Best Trip Ever!:part 3

Memory getting foggy, must get this all down before it evaporates into the ether...

Thursday morning I was pretty easy going. Grabbed some breakfast, and hung out at Vanessa's, anxiously awaiting the mother of all pitch meetings...Disney! Talk about pressure. Go ahead, talk about it.

My meeting wasn't until 4:30, so I had plenty of time to obsess over my pitch, get really stressed out, and develop an upset stomach. Actually I was pretty chill about the whole thing, which is very unlike me. I guess my new mantra, "Seriously, what the fuck is your problem Gibbons?", is working.

I made my way from the OC to Burbank, stopping at Burger King for a Whopper, what can I say, I'm a foodie. The Disney Studios was really dawnting. I had to pinch myself as I drove through the front gate.

This is the place they shoot classic shows like, "That's so Raven". The thought of seeing Raven Symone alone gave be goose bumps.

I got my ID badge and parked. Unfortunately they gave me the wrong ID badge, so I walked back to the security kiosk. The security guy looked at it and said, "Dude, good catch." Nick Gibbons 1/Disney Security 0.

The pitch went as well as I expected. It was my first pitch there and now I have a much better idea of what they expect. With that under my belt I headed back to Ryan's place. Ryan and I decided to grab some dinner at the kick ass farmers market by his place. I grabbed some grub at a Cajun joint inside the farmers market. It was good, but unfortunately it will be making another appearance in this blog soon.

It was time to drink! We decided to just hang around the neighborhood, so of course the first stop was Studs Theater!



OK so maybe we didn't actually go inside. I couldn't figure out why the male porn stars just made indentions of their feet and hands. Maybe they didn't use their finger to write their names.

Ryan took me to a bar in attached to a deli. It smelled like pastrami, which isn't usually what I look for in a bar. Next up was a hipster Russian vodka bar. After a few vodka beverages my tummy starts to feel bad. It could've been all the stress from the week catching up to me, but I think it was the Cajun food.

I excused myself to the hipster Russian facilities and proceed to unleash the wrath of God on that tiny black and white tiled room. It was terrible! It was like my ass was being punished for something and it was planning on taking everyone else with it. I was in the stall for a while and there was no mistaking where the pungent bouquet was emitting. Several bar patrons outside my stall commented, but none more prolifically than the hipster that uttered, "This dude is single-handedly destroying the bathroom." I should have defended myself, but he was right.

After hosing off, I joined Ryan at the bar and we finished up. It was time to head back home and grab some sleep. I heard later that the health department had to condem that bathroom. Sorry about that Russian bar.

More trip to come...

Best Trip Ever!:part 2

Where were we? Oh yeah day after peeing in bottle.

So it's Wednesday morning. I wake up on Ryan's couch ready to take on a fresh new Californian day. Ryan displays two tiny bottles of champagne he has bought for me, to celebrate my pitches. He suggests we mix them with his blood orange juice and make mimosas. I have no objections.

I have nothing planned until 2pm. After a short discussion of our options, I chose door number 1, a trip to the original Bat-Cave. This is the cave that they used in the 1960s series. Whenever you would see the Bat-Mobile tearing ass out of a cave to save Gotham, this was what you saw.



We walked through the very short man made hole, or "cave" as it's called, and emerged on the other side. You could practically feel the history seeping out of the ground. Then we took a piss.

We made our way around the back of the cave and noticed the two hills on the other side perfectly framed the Hollywood sign.


Literally ONE second after this photo was taken, an incredibly skinny effeminate older man in shorts with a chihuahua approached us and asked if we were tourist or if we were from the area. We politely informed him we were in fact both of those things.

If you know me at all, you know I'm incredibly polite and accommodating with people I don't know, and if Ryan hadn't been there, there's a good possibility I would still be there talking to this dude. In hindsight our prescience wasn't necessary for the conversation to begin with, seeing as how it was extremely one sided.

