steve in hollywood

In L.A., the cameras are always rolling. So, they were on when the earthquake hit. In 1994, there was no Youtube to post all this to, but thankfully, today, I have been able to create one of my best blogs ever.

First, Judge Judy.

Notice the native Californians scramble for the door.

Judge Jenny gets under the desk.

This may be the best one, the set of Big Brother.

Man, these people are idiots.

You might want to check your horoscope for earthquakes today.

Channel 4 News in Los Angeles.

This one is for Zach. Bicycle store displays come crashing down as people flee.

With all these videos, you don’t need no picture of the day. This is only one day after the quake, so it is possible some more cool Youtube vids of shows being interrupted will surface. Let me know if you find any more!

So, it was about 11:45 this morning and I was sending out some email. There was kind of a thud and the apartment shook. This was my thought process.

Man, not the neighbors again. What are they doing anyway?

Wait, I don’t think this is the neighbors. Could this be one of those “earthquakes”?

Everything is kind of shaking. I wonder if there is something I should do? Like duck? Run? Hide under the sink? I think I’ll just hold on to my computer monitor so it doesn’t fall over.

Wow, look at that shelf, shaking back and forth. Almost enough for my stuff to fall, but not quite.

Is this going to stop soon? Is the building going to shake apart? This is pretty weird.

Then, it stopped. Everything seemed to be okay. It seemed like it was about 20 seconds but that’s pretty subjective since I felt pretty strange while it was happening. So apparently we had a Magnitude 5.8 on the Richter scale. I wondered how long it would take to hit the net so I did an immediate search and got a cool page from Cal Tech.

POTD

There were about 30 measured aftershocks, later the site said “46 earthquakes on this map.” I didn’t feel any of them. On the map there, Pasadena is probably the closest dot to me.

Biggest since 1994

Alright, so I got to experience a good one. The news says no one has been reported dead, or even injured, though I’m sure some freak accidents probably occurred from the shaking.  I always wondered what an earthquake was like. Now I know.

Right after the quake, everyone and their mom decided they needed to call each other about it. It pretty much killed the phone lines, no one could call anyone for about an hour.

As I sit here in my apartment in my boxer shorts contriving plans to be famous, I noticed that a new name is coming up in many Hollywood and internet circles: Camila Alves. But who is this lady?

Here’s her bio online.

Notice in the title of the page it says “Camila Alves Biography |  Matthew McConaughey Girlfriend”

Yes, the definition of her life really comes from the fact that she is dating a celebrity.

Fan Mail Monday

So there are actors and actresses, and then there are celebrities. While i guess technically celebrity can mean anyone famous whether they are in acting or any other profession, it seems to have become synonymous with actors/actresses/singers/performers who are well-known or simply talked about by the media a lot.

So, here is my question: as an aspiring actor, what do you think it would take for you to be considered, or consider yourself, a celebrity? How many jobs? Or how many significant roles? Or how many years in movies? Or what? - Shelley

Well Shelly, I’m going to do my best since I just cleaned my kitchen and am dizzy from bleach fumes. Man, that Lysol with Bleach isn’t kidding. It should be labeled “Industrial Strength Bleach With a Tiny Drop of Lysol.” What was I saying?

Obviously, the fastest path to celebrity is to date someone already famous, like Camela Alverez or whatever-her-name-is is doing. I found this website with tips on getting that elusive date with a celebrity. Otherwise, I could kill someone famous, but I think that would fall under this category:

Personally, I’m hoping that I will do something cool like save a celebrity’s life in a terrorist hostage situation. They end up being so grateful that they give me leading roles and free cookies for life.

I need more fan mail!

The virtual in box is once again empty, and I have no more fun letters to respond to. So please, if you are even mildly literate, send me a mail for the Monday segment:

steveinhollywoodblog -AT- yahoo.com

Maybe I’ve been getting tons of fan mail but you all are asking questions about “porn” and “viagra” so Yahoo! is putting it all in my junk mail box. That’s it. I’m really getting thousands of fan messages a week. Yeah.

Picture of the Day

I saw this on the internet the other day, and I thought the zombies had finally arrived.

Seriously. This is one of them Olsen twins. If this is what fame does to you, I don’t want it. Well, ok, I want it but just only for a little while. Just a week. Or two. Maybe a month? Please?

