The Excitable Boy

So, as I said, I went to Groundworks on Friday night for, maybe, the last time in while.  They're switching to an hour earlier, and if you read last week's, you can guess I'm not particularly motivated to go into Hollywood, do that show, kill some time, and then go to IO West on a typical Friday night.

 

On Sunday, I didn't know that Hollywood had a parade.  The bus dropped everyone off at Vine and Santa Monica because Vine was still blocked of from Santa Monica on.  It wasn't that far a walk, so I went down Caheunga to Hollywood with an application to IO West's internship program tucked under my arm.  On the way, I stopped into the Karma Cafe to finish up my application and I saw something which resembled a spoken word open mic.  I wasn't sure if it was that or if it was just some friends sharing stories, with the storyteller standing on-stage.

 

I was intrigued and made a mental note.  "Hmmm...if IO West and The Acid-Reflux Hour cancel I may have another option if I really need to get on stage."

 

I walked over to IO West and the theater was dark.  So was the building.  No one would be buying cheap beer at IO West tonight.  I felt a little foolish.  Everyone else was probably a flight away from LA, like college students, they'd gone home to their families.  I couldn't do that this time.  To top it all off, the one job I did have was one in which I was stuck in a purgatory between employment and being laid off.

 

So, I briefly thought about going back to Karma Cafe before realizing that it would probably be a pain to get back anyway, what with the parade and all, so I started walking back.  At each stop I saw a few people waiting and decided to walk an extra stop anyway just in case the buses were still terminating at an earlier stop.

 

Eventually I got on a bus with several people who just wanted to get home on a Sunday night and then I watched some Star Trek (the new syndicated kind with the High Definition special effects.  I don't have an HDTV of course, but there's still a significant difference and it was the only version playing "The Menagerie" that night but I digress).

 

Well, it's not much of a digression.  I got a bit distracted this week.  I found a home page online that archived all of Ronald D. Moore's Q&A transcripts from late in the fifth season to the end of the seventh season of his tenure on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Now Ronald D. Moore is probably best known as Ron Moore, creator of the re-imagined Battlestar Gallactica).  It was fascinating material and you can find it by going to: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6952/ron1.txt.  Instead of the "1" you can type in any number between 1 and 129 except 98 (yeah, I tried them all and 98 doesn't work) and you'll get to read some great stuff on TV, Star Trek, and other things completely unrelated to either.

 

Throughout the week I found myself relating to it.  I thought about taking TV writing a little more seriously and started DVRing (yup, that's a verb now) some TV shows that look like they might be interesting so I can study them and see if I can whip up a spec script (a spec script is a script that you send to the producers of a TV show to demonstrate that you can write something good and play by that particular show's rules).

 

But I also felt like the guy answering questions, like someone who's opinion and thoughts actually mattered to someone.

 

First I got an email from someone that saw my stand-up video on MySpace.  It was a guy booking college gigs.  The person's profile revealed them to be my age, so I forwarded it to some comics I know to see what they thought.  After some thought, I took the gig.  I'll be hosting a special event at Cal State Fullerton on December 29th.  It's $20 and I'll probably have more info later.

 

Also a high school junior from New Jersey sent me an email.  I took a look at it and it was from a kid looking at Emerson as a possible school.  He'd major in film and minor in writing, just like me.  He found me because two years ago I wrote an article for Imagine Magazine, a New England film journal.

 

Here's a fun game kids:

Type "Emerson," "College," and "Film" into Google and my article will be less than halfway down the page (Not guaranteed to work in the far future).

 

Anyway, I wrote him back immediately and told him as much as I could about my experience at the school.  I basically endorsed it but mentioned its pros and cons too.  Later that night, he IMed me on Yahoo Instant Messenger and we chatted for some time.  He's in New Jersey, so he was up past his bedtime.  I remember those.

 

Oh, but I did perform once this week.  I went to the Upright Citizens Brigade monthly open mic hosted by Sean Conroy.  I was lucky enough to be one of the ten to go up for the second month in a row.  I decided to headline this sucker and in retrospect that might not have been the best place for me as I followed two professional, well more professional, comics.  The audience still laughed well enough, and clearly liked me, so I felt okay.

 

I didn't go to Synergy on Wednesday because it was too cold.  Wow, that sentence makes me look like a wimp, but it's true.  I might have been coming down with something.  If so the illness has been stealthy.

 

I feel pretty good, though.  I started the week sick for home, middled (also known as featuring to comics) the week with significant ego boosts, and yesterday MB came here from Massachusetts.  So that's pretty good.

 

Say "Hi" MB.

 

Hello.  I'm actually having quite a good time listening to the salsa music drifting in from outside.  It's actually warm enough to have the windows open here, which is lovely.  I hope to photograph some buildings later.

 

You did it wrong MB.  Didn't you see I was setting up a joke?  Oh well, I'll just say goodnight Gracie myself.  Oh you knew anyway?  That's okay.

 

Until next week...

 

Thank you, I'm Eric Cheung.  I'm on MySpace and Live Journal.

 

Upcoming gigs

December 29th:  Friday.  Cal State Fullerton.  (MC)  $20.