I wonder if this is because my tastes have changed or if I’m just getting old.

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle…

Now I look around and think, “What is god gonna let me find today?”

Admittedly, I thought about doing that back in ‘07 when I first started documenting my penny odyssey; but I could never figure out how I could possibly make enough money to make it worth my time.

Well, since I discovered www.etsy.com, a great website dedicated to selling hand-made items, I think I can make it worth my time.

I designed a business card which I can fashion into a matchbook of sorts with a genuine, NYC lucky penny tucked neatly inside, protected in a tiny zip-lock bag.

To make it even more original, I’m going to hand-write the cross streets where the penny was found – and to answer the question on every-one’s mind, no, I didn’t keep track of where I found each and every penny; but, I’m a creature of habit and there are only so many places I frequent…

So, my question to you:

I think it’s pretty!

Agent: “A Steady Rain was a limited run, it closed in December.”

Customer: “I’m a little behind aren’t I?”

Agent: “Nothing wrong with that, better a little behind than big ass.”

Yes, it seems I may finally have someone on my side;  someone looking out for my best interests; someone on the inside who’ll want me to succeed just as much I want me to succeed.

Emerge Talent, LLC,  started in Miami and Orlando as predominantly a modeling agency, but from looking at they people they called in from their picture and resume request three months ago, it looks, to me, they’re going to focusing on character people. Actors with a little life in their life.

From the Website:

With headquarters in Miami and Orlando, Florida, Emerge provides top talent of all dimensions to esteemed clients across the globe. A convenient one-stop agency, Emerge strives to surpass clients’ expectations by maintaining an unparalleled standard of excellence… In our industry, clients seek a professional, reliable, and innovative agency that easily accommodates an assortment of needs—from print modeling, to fashion, and runway, to promotional, to voiceover, to spokesmodel, to commercial, film, and television. Talent is on the horizon, and Emerge is committed to discovering and continually developing a diversity of the highest quality, most select talent.

My call time was 2:20 PM. I was asked to have two contrasting monologues and I was asked to get there ten minutes early. I usually do what I’m told – usually – and discovered, upon arrival, they were running over 40 minutes late. In fact, I wasn’t seen until 3:45 PM over an hour and a half late.

May I say something here?

• Monologues… no one asks for them anymore, I haven’t performed mine for an audition in over a year, the only people who still want them are agents – luckily, I’ve got two I carry around in the wallet of my mind for just such occasions…

May I say something else here? (Who the hell am I asking? Of course I can say something, it’s my blog, I can say anything!)

• The studio had free Internet access, it made the few hours I was there much more tolerable, I think all studios should offer that service, in fact, not to get on a long tangent here, but I think wireless should be free to everyone everywhere – government sponsored, just sayin’…

I get called in, After only 30 seconds of monologue, they stopped me and exclaimed “We must represent you!”

I said, “But I haven’t even acted yet!” She said, “That’s OK, your personality’s great and your headshot is perfect. Give me your second monologue.”

Thirty seconds later…

“Thank you. If you’d wait outside, we’ll call you back in and discuss paperwork and what we need from you…”

I again did what I was told and waited about 45 minutes, until the others and I were ushered back into the room.

“Here are some tax forms we need you fill out and, yes, we know it’s old school, but we’d also like you fill out these stats forms so we can have them on file  in case the Internet is down and we’ve got some emergency casting to do, you’d be surprised how often that happens. We’d also like ten copies of your picture and resume, your resume either printed on the bark or glued to the back. If you are gluing, please don’t make it look like a craft project, we only want the best out there representing us.”

With that she held up a crumpled picture with an  even more crumpled resume staples to it and said, “You might want to represent yourself this way, but we don’t…”

Again, doing what I’m told, I went home and filled out all the paperwork, updated my resume and put together a packet to send out to my agent. I also signed myself up on 800Casting – it’s a great online resume because it allows you to upload video and pictures for each listing on your resume. At only $30.00 a year a bargain at twice the price. Go take a look at my profile.

Of course, I’m not expecting things to change overnight, but it certainly makes me feel good to know I must be doing something right.

