Mother Came to Visit (Part 2)

And the story continues. After not having had the chance to spot Britney Spears or Paris Hilton around town, my mom was feeling kind of down. So, I figured that going to The Price Is Right would cheer her up! The show wasn't going to begin taping until 1 pm, but we had to be at the studio before 7 am to get priority tickets. They go on a first come, first serve basis. I had gotten 4 days off from work to spend time with my mom and I wasn't exactly happy about having to wake up at 5:30 am to go to CBS and then wait around for hours and hours. Anyone who knows me, knows that my attention span is virtually non-existant. It's really bad actually. I dread airplane rides for this reason. I'm not worried about going down, it's the sheer boredom of sitting in the same seat for hours. But, I digress..........

Somehow the universe could sense my boredom, and so they sent us a crazy to entertain us. Bright and early that morning, Marilyn walked into our lives. Now, you have to picture what she looks like to get the full effect. She looked almost identical to Rhea Pearlman in that tv show Cheers. Here's a picture below to refresh your memory. Yes, I remember this show even though it came out the year I was born! Now, Marilyn was a very sweet woman who could talk, A LOT! She latched onto us like a barnacle on the side of a boat! But I didn't care that day, she was making me laugh, and if you can make me laugh, I'll be your best friend. Pam (the Transformers fanatic) has this down pat! Anyways, Marilyn is telling us about how beautiful her grandchildren are, what she had for dinner last night and how she'd been begging people to come to The Price is Right with her, but no one would, so she decided to come by herself. I wonder why no one would come with her? haha I have to say, upon telling her that I left med school to come to Hollywood to pursue acting, she said that was great and I should pursue my dreams. That was good, because if I hear one more person tell me to just go back to school, I'm going to explode! We ended up finding out the Marilyn lived right around the corner from the hotel my mom was staying at, to which she told us, "Well, gee, if I knew you were going to come, I would've picked you up!" LOL, funny Marilyn.

Just before the taping, we had to go through security and wait some more. We noticed Marilyn disappear. Then all of a sudden she re-appeared with some food and somehow gotten back to the line, having bypassed security! Never underestimate the power of a crazy! We finally got to go into the studio and we could sit wherever we wanted. I knew Marilyn had officially reached crazy status when my mom says to me, "Look, there's 2 seats left on the end of that row. Let's get them so Marilyn won't be by us". HAHA It was funny, but in my mom's defense, she wasn't trying to be mean, she just thought that Marilyn would distract her during the taping of the show by talking.

The show was entertaining, and Drew Carey is a good host in my opinion. He entertained us on commercial breaks. We had our fingers crossed that we would get called up on the stage, but it didn't happen. It was still fun though. We saw people win cars, and a funny thing happend at the end. After some lady won her showcase at the end, after the cameras had stopped rolling, we noticed Drew Carey laughing hystrtically. I mean, he was laughing so hard he was turning red and he had to take his glasses off to wipe his eyes. Everyone is like, "What's going on up there?" Well, he finally told us that the lady who won, was so excited and jumping up and down that her teeth fell out! I wish I could have seen it!

That concludes my mother's trip to Los Angeles. It was fun and she said she's coming back real soon.

Also, a lot of people have contacted me to see if the fires out here are affecting me in anyway. I appreciate all the concern. The fires are no where near me, but the sky is starting to get a little hazy from the smoke blowing over this way. Let's just pray that they get them under control soon and that everyone that is affected by them in anyway are ok.

Here's the positive quote:

I refuse to give up. I shall continue firmly, steadily, and insistently until my good appears.

Catherine Ponder, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity

This quote is another one of those mantras that you are supposed to say to yourself multiple times a day if you get down about things. This one can be applied to anything, big or small.

Hollywood Is Full of Liars!

I got duped! A few posts ago I talked about a low budget feature I did that promised us IMDB credit. Well, doesn't look like it's going to happen. If so, it would have happened already. I should have know. Part of me did. But these people are so slick. I've heard stories of this happening before, but you get to a point as an actor when you get a little desperate. These people know this. They know that a person pursuing acting professionally does not like to be an extra. Low budget films don't pay extras anyway, so how do they get extras for their movies? They lie and tell actors that they'll get IMDB credit for it. As I said before, IMDB credit is a BIG thing, and when you're even a little desperate, you'll fall for these stupid lies. It's stupid, but a low budget movie doesn't have to follow the same set of SAG rules that a regular feature film would have to follow. Well, as they say, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." You can bet I won't fall for that again!

