Disturbing...

A few days ago I woke up from horrible nightmares. They occurred back to back and both were substantially depressing. I don't remember most of my dreams or nightmares but on rare occasions when my sleep is disrupted (for whatever reason, bathroom, knock on the door, telephone) and I end up going back to sleep right after, that's when I tend to remember what I'm dreamed about.

In this case, I woke up much earlier than usual because I had to use the bathroom. The next thing I know, I'm in the middle of a street in my neighborhood and standing in a crossfire! Bullets whizzed by, some ricocheted nearby...then...at the end of the dream, I had my hands across my hip noticing that my shirt was damp. I looked down at my hands and see yellow goo matter mixed with my blood. Then...I was dead. I woke up completely startled.

My second nightmare caught me by surprise. I was back home on American Samoa and my parents were having an argument and at the peak of the argument my dad breaks out and starts doing a waltz. It was elegant and time slowed down...then, he collapsed with a smile on his face. I tried to revive him and the rage I felt in the dream woke me up. I woke up crying. Wow...I have to admit, there's been a few times I've had dreams move me so much that I end up with teary eyes when I wake up, and this is one of the most powerful.

I called home but no one picked up, probably because of the time difference. I sat up wondering why I just had those dreams then I realized that they were so powerfully that I was able to tap into them and relive the experience. To say I was a bit frightened would be an understatement but I also couldn't let the experience go to waste so I dug up a sad monologue and read it while under the effects of the overwhelming sadness. The entire process was something else. I couldn't go back to sleep after that. Could you?

Quick question...

What do Ninjas, Google, and James Lipton have in common? They all made me laugh last week. My ribs hurt and my eyes watered. I absolutely have to share these Youtube gems...







That is all. I just thought I'd share.

T.G.I.F Indeed!

I wasn't planning on blogging today but I feel I should put this down on paper...cyber paper? Whatever. I had a midterm for my film and t.v. this morning so I was up bright and early so I could buy a scantron and blue book. I made it on campus early enough to have a tasty breakfast of eggs, wheat bread and sausage. Although cereal may have been a great substitute if I had enough time to find some. The actual midterm was relatively easy. A lot of it came to me as common sense as a person who enjoys watching movies and picking them apart. Our class usually wraps up at 1:10pm but I was done with my midterm by 11:30am and I was quite unsure of what else to do with my afternoon.

So I stuck around. I loitered in the hallway and started a conversation with two Austrian women that was visiting their friend, a classmate of mine. They were very friendly and had physical facial features that were uncommon to me which was interesting and another story all together. At any rate, when my friends popped out and we were able to thoroughly discuss the exam that we all completed, I decided it was time to go. On the way out I stopped by one of the computer labs to check on e-mails and myspace.

Finally, I'm all set to head home when I decided to go (here's where it gets interesting) in the opposite direction I'm used to going. Before I could reach the exit doors I overheard something. It was lines that were being read out loud. In fact, it sounded like...well, it sounded like an AUDITION! I began my own private investigation and found a couple of females around the corner who were reading scripts! Oh my! Now we're getting somewhere.

A door opens and out pops what looked to be a director! How did I know he was a director? Pshaw, he had that director glow! Anyway, I introduced myself and said that I'm not an acting student in this institution but somehow accidentally stumbled on an audition in session and that I was an Actor who was interested in, at the very least, turning in a headshot and résumé. He smiled and said, "Oh that's not necessary, why don't you grab a script and look it over and we'll get you in here after her (pointing at one of the other actors in the hallway)". I said, "Great", smiled and started reading the script.

Boy, halfway down the page I was even more excited because the script read wonderfully. When it was finally my turn, I walked in, made myself comfortable and introduced myself and answered some of the director's questions. I suppose he wasn't used to receiving headshots and résumé just yet and insisted I take them back and he didn't want to waste my money. Either he wasn't used to them or I disgusted him thoroughly, lol. I'll take comfort in believing it was the former. The character I read for was delicious and I wanted to keep reading and trying new things but there were other Actors to consider so I said my thanks and walked out graciously.

