The Analog Conspiracy

When I was home I found a green binder I had when I was at Emerson.  I thought I brought it with me to LA, and therefore, I thought I lost it.  I was flipping through it and found a script for an episode of "Malcolm in the Middle" I co-wrote in class.  It would have taken place during the fourth season when Francis was at the ranch with his new wife Piama.  I was actually pretty proud of it.

 

On Monday, April 30th, I shipped my computer to Texas.  I should have it in a week or two, but it's certainly been an inconvenience to say the least.

 

It was sort of characteristic of that week, I've definitely had better ones.

 

I shipped it after work.  They gave me my options for how I wanted it shipped.  There was one option that would guarantee it in three business days (which at this point meant Friday since I didn't start my transaction in time for it to leave with the evening pick up) and there was one that would get it there in three to five business days.  Once it was there it would be another five to ten business days before I got it back, but I gambled on the cheaper three-to-five day option hoping it would be there on Friday.

 

My work at this new job, that first week, consisted mostly of placing patient's charts back on shelves and putting new files papers into patient's charts.  It was simple enough work, but I was working in a room with a bunch of receptionists.  The room where I worked was a call center for the hospital and I was kind of annoyed at the personal conversations, snack runs, and general horsing around that went on there.

 

So, to avoid socializing with my new coworkers, I threw myself into my work full force.  The not-so-surprisingly ironic thing about this tactic was that throughout the week, my coworkers started to like me to the point where almost every day that week I got offers to stay on past my time as a temp.

 

On Tuesday, when I got to work, my pants broke.  I didn't bring a belt, so I was actually pretty worried.  Mine were the kind of pants fastened with the metal tab that you slide into the other metal slat.  So, I managed to retrieve one of the slats and reattach it.  I tried to limit my bathroom trips that day because for each time I went, I'd usually have to reattach the slat and be careful bending when filing things on shelves.

 

I had finished the Buster Keaton book.  The last couple of chapters involve his life after signing with MGM, a decision he would regret because he lost control of the filmmaking process.

 

He soon was reduced to a job as a consultant on their comedies, making industrial films, and eventually came back, this time on television, when his films were rediscovered in the 50s.  What I got a kick out of was the fact that he was disappointed that his friends like Chaplin and Lloyd didn't like television and didn't listen to rock 'n' roll.  He had no one with which to talk about the Beatles.

 

After that, I decided I needed another book to occupy me since I had no computer, I had a long bus ride, and I had an hour-long break for lunch at work.  I pulled out the Sarah Vowell book I bought in Boston: Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World.

 

This was her first book, save for Radio On, in which she writes a diary of what the radio plays at any given moment.  She followed Take the Cannoli with The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Assassination Vacation.  I'd place this book somewhere between those last two, better than The Partly Cloudy Patriot, not quite as good as Assassination Vacation.  This is due mostly to the focus in all three.

 

This book, that I blew through a few days ago, was a collection of essays, most of which were published elsewhere.  So, in format, it was not unlike The Partly Cloudy Patriot.  But somehow this book had more focus.  Since the essays were all published in different places, they didn't reference each other, but they were arranged artfully into thematically important ways.

 

Since it was a Sarah Vowell book, they usually constituted studies of American life, American history, her own childhood and adulthood, and the ways all of them intersect.

 

The longest one, and also the most memorable example of my above assessment, was "What I See When I Look at the Face on the $20 Bill," in which she travels with her sister along the Trail of Tears to gain insight into their heritage (they're both part Cherokee).

 

And so, Wednesday I blew through another book, itching for something else to read.

 

I went to class almost done with the book.  I hadn't done any improv for more than two weeks since my flight back was during my first class for this new session and I had computer problems to worry about on Saturday, when I could have made it up.  So I was a little rusty.  My biggest problem that night was that I was bailing on character choices I'd made.  I failed to commit.

 

There was a homework assignment from the week before, but I of course didn't know about it.  We were to observe someone in the real world and turn them into a character on stage.  People who weren't there the previous week were given the option not to do it, but I decided to go for it.

 

I made a composite of my new annoying coworkers and got some laughs with that.  But I even bailed with that one by actually having this character "quit" his job.

 

Ironically, bailing was not the problem of my half of the class when we did a Harold at the end of class.  Our problem was quite the opposite: we failed to edit ourselves; we didn't cut scenes soon enough.

 

I saw some familiar faces from both Levels 1 and 2 so I was looking forward to this class.  Also I liked this teacher.  He was very clearly passionate about improv and had and encouraging enthusiasm about him that was improv-geeky in a different way than my previous teacher.  In fact, he reminded me very much of a roommate I had not long after graduating from Emerson. 

 

This roommate had started a comedy troupe just a month before I graduated and I was quite a fan of it to the point of nearly regretting leaving at the time.  That troupe shared most of my philosophies on comedy.  But its founder had nearly identical mannerisms and speech patterns as this teacher I now had.  This teacher looked almost exactly like him except that my former roommate was much shorter and had dark hair.

