She's Right on Time

After an incredibly boring week, where I had to make my own adventures, a lot of stuff has happened “right on time” this week.

Waking up Right on Time

After a weekend of going every which way with friends from both in town and out, I woke up late on Monday to a text message from my roommate. Her boss, the one who I had given a fake resume to, was working completely by himself in his restaurant without a single waitress (because the more experienced girl he hired instead of me is an idiot and can’t read a work schedule) and was desperate. I got showered and got dressed and helped out there for a few hours and got paid $15 an hour for four hours just for coming in so last minute.

Class Starting Right on Time

I started my acting class, and it went really well! It was a really strange experience though. I’m the youngest by several years and a couple of the actors are way old, like over 50 old. There’s one man who must be approaching 70, and let me tell you, watching somebody who would play my Grandpa try to play “Zip, Zap, Zop” is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Every time somebody would try to “zip” him, he’d take appro 45 seconds to process is and would then spit out “zop” instead of “zap.” I’m sure if you’re not an actor and reading this that just made no sense, but trust me, if you were, you’d appreciate it.

Most of the people in my class are going on auditions for commercials, theater, and tv stuff at least 2 or 3 times a week; in other words a lot more busy with this stuff than I am. I’m really happy being on the more inexperienced level in terms of auditioning, because I think I have some of the most to gain from the other students. It'll be interesting to hear about peoples experiences and what kinds of stuff they usually see before I start really jumping into the thick of things.

“Taking a holiday from the neighborhood” (yes that’s a Billy reference) Right on Time

I’m hopping a flight to Chicago this Friday, so don’t expect another update from me until next week. I’m off to visit my biddies and celebrate Halloween up in style. I guess I wont be learning any valuable lessons about surviving the Halloween Parade or learn how the hell children trick-or-treat in this city until next year. When I return from Chicago I’ll be starting up work at the ornament shop, continuing with my acting class, and will hopefully learn a thing or two about how you get work as an actor in this city. Things are about to get really busy really fast for me, and, as far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t happen at a better time.

Careless Talk

So lately there have been a lot of stories about New York that aren’t really relatable to this blog because they’re not really related to acting or work. That isn’t to say that I haven’t learned lessons from my personal life though. Billy Joel teaches in mysterious ways and here are the lessons I’ve learned while waiting for him to come and marry and/or serenade me:

1. While bacon and potatoes are delicious, they do not make the best diet for your digestive system. And probably not for your weight either.

2. Your gaydar might not be really as sharp as you thought it was. As it ends up I have the opposite problem that Cher had in Clueless. Though, that doesn’t stop it from being great sitcom worthy material. I estimate I could get at least two solid side-arches out of it, and a couple of quick recurring jokes throughout a few season run.

3. It doesn’t matter how normal looking a person might look sitting across from you on the train: you still shouldn’t be surprised when they start talking or singing to themselves.

4. Its hard cooking/baking when you’re scared of the filth that’s on the inside of the oven. If moving into a “well-lived-in” apartment learn how to make everything either on the stove or in the microwave. Or, get really good at making a certain dish/dessert so you feel like you can have an excuse to say “hey why don’t I come over and cook you some of my amazing _________,” thus allowing you to take advantage of friend’s oven. I still haven’t found that dish for myself. Also, on a side note, I think this lesson relates a lot to the first lesson

5. Learn how to say “hello” in Chinese (“Nín hǎo!”), and while your Chinese neighbors may not say it back to you, they’ll feel less inclined to let the door to your building shut in your face. Who knows, you might even get that neighbor who’s having marital problems the floor below you to say “hello” (in English!) when he’s going down and your going up the stairs. How do I know he’s having marital problems? I don’t really, but I hear yelling coming from that apartment along with the baby crying a lot, along with the occasional man who isn’t the husband going in and out, and I like to assume that there’s a Chinese soap opera going on right below me.

To that was your “Careless Talk” from me for the day. I can only hope that one day Billy will compile these useful lessons into a song, but until that day I hope these lessons I learned the hard way will help you. Also, don't look up the lyrics to the song "Careless Talk" in hopes of finding insight to why I titled this post that, it wont help you. I was just feeling the "Careless Talk" so I went for it.

