Whew. I’ve actually been pretty busy for a guy who doesn’t have much to do. . .

Inherit the Wind is deep into rehearsals now, and it’s coming along. It’s an interesting show, although it’s definitely a snapshot from the past. Looking forward to see how people react to it.

I’ve also gotten back into my shop again. I’ve been turning like a crazy man for the past week or so. I’ve made some more bottle stoppers and pens, but I’ve also turned out a couple of wine goblets. Well, stems. The goblet part is glass. I’ve got a couple of bowls in various stages of finishing, one out of myrtle and one out of lignum vitae. They’re fairly attractive, so I might put a few more together to get my work juried into one of the local galleries.

I also glued up some staves for a travel mug today. I’ve been wanting to try one for a while, but my table saw was in pieces in the corner. I finally got the gumption to put it back together. I may have to do some furniture soon, too . . .

Between all these things and doing Charity’s billing and starting to take over her scheduling, my days have been pretty crammed. I’ve never done so much for so little . . . Hopefully I’ll be able to get some of my practical pieces into a local wine store or two, so that I can bring some actual income in from my expensive hobby.

An an unrelated note, Naomi is off on an overnight field trip to coast. They’ll be hitting the aquarium and the marine science center, and generally having a grand old time. At first, we were all excited to have a kid-less evening, unless we realized the following: Charity doesn’t get done with work until 6:30 about 45 minutes away. I have rehearsal at 7:00, and I won’t be done until 9:00. She has to get up at the proverbial ‘butt-crack of dawn’ tomorrow morning, so we can’t even do a later evening hootenany. Yes, I said hootenany. I love all of these little bits and pieces conspiring against us to keep us from having an evening together. Oh, well. In the words of Frank Sinatra, “that’s life. . .”

Now I have to get ready for another audition. I did an audition for a silly little spot for Brookstone the other day which I have obviously NOT gotten by this point. Today is a SAG regional for the Oregon State Lottery. It calls for me to wear pajamas and lick chocolate sauce off of a paper plate.

Now, that’s art.

Whew. I was afraid I had completely fallen off the map. Here are a few updates on where my life is at right now . . .

For those who didn’t understand the jargon, I did not get the commercial. The situation seems to have likely been that they had several people that they would have like to have do the part. Sort of a first team and a second team, as it were. They put us all on hold so that we didn’t take any other work while they were waiting on confirmation. Unfortunately, it appears that I was second team and the first team confirmed. It was frustrating, especially since that one could have given us most of the money we want to save for a down-payment on a house. But, as they say in Hollywood, it was an honor just to be nominated . . .

On a fun note, we spent last weekend in Vegas with Charity’s sister and brother-in-law. We were celebrating both of their birthdays, which fall within a couple weeks of each other. It was a serious blast, and we’re hoping to turn it into an annual event. I may, or may not, post some pictures of the trip. I need to see what made it onto my camera first . . .

That’s all we’ll deal with for now. Expect some changes on the website soon, but keep checking in for more of the exciting drama that is my life!

I’m sitting in bed right now, writing this entry on my new iPhone.

I was going to write a much longer post, but it was getting so maudlin that I had to stop. If anyone is actually coming by here still to read this, rest assured that something interesting should be along soon.

Just got an email from my agent. They released me.

I was close, though . . .

Well, after what I viewed to be a truly AWFUL performance in my call back audition, and a whole slough of signals from the director and casting people that I was dismissed summarily, I got the part.

Yup. I have now been cast to perform in my first national commercial, paid at union scale. I’m not sure how much I can say, so I won’t give any details at the moment.

The funny thing is, I was so certain that I didn’t have it. See, when I got there on Thursday a couple of people were already in the room doing their thing. The wrapped up and started out. As they were heading out the door, the casting director called one of them back, saying that they needed another headshot, while the other guy walked out. He then cam back out of the room and sat down in the waiting area. I was chatting with him, and he said he was feeling pretty good because they asked him to stick around.

Shortly after, I and another guy were called back. The audition, and the commercial, was all improv. I felt WAY off my game, and kind of stumbled around some tepid dialogue with the other guy. The director gave us some direction, telling us it need to be funny and pop, and we tried it again, and again I felt as if I was following the direction as “can you be more awkward, and leave big silent gaps between lines while looking like a deer caught in the headlights?” He cut us short and thanked us. I picked up my things, thanked them both, and we headed out.

