Okay, the link is up! Disclaimer: This is NOT for the young, the old, or anyone that may be offended by -- well, anything. View at your own risk:Xtreme Biography: Santa
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Xtremely Offensive
Okay, the link is up! Disclaimer: This is NOT for the young, the old, or anyone that may be offended by -- well, anything. View at your own risk:Xtreme Biography: Santa
Friday, December 12, 2008
Me: Psych!
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I find myself currently sitting in the back of a giant conference room in San Diego, listening to a therapist talking about the psychology of weight loss. I’m quietly typing away on my laptop, peripherally listening to ideas I’ve mostly heard before. This half-vacation/half-working week has been my opportunity to have “daddy-daughter time”, an annual ritual for the two of us big-footed Wilsons. We spent the first half of the week touring San Diego (Coronado, La Jolla, the Gas Light District, etc), and now he’s lecturing while I do random other work-related things. I’m staying through Sunday, when I will be a guest judge at a San Diego beauty pageant (keep your jokes to yourself...it's too easy).
While it’s nice to have some time away from LA, it’s definitely strange to be the lone “actress” among all the intellectuals. I’m the odd one out – for once! Luckily, some great news came this week, so I have an “impressive” catch phrase to throw out there at the Brief Therapy dance party (Side note: Did you know most therapists really think they can dance but can’t? It’s ridiculously entertaining). Now I get to share that catch phrase with you: The webisode that you’ve heard about, X-Treme Biography: Santa, is going to be shown on ComedyCentral.com and Atom TV this Tuesday! Grandparents beware: this is not your typical Santa – proceed at your own risk! Please watch and tell your friends to watch. If the show gets a lot of views, there’s a chance Comedy Central may pick it up for future episodes!
I also spent a few days on the set of A Single Man, starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, and directed by Gucci fashion designer Tom Ford. This film takes place in 1964, so everyone spent 4 hours a day in hair, make-up and wardrobe to look perfect for the designer himself. Mr. Ford, meticulously dressed in a tailored (Gucci) suit, lined us up and singularly approved or disapproved us. Usually every fifth person was sent back to hair, make-up or wardrobe for even more perfection. You gotta love that! It was a fun set, and I think I may be featured a bit, so I’ll keep you all posted.
When I return to LA on Sunday, I’ll get back full-force into the creating of another webseries with Brian and four of our good friends. We’ve had a great initial meeting and plan to shoot our first episode at the end of January. Sorry I can’t divulge more on the content, but our idea hasn’t been patented yet!I'll leave you with an image that I can't take my eyes off -- we went to a gallery of rock and roll photographs, amazing shots of The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley and so many more "greats" in their prime. This is one of my musical love, James Taylor, in 1969. Sigh.
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Tuesday, November 11, 2008
LIVEworks is a smashing success!
With a quick three-day run, the lasting effects of LIVEworks are still being felt. But whhhhhhat IS this LIVEworks, you speak of, my pet? Well, we shall start at the beginning (a very good place to start)...Acorn Pictures is a production company formed out of the 2007 Atlantic LA program, taught by David Mamet. The company consists of 13 of my near and dear friends, most of whom I trained with at NYU/Atlantic. This blossoming company is such a delight -- hard-working, talented, professional and go-getters.
And I'm not just saying that. I'm lucky to be associated with them. They have been producing projects throughout the year, and Brian and I have always been eager to help them wherever they needed. So when it came to their second annual LIVEworks show -- the only LIVE production they do each year as a fundraiser -- they generously asked us to be a part of it. Of course, we jumped at the chance!In doing so, we each got to work on amazing short plays that became part of an eclectic evening of work. The show was such a hit, and the audiences were incredible. And we got to work with this company yet again, so it was triple-y fantastic.
Have I gushed enough?Okay, so coming off of that weekend high (literally...we huffed hairspray in the show -- well, we TRIED not to...) I threw myself into Waiting for Lefty for two straight days. Now I'm just trying to recover and find a way to pay for the $600 fuel pump our car needs. Oy...
But all is well in La La land -- fall crispness has finally hit a North Carolina girl who was craving it, so the bliss is all mine :)
Friday, November 7, 2008
Donaura Wedding Bliss
Brian and I just flew back from good ole Westminster, MD where we watched and captured our good friends, Laura and Donald (hence Donaura), tie the knot. It was a gorgeous fall day -- Halloween, to be exact. The wedding was not at all spooky, but rather Victorian, elegant, spiritual and fun!Laura looked amazing in her Vera Wang mermaid dress and pink pumps, hair swept to the side, carrying a bouquet of white roses, feathers and lace. Donnie was sharply dressed in a dove gray tux with matching Converse 
sneakers. Of course, no Halloween wedding is complete without 13 bridesmaids, 7 groomsmen, 3 flower girls and the Thriller dance. It was quite a night! We were so honored that they asked us to photograph the day and share in their love and excitement.
sneakers. Of course, no Halloween wedding is complete without 13 bridesmaids, 7 groomsmen, 3 flower girls and the Thriller dance. It was quite a night! We were so honored that they asked us to photograph the day and share in their love and excitement.This week is full of rehearsals, shows and filming. Brian and I are both in Acorn Pictures' LIVEworks show this week at the Odyssey Theater. It's an evening onf 7 one-acts and Brian & I are each performing in one. Brian also wrote one of the plays called Sketch (being produced for the second time).
Next Sunday, I'm filming part of the play Waiting for Lefty (by Clifford Odets), which is one of my all-time favorite plays (I did it once in college with Brian!). So I'm stoked to delve into the role again (is that cheesy? oh well.)
I'm also been working on a web-series, both acting and producing, called X-Treme Biography: Santa. It's a mockumentary of how Santa's life goes horribly wrong - I play a bitter feminist elf in his workshop, another one of my dream roles. And I have to say, the ears
are the best part. It's written and directed by my friend, commercial director Aaron Priest, so it's definitely going to be a hilarious and extremely offensive piece.And if anyone hasn't seen our latest photo shoots, check out www.joannawilsonphoto.com and click on RECENT SHOOTS. Lots of fun new stuff!
More soon,
J+B+S
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Terrible...
Okay, so I'm terrible -- I haven't kept up with this blog. Here is my excuse:
Brian is the true writer of this blog, as we all know, and I just left all the blogging up to him! Big mistake... Of course, he went off and started his own new blog and therefore I was left to fend for myself. I've never been good at keeping a diary, much less a public blog. As the weeks and months went by, I just got so intimidated by the thought of having to catch everyone up with EVERYTHING, that I just never did it.
So...
For future reference, the new Brian Leahy blog (aka Madman) is at: www.ravingwild.blogspot.com
It's very good. You should check it out.
And if you want to know what I've been up to acting-wise, check out my website at www.joannafosterwilson.com -- I update that much more frequently. The news section has lots of good stuff with links to work I've done and such. For now, go there.
My apologies... I vow to do better in the future. That's what I always used to tell my diary anyway. Well, we'll see :)
Brian is the true writer of this blog, as we all know, and I just left all the blogging up to him! Big mistake... Of course, he went off and started his own new blog and therefore I was left to fend for myself. I've never been good at keeping a diary, much less a public blog. As the weeks and months went by, I just got so intimidated by the thought of having to catch everyone up with EVERYTHING, that I just never did it.
So...
For future reference, the new Brian Leahy blog (aka Madman) is at: www.ravingwild.blogspot.com
It's very good. You should check it out.
And if you want to know what I've been up to acting-wise, check out my website at www.joannafosterwilson.com -- I update that much more frequently. The news section has lots of good stuff with links to work I've done and such. For now, go there.
My apologies... I vow to do better in the future. That's what I always used to tell my diary anyway. Well, we'll see :)
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Musings of a Director
Ah yes. So glad I can be the comical inspiration to Brian's creative writing. I guess "Joanna's Directorial Debut, Part Two" was too much to handle, huh Brian? I would like to say, for the record, that the previous post by Mr. Brian Patrick Leahy was entirely fabricated purely for the entertainment of our viewing/reading audience. You.
Yes, Brian can write fiction.
If there's a soul out there who hasn't yet seen the Goodbye Music Video, we would love for you to visit the YouTube link -- enjoy the music and make a comment if you feel so inclined. Best to click on "watch in high quality" under the number of views. The link is here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s6dYvIlYKr0
Okay, updates -- sorry this will be mostly informational -- but we've got lots of 'splaining to do!
Since our music video extravaganza, which was quite an awesome experience, Brian and I have been pouring ourselves into other works of art. Our writer/director friend Odin is making a short film in August called Mrs. Lovejoy, a horror/comedy about a mother whose teenage son is hanging with the wrong crowd, so she does away with the friends, holds the son hostage, and makes him watch old home-videos from when he was younger and still "good". Brian's growing out his hair, dying it black and playing one of the "bad kids". He'll also be doing Art Direction (creating everything you see behind the actors) and I will be taking photo stills and helping wherever needed. We've been attempting to raise money for the project (a $7,000 budget) but haven't stumbled upon the millionaire who is looking for a new short to invest in. If any of you know that person, would you have them give us a call?
We've also had quite a few visitors the past couple weeks. My brother was here for 5 days at the beginning of July, and we were up to our usual shenanigans. We attended a showing of The Room, which is by far the worst movie ever made -- so bad in fact, that it's hilarious. They have a monthly midnight screening at a theater here so young film geeks (and us) can laugh at the absurdity and throw things at the screen. It's Rocky Horror for our generation.
We also went to a Slam Poetry night that is completely sold out every week, jam-packed full of kids. Paddy, of course, was the first to volunteer and knocked everyone's socks off with his Greensboro Sit-In poem that he wrote when he was SIXTEEN. Seriously folks, if you haven't seen him perform this amazing talent, you are truly missing out. [SIDE NOTE TO PADDY: Why haven't you filmed yourself slamming and put it up on YouTube?? Um...we should totally do that at Beach Week. And I want 10% of everything you make.]
As soon as my brother left, my Mom and Ron arrived (never a dull moment out here) ! We had a grand time showing them around the city -- Ron particularly enjoyed the freaks on the Venice Beach Boardwalk and felt right at home. We all spent the 4th of July at this incredible house in Calabasas where our friends were house-sitting -- you know it's a good neighborhood when Britney bought the house next door and Eddie Murphy is down the street. The ten of us basked in the natural spring water swimming pool, complete with a waterslide and waterfalls, drank beer, and riffed on guitars around the sea-glass fire pit. It was a glorious evening.
Mom and I also had a shopping frenzy that weekend -- there's a vintage store around here that has a $1 sale on Sundays. And I know what you're thinking: when you mix a city full of costume designers, gay men, fashionistas and sale-o-holics with cheaper-than-a-cup-of-coffee vintage clothes, isn't the result TOTAL MADNESS? Yes. It is. We were lucky we made it out with our arms still attached to our bodies.
So that weekend was a blast, and now we're back to "normal" (is there such a thing?). I had a burst of fun auditions, including one for the LA Opera (Hey! Don't cover your ears so fast! It was for a non-singing part...). The role was the Virgin Mary, actually, and it involved me flying over the stage in a two-point harness. My trapeze skills would have come in handy then! Turned out I had too many conflicts since the rehearsals fell mostly during our trip back to NC in August, but they liked my look, and kept me on file for future productions when I'm not so busy. I guess they couldn't put this one on hold for my vacation. Bummer.
In the last few weeks we also:
1. Watched a screening of Dan Butler's movie Karl Rove, I Love You at West Hollywood's OutFest - a brilliant mock-umentary about an actor who falls in love with Karl Rove after portraying him in a one-man show.
2. Attended our first Dodgers game. We have 3 travel mugs to prove it.
3. Booked our third wedding for the fall. By November we will have weddings from Maryland, Colorado and Malibu under our belts.
4. Enjoyed the brilliance of The Dark Knight.
5. Drank wine in a cemetery while watching A Clockwork Orange.
Okay, okay. Is that enough? I will try my darndest to keep these posts more frequent and thus less lengthy. For now, I must hit the hay. Nighty-night...
Yes, Brian can write fiction.
If there's a soul out there who hasn't yet seen the Goodbye Music Video, we would love for you to visit the YouTube link -- enjoy the music and make a comment if you feel so inclined. Best to click on "watch in high quality" under the number of views. The link is here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s6dYvIlYKr0
Okay, updates -- sorry this will be mostly informational -- but we've got lots of 'splaining to do!
Since our music video extravaganza, which was quite an awesome experience, Brian and I have been pouring ourselves into other works of art. Our writer/director friend Odin is making a short film in August called Mrs. Lovejoy, a horror/comedy about a mother whose teenage son is hanging with the wrong crowd, so she does away with the friends, holds the son hostage, and makes him watch old home-videos from when he was younger and still "good". Brian's growing out his hair, dying it black and playing one of the "bad kids". He'll also be doing Art Direction (creating everything you see behind the actors) and I will be taking photo stills and helping wherever needed. We've been attempting to raise money for the project (a $7,000 budget) but haven't stumbled upon the millionaire who is looking for a new short to invest in. If any of you know that person, would you have them give us a call?
We've also had quite a few visitors the past couple weeks. My brother was here for 5 days at the beginning of July, and we were up to our usual shenanigans. We attended a showing of The Room, which is by far the worst movie ever made -- so bad in fact, that it's hilarious. They have a monthly midnight screening at a theater here so young film geeks (and us) can laugh at the absurdity and throw things at the screen. It's Rocky Horror for our generation.
