"He's Not Gay In His Softness"

At the "Altitude" callback, I saw Brendan, one of the guys I was up against for the "I Love You, Beth Cooper" role. He asked if I was still reading for "Beth Cooper", and I told him that my agent told me they "went another way" with it. Turns out they went Brendan's way, which I expected, but he said it was between him and another guy, and he wasn't sure if it was me or not. Looks like it's now between him and some guy from LA, which is funny, because I could have sworn someone told me they were only casting in Vancouver (my agent's daughter said they were probably casting in LA if it was for a lead, so it looks like she wins.)

The callback itself went alright. I read it once for the director and his crew, and got a "good ... some good moments there ... " and did the awkward "yeah, thanks ... yeah ... " for a few seconds before I realized they only wanted to see it once (everyone who went in while I was waiting did it at least twice.) So, as I was leaving the Casting Director came out and gave the waiting room full of actors notes on the scene, along the same lines with what he told me the day before. When I closed the door on my way out, I couldn't help but hear "he's not gay in his softness ..." so I guess I know how that last line came across.

I'm 1 for 2 in the "Roll-Up-The-Rim" series, with as decisive donut victory. This, however is countermeasure to my new "nutrition" philosophy (y'know, eating is such a big part of nutrition ...) so I have to bid this free pastry adieu, and donate this donut to my roommates, who can eat anything and still win a swimsuit contest (but only in the "freestyle" category.)

That night I helped a team of nurses shoot a video, and was appointed the director/camera man. This was for a school project, and this took me back to my Life Teen days, directing a group of people with no acting inclinations or talent. Whatever, they'll get an "A" anyway.

I had to head to choir practice late and learn ... three songs that I already knew from Life Teen. Oh well, I got a ride to work on time, so I can't complain. This was my first Wednesday choir practice since May, when I had to leave it to make time for school. I think I'm busier now than I ever was at school, but I find you have so many more hours in the day when you eliminate sleeping. And speaking on that, I was actually seeing spots last night, it's the most tired I've felt in a long time, and that's saying something. I only slept for a few hours that day, between coming home from work and going to my audition, and I felt more tired when I woke-up than when I went to sleep.

I just got a call for another "Beth Cooper" audition. I mentioned before they may want to give me another role, and tomorrow morning I get to go out for the part of ... "Loser Clerk." I'll just channel some Rogers Video days, and I'll be fine. Looks like a funny little part, and I'm really not complaining, although a name wouldn't kill 'em. Even if it was like "Lost Clerk Eugene", I'd be happy.

On Tuesday morning next week (I'm positive on this, I read my e-mail and everything) I'm meeting some more Casting Directors before it starts picking-up in this town again. All I need to do is material I feel I would be sent-out for, so I'll just grab something I've already done, and let 'em have it.

It's the calm before the storm. Let it rain.

I'm An Idiot

I'm sure this isn't news to anyone.

I woke-up at 10am today, after a mostly restless night, ate breakfast, went to the gym (and appreciated the TVs with closed-captioning a great deal on this, the day of the NHL trade deadline) came home, and got ready for my "Altitude" callback.

I got there, and the waiting room looked especially empty, and thought awesome. Then I saw there was no sign-in sheet (all auditions have this, just lets the Casting Directors keep track of who's there and when ... I guess) which I found odd. Then I looked to the audition room and saw the door open with all the lights off. That only raised further questions!

The Casting Director walked around the corner and said "Hi ... what are you here for?"
"Altitude!" I proclaimed.
"That's tomorrow."

Son-of-a ...

"Yeah, I gave everyone two days worth of material." (I have had the same sides for almost a month now.)

He asked me who I was reading for, and gave me some useful notes on the scene. He asked who my agent was, and as I was leaving I heard him tell his assistant "Call (my agent) and tell him it's tomorrow." Man, I was gonna tear my agent a new one once I got outside for this, the ultimate humiliation.

"How did it go?"
"It's tomorrow!"
"Uh, yeah, it is," he corrected himself, "didn't you check your e-mail?"

Well, clearly I did, I checked it to make sure there weren't any new sides, but alas, looks like I didn't check enough of it. This is funny, because I actually caught myself on a previous audition when I could have sworn he told me one day, and the e-mail said another, so you think I'd be more careful.

"Always check your e-mail," he scolded.
"Well, since I'm in the area, I'm gonna come by and get some more resumes." I only have two left, and all auditions require you to bring one. I need to get them from him, because he prints them on his office letterhead on 8"x10" paper, which is the same size as the head shots, and staples flawlessly to the back of them.

"Umm, I don't think that's necessary. I have a feeling you're going to book something soon, we'll just end-up having to throw those out and print more if you do. I'm working on something big for you right now, I'll let you know when I have it."

Uh, OK.

So that's promising at least. I called a friend of mine who's waiting for a call after her callback for "Altitude", she's also part of the same agency, and the reason I'm where I am right now. I really don't know where I'd be without her.

"How'd it go?"
"It didn't go, it's tomorrow."
"You douche."

Well, I never said she was nice (kidding, Sara.)

"Better to be a day early than a day late," she said. Good point. I just wanted to get it over with, and now I'll have to go to work tonight, sleep for a few hours, audition, and then head to Richmond for choir practice, and then back to Burnaby for work. Didn't I ask for this last week? Sure did, and I'm thrilled to be getting what I deserve. No one said it'd be easy, they just said it'd be worth it.

Oh, and I'm officially 0-1 for "Roll-Up-The-Rim" after fishing my cup out of a Chapters waste receptacle in which I absent-mindedly tossed my chance for a Toyota Matrix (or millions of other fabulous prizes.)

It's just a day full of smoothness for the ol' Willster, and I'm sure nothing can possibly go wrong tonight when I go to the VFS cold read session. It's where writers get to hear their stuff "cold read" which means the actors are given the scripts for only a few minutes before having to preform them. Some agents in town make their actors cold read for them, to see how well they can pull-off a performance with little-to-no preparation (thankfully, my agent didn't.) The Solo Mobile radio audition I did a few weeks ago was a cold read, and after that I knew my skills needed some lvling, so I thought what better opportunity than to attend a free session at my old stomping grounds. I miss the VFS crew a lot, and I hope to work with them in any way I can for an upcoming feature. I told them I wasn't sure what I could do (they wanted crafty, arty people for set dec., wardrobe, etc.) but I'd be their whipping boy if they needed it. And who knows, it is being directed by Larry Kent, the fella that had me in my underwear getting beaten with a wet towel, so I'm sure whipping is not entirely out of the question.

"This Stupid Business of Ours"

I have a callback for "Altitude", that teen thriller that I pre-screened for weeks ago, and for which I was too old. This was my first "audition" (I count Stargate as the true first audition because like I said, this was a pre-screen) and I had all but forgotten about it so I never expected anything from this. I don't know too much about it, i.e: who the director and producer I'm working in front of tomorrow are (imdb.com has failed me, yet again) and all I have to work with are some notes from the Casting Director.

When my agent called he said I'm still up for the "Jennifer's Body" role, and the people from "I Love You, Beth Cooper" are still interested in giving me a different role, but he so appropriately quipped "That's just the way it goes in this stupid business of ours." This is my introduction to The Biz 101, but hey, I gotta play by the same rules everyone else does. No one said it was easy, logical, ethical or fair, so I shouldn't expect it to be. I'm doing good work, getting good feedback, and according to my agent it will be "Only a matter of time," before I book something, and that it's "Going to get crazy busy soon."

I told him, "I hope so."

Summer Days, Winter Nights, Spring Mornings

I woke-up and immediately started getting ready. I was already half-dressed, making sure that I’d be ready to go in the limited amount of time between waking-up and the time my ride was expected to swing by. In the room over, I heard the sounds of my dad watching some hockey game, team Canada was playing. “That’s weird,” I thought. “I guess the game’s somewhere over in Europe.” I felt like I slept for only a few hours, but that was to be expected waking-up for a 5:45 rowing practice. The lake was about a 15-minute drive with no traffic at that time of day. I would wake-up at 5:20 or so, eat a banana or something, and my ride would usually be there before I knew it. Or, if it was my dad’s turn to drive we’d have to leave a bit earlier. But he didn’t have to drive this first morning, and I didn’t have to wake-up earlier; but I did. I woke-up about three-and-a-half hours earlier. When I finally checked the clock after pulling-on my socks, I saw it was only 1:45. My instinct was to get dressed the moment I woke-up, regardless of the time. Oops, and back to bed for a few hours more.