As we were heading out toward the exit, the casting director stuck his head out and said, “Eric, can you come back for a sec? We need another headshot from you . . .” Well, you can imagine the sinking feeling as I walked as steadily as I could toward the door. I turned around one last time at the doorway and looked back, a sickly grin on my face, and then out into the stifling heat. I felt like crap, and was certain that that was it. I went and picked my daughter up from my mom, who had been watching her, went to Costco and bought a bunch of stuff, and then went home and had a beer.

I texted my wife, explaining why I was pretty sure I didn’t get it. She said, “You’ve felt that way before, and you got it.” I emphasized why this was different, and I felt that my logic was pretty sound in the matter. We went to our weekly BBQ night with our friends, and explained the whole thing again, expressing my frustration, etc., etc. Of course, there was a lot of encouraging “you don’t know that”’s , which I promptly poo-pooed.

So, this morning while cleaning the house I noticed a flashing red light on my Blackberry, and an e-mail from my agent. I just assumed it was another audition, but when I opened it, she was asking for a confirmation of being on hold for Friday the 15th. Based on the previous few paragraphs, you may be able to sense the numb disbelief I felt. I believe I told my wife, “Oh my God. I got it.” Squeals and clapping, and then being told that I HAD to text everyone and let them know. I did, which was instantly followed by one phone call of “I told you so!”, and then a whole spate of similar texts.

So, the moral of this story? Don’t count your chicken’s before you’ve made your lemonade. Or something. Also, once again, the more I feel that I performed like an untrained baboon on quaaludes, the better the chance that I’ll actually book the job.

Oh, and not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty sure this now makes me 3 for 3 of my recent auditions. I’m going to get knifed in the park if I’m not careful.

That’s a big break in dates, between the previous post there, and this one.

I KNOW I said I was going to be building a new site, and I am. It’s been a busy summer, though, and now that we’re almost through I’m planning on taking a PHP/MySQL class this month, so I figured I’d just hold off on the whole kit and kaboodle until I could kit and kaboodle it in style. Or whatever.

Anyway . . . some updates.

Man, what a summer. I’ll start off with the bummer news first. My father passed away on May 31, 2008. As I had mentioned before, his health had been in a steady decline, and he was basically bed-ridden for the last few weeks. In a way it was a relief. I mean, it’s never easy to lose a parent, but we all hated seeing him in pain, and when he became basically incoherent everyone could see it was time. Regardless of your beliefs, he can only be better off . . .

Of course, his passing left me with the management of the business he had started. It’s great product, and our customers love it, but running a manufacturing/wholesale/retail business is not for me. I stuck at it for a while, but finally decided that I need to sell the design to someone who can realize it’s full potential. So . . . if you know someone who’d like to acquire a fully realized design for a viable wood working product with a patent pending, send them my way . . .

On the acting front, the summer started out rather dry. The last month has been pretty packed, however. I had, basically, one audition this summer. I booked it, too, which means I’m batting 1.000 for the season! It was a pharmaceutical company training video for doctors, which means it paid pretty well. It also meant that I had to perform the lines VERBATIM, word-for-word as they were written and approved by the legal department. So much for easy naturalism, huh?

I’ve also done a few shoots for the guys over at DigitalTrends.com, although that’s been a bit slow too. I actually worked as crew on a shoot up in Canada with them and Future Shop that involved leaving Portland at 3:00 pm, driving up to Vancouver, BC (with a quick stop in Seattle to pick up talent), getting some major hassle at the border that ended up in our talent NOT being able to work, getting to the place we were shooting at around midnight, shoot four web videos, loading back into the van and driving back to Oregon, getting home around 10:00 am. That was fun!

On a more exciting note, I had my first audition for a national commercial last week. Union gig (my one freebie), so serious pay involved. I’ve been called back, so I go in tomorrow (Thursday, Aug 7) for a second look. I really, REALLY want to land this one. It would validate everything I’ve done over the last few years, acting wise. It’s not like I don’t feel good about what I’ve accomplished in about 2 years of actually going after an acting career, but I’ve never brought in what anyone would call a living wage. I’ve done a lot of ’small pond’ work, and something like this would make me feel a lot better about my chances of surviving in the deep sea with the sharks (to extend a metaphor). Residuals would be pretty sweet, too . . . I’ll post more on it as I know more. Regardless, it will be soon, since it shoots in about a week.

Stage. Good stuff happening here. Sordid Lives went great. I took a bit of a break, but I am now starting a ramp up of stage activity. I will be performing in “Inherit the Wind” at Gallery Theater here in McMinnville in October, playing the small but insignificant part of Tom Davenport, Circuit District Attorney. It’s a lot of stage time, but a lot of sitting around while other people orate. Acting!