We also went to a Slam Poetry night that is completely sold out every week, jam-packed full of kids. Paddy, of course, was the first to volunteer and knocked everyone's socks off with his Greensboro Sit-In poem that he wrote when he was SIXTEEN. Seriously folks, if you haven't seen him perform this amazing talent, you are truly missing out. [SIDE NOTE TO PADDY: Why haven't you filmed yourself slamming and put it up on YouTube?? Um...we should totally do that at Beach Week. And I want 10% of everything you make.]
As soon as my brother left, my Mom and Ron arrived (never a dull moment out here) ! We had a grand time showing them around the city -- Ron particularly enjoyed the freaks on the Venice Beach Boardwalk and felt right at home. We all spent the 4th of July at this incredible house in Calabasas where our friends were house-sitting -- you know it's a good neighborhood when Britney bought the house next door and Eddie Murphy is down the street. The ten of us basked in the natural spring water swimming pool, complete with a waterslide and waterfalls, drank beer, and riffed on guitars around the sea-glass fire pit. It was a glorious evening.
Mom and I also had a shopping frenzy that weekend -- there's a vintage store around here that has a $1 sale on Sundays. And I know what you're thinking: when you mix a city full of costume designers, gay men, fashionistas and sale-o-holics with cheaper-than-a-cup-of-coffee vintage clothes, isn't the result TOTAL MADNESS? Yes. It is. We were lucky we made it out with our arms still attached to our bodies.
So that weekend was a blast, and now we're back to "normal" (is there such a thing?). I had a burst of fun auditions, including one for the LA Opera (Hey! Don't cover your ears so fast! It was for a non-singing part...). The role was the Virgin Mary, actually, and it involved me flying over the stage in a two-point harness. My trapeze skills would have come in handy then! Turned out I had too many conflicts since the rehearsals fell mostly during our trip back to NC in August, but they liked my look, and kept me on file for future productions when I'm not so busy. I guess they couldn't put this one on hold for my vacation. Bummer.
In the last few weeks we also:
1. Watched a screening of Dan Butler's movie Karl Rove, I Love You at West Hollywood's OutFest - a brilliant mock-umentary about an actor who falls in love with Karl Rove after portraying him in a one-man show.
2. Attended our first Dodgers game. We have 3 travel mugs to prove it.
3. Booked our third wedding for the fall. By November we will have weddings from Maryland, Colorado and Malibu under our belts.
4. Enjoyed the brilliance of The Dark Knight.
5. Drank wine in a cemetery while watching A Clockwork Orange.
Okay, okay. Is that enough? I will try my darndest to keep these posts more frequent and thus less lengthy. For now, I must hit the hay. Nighty-night...
Thursday, June 19, 2008
>the kid makes a movie< or Joanna's Directorial Debut, Part One
Today's not the day to bring Joanna the wrong flavor of cream cheese on her toasted cinnamon raisin bagel but, guess what, I'm human and it happens and - hey maybe we ran out of whipped dill, did you ever think of that? - but anyway, more importantly, she's sort of forgotten about it by now so let's all do Brian a favor and pretend this paragraph doesn't exist. Cool? Awesome.
Jo and I wake up jubilant and refreshed and get started on what I'm almost 90% sure is the right foot. Both of us. The right feet.
Nearing our rehearsal space and shooting location, Joanna spots a 7-Eleven and goes Ooo-ooo-ooo and hollers what may very well have been Stop there Jeeves and asks that I retrieve her a pot of coffee. When I approach the cash register, the clerk cries conspiracy and barks something in Farsi and insists that a coffee pot's worth of coffee is not a valid 7-Eleven menu item. As a twisted and time-sucking compromise, he demands that I pour the pot into the appropriate amount of breakfast coffee cups until it's empty, and then - 17 and 3/4 cups later - he's charging me for 17-3/4 cups plus $15 for the coffee pot itself. $30 later, passing the pot to Jo in the backseat, I pretend she doesn't ask This is decaf, right?
The space we're shooting in is an unused courtyard at the rear end of a Silverlake pre-K and elementary school. Maggie and Matthew (also recently relocated New Yorkers), who are both starring in and producing the video, beat us to the set and are found wandering idly about the rundown block of cement with LA-appropriate sunglasses and arms akimbo. This music video will promote Matthew's new single - Goodbye - on his most recent EP - The Goodbye EP - or at least that's the idea.
In minutes I find that I too am wandering about the space: the gated entrance to the north; wheelbarrows and mounds of dirt to the east; a cement wall topped with tall green pine-ish trees to the west; and at the south end, a 3' high stage, complete with an aluminum overhang, non-working electrical outlets and a bizarre assortment of Christmas decorations in dilapidated cardboard boxes, Halloween-related banners, wooden doors, glass panels, children's clothing, bike helmets, and a living room-worth of furniture that the Goodwill would downright refuse.
Joanna stands in the center of the courtyard, taps her cane three times on the ground and goes, Here, so I fetch the ventilated canopy from the trunk of the Hummer limo we've rented for the day and set it up in the designated spot. I tell her that her caprese salad will be delivered at 11:30AM on the nose and that the restaurant didn't know how to make an Arnold Palmer but I've ordered her an iced tea and I've made a batch of hand-squeezed lemonade so we'll make it in-house and she seems "o-k" with that.
The premise of the video is that Maggie - Matthew's wife in real life and his muse in the world of the film - is supplying Matthew's words/lyrics for him. He tries to introduce himself, begin a conversation, get this mysterious woman's name, but he can't seem to grab her attention. He brings on an assortment of props to assist in his efforts; when that doesn't work, he shifts gears from props to production value, bringing on various circus acts to impress her, but it's no use. Matthew's efforts backfire as the stage becomes a virtual circus and the swarm of people he hoped would assist him are now trampling him...
...and you'll have to wait for the video's premiere to find out what happens.
I scan the crap furniture hoarded beneath the ridged aluminum sheets and select the pink and cream paisley couch - without a doubt the crappiest of them all - and we lug it down the rusted steps, off the stage and into the frame, and the crew huddles around to see how it looks in the monitor and we all go Ooo. This is where Maggie and Matthew meet at the beginning - in this very artistic-looking alleyway - and the couch is sort of the centerpiece of the video, albeit dusty and potentially diseased...
...but let's just keep the whole "Maggie and Matthew" thing between you and me, cause Joanna - don't ask me why - insists on referring to them as Zucko and Sandy for the entirety of the project. It's all "Zucko does this" and "Sandy feels this way about it" and god forbid someone call them by their actual names cause she might just throw a stick at them but, seriously though, I didn't even know she liked musicals...
The rehearsal is more productive than we could have hoped and we all celebrate with warm water bottles and sweaty high-fives. Most of the crew departs at this point, but Joanna and Zucko (::cringe::) and I stick around to audition some cheerleaders, ballerinas and football players. Joanna has the talent stand on hollow blocks and recite this monologue she downloaded from moviescripts.com. You might remember it. It's the one where Lieutenant Dan pulls Forrest down onto the floor of the barracks roundabout midnight and tells him that he was supposed to die in the heat of battle.
Needless to say, the majority of the actors have trouble connecting to the piece, which Joanna blames almost 100% on saturated fats and, while I'm sure that that does play some part in the lack of connection, you kinda gotta blame it on the fact that the scene's a tiny bit intense for a music video audition, but whatever, you didn't hear it from me, but Joanna's pleased with Girls A, D and F and Guys 3 and 4 and casts them on the spot. We pack up our things and the leftover pizza and we're on our way.
I filled up the tank this morning but the Hummer's already down to a quarter so I stop at the 7-Eleven pumps to refill on gas. From the backseat I hear an Ooo-ooo-ooo and of course I know what that means - Wild Cherry Slurpee - but she wants it with crushed up oreos and a real spoon, not a plastic spoon, but like real friggin' china.
p.s. If you know anything at all about Joanna and/or her direction, you also know that I can tease her like I do because she's the most good-natured, kind, unimposing director you'll ever meet. Even with the whole scraggly beard slash Che Guevara thing she has going on these days, I still have to push her to take charge. Just FYI.
Tune in ... uh, some other time ... when we rock Part Two of the kid makes a movie. Oh, and did we mention that the whole video is shot in one take?
Okay, so listen, Joanna totally told me to write that thing about the "good-natured," "unimposing" blah blah blah. I'm kinda borderline thinking I'm not gonna make it out of this stupid video in one piece, so let's --
hold on
oh, here she comes, i gotta go crap okay bye
Jo and I wake up jubilant and refreshed and get started on what I'm almost 90% sure is the right foot. Both of us. The right feet.
Nearing our rehearsal space and shooting location, Joanna spots a 7-Eleven and goes Ooo-ooo-ooo and hollers what may very well have been Stop there Jeeves and asks that I retrieve her a pot of coffee. When I approach the cash register, the clerk cries conspiracy and barks something in Farsi and insists that a coffee pot's worth of coffee is not a valid 7-Eleven menu item. As a twisted and time-sucking compromise, he demands that I pour the pot into the appropriate amount of breakfast coffee cups until it's empty, and then - 17 and 3/4 cups later - he's charging me for 17-3/4 cups plus $15 for the coffee pot itself. $30 later, passing the pot to Jo in the backseat, I pretend she doesn't ask This is decaf, right?
The space we're shooting in is an unused courtyard at the rear end of a Silverlake pre-K and elementary school. Maggie and Matthew (also recently relocated New Yorkers), who are both starring in and producing the video, beat us to the set and are found wandering idly about the rundown block of cement with LA-appropriate sunglasses and arms akimbo. This music video will promote Matthew's new single - Goodbye - on his most recent EP - The Goodbye EP - or at least that's the idea.
In minutes I find that I too am wandering about the space: the gated entrance to the north; wheelbarrows and mounds of dirt to the east; a cement wall topped with tall green pine-ish trees to the west; and at the south end, a 3' high stage, complete with an aluminum overhang, non-working electrical outlets and a bizarre assortment of Christmas decorations in dilapidated cardboard boxes, Halloween-related banners, wooden doors, glass panels, children's clothing, bike helmets, and a living room-worth of furniture that the Goodwill would downright refuse.
Joanna stands in the center of the courtyard, taps her cane three times on the ground and goes, Here, so I fetch the ventilated canopy from the trunk of the Hummer limo we've rented for the day and set it up in the designated spot. I tell her that her caprese salad will be delivered at 11:30AM on the nose and that the restaurant didn't know how to make an Arnold Palmer but I've ordered her an iced tea and I've made a batch of hand-squeezed lemonade so we'll make it in-house and she seems "o-k" with that.
The premise of the video is that Maggie - Matthew's wife in real life and his muse in the world of the film - is supplying Matthew's words/lyrics for him. He tries to introduce himself, begin a conversation, get this mysterious woman's name, but he can't seem to grab her attention. He brings on an assortment of props to assist in his efforts; when that doesn't work, he shifts gears from props to production value, bringing on various circus acts to impress her, but it's no use. Matthew's efforts backfire as the stage becomes a virtual circus and the swarm of people he hoped would assist him are now trampling him...
...and you'll have to wait for the video's premiere to find out what happens.
I scan the crap furniture hoarded beneath the ridged aluminum sheets and select the pink and cream paisley couch - without a doubt the crappiest of them all - and we lug it down the rusted steps, off the stage and into the frame, and the crew huddles around to see how it looks in the monitor and we all go Ooo. This is where Maggie and Matthew meet at the beginning - in this very artistic-looking alleyway - and the couch is sort of the centerpiece of the video, albeit dusty and potentially diseased...
...but let's just keep the whole "Maggie and Matthew" thing between you and me, cause Joanna - don't ask me why - insists on referring to them as Zucko and Sandy for the entirety of the project. It's all "Zucko does this" and "Sandy feels this way about it" and god forbid someone call them by their actual names cause she might just throw a stick at them but, seriously though, I didn't even know she liked musicals...
The rehearsal is more productive than we could have hoped and we all celebrate with warm water bottles and sweaty high-fives. Most of the crew departs at this point, but Joanna and Zucko (::cringe::) and I stick around to audition some cheerleaders, ballerinas and football players. Joanna has the talent stand on hollow blocks and recite this monologue she downloaded from moviescripts.com. You might remember it. It's the one where Lieutenant Dan pulls Forrest down onto the floor of the barracks roundabout midnight and tells him that he was supposed to die in the heat of battle.
Needless to say, the majority of the actors have trouble connecting to the piece, which Joanna blames almost 100% on saturated fats and, while I'm sure that that does play some part in the lack of connection, you kinda gotta blame it on the fact that the scene's a tiny bit intense for a music video audition, but whatever, you didn't hear it from me, but Joanna's pleased with Girls A, D and F and Guys 3 and 4 and casts them on the spot. We pack up our things and the leftover pizza and we're on our way.
I filled up the tank this morning but the Hummer's already down to a quarter so I stop at the 7-Eleven pumps to refill on gas. From the backseat I hear an Ooo-ooo-ooo and of course I know what that means - Wild Cherry Slurpee - but she wants it with crushed up oreos and a real spoon, not a plastic spoon, but like real friggin' china.
p.s. If you know anything at all about Joanna and/or her direction, you also know that I can tease her like I do because she's the most good-natured, kind, unimposing director you'll ever meet. Even with the whole scraggly beard slash Che Guevara thing she has going on these days, I still have to push her to take charge. Just FYI.
Tune in ... uh, some other time ... when we rock Part Two of the kid makes a movie. Oh, and did we mention that the whole video is shot in one take?