Those mornings were always surreal, and I never got used to them. I only did them for one spring, and it was only three days a week, but I’ll never forget them. On clear days, I would literally wake-up with the sun, the golden dawn just making itself known over the tiny subdivision of Colby Village. We’d listen to the pop radio station, and the music would have much more of an impact, mostly because no one would talk, all of us too exhausted to say anything. I remember Sting’s “Desert Rose” being that much more powerful at that hour. One of my buddies, Parker, always took a shower before-hand (I always had one after, I never understood the idea of showering BEFORE exercising), and his deodorant would always quickly smell-up whoever’s car we were in. Parker’s dad usually drove, because he had to be up early for work anyway, but we’d still rotate the carpool driver, just like we did with the summer practices.

We’d get to the club, and the other guys there looked just like us, like we’d been woken-up by a fire alarm in our apartment, and were congregated outside waiting for what’s next. Only, what’s next was to go out and row, for some reason. We’d get sorted into our boats, and head-out onto the water, which we’d get on by about 6:00 or so. I always enjoyed being on the water, and I miss it to this day, especially being on the water at those hours. To sit in a boat not much wider than your hips, with nothing but the oars in your hands balancing you was particularly magical. The stillness of the water and the mist that swarmed its surface, the cold morning air warming with the sun’s growing presence. The boats sliced the water like a knife, creating a thin trail in their wake, with swirls on either side created by the strokes of the oars. As we headed under the bridge, cars on their groggy way to their early-morning jobs zoomed overhead. It was a privileged feeling to be up ahead of the world, zooming through the cool air on a boat across the water, while most people were still swimming in their subconscious on a mattress in their house. Going to school after was always a laugh, because me and the guys were all jacked-up from rowing, while most of the other kids only woke-up in time to grab a Pop-Tart and catch the bus.

This was in spring 2000, but I started rowing in the summer of ’99, the transition between Junior High and High School. My buddies Matt and Chris were the guys who got me involved, Matt being the rowing O.G., then Chris joining, then me, then Parker and Matt. I wasn’t a stranger to lumber-propelled water-vessel sports, having paddled a few summers before that. Nothing I took too seriously, but something I enjoyed doing. I thought it’d whip me into shape, walking 30 minutes up the hill to the club and paddling the afternoon away. I never really took to any sport I attempted, I didn’t like the running in soccer, and I got beaned twice and was bored by baseball. Like I said, I only paddled recreationally for the summer, so I thought I’d give rowing shot, at least I’d having some fun spending the summer at the lake with my buddies.

That summer was a blast. We’d goof-around a lot, both off and on the water. We’d usually row in a four or an eight, depending on how many people were there to row and to coach. In these boats we’d do what’s called “sweeping” when you’d have one big oar that you’d row either on the right or the left side. I always preferred rowing on the right side, because when I rowed on the left, my watch clasp would sometimes scrap against my left knee as I was sliding-up to the catch (the position when the rower’s seat is at the front of the tracks, their knees are the most bent, the arms are fully extended forward, and the oar is about to be placed in the water to take a stroke.) I also preferred being in the very back, because even though I’d get seriously splashed by the oars in front of me (which I usually didn’t mind, because it was hot out there), I was guaranteed to avoid the shock of an oar handle jabbed into my back when I pushed-through my stroke to the finish, which happened often if I had a rower behind me who out-of-sync (like Lance Bass. Get it?)

The only time I didn’t enjoy being at the back was when we didn’t have a coxswain, the person who sat facing the rest of the boat, usually a coach, whose job it was to steer the boat, call-out exercises, and be motivation to the team. Without a coxswain, it was the job of the person in the back to steer the boat, and command the team, keeping in mind that rowing requires you to be backward, meaning you’re headed away from where you’re looking. So the person in the back would not only have to concentrate on rowing, and keeping his/her team in check, but also be checking his/her back, making sure they don’t crash into anything or anyone. Banook was a crowded lake; we were constantly jostling for position with the swarms of canoes, war canoes, and kayaks from the three paddling clubs, as well as the wake from the motorboats of the coaches and the Water Patrol. The rowers needed some more open space, so to get to the larger Lake Micmac, we’d have to pass under the aforementioned bridge, which was barely wide enough to fit the long, heavy oars of the sweeping boats. Being at the back of a Cox-less boat was made much more difficult by this narrow passage, and more than once I’ve caused some oar-tips to scrape along the concrete walls. Oh, and the pigeons flying overhead ready to drop an anus-to-head missile didn’t make it any more fun, not to mention the filthy and smelly water created by the testing of their poopy technology.

That summer we’d get up early, not as early as we would in the next spring, but early enough for job-less teenagers during a summer school break. We’d have our row, and occasionally swim afterward to cool-off and flirt with the girls. I’d usually wear my swim trunks in the boat, which would inevitably get caught between the wheels under my seat, and the slide. This made the undersides all greasy, not to mention how it would screw-up my stroke and the rhythm of the boat when I’d literally get stopped in my tracks. I’d have to roll them up to prevent this from happening, which made for quite a sight, my stick-skinny ivory legs shimmering in the morning sunlight, which never ever tanned, (thanks to this I rarely wore sunscreen.) There were some regattas throughout the summer, including a road-trip or two to New Brunswick, where rowing was more popular than it was in Nova Scotia. I remember we stopped at a gas station to fuel the cars and our bodies, and I bought three chocolate bars a liter of Pepsi. The breakfast of champions. One of the guys, Nick, said he’d throw-up if he ate all of that, but my cast-iron 14-year-old belly could handle it. Bottom-line is, I was exercising a whole lot, but my teenaged eating habits were still atrocious, and I wouldn’t fix them until … well, still working on that.

That was pretty much the pattern of that summer, wake, row, swim, and the occasional hang-out or party, but outside of rowing I actually spent a good amount of that summer indoors. The next year we decided to try rowing competitively, which meant some evening practices to go along with the mornings. I spent even more time at the lake that summer, and this was the year we did those 5:45am practices. I was able to do more “sculling” (two oars, your left hand comes into contact over your right through the stroke, causing bloody knuckles if you’re doing it correctly. Combine this with the blisters and calluses from twisted and pulling the oars, and we were a manicurists nightmare. Or manicurists dream, I never really figured that out.) I don’t know if I enjoyed sculling or sweeping more, but I did enjoy the symmetry of sculling. It just felt more like rowing to me, and the chance to get out in a single was a joy, as well as experiencing the raw power of four people with eight oars in a quad.

Between the recreational and competitive summers on the lake, my friends decided on training for the 2001 Summer Canada Games in London, Ontario. I decided to join them.

Athletically, I’ve never achieved anything. I had (and still have) no natural athletic ability or inclination, and most sports teams I was ever a part of stank. I only remember getting “Participant” in Field Day in Elementary School, and I only got up to “Red” in swimming lessons, failing both “Maroon” and “Red Plus” (hey, that water was COLD, man.) So I would not let this Canada Games opportunity pass me by. My dad told it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but he knew I could do it. He said I would be considered an athlete, a distinction more associated with my younger brother, the soccer player. I was behind the eight-ball already, my friends were all stronger than I was, and the other guys at the club have been doing it for longer than I have. But I would work my hardest, finally be considered an athlete, and achieve something in my life. I had no idea how I would even afford the trip, but it didn’t matter; I was going to London, Ontario summer 2001.

To this day I have never set eyes on, or set foot in that city.

I rowed at a club called "North Star," a nice, white club on top of a hill, which meant you'd have to carry these heavy boats (the eights were especially taxing on the fingers) down to the water. Across the lake was the only other rowing club in Dartmouth which was also a paddling club, Micmac AAC. This provided better facilities for winter training (it was heated) so the rowers from both clubs, both men and women, shared the club that winter.

