One Week Later...

Well, I was right. A lot did happen this week.

First and foremost, It no longer takes me 30 minutes or more to fall asleep. :)

My brother Seth started working at a newspaper in West Covina, about 45 minutes East of Van Nuys. After his first day, he realizes that he doesn't want to make it long term because of the little responsibility he has at the paper and he's used to being more busy with his work (even if it does pay $15 hour). It's not a big deal considering he was just filling in for a sick employee for a few weeks.

Over the first few days of the week I drove around Van Nuys in search of a cheap car but didn't find much of anything. I then turned to craigslist in hopes of finding a good deal. Luckily I found a decent enough car for sale and set up a time to look at it on Wednesday. Wednesday rolled around and I had to do the most driving and shuffling around since I've been here. I drove Seth down to Santa Monica for an interview. I then drove 45 minutes to Burbank to check out the car for sale. All in all, I ended up going through 3 seperate people to look at the car. The first guy I talked to on the phone was helping a woman sell it. I then met that woman at the car and find out that she is a estate agent helping the real owner sell it. I find out that the car is being sold because this woman's husband had passed away and she had no use for it. I finally reach the car and it is just as described: a 1988 Crown Victoria LTD. It's in pristine condition and runs perfectly with electic everything and working stereo, A/C, and heat. The front right tail light is broken, but that's the only thing wrong with the car. I soon realize that the car is a steal and decide to purchase... but there was a small hitch in the plan. The woman selling it finds out that there is a state law saying a car can't be sold until 40 days after someone dies, so I can't get it until Monday. It stinks, but I say OK and tell them I'll come get it on Monday.

Next, I drive 45 minutes back to Santa Monica to pick Seth up from his interview, and drive back to Van Nuys. We get our stuff for the rest of the day, and I drive another 45 minutes to West Covina for Seth's last day at the newspaper job. I then drive 45 minutes over to Woodland Hills for my interview with the agent... I arrive about 30 minutes early, say a little prayer and head to the office. Luckily, the agent, Kerrie Levy wasn't there yet and I was able to talk to my friend Kelly for a bit. She handed me a commercial side to prepare for the audition. I go into another room to practice the Selsun Shampoo commercial. I return to the office and wait for Kerrie to arrive. She soon does and I first notice 2 things about her that I didn't expect: she was very young and dressed very casually. What stood before me was a blonde, plasticky, young woman with her boobs falling out of her shirt. She storms into the office talking about dinner plans with her friend on her cell phone with not so much as a quick, puzzled look in my direction. She walks into her adjoining office and talks with Kelly in a whisper before calling me in. She shakes my hand asks me to sit and first asks me how old I was and I told her 23. She then says, "wow, you're young!" in a condescending sort of way and I see the tone that would set the rest of the audition. The crazy thing is that I find out later from Kelly that her herself is 23 as well but she doesn't like people to know her age. go figure... Next she asks me, "Who are you currently represented by?". I instantly realize that I found myself examing and observing her every word and move just as she is doing to me. I think to myself, she didn't ask me if I was currently, but who I'm currently represented by. I tell her "no one" and then she takes my headshots and asks me to perform the commercial sides. I peform them to the best of my ability and then she asks me to perform my monologue. I ask her if I could stand instead of sitting and she paused and replied awkwardly, "yeah, stand". I stand and realize that I immediately regret my decision because the room is so small and I couldn't really back up so I ended up standing in the corner in front of the door.

I performed my monologue from the play Floating Rhoda and the Glue Man and throughout, I made a concious effort to keep eye contact with Kerrie and use her as my reference point for the monologue. The problem was every time I looked at her, she had this spacey, zoned-out look on her face as if she wasn't really paying attention. The funnier thing was that I would find her looking at the areas that I would motion to in the monologue as if I was a teacher of a little girl in a classroon. It was difficult performing in the environment and it made things worse when her cell phone started ringing in her purse directly behind me throughout the last 20 seconds of the monologue. Overall, I felt very concious of the fact that my every word and motion was being critiqued (or at least I thought) and I would say I only gave a B- performance. It wasn't my best, but at least I wasn't nervous and tried my best under the circumstances. After the monologue, Kerrie asked me if I had any other headshots and I told her "not printed, but I have the proofsheets if you want to look at those". She quickly said, "no, that's fine". And just like that she said "thanks for coming in" and I shook her hand and was on my way. The entire audition only lasted maybe 7 minutes and I walked out with the vibe that she just wasn't feeling me or that she thought I wasn an amateur. But, I told myself to walk out of the audition with my head held high no matter what happened and I did just that. Later on in the week, I called Kelly to tell her my view on the audition and she said that if I was to be signed, Kerrie would call me next week and let me know. Overall, my instinct tells me that I won't get that call because she wasn't really feeling me, and quite honestly, I wasn't really feeling her either. It's a little dissapointing if I don't get signed, because I would love to get the ball rolling, but no one said it was going to be easy. At least I can take what I've learned and apply it to future auditions/agents.



Soon after, my brother was also fortunate enough to get an interview and a job offer from a non-profit company called Environment California. They deal in being environmental activists raising awareness and money specifically for the ocean related issues (they're the people that ask you "do you have a quick minute for the environment?"). I drove him to his first day at work in downtown LA before heading to my audition to be a tour guide at Universal Studio. I arrive to the audition about 10 minutes early hoping that will increase my chances of getting out of there on time to make it to work at 5. It was interesting going to Universal Studios for my audition but also for the first ever to a Universal Studios. I felt like a little kid with the excitement surrounding me. This soon wore off as I saw the line in front of me for the auditions. There in front of me was an assortment of people auditioning as well ranging from all ages and races. The most interesting was to see the way people dressed for the audition. Many were dressed nice, but some were wearing flashy clothes, jeans and a t-shirt, and even full blown suits. Kelly told me that I should expect to be in line for about 2 hours. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I got there at 1:50 pm and got to the front of the line for my interview at 5:00 pm. To top it off, it was extremely cold outside (where most of the line was). I find out the reason it took so long was that more people came for the audition than expected and there were only 2 people interviewing this year instead of 3 people. I met a couple cool people in line and finally got to the front, greeted by Kelly and seated in front of the man who was to interview me. The kicker of the experience was that Kelly told the guy interviewing me that we went to school together and were friends and he told us that I could have skipped to the front of the line instead of waiting like everyone else... go figure. The interview went great and he told me that I would get a call the next day for a second interview/audition.

Sure enough, I got a call on Saturday saying my next interview/audition is on Monday and will last 4 hours including a formal interview, Q &A, and an audition. So Monday will be a big day for me, I get my car (barring nothing goes wrong) and I have my second audition with Universal. And later in the week there is a slight (very slight) chance that I will get a call from Kerrie telling me she wants to sign me. So who knows. At least it's nice to know that things are slowly piecing together more for Seth and I here in LA.

Time to get ready for the Super Bowl.

Movie Reviews of the Day:
Benny and Joon - 4 stars
The Rainmaker - 4.5 stars