Prelude to a Big Break

Before we get started, I need to mention that I’m typing this entire post from 35,000 feet.  Air Canada and GoGo (whatever that is) have put WiFi on their planes.  Stunning.  More stunning: It’s free.  Even more stunning: Michael Buffer is on my flight.  Seminally stunning: Michael Buffer’s face.  It’s like a cross between a Halloween Mask and an overblown football.  Wow.

Isn’t it lovely how this worked out?  I get to reflect and perspectisize (made up word) the first stanza of my adventure on my way home.  Without further delay, here’s Hollywood from September 12th through November 26th.

(Sorry.  Let’s let Michael Buffer get this party started.)

0 – The number of jobs I booked.  Let’s just get that (expletive) out of the way right off the hop.  It is what it is.  I’m not delusional.  To become a successful actor you need more than the overwhelming support of friends and family.  You need to work.  Period.  End of story.

5 – Auditions in Hollywood.  Let’s break them down:

• My first pilot audition.  Tough to bitch about an audition that nets you a callback and an audience with an award winning director.  Also, this casting director was disarmingly cool.  (That sounds gushy, and I don’t care.)
• The City of Gardens.  Blah.
• Melrose Place.  (Deep breath…)  Everybody needs one of these.  Let’s look at the positives.
  • It got my creative juices flowing.  I wrote 11 posts that were either a direct commentary or a metaphorical dry-humping.  11.
  • This stretch of time prompted a level of support and interactivity between me and the people reading (you) that I didn’t think was possible when I started this website.  I’m not sure what the equivalent of a mix-tape is in 2009, but I want to make everybody one.
  • Along the same lines, a friend of mine actually made me a playlist of songs to listen to before my screen test.  CC, thank you.
  • Screen-testing is exceptionally difficult.  I’ve stared it down and come out the other side with a better understanding of what people want.  Also, next time,  I should be able to keep heart rate under 180.  That’s something!
• Conan.  The only open-ended audition on the list.  Training for this finally made me realize that I couldn’t avoid having hernia surgery.  Between that (too much information?), getting to yell the word “Krom” and watching Wilt Chamberlain as the spectral opposite of Daniel Day-Lewis, it was a really fulfilling couple of days.
• Shameless.  See, here’s where the Melrose experience came in handy.  Had a great audition / scored a producer, director session / acquitted myself nicely / let it go when they told me calmly “I wasn’t the guy”.  Everybody is telling me that I’m going to be auditioning all the time during pilot season.  This type of mental state will be invaluable.  Also, you can only sob on the phone with your wife once every 6 months.  I looked it up.

$0 – The amount of money I spent on rent.  My friend, and high school roommate, Warren Byrne put me up for over two months.  He gets bonus points because I was either happy or an insufferable dickweed for the majority of our time together.  Thanks WB.  (I left the place nice and clean.)

528 km – That’s my rough estimate on the amount of ground I covered running and hiking.  Louis the Dog just read this sentence and unleashed an expletive in bark-form.  Don’t worry Lou.  We’ll get you into the Canyons soon enough.

43 — That’s the number of days until I return to California.  I’m going to make each of them worth it.

Promise.

Not sure how much activity we’ll see around these parts until January 2010.  For everyone who has this site in the regular rotation, thank you so very much.  SA

For part one – which I thoroughly enjoyed writing – click here.

To recap (very briefly), there’s nothing wrong with saying you’d do certain things differently. You move through life, you learn lessons (constantly) and you try and grow through these experiences. That’s the way to do things. Otherwise, I’d still be crapping in a diaper. Maybe I’m overextending with that analogy, but “overextension” and “brief summation” go nicely together. Like Ginger Beer and Gosling’s. Or Jameson’s and steely resolve.

If I were the type to sit down and write an outline for a post like this, we’d be able to follow some sort of natural pattern. (Not my style. I’m working on it.) So instead, I’m going to vacillate between industry speak and idiosyncratic semi-inside jokes that I will enjoy much more than you. At least I’m honest. Let’s get this out of the way first:

Things I’d do exactly the same.

