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,

Bri