everybody likes good (viking) music
Well, I just keep crashing, apparently. I had a full on (full on) entry and I lost it. Apple keeps saying that their machines don’t crash, that they don’t get viruses...well, guess what? Neither one is true. These things crash all the damn time. Another virus (proof of concept, sure, but something nonetheless) was reported last Thursday. And vulnerabilities? Tons.
So, don’t believe the hype.
The photo above (damn, I typed this before, i know I did) is from our Halloween Bus Party sans bus. We’ve done the bus thing for the past two years, and last week, after I rented the sound system, we found out that the bus had straight up broke down, that there was a 99% chance that it wouldn’t happen. Of course, we all hoped that it work out, we all sent good thoughts to the universe and hoped it would happen, and, of course, it didn’t.
I was not surprised, of course. I mean, of all the hopes I have thrown to the universe, this was pretty trivial (if I didn’t get accepted into graduate school I see now reason why the bus would somehow get fixed). I had been fairly ambivalent about the whole thing, to be honest, but figured I should just commit and go for it. Don’t judge the work, just commit to it, right?
But the party was fun. I ended up reusing my set from the wedding I dj’d a few months ago. I added some new songs, tweaked a few samples and it all seemed to work out well. It was fun, I admit, to watching 30 Vikings get down to “Footloose”.
Go to my friend Eugene’s site for a writeup of his recent visit with us. You can also see his pictures of the night, as well as Jen’s and Tobie’s.
Interesting could of days. Whit’s been in New York visiting our friends. It has been fun talking to her about the city; she has not been in three years and we spend so much time comparing LA to New York (still!), I was sure that she would be calling me with some real estate agents to call about various apartments to check out.
This did not happen. She loves being there, she’s been loving seeing all her friends, but she has realized (as I did, I admit, awhile ago, about 15 minutes after flying into LA a few years ago) that LA is sort of the right place for this period of time.
Basically, while we both miss our friends, the cultural encounters, the frenetic energy, constant inspiration that slaps you in the face almost every day, LA (odd as it may sound) is just healthier for us right now. Mentally, physically...and, honestly, spiritually as well. When you can escape and truly be alone on the coast and take a deep breath and just stop for awhile, you remember that there is a reality far, far removed from the habits and restrictions that modern daily life imposes on you.
And besides, I can always go to downtown LA and get a bit of a taste. We were down in the garment district looking for faux fur for our viking costumes and it reeked of my east coast life.
That being said, I basically feel like I have to go back to New York at least once every two years just to remind myself where I have been, what is possible and what’s important to me.
Ironically, I have had a very Brooklyn weekend. I have been basically by myself the entire time, running my own little errands (comic books, belgium beer, pulled pork sandwiches) and thinking. (I know how it sounds, but it’s true, when you are by yourself for a few days you basically think about things more intently and more continuously, kind of like when one is traveling alone.) Last night I put my contacts back in and just hopped in the car and started driving down third street. I ended up at a bar in Echo Park (I think) and sat at the bar and listened to the conversations around me. I used to do this a lot in New York when I first got there, before Whit moved in after her voyage to Asia. I would just get on the 6 train and walk around the East Village, looking for good bars to see what would happen.
Now, in New York, this is a fully realized way to spend the evening. I met a lot of people that way. Total strangers one minute, laughing storytellers the next, fully awesome buds several minutes later. Here, unless you are walking to the neighborhood joint or taking a cab, this is not really possible. I mean, this is a good thing, this spectre of the drive home, but still, it limits you somewhat. Still, I had fun, though I didn’t really know what I was doing there. I wasn’t looking to meet anyone, really. I enjoyed not talking to anyone (though I would have welcomed some conversation), but I find it interesting that I drove clear across town to pay for a few drinks I could easily make myself at home, to do the same non-talking that I was already doing on my sofa.
The little baby is Ruby Miller Rosenquist. She’s six days old today. This is what she looked like 48 hours into the world. Kate and Joel, two of my oldest friends (I met Joel the first day of college, Kate a few days later. A few days later, they were together), are now parents. I have other friends with babies (most notably, Caryne and Laurie), but I must say, this is a bit different. I mean, I have been in regular contact with Kate and Joel for...I dunno...17 years? I know these guys. I know where they have been. Same thing, of course, with Oliver, though I don’t know Snow as long as I have known Kate. And Ollie’s in SF, so I am not sure I will see Teo as often as I see Audrey, Abby and Ruby.
