Getting the Hang of It

After Dad left, I went back to where I'm currently staying: Angie's Townhouse. For now, until I find a place to live for the first couple months, I am crashing on her couch. She lives in a pleasant townhouse in the middle of Beverly Hills, in between two very important streets out here. But I won't be here for long since I'm pretty sure I have a place now. I went over on Friday to see a place that I will be subletting for a while with some UCLA students. I will fill a room while their dorm lease is finishing up! It's really ideal, actually. They are young, artistic and I feel like it is a great fit for what I'm looking for just temporary. It is in a great location in West LA (a more affordable area to live in) which is full of artsy-farts and college students who are either in or will be in the same situation I am currently in right now...looking for a foot in the door.

I have met with the nicest agent, Anita, from a headhunter agency, Eleventh Hour. They pride themselves in having connections and contacts with the best in the biz and they represent people like me and help them find temporary and permanent work within the entertainment industry! A lot of you might be asking yourself "Well, Andy, what are you doing out there?" My reply would have to be "I have no clue!" It's all pretty confusing right now, but from what I know, this is the best explanation I can give:

Colleges are expensive. I was fortunate enough to have some really great scholarships and not owe that much in student loans. But I don't want to pay for more than I have to when it comes to Grad school. If I am a California resident, I can get a large chunk of money taken off tuition, but I have to wait for a year in order to have that "In-State Discount" so I can claim independence and full residency in California. So while I wait, I want to get into the business and get some good experience. So right now, Anita and I are looking for some temporary/year long jobs within the film music industry. I will probably be temping for a couple months before I find a fulltime job somewhere, but that's how things work here. I may even be hired from one of my temp jobs if they like my work ethic and continually request me! Right now, I've got some prospective jobs at Universal Music Group and Anita said that the Disney Music Dept. might need someone soon for basic mailroom stuff! (and if I can get into Disney, I will be one happy camper!)

Eventually I would like to go back to Grad School for Film Composition, cause as of right now, all I know is that I want to do it. I don't know how to do any of the technical stuff...but that's what school is for!

I do miss some things from home. I'm really sick of hearing car horns honking constantly, but that's for another blog. Yes I will have one dedicated to the 'terrible' traffic of LA. I miss cheaper food prices, but again, that is a completely different blog post. But lastly, I miss my puppies. I don't miss my parents yet because I can easily communicate with them via Skype. (If you want to add me and video chat, my SN is a.potts but remember that I am three hours behind Ohio) I can't, however, talk to Teddy or Linkoln. So I'll be very happy to see them when I come home in May.


Okay, so here's the part that I will try to be very consistent with. I'd like to have a couple of permanent sections that I update every week. Here they are as follows:


Culture Shock

The transition from a small town to a large city can be a jarring one. Everything changes, even how people perceive work, life, and (thankfully in my case) entertainment. There are so many different cultures and walks of life that clash in the oddest, most interesting and oftentimes beautiful of ways (take for instance the Jewish/Iranian Retirement Center down the street). Sometimes this jolt of difference is referred to Culture Shock. In this section from now on, I'd like to expose you to some type of culture/difference that you would NEVER find in a small town in Ohio.

Drag Show: Last Tuesday, Angie texted me after work saying "Get Ready, we are going to a drag show tonight with two managers from CAA (The talent agency Ang works for. Also the best talent agency/experience you could ever put on a resumé). I've never been a huge fan of drag, BUT this was nothing like what I thought it would be.

The theme of the night was Movies and TV. I've had quite an underexposure to gay culture (never really being a fan of perpetuating stereotypes (i'm hipster like that)) so the theme was a welcome addition to what I thought would be a boring, not-my-scene night.

However, it was just my cup of tea! One of my favorite styles of comedy is Camp and this was CAAAAAMMMPYYY!

First of all, the show was in a bar called Rage so I immediately thought of Stefon describing the bar as having stun guns, jewpids, and human suitcases (if you don't get it, click here).

The show started with the song Dreamgirls, where the queens came out and lip synced and were fabulous. Then each one came out individually came out and did a little scene/song from a movie. There was one queen that came out and sang "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" and I swear to you, Madonna was standing in front of us.

The night was just hilarious. Obviously these "girls" know that the whole thing is not meant to be taken seriously, but they do. They entertained me for sure! I don't suggest you see a drag show if you are easily offended because the shows can get a little raunchy, but I love that kind of humor so it was great for me!

Musical Musings

This area is reserved for my music suggestions, news about my music professionally, and opinions on soundtracks and the like. Pretty much anything to do with my world and music will go in here.

I am currently waiting to hear back from the lawyers of the Shel Silverstein Estate about using four of Mr. Silverstein's poems in a set of art songs I've written. I really hope I can release them with the original text. Otherwise, I have to take the words out and leave them as lyric-less songs :(

Also I miss my piano. A lot.

Celebrity Sighting

I've never been one to obsessively fawn over celebrities. My view on 'Celebrity' is that they are people too...they poop and have feelings as much as non-celebrities do. They are us...we're all human. So I don't like to make a big deal about celebrities. However, it is really fun to see celebrities in person because you feel like you know them since you've seen them before (even though they have no clue who you are)! So with that, I will be posting some celebrity sightings on here. In the past two weeks, I've seen:

Adam Sessler. He was driving right beside me near the Farmer's Market in WeHo. Not a well known "celebrity" but you would know him if you've ever watched G4 (a tech/gamer tv station).

Jen Aniston. As I was driving on Santa Monica Blvd, she was turning left and waiting for traffic to pass. She does drive herself.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Dad, Ang, and I were walking from the Santa Monica Pier to the Promenade and we passed her walking. I passed her thinking "is that JLD? no...OH CRAP IT IS!" I love her on New Adventures of Old Christine.