Entries from September 2008 ↓

A day of temping:

7:00 am – Alarm goes off.

7:37 am – A grown man crawls out of his loft bed.

8:10 am – I pat my hair and think it doesn’t have enough “sleep grease” to make me look embarassing. I don’t need to take a shower. I’m going to take it easy this morning. I wet my hair, comb it back and assume it will look acceptable when it dries. Do I have time to make lunch? If I do that I have to wash dishes first to make space in my “kitchen.” Tomorrow.

8:40 am – I’m on the subway, later than I should be. There’s nowhere to sit and read. I figure it’s better to stand since I’ll be sittting all day (typing this blog entry). As I’m adjusting my bag on the floor, someone brushes by me so she can snag a seat. I almost fall on top of a bystander. I then start my daily internal rant against people who scramble for a seat on the train. The subway is a school bus.

8:43 am – I notice this woman who looks close to my age. Her hair is dyed red but her roots have been growing in for a while. They’re black with strands of grey, kind of a salt and pepper look. I wonder what kind of stress caused that.

8:47 am – I’m waiting to switch trains and see a middle aged woman reading an old novel. It looks like it might be an old sci-fi paperback. I circle around her trying to see what book it is. I fail.

8:50 am - Back on subway, but ready to switch trains again. As I try to see if I have time to get the train arriving across the platform, I step on a woman’s foot. She says “Ow!” I apologize. Then as I leave the train I start my second daily internal rant against people who wear open toed shoes in a crowded city then are surprised when their feet get stepped on.

8:52 am – I realize the woman really wasn’t wearing open toed shoes. I was wearing my hiking boots because my dress shoes broke last week. I still continue my internal rant against open toed shoes in New York City and blame the woman for being in my way. At the same time, I begin my internal diplomatic mission with myself not to blame others when I’m at fault.

8:53 am – The woman with red/salt and pepper hair is next to me on the train. I feel guilty about starring before. This reinforces my theory that if you stare at someone on the train you’ll bump into them again.

9:05 am – I’m out of the Subway. The street is lined with office workers all going in the same direction. I’m part of a human ant farm. I feel like nudging one of my fellow drones and saying “Why do we do it?” Or “Here we go again, pal.”

9:11 am – Late to work. No one says anything. I’m told it will take a half hour for my computer to start up.

9:30 am – My boss arrives and asks me if I got a haircut. “No, I just didn’t wash my hair this morning,” I respond. “Oh, so you just used some stuff to style it then.” It’s not a question but I agree, stopping myself from saying “Actually, it’s just my natural grease.”

10:00 am – I fish around the tea bags in the office kitchen and find one herbal tea bag. St. John’s Wort. It tastes kind of weird but makes me feel settled and content. I’m a little disappointed that there’s no bagels or cookies in the kitchen area. There’s a second floor that I’ve never been too. But I can see the vending machine from the storage room window. I’m scared to go down there. There’s a special door you have to go through that involves a secret code or card swipe or retinal scan.

10:25 am – After my boss’s comment about my hair, I look in the mirror. My hair looks greasy. I look like I work in real estate. My shirt’s wrinkled too. Someone could easily assume I rolled out of bed and came to work. And they’d be right.

11:07 am – Maybe I should eat breakfast. How cruel–at work I’m surrounded by boxes of cookies for sale but feel it would be a crime to bite into them.

11:08 am – Someone in an office close to me calls me with a question. I have another internal rant: Why can’t you just come to my desk and ask me?

11:10 am – I email my boss who is in the next room that I’m available for another month.

11:49 am – I continue to count pieces of various papers to be put into boxes. I hear back that they could use me for a bit longer which is fine with me. It’ s not so bad here compared to other places, i.e. I don’t have to answer phones.

12:03 pm – I realize most of my communication is with myself via internal rants.

2:00 pm – I’m eating lunch in the park. A woman with a baby stroller walks by me. On her cell phone she’s emphatically telling someone she saw somebody levitate and propel themselves over a river. I want to hear more but she walks away.

2:07 pm – I’m still eating lunch. I’m sitting in a chair and woman sitting close to me stands up. Through my peripheral vision I sense her standing right behind me. She’s really close-like subway close. I start to wonder if she’s going to garrot me and how I should defend myself. I prepare my defense: “Pull at her pinkies. It will release the grip. Just like that kid told you in the fifth grade.”

2:38 pm – Back from lunch. I resume sorting papers for a mailing. I lose my count around 2 or 3 times. I think about the calculus and behavioral ecology classes I took in college.

3:03 pm – A couple thoughts: 1. I really wish I could take a nap. When are we going to have siestas in the American workplace? 2. I want to invest in a pair of pants that have a pocket big enough to carry a paperback book, this way I can go to the men’s room and read. If I carry a book in there, it will be too obvious.

3:30 pm – I’m given work to do. Up until now the work I had been doing was on my own initiative. I could have coasted through the day up until now. This work involves finding “blue folders.” I get a little nervous. Where am I going to find blue folders? Manilla or real folders? Do they have any in back? Will I have to fill out a requisition? I comb through the cabinets by my desk and find nice shiny blue folders. I feel a sense of relief and accomplishment. Then I start to worry about the emotional payback I recieved from finding some folders in a cabinet.

4:40 pm – I haven’t really done much of the work. I have been amusing myself by initiating a fight between two of my own facebook profiles.

5:11 pm – I head home. It’s humid. On the streets and in the subway tunnels everyone is grumpy as if we all saw a long bad movie together (such as Thin Red Line). Everyone on the train is plugged into some sort of electronic device.

5:45 pm – I’m enjoying the book I was reading on the train. I head over to the park to read some more. There’s a crew filming a short movie in the park. A 12 foot tall PA asks me to hold on for a minute before crossing. As I’m waiting, I try to ask questions about the shoot. The PA doesn’t want to tell me anything. He’s polite but doesn’t appreciate my curiousity. Maybe if I had told him how I found those blue folders he would have confided in a fellow working man. Next time.

Me and the wife I murdered, on TV.

Dear Acting Diary,

A couple weeks ago I was cast in featured role for a pilot TV show. I don’t know if the title has been settled on but I think they were calling it “Celebrity Ghost Stories.” It should air on the A&E Biography Channel in November. It was a fun. I played a man in the 1800s who murders his wife then haunts a hotel. Around 90% of the 15 hour day was spent waiting for my scenes but it wasn’t bad. The shoot was at a snazzy bed and breakfast in New Jersey by the beach. I spent most of the time on the porch. I was on vacation.

A lot of the shots were done with still photography. The set had two units, a video unit and a still photography unit and the producers did a good job of juggling both. When the video unit was in one room shooting a scene, the photography unit would be in another part of the bed and breakfast taking still shots. They crammed a lot into the day. They were filming around three separate stories. Another thing that was different than other shoots I’ve been on, but similar to my own videos, is that there wasn’t any script and all the shots were set up by the director. This made some actors feel a little uneasy because there was nothing to prepare but I liked it because I felt it took the pressure off. I could just sit on the porch and wait to be called.

A lot of my shots were creepy. We took tons of still shots that ran the spectrum of my character carrying his new (probably mail order) bride over the threshold to my strangling her on the bed. I also had to do some shots with a noose around my neck. I got a little nervous when they were adjusting the loop, but I’m still here (and wasn’t ever at risk of death–besides the barbecue pizza I inhaled at lunch).

It was great meeting the other actors too. I’m always curious about people’s day jobs. One was a real estate agent who kept inquiring if anyone wanted by a house. One was a pharmacist. One was a former film commissioner for the state of Michigan.

Things I learned from being on this TV shoot:

• Always confirm if you are being paid and how much when you accept a role. A lot of actors are nervous about doing this. And a lot of the actors on this shoot weren’t sure. I used to be nervous about confirming rates, as if I were asking for money from a friend. But its a job. Its good to know these things rather than wondering the whole day. Some jobs pay better than others, some only offer free food, but some shoots are worth it for your reel and the experience.
• Costumes never fit. A lot of projects have tight costuming budgets and tighter pants. Or maybe I lie about my waistline.
• When packing for a shoot bring a book, a drawing pad, laptop, or list of conversation topics that will last 12 hours plus. Also bring some “actor war stories.” That acting class you wasted money on, that shoot where your allergies exploded, that crazy audition, etc.
• Bed and Breakfast rates really soar in the summer.

I was thumbing through a book last night. It was a guide to the “unexplained.” It had all sorts of curiousities such as a section on “avian abductions” or birds snatching people and flying away with them. The book also included a rough black and white copy of the above photo (found here, with full story) of a bird trying to capture a baby. It’s horrifying. But what’s more horrifying is that an eagle is attacking a baby and a man, instead of fighting the bird, takes a snap shot first. I wonder if he had to wind the film. Come on, folks. If babies are being attacked by birds, protect the babies then take the picture. What’s wrong with people?

jeremiahsstandup.mp3

The above link is the material from my first stand up set a while ago (note the NYC Republican Convention jokes). It was performed at the Royal Wood Comedy Night in Williamsburg. The next day I then recreated my set in my apartment for posterity.