Jeez Jon

Shifting Social Circles and Other Nonsense

It's Thanksgiving Eve.  Tomorrow, Tom and I are off to a (relatively new) friend's place for Turkey Day.  Tom is making his now-traditional vegetarian Shepard's Pie, and I will be bringing my rapier wit.  The festivities are hosted by a gay couple, both lawyers, which is weird on a couple levels.  First, Tom and I really don't have a lot of gay friends.  We don't.  Neither one of us are really bar people,  neither one of us are gym bunnies nor are we meth-smoking circuit party fiends.  We're kinda artsy, kinda folksy, mostly geeky types.  So, lo and behold, Tom found another gay man who plays Dungeons & Dragons -- the tabletop variety with dice, not the spanky kind.  Christian, one of the aforementioned lawyers, invited Tom to join his game, and they totally hit it off.  They hit it off to such a degree that Tom, Christian and I are part of another game altogether.  That is encouraging.  Christian and his partner Stephen are having their usual Thanksgiving Dinner For Gay Orphans in Brentwood, and Tom and I are joining in.  Hopefully, Tom and I can make more friendships into the Gay Community.

I feel weird even typing that sentence.  Gay Community.  While I'm very supportive of gay causes, having donated to the Human Rights Campaign, supporting gay artists and whatnot, I've never really felt very welcome at a lot of gay establishments.  I get the once-over look, and since I'm not rockin' the six-pack abs, the Abecrombie & Fitch or the Marc Jacobs slacks, I'm dismissed.  This happened a lot in Chicago.  Now, I know that a good deal of it is my own self-consciousness, but since I track more geek than gay, a lot of people just didn't know what to do with me.  And that's fine.  Tom and I have hit some of the gay bars in West Hollywood one Christmas day, and we did some dancing (which I love), but we were met with some stares.  We don't fit into the cookie-cutter view of most gay men, so people don't know what to do with us.  I guess if we went bar-hopping into Silverlake, maybe the attitude would be different. The gay and lesbian population there is far older and more laid back. 

Ok, now I'm just rambling.  Ok, ok, what else?  Um, well, I got a raise at work, rather unexpectedly.  Rachel and I were both unofficial Assistant Story Editors.  Well, one day, the owner of the company came to check up on us at Cable Competition Reality Show, and apparently liked our hard work.  So, boom, we both got raises and official title changes.  We're both now officially Assistant Story Editors, with the money to match.  I'm now making more than I ever made when I worked on The Bachelor and I have about one-eighth of the responsibilities.  AND I'm working on this show until the end of February.  So you can suck it, Fleiss. 

I've had some auditions as of late, but nothing beyond those.  Lots of running into downtown LA, several calls in saying Thanks But No Thanks, some enthusiastic smiles and nods, but not much else. I'm thankful, though.  Thankful for having them, thankful for knowing that even though I'm an Assistant I know I'm an actor, thankful for working at a cool place that respects that and doesn't blink an eye for going out on auditions, thankful for Tom, thankful for my cool friends, thankful for my family. 

Now, if you don't mind, I's goin' to sleep.  Catch you later.   

I'm on TV! I'm on TV!

For those of you I didn't barrage with e-mails, I'm on TV this weekend. I'm on Nickelodeon's Zoey 101 this coming Sunday night at 8pm (7pm central).  I play Mr. Granger, the chemistry teacher at the junior high prep school where the show takes place.  I'm only on in the first scene, so make sure to get all eyeballs/VCRs/DVRs/TiVos in line. 

See you then!

My Ill-Fated Date With Haylie Duff

I was at work last Friday at Cable Competition Reality Show when I got the call from Tom, around 8:45am:

Tom:  Hey.
Me: Hey.
Tom: Um, Bill [a somewhat successful writer/director and a producer on our mockumentary -- also not his real name] wants your headshot. 
Me:  What for?
Tom: He's consulting on this new movie, and thinks you'd be right for one of the roles.
Me:  Oh, cool.  Okay. 
Tom:  I'll be by at lunch and pick it up for him.
Me: Um, okay.
Tom: You may still have to audition for this, you know.
Me:  That's fine. I'm glad to audition for pretty much anything. What's the film about?
Tom: Some college comedy with [Former MTV Personality] or something.
Me:  Cool.

After a couple IMs with addresses and another phone call, Tom swung by my work and picked up a headshot.  He was making the rounds already to drop off copies of the mockumentary for submission to film festivals, and thought he might as well give Bill the headshot.  Tom and I talked for a minute or two as I gave him the tour of our fun and funky office. And then he was off.

About an hour later, Tom called.

Tom:  Hey.
Me: Hey.
Tom: Okay, he has the headshot.
Me:  Cool.  Thanks for doing that.
Tom: No prob.

I decided to take a late lunch with one of the editors and one of the story editors.  As we lunched with foods that I grew up on, Tom called again. 

Tom:  Hey.
Me: Hey.
Tom: Okay, so here's the deal.  Bill is going to show the producers a couple of your scenes from the mockumentary, hoping that you won't even have to audition, and they'll cast you on the spot.
Me:  Holy crap.
Tom:  Yeah. Well, that may or may not happen.  But at the least, you'll definitely be getting an audition, maybe even today.
Me: Okay.  Great.  Thanks again.
Tom: No problem. Oh, and if you get it, Bill wants you to play it cool. They'll probably be more inclined to hire you if they don't think you guys are friends or whatever.
Me:  All right.  [I've apparently lived in Hollywood long enough for that sentence to make complete sense to me.]

We hang up.  En route back to the office not ten minutes after I hung up with Tom, Bill calls.

Bill: Hey. Jon.  So uh, can you make it to Beverly Hills at 4pm to audition for this Haylie Duff movie?

I look at the clock in the car: 2:45pm.  I rub the stubble on my face. 

Me:  Sure.

We flly back to the office, and I fly out.  I zip home, shave and change into a powder-blue shirt that's more appropos for a role of a campus cop.  I then crawl over from my place to Beverly Hills through awful traffic. I end up being 10 minutes late, but they are running way behind.  There are two roles to read for -- the campus cop and his oafish partner -- and there are only two of us there reading for each role.  We get paired up and work with our partners.  The guy I'm reading with, a borderline stereotypical Long Island Italian bouncer-type, is not only a friend of Bill's family, he's also the winner of the season finale of this show.  Even at an audition, I can't escape reality tv.  We hit it off, and actually manage to develop some good comedic chemistry.  We finally go in and read for Bill and the producer, Bill's Buddy.  After doing the scene twice, and getting some laughs, we're done.  Bill's Buddy tells us the role starts filming in two days (!) so we should be hearing from him soon.  I slug through Friday traffic make it home, and chill.  Two hours later, Bill's Buddy calls, thanking me for my audition.  Bill's Buddy was impressed with what I was able to come up with in a short period of time, but his producing partners managed to get one of the comics from this to play the role instead.

So, that's why.  Sigh.  That is the whole story, Haylie.  I... I'm sorry.  I don't think it's going to work out.   If it's meant to be, we'll meet again.  Buck up, little camper.  And... I'm sorry. No, please.  Let's not... oh, don't cry. Haylie... it'll work out.   And hey... we'll always have Paris.