Audition: Microsoft @ Francene Selkirk

I believe this is my second time into this office. The audition went well I think, but again, it's one of those computery types. I seem to get called in for these, but I wonder if it's just as a counterpoint to the usual guys. Maybe I need to get some of those black, square framed glasses and give them a run.

Thanksgiving 2007

For Thanksgiving this year, we flew to Dallas to visit my grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousins on my dad's side of the family. Dad flew out too. It was a quick trip from Wednesday to Friday. We flew out of Burbank, which is waaaaay better than LAX. It's small, quick and friendly. Crazy. As part of the visit, we broke out some old home movies and an old projector. The projector still worked, which was a minor miracle, and the movies ran. It was quite a trip in the time machine to see the 6-year old me, my baby bro, my grandfather, my parents and everyone else 25 years in the past. Funny what you can remember so vividly.

This picture is from our lunch stop after we arrived in Dallas. We went to a BBQ place that was, as advertised, delicious. However, I don't quite get the diving connection. By the way, she's diving into a baked potato loaded with beef barbecue, cheese and sour cream. Good thing she's wearing a cap!


My Georgia Bulldogs are #4 in the BCS without a chance to win the SEC championship but virtually guaranteed a BCS Bowl. There's even a chance it could be the Rose Bowl, about 20 minutes from my apartment, or the Fiesta Bowl, a 6 hour ride to Phoenix. The Rose would be tough to make based on our travel schedule for Christmas, but if they get the Fiesta Bowl, we're going!

Life: Apartment Hunting in Los Angeles - things you should know

My wife and I are apartment hunting again. This reminds me why I hate looking for a new place to live. Here are a few pet peeves, some from Craigslist/classified services and the rest from the overall rental process.

1. Craigslist posts with generic email addresses (i.e. laishome@inbox.com) and identical photos posted on disparate listings clearly trolling to spam you. I will flag you all day and then come back and flag you again.

2. Posts that are purposefully miscategorized. Don't post in the rental section looking for roommates. Don't post your "lease to own" in the rental section. Don't advertise your foreclosure lists in the rental section.

3. Posts with headlines for a 2BR that turn out to be a 1BR with a den or a "spacious" 1BR. Folks, we know what a bedroom is. It's not the living room.

4. Posts that don't list the street address or at least the nearest cross street. There's no "luxury" anything in Panorama City, which brings me to...

5. The rampant abuse of the English language. I've included a handy decoder, but when in doubt, assume the opposite.
Luxury - having at least two walls and a sink
Deluxe - comes with lettuce, tomato & a trash bin
Lush - a dusty ficus tree circa 1977 in the entryway
Gorgeous - walls have been painted white
Adjacent - when connected to a neighborhood name (i.e. Sherman Oaks-Adjacent), if you close your eyes and imagine as hard as you can, you'll still be 15 minutes from Sherman Oaks
Quiet Building - noisy neighborhood, lots of traffic and vagrants
Charm - a nice looking man died in here 20 years ago
Lavish - the toilet handle is gold-colored and the tile is pink
Reasonable - unreasonable
Lots of Extras - you don't have to pay the lawnmower guy to mow our property and you get your own mailbox!
Renovated/Remodeled - new paint, carpet, we cleaned the mold off the tub, the tile isn't pink anymore or it's even more pink than before!

Strike

Today, a friend of mine picked me up and we drove down to Century City where the WGA was holding a unified rally for the day instead of picketing individual studios. This is officially the first time I've walked the line. There were tons of people there. Representatives from some of the agencies in town milled about with power bars, churros, donuts, sandwiches, etc. We picked up signs for "SAG in solidarity". It was very interesting. There was a sign that echoed my earlier post on the subject, wondering what's the big deal with "2.5% of $0?" If there's no money, you pay zero. Seems easy enough. At various points, we were mixed in with the staff from "My Name is Earl" with "The Office" crowd nearby. A couple of the guys from "Reno 911" were in costume.

Empty Coffee Cups

Felt like blogging about a pet peeve of mine. Last night, we watched an episode of "Life". I like Damian Lewis in the lead role, and I've generally enjoyed the first few episodes. However, last night, apart from some huge continuity issues, the specter of my pet peeve raised its ugly head. Ever notice those little coffee cups? Someone has one in virtually every episode of every show or one scene in every movie. Often, they are the paper variety with the plastic lids. Unfortunately, it is frightfully obvious that the cups are completely empty. You can tell by the way the actors hold the cups, pass the cups, gesticulate with the cups. I don't understand this. As many coffee cups as we've all held... If pretending is difficult, then why can't they put water in them to give them weight and a semblance of reality? I understand not wanting to put hot coffee in them, but the water makes a lot of sense.

Welcome to the world of my hyper-critical eye. Still, I hate being jolted out of the experience of the story by something so easily corrected. Anyone else?

Strike and stuff

We live in the vicinity of Universal Studios, and I've driven by there a couple of times since the writers' strike began. I've seen plenty of "strikes" elsewhere at which there's one or two people holding up a giant sign that says something like, "Shame on Ramses Construction". You see those and don't really think about them. This WGA strike is interesting because it's the first time I've really been up close with a strike that I understand enough to form an opinion. I see the writers' point.

Sometimes people read a few things in the paper and conclude that the strike is all about these filthy rich writers who already make tons of money off their cushy little jobs wanting even more money so they can fuel there coke habits. They're not all filthy rich, and not all have coke habits. I think. My understanding of this particular strike is that it is based on the considerations of "emerging media" or other fancy terms for internet streaming, downloads, etc. More and more entertainment is being offered via the web, and writers feel like now's the time to make sure there's an appropriate compensation structure in place to cover it. I agree with them. It is important. The trend seems to be toward more offerings online, which could conceivably take a huge chunk out of conventional TV/cable or replace it. You snooze you lose in this case. The studios and corporations want to deny or discount the potential of the internet becoming a major profit source for them. Here's where they lose me. If it's not going to be that big a deal, then...umm...what's the big deal? Let the writers have a percentage of $0. But it's not $0. There are ads on the websites. The online episodes may have ads before and/or after the viewing. As promotional material it drives viewers back to the network or particular channel. It would seem to be all tied in together to me. The outcome of this strike will affect the upcoming negotiations for SAG and other unions. So, it affects me. I hope it gets resolved soon.

Audition: Mr. Clean @ Craig Colvin

This was another of those after which you walk out laughing at the silly things we do in this line of work. Four of us guys went into the room at a time and were positioned behind four random objects (mine was a blender). Our mission was to smell the objects and enjoy the fresh clean scent over and over again until the session runner ended it. So, I smelled the blender and smelled it some more. Delightful.

A little Ghost Whisperer follow-up...the role was changed to require someone with blue eyes. So, no dice there.

What up Daddy-o?

This is another of the cool things happening right now.

Audition: Ghost Whisperer @ Donna Rosenstein Casting

This audition for Ghost Whisperer was a happy occurrence for a number of reasons. Obviously, it's good to get more auditions for TV/Film. It also validates my strategy to leverage my Atlanta network as well doing my own work. Houghton Talent, my Atlanta agency, is enthusiastically submitting me electronically. This was our first team hit. The casting assistant who brought me into the room said, "Chris, cool! I didn't know if you would make it since your agent was in Atlanta." The CD mentioned it too. Whatever it takes, you know. The audition went great...another guy who is doomed. Aside from "Passions" and Jimmy Kimmel, just about all my TV auditions have been for ill-fated characters. My callback ratio for TV prior to this is 100%, booking is 60%. I don't expect there will be any callbacks for this one. They'll just cast off the tape.