Okay, so listen, Joanna totally told me to write that thing about the "good-natured," "unimposing" blah blah blah. I'm kinda borderline thinking I'm not gonna make it out of this stupid video in one piece, so let's --
hold on
oh, here she comes, i gotta go crap okay bye
Friday, June 13, 2008
Altitude-inspired stream of unconsciousness
THE WEDNESDAY BEFORE THE LAST ONE
It’s like a week ago and here I am, past the frills and thrills of checkpoints and 3 oz. baggies, now onboard and safe and secured and it so happens there’s this blonde, too-muscular woman on the plane who – random coincidence – will be on the same returning flight that I’ll be on in a week; but for the time being she’s in the seat directly behind mine – 19F – stowing her purse and buckling her buckle and clearing her throat, and I can be sure that it’s her because the throat-clearing is rather muscular.
The stewardess bestows upon me a warm pizza in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag and, although I can think of no greater pleasure than pizza packaged in plastic, I do hesitate, then consider, then waver, then gesture like this (::gesture::), and then decide,
“Yes, and a pitcher of thee finest brew, wench.”
I sit there, de-packaging the pizza, savoring this dark Continental lager, thinking about my life. I have a brief conversation with myself about how I might improve said life and then move on to a game of Backgammon on my personalized TV. I’ve never played Backgammon – certainly not touch-screen backgammon, which I hear is infinitely more difficult – but the window seat brings me confidence and I’m up for the challenge. I register as ACE McGEE and battle it out with JOSE M in First Class. JOSE M has clearly played the game before and dominates for eight merciless rounds. He forfeits the ninth match, giving his full attention to his Bourbon Highball and the small, Filipino masseuse who makes the rounds through the First Class cabin, and I take this to mean that I win.
JOSE M and the Filipino and the muscular broad in 19F and the rest of the passengers and I deplane in a mad rush when we arrive at Newark. Three escalators later and we’re at baggage carousel #3, a pool of black sedan drivers in tattered suits hovering under the sign that reads Ground Transportation. I grab a bag I believe to be mine, hop on an unnamed shuttle bus with a leprechaun painted on its exterior, pay the man with the extended hand and tell the driver as we pull out of one world and into another, “Wow, kind of feels like home.”
LAST THURSDAY
Today’s Thursday and that means Moving Day. Jo and I are up and at ‘em with buttered bagels and chocolate coffee concoctions. We head to our old stomping grounds with what feels like a skip in my step but is actually just a large pebble lodged between my middle toe and the tip of my shoe.
That fresh lobby stench of rats and feces has disappeared, replaced by the welcoming odor of improvement. Joanna and our super pal Gill and I climb the stairs we’ve climbed oh like millions of times, reflecting, reminiscing – “Remember when I almost tripped here?” – ascending to the fourth floor of 128 Montague, where we are met by everything we own. Indeed, the entirety of our Brooklyn possessions are stacked yea high in the hall outside our old East Coast pad. We sigh and stomp and piss and moan – “$%&@!” – before tackling the stack as only three bright, goal-oriented individuals with Bachelors of Fine Arts could. The hallway’s like oh I-don’t-know like a thousand degrees but so be it. We tell jokes; we share stories; we fry eggs on our heads and hyperventilate and goshdarnit we make the best of it. Our subletters gave us lemons and we made lemon half-chicken in mash with mixed greens.
After donating a horrid sushi plate I once painted and $900 worth of semi-reusable items to the neighboring Housing Works storefront, I tuck our tax receipt in my jean pocket and pack the car full o’ stuff. I know I’ve done a fine job because – when I get into the driver’s seat and attempt to drive – I can’t see a damn thing.
Gill (our Moving Day motivator) takes home a like-new chalkboard and a modish DVD rack and leftover dish detergent as tokens of thanks. Jo and I pack the remaining items into 22 somewhat-manageable boxes and bags, marked with corresponding numbers and letters and the words Hollywood or Bust.
(Feeling literal and a tad superstitious, Joanna snatched the black permanent marker from my hand, scratched out the words or Bust and preceded the word Hollywood with PLEASE nobody steal this box because it’s urgently needed in…)
LAST FRIDAY
The Express Shipping dock at the Newark Amtrak station is deserted save for two truckers who bicker over the contents of the latest Martha Stewart Living magazine. Jo and I unload our goodies onto a rusted, metal pushcart and confer with the Amtrak representative, who later directs our cart of treasures to a large scale built into the ground and my first thought, obviously, is Why don’t we have one of these at home?
The load comes in at around 500 lbs, give or take a ton. Jo fills out the paperwork while I “man” the car and help resolve a Martha Stewart related bet (the original Waldorf salad was, in fact, dressed with mayonnaise), and in the end we pay a little over $275 to ship 22 mislabeled boxes of books and bed sheets across the United States.
We spend the afternoon in the company of David Beahm Design and the evening in the company of friends at our old watering hole. After three tall whiskey sours I come to the sad realization that my dinner – a roasted turkey sandwich – was not roasted to perfection and, sitting in the chic, downstairs lounge at Union Square’s Coffee Shop restaurant, paranoia sets in. An attempt to focus my attention on the TV screens across the room is a total failure. I pick at something chocolate-y and chug ice water and ask someone who’s not the waitress for our bill and try not to alarm Kelly and Howie (our gracious hosts for the week) who sit across the table and whisper, “Isn’t he Irish?”
THIS PAST SATURDAY
Blocking out the horrific events of last night doesn’t seem likely – a daredevil cab driver with a need for a speed; crouching down on the sidewalk outside Kelly & Howie’s Brooklyn apartment; and clutching the lid of a bedside trash can – so I sip a rejuvenating Vitamin Water that I can’t actually taste and swear that I’ll never eat at “Unnamed Brooklyn Café Chain” ever again.
Despite the food poisoning and a mild hangover, Jo and I snap headshots in the old Dumbo studio and then hustle to midtown to shoot two David Beahm weddings: the first at the luxurious St. Regis Hotel and the other at Ciprani 42nd Street. By the end of the night we’re downright exhausted and we collapse on the couch with a pint of mango sorbet, clicker in hand, watching everything and nothing at the same time.
SUNDAY
Joanna recovers from a severe lack of sleep before we venture to Central Park’s Great Lawn for Lauren's scorching birthday picnic. The surrounding gunshots and general hoopla are the product of the notorious Puerto Rican Day Parade, but my Hispanic heritage grants us safe passage. Seated on multi-colored bed linens on the parched grass, we munch on homemade, white bread turkey and mayo sandwiches, play card games and toss around a hot Frisbee until a third partygoer collapses from heat stroke, at which point we decide it’s best to go.
Joanna joins her former boss (photographer Kathi Littwin) for dinner while I sit in a Boerum Hill Starbucks, peeking at yesterday’s headshots and witnessing a transformer explosion that eventually leads to a five-block blackout. Jo retrieves me from the blackened coffee shop and we accompany Kelly & Howie in Union Square to watch the Celtics clobber the Lakers in the second game of the series.
MONDAY
Joanna and gal pals enjoy a midday shopping spree while I kill time on a stroll through Brooklyn Heights, stopping at my favorite deli (Lassen & Hennigs on Montague) for a Pierrepont sandwich. We meet up again for coffee with our friend Ande and then head to Hell’s Kitchen for dinner at David Beahm’s smashing new apartment.
His bachelor pad comes complete with a swarm of leather armchairs and sofas that he purchased at wholesale prices and a sprawling terrace with an Ikea canopy bed and a view that could best be described as “wow.” We sip Brooklyn-brewed beers (Brian) and lime-accented cocktails (Jo) with David and Christina, talking shop and devouring hummus, goat cheese and Triscuits. Downstairs, at the neighborhood Greek restaurant, we are treated to an enthusiastic set of swinging Greek jazz and mistake a very unattractive woman for a washed-up celebrity.
The evening ends as every evening should – stretching out on the canopy bed on the penthouse terrace, looking out over the metropolis, over the ups and downs, the flourishing towers and trembling tenement buildings of a city too good to be true, and we bid New York a premature farewell.
TUESDAY
Joanna meets up with our old pal Teresa to purchase a wonderful painting of hers that will bring some much-needed Feng Shui to our new LA apartment. Meanwhile, I prepare for this afternoon’s play reading as only I know how – by spending the morning on the vacant third tier at the Chelsea Piers driving range. Looking out over the Hudson River and the banks of New Jersey, whacking at the little white globes and sending them soaring into the surrounding nets, my first thought (obviously) is, Why don’t we have one of these at home?
We hit up separate Crunch gyms for a quick workout before meeting up at the Snapple Theatre on 50th Street and Broadway. My fellow Irish Curse readers include Roderick Hill (who, like me, originated his role in the original Fringe Festival production), Patrick Boll (who participated in last reading), New York actor John Hillner and TV/film actor Dan Butler (pictured here).
The reading goes incredibly well and, although we didn’t have the attendance we were hoping for, Marty and the producers are beyond optimistic, and the lot of us head downstairs to a token Times Square Irish pub to snack on sliders, cleanse our palettes and admire our waitress’ hard Irish brogue.
We wrap up our New York tour at Kelly & Howie’s place, picking at sushi combination plates and shuddering under the incessant howl of a Brooklyn hailstorm.
WEDNESDAY
Today is Wednesday and that means it’s time to leave, which we do. We pack our things and weigh our baggage (“45 pounds! Yes!”) and get to our respective airports on time. I sit there on the plane, my buckle buckled, laptop in lap, the too-muscular blonde clearing her throat only two rows back, and because we’ll be circling on the ground for the next hour and a half, I have plenty of time to sit here and think about my life.
Unable to come to any particularly interesting conclusions, I shut the laptop down and shut my eyes and leave one world and wake up in another.
---
We'd like to dedicate this particular blog to Kelly and Howie and their spare bedroom, and we're sorry that some guy backed into your car when I was driving it.
love,
bri (&jo)
It’s like a week ago and here I am, past the frills and thrills of checkpoints and 3 oz. baggies, now onboard and safe and secured and it so happens there’s this blonde, too-muscular woman on the plane who – random coincidence – will be on the same returning flight that I’ll be on in a week; but for the time being she’s in the seat directly behind mine – 19F – stowing her purse and buckling her buckle and clearing her throat, and I can be sure that it’s her because the throat-clearing is rather muscular.
The stewardess bestows upon me a warm pizza in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag and, although I can think of no greater pleasure than pizza packaged in plastic, I do hesitate, then consider, then waver, then gesture like this (::gesture::), and then decide,
“Yes, and a pitcher of thee finest brew, wench.”
I sit there, de-packaging the pizza, savoring this dark Continental lager, thinking about my life. I have a brief conversation with myself about how I might improve said life and then move on to a game of Backgammon on my personalized TV. I’ve never played Backgammon – certainly not touch-screen backgammon, which I hear is infinitely more difficult – but the window seat brings me confidence and I’m up for the challenge. I register as ACE McGEE and battle it out with JOSE M in First Class. JOSE M has clearly played the game before and dominates for eight merciless rounds. He forfeits the ninth match, giving his full attention to his Bourbon Highball and the small, Filipino masseuse who makes the rounds through the First Class cabin, and I take this to mean that I win.
JOSE M and the Filipino and the muscular broad in 19F and the rest of the passengers and I deplane in a mad rush when we arrive at Newark. Three escalators later and we’re at baggage carousel #3, a pool of black sedan drivers in tattered suits hovering under the sign that reads Ground Transportation. I grab a bag I believe to be mine, hop on an unnamed shuttle bus with a leprechaun painted on its exterior, pay the man with the extended hand and tell the driver as we pull out of one world and into another, “Wow, kind of feels like home.”
LAST THURSDAY
Today’s Thursday and that means Moving Day. Jo and I are up and at ‘em with buttered bagels and chocolate coffee concoctions. We head to our old stomping grounds with what feels like a skip in my step but is actually just a large pebble lodged between my middle toe and the tip of my shoe.
That fresh lobby stench of rats and feces has disappeared, replaced by the welcoming odor of improvement. Joanna and our super pal Gill and I climb the stairs we’ve climbed oh like millions of times, reflecting, reminiscing – “Remember when I almost tripped here?” – ascending to the fourth floor of 128 Montague, where we are met by everything we own. Indeed, the entirety of our Brooklyn possessions are stacked yea high in the hall outside our old East Coast pad. We sigh and stomp and piss and moan – “$%&@!” – before tackling the stack as only three bright, goal-oriented individuals with Bachelors of Fine Arts could. The hallway’s like oh I-don’t-know like a thousand degrees but so be it. We tell jokes; we share stories; we fry eggs on our heads and hyperventilate and goshdarnit we make the best of it. Our subletters gave us lemons and we made lemon half-chicken in mash with mixed greens.
After donating a horrid sushi plate I once painted and $900 worth of semi-reusable items to the neighboring Housing Works storefront, I tuck our tax receipt in my jean pocket and pack the car full o’ stuff. I know I’ve done a fine job because – when I get into the driver’s seat and attempt to drive – I can’t see a damn thing.
Gill (our Moving Day motivator) takes home a like-new chalkboard and a modish DVD rack and leftover dish detergent as tokens of thanks. Jo and I pack the remaining items into 22 somewhat-manageable boxes and bags, marked with corresponding numbers and letters and the words Hollywood or Bust.
