It's That Time of the Year

I know it's past Christmas but for some reason this song is making me miss that island Christmas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw2rC1hF-bw

Merry Christmas!

Spending my first Christmas in California is kinda weird. It's cold and raining outside making it look and feel like Seattle and oddly, I really like it. I feel comfortable and almost nostalgic sitting here in the cold. I guess after spending 7 years in Seattle, it grows on you. But oh well! Merry Christmas everyone! I'm off to eat and then take a nice long nap...ooohhh..and maybe a movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDs9IZWvjhc

Happy Holidays!

Finally! It's that time of the year! I hope everyone has a good one and gets everything that they want. As for me? I'll be cuddling up some delicious food and hot cocoa whilst watching UH kick the crap out of Notre Dame. Happy Holidays everyone! I leave you with a little video of an awesome choir to help spread Christmas cheer. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h5UBeQcgjs&feature=related

From Boogie Town to Korea Town

So after working a 17 hour day on Boogie Town, I head home, shower, and rush straight to Pasadena where we're shooting on location for an upcoming series called Lie To Me. I'm not sure exactly who's in it, all I know is that, supposedly, it's about a detective who has the power to tell when someone's lying to them or something to that effect. Sounds pretty interesting..but what's even more interesting is what they cast me as....Yup! You guessed it! A Korean wedding guest!! Cause you know I look soooo Korean and all! But whatever man, just as long as you feed me and pay me I'm all good!

So I get there all pimped out in my suit and thank goodness there's some people there that I've worked with before on some other shows or it would've been one long ass day. There was this one dude who was half white and filipino and he was cast as the same thing as me so I didn't feel as bad. There was also this one black guy I knew who was cast so we came to the conclusion that the "Korean" in "Korean wedding guest" referred to the wedding and not us. Maybe....

But, the shoot was pretty cool. They paired us up with some hot girls that played our dates at the wedding and we all were just talking story and acting a fool all day. The scene we were shooting was an assassination attempt on the Korean prime minister at his son's wedding. In this scene, we were supposed to be watching the slide show when the killer emerges from the back, pushing a woman out of the way, to where we all stand up to see what's going on. A gunshot then fires and we all hit the ground and hide behind our tables and chairs.

They had us seated right behind where all the action was taking place so you had a clear view of our table while they were wrestling down the killer. On every take, at the part where we were supposed to duck behind our tables while they wrestled the man down, I would rise up from behind my table with my butter knife as if I'm about to rush in and help. I really hope that you'll be able to see that and they keep it in!

We got out around 10pm, so it was another long day, but it was pretty fun and I met some cool people. It's still surprising to me when I meet people here who are actually really nice and aren't blatant about their agenda. There's so much fake people here it's ridiculous. But oh well.

Overall it was a good day, and it usually is when I'm booked on something with a lot of other twenty somethings. However, that wasn't the case on the following day when I was booked on Eli Stone and by far the youngest one on the set. I think I was there cause they just needed some brown skin in the courtroom. Blaahhhhh....

Old School Mondays!!

Maaaan...I remember singing this to the girls in my class!! LOL..Kinda bad when you think of when it came out. Can you imagine a little fourth grader romancing girls with this song?! And is it bad that I knew what this song was about when I was that young and I still loved to sing it to the girls?? Ahh, to be young again..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqLFG_fXEXM&feature=related

Get Your Boogie On!

So these past couple of weeks have been great in terms of consistency given the relative difficulty in finding work in this business. But when every given workday is an average of 12 hours minimum, working everyday could be a little tiring..just a little. I'm getting exhausted and I'm only doing background work! So it's no wonder why most Hollywood marriages don't last. If you and your wife both have thriving careers, then there's no way you'd be able to see each other. You're on set for 12-16 hours a day, only to go home and sleep for 4 hours (if you're even lucky to be shooting near your home and not somewhere on location) and you never have the time to spend with your loved ones. Do that for several months of shooting prior to having to travel the world to promote the movie for several months after, that's a recipe for one broken marriage. Beautiful...For a medium that's so dependent on collaboration, this business is truly meant for the lone warrior.

But the journey is great nonetheless and I've digressed from the true purpose of this blog.

A couple of weeks ago I worked on a movie in production called Boogie Town. OMG! It's by the same director and writer of You Got Served and this will either be the most awesome movie ever or the worst movie ever to be put to film. It's Demolition Man meets You Got Served meets West Side Story. Yes, you read correctly..Go ahead and read that sentence over again..I'll wait...

The plot is as follows:
In the future (2015), there is no drugs, crime, and violence in New York City. However, dancing is outlawed. Yes...dancing...battle dancing to be specific. The NYPD have thus created a new faction called the "Boogie Police" who specialize in catching dancers. The law is that if you're a dancer, you'll be arrested on site.

Marques Houston plays Micha, leader of the black dancing gang called The Trojans, whose bitter rival is an asian dancing gang called The Warriors, whose leader is a guy named Jay. The Trojans and the Warriors are known as the two best crews and, of course, Micha and Jay were once best friends but now for some reason they hate each other.

