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Of Courtrooms and Judges

America’s Court System is ridiculous.  There is so much paperwork that even if you are 100% in the right, your case could be dismissed because you spelled the other person’s name wrong.  I went to court today for the first time and was astounded over and over again by the absurd hoops that people have to jump through to receive the tiniest judgment. One defendant’s case was postponed yet another month because the small claims office had made a clerical error.  It was fixable in 5 minutes but the court wouldn’t wait or even push their case until the end of the day. 

I spent hours upon hours going through the State of California’s website printing off every sheet possible and filling out paperwork that wasn’t necessary just to make sure that nothing stupid happened to my case.  But then again, I’m practically unemployed.  I can’t imagine having gone through this with a full time job and a family.  I didn’t even have time to fill out the extremely detailed expenses paperwork to see if the court would waive the $50 court fee.  Thankfully, the judge awarded me those fees anyways.  One guy spent $79 to serve someone twice because the first time didn’t work, and the court only awarded him one of them.  I even talked to 3 lawyer friends about my case and what to do or say before and during the hearing because the court’s phone system sent me through a 20 minute menu just to hit a dead end.  And that happened multiple times.  And the people in the small claims office refuse to answer even the smallest question.  They just tell you to call that number and wait until the very end to reach a representative.  I promise you, it didn’t work.  I tried.  It was a waste of time.  But the worst part is that you basically throw yourself overboard and hope that you float because you can’t have any kind of legal representation or counsel in the court with you even if you could afford it.

Through all of this, I still didn’t do everything correctly.  I printed off the directions form for serving someone and nowhere does it say that after they are served do you have to file that service with the court.  They looked at me like I was crazy or stupid but thankfully allowed it because I had proof and receipts.  Seriously, I don’t know why anyone would want to be a judge or a lawyer or anything even related to it.  It is monotonous as hell and ludicrous as to how much paperwork and arguing there is over details that have absolutely nothing to do with the case.  I realize that some of these requirements are to ensure fairness, but the lengths to which one must go for a small claims ruling is preposterous.

I really shouldn’t be complaining though, because in the end it worked out for me.  But seriously…so annoying.

The State of Things

I feel like I’ve gotten to a point in my career where I have to trust people that I don’t know with this thing that means everything to me.  I’ve been called gullible and too trusting, but I don’t think that success is going to come from being closed minded and guarded.  I need to be me and I’m going to do whatever it takes to do that.  If that means that I get screwed over once in a while, then that unfortunately something that I have to deal with.  People are never who they appear to be, but I have to trust what I know about people and myself and trust that those things will lead me in the right direction.

I wish there was a checklist that I could do to the best of my ability and then have the career that I want.  I feel like I’m always looking for new things to do, new places to go, and new ways to meet people to break into this industry.  I take a look at the end of each year to see what I’ve accomplished and its clear that I’m making progress.  I just wish it would go a pinch faster. I can only hope that what I’m working for is worth it.  I can’t imagine doing anything else and still being happy.  I feel like I’ve always known what I wanted to do and never had to make the decision to do it.  I don’t remember deciding what to go to college for or picking a career.  It just was. And now is.  I’m so blessed to be able to do what I love and am working my ass off to make sure that this blessing doesn’t go to waste. 

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

This is my new favorite book...amazing.

"I was scared to get married because I thought my wife might fall out of love with me...When a relationship is right, it is no more possible to wake up and want out of the marriage than it is to wake up and stop believing in God."

I've felt this way about getting married before and I know plenty of people that are divorced.  I've never been married but all I can imagine is that is must be very hard to fall out of love.  If you truly are in love then yes, I believe it is like this quote says.  Like falling in love, falling out of love is a lot of work.  It doesn't just happen overnight.  Its a process and I can only imagine living in that negativity until you reach that breaking point.  Like falling in love, its a mutual decision.  If both people truly love each other and understand that this means continuously helping that love to flourish then both have to stop to let the relationship end.  Its like rock climbing with a partner tied to you.  If one person gives up, or slips, then its the other person's job to carry them or support them.  If you can't do it, then you have to cut the cord and let the separation happen.  But its a choice.  Whether its one you want to make or not, its a choice. 

"Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them.  If a person senses that you do not like them, that you do not approve of their existence, then your religion and your political ideas will all seem wrong to them.  If they sense that you like them, then they are open to what you have to say."

This section really inspired me to constantly give out love.  To listen to my own thoughts and take the initiative to change my thought about people that irk me or I feel I don't like.  I'm curious to see if these people change or even I change because of some positive connection that allows for open and honest communication.  I want to be a better person and that starts by letting other people be who they are and respecting them for what they have to say even if I don't like it.

"I was watching one of those news shows on television...about a woman whose son was on death row...The television show followed the woman around during her son's last few days...I remember saying to myself, I hate this, but I kept watching...Then the television showed the mother in her apartment a couple of days later...and they didn't narrate anything, they just let the cameras roll as the woman paced up and down in front of the bed...And the phone rang, and the woman went over and sat on the side of the bed and picked up the phone.  She held it kind of shakily and listened without saying anything.  She just said yes, in a sort of a gut whisper, and then she put the phone back down, but it didn't hang up right.  She fell to her knees and then got up and screamed and shook her fists at the ceiling.  She turned and ran out the door, into the courtyard of this run-down apartment complex, and as the camera pulled to look out the open door they showed this large black woman collapse to the ground screaming into the dirt and pounding her fist...And I imagined Mary falling down outside her door on her hands and knees an beating her fists into the dirt and screaming at God."

This made me want to cry.  Or right a screenplay or something.  Even without the stuff referring to Mary and Jesus, these words show what I feel about capital punishment.  I don't believe in it.  Capital punishment is such hypocrisy.  I don't care about federal funding for overcrowded prisons.  No one deserves to die at the hands of someone else.  No one.  I don't care how many people they killed or tortured.  Killing them will torture a myriad of others which will incite revenge in them and continue the circle.  If there are too many criminals in prison to keep under control, then maybe we need to look at our society and the morals that we are teaching our children.  Our goals should be to rehabilitate those in prison and mental wards, find out how they ended up there, and prevent more from happening.  Killing someone is a sin, even if the United States Government tells you its okay.  We live in a fucked up society...

"I know that our culture will sometimes understand a love for Jesus as weakness.  There is this lie floating around that says I am supposed to be able to do life alone, without any help..."

I think spirituality is a sign of strength, not stupidity.  Faith inspires.  Disbelief destroys.  Believe what you want, but believe in something.  Please.

Short Independent Film

Okay, so I submitted for a short film that decided to have auditions over Thanksgiving weekend.  I, however, was in Phoenix visiting my brother so I couldn't make it.  When I got back to Cali on Sunday, I got an email saying that they were still having auditions that day.  So I emailed back and they told me to head down but I had to be there by 6:30.  It was 4:45 and we had just finished a 6 hour drive.  Not so pretty.  So I rapidly changed and downloaded the script and headed out.  Fortunately, the director called me and warned me of a little traffic due to a parade going on right near the audition so to avoid a couple of exits off the highway.

A little?  I passed two exits that were closed, skipped the next one which was backed up because of traffic and took the following exit.  Unfortunately that ramp goes below the highway and I couldn't see that it was backed up as well.  It took me 25 minutes just to get off the ramp.  Ack!  Once I got through that, I had to back track to the streets from those other exits and unfortunately, that is exactly where the parade route was.  Every street going that direction or leading anywhere towards that direction was blocked off and surrounded by police.  And every other street was cramped with people looking for parking.  The people who actually had houses in that area were charging people to park on their lawns and were selling things out of their garages.  Craziness!  So I finally make it over to the location, which thankfully I've been to a hundred times before, and now I have to find parking.  Usually, this location is a pain in the butt for parking, but tonight it was horrendous and actually impossible.  So now its 6:45pm and I've been letting the director know the whole time what's going on.  He wants to reschedule but I'm already there and I'm the only one he's waiting for.  I did not spend all this time in traffic for nothing just to come back possibly tomorrow.  So he agrees to meet me across the street at Jack in the Box.  But I get there and miscommunication, he wanted me to park there and walk over which I couldn't do anyways because there was a traffic officer right at that intersection watching the parking situation.  But thankfully, he checked out of the audition location and walked over to meet me.  We read through 2 parts of the script once and that was it.  The second part we read through I hadn't even read before so it was an ice cold read.  It was ridiculous.  And on top of that, I still had another 45 minute drive back home.  Ugh!    It took me 2 hours to go 4 miles round trip and have a 10 minute ice cold audition in a Jack in the Box.  There are no words...

