Friday Photo

Taken on Paramount's Stage 30.

Soul Train was a fun job today.

Turns out, Soul Train doesn't shoot once a week - they shoot two shows a day one weekend a month, so the Friday before a shoot weekend, riggers have to come in and put up the moving lights (which are an expensive rental, so they can't just hang there while the stage isn't being used. The lights that Paramount owns can stay there, because they're not costing anything). The show will shoot Saturday and Sunday, and then that'll be it until next month.

I won't be on the shoot crew, though. I just came in with the crew that was hanging the moving lights.

I gotta tell ya, though; I'm impressed that those high-heel wearing girls can dance as well as they do on that flooring - it's slicker than snot (so to speak).

Postcards from the cattle call.

I love Craig's List.

Entourage posted a notice for an open call - they were looking for 'model types' to do background work (note for non-film industry readers: an 'open' call means anyone can show up, regardless of union status, representation or lack thereof. Most casting calls are not open, and one must be referred by one's agent in order to get in).

Casting calls, while a necessary evil, can be extremely tedious. One sits in an uncomfortable chair for hours, watching a parade of people who all start to look and sound alike after the first 20 minutes. At the end of the day, one ends up with a stack of photos of a bunch of people who all continue to look alike despite the notes on the bottom of the photos ("Good energy!" "Seems fairly sane" "Bad read but looks great").

The Blonde hasn't had to cast as much as I have, so although she didn't understand my motivation for attempting to avoid it at all costs, she did understand the saving money and time part by not doing this ourselves, and we do use the same 'type' quite a bit.

We swung by the casting call, scoped out some of the women and collected phone numbers, and then left. The Blonde was bummed because there were no model-type guys (so was I, actually. Eye candy's never a bad thing).


I bowed out of the Grammy party at Paramount, mainly because I'm still really tired, but I'm also under the gun with this next project and have to work on it.

Okay, fine. I didn't have the energy to get dressed up and deal with the cluster fuck.

Plus music industry people give me indigestion (no offense to any music industry people who happen to be reading. Of course I didn't mean you).

The Blonde called last night from the party and said it was fun.

I can breathe, but I can't think.

I'd purposely waited until work slowed down to start taking the new allergy medication - trying to work with 'antihistamine head' and the accompanying delayed reaction time is miserable at best, dangerous at worst ("Look out!" "Uh, what?" :Clang: "Oh. Look out. That really hurt.").

The doctor tells me these effects are temporary, and as my body gets used to the medication, that wrapped-in-cotton feeling will go away - hence my attempt at timing. I'm hearing the next couple of weeks are going to be dead, which is just about how long I figure it will take me to get accustomed to this stuff.

Have I mentioned how happy I am to be able to breathe (and hear - the congestion had gotten so bad that I had fluid building up behind my eardrums)?


Of course, not even 12 hours after taking the first pill, I got a last minute call to work tonight, which I unfortunately had to turn down. I hate turning down work, but I'm currently not able to work safely so I'd rather stay home and work on the script for this next project*.

Even when I'm not doped up, I have a hard time with last minute night calls. They didn't bother me so much 10 years ago, but now staying up all night after not having had any sleep during the day is really difficult for me.



*Hey, Lewis Carroll churned out a masterpiece while he was on Zyrtec, right?

Oh, wait. That was opium.

Never mind.

Let's try this one more time

Here's the photo that I tried to post on Friday: