This is why I have a bootched tag

So after my excitement of Telltale emailing me and wanting an interview and then not calling me, and after me calling them last night eager for a time to talk, Will Armstrong, the head tester, called today and I totally blew it.

Well, wait, not totally. It was more of a minor botch thing; something that would make me seem like an average applicant, not necessarily someone who they would want on their team. Just a guy, not a super guy. We did vary from the normal interview talk to stuff about me, how I'm an actor, etc., but mostly I think it was out of lack of anything else to say.

I honestly don't know what comes over me when I'm at an interview. Even one on the phone. I get exceedingly awkward. I'm not an awkward person, really, it's just all my ideas and things to say jump out the window and I'm sitting there like "der, nottin to say to yer, gob'ner". It's not as bad as that. And it wasn't a bad interview, I have to keep saying that. What I should have said were the questions I had prepared and kept safely on a sheet of paper on my desk, thereby helping me while I'm walking up a hill a half a mile away. Sometimes I'm too smart for myself.

My questions were, in case you were wondering:

1. What kind of programming do Testers do?
2. What kind of troubleshooting?
3. You mentioned customer service, how does that factor in?

But what I did say was:

1. I'm a big fat dork?
2. Yes?
3. Because I didn't prepare?

Moral of the story: Be better prepared, even if you think they're not going to call. Or just wait and tell them to call another time. Or just tell them that you need to get to your desk where I wrote down some questions for you. Also, fuck morals.

My charming personality did shine through, as did my eagerness for the job. I also showed him that I'm articulate and blah blah blah. (See what I did there? I'm hilarious.) But I did botch it; chalk it up to experience and move on.

Unless they hire me, and in that case someone's really been putting some good energy out there for me, and considering my angry attude I've been having for the world recently and what I've been receiving back... yeah, no wonder I feel awkward.

Hrm, hm.

Had an extended weekend and am grateful. I needed an extra day to sort of jumpstart the beginning of my grad school auditions, and even though I won't take off another day this Friday, I will keep going with the knowledge that next week is Hawaii. So yeah, better than a sick day, and I can survive until next Tuesday.

Had a slightly depressing weekend with the rejection from ACT. The realization that I've met approximentally 3-4 horrible to mediocre actors that graduated from ACT didn't give me confidence in my abilities. And the later realization that they only really accept 10 people helped, but not much. And then I got over it, because they're really just casting a show, and they probably have their character actor.

Had a better day after that, Monica came and picked me up from the city so I didn't have to take the ferry in. I was happily crying for a while after the audition, but I was better after that. I didn't even want to go to that school anyway! Well, maybe I did a little. The rest of the day was pretty fantastic; relaxing and full of delicious foods that I shouldn't have eaten because they are too fatty. But what the hell. It was a great day aside from the list. Made me remember the not so good times about school. (Although Arthur Keng got called back - he's an awesome dude who's a good nervous actor, plus he's Asian, so if you're going for a character actor, that's who they need if you are unimaginative. Bitter Ben? A little. Benjamin Pither got in too. He's just a plain good ol' actor who's been around the bay area a lot longer than I have.)

Next day was fun! I got to sleep in a little and had a fun morning. My audition for San Francisco Shakespeare was good as well - probably the best I've ever done Edmund. (Thanks for the help, mum!) Who knows if they'll call me in; just gotta keep trying. If you don't try, nothing will happen.

I think a belated resolution for this year (and the years to come) is that I need to play the game of acting a little bit more. That means a little bit more schmoozing and maybe some business card printing, but it also means that I need to take classes and workshops - I've already thought of this, of course, but I haven't actually worked on bettering myself like that. I think that this is the time to really do it; so even if I don't get into grad school, I can still take a few courses, make connections, and rock shit out. (Hopefully the connections will get me to grad school. Pay it forward and all that shit.)

Dinner Club was fun last night too. It was lacking a few of our players, (3) but we had a great time at Crepevine, where I had delicious Pumpkin Pancakes. Gotta love our friends! Well, except for the ones who didn't show up.