Now, a funny coincidence happend the other day. So, I've been getting a lot better at dealing with my enormous student loans and not being depressed about them. I started paying one off in July, and it's going well so far. One day I was thinking to myself how much I have to be thankful for in life, and how things COULD be a lot worse. I mean, both my parents are still alive and well, I'm healthy, I have friends and family who support my endeavors, and I am able to work. So, I told myself, I'm done with being stressed about my student loans (even though it is such a burden on my shoulders). There is nothing I can do about my debt, I just have to deal with it. I felt a lot better. The very next day I'm reading a magazine article about debt and tips on how to save money. It said things like, save a little each paycheck, have a money market account instead of a regular savings account, pay off credit cards first, etc. Every tip this article listed, I had already done, so I thought, "Wow, I'm really ahead of the game". Then I read a sentence that says, "In an Ohio State University survey, 25 percent of people admitted to losing sleep over debt-related stress." I had to laugh. It was so ironic that just the day before, I told myself I wasn't going to stress out about my debt, and more ironic that this came from Ohio State, the same place most of my debt comes from! Weird huh? I have to admit that, while I'm getting better at dealing with it, I do relapse sometimes. To the point where I get so scared or frustrated I start shaking. $80,000 is a big number for a 25 year old.

Positive quote:

"Money, money, money, manifest thyself here and now in rich abundance."

~Catherine Ponder, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity

The idea behind this quote is that the mind is a powerful thing (which I fully believe). The book is filled with these little phrases, and the philosophy is that the mind can create whatever it wants, if it truly believes in something. So, you're supposed to take a quote, like the one above for example, and say it, silently or aloud, everyday, multiple times a day. This may seem kind of silly, but I thought to myself, what do I have to lose? It doesn't cost anything, there is almost no effort involved, I can do it anywhere, and no one has to know that I'm doing it or when I'm doing. Doesn't hurt to try, right?

Mother Came to Visit (Part 1)

I realized I only did one post in September. I'm such a lazy ass. As I said before, it's a combination of me being lazy and thinking people wouldn't be reading anyway, but I checked my counter and my numbers are still up. So, because of that, I'm going to try and post at least once a week. Keyword: TRY.

So my mom came to visit me 2 weeks ago. She was really excited to come and I was excited to have her. It was her first time to Los Angeles. To the left you will see a picture of my mom standing on top of the Hollywood Hills with the San Fernando Valley (where I live) behind her. I have to say, after her four days here were up, I was exhausted. We were ALL OVER the city doing all the touristy stuff and still didn't even get to half of the things there are to do here.

We started the day she got here by going to dinner. After it got dark, I drive her through Hollywood and the Sunset Strip so she could see all the lights and what everything looked like at night, since we were going to be doing most of our activites during the day. The next day I took her to the hotel that I worked at and then we went to Rodeo Drive. There was A LOT of walking included in this trip and Rodeo Drive was no exception. For those of you that don't know, Rodeo Drive is the name of the famous street with all th expensive shops, but the whole area is made up of more streets with more shops and we walked all of them. A funny thing happened in one of them. We went into a store called St. John (I think), and like many of the other stores, they have huge tv screens in there with fashion shows showing, with models walking on the catwalk. This is what happened next:

Me: "Mom, do you think you could walk the catwalk like that?"

Mom: (laughs) "Of course I can."

Mom walks down the aisle shaking her hips.

Store Clerk: (out of nowhere) "Ohhhhhh, very good! I saw you shaking it!"

Much laughter ensues

Maybe you had to be there, but it was really funny. We saw some sweaters in this store for $1200. I kind of felt bad for my mom because I'm such a bad shopping partner. I can't help it, I just really hate shopping. Maybe it's because I'm a guy, I don't know. I tried to stay enthused for her sake though, haha. She finished up on Rodeo Drive by buying a multitude of things at a store where everything was $15.00!! Now that's funny.

Next we went to Hollywood Blvd to see the Walk of Fame, Kodak Theater, Grauman's Chinese Theater and all that good stuff. There wasn't much going on here because it was Sunday I think. At some point during this day, I took my mom to the apartment that I lived in last year. (Yeah, the one that was on the Sunset Strip that I'm pissed I don't live in anymore). She met my old apartment managers and they told us all of the old Hollywood stars that used to live in this building, including Marilyn Monroe at one point. He took us underneath the building and showed us all these trap doors and bathrooms down there where the celeb's assistants used to stay. I lived there for a while year and they never told me any of that stuff!! When I'm famous, I can be added to that list now!

The next day we went to Venice Beach (Muscle Beach) where all the weirdos and street performers are, and then we went to Santa Monica and the Pier. This was my mom's first time seeing the Pacific Ocean. Mom loves the ocean but is scared of water. Sounds like a crazy if you ask me!

Since this is getting long, I'm going to break it up into 2 parts. Next time, I'll tell you about our time on The Price is Right and the crazy my mom made friends with. Yes, we met a crazy at the The Price is Right. Did you really think I could make it through this trip without attracting one of them?!?!? lol

Here's the positive quote of the day since I get yelled at by people if I don't post one:

"A kindred soul is the friend who loves you for the total summation of whatever you will do, whatever you are, and whatever you are becoming, with no qualifications."

--Sylvia Browne

I'm looking for kindred souls. I posted this quote because I think "true friends" are very far and few between. There are NOT many out there for most of us. It gets depressing sometimes when you're going through things and you feel like you have no one to talk to for fear of being judged. I'm sure we've all felt like that before. Hey, just being honest here.