When in Rome

I’ve officially lived in New York for over a month now. I am certainly all moved in. I guess nothing huge has happened for the past couple of weeks since my last update, with the exception of turning 20 and my apartment's living room going from a delightful shade of Skittle Green to a neutral cream. I decided to update though since I’d hate to keep my fans who read this (A.K.A my mom and Bridget) waiting for too long. So, as Billy Joel sang, and no other person ever could have possibly said before him, “when in Rome do as the Romans do” and I’ve learned to do in New York as the New Yorkers do.

Yep, I lied on a resume.

My roommate told me the café she works at is hiring, and since two girls are going out of town the next couple of weeks, they really need somebody ASAP to fill in and take a lot of shifts for that time. Now as many of you know, I do have my Christmas ornament job, but even NYC, the king of Christmas-comes-early, doesn’t start hamming it up until November 6th (ok, November 1, but my job starts November 6th). So I could really use the cash, and I would love to have something to fill up my day besides staring at the casting calls that don’t fit my type.

I asked my roommate if I should lie on my resume; as it ends up she had already lied for me when she was telling her manager. Somehow, that made it seem better as I took out one of my old jobs from my real resume and added in a hostess position. I was even honest enough with myself to title the word document "faux resume." I'm trying not to feel to terrible about it, after all, I HAVE worked as a hostess, sure it was for a week and I lost the job to some tall model bitch, but I’ve done it! I was just stretching the truth; I claimed I did it for 3 months over the summer back home. Still I felt a huge pang of guilt, especially thinking about how important "matter(s) of trust" and "honesty" are to Bily.

In truth, it might not have helped me anyway. He seemed pretty enthusiastic in the interview, but he did tell me that he has been interviewing other girls, and he was looking for somebody with waitressing experience, though it wasn’t “100% necessary.” Sigh.

Now, onto the acting front:
I have had two auditions since my last catastrophe and I am pleased to say that they went swimmingly! Both were for student films, the first one I knew I wouldn’t get because it ended up she was looking for a girl younger looker than me, and the second one went really well, but if I don’t get it than I don’t get it. No skin off my back, at least I didn’t flub up the monologue or bring in the wrong resume. I even fit in as a real New York actor in the green rooms waiting for my audition; I am also shaking out my jowl, looking deep in thought while staring out into nothing, and checking my email on my phone like I’m actually waiting for an important email!

Meanwhile, I’ve been looking a lot on Backstage.com for more auditions. It’s pretty hard shifting through it all to find stuff that I’d be appropriate for, and even when I do, there’s a good chance when I submit my resume that I wont hear back from them. Really, I’m starting to get anxious for my audition class to start. When I first got here it was at an awkward time for classes because nearly all classes start is the beginning of September and I wasn’t here until the 16th, so the earliest class I could sign up for at a good studio is October 27th. I’ve been doing some cool movement classes, but I really want to get back to doing monologues and scenes in front of teachers to see where I’m going with my auditions and get me back into shape. It’ll also be good to be in class with other people who are doing the same thing I’m doing so that I can get pointers from them as well as the teacher on where I should be looking for work. I don’t yet understand the full ins and outs of being a New York actress, but its still early, and there’s plenty of time for me to still do as the New Yorkers do.

Get it Right the First Time

Many of you already know that I take my life experiences and I think about how I would change them to best fit a teen drama, indie movie, soap opera, romantic comedy, E! True Hollywood Story, and so on. Today I wouldn’t have to change any of the details of my afternoon to fit an above-average episode of a 90s sitcom.

This episode would fall into the classic storyline of a bad day that just keeps getting worse. This afternoon I had my first audition in NYC. I found out about it yesterday as 1:30 in the afternoon. Before anybody gets really worried about me, let me make it clear I would have had to PAY to be in the showcase, and I really have no interest in paying to do a monologue unless it’s in an acting class. But, I thought it would be a good idea to audition so that I’d have the experience under my belt and because I had nothing better to do this afternoon.

Anyway as I was reading that I got the audition for tomorrow I realized that they were asking for a 1 minute comedic monologue. Now this posed as a problem since my only 1 minute monologues were either Shakespeare or dramatic. The last time I did a comedic monologue it was 2+ minutes long and in high school. No biggie I said, deluding myself into thinking I was the greatest memorizer of all time. I bought a play and memorized the hell out of a quick funny monologue.

Flash forward to today at 3:20. I printed out a copy of my resume (on my new printer that I bought and installed myself by the way!), glued it to the back of my head shot and cut it down to look all professional. I put the headshot/resume in a manila folder, did my monologue one last time before I left, and hopped right on that train.