In some of my past blogs I have explained to you about actors doing “extra” work, or as we call it here, “background.” One thing you have to remember about doing this kind of work is, as far as cast goes, you are on the bottom of the food chain. You are about the equivalent of the guy who gets everyone coffee. Or maybe the Styrofoam cup that it comes in.

Now that I think about it, you are more like livestock. They herd you around, tell you where to go and stand or sit, and then they make sure they feed you at the right times. Besides that, they don’t expect anything intelligent out of you. There’s a problem with working in Hollywood that I have mentioned before — there are so many actors here desperate to get into the business that many of them will do plenty of work for free. This is because they are told something like it will give them a “big chance” to possibly be featured, or meet a certain director, or make it on a television pilot. Of course, 99% of the time none of these things happen, and you have wasted your time.

My Big Fat Waste of Time

So a “friend” of mine that I had in my contacts sent out a text to her actors list saying there was a spec show for Comedy Central needing background, and that you would get an IMDB credit for it. (A “spec” show, or spec anything here, means “speculative”, as in, we are making this and hoping someone picks it up and shows it on TV.) This is the list of things wrong with that shoot I went to:

• I was not told it would be no pay
• others were not told this either
• The directions were incorrect
• When we arrived, we could not find the building on the location and there was no one there to meet us
• The casting lady who called us was not there — she was at a paying job
• They had no food for us, and gave us “set dressing” bottles of water to drink that were warm (they used the bottles for atmosphere for the scenes.)
• I was told by the principal actor that she would do a scene with me, but they skipped me over
• When I asked the director about it, he pretended I did not exist and did not acknowledge me
• It was really hot inside, but they turned off the fans when shooting because of the noise (and left them off the whole time.)

You know, I don’t mind doing some work like this sometimes, but “surprise” free work isn’t really that exciting to me. But wait, here is the best part:

When I complained to the casting director lady, she acted like I was being arrogant, took me off of her casting list, and never spoke to me again.

Not only that, but this was someone I considered a friend!

This is Hollywood though. I guess the lesson I learned is don’t trust anyone, even if they claim to be your friend. Also, get it all in writing. ‘Course, I already knew that.

Picture of the Day

This is outside the parking lot for a local Starbuck’s.

That is not a speed. 5 miles a day perhaps?

I am still amazed at the vastness and variety of Los Angeles. Every week I find out about a new area I’ve never heard of before.  There are large ethnic neighborhoods, where everyone you meet there (practically) will be the same. Glendale, where I live, is largely Armenian. Many of the little stores here have signs in both English and Armenian. There are neighborhoods that are Mexican where everything is in Spanish and maybe no English at all.

This week I’ve been teaching in the city of Monterey Park. I noticed a large portion of my students were Asian, specifically Chinese, but a few others as well. Remember yesterday when I posted the Tai Chi picture?  Well I really noticed today. There’s a ton of Asian restaurants, and all the neighborhood signs have Chinese in them. And it’s not like this is “China Town”, a little section of a city, it is really a small city that is mostly Asian. In California. The funny thing is, you can drive a few miles and you are in another city that is completely different. I don’t know if I will ever see all there is to see out here.

Picture of the Day

Remember how I said I was teaching at a library this week?

This is how librarians label their food. I particularly liked, “The Folklore of American Holidays.”

As I mentioned before, a ton of people live in Los Angeles. Most of the state’s population is down here in LA or San Diego, really. I’ve been to San Jose and San Francisco, up near the middle of the state, but not really anywhere else. It is about a 6 hour drive from LA to the Bay Area. What is in between SF and LA? Not much. Mostly Bakersfield, and a lot of desert. This brings me to the fan mail segment.

Fan Mail Tuesday ?

Somehow I convinced myself that Monday was a holiday because I had a day off from my computer job. See, most actors out here in L.A.  have to work crappy part-time jobs to make it. The following is a typical conversation here:

Person 1: “What do you do?”

Person 2: “I’m an actor.”

Person 1: “Oh? What restaurant do you work at?”

I had a job that was perfect for me to pursue acting - teaching computer classes online. Unfortunately, that school lost their accreditation so I had to go pick up computer contracts. I’m trying to do that and keep days open to do acting, it is quite a juggle. So here’s the question for this week:

Steve,
I’ve been to Santa Monica a few times and have actually enjoyed myself.  After discussing my trip at home, I’ve been told by California natives ‘Northerners’ that Santa Monica is actually LA.  (I guess it is?)  Many of these ‘Northerners’ argue that there are actually TWO Californias…  Everything from LA and south is considered LA and north of Santa Barbara is considered California.  What do you think? -Sharon

I think that I would rather be in bed right now, Sharon. But that’s not the issue. Santa Monica is actually on my cool map I showed you before, and yes it is considered part of LA.