I use the term "facilities" lightly here. The place was clearly not designed for people with increased respiratory rates from physically exerting themselves and required oxygenated blood to power their muscles. We trained in the boat garage, surrounded by the protruding riggings (the metal "arms" that hold the oars out) of the slim giants that were waiting for the ice to melt for their chance to slice that water again. Being in an old boat garage, the place smelled like, well, an old garage, all oily and such, with an overall musty smell, and air that felt like poison to breathe-in. The bathrooms were even worse, stinking to high heaven of stale vomit from when the paddlers would party-all-too-hearty. Damn paddlers.

The place felt, smelt and looked like a dungeon, which I kind of liked. Old rusty weights, cracked leather medicine balls, and a floor you'd dare not lie on without a very thick mat between you and it. It kind of felt like Rocky's style of training, or where the Harts trained; nothing fancy, likely detrimental to your health, but you knew if you could pay your dues there, you could make it anywhere.

The Ergometers, or "Ergs" as we'd grow to know and love them as, were the most modern thing about the place, and were (still are) the most torturous exercise devices I've ever used. They were simply a seat on a rail with straps for your feet, to simulate rowing in a real boat. To simulate the oar, a wooden rod roughly a foot wide was chained to a wheel, like a bicycle. All you had to do was pull this chain, and the wheel would act as a fan, using wind resistance through the stroke. And "stroke" was a very appropriate word here. My buddy Matt (who coaches rowing now) even bought one of these to use at home. Why anyone on earth would willingly do that to themselves, I’ll never know.

Rowing is a sport of focus and endurance, extremely repetitive and taxing to the body, especially the legs which give you the most power and push through the stroke. We ain't rowin' dories here, the arms simply to control the oars, the real pull through the stroke is done through pushing with the legs. You really need to experience it yourself to get what I mean, but it’s really not that complicated. The Ergs were the best machines to simulate the exercise of rowing on a lake, without the joy of being on the water, feeling the air and speed, and breathing the fresh air. I felt like a hamster, only instead of running inside the wheel, I was cranking it with this stick on a chain. I'd sometimes fantasize that were slaves, all of us with the Ergs lined-up in a row, pulling the sticks to create power in the wheels, like they were some sort of turbine. Not one of my best fantasies, mind you, but I had to make it interesting somehow.

The training was mostly erging, but we’d mix-it-up with some weight circuits, with the ancient, tetanus-inducing equipment. We had max-lift tests every few weeks, which my legs would not let me forget days after. My buddy Parker was a beast, easily the strongest guy in the club, and he'd press over a thousand pounds on the leg press as I wondered (and I'm sure they did too) just how the spotters would get that weight off of poor Parker if he maxed-out.

For cardio and endurance, we'd have a jog around the lake. Only thing was, I thought "jogging" meant "jog until you're tired, walk a bit, jog some more," until my coach, Catherine, ran-up beside me when I was slowing down to take a breather.
"What are you doing? You can't stop!" she said, "keep going, Will!"
"I c-can't," I wheezed, "I'm too fat, *pant* I can't do it."
"Yes you can!" she said.
God bless the coaches for taking my sarcastic, slack ass and trying to make something of it. I think of all the times we did those 5-6 km lake jogs, I made the distance non-stop maybe once or twice, and that was at a snail's pace. One day we did a 12 km jog, and you could imagine how much I loved that.

The Ergs were grueling enough when used in our nightly training regimen, but what was really killer was the 2000 meter and 20-minute tests that came up on Friday night every few weeks. When all the other kids at school were looking forward to a Friday night party, or just an easy-going weekend of school-less, responsibilities-devoid bliss, we would dread the night to come.

For rowing races, 2000 meters is the standard distance, and it never felt longer than when you sit on the Erg and watch the distance melt down to zero as you took yourself to the very limit of your physical ability. I am serious when I say I completely doubt I'll feel any pain like it again, and I never want to. In these test, you would get off the Erg and be completely unable to walk, the muscles in your legs having given their complete worth. I equate the unbearable burning in your legs from the lactic acid build-up with the pain of childbirth (ladies, you can stop laughing. OK, th- you're still laughing ... aren't you.) When you weren't being tested, you'd be up cheering for your teammates, and praying for their mortal souls. Some guys would throw-up after, sometimes even during, and one time a guy even dyed ... his hair blue, in some kind of Nova Scotia pride thing (and yes, I realize that last joke would have come across better had it been spoken.)

As terrifying as facing the 2 km tests were, at least you could get it over with quickly, if you were fast. That was motivation enough to get a good time. This wasn't so with the 20-minute tests. No matter how fast you go, you're still strapped in to that machine for 1200 seconds, and trust me, you watched every one of them tick-off. These tests were all about endurance, and just as you go for a short time on the 2 km tests, you went for the long distance on the 20-min. tests. So, throughout the winter, we would track our test scores, and the Nova Scotia team would be chosen from the rowers with the best times - although it seemed more to be weeding-out the rowers with the worst times.

Y'see, rowing isn't as popular as, say, running, so there weren’t too many guys trying to get on the team (this was actually a big reason for me doing it; I really thought I could make the team.) I would post some terrible, terrible time and distance scores. I sat pretty-much second-to-last among the men, and I was also being handily beaten by a lot of the women. Yep. So for me, I started behind, and remained behind, willing to put the work in, but it wasn't enough. It was mind over matter, and I could make it matter enough to conquer my under-achieving mind. I couldn't reach-down and produce what I needed when it counted. I'd tax myself to my physical limits - or did I? Could I have done more? Could I power-through the pain and achieve something in my life, erasing all my past athletic failures? Well, I probably could, but what happened next made all the training completely irrelevant.

March 2000. Friday morning, and it's a slushy, lousy day, and I'm hoping the buses aren't running, and I'd have a glorious day off from school. Well, the buses were still running, but I did get my day off. Just not the way I wanted.

Fresh out of the shower, and my left leg is itchin' like crazy. Son-of-a-Birch canoe. There I am gellin' (my hair, quite unlike Magellan, really) so with my hands occupied I do a dainty standing figure-four, using my right ankle to alleviate my itchy spot, right above my left knee. All of a sudden, my knee buckles from under me, and I fall over. This sort of sprain has happened to me before, I twisted it a year or so ago playing hockey against my dad. Back then it hurt, and I limped for a few days, but got over it with minimal swelling and long-term damage. No so this time. Within about ten minutes this thing had swollen-up to the size of a grapefruit. When my mom took me to see the family doctor, he was literally taken aback when he saw me in his office. There was nothing he could do about it, so we went to the Emergency Room at Dartmouth General Hospital where a kindly young Irish nurse wrapped my left leg from groin to ankle in what was called a Robert Jones bandage. I'm hoping Mr. Jones was the man who invented it, not the man it was first used on. The nurse gave me a cheery "Yuh've just bean Robert Jonesed," and we were on our way.

I was 15 at the time, and I was considered a child by hospital standards, so for surgery I'd have to go to the IWK, the children's hospital in Halifax (for those not from there, IWK stands for Izaak Walton Killam, the man whose money helped fund the hospital. There’s an old local joke about the hospital being named after a guy called Killam.)

This would be the first surgical procedure I’ve ever had, and only the second time I had to go to the hospital for a procedure (the first time was for three stitches to the head after it collided with a rock under the arm of a fellow Cub at camp.) God bless my mom for being there with me the entire time. There are many things in life I will never understand, and until I have children myself the love and sacrifices a parent makes for their child will baffle me. My dad was with me when I got my stitches (I remember asking him how actors cried in soap operas) and me dear, sweet muddah slept on a cot next to my hospital bed while I recovered from the procedure. I don’t know how I would have made it without her.

The x-rays determined that a small piece of bone was actually chipped off of my femur (thigh bone) so that would have to be removed. Before surgery, the fella that was-a operatin’ on me axed if I wanted the mask or the shot. He told me if I got the mask, I’d still get the shot later, so I might as well just go with the shot. Hey, he’s the expert.