I've lived here for a couple of years and I've never even heard of this parade! 

National Commercial!

Awesome National Commercial audition today!  They told us we'd be reading the sides from a teleprompter so I promptly freaked out an researched tips online about doing just that.  So glad I did that.  I never realized that there was someone scrolling the teleprompter so you can speak as slowly as you like and they'll follow you.  I'm used to that because that's what you do with the pianist at a vocal audition.  Anywho, so I get there and (awesome!) I'm the only girl and there are a bunch of guys.  So I get to audition multiple times with different guys and get extra takes.  The best part was, the teleprompter they were using had the camera inside it.  So you literally read the lines and no can tell!  The weird part was that my partner was sittting next to me, and for audition purposes we had to look at the camera as if it was the person sitting next to us becaus of the teleprompter.  But it was fun!  So then, I find out there's another script that has two girls my age and look so I get to audition for BOTH of those parts too!  Cross your finger cause that seriously ups my chances of booking!  And lastly, the audition was all the way down in south orange county so probably half the amount of people that would normally be there were there.  Yep, it was good.  :)

Product Promotion

So I had a commercial audition today.  Yay!  Well, it was more of an industrial commercial to raise money and get support for the advertising of this new product.  It was odd cause we just had to read these single lines that a bunch of different people would be reading in the commercial.  And at the end, we had to make up our own.  I even ended up putting down the script and improving whatever I wanted about the project for a good minute.  It was fun!  Too bad we didn't get to try the product.  It looked yummy! 

Oh, the funny thing was that they were looking for Obama type young people.  So not me!  They asked what we thought of when we thought of peace and all I could think of was Support the Troups and Recycling!  Everyone else was like - gay rights, africa, and the Katrina support.  God I'm such a Republican sometimes!

The Callback

So that short film audition that I did in front of that huge group of people?  Well, I got a callback for it.  People amaze me.  Its like Hollywood is always in a bad mood.  The director of the short was in such a bad mood.  She barely even said hi to me.  It was like she didn't even want me at the call back.  I guess they only called two of us back and then invited about 20 new people in as well.  The call back went well, crying, and all cause the scene was so scary..yada yada, but I just wasn't excited about the project anymore. Since I wasn't getting paid I didn't feel that the project was worth my time to deal with bad attitudes.  I walked out of there kinda hoping that I wouldn't get it.

Odd Indy Feature

Okay, so I had this audition today at a house in Burbank.  I've done this before so I wasn't creeped out.  They seemed generally eager to pursuade us of its safety.  So I get there and there's a sign on the closed door saying "Auditions Today."  Nothing else.  So I ring the doorbell and no one answers.  A couple minutes pass.  I knock on the door and no one answers.  I walk around to the back of the house and there's nothing.  Back at the front door, I go to just walk in and it opens.  Apparently they were just ignoring me.  It turns out there's only one guy running the auditions and its being recorded right there in the front room.  Ooops.  Sucks for the girl before me. 

Anywho...so I get the script.  Three FULL pages of diaglogue and a guy staring at me waiting for me to begin.  On top of that another girl comes to the door and gets a script.  Okay, so I take my time (about 3 reads through the script and answer some quick questions in my head (thank you Amy)).  We do the read and he has me do one section over with an adjustments.  I fudged the lines a bit, but the emotions were there.  I think he liked me, but he might have just been asking my availability for kicks.  Who knows...

Oh, so the best part is the script.  Its like "Paranormal Activity" meets "House Bunny."  Sexy scary stupid horror.  I think it might actually be kinda funny!

Restaurant Audition

So I'm pretty much really very poor.  Really?  An actress living in LA has money issues?  I know, but sometimes you gotta be the oddball in city of pefectly coiffed barbie dolls.  Anywho...

There was an open call for the best job in LA for actors...Micelli's restuarant.  It seriously PERFECT!  Once you get hired, you're hired for life!  You could leave to go on tour with a production or to shoot a movie and come back and still work.  You got an audition?  Just call and cancel your shift.  BUT its one of the hardest places to get a job because of this.  No one quits...ever.  There are so many people there that they only hold auditions a few times a year.  One of them being today.

Auditions? To work at at restaurant?  But why, you ask?  Because the servers' side work is singing.  Yep!  Broadway, Pop, Classical.  Its AWESOME.  You get a mic, a pianist, a drummer, and a room full of people waiting to tip you.  : )  Heaven on earth.

So I get there a few minutes early and they've already started and there are a good 10 people ahead of me.  They don't want a work resume, no.  They want your headshot and acting resume.  Awesome again.  So I'm waiting, listening to every one else go.  And thank God!  Its been so long since I've had a musical audition with a pianist that I have this ginormous 2" notebook with over 100 songs that is 1/2 way organized.  There were so many options and I couldn't decide.  Then the pesonnel manager comes out and tells us to not sing as the character but sing as ourselves.  We don't have to do 2 contrasting pieces but we can.  I love this place.  So one girl already sang my first option for an up tempo so I go to my second choice which turns out to be an even better choice!

They call my name and I'm in the hole.  The guy before me...eh, he's okay.  Better for me dude.  Its my turn.  I give the pianist my music, and remember why I don't usually use this particular piece for auditions.  It the PERFECT song for my voice, but its kinda hard for the pianist if they don't know.  The time signature jumps from 6/8 to 3/4 and there are 5 flats.  Dum dum dum.  But I've been listening to the guy play and I think he can handle it.  Damn...he doesn't know it.  Too late now.  He plays the first couple of bars for me and says he's got it.  I correct him on the tempo - he was going sooooo slow!  But when we start, he's still slow.  So I figure its my audition, he's gotta follow me, not the other way around.  So I start with him and then slowly speed up.  I think that mighta thrown him off cause he starts to keep up and then the rhythm was all off and I just started to ignore him.  Pretty sure I pissed him off, but I sounded great!  Alright, one down, one to go.  This one he knows - "The Music and the Mirror."  Perfect!  He's happy, I'm happy.  The world is a great place!  I freaking rocked it!  On both songs all I did was show my personality and belted like no other.  Its the best feeling to finish notes and phrases and even an entire piece in perfect unison with the piano and drummer.  All three of us had tons of energy and were just...awesome.  There just isn't any other way to describe it.  It was the most fun I've had at an audition in a long time.  Singining with live musicians just gives me such a thrill!

In Class Student Audition

Okay, so today I had an audition for a student in which I was supposed to portray an 18 year old runaway in an abandonded hotel.  I show up and realize that I'm not a runaway, I'm just a kid hiding out after school at this place with her best friend.  So I redo my look so I don't look quite so haggard and start going over sides.  Yes, of course, sides weren't available until I got there.  There's like 3 pages of dialogue and I mostly got it down in the 10 minutes I had thanks to my awesome coach, Amy Lyndon.  So I walk in and what do you know...there's a classroom full of 20 students and their teacher staring at me...huh.  Well, whatever.  So I meet the director and just block everybody except her and the reader out.  We start out with this reaction sequence of watching somebody die.  Pretty good!  Then we move to the two scenes and they switch to the role I wasn't prepared for.  Fan-freaking-tastic, right?  But I made them let me take my time and what do you know; I held the emotion and screwed the exact wording and did it.  Awesome.

I got a callback.  : )