(Feeling literal and a tad superstitious, Joanna snatched the black permanent marker from my hand, scratched out the words or Bust and preceded the word Hollywood with PLEASE nobody steal this box because it’s urgently needed in…)
LAST FRIDAY
The Express Shipping dock at the Newark Amtrak station is deserted save for two truckers who bicker over the contents of the latest Martha Stewart Living magazine. Jo and I unload our goodies onto a rusted, metal pushcart and confer with the Amtrak representative, who later directs our cart of treasures to a large scale built into the ground and my first thought, obviously, is Why don’t we have one of these at home?
The load comes in at around 500 lbs, give or take a ton. Jo fills out the paperwork while I “man” the car and help resolve a Martha Stewart related bet (the original Waldorf salad was, in fact, dressed with mayonnaise), and in the end we pay a little over $275 to ship 22 mislabeled boxes of books and bed sheets across the United States.
We spend the afternoon in the company of David Beahm Design and the evening in the company of friends at our old watering hole. After three tall whiskey sours I come to the sad realization that my dinner – a roasted turkey sandwich – was not roasted to perfection and, sitting in the chic, downstairs lounge at Union Square’s Coffee Shop restaurant, paranoia sets in. An attempt to focus my attention on the TV screens across the room is a total failure. I pick at something chocolate-y and chug ice water and ask someone who’s not the waitress for our bill and try not to alarm Kelly and Howie (our gracious hosts for the week) who sit across the table and whisper, “Isn’t he Irish?”
THIS PAST SATURDAY
Blocking out the horrific events of last night doesn’t seem likely – a daredevil cab driver with a need for a speed; crouching down on the sidewalk outside Kelly & Howie’s Brooklyn apartment; and clutching the lid of a bedside trash can – so I sip a rejuvenating Vitamin Water that I can’t actually taste and swear that I’ll never eat at “Unnamed Brooklyn Café Chain” ever again.
Despite the food poisoning and a mild hangover, Jo and I snap headshots in the old Dumbo studio and then hustle to midtown to shoot two David Beahm weddings: the first at the luxurious St. Regis Hotel and the other at Ciprani 42nd Street. By the end of the night we’re downright exhausted and we collapse on the couch with a pint of mango sorbet, clicker in hand, watching everything and nothing at the same time.
SUNDAY
Joanna recovers from a severe lack of sleep before we venture to Central Park’s Great Lawn for Lauren's scorching birthday picnic. The surrounding gunshots and general hoopla are the product of the notorious Puerto Rican Day Parade, but my Hispanic heritage grants us safe passage. Seated on multi-colored bed linens on the parched grass, we munch on homemade, white bread turkey and mayo sandwiches, play card games and toss around a hot Frisbee until a third partygoer collapses from heat stroke, at which point we decide it’s best to go.
Joanna joins her former boss (photographer Kathi Littwin) for dinner while I sit in a Boerum Hill Starbucks, peeking at yesterday’s headshots and witnessing a transformer explosion that eventually leads to a five-block blackout. Jo retrieves me from the blackened coffee shop and we accompany Kelly & Howie in Union Square to watch the Celtics clobber the Lakers in the second game of the series.
MONDAY
Joanna and gal pals enjoy a midday shopping spree while I kill time on a stroll through Brooklyn Heights, stopping at my favorite deli (Lassen & Hennigs on Montague) for a Pierrepont sandwich. We meet up again for coffee with our friend Ande and then head to Hell’s Kitchen for dinner at David Beahm’s smashing new apartment.
His bachelor pad comes complete with a swarm of leather armchairs and sofas that he purchased at wholesale prices and a sprawling terrace with an Ikea canopy bed and a view that could best be described as “wow.” We sip Brooklyn-brewed beers (Brian) and lime-accented cocktails (Jo) with David and Christina, talking shop and devouring hummus, goat cheese and Triscuits. Downstairs, at the neighborhood Greek restaurant, we are treated to an enthusiastic set of swinging Greek jazz and mistake a very unattractive woman for a washed-up celebrity.
The evening ends as every evening should – stretching out on the canopy bed on the penthouse terrace, looking out over the metropolis, over the ups and downs, the flourishing towers and trembling tenement buildings of a city too good to be true, and we bid New York a premature farewell.
TUESDAY
Joanna meets up with our old pal Teresa to purchase a wonderful painting of hers that will bring some much-needed Feng Shui to our new LA apartment. Meanwhile, I prepare for this afternoon’s play reading as only I know how – by spending the morning on the vacant third tier at the Chelsea Piers driving range. Looking out over the Hudson River and the banks of New Jersey, whacking at the little white globes and sending them soaring into the surrounding nets, my first thought (obviously) is, Why don’t we have one of these at home?
We hit up separate Crunch gyms for a quick workout before meeting up at the Snapple Theatre on 50th Street and Broadway. My fellow Irish Curse readers include Roderick Hill (who, like me, originated his role in the original Fringe Festival production), Patrick Boll (who participated in last reading), New York actor John Hillner and TV/film actor Dan Butler (pictured here).
The reading goes incredibly well and, although we didn’t have the attendance we were hoping for, Marty and the producers are beyond optimistic, and the lot of us head downstairs to a token Times Square Irish pub to snack on sliders, cleanse our palettes and admire our waitress’ hard Irish brogue.
We wrap up our New York tour at Kelly & Howie’s place, picking at sushi combination plates and shuddering under the incessant howl of a Brooklyn hailstorm.
WEDNESDAY
Today is Wednesday and that means it’s time to leave, which we do. We pack our things and weigh our baggage (“45 pounds! Yes!”) and get to our respective airports on time. I sit there on the plane, my buckle buckled, laptop in lap, the too-muscular blonde clearing her throat only two rows back, and because we’ll be circling on the ground for the next hour and a half, I have plenty of time to sit here and think about my life.
Unable to come to any particularly interesting conclusions, I shut the laptop down and shut my eyes and leave one world and wake up in another.
---
We'd like to dedicate this particular blog to Kelly and Howie and their spare bedroom, and we're sorry that some guy backed into your car when I was driving it.
love,
bri (&jo)
Friday, May 30, 2008
A show and a steak and a blog
When I was a mini-Brian, a wee, puny young lad of no significance at all, I would often spend the day at my grandparents' home in Miami. We watched daytime soaps and Bob Barker, played Yahtzee religiously and entertained a rabbit named Thumper. And like any puny Irish-Cuban lad of the 80s, my grandparents spoiled me rotten.
So when I spoke to my grandmother this past weekend, and when she demanded that Jo and I pull it together, stop procrastinating and update the blog, I could not resist. Jo and I treated ourselves to a show and a steak last night, and goshdarnit we're gonna do this thing.
Last night's show was a pair of unrelated plays by Atlantic Theater Company deity David Mamet. The opening one-act was canceled last minute (as in, that morning) due to the lead actor's illness and replaced by A Sermon, a one-man piece performed by Ed Begley, Jr. Once known for his supporting roles (he's the hotel concierge in Christopher Guest's Best in Show), Begley is now better known for righting environmental wrongs and promoting the electric car. Apparently he has a reality show - the educational alternative to MTV's Cribs - in which he shows America around his vast Hollywood home and explores new modes of conservation. It's a dirty job but somebody's gotta do it.
Jo and I are both on the payroll these days: Jo's acting as bookkeeper to a nutty Beverly Hills real estate broad with an even nuttier son slash pop-rock musician, and I'm playing the role of Office Manager to a small crew of industrious, not-too-excitable architects stationed downtown. Now equipped with an "antique" woman's bike, Jo has taken Ed Begley's activism to heart and rides to work on two-wheels.
But besides the 9-5 (or 8-7, in some cases), Joanna recently filmed an industrial! That paid!! Industrials are those often creepy videos you see when you join a corporation that hasn't evolved since the Dark Ages. In that instance, it sounds kind of like this:
Welcome to Sam's Nuclear Waste Management Facility! We're so glad you joined our team! Now sit there and watch this handy dandy video about chemicals that can burn right through bone!
Joanna's industrial was produced by a call service company named CallSource. Her task - despite her beach blonde character's incompetence - was to instruct the viewers on "how to answer the phone." And some day -- perhaps a week from now, perhaps a decade down the road -- a puny young lad will remark to himself, You know, thank goodness for the girl in that video. If it weren't for her, I'd probably pick up the phone and say Goodbye. I'd be one big communicative mess. Thank you CallSource girl!
Joanna's also been going out for a few auditions here and there, landing callbacks for a Microsoft commercial and another spot for something orange. We're not sure what. It could be an orange drink. It could be an orange-flavored detergent. All we know is, Joanna went into a room with 30 other girls who looked nothing like her. A man operating a camera at the opposite side of the room pointed to Jo and asked her to be shy. Then he asked her to be shy with a smirk. Then he asked her to leave.
YEA!! ACTING RULES!!!
And when we haven't had the work handed to us on a silver platter -- which we prefer, by the way -- we've learned to make it ourselves. When Joanna's cousin Michael (we'll call him Michael) visited at the end of March (roundabout Joanna's kickin' 24th birthday party), we shot another YouTube-inspired video for DentaBurst Freshening Teeth Cleaners: a foul-tasting, band-aid shaped, mint-speckled cloth strip that you slip on your pointer finger and use to brush when on-the-go. Apparently TicTacs aren't good enough anymore...
Unfortunately, our video (directed by the multi-talented Michael Wilson, who also happens to be a foot taller than me at the age of 16, which is just wrong) was too edgy to make the final cut. The 20-second clip features a pregnant Joanna utilizing the foul-tasting product at the same time that her water breaks and follows her as she scurries to the hospital, brushing her teeth en route. I think the folks at DentaBurst were afraid that our commercial gave the wrong impression, i.e. that their product induces labor.
Check it out here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rc-JNUpCLQI
A week later, our friend Justin asked Jo and I to lend a hand on the set of his short film, Both Thumbs, produced by a great little company that he belongs to called Acorn Pictures. I was given the role of Art Director -- essentially the set designer on a film, who is responsible for the environment that you see in every shot -- and Jo and I both snapped some production stills throughout the five-day shoot, which took us to a deserted bar in Santa Monica, a below-ground parking facility and somebody's grandmother's house. Justin is currently editing the film, and we're VERY excited to see a rough cut in a few weeks.
And not too long after that, Brendan, Justin, Jo and I filmed a 3-minute trailer for a contest sponsored by Filmaka.com and the FX Network. FX is looking for a "new uproarious comedy" to add to their weekday line-up, so they commissioned young filmmakers across the country to submit their ideas. Our proposed sitcom is called Squatters, and it tells the story of two guys living in Manhattan (Mike, a freelance writer, and Jeff, a pie chart specialist for travel website Expedia.com) who make a pact to live rent-free for one year. Mike does what he knows best -- propositions single women for a place to sleep -- while Jeff (played by yours truly) turns his cubicle into a half-decent bedroom. You get the idea...
Mr. and Mrs. Leahy -- yes, those poor folks who brought me into this world -- were in town last week to check up on us and check out LA. They stayed at the very quaint Farmer's Daughter Hotel -- highly recommended to any upcoming travelers -- and toured Los Angeles' Farmer's Market, the dilapidated Fisherman's Village, and the not-so-much-dilapidated but rather freakish and overcrowded Venice Beach Boardwalk.
And - surprise, surprise - Dad joined us on the TRAPEZE! Yes, Jo and I are trapezing again. We treated each other to a class for our 4th Anniversary and fell in love with it all over again. And for our fourth class, Dad got into his athletic gear and swung like an ape. He didn't quite make the final "catch," but he did EXTREMELY well for a first-timer. He's just glad he walked out of there with limbs intact, crossing trapeze off his extensive bucket list...
{p.s. there's video to prove it - but you didn't hear it from me}
This Wednesday we leave for New York for a week-long visit. The primary reason is that I've been asked to participate in another reading of The Irish Curse by Martin Casella. Just to jog your memory: I was in a production of The Curse as part of the NY International Fringe Festival in 2005, just out of school. Since then, once a year, Marty and the producers have compiled a cast to read the script for some money-grubbing investors, hoping they'll hand over thousands of dollars (for an Off-Broadway run, they would need $650,000). But most investors - while they love the play - are hesitant at best to put money towards a play about a bunch of guys and their "shortcomings." Nonetheless, they're flying me over to read the part again and I'm PSYCHED. Reading the part of Joseph for this particular engagement is Dan Butler, who originated the character Bulldog (the sports announcer) on Frasier.
Besides the reading, we'll be closing out our Brooklyn Heights apartment (boo-hoo) since we can't come up with enough reasons to keep two apartments in two cities on two different coasts. We'll be hosting a Farewell Apartment Gala on Friday the 6th, so if anyone wants to come by ...
No, don't come. I'm kidding.
Seriously, nobody will be there.
Jo, sitting at the other end of our custom-built work station, says Hello everybody. And Scooter, sitting here in front of my brand new MacBook laptop, doesn't say a darn thing. He's dead asleep from a long day of scratching himself and lying around.
Much love,
So when I spoke to my grandmother this past weekend, and when she demanded that Jo and I pull it together, stop procrastinating and update the blog, I could not resist. Jo and I treated ourselves to a show and a steak last night, and goshdarnit we're gonna do this thing.
Last night's show was a pair of unrelated plays by Atlantic Theater Company deity David Mamet. The opening one-act was canceled last minute (as in, that morning) due to the lead actor's illness and replaced by A Sermon, a one-man piece performed by Ed Begley, Jr. Once known for his supporting roles (he's the hotel concierge in Christopher Guest's Best in Show), Begley is now better known for righting environmental wrongs and promoting the electric car. Apparently he has a reality show - the educational alternative to MTV's Cribs - in which he shows America around his vast Hollywood home and explores new modes of conservation. It's a dirty job but somebody's gotta do it.