The drive down to California. It was perfect for what it was; a functional drive across the United States of America for a very reasonable price ($430-ish). When I drive the Smart Car back this summer (so I can lease-bust it and buy a 1976 BMW from a hippie in the Hollywood Hills) I’m going to take a little bit more time; go to some baseball games; find the coast; visit people and release between 7 to 10 videos where my weight will move in the opposite direction of your typical Survivor contestant. It’s going to be amazing. There’s only one seat available for a co-pilot. Tim Grant has right of first refusal.

Signing with SMS Talent. There are a thousand reasons why they’re a great agency pour moi. Since this piece is projecting out towards 2,000 words, I’ll give you one: There are a ton of things about Hollywood that are unfamiliar. Unfamiliar when you’re thousands of kilometers and three time zones away from your family is tough. SMS gives you that familial feeling. They seem to genuinely care about shaping my career the right way. Neat choice by me. Neat choice. (Friends of mine will attest to regular deployment of the word “neat” in my vocal repertoire. Don’t think I’m being sarcastic.)

Writing Prelude to a Big Break. Look… I don’t like everything I’ve written for this blog. Can you imagine me trying to pull the “brooding and mysterious” persona off around a group of people I know now? It’d last for 3 minutes before somebody came back with, “Sorry that you cried so hard after not landing Melrose… that must have been tough.” Having a site like this is the 21st century version of a portrait. Steadily shifting and changing. It’s thoughtful and honest, reactionary and overly emotional all the time. Again, I don’t like everything about it, but I wouldn’t change anything.

Taking this photo:

Vince Carter once said that the best alleyoop dunks happen because of bad passes; the bad pass raises the ceiling for the dunk because Vince would have to improvise. (Here’s my favorite.) Well, guess what? The best mustaches are bad mustaches. They hit the whole spectrum. They really do.

Oh… And just a quick sports aside: Holly Mackenzie recently wrote a piece about Vince Carter and Raptor fans with the basic premise being, it’s time to let bygones be bygones. Holly, please imagine the following scenario: A stranger approaches you on the street and asks you for five bucks. After an initial decline, this individual pleads and persists; they detail the stinging effects of a global recession, coupled with mounting legal costs stemming from an unfortunate car accident they’re being forced to defend in court. After some consideration you dig into your pockets and find a five-spot. Upon accepting your charity this person – without any type of identifiable provocation – kicks you in the shin as hard as humanly possible. While you’re on the ground in stunned disbelief, they show you a Hermes wallet stuffed with several hundred dollars. Then they take your five-dollar bill and use it to buy cigarettes for a teenager.

Some people aren’t worth forgiving. Ask any Red Sox fan how they feel about the standing ovation they gave Clemens in Fenway during the tail end of his first run with Yankees. Vince Carter is a morally bankrupt, narcissistic, detached dinkweed. I will never forgive him. Ever.

(Sorry… Back to the post.)

Things I’d do differently.

I’d bring more sweaters. (Again… my apologies. Still distracted. Though, it does get chilly at night.)

I’d buy new running shoes before I came here. Not joking anymore. I actually can’t think of anything substantial. And my knees, calves and ankles hurt a lot. My sneakers have more mileage than a Turbo Diesel Mercedes from the early 80’s at this point. Not the smartest move by me.

(One more try.)

I’d have booked a job. At the risk of stepping on the toes of my “The Hollywood move by the numbers” piece that will follow late tonight or tomorrow, it warrants mentioning that I haven’t received (or earned) a pay cheque since early September. For a 28-year old man that’s just not acceptable under any circumstances whatsoever.

I’m working on it. Hard. Really, really hard.

Don’t be surprised if you see me on the job in Toronto this December. I’m going to be everywhere.

The cupboard seeming a little bare in the second stanza of the piece isn’t intentional. Overall, this has been a glowingly positive time for me. Even the negatives – most of which don’t need mentioning – have an inherent lesson that I’m using to my advantage.

If this were a book, I’d have a crappy ending on my hands. But it isn’t a book. It’s a story… and it’s just beginning.

