Finally - a job

I've been put to work as the editorial assistant and office coordinator for the UCLA Law Review.  It's a temporary assignment, replacing someone who is on maternity leave and expects to be back at work in October.  It's also full-time, which is less than ideal as far as my acting pursuits go, but it doesn't completely stifle them and hey it's only a few months.  I'm being paid an insultingly low wage, but it's just enough to squeak by on.  I do not understand the wages in this country.  Minimum wage is something like $7 an hour, which nobody can live on, unless they're working 80 hour weeks.  Which I suppose some people do.  Money gripes aside, the job itself is quite enjoyable; it's detail-oriented, which is one of my fortes, the material is interesting and the location is great.  UCLA is a big beautiful campus in Westwood  (a VERY nice part of LA) with great old buildings, lots of gardens and shady nooks in which to sit.  It's also a short drive from home, up and over the Hollywood Hills; I can get there in 30 minutes, which in LA is fantastic.  I've now completed two weeks of work, the first of which was spent training with Ann, the woman I'm filling in for.  Given the nature of publishing, and my particular role in the production process, sometimes there's a lot of work to do, sometimes very little.  I had two really quiet days this week, which was great as it afforded me the time to poke around and get familiar with the job and best of all, the time to write.  I'm basically working unsupervised at the moment - although I have fairly consistent contact by email with some of the editors throughout the day - with an office to myself and the ability to play music to my heart's content.  The university is quiet at the moment because it's the summer break, but the students come back next month so I can expect more human interaction then.

The other item worth noting is the availability of good coffee on campus; basically, there is none.  The staff kitchen has a coffee machine (Starbucks brand) that grinds beans per serving at the touch of a button, but the coffee is too watery for my taste.  I've been making do - it's insipid, but not offensive - but I knew I had to kit myself out with a little french press so I could make my own brew (with Supreme Bean's heavenly Nocturne blend).  The quest for what Bodum calls its 3-cup french press (but really, it's one mug's worth) proved more challenging than anticipated.  I've come to the conclusion that the average American taste in coffee is quantity over quality; weak coffee and lots of it.  I went to four places that sell tea and coffee accoutrements, and none of them stocked the baby Bodum.  Going online, I found that some Target stores stocked them, but none that were nearby, so I ended up ordering one from Amazon.com of all places!  It arrived on Thursday afternoon, so on Friday I took it in to work and was one blissed-out little proofreader.

Comedy Ha Ha

So, I've been doing this little sketch comedy show on Friday nights.  It's called 'Lo-Carb Comedy' and the material is all based around health and fitness and alternative lifestyles; a rich vein from which to draw comedy blood.  This has been an interesting and in some ways challenging experience.  Anyone who is familiar with Baggage Productions knows the quality of script, sharpness of performance and attention to detail of our shows.  Our budgets have always been tiny, but that matters less when you are working with great scripts and wonderful, talented, dedicated people.  We put a lot of work in, typically devoting several months to writing, development and rehearsal. 

Lo-Carb Comedy is a different beast because this is a bunch of people I haven't worked with before and we threw it together in two weeks.  Nothing is slick in two weeks, but I suppose there is a sort of knockabout energy to the show which is appealing.  Given the very short lead time, I dug up some old Baggage sketches that fitted thematically, and Will (who is a comedian and the driving force behind the show) contributed some stand-up.  Two other young women - JJ and Julian - plus JJ's hubby, John (that's a lot of J's) round out the cast.  JJ and Will wrote some other sketch material and John does an on-target Christopher Walken impersonation.  The best thing about the show is that it has got me writing again.  After hearing about the range of insane extreme diets that Julian has personally sampled (and continues to seek out), I wrote a sketch about the topic.  Since the show has been up on its feet, I've been working on another sketch; the juices are flowing. 

We've performed the last three Friday nights at the Next Stage Theatre, a pokey little place in a strip mall in the heart of seedy Hollywood.  It's a busy venue, with multiple shows each running one night a week.  Lo-Carb Comedy is on right after The Vampire Chronicles; we're sharing a dressing room with an assortment of nubile young things in bustiers (some are vampires, some are victims).  The low hum of muted chit-chat in the dressing room is punctuated by blood-curdling screams on-stage and dramatic music. 

Outside in the parking lot one encounters hipsters heading to The Woods - a bar which, typical of LA, looks utterly nondescript (even daggy, being in a strip mall) on the outside but is actually pretty cool and jam-packed on the inside (you could be anywhere from New York to Berlin) - or families stopping in at Mashti Malone's for some ice-cream, or a homeless man selling a rabbit (as a pet or a meal, your choice).

Special guest stars

I'm a bad, baaaad blogger.  Sorry folks, been a bit blue over the last week or so; the jobhunt is getting me down.  Suffice to say, I'm still looking and have started approaching cafes, retailers and supermarkets.  A glimmer of hope on the horizon today: one of the recruitment agencies I have signed with is submitting me for a 4 month full-time contract job in an editorial/administrative role for a company that publishes legal journals.  I can handle the idea of full-time on a short term basis.  Four months is pushing the boundaries a little, but I would be making a decent wage and I can bite the bullet for four months.  So fingers crossed.  Otherwise, keep your fingers crossed for a cafe job; I've approached both Aroma and M Street (my two fave coffee joints) and had a positive response from both, they're just not hiring at the moment...

In the meanwhilst (Dad, please don't question the legitimacy of that word, it's an obscure Monty Python reference), I've been roped into doing a sketch comedy show - two performances only, unless our adoring public demands more more more.  It's been pulled together mighty fast  - over the course of little more than a week - so I dived into the Baggage archives for a few tried and tested beauties (hello Diandra, you sweet, daffy thing).  I've also written some new stuff.  It will be a bit of a scrambly, scratchy show; I'm looking on it as an opportunity to try out some sketch comedy in LA, an experiment, and hey, what else am I doing right now?

Last week we had a special guest teacher at Sport of Acting.  Tom McLoughlin is a film director with a list of credits as long as your arm.  Providing your arm is really REALLY long.  Oh, just IMDb him, go on click on his name, I've linked it.  He and Vinny go way back.  Anyway, so everyone in class got to work with him as if on set, on a moment from a scene of our choice (something we've been working on in class).  Tom has an acting background so he really understands the actor's process and knows how to get what he needs from us.  He worked quickly in figuring out a suitable set-up/camera angle and blocking for each scene, and then gave each of us quite a lot of time - maybe three takes - to capture the 'moment'.  He also had a few choice anecdotes about some of the megastars he has worked with, such as Kirk Douglas and Marlon Brando.  Seriously privileged to have worked - however briefly - with him.  On a side note, he also happened to be one of the people who came to see Beaten Hearts.

Another highlight of the last couple weeks was seeing Billy the Mime.  Billy (not his real name - it's actually Steven Banks, and among other things he is the head writer on Spongebob Squarepants) is another old mate of Vinny's and he is a superb, inspired and ruthlessly cynical artist.  Amongst his ambitious, brilliant, hilarious and frequently dark set were such gems as: "The African American Experience" in which he mimed key phases and historical moments from slavery to Rosa Parks to Rodney King to Mike Tyson to Obama; "David Carradine's Last Night"; "Dinner with Jeffrey Dahmer"; and "The Priest and the Altar Boy."  If you ever get the chance to see him play, GO!  He trained with Marcel Marceau, he performs in traditional garb (white face paint etc) but there is nothing old-fashioned or daggy about this mime.  As Vinny puts it, yeah you might see him mime going downstairs - but he's going down there to kill someone.