back in it

View Larger Map

"we're on a mission from god..."

well, it's not that serious, but for me it feels like that at times.

I was sitting at home last night in that odd quandary of knowing I had to do something, and not knowing where to start.  I needed a push... and then it came... "lets just go".

And off we went, with just enough time to throw everything in a bag, some clothes, laptop, spare chargers, some shoes... take a shower... go... don't even stop for food.

Really, I love road trip food - road trips are the best occasions to really try food that you don't have every day.  When you're at home, even a place that's not close but in the same city is something you could goto fairly often, but something out of town, thats an opportunity.

Case in point - Hot Doug's - if you don't know what it is, Google it... I'll see you there in a couple of hours.

Anyway, above you see my plan for today, I'm in Lincoln Park now, and I guess I'm gonna go by foot all over the place to my chosen 7 agencies.  Luckily, 2 are in the same building, though one is a division of Ford Models and while it's the acting division, I'm not holding my breath on that one for a while.

So, the push, the start, I'm here.   There was a devil on my shoulder, the horned & cleft-hoofed embodiment of a woman in sexy attire, a woman I know well in fact.  Well, I think I do, but I don't think anyone does... but she forked me in the shoulder and told me to get off my ass and run with the idea.  I guess tenacity may require a push at times.

8.4miles on foot... really not that big a deal.  Everyone knows how to track me via Latitude or whatever, but send me email or a text if you're willing to reach out to a guy on a mission.  Lord knows I'll have time to reply.

Heat and Headshots

I'm heading to Chicago tomorrow, for what should be the first of many trips and hopefully will start my return to being up there more often than not. However, I'm basically starting over with the auditioning and so on, including possibly returning to Second City. I needed to make sure my headshot and resume were in order.

The resume is easy, add a modeling job and the AT&T job, easy... but then, the

hair... so I headed to Rommie. Rommie is a styling goddess, but there's not much that can be done about reality. Reality is that my hair is very fine... as Dan puts it 'very fine... fine like baby hair'. Whatever, its thin too, and fine + thin means its on its way out. Suzy wants it long to take weight away from my face, so Rommie just cleaned it up, but in the end I just look like a big forehead with a great haircut. Fine, we move on.

Then, the pictures. Rogue had the idea that we just take them ourselves. And why not? I just need one or two, anything current to go with other ones I've taken over the years to show a range of appearance as I edge my way back in. I have to look like the pics, one of them must be relatively current.

So, why not? Rogue's a model, she loves photography, she has a badass camera,

we know how to work both sides of the lens on some level enough so that hopefully if we take a bunch of pics, I can get 1 or 2 decent ones to use, let's do it.

Rogue shows up at my house ready to go, I hit the shower and she's going through my clothes picking out outfits. She came up with roughly 7 of them, perfect, and she had a set of locations in mind, also perfect - let's go.

HOLY CRAP - it was 93' and HOT - topped off with the usual Saint Louis humidity. After 2 hours of attempting to make me look good it was a mess. We only got through 2 outfits and made the decision that we had to find some places inside as soon as possible. I had a client with an office nearby who wouldn't care, so we took some shots there... but the lighting was horrific.

In the end we took around 30 pics - we might maybe have 1 or 2 decent ones after she retouches them. It's so bad out there my hair somehow got all poofy, and I was

sweating through everything in embarrassing ways.

In the end, we made it a couple hours, and we headed back to the house. The only decent pic that came out of the heat was one of Rogue about to pass out while giving Cat attention.

So far at least... she's attempting to do some retouching of the gushing pores on my face right now.

I think I'm going to have to get more tenacious... there was a time when doing all this was all I could think about, it became all I did and now... now I feel like I'm trying to get back in the motions but I'm just tired.

Hopefully, this first trip will remind me of getting back in the swing. I've been helping one of my buddies from Second City with his info & resume lately, I need to take some of my own advice as well. On some level it's exciting me again, after a year and a half of not being up there and now all the interaction I'm having with people and the work that's coming up I'm pumped.

Now, to just make it happen!

auditions, unions, and making the best of it

today i had my first audition for a paying job in almost 2 months... this town is killing me. i love Saint Louis, but its terribly limited for an actor i’ve learned. there’s no Goodman Theater here, there’s no established production economy here, and as technology developed over the last 20 years, it became completely possible for local companies to produce ads in other cities and have them back here within days.

and for this, the community has suffered. people who want to act and be professional can’t make it here - the effort required doesn’t have the possible local reward. and with this leaves an opening for anyone willing to show up and get the job and take less pay.

and i’m SAG; and i completely support performance unions. but in this case, the unions are wrong. and why? the unions allow producers to hire whoever they want for principal roles, bring them in from wherever, and then (except for cities like NY or LA) they can hire whoever they want for background, stand-in, extra, and cameo roles. the reason being that there isn’t the pool of talent to choose from in the union because the general pool of actors is so small.

however, the rules that the union places on me are GLOBAL. i’m not allowed to take any of these jobs if they are non-union, even if they pay better than union wages. now really, how much sense does that make?

i went SAG because i plan to leave STL to chase bigger and better productions and getting my SAG card in other cities will prove to be a challenge. but in reality, if you’re an actor in St. Louis - who’s planning on staying here, get the card, pay your dues - and go Fi-Core. Until the unions want to put the time and effort into the whole country, its really the only option.

after the audition i went on with my plan to do things that i don’t normally do. and for today, i went to Ted Drewes for some tasty Frozen Custard... mmm... I got myself a mocha something and my dad a small vanilla, it rocked. every town has its unique places to eat that everyone needs to try, and this is on the tops for the STL.