After I told him I lived in Atlanta, he told me how hot it was there, then followed that statement up with, "I've never been there." At this point we knew we needed to make a hasty retreat. He asked me when my birthday was, and being very polite, I told him. He then pulled out an incredibly tattered piece of paper from his wallet, looked at it, and proceeded to tell me I must have had a troubled childhood. I confirmed I indeed did not have a troubled childhood. He showed me the piece of paper, which had all the cards from a deck of playing cards on it. He said I was a 3 of hearts which meant I was all about giving. At this point my mind had melted and was oozing out of my nose. Ryan had been interjecting several derogatory things, trying to unlatch this mans mental hold on me. Finally we escaped his evil clutches. I realized to late as we walked away that one of us should have shouted, "To the BatCave!" And ran off. The best ideas always come 4 seconds to late.

Lunch time was approaching and of the many suggestions given, I chose Cuban sandwiches at a place in downtown LA. We made the drive. After hopelessly scouting, we find a parking place for the nominal fee of 9 bucks. The place Ryan takes me is tucked back, almost hidden in a breezeway between two high rises that housed lawyers and such.

There was a long line, but it went fast and was well worth it.

I like spicy stuff, so I grabbed a bag of these:

Having been let down so many times before by consumer products promising to be "flaming", "fire" or "3 alarm"; I wasn't convinced. My reservations however were unwarented. These little babies could peel paint. And here's why:

Next up Ryan took me a rather scenic route to check out the public library/homeless shelter.


This place was enormous and the insides were spectacular. These pictures don't really do it justice.




After checking out a couple of the exhibits, and avoiding stepping foot in ANY of the public restrooms therein, we made our way to the next stop on Ryan's downtown tour. The 27th floor of the Court House.

I had trepidation about this choice at first, but Ryan assured me it was a little known LA treasure. After going UG to the 27th floor...


...Ryan was right. We were treated to a 360 degree view of LA, and there was absolutely no one up there.


We repelled down the side of the building and made our way to the next stop. For all the film enthusiasts out there, this is the building where they shot a good portion of the Harrison Ford classic Blade Runner.



Again the pictures don't do this place justice. The wood and ironwork were amazing. We did have to terminate several rouge robots harboring complex moral and ethical questions about the concept of life, but that's pretty much how I roll on a daily basis.

It was getting close to the time I needed to head down to San Clemente, so we made the last stop in LA, a pirate bar.



After a dark and stormy and enduring a very talkative bartender, we went back to home base.

I didn't leave for San Clemente until 3:30pm and found out real quick that I should have hustled to leave a lot sooner. After 2 and half hours in traffic I arrive at O Entertainments new facilities. I was greeted by all my old DNA buddies that work there and given a tour of the place by my friend Jake. It's an amazing space, alas I have no pictures to prove it.

After a bit we left to go to Irvine and have half price sushi and sake. Joining me for the festivities were Ben, Jake, Paul, and Jason. The friend I stayed with last time, Vanessa, met us there. It was a great evening of raw fish and hot alcohol.

Upon completing the festivities, Vanessa and I retreated to her hood at Seal Beach in the OC. We arrived around 11pm and decided to keep the party train rolling down the track. The first bar we walked into was full of what appeared to be loud inebriated 18-year-olds. I insisted we not stay for fear of getting douche bag all over my shirt.

The second bar we went to was pretty much empty AND they were doing karaoke! One of the nights topics happened to be Christopher Walkin and with that topic comes my obligatory terrible impression of Mr. Walkin. It's actually just an amalgamation of everyone else's impression. At any rate, I was making all kinds of noise about how I wanted to sing "Walking on Sunshine" AS Walkin. After Vanessa let me out of her very persuasive choke hold, I wondered up and put in my name, or rather the name "Christopher". I started singing and people slowly began to "get it". Laugher insued. The 50 something year old Karaoke DJ was standing behind me and didn't seem to understand what I was doing. I leaned back and clued him into the gag. He nodded. We cool.

As if not to be over shadowed by my awesomely hilarious bit, the Karaoke DJ immediately sang the hit "How's your hole... family" A song that goes from "cute", to "we get it", to "how the fuck long is this song anyway", real fast.