Hollywood from September 12th to November 27th. There’s so much I would do differently. People’s first inclination is to extrapolate the negative from that sentence. Why? Why not take this away: The affirmation that I’d change a variety of things about the past two plus months is a clear indication that I’ve learned a boatload of valuable lessons. There. Isn’t that better? I say yes.

To properly examine this time period, I need to prove the hypothesis in the previous paragraph. That means we’re staring down the barrel of a two-parter. I’m excited. How am I going to prove it? By talking about marathons.

2004: Signed up for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon. At this point, I had no experience whatsoever with long distance running as an adult. None. So I entered into this without an overarching training program. My preparation (if you can call it that) consisted of a haphazard run schedule that crested with a single two plus hour run of 26 km and a bunch of little runs between 8 and 18 km. A marathon is 42.2 km. (Solid plan, loser.)

When the race rolled around I figured I could fake it. Read that sentence again.

At the 10 km mark, I felt fantastic. So I picked up my pace a little bit. When a surprised CL saw me pass the half-marathon marker at just over 90 minutes, I declined her offer for extra Power-Gels and some water. After all, I was one step shy of a teenage Clark Kent chasing a train in Smallville. At 27 km I thought briefly about how I had never run this far in my life. At 30 km my quadriceps said no thank you. By 32 km I peed on myself. (Not on purpose, but that’s what happened.) The last 10 km were an ugly walk/shuffle combo that made me look like somebody trying ice-skating for the first time.

Boston Marathon Qualifying cutoff: 3:10 / My time: 3:24.

Postscript: My legs were absolutely ravaged.

2005: In the afterglow of my wife running roughshod over Ironman USA – see photo – I decided to give the Waterfront marathon another try. Why? Because I’m hyper-competitive and easily swayed by crude, transparent challenges to my manhood. (Her speciality.) This time, instead of trying to “fake the race” I went with the bulletproof plan of doing most of the training. After all, if I could come within 14 minutes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon without lifting a finger (or foot, as the case may be) then a half-hearted swipe at the training program would probably push me over the top. Can you see where this is going?

Race day was overcast and humid. Ultimately this resulted in blisters and toe damage that really should be a in a medical textbook somewhere. None the less, I did an okay job of keeping my pace under control in the early stages of the race, and with 8 km to go, I was right on target… When it all fell apart.

You know when the hot water in a shower starts to run out? It doesn’t happen right away. The water temperature starts to cool down, so you make it hotter. It cools down again, and again, you turn the shower knob hotter. Eventually it’s 100% hot and the temperature is still going down. Nothing to do but wrap it up at that point.

That’s what happened to my legs. From km 34 – 35, I slowed down by about 10 seconds. Interesting. Let’s go a little harder. From km 35 – 36 my pace was an additional 20 seconds slower. Uh-oh. By the 37th km I had to start walking.

What happens when you do 85% of the training? You get 85% of the result.

Boston Marathon Qualifying cutoff: 3:10 / My time: 3:14.

Postscript: I would have been slower than 3:14 if a massive blister didn’t pop with 4 km to go. It was so painful that adrenaline shot through my body and propelled me to an abnormally fast 800 meters. Then I went back to sucking. Witnesses will also attest to the color of my skin (a combination of gray, green and translucent) 30 minutes after the race. (Dehydrated.)

2008: Four years after my first attempt, it was time to try once again. Like before, it was the Waterfront Marathon. Unlike before we followed a plan (provided by our clinic at the Running Room) right down to the meter. With five weeks to go, things were progressing perfectly. I was running 25 – 35 km every Sunday. We were doing speed work during the week. I was stretching. I hate stretching. Just as we began to taper for the race I booked an acting job in Calgary and had to change the plan completely.

Long story short, CL did the Waterfront Marathon (and qualified for Boston). I had to run the Toronto Marathon four weeks later. In Calgary, my regimen was difficult to maintain because of scheduling and not wanting to look like an asshole in a feature film. When I got back to Toronto I knew that I needed two solid controlled runs of 30 and 35 km on a treadmill so I could track my pace. It sucked and it was boring… and I did it.