Jo and I are both on the payroll these days: Jo's acting as bookkeeper to a nutty Beverly Hills real estate broad with an even nuttier son slash pop-rock musician, and I'm playing the role of Office Manager to a small crew of industrious, not-too-excitable architects stationed downtown. Now equipped with an "antique" woman's bike, Jo has taken Ed Begley's activism to heart and rides to work on two-wheels.
But besides the 9-5 (or 8-7, in some cases), Joanna recently filmed an industrial! That paid!! Industrials are those often creepy videos you see when you join a corporation that hasn't evolved since the Dark Ages. In that instance, it sounds kind of like this:
Welcome to Sam's Nuclear Waste Management Facility! We're so glad you joined our team! Now sit there and watch this handy dandy video about chemicals that can burn right through bone!
Joanna's industrial was produced by a call service company named CallSource. Her task - despite her beach blonde character's incompetence - was to instruct the viewers on "how to answer the phone." And some day -- perhaps a week from now, perhaps a decade down the road -- a puny young lad will remark to himself, You know, thank goodness for the girl in that video. If it weren't for her, I'd probably pick up the phone and say Goodbye. I'd be one big communicative mess. Thank you CallSource girl!
Joanna's also been going out for a few auditions here and there, landing callbacks for a Microsoft commercial and another spot for something orange. We're not sure what. It could be an orange drink. It could be an orange-flavored detergent. All we know is, Joanna went into a room with 30 other girls who looked nothing like her. A man operating a camera at the opposite side of the room pointed to Jo and asked her to be shy. Then he asked her to be shy with a smirk. Then he asked her to leave.
YEA!! ACTING RULES!!!
And when we haven't had the work handed to us on a silver platter -- which we prefer, by the way -- we've learned to make it ourselves. When Joanna's cousin Michael (we'll call him Michael) visited at the end of March (roundabout Joanna's kickin' 24th birthday party), we shot another YouTube-inspired video for DentaBurst Freshening Teeth Cleaners: a foul-tasting, band-aid shaped, mint-speckled cloth strip that you slip on your pointer finger and use to brush when on-the-go. Apparently TicTacs aren't good enough anymore...
Unfortunately, our video (directed by the multi-talented Michael Wilson, who also happens to be a foot taller than me at the age of 16, which is just wrong) was too edgy to make the final cut. The 20-second clip features a pregnant Joanna utilizing the foul-tasting product at the same time that her water breaks and follows her as she scurries to the hospital, brushing her teeth en route. I think the folks at DentaBurst were afraid that our commercial gave the wrong impression, i.e. that their product induces labor.
Check it out here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rc-JNUpCLQI
A week later, our friend Justin asked Jo and I to lend a hand on the set of his short film, Both Thumbs, produced by a great little company that he belongs to called Acorn Pictures. I was given the role of Art Director -- essentially the set designer on a film, who is responsible for the environment that you see in every shot -- and Jo and I both snapped some production stills throughout the five-day shoot, which took us to a deserted bar in Santa Monica, a below-ground parking facility and somebody's grandmother's house. Justin is currently editing the film, and we're VERY excited to see a rough cut in a few weeks.
And not too long after that, Brendan, Justin, Jo and I filmed a 3-minute trailer for a contest sponsored by Filmaka.com and the FX Network. FX is looking for a "new uproarious comedy" to add to their weekday line-up, so they commissioned young filmmakers across the country to submit their ideas. Our proposed sitcom is called Squatters, and it tells the story of two guys living in Manhattan (Mike, a freelance writer, and Jeff, a pie chart specialist for travel website Expedia.com) who make a pact to live rent-free for one year. Mike does what he knows best -- propositions single women for a place to sleep -- while Jeff (played by yours truly) turns his cubicle into a half-decent bedroom. You get the idea...
Mr. and Mrs. Leahy -- yes, those poor folks who brought me into this world -- were in town last week to check up on us and check out LA. They stayed at the very quaint Farmer's Daughter Hotel -- highly recommended to any upcoming travelers -- and toured Los Angeles' Farmer's Market, the dilapidated Fisherman's Village, and the not-so-much-dilapidated but rather freakish and overcrowded Venice Beach Boardwalk.
And - surprise, surprise - Dad joined us on the TRAPEZE! Yes, Jo and I are trapezing again. We treated each other to a class for our 4th Anniversary and fell in love with it all over again. And for our fourth class, Dad got into his athletic gear and swung like an ape. He didn't quite make the final "catch," but he did EXTREMELY well for a first-timer. He's just glad he walked out of there with limbs intact, crossing trapeze off his extensive bucket list...
{p.s. there's video to prove it - but you didn't hear it from me}
This Wednesday we leave for New York for a week-long visit. The primary reason is that I've been asked to participate in another reading of The Irish Curse by Martin Casella. Just to jog your memory: I was in a production of The Curse as part of the NY International Fringe Festival in 2005, just out of school. Since then, once a year, Marty and the producers have compiled a cast to read the script for some money-grubbing investors, hoping they'll hand over thousands of dollars (for an Off-Broadway run, they would need $650,000). But most investors - while they love the play - are hesitant at best to put money towards a play about a bunch of guys and their "shortcomings." Nonetheless, they're flying me over to read the part again and I'm PSYCHED. Reading the part of Joseph for this particular engagement is Dan Butler, who originated the character Bulldog (the sports announcer) on Frasier.
Besides the reading, we'll be closing out our Brooklyn Heights apartment (boo-hoo) since we can't come up with enough reasons to keep two apartments in two cities on two different coasts. We'll be hosting a Farewell Apartment Gala on Friday the 6th, so if anyone wants to come by ...
No, don't come. I'm kidding.
Seriously, nobody will be there.
Jo, sitting at the other end of our custom-built work station, says Hello everybody. And Scooter, sitting here in front of my brand new MacBook laptop, doesn't say a darn thing. He's dead asleep from a long day of scratching himself and lying around.
Much love,
Bri
Monday, March 17, 2008
New apartment, new persona, new post
Hello dear, wonderful, patient readers!
PATIENT READERS: "Christ! That took forever!"
ME: "What? What took forever?"
P.R.: "You've been slacking, writer-man! You've been off gallivanting again!"
ME: "Gallivanting? What is this, the medieval times? I wouldn't even know how to gallivant."
P.R.: "You better have finished that screenplay for Jo..."
ME: "Ummm. I ... I was ... I thought -- "
P.R.: "Oh, just get on with it..."
Well, for all the ladies out there (yeah, you know who you are), let me begin with this fun fact: for the past 48 hours, Joanna has been on set with Uncle Jesse of Full House fame. That's right, girls, get out those hankies: John Stamos is in the house! And he was hitting on Joanna all day. Awesome!
JO: It's not that he's better-looking --
ME: Uh-huh.
JO: -- but he looks nice in scrubs. It's ER, so it's high-intensity. There's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of medical jargon, like CCs and BMP and STDs. There's a lot of perspiration and...
(pause)
ME: Hun?
JO: Uh, I have to go.
You heard it here first, folks. Jo hopped (or rolled noisily) out of bed at 4:30am to drive up to the WB lot, where she was gallivanting about on the set of ER. Her roles included but were not limited to:
Hospital Visitor
Photo Double to Other Girl Who We Thought Was Famous But Isn't
Typically, when a casting agent chooses a photo double, the ideal candidate is someone who matches their double in height, hair length and hair color (most helpful in shots from behind or over-the-shoulder frames). Well, I guess 1 out of 3 ain't bad. Turns out the woman Jo is doubling for is redheaded and wears her hair down to her buttocks. Their solution? Find another redhead with buttocks-length hair?
No. That would be much too efficient. No, instead, they dye Jo's hair red and give her hair extensions. That's the ticket!
Meanwhile, on a different part of town, I brainstormed the perfect heist in the USC grad film, The Layabouts. We didn't have Stamos or ambulances or bedpans as props, but we shot a scene on the USC campus, on a sidewalk littered with doggy discards, and in our director's living room, where we ate Greek food and drank Scotch - or Coke Zero mixed with seltzer water. Bleh. We all have to start somewhere...
HEY! Last week we filmed a commercial! Our dear, wonderful patient readers - yes you, you saucy little YouTube voters, you - have now seen the 1-minute spot for the eight hundredth time. The spot was filmed as part of YouTube/Schick's "Get Experimental" Contest, which asked Average Joe's and JoJo's to put their heads together, make a video about the hot effects of the new Titanium Razor/Trimmer, and perhaps win $25,000 cash. HIGH-FIVE!
We shot the footage last week on Brendan's handheld HD camera between the hours of 11pm and 4am (when else would one find a deserted bathroom?) in a third floor men's room at Chapman University's Dodge Film School building in Orange, CA - a 40-minute drive from midtown Los Angeles. Brendan directed and edited the material over a course of several days, which was a royal pain in the butt to say the least. Go Brendan! Double high-five!
All in all, we want to thank you for donating your precious time and your upturned thumbs to our little video. And if you have yet to see it, shame shame shame! Go here pronto:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qgn-VQXC-Sc
Joanna's brother Patrick (from here on, PW, in honor of ER) chose to spend his spring break here with us on the West Coast: sleeping on the world's most comfortable air mattress, having lunch on Venice Beach, seeing some exceptional improv at the world renowned iOwest, and
dragging us around the city on a vintage shopping binge. PW picked up a McDonald's "5K Race" t-shirt (ironic anyone?) while Jo bought herself a skirt made out of the best of the worst of men's ties. Of course, our FIRST destination after picking up PW at the Bob Hope Airport was the Hollywood landmark Pink's, where we indulged in foot-long dogs with chili and all the trimmings. There goes a week's worth of working out...
We were also VIP guests at a live taping of the hit show, The Big Bang Theory, which was quite the treat. Not being the avid TV watchers we once were (ah, childhood...), we weren't sure what to expect or how we'd react. But the show was very well-written, and the actors were both clever and spontaneous.
Our "audience emcee" for the evening (this was new to us too) was a man named Mark, whose primary purpose - besides being ultra creepy - was to remind us that our laughs are important to the taping, that we need to keep them fresh and to "hear the dialogue for the first time." He also came equipped with 10,000 stale jokes and asked courageous audience members to come up to the front and compete for a chance to win $20 (whoa! careful with the spending there Warner Brothers!). Jo and I declined the opportunity, but PW's a brave chap with no shame whatsoever.
Mark: "Patrick here is going to dance for us!" (whispers to PW:) "And take your shirt off when you dance!"
PW: "What?!"
Mark: "Yeah, it'll be great, just undress a little."
Not wanting to disappoint the crowd (in particular, the women's lacrosse team from PA), PW removed his pink dress shirt - one button at a time - removed his belt and performed a quasi-erotic pole dance with Mark's microphone stand before being named the dance-off winner. Mark eventually cheated him out of the $20 prize, but it's the thought that counts, right?
After the taping, as we stepped out of the BBT building and onto the WB outdoor lot, PW was assaulted by nine or ten woman over 40 who thought his skills were impressive. Go PW! You can check out his "mad skills" in our Schick video, billed as:
NINJA TOO IMPRESSED WITH SHAVE TO CONTINUE BATTLE
or
NINJA #3
You'll all be pleased to hear that Joanna has - through her own perseverance, natural good looks and suave afternoon attire - found herself a commercial agent! Beginning now, Joanna will be represented by the Brass Agency, who will also consider signing her as a legit (i.e. theatre and film) client once they're more familiar with her work and know that she's both talented and reliable, which - of course - will be no trouble at all.
So, kudos to Jo! The next time any of you pass her at the mall or the movies, be sure to give her a pat on the back and shout, "Brass!" Supposedly it's the secret handshake.
Oh, right, and we decorated our apartment! One of our plans for the new place was to build a project table that would accommodate two computers, a printer and basic office supplies and would have some storage space as well. Emulating a sweet, $1100 structure from the Pottery Barn catalog, Jo and I purchased $100 worth of stack-able, white "cubbies," which would act as the legs. We then stumbled upon two discarded, 7' L x 2.5' W pieces of natural wood, which were perfect for the tabletop. I stuck a few nails here and a few washers there and it was complete! Check it out:
>>>
$1100 plus delivery VS $100 and a little elbow grease?
Take that, Pottery Barn!
Even better, we documented all of our purchases. 90% of our belongings come from the sweet men and women who utilize the Los Angeles Craigslist "For Sale" section, though a number of the smaller items were donated. Below is an ode to Joanna's mother, Dale, who has taught her children - more than anything - to (a) behave and to (b) get the best deals on EVERYTHING.
So here goes:
Bed frame, mattress and pillowtop: $200
Paint supplies (pear green in LR, santorini blue in BR): $73
Microwave: $50
23" TV/DVD Player: $50
Secondhand IKEA table w/ four multi-colored chairs: $50
Entertainment center: $40
Four (two tall and two small) rice paper lamps: $40
Two dressers with two matching nightstands: $30
(this $30 includes a $5 we feel like we're robbing you blind tip)
Living room end table: $17
Bathroom vanity: $15
3-tier bookcase: $10
...and a full-sized, pull-out couch like the ones our grandmothers used to have: $20
(Mmm. Beige.)
