So You Wanna Be In Pictures?

So you wanna be in pictures? Well you better enjoy being on a set. If not, you may want to seriously consider whether movie-making is for you. I've seen a decent amount of idiocy from extras, otherwise known as "background actors," who are there to get into the business. They get frustrated by the hurry-up-and-wait routine, which is the fundamental nature of the beast.

When you're an extra, it's not your moment to shine, but to blend in. This has been a valuable lesson for me as an actor, but it took some time. When I was an extra for Julie Taymor's Across The Universe I was ruthless in inching my way into the central focus of the scene. It was a dance scene, freestyle, and was to be the finale of the flick. I was WAY too excited and danced around like a chicken on crack. The scene was cut and I'm still convinced to this day it was because of me! If I ever meet Julie Taymor in person, I will get down on my knees and beg forgiveness for ruining her ending.

I've learned since then. Now I realize it's about the work and it's about the scene. Now it's not surprising for me to get specific direction from the production assistant or director's assistant due to my obvious good work ethic. I'm not looking for special attention. I just want to help the scene in any capacity.

I interviewed to be Eddie Izzard's body double on The United States Of Tara and got the gig. It was great to work on a closed set with the principal actors. (While looking over the script I heard two very familiar voices in the room only to look up and realize it was Toni Collette and John Corbett. OMG!) Eddie had wrapped over a week earlier and I was there for over-the-shoulder shots.

First I wasn't hitting my mark. Then I was pouring the wine (grape juice) too high and the camera was catching my face. Then I was ad-libbing over the other actors' lines. And I couldn't remember the three sentences I had to speak to save my life. It became nothing to do with acting and everything to do with all these stupid little things I could barely grasp. Meltdown!

This is movie and TV magic in the making.

Valentino, Mineo and Stanley Sweetheart

Six o’clock already 

I was just in the middle of a dream 

I was kissin’ Valentino 

By a crystal blue Italian stream 

– The Bangles (written by Prince)

De Longpre Park boasts two gorgeous statues of Rudolph Valentino, one of which reads:



Presented by his friends and admirers from every walk of life — in all parts of the world, in appreciation of the happiness brought to them by his cinema portrayals.

I do find serenity and solace in this park. And the Valentino sculptures calm and soothe me. Unfortunately, the only knowledge I really have of The Sheik is from Ken Russell’s frustrating biopic starring Rudolph Nureyev. Still, his mystique isn’t lost with me. Valentino in many ways is the apotheosis of old Hollywood legend, once being worshiped on the level of God and dying prematurely, creating an all day riot amongst an estimated 100,000 hysterical mourners. He personifies movies as religion to me, both in a good way and bad. Pictures and posters give me a hint of his brooding sexuality, but his legacy is amazing proof of what movie stars did and still do to the collective populace. We fantasize about them in ways we may never tell and long, sometimes desperately, to coexist with them in real life and even on screen. It’s sick, right? I mean, has it ever really been healthy for us? It’s just all so illusory.

Let’s get personal. I would love to French kiss Brad Pitt and roll around naked with him. Who wouldn’t? But when I saw him strolling through Prospect Park years ago while taking a break from filming Meet Joe Black at the Park Slope Armory, I found him decidedly unattractive…and he was even wearing that tux he wears in the flick! “Skinny and pimply” is what I wrote in my journal that day. And yet I’m so bombarded with his image I can’t help but desire him. We’re a culture of envy, as Rupert Everett says. Well, at least I’m past wanting to be a movie star. At my age I’d better be past it! But it still calls to me from the distant horizon. Idolization, immortalization, sexual adoration, free designer clothes….

And I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to make love to a movie star. Even if it’s only on set.

Another heart throb of yesterday’s silver screen, whose place of murder I had to visit at 8965 Holloway (macabre, I know), is Sal Mineo. There’s a riveting new biography on him just out that helped me fill in the gaps for what I think is the most interesting part of his career: the late 60′s & early 70′s when his work both on stage and on screen was always envelope-pushing. He directed the LA premiere of Fortune & Men’s Eyes — a prison drama about male sexual brutality & hierarchy — and had the balls to write new scenes (much to the playwright’s consternation) that brought the off-stage sexual violence onto the stage, right in front of the audience. You go, girl! He then cast unknown, teenage Don Johnson in the “fresh meat” role and replaced the lead actor with himself to sell tickets. They were both naked onstage for the entire new rape-in-the-shower scene. You can check out the biography or Google for pics ;-)

After his break in Fortune & Men’s Eyes, Don Johnson went on to make one of my favorite movies of all time entitled The Magic Garden Of Stanley Sweetheart, which is sadly unavailable on video or DVD. Andy Warhol said it was the best representation of 60s Counterculture put on celluloid. Indeed, it is a searing portrait of the Bohemian sexploration experienced by that generation. Toward the end of the flick, Don’s character discovers everything and nothing about himself while shacking up with two college girls for what turns out to be much more than one night. Emerging from the extended orgy, one of the girls asks “What day is it? I’ve lost all sense of time….”

I remember having similar experiences in college, losing myself with others in an apartment for days on end. It was always a beautiful, bittersweet, wild diversion from life. Would I do it today if I could? One has to be in a certain state of mind to plunge into that kind of freedom. And very careful. So I experience it vicariously through Don Johnson as Stanley Sweetheart. Just as a previous generation watched Sal Mineo and an even earlier generation watched Rudolph Valentino to fulfill their need for existential excitement.

Under everyday rigors, such passionate abandon remains elusive, so we escape by watching others live it. Age old story, really. And we like to think these actors on the screen live it all the time. We love them and hate them for living our fantasies.

(Madonna’s Justify My Love video comes pretty close to what I would like to be living, at least from time to time: “Poor is the man whose pleasure depends on the permission of another.”)

So.

1) In a culture that allows us to watch others play out their fantasies, how do we reclaim our fantasies for ourselves? More specifically, how do we achieve our own sense of cosmic/sexual freedom?

2) How do we live within that kind of mutual abandon?

3) Is it reserved only for some kind of elite (like movie stars)?

4) Are sex parties the only answer?

Please advise.

Homesickness, The Lair, and The Big Bang Theory

It was bumper-to-bumper at the In-N-Out Burger. The moon hung low above the palm trees against the midnight sky while Shaniqua saddled up next to José, putting her lips to his ear. “I’m feelin’ gooooood tonight, baby” she whispered. “Just don’t hog all the ketchup this time, bitch” came José’s reply.

With immediate bestial abandon, Shaniqua threw her head back, peals of laughter erupting from her throat. And without warning, her newly formed fangs plunged deep into José’s jugular, leaving him gasping for breath and choking on his own blood.
Shaniqua was finished in time to order Double-Doubles & strawberry milkshakes for two. She had a couple homeless friends who were bound to be hungry by now. They’d been good to her. She owed them. Besides, she’d quenched her appetite and had little regard for fast food as of late. Fast blood was another matter.

****************************************************
I miss New York. It was bound to happen eventually. I miss my friends, I miss the seasons and I miss my dog. Still, if there’s any chance of my making any money in this crazy business we call show, it’s out here. And I haven’t even started yet. I already had a good audition at an agency and they’re just waiting for me to get new headshots. $100 on Melrose for decent color pics. Easy. Stay, Tarek. You can totally do this. And becoming bi-coastal is not that difficult to achieve. I’m already going back east for Thanksgiving. So there, I’m bi-coastal.

My friend Frank, whom I know from NYC but has since moved out to LA, says that just because you’ve been through the whole New York initiation experience you’re not necessarily prepared to deal with LA. LA is its own beast, its own monster. He’s so right.

Made a friend on set. He gave me his card. Turns out he’s one of the casting directors for The Lair. Ahahahaha! That show cracks me up. I used to watch Dante’s Cove pretty religiously, from which The Lair spun off. Not the direction I’m going in, however. I’m losing weight (yay!) but I’m a far cry from those studmuffins.

Had to play a nerd for The Big Bang Theory. Roseanne’s Johnny Galecki was there. I wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed him in The Little Dog Laughed when it was still off-Broadway. He was nekked onstage. Full frontal nudity, the whole shebang. Now that’s acting.

It was fun playing a nerd and being around others playing nerds or who were nerds in real life. I’ve always thought I fit in better with those who tend to be on the geeky side. There’s no pressure. You can be yourself, which can’t be said for many social situations. Especially out here.

Our last shot had us chasing the lead actor down Warner Bros’ backlot, mob style. He had stolen and was running away with the only reel of Raiders Of The Lost Ark that had 21 extra seconds in it, originally deleted from its final theatrical print back in, what, 1982? (Were any of these kids even born then? I’m sure Mr. Galecki was, even tho he’s playing younger….) We were supposed to be in a collective rage. I couldn’t stop laughing. I wasn’t the only one, thankfully. We wrapped at 2:30AM, exhausted but well fed from excellent catering. All in a day’s work, compatriots xoxo

Crystal Light, Crystal Meth & Patti LuPone

Shine your light now


This time it’s got to be good


You’ll get it right now, yeah


Cuz you’re in Hollywood




– Madonna


At Lucky Strike bowling lanes underneath the Kodak Theatre mall, Cameron and I had some background business to create and execute while filming an episode of No Ordinary Family. He was cracking me up. His whole shtick was to mime doing shots & lines with his back to the camera. He would get more and more fucked up as the scene progressed. The AD’s actually told Cameron that they liked what he was doing, but to tone it down a bit. (Didn’t Raquel Welch give a similar message to Tori Amos on the set of her Crystal Light commercial back in the 80′s?)

Cameron was honestly more interesting than the scene. I played “straight man” to his John Belushi and, when the day was done, I told him to find out about Second City, Upright Citizens Brigade and The Groundlings. Dude needs to be in an improv troop.

…Flipping through Patti Lupone’s memoir at Borders. That woman has worked! Like Patti, I have one of those voices that can obliterate everything in its path; so naturally I was thinking to myself “Why am I not singing???” In time I’ll make an open mike at the Guardenia.


I need to find a way to get as many fires burning as possible cuz I could be a lot further along at this juncture in my life. I mean, am I coming to Hollywood via Broadway like I once thought I would? No. Am I here because I landed a role in a soap or sitcom and am now trying my luck during pilot season? Nope. Am I trying to have any form of acting career by way of being an extra? Yup. Dat be me. 

Like I suspected, it’s all about confidence out here. But it must come from within. Money, supposed fame, fast cars and cocaine won’t get you far. And for God’s sake stay away from crystal meth. If you thought Oxycontin is all the rage these days, think again. Meth is as predominant on the West Coast now as it was back in ’95 when I was living in Seattle.
I was stupid enough to go home with someone tweaking on meth the other night. I was ready to have hot pornographic sex with himuntil his paranoia took over and he abandoned me in the hills of Silver Lake. I spent the rest of the night finding my way back home! But there’s a catch He left me with his leather jacket, and believe you me I’m hocking that shit for whatever it’s worth. In the immortal words of (Desperately Seeking) Susan, he owes me a coat.

People come to LA to ease their existence but then get caught up in its false values. One must proceed with caution. Do yoga. Become a Buddhist. Anything to get a healthy sense of self. One of my current roommates, Gus, is out here to find an agent and work, but he’s also interested in studying Stanislavsky’s method.

I prefer Meisner myself and look forward to taking classes too. I feel lucky, however. I’m coming into my own in LaLa Land. Such irony. I’m disdainful of so much out here yet I’m beginning to thrive amongst it. My confidence is coming with a new sense of ease. HA!

I love being 40.

Not too old and definitely not too young. Bring it!

Postcards from the Edge

Are you feeling alright? 

It’s easy, we’ve been there before 

But it feels like the flight 

Of the von Trapps Does that mean it's war?

– Pet Shop Boys

One thing that gives me pleasure these days is comparing the LAPD cars to the NYPD ones. 9/11 brought major budget increases to the police force in New York, culminating in awesomely souped-up blue & whites that look sleek and sound off louder than ever before. Here in LA the cars may be souped-up but you’d never notice it: they’re still black & white and, comparatively speaking, look like shit. And the lights on top are now flat, lest you notice them through your rear-view mirror. Flatting those lights must equal some form of police castration. Still, they win because they’re everywhere. Just as omnipresent as they are in NYC except the percentage of undercover police presence may actually be higher here.

It’s no secret there’s a large contingent of young homeless people ’round these parts. Being in their well-worn shoes means dodging cop cars, large white vans (security officers) and anyone wearing a badge. It’s a constant shuffle from one location to another, usually resulting in the settling into of some spot that every dog and human has used for a bathroom. Each day is epic and there is never a dull moment. Mental illness seeps in and it becomes difficult to discern whether the illness came first or the homelessness. Childhoods and time in prison leave scars that never heal, and one kid in particular, whom I will call Beau since he reminds me of a young Beau Bridges, has far too much brutal experience in his eyes for someone his age. Blond, handsome and smart as a whip; Beau travels through the day with his cohorts getting high and scoring cigarettes. Anything resembling a conventional life is of no interest whatsoever. In fact, it’s the kiss of death. “Hey, you wanna adopt me?” he asks a female passerby. She laughs at his joke but keeps on walking.

Someone else I’ve come to know, who is not homeless, is suffering from major PTSD having been a fireman, a paramedic and an active gang member. He’s my age and wants desperately to change his life for the better. Also smart as a whip, he can’t turn his mind off. His defense mechanisms have been cranked up past the boiling point for much too long, and he’s fried. He’s also hot as hell, and I’m hoping something might transpire. Cuz I luvs me sum dark chocolate! (I AM Amanda Bynes in Hairspray.) He’s straight though. Again, I’m gravitating toward straight guys. What’s going on?! And I’m even getting my groove on with these dudes.

These are only two out of many I’ve met who are going through it. Choosing LA as a place to turn your life around, get it together, survive…it’s a dicey proposition. Here everyone is a hustler–hustling for something–and little attention is paid to those who have slipped through the cracks. Personally, I look up to the palm trees reaching for the sun to find my higher ground. But then there are those law enforcement helicopters swarming around like buzzards….

Finally, I find peace and quite on the set of CSI: NY nestled in a backlot in Studio City, CA. This is what I’m here for, this is why I’m here. Check. Glad I don’t have a problem playing a cop on TV. That would certainly undermine my employment opportunities. Go ahead, call me a hypocrite. It won’t phase me. I’m in Hollywood.