Christmas times!

Home sweet home. A couple of weeks ago, I contemplated whether or not my "home" was starting to change. For the longest time, I continually told myself that Virginia was my home. It was where I grew up, where my family is, and where I became an adult, and while I'll still call it home it's not where my life is. Near the end of the week for the first time, I actually wanted to head back to Los Angeles. It wasn't because I have grown to love this city at all, but more for the fact that this is where I can and will make my dreams a reality. These past couple of months have proven it. Opportunities are opening up to take advantage of and so this is where I'm supposed to be. Like I said at Thanksgiving, I have a good group of friends to help protect me from the fakeness and greed of this town.

The Holmes' again opened up there home this morning and allowed me to spend Christmas morning with their family and Danielle. It was enough like home to satisfy me. They truly have become an integral part of my life, and I can never repay the debt I owe to them. Also, the egg dish I had this morning was glorious, and I'll be adding that recipe to my repetoire of breakfast dishes!

Kimmi, of course, is my ever faithful beer or coffee drinking friend (whichever is needed at the moment), and Aroma and Timmy Nolan's have become a Cheers of sorts for us. I never walk away from those two watering holes regretting going. Luckily Kimmi puts up with all my weirdnesses and idiosyncracies, at least enough to get through a couple of beers. It's definitely become a staple of my life.

Ben and Kiel are life savers and I owe them all that I am.

And there a plethora of other people in my life that have created a "home" here in Los Angeles. Like my previous home, this one is tied to people not a place as it should be, and again my adult life has gathered a group of true friends to help me through this thing called life.

Anyway, enough sentiment.

My week at home was a blast. I saw so many people over the week, that I swear I added a year's worth of miles on my parent's car while I was home last week. I was up, down, left, and right. I was all over the great state of Virginia. I was able to get down to Virginia Beach for a day and visit all my old pal's at GEICO. It was definitely a homecoming of sorts, though there are so many new faces that I had to stop for a second and make sure I was in the right place. Seeing Bill and my "nephew" Nathan was great too. I miss not having them more in my life.

Meeting up with Noah and Chris was awesome. I had seen neither for many years, and it felt like we picked up right where we left off. It's good to know some friendships aren't harmed by time! Also, seeing Tommy and Michelle was so good. Their happiness in each other is easy to be around and makes me happy to be around them. I'm always sad that I haven't been able to spend as much time as I would like with them. It was also good to connect with a bunch of people from FCS that I haven't seen since graduation. Good times were had!

Well, this is getting longer, so I'll end it with a promise that I'll have more than just sappy moments gracing my page soon!

Museums, Coffee, Voiceovers, and Nixon!

Life has gotten around to being great. No, I haven't "made it" as an actor yet, but yet somehow I feel energized and ready to face the coming new year. The past two months have been molded and seem to fit my goals and dreams. While I still have a lot to accomplish, the overwhelming feeling I get is gone. While still daunting, I feel like it is something that can and will be handled.

It's been like this for the last couple of months. The new promotion at work helped desperately with my utter hatred for work, and while I don't love work, I don't mind going to work anymore which makes those forty hours of my life a lot easier to stand! It is still a means to an end, but I can enjoy it while I'm there.

The major thing is that my voiceover demo is up and ready! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, finally after many months, my demo is done and ready to be shown to the world! I'm very excited with this new step forward and plans have already formed to capitalize on it. A year ago, I would never have put this much effort into voiceovers, but seeing opportunities and potential for a career in this side of acting my focus has extended to include this side of the business. While I've already gotten work from voiceovers already, I now know that I am on my way to being able to get more opportunities to join in on this side of the business. My love for on-camera work hasn't waned, but voiceovers have become a secondary goal that I desire to achieve.

While I would never say my life has become routine, I am glad that there are some constants that have made life very enjoyable. I have my watering hole of choice, Timmy Nolan's, which has become my Cheers of sorts. Then there's the great coffee shop off Tujunga, Aroma, that gets better every time I visit. And who can leave out the Sunday football sports bar that makes waking up for football worth it? While I am still in a love/hate relationship with Los Angeles, I am beginning to collect my gems that have become a part of my life and things I would consider "homish". If this keeps up the unthinkable may happen...LA may feel like home at some point. I doubt that highly, but I can see the threads that lead to that point. While my head screams out no with that idea, I don't know if my heart is so completely against it anymore. There is still a lot I hate about LA, but the good is bleeding through.

