The Un-Faire

The Machinist and I went to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire yesterday and had quite an interesting day. I got REALLY sunburnt on my face. When I was a kid, every fall we would go to the Renaissance Festival outside of Houston and it was always a lot of fun. This Ren Fest is significantly smaller than the Texas version and slightly more frightening. The Machinist tested his archery prowess by nearly cutting his finger off (I'm not sure how, but the woman running the archery stand was really worried about the way he was holding the bow).

We had a lot of fun seeing some of the shows. The Bold and Stupid Men show was great. They brought the Machinist up on stage and he had to strut about and prove his manliness in order to receive a kiss from me. They also told jokes and swordfought each other. Hilarious fun.

We also saw some pretty pathetic jousting. Depending on where you sat in the arena you were in one of the knights' sections. We were in the Blue section of Sir Wilfart. Of course our guy lost every competition and didn't even sell it very well. We also saw a battle royal between the Irish and somebody (the story was never quite clear to me). They faced off on the field and all 50 of them would come at each other with swords and pikes and some had muskets (I'm not entirely sure what year this was supposed to be) and they would have a little fight and one guy would fall to the field. It took 45 minutes to put a dent in either army.

The highlight (or rather lowlight) of the festival were the people in costume. Of course we expected your goth people and your D & D nerds to be all dressed up and feeling important, but the tragic part was the horrible boobs on display everywhere. There was not a good set to be seen all day and believe me the Machinist was on patrol. The one decent set I saw was on a normal looking 20 something girl who was just wearing a tank top. Unfortunately the Machinist was in the port-o-potty and missed them. Overall the women were some of the grossest looking women I've seen in one place in a long time. They were all about 60 pounds overweight with pale disgusting boobs, mashed into place and flowing over their outfits. I actually shivered a couple of times.

But at least I got soup in a bread bowl.

The Swarm

I was driving down Verdugo today and at the corner of Verdugo and Olive I see the car next to me frantically rolling up his window. I look to the sidewalk on the left and there's a man running down the street swatting at something that I assume is a bee. But when I look about 15 feet behind him there is a HUGE swarm of bees surrounding a black Accord. There were literally thousands of bees. I have no idea where they came from or what was so exciting about the Honda, but they were all over it. I was really glad my window was already up.

IT'S UP!!!!!!!!

The commercial I filmed is now airing on quattroforwomen.com! Very exciting. They are billing it as a reality series, but nothing about my character is real. Other than my name. My father has never been in the army, I don't teach middle school, and I've never been to Spokane. But... it is cool to see the commercial. A new part airs every Monday and Thursday. Tomorrow part 3 goes up. Very very cool.

Back from Vegas

WOW! What a crazy trip that was. For the most part, I had a really great time.

Upsides:
They put us up at the Palms hotel and upgraded us to suites, so I had this sweet spa tub.
I made some good money.
I really liked the other girls and 95% of the crew.
I got to drive around in a red Mustang convertible.
I got Marky Mark a gig as a P.A. on the commercial, so he was around. The producer, Tortuga, thought there was something going on with us because I saved him a spot at dinner one night. One of the other girls was like, "She knew him before this. She's the one who got him the job, he's her boyfriend's roommate."
Since we were shooting at The Improv in Las Vegas, they let me do my stand up set there. The crowd was a little old for some of my jokes, but they laughed which was cool.
I'm in a freakin' commercial!

Downsides:
The bedding in the hotel was goosedown which I am totally allergic to. I didn't realize it was goosedown until the first morning when I woke up and my eyes were swollen shut and my lips looked like I'd been punched in the face. A couple of benadryl and a few hours, and it went away, but I had the bedding removed after that.
I didn't have any time to hit the tables or see any shows, they kept us really busy.
For one of the scenes, we had to get a "private show" from strippers from The Thunder from Down Under. They kept their pants on but they were incredibly close to us. I got my lip gloss on my stripper, Donovan's shirt. I was like, "Dude, I'm sorry I got lip gloss on your shirt." And he said, "That's ok." And he pulled out his personal lip gloss out of his pocket and put some on me and then himself. I was like "I AM SOOOO UNCLEAN!" if I could burn my lips, I would. GROSS!
I had to come home a night early. I was supposed to come home Thursday morning in the caravan of cars and the other two girls were going to fly back (I am not a fan of flying and they gave me the choice between flying and driving). So, right after we wrapped, they told me I had to leave immediately because the only car that could take me back was leaving. If I had known I was going to go home early, I would have played some blackjack the night before. So, I never got the opportunity to hit the tables.

I don't know how the commercial is going to end up looking, but Tortuga sent me some pictures from the shoot. And I'm excited about seeing the finished product.

I'm Going to Vegas!

Remember that commercial audition I had on Valentine's Day which prevented me from going to Disneyland. Well, I found out this morning that I booked it!!!

I am going to Las Vegas for a 4 day shoot for Schick razors.

How sweet is that? I guess missing a day at Disney wasn't such a bad thing after all. I am soooo excited. It will be nice to pay off my credit cards and it will be super nice to be working. I had to cancel about 50 rehearsals for the weekend and the early part of next week, but if people can't deal with it then they don't understand why we are all out here.

The Machinist was sooo excited for me. My parents were super excited for me. I am super excited for me. I hope I don't suck.

Tomorrow is wardrobe fitting and then we shoot in LA on Sunday and Monday morning we drive to Vegas in a red mustang convertible. I am really looking forward to this.

Suddenly I'm Very Busy

For the last two months I have been super slothful. I had a regular gig doing improv in Sherman Oaks, but I left the group in January to pursue other options (nice way of saying I had to get the hell out of there). But up until recently I had been quite bored. Pilot season is upon us and although I had a few auditions here and there, things didn't start to pick up for me until about 2 weeks ago. In the last month I have started improv classes at the UCB, committed to a sketch show run, and had 8 auditions, not to mention that I'm about to start sketch classes at the UCB, and I'm writing a sketch show with Ocean.

When it rains, it pours. I like having lots to do. Keeps me occupied. Although I am also trying to finish proofreading the teacher's manual to the law book I just finished writing.

I'm not complaining. I'm just venting. After all, there are people in 3rd world countries without any auditions at all.

I am a badass!

Ok, so I'm only sort of a bad ass.

But stand up was awesome. I performed at a hole in the wall bar for 40 or so people. But they laughed. A lot as a matter of fact. And now I couldn't be more excited about doing stand up again. So, hopefully soon.

I was supposed to go with the Machinist to Disneyland on Valentine's Day, but I had a callback for a commercial and I had to cancel. He was more excited about the callback than I was. It went fine, but it's Friday and I haven't heard, so I assume I didn't get it. We're going to go some time in the next couple of weeks.

I had an audition today for a sketch show in Hollywood. They have already called to offer me the part. And I said yes, so I will be doing a sketch show. I really enjoy doing sketch runs. I haven't seen any of the sketches and I don't know who else made it into the show, but they seem to have good taste so far, right?

Plus, I signed up to take a sketch writing class at UCB which should be good. And... Ocean and I are working on writing our own sketch show. So, I have a super busy next couple of months ahead, which is great because I can't stand sitting around all the time.