And the full link if the above gives you trouble: http://www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me/

Full link: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/incharacter-slideshow?printable=true#slide=1

Lots has happened since I posted on Friday.  I didn’t win the Primal Iron Chef contest.  Sigh.  But that means I have a post that just needs some editing and then it can be posted here.  So win! (Always embrace your bright side/silver linings).

Class was good on Friday, but I threw my partner a bit of a curve ball and that messed with her.  It was silly of me to have thrown what I threw at her with such little notice.  So our exercise suffered.  That said, it was still a respectable exercise so I’m not going to stress about it.  After all, the whole point of class is learning and I definitely learned.

Before class on Friday I met up with my Aunt L and my cousin E for a picnic and LACMA visit (in honor of my birthday – I love spreading the birthday celebrating out for weeks!).  It was a yummy picnic and I really enjoyed my first visit to LACMA.  Due to various time constraints, it wasn’t a long visit so I have lots of the museum waiting for exploration.  But I did get a chance to check out their newest building and the special exhibits they have in there right now.  It was only open to members and my aunt is member so we all got in!

The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday night whirlwind of checking out the newly reformed Ghost of the Robot (wait, what??!??) on their “This Night Only Tour”. Which turned out to be surprisingly pleasant.  E and I did a relatively lengthy write up (bullet points) on it and posted it to facebook. So look there if you care.  And after taking a couple of minutes to say hi to James (Marsters – better known as Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) afterwards we ran off to catch the incomparable Phil X with his band The Drills.  This meant we drove from Santa Monica to the ass-end of Burbank at 11 o’clock on a Saturday night.  Thankfully that went relatively smoothly and we found the place without difficulty.  As per Los Angeles (and possibly all small venues everywhere) tradition they were running late.  The really excellent part of this is that we got to see all of the 5th & Birmingham set which was a lovely discovery of rock’n alternative country – I am still in love with the first song they performed.

So, it was nearly 2 am by the time The Drills closed the place down.  The acoustics were excellent and with the exception of the really drunk asshat who nearly dropped a full beer on me (it only splashed on to one of my toes, but ewww!) it was an awesome show.  Of course, we waited around to chat with Phil which meant that it was closing in on 3 am before we left.  We were adventurous and now know how to get to the cantina using our preferred backstreets and this is important as we are anticipating future gigs here.  Lights on the stage and acoustics that allow you to hear things!  Oh and there is no cover.  If they don’t hurry up and post a new date soon I’m gonna start a petition.

So, yesterday (Sunday) was spent recuperating and recounting the tales of the first part of the night.  Not to mention E had large collection of videos to post.  About half of which she posted before she even attempted sleep.  She hasn’t slept much in the past 48 hours.  Part of that is my fault for engaging her in epic conversation threads on facebook and else where (and speaking of facebook, random tangent… apparently everyone and their mother loves “The Social Network”). I do not apologize on account of finding it all very amusing and knowing full well that she could have left all of the conversations at any moment.  I am unrepentant.

So today we recorded our latest A Squeevening With (on account of the unexpected delight of the reformed GotR).  This involved the usual levels of silliness and a fair share of technical difficulties. We appear to once again have a three parter on our hands, but hey, it’s our thing and we can do what ever we want with it.  The really exciting bit is that this will be the debut of our custom intro music created for us by one Michael D. Henry.  A big thanks to Mike, he is an awesome musician and we’re especially happy to call him friend.

And now I have more prep to do for class tomorrow…

The point is HOT!  And not the good kind of hot.  As in “check out that hottie over there!” hot.  No, the point is, we ran our AC unit all day on Monday and thanks to less than ideal airflow my room was still overly warm.  And for those of you who don’t know me, I don’t like the heat.  I would like the heat to go away.  I tend to feel useless in the heat.  So, you see, getting two blog posts out of me that morning was half a miracle and probably only possible because I wrote them in the AM before the heat really started in ernest.  Although, it was already hot on account of the previous two days of heat wave.  And apparently between the knocking out two posts in one day and all that excess heat in the world I was done with posting for the rest of the week even though I have things to write/post about.  But enough about the misery of heat and it’s impact on me/this blog.  On to more interesting things…

Things like class on Tuesday… Remember last Friday?  With the very successful ass kicking exercise?  Yeah, well Tuesday was the one step back to Friday’s two steps forward.  It was a good exercise.  I had all lots of room to be more specific with my superlative activity (but I had tweaked it to be better than what I had originally planned on doing – I am at least paying some attention!).  And for some reason my specific relationship wasn’t particularly strong the first go round.  But hey, it was a learning experience and that is what I am there for.  Yay for learning!

