Sometimes I get addicted to strange things

Like this video. I think I've watched it 20 times.

Sometimes I embarass myself

Today I was on my way home from a voice lesson and I think I made half of New York think I'm a sexual predator. Let me explain:

I was riding the 1 train downtown and got off at 42nd street. While I was traveling I was reading Chelsea Handler's "Are you there Vodka? It's me Chelsea." If you've read anything by Ms Handler, you know that she can be terribly inappropriate and hysterical. A person like me who has a hard time controlling their laughter can really make a spectacle of themselves on a public train while reading her books. Here's a passage that is not necessarily going to split your sides, but is a blog friendly cutting about her brief stay in prison for using a fake ID:

"When I got to the booth, there were about fifteen women in line ahead of me waiting to speak with the two women behind the large glass partition. It struck me that this was exactly like the DMV, except we were all wearing the same jumpsuits. There was a large Mexican woman in front of me with a shaved head and tattoos covering both of her arms. She turned around to look at me and didn't drop her stare for thirty seconds. I had already learned through trial and error that the conventional "hello" or "word up" didn't work here, so to break the awkward silence I had to try something new. "I like your head." She said something in Spanish and spit on my feet. Then she looked at me again for an uncomfortably long time.I gave her a closed-mouth smile to let her know I was totally cool with her spitting on me, until she turned back around. She had two large knots above the roll of fat that connected her head to her shoulders, and her back was the size of a suitcase. This was the type of woman you'd want on your side if you were up against a crocodile."

So I got off the train already in tears from trying to swallow back my laughter and as I stepped on to the platform, a new public announcement came over the speaker that I'd never heard before. "A message from the New York Transit Authority: Sexual harassment in the subway is an offense. Just because a train is crowded doesn't mean an inappropriate touch won't go unnoticed." I can only assume that my general good mood combined with the book I'd been reading was what caused the loud gaffaw to leave my mouth. I looked around the platform seeking the eyes of other friendly New Yorkers having a good laugh about inappropriate subway touching, but was only met by cold disapproving stares. Clearly ever woman around me thought I was a subway molester just riding around at rush hour to get my kicks as we stand packed into the car like pickles. And perhaps they thought that my loud laugh was an evil cackle proclaiming my defiance to the system. "Mwah ha ha! An announcement can't stop me! For I am Subway Pervert Man and my hand will proudly graze another thigh!"

I blinked to make sure I wasn't on the Upper East Side then promptly turned red and quickly walked to another train.

Sometimes I wish....

Sometimes I wish the internet hadn't been invented. I don't want everyone to have access to my personal information, photos of me, blogs of my thoughts, lists of my friends. And my "status"? Who decided that people have to have a "status" now? Not only that, but what does having a clever "status" do for you? Does a clever "status" provide shelter? Does it help you find berries and kill squirrels for meat?

I know what you're thinking ("thats a real good story Grandpa") but maybe I'm just old fashioned. I love getting mail. Thats why I'm so happy that my best friend Seth gave me 12 envelopes addressed to him for Christmas. It was one of the best gifts ever.

Sometimes I'm glad people still use stop animation

I give up

I try and try to be a good blogger. But if it were a religion, I would be going to hell.

So...here's a life update since my last blog:

1. My "first show" in the city (which I don't consider my first job because I don't want to and because technically it was a reading.) Called White Widow at the Times Square Arts Center. Written by a man who was no less than 974 years old. I played an Italian Thug (because clearly my blond hair, blue eyes and pink cheeks scream Italian and my gentle, people pleasing Mormon upbringing says Thug.) Character name: Malacarne (Bad Meat). Biggest Success: Didn't drop out of the show and met some amazing people. Biggest Challenge: Its a toss up. Either having to believably cut out a man's tongue during the first scene or die with dignity when he stabs me to death just before the first act curtain. Experience Rating Meter: 4/10. Average Day: Still getting up at 6 a.m. to get in line for auditions and performing in the evening. Highlight: Either A) When the director told one of the men that he would be playing a wailing woman during a scene and we all unfortunately assumed it was a joke or B) all the crazy things that people did on stage every night to keep themselves entertained. For the sake of their careers, I won't name anything specific.

2. Sweeney Todd and My Fair lady at Sacramento Music Circus. Biggest Success: Made great friends. Biggest Challenge: Learning the score of Sweeney Todd in a week. Experience Rating Meter: 8/10. Average Day: During rehearsal, working my butt off. During performances, lounging by the pool and performing across the street from my hotel at night. Not a bad life. Highlight: Getting goosebumps every night during the opening of Sweeney Todd when Marc Jacoby came out of the oven and started singing.

2. Road Show at the Public. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. So much to take in that all I could do was sit back and enjoy it. First day I met Stephen Sondheim was at a benefit where I sang one of my songs from the show. It was the day before we started rehearsals. No pressure. Character name: Hollis. Biggest Success: Not getting overwhelmed. Biggest Challenge: Not getting overwhelmed. Experience Rating Meter: 9.5/10. Average Day: During rehearsal: Spend a day playing with one of the most creative directors of today with some of the most creative performers. During performance: Drink water like crazy all morning to make sure I'm hydrated, perform show at night, meet people, go home. Highlight: Seeing my name in Variety, getting good mentions and a good review in the Village Voice, being chosen Broadway.com Fresh Face for November, articles in the SLC Trib and Des news, performing for and meeting some of my heroes: Nathan Lane, Julie Andrews, Mandi Patinkin, Elaine Stritch, and the delightful Marian Seldes to name a few, singing with two great agencies, announcement that we're recording a cast album...