Lying on the operating table, a needle was injected into my hand, and I could feel the milky-white substance being pushed into my blood stream. I thought, “how’s this gonna make fall aslee-” and I was out.

It felt like I blinked and woke-up in the ICU. At the time, there was some shortage of beds in the recovery room, so the ICU was being used for the overflow. Like I said, it felt like a blink, only between the time my eyes closed and subsequently opened, someone removed a piece of bone from my knee, stitched me up and slapped a plaster cast that went Robert Jones-style from my groin to my ankle. I went back to my room, where I couldn’t keep anything down (a side-effect of the anesthetic) and an orange Popsicle that went down ice-cold came up acid-hot. The only highlight from the hospital stay was when a nurse took my pulse and asked if I was an athlete. I finally felt like I made it.

I wasn’t allowed to get-up, so I had to pee in the bed; in a jug (what you thought I’d just let my river flow like I did in the pee-anywhere days of my toddler-hood?) I had major trouble doing this, years of controlling my pee conditioned me with the mentality that peeing in a bed is wrong, no matter what receptacle was used. The nurses let me break the rules and get up to shuffle to the toilet, because I was having such a problem with my bed-unwetting. I finally got over it, and when I did I almost filled that blue jug to the brim. I’m just thankful I didn’t need a bed pan.

To transport me home, I sat along the width of the backseat, with my log-solid leg stretched out before me. This is how I’d have to be driven to school for the next month or so. I got to swing around school on crutches and be the token “injured kid,” sitting in the classes with my leg propped-up on a chair. The kids who had to run laps in gym envied me sitting on the stage, unable to participate because I was unable to bend my leg. I would have sooner run a thousand laps with a fat guy on my back than be shelved for weeks with a lame-ass injury. I also had the worst injury story ever, which is really the only upshot of any injury, having a cool story to tell. I wished that I could have told people I hurt it from going into a controlled slide on my hog, but alas. My friends joked that I should make-up a story about facing 99 ninjas, defeating them all, and then getting injured by the last one standing. Anything was better than the truth.

After weeks of log-legged-ness, I finally got the blessed thing removed. The autographed and bloodied (the blood from the surgical incision soaked-through the cast, creating a small dark spot over the knee) plaster tube protruded out of the waste bin by about two feet. I thought I’d throw-down some squat-thrusts right then and there, but my knee could only bend about 15 degrees from being immobile for so long; it wasn’t over. In fact, it was going to get worse before it got better. At least with the cast on I could peg-leggedly walk a short distance, but now I couldn’t put any weight on it without causing immense pain, not to mention the fear of it giving-out on me and setting-back my recovery even further.

Weeks later I gained enough confidence to get around without crutches, and I went back to training. It was spring now, and with the water melted, the guys and gals got in the boats again. I spent a good amount of practices watching from the coach’s motorboat, but eventually I got to get on the water again. The thing was, the guys were already separated into the boats they wanted them in for the Canada Games. Two guesses as to who didn’t have a boat. So most of the time, they let me get into a single (sculling) which I didn’t get to use much previously. So while the guys would get coached and ready for London, I puttered-around in my single, as a coach would periodically come by to check on me to let me know I wasn’t forgotten about; or to make sure I haven’t drowned, not really sure which.

One Friday morning in May Bob, the head of the North Star Rowing club, and one of the head coaches for Team Nova Scotia basically told me that there wasn’t a spot for me, but they still wanted me to stick with it, to train for the next games (2005 in Regina, SK.) I’d be just under the cut-off age that year, but my friends would all be too old to go to that one. Without my friends, I wasn’t interested. My heart just wasn’t in it enough to say “y’know what, I had a bad go this year, but with four years of training, I’ll be good to go.” For me, it was London or nothing.

I could use the injury as the excuse for not making the team in 2001, but who would I be kidding; I just wasn’t good enough to make the team, plain and simple. I didn’t train as hard as the other guys and my times and distances were below the team requirements. The guys ordered some hoodies, and I wanted one without “CANADA GAMES” on the back, which they said could be arranged. When Matt brought my hoodie to me, I discovered that my request wasn’t heeded, and I said I couldn’t take it. Matt made me take it, like it didn’t matter if I was on the team or not, I still trained for it. That gesture meant a lot to me. I was pretty much done with rowing after that, and the guys went to London, and I think Team Nova Scotia's rowing team won one bronze medal, but that was it. They still got the experience of the trip, and some kickin’ rad blue and white tracksuits, so it was all good.

I have no hard feelings towards rowing, or the people associated with it. I still consider it “my sport,” having pursued it harder than any sport previous. I enjoy the fact that it isn't mainstream, it makes it feel more personal to me (when I told a Casting Director that I rowed, she heard “rode,” as in equestrian.) I usually think of things as easy once I do them, be it school or a job or whatever. If I can do it, anyone can do it, it's easy. This wasn't. At all. My dad said going into it that this would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and he was right.

Today, my legs are still strong from training, although my left leg is a bit weaker, and my knee still sports a heinous pink scar. I'd love to get in a boat again, putter-around in a single, just for fun. That's how it started for me. When Matt visited Vancouver in October, he visited the local rowing club, saying it was pretty costly to join. Maybe someday I'll join as a recreational member, if I get the time and the money to do so.

I have different goals now. Between failing to make Team Nova Scotia, my academic dismissal at University, and countless other fruit-less endeavours, I am pursuing those goals with relentless zeal.

I’m finished failing.

Fully Redeemed

The "Jennifer's Body" callback yesterday went off without a hitch. Well, without any fault of my own, anyway.

This waiting room was particularly packed, as they were doing callbacks for just about every role, not just my own (like last time.) I've made-up a little game (not really) called "are you coming in for my role?" This is when you look at the people coming in the room and then guess if they're coming in for your role. Guy in a purple hoodie? Doesn't look like he's trying to be cop, or is old enough for my part, so he's coming in for something else. Guy with a lip ring with long hair, and an overall emo look to him? Not a cop. Girl? Well, not entirely out of the question, but no (although they were auditioning a female cop that shares the scene with me, I couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, they were out for my role. Can't be too sure.)

The two guys I was up against were tall, good-looking, gave the casting assistant some flowers with a couple of $100's placed in them for good measure, and when I heard them practice their singing (required for this audition), the girls in the room wept, and fell to the guys feet, promising them all sorts of outlandish things that I doubt any of them could follow-through with.

So when it was my turn to go into the room, I was understandably shaken. One of the guys I was up against was actually a "Canadian Idol" contestant, and got pretty far too (he's also a VFS grad, and the only reason I did recognize him is because the school tacked-up newspaper clippings about his run on the show. I don't really watch it, I swear.)

So, I went over some stuff with the reader and went in the room. I was expecting the director, Karyn Kusama, to be there, and I recognized her from pictures on imdb.com (actors, do your research). She was sitting on the very right-hand side of the couch directly across from me. To her left was someone I wasn't expecting at all to be there: Diablo Cody, the writer. She looks just like the pictures I've seen of her too, short dark hair, fiery eyes, fair complexion. To her left was some guy, I didn't know, could've been Mason Novick or Daniel Dubiecki, but I didn't know what either of them looked like (actors, go to more than one website for your research). On the couch perpendicular to them (means opposite of parallel, remember?) were one or two other guys, and the two casting directors. Jason Reitman wasn't there, I'm pretty sure I'd have recognized him. All of them with the reader and camera man made for the most packed audition room I've been in (so far.)

I walked in and immediately said "Hi!" I guess partly from being taken aback from having so many darn people there, and partly at the surprise of seeing the person who's movie has won 14 awards for writing. Someone introduced them as "Karyn, and the rest," or something like that, and I said "Hey" again. I'm just such a people person. So camera man said "rolling" and we were right into it, and the only hitch of this whole thing happened here, when the reader cut-off my first line. We went through to the end of the scene, including my rocking-out (my coach suggested doing my best Geddy Lee from Rush, which was about the best thing he could ever suggest) and that got some laughs. Karyn "thanked" me for my own creative singing style, and her only note was that she wanted that first line in there. So we start again, and the reader and I verbally bump heads, and start a third time. That one went off without a hitch. On to the second scene, ran it once, and then again with a few of Karyn's notes, I got a "very, very good Will," and got out of there. I feel fully redeemed at North Shore studios now. My coach made a good point to me on Sunday that if you do a couple of good ones, and blow one, they're going to bring you in again based on the strength of the good ones. It makes perfect sense, and of course it's the actors paranoia that when they make the slightest mistake on something they think they'll be blacklisted and never work in this town again.