Wednesday was spent trying to be productive while still hiding from the lingering heat (I did manage to get out and mail the cell phone I’ve been meaning to send to my sister for the past two and half weeks!  She’ll be so happy.) and culminated in a call from my mother.  She was calling from the hospital to let me know what was going on with my grandmother.  *Gulp*  We only just lost grandpa back in June.  This has been a hard year.  I am not ready for more death in my family (who is, right?).  Thankfully, while not exactly encouraging the prognosis is reasonably good and I’m hoping that a doctor who knows her better (her doctor) will actually have a more encouraging out look.  But who knows.  For now, what we know is that she as ovarian cancer and a large tumor that is pressing against her internal organs.  Due to her age and Alzheimer’s, she probably isn’t a good candidate for surgery.  However this cancer does tend to respond well to low level chemotherapy.  So, we await further diagnosis and such like.  Please send her some love and prayers, they will be welcome and appreciated.

And plunging onward (wiping away the tears – she’s my last living grandparent…).

What was I saying about onward?  Oh yes, plunging.

Yesterday was the first day of the week that temps were mostly decent.  And while I had gone out in pursuit of supplies late the night before, I had refrained from actually putting my “Primal Iron Chef” plans into motion until our apartment had another night to cool off.  This led to me actually relocating to a friend’s apartment/kitchen.  It’s a nice kitchen.  Much more spacious than my own.  And prettier.  I have to say, I wish I had used that aspect of it more, but it would have required more straightening and meddling with someone else’s kitchen than I was going to do at that time.  Not that the people in question give their kitchen much of work out, but still.  (No I am not plotting future take overs of this kitchen.  I pinky swear.)

So where was I?  Oh yes, concocting coconut primal dishes for the chance to win a VitaMix (wish me luck guys!).  I settled into the kitchen quickly and began what ended up being a very long process for putting together my two dishes.  This was not exactly by design & was entirely unnecessary, but I am just fine with how it all went down.  Thankfully it wasn’t totally down to the wire and I got my entry in with almost an hour to spare.  I am not going to rehash what I wrote up for the contest here.  I will either link to it if it gets posted over at marksdailyapple.com or post it in its entirety here in a few days.  And I will include an epilog!

So here it is, Friday morning again.  And I am starting to feel mostly human again.  The temps are at least bearable and my leg is mostly not gimpy (this has not been my month for walking.  I have joked a lot about working on impediments early – which is something we will be learning in class – but I really would rather not have the assistance on that one).   I’m seriously obsessing about my Primal Iron Chef entry.  The Primal Blueprint Challenge has been fun by the way.  Lots of fun contests and ideas and inspiration.  Now if only I would stop hurting myself so that I can get back to actually being able to exercise and such!

Yup, Friday morning and today holds lots of promise.  My aunt (and possibly/probably my uncle and their two kids) will be meeting me at the tar pits and for a picnic and taking me to LACMA in honor of my birthday.  This is reminding me a bit of last Friday.  When E’s family (mom and her mom’s cousin) was in town and E took me/us whale watching.  Which was entirely awesome, by the way, and will be getting it’s own post just as soon as I sit down, write it & steal video/photos of the event from E.  I’m hoping that picnic/museum visit is lovely and that I skip the injuring myself but do manage the kick butt in class thing again….

I’ll let you know.

This was the inaugural West Coast/Los Angeles seminar from The Savvy Actor which is very exciting.  They’ve been helping actors in New York for the last three years and they’ve finally expanded.  Now we can benefit from their wealth of knowledge and experience here in LA.  A chance to learn the all important business & marketing aspects of your career management from pair of people who extensive experience with both the business/marketing and the acting parts of the equation.  And not only that, they’re out there practicing what they preach right now.  They both have acting careers in addition to running The Savvy Actor.

Currently they have one Crash Course MBA Weekend scheduled here in LA.  It’s coming up in just under a month towards the end of October (23&24, 10am-6pm).  I believe that this will be the only event that they will have out here in 2010, so if you don’t jump on it you’ll have to wait until 2011 to get their marketing wisdom and savvy in one big concentrated dose.  If you can’t make it, they do offer a few other options, including buying their book/course manual, a couple of seminar/workshops (some of which are webinars/held online & there for accessible anywhere you have an internet connection), and one on one coaching.  So lots of possibilities.

