Tag Archives: Writing

Shut Up & Do The Right Thing!

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Pulitzer prize winners, Larry David, and I suppose all those who have a clue about the art of writing, this may not be the post for you. Anyone with a clue. However, if, like me, you were fairly clueless until recently about writing, you might get a few tips from this blogaduu. Finally, finally, after months of knocking on my door, looking for a chance, this post is getting the nod. Big day. Most of this might all seem pretty obvious, but when one chooses to, 99% of the time, ignore the obvious, it can seem revolutionary, once spelt out for you.

Around this time last year, I began to think about writing a sitcom pilot for a college style idea which I had. Not actually write it, just think about writing one. Eventually I wrote the pilot by November last year, roughly. I like to mull things over, think them through. Looking back, I was completely clueless, as to how to approach the sitcom writing. Two feet, head first, jumped in, going in blind, swinging like a drunk man, throwing jokes and structure around with absolutely little to no meaning. This time around, I am as clueless in one sense, but at least have more structure and advice to nudge me in the right direction. Hollywood has provided one source of help at least for free if nothing else. One might say that it is serving its purpose well.

First time around trying my hand at a sitcom pilot, I thought my knowledge of viewing every episode of my favourite sitcoms would put me in good stead to make my own. Surely. To accompany this cast iron theory, I even read a screenwriting book, for the movies I would write and star in after the sitcom, just so I had all bases covered. Started off by making a loose episode outline for myself, while half drunk on a plane. Logically, the next step was to fill it up with scenes of differing lengths, most of which did not really seamlessly gel together as they should, and off I went with it, delighted. Pilot in hand, line up the bids. Looking back at it, I may have mostly been happy with my great name for the show. Surely that alone would get it made!

Surprisingly, I got a bit of good feedback for the pilot. Thumbs up, pat on the head, ruffle of the nicely combed hair, and a bit of stage progression, as in it was passed up a level in a department. However, that was more or less as far as it got with the television stations I submitted it into. Should’ve really thrown the towel in then, pr***s. Shattering my dreams. Might as well give it another go, plus, this time around, I had my blog to work with, the sitcom would write itself! All I had to do was pick three stories out, A, B and hopefully a C, link them somehow, and write them down. My pilot! Happy days! Should take a few days max.

So, for the past week, I have been formulating and developing the pilot episode over in my head. Start off by introducing the characters to the audience, work in their back story, build it up nicely, few jokes along the way, and good to go. I had the blog to back it up, momentum was building, they could reference the blog if needed. Dumb as a mule, so I was.

Somewhere along the way, I made a call to my helpful guide in L.A, to tell him all about the great progress which I was making. “Stop, you need to listen to me, here’s what you must do” I was told. Started off by informing me mainly of the what not to do’s. My week of work was immediately crossed out and had to start afresh. Thank freddie funk it was, seeing I was going down the wrong path completely. And then what I should try to do. Firstly, and this is key, it is not a pilot episode which I am really looking to write. I do not want to bore any reader with character introductions, background stories, build-up or any of that. I simply want to impress the reader enough with my writing, so that from that one episode, or first 10 pages, the reader will ask to see more, meet me, or at least be offended enough to take notice. I do not want to be just another quaint script in front of someone, that they will forget about within 15 minutes hour. Key one was to stand out, don’t hold back.

The following metaphor sunk in with me, so I will re-use it now. If my blog, full of stories, were to be the ingredients, and I was to bake a cake out of them (sitcom series) what I wanted to do was pass around the best slice of the cake to people, something that they will want more of. Not the first slice, or the last one, but the best one, so I should fill that up to the brim with the best I could deliver. No point in holding back, this was the one to get your foot in the door. Shove as much good stuff in. Just make it all work well. The best slice of the cake!

My original idea was kind of scrapped (first episode, the pilot of me arriving in L.A etc) and a whole new approach had to be taken. Being honest, initially my brain stopped churning for a while, annoyed that I had used it up and then discarded all the good work we did together. A few days I think I felt my brain was close to bursting, literally, and I was covered in frogs at the time. (Twitter reference about a dream, follow on!).

Instead, it is now time to push boundaries. It is far easier to tone down than it is to tone up, as the skinny girl said to the fat girl in the gym (don’t worry, that will not be used in the script, ha). Every scene needs to serve a purpose, what is the objective of the scene, does each scene have an element of high conflict (all straight out of a book, but good to be re-told at this time). This raised the bar even more – to be clever, make sense, push boundaries, obviously make people laugh, and all within the time schedule for a sitcom. Once again, like breaking L.A, it sounded almost too easy. 

Thankfully, I have a good few stories that did not make the blog cut. They will now be highly useful for the new approach. Or at least give me food for thought to go along a certain line or angle for the story. I also spent far too much time last week thinking up of a clever name. Absolutely pointless if the rest does not deliver. However, I think I now have both for the show, the name, and also, the outline of the episode that I am writing is coming together. As in today I was able to write out the gist of 17 scenes, all of which linked and were what I was looking for, wuu duu! (I wrote this a few days ago, a new approach again has been developed!).

All I need now is to fully develop it, along with dialogue, and I will be flying. Again, almost too easy. Sure. I have miles to go, but getting there slowly. It is all about the threads coming together in the end, A, B and C. Highly funking frustrating to do, but now that I think I have one cleverly worked out, highly satisfying!

So, up to this point, I had more or less written a few days back. Since then, the writing has been frustrating in the main, pretty good in the minor. However, at least now, I have figured a way out to stop my brain from exploding. My problem has been transferring the brilliant scenes and story line, from my head, to paper. Dumbly, I was more or less, going from the scene in my head, straight to what the characters were saying. For some reason, only today, did I start writing scene snippet outlines, which makes the whole thing far more do-able.

After studying individual episodes of different sitcoms for guidelines, I now have a few structures in place. You would be amazed at how short some scenes actually last in a few sitcoms, but which are vital and brilliant to the story line, all of which is tough to get down. One last thing, and I’ll finish on this, is the tough part of narrowing down what to leave in. Like this post, initially there was no structure. Rambling on, with snippets of humour. Every line of this sitcom has to be funny or necessary. Otherwise it is chopped. Which is tough to do. Cutting frivolous dialogue has been a big challenge of late. All about discipline!

Thats it. I was going to give one last point about how useful it is to always have a notebook with you for ideas or dialogue, but I have already said above that would be my last thing, so I won’t. 

Hopefully this songs will buck you back into life…

The Turning (Chew Fu Refix) by Oasis

And one from the latest Heineken ad… 

Just A Friend by Biz Markie

Horrendously Good Looking

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One day this week, I believe it was yesterday, not fully sure, I watched a random DVD. Something about going through the decades of music, and giving you the history of the era for each song or album that was the best or biggest hit at the time. I was running very low on procrastinating material. Anyways, the introduction to the DVD claimed that it would be “an informative and fun journey” or something along those lines. Straight away, that threw me off. Those two adjectives, in my view, don’t really go together. Informative, and fun. Surely, it is one or the other? The DVD was absolutely horrendous, had to be turned off after a few minutes. Watching the Pope visit America, and looking at album covers from that era (instead of hearing the actual songs) was neither informative, or fun, for me. The most fun was had throwing the DVD disc out the window.

Instead of watching the DVD, I went to the shop nearby, to pick up my photos from the disposable camera I have been lugging around with me in L.A recently. While waiting for the girl behind the counter to locate my present of photos, another little random Asian woman kindly came up to me and gave me a great compliment. Well, I think. Depends what angle you look at the compliment from. Highly obtuse would be my recommendation. This was it… “I must say, that is a really nice mullet you are trying to grow.” Ha, what a compliment. Again, nice and mullet? Can they really be used side by side? Or, seeing as I finally get a chance to use the word, in such a juxtaposition?

Two things hit me straight off. Firstly, there was the fact that she was actually wearing a Bon Jovi t-shirt at the time. And secondly, I had never met this bizarre looking Asian girl before, that I know of, so not sure if she would just mock a random stranger with such ease. I could be wrong. Which made me think she was being genuine. Which led me to wonder, what are you meant to say to that kind of comment? My initial reaction was to tell her thanks, you are horrendously good looking yourself, in hope of confusing her back. But, as she seemed genuine, it threw me off a bit… Eh, pardon? Mullet? No, this is just my hair, it is flowing a bit alright but at the moment, getting a haircut is not a priority. Mullet, though? No. Maybe. No.

“I love mullets, you could have one so easily if you wanted. Just trim the sides down, it would look great. A lot of people don’t like that look, but I do.” The compliment was being developed by her, so I started to consider it for a minute. Looked in a little mirror next to us, maybe a mullet would be a good look, tucked my hair even more behind my ears, then snapped out of it, and just told her I would mull it over. Hardy har, I thought it was quite clever at the time myself! Don’t think she got it though. Anyways, before she left she told me all of her favourite guys who sport a mullet – Bon Jovi & Billy Ray were the only two I remember or knew of – and that I should try the look out. And that maybe she might see me in shop the next time, who knows… and gave me a wink along with two “Bang-bangs” with her fingers. Well, no wink, and only one bang-bang, but still, all quite tempting. Oook, thanks.

All of which led me to ponder on the way home, what if the roles were reversed. What if I had just came up to her in the shop, and gave her a double barreled compliment? If I had remarked, I must say, sorry to interrupt but I like your rather jolly arms. And as for those chins of yours, don’t get me started… divine! But, don’t worry, I have a thing for larger women, so these are actually compliments. Jaysus, I’d love to get you up on the Wii Fit sometime, see if you get the obese rating. That would be hot. Maybe you and I could do something sometime, bite to eat perhaps? Think about it anyways, mull it ov.. actually, chew the fat over it (? horrendous, I know I know), and let me know. Bang-bang.

Not fully sure now, but I think, I think this peculiar scenario, coupled with the other little phrase from the DVD, got my brain thinking along one train of thought. Which all helped me to solve a conundrum. And that conundrum was… the name for my sitcom. So, that, my friends, is the fun and informative story of how I thought up of my sitcom name. Or at least the one top of the shortlist. Top by a country mile.

As for the informative and fun together attempt, at least I tried. In vain and unsuccessful, but I tried. And like the DVD disc, feel free to throw your laptop out the window after reading my effort to crack them both.

Enjoy these two songs which have, amongst many more, kept me ticking over all day…

Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac Cover) by Vampire Weekend

I would highly recommend getting the original version of the next song, if you don’t already have it. I could only hunt down this live version… (For Bob, who at least waited until after this song to be kicked out) … Unless It Kicks by Okkervil River

If anyone has their own suggestion for the sitcom name, feel free to leave a comment! If yours gets picked, you might win a magnificent prize. Surely ‘might’ will get me out of any legal contract if it every came to it. Might do, we shall see!

Loss Of Possibility

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Back to Old El Frisco, good old San Fran. Normal, regular, used to love you but nay as much now, San Francisco. My previous trip back to SF has been blogged about in the past (click here to be reminded if needs be) so I will not repeat my feelings once more. Instead, I will simply describe them in a different way, ha.

About a week and a half ago, I was looking forward to getting out of L.A for a while. Made the call, up to SF to write the sitcom pilot, get away from the madness and random ways of L.A, it would do me good. In fact, I was pumped to go to SF, my pilot needed and was going to be written, time to work! Then, I actually got a job, that will pay me, made a few more contacts, two more job opportunities were then put in front of me, and I had a great week. The whole week was a bit blurry, so I decided not to think about my decision to come up here. The blur has lifted, replaced by the SF fog, but I can now see through the haze. 

Something about San Fran is just not the same as L.A. When I give a homeless guy a dollar in L.A, I usually get a bit of humour out of it (last time I found out that he has more pairs of socks to choose from than I do, odd enough, I should’ve written more on that when it happened). At worst, I get a friendly punch in the ear, well worth a dollar for a story like that though. However, here, in SF, it is different. Yesterday, I gave a homeless guy a dollar, out of habit and also as he looked like he would do more than just give me a friendly punch in the ear if I didn’t. As I put the dollar into his cup, I noticed he was also flicking through songs, on his iPod, one earphone in his ear, the other earphone dangling down, similar to what I was doing at the time. In fact, I got a shudder as if I was looking at a mirror version of myself, only 5 weeks into the future.

However, his iPod was a far newer version than mine. I would almost say it was an iPod Touch, but not fully sure. And I was giving him a dollar? Didn’t feel right. Who needed that dollar more, I pondered, as I realized I no longer had enough for a coffee. To make matters worse, after walking a block further down the street, my iPod gave up on me. The battery didn’t die, it just froze, which has been happening lately. I am tapping on it still like one might on a fishbowl, trying to revive my goldfish, so to speak. Now and again, I get a flutter of the tail, but it is on its last legs. This would not have happened in L.A!

First night up here, I went out with my cousins for a friends birthday. Down to the local pub, then off into the heart of SF’s bustling nightlife centre. And, I noticed a few things. It is far harder to bluff your way past queues here. Nobody cares that you are Irish. Far more jock dudes in the bars. Far, far less quantity of women in the bars here. The women are far less plastic looking here. And on top of all this, the abundance of good looking women is far less plentiful here. However, I suppose they can hold a conversation better and don’t ask “Who are you?”. All depends what you’re looking for really. Personally, I miss L.A. A lot.

At least the public transport in SF allows you to get around the place easily. Unlike L.A, which has none. Well, two buses I think, but no clue where they go to (5% of the reason I walk everywhere in L.A). It could have something to do as well that usually I have nowhere to go in L.A (another 5%). And the buses seem to be used by homeless people only. Not that I am a snob who thinks he is too good for the bus full of homeless people, that goes God only knows where, or anything like that (90% of the reason). So, that is one plus for San Fran, yay San Fran, wuu, hang in there Harvey.

Last night it occurred to me, why it is that I way prefer L-Heey to San Fran. In L.A, I walk 2 blocks to the gym, roughly. Up here, I walk 16 blocks. That 2 block walk has thrown up all sorts of stories, conundrums, encounters and so on, more than I can think of now off the top of my head. Here, the 16 block walk, always, always passes without incident. The loss of possibility is immense. Life is far more regular and normal here. Not saying that is a bad thing, at all. However, in L.A, when are you trying to get a break, make contacts, network, get material, get people interested in your sitcom etc., the possibilities are absolutely endless. You never know who might be buying you a round next, singing karaoke with, or be next to in the gym, and so on. Actors, singers, directors, producers, or simply wannabes like myself, you just never know. And it happens daily, hourly at times, all fairly fun and eventful. The possibilities and opportunities are endless!

Either that, or I just prefer only having to walk 2 blocks to the gym. Although it is not that there have been no funny stories occurring here, there have, just not as many. I suppose the whole interest/obsession people have with Hollywood is a good added bonus to any story though. That is why my sitcom will be based there! And, in case you are wondering, the writing is going great so far! Made a lot of progress today. Went off and bought a big pile of index cards and an A4 writing pad. Which both look well next to my little notebook, which is on top my larger notebook. Alongside my 4 different pens. All sitting next to me on the table, jealous of my laptop. Going well so far, still not one word down on paper. Oh Jesus.

Two songs of the day. First I am a big fan of, mainly for the first two minutes. Not sure why so much, but here it is. After this long winded introduction. I now present you with… The End (Riva Starr Retrip) by The Doors

And the next has been annoying me the past day or so, finally figured out what song it was from having a snippet in my head over and over… Your Woman by White Town (for any Spanish readers, nicely subtitled for you. First and only video I could find that would allow me to embed the Mandy Mhuuure)

Name And Shame

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Writing so far has started off like I would do when studying for exams before. I waste a good few days procrastinating and get nothing done. Particularly during the day, I am more of a night person. Usually, after a week or two of this, the fear kicks in, and I cram it all in the day and night before the exam. However, this is not going to work with the writing. Time to grow up, in the writing world at least, time is a ticking. There was only one reason, after all, why I came here, yet I somehow have developed a mighty to-do list!

So, I have decided to try and help myself out, by naming and shaming the ways I have procrastinated today, doing everything but writing the pilot, in hope that it will, figuratively speaking, slap myself in the head to cop on.

Procrastination List:

1. Watched Days Of Our Lives.

2. Watched General Hospital.

3. Bought more pens (takes the total up to 4 fully inked pens).

4. Bought more paper to write on (takes the total up to 2 notebooks, an A4 pad and 200 index cards).

5. Brought my disposable camera to the shop to get developed.

6. Cleaned my already clean runners. 3 pairs.

7. Walking around the apartment a few times, looking for my phone, while on the phone.

8. Went to the gym.

9. Collected the photos from the shop.

10. Wrote this list.

11. Made this poll

(As you can quite clearly see, some high levels of procrastinating going on. Don’t worry, I am busy formulating the episode/scenes in my head while doing all this, it is coming along nicely! No need to fret!)

Strange Day

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Today has been a tad strange. Surprisingly, I mean that as a good strange, an unexpected strange. After the night’s sleep I had, I think the level of productivity I actually achieved is what has thrown me off. For numerous reasons last night (noise, dogs barking, the heat, drunken singing from downstairs, etc.) I got very little sleep. However, the main culprit, who kept me up from 4 in the morning until roughly half 6, was a fly.

There comes a point, when you are after laying in bed for 4 hours, battling to sleep, and you hear something small and innocuous, that you can make one of two choices. Either ignore the buzzing noise that is slightly bothering you, wade through it, keep your eyes shut and doze off. Or, as I did, open them slightly, focus fully on that little buzzing sound, and ruin all your good work. For far too long last night/this morning, I chased a fly around my room. Up the walls, out one window and in the other, running around in circles like a mad man in my boxers, chasing a noise (I only saw the fly a few times). It was all quite… nay, extremely stupid. However, the previous disturbances had me at my wits end so I was determined not to be beaten by a fly.

In the end, all the chasing around tired me out and I dosed off, not sure what time, after 6.30, it was bright outside, and I could hear people pottering around. This was a sober night too, which made it all the worse! I had forgotten that I set my alarm for 10 the next day, so when it piped up, I oddly sprung out of bed at first go, as if my body clock thought I was late for an exam or something along those lines. Standing there, again, like a mad man in a crunched position, in just my boxers, wondering why I had just jumped out of bed at first go, and why was I not so tired after such little sleep, a little buzz in my ear reminded me of the disastrous sleep I had just experienced.

The fly was back in the morning and he was taunting me, darting around my head, buzzing in my ear, whispering insults and ridiculing me, I felt like I was being bullied. When it landed on my right shoulder, I swung blindly for it, missed it, obviously (the fly was far more clever than I could possibly be at that hour) and ended up hitting myself in the shoulder. Again, the fly taunts me by staying close, moving to my lower left back, where once again, like a dumb fool, I swing, miss, and wallop myself in the back, like a slap to the kidneys. At this stage, my lack of sleep is kicking in, I think I am close to losing my mind, let it go, it is a fly, and close my eyes, lifting my head towards the ceiling and taking deep breaths to calm down. Buzz, buzzzz and I feel it brush off my nose. I swing inwards with both hands, flailing wildly, thankfully missing my own face but ending up slumped back on my bed, beaten, distraught, and close to tears.

As I open my eyes and look up, I see the fly across the other side of the room, buzz buzzing at me from a distance, as if he was able to throw his voice, ventriloquist style, just to make me looker stupider. He wins, I leave the room, and let him celebrate, leaving me a broken man, and not yet even had breakfast. As you might tell, as I was eating my porridge, and staring down the barrel of a gun, I did really not expect today to go well, the start alone indicated it would be disastrous.

Strangely, by the time lunch swung around, I was after confirming a meeting this week with the head of the Irish Film Board here in L.A, applied for a website idea competition malarky thing, and managed to be given a successful template which I could use for my sitcom pitch, if and when the time comes around to do so. The template is brilliant, allows me to condense all I want to say, clearly and simply into a 60 second spiel, with the right buzz words, comparisons etc. all laid out. 