It was a fun night, but I could tell by the blank look in V's eyes that the party train had derailed and it was time to stumble home.

I'll end this broadcast day with a cute picture of Vanessa's new neighbor's dogs nose, that he kept shoving under the gate to smell stuff.

More trip to come....

Best Trip Ever!:part 1

I'm back from the soul sucking state of California and man-o-man what a spectacular whirlwind of a trip! I'll try to capture the highs and lows of my second attempt at selling my wares in the "City of Angles". You read that right. I said angles, because if you don't have one, you ain't gonna make it baby.

Last Monday, March 23rd, after 4 weeks of preparation, I hopped on a jet and high tailed it to LA. I was pitching 2 shows this time out and had multiple meetings stuffed in my canon. I sat next to a very nice woman on the plane who talked to me the entire way, helping to hold my flight anxieties at bay. Thank you very much nice lady to whom I never asked your name. She was visiting her two sons, one an actor, and one an agent. Forming the perfect Hollywood sibling pair up.

After arriving at LAX I had to take a bus to the demilitarized zone where they protect the rental cars from the throngs of LA rebels/homeless people. This time out I got a Chevy Cobalt:

It wasn't the one pictured above. Mine was silver, which leads me to believe the Cobalt was named after a shade of blue for non-aesthetic reasons.

After leaving this Mad Max-ian post-apocalyptic area of LA, I plugged in my borrowed GPS, THANKS JO ANNE AND KEITH, and drove to my buddy Mike and Cathy's place in North Hollywood. They were gracious enough to let me crash there the first night.

I snapped this shot while on the way there:

You can't talk on the phone in your car in LA, but apparently it's cool to drive and take photographs.

Mike lives up the street from Universal Studios, which is great for him because he's a huge movie buff. I parked the Cobalt and we meandered up to the Citywalk. It's a free outdoor tourist magnet/capitalism shrine. It's just like Vegas, but no strippers, no gambling and no Carrot Top. Thank God!

We grabbed some food at a Mexican place and walked back to Mike's apartment. I was pretty wiped from the 5 hour plane ride. Mike has a huge collection of DVD's so I picked an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, sat on his couch, and promptly fell asleep. Mike prodded me awake with one of his action figures and made me go to my room.

The next morning Cathy made us breakfast and I had my first ever crumpet. It was so very nice of her to cook us breakfast and I wanted to thank her again. Mike had to go to work so Cathy and I took a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood across the street that was comprised of multi-million dollar homes. Leonard Maltin lives in the area as well as the Jonas brothers. All we saw was a bunch of Hispanic dudes fixing a driveway. It could have been the Jonas Brothers, I don't know what they look like.

I had two pitch meetings that day so I gathered up my belongs and made my way to them. On the way out I noticed a bizarre shrine in Mike and Cathy's hallway and snapped a photo:

Now that's a religion I could get behind.

After arriving in Burbank I gave my first pitch. In an attempt not to have to relive the pitch session, lets just say it could have gone worse, but not much worse. I'm just glad it's over.

I had about 2 hours to kill before my Nickelodeon pitch. I filled the time with second guessing, what if-ing, and bitching about the pitch to my wife on the phone. I grabbed some Greek food. Afterward I called my wife and told her what I had just eaten. My wife having much more fortitude than I, told me to buy some gum. Best advice ever, and something I never would have thought twice about. That's one of the many reasons I married her.

I drove to Nickelodeon and parked the Cobalt. I was an hour early, but luckily my buddy Ben Gilberg was at Nickelodeon sitting in on a recording session for the new Nickelodeon show he's working on. He let me sit in on the record while I waited. Ben's an old friend back from my Jimmy Neutron days. He's a great guy and an even better show producer. It was a lot of fun to watch the guys lay down the vocal tracks.

My pitch meeting finally rolled around. It was with the guy I pitched to last time. He's really great and that helped to dial down the nerves. The pitch went well and it felt good.

After the pitch I met back up with Ben. We decided to grab some beer and food. We talked and drank for a while, then Ben had to head back to the O.C.

Let me just preface the rest of my blog with this: I sat on the fens for a good while deciding whether or not to write about what happened next. But in the spirit of full disclosure I'm going to tell you what exactly happened next. Sam, this is for you.

Me and Ben parted ways. I got in the Cobalt and drove out of the Nickelodeon parking lot. I pulled over to the side of the rode to call my friend Ryan. He's my more than gracious host for the rest of my trip. I knew he was on a date that night and we were going to work out a key drop. I hated to call in the middle of his date, but I needed to get the key. I called and he said they were in a restaurant on the corner or 3rd and Wilshire. When I called, Ryan was in the middle of having to move his dates car. He sound perturbed which made my hypersensitive incredibly fragile emotional senses tingle. I hated to bother him and he was already ticked off. I wrote down 3rd and Wilshire and got off the phone as fast as I could.

At this point I started to realize that I REALLY had to pee. I was in the middle of nowhere, at night, in what seemed like a not to good part of town. On top of that, the GPS couldn't find 3rd and Wilshire. My bladder started to quiver like a bounce house full of 3rd graders. After finding a water bottle in the passenger seat, I pulled into a parking lot. At this point, all my rational reasoning capabilities were numbed by beer, being lost, having to pee, and not wanting to call Ryan back.

Here it comes Sam. I turn the car off, pour the rest of the water out, peer around to make sure no one was watching and whip off the pants. This won't be the first bottle I've whizzed into, and undoubted it won't be the last. I tilt the bottle down toward my junk as I lifted up in the seat in order to perform this tight rope act of bladder evacuation. Unfortunately not all the water had successfully been emptied from the bottle. It found its way all over my bits and pieces and the car seat below. This was a bit of a shock and it didn't help my state of mind.

I align all the correct holes and begin the process. Not unlike a surgeon or atomic scientist, a steady hand is crucial. Fearing overflow, I squeeze shut the stream with my extremely strong kegel muscles, pour out the full bottle making sure that all the liquid is evacuated this time around and start the process again. Dumping out the almost full bottle I sigh in relief.

I lower my ass back onto the car seat and it's greeted by dampness. I knew this was just the water that I baptized my danglers with, but the "Holy Shit I'm Sitting in Urine" side of my brain was punching the crap out of the logical side of my brain. Knowing that at some point I might be walking into a crowded LA restaurant, I didn't want to pull up my pants for fear of getting the back of them all wet. I figured, what the hell, I'll drive with my pants off for a while. Again, not the first time I'd done that either.

I pull out of the parking lot ready to drive to the restaurant. Everything is right with the world. I approach the first stop light and notice the car seems to be acting strange. I look down and the freaking check engine light is on. "Great!", I think, "My fucking rental car is going to break down while I'm not wearing pants in the middle of LA.

I pull into another parking lot. Pull up my pants and get out. I'm not sure why I did this now. I don't know anything about cars. I got out and looked at the car. As if looking at the car was going to give me some idea as to why it was running weird. My visual assessment over, I get back into the car and type Ryan's apartment into the GPS hoping to God the car will make it there.

It's a 20 minute drive. I call Ryan and tell him I'm just going to wait at his place. He says that's cool they are finishing up and the restaurant they are at is just around the corner from his place.

I arrive only having to wait about 5 minutes for Ryan. Getting into his apartment was what I imagine getting into heaven might feel like. Ryan has already transformed his couch into a bed for me. He turns on the tv and then gives me his key. Ryan leaves to continue his date and I sink into the couch.

I call the rental car place and get sent to a guy that sounds like a mechanic from Arkansas. He tells me to screw on the gas cap tighter to fix the problem. I do it the next morning and it turns out I am a mechanic after all.

That night, not wanting to have to even think about changing channels, I leave the tv on the channel it's on and watch the rest of what has to be one of the worst movie I've ever seen in my life Whatever it Takes. Apparently whatever it took was terrible actors, horribly written characters, no original plot points or any assemblance of a soul. Welcome to Hollywood Gibbons! This is your town now.

