The Audition

I was an actor today.  A tardy one, almost.  My audition was set for 4pm @ the NewYorkFilmAcademy way down in the east village and my triflin’ ass didn’t wake up till almost 3pm.  I threw on some clothes, popped in my contacts, and hailed a cab outside my building.  I soooo didn’t wanna lay out the cash for a stupid car ride (I hate cabs — the subway is faster and cheaper, dammit!) but I wasn’t gonna make it down there in time.  I live in Inwood, the North Pole of Manhattan.  I fucking love it up here, it’s cheap and apartments are HUGE, plus we have the Cloisters up in here, up in here.  Fuck ya’ll downtown bitches who refuse to trek yer snooty asses above w.96th Street!  Fuck you bitches, I don’t want ya’ll up here on my A train anyway!    Whatever.  I cabbed it down there in like, 25 minutes (big big ups to my cabbie Rahiid — you earned every cent of that $25, man!) and had time to groom my mug in the bathroom @ Starbucks and then sit and take time to um, actually LEARN my lines.  I sat with my mocha frapp, my headphones plugged in, and I realized that it was before 5pm and I was awake and downtown.  Everything looked so much brighter and spunkier, ppl looked happier, all the store windows were bare of their usual overnight steel gates.  The village is so cool, it was calling me to wander its cobblestone streets.  I began to re-think the whole point of even going to the audition.

This was *grimace* a student film I was reading for… Ugh.  In my ongoing quest to be a big star, I have formed something of a prejudice for these types of projects.  It’s been my experience that they generally either end up 1) never getting finished, 2) being a total NIGHTMARE to shoot, or 3) only being shown to a classroom of other student filmmakers who don’t really care to watch.  At best, they might get screened @ a free local festival that nobody ends up attending.  I don’t say any of this out of elitism, it’s just been my consistant experience with these types of films.  It’s why I stick to indies that have actual investors and budgets.  But whatever, if an actor is fresh and green and hungry for work, there are TONS of student filmmakers in this naked city always looking for unknown faces (i.e. FREE ACTORS)… I’m just not one of those actors, anymore.  Ok, topic: the audition.  It went refreshingly smooth and quick, as they usually do.  Film auditions are not really about what you can do, they’re more of a study on Your Look and Your Persoanlity, and how well those two will translate to 16mm.  The ppl I read with were young, seemed nice, and asked me “Do you need to take a minute to get ready or anything?”  I had to stifle my giggle and just endear them for a minute (filmmakers have no clue how to work with actors yet). “No thanks, I’m ready.”  So I did the scene a few times for them and that was it.  I was on my way out and they asked me to wait and would I mind reading for the role of Phillip too?  This took me by suprise, that they asked or even considered that the role might work on me.  It’s the Best Friend character, and he’s something of a bad influence what with all the cussing and anarchy and the drugs and the girlfriend-stealing.  Shockingly enough, I think I read really well (better?) for this one.  Callbacks are coming up soon, we’ll see what’s what.

If you’re looking for a new radio/mp3 player, this little sucker kicks ass!  I just bought one about a week ago and if it were possible, I would have its children.  It’s from Nike-Phillips, it’s digital, and it’s tiny — like, so small you could make a fist around it.  I am hopelessly transfixed by e-gadgets and this one is my newest.  I was standing on the subway platform and i could STILL get clear reception, it’s just amazing!  I FLOVE it (flove: a TRANSITIVE VERB, to have intense and ineffable affection for something so fucking much)!   Yes, that’s some serious love, folks.

Hoping for a Maya Rudolph funny fix, I watched SNL tonight.  Jennifer Gardner looks like a really buff mannequin.  Her bone structure is intimidating, not to mention the muscletone.  Her biceps? Kind of a turnoff… are women supposed to have lantern jaws?  Also, I notice that Chris Kattan is always always playing these dandified characters who are repressed gayboys.  It’s like the running-joke of ALL his characters in nearly EVERY sketch he’s in.  Trying to tell us something, dude?  I guess not even he can resist the power of “the Mango“…

The winds are hella chilly up in these here parts.  I’ve trying to brave it with just a sweater and leather jeacket (cuz in NYC, you legally are uncool if yer not wearing a leather jacket) but I fear donning a COAT will be involved in my near future.  Too bad it can’t be springtime yet.  I’d get to dress better and maybe even reach greater heights (see Snapple Fact #19).