I’ve also been tapped to direct a show for the 09-10 season. I will be directing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which should be a blast. I have some interesting ideas in mind for that one, and I’m hoping that this blog might give me a good place to flesh some of them out. I’ll talk about that one a lot more later.

I’m not sure what else to talk about now, so I’ll wrap it up. I hope people will come on back and read my poor little blog again!

How many posts do I have with that title in them? Too many.

Okay, here’s the deal. Sordid Lives took a lot out of me. It was a great show, and we had a great run, but with everything that has been going on in my life, it slammed me hard. Hence, no posts for quite a while there. I have NOT given up my blogging. I will continue, and I plan to be more regular.

That said, there will probably be a continued hiatus for a little while. First, I’m looking at a major rework of my site. I’m not sure what it will entail, although Joomla seems to be part of the picture right now. Secondly, my father’s health has taken another downturn. He has had a pump installed to automate his pain meds, and they just increased his dosage. He’s pretty snowed most of the time now, and needs 24-hour care. I am spending quite a bit of time with him, and that will effect me for a while. Depending on what his care needs are, it may keep me away from this venue for periods of time.

Please don’t give up on me. If you’ve enjoyed reading my blog in the past, keep checking back. It should be returning to the tone it used to have. I even have a few ideas queued up for future installments. A few examples:

That’s just a few. Keep the faith. Or something.

Ah. The move is complete. We’re in and getting settled. A big thank you to everyone who helped us move! I still can’t believe we went from giving our notice to being completely moved in less than three weeks. Wow.

The move precipitated us getting rid of a lot of our furniture, including several book shelves and a recliner. That left a hole in our decorating scheme. Fortunately, Portland got an IKEA store about 8 months ago, so we made the trip up. We did a decent job of cleaning up the old place and helped our landlord get it rented before we were even completely out, so we got our full deposit back. This provided us with a reasonable budget for new furniture. Yay!

Here are a few looks at our new place:

In on top of the new furniture, we also had a couple of new additions to our family. I’d like you to meet Syda and Annabelle.

Syda, the smaller of the two, is the mother, and Annabelle is her daughter. Syda seems to be a mix of Chihuahua and perhaps Fox Terrier, while Syda is half Rat Terrier. They are starting to acclimate to our home, and have definitely fallen in love with me. Our daughter is ecstatic about the whole thing as well. We adopted them through Indigo Rescue, an animal rescue organization in the area.

In other news, Nunsense is done. They had a great run, and the show was well received. Apparently, though, they had a few people walk out every night. I guess some folks can’t have a sense of humor about religion. I can’t WAIT to see what the response to Sordid Lives is going to be.

Sordid Lives is now about 10 days from opening. Things are coming together, although there are still some rough spots. I’m now comfortable with stripping down to my skivvies on stage, though. I’ll post a bit more as I get closer, but here’s a photo to hold you over.

Moving. One week. Packing. Packing like crazy people.

Why?

Wow, it’s almost like I’m actually writing a blog here, with two posts is reasonable proximity to each other.

I went out on an audition yesterday, which was nice. I’m hoping I get it, because it pays well for just a single day of shooting. Since I haven’t been working in a paying job, I need to bring in money when I can . . .

The waiting are for the audition was fun, though. There are several people in Portland that I only see at auditions, but we get called out for the same stuff. It’s kind of fun to walk in the door and pretty much expect to say “Hi, Harold! Hi, Dave!” We seem to get called out on all the projects where they want the not-old-but-not-young-and-neither-fat-nor-skinny-nor-ugly-nor-super-hot type of character. The every man. Dad. Sigh. I guess that means I’m a grown up, now.

We rehearsed Sordid Lives in the meeting hall at a retirement community the other night. It was actually very odd, since our GW actually had a bra to put on during the scene. It’s very strange to see a man walking around in a bra in a fairly sedate retirement home. Apart from that, though, the rehearsal was painful. I can’t wait until next week when we can be back in our own space.

It’s my goal to be off book by next Wednesday. Of course, I haven’t really started trying to memorize yet, but I think I’ll be able to do it. In Deathtrap I had something like 375 lines, including monologues. I have significantly less than that here, so we should be okay.

In different matters, we have decided to go with the place in McMinnville. I’m heading out today to take measurements and photos so that we can get ready to go. The land lady is going to let me do some of the final finishing work on her repairs, so we get in with no move-in fees. Yay! I’l post pics of the new place in a little bit.

That’s all for now! I’ll be calling people to help move when the time gets closer . . . (For those of you who live far away, don’t think you’re safe)