Jeez Jon

Master Plan: The Acting Reel

First I did the Voiceover Demo, and now the acting reel is ready.  To enjoy:

 

Thanks!

Coming Up For Air

I've been working tons lately and it's eaten up a lot of my time.  I've a few ideas for some posts that'll be coming down the pike soon.  I'm alive so expect a few posts from me soon.

Shake It 'Til The Butter Melts

One afternoon in my freshman year of high school, I was home from school after rehearsal watching TV.  One of the local channels was playing videos and they played this:

 

I'd never heard of the B52s before, and the video and the song had me transfixed.  The soaring chorus, the beautiful harmonies, the strange but simple imagery: I was thinking "Who are these people?" and "Where can I hang out with them?"  A few weeks later I heard Rock Lobster, and fell in love with every bizarre second of that song.  But it took a couple more years before I would buy any of their music... and that's when Cosmic Thing was released. I bought the cassette from Coconuts Records, flew home, and started playing that out.  I can remember bouncing around in my room listening to that album over and over on my little cassette player and on my Walkman.  I remember watching an episode of Doogie Howser a couple of weeks later where Doogie was sad over his girlfriend dumping him and he played "their song" over and over again.  Here was their song:

 

Yup, "Channel Z".  Love that song.  I love The B52s for so many reasons.  The biggest one? They are a FUN BAND.  They play fun, tuneful, party music.  You can't tell me that if you hear the first couple notes to "Love Shack" that you don't have the song running through your head all day.  They have a quirky sensibility that I love but they aren't pretentious. While they occasionally mix some messages into their songs, their main objective is for you to have a good time.  And since they are completely enjoying themselves, you can't help but smile when you hear their songs. The subject matter of the songs may be strange (party crashers, planets named after women's names, offering a girl fish and candy to a rival to get her man back, et. al) but you can play a B52s song in any party setting in front of any kind of audience and someone will get up and dance.  And also that they do have a rather distinct gay sensibility that's wrapped around a party vibe in such a particular way that they don't seem like "the other" to many people.  And then throw in what talented musicians they are.  Keith Strickland is a fantastic drummer AND guitarist (taking over the guitar when original guitarist Ricky Wilson died of AIDS in 1985), Fred Schnieder is a great showman, and then you have the ladies.  Cindy Wilson (blonde) and Kate Pierson (redhead) have some of the best rock voices in the biz.  And they harmonize beautifully.  In my mind, the B52s is the ultimate party band.

Before this past weekend, I've only been to 5 concerts in my entire life.  The first was They Might Be Giants and Squeeze and my second in 1992 with the Violent Femmes opening for, tra la!, the B52s.  And it was a wonderfully fun concert.  I went with some friends (including the marvelous Pam Turlow, who is the biggest B52s fan I know) and we were maybe 17th row or something, and down in the front was a group all dressed up in glitter and bouffant hairdos grinning from ear to ear and talking in stage whispers about how amazing it is to be there.  Once The B52s went out on stage, they were dancing the whole time.  The eldest of the bunch just stopped during "Private Idaho" and exclaimed "We're not worthy!", which totally made me smile.  It was an amazing concert and it was the last time I saw them...

...until this past Friday.  My birthday happened a few weeks ago, and Tom said that one last present that was coming.  So I waited... and waited... and waited.  And then, last weekend, he spilled the beans on the last gift.  He was taking me to see the B52s in concert at an Indian Casino about 2 hours outside of LA.  But wait, there's more!  In addition to the concert, we were getting backstage passes beforehand for a meet and greet with the band. Let me repeat that: it's a MEET AND GREET WITH THE B52s!  Gahhhhh!  I was floored, excited, nervous, etc.  I didn't tell Pam about it because I wanted it to be a surprise for her, but I did tell everybody else.  Alex, one of my teachers at Steppenwolf, was very impressed and rather envious.  I downloaded a bunch of their music from iTunes, and bought some CDs as well for them to sign.

After driving 3 hours Friday afternoon (the 91 is the purgatory of Southern California freeways), Tom and I finally made it to Temecula.  We got dinner in the casino after scoring our tickets and credentials from the box office.  During dinner, Tom and I split a bottle of champagne and that helped to calm my nerves.  Slightly.  After dinner, we gathered with the remainder of the fellow VIP ticket holders and were lead into the back of the theater.  I was carrying a couple of their CDs and a couple signs, chatting with some of the other people in line. 

