So I got this audition for a “Choice Hotels” ad. You know, the conglomerate behind your local Comfort Inn, Quality Inn, Sleep Inn (damn, I wish I’d been able to do that this morning). Their principal claim to shame is this series of ads featuring a glib bastardization of the Johnny Cash song, “I’ve Been Everywhere,” in which stereotypically-portrayed families of 4 (always 4, always a younger sister and older brother, dad is always fat) insert verses about their middle-American travels between the Man in Black’s refrain.

Commentary aside, I figured this was another one of those, and I figured I was a shoo-in, as my musical skills are well-documented.

Turns out, however, that even that low level of Quality (ha!) is not lame enough for the folks at Choice Hotels, and so they are embarking upon a bold new ad campaign: the “Comfort Zone” series. The premise is this: different folks find themselves in awkward situations, expressed via a “hilarious” vignette, and then the image freezes as text reading “Get back to your Comfort Zone” appears. Then, presumably, the viewer is advised of some amazing promotional rate package, available for a limited time only.

I read for two of these. The first one, entitled “Wave,” was relatively benign. In it, a young woman sees a young man (played by me) eagerly waving to her…or so she thinks. Whoops! Turns out he’s actually waving to someone directly behind her. How embarrassing! Looks like someone needs to get back to her “Comfort Zone!” (A quick aside: this is among the aspects of the acting business that I find the most idiotic. I only got this audition because I am fortunate enough to be freelancing with a “talent agency.” Ten years of ongoing acting training in emotional resonance and the vicissitudes of the human experience to convince some dudes behind a desk at an agency that I have enough talent to convincingly wave at someone for the purposes of encouraging people to stay at a modestly-priced motel.) So they had me wave a couple times, without comment (thankfully–I’ll have to tell you about the Best Buy ad in which they had me try about 14 different grimaces in another post).

Next, however, we moved on to the ad entitled “Flicker.” Here, only very slightly paraphrased, is the “script” for this ad:

We see a 20-something guy seated behind the wheel of his car, waiting at a stoplight. We see that his arm is hanging out the window. Suddenly, he flicks his wrist. After a moment, he looks over to see the woman in the car next to him glaring at him. He smiles apologetically. Text appears, “Get back to your Comfort Zone.”

So, if it’s clear to YOU what’s going on in this scene, I’ll punch you in the face.

What?!? He “flicks his wrist?” Okay, fine, I figure. Time to access the Acting Skills. Let’s imagine a set of Given Circumstances in which this behavior might logically occur. The obvious choice (as usual) is boogers. So, when I do the scene, I pretend to be nonchalantly flicking a booger out the window, then look over to discover it on the window of the fictional woman’s car, and smile apologetically.

“Stop!” shouts the casting director. “Okay…Sam? Did I SAY you were flicking a booger?”

“Um, no, I guess not,” I replied.

“Okay, so then, why are you doing that? I mean, for Christ’s sake, you’re just flicking your wrist, okay? You just…you know, you have something on your hand, and you’re trying to get it off. Can you just do THAT for me, please?”

“Sure, okay.”

“And also, don’t apologize to her. You’re Mr. Cool, you’re slick, you’re trying to play it off.”

“Got it,” I said.

What I had failed to understand, of course, was that when the script said “smile apologetically,” what it meant was “do something else entirely, which we will not specify.”

I finished the scene and sat for a moment in the silence of the casting director’s response to my work. Of course, since this is the real world, no text appeared saying “Get back to your Comfort Zone,” and I was not whisked away to the cozy confines of a modestly-priced room with free HBO and complimentary “deluxe” breakfast, all set to the tune of a pepped-up Johnny Cash number as a voice chirped about promotional room rates. Rather, I gritted my teeth, grabbed my bag, and hopped on a train to Long Island City to rehearse for an Off-Off Broadway play about underground theatrical revolutionaries in Weimar Berlin.

I arrived at the audition for the Crocs commercial.  My agent had said on the phone, "All they want you to do is yell at the top of your lungs."

I had reason to be skeptical.  This is, after all, the same agency that told me I had an audition for a commercial starring Reggie Bush, which in fact turned out to be a commercial starring Kevin Garnett.   On another occasion, they sent me to what they described as an Office Depot ad, which was actually a Dunkin Donuts spot.  For the record, neither of these inaccuracies has a great deal to do with what was asked of me in the actual audition (in the first, to kiss a sneaker; in the second, to scoff at a co-worker growing a tree in his office cubicle).  However, since I was cast in neither commercial, both of which went on to air during last year's Super Bowl, I am searching for justifications for my overwhelming sense of uselessness.