3. Trip to Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Jeff basically took January off and after a visit home for some family and snow boarding we were off to Central America for two and a half weeks of backpacking. We didn't make many plans, we just knew where we needed to get to for our flight home. Biggest Success: We didn't get arrested or stuck anywhere for too long. Biggest Challenge: Hiking through the mud and rain through primary jungle to the top of an inactive volcano to swim in its crater lake. Not being sad about the fact that my ipod and camera were stolen and we lost all photos of the trip. Experience Rating Meter: 9.9/10. Average Day: Wake up. Either lay on the beach, go hiking, rent a bike or bus to a new location. Highlight: Hiking one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world to watch it spew clouds of gas, building a huge sandcastle in Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean Coast, taking a tour of a chocolate farm, walking through the ruins of the cathedrals of Granada, Jeff getting in an argument with some dangerous monkeys while kayaking (they won by throwing poo).

So thats the run down. And now we're back, Jeff at work, me auditioning. I love my new agents and they have been getting me appointments for lots of work, hopefully one of them will pan out.

Employment of the week

This week I'm working for the NYU medtheatre program. Its a test for 4th year medical students to give them the experience of working with real patients. Only I'm not a real patient. I'm an actor who gets paid to pretend to be a patient. I spent two weeks developing my character, Paul. I haven't been sleeping very well lately, so I've come in to see if I can get a prescription for a sleeping aid. What you don't know, and neither do the doctor's unless they build enough rapport to make me feel comfortable enough to share, is that I came back from working in Iraq 4 months ago. A few weeks before I came home I was at work and a car bomb exploded outside my office. And it was such a lovely day too. I had gone to the market that morning and bought some figs because I like fig newtons and its the closest thing I could get in Iraq. But I digress. Two of my co-workers were killed in the explosion. Bonnie and Cliff. We weren't extremely close, but Bonnie and I did go on a date when I first got to Iraq. It was just a one time thing.

I wasn't in the military, so even though I saw something traumatic, I don't feel like I really deserve the attention of someone who was effected by war. But I actually have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Don't worry, most of the doctors I see get me in touch with a psychologist and give me a light sleeping aid to use for a few weeks before the therapist sets me up with a better drug to control my anxiety. I have lots of anxiety. If there is a loud noise outside the exam room, I jump. I bounce my knee a lot and wring my hands. Loud noises bother me.

My exam room is in the Pediatric wing of Bellevue Hospital. Its an old brick structure that was one of the first hospitals in the city and instead of tearing it down when it started to deteriorate, they built a new building to surround the first. So when you walk in the modern glass entrance, you're face to face with a antique looking large red brick building.

The whole wing is closed for testing. Apparently kids don't get sick on the weekends. My room has a scale, tongue depressors, stickers that say "Ouch! I got a shot" and lots of other medical equipment I don't understand. There are lots of bight colored signs about the food pyramid and healthy living. It makes Paul feel a little weird and kind of like a wimp for having to see a doctor.

I see, or rather am seen by, about 18 doctors a day. Same bouncy knee, same jump at the loud noise, same story 18 times. It gets exhausting, especially when the doctors aren't getting it. I just want to grab them by the lapels of their white lab coat and shake them. I have it pretty easy though. I don't have a physical exam like some of the other standardized patients (actors). They have to wear a hospital gown all day and have lights shown in their eyes and their knees pummeled to check reflexes. One girl has to undo her bra and lift up her boob so that the doctor can check her heart. One time a doctor undid her bra and lifted her boob for her without so much as a warning. This same patient also was diagnosed with AIDS once, while her real diagnosis is that she's pregnant. Not even HIV, full blown AIDS. Don't worry, not all of these students become doctors. Some do research.

It gets hard to remember which is which when I'm writing their review at the end of the exam. Did he ask me if I was feeling suicidal? Did he use open ended questions? Did he pressure me enough to find out that I'm self medicating with alcohol? One doctor decided that I was an alcoholic. He jumped on it pretty quickly too. First he asked if I drank to which I replied, as always, "for the past three weeks or so I've been having a beer or two at night to try to help me sleep." His next question was "Do you ever drink so much that you pass out and have seizures?" "Not that I'm aware," I said.

This Old House

Tonight my key got stuck in my front door when I came home. I called the horribly mean maintenance people three times in two hours to try to get it fixed and these are the responses I got (no joke).

1. The first woman asked for my name, phone number and address and said that she would call me back in 20 minutes after she tried to call the super of the building. She, of course, never called me back.

1.5 I called and someone hung up on me, so that doesn't count.

2. Another woman asked for my name, phone number and address and told me that it wasn't their problem and that anything to do with the front door was my problem, "so call a locksmith."

3. The third woman, and the most glorious, told me that their company no longer owned the building, that she didn't know who owned it now and that I would have to figure out who owned it and call them with the problem.

So I got a big bowl of ice cream.

Of course after about a half hour of struggling, the key slipped easily out in my hand while I was fiddling with it on while on the phone. Awesome.