I’ve Gone Hollywood

So I’m sure by now many of my faithful blog readers know I drive a Saturn. You may also know that my car is like a sub base model. It’s like they took a base model as said “It’s just not base enough…base, how low can we go?” How low? The windows are rotator cuff exercisers, the doors locks are manual and don’t speak to each other and my radio is just that a radio. No CD, no tape deck, no mp3 input, just 6 preset station options to go crazy with ( when you think party you have to think of P. Diddy, Dennis Rodman and me…not necessarily in that order) Oh yeah, and it’s a stick shift.

So up until now I’ve always plugged my mp3 player into a small portable radio transmitter that will play in your car on an empty radio station. That worked out as well Terrell Owens did in Philly.

JEOPARDY CONTESTANT: What is “not at all”?
ALEX TREBEK: Correct. We would have also accepted: “horribly” and “Nigga please”

I’m on my fifth one and they all suck, even the digital ones. Especially the digital ones! Because digital is supposed to be code for “doesn’t suck”.

SHOPPER: I don’t think I want a punch in the face
SALESMAN: You sure?,it’s digital?
SHOPPER: Great, I’ll take it!…Is my chin out far enough?
SALESMAN: Perfect. You’re going to be glad you went with the High Def chin check.
.
The transmitters always play with a little static you have to will yourself to ignore. Or, they relinquish station control as the empty station somehow becomes full and never to anything you want to hear. You’re driving enjoying Lily Allen’s “Smile” and suddenly you’re listening to a report on the South African Meerkat. Basically, I haven’t had 30 minutes of continuous problem free Lily Allen listening without gadget fidgeting.

Anyhoo, I broke down and got an aftermarket radio installed in my car today. Et Tu Dwayne? It has an mp3 plug in slot, plays mp3/CD discs and can even take in a USB flash drive. I’m cooking with gas now. I feel like a sell out because the ‘04’ and I were to suppose to go all the way without any upgrades. Are my roughing it days are over? I did the math and all those crappy mp3 transmitters probably cost over 3/4 what my radio cost. Plus, I need to listen to my comedy when I drive. Vanity knows no bounds J

I hope you don’t think less of me. Hey, at least I still get a shoulder workout at every toll booth and parking attendant booth.

I come to bury my stock radio, not praise it…

QSN: Please send questions for my video blog. Got questions? I got fake answers!

QSN = Quick Side Note

Sloppy Copy

A while back my PC crashed. Luckily I was under warranty so it was a nuisance more than it was a tragedy. Anticipating a crash, I decided to just throw some files unto my external hard drive for safe measure. The “time remaining info” on the file copy went berserk. It kept drastically changing as if the computer had something else to do. All of a sudden my computer turned into a sheisty contractor, giving bad estimates and going over budget. At one point my computer said it would take 41,661 days to copy the files.

DWAYNE: Now you look here computer. I’ve copied files before and I know how long it should take.

Since I’m no pushover, the computer agreed to copy the files in 32,611 days instead. But I drive a hard bargain my friends. I got him down to 21,452 days and 19. Great, my files will be copied just in time for me to witness the birth of my great grandchildren.

I think I could copy all the files writing with my left foot quicker than that. Clearly, this was a mistake on my computer’s part and a sign of things to come with that machine. It just seems that the machine would be able to sense how silly and unacceptable that amount of time is, even if accurate, and just say time remaining not available. Plus, if I wait 21,452 days for the files to copy, then that’s on me.

CONCERNED FRIEND: Whatever happened to Dwayne.
FRIEND IN THE KNOW: He went mad waiting for some files to copy. He won’t stop waiting. He lost his family and everything. We tried an intervention but he just kept rocking back and forth saying “Just 19,440 days left”

Hi, I’m a PC…. and I’m Senior Citizen.

Like Looking in a Mirror

Like Looking in a Mirror

I was at an audition for a TV role a while back, sitting calmly in the waiting room hoping the others in the room couldn’t see my vitals skyrocketing as my turn to go into the room neared. Somehow I’m calm when I go in for commercial auditions though. I either don’t care or only care about the process and not the result; as I have a sense that the factors that go into their selection are too many and too elusive to concern myself with. This approach has probably helped me book commercials. I haven’t been able to transfer that calm to movie and TV auditions though. Commercials are the girl I don’t pay much attention to who somehow still thinks I’m rad. And TV and movies is the girl I would cut my pinky toe nail off for but doesn’t like me “that way”.

But I digress. This blog isn’t about my audition woes. No my friends, this tale has a happy ending. Well, not I booked the TV show happy but still, I didn’t leave in a defeated sweat. As I sat in the waiting room, a white lady of maybe 45 walked out from her audition. She walked by me, did a double take and came back to my chair. At this point her actions warranted an explanation and before I could ask she said….

WOMAN: I was adopted and I see you and me have the same nose so you never know maybe we’re related from past relatives or distant cousins.

She was glowing at the possibility. We had a heart felt chuckle and she was on her way. At first I had a tinge of sadness for her, that she has these thoughts always running in her mind because she doesn’t know her real parents. But then I thought, it must me nice to make-up a family in your head, probably way more intriguing than the truth. Besides, maybe she’s right. I do have an odd nose and we’re both actors. Why not stop there though? Maybe our great granddad to the 26th power was Caesar himself. (I’ve been told I have a Roman nose) And props to her for picking me as her fantasy family member. Way to be progressive and non-cliché all at once. As I started to formulate a family tree in my head that could include both me and my long lost cousin I heard….

CASTING LADY: Dwayne? Come in Thanks for coming. Any questions…

If I don’t get picked maybe my “cousin” will.
We weren’t going in for the same role BTW

Crazy is as Crazy Does

Where would my blog be without the 99 cents store and Los Angeles’ and New York’s transient populations? Score this one for the transients.* So, I was at a coffee shop a few days ago and a man was outside mumbling to himself. Did I mention the flowers? Yes he was holding a bushel of flowers. Now when I say mumble, I don’t mean…“did I cut the stove off?” type mumbling. No, I mean a full on conversation with himself albeit indiscernible and inaudible to passersby. So, mumbling in this case is more about my ability to hear him and less about him trying to be discrete.

I stepped outside for a second and he turned his attention toward me. He offered a flower, I think. I couldn’t understand his words but he extended a flower toward me. I of course declined as I don’t trust flowers from unknown sources.

QSN: Every Since I saw The Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie I never sniff or handle flowers from disreputable suppliers. (You see, in that movie the body snatchers entered the body through flowers. A person would sniff the flowers and next thing you know a monster is popping out their stomach screaming “What you talkin’ about Willis?!”)

Besides my reluctance to handle flowers, I also could not understand a word this man spoke. But his tone seemed friendly and heartfelt. I couldn’t tell if he was talking gibberish (or, to be fair, his own made up language. I mean Elfin isn’t gibberish after all) or an actual language spoken in another country.

Maybe he was part of a crazy transient exchange program, like a semester outside abroad. Maybe there’s an English speaking transient in Prague right now sharing his theory on cardboard’s plan to take over the world to a Czech, not understanding but nodding politely while writing a blog about it.

*Transient – Politically correct way of saying homeless. Or perhaps a less guilt ridden way of saying homeless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness

**Invasion Of the Body Snatchers
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077745/synopsis

QSN – Quick Side Note