Anyways, I showed up to the Crocs audition riddled with hope, despite the accuracy-optional track record of my agent.  If simply shouting was, in fact, all that was required of me, I was confident in my ability to break off a serious blood-curdler of a shout.

Upon arrival at the posh casting agency, I navigated my way past a series of beautiful people, esspresso cups, and ergonomic chairs towards the sign-in area, where they gave me a card to fill out and snapped a Polaroid shot of my face.  Among the many mystifying aspects of the acting biz is the fact that everyone is always freaking out about what their headshot looks like, and yet when you actually get to an audition, they snap a shot of you that makes you look like you ate a gallon of goat cheese for dinner and then slept in a blender. 

I was presented with the "script" for the audition, which, in this case, consisted of four photos, the proposed shots for the 15-second ad.  In the first, a man, hopefully to be played by me, holds a Croc sandal up to his face and screams at it, "AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!  I hate you!  I hate you!  I hate you!"  The last three shots were white backdrops with text about Crocs and how great they are, despite the fact that they seem to make a lot of people angry.  All, it seemed, was going according to plan.

After a half-hour of waiting around, they called me into the audition room, and here is what I saw: eight preppily-dressed casting types, looking endlessly bored, hunched around a table.  Two of them sat with their backs to me, laptops open, instant messages a-blazin'. 

This was my first clue that things were about to go horribly awry.  What possible need could there be for eight people to evaluate one squeal of disdain?  And if the instant messages being fired off by these two fellows were so important, shouldn't they do it somewhere besides the audition room, so they wouldn't be distracted by, oh, I don't know, the auditions?  Also, I'm not sure if they were at all concerned about this, but it doesn't exactly motivate the best performance from the actor to have two random dudes with their backs turned clickety-clacking away during the entire time said actor is attempting to prove his valor.

As I was processing this quandary, one of the eight raised his head and cocked it in my general direction. 

" 'Ch did you do?" he mumbled.

After a moment of staring at him, mouth agape, I realized he was referring to the fact that there were two commercials they were casting for today.  One of them called for a 25-ish male of average build.  The other called for a 70+ hippie-ish fellow.  Apparently he was having trouble figuring out which one I was reading for.

"The scream," I said, helpfully.

"Okay...'s what yer gonna do," he continued in his barely-comprehensible murmur.  I wondered if he was drunk, or perhaps in the midst of a stroke.  "You come out of your apartment, and the city is full of Crocs.  Your city.  These things are everywhere, and you can't stand it.  Something is rotten in Denmark.  So talk about that for, say, a minute.  Go."  He then lowered his head, as though it was all he could do to get the words out.

I wanted to ask if he realized how ludicrous it was to reference Hamlet in the context of a television commercial for rubber sandals.  I also wanted to inquire why the FUCK they had kept me outside for a half-hour prepping for an audition which entailed naught but a scream, only to then ask me for an improvised existential rumination on the topic of what is, to my knowledge, affordable, relatively comfortable footwear which, until this point, has had zero impact on my life.  I could not, obviously, ask either of these questions, so I launched into my monologue, rife with outrage at the indignity of Crocs.  I got about four words out before he stopped me.

"Please do not act.  I want reality.  Not acting.  I don't care if you can act.  Show me how you feel." 

I had a mind to do exactly that, but I restrained myself and managed to spit out a minute of utterly useless nonsense, then thanked them and left.  I bought a chicken parmesan sandwich with my last four dollars and marveled at the idiocy of it all.

Until such time as any evangelical readers of 2log are able to prove me wrong, it is my stated opinion that evangelicals beating the war drums against the Islamic world are crazy idiots. 

Why, you ask?  Because their justification for it is that Muslims are beating the war drum against us. 

News flash, GodTubers: both sides are wrong.  Faith-based war is wrong, no matter who is waging it.  Wake up and smell the yellowcake.

THIS KIND OF THING IS COMPLETELY COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE!  STOP!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I've just read on NoGodBlog that the Christians are concerned that the upcoming film The Golden Compass is advancing a "stealth atheist agenda."

 

I don't know what makes me more angry about this...the idea that no one bemoans a "stealth Christian agenda" when something like The Chronicles of Narnia or The Nativity Story hits theaters (maybe because Christians have never heard of a "stealth agenda."  They prefer the "machine gun to the temple agenda"), or the audacity of their perception of themselves as a persecuted minority.  Do they really think they're in danger of overthrow at the hands of a mega-budget Hollywood movie starring Nicole Kidman? Don't they realize her horrid acting is enough of a shield from any potential atheist proselytizing?   

