The MONTH That Was: May 7-Jun 3

FOUR WEEKS.  Let’s call it an early summer hiatus.  I spent much of past four weeks getting acclimated to my awesome new Hancock Park apartment and new/old part-time job.  Early returns are fan-damn-tastic!  Let’s dive right in.

• As I gathered my last few belongings from my old apartment, I started to reminisce about WHERE I WAS when I moved in in October 2009.  In the two and a half years that I lived at 1625 Vineyard Avenue, all of the following occurred:
  • I joined SAG and have made my health insurance minimum every year I’ve been in the union.
  • I became a fairly sought after commercial model and graced the pages of Playboy magazine (among others).
  • I adopted an adorable baby kitten named Max and have kept her alive for a year and a half.
  • I paid off more than $20,000 worth of credit card and student loan debt.
  • I started Tough Break Kid with Dave and we’ve made some pretty fantastic videos (and we’re only getting better).
  • I went from a wine knowledge of “Red or white?” to becoming a certified sommelier.
  • I bought my first new car.
  • I ran my first marathon.
  • I signed with my first manager.

  The list goes on and on.  The point, however, is that in October 2009 I had NEVER worked as an actor, had never done a lot of things that I now take for granted.  And not only had I never done these things, but I also was not sure if they were possible.  I certainly BELIEVED that they were, but I didn’t know how they were going happen.  As I said goodbye to that apartment and moved into my new spot, I got really, really excited thinking about all the amazing things that can (and WILL!) happen in the next two and a half years.

• My apartment is pretty damn close to being fully furnished and I’m absolutely LOVING it.  However, furnishing a one bedroom apartment is not cheap.  Among the things I’ve purchased in the past month: a couch, a coffee table, a rug, a bistro table and chairs, a wall-mounted TV component shelf, new bedding, new bath towels, a frame for my Saving Private Perez movie poster, a new upright steamer (it sounds frivolous, but I really can’t live without one), a desk, a desk chair, a new printer, bookshelves, a new luxurious litter box and probably a few other items that I’m forgetting.  Also, I spent a ton of man hours painting the living room/kitchen/kitchen ceiling and installing/building furniture.  For those keeping score at home, the living room is Mercer Blue and the kitchen is Vanilla Bean.
  

  This poster looks sexy as all get-up in my living room!

• Tough Break Kid released a new sketch!  It’s called Sponsor A Starving Actor and I am oh-so proud of it.  Over the month of May, we shot in my old apartment and new apartment, on an LA city bus, in a restaurant kitchen during service, and in front of a store in a crowded public shopping drag.  I don’t know what our total budget was, but it was spent entirely on pizza, beer, a True Blood t-shirt and a few prop Cup ‘O’ Noodles for Dave to suffer through during the shoot. Not bad at all.

• I returned to the WORKING WORLD.  The good folks at Gordon Ramsay at the London West Hollywood offered me my old job back and I accepted it.  You can again find me dutifully serving the West Hollywood elite on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.  Now, I’ll answer a few questions on this development:
  
  1. “Do you consider the past five and half months of joblessness a failure?”
     Absolutely not.  I wanted to try and live without a survival job and I did, beautifully, for five and a half months.
  2. “Yeah, but what about all of the money that you blew through ‘living beautifully‘?”
     What about it?  Almost all of the money that I have lived on over the past half year I earned over the course of FOUR DAYS of work.  Have you never spent four days worth of salary on a whim before?  I will work again.  What did I really lose?  It’s just money.
  3. If you could do it all over again, would you still quit your job?
     Probably.  I needed to learn for myself what that felt like.  I did.  And now I think I’m personally better off having a part-time job, a steady income, and the slightly more regimented schedule (read: 18 hours of work per week) that goes along with all that.
  4. “Alex, you’re awesome and I want to have your babies!”
     That’s not a question.  Call me.

• Expect to see some significant changes on this blog in the weeks to come.  I am in the process of building a new website and everything will get a much needed facelift.  Also, expect posting to return to the usual at least once per week clip.  I’ve milked the new apartment/new job excuses for too long now.

• Things I can improve upon this week: (1) trying not to run during the sunniest part of the day (I’ve almost disqualified myself from white people roles) (2) cooking at home in the new kitchen regularly (3) maximizing my still colossal amount of free time to focus on personal projects that constantly excite me but that I sometimes lack the motivation to see through to completion.

by. the. numbers.

158 – days until the NYC Marathon

11 – days I ran AND auditions I went on the past four weeks

95 – funny percentage that Sponsor A Starving Actor is currently rocking on Funny Or Die

171 – days of FUNemployment between my stints at GR

6 – movies I watched the past four weeks (Dark Shadows, The Dictator, Tabloid, Project Nim, Moonrise Kingdom, Brüno)

1 – number of times Max peed on Andy’s bed over the past four weeks