The Old Map I Made of LA

 Remember that Sheryl Crow song?

This ain’t no disco
It ain’t no country club either
This is LA! 

And then there’s something, something Santa Monica boulevard. Anyway, so yes, there are two Californias. It basically works like this: Southern is the cool, older brother that gets all the chicks, and Northern is the geeky younger brother that is jealous and sits at home on Friday nights. Really, down here in SC, we don’t really think about the north at all. We just do our thing and have fun. North is somewhere… far away.

In the North, they just sit there and stew about how cool we are and how they hate us and how we get all the Hollywood babes. Plus there’s like some other differences like the weather and San Francisco has some kind of bridge, but that’s not what’s important. The lesson you need to take away from this is that Los Angeles is slick and awesome, and there’s some people who don’t live in Southern California but they don’t count. In fact, you should pity them.

Remember kids, to send me a Fan Mail question this is the address:

steveinhollywoodblog -AT- yahoo.com

Thank you.

Tai Chi

Today I am blogging from the library in Monterey Park, CA. I am teaching a class to the city employees today on Outlook 2007. When I got here at seven fifteen in the morning, these crazy people were outside doing Martian exercises.

Not a week goes by that one of my contacts in the industry out here flies to New York for some reason or another. Seriously, right now two people I know are there. Who goes? My actress friend Lisa (remember her picture?), my publicist friend Michael, and the jet-setting movie producer Jack that I know. He flies into L.A. from Hong Kong, then to New York, then back again to L.A. The only friend I know that isn’t going to New York is flying to Ohio. Seriously Jen, Ohio? What’s up with that? Don’t you know everyone from L.A. flies to New York? Apparently rising fuel and airline ticket costs have not dissuaded L.A. folks from making the trip.

Top Ten Ways Airlines Are Saving Money

Lately you may have heard that airlines are charging for the in-flight snacks, and there is even a charge just for checking your first bag. There’s some other, lesser known changes that I’m going to let you in on. Don’t be surprised if you see these on your next flight.

10. Coin-operated oxygen masks

9.  Planes now running on 87 octane gas instead of 93

8.  Flight Attendants are required to lose 10% of body weight

7.  Co-pilots are now “optional”

6.  Only one in-flight movie option: “The Goonies”

5.  Seats replaced with new, lightweight cardboard versions

4. Children under 10 now stuffed into overhead bins

3. Bottle of water: $200, salty crackers: free

2. Ticket price currently around $10 per pound

1. Airplanes now landing “a few miles short” of the airport

Picture of the Day

This is the view from my apartment in Glendale. Clouds? We don’t need no stinkin’ clouds!

Video of the Week

There is no video of the week. I have been planning to do some cool interviews with people out here, but it’s going to have to wait. Mostly it is because my friend Laura’s camera got stolen, who I was getting to shoot these interviews.

Everyone has Hollywood crushes. In fact, I would like for you to leave me comments and tell me what yours are. Unless it is Brad Pitt; then I don’t want to know.

Torri Higginson is a talented and beautiful actress, who played, among other things, Dr. Weir, the civilian commander on Stargate Atlantis. 

This used to be my favorite show. I told everyone, “Stargate Atlantis is my favorite show.” But, as usual, the boneheads in Hollywood totally ruined it. But that’s not important right now; let’s talk about Torri.

From the first time I saw her on Atlantis, I was hooked. She was smart, sensitive, and attractive — not one of those over-glamorized barbie doll types, but a tough yet feminine leader. I noticed after a few episodes of the show they started putting more make up on her character to accent her pretty eyes. Good call, director. I nursed my little actress crush for two seasons, and then I got to meet her at a sci-fi convention.