Anyway, I was able to visit the Getty Center again yesterday and see the Carleton Watkins Dialogue Among Giants exhibit. Some of his photographs of Yosemite are awesome and I can see why his work is heralded. He has a great eye for the construction of his shots and make them quite visually interesting. I would definitely suggest visiting if you are in the area, before they close down the exhibit in the next month.

Also, I was able to see Frost/Nixon early, and I must say it was a great movie! Frank Langella did an awesome job as Nixon, even though he doesn't really look or sound like him too much but I completely believed the character. The pacing was good, and there was some good laughing moments. This is one movie that I would have paid to see, but was even more jazzed that I didn't have too! Living in this city really has it advantages some time.

Thanksgiving!

As I sat around the table last night for the Thanksgiving feast, I realized how much Burbank is starting to feel a little like home. Feeling the warmth and enjoyment of last night at the Holmes', my adopted family out here in California, I realized that they have become an important part of my life and another reason I am able to keep my sanity in Los Angeles. I'm very thankful for everything that family has done for me this past year. Kiel has been there for me through ups and downs as well as another friend to do nothing with on a weekday night. His father, Bill, has done more than I can repay this past year. He's given me so many auditions, insight into the business, and enough razzing to last a lifetime, and yet he continues to help me. I guess he enjoys trying to help Joey Starbuck make it in this town. The rest of Holmes' fill out the family nicely as well, and I am very thankful for them as well. I found myself quite content all yesterday, that though I wasn't with my folks, at least I was with my friends to celebrate food, football, and alcohol!

In the age of jet packs!

So I'm a little late on finally posting this, but I am forced to comment on it even though it's "old" news.

The age of technological wonders is upon us! Ladies and gentleman, we have jet packs. In the end of September a man flew across the English channel on a jet wing, which is basically a jet pack with wings. Finally, the pursuit of the working jet pack is on the downhill slope! Soon everyone will be jet packing off to work, school, and anywhere else they desire. Now that is a product I will gladly stand in line to get. Growing up, I always wanted a jet pack, and most of G.I. Joes experienced the thrill of the jet pack flight. I guess my love comes from jet packs being so futuristic and connected to the world of Star Wars. Come on, the coolest bounty hunter ever, Boba Fett, wore and used a jet pack. If that isn't the height of coolness, I don't know what is. Of course, we are a long way off from Boba Fett, but with this historic flight, I am hopeful that I will jet pack myself across the sky before I die.

Life has been quite busy lately, in a good way, and I'm feeling quite relieved for a little downtime. I had a friend from back East move out here to L.A. this past weekend, and it's stirred things up a bit. While I am glad he's here, and it'll be good for him to be out here, we may need to start looking for a 3 bedroom apartment in the next couple of months. I know for certain that I'm not the easiest person to share a room with, and I don't want to put any strain on our friendship.

Horror films and webcomics...

So I figured I should take a minute and talk about the few links I have attached to this site.

First and foremost, the new link to the Stump the Band website is up and I definitely suggest people going and visiting the site. It's for a horror movie that's coming out on June 3rd. I was privileged enough to see an advanced screening of this film, and I walked away completely entertained. Stump does a great job of not taking itself seriously and allowing laughter to join in with the fear. There is a great balance between characters you want to live and those that you are waiting to get killed off in some satisfying manner, and Stump doesn't disappoint. Check it out on June 3rd. It is available on Amazon.com and will be available at your local Blockbuster. Enjoy the rock and roll horror!

The next link sends you to a new web comic started by the talented pair Tony Chavira (writer) and Josh Dunlap (artist) called Tuna Carpaccio P.I. While they are only on their third comic, the tension in the strip is already thick. Don't expect your typical one liners/find the joke in everything comic that currently is the trend on the internet. These two gentlemen hearken back to the serial comic that used to be found in your daily newspaper and it brings something fresh to the internet. There is a lot of potential and talent that is on display, so go and check it out!