After lunch, a wave of stand-up material came to me, the material was flowing! I also realized that my opening line, which has actually worked twice, is not as good as it should be. Something in the context like “Oh, this is my first time doing stand-up and I think I might be crap because I’m not funny and no one laughs at my jokes” is not a great thing to tell the audience, at the start of a stand-up. I thought reverse psychology would be good, but thinking about it, those laughs were not as hearty as I would’ve liked them to be. It is kind of like telling a girl, just as ye are about to, ahem, that, oh, I should warn you, it’s my first time, I will not be that good, but look, we’ll give it a go, and who knows, we might at least get a laugh at how bad I actually am at doing it! Same for all walks of life, who wants a plumber who tells them it is her first time doing this job, or a mechanic who warns you that he is crap, but we’ll plough on! (I hope you appreciated my his and her equality statuses!).

Finished the day off by going to the gym, strangely a couple (guy and girl, could be brother and sister too I suppose) randomly came up to me and asked me why I don’t DJ at night in there. I told them I wasn’t too sure, just had been asked to do days, I suppose evenings would be more fun, busier and all. They nodded and left. They then must’ve went to the manager and came back to tell me they got me Thursday and Friday evenings when it would be busier if I wanted to do them – DJ on Thursday and Friday evenings, not the couple, obviously – the manager had said it was cool. Ok… cheers, thanks for that? See, I found that strange, at the time at least, but maybe thats just me?

And, in case you are wondering, the fly was not hurt. We are now friends, and he is curled up next to me in bed. The strange part is, he is almost finished reading my book before me!!! Wahey boss! Oh Jesus, brutal, I should’ve finished up with the last paragraph.

Song of this strange day is this mighty mash-up… Shut Up And Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand – Ting Tings – DJ Y Alias JY

A Toothbrush Away From A Great, Great Day!

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Finally, a day to write home about. Today has been a turn-up for the books – productive, full to the brim, and almost nothing weird or stupid happened. Almost. 

In L.A, it is all about the meetings. Meetings and projects. Everyone is having meetings, working on projects, or having meetings about projects. I too have meetings and projects everyday, but my projects seem to involve meetings that do not benefit me in the slightest. Not today though, the tables were turned.

I was up at the crack of dawn, about half 9, for a meeting I had this morning. Jumped out of bed, forgetting about my leg, and thought it was about to snap like a twig when I put weight on it. Down like a sack of potatoes I go, wasting valuable time. Not wanting to be late (again), I started to multi task to try and make up on lost time. This went well. While brushing my teeth, and listening to some spam voicemail on my phone, I decided to go to the bathroom at the same time, how hard could it be. Hard enough standing up with a brittle leg and dodgy knee. Phone on my shoulder and pressing my ear down on it to hold it safe, toothbrush in my mouth , and hips maneuvering around, things started off well.

Lasted about half a minute. My bathroom window is located across and a bit below somebody’s sitting room in the building next door. When I looked out the window casually, I saw a girl on the phone looking out her window. Our eyes met, I got a bit of a shock, the sudden movement sent a shudder through my knee, which caused me to buckle a bit, phone falls off my shoulder, I reach out to grab it, at the same time the toothbrush drops out of my mouth, I forget to reach for this, catch the phone, my toilet catches my toothbrush. The girl can see all this, I have no curtain in my bathroom, good work out of me. Flush the toilet, fish the toothbrush out, will I rinse it, ha, no, better dump it. Actually, on my budget a toothbrush is a luxury item, will I rinse it… no, I think she’s still looking, better dump it to keep up with the Joneses and all!

No time to waste mourning the loss of a dear friend, I scuttle off to my meeting. The meeting is with a writer/mentor guy I have met before who gave me great advice. Which I did not heed as much as I should have. I am given one last chance, make the meeting on the button for 11, good sign. I have my assignments ready, some are okay, I get grilled on other sections, it is brilliant though, exactly what I need to hear. I am then given an outline and map of what I need to do. I now have a list of 19 bullet points of things I need to do to get where I want to be. Some are big, others are small, but if I cover all bases, do what is required and what I know now is exactly needed to do, I think I can get to where I want to be. Which is a savage thing to have laid out in front of you. These bullets points range from stop being a procrastinating ape, to neutralizing my accent at times to make sure my point is not lost in translation. Every aspect was covered in the two hours. It was savage to hear it all. After the meeting I was funking pumped.