 

The next few days would be busy ones for IO West as Charna Halpern would visit for the second time since I started my internship.  I wouldn't see her, but it seemed abuzz as I was given instructions for the end of my shift at the internship.

 

Something else that was going on there was a four-week course in commercial auditions, so I'd be setting up for that by putting a folding table in the center of the room with a TV on top, plugged in and ready to go.

 

That night I also found out there would be no eleven o'clock shows all month since no one booked them.  Good news for me since it would mean slightly shorter days.  I could get to sleep earlier on a Friday night.

 

In fact on this particular night I stopped off for a snack at Jack in the Box.  I saw some kids dressed like Spider-Man since Spiderman 3 had come out that night.  I got some mozzarella sticks and some chicken nuggets and still managed to catch the bus.

 

The next day I didn't write the blog but did still manage to get to the library in time to return some videos.

 

Sunday I did my laundry and flipped through my green binder and found a checklist from a manager I met when I was flown out to LA by NBC on things an actor in LA should have.  "Goals to follow for the most part," I thought.  I also found some of my other comedy writing assignments, most of which are embarrassing to look at now.

 

I did laundry and prepared for another week of work.

 

The offers continued to grow for a more permanent job there and I began to consider it since health insurance would start with day one.

 

This week, the responsibilities were different.  I would be taking all the files of a particular doctor and transfer them to new charts in folders with labels for each patient.  It was the type of work I enjoy most in a meaningless day job.  It was solitary, mindless work that I could leave there each day.

 

One of the things that annoyed me about this job was my inability to check my email on my break, I didn't have my own desk, but I managed to get permission to use one of the call center computers for most of last week.  I checked my email and found that the computer company got my laptop on Friday, my gamble paid off.

 

On Monday and Thursday I attempted to get to the library before it closed so that I could at least check my email and perhaps work on this issue of the blog.  But on Tuesday it took longer than usual.

 

The plan was to deposit my paycheck and take a couple of buses to the library.  I took the Rapid to La Brea and Wilshire, but still got there after six.  The library would be open only until eight.  I decided to walk down La Brea to Olympic to catch the next bus to the library.  On the way I saw a bar called "The Little Bar."  I hadn't noticed it before.  It was a Boston bar so I poked my head in.  I was hungry, not thirsty, so I continued on.  "A slice of pizza, that's what I want!"

 

And like magic a pizza place appeared.  I walked in and was not expecting much.  I have yet to find a decent slice in LA.  I was more or less right to be underwhelmed.  The slices were sitting in a glass case next to the register and when I picked one out they didn't even put it in the oven to heat it up.  But for what it was, it wasn't bad.

 

I realized I needed something to wash my snack down, so I went to the donut shop across from the bus stop to get a can of soda.  At this point I gave up on the library.

 

When I got to my building, I saw my neighbor from upstairs.  A guy who I occasionally talked to, he graduated from Emerson a few years before I even started there.  I chatted with him and his friend about art, Boston, and where to find a decent East Coast style slice of pizza before went back downstairs for another smoke and I went to my apartment.

 

Wednesday's class was different from the previous week.  Apparently, the first two weeks were focused on making character choices and this week, and the next, would be focused on environmental choices.  In short, we'd be working on a little something called "space work."

 

It was a term a heard thrown around in the fall at stand-up shows as a way to mock comics who did much more pantomime than joke telling.  In fact, pantomime was how I knew this thing we'd be doing.  It turns out I'm crap at it.

 

The end of class ended with two Harolds, just like last week, but we were to incorporate space work and we were to skip the opening and the games in between beats.

 

My scene was a three person scene in which I played a brother and son to two female performers.  My "sister" and I were sitting on the ground and I was playing solitaire.  I played kiss-up to the mother character and the sister played the jealous sister who made fun of me being Asian.

 

There was a rule in our exercises earlier in class in which we were not to reference the activities were doing in the scene.  In the second beat however I broke that rule to smithereens by stomping on stage yelling, "Look at me!  I'm and white person and I'm making a turkey sandwich!"  It was so out of the character of the people that knew me that it made the class laugh.  It was seen as a bold character choice and my "sister" picked up on the game in the scene and started mocking me with activities she'd announce.  We didn't get to a third beat with our scene, but that was okay because I killed with that last strong initiation.

 

I wasn't the only one breaking rules that night.  Earlier, the teacher warned us against making sound effects to enhance actions we ourselves were doing.  After class, most of us stuck around to watch him perform in his show and saw him making the sound effect of a whoopee cushion and a hand buzzer.  But in the context of the scenes he was performing, it worked because we wouldn't have known what he was up to otherwise.

 

Last night, I went to my internship.  The night was hosted by EJ Scott, who's running a benefit for an eye disease on Monday.  He'll be leaving and biking across country for the same cause.  I plan to check it out, so check the next blog for more details.

 

This night though he would be in and out while I helped run it a little more than usual.  This included calling the lights on a show that he was in at the end of the night.  It was a half-hour scene that took place in a bar with Derek Miller and Gareth Reynolds (the latter of whom was a local hero at Emerson when I was there).

 

Next week, I should be reporting from my own laptop again.

 

TTYL

 

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

 

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