I think I may have started too hot, because I'm dyin' for the next one already. Another glorious, sleepless week of nerves and frustration, and harrowing first impressions. Yeah, I want that.

That's A Relief

Well, that's a relief. I have a callback for "Jennifer's Body" Monday morning. Those of you who were following this saga all the way back to last week will recall that I didn't feel so hot after auditioning for this one. Getting this callback reassured me of a few things: first of all, that the "Beth Cooper" callback wasn't a fluke. Second, that it doesn't matter how you feel about an audition, as long as the Casting Director (not "Casing Director", although their job descriptions are strikingly similar) likes it enough to call you back, that's all that matters. There will be times where you think you've nailed it, and they think you've failed it, and times where you switch around the words nailed and failed in the previous analogy.

By the way, all these little acting "lessons" I'm mentioning are just things I've been taught by more experienced actors, but they appear to be pretty accurate from what I can tell by my extremely limited experience. I feel I'm off to a pretty hot start, and I'm not going to take it for granted; it could easily cool-off at anytime.

So for this, I'll learn from my mistake (remember when I said it's only a mistake if you don't learn from it?) and get the sides down-pat, and make sure I maintain the pacing. I have a coaching on Sunday afternoon, which unfortunately means no choir this week, but auditions take priority over all. I remember when I complained about have to go to the North Shore studios in North Van, how far away it was. After the audition last week, I was afraid I'd never see it again. This bus ride will be relished, and I shall puff-out my chest and let that security guard at the main gate know with pride just who I am and my business being there.

This one's also a producer/director session, so there's a good possibility Jason Reitman will be there. He seems to like shooting in Vancouver (Juno), and actors from Halifax (Ellen Page, Oscar Nominee and future SNL hostess), so I hope me maritime roots will help me out, eh? I'll be all like "where're all da donairs, eh? Gimmie a Keiths, bye," and he'll be immediately charmed, I just know it. Or maybe I'll drop a historical fact like "how 'bout that Citadel Hill being completed in 1856?" or let him know of an important family tie like "yep, my papa was quite the Mayor in his day."

I dunno, I'm open to suggetions.

"They Went Another Way"

I didn't get "I Love You Beth Cooper." My agent just called about a half-hour ago to let me know that "they went another way." I really appreciate him calling me, and he said he wanted to "let me off the hook," which lets me breathe a sigh of relief that I at least got an answer.

Really, this whole "Beth Cooper" ordeal was way more than I ever expected when my agent first called me with the breakdown on February 5th. I was ecstatic just to receive the callback, to get to read for Columbus and to go on that wacky studio "adventure" and get to hang with two experienced actors. I've received compliments abound, and I cherish all of them, and the response from the people that read this, and that I've talked to this project about has been wonderful. I'll never forget this.

I'll have been signed with my agent for one month as of Sunday, so to have all this happen so fast has been a real blessing. He told me on the phone today that he's "not worried about me," and that "I'll do fine." Very, very reassuring to have him believe in me, and I know it's a combination of my work, talent, and of course, luck to have made the impressions that I have made.

Is this too much too soon? Have I created a higher expectation of myself to live up to? We'll see. I certainly won't expect a callback from every thing I go out for, and if anything I should take this as a reassurance of my abilities, that I am castable, and that it's only a matter of time, really, before I book something. Just keep working hard, and it will happen.

They're still looking for a role for me in "Beth Cooper." I kind of figured they'd give a major role like this to someone more experienced anyway, so they'll probably look for something smaller for me, just because I'm starting-out. But hey, consideration for another part is all I can ask for, I'd love to still be a part of this project.

I can sleep easier now (I was actually sleeping just fine when he called me ... ) and I look forward to the next project for which I'm sent-out. I know that you don't audition to get the role, you audition to get another audition. All you can do is work hard, and do your best with the material given, then it's all in the hands of the Casting Directors. You can give the best audition of your life and still not be called back, just because a few other guys did that little bit better, or had the right look for that particular role. There is a lot of luck involved, as any actor will tell you. I love how I talk like a seasoned vet after auditioning a whopping six times. I'll probably read this in a year and laugh my little tuccus off at how I thought I knew it all.

A classmate of mine read for my agent today, did the same memorize-a-huge-audition-and-make-a-big-impression read that I did. He's interested in her, which is great, and is letting her see some other agents before she makes her decision, just like he did with me. This girl is very talented, and I'm glad VFS Acting class 28 is taking-up space on his wall.

Onward and upward, bring on the next one.

"STOP RUNNING INTO MY DAUGHTER!"

I had my first voice audish today. When I talked to my agent before he signed me, he told me his agency was one of the biggest (I think he said THE biggest, but I need to check my facts on that) voice agencies in the city. This intrigued me, as voice-acting was something I've been interested in since before coming to school. It just seems so fun to provide these voices for various cartoon characters, to get to play and act without having to worry about how you look on camera (not that I ever do.)

Trevor Devall, Our voice-acting teacher at VFS has a philosophy that either you "got it" or you don't, and he can tell who does or doesn't instantly. Out of the hundreds of students he has taught, the amount that "had it" could be counted on one hand. I think everyone in the class was secretly hoping to step into the booth, utter one word and have Trevor get up from off the floor and exclaim "You got it, daddio!" I even had other classmates say I “had it”, and to this Trevor just silently nodded, not in approval, but in a polite way of saying "they're wrong, but I'm not going to call you out in front of everyone." I can't say I agree with his philosophy. I'm one to think that people start-out with various talents, but can be taught anything. Even bad singers can be taught to be good singers if they work at it. They may not end-up being as good as the person who works hard and is gifted naturally, but these less-fortunate people can take pride in the fact that they've accomplished something which others doubted they could do. I hope to work with Trevor on a job someday, to prove that I could make it without "having it" in his eyes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing or disrespecting the guy, I actually admire him a great deal (heck, his "Voice-print” Podcasts are brilliant -- more on that later.)

This one wasn't for a cartoon, but for a radio commercial. Some actors frown upon commercials as not being artistic, or "selling-out", but in truth, most commercials these days tell a story that has little to do with the products they endorse. They're funny, eye-catching, and attention-grabbing. Sure they get annoying when you see the same crappy ones over and over again, but look at the hype surrounding the Superbowl ads (my roommate works at a pub that showed the game, and people would specifically ask if they were showing the "American commercials" to enhance their pigskin-viewing experience) and see that sometimes commercials are as entertaining as the shows for which they provide the funding. And plus, what's selling-out more, shilling some deodorant on a 30-second spot, or working eight hours for the man behind a security desk, or some other menial job most actors are required to perform just to pay the bills?

This was at a place called "Wave Productions", a name I recognized as a pretty major recording studio. I guess I under-estimated just how major it is. When I arrived (a half-hour early, natch) I spotted an actor that I recognized from being an extra in a movie he starred in -- the movie was nothing major, and the extras were rewarded with free drinks at a bar a few nights later as payment. After seeing this guy, a former teacher of mine at VFS went in. I said "hey Kurt", and he said "hi," but I don't think he remembered me.