When I get back to my house, things got even better. I am offered a job from Thursday until Sunday. This day is going superbly well and its not even 2 o’clock. The job actually pays money too, depending on how many items I sell. And what is it that I shall be selling…? Shamwows! For anyone who doesn’t know what they are, enjoy this video.

Should be funny enough, I must study the guy’s facial expression and enthusiasm to make sure I sell enough of them to make some bobs. Shamwow on!!!

I was on a roll, surely I should just cut my losses and go to bed at 4 in the afternoon to make sure I didn’t ruin the day. However, about an hour later I find out that one of the acting classes I went to audit before I was in Mexico, are offering me to audit a few more classes if I like. Once again, for free, so I surely will (the classes cost almost $100 per class if you break it down so getting them for free is highly recommended). It is in the Lee Strasberg acting school, the scene of all the crying and nutters that actually turned out to be good in the end (if you don’t remember, read the madness here).

The class I am auditing is for TV and Film Acting. Sounds perfect. Except for the fact that, once again, the acting studio has no air conditioning, it is like a sauna. However, besides that, it is far and away the best class I have been to, it is brilliant! The teacher is young compared to all the other teachers so far (late 20’s), and he is definitely the best. No crap or bulls**t like all the others, his advice is spot on, and the direction he gives after seeing a scene once is savage, improves all the actors who are involved. Plus he gave interesting side stories, not boasting like some of others (for example, Heath Ledger used Clockwork Orange as his inspiration for the Joker, used to be playing all the time in his trailer during filming).

A downside was sitting next to a gimp, who kept eating popcorn and slurping a drink, claiming to not understand me when I asked him to stop, I am still working on the neutralizing part of my accent. And he kept, kept, kept panting and saying “Hmmmm” for no apparent reason, to himself. He was the spitting image of this dude from the Big Lebowski.

A German guy livened things up a good bit too. He had a scene prepared, which he actually did well, bar the fact he couldn’t make himself cry for the big finale. After the final effort he had at doing it – Cuuuut, next week maybe Jurgen – he freaked at himself that he couldn’t cry, and ended up freaking so much that his eyes watered up and he left the room whimpering, two minutes too late though. It was nuts but a good laugh to watch. Especially when he got some criticism and advice mixed up, lost in translation. The teacher told him… “You should treat your acting like the act of foreplay, don’t rush the key part and get it over with too quickly, build up to the crying part”. To which he got very offended by, and shouted out that he loves to eat the…, just ask his wife. Ha. The awkward silence that followed was worth going to the class alone, although myself and Jesus next to me couldn’t stop laughing. I have a bucket load of savage notes as well from the rest of the class, 4 hours long and only the last guy wasn’t the May West and a bit boring.

While reading over the notes I had taken on the hobble home, I missed a dip in the path, put all my weight on the bad knee, and faltered like James Brown. It was at this time, while kind of holding my knee and trying to recuperate, on the side of the street in the gay neighborhood that I live in, that two gay dudes in an Escalade pull up next to me, surely to see if I was alright. Window rolls down, a fat gay dude pops his fat gay head out “Hey baby, are you working?” Huh, yeah, how did you know? I got a job selling Shamwows toda… hang on a minute, what the funk do you mean?!!! “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, we thought you were, drive…” and the two apes drive off in a hurry. It’s only when they have taken off in a hurry that it dawns on me what had happened, the dopes. Although, although, it was haunted that I got the good news of the Shamwows job earlier that day, things were looking bleak! Ha. Hang on buddy, I never gave you the price list!!!

All in all, a productive day I must say, I need my sleep after it. Must just brush my teeth first. As I said, I am not yet living the lap of luxury to afford such things as new toothbrushes, so looks like it will have to be the toothpaste on the finger trick for a while. Song of the day… The Plot by White Rabbits