More trip to come...

Westward Ho!

No I'm not telling a prostitute to go to the west ward of a free clinic, I'm heading off to California! I hear the job market there is booming right now, and thars gold in them thar hills.

I've been tirelessly getting stuff together for my trip, it's a work trip so I've been perfecting my game face, and it's almost ready. Watch out Hollywood, you bout to get Nick'd!© That's the show I'm pitching, it's like Punk'd, only instead of pulling practical jokes on people, I run around in a diaper throwing hot coffee on old people. I know right, best show ever!

At any rate I'll have pictures and stories to tell soon enough, or at the very least I'll have a cool T-shirt or coffee mug with a picture of that Hollywood sign. Wish me luck, I'll need every last happy thought you guys can muster. I know it'll be tough, because the world sort of sucks right now, but at least cross two of your fingers for me. I'm not even very particular about which two you cross.

All Hell is Breaking Loose!

We decided to switch to AT&T cable this week. There were many factors that went into this decision, the main one being, Comcast sucks large diseased donkey testicles. Seriously, in the past month alone we've had 6 different Comcrap dudes come to our apartment to try and fix our internet. I guess the golden lining to me being unemployed is that I was here every time to let them into our apartment. "Will you be home between 2 to 6 on Wednesday?", hell yes I will, and would you like to hang out and play video games with me please, I'm bored.

Well there's a dude here installing our new cable as I type this. He's drilling holes in the floor and clipping wires to shit. I even got to help him pull a drill with a 27 foot long drill bit attached out of the floor. That's the most manual labor I've done in a while. It felt good to help someone do something productive.

I had to stop this blog in mid blog because my old internet was shut off. We are still trying to get the new internet to work, there's some sort of problem. My installation guy, Tim, is on the phone with tech right now. I'm stealing my neighbors internet for this blog. Shhhhhh.

While Tim's running around hooking stuff up the lawn guys showed up and started cutting the grass and blowing shit around. My little lonely apartment that's usually so quiet has been blasted with noise and activity today. It's nuts to have so much crap going on when I'm used to just hanging out by myself in my boxer shorts trying to figure my life out.

Hopefully it will all get sorted out soon. I'll let you know how it goes, because it's so freaking interesting I assume.

Egyptile Dysfunction

Had to go get my root canaled tooth looked at this morning. It seems to be doing fine according to the doctor. While waiting for him to poke and punch me in the mouth, I snapped a crappy cell phone picture of a piece of art on the wall. I'm no art critic, but I think I know what this picture is saying:

We shot the rest of my little film thing this Sunday and it turned out really good. I think it's pretty funny, but only time and luck will tell if it makes it into the festival thingy. I'll post it as soon as I find out. I'm mailing it today.

Cross your fingers.

Extra Extra, read all about it!

I don't know if you could feel it yesterday, but the internet was a lot lighter. I wasn't Googling my name or obsessively compulsively checking my e-mail every 3 minutes. That's because I was being a bonafide movie star! That's right, I was a featured extra, or at least that is what my resume will say, in an indy film. I saw Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, and Robert Duvall. They were so close that I could have pepper sprayed them, and I almost did.

Saddle up fair Nick Gibbons blog enthusiast, because this is gonna be a doosy!

It all started this Monday. I was searching my favorite actor's job seeking tool, Craig's List, when I stumbled upon a listing for extras. I e-mailed them my head shot and info. Immediately I received confirmation along with an invitation filling me with much elation.

The film is set in 1930 something, so there were strict costume requirements. Luckily, or unluckily if your married to me, I have a closet full of assorted costumery. I hunted and peck until I found a 30's business casual look. I was ready for my wide shot.

The instructions were to travel to the shoot location in Dallas, GA Wednesday morning. The call time was 5 am. Dallas is about an hour away so I had to wake up at 3:45 am and hop in the ol' Honda Fit. I Google mapped the place and was on my way. Good news, no traffic, bad news, driving in Georgia is like trying to find the G spot on an Elephant.

After several wrong turns, U-turns, and accidental correct turns; I arrived at the shoot site. This wasn't however where we were supposed to park. Parking was two miles down the road. When I got there, two other cars were stopped and a security guy was telling the car in front where to go. He then instructed the second car back and myself to follow the front car. The old woman leading the pack was confused and kept stopping and driving really slow. I was upset already because of my misadventurous journey, so this didn't help my mood.

We finally get to the ONLY turn we had to make. The sign clearly read turn right. The woman however, possibly dyslexic, decided to turn left. The car behind her, not unlike a lemming, follows with reckless abandon. I started to, but quickly correct my turn, almost getting run over by a huge truck that was behind me. Me and the truck safely park in the extras parking lot. It was actually an unlit muddy field. We have to walk a good quarter mile to the "processing" center. It was a muddy, dark trek over very rough terrain. I was scared I might break my leg. I'm not sure how the older folk that showed up made it safely.

Up ahead there are white tents. I could see makeup chairs in one of them. I spotted a line of extras about 30 deep. I assumed that was where I was supposed to stand, but after doing a little ease dropping, I found out I was supposed to be in another line. To my dismay, this line was about 500 people long. The call time was 5 am. It was exactly 5 am, which means most of these people had been there since 4 am.

I reluctantly got in the back of the line. This was when I start to realize it was 26 degrees outside. I'm just wearing a suit, no jacket. I start talking to a nice younger couple that was behind me in line. We talk and wait in line together for 2 hours. That was how long it took us to just get to the end of the line. At the end of the line was a photography waver we had to sign. I'm assuming it was saying they could show my image forever where ever and whenever.

After finally getting to the front of the line it ceased moving anywhere. We sat there, for 45 more minutes. Luckily it's now 31 degrees. At this point the nice couple started to have normal rational thoughts. Unlike everyone else, their delusions of movie stardom started to fade and they decide to leave. I don't blame them, not at all. All of us were treated horribly, and the craziest thing is 90% of the people stayed. Including this guy. What the hell's wrong with me?

For 3 and a half hours we stood in the cold, shivering, and not being told anything. Not once did someone come out and let us know what was going on. All they would have had to do is say they were working on getting us through, or anything. All we wanted was a little beacon of hope.

Eventually we all got to go into the holding cell, I mean tent. I swear to God I couldn't feel my toes for an hour and a half. I was seriously scared one of them might have snapped off. I lucked myself into a folding chair next to a heater and defrosted.

Finally a guy pops into the tent and tells us the reason it's taking so long is that there are only six wardrobe people, outfitting 1000 extras, and each person has to go through the one "costume guru". I know this was a low budget film, but they should have known better. Planning is everything in any project and over planning is even better.

Most of the people there were just normal folk, not actors, so they were loving being a part of a movie. I however was not digging it at this point. Eventually after another hour, they make an announcement for all the men without vouchers or colored cards to come to the wardrobe tent. I ran over there because I was sick of waiting. I was 3rd in line, got approval and high tailed it to the bus.

It was now 10:30 am, and they shuttled us over to the set, 2 miles down the road. It only took 5 and a half hour wait! Hooray. The set was a huge clearing in the woods. It was pretty cool I have to say. It was like being in an amusement park called "1930's Land".

That's when the day started to get much better. Right out of the gate I was steps away from Bill Murray. He was joking around with the extras and it was pretty cool. I love that dude. I milled around the set and took it all in. Suddenly the annoyances and uncomfortableness of the morning started to melt away, like the toes of an unappreciated extra.

I met a guy named Ron and we were paired up together to walk into the ultra wide crane shot of the entire campground. I then upgraded my "extra" role to a "walk on".

From the moment I got on set, I noticed craft services had been grilling frozen hamburger patties and hot dogs. I thought it droll to grab one at 10:30am, even though at that point all I had to eat was a "free" granola bar because by the time I made it to the magic fun tent, all the coffee and hot food was gone. So I waited until noon, walked over to the grilling station, grabbed a burger, and enjoyed, uh, excuse me, ingested is a better word, my burger. There was a stack of sodas and I tried to nab one, but the woman sitting on them said it wasn't lunch time so I couldn't have one. Movie set rules suck.