I was about two train stops in before I snuck a peak at my resume to admire my handy-work. At this moment, I realized that I had printed out my old high school resume that I had used for college auditions. "No biggie", I said once again to myself, "I have the confidence that I can still sell myself."

Then I decided to say my monologue over again to myself. I bundled a couple of words in the middle and blanked for a second on the next line.

At this point I’m freaking.

I call my mom and soon as I leave the subway and calmly tell her the situation. She says “Well if you’re gonna freak out about it that there’s no point in you going to the audition.” So, of course, I went to the audition. If only to prove to her and myself that I wasn’t freaking out and that I was no quitter, because in this Sitcom I’m that kind of character.

I go into the audition and fill out the forms with a renewed sense of confidence. Or, false confidence, if you will. I find out the audition is like a class setup where I’m going to go into the room with the twenty mid to late 20-something actors who are also auditioning. Great.

One guy does his monologue first. He’s nothing to write home about, I feel a little bit more confident. Then bam, I’m the second one called. I go up there, I tell them my deal, they all seem really friendly, they laugh when I tell them about grabbing the wrong resume. Then I tell him which monologue I’m doing. He personally knows the playwright and loves the play so “you better make it good.” Fantastic.

So I do my monologue, half way through I lose my place, but I keep chugging along like the champ I am. I’m pretty sure I switched two of my lines around, but at least I ended how it was supposed to end, and I got a couple of pity laughs from the audience. I said Thank you and I high tailed my way out of there, quickly coming up with the excuse “I actually have to go to a job interview at 6 on the Upper East Side so I have to go.”
I had no interview.

I walked out with confidence though and as soon as I got to the elevator I started laughing uncontrollably. I’m sure I will not be getting the call back, but hey that’s one audition down one million more to go.

Billy Joel says “Get it Right The First Time,” but I respectfully say “screw that.” Sometimes you can’t get it right the first time, and everything seems to go wrong like this audition. Sometimes you do it right the first time, but its just not good enough, like my first job here. But it doesn’t really matter, what matters is that you try your hardest and that you get it right when it counts. I couldn’t keep my first job, but now I have the pleasure of working at that Ornament shop, where I’ll be working for a working actress and with other actors and young girls looking for a seasonal job. I won’t get a part in this Showcase, but maybe I’ll get the part next time in some dinky play. You can’t always get it right the first time, but you might as well have fun and realize that when all things go to hell, at least you have a good story.

My Life

So here’s the skinny on my life this week.

“I don't need you to worry for me cause I'm alright:”

On the Work Front

Went to my interview with the ornament job and killed it. Though she can’t tell me for sure for a week, she loves my hand writing, thinks I’m cute, and if too many of her old employees are coming back this year and she can’t give me a job, she’ll be suggesting me to other people in the Bryant Park. I’m going to continue to apply to other jobs though; don’t want to be screwed out of work again.

“I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home:”

About The Apartment

I’m really starting to like it more and more. It’s smell a lot less like stink boy/dead mouse in the wall and more like me now. Also since my one roommate and I became cleaning fiends it seems a hell of a lot less ghetto. I have also come to love my neighborhood. Don’t fret though, it’s still plenty ghetto: I found out that the “pull out couch” my roommates spoke of is actually just crappy cushions that pile on top of each other and can be folded out onto the floor while still attached to the couch. Also my roommate lights his cigarettes with the fire from the gas stove and since I lost my wallet in a cab (don’t ask), I currently have a couple hundred dollars cash hiding in my underwear drawer. Yeah, I keep it classy.

“I don't care what you say anymore, this is my life:”

My Acting Life Begins

So I’ve officially started my life in pursuit of the dream. After researching and preparing myself, I’m ready to start auditioning and making things happen for myself. I got an online subscription of Backstage.com where thousands upon thousands of other actresses are. The amount of entertainment related advertisements this website has are insane. There’s casting for commercials, web-videos, non-union films, union films, student films, tv, voice over work, union theater, non-union theater, union musicals, non-union musicals, REALITY TV (why would you pay for a subscription to backstage just to get cast on Big Brother 11 is beyond me), modeling, singers, dancer, singer/dancers, the list goes on.