Me: I brought a couple CD's for them to sign.

Fellow Fan: Oh. They're not signing anything tonight.

Me: They aren't?  Oh, okay.

Fellow Fan: You could always ask.  They are doing pictures.  I did double check on that.

Me: Okay, cool.

I put aside the CDs and Tom and I held onto the signs.  After a few minutes of waiting, the band's stereotypically British manager entered the room.

Manager: All ri'. 'ere's the deal. You get ONE photo wif the band PER GROUP.  'N I'll take the pitcha. Righ'?

All of the Fans: Righ'!

Tom [sotto voce]: We'll each hold one of the signs.

Me [sotto voce]: Cool.

And then, the band came out and waved to us.  They were all pleased to see us but were ready to get this over with since they had to do a show in a few minutes.  One by one, people ahead of us in line were lead up to the band where you'd shake hands with them, the manager would take their picture, you'd say thank you and take your camera and leave. That's it.  Which is fine, honestly.  They have a job to do, they've been doing this for a long time, I get it.  Then finally, it was Tom's and my turn. We walked up with our signs and said hello. I shook Kate Pierson's hand (eeeeeee!) and Keith Strickland's (eeeee!).  Tom was on the side with Fred and Cindy.  They looked down at our sides. 

Me: Oh, some friends of ours couldn't make it to the concert, so we thought it bring these signs in for them. 

Kate then peered over at my sign and laughed a bit.  Kate: "That's clever." 

The manager ended up taking two pictures of us with the band, and this is the 2nd one:

This is exactly what I wanted.  I do love how Kate is completely playing along, which just makes it all the better.  I said thank you, shook Kate's hand (eeeeeeeee!) and then Tom and I walked off.  Sorry, Tom walked off and I floated away. 

The concert itself was amazing.  We were 3rd row center.  THIRD ROW CENTER!  They played non-stop for 80-some minutes, and considering they are all in their late-50's to early 60's, they looked and sounded fantastic.  They did some of their new stuff as well as all their classics.  It was a fantastic time and an amazing evening.  And that photo above really says it all. 

Here are some of my favorite songs of theirs. Let's start with "Give Me Back My Man":

 

"Private Idaho"

 

"Party Out of Bounds"

 

And of course, "Rock Lobster"

 

I love The B52s.

My Head Sounds Like This: On Shuffle

I've been working intensely over the past month or two on Season 3 of Jerseylicious, which has been fun if all-consuming.  Combine that with my acting class and dealing with a severe bout of allergies (which culminated in a 4:30am drive to a CVS to get eye drops to douse my burning eyeballs), I haven't had much time for the blog here.  But, I've been listening to a whole bunch of music lately, so I thought I'd share.  I'll set my mental Earworm mix on shuffle, and here's what my head sounds like lately:

Bruno Mars -- Grenade

 

My niece Alli introduced this song to me via Facebook. I'd heard of Bruno Mars before but never heard of his music.  I think this is a dynamite song about how long love can linger past reason.  And it's catchy as hell.

La Roux -- Bulletproof

 

This is how I like my dance music: the vocal is front and center, it's uber-catchy, and the artist has a signature sound.  After my birthday, I'm planning on picking up whatever CDs La Roux has to offer. If they're anything like this song, I'll be one happy camper.

Mumford & Sons -- The Cave

 

A complete change of pace from La Roux, Britain's Mumford & Sons is all about the acoustic guitar, bango and soaring harmonies.  I listened to their album driving around LA one Saturday afternoon and had to fight against tearing up 'cause their songs? Are powerful and gorgeous.

Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - In Motion (from The Social Network soundtrack)

 

This score is fantastic and this has to be my favorite track from it.  Reznor & Ross won the Oscar for Best Original Score, and they deserved it.

I'm hoping to come back up for air soon.  Until then, enjoy the music.

The Master Plan, Part 3: The Demo

The relaunch of my acting career has been a methodical process.  After getting my debt into a managable amount, I've slowly and surely been getting the rest of my stuff in gear.  The first was my headshots.  The second is acting class; it's been ages for me and now I'm back at Steppenwolf, getting my ass kicked in the best way possible.  Also on the agenda is redoing my reel, losing some weight, etc.  It's all part of the Master Plan, and I'm happy to report that another part of the plan is done.  My VoiceOver Demo is done.

