes place in Seattle. Yes, I had to move to Los Angeles in order to appear in TV shows that are based in Seattle. Irony, you taste so salty.

However, once I got to the shoot, I was struck with a case of, what I like to call, "The Darkness." This is an insidious disease that manifests itself in various destructive ways…such as me feeling ugly, untalented, dumb, awkward, unfunny, uninteresting…y’know, wonderful stuff like that. It was all prompted by a lovely encounter with a make-up woman on set.

See, once you show up to a background gig, you’ve got to do two things – check in with the 2nd Assistant Director (a.k.a. "The Extras Wrangler"), then go through wardrobe so they can approve the clothing you’ve brought. Wardrobe usually consists of two people that typically fall into the following categories: earthy females, effeminate males, or old English women. These two folks check out the background actors, and either give them a "thumbs up," or dress them in something else from their trailer.

Anyhow, on the last couple of shoots I’d been on, I had to go through hair & make-up as well as wardrobe. I thought that, since I had a monster zit on my forehead, I’d better check to see if hair and make-up approved. The hair and make-up area of the set is basically the same thing as the wardrobe trailer, except instead of clothes, there are barber’s chairs and mirrors.

Well, as I was standing outside the trailer, a woman on the inside (of the "earthy" variety) was touching up one of the "stars" of the pilot. I tried to get her attention, but she didn’t seem interested in talking to a lowly extra. After a good twenty count of her ignoring me, she moved to close the door on the trailer in my face (she may have thought I was just gawking at the "star" I’d never heard of, thus breaking some unwritten code that extras and castmembers are not to intermingle). I asked the make-up lady, "So, does background need to go through hair and make-up?" She responded by flatly saying, "Okay, thank you," and slamming the door to the trailer in my face.

Now, recounting it just now, it doesn’t seem so humiliating…but for me, a movie-set neophyte, it was fairly embarrassing. Super embarrassing. Plus, I do this thing where I’m not able to let things go sometimes…so while my mouth was laughing and telling myself "Man, what a [cuss word]," my brain was berating me for being so stupid, and bothering the important people that I should never have been talking to.

Anyhow, I’ve digressed like wildfire here. The point is, I was feeling very low at this point. Luckily, my wife totally rules, and through cunning verbal acrobatics (basically telling me "Get over it, and cheer up!" in a kind way) she was able to boost my esteem as much as one can over a cell phone conversation.

But the day progressed, and I was still fairly bummed out…and I kept fighting another onset of "The Darkness" through most of the filming. Afterwards, as I was driving to our acting class, I got a phone call that started good times.

Well, apparently the Sprite commercial that I’d auditioned for about 2 months ago hadn’t been cast, and I was being called back to read again, on Wednesday morning. This is my first Los Angeles call back, and it was an audition I’d got through my agent (as opposed to something I’d submitted myself for), so it was a pretty good deal. Plus, when I got home, I found that I had two more auditions to attend on Wednesday…which meant that I had two auditions and a call back…all in one day. I was lucky to get three commercial auditions in a month in Seattle, much less three in one day…which is reason number 4 why we moved here.

So, early Wednesday morning, I zipped across Los Angeles in my 1990 Geo Prizm, going from one audition to the next like a bona fide Los Angeles actor-type person. I even got my first parking ticket…which sucked (me neglecting to drop 25 extra cents into meter turned into a $40 ticket)…but it was okay, because parking tickets and Los Angeles are just a part of the experience.

But, if I may digress for a second, when I was driving around on Tuesday, I saw ten parking enforcement vehicles on the road. 10. During that same trip, I saw one police cruiser. That’s a 10:1 ratio for parking enforcement vehicles to police cars. Something is wrong with that. I was exactly 12 minutes late feeding the meter, and somehow that bastard tagged me with a ticket. 12 minutes! That’s in-crazy!

Anyhow, enough of that…that’s just The Darkness talking. The point is, I hit up all three auditions, and on my way home I got a call from my agent informing me that I’d booked the Sprite audition! Now, before y’all get too excited, it was a non-union job, only paying about $550 (after taxes & agent commission), and playing in Ireland. But hell, it was something that I auditioned for, went up against dozens of real Los Angeles actors, got cast in, and am getting paid for. I hate tooting my own horn, but that was pretty damn awesome.

Then, to top it off, the next day I got an e-mail from my agent, informing me that I’d been called back for the second audition from the previous day (for some insurance company in Nebraska). Pretty good stuff.

And on Thursday, I put in a 12.5 hour day doing extra work for the TV show Without a Trace, which will add a couple more dollars to the "Keep Tyler Jobless" fund.

Then on Friday Erika got groped by Chris Farley’s brother…while Kelsey Grammer watched. But you can read all about that in her blog, which is delightful. Me? I stayed home and played video games all day. Very productive.

Saturday night, something rad happened. See, we’d always heard about how difficult it was to make friends in the "superficial, sleazy, and uninterested" city of Angels…and we moved down here expecting to be surrounded by pricks…save for our room mates, and the occasional old friendly face from college. But lo, Los Angeles is just chock full of surprises, and we’ve managed to find a group of people that I’m not ashamed to call "friends." Well, this group of friends went to karaoke on Saturday night at a place called Sardo’s. It was fantastic, a highlight of the evening being a stirring rendition of David Bowie’s grand epic Space Oddity, and a gender-defying performance of A Whole New World. I must say, after a couple of months sometimes slogging through the materialism, pretension, and artificiality of some aspect of the film industry, it’s awesome to have met some people here who are genuine, funny, and genuinely funny. And not Guatemalan. Actually, I think one of them is Guatemalan, but we don’t hold that against him.

But enough ass kissing. Point is, it was a good week…for myself and for Erika (who was on the brink of being cast in an independent film today, and will be starring in a theater production shortly. But, like I said, if you want her update, check out her blog…which she’s promised to start tending to with more frequency…).

Is that it? Yeah…I think so. We’ll see what this week holds. Today, I was just informed that I’ll be auditioning for a national spot that may see me traveling to Norway to film…if I get it. Cross your fingers, people…because that would be cool.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about the title of this blog, it was a reference to something that I (apparently) said in my sleep on Sunday. "Did the child pass?" I asked my wife. I guess we’ll never know, because apparently I fell right back asleep.