You can narrow the search, but it’s still ridiculous thinking about the amount of searching that is done every day just to make up our entertainment industry. Its also crazy seeing how much stuff people put into their online resumes, with reels, dozens of headshots/full body shots, and more. Everybody is just looking to have a leg up on the next person and they’ll go to ridiculous lengths to prove it. At the same time, I wonder how much that stuff really helps them. Sure, the reel is probably important if you want to break into film or television, but a shoddily made youtube quality video of you doing a monologue? No thank you.

I have my first audition tomorrow, and I know of more I want to go to next week. Today I went to the Drama book store and felt like a real world New York actor as I found a couple of plays that I heard had good comedic monologues. Now I’m back to memorizing monologues and reading plays and it feels really good and really exciting.

So, to wrap up the things Billy Joel didn’t teach me this week, in his song “my life,” or any other for that matter, 1) stellar handwriting is way important in this city 2) your Chinatown apartment can only get so classy and 3)The people working and looking for work on Broadway are on the same website as people looking to be on the next season “Dance Your Ass Off.”

Worse Comes to Worst

So that job I was talking about? Well as it ends up they hired me for a week and then decided to go with another girl they were training because she had more experience. Yep, Giusseppe and Ricardo let me down. After working there a week and liking the people a lot I was pretty depressed for a good 24 hours there, but this is New York, and I sure as hell wasn’t the first person to have this happen to her and surely won’t be the last.

As Billy Joel so eloquently says in “Worse comes to Worst:”

Oh, fun ain't easy if it ain't free
Too many people got a hold on me
But I know something that they don't know
I know a woman in New Mexico

I may not know any ladies in New Mexico, but I do know that I want to have fun. With those words of wisdom in mind, the great job hunt continues. Now my job hunt for the most part just includes mindless hours of me in front of Craigslist searching desperately for jobs that don’t include “need at least 2 years experience” in the job description. Now when I do find these gems, and boy are they gems, I am always initially excited, but then I remember a great fact about this city: all the other hundreds of unemployed young people (the honest ones who can’t bring themselves to make fake resumes either) are just as excited as me. But despite all that I am still excited about my current job prospects, which include:

A coffee shop near Bryant Park- Interviewed for this job, could have killed it, but the manager was way, way too sexy. He looked like a sexier version of Orlando Bloom. It’s probably best I don’t get this job for said reason.

A hostess position at a way too fancy restaurant in the Theater District-I walked in and “New York State of Mind” was playing, but it was down hill from there. The ad didn’t specify you needed two years experience to work there, but I was pretty much under the impression that you would need 10+ years there. It was an open call for people to come in to interview from 2 to 4. I got there at 3 and I was number 96; they were on interviewing person 36. I looked around at my competition sitting in the restaurant, all late twenty-somethings to early forty-somethings and failed actors, and high tailed my way out of there as soon as Billy stopped serenading me.

Vegan coffee shop near Washington Square-I interviewed there, and while the manager with her nose, lip, and brow piercings seemed perfectly nice and pleasant to me, I’m pretty sure as soon as I walked in wearing my skirt that was 0% all natural fabrics and 100% polyester (and 100% slamming and professional, by the way) I didn’t get the job. Learned a valuable lesson though; always look up the places your interviewing at thoroughly before going in; a fast Google search doesn’t always do the trick.

A “very green conscious” café-Have still yet to interview there, but I’m totally stoked for it. Yeah, I barely care enough about the environment to recycle correctly, but I can finally take advantage of the fact that I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” in Chemistry class senior year (thank you Baltimore city school system) and use that knowledge to my utmost benefit. Here’s hoping they don’t ever find my voters registration card. Also, note to self, I will be wearing cotton to that interview, just in case.

Christmas Decoration Store-While this job wouldn’t start until November 2nd, I’m totally feeling the vibe with this one. Sure, I’d probably get so sick of Christmas Music I’d never want to hear it again, but finally a job with no “experience necessary” where I can rock my shit. The job would include personalizing decorations, and if there’s one thing I’ve got on my side its killer hand writing. All I got to do is show them my cursive or my print (when I take my time) and its in the bag. I’m not sure where this confidence in my hand writing comes from, but I’m totally feeling it.

There were many, many, more jobs I applied to, but those were the ones that really stood out in my mind. Anyway, that’s the job update for today. I guess next time I’ll be writing about the joys of “Backstage.com” and trying to sift through the endless auditions for something suitable for me. Here’s hoping Billy was terribly confused when he wrote he had a woman in New Mexico, and really meant he had a woman in China Town.