I Post A Lot When I Don't Work

I havent't worked in the last 2 days and I've been bored out of my mind. I was going to wait until tomorrow to post, but I couldn't because I have two funny things to share.

First, God must be testing my personal discipline or something. That's the only reason I can come up with for why this next thing happened to me. So, everyone knows by now about my reflex laughter. My severe inability to control my laughter when I hear or see something funny. Well, you can imagine what I was going through when this happened.

I started an acting class yesterday, a cold reading class. A cold reading is when you go on an audition and the casting director gives you a scene to do, by yourself or with someone else, with little or no time to prepare. This class is supposed to sharpen those skills. I audited the class yesterday, which means I went to observe to see if I would like it. There was a girl there who was auditing as well. She was kinda cute I must say. Anyway, the instructor asks us to do a scene together, so he gives us a scene and says, "Go". This girl has done theatre for 10 years, so she was saying her lines with feeling, whereas, I was more or less just reading them off the page because I was a little nervous. So the instructor stops us, and he tells me to do some things that will help me be more aware of my scene partner so that I will actually be responding to her, and her words, rather than just read the lines. He tells us to look into each other's eyes, and not to break until he says so. As we're doing this, he tells me to describe what I see, in detail. So, I look at this girl, and to my surprise, she has a single booger in each on of her nostrils! (I'm laughing so hard as I type this right now I don't know what to do). Can you imagine the thoughts that went through my head? What was I supposed to do? I couldn't open my mouth to talk or else just laughter would come out! I definitely started to get hot and sweaty.

I was doing good; I wasn't laughing. But in order to accomplish this, I was literally squeezing my balls as hard as I could. I was just sitting there, paused, and by this point, the instructor is saying, "Go on, describe what you see", as the other people in the class watched. I uttered a quick, "I see a girl", then I shut my mouth. And of course he told me that wasn't detailed enough. So, I had to take a deep breath, say a little prayer, then just make up some stuff. Whew!! Passed that test!

The second thing I want to share is another video. I kind of like how the video added a new flavor to my blog. Makes it more interactive. No, this one is not another one of New York, but it's just as funny. This video is a Japanese video that was put together to teach Japanese people how to speak English. It's kind of long, it's almost 4 minutes. But please, watch the whole thing. I'm not going to tell you how many times I've watched it, cuz that's embarrassing. But here are a few observations I made that made me wonder:

• why the people in the street are totally off beat
• who came up with that background music
• the second "lesson" is called You drive me crazy. I can totally see myself saying this to some of the people I meet on set, hand motions and all
• How can someone make this video and then request, "Don't make fun of me"?
• the 5th lesson or so is called Leave me Alone. Once again, I'll be using this one on set, complete with hand motions
• And lastly, lesson 6, I can't stand the sight of you! Who on earth picked some of these phrases to teach Japanese people to say in English?!?!?!

Watch the vid, and you'll see what I'm talking about. This will be a great study break for any of my classmates studying cardio!

So, what'd you think of the video? The last lesson was best of all! Would you believe me if I said there was a part 2? Well, there is and I'll put it up on my next post. I can't get enough of this stuff. I LOVE to laugh!!!!!

My Worst Day in L.A. Thus Far!

This blogging every few days thing is going to really get to me sooner or later, but what the heck. I can write if people show an interest.

Hollywood really worked me the last 2 days. Thursday I was on a show that premiers this fall and it's called Vanished. Call time was 8 am and we didn't get out of there until 11 pm, which means I didn't get to bed until after midnight. I had to then get up at 4 am Friday morning to be at Universal Studios for another show called Re-Animated. This show contributed to my worst day ever here in L.A., but I'll get to that in a second.

There were 2 things I wanted to say about being on Vanished, but I can only remember one. I need to start writing stuff down so I don't forget anything. Anyways, this is going to seem kind of bad on my part, but yall know how I am. So, this episode of Vanished was filmed on location at City Hall dowtown. We were more than half way through the day, and everyone was sitting outside, under the tents they had set up for us. I'm there talking to some of the other people, and a few feet away from us is this fat man talking to some people. He was trying to be funny and tell jokes and stuff when all of a sudden his chair broke from underneath him and he went crashing to the ground. I did one of those things where you start laughing, then you pull yourself together real quick and hold it in. This is one of my biggest challenges in life: containing my laughter. Ask anyone who knows me well. I admit it's bad, but I can't help it. If something is funny, I laugh. It's like a reflex. So, I'm holding it in, make sure the man is not hurt, then I start laughing again. Then one of the production people come over to see what happens as the man is still on the ground, obviously embarrassed. The chair is completely demolished! Seriously, it's just like a chunk of metal and plastic. So the man starts explaining what happened, and that it has actually happened to him before. He admitted that he heard the chair giving way earlier and that he should have gotten another chair, but he didn't.

Now, I'm not trying to be mean, but the man had to be at least 350 pounds. You're gonna tell me that it's happened to him before, he knows he's big, AND he hears and feels the chair making sounds that it shouldn't make, and he didn't do anything about it?!?!?!?!! Give me a break. Big people have to watch out for those things just the same as I have to watch out for my laughter, because I know how I am. It reminds of the issue of airlines charging big people double if they take up 2 seats on the plane. It makes sense. That's another seat that the airline could have sold to another person. Does that make sense to anyone else? He could have so easily saved himself the embarrassment, but he chose not to. Oh well.

On to my worst day, which was yesterday. I had to go to Universal Studios for the new show Re-Animated. I just knew from the title of this show that it was going to be a bad day, but I wasn't quite sure how. I get there, and it is a kids show. The scene they were shooting took place at an amusement park. And you know what that means???? Yep, upwards of 300 little brats screaming, yelling, being hyper, etc., etc. It was terrible. There kids hitting us with balloons, popping balloons, punching and kicking the people in the furry costumes. And we were there for 10 hours. I was talking to people who have been doing background work for a long time and they said this was the worst show they'd EVER done. I agreed, and all we did was bitch about it the entire day. Don't get me wrong, I like kids, and I'm good with kids, but I can't take 300 of them unsupervised on set (most parents waited in the holding area). We heard kids cussing, talking about sex, and all kinds of other stuff. I have never been so annoyed in my life. Never again!!!!

Then you have the infamous stage mother. I'm sure you guys know what they are like. There was one scene where a few of the kids had to ride on a train that went through the park while all the other kids were just runnin around the park and stuff. We saw one mother harassing the director to put her son on the train because his best friend was on the train. The director told her they had enough kids on the train, and she told him to take one of the kids off so her son could go on!!! And the kid was just standing there. He couldn't have cared less to be on the train. And on top of that, this is BACKGROUND work. There were so many kids there that you won't be able to see their individual faces. I feel so sorry for kids whose parents are stage parents. The parents push them and push them and punish them if they don't do something right. And in reality, the kid probably just wants to be somewhere playing with his friends than being on a set all day. It's crazy. I had never been so happy for a day to end. I had worked 25 hours out of the last 32.

Hopefully within the next few weeks different things will start to manifest, if you know what I mean, so that I can post some really exciting stuff.