To top it off, they both are so good at dancing that they both possess a special power, creatively labeled "the Energy", which allows them to dance with superhuman speed, strength, and agility (Kinda like Bruce Leroy in The Last Dragon). When used, the Boogie Police are able to track said "Energy" via dancing satellite to pinpoint the exact location of illegal underground battles thus raiding them, ridding the world of these meddlesome and society diminishing dancers.

Micha is the organizer of this underground dance arena "Boogie Town" where dance crews come to "battle it out to the end". The animosity spills out from the dance floor to the streets as Jay finds out that Micha has been dating his sister behind his back. Oohhhh snap! Things just got serious...

Jay decides that the only way to settle things is a winner take all/loser leave town battle in Boogie Town. Who will win? What will happen to Micha and Natalie's love? Why and how do Jay and Micha possess this "Energy"? Why are the Boogie Police really hunting Jay and Micha?

Don't miss this coming of age drama when it hits a theater near you in June 2009. Boogie Town! Woot woot!

This movie will be awfully amazing or amazingly awful. I kinda can't wait till it comes out cause I really wanna see how it turns out. It'll probably be a rental though. But this movie does seem to be the talk of the town though. Since I've worked on it, I've met so many people and have many conversations that begin with "OMG! Have you worked on Boogie Town?!"

The fact that this movie is being made really gives me hope for my own career. Although, I did hear that it's not being made through a studio and the writer/director is funding it through his own production company to try to sell later on. I do think that despite the incredible storyline, this movie is gonna make a pretty good profit. If not at the box office, then in DVD sells, cause I'm sure that the dancing will be great and the dancing community will eat this all up. And the budget is really low ($3 million) so it shouldn't be that difficult for a studio to pick it up (if it hasn't already) and make its money back. To give you an idea of how low $3 million is in movie money, keep in mind that a movie is considered "low budget" if it's under $15 million. Although it does differ dependent on the genre. ($20 million is modest for a comedy but low for an action movie)

So this was the set I was on two Mondays ago. My call time was 10am and I didn't we didn't get wrapped until 4am. I played a Boogie Police officer and ended up having a great time. There were a lot of fun people on set that I met and the food was delicious and superfluous.

Normally being wrapped at 4am isn't that bad and days that long are normal, but what sucked was that I was booked on a show called Lie To Me the next day and my call time was.....6:30am!!

So as soon as we were wrapped, I drove the 35min out of Hollywood to where I live in West Covina, showered, grabbed my clothes, and drove 35min back into Hollywood and went back to work where my second wind kicked and more hilarity ensued.

Hitler Loves the Huskies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI_xCBAv2rk

Stupid Mondays

Mondays are frustrating on so many levels. Thank God for Monday night football!

But to get me through the day, I like to listen to music that takes me back to a simpler time. A time before college exams. A time before paying bills. A time before it was necessary for me to think "what am I gonna do with my life?" A time when you could just wake up and live; and the only thing you had to worry about was whether or not your mom packed you your favorite snack or if the girl you liked in class liked you back (which is oddly something I still find myself stressing over these twenty something years later) or whether or not you're gonna have enough time to play outside with your friends before your parents make you come in and do your homework.

Ahhh..those were the days.

I have this one weird, almost self realization, memory from my childhood. When I was in second grade I was in an after school program at my school and I vividly remember a day when I had finished all my homework and was sitting at my desk staring out the door of the classroom thinking how slow my life is going by.

"I can't wait until I'm done with the 2nd grade!", I thought to myself.

Then I saw a man walk pass the door and peak into the classroom with a deadpan look on his face. He wasn't happy, he wasn't sad, it just a deadpan. The he kinda smirked and just walked away.

"What a weirdo!", I thought.

Then, for some reason, I began to think of how my parents would always stress to me on how I should "enjoy myself while I can because life is short". As I watched this man walk away, holding hands with his son that he just picked up, I switched my thought from "time is going so slow" to "Damnit! I just jinxed myself! Now that I've said that, time is gonna go by so fast and I'm gonna wake up tomorrow 20 years old!"

And then I looked up at the clock.

"Damnit! Only a minute has gone by! Time's going by sooo slow!!"

And that was it.

I don't remember what I did on that day before that incident and I don't remember what I did after. But for some reason, that self realizing moment is implanted in my memory so crystal clear. And then I get frustrated or sad at the irony of my second grade self complaining at the problem of how slow time is going and my current old ass self wanting to have those same problems again. Don't get me wrong, it's not because I have regrets of what I've done or how my life has turned out. I just miss it.

And maybe that's why we hate Monday's so much. Subconsciously, it's the juxtaposition of Sunday, a childlike day of no work and no cares, to Monday, a day that thrusts us back to reality and the responsibilities that make up our current life.

Now almost two decades later, I understand why that man passing by the classroom looked in the room with that expression on his face and walked away with a smirk. He was longing to be back in that classroom desk. He was remembering a simpler time.

And maybe now I've become that man and that's why I love old school jams so much. Because for those 3-4 minutes, I'm back sitting in that classroom desk looking out at the world, planning out my life with not a care in the world.