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to see the ten-time, Tony Award winning, musical Billy Elliot - I guess, I never felt it was a must see.  It’s not like it’s closing anytime soon and while I’m sure the Original Cast was flawless – the replacement cast I saw, were phenomenal.

In fact, I was afeared I’d have the same disappointing experience I had when seeing The Producers. I saw it after Lane & Brodrick left and came back; it was so hard to get tickets and it was one of my favorite movies and two of my favorite performers and Mel-freaking-Brooks for crying out loud how could I not love it? I did not love it. I did not love it a lot.

Luckily, the same thing did not happen with Billy.

I have no words that describe exactly how the show made me feel, but if I had to, I would saw it made me feel Yellow. It made me want to shine. It made me think about the fact one has to be true to oneself and use the gifts god gave you.

One of the many highlights of evening was losing my hat:

During intermission, Tom 2I’s 2E’s, were heading outside for a smoke when I noticed my hat was missing.

“I’ll meet you outside, give me a minute to look around for my hat.” I said.

After bothering people for about five minutes, I grabbed my coat and bee-lined it the nearest exit, a little pissed and a little upset. I stepped out the door onto 46th street, looking for Tom – it was the closest exit to our seats who knew the lazy bastard’d go all the way out to 45th? Anyway…

With lighter in hand, I’m about to ignite my fag when I notice a striking older woman with long white hair pulled tightly into a pony tail bringing a cigarette to her lips without benefit of flame.

“Have you a light?” She asked.

“Of course I do, Vanessa Redgrave! I’m a big fan.” I replied as I flicked my Bic.

“Are you enjoying the show? It’s quite historically accurate, you know. I was there.”

“I’m enjoying it very much.”

“Thank you for lighting my cigarette.”

“You’re welcome. I’m a big fan…”

“Aren’t you a dear?” She smiled and turned back to her companion, I stepped away to give them their space and finished mine.

I went back inside and looked around a little more for my hat but still couldn’t find it before the show started back up, but, I knew the theatre fairies didn’t carry it off so surely, it’d turn up eventually.

After my massive post card fail, I took the partial loss, I labeled the typo and cut the mailing down to about 100, and turned it into a casting director mailing – that I addressed by hand, mind you – and decided to do an “old-fashioned” headshot mailing to a select group of agents…

I signed up for a class Wednesday nights in March with Paul Russell on the reccomendation of a friend – I don’t need any more “audition technique” classes – which seems like all there is out there — Audition Technique is code for pay to meet people who are there to just make money and don;t give a shit about you — I need to get into rooms with people who can advance my career…

I’m attending ShobizExpo at the end of the month, again signing up to possible meet people who can help.

I focused and ready to break through to the next level!

This bag was one of the many projects on my mile-long, magical, mystery, to-do list of things to do when there’s nothing else to do list.

A little background: when I went to South America with 5 Takes: Latin America, I wanted to bring a little piece of each country back home with me, but because the trip was almost ten weeks long and I’d have to carry my own bags, I didn’t want to buy anything big, bulky or heavy that would, in any way, weigh me down. I figured patches would be the best way to go, and technically, if I sewed them on, I thought, I really wouldn’t be carrying them.

The “plan” was to one day find a plain, simple messenger bag with good guts, to create a “travel-memory-bag” using all the patches from that trip and any other patches I may’ve acquired along the way. Full disclosure, I did go to a website to buy the flag patches required to complete my collection…

On the front of the bag, (shown) are the patches from all the places I’ve been including, Easter Island, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Amsterdam, The Bahamas and even Vatican City – the yellow and white one with the Pope-Hat on it. I tried to keep it international, as I’m going to start collecting national patches from here on out to sew to the back (not shown.)

It is a great conversation starter, I’ve been engaged on the subway and the bus many times about it – people like to discuss their travels and I’m usually ready with a story or two myself.

You’d be surprised, gentle reader, at how hard it was to sew all the patches on. I used invisible thread as to have none of the stitches show and not have to have thread to match each patch, even though most of them were iron-on; I believed it would be a mistake to take a hot iron to the bag as it’s lined with a acetate water-proof lining.

And, you may not notice, but there’s still plenty of room for more…