One of the many things I have been thinking about is the gentle chasm in experience that happens between friends who have kids and the ones who do not have kids. It begins, obviously, with the happy news of the pregnancy, and then slowly manifests itself in foreign topics of conversation, knowing nods and private jokes. I think it’s natural, I think it’s totally great, but it is sad, too. I dunno why. Perhaps I am just being selfish? I never see my friends, the ones with kids. I don’t push it--they are busy enough--but now it seems to make sense why my parents never seemed to hang out with their friends all that much. I always liked it when they did--I loved the chance to seem them as people rather than my parents, rather than a married couple stressing out about, well, everything.
Ah, the kids thing is too much to talk about right now. I am really psyched for my friends and look forward to watching them grow with their children.
dismantled it. The railroad ran from downtown, west through Hollywood, all the way to the beach...it went everywhere, from Pasadena to Newport Beach. There was more track here than anywhere else in the US. The railroad, modeled after the many train systems in Europe, was designed to support the growth that was coming to LA.
What else? My big struggle artistically is really specific these days. I am not hitting home runs in acting class like I am used to. Yes, I know how that sounds. I am just not succeeding like I am used to. I am getting 80% of a scene, but stumbling on certain technical points. It’s good--I am learning much more from the failures than I was from my successes, but still. It feels better to nail a scene, right? It feels better to know that you honored the director’s intent, that you have honored the what the writer described. Like, last class, again I totally misinterpreted the scene. Actually, scratch that--I interpreted it fine, Brian even told me that my interpretation was perfectly valid. I made a few mistakes--nothing like lines, nothing like that...I am making mistakes that are kind of a different level. Like, I was supposed to be sick, with a hacking cough, etc, but I wasn’t consistent with it, and I knew it going in but I wanted to balance the scene by making it about the character realizing the extent of his sickness as opposed to a scene about a hacking cough. Yet again, my stage instincts--where I set up the cough at the top and let it color the rest of the scene, with some highlights throughout--kicked in. I looked at the lines and found cues that, to me, underscore a certain attitude regarding the sickness (no big deal, it’s just because I drank too much last night) and toward the other character, the doctor (calling her “doc”, cracking jokes) and it turned out that despite these cues...it was not what the director/teacher wanted. He wanted very sick, barely audible. He wanted it subdued, that I knew that there was something seriously wrong. The setup was hard, too. In the class, we were sitting across from each other at a table. In the real scene, I would have been in a bed, surrounded by medical stuff. Sitting at a table, no matter how sick you are, is different than lying in a bed, sick as a dog.
So, I was playing the scene sitting at a table. I was talking to my doctor friend about the results of a hard night of partying, expecting to be told that he was going to pump my stomach and give me a hard time. I played that scene, and I hit it.
The lesson (finally)? In addition to being a class that helps you “be” naturally on camera, the whole acting thing (I dislike the term, acting--it implies a “push” to tell a story, to ACT out a moment...but whatever), this class is about making sure you know to ask as many questions as you need before you go before that camera. I have a whole list of questions now, each written down after failing to ask it beforehand.
And that’s the trick, right? In anything--knowing what questions to ask. As you get better at something, you know where the pitfalls are, you know where the mistakes are usually made.
Finally got that out. I have been freaking out about that for a few days.
This cafe is a good one. Music is quiet. The people are a mix of worried looking students, aggravated writers and, just now, tall models reviewing pictures of themselves. LA is so weird, man.
So, yeah, work. We got the boxed version of the product we made on Friday. It was cool; it was something physical that did not exist before we started figuring it out 11 months ago. Now it exists, it works, and now we hope people will find it useful. Trippy.
Acting was slower, last week. One commercial, 2 voiceovers. No callbacks. I heard the word “pilot season” at class last week and am getting antsy. The next few months are going to be important. Crap, they are all important.
3:20. Time to read a bit.
Monday, October 30, 2006