Furnishing an apartment for under $600: Priceless.
love,
b&j&s
"the jungle perch"
PATIENT READERS: "Christ! That took forever!"
ME: "What? What took forever?"
P.R.: "You've been slacking, writer-man! You've been off gallivanting again!"
ME: "Gallivanting? What is this, the medieval times? I wouldn't even know how to gallivant."
P.R.: "You better have finished that screenplay for Jo..."
ME: "Ummm. I ... I was ... I thought -- "
P.R.: "Oh, just get on with it..."
Well, for all the ladies out there (yeah, you know who you are), let me begin with this fun fact: for the past 48 hours, Joanna has been on set with Uncle Jesse of Full House fame. That's right, girls, get out those hankies: John Stamos is in the house! And he was hitting on Joanna all day. Awesome!
JO: It's not that he's better-looking --
ME: Uh-huh.
JO: -- but he looks nice in scrubs. It's ER, so it's high-intensity. There's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of medical jargon, like CCs and BMP and STDs. There's a lot of perspiration and...
(pause)
ME: Hun?
JO: Uh, I have to go.
You heard it here first, folks. Jo hopped (or rolled noisily) out of bed at 4:30am to drive up to the WB lot, where she was gallivanting about on the set of ER. Her roles included but were not limited to:
Hospital Visitor
Photo Double to Other Girl Who We Thought Was Famous But Isn't
Typically, when a casting agent chooses a photo double, the ideal candidate is someone who matches their double in height, hair length and hair color (most helpful in shots from behind or over-the-shoulder frames). Well, I guess 1 out of 3 ain't bad. Turns out the woman Jo is doubling for is redheaded and wears her hair down to her buttocks. Their solution? Find another redhead with buttocks-length hair?
No. That would be much too efficient. No, instead, they dye Jo's hair red and give her hair extensions. That's the ticket!Meanwhile, on a different part of town, I brainstormed the perfect heist in the USC grad film, The Layabouts. We didn't have Stamos or ambulances or bedpans as props, but we shot a scene on the USC campus, on a sidewalk littered with doggy discards, and in our director's living room, where we ate Greek food and drank Scotch - or Coke Zero mixed with seltzer water. Bleh. We all have to start somewhere...
HEY! Last week we filmed a commercial! Our dear, wonderful patient readers - yes you, you saucy little YouTube voters, you - have now seen the 1-minute spot for the eight hundredth time. The spot was filmed as part of YouTube/Schick's "Get Experimental" Contest, which asked Average Joe's and JoJo's to put their heads together, make a video about the hot effects of the new Titanium Razor/Trimmer, and perhaps win $25,000 cash. HIGH-FIVE!
We shot the footage last week on Brendan's handheld HD camera between the hours of 11pm and 4am (when else would one find a deserted bathroom?) in a third floor men's room at Chapman University's Dodge Film School building in Orange, CA - a 40-minute drive from midtown Los Angeles. Brendan directed and edited the material over a course of several days, which was a royal pain in the butt to say the least. Go Brendan! Double high-five!
All in all, we want to thank you for donating your precious time and your upturned thumbs to our little video. And if you have yet to see it, shame shame shame! Go here pronto:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qgn-VQXC-Sc
Joanna's brother Patrick (from here on, PW, in honor of ER) chose to spend his spring break here with us on the West Coast: sleeping on the world's most comfortable air mattress, having lunch on Venice Beach, seeing some exceptional improv at the world renowned iOwest, and
dragging us around the city on a vintage shopping binge. PW picked up a McDonald's "5K Race" t-shirt (ironic anyone?) while Jo bought herself a skirt made out of the best of the worst of men's ties. Of course, our FIRST destination after picking up PW at the Bob Hope Airport was the Hollywood landmark Pink's, where we indulged in foot-long dogs with chili and all the trimmings. There goes a week's worth of working out...We were also VIP guests at a live taping of the hit show, The Big Bang Theory, which was quite the treat. Not being the avid TV watchers we once were (ah, childhood...), we weren't sure what to expect or how we'd react. But the show was very well-written, and the actors were both clever and spontaneous.
Our "audience emcee" for the evening (this was new to us too) was a man named Mark, whose primary purpose - besides being ultra creepy - was to remind us that our laughs are important to the taping, that we need to keep them fresh and to "hear the dialogue for the first time." He also came equipped with 10,000 stale jokes and asked courageous audience members to come up to the front and compete for a chance to win $20 (whoa! careful with the spending there Warner Brothers!). Jo and I declined the opportunity, but PW's a brave chap with no shame whatsoever.
Mark: "Patrick here is going to dance for us!" (whispers to PW:) "And take your shirt off when you dance!"
PW: "What?!"
Mark: "Yeah, it'll be great, just undress a little."
Not wanting to disappoint the crowd (in particular, the women's lacrosse team from PA), PW removed his pink dress shirt - one button at a time - removed his belt and performed a quasi-erotic pole dance with Mark's microphone stand before being named the dance-off winner. Mark eventually cheated him out of the $20 prize, but it's the thought that counts, right?
After the taping, as we stepped out of the BBT building and onto the WB outdoor lot, PW was assaulted by nine or ten woman over 40 who thought his skills were impressive. Go PW! You can check out his "mad skills" in our Schick video, billed as:
NINJA TOO IMPRESSED WITH SHAVE TO CONTINUE BATTLE
or
NINJA #3
You'll all be pleased to hear that Joanna has - through her own perseverance, natural good looks and suave afternoon attire - found herself a commercial agent! Beginning now, Joanna will be represented by the Brass Agency, who will also consider signing her as a legit (i.e. theatre and film) client once they're more familiar with her work and know that she's both talented and reliable, which - of course - will be no trouble at all.
So, kudos to Jo! The next time any of you pass her at the mall or the movies, be sure to give her a pat on the back and shout, "Brass!" Supposedly it's the secret handshake.
Oh, right, and we decorated our apartment! One of our plans for the new place was to build a project table that would accommodate two computers, a printer and basic office supplies and would have some storage space as well. Emulating a sweet, $1100 structure from the Pottery Barn catalog, Jo and I purchased $100 worth of stack-able, white "cubbies," which would act as the legs. We then stumbled upon two discarded, 7' L x 2.5' W pieces of natural wood, which were perfect for the tabletop. I stuck a few nails here and a few washers there and it was complete! Check it out:
>>>
$1100 plus delivery VS $100 and a little elbow grease?Take that, Pottery Barn!
Even better, we documented all of our purchases. 90% of our belongings come from the sweet men and women who utilize the Los Angeles Craigslist "For Sale" section, though a number of the smaller items were donated. Below is an ode to Joanna's mother, Dale, who has taught her children - more than anything - to (a) behave and to (b) get the best deals on EVERYTHING.So here goes:
Bed frame, mattress and pillowtop: $200
Paint supplies (pear green in LR, santorini blue in BR): $73
Microwave: $50
23" TV/DVD Player: $50
Secondhand IKEA table w/ four multi-colored chairs: $50
Entertainment center: $40
Four (two tall and two small) rice paper lamps: $40
Two dressers with two matching nightstands: $30
(this $30 includes a $5 we feel like we're robbing you blind tip)
Living room end table: $17
Bathroom vanity: $15
3-tier bookcase: $10
...and a full-sized, pull-out couch like the ones our grandmothers used to have: $20
(Mmm. Beige.)Gratis:
3 decorative lamps
Pop-up kitchen table
Cushioned desk chair
End table
Collection of jars for sugar, sweets, etc.
Two sets of dishes
Matching glassware
Pots/pans collection
Sushi Plates
Knife set
Toaster
Coffeemaker
Napkin holder
Iron/Ironing Board
ALL FREE
3 decorative lampsPop-up kitchen table
Cushioned desk chair
End table
Collection of jars for sugar, sweets, etc.
Two sets of dishes
Matching glassware
Pots/pans collection
Sushi Plates
Knife set
Toaster
Coffeemaker
Napkin holder
Iron/Ironing Board
ALL FREE
Furnishing an apartment for under $600: Priceless.
love,
b&j&s
"the jungle perch"
Sunday, February 24, 2008
"Actors - when you want them to say something, they have nothing to say."
I'm sitting in a massive black box space with one old-timer acting as teacher, 3 fellow actors, 5 handheld cameras and about 40 aspiring film directors. I'm sitting there, in a blanket of sweat, presenting a scene from the Layabouts film as part of this I-want-to-be-a-director course on the USC campus. I'm sitting there, with this dude's face popping up on the monitors at the other end of the room, and - well - that dude is me ...
... and this was just the beginning of our long, bizarre, thrilling, fulfilling and all-around exhausting week here in Los Angeles, leading to 8pm bedtimes, endless tape measurements, and the traffic nightmare that was Oscar Night.
WEDNESDAY
Joanna works on her hands and knees, starring in a one-person short film about a woman whose garden is torn apart overnight and decides to rebuild it on her own.
The director pays her $120 in quarters for laundry.
THURSDAY
Joanna and I head out to several auditions:
On a different note, ex-New-York-roommate Ethan (we'll call him Ethan) and I go to see the acclaimed indie, The Killing of John Lennon, which ends up being a chaotic, character-based mess. We wash down the poor film-making with double cheeseburgers and fries at LA's famous In-n-Out Burger.
FRIDAY
I sit in a Santa Monica Starbucks all morning and wrap up The Reader, Bernard Schlink's unique Holocaust novel, in preparation for the big audition. Afterwards, Justin and I meet up, talk about his upcoming directing project with his production company (check them out at www.acornpictures.com) and play Wii Golf like 6-year-olds on summer vacation.
Meanwhile, Jo teams up with the crew at the LA Film School to film Cabin, a zombie thriller in which Joanna - verbatim - "pees in a bucket in the corner."
B: "You're not getting paid to pee in a pail?"
J: "No - I get meals and credit."
B: "What's the credit? Girl-Who-Pees-in-Pail?"
Onset, Joanna cries on command and is given the glorious nickname The Phoenix. Of course, this inspires all of us in the house to don new nicknames that fit our various personalities.
Brian: The Woodpecker
Brendan: The Pelican Brief
Cooper, Brendan's S.O.: The Seagull
Scooter: The Owl
SATURDAY
Joanna and I wake up CRAZY EARLY. I drop Jo off at the USC campus for a rainy day Check shoot before heading to who-knows-where to audition for The Reader, a staged reading adaptation of the bestselling book. An incorrect address on the audition notice puts me at a construction site on a hill near the Univision headquarters, but thanks to the handy-dandy iPhone, I'm at the ACTUAL location with time to spare. The audition rocked - fingers crossed.
And the BIG news ... Jo and I have found and secured a new apartment!
Blog-Readers: "Ummmm. You just moved into a new apartment."
Me: "Well, we're renting from someone."
Blog-Readers: "Uh-huh."
Me: "So it's not OUR apartment. This will be OUR apartment."
Blog-Readers: "You gettin' an attitude with me?"
Me: "No. No-no, I was emphasizing."
Blog-Readers: "Uh-huh. Smartass."
The new place is, well, down a flight of stairs and about 20 steps to the west. It's apartment 305, and it's cheap, and - even better - it's what we've been looking for.
Our renter has returned to LA much earlier than expected. Turns out a feature-length script of hers ("the female version of Animal House") has received some serious attention and could be picked up and produced! $$$! So she's anxious to get back into her old home and prepare for her incoming paychecks as we get set for our March 1st move down the hall and to the right.
So soon, we know, but SO perfect.
SUNDAY
As most of our furniture is in our apartment in New York, it feels a bit like starting over again, which can be rather expensive and a pain-in-the-butt. So we've been surfing through the Los Angeles Craigslist ads (Don't know Craigslist? Live under a rock? Visit www.craigslist.org), seeking out $30 entertainment centers, $15 pot and pan collections, $20 bathroom vanities and a 4-piece (2-dresser, 2-nightstand) bedroom set for $25. We've zigzagged through local streets for garage sales and torn through the clearance racks at Bed Bath & Beyond, claiming a 10-piece glassware set for $9.98.
Fo' sho'.
Our goal is to furnish the entire place for under $400. No, Moms, we can't make that into a movie, but thanks for thinking of us.
Hope ya'll enjoyed the Oscars. Being the long-time Coen Brothers fan that I am (footnote: see Raising Arizona, see Barton Fink, see Big Lebowski, see Fargo, see O Brother..., see The Man Who Wasn't There), I've been rooting for them for ages and I'm more than thrilled to see them snag the awards. It's long-deserved. Scooter was thrilled too. Silently thrilled.
p.s. Some marvelous unnamed reader caught Scooter's initials at the end of last week's blog ("sg") and asked what Scooter's last name is ...
... well, we adopted Scooter from the folks at the Brooklyn Animal Foster Network. Who knows who named him, but he responded to the name and seemed to like it. Regardless, being parents, we thought we should at least give him a nickname or - better - a middle name. We came up with George. Scooter George.
'til next time,
b & j & sgl-w
... and this was just the beginning of our long, bizarre, thrilling, fulfilling and all-around exhausting week here in Los Angeles, leading to 8pm bedtimes, endless tape measurements, and the traffic nightmare that was Oscar Night.
WEDNESDAY
Joanna works on her hands and knees, starring in a one-person short film about a woman whose garden is torn apart overnight and decides to rebuild it on her own.
The director pays her $120 in quarters for laundry.
THURSDAY
Joanna and I head out to several auditions:
- J goes gansta in an indie film audition, in which she gets to deliver the line, "You the one who be rockin' them Levi's like they Sean John's..."
