August so far

Monday, 7p.m.-10 p.m. There was a casting call for Cosmic Trip 2. I don't understand much about the project, but it was held at the South Street Seaport. I met a friend there, the British guy I met in Times Square during the casting for the MTV/Nivea project. He took the subway down after work. The call was being held at Pier 17 on the top level at a pub called MacMenamin's. We got there early and sat at the bar. One of my most favorite parts about my pursuits are the interesting characters. The eclectic group of individuals that poured in was truly amazing. A few came in pairs, but most showed up alone and sat in a mass of chairs, not ordering anything. A notebook was sent around in a disorganized effort to have everyone's name recorded. Jac, a skinny Jamaican, came around and briefly interviewed everyone. The questions caught me off guard-- "what are your hobbies? Are you artistic?" as well as some questions about my on-air experience. He ran off some information really quickly about how they'll be calling people back within the next few days and in about 30 minutes some of the stars of the film will be showing up, but I didn't have to wait around for that... I was confused. I walked Adam out, posed for a pic or two on the balcony overlooking the water. Adam and I stood outside looking in the window of the pub watching the people. The guy tapping an unlit cigarette on the table, a girl powdering her nose with a compact mirror... we commented how funny it was that not one of them glanced out the window while we were watching them. After sending Adam off I went back inside, where Jac dismissed me.

Those characters were just a prelude to the debauchery I would experience the next day.

Tuesday, 1 p.m.-4 p.m. The Sex and the City 2 OPEN CALL on West 18th Street. Never seen anything like it before in my life. The line twisted around 3 corners--therefore humans filled 3 and a half blocks outside the building. That doesn't include the mob the overflowed from inside the Metropolitian Pavilion. My girlfriend called me while I was on the train to tell me about it. "Sex and the City open call!" she declared, thinking she was informing me. "I'm on my way!!!" I responded... When we arrived in Penn Station, a muscular gay black guy approached me and said, "are you going to the sex and the city thing?" he had overheard me on the phone... so off we went. As we walked through Penn, I spotted a talllll SKINNY blonde and I whispered to my new friend, "let's just follow her" I was half joking.. she made a few turns I didn't understand, but we ended up on the 1 Downtown and she was there... she got off at 18th Street... and we did end up following her to number 135--the Pavilion. Then we kept walking...and walking...and walking to find the end of the line. There were plenty of employees keeping the area well patroled.

We got on the end of the line and immediately began natural conversations with the people around us. There was a group of girls in front of us, all in their mid20's--a Yugoslovian native who has lived here for most of her life, a redheaded American dancer from Ohio, and an Asian-American law student. There was a man behind me, he must have been in his early 70's, or I might be willing to say late 60's, who was very friendly. He LOOKED like an actor, you know? Silver hair, serious face, strong presence. He was a retired engineer who harbored aspirations of being a dancer when he was little. His parents scorned him, "you're not gonna be a queer." That was the end of that. So he opted for the safe, secure workforce...put in his time, raised his kids, put them through college, and retired. Now he's doing what he wants...and boy is he ever going for it! He's from Alexandria, Virginia! And came to NYC just for the casting call... that's dedication. I so hope he makes it. There were two more old men who came together--Mario and Dominique. Real New Yorkers, these two. Boisterous, funny, outgoing... they had met on a movie set and exchanged numbers. Partners in Crime these two... Dom had been a police officer for years...idk what Mario's story was, haha... Talking with all of these people made time fly. Finally we got into the building. The process inside was extremely disorderly. There was a table with thousands of bright yellow forms we were each to take. We were hurried further inside and filled out the forms on eachothers backs, borrowing each others pens, etc. We got cut so many times. My silver-haired friend left us in the dust, haha... that's okay. He knew what he needed to do and was not going to be distracted. It was confusing, all of a sudden new people were in front of us... especially after turning corners. Mysterious. An attractive, rich-looking middle-aged blonde woman complained about the disarray. A gay guy who was on the other side of the ropes facing her leaned over and quipped, "if you're trying out for the part of an angry New Yorker, you got it." My new friends and I watched wide-eyed. She ignored him...he repeated himself. She opened her arms into a shrug and retorted, "Are you talking to me???" He confirmed--"Yeah!" to which she inquired, "Why??? I don't know you..." Taken aback, he left it at that for a minute, then quietly concluded, "if there's a part for a bitch you got that too." She just summed it up by saying to her friend, "this guy is just insulting me and I don't know why..." That was entertaining. In my passive-aggressive confrontational way, I started saying to my friends (in her ear, because we were all packed close together,) "I don't understand how they got in front of us... I don't believe this. In Pittsburgh we would say, 'Oh I'm sorry, you were in front of me...' " In her classy, slightly uppity manner she turned and said, "Are you from Pittsburgh?" I nodded... "I'm from Fox Chapel" she informed... that made sense. Ridiculously wealthy area... but at any rate, we chatted about our home town. She had gone to Carnegie Melon and met her husband, a Pitt alum, in New York! Funny. She had gone to Grad School at Fordham in NY. She was actually quite nice to myself, Dom and Mario--by this time, the rest of our clan were well ahead of us!

After I had been in line for over an hour meeting new friends, my girlfriend arrived from Jersey. Dom helped her sneak into the line. oh shut up, you can't beat em so you might as well join em. Yeah it was wrong but that's the way of surviving in NY. .. .. .

The heat was unbearable. The massive room was separated by a divider. There was a small opening and a man in a suit directing people in groups of a couple dozen through... the entire mass of people had to be funneled through the small space. We kept trying to peak around the divider and anticipate what was on the other side. Well it was a large open space with hundreds of folding chairs that no one was using and 6 well-maintained lines. you could pick whatever line you wanted... there were 6 tables and people sitting there taking the yellow forms, writing something on them REALLY QUICKLY, and putting it on the pile. Then someone snapped our digital picture. That was ITTTT. No questions, no reading. The actual casting call took 9 seconds. This was the type of situation my parents warned me about when I was little, after waiting for 3 hours with hundreds and hundreds of other hopefuls, it all came down to being in front of important people for less than a minute.

We were ushed outside fast... another girl and a sat down on the steps to change our shoes back from fancy high-heals to comfy flip-flops. She asked me, "weren't you at the South Street Seaport casting last night??" haha.. funny. Dom and Mario hugged me and wished me luck, and my girlfriend and I went out for lunch...where we ran into the Ohio girl, Asian and Yugoslavic girl and the black gay guy having lunch!

When I got "home" I recieved an email to be an extra next Wed. Thurs. and Friday in Jersey for Just Wright, which after some research I learned is a motion picture starring Queen Latifah. And here's the best part-- I get paid 79.85 everyday!!!! It's all official--I have to confirm and after that I will be "booked." Which means under contract... How exciting!!!! Today I am all dressed as a "hipster." I have to be in Brooklyn (Park Slope) at a bar to be an extra for an indie film. No pay. What the hell is a hipster??? I hope what I have on works. Gotta go...