Monday, October 26, 2009

Rocktober

I find myself somewhat uninspired this month. It could be from any number of reasons, from simple exhaustion to the sneaking feeling that ABC is going to cancel Ugly Betty. By the way, a short public service announcement...should ABC cancel my Betty, I strongly recommend getting into a door frame. The fallout will be terrible, but an earthquake really only takes a few moments. Post-temper tantrum, I will need wine and pie ASAP. Take a memo, New York readers.

Anyway, as I examined my life over the last month and tried to find an angle that I wished to explore for a couple thousand words, I was at a loss. Which, of course, sent me into a spiral of panic. Could my life have really been that bone-crushingly dull over the last 3o days? Have my best days passed me by? Am I doomed to end up contemplating my existence, which will have become so drab that I might actually start to think that Dancing With the Stars is a respectable form of entertainment? Well, obviously, DWtS will forever be inferior to So You Think You Can Dance, so we don't have to worry about that happening.

However, I quickly realized that my life over the last 30 days had not been dull in the least...in fact, it's been jam-packed with so much running around that I'm still bewildered that nothing appears to have HAPPENED. And then I realized: it wasn't that nothing happened. It was that nothing ridiculous happened. It was as if, for one month, some higher power decided to take the "Kick Me" sign off my back, and not send me on any bad dates, demeaning auditions or straight bars.

Bad dates? Not a single one in sight. No good dates either, but after my last foray, I'll take status quo as a win. Demeaning auditions? Screw that, I auditioned for 30 Rock. Straight bars? I didn't even have time to go to gay ones! So the question becomes, what did I do?

Well, for one thing, I've been writing non-stop for OMGWTFTV.com. I'm writing recaps of So You Think You Can Dance and Brothers & Sisters. And it's kind of awesome. Seriously, if there could be some way for me to be getting paid for this kind of thing I could leave customer service and probably be a significantly more pleasant person to strangers. My mother has told me that I should volunteer my time in order to meet people; my response was that I didn't feel like volunteering to help people until a majority of people I met demonstrated enough intelligence to make them worth my time. However, volunteering my time to write snark-filled recaps of TV shows that I adore? Now, that's something I can get behind! So I watch these episodes two or three times each, cultivating each bitchy comment like a delicate flower, and generally try to make sure that I have more jokes in a sentence than punctuation marks. Afterwards, I feel like I've taken the edge off...they're like a little glass of red wine for my snark level.

I've also been shooting a web-series that, wonder of wonders, I'm actually proud of! Chaos Theory is wrapping this month, but I'm a series regular on it and I insist you all head over to PhoebeTV.com immediately and check it out. Because here's the thing...it's actually funny. All you actors out there know what I'm talking about. You go into countless auditions for "comedies" that are about as funny as a root canal. However, this web series...it's not only funny, it actually is funny in my favorite way: the ridiculous (see above stated adoration for Ugly Betty). We all have annoying bosses, bad dates and clueless friends. Well, if you've ever wanted to punch your boss, see someone on a worse date than you or simply ignore your clueless friend, go watch Chaos Theory.

However, besides being funny, Chaos Theory has one more wonderful thing going for it. The people involved are truly some of the best people I've worked with in this whole industry. And luckily, they came along at the perfect time. While I worked on the series, I was also dealing with the fact that the producers of Loaded decided to mount the Off-Broadway production without me. That's right...re-mount the show which I had been guaranteed first refusal on, and just toss me out of it like yesterday's trash. Bent me over the couch, no Vaseline. To say the least, I've been slightly salty about the whole experience, and I've spent many hours repeating my mantra of "Die in a fire." But the team over at Chaos Theory actually made me believe that there are good people around the world. So go over there and support them right now! And I promise to make it my personal goal to have an evening in November so ridiculous, I will definitely have something more entertaining to write about!

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