Gratuitous Picture Of Yourself Taken A Week Ago And Published Today In The Local Alternative Weekly Wednesday.

"The Chatterbox crew (and its surprisingly enormous cast) also bring a fair amount of original material to life. As weak writing tends to be the Achilles’ heel of so much podcast radio drama — hell, of so much radio drama, period — it pleases your Podthinker to report that, here, it’s pretty sound. (No pun intended.) Though the events of “King Me” [MP3], one of those games of repeated table-turning deception, are fairly standard, they’re well-rendered. Even better are the slightly more experimental ventures, like the same author’s Fearless-like “The Separate Self” [MP3], which break from the dramatic forms you’d see on a physical stage to get creative with perspective-shifting setups only possible on radio."

—

Maximum Fun | Home of The Sound of Young America, Jordan Jesse Go, and things that are awesome.

Hey, look! A nice shout-out for the audio theater podcast that sometimes lets me do animal noises!

daniellei:

atsween:

“It’s fun to say Allosaurus with a Cockney accent.”

- Me on Twitter

SEE?!

Could you also do recordings of the word “Birmingham” and “Buckingham”?

I can also use them in a sentence! Perhaps everyone should record themselves saying “Allosaurus” and someone do a dance mix.

(I couldn’t figure out how to reblog and add my own audio file. We could create amazing piecemeal conversations if we could do that, though.)

This song has been played 78 times.

Today is sleety. I went for a nearly three-hour walk. (via fancycwabs)

Trying something new:

There had been a posting on the local theatrical callboard for “Caucasian guys, aged late thirties to early forties” for a Public Service Announcement, and I thought to myself, “Why I am am a man from Caucasia! And I am also in my late thirties to early forties! Why not give it a shot?” So I called the number and left a message.

They called back while I was at work (with no cell reception), and were the first people to call after I’d set up my iPhone to go straight to Google Voice instead of the standard voicemail, so I got an email with a transcription of their call before I heard the actual message, and Google Voice’s transcription is still just a li’l bit wonky, but they do a good job with numbers, so I managed to call back and make an appointment for an audition. Which was yesterday.

I showed up at the studio, filled out the form and issued a set of sides for the commercial, had a quick headshot taken (I was wearing this, which I would have taken to calling my “Brad Pitt ensemble” based on how my students described me in it but may relabel—read on to discover why), and escorted back to the green room (which had an awesome vintage pinball machine) to study lines and get all nervous. Several other men from Caucasia were similarly escorted back to the room, including the fellow who played Sweeney Todd when we did that show over a year ago, so we had a few moments of catching up before I was called to do my bit for the camera.

I walked into the chilly room with an overhead boom mic in front of a plain white backdrop and a fixed camera rig positioned at about waist level, with cue card set below it (whew!) and rehearsed the bit a couple of times before we filmed two takes of it.

I don’t know if I’m at liberty to say what the PSA is for, but I’ve done a bit of research into it, and I will divulge the following facts about the program:

• It involves a Republican Governor using federal stimulus money that he’d previously hinted he might reject.
• The way were instructed to read the name of the program sounds makes it sound like a Microsoft product, but I’m pretty sure we were supposed to say the name of the state involved. The number of S’s involved in the program’s name, especially in one fo the lines, made this a tongue-twister par excellence after three or four times through, until they told me to change how I was saying it.
• Program money cannot be used to hire strippers.

The PSA itself involved my playing a guy at a gas pump, discussing a few benefits and details of the program, and giving out a phone number for more information at the end. Nothing too taxing, but I was told that I moved my head too much for camera work, so I tried to tone that down before we actually recorded the bit. They told me that I had a pretty good look on camera, and that I resembled an “older Ashton Kutcher,” which adds one more name to the long, long list of celebrity lookalikes I’ve acquired (for those keeping score at home: Dennis Quaid, Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, Dylan Walsh, Tom Green (!), and, as previously mentioned, Brad Pitt). Beyond concentrating on not moving my head, the most difficult bit was making sure I didn’t hold the prop gas pump right in front of my junk.

I’m pretty sure that would have been bad.

I did my two takes, was told I’d done a fine job (I’d asked them to be gentle, as it was my first time—so they may have been being nice about it), headed back to the green room to wish Sweeney a good audition (and to let him know there was definitely a cue card), and headed out. I don’t necessarily expect to hear anything, but it would definitely be cool if I did.

I don’t know if they’ll look kindly on my ad-libbing “this money cannot be used to hire strippers,” though.

nickdouglas:

indefensible:

merlin:

JasPer, Mad, and I just broke the news to Anna.

This —this — is what we do to onions here.

“According to Aboriginal lore…”

Fixed the “it’s”.

Thanks, Nick. That was driving me crazy.

Things I should have gotten correct on the Jeopardy test, but couldn't pull out of my brain in under fifteen seconds:

* The architect in The Fountainhead is loosely based on Frank Lloyd Wright (I’ve never read it, but should have been able to guess this).

* Polonius’ son in Hamlet is Laertes (I KNEW this one, but had a brain fart).

I DID manage to come up with both Justin Timberlake and The Lost Symbol without too much hesitation, and a few more-obscure answers as well, so it probably makes up for it. 50 questions in 12.5 minutes is a pretty breakneck pace, if you’re just taking the test for kicks. I’m sure there are folks who cram and prepare and practice practice practice for these things, but I’m not sure I’m cut out for sober trivia anymore.

Rock Rulz! Think Good Eats, only with music instead of food. I’m sure they owe some kind of debt to The Show with Ze Frank, too.

I have my creative writing classes writing their resumes, so that I’ll have taught them at least ONE useful thing this year. On one of them I came across this…club.

Was anyone else in the “Pretty Girls Chest Club” in school? Why was I unaware of it before today?

YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAA!