dnnlmm

up in the air

So my plan is to give this blogging business another try. This time around i’M jet setting to Asia for the holidays. More specifically hong kong for Christmas and Thailand for the new year(whoo 2012). As I write this i’m currently up in the sky en route to NRT from LAX.  My day started off at 8 am and in total its 18 hours of flytime. Yup flying across the pacific in a tube of the sky, it’s great. Got to LAX and since I fly standby I always check the stand by list to see what are my chances of making the flight. I get to my gate. There are 14 seats “available” and where does LAM/D stand on it….15!!!! It would be my luck that I would be missing just the cutoff line. Now you may ask “but Danny you said you’re on the plane, how did you luck out?” well thats a fine question the answer being that it played out like a b-list hollywood movie. Imagine everyone already boarding the plan. Their making announcements saying the gate will be closed in 1 minutes and I’ve come to the conclusion that I have to try again tomorrow and basically do a groundhog day. But by the grace of the powers unknown I hear my name get called, I run to collect my ticket and run some more to get to the plane before it closes of me. A lot of running in then span of seconds. Yup last one to board the plane, last seat on the plane. I’m a happy asian at this point. 

flying foibles

Time 1:44 pm Currently at LAX, today is turning into the longest flight day ever. Started off with missing my 11:30 am flight to JFK, finally boarding the 1:30 pm flight than finding all flights to new york are grounded due to weather. I’m assuming when new york hits 40c weather shit hits the fan(thunderstorms.heavyrain.tornados.hurricanes.cats&dogs) playing it out. Supposedly well be in the air at around 3:30. Fingers crossed. On the bright side it isn’t a volcano stopping me from getting to London.

toddlers.tiaras…and invisalign?

So when you go out for auditions in the crazy city known as Los Angeles, 9 times out of 10 you something odd happens. Today was one of those days.

The audition was a print brochure type thing for invisalign. First off I always get a kick when I get the address of the audition and it’s a place I’ve never been too. It’s like i get to go on a mini-adventure of LA. This location was in the middle of Santa Monica in it’s art district, maybe 10-15 blocks away from the beach. After parking, it was a maze to find the place, but after walking aimlessly and the help of a nice lady I found my way.Once I got to the room however the shit hit the fan. It was a room full of “stage moms” and their kids. My first thought was “shit wrong place, mixed up the time and location,” second thought was “toddlers and tiaras.” I walked on over to the sign in table and the woman there in her sweetest im-talking-to-a-child-voice told me i was in the right place. After dealing with kids all morning I guess thats the tone you take with people.

Another fact, usually with castings they block people/roles together. So a day might look like “9am-11am for Peggy Sue. 11am-1pm Stefan Stefan. 1pm-3pm Chingchonglinglong(CCLL)”…you get the point. You dont mix up Peggy Sue and CCLL together which was the situation at hand. I found a place to sit where i wasn’t gonna squish a munchkin and just chilled waiting for my number to be called. Something I noticed while waiting was that each parent that was there…dressed horrendously. There was a mother in a blood red velvet track suit and her body type didnt suit it aka fat we’ll call her Track Mom. Another mom was wearing a baggy justice league sweater, i mean i love comics as much as any chinese boy but I dont think batman and superman are gonna help in this situation. I guess they take hours prepping their children to look impeccable and just throw on whatever is within hands reach when they need to leave.

Track Mom brought both of her two kids to the casting, i guess when you have two might as well two birds one stone it. The girl went up while i was waiting and the boy followed. Track Mom however kept on going over to the boy and giving him the longest pep-talk as if he was about to announce his presidency or something, “You show them your bright shining personality Bobby, nows not the time to be shy, smile as if your life depended on it.” felt sad for the kid, after he was done i went up. Had some small chit-chat with the CD in which he noted “You’re here for the 13 year old kid?” I gave him a slight wtf face. He laughed. I faked laughed. He proceeded to tell me they were also casting for chinese people to be in a chinese market…how that meshes with invisalign, no idea. Photographer took 2 photos and that was that. Fingers crossed.