Does everybody know about Badly Drawn Boy?  If you like British bands or American poseur bands who try to sound like they’re kinda British, these guys are really good.  Kinda sad and melancholy but upbeat about it.  They did the soundtrack for that Hugh Grant movie About a Boy last year and I played it incessantly.  I am all over the new single “You Were Right,” it’s in my mp3 player right now.  The video rocks, I saw it for the first time @ H&M the other day.  Anyway, I really like them.

This bullshit? makes me scared and giggle at the same time.

I locomoted to this bigass B&Noble while I was downtown today.  I decided that the time has come for me to read a book or two.  I wish I could say that I’m an avid reader but I really just never do it, unless magazines and blogs count.  It’s not that I’m lazy, I just have trouble investing my attention in something that you don’t plug into a wall outlet.  Anyway, I saw a lot of really cool, funny-looking stuff so I’ll be making a trip back tomorrow when my boy M is there.  He sold his young soul to B&N and became a manager, lets me in on his discount in exchange for telling him stories of life outside the store.

It feels like I had a full day.  It was cool putting my day off work to semi-productive use.  I’ll have to start getting outta bed by mid-afternoon more often.

Country Grammar

February 14th, 2003

As much as I like Kelly Rowland from Destiny’s Child (she’s the non-Beyonce one), would somebody please explain the blatant grammatical offense in the lyrics to her new song “Stole”?  

Sample lyric:
She coulda been a movie star
Never got the chance to go that far
Her life was stole
Now we’ll never know

Stole.  Not stolen.  It’s stole.  Not in a noun-sense of the word, like a cloak or shawl, or a garment that you’d wrap around yourself.  Stole… as a verb.  Like STOLEN… but without a letter.    Are we just making up words now?  Where am I — the Bronx?   Who the hell talks like that?  I want names. 

“Hey Kelly, what happened to your VCR?” 
“Aw, it got stole.” 
“For real? That sucks, I hate when my place gets broken into and my stuff is stole.” 
“Yeah, I know…”

Don’t get me wrong, I fucking love the chorus and I think the video is really cool too.  Plus, Kelly is the shit, man!  She’s like, “Fuck Destiny’s Child!  I’m gonna go out and do a kickass song/video with Nelly, and then I’m gonna do my own shit and nobody’s even gonna look @ Beyonce anymore!”  Rock on, dude.  She’s cute and she’s got a really pretty voice… but come on.  “Stole”?  Who told her that was ok?  I just love it how her record label, backing studio, and entire team of producers just let her go on saying “stole” as if it were a valid synonym for the past tense of robbery.  Somebody justify this shit for me, please.  The english language is comprised of basic structure and fundamentals.  There are certain laws of grammar that you kind of have to fucking follow if you wanna make any sense and not sound like a damn jackass from the backwood swamps of Louisiana. 

I’m sorry, but using “stole” as a past participle is just plain unacceptable.  It’s a sign of the apocalpyse.  Fucking damnation, that’s what it is.

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Black Friday

February 14th, 2003

It’s Valentine’s Day and I should warn all of you who happen to be in loving relationships that I will be packing heat today.  Keep your fucking public displays of affection out of my feild of vision and maybe you’ll get to keep your legs.

Ugh, I’m trying to look @ it as a day of love for everyone, not just a day for stupid happy couples.  I plan to contact everyone I know (maybe even the exes) and say hey, then take myself to lunch downtown and go buy something cool, and then get Valentine’s Candy for everyone @ work tonight.  That’s my plan for the day.  Operation Love.  Either this or stay in bed all day, crying and listening to Coldplay on a loop.  Ohh wait, the lead singer just started dating Gwyneth Fucking Paltrow (her full name, I think).  Great.  Now even my Superhero of Sadness is happier than me.