Before I finish this, I’d like to just share a few of the gems I picked up in the hour that Jodie  was speaking.  She really emphasized the importance of consistency.  Having a reason, a purpose, and a strategized plan behind everything you do.  And basically realizing that you are your product (a thinking feeling product for sure, but still a product) and as such everything you do inevitably reflects your product/brand and the sooner you realize that and behave accordingly the better your results are going to be.

She also gave us an overview of the The Savvy Actor’s Six Vital Business Fundamentals.  These are the six business fundamentals that they delve into in great detail during the Crash Course MBA Weekend.  I’ll give you a summary here (based on my notes) so that you can get an idea of what the weekend really has in store for you.

These are the 6 roles or mindsets you need to incorporate into your thinking & being to effectively market yourself as an actor.

1. Be an Entrepreneur

Which Jodie tells us means embracing the entrepreneurial spirit and living your passion.  It’s about know what you want in your life as well as your career.  Letting go of what you think others want or expect from you and finding your “must”.  Entrepreneurs are a passionate dedicated lot who happily blaze new trails in the pursuit of their passion.  As artists we have no excuse for not doing the same.

2. Be a Project Manager

This fundamental is about having a plan of action – knowing how you are going to get there.  ”There” being your must, your passion that you clearly defined with the first fundamental.  Of course, your must is (or should be…) much bigger than a single goal or even a couple of goals, so as project manager you break it down.  Jodie recommends working on no more that 3-5 goals at a time.  Specifically 2 career goals, 1 life goal, and 1 financial goal.  She likes a year time frame and stresses the importance of getting organized, mapping out a plan, and incorporating tasks related to your goals into your daily life.  Goals are achieved by small steps on a regular basis.

3. Be a Brand Specialist

This is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of all.  As an actor, your brand is you.  And to know your brand requires knowing yourself.  Knowing not just what you like about yourself (or even what you don’t like about yourself) but knowing what other people see.  What you bring to every situation you are in.  Knowing your essence and not being afraid to show your essence to the world.  A brand is a promise.  People will choose your brand when they understand it and know that you understand it and will deliver what they are expecting.  But don’t scare yourself with visions of typecasting.  Your brand is your entry point, it’s your foot in the door.  And people in this industry know that brands change, they evolve.  So understand what your brand is now, polish it and sell it as is, it will launch your career & down the road it will evolve.

4. Be a Marketing Director

In this role you will need to make sure that all of your marketing materials reflect your brand (do you see how these fundamentals build on each other?  I’m not mapping out explicitly from one to the next, but it’s not hard to see the connections if you look).  Remember that your materials are how you communicate your brand – is your brand clear in every piece of marketing you are putting out there?  Jodie gave us the Savvy Actor Definition of Marketing:

The creative promotion of your essence, your relationships, & your successes.

With your essence being your brand, your relationships being the people you connecting to and meeting with, and your successes being your successes.  And she made a point of how important it is to own our successes.  Even little ones.  Success has a momentum, Celebrate it.

She also talked about the three types of headshots… 1. the one your significant other likes (the sexy one, you probably like it too).  2. the one your mother likes and 3. the one that sells you (your essence, your brand).  The audience all laughed when she shared this with us….

5. Be a Community Embassador

This fundamental is all about how are you going to talk about your brand….  Ever been stumped by the question “What do you do?” or “Tell me about yourself?”?  I know I have.  And Jodie cut straight to the chase on how we really need to spend some time working out our answers so that not only are they short and sweet (and sound like they come from a human being), but that they communicate your passion, your understanding of this crazy business called show business and how your fit into.  Your communications also need to highlight your successes.  Jodie says think of networking as “enriching your support systems”.  And realize that your communications are an important part of how you do business.

6. Be a Financial Strategist

And finally we get to the importance of money.  Money is the backbone of your business.  You must invest in your business/product (which is YOU! remember…) to develop it, to promote it, to market it.  Of course, there are always ways to save money and so on, but without a financial plan you’re flying blind.  Jodie brought up the importance of really taking the time to come to terms with you own thoughts and beliefs about money.  She explained how she used to have some rather detrimental beliefs in this area and that her success took a huge leap forward when she shed them.  I know that this is an area I have been working on in myself and it really makes a difference.  So, take a good look at your beliefs and relationship to money.  Give yourself permission to shed those beliefs that are holding you back.  Get organized and invest in yourself and your career.  You can thank me later .

So those are the 6 business fundamentals Jodie shared with us.  There is clearly room for a lot more detail in each area.  No wonder they need a whole weekend to really get into this stuff.

