The Live Remote

I'm coming to you live from the LA public library, but we'll get to that shortly.

 

Speaking of "shortly," this issue will cover less time than usual, maybe ever.  Due to the lateness of the last issue, This one will cover Monday-Friday instead of the usual Saturday-Friday.

 

And on Monday, I sort of recovered from a fantastic week with someone from home.  I regret nothing about that week, but now I had a renewed sense that I had to push forward.  Money was now an issue and I had to find something.  I had to re-investigate avenues that seemed irrelevant, or useless, in previous job searches.  It had been too long.

 

On the bright side, I got a phone call from Improv Olympic West in regards to my internship and things look to be going pretty well there.

 

What I'd previously thought would be a Thursday internship, with a first class still in some doubt, now was an internship in which I'd train the first few weeks on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and for a first time today (Saturday the 16th), and I'm starting a level one class on January 6th, a Saturday, for eight weeks.  This was good news.  Creatively, I was on my way.

 

Tuesday I went to BrewCo., but I got there a little late, so I did one of the last sets of the night and it was just...eh.  But, after the show, I got into an enthralling discussion about world politics and the environment and New York and New England; I was talking to two people from New York, one of which was from Long Island, near Connecticut.  I've noticed that there tends to be a lot of North Easterners in that show; Jan Davidson, a comic I knew in Boston, told me about a show going on at Karma Cafe that Thursday.  I was also one of three Asians in a brown blazer.  I like that place.

 

Wednesday I concentrated my job search on craigslist.org.  There, I replied to some ads for some office work, temp agencies, and also a place that was looking for extras.  I'd done some extra work in the past so, I thought I'd investigate.  I called them up and they said to register any day, at 12pm or 3pm, in person.

 

It was near Universal City, and when I got off the subway, I crossed the street and realized I was at the exact same place I was two years ago when waiting for a bus to go to a meeting.  It wasn't entirely unexpected, but either nothing had changed or what did change wasn't big because the very store fronts looked very familiar.

 

I went into the office and discovered that it was a calling service.  Basically it was a place that wasn't a casting company, but a place that casting companies called to look for extras.  They'd call you if there was any work.  There was a fee.  I was now hesitant to spend money on anything I didn't do some research on.  Besides, they seemed bizarrely high-pressure.

 

From there I went straight to Synergy Cafe, by way of about four different buses.  I didn't exactly find a direct route from where I was on metro.net.  So, I walked through Hollywood and Beverly Hills before catching a bus on my usual route to the place.

 

Tuesday was to be Sean Patton's last night hosting the show for a month as he was going home for holidays, so as it was Wednesday, he had someone fill in.  He happened to be there anyway and I saw Dan Rosenberg.  He mentioned my hair was combed in a way similar to early 70s George Takei.  Fair enough.

 

I did my set and hung around for a while.  During the show, the host promoted the "Name of Show" over at BrewCo. and the show who's title can't be said on television over at Westside Eclectic.  Both were to start a little after 10pm: in Westwood and Santa Monica respectively.

 

After the show I headed for the Culver City bus stop expecting to go home when a brand new comic came up to me, "Hi Eric, how's it going?" I replied that things were fine and he asked for a bit of advice on comedy.  We got to talking and he wanted to go to one of the shows that night, so he decided upon the show at Westside Eclectic and gave me a ride.  Although I missed his set, he seemed like an extremely intelligent comic that was in it for the right reasons.  He'd been up only five times, but I could see potential.

 

I was back in Santa Monica, where I'd been for much more recreational purposes no more than four days earlier, strolling on the Third Street Promenade.

 

Sean Patton was there as well and Matt Baetz hosted a kick ass show the line for which blurred with the previous show.  Basically, the host for the previous show brought Matt up and Matt did some time and then let people know that this was the second show.  Several people decided not to stay that long and left.  Let me tell you, audience management is a very tricky thing.  The show was still great for the people there.

 

The next day I attempted to restart my laptop computer, logged into Windows 2000, and a minute later got a Blue Screen of Death and the screen blacked out.  All I knew was that that screen mentioned something about my IP Address.