My only consolation?  The one only Melissa posted a message on my Tag Board!  At least I think it’s THE Melissa…  whatever, ignorance is bliss.  WOO-HOO!  My baby mamma loves me!  The earth has moved, the stars have exploded, and now I can die a little happier.  When I was 18, I had a pretty nice V-Day.  My mom sent a big basket of junkfood to me @ school during the middle of my Goverment class.  It was this bigass wicker thing full of Snickers bars, A&W Root Beers, Twizzlers, and a Super Sized bag of Doritos.  I was the envy of every bastard in the classroom (and no, I sure as hell did NOT share any of it, either).  That was really cool.  I miss my mom.

Okay, fine.  Happy Valentine’s Day. 

 

** Big Big Love to BJ, whose command of modern technology and power over household electronics apparently knows no bounds. **

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Frenchie Forever

February 13th, 2003

Dude, Frenchie Davis is out of the American Idol competition!  The producers found out that she’d posed for some pornsite way back in the day and kicked her talented ass out.  According to the articles, she did it when she was 18yrs old to put herself through college — if that’s not respectable then what the fuck is?  She did it so she could afford HIGHER EDUCATION, so she could GET A DEGREE and MOVE AHEAD in this life.  She was hands-down the most talented singer of the entire group they picked, totally my favorite one.  I have no reason to watch anymore.  *sigh*  What a world, what a world.

I can never watch that show again.

Damn, what a good night @ work.  The last two nights flew by so quick, I felt like I’d just left my apt to go the store and came right back home.  Er, whatever.  I’m feeling good b/c my pay increase finally processed, along with a nice little kick of retroactive pay too.  Woo-hoo!

So I checked these 2 cute Candaian girls out of the their room this morning and the were so sweet.  I’d helped them earlier during their stay, they’d never been to NYC and so I referred them to a few cool places to hit.  Clubs and stuff.  Well, they somehow ended up sliding their way into Lot61, which is damn near impossible to get into —(especially in the midst of Fashion Week) — and partied all night with Neve Campell, Kate Moss, and the Nelly crew!   Anyway, they showered me with praise and thank-you’s (even called me “beautiful” — okay, so the bitches were blind, whatever) and it just made my morning.  It’s so nice when ppl are HAPPY and enjoyed their stay with us.  They swore up and down that they’d be back and, in a very cool gesture, that they planned to write some big hype up on me and send it to the General Manager of Hudson.  Go, Canada!

I’ll miss you, Frenchie. You was robbed.

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An Ugly State of Orange

February 12th, 2003

All this terrorism gives me a headache.  Fucking Code Orange.  At the risk off an inbox full of hate-mail, I still gotta say…  I’m proud to be an American and everything, but I’m a little tired of the Bushes and their readiness to THROW DOWN all the time.  It’s like, Okay you guys are tough, and peeps ought not to mess with you and your crew… enough already.  I won’t pretend to be heavily-informed on the topic, in fact I’ll just shut up about it right now.  Just had to voice my present annoyance with scrappy little Texans (yes, I realize the irony) and this whole war in general.  Oddly enough, us being @ war sort of makes me feel closer to my parents.  They were young when the nation was @ war with Vietnam, it’s almost like the cycle continues or something.  I don’t know. 

Altoids makes sour mints now.  It’s a beautiful thing, really.

On a random burst of inspiration this morning, I submitted myself (that’s right, my own damn self.  10%-sucking agents can kiss my black ass!) for a bunch of upcoming film projects.  Producers for three of the projects have already contacted me about an audition.  Woo-hoo!  I’ve spent the last 6 months or so just chillin and taking things lightly, not auditioning/working as steadily as I used to.  So, it was nice to throw my face back out there again and get such quick responses.  I set one of them up for this weekend, a film called Mama’s Boy. I don’t know too much about it, they’re casting for the role of Jerry, an innocent-looking, clean-cut 16yr old boy.  This is where being small and looking disturbingly youthful actually works in my favor.  We’ll see how it goes down…

I find myself getting more and more blunt with the guests @ the hotel.  It seems impossible but it’s almost as if they’re getting more and more ridiculous.  When I go back and read my old entries and see how nervous I was about starting this job, it makes me laugh.  I am literally amazed at how senseless ppl can be.  How the hell do you book a reservation for a room with a hotel, agree to pay the price, and then show up and expect a “better room” and “a better price”?  You want a Deluxe Room with a king size bed? Okay, did you BOOK that room type?  No, you booked a Single room/double bed for $99 so that’s what we’re giving you.  Get the hell away from my desk.  I swear, it’s just astounding what ppl will say and do to try and get a better deal.  Aughh, at the end of the day I just have to laugh about it.  If anything, they sure do keep me entertained.