Race day was pristine. Sunny and 0C at the gun. No wind. Perfect. My pace called for a 4:22 – 4:26 km. I started to hit them and didn’t stop. For the first 18 km of the race people passed me. Lots of people. At 21 km – after a bathroom break that would rival the turn around time for a F1 pit-crew, I started to pass people. I wasn’t speeding up. They were slowing down. 22km. 25km. 30km. Strong.

33… 36… 38… CRAMP. My adherence to the race plan had given me a bit of a buffer to stay under 3:10; so when my ribs started to feel like they were being stabbed at with a prison shank, I took everything in stride. By the 40th km, the cramp was gone and I was cruising home. Even took a little time over the last 500 meters to high five my Mom and consider the accomplishment. It was just a race. But it was my race.

Boston Marathon Qualifying cutoff: 3:10 / My time: 3:08.

Postscript: Eating.

Everything that happened that day unfolded the way it did because of two decidedly negative experiences that illuminated a series of valuable truths. If I had faked my way to a 3:05 in 2004, the impact would have been fleeting.

Moving to Hollywood has been anything but negative. But there have been lessons. And we’ll talk about them next.

EDIT: I might have given the impression that I was going to write a post on watching football at Barney’s Beanery.  Sorry.  Not really.  Here’s the comment I sent to my buddy with a brief synopsis of today and west-coast-football watching…

I wasn’t so much planning on writing a post on Barney’s. Truth be told, I’m a little ashamed that I didn’t get the proper “West-coast-football” experience until today. This is my 11th Sunday in Hollywood. My 11th!! Until today I hadn’t hit a bar and consumed an alcoholic beverage before high noon. Ridiculous.

In fairness, I did drop a Jagger (sp.?) bomb the size of a milk carton with Brody Jenner. That’s something. I saw Kid from Kid N Play on consecutive Sunday’s. (Swear to god.) I went for a run at the start of the Vikings/Steelers game – that turned into a 21st century death march to the Hollywood sign – and arrived home for the salient moments of the contest. I made friends with a Barney’s regular who calmly walked behind the bar to fetch me a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

These are all reasonable feats. Ultimately, they don’t excuse my tardy tendencies. Better late, than never.

For the uninitiated, the “West-coast-football” experience demands a 7 am wake-up call, hearty breakfast, inappropriate wager(s), breakfast lager, second wind, comfortable pair of pants, third wind and large stomach.

What a day.

I’m coming back to Toronto this Friday.  Family, friends, Christmas, Wind, Rain, Snow, Louis the Dog.

Before I get there, I need to wrap up a spectacular two-plus months in Hollywood.  Nothing irks me like unfinished business.  So it’s closing time around these parts.  We’ll take a couple days to look back and a few days to look forward; after which I think it best to let things lie quiet until January 11, 2010.  (With the notable exception of pictures.  People love them some pictures.)

A quick schedule of things to come:

Sunday: The proper west-coast football experience.  Barney’s Beanery @ 9:40 am.

Monday: “If I could do it all over again.”  (This will not be a lament.  I find this exercise useful as a method to illustrate the 811 lessons I’ve learned since arriving.)

Tuesday: The Hollywood move by the numbers.

Wednesday: Ten reasons to live in Southern California.

Thursday: Looking ahead to Chapter 3.  (Between this post and the amount of turkey I’m going to eat at Andrea Fenninger’s house in Santa Monica…  I mean, I could probably be more excited, but I’d definitely have to ingest something illegal.)

Friday: Lou…  I’m on my way.

Onto the next one.

Just had my audition.  Just now.  Felt great.  Not a pang of regret to be seen.  Outcome = Not worth fretting over.

Here’s what needs writing about: Frank Sinatra walked through this door.  So did Paul Newman and James Dean.¹  I’m on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California…  Here’s to hoping it’s always a thrill!

Sent from my iPhone.

UPDATE: Today has been excellent.  Something about the way I audition is changing.  It’s changing from experience gained and a specific lesson recently learned: There is something missing.  I don’t know what it is, but there’s something.  You don’t come as close as I’ve come, as many times as I have, in such a short period of time, if everything about your process is copesetic.

Now, I don’t need to tear it down and start over.  That would be counterproductive.  But I do need to be cognizant of an intangible element that is obviously absent.  Am I doing everything I can?  Do I make myself invaluable to the point that not hiring me would be a huge mistake?  Do I do these things?  Can I do these things?

