A good day

Today was a good day. I got to go do some improv this morning and anytime you can start with that it's a good day. I feel like the classes are going really well so far, of course I'm only three deep at this point, but I think it's been a good investment so far and I have no regret. Here's the thing though, people keep missing the classes! Today some ding dong waltzed in after missing the first week and he absolutely stunk in the first place! We had another guy miss today, and last week some girl missed the second class! These classes are not cheap so why did you pay for them? Frigin starving actors; I can understand why they don't want to try going out for a normal job because no one would hire someone who's so flakey.

After the class I had decided I would be going to the open mic at the Improv which is right down the road from the Groundlings so I decided to spend my time at a coffee shop down the road. This place is a locally owned coffee shop called Fratelli's and it is awesome. They give you free refills of coffee and let me sit around for a couple hours job searching, they've even got wifi out on the patio! I had a little more luck job searching today, actually had some e-mail responds looking to organize interviews. I'm also getting the disappointing responds offering positions that would require me to drive up and down California as a salesman. I'm not sure who takes those jobs, but I'm not so desperate yet. Maybe in a month or two.

But here's the thing that kind of ruined my afternoon, the open mic was canceled! Of course there's no way I would have known that without showing up and seeing the flier on the door. I didn't necessarily mind missing the open mic, what ticked me off was that I fooled around until 4 pm and that meant that my favorite road in LA, Laural Canyon, was backed up all the way to Sunset. That doesn't mean a lot to most people, but trust me, it's a terrible sight. A drive that could take you 3 minutes in rush hour takes 25, and half of it is uphill. Miserable.

Anyway the great thing about this town is that there are always more open mics and tonight I tried one out that was in North Hollywood, which is in the Valley and about 5 minutes away. The place is the the Cafe Amsterdam or... the Amsterdam Cafe, I'm not sure what the order is. But the place is awesome. The comics there were all really supportive and there was even a musical act or two. I went on pretty late but, and I'm being completely humble, it was my best set since I've been out here. All of my jokes hit and I had other comics laughing, I only wish I had filmed it. Won't make that mistake again. There were even two girls there who were taking notes for some comedy class or something and I stepped out right before I was up to quickly go over my set. This was about 2 hours into the open mic mind you so we had all been there for a while, a lot of the previous acts having already left. These two girls come out and say, "We were waiting for you because we figured you would be funny, but we need to get going." I was like, "No! Finally a real audience who wants to see me and they're leaving!" I begged the girls to stay and sure enough they walk back in. I think I did well for their sake. I wish I had filmed it.

Tomorrow I've got a voice audition for a company that makes radio ads. Other than that it's another day of job searching. Hopefully things go well and I'd at least have the possibility of contract work. We'll see. Congrats to my friend Marissa back in NH for getting her job at a Massachusetts law firm, at least one of us will be working.

-Happy Trails!