1st off: The bride has started an awesome blog called “Rational Moms” (no, dosage but we’re trying) and you can read all the rational awesomeness at rationalmoms.com.
2nd off: Though nothing is ever certain, neurologist I’m told that the song I co-wrote with Russ Parrish has made the Steel (Metal Skool, Metal Shop Danger Kitty) Panther record. I’m sure they’re just telling me this to be nice and will let me know later that the record company changed their mind and it’s not going to be on the record but sorry dude we really wanted it on there but you know how it goes. For this pessimistic reason, I remain cautious. That will be the 4th song I’ve ever had on a record. Pretty nifty.
So that’s that…
For the past three weeks, I’ve been acting in a movie called Par-Fection: The Golf Movie aka Dean sure hopes they change the fucking title. An old friend, Drew Rosenberg, was hoping to get Eric Stoltz and me to play a pair of evil plastic surgeons who… well the plot is quite convoluted and byzantine, but for various reasons, we end up putting a young guy under to give him breast implants against his will.
Yep.
Well, Eric passed on it and drew was in for a penny, so she got stuck with me. I think it worked out quite well, though. I tried to get Rod Maclachlan, Lorenzo Poindexter or Stuart Fratkin the gig as the other guy, but she found a guy named Christopher Showerman. We had a splendid time and I think that Chris and I had a nice thing going. We attempted to add an enormous level of homo-erotic subtext to the parts and, well, I’m pretty sure it’s inescapable.
Happily, there were a few truly wonderful things about the experience…
One of the things that has bummed me out so much about having almost had a really successful career in showbiz was the realization that the parts I *do* get are small and I’m destined for nothing but double digits on the call sheet… i’ll never get another lead role in anything. They’ll all be “cameos” which is simply a nice way of saying shitty little bone of a part. As #3 on the Golf Movie call sheet, I was happily proven wrong. As a skeptic, I love being proven wrong and this was no exception at all!!
More importantly, much of the cast and crew were literally children way back when I was on the map and they’d all grown up watching my youth on cable. It made them happy. I had a very nice Sullivan’s Travels experience learning that even though I’m probably going to be, as the The Movie Channel promo was so nice to point out, a footnote in the history of showbiz, there are people who have been affected & effected (but not impacted, damn it!!!) by the stuff I had done. I’ve always been aware of it, but for some reason, it sunk in during this experience. One of the leads told me one of the reasons he’s an actor is because of Summer School.
I’ve always enjoyed working with female directors, too. The lack of on set dick waving is really nice and allows one to do work instead of see who is smarter, cooler, richer or whatever. Director as mother is better than director as general. Working, even if it’s a stupid fucking golf movie about a guy who gets tits against his will, is already an internal battle. It’s nice to not have one going on externally, ass well.
I also got to go out of town for an extended period of time to a beautiful place called Borrego Springs. Yes, it was almost as hot as the surface of the sun, but the room sure was nice and the desert is so lovely during the late summer. Shooting was at the resort where we were staying, so I’d finish my day, walk to my room, change and be standing in the pool within 10 minutes of wrap.
The bride was able to come out and hang so that kept me from missing her and getting depressed.
Mainly, I didn’t beat the shit out of myself. I was rusty on my first day and encountered some memorization issues, but after that nightmare, it clicked in and I was able to do stuff I wanted to do. I kept feeling a hammy/mugging urge and was able to resist it for the most part, though some hacky shit managed to shit its way out of me, I’m sure. Perhaps the stuff that I’m hoping is “good” is boring. Dunno. I was attempting to simply let my inner conniving prick ooze out. We’ll see.
It was a good time. I was #3 on the call sheet. How cool is that?