My New Home

Marina del Rey, California. This week I have been settling in to my new Los Angeles area apartment, right off Venice Beach. I have had three auditions in the past four days and today I worked as audience on the gameshow Deal or No Deal. My IMDb Starmeter also reached a new record this week - 75,308. Check out this post's video for a glimpse of my new neighborhood beach...

For Christmas

San Francisco, California. For the past two days, I have been working background among a huge cast of extras for the Seth Gordon film Four Christmases starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. Both Vince and Reese were part of the scenes we shot at the San Francisco International Airport. Long hours, but lots of fun...

Own It

Venice Beach, California. Last night I performed in a film by Wendell Small, a UCLA film student. My role was as a wastoid waiter in a banquet of the 7 deadly sins. We shot on the UCLA campus. Lots of good people and creativity.

Oh, and my IMDb Starmeter this week has hit a new record - 80,188!

San Francisco Treat

San Francisco, California. For the past week, I have been living in San Francisco's Noe Valley. City life is treating me well, coming home each day via the BART and walking through the Mission. This, as ever, is America's most beautiful big town. But life is on the move...

Leaving Alameda

Alameda, California. This week is all about moving out of my apartment - ugh, what a hassle! I was also asked by Discovery Channel to prepare a video submission for a potential host role. This is the video:

Change is in the Air

Alameda, California. Things are tough right now. I am moving out of my apartment at the end of this week and not quite sure where I am going. Options are to stay here in the San Francisco Area or move to Los Angeles.

On the humorous side, I have once again reached a new high on my IMDb Starmeter - 84,805!

The Four Twenty-One

San Francisco, California. Tuesday and Thursday of this week were spent on the set of Tom Galt's The Four Twenty-One, an Indy Science Fiction Flick. My character's name is Tek and basically, I am an alien thug. These aliens appear like normal people except to very special humans with the genetic trait to see a broader spectrum of colors. To those people, we aliens appear yellow. So, for theatrical purposes, this meant two days of work in a good coating of yellow body paint!! Check out the video...

Shooting Rains

Sugarloaf, California. Most of this weekend was spent in a cute cabin in the Big Bear area - the location for the Rains of Astoria shoot. The shoot went well, the cast and crew were excellent and it was a beautiful setting for it all to go down. Here are a couple pics of the cast and crew.





Also, new IMDb "StarMeter" record this week!: 87,632.

The Backroads to Big Bear

Sugarloaf, California. On Thursday night, I left the shoot location of Crucifixions up in Calistoga and headed straight for Big Bear, for the Rains of Astoria shoot. Having left so late, I had to break up the 8 hour drive with a hotel stay in Lost City. The next morning, I woke up and finished my drive, going to back way (around Los Angeles) up to Big Bear. After driving through the area with the largest wind energy operation in the world (see pic), the drive took me straight into the heart of the Mojave Desert. This was a very pleasant surprise!

I don't know exactly what it is, but the desert draws me in, captivates me. I had not been there since my father and I drove cross country on my way out to California last year. This is too long to be separated from such an amazing place. The desert can be harsh, desolate and seemingly uninhabitable yet at the same time can fill your heart with wonder, provide a sense of connectness and inspire a yearning for the unknown. At one point on my drive, the road curved up and over, unfolding the planet before me in a manner that I have only seen in landscapes of the American West. Breathtaking does not adequetely describe such sights. These open spaces cause my spirit to soar and feel truly free.

From the desert, I climbed up the backside of the mountains to Big Bear, trading desert-scapes for evergreen covered peaks of 9000 ft+ and finally ending my journey in a picturesque cabin in the woods of Sugarloaf. It was an amazing end to the journey.

Crucified

Calistoga, California. The Castello di Amorosa winery, outside of Calistoga, features an actual sized replica of a medieval castle. This replica served as the set for an upcoming History Channel documentary on crucifixion being produced by Jon Taylor of Indigo Films. I spent nearly 12 hours on the set, playing the part of a Roman Centurion. The 2 hour feature will be aired at Easter - but here is a sneak peak...

...Stays in Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada. OK, crazy past twenty-four hours. I took a last minute flight to Vegas to work as a dayplayer in the Tom Vaughn/20th Century Fox film What Happens in Vegas. From 3pm to 4am, I was on set, on the sidewalk in front of the Bellagio, working as a pedestrian in a scene with Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher and Lake Bell. It was a long night, but good fun as always and the cast and crew were all great people. However, I only had 3 hours of sleep before having to hop out of bed and fly back to San Francisco - not as fun...

Images from Adobe

San Francisco, California. I am on my way to Vegas and will explain why on a later post. However, I just heard back from Adobe and the interview they did with me ended up being used (for 1 second) in one of their Adobe Max promos. I am trying to get permission to post the entire video, but in the meantime, here are some frame grabs. What a funny looking dork I am...

Images from "Soft Kiss"

Alameda, California. Anthony Mark, director of the short thriller - "Soft Kiss of the Assassin" surprised me today with a few screen shots from the film. The actual film will be in HD and looks pretty amazing on screen. Here are a couple of shots.

City of Angels

Venice Beach. Los Angeles, California. Venice the seething
dripping edge of a tragic metropolis - the concrete city of angels whose barrios ooze across the desert landscape like cracked mud. Going on endlessly - a megacity of concrete houses and hearts.

But not Venice. Washed by the cold Pacific, licked by salt, it is vibrant, alive - the bloom in the desert. And this is where Scott now lives. Scott, the Braman. My old buddy from our days living like kings high in the hills above Quito.
He is now the web mogul behind VenicetheMenace.com and fits here like a pea in pod.

I have spent four great days here in the City of Angels, bunking here by the beach in Venice but trekking into LA's underbelly each day for work. I came down originally for a run through reading with the cast of The Rains of Astoria, but ended up being cast last minute as a ghoul in the Indy horror flick Finale. Finally, I tested for and then appeared as a contestant on the NBC syndicated gameshow Crosswords. It has been a long, but fun journey through Hollywood. Tomorrow I head back to San Francisco...

"Starmeter: Increase of 93% since last week"

Alameda, California. OK, now here is a laugh. A couple weeks back, I created a profile on IMDb, which is THE website to go to for information on movies and the movie industry. Why would I do this? Well, simply because it is the smart aspiring actor thing to do - and I guess that is what I am now... Anyway, I checked in on my profile today and noticed that my "Starmeter" read a 93% increase over the past week! They provide a graph of where you rate amongst all IMDb actors and I have climbed from the absolute lowest to midway up the ranks in basically no time flat! I mean, I don't put a lot of weight on this kind of stuff - but how the hell does this happen? Who is looking at me? It is crazy... It changes weekly and you can check up on it whenever you like on the IMDb Starmeter page.

On a related note, I may be on the Merv Griffin's new gameshow, Crosswords next week as a contestant. I have been called in for a trial run and if they like me, I'll be on the show the next day. I'll keep you posted.

Great Wilderness Blog

Alameda, California. Today we finally launched the new Great Wilderness Blog and the new Blog promo film. This Blog is meant to serve as a media window into the the field work that we do through Great Wilderness. Should be good stuff! Check the short film out here:

The Rains of Astoria

Alameda, California. Great News! I just got a call from L.A. and I have been cast for the part of Colt in The Rains of Astoria - a drama feature film!

I had originally auditioned by video for the part of Matt - Colt's work buddy and a much smaller role. Well, I guess the Director liked what he saw because they asked me to re-audition for Colt - a substantially bigger part. The following are monologues I had to perform for these parts. The first, from The Beach, was for Matt. The 2nd, with a scene from Frankie and Johnny and another from Gangs of New York, was the Colt audition.

Filming will be over weekends in late October and November.

Scene from "The Beach"


Audition for Colt

A Night With The Braman

Los Angeles, California. On Saturday, I took a last minute flight to LA and had my first audition actually in Hollywood. It was for a television pilot called Run Riot and I auditioned for the part of a burnt out music magazine editor. It was loads of fun and I saw the Hollywood sign for the first time ever. In LA, I had some serious Deja Vu resulting from a dream that I had about four years ago and wrote down! I had never even been to California at that time, but had a dream that I was driving by LA through fields of oil wells. I saw the exact images from the dream driving down La Cienaga in the heart of LA.

After the audition, I headed over to Venice Beach, to hang out with my bud, Scott Braman. When not selling real estate in Costa Rica, Scott is the Comandante of a great website project called Venice the Menace - check it out! We headed over to a local Venice party, where his buddies' band - the Quick Six - were playing. Great music, great people - I am seriously considering moving there...

Also, if you haven't done so before, check out Uncontacted.com. This is a site done by a cool young explorer named David in support of the Huaorani - a people very close to both Scott and my hearts.

Oh, and today is my birthday. Thanks for remembering...

Elizabeth Studies Sharks

Alameda, California. This past July, my friends Rob and Elizabeth Eubanks spent several weeks in the Bay Area as part of a summer-long RV trip across the country. We had some great times together before they headed down to San Diego, where Elizabeth joined a NOAA shark research cruise for a couple of weeks. Today, I stumbled across an article in Palm Beach's Sun Sentinel, focused on Elizabeth and the sharks! It also mentiones yours truly as her source for finding out about the opportunity. Read About It Here. Congratulations Elizabeth!

Included here is a photo of the two of them enjoying Dim Sum in Chinatown, along with a very classy video of Dr. Eubanks chowing down...

The Silence is Over

Alameda, California. After a long period of not having access to this blog (changed e-mail confusion), I am finally back on. As most of you know, I am now living in California and working for a start up non-profit called Great Wilderness. What you may not know is that a disturbing series of life events has somewhat accidentally jumpstarted a second career - acting in films. It started in mid-August with a part as a French Waiter in the Randall Miller film, Bottle Shock. Here is a short clip of me in costume:

Following this, I began seriously pursuing auditions and am now working on two local independent films - "Soft Kiss of the Assassin", directed by Anthony Mark, and "The 4-21", a Tom Galt Motion Picture. In "Soft Kiss", I am one of the leads. To the right here is a picture of me on a recent set as 'Ambrose'...

For more information on this new component of my life, check out my acting resume on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).