Kidnapped: CANCELLED

When I arrived Friday night at 7pm at the Polish Cultural Center I was immediately sent home. No splosions, no Alease in sight. So I ran to watch musical improv which is like normal improv only with a band and applause for interesting couplets. And had I said hello to a friend there 45 seconds sooner I could have gotten in for free. Not a great beginning to the birthday weekend.

TV-Head

Thursday audition for a commericial where I'm a guy at a bar who oggles a woman whose head is a tv tuned to a sports network. If I get this... I mean, someone was going to do this anyway, right? And really it's a glimpse of the future which we are probably powerless to stop if the Japanese have anything to say about it. One of my 'barmates' told me when it was all over that I did a good job. Maybe it's a backwards compliment like 'Break a leg!' Or maybe he now owns my soul. If I get it, we'll know how much THAT'S worth.

'Kidnapped II: The Fantastic Return"

Friday night at 7pm I return to the set, but my FBI Clerking license has been revoked. I like to clerk by my own rules, and I jostle too many cubicle walls . That's what the report says anyway. Now I'm a civilian, an average schmoe, destined to react to an explosion with the rest of the schmoes dressed for March in July while I wait in line for noodles and ketchup. But don't cue that Sex Pistols song cause it was all worth. That is, it will be if Alease is there, reactin' to 'splosions alongside me. It'll be like that scene in 'Brokeback' where the fireworks are going off, but me and her ain't even lookin' cause we just rearranged the teeth-tiles inside of some biker dude's bathroom-mouth. And Delroy will smirk, shake his head, and mutter, "My man..."

Fat Backwards

Monday audition in casting director's apartment for a blue collar role but there was no plumbing to unclog. All I had to do was get my picture taken and there is no callback as the shoot is Thursday and my participation in it will be known to me within 24 hours. Kay, the casting director/producer/apartment dweller said that if I didn't get it, it was because I wasn't fat enough. I ate that night and the next at Chipotle so if fat can be sent back in time and realized from my neck up, then the role is good as mine. Unfortunately, the second Chipotle dinner I skipped the sour cream possibly sabotaging my chances. If fat cannot be launched reverse through the ether, and I'm cast anyway, then the director will find a nice surprise in my jowls come Thursday. I'm also growing stubble for this role I don't yet have. How's that for dedication? Hope for the future!

Hoboken is white

Friday night I visited the whitest place on Earth, Hoboken, NJ. My improv teammate Anthony Grippa had a fundraiser for his upcoming film 'Running Funny' at a bar there. While higher concentrations of white people admittedly exist elsewhere, the service people I encountered, perhaps unaware that they were already embarrassingly white, were rude, thus creating the need for me to characterize them as being all the whiter. But maybe their rudeness is understandable as they live and work in the whitest place on Earth, Hoboken, NJ.

Saturday I received my first check for acting which I immediately tucked away in a zero interest checking account. Thanks, Delroy, my brother; my man-dowry for Alease just got a little more pregnant. Hey, have you ever been to Hoboken? I know, right?

That night, I co-hosted the United Nations of Improv which featured four teams from around the city. It was a lot of fun. Improv is predominantly white, but not as white as the bartender in the back room of this bar I went to Friday night in Hoboken, New Jersey.

At this point, I'd like to give an electronic "shout out" to my homies.

Sunday an email came from Blue Mountain Online greeting cards reminding me that my birthday is a week to ten days away. When the day comes that I must send myself such a card, it will read: "Kill yourself today for symmetry."

Did you ever notice that when it snows in Harlem, everything looks a little whiter, but when it snows in Hoboken, NJ, the snow plow trucks accidently scoop people off the sidewalk creating huge housing vacancies during the month of February, and in March the government hands out something called 'Soylent White'?

Did you ever notice how black people are black, but white people are Hoboken, NJ?

I also worked Sunday on a web video for Eurorail with a bunch of other improvisers I know, about how corporate life sucks with knee pads and petroleum jelly. There was pizza for lunch, and one of the pizzas had cheese on it that was pretty white, but it wasn't as white as the cheese on a pizza in someplaces I could mention.

A new HTML tag came out today. To make text white, you can now use the code: [color=Hoboken, NJ]your text here[/color]

Manachronic

A large electronics company holds an audition for a husband-type.

A commercial for a new entertainment system? No, it's for a ventilator, stupid. People are so done with electronic audio/visual entertainment. It's all about watching air filter now.

"You and your wife whose improv skills will make you want to strangle her are watching the plasma screen the night before you toss it when SUDDENLY you get the urge to run to the bathroom. The vibrations of what you do offscreen imply the ripples she witnesses in her cup of tea ala the T-Rex intro in JP 1.
Think you can do that? Pretend you have to go to the bathroom?
Think you can fake something you've been doing since birth?
Want to take a moment to dredge up a memory and find your motivation?
Your bowels desperately need to be emptied and you don't want to do it on the sofa next to your wife... you're not a happily married pair of mountain gorillas so find another animal spirit... fine, imagine you're a kid in 'Toys R Us' if that helps...
okay, thanks for coming in."

This spot is called "Jurrassic Fart". Yes, it is.