A word of advice to any newbie/would-be bloggers out there: Do it.  Jump on in!  It’s fun.  For real, you have no clue how many cybernerds and introverted losers are out there (dude, I’m one of them).  If you post it, they will come. They will keep coming, too, and even send emails.  It’s a really fun little hobby, gives me something to unwind with @ the end of my day.  I wish I had shopped around before I started up my website, just b/c I’m finding so many FREE ways to setup a site/blog.  But I like my provider, they have a killer tech support team and make it incredibely easy for me to do all this cool shit.  This internet land is just too cool.  … Good luck finding readers as cool as mine, though. 

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Work Babble

February 9th, 2003

Color me shocked when one of the uber-machismo Hudson Bellmen stopped me in the hallway to ask if I’d help him color his hair.  “I’d been meaning to tell you how great a job you did on yours, by the way.”  “Oh, wow.  Um, okay thanks, man.”  “Was thinking about growing mine out some and then dyeing it blond but I wasn’t sure if I should first get it cut or…” and so the dialogue continued, and I just found the whole thing really freakin’ funny. 

Yanni stayed with us this past weekend.  The housekeepers told me he had all of the windows in his suite blacked out.  I saw him going into the elvator once, he dresses like a fucking shepard.

Work sort of kicked my ass tonight.  We had so many ppl just having ISSUES with their reservations  Credit issues, billing issues, they all just piled up on me for a bit there.  I had to put the smackdown on this one guy who was so wound up that he started pounding his fist on the desk and being obnoxious.  I tried to be patient with the guy b/c he was from Italy and didn’t speak good english, so I figured he was probably just embarassed and really frustrated.  Then he made the mistake of throwing his room keys back at my chest and demanding I give him a better room NOW!  Ohh hell no.  I looked him dead in the eye, dropped the pleasant Front Desk tone, and deadpaned, “You need to calm yourself down right now.  Calm yourself down or I will have security up here right away.  Don’t think I won’t do it in 2 seconds if you do that again.”  All my coworkers froze and just watched.  It sort of suprised me too, I hadn’t meant to be so direct with him but I just didn’t know how else to take hold of the situation.  Eventually, the guy got his shit worked out and I quietly put my Inner Diva back in his cage.  Oh, then I dealt with this one really annoying guy, he was a model for FORD, this really pompous kid.  He was only paying $130 (the price of a Single) and we’d already upgraded him to a Deluxe Room, basically just for being beautiful.  Well, this punk comes down and tries to press me for a bigger room.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was like, “Sir, the room that you’re in now goes for $315 a night and we placed you in there at a rate of $130….”  (I paused to let him draw his own conclusion).  He just stared back at me with this blank look on his face. ”So can I get a bigger room?”   ”Surely, for an additional upgrade fee of…”  “I want a suite.”  “We’re sold out this evening, sir.”  “Well, what are you going do get for me?”  “I’m going to suggest that you book a suite next time.”  “I am a SUPERMODEL!”   He actually said that.  Out loud.  To my face.  Where do these ppl come from?  It’s mind-boggling.  Ughhh, tonight was just a rough one.  Hopefully, the pay raise (and the two months retro) on my next paycheck will make it all better.

I had me some Cinnabon the other day and have been craving it like heroin ever since.  Dropped by the Bank, my old job, the other day while I was out too.  It was so interesting to be back in that big building I’d worked in for so long.  Everybody asked about how things were @ the hotel, how was the acting is coming long, what have I been up to.  And everybody said to me that I was welcome back anytime.  That was really nice.

Got bored tonight and made a collage, which is cool but not artsy enough to show you.  Also, I made this.

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