Sitting around reading over the sides (they weren't provided in advance, you just see 'em when you get there -- cold-reading skills are a plus here) some guy with a cowboy hat, long hair, sideburns, earrings and a nose ring and one of those western-style jackets with the tassels sauntered through the waiting room like he owned the place. Keeping in mind that I was in a voice-acting recording studio, I recognized Scott McNeil, who has acted in about 175 shows, immediately based on his voice, but also his distinct style. He made a comment about me and the other guy waiting wearing Canucks green, and how nobody told him it was "wear green day", but he had a green band in his undies, so it was all good (we just took his word for it.) Soon after, a short bearded man arrived and he and McNeil started bantering, like old buddies who have been at this studio way too many times. I heard someone call him Sam, and I realized Sam Vincent was on the waiting room couch with me, auditioning for the same thing I was (McNeil wasn't auditioning for this, he was recording for another commercial, the ones that play before the movie at the theatre that everybody hates. McNeil knew this, and did his best impression of possible audience reactions.)

The reason these two guys were a big deal to me wasn't because I was a big fan of their work. They've done a tonne of cartoons and anime, but I doubt I've ever watched one thing they were on, and between the two of them they've done well over 200 different shows, and countless episodes therein. I was more in awe because of the previously mentioned Podcasts that my former VFS VO guy Devall produces. Check out his website here: http://www.trevordevall.com to listen to them, or subscribe via iTunes. I believe Vincent's is the first in the series, and McNeil's is just something to behold, a massive and hilarious hour-and-a-half of two voice pros doing what they do best. The Podcasts confirm to me why I want to do voice-acting. These guys and gals love their jobs and the fact that they get to play all day and get paid for it. But first, I gotta so this Solo Mobile ad.

This was a radio ad for Toronto (more on that city in a bit), and a mildly funny one to boot. It had a unique gimmick where the first thirty seconds gets cut-off by another radio ad, and comes back immediately after as if I'd been talking all throughout the ad that played over me, only to have me trail-off at end again. One thing I took from today’s experience is thank God for voice-acting class. Devall says the voice-acting itself can't be taught, but what he did teach us about protocol in the booth was indispensable: don't touch the mike, let the tech do it, use the cans (headphones, which Devall didn't think to use for his first ever voice audition and therefore was not able to hear the director), take all janglies (i.e.: keys) out of your pockets, and also, the microphone is ALWAYS ON.

I met the director, Colin, before I entered the room. Once I was inside, he gave me a quick breakdown of what was happening: This wasn't an "announcer" per se, not someone telling people what to buy. This was more conversational, like I was some street-wise guy, maybe a former 'boarder who broke his leg or something (his words) and was telling a buddy about this killer deal. Then he asked for a "slate and a date" and after rattling-off “February 14th … 2008” awkwardly, off I went.

Even though I read-over the sides numerous times in the waiting room (distracted by McNeil and a tech watching "Salad Fingers" in the other room), the first time I said the words full-force was in that booth. Some of it came out muddled, like it was my first day with my new tongue, but any actor will tell you how hard it is to do the simplest things when you're being recorded. It's quite sad really, and any non-actor would laugh at us for complaining about it, but it's true. Aye-freaking carumba, it's damn true. So I did the first half, and the director said good, but do it again with the energy I picked-up midway through. I did that a few times, then went on to the "back half."

Silence.

"Uh, the back half?"
"Oh!"

I didn't quite catch him the first time, and I didn't want to say "Wha?" and sound like an idiot. Instead, I ended-up sounding like a guy who just didn't listen to direction. Really, it was like the "Jennifer's Body" audition, a one or two second slip-up, but probably the thing that will ring loudest when I recall this. It's only a mistake if you don't learn from it. So I did the back half one or two times, and Colin said "good job", and I left the booth. As I was packing-up he said good job again, and thanked me, which redeemed any possible ill-impressions that I thought I made. I'm just too hard on myself, most of these mistakes are so minor, but I am working with people whose job is in the details, so I'm sure they don’t do unnoticed. But no human is flawless, and they accept the mistakes as they come. There's always take two, so no take is truly "mis'd." Hah, I kill me.

I forgot to mention that I saw my agent's daughter again before the audition. I was in the waiting room, and she didn't recognize me because I was wearing my glasses and a hat (big plus with doing voice stuff.) Once I said “annyong” to get her attention, she recalled our first encounter with a colleague there with striking accuracy. When I called my agent to report-in he did his trade-mark no-hello with a "STOP RUNNING INTO MY DAUGHTER!" Now, to anyone else, this would be terrifying; my agent, my ticket to my dreams has demanded of me to leave his precious baby alone. But when you look at the true scope of things, how his daughter owns the agency and has the big clients (including McNeil) and how he's really just a new guy at this agent-thing comparatively speaking, then you can understand the situation better. Oh, and he was totally joking too, obviously. He said he plays tennis with the Wave Studios people on Fridays, and has a good working relationship with them. He said he was just teasing me with this, but voice-acting is important to Vancouver actors, so he'll get me in for more in the future. I look forward to that.

When I got home, a guy I acted with in High School (West Side Story, I was a Shark, he was Jet, can I make it anymore obvious?) sent me this video: http://www.greekchorus.com/game/video/PTG105-Faces.mov. I said earlier that I’d mention Toronto, and that’s where this was made, and where he’s scracthin’ and survivin’ (he’s the guy it the pink shirt, and he’s actually more toned-down in this video compared to how he is in real life.) I’ll give him the shout-out here, and I hope for nothing but big things for him. Toronto and Vancouver are pretty neck-and-neck when it comes to Hollywood North supremacy, and I feel a bit of a rivalry existing between the two. Whatever, I’ve said before that I don’t see Toronto as a “livable” city for me, and Vancouver just rocks way too hard. Don’t get me started on NHL teams, though …

I hardly slept all day, maybe got an hour or so, I couldn’t tell. I could shut the light out, and the place was actually pretty quiet, but I just couldn’t turn my mind off. Something about sleeping on an audition day is just so tough for me, as I replay all the incredible stuff that happened in my head, and look forward to what tomorrow may bring. Also, the possible call regarding “I Love You Beth Cooper” still weighs heavily on my mind. It may have been given to one of the other guys already, I don’t know, but there’s still the possibility that they’re waiting to call for some reason. I just got the impression that they’d give feedback to my agent anyway, regardless of whether I booked the part or not.

I had to be up by seven at the latest, to get to the gym and then get to work on time. So with a little help from Xyience pounding my taste buds, and Metallica’s “Ride The Lightning” pounding my ear drums, I was able to get a good gym sesh in without dropping a weight on my head and killing myself. That’s all I care about really, because my job requires very little output; heck I’m writing this at work.

Someone suggested taking some Gravol to help me sleep, which I hissed at, saying after what happened to Heath Ledger, I’d never use anything to help me sleep, no matter how mild. I just figured I’d rely on the caffeine instead, which I know isn’t any better, but combining the uppers and downers are what does the most damage to people; the books I’ve read about wrestlers washing down pain pills with coffee illustrate the problems loud and clear. It’s the exhaustion combined with the adrenalin. I’m very tired, but still very stimulated from the audition, the nerves in the room, the possibility of booking, and everything else involved make it hard for me to come down in time to get some proper rest before work or the gym. But hey’ I said give it to me, and I ain’t about to take that back. In fact, I say give it to me more; more auditions, more possibilities to book, and more bookings will mean I can kiss the sleep-depriving night jobs goodbye, hopefully forever. With the WGA strike finally over, that “more” looks like a serious possibility.

And finally, I want to thank everyone just for reading all 2,470 words of this. I know I don’t get back to all your comments left either here or on Facebook, but I read and appreciate all of them, and am pleasantly surprised as to just who is reading this long-winded, poor-grammar-laden tome of a tadpole hoping to become the frog that makes a big splash in a big pond. That’s a horrible metaphor, but you get the point. I always enjoy writing when I’ve got something interesting to say, and what I’m doing now is something only a small amount of the population gets to do, and I’m so proud and fortunate to be one of those people. These auditions now serve a twofold purpose: there’s the work involved with simply preparing them for the Casting Director to book the part, and then getting to share any possible interesting tidbits with all of you. Heck, even if I book nothing for a long, long time, just the joy of recalling these experiences is reward in and of itself.

But I hope I book something someday. Oh man, I'll totally wig-out if I don't.