Some other actors from Atlantis were supposed to be at DragonCon, but they canceled so they brought Torri in at the last minute. It was her first convention. She was sitting next to Rachel Luttrell who plays Teyla. When I came up to the table there was no line; I was lucky. I told her I had a crush on Dr. Weir. She looked right at me with her pretty eyes and took my hand, she said, “Well, you can just stay right here!” I got a picture autograph from her and told her about my Hollywood aspirations. She wished me luck on my film project I was working on. I got to spend a little time with Torri and Rachel at the convention since it was their first. I kind of became a convention tour guide. Here is a good story from the convention:

They were finishing their “shift” signing autographs and wanted to go to the art room. I showed them the way. When they got there, the security person said, “I’m sorry the art room is closed. Even if you got down on your knees and begged I couldn’t let you in.” I looked right at him and said, “Don’t you know who these ladies are? They are the actresses from Stargate Atlantis!” He got embarrassed and then got on his radio. Then he opened the door for us — and I waltzed in too like I belonged. Eventually they kicked me out; but, hey, I got to spend some more time with Torri.

I occasionally get a message from her on Myspace since we met. I am always happy to hear from her. They took her character from Atlantis, I don’t watch it anymore.

How to Kill a Great TV Show

Stargate SG-1 was ending, the show that Atlantis spun off from. Some Hollywood moron decided that they should take some characters from SG-1 and put them on Atlantis to pull audience from one to the other. Since Atlantis’ cast was pretty full, they had to get rid of characters to do this. They killed the extremely popular Scottish doctor, Carson, and then replaced Torri with someone from SG-1. Then they got stupid and crazy; they created a wimpy doctor role and put Jewel Staite in it. Don’t get me wrong, I think Jewel is awesome in Firefly, but the character stinks and it seems an obvious ploy to draw Firefly fans to the series.   Plus they have the doctor from Star Trek: Voyager on the show too. If you watched SG-1 you know it was basically a refugee camp for actors from other canceled Sci-fi series. Anyway, enough about that. The show is ruined for me now.

More about Torri

Torri really loves her dog, which appears in at least one episode of the show. She also has a favorite charity here in LA called Food on Foot , which if you are in the area, I recommend you volunteer a day for. She is great — if any of my screenplays get picked up out here, I will definitely contact her agent to offer her a role.

Picture of the Day

I have come up with a way to make Stargate Atlantis awesome: cast me as John Sheppard’s wise-cracking annoying younger brother.

You see,  Colonel Shepherd (played by Joe Flanigan) has the “Ancient” gene, so it would make sense that his brother does too, so they bring him to Atlantis to operate the Ancient technology.

Torri Higginson links

Here’s lot’s more about Torri!

Her IMDB page

Torri’s Wiki Entry

A Torri Fan Site (no, I didn’t make it)

A Torri Fan Myspace (I didn’t make this either!)

I find myself wondering, is this some kind of symbolism for something? A premonition for things to come? Or does this poor lady not normally walk around in nineteen inch heels?

Not only that, but apparently Miss USA 2007 fell also. Hopefully she doesn’t have Flat Buns(tm) or that might have hurt.

Flat Buns, I like flat buns…

I love that (banned) commercial. What happens to these former Miss America/USA winners anyway? It seems like we never hear from them again. Maybe I’m just not paying attention but, really, do they ever get anywhere?While I’m on a roll with the videos, if you haven’t seen Miss South Carolina at the last Miss America pageant, you simply have to.  Oh sorry, it is Miss Teen USA. This is possibly one of the greatest videos ever. 26 million views on YouTube.

What, you want a picture too? 

When we moved into our new apartment we needed glasses. I bought these at the thrift store for something like thirty cents each. Unfortunately, simply breathing on these suckers causes them to break. This is just my toll for this week!

Not to mention the fact that they’re grammer stinks. Yes, I did that on purpose.

So, today, I’d like to provide you poor, unfortunate bloggers with an English lesson.

English for Grammar Challenged Bloggers

People seem to have a problem with loosing things, instead of losing them. Here’s how this works.

Someone who is going crazy is losing his mind.

Someone who uses the word loosing instead of losing is a complete idiot.

See how that works? Let’s try another. Plural means more than one of something. Possessive means having or owning something.  Apostrophes are used for the possessive form, not plural form.

Let’s go down to the sports bar and have a drink.

If you use an apostrophe after the word sports’ again, I’m going to kill you.

Contractions are two words smooshed together and made smaller, with an apostrophe. Some people seem to confuse these words with others that sound the same (these are called soundthesameanyms.)

Hey Bob, you’re looking quite spiffy today!

Hey Bob, your email to me contained so many grammatical errors that it gave me the urge to go to your house and put your dog in your microwave!

So please, bloggers, learn how to do you’re English good.

Picture of the Day 

This is Hollywood boulevard at 11pm on a Friday night. What all these people were doing, I have no idea.