And now I'm back at the grind. Two more SP programs this week; I get out of work early Tuesday and Thursday to do some acting. That's nice, even if the acting if not exactly on track I wanted to be. But that's the truth isn't it? I'm not exactly the person I wanted to be either. That's something I can work on. I want to be proud of myself again. I remember I used to be to the point of cockiness. I should not get to that level... just to feel like what I'm doing is important. Lately I've not been believing myself.

[Confidential]

Got in trouble for the last post. Confidentiality. So...

Ahem.

This is the official apology for the last post. You know who you are that I'm apologising to. I will not take pictures of the medical and I will continue to be funny, but just in a more obfuscated way.

I'm planning on still documenting it, but it's gonna be private, so sorry all you 12 readers.

Boy oh boy I hope this gets more readers now. At least Bernie, he seemed to like it. Maybe then my ads'll pay off! Woot. That's right, I said it.

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I suppose I should document the Chico trip a little bit while I'm here. Monica and I went up to Chico to see her friend Jenny and son. Jenny's an old college friend of M, so it was mostly along the lines of the other trips of her and I, I sit around awkwardly, chiming in at points that I actually think I know what I'm talking about, and then they laugh or ignore and continue to talk about work or college.

That little dude Gabriel though. One handsome devil who will be a heartbreaker someday.



The arm is Jenny. Part of Jenny, she does have a whole body, just not in that picture.

The trip was fun though, and we ate in Davis at a place called The Habit. Good burger, but nothing to write home about. Huh, guess I'm writing to home about it here. Damn!

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And this is a picture that I took today on my walk (1 hour).



Monologues later tonight. Gonna rock those out.

At least it's Friday

The past few days have been uneventful ones. More of a waiting game to hear from 42nd Street Moon, Calshakes, Carmel, CeneRep, etc. I'm not really holding out for them to pull out their checkbooks, but in this age of instant impersonal communication, I feel that it's easy enough for them to reject me through email, and I can easily slink away back into the darkness that is my ever worsening soul.

I have been on my regimen of exercising at least 30 minutes a day. DDR has been helping, and every time I seem to traverse into the TurboJam world I knock something over in my room, so I stopped doing that; my computer may be next. I feel great! It's been helping me sleep, and the motivation has been there to help me eat a little better. (Not tremendously better, but baby steps are the way to go when it comes to Ben and Food.)

Worth mentioning (since this is really a journal): Russ came over to do his usual flip his mug in my face (being a mild ass that he is), lost control, and it smashed into my full coffee mug, breaking it into 5 pieces and spilling my coffee/hot chocolate combo everywhere. His mug was uscathed. And now you know!

Movies for this weekend:
Sweeney Todd


and National Treasure: Book of Secrets

I've Done It

This is me figuring out how to post in the same blog on my other email address. It took me this long, refusing the help section of blogger.com, accepting the help of blogger, and now I'm actually doing it on another address so I don't have to switch back and forth. I can do it on my whimsy. Whimsy.

Oh Lady! Lady!! was quite fun! (I'll have a review up shortly.) I'm impressed with Michael, he's really improved since the yelling into a microphone days of Hair. Ah, those were some fun times. I also freaked out a bit because after the show someone said how much they liked my audition for Out of this World, but then couldn't remember my name. I think I read too much into it. Then again, if they wanted me, they probably would have called me by now.

Then I ruined the evening by being an asshole on the ride home by feeling way too sorry for myself. Then I started fighting! It was awesome. Wait, wait, what's the opposite of awesome? Ah right, horribly depressing. It was horribly depressing.

(We simply have different notions of theatre. Monica had some excellent advice about pooling all my resources and seeing inspiration where I can find it, and I had my own advice about how I'm excellent without any help and can do everything by myself. I saw her point, and will mostly use the advice... I still don't think I need to ask everyone for help.)

And now, a frog:



[Edit: Monica says, "You didn't ruin last night, and I'm still not quite sure that was a fight;
a tiff perhaps, or perhaps even a roe, but certainly not a fight." So there you have it.]

[Edit: A roe is a collection of fish eggs. A row is a quarrel. I like that word. Quarrel. And row, but quarrel is cool.]

Quick One

"Art is dangerous sometimes."

Thank you for asking, my audition went well. My songs were a little bootched, but I read very well, and they seemed very happy with what I was doing. We'll see what happens. At the very least, I did show that I was out there and could sing (well, kinda.) and act.