I'm finally ready to go home...OR maybe not, just as I was leaving I noticed someone putting up fliers on bulletin boards and it read "Audition, room AT113, "Unwritten"". Oh boy! What timing! What are the odds of that happening? Let's recap. I was going to go home early, I walk in the complete opposite direction of where I would usually exit, land myself in an audition and another one just as the first one was done...WOW. T.G.I.F indeed.

The second audition was much different. I didn't see myself in any of the characters but I decided to try anyway. I read for a character labeled only as "Boss" and after my short performance, the expression on the director and his DP surprised even me. They looked like they had seen an angle of their character they had never seen before. I was quite pleased. I remember hearing, "You don't look the part, but your acting is perfect for it..." That's good enough for me, haha. The second part of the audition I found amusing because I've never had the chance to do this before. They handed me a fake pistol and told me to pretend I was going around some fake building (ala CSI) and that I was looking for someone. And pretend I did! I even held the pistol the way I felt the character would if he were chasing someone. Primed, yet finger not quite on the trigger because I was always peaking past corners and wouldn't want to shoot any by-standers.

Well that's it...I wouldn't have blogged today but boy, I had to get that off my chest. Did you know that auditions give me a natural high? No? Well, now you know! It's back to work tomorrow at the Theatre but I can't help but wonder...'gee, what's in store next week?'

Chee-hooo!

Where I grew up shouting "Chee-hooo" would be a the equivalent of yelling "Yeeee-haw"! It went with native dances, it went well when playing sports, heck I've heard it being yelled in a cinema during an action sequence in a movie. In my case, it's the excitement of being cast in my first gig since moving here to San Jose!

I went to two auditions this past weekend. One was for a student film
and the other was for a play called Pandemonium. The student film audition was at a convenient location, De Anza College, where I happened to have class the very day I was scheduled to read. It went well I felt. There was a few minutes when I had an interesting inner monologue going:

"Yeah man, first audition of 2008, let's kick ass! Focus man focus, throw that chewing gum in the trash. What if these guys turn me away at the door...no wait, they wouldn't do that. Oh look, cameras....yeah...YEAH...OH YEAH!!!!!"

I get a natural high during the entire audition process. To say I'm addicted to it is an understatement. However, I find it is entirely important to be able to drop any notion or day dream of being cast as soon as I'm back on the street leaving said auditions. In some cases, (a Coca Cola commercial a couple years ago) the dream tend to linger. Every audition is a new chance to train in, moving on to the next thing available.

According to the directors of the short film, actors will be contacted by the 10th of February.

Moving on- I found the Pandemonium auditions to be quite revitalizing! It was in a small intimate dance studio and it was freezing outside. Luckily, the heat started to creep in as we stretched and mingled among ourselves. The audition was to be done as a group with actors tossed in with different roles to read. I find this style of auditioning highly stimulating because it allows you to be able to react with fresh ideas which bounces around with the other actors.

There were some devilishly talented actors in attendance and in many cases it really bumped the standard of the audition. A previous acting instructor hammered the idea to always commit to your acting decisions and to follow your instinct when approaching a role. It's sometimes difficult to approach that idea because it's not necessarily part of your everyday life. But I threw all caution to the wind and lost myself in the reading.

It was intense. At some point the cold had completely left me and there I was, in the midst of other actors, emotionally naked but very much alive. I thought to myself, "heck, even if I don't get a role, this is fantastic!". By the end of the audition, my back was aching (lol, I should exercise more) but my spirit was in fine form. I gave my sincere appreciation for the opportunity to audition and started home.