See, as an actor I'm in a weird middle zone.  I'm too old for "Young Dude" but I'm a tad young-looking for "Young Dad."  I'm already a rather specific-looking actor, so falling into this age limbo is not helpful.  So, why not try something where my looks don't matter?  How the voiceover world works in LA is that you do commercials first, then you can start doing animation.  As a young lad who watched A LOT of cartoons, I've always marvelled at cartoon voices.  Mel Blanc is bit of a personal hero of mine.  I follow Rob Paulsen (voice of Yakko Warner & Pinky) on Twitter.  I wanna be Billy West when I grow up.  One of my dearest friends is voiceover goddess Pam Turlow (check out her blog here).  Doing voiceovers have always been part of my agenda, and now I've taken the most significant step forward to making that happen.  It won't happen overnight, it'll take lots of time and effort, but I'm more than on my way.

You wanna hear the demo?  Check it out here:

Jon Collins FINAL DEMO 3-23-11

The Master Plan continues in earnest.

Picking Up Where Someone Else Left Off

My most recent stint of unemployment has come to an end.  Two weeks ago, I was called in for an interview for Established Animal-Related Docu-Soap.  It was a Wednesday, and my appointment was at 2pm.  By 2:30, they made me an offer that I accepted and started bright and early the next morning.  The reason for the rush?  One of the story producers got another gig and left, so I'm finishing out his remaining 1 1/2 episodes.  So, my stint on this show won't be terribly long.  But it's work, so that's fine by me. I'm a week and a half in and everyone is cool people seem to like my work thus far.

Since I'm coming in on the tail end of a season, I'm taking over an episode that's already been started.  So, everyone knows the footge and show more than I do.  It's a balancing act where I am doing what I can to respect the work the previous guy did but also inject my own choices and POV to the material.  It would be folly for me to completely dismiss all the set up that was done before I started (since he was there when the outline was crafted) but the show can benefit from my outsider perspective.  This is a first for me;  it's doable but a definite challenge, that's for sure.

Defragmentation

Back in ye olden days when I had PC's, one of my favorite things to do was to defrag the computer. Defragmentation is the process where the computer eliminates space in between files and aligns everything in order, condensing the space and making everything run more efficiently.  So, inspired by this, I've had one main goal since this new year started: eliminate crap and clutter from all aspects of my life.  It's amazing how much stuff can accumulate in a medium-sized two-bedroom apartment.  Between my husband and me, I am more apt to throw stuff out.  Well, I should say that I'm more apt to get pissed off about clutter and stuff and want to get rid of all of it.  But since the new year started, we've gotten rid of a bunch of stuff from our place. We donated a huge box of books and about 20 cookbooks to Out of the Closet.  We dropped off two more huge boxes of books to a used book store and got $100 in store credit.  Let me say that again: $100 in store credit. So, if you get a rare book for a present, you'll know why. We got a new shredder and donated our old one.  We got a new lamp and threw out the old one. By doing all this, I do find it easier to focus on things with the lack of clutter.

Now, that's not to say that Tom and I are suddenly neat freaks.  Our place has always been a bit clutter-ific.  To quote Angels In America, it's messy not dirty. We're both creative types so we tend to get onto inspirational tears on things and suddenly other housework stuff will start to pile up.  We also are planning on redoing our home office, which is going to be a year-long project. 

I'm also putting the defrag on my goals as well.  I've been hitting the gym and working out 4-5 days a week, plus a 5 mile walk every Sunday.  And every time I try to talk myself out of going to the gym I stop and then just do it.  I'm also trying to limit my Parrot as well, trying to not get in my own damn way.  As a Left-Brained person, I tend to over-analyze things and crawl up into my head which is a problem in my life and in my acting.  To use the metaphor from my acting teacher, it's a parrot on your shoulder telling you all the things you can't do.  So, part of my defragmenting this year to limit that parrot and turn down his volume.  I'm mixing way too many metaphors, but you know what I mean. 

We're two weeks into the new year and things are already rolling: some job leads, an audition and a callback and I've started the process in getting my voiceover demo done (finally!).  My hopes for this year are some solid acting work, some fun story producing jobs, getting rid of more crap from the apartment and just having some fun.  Good plan, right?