But instead, I'm looking in, not happy, not sad, just a deadpan.

Stupid Mondays...

Thanksgiving Treats

I'm sitting here at the computer stuffed and ready to crash out. As usual, the food consumption level was gloriously high. My sister flew up from Hawai'i to visit and her and her friend wants to pull an all-nighter and head over to the mall for some Black Friday Frenzy...hell no..we won't go..

I love Thanksgiving! When I was little, I used to love drawing turkeys! And I was really good at it!

What's not to love? You eat, there's football, you eat some more, there's more football, a little more eating, and then you sleep! Only to wake up and splurge on cheap ass stuff that you'll never really need in the first place!

It's beautiful!

But today was a little different.

I took my sister and her friend to Universal Studios Theme Park all day (thank goodness for my annual pass) and ended up going straight to a distant family member's house for some lovely gluttony...and some Bingo! I've never been involved in such an intense game of Bingo before. But then again there was never $400 on the line...Damnit Great Aunt Sally!! Lady luck was on your side and I will have my revenge!

But through the grand adventure that was today, and with the many texts sent and received, I began to think of all the things that I was really thankful for in life, as well as all the things that I'm NOT thankful for.

THANK YOU for all my family and friends. I love you all and, as cliche as it sounds, I really don't know what I'd do without you guys. You all influence me in different ways and help me keep my sanity in this crazy ass world of ours. NO THANK YOU to my cousin's dog, who was sitting on my face when I woke up this morning.

THANK YOU for all the wonderful food that I ate today (and everyday for that matter!). The endless trays of BBQ chicken, fried chicken, king crab legs, lobster, poke, and prime rib was beautiful and I'll be eating good for the next couple of days. NO THANK YOU for beets. Seriously, does anyone eat these things on purpose?! They taste like ass! The first time I had them I thought it was some kind of chopped sweet fruit like strawberries or something and so I took a big bite...blehhhhhhhh!!!

THANK YOU for the opportunities I'm getting in my career right now. It's a slow and tedious process but I really feel that I'm on the right track and I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing in life. NO THANK YOU for the 12 hour minimum work days..arrghhhh!

THANK YOU Zack and Miri for making a porno. NO THANK YOU for not casting me in it....bastards.

THANK YOU for being so sexy. NO THANK YOU for being so damn sexy! What can I say? When the packaging is this good, people tend to not care what's on the inside.

THANK YOU for being single in a time in my career where, time-wise and financially, I can't afford to worry about the needs of another person. NO THANK YOU for being single in a time in my career where, time-wise and financially, I can't afford to worry about the needs of another person but I wouldn't mind if I had to.

And lastly, THANK YOU for life and it's quirky sense of humor. No matter how much shit we seem to go through, things always seem to have a way of working themselves out. NO THANK YOU for the serious undertone that this entry just took. Such corn!

Happy Thanksgiving people!

I hope all the guys got drunk and passed out on the bathroom floor and all the women gained at least 10 pounds!

I've Got Gas

I don't know why this is making me so happy..but I guess I'll write about it anyway.

So whenever I need to feed the ole motor vehicle, like a date, I tend to only spend twenty dollars. (...And that's only because the lovin's free, ladies! ;D...) But today, things went a little differently and despite it being an incredibly pleasant surprise, it confused the hell out of me.

I pull into the gas station, gas tank on "E", walk into the mini mart and hand the guy a twenty. I start pumping my gas and put up the latch so that it pumps by itself and so that I could grab the windshield wiper thingy and give my windows a good rubdown. Not to long into it, the pump clicks and stops and I walk over to it and see that only $15 was used. You know how some pumps stop close to the amount of money you put in and you have to manually pump it until the end? That's what I thought happened and so I'm over there trying to pump the rest of the $20 thinking, "Why the hell would the pump stop $4 from the end?! Bastards!" To my dismay, the pump keeps clicking off, preventing me from using the rest of my $20!

Thinking that my gas tank is now broken, I start swearing at myself and some old lady starts looking at me weird. I think she thinks that I'm a "thug" because she hurries her gas pumping duty to quickly get into her car and drive away.

So after about five or six times of this thing clicking off, it finally dawns on me that it's clicking off because the tank us full.

"But it's been only $16 and the tank was was on 'E' when I got here", I thought.

"Is this what it's like to have a full tank of gas?! I completely forgot what it was like! Dear Lord, it's been so long!" I started to sound like a divorced woman who's having her first lovin' in years.

I looked up at the price on the gas meter, something that, for some reason, I failed to do when I drove up. And as I saw the price, I felt like a high school kid losing his virginity to the prettiest girl in school!

"$1.99?! I can't believe this is happening! Is this a dream?! Oh, please be gentle with me.."

I didn't even know what to do after that! Do I go back in and get my change? Can I get my change back? Do they let you do that?!

And they DO!!

I got my three dollars and change from the nice Latin in the convenience store window and I treated myself to a nice parfait and a glorious cup of water...smiles all around.

And that's it...that's the end of my story..

Any ladies like parfaits? I got enough money for two more!

Sexy pahhty time initiated!