Let's leave out, for the moment, the lopsided pro-Christian bias of the anchor in the Fox News clip above...are these people really incapable of comprehending that the argument they're making against the apparent "atheist agenda"--the evil atheists are using a book/movie as a vessel to infiltrate children's minds and get them interested in a more in-depth understanding of atheism on a larger scale!--is excactly what happens in every single Sunday School classroom?  Every goddamn (whoops!) week?  And are they unable to see the argument that acting incredibly defensive when you are in zero danger and are simply pissy about the fact that someone disagrees with you makes you a whiny, insecure bitch?

One of my links in this post goes to the blog of Gerry Charlotte Phelps.  On it, she's got a link to a book called White Guilt, by Shelby Steele.  Here's the description from Amazon:

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Speaking the language of moralism, individual freedom and responsibility, contrarian cultural critic Steele builds on ideas he earlier articulated in his National Book Critics Circle Award–winner The Content of Our Character (1990). Today's problem, Steele forcefully argues, is not black oppression, but white guilt, a loose term that encompasses both an attempt by whites to regain the moral authority they lost after the Civil Rights Movement, and black contempt toward "Uncle Tom" complicity with white hegemony, resulting in a shirking of personal accountability. Steele makes a passionate case against the "Faustian bargain" he perceives on the left: "we'll throw you a bone like affirmative action if you'll just let us reduce you to your race so we can take moral authority for 'helping' you." But progressive readers will object to his assertion that systemic racism is a thing of the past—and to his praise of the Bush administration's philosophy on poverty, education and race. Though Steele takes a hard, critical look at affirmative action, self-serving white liberals and self-victimizing black leaders, he stops short of offering real-world solutions. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evidently, Ms. Phelps and Mr. Steele are not only deluded enough to believe that Christianity's strangle hold on American "morality" is in danger, they are also convinced that white people need to be even less sensitive than they have been over the years to the possibility of other worldviews.

All of this, combined with Gerrit's post from earlier today, has given me half a mind to put a boot of rightousness up somebody's Bible-shooter.  It's self-righteous, delusional evangelicals, not blacks, who need to take Shelby Steele's advice: shut the fuck up and stop complaining. 

More notable sights and events from  the suburbs...

• a rickety old church with chipped white paint and fading green trim, with a sign identifying it as "Primitive Baptist Church."
• a gas station featuring "Dick and Rip's 24-Hour Tow Service."  I wonder if those fellers are concerned that their name drives potential customers away out of fear.
• I broke DJ Flav's snazzy white plastic fedora, which he received as a party favor at a Great Gatsby-themed wedding, and has been displaying on the back shelf of his car ever since as an (unnecessary) indicator of his classy ways.  I was trying to bedeck myself in fineries for our impending dinner at Il Giardino, Buck's County's finest purveyor of Italian delights.  Instead, I facilitated a small tragedy.
• Masten slammed my hand in Flav's car door (unintentionally, he claims), and now I have a throbbing bruise.  Fitting atonement for the destruction of Flav's chapeau.
• Oh, and Flav's piano recital was effing brilliant.  The next time you have the opportunity to listen to him coax Debussy's very thoughts from the heart of a baby grand piano in a lovely and cavernous hall of stained glass, do take it.  There was this one awesome part where a passing fire truck siren harmonized hauntingly with Flav's pianistic renderings...'twas a special moment indeed.

 

Listen, friends, it's time to cut the griping about big corporations sticking their names on ballparks.  "U.S. Cellular Field" sounds as tin to my ear as the next fellow, but let's take a closer look at this before we go off all stupid-like.

Wrigley Field, an ancient and beautiful park, takes its name from the CEO of the company that owned the majority share in the company in 1918: William Wrigley, Jr., the chewing gum baron.  Such is the tradition with most of the parks from this "golden age" of stadium names: Comiskey Park, Shibe Park, Griffith Stadium, etc.  These sacred houses were just as much of a blight as Network Associates Coliseum, Tropicana Field, Safeco Field, Qualcomm Field, and 3Com Park supposedly are today.  People and corporations buy controlling interests in baseball teams, and then demand their name be on the ballpark.  As corporations consolidate more and more influence in American culture, it's only natural and predictable that the names of stadiums would begin to reflect the trend. 

To regard baseball today with a curled lip of scorn, denouncing the proliferation of steroids and free agency, does a disservice to the incorruptible, fundamental beauty of the game, and reveals a selective understanding of its history.  Baseball has, from its inception, celebrated the imperfect nature of the American psyche.  It has brought bigots, drug addicts, gamblers, idiots, geniuses, goofballs, and scholars together on an idiosyncratically-shaped field to play a game with endless complexities, and its overall popularity has proved remarkably resilient in the face of endless challenges to its viability.  Through it all, good pitching still beats good hitting, the fans would always rather see a home run than a no-hitter, and Bud Light, a vile and disgusting beverage, still tastes delicious in a sweaty, twenty-ounce paper cup on a Thursday night in the bleachers.  So teams will continue to spend more and more ludicrous amounts of money on strange, dubiously-educated men with wicked curveballs, Budweiser will continue its curious domination of the beer market, and Americans will continue to flock to the stands for their most tried-and-true means of escapism--a game which, ironically, mirrors their own imperfections more than it shields them.

P.S. Those who would point to Yankee Stadium as an example of an exception to the stadium-naming trend forget that the Yankees are, always have been, and always will be a uniquely evil conglomerate of psychopathic vultures, and will be judged accordingly on the Eternal Scorecard, along with their fans.

This afternoon Gerrit and myself, despite the pressing importance of other tasks at both of our jobs, elected to have a bit of fun with Conservapedia, "the Trustworthy Encyclopedia."  If you are in need of any proof of exactly what is so "Trustworthy" about this venerable resource, I'd invite you to check out their informative and exhaustively-researched entry on homosexuality.

Conservapedia, like it's hippie cousin Wikipedia, is edited and monitored by its users.  Struck by the profound integrity of Conservapedia's scholarship after reading the article on homosexuality, Gerrit and myself thought we'd better get our 2cents into the conserva-conversation regarding topics on which 2log readers have come to regard as us the authority: Mitt Romney and GodTube.  

And so, having created a misleading login, we attacked, indicating on the Mitt Romney page that the possibility of the Mitt Romney Sex Bus is nigh, and discussing on the GodTube page (which Conservapedia itself admits is woefully incomplete) the numerous broadside attacks to which GodTube has fallen victim at the hands of such MSM rags as 2log. 

The following is Conservapedia's response to our efforts:

You can bet we're going to contact this nefarious "TK!"  Who is he to arbitrate who knows what about Mitt Romney, whom he apparently thinks we are?  Here is the text of the e-mail Gerrit has written to TK to protest our blockage:

"Hello,

I recently tried making an edit to the Mitt Romney page and found myself banned as a vandal.  I'm not a Vandal, I'm Italian!  (Ha ha... I joke!)

I hope you'll be able to unblock me, as I did not have any of the malice.  Should I have discussed on the discussion page first?  Please help me to understand your ways and customs, so that we may get along as friends.

I do not like the ban, and hope you can find a way to unban me at least a little bit.

Thank you!"

Check back tomorrow for an update on ConservaGate!

So here we sit, on a Wednesday in Friday's clothing.  It's bleak, weather-wise, and the Limes have brought out the Stella Artois.  Kel has got the mood-rock station on Sirius, and the Lamenters among us can almost squeeze the shadowy, chirpy-doubting parts of the mind into muted afterthoughts beneath the power chords and cold beer.

Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, Ao2 is booked for six live shows of our take on Dickens A Christmas Carol (working title, in my notes: Jacob Marley's Hippie Freakout!) at the Gene Frankel Theater in late December.  The script for Standard & Poor sits unfinished in my bag, as does its cousin, Baggage.  Waiting on another phone call, wishing on yet another power chord, hoping sitting on the bus, gazing out the window will bring it all home.  Have you ever heard the Jens Lekman cover of You Can Call Me Al?  It's really, really, good.

Our bus driver keeps doing this thing where every time we come up to a rest stop, he merges onto the exit ramp. Then, instead of pulling into the parking lot, he swerves left, blows past the gas pumps and back onto the highway.

I have no idea why he is doing this, but it's damned annoying for those of us in need of cheeseburgers.

Our bus driver keeps doing this thing where every time we come up to a rest stop, he merges onto the exit ramp. Then, instead of pulling into the parking lot, he swerves left, blows past the gas pumps and back onto the highway.

I have no idea why he is doing this, but it's damned annoying for those of us in need of cheeseburgers.