...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).