Tuesday, October 31, 2006

This post was written at 3am

What a long winding journey i had to get home last night. After doing "Crash Test" I was suppoed to hang out at a bar with A. Ansari, N. Kroll, J. Mulaney, C. Peretti and J. Carlos. It was like one of my dreams when I was in 3rd grade: I turned around and everyone was gone. I had no clue where they went. I just knew the name of the bar: "Half King." My phone was dead, so I couldn't call anyone or receive info that was being transmitted to me. So I walked around just looking for the place before remembering a bar at which people from the UCB hang out. I thought "that must be the place" and headed over there to find out it was not the right place. It had a different name. I went in and asked for the phonebook. I found the address for "The Half King" and made my way over there. By the time I got there everyone was gone. Of course they're gone, I was 30 min late.

I walked down 23rd St. from 10th Ave to Broadway. Something is wrong with the train there so I walked down to Union Square and waited waited waited. I finally got on the train and for some reason the air conditioner was blasting cold air. Ridiculous. Its cold fall outside, but it was winter in that car. Eventually we slowly made our way through the system. A homeless man complete with a cart full of bags and a hunchback mades his way onto the car. Somehow I ended up being the person closest to him. This next sentence is not an exaggeration. He smelled so bad my balls began to hurt. That doesn't even make sense. I got a whiff of his odor and my balls began to ache. A pulsing ache that i'd never experienced. I wasn't sitting strangely nor did I have a pencil mistakenly jabbing into my scrotum. Just the odor of pee and failed aspirations. Maybe the smell was so bad that my sperm were trying to retreat from it. It was the sperm version of Chernobyl or Pompeii and they were all trying to escape, but, of course, there is no escaping my testes.

I think I might have a serious sleeping problem.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Randomness

There's something about seeing someone that's very "alternative" doing something normal. Its just such a blunt object taken to my sense of reality. It doesn't add up in the equation of my implicit association with them. Sure you've got red leather pants, a original Rush World Tour T-shirt, and a Mohawk, but you're on crutches. Sure you've got a eagle tattoo with the face of Lincoln across your chest, but you're taking out the trash. Sure you've got a tattoo of every Pink Floyd album cover all the way around your neck and a nose ring that has a chain attached to your nipples, but you're pushing a baby carriage. And your wife looks like a manager at an Arts and Crafts store in Duluth. Its just disorienting.

What was it like to dream before TV and Movies? The perspective of those mediums have become so ingrained in our heads people dream and imagine thing as if they were a movie. But before those mediums people had only first person perspective. Maybe also the occasional look in a mirror. The average dream now consists of a dozens images and ways of experiencing those images that you'd find in any movie. Its very common to dream that you're not inside your own body. And their are shots that are framed like movie scenes (at least in my dreams). I assume when there was less distraction, the average dream was "My my my I was standing on a hill looking into a river. It was the Most Chilling and Introspective dream I've ever had." Is there anyone out there that just dream simple things? I've been having a lot of dreams that are only about things that are happening. Dreaming about sleeping. Ugh. I must be very disturbed.

Monday, October 16, 2006

The Greatest Sales Pitch Ever

I'm tired of being nice to people. I want to start being a dick. Cuz then when people are shitty back to me they have a reason. Also there's too much responsibility in being nice. Once you've been nice to people they expect you to do shit. Like say hello, or come to their birthday parties, or buy them a meal when they're broke cuz you "don't want to see them starve." When you're an asshole and you don't go to someone's birthday party, no prob, you're just being consistent.

On my way to my show which used to be in the East Village, I witnessed the best sales pitch ever. I was being pitched. I was walking down East 13th St. while little kids played in the street with some sort of inflatable ball. I was texting or looking at the time or just not paying attention to my path. A kid yelled in the street so I turned to see the commotion. I realized again that there's no difference in the scream of "I'm having a great time" and "I've just had my leg run over and broken by a Dodge Ram" to a child. When I turned back around I was in front of a woman sitting at a table with a stern face. I looked to the side and the sign said Psychic. She pointed at me and with an intense calm said the words "You." That's it. "You." The first thought I had was "Oh man. She's know some shit!" I almost talked to her but thought better of it and walked away.

There's always a fear for me in going to psychics. I'm afraid the first thing they'll say is "you masturbate a lot."

And even if they don't think that first, the whole time I'll be trying to not think about them telling me I masturbate which of course will make me think about it harder until the word "Masturbate" is just repeating loudly in my head. The psychic will sense the word and say "Masturbate?" I will then throw over the table and scream "How dare you, sir?! HOW DARE YOU?" Which is weird because it'll be a woman. She'll say "Sir? I am no man! Ah! You've ruined my vase!" But of course she'll have said it "vahz." I'll be like "vahz? vahz? It's fucking vayss you ass!" She'll say "No one insults Madame Beniot!" Suddenly I'll be cursed by the shemale psychic and all because I succumbed to the greatest sales pitch I've ever known.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Moments of Clarity #32 and #33

The problem with movies about Martial Arts and Breakdancing is I walk out of them thinking I can do both.