Forty-five minutes later as I was stepping out of my bus I felt a sharp buzz in my jeans (no no, not that kind of buzz, perv!). It was a call from one of the artistic minds present at the audition. It started slowly and was starting to sound like so many past audition calls, you know the ones that go, "Thank you for coming, it was good to have you there...". Except, at the end she uttered the words "We would like to extend..." and if it weren't for the fact that I was still on the phone with her, I would've yelled "CHEEE-HOOOOO"! Instead, I held it in until all details were hammered out and I was safely across the street.

CHEEEEEE-HOOOOO! I've landed my first gig in San Jose!

Causality!

It's funny how often we are driven forward because of causality. For good or worse, your decisions can lead you to situations where you will have to make another decision that affects others or be affected yourself, or witness something you may have otherwise missed. I went to see a show we were performing at SJREP called "Tranced" on friday (opening night).

During rehearsals I got to meet the playwright, Robert Clyman, and found him to be quite an interesting person. I also got to meet the entire cast and they struck me as very warm and receptive. The show itself was wonderful and at the end of the evening I was debating about attending the after party or catching the second to last bus home. I decided on the former. As I navigated through the crowds I bumped into a gentleman standing to the side who turned out to be one of our actress' boyfriend. The short conversation I had with him pushed me to actually want to go to the after party. I figured, hey, "why not, I've been working all week and I need to get back in there to network and meet new people".

The party turned out to be loads of fun. I learned a little bit of the NYC theater scene and some of L.A.'s geography. The drinks were free and so were the finger foods. I helped myself to a plate full of hot wings. As it got closer to 12am I decided it was time to head out. I said my farewells and made it just in time to catch the very last bus.

The weird thing was, when I spotted the bus it wasn't going down the street it normally does. Instead it turned from a corner further down the block. As it turned out the driver had taken the wrong route! Some person on a scooter made it on the bus just as it was pulling away from the curb and told the driver that there were at least ten other people a block earlier waiting for the bus. He called the riders (which included myself and two others) to the front of the bus and handed us all bus passes for the very next day and apologized that we were gonna have to go back and pick the remainder of the group.

At this point I was quite amused that this was happening and thought the free bus pass was well worth the extra ten minutes spent on the bus. Good old causality was watching my back on this trip.

Causality would be right there beside me the very next day...

On a 3x5 index card...

I jotted a few things down last week that I felt was worth blogging. As I was walking home from work I looked up and noticed that I was directly below the migration flight path of birds! Unfortunately my library of bird species is severely limited so I can only comment on what they looked like: Big, white with an expansive wing span. I chucked and quickly replayed moments in movies when everything below a migration of birds would be painted with bird dookie! Fortunately for me and the surrounding business, that wasn't quite the case. I was completely captivated. They flew in groups of ten and in a "V" formation. (Mighty Ducks, anyone?). The sky was so dense with birds but after five minutes or so, it slowly cleared up. I went home amused and cheerful that I was able to witness that in person and not just on Animal Planet.



The very next day on the way home my bus stopped and just sat idle. The chit chat in the bus started as a buzz then grew into audible whispers of what could be happening. It came at waves starting from the front of the bus. I can only assume that the information from the front of the bus became greatly exaggerated by the time it hit my hears. I thought at first it was some road related accident. You know, like a thirty car pile up or something. Finally, after seven or eight minutes of lingering we started up again. And just like a scene out of a movie, it happened all in slow motion. We passed two blocks randomly littered with police vehicles! There had been a drive-by shooting.

YIKES! This was about five minutes from where I lived too. For those of you that don't know me, this isn't the first time this has happened in my life. When I lived in San Francisco there had been a drive-by near a bus stop I walked to every morning for class. Back then I wasn't too shocked because the neighborhood I was living in wasn't that great to begin with. But this time around, the neighborhood wasn't even that bad. A woman in the bus was hysterical and started talking loud enough for the entire bus to hear. "T...this..shouldn't happen here! I grew up in L.A. it should stay that...n.n..not here!" she exclaimed. I was nearing my stop when the initial shock finally left me.

Birds and drive-bys, in less than two days; Totally blog worthy.