2016 A Year in Review

Much has been said and made about 2016.  All the famous deaths, the election. It has not been a good year.  Many feel that 2017 can't get here soon enough. And who can blame then? I'm not going to go into it here. So many others have done that. Let's just move on and take on 2017 with a positive attitude.

2016 was not my best year but not my worst either.  I took a leave from my job in the first quarter of the year to try and figure things out...I went back to work after three months. Nothing changed. Or did it? My co-workers and manager claim that my attitude/behavior has not been the same since my return. I don't know what the F they're talking about. I've been a frigging peach. F-heads! LOL! (That was a joke for this of you who don't get me.)

I thought by taking off time from work, my acting career would get a boost. It has become increasingly difficult to balance the acting career with my day job. But not much activity took place during the leave. So back to work I went. And of course days before I went back, I booked a commercial that shot on my second day back to work! Ain't that always the way?

I spent the Spring rehearsing and performing as Twimble in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at Glendale Centre Theatre. The show received a few Scenie Awards and was nominated for some BroadwayWorldLA awards. While performing in How to Succeed, I was rehearsing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at Sierra Madre Playhouse which opened less than two weeks after How to Succeed closed. Spelling got unanimous raves reviews, received a few Scenes and was also nominated for a few BroadwayWorldLA awards. But no audiences. We actually cancelled two Saturday night performances!  In addition, it has received three Ovation award nominations. The awards are in two weeks and I'm very excited to attend. I've never been in a show that was nominated for Ovation Awards, despite having been in two dozen shows in Los Angeles over the last 13 years.

The week Spelling Bee closed, I was asked to jump in to rehearsals for Chico's Angels Five-0, Aloha Angels. Closing day of Spelling Bee was tech night for Chico's.  Chico's sold out before it even opened. And the audiences were loud and raucous. It was a hoot! The Angels have a built in following and it was amazing to perform for sold out houses every night.

I flew to Sydney and New Zealand for two weeks in September. I flew in a helicopter, hiked on a glacier, bathed in a hot spring, and pet a koala and a wallaby. A nice retreat from LA where the traffic seems to get worse and worse. I get so stressed out driving from work to audition to work to rehearsal.  The stress really gets to me trying to do it all. And I think as I get older its getting harder to do it all.

While in New Zealand, I got word that I had booked a commercial shooting in Denver the day after I returned to LA, on my birthday. But the flight to Denver was on the same day I flew into LA form New Zealand. Seriously. I flew into the International Terminal at 6:20 am and was scheduled to fly out of Terminal 1 at 7:35 am. I managed to get them to push me back to a later flight and left LA at 11:30am just five hours after arriving. I went home, unpacked, re-packed, and went back to LAX.

It all worked out and I got a cupcake and birthday song from the crew upon wrapping.

These last two months the commercial auditions have increased. Yay! No bookings though. But I did book two films that are shooting this coming month. I look forward to playing the understanding Dad of a teenage boy coming out and dealing with bullies in high school. A departure for me. Then I play a priest in a gay Mean Girls parody film.


Happy New Year! Here's to a better 2017! Here I am with my sisters celebrating New Years a few years ago.

Why Does Travel Turn People Into Animals?

So I took a short trip this weekend and flew. And the usual crop of frustrations with air travel came up. You know like the cramped space in the seats. The woman next to me was very sweet but she was not a small woman and she filled out the whole space. She was in the middle seat and I was on the window.  I was crammed in leaning against the window. I could not sit up straight because she occupied the the seat and the arm rests reading her book. Not her fault. But I was crammed.


One of my biggest pet peeves with air travel, well travel in general, is the idea that we seem to be treated like cattle. Think about it. We are here'd like cattle! We stand in lines. Long lines. Every step[ of the way. At the check-in counters, at the security checks, at the gate to get on the plane, Waiting to get off the plane.  We. Are. Cattle. And what gets me is that everyone has to be first in line or first off the plane. Like you don't have reserved seat that you are assigned to. Like its general admission or first come, first serve.

I also love the people who are up on their feet the second the plane is parked at the gate. No, not the ones that stand up. I know its been a long flight and they're cramped in their little seat. It's good to stand up and stretch your legs. Its the ones who don't have the patience to wait for the people in the rows in front of them to get out of their seats. Seriously. What is that about? Wait your turn. Be polite and let the people in the row in front of you out first.

I also love how people will start lining up to board before the boarding process starts. You have an assigned seat! And with United anyway, thats the airline I usually fly, you are assigned a seating are (1 - 5). I am always in group 2 because I am in their frequent flyer program. And since airlines started charging for luggage, people now like to get as much into their carry on luggage as they can so they can travel without checking luggage. I get it.

But it also ticks me off. Again, because I am a United Mileage Plus member, I get to check one bag for free so I never have too much to bring on the plane. But even for short trips where I only have a carryon, I do not over load or take advantage by bringing on too many pieces.  It bugs me when I see people with too many carry on items.

It has become very common for the gate agents to ask passengers to check any bags that might not fit in the overheads. Today's flight was one of those cases. The two men online right in front of me were asked to put their bags in the rack they use to measure the size. And its it doesn't fit, they must check their bag at the end of the ramp. She printed out luggage tags and put them on the bags.

The entitled bald, fat assed, middle-aged man in front of me, tore the tag off as soon as we went through the gate door and crumpled the tag up in his hand. When we got on the plane, he threw the crumpled ticket into the first open over head in the economy section.  Then when he got to his row, he threw his jacket and shoulder bag down in the middle of the aisle so he could put his carry on in the overhead, (I didn't realize it was his stuff in the aisle until he was done and went to his seat), so no one could pass. He proceeded to try and shove his overstuffed carry on luggage into the overhead. It wouldn't fit. In my mind I kept saying please please don't let it fit at all. Please let him have to turn around and leave his bag outside to be checked. It wouldn't fit so he went to another spot and SHOVED it in till it went.

I wanted so bad for that ass to get busted. Part of me wanted to tell the crew. But I figured what good would it do anyway. He'd probably yell at me and call an asshole for ratting him out. And I get the mentality of getting in line sooner. Get on early so you don't lose a spot in the overhead. But seriously, when the flight crew tells you it's too big and they tag it to be checked and then you just basically say F U, that's not right. I just kept thinking to myself hopefully karma can be a bitch. And if this is how he lives his life, them he's got some karma coming to him.