My least favorite response from a girl to the question "Why do you find him sexy?" is "He reminds me of my dad."

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Funky Cold Medina

I've had a chessburger for breakfast/lunch for the past few days. Perhaps I should start a countdown to my death now. When I say, I need to eat better I mean in it the way smokers say "I need to quit."

I was in a cab the other day and the cab driver was quite stereotypical. The first thing he said to me was "the jews are ruining everything, my firend!" He was talking specifically about his business that day. It was a high holy day and according to him, "they expect the whole city to shut down." I could tell his anger was at something bigger and maybe something a bit more life consuming. I wouldn't doubt if he's the kind of person that wakes up, stubs his toe and yells "JEWS!" I wouldn't doubt that the moment he laid eyes on his deformed whale baby he exclaimed to the heavens, "JEWS!"

He was in a good mood though and kept narrating how he felt about the traffic with pepperings of the familial "my friend." There was a point where I suddenly found that phrase amazingly unoriginal. Really? My friend? That again? Come on man, every cab driver says that! Watch a movie! Use someting from that. I would prefer that movie be from the 80s. So then cabbies would say stuff like, "Where are you going, home skillet?"
"That'll be $11, brotherman."
"No Brooklyn, sexual chocolate soul brother!"

At least I can feel like I have some style. Once you get called that you feel like that. I'll get out walking and talking like a graphic from a Parliament Funkadelic Album cover. I'll be like,
"Yeah, I dig!
Let me put my sunglasses on.
That's the law around here, you got to wear your sunglasses.
So you can feel cool.
Gangster lean.
Y'all should dig my sun-rooftop.
Well, allright. Hey I was diggin' on y'alls funk for awhile.
Sounds like it got a three on it though, to me.
Then I was down south and I heard some funk with some main ingredients
Like Doobie Brothers, Blue Magic, David Bowie.
It was cool,
But can you imagine Doobiein' your funk? Ho!
WEFUNK, we funk."

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Someone to Watch

It's time for another edition of Someone to Watch!! This episode features Todd Louiso. This guy is just hilarious and has an ability to do great things with small roles. He puts a lot of nuance into the various roles he's done that makes you remember him as "oh that guy is in this? I love that guy!"

I just recently saw him in "School for Scoundrels" which is Todd Phillips' (Old School, Starsky & Hutch) new film. You may also remember him as Dr Steven Price, the snake expert, in Snakes on a Plane. As well as the weird nanny in Jerry Maguire, and, of course, as Dick, the clerk in the music store with Cusack and Black in High Fidelity. If you're a fan of indies, especially ones with Philip Seymour Hoffman, you may also recognize him as the director of the very depressing Love Liza.

Todd attended the School for the Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio from 4th grade all the way to 12th. He ended up going to film school at NYU afterwards and graduated in 92 and landed in a rold in Scent of a Woman. Ever since then he's been jumping around from part to part on TV and movies and had rightfully earned his status as "oh that guy!"

One of my favorite things about Todd is that he's full of surprises. I'm always taken aback that this little seemingly plain bald man has a comedic fearlessness that lends such color to his characters. He's also someone that understands tone. He never seems out of place. He never goes over the top; instead he brings very subtle chocies to round out a character in a believable way but pushes it to the absurd just enough that you laugh loudly. Mr Louiso, I salute you.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

How Am I Not Home?

OK. I'll come right out and admit it. I don't have a day job. Haven't had one for about a year and a half. A luckily I've done enough paying acting/stand up gigs that I make ends meet. Although there are the times where I literally just run out of money. Commercials do pay a lot, but not as much as most people think. Also, it runs out quick when you don't have a stuy income. I have a check right now that i haven't cashed. I don't know if or when the next one is coming. Once I cash it I have no more income.

Of course, it frees me up to go to auditions to create other opportunities for income. True indeed. But here's the thing about auditions: they're auditions. I might not get it. Statistically there's little chance of it. But while I'm running from audition to audition it leaves me little time to try to write and create stuff for myself. Like writing on this blog. Or writing a movie, TV show, stand up jokes.

I haven't watched TV in a long while. That's just because I'm out all day and when I get home (on average somewhere between 1-3am) I usually have to get to sleep depending if I have an early audition. I wake up and hour and a half early. Hour to get ready. 30 mins travel time. And I'm usually still late. I LOVE TV! Fuck you and whatever you think about that. But I haven't had time to watch it and that sucks. I'm paying for cable I should be able to put a few hours aside to watch it otherwise I'm paying for nothing! I want to watch Weeds dammit! Is that to much to ask?