A couple of last thoughts… remember that brand you is a process and a balancing act between the essence you know to be true and that which the rest of the world perceives.  It’s also important to remember that everyone will see you differently.  So if someone sees you in a way that goes against the essence you know to be true, realize that they are not a good match for you.  Take your power back by taking responsibility and choosing not to pursue working with that person.  There are other people who will you in ways that are at least in line with what you see, if not exactly the same thing.  It’s your career, take control of it!

On Sunday, after the world had cooled off to some semblance of a reasonable temperature I made E drive me to Larchmont so that I could pick up a small celebratory treat in the form of a cupcake!  It was my birthday after all.  Which was actually quite a lovely day despite the mitigating factors.  Talked to my family on the phone.  Got lots of love from friends and family on facebook (love you guys!!!) and just enjoyed relaxing.  I’m saving more active celebrations for when I can walk again and the world outside my apartment is not doing it’s best impression of a furnace.

I took the opportunity to watch a couple of movies (what else was I really going to do?).  Love Story – a classic I had never watched before.  And The Matrix.  Yeah, I like odd couplings  I also watched Sweeny Todd for the first time on Saturday.  So I’ve had a fun filmic weekend.  And I enjoyed all three of the movies I picked for it, so yay me!  It was really interesting watching The Matrix again, especially considering how long it had been since I’d seen it.  I remember the impact it had eleven years ago.  And I can still see it today.  Although those Nokia phones look huge now.  And oh dear god…. is that a CRT!??!!  It’s amazing how the world changes.

Anyway, my birthday was lovely and I’m considering mainlining thai iced teas as clearly it’s the only reasonable way to deal with the fact that the predicted high for today is upwards of 103 and we’re well on our way.

Not particularly related to acting, but it’s such an important message for a group of people who need it.

I’ve loved Dan Savage for years.  His advice column Savage Love is an awesome read and his contribution to the amazing This American Life live broadcast was so beautiful and touching.  I’m so grateful that there are people like Dan Savage out there doing these things.  I find it very inspirational.  Enjoy and please share!

Turns out that while I was out doing my acting thing E was busy picking up a pair of Roborovski hamsters.  Which happen to be the tiniest most adorable hamsters you have ever laid eyes on.  They are also hyper-active and suck at climbing.  They have been in this house for approximately 19 hours (give or take) and they have been on their wheel for 18.5 of those hours.  And while they do trade off which one is running on the wheel a bit, they also spend a good deal of that time running the wheel together.  And mind you, on the rare occasion that one of them is not on the wheel, that hamster is not resting.  Oh no.  The one that is not on the wheel is running around like a mad thing.

And thus the tradition of crazy animals in our house continues.  Which reminds me, I don’t think I ever posted about my crazy beta….

But enough about critters for now.  Acting!  Or in my case “pacting”.  One of the things our teachers at the studio like to say to us on a regular basis is “Acting is doing, it is not passive, if it was it would be called pacting.”  And my major note for the night was that I had a passivity in me.  Which is definitely an obstacle that I am working on and was more pronounced in my work last night on account of a number of factors.  My choice of activity was detrimental to action and I needed to really deepen my emotional relationship to the circumstances that we (my partner and I) had written.  Overall, we had a good understanding of the new work and properly setting it up.  I did make one mistake in choosing my circumstances that I should have caught, but this is a learning experience and I got lots of notes to help me for next time.

Last night was a challenge on many levels.  It was the first night of a new structure.  My partner and I ended up being first on account of neither of us getting worked up about putting our names on the list and someone else doing it for us (presumably to prevent us from putting ourselves at the end of the list and thereby bumping everyone else forward a spot).  And we had a substitute teacher who is particularly passionate and strong in how she gives notes.  Which isn’t to say that our regular teachers are not passionate and strong, but that they see us much more frequently and have a better idea of how far we’ve come.  Which definitely changes how they deliver the notes.  It fascinating and wonderful to have these influxes of new perspective.  And I am grateful for the challenges as they give me more to grow from.

So instead of being useful I am going to post links to things:

Wookiee The Chew by James Hance (I can haz now please!)

the most adorable owl in a hat you will ever see (it’s a cunning hat at that).

the latest XKCD makes me happy – it’s an inside joke

and for anyone who enjoys cars or crazy british guys: Top Gear

I suggest taking the time to watch the entire speech as there are many wonderful takeaways in it.  Two things that really stood out to me are passion and vulnerability.  These are cornerstones in relationship building.  And lessons I am embracing bit by bit every day.

PS Do at least watch the first minute or two so you get to play the little game where you choose which shape you are.  It’s fun.  I would say bonus points to anyone who can guess which shape I choose, but it’s a no-brainer for anyone who actually knows me.