Live To Audition Another Day

The "Jennifer's Body" audition went OK. Not great, but not bad either. I just didn't get as good a vibe from this as I did with "I Love You Beth Cooper", but really, if I hadn't gotten the callback from that, I'd feel better about this. I'm kind of stuck on the the fact that I dropped a line, which killed the pacing by about a second or two. It was nothing major, but noticeable to me, and I think the CD took notice too. But she still smiled and said "good" at the end, and my agent told me to drop it now that it's done. No sense in dwelling on very minor shortcomings, all I can do is hope to visit North Shore Studios again soon. I'm just now understanding how major the Casting Directors there are, they cast for some of the biggest projects that come to town.

In the waiting room today I saw Clifton Murray, who is a VFS grad, and who also appeared on the latest Canadian Idol. Not sure how far he made it, as I never watched it, but apparently it was pretty far. Also in the room was Jesse, the actor I was in contention with for "Beth Cooper". He hadn't heard anything from it yet, but we smiled and laughed about our little adventure. I told him to break a leg, as he did for me the previous day. He's one of the good ones, very genuine, and I hope only for good things for him.

Like I said, haven't heard anything from "Beth Cooper". Every time the phone rings I freak-out hoping the call display will read COLUMBUS, CHRI.., but I doubt if it would be him who calls. In all likelyhood it would be my agent who calls, and I hope it is, even to tell me I didn't get it, just end the waiting already. I just think it would be cool if Columbus called his leads, just to start a report with them.

Through all this I live to audition another day. This morning it's for a Solo by Bell ad or something, a voice-over, which I like. Nothing to prepare, just show up 5-10 minutes before my call, look over the sides, snap on the cans and get 'er done. I can wear a hat and everything, which I fully intend to do.

Give It To Me, Baby

What a day.

Woke-up at 9am, got ready and left for my WorkSafeBC audition. This Studio was way on E 7th Ave, so I figured I'd walk with my old pal the script and get some last-minute work done. It was raining just enough to be super annoying to watch my papers get all wavey and my highlighter begin to run. The Studio was a lot farther than I bargained for, but I still got there on time. They were super-behind, but I saw a classmate of mine in the waiting room, so I jawed with him for a bit. He got called-in before me, and I went in a couple of folks after. I walked in the room, slated (means I said my name and agency to the camera) and let 'er rip. Luckily we only did the first scene with the car, and not the last scene where I wept clutching my poor, finger-less dad in a wheelchair, wondering how he'll be able to rip "Smoke on the Water" on his Fender Stratocaster from now on. I ran the scene a total of four times at the director's request, taking his different directions. He said I was "definitely in the zone" from the start, which was pretty cool.

I left the Studio, stopped at my agency to get more resumes on their letterhead, met my agent's daughter, who has the big-time clients, and went home. After going home I went to the gym, where I saw my agent's daughter AGAIN, so now he won't think I made-up the part about working-out four days a week on my cover letter. I mean, you wouldn't know it to look at me, but I'm working on it so gimmie a break, will ya?

After the gym, I went home, and got ready for audition #2, at that far-off Studio in North Vancouver. I took the bus super-early, just in case traffic was bad, or I got off at the wrong stop or something. Turns out I DID get off at the wrong stop, and ended-up having to walk down a mountain, but even with that and a quick perusal at Blockbuster to kill time (and to read Chris Columbus' name on the back of The Philosopher's Stone DVD, just to give me some perspective of the whole situation), I was still 45 minutes early. No one else was there, but the Casting Assistant arrived after a bit. I squawked with her for a bit, then Jesse, one of the actors I was up against for the role, arrived. Jesse flew in from Toronto specifically for this callback. Soon after the second actor, Brandon arrived, and recognized Jesse, as they seemed to be old buddies from somewhere, I never did find out where. They talked about walking their dogs, and other type-stuff, and Brandon kept making jokes about how he was going to get this part, and we had no chance. It was all in jest really, and helped aleviate any tension between the three young, competitive actors.

The CA tells us that they're just waiting on "the execs" and I keep my eyes on the door, waiting for Columbus to walk in, but then I figured they probably have some sort of back door for the bigwigs. Our call times were for 5:30, and at 5:45 we get a surprise: They want US to come to THEM. At Bridge Studios, in Burnaby.

The Casting Director asks if we know where that is, and Brandon is the only one who does, having worked on a show there for eight months. He's also the only one with a car, so the CD hands him some MapQuest directions, and the CA offers us the snacks they were going to have in the room. Potato chips in a brandy glass, applewood cheese (I told them applewood has a smokey, bacony taste and they thought I was out of my tree; then they tried it, and bowed to the cheese master), and these weird crackers with raisins in them, which were actually pretty good, made for quite a fancy spread.

Then the three actors competing for a lead role in a Chris Columbus film all piled into a Subaru station wagon and headed for this actors third studio of the day.

On the way over we chat-chitted about acting, and etc. They called me a "freshie", having just signed with my agent in January, and said I was off to a pretty good start with a major callback like this. Both of them seemed pretty experienced, with UBCP member numbers and everything. Man. Brandon talked about the TV roles he's had, and about being short-listed for 3 out of 13 auditions he had while in LA for two months, and about not understanding why some actors think it necessary to mind-screw the other guys in the waiting room (he said this as he was turning around after missing the proper turn-off).

We arrive at the studio, and the security guard recognized Brandon from his eight months working there, and we then headed for the building in the back. We met the CD and her team, and headed-up the stairs to the offices. We walk around the corner, and I spot a short man with thick black spectacles, and I recognize Chris Columbus immediately. The actors shuffle into a conference room, and we resume our waiting. Now we're waiting for the camera man to arrive as the CA tells us what a nightmare it was picking-up MiniDV cassettes at a huge grocery store during rush hour. Motion pictures, people. Then when the camera man arrives, they decide NOT to put it on tape, and also that we're doing the auditions in the very conference room we were waiting in. So we shuffle out of there and the three of us squeeze onto a couch in the hall, surrounded by busy-looking people at their desks on their laptops.

I'm up third, so I have to wait longer, while I hear the other guys loud and clear through the ceiling. They seemed to be playing it big, which could work for this project, but I stuck to the smaller choices that I made with my acting coach the day before. I entered the room and shook Columbus' hand,
"Hi, I'm Chris."
"Yes you are." It came off more friendly than arrogant, I swear.
I shook Mark Radcliffe's hand, and took my place at the back of the room. I waited for a second for either Chris or the reader to give me a signal to begin, but when I realized I was making THEM wait, I began. Once I was done Chris said,
"That was great, that was ... that was fantastic!"
He and Radcliffe stood-up and I shook Radcliffe's hand (Columbus didn't offer his, or maybe I didn't see it, so now I'm nervous that I snubbed him, but he still seemed happy). After I left the room, the CA told me to check-in with my agent to get information on an audition I had at North Shore tomorrow morning.

This one is for a flick called "Jennifer's Body". It's by the writer of "Juno" and produced by Jason Reitman, starring Megan Fox from "Transformers". Sorry, it's raining names again, I'll get you an umbrella. So this two-audition day has turned into a three-audition day, and I'm sure to be pretty torched by the end of it. But hey, if this is what it takes, give it to me, baby.

The Big Callback

Remember that audition for the lead in the Chris Columbus flick I mentioned? Well, scroll down this page and read about the before and after. I'll wait.

My agent called this morning informing me that Tuesday night I have the big callback for this, which I was not expecting at all. It's down to me and two other guys, and on top of that the producer and director (who we all know is one in the same) will be there. So I'll acting in front of the guy who directed Mrs. Doubtfire. Awesome. My agent says to really showcase my personality here. What does he think I am, Cheez Whiz?

I got a coach for this on Monday afternoon after my WorkSafeBC audition. WorkSafeBC on Monday morning, Chris Columbus and 1492 Productions Tuesday night. The life of an actor in Vancouver.

Are You Sure You Know Who's Reading?

For this cushy job in security at a major company (I'm practically CEO), there was a mandatory Occupational First Aid course. This OFA course could not be re-scheduled, and took place during the week of my birthday and also prevented me from doing a VFS writing short for which I was cast. But I'm not bitter.