'FBI Clerk Returns Home!'

Tuesday they came in their big white trailers.

I walked past them on the way to the Y, and past them on the way home with groceries when I met this man:



John Clifford, set/still photographer. He takes the photos that are seen in the show like of crime scenes, mug shots, etc. John was waiting to take a headshot of guess who? I thought about waiting in the 100 degree heat, but I had Red Delicious Apples and Weight Watchers Frozen Lasagna and moving on to think of.
Sorry, Delroy; I'll have to catch you next time. Hope you find what you're looking for without me... but if you can't, look for me at the far end of the bar at the 'Lonely Delroy Lindo Partner Tavern'.

Look, was he going to reimburse me the $2.89 for my Lasagna? I don't think so.

The Beat My Heart S'Kidnapped'

I walked home from an unabated streak of dreadful improv Monday night to find no Delroy, no Elouise. I examined the 'No Parking' signs along Franklin Street and now they read: "We start filming Tuesday morning, fool."

During one shot of 'FBI Clerk: The Series' last week, a young woman named Elise improv'd showing me important things on computer screens as Delroy and his exposition walked past. Then I would pat her on the back and pick up the phone at the next desk. It was electric. Elise has lived in Australia, and is originally from Connecticut. Our conversation grew so pleasant between takes that when she left to do stand-in work, I looked forward to seeing her again back in Holding(where background waits until needed; SAG has their tables and we have ours, and that's the way the Jets and the Sharks like it), but we were all dismissed before she returned.
"Five minutes," I thought, "That's how long I'll give my future wife."
But Elise(sp?) did not return within the time allotted. Now we only have a few seconds on film together forever this Fall on NBC.

p.s. It has occurred to me that Alease was SAG while I was Non, and any attempts at anything would have resulted in monster sour baby grapes.

Un'Kidnapped' My Heart

Where I live in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, there's a gritty industrial sector that television shows and films love to location in, so as I made my way home from performing painful improv early Sunday morning, it was no surprise to see 'No Parking' signs posted along Franklin Street for Monday and Tuesday. What did surprise me was the name of the production listed: 'Kidnapped'.
"That must be a misprint," I thought before checking six other signs.
Why hadn't Delroy told me? I must have mentioned where I lived out loud at least once. And why was the show still called 'Kidnapped' and not 'Delroy and Elouise Will Find Your Children'? He's going to be shooting less than a BLOCK from where I live, and I don't even warrant a phone call from one of his "people". Maybe he'll call Sunday. Really they don't start until Monday 7am so they might not call right up until then, and maybe they don't need me until Tuesday so they'll call last minute Monday, oh, you know how these tv people are. I should put my phone on 'silent' so my heart doesn't seize with every ring, but then what if they need me right away? Damn you, DL, damn you... oh, I'm sure it's a mistake. I'll walk by the set 7 times an hour just to make sure.

Badly Outdated 'Spider-Man 3' News

One of the villains in the next ‘Spider-man 3’ is reportedly going to be The Sandman who can turn his entire body into sand or make it as hard as concrete, if you get my drift. Might be trouble for M.J. Should pose quite a problem for our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. Let's hope for all of our sakes that he can rise to the challenge, and stick it to this Sandman.... you know, with his cock.

Law & Order

I watch Law and Order about once every two months and every time I do, it's about the murder of a latino kid who sold test answers to his classmates. This type of crime doesn't worry me too much as I'm no longer in school, but it does reinforce the fear that one day when I am rich, my son might become resentful of a minority who's smarter than he is, murder him, and then try to take his own life before he's had a chance to read Camus. On a subconscious level, this keeps me poor and single, but worry free.

This episode also has it all: class warfare through the lens of minority and celebrity, big pharma as scapegoat, and Kathleen Turner. Holy shit! As I write this, it also has Ali Farahnakian, founder of the Peoples Improv Theater(where I do improv) playing an expert witness. Wow, he has lost a lot of weight.

Triple Header

Former coworkers I never thought to see again witnessed me do improv last night. While they were waiting to enter the theater, or as I like to call it the "place of pain and light", I later heard they detected the odor of skunk.
"We're a couple of midwestern girls so we know what skunk smells like."
Not one to let my Southern-ness be outdone I said, "Oh yeah, well, I'm from the fucking SOUTH, and I'm pretty sure I've smelt skunk... and maybe just not known it."
Like losing one's virginity in the South, I imagine.

But you know what I'm sure didn't smell like skunk last night...?
My time(or most of it) in the popal, KER-WHAMMO-Y!

ReplyAll, Jimmy's No. 43, 815pm

The Calamari Mandate, PIT, 930pm

Team Dresch, PIT, Improdome, 11pm

And, YES, I know who's holding my virginity.

'FBI Clerk: The Series'

I played a background FBI Clerk today on the upcoming NBC series
'Kidnapped'. In between takes, Delroy Lindo noticed that my FBI desk
tag read 'Agent Elouise Ryan' and he patted me on the shoulder and
said "What were your parents thinking?" Ha, ha, I don't know, Delroy,
I do not know. The show's now to be called "Delroy & Elouise Will
Find Your Children".