- B snags a role in Two Face, a student short about two men with two malicious motives
- J's cast in the silent student film Check, revolving around a chess game of love
- B's also cast in Clean, a short film about a 17-year-old who may be charged with rape
On a different note, ex-New-York-roommate Ethan (we'll call him Ethan) and I go to see the acclaimed indie, The Killing of John Lennon, which ends up being a chaotic, character-based mess. We wash down the poor film-making with double cheeseburgers and fries at LA's famous In-n-Out Burger.
FRIDAY
I sit in a Santa Monica Starbucks all morning and wrap up The Reader, Bernard Schlink's unique Holocaust novel, in preparation for the big audition. Afterwards, Justin and I meet up, talk about his upcoming directing project with his production company (check them out at www.acornpictures.com) and play Wii Golf like 6-year-olds on summer vacation.
Meanwhile, Jo teams up with the crew at the LA Film School to film Cabin, a zombie thriller in which Joanna - verbatim - "pees in a bucket in the corner."B: "You're not getting paid to pee in a pail?"
J: "No - I get meals and credit."
B: "What's the credit? Girl-Who-Pees-in-Pail?"
Onset, Joanna cries on command and is given the glorious nickname The Phoenix. Of course, this inspires all of us in the house to don new nicknames that fit our various personalities.
Brian: The Woodpecker
Brendan: The Pelican Brief
Cooper, Brendan's S.O.: The Seagull
Scooter: The Owl
SATURDAY
Joanna and I wake up CRAZY EARLY. I drop Jo off at the USC campus for a rainy day Check shoot before heading to who-knows-where to audition for The Reader, a staged reading adaptation of the bestselling book. An incorrect address on the audition notice puts me at a construction site on a hill near the Univision headquarters, but thanks to the handy-dandy iPhone, I'm at the ACTUAL location with time to spare. The audition rocked - fingers crossed.
And the BIG news ... Jo and I have found and secured a new apartment!
Blog-Readers: "Ummmm. You just moved into a new apartment."
Me: "Well, we're renting from someone."
Blog-Readers: "Uh-huh."
Me: "So it's not OUR apartment. This will be OUR apartment."
Blog-Readers: "You gettin' an attitude with me?"
Me: "No. No-no, I was emphasizing."
Blog-Readers: "Uh-huh. Smartass."
The new place is, well, down a flight of stairs and about 20 steps to the west. It's apartment 305, and it's cheap, and - even better - it's what we've been looking for.
Our renter has returned to LA much earlier than expected. Turns out a feature-length script of hers ("the female version of Animal House") has received some serious attention and could be picked up and produced! $$$! So she's anxious to get back into her old home and prepare for her incoming paychecks as we get set for our March 1st move down the hall and to the right.
So soon, we know, but SO perfect.
SUNDAY
As most of our furniture is in our apartment in New York, it feels a bit like starting over again, which can be rather expensive and a pain-in-the-butt. So we've been surfing through the Los Angeles Craigslist ads (Don't know Craigslist? Live under a rock? Visit www.craigslist.org), seeking out $30 entertainment centers, $15 pot and pan collections, $20 bathroom vanities and a 4-piece (2-dresser, 2-nightstand) bedroom set for $25. We've zigzagged through local streets for garage sales and torn through the clearance racks at Bed Bath & Beyond, claiming a 10-piece glassware set for $9.98.
Fo' sho'.
Our goal is to furnish the entire place for under $400. No, Moms, we can't make that into a movie, but thanks for thinking of us.
Hope ya'll enjoyed the Oscars. Being the long-time Coen Brothers fan that I am (footnote: see Raising Arizona, see Barton Fink, see Big Lebowski, see Fargo, see O Brother..., see The Man Who Wasn't There), I've been rooting for them for ages and I'm more than thrilled to see them snag the awards. It's long-deserved. Scooter was thrilled too. Silently thrilled.
p.s. Some marvelous unnamed reader caught Scooter's initials at the end of last week's blog ("sg") and asked what Scooter's last name is ...... well, we adopted Scooter from the folks at the Brooklyn Animal Foster Network. Who knows who named him, but he responded to the name and seemed to like it. Regardless, being parents, we thought we should at least give him a nickname or - better - a middle name. We came up with George. Scooter George.
'til next time,
b & j & sgl-w
Monday, February 18, 2008
"Hello, Police? I think there's a President in my apartment..."
Yes, it's that time again. A time to laugh, to weep, to squawk, smite, shrug, empathize, pasteurize. It's a time to remember what we loved about the old, now long-expired dudes with perfect, parted hair who built this nation on sound principles and morals. And a time to reflect on the more recent ones who didn't even know what -
Well, I'll leave it at that. After all, we're here to celebrate.
HAPPY TAFT DAY!
While Joanna and our dear friend Julie take a luxurious lunch out on the fire escape and have girl-talk, I've been quarantined in the apartment with a Bumblebee tuna sandwich until a new blog's been posted. Cause we've got big news...
Yes, indeed, after much sitting around and checking our watches and cursing the stars, our roommate has arrived! Brendan (we'll call him Brendan) has driven cross-American, checked in, moved in, settled in and built a big white Target shelving unit in the corner, now adorned with books, CD cases, pastel-colored decorative cubbies, a stuffed panda (whose fur is more French Vanilla than pure white) and a **SAFE**.
I do intend, once I've earned his trust, to inquire about the **SAFE**, about the contents of the **SAFE**, and the purpose of the asterisks around and the reason for the random capitalization on the word **SAFE**. Or I could have Jo bust into it with the skills she acquired on the set of CSI: The Video Game. Speaking of which,
HAPPY EISENHOWER DAY!
No, Brendan is not single, ladies, so please practice some restraint.
He too is an actor, relocated from the Big Apple, aiming to strive and starve out here in the Big Peach (the "Big Banana" sounded wrong somehow). Last week, Brendan and his girlfriend Cooper invited Jo and I out for a Valentine's Day Happy Hour at the elegant Edison Hotel. Located downtown, this rockin' joint features 1920s-style decor, overpriced martinis, darkened corners, silent movies projected above our heads and sweet potato fries good enough to bathe in. Speaking of bathing,
HAPPY VAN BUREN DAY!
As far as our ever-changing careers, Joanna had a wonderful audition with the super-selective folks at One-on-One, a group that connects actors with casting agents via workshops and master classes, after which an actress like Jo can sit down with the dude who casts One Tree Hill or the woman who casts Grey's Anatomy and talk to them (here it comes...) One-on-One. It's quite clever.
Meanwhile, having auditioned for a couple projects since last week's well-attended Blog Pity Party, I found out last night that I have been cast in a USC grad film! Layabouts centers around these four college kids, all of them from upper class backgrounds, who are bored to death with their at-their-disposal lives and consider robbing something to spice things up a bit. After much to-and-fro and deliberation on what that "something" will be (humor-humor-humor), the gang decides on a liquor store. Sadly, they find that the liquor store of choice is closed, so - feeling desperate and a bit wired - the group settles for a newsstand, which might have something like thirteen dollars to its name. It's a riot.
I've been cast as Harry, the so-called leader of the group and the brains of the operation (what a stretch!). And with a few more auditions lined up at the end of the week, it seems that the tables have turned and the curse has been lifted. I guess helping that old woman cross the street was worth it after all. And, speaking of old women,
HAPPY JAMES BUCHANAN DAY!
After catching The Bucket List this past weekend, Justin and I passed on our Red Mango Frozen Yogurt (Justin: "Dude, we can't have Red Mango AND beer.") and ventured to Molly Malone's, a well-known hang-out for Irish-blooded LAers, where we ate french fries, checked out a couple bands we'd never heard of, caught a glimpse of The Foo Fighters' lead singer, Dave Grohl, and drank more than our share.
Also on the "exciting" radar ... Jo and I had our first out-of-LA expedition last week. We hopped in the car with the top down and drove to Orange, California, where Jo was scheduled to audition for a student film called Transmission.
Jo: Orange, California? Is that like the O.C.?
Brian: (clueless:) Yup.
Jo: But it's not even close to the water.
Brian: Uh, (still clueless:) this is rural O.C. Rich people who don't like to swim. Like rich farmers. Oil farmers. Like that...
We didn't learn much about Orange, seeing as how we scurried out of there as soon as Jo's Chapman College audition was over, but we did get the gist of their simple suburban existence that in NO WAY resembles the ostentatious, dramatic lives depicted on The Hills.
I insisted on making a pit stop at Knot's Berry Farm, as I had been there as a child but had no recollection of the place whatsoever. We didn't have time to enter the amusement park, per se, but we did appreciate it from outside its cream-colored barricades. There were no berries or farms to be found - false advertise, much? - but we found comfort and cheese bread at a popular, corporate-owned restaurant with a name that was better than the food but that neither of us can seem to remember.
Musical entertainment this week comes from the throaty Willy Mason (If the Ocean Gets Rough) and the folk singer-songwriter Gillian Welch (Time the Revelator), as well as selections from Kings of Leon and Rufus Wainwright's Release the Stars.
And now Joanna and I are off to Starbucks to work (assuming she approves what I've written), and good thing too, cause I'm about through with this third box of conversation hearts...
HAPPY BUSH DAY!
Oy vey.
love,
bpl & jfw & sg
Well, I'll leave it at that. After all, we're here to celebrate.
HAPPY TAFT DAY!
While Joanna and our dear friend Julie take a luxurious lunch out on the fire escape and have girl-talk, I've been quarantined in the apartment with a Bumblebee tuna sandwich until a new blog's been posted. Cause we've got big news...
Yes, indeed, after much sitting around and checking our watches and cursing the stars, our roommate has arrived! Brendan (we'll call him Brendan) has driven cross-American, checked in, moved in, settled in and built a big white Target shelving unit in the corner, now adorned with books, CD cases, pastel-colored decorative cubbies, a stuffed panda (whose fur is more French Vanilla than pure white) and a **SAFE**.
I do intend, once I've earned his trust, to inquire about the **SAFE**, about the contents of the **SAFE**, and the purpose of the asterisks around and the reason for the random capitalization on the word **SAFE**. Or I could have Jo bust into it with the skills she acquired on the set of CSI: The Video Game. Speaking of which,
HAPPY EISENHOWER DAY!No, Brendan is not single, ladies, so please practice some restraint.
He too is an actor, relocated from the Big Apple, aiming to strive and starve out here in the Big Peach (the "Big Banana" sounded wrong somehow). Last week, Brendan and his girlfriend Cooper invited Jo and I out for a Valentine's Day Happy Hour at the elegant Edison Hotel. Located downtown, this rockin' joint features 1920s-style decor, overpriced martinis, darkened corners, silent movies projected above our heads and sweet potato fries good enough to bathe in. Speaking of bathing,
HAPPY VAN BUREN DAY!
As far as our ever-changing careers, Joanna had a wonderful audition with the super-selective folks at One-on-One, a group that connects actors with casting agents via workshops and master classes, after which an actress like Jo can sit down with the dude who casts One Tree Hill or the woman who casts Grey's Anatomy and talk to them (here it comes...) One-on-One. It's quite clever.
Meanwhile, having auditioned for a couple projects since last week's well-attended Blog Pity Party, I found out last night that I have been cast in a USC grad film! Layabouts centers around these four college kids, all of them from upper class backgrounds, who are bored to death with their at-their-disposal lives and consider robbing something to spice things up a bit. After much to-and-fro and deliberation on what that "something" will be (humor-humor-humor), the gang decides on a liquor store. Sadly, they find that the liquor store of choice is closed, so - feeling desperate and a bit wired - the group settles for a newsstand, which might have something like thirteen dollars to its name. It's a riot.
I've been cast as Harry, the so-called leader of the group and the brains of the operation (what a stretch!). And with a few more auditions lined up at the end of the week, it seems that the tables have turned and the curse has been lifted. I guess helping that old woman cross the street was worth it after all. And, speaking of old women,
HAPPY JAMES BUCHANAN DAY!After catching The Bucket List this past weekend, Justin and I passed on our Red Mango Frozen Yogurt (Justin: "Dude, we can't have Red Mango AND beer.") and ventured to Molly Malone's, a well-known hang-out for Irish-blooded LAers, where we ate french fries, checked out a couple bands we'd never heard of, caught a glimpse of The Foo Fighters' lead singer, Dave Grohl, and drank more than our share.
Also on the "exciting" radar ... Jo and I had our first out-of-LA expedition last week. We hopped in the car with the top down and drove to Orange, California, where Jo was scheduled to audition for a student film called Transmission.
Jo: Orange, California? Is that like the O.C.?
Brian: (clueless:) Yup.
Jo: But it's not even close to the water.
Brian: Uh, (still clueless:) this is rural O.C. Rich people who don't like to swim. Like rich farmers. Oil farmers. Like that...
We didn't learn much about Orange, seeing as how we scurried out of there as soon as Jo's Chapman College audition was over, but we did get the gist of their simple suburban existence that in NO WAY resembles the ostentatious, dramatic lives depicted on The Hills.
I insisted on making a pit stop at Knot's Berry Farm, as I had been there as a child but had no recollection of the place whatsoever. We didn't have time to enter the amusement park, per se, but we did appreciate it from outside its cream-colored barricades. There were no berries or farms to be found - false advertise, much? - but we found comfort and cheese bread at a popular, corporate-owned restaurant with a name that was better than the food but that neither of us can seem to remember.