I don’t know the answer, and I can’t project it’s positive (or negative) impact.  Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask the question and actively seek the result.  You could see my satisfaction with the start of this exercise post-audition.

(Mainly because I walked out of the room subconsciously puffing out my chest like an idiot.  I do that.)

¹ – Notable names missed on the first pass: Natalie Wood, Dennis Hopper, Elizabeth Taylor, Rick Hudson, Dean Martin (!!), Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop.  Currently, Ellen Degeneres’ show shoots there.  Meaning, President (then Senator) Obama was gliding around 15 months ago.  That’s a f*cking door.

Stuff be happening in Hollywood.  Conan=Alive.¹  Shameless=Alive.²  Next steps=Percolating.  Prelude to a Big Break as a topic of conversation in the industry=Suddenly real.  I really do wish there was more to write about.  Or that inspiration for a “dream big” posting would strike.  But I keep drifting back to results.  It’s results.  Your day to day can be transformative.  You can see the end game approaching.  And still, it’s results.  Need proof?  Here’s a photograph of me with my moral victories:

I can say without conditions that I’ve never been happier.  This is what I want.  I’m doing what I want.  Before you know it, I’ll show you something.

¹ – Useless to say anything other than I’m excited and cautiously optimistic.

² – Auditioned for Shameless last Friday and am heading back for a producer session Thursday.  It’s a great show with a great script and fantastical people attached to it.  Adapted from the BBC Series by the same name.

I can see the finish line.  The finish line for the second chapter of this experience.¹

What I know now – two months after my arrival – is invaluable.

I have a team and a plan and an understanding of what it’s going to take.  It’ll be back to Toronto within the next 3 weeks.  There are loose ends and important pieces of paper and beautiful weddings and Christmas and hernia surgeries to be done.

There will soon be an additional focus for this space.  Not a different directive.  Just a new piece to layer on top of the puzzle.  Let’s call it Chapter 3.  Let’s talk about it soon.

It’s a beautiful morning in Southern California.  I have a super-fun audition this afternoon.  Oh, and I have a visitor arriving in 90 minutes…  (!!!!!!)

¹ - Chapter 1 would be the preparation for this trip. Chapter 2 is the last 2+ months. Or maybe they’re sections…  I’m not sure.  What I do know is that I have nearly 40,000 words and a slowly forming book idea.

11/18/09 – “Don’t confuse a good view with a short distance.”  I love that quote.

11/12/09 — I’ve mentioned before that this isn’t my first trip to California.  Mark Gooderham and I shared a one-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood – while the American Academy of Dramatic Arts stole our money – from September of 2000 to the spring of 2001.  (My opinion on AADA.  Not his.  Not intended to be interpreted literally.)

In February(ish) of ‘01 a bunch of buddies came to visit.  Things didn’t get totally out of hand.  Though I do seem to remember randomly boarding a bus that was cruising the Sunset Strip.  (Remarkably unsafe.)

I came across this picture while I was building my portfolio for an 0-1 Visa.  That will be a topic of discussion shortly around these parts.

Here’s your blast from the past:

11/11/09 (Again) — Oooof.  The second Canadian project that I self-taped for fell through today.  Work will come.  In spite of the fact that I’m slowly turning into Susan Lucci, I remain wildly optimistic.

11/11/09 – After much delay, Men With Brooms didn’t come through.  Didn’t even get a chance to screen test.  The video below was sent on October 14th.  The story goes that some people were supportive of me and some people were not.  Not uncommon.  I find myself indifferent to the end result for reasons that ultimately don’t matter.

Here’s to hoping that the show is a worthy follow-up to a very successful movie.

Also…  I took two stabs at this video.  My agent didn’t think the first one hit the right notes for a half-hour comedy.  It was too serious and not “over the top enough”.  I think the two together are on interesting example of an actors process.  Incidentally, that’s what this website is for.  So here you are:

(I like my first try better.  But my agent knows best.)

11/09/09 —

11/09/09 - pretty, pretty, pretty... SMOG!!!