2010 Round-Up of Jeez Jon

Like I've done for the past couple years, here are some random first sentences from my 2010 blog entries, one picked from each month:

At work today, I was in a bit of a holding pattern, waiting as my editor cut new voiceover tracks into our episode.

One occupier of my time during unemployment is, of course, Facebook.

Culturally speaking, I've been gorging on two things lately... the Olympics and RuPaul's Drag Race. 

I'm christening a new feature here at Jeez Jon:  How Not To.

A little while ago, I conducted an experiment:  I watched four of Tyler Perry's movies and tweeted my way through them.

Sometimes things happen in life that are great and you immediately want to exclaim and shout and go "Whoo!"

The following is the actual text I sent to Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel:

Back in college, my friend Jamie would at various random times and place suddenly put her hand up to her eye and sigh.

It's hot in LA right now.

This coming Saturday is my 20th High School Reunion... and I'm not going.

There is something I need to confess here.

Handler: John Waters wants a picture with you.

Here's to 2011!

End Of The Year Assessment

One trap of being a goal-oriented person is that I tend to focus on the negative.  If I miss a goal or it's obvious that I'm never going to reach a mark I set for myself, this loss tends to dominate my thoughts. And this is an easy trap that I fall into, time and time again.  Since we're drawing to a close on 2010, I've been thinking about what happened and what I could have done better.  And then I stopped.

And I said to myself "Self, shut up already."

While I didn't get to a bunch of things I really wanted to get done this year (my VO demo, more auditions, booking... stuff), I did get other things done.  And instead of beating myself up for missing goals or not being the best I could be and being at the beck and call of my judgmental Type A part of my persona, I'm going to focus on the long term.

As many of you know, my father is an architect.  He started his own practice when I was 5 years old, working out of our house.  I worked from him on and off from when I was 12 years old until I was 27.  The main thing I gleaned from all those years of watching my father work through good times and hard times was that being a creative person is a day-to-day struggle.  You apply yourself everyday and some days you do well and others you don't.  Some years you do well and others you don't.  That old tried-and-true statement about how life is a series of peaks and valleys is true.  What gets you through is perseverance; it's picking yourself up every day with the belief that it indeed gets better.  Things may suck now but it'll get better in the future.  And, conversely, enjoy and appreciate your success now 'cuz a while from now things won't be so good so you need that memory of good times to get you through the bad. Watching him go through this has stuck with me every since.  And that's why I'm still in this. 

I've said before I'm focusing on the long term, the long game.  And the one thing I focused on this year to get going on the long game was the huge element that was preventing me from attacking my acting career with all the vigor it needed: debt.  See, Tom and I made a movie a while ago and after the distribution company went belly up, we accumulated a good deal of debt.  And after a lot of hard work, a lot of smarts and a bit of luck, we finally got our debt situation under control.  It's in a managable state, something that allows some breathing room.  As most Americans know now, debt is a scary thing.  It eats away at you, wearing away at your confidence.  So, by putting aside some of stuff I wanted to do and focus on the story producing and squarely attacking our debt, Tom and I can now really go after what we want.  We still have more debt to eliminate, and that'll still be a very high priority.  But now I can go back to acting classes again with vigor without worry.  Debt was stealing my focus and now I have it back. 

So, while I was starting to slip into the "Another year gone and you haven't done anything" crap my psyche tries to whip up for me every year around this time, I am putting a stop to that.  I have some nice headshots now (which I'll put up on here very soon), a good story producing career going, a great family, my health, my kickass awesome husband, some marvelous friends, and some good stuff.  2009 was about survival, 2010 was about recovery.  I'm thinking 2011 will be more of a rebirth.  What do you think?

Coasting To The End

Apolgies for being away from the blog for so long.  After five months of working on Jerseylicious, I did a two week gig story producing an episode of Cupcake Wars.  Doing the latter was a small dream of mine to work on a Food Network show, so that's one check on the Bucket List. So, I've been busy with work stuff.  Oh, and halfway through Cupcake Wars I got the nastiest stomach flu of my life.  I was in the middle of taking a First Aid class when I had to bow out and started a 48 hour period of vomiting.  Fun, huh?  And now with both work and sickness out of the way, I now have some free time.  Of sorts. 

Tom and I are staying in town for the holidays and I'm spending my days finalizing Christmas things, playing Santa for my agents, and listening to the rain.  Oh, and seeing movies, but more on that later.