Musical entertainment this week comes from the throaty Willy Mason (If the Ocean Gets Rough) and the folk singer-songwriter Gillian Welch (Time the Revelator), as well as selections from Kings of Leon and Rufus Wainwright's Release the Stars.
And now Joanna and I are off to Starbucks to work (assuming she approves what I've written), and good thing too, cause I'm about through with this third box of conversation hearts...
HAPPY BUSH DAY!love,
bpl & jfw & sg
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Read this after reading our latest blog...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117980463.html?categoryid=1066&cs=1
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
"I know! It was Joanna, in the parlor, with the salad tongs..."
"...or perhaps it was Brian, in the kitchen, with the lint roller!"
Yes. It's been confirmed. Joanna is now the star of a CSI Video Game! For all those hibernating bears out there, CSI stands for Crime Scene Investigation, and it happens to be a R-rated show (due to sassy crime scene language) on CBS featuring William Peterson and that I-don't-take-no-bull redhead. The game will be released who knows when, and it's bound to be AWESOME. We expect all of our blog enthusiasts to go to amazon.com right this second and purchase the game in advance (just kidding - that's not even possible...).
Shoot locations took Joanna to a $$$$ hotel on Ocean Avenue (I tagged along and read a book on the beach - score!) and a creepy casino 'til 4:30 in the morning. And, thanks to the magic of cinema, Joanna's monologue was shot in front of a green screen, which means that the techies can splice in a digital background image: a room full of snakes a la Indiana Jones, a small town circus, Darfur, etc. Her monologue was so successful (or - strike that - executed so well) that, at the end of her speech, the director turned to the five pompous, sunglassed producers behind him and said,
Director: "Now that's a Tisch education."
Joanna: :)
For the fans of video games out there (and even those who are not but have wonderful imaginations), the casino scene will act as the menu page. In other words, when Chuck - we'll call him Chuck - gets the CSI video game for Hanukkah (Chuck is not tied to any particular religion but celebrates Hanukkah because he's allergic to pine needles) and sticks the CD into his D: drive, this casino scene will pop up. Chuck will see Joanna and her co-actors standing around in the casino, tossing their hair and checking their nails and being "normal" ("normal" at 4:30am, that is). And if Chuck desires, Chuck can click on Joanna's character, and the camera will zoom in on Joanna and go to her green screen monologue, with a Prince of Persia backdrop, accented with Moroccan pillows and rugs and shirtless, chiseled men lying around carelessly, feeding themselves grapes off the vine, or something like that.
So now Joanna's too cool for school, as you can imagine. She drives to Trader Joe's in Lamborghini's that she rents by the hour and gets the peasants to
pick the apples for her...
No, not at all. Joanna's the same old Joanna, except she's now an official LA actor with her first paying gig. She's quite the star. We (i.e. I) are/am so proud.
Other than Jo's $ gig, she's been tearing up auditions left and right, reading for the girl next door, the girl who the boys nearly collapse over, and the girl who might have killed what's-her-face. In this town, they call that RANGE.
As for me, I've been finding new modes of entertainment around the house:
1. Teasing Scooter with a string.
2. Watering the plant.
3. Reading a collection of short stories called Bang Crunch.
4. Teasing Scooter with headphones.
5. Showering.
6. Teasing Scooter with Boar's Head deli meat.
While Joanna's been called in 10-12 times since I last checked in here, there have been no auditions for me. And there's no rational explanation. And there's no "fixing" it. After all, there's nothing to fix. It's all a game, in some respects, and part of winning the game is knowing how to stay occupied during the off-season. Sure, it's a bummer, and it does wear on a person's self-worth and self-esteem, but I'm blessed. See, I have Jo to tell me that those little voices in my head are totally bull, and then she takes me out to a vegetarian lunch, and I can't help but smile.
Writing has kept me plenty busy, partly due to our crappy parking situation: I take 8am street cleanings as an opportunity to drive over to Starbucks, park at the cheap meters and write for 2 hours without interruption or distraction. And while I was adventurous this week, testing out the skinny mocha (in essence, a sugar-free cafe mocha), I won't ever get it again, that coffee was foul, I swear, like drinking straight out of the utter, done and done.
Let's pause here for our *Question of the Week*:
Q: Which flavor of Orbit gum does Brian like best?
A: Raspberry Mint, with Mint Mojito a close second.
Joanna and I now use the gym to keep up with the Democratic race, swapping between CNN and MSNBC as we vary the incline on our ellipticals. Although our state favors the Clintons and our Governator endorses McCain (Brian's been working out more often for fear of getting drafted come Nov. '08), we both are Obamans. We support his policies, but more importantly, we subscribe to his all-around positive attitude, his charisma, his innate sense of words and language and his understanding of the American people and his desire to change....
(disclaimer:)
...BUT WE LOVE ALL CANDIDATES. LOVE LOVE LOVE. TO AVOID CONFUSION, OR POLITICALLY INFUSED EMAILS, PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT WE LOVE THEM ALL, ISN'T THAT RIGHT HONEY?
Joanna: We sure as heck do. We love that them there Baptist minister and his little church-going posse. Why, I wish they all could be president together. The priest and the white lady and that black fellow can all shack up in that big ol' White House, like that episode of Three's Company I love so well...or was that Blazing Saddles...?
Brian: (turning to Scooter) Now that's a Tisch education!
(end disclaimer)
No movie recommendations this week, but I have been listening to Iron & Wine's The Shepherd's Dog and the new Sigur Ros 2-disc set, and both come highly recommended to those who appreciate my music taste. We just got home from our local pub, Busby's (our Miracle Mile location pictured at right), where we watched Duke embarrass the Carolina Tarheels (shame, shame, shame). Sadly - because the Lakers game wins the Popular Vote here in midtown LA - we're forced to listen to the game in silence, reading the coaches' lips, interpreting their Scorsese-style mannerisms and whatnot. But no trouble there, as Joanna slams her fists against our corner table at each free throw and knocks over beers in between periods, grabbing the attention of our waitress Chuck (we'll call her Chuck) and our fellow Lakers fans, almost as a declaration, like,
Joanna: "WE DESERVE TO BE HERE, TOO! SO THERE!"
Brian: "Yeah, and I'll take the check, thanks."
Good news - straight from the trenches - is that Jo has a few auditions lined up for the rest of the week and I have one as well! Hers include a Korean mock-umentary (enough said) and another one that (based on the title) is either about 'how well cars drive' or 'what drives our lives' .... we'll keep you updated.
Mine is a USC graduate student film. I'm auditioning for the role of Adam - a kid who grew up on the wrong side of tracks in South Boston. Adam, who's now 24 (but "weathered like 30," the scripts tells us), spent 3 long years in the slammer, and though he wants to "do good," he now finds himself acting as chaperone to an out-of-state drug deal that goes terribly wrong. In my sides - i.e. my audition material - I'm trying desperately to get my friend Deacon off the thinning ice before it cracks while the third member of our blow-dealing crew keeps me at arm's length. Or gun's length. Oh, and his name is Shotgun.
Yes, THIS is my first audition in a week. Beggars can't be choosers. Welcome to LA.
love and hugs and stuff,
b and j and s
Yes. It's been confirmed. Joanna is now the star of a CSI Video Game! For all those hibernating bears out there, CSI stands for Crime Scene Investigation, and it happens to be a R-rated show (due to sassy crime scene language) on CBS featuring William Peterson and that I-don't-take-no-bull redhead. The game will be released who knows when, and it's bound to be AWESOME. We expect all of our blog enthusiasts to go to amazon.com right this second and purchase the game in advance (just kidding - that's not even possible...).Shoot locations took Joanna to a $$$$ hotel on Ocean Avenue (I tagged along and read a book on the beach - score!) and a creepy casino 'til 4:30 in the morning. And, thanks to the magic of cinema, Joanna's monologue was shot in front of a green screen, which means that the techies can splice in a digital background image: a room full of snakes a la Indiana Jones, a small town circus, Darfur, etc. Her monologue was so successful (or - strike that - executed so well) that, at the end of her speech, the director turned to the five pompous, sunglassed producers behind him and said,
Director: "Now that's a Tisch education."
Joanna: :)
For the fans of video games out there (and even those who are not but have wonderful imaginations), the casino scene will act as the menu page. In other words, when Chuck - we'll call him Chuck - gets the CSI video game for Hanukkah (Chuck is not tied to any particular religion but celebrates Hanukkah because he's allergic to pine needles) and sticks the CD into his D: drive, this casino scene will pop up. Chuck will see Joanna and her co-actors standing around in the casino, tossing their hair and checking their nails and being "normal" ("normal" at 4:30am, that is). And if Chuck desires, Chuck can click on Joanna's character, and the camera will zoom in on Joanna and go to her green screen monologue, with a Prince of Persia backdrop, accented with Moroccan pillows and rugs and shirtless, chiseled men lying around carelessly, feeding themselves grapes off the vine, or something like that.
So now Joanna's too cool for school, as you can imagine. She drives to Trader Joe's in Lamborghini's that she rents by the hour and gets the peasants to
pick the apples for her...No, not at all. Joanna's the same old Joanna, except she's now an official LA actor with her first paying gig. She's quite the star. We (i.e. I) are/am so proud.
Other than Jo's $ gig, she's been tearing up auditions left and right, reading for the girl next door, the girl who the boys nearly collapse over, and the girl who might have killed what's-her-face. In this town, they call that RANGE.
As for me, I've been finding new modes of entertainment around the house:
1. Teasing Scooter with a string.
2. Watering the plant.
3. Reading a collection of short stories called Bang Crunch.
4. Teasing Scooter with headphones.
5. Showering.
6. Teasing Scooter with Boar's Head deli meat.
While Joanna's been called in 10-12 times since I last checked in here, there have been no auditions for me. And there's no rational explanation. And there's no "fixing" it. After all, there's nothing to fix. It's all a game, in some respects, and part of winning the game is knowing how to stay occupied during the off-season. Sure, it's a bummer, and it does wear on a person's self-worth and self-esteem, but I'm blessed. See, I have Jo to tell me that those little voices in my head are totally bull, and then she takes me out to a vegetarian lunch, and I can't help but smile.
Writing has kept me plenty busy, partly due to our crappy parking situation: I take 8am street cleanings as an opportunity to drive over to Starbucks, park at the cheap meters and write for 2 hours without interruption or distraction. And while I was adventurous this week, testing out the skinny mocha (in essence, a sugar-free cafe mocha), I won't ever get it again, that coffee was foul, I swear, like drinking straight out of the utter, done and done.
Let's pause here for our *Question of the Week*:
Q: Which flavor of Orbit gum does Brian like best?
A: Raspberry Mint, with Mint Mojito a close second.
Joanna and I now use the gym to keep up with the Democratic race, swapping between CNN and MSNBC as we vary the incline on our ellipticals. Although our state favors the Clintons and our Governator endorses McCain (Brian's been working out more often for fear of getting drafted come Nov. '08), we both are Obamans. We support his policies, but more importantly, we subscribe to his all-around positive attitude, his charisma, his innate sense of words and language and his understanding of the American people and his desire to change....(disclaimer:)
...BUT WE LOVE ALL CANDIDATES. LOVE LOVE LOVE. TO AVOID CONFUSION, OR POLITICALLY INFUSED EMAILS, PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT WE LOVE THEM ALL, ISN'T THAT RIGHT HONEY?
Joanna: We sure as heck do. We love that them there Baptist minister and his little church-going posse. Why, I wish they all could be president together. The priest and the white lady and that black fellow can all shack up in that big ol' White House, like that episode of Three's Company I love so well...or was that Blazing Saddles...?
Brian: (turning to Scooter) Now that's a Tisch education!
(end disclaimer)
No movie recommendations this week, but I have been listening to Iron & Wine's The Shepherd's Dog and the new Sigur Ros 2-disc set, and both come highly recommended to those who appreciate my music taste. We just got home from our local pub, Busby's (our Miracle Mile location pictured at right), where we watched Duke embarrass the Carolina Tarheels (shame, shame, shame). Sadly - because the Lakers game wins the Popular Vote here in midtown LA - we're forced to listen to the game in silence, reading the coaches' lips, interpreting their Scorsese-style mannerisms and whatnot. But no trouble there, as Joanna slams her fists against our corner table at each free throw and knocks over beers in between periods, grabbing the attention of our waitress Chuck (we'll call her Chuck) and our fellow Lakers fans, almost as a declaration, like,Joanna: "WE DESERVE TO BE HERE, TOO! SO THERE!"
Brian: "Yeah, and I'll take the check, thanks."
Good news - straight from the trenches - is that Jo has a few auditions lined up for the rest of the week and I have one as well! Hers include a Korean mock-umentary (enough said) and another one that (based on the title) is either about 'how well cars drive' or 'what drives our lives' .... we'll keep you updated.
Mine is a USC graduate student film. I'm auditioning for the role of Adam - a kid who grew up on the wrong side of tracks in South Boston. Adam, who's now 24 (but "weathered like 30," the scripts tells us), spent 3 long years in the slammer, and though he wants to "do good," he now finds himself acting as chaperone to an out-of-state drug deal that goes terribly wrong. In my sides - i.e. my audition material - I'm trying desperately to get my friend Deacon off the thinning ice before it cracks while the third member of our blow-dealing crew keeps me at arm's length. Or gun's length. Oh, and his name is Shotgun.
Yes, THIS is my first audition in a week. Beggars can't be choosers. Welcome to LA.
love and hugs and stuff,
b and j and s
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