The last is just a link to my flickr site. Unfortunately, there isn't anything outstanding there, but mostly just pictures from my life. Still working on getting a better camera to document life, but at least I have something. I try and update it pretty regularly, so keep checking.

Thanks for playing!

A new kind of grilling...

Well, the last two nights I have gone out on a limb and have used wood instead of charcoal to grill with. I have never gotten behind gas grilling mainly because it adds nothing to the process. It's the lazy man's grilling method. Yes, it's easier to clean and light and blah blah blah, but you lose something in the flavor of the meat (or whatever) when you use gas. I don't know what it is, but every time I have grilled using charcoal, some type of flavoring shows up that makes the food that much better. Of course, you have to be careful with some of this match-light charcoal, since if you don't let it burn long enough you get the lighter fluid taste on the meat (yeah, bad experience with beer can chicken). Anyways, the last two nights I have grilled both steak and chicken using hardwood, and it's by far the superior method. While it takes longer to prep, it is well worth the effort. The unprepared, unmarinated steak I grilled tonight was mouthwatering. With only the marble in the steak to flavor it and the hardwood to cook it, something came out that I can't even coax out using charcoal. It made the extra time worth it. Oh, and grilled asparagus with sea salt and olive oil is awesome.

Well, other than that life is moving forward. I am actually leaving Starbucks for bigger and better things. I have gotten a job with just as much flexibility as I need, but doubles my pay while still giving me benefits. Granted, I will be working more hours, but that's fine since I'll still have time to audition and take gigs. While I enjoyed the people at Starbucks, I have mastered the job and have become bored (of course, the electrocution didn't help either). I am looking forward to adding to my savings and ira again.

Next Monday I am working on a short film for a writer buddy of mine who will be showing this film to some powerful people in this town. I'm not guaranteed anything of course, but it's a good script and at least it's more people seeing my face. Still pushing myself forward and trying to meet and network with as many people as possible which is what this town is about.

Was able to go out for with a bunch of the guys on Saturday night and of course had a blast. Good food, friends and alcohol. It doesn't get much better than that! Here's an interesting picture from that night. Yeah, I am crazy.

Storms

So at church, the pastor talked about storms. How we as humans focus so much on the storms and even hold onto the storms instead of moving on or dealing with them properly. Sometimes the storm while tumultuous can be reassuring since in this changing world they are something we can latch onto and are constant. These storms can be anything from the worst moment of your life to just small insignificant little moments that bring pain. The movie Swingers has a perfect conversation that explains it:
Rob: Sometimes it still hurts. You know how it is, man. It's like, you wake up every day and it hurts a little bit less, and then you wake up one day and it doesn't hurt at all. And the funny thing is, is that, this is kinda wierd, but it's like, it's like you almost miss that pain.
Mike: You miss the pain?
Rob: Yeah, for the same reason that you missed her... because you lived with it for so long.

Generally, I try to let the small things go...or slide. For most things, I couldn't care less about because in the scheme of things they don't matter. Fight Club talks about this and it's one of the reasons that it's my favorite movie. However, while I let most of the small stuff go, big events can be a problem. I mull it over in my brain, I try to analyze, and I replay through all my actions again and again. The problem is when I am dealing with the big stuff, it's harder for me to pass off the small events that I usually don't care about. Like today when the yogurt idiot had my car towed because he thought it wasn't an employee's car and cost me $200 to get my car out(which the landlord is going to pay for). While I would say this is more of a medium to large problem, I almost went nova. Luckily, some fellow employees calmed me down, but it was like this was going to be the outlet to let out all the pent up frustrations and emotions.

I bring up storms because even right now, I am still fuming about the car and I need to just let it go. Life is too short and too enjoyable to let that idiot ruin my day. I just have to let it go. Things I wish for I have to let go. I can't hold onto these storms anymore. Life has too much to offer.

I have to let go.

I have to let go.