 

I went to the library to check my email and discovered that there was a worm spreading on MySpace and thought that that might be what was going on with my computer.  I called one of the senior IT guys at the Central Branch and he suggested the url http://housecall.trendmicro.com.  There they'd provide a free scan of my computer and (hopefully), fix it for little to no charge.  The trouble was I obviously couldn't access the Internet, nor the computer itself, with a normal boot.  Even in Safe Mode I could barely access anything.  My files were still there, but the computer was useless.  To cheer myself up I borrowed some DVDs of the Ronald D. Moore "Battlestar Gallactica."  I was going to educate myself on what I'd been missing this whole time.

 

That night I went into Hollywood with my laptop and stopped into the FedEx Kinko's where an employee taught me how to stitch using Adobe Photoshop.  I thought he might have some insight into my situation.

 

He said I was headed in the right direction.  In other words, there was nothing I could do really.

 

So, I trudged to Karma Cafe with my laptop in tow and set it up in anticipation of a show.  I forgot when it would be, 9pm, but knew that I'd know at least someone there and that I'd ask about performing there at a future date.

 

In walked Cesar Cervantes, a comic I knew from his year-or-so in Boston, but was really from El Paso, Texas.  He greeted me and my giant laptop, "I didn't even know that was real, I thought that was part of the furniture, like it was some kind of table or giant coaster."  Nope.  I'm just ridiculously poorer than I've ever been.  But it was good to see another familiar face so I caught up with him and met some people he brought with him.  Soon other comics came in and we all joked around and had much more fun than we expected to have during the show, but it was good too.  The comics were very good and smart and I talked to the host, Rich Kuras, after the show about appearing in the future.  Sean Conroy, who among many other things, hosts the monthly open mic at UCB, greeted me as he passed by, "Hi Eric.  How's it going?"

 

And then I took a ride home from Cesar.

 

When I got there, I saw some fellow tenants having a cigarette outside.  We chatted a bit about my computer and they invited me upstairs, where we talked about Emerson.  I went back downstairs and went to sleep late.

 

The next day I had an appointment with a temp agency at 1:30 and had to return some books at the library.  So I went to my branch, across from the high school on Olympic, and returned the books and played a round of email tag with MB.

 

When I finally got to the temp agency downtown I finished the online application I had started and then started my battery of tests.  In case you were wondering, I type at 47 words per minute.  That's 14 words better than the last time I tested myself only three months ago.  I also tested pretty well in plenty of other areas considering I have no traditional office experience.

 

Several hours later I finally left and headed for the Central Branch to check my email before going into Hollywood for the open mic at the Black Box Theater at IO West.

 

I really like downtown LA.  It reminds me of a city in the North East.  It's how cities are supposed to look.  That's where they put the tall buildings!  It looks especially good at Christmastime at night.

 

I went into the library and checked my email again and poked my head into the gift shop and looked at the sign that advertised docent guided tours!  That's one hell of a library.

 

From there, I walked to Pershing Square, a public cement park complete with an ice rink!  I embraced the Christmas city lights and I walked down to the subway platform heading west.

 

Ed Salazar was to host the open mic as Troy Conrad was elsewhere.  There was woman in her forties who looked drugged out and thin complaining that no one was there yet.  I saw another couple of comics I didn't usually see and I hung out with them just outside the door of the drug lady.

 

The show was canceled yet again.

 

So, I, with those other comics that had picked me up along the way, walked the grey, concrete path to another destination: Groundworks.  I had no intention of going up on stage, but wouldn't refuse stage-time if offered.  I was.  So, I went up did some really old material and did quite well for that room, bought a chocolate-chip cupcake (which might have been vegan), browsed at Amoeba Music, bought a milk to go with the cupcake, ate both, went home, and watch some more Battlestar Gallactica.

 

Commander Adama and his people were in way more trouble than I was.

 

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

 

Upcoming gigs

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

 

January 4th:  Thursday.  9pm.  Karma Coffee House.  "Organic Comedy."  Hosted by Rich Kuras.  FREE.