There were a few more set ups, then around 1:20 they called a 30 minute break for lunch. I had already eaten so I sat down. I was next to the main grilling station and the poor craft services dude was extremely pissed off. Apparently they wouldn't let him grill while they where shooting, so he had no food ready when they called lunch. The poor guy was stressed out. The line of 800 people waiting for food didn't help. It took an hour just to get everyone food.

They had a raffle for the extras after lunch. They gave away two prizes. The first was an autographed script and the second a flat screen TV. I didn't win either of the prizes. They only gave away one script, which seem a bit chintzy to me. These poor people had been in the freezing cold for 5 hours and it's coming up on a 9 hour day at this point. Send an unpaid PA over to Kinkos and run off a few more copies for Spielberg's sake.

Eventually we shot some more stuff and I worked my way up, closer to the action of the scene. I felt it was crucial I be up close to the action for my character, Dr. Wilfred Millbanks, the town's acupuncturist. He's had a tough life, no one in town knows what the hell acupuncture is and his wife just left him for the towns blacksmithe. I created quite a back story for myself. You'll see it all unfold on screen I'm sure. Especially in the scene were I'm miscellaneous 1930's man, 46 from the left, 27 from the bottom. Finding me in this movie is going to be like playing battle ship.

Around 3pm the burger I ate started to punch me in the stomach from the inside. I needed to drop a deuce and there was no way in hell I was doing it in the port-o-potty. It was like Hiroshima in a 1 by 1 room. Nope, this plane was gonna have to sit on the tarmac for a couple of hours. My wife wanted me to tell you what I texted her at this point, because it made her shoot milk out of her nose, and she wasn't even drinking milk. All I texted was, "My tummy hurts. I have to poop." Well, it did, and I did.

I met a couple of really nice women towards the end and we laughed and talked about our day. They shot a couple more set ups all the way up until 7pm. I was telling the ladies that I was under the impression from the Craig's list ad that this was a paid gig. It was advertised as 100 dollars a day. Apparently most of the people there were "volunteer" extras, and I needed some form of voucher to get paid.

I hate confrontation of any kind, but I was seriously going to raise hell about not getting paid for 12 hours of work, when I'm a working actor after all. Apparently they were doing another raffle at the end of the day. I couldn't make out what they were saying because it was very echo-y. The assistant director started to call out numbers. I didn't have my ticket out because I didn't realize what was going on. I heard the last 3 numbers and thought it sounded very familiar. I pulled out my ticket and when he repeated the numbers, sure enough I had the winning ticket. Turns out I won the other 37 inch flat screen TV. The horrors of the day were officially mute. My plans to raise a raucous were thwarted.

They took down my name and told me to pick up the tv back at the parking area. It was dark and cold again now. The day officially started to mirror itself, as we all waited for one of the two buses to pick us up and carry us to the parking field. Again I somehow got at the end of the line and had to wait, toes refreezing, for another 45 minutes.

Making it back to the tents, I claimed my prize. Me and an unpaid PA shoved it into the Honda. It barely fit. Bleary eyed, I drove home. I got lost and had to call the wife for directions. She hopped onto Google maps and guided me home.

I arrived home at 10pm, having officially been awake for 19 hours. What a day. I think you will be able to see me pretty good in some of the shots, so my "walk on" has been upgraded itself to a "featured extra" and made it onto my resume.

I have to say, once we were on the set it was all worth it. The crew was great, the AD really made us all feel wanted and appreciated. The pains of the morning melted away pretty quickly. I know I bitched a lot in the above blog, but that's what I do, and you wouldn't read my blog if it was all rainbows and teddy bears.

Thanks for a memorable and fun day Hollywood! Best of luck with the movie. Here are my possibly illegal extremely crappy cell phone pics:

New Show

Here's the opening to my new show:

OK so maybe I just got more bored today than usual.