During the course we were subjected to the inevitable First Aid videos. You know the ones: Guy A is doing something unsafe, which Guy B cautions him on, then Guy A hurts himself, and Guy B is the hero that ... walks with him to first aid. What a guy indeed.

This video had me and a fellow classmate laughing, because Guy B was played by an acting teacher of ours from VFS. Since being at VFS, I've seen my instructors pop-up in the oddest places: TV shows, movies-of-the-week, Marks Work Wearhouse and Shaw and London Drugs commercials. Obviously I'd see one in an OFA video, right? I spent the rest of the video just waiting for another instructor to walk into the first aid room with a log stuck in his head or something, but alas, there was just the one. Still, I laughed. I mean what sort of loser ends-up on these cheesy, awful cautionary videos regarding workplace safety?

Well.

Life has a tendancy to make things come full circle. I'm brought to mind Diamond Dallas Page driving The Honky Tonk Man's pink Cadillac at Wrestlemania VI at the SkyDome in Toronto, only to come back 12 years later and wrestle Christian at Wrestlemania X-8 in the very same building in the very same city.

My agent called today and told me I have an audition on Monday for something called "Manufacturing Safety". Now some titles for certain movies and TV shows these days have nothing to do with their content. Think about recent titles like the film "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". What? That title gives no indication of the content whatsoever. For all I know it could be a romantic comedy about a guy who dies and becomes an angel with a bow and arrow like Cupid, except his name is Stuart, and he's not too bright so they call him "Stupid", and he shoots people with his arrows who would never date each other in a million years, and one couple is a hardcore biker chick who is matched-up with a scrawny D&D geek, and she shows him how to live life on the edge and he teaches her all about THACO, and they fall in love for real and get married, but the biker chick's got a jealous ex-boyfriend who is also a biker and Hells Angels member, and he gets a bunch of his fellow gang members to beat-up the geeky guy, but it turns out he's a ninja, and he gets his fellow ninja clan members to battle the Hells Angels in an all-out no-holds-barred brawl for world supremacy. Or it could be about anything else, that's just an example.

So I take a look at the e-mail the agent sends me. Scroll down, role, shoot dates, audition location, blah-de-blah-blah. I get to production company: WorkSafeBC. This does not bode well. So I read the character breakdowns, and the script, which goes a little something like this:

It starts out very ominously, with a shipment arriving at a warehouse. But this shipment is NOT WHAT THEY ORDERED! So the delivery guy gives it to them anyway, claiming that he "just drives the truck", and speeds on his way home where he will likely smoke the marijuana like a cigarette.

Cut-to our hero family, with an excited, fresh-faced young man (the role I'm going out for) with my parental figures, working on a car. I've added some new "headers" (whatever that means) that I picked-up at the Toschi Station, along with some power converters. My dad says I'm just wasting time with my friends there, but he just doesn't get me man. Mom and dad head-off to work, and I head-off to the Toschi Station again, this time to pick up a suspension kit and to make trouble with the establishment, because I'm so painfully young and cool.

Dad arrives at work to find the botched shipment: A table shear, of the non-hydraulic variety THAT DOES NOT HAVE A GUARD! But they can't wait for a guard to be shipped because they have a DEADLINE, so they go to work anyway.

Meanwhile, at the Toschi Station, I decide to take a break from listening to the newest Linkin Park rock album on my Apple iPod, and give my old man a ring on my cellular telephone while I'm in the "Suspension Kits, Suspension bridges, suspenders" aisle. The "mousy" secretary takes my call, and calls-out to my dad on the work floor. This is where things go horribly wrong!

My poor father absent-mindedly waves to the secretary, and when he turns back to his work, he slips and his hand SLIDES UNDER THE BLADE, TAKING HIS FINGERS CLEAN OFF! The table shear then takes his fingers as they crumble to dust, leaving behind only a gold ring. The drill press urges the table shear to cast the ring into the incinerator of doom! To destroy it! The table shear simply says "no" and takes the ring for its own. That was the day the strength of table shears failed. The secretary comes out and finds my pop-pop in his predicament, calling for help (if only she took the OFA course ... )

As mom and I wait anxiously at the hospital, I am lost in thought. Thinking of the way life with my father will be now. No more throwing the football around, because he's left-handed, and can't one-hand catch worth squat. No more thumb wrestling. No more nose picking. Sure, he'll be able to pick his friends, but he won't be able to pick his nose, and picking his friend's nose is completely out of the question. No more paper-rock-scissors. He may be able to throw-down a small paper, or a super-stubby rock, but not scissors. Never scissors. Never again.



So that's how it's come full circle for me. I'm not complaining, I'll take whatever I can get at this point. Not because I'm desperate, but because I'm just starting-out. PSAs, commercials, nude modelling for "life art" classes, whatever. I'll just have fun with it, and treat it like any other audition. I just hope no one from WorkSafeBC reads how I trashed their ad.

Possible tagline for a new ad campaign on online safety:

Internet Blogs: Are you sure you know who's reading?

"You Don't Get Nervous, Do You?"

Well if auditioning well is borin', then I don't wanna be interestin'. I went in, did my thing, and the Casting Director seemed pleased. She asked if I was friends with a classmate of mine who auditioned earlier, which I was, and then asked if I got what I wanted out of the second scene in the audition, to which I said "yes" (what else would I say?)

That's about all I have to go by when I meet the CD; I do my thing and they say "good" when I'm done. Which certainly beats a "Well, that happened" or a "next!", so I really can't complain (but hey, I've only had three, so those may yet be to come.) Also, my agent said this CD is pretty authentic, so she doesn't just toss praise around like a water-balloon that hasn't been filled to the point of bursting upon the slightest jostling.

The agent also complimented me on my positive feedback, saying I'm just getting my feet wet now, but things will pick-up. I know they will. He also asked "you don't get nervous do you?" It's funny, I heard someone once say "if you don't get nervous, something's wrong with you." I can't say I'm 100% nerve-free when I come into the room. It may be the meeting new people that does it to me, moreso than the acting. For me it only really hits me afterwards, the chills and shaking. Me and my agent both agreed that that was a good time for that to hit, when it's all said and done and you can drop it.

As nice as this CD was (and she is one of the biggest in town) it took me about an hour to get there, and hour to get back. This auddie was at the North Shore Studios in North Vancouver, so it was quite a trek, but it's a pretty cool place. It's very studio-esque with the rows of old-looking buildings, a big blue-screen wall outside, and security guard at the gate who asks who you are and everything! Made me feel pretty special.

A classmate of mine had an audition right after me for the same part, and it is so refreshing to see familiar face in a strange waiting room. It's a cool feeling when you can go into the audition room and have the CD ask you about a classmate of yours (who's part of the same agency you are) and then mention that the guy coming in after you is ALSO a classmate. Class 28 is taking over! It's great how much the audition classes we took have helped. I really don't treat these any differently. The fact that there's a paying role up for grabs doesn't change anything, I just prepare the work as best as I can, and keep loose in the room.

That's about all to report for now, other than I bought one of those sleep-mask things to help me sleep in the day. It works like a dream (lol), but it makes me feel like a total diva, but I don't care what y'all say, I do what I want, you don't know me.

"You Got Another One ... "

I can't tell you how much it makes me smile when my agent never says "Hi William", or "Is this William?" when he calls. He just starts talking. Lucky for him he has has a distinguishable voice, and I have caller ID. Keeps me on my toes though, when I pick up the phone and immediately hear "You got another one".

The Stargate audition went well. I think (with my whopping two times in front of a Casting Director) that it's harder to be in the waiting room than in the audition room. You walk in to this stark-silent room, with a bunch of hungry dogs all going for the same peace of meat. But these dogs aren't that outwardly aggressive towards each other, and just sniff each other out cautiously yet politely as they all wait to get out of their cage and attack that juicy pork hock in front of the master they so desperately wish to appease.

As I said before, the audition was only two lines, which some consider harder than six pages because of the impact you need to make with so little to work with. I met the CD, went into the room, jogged on spot for a few seconds, and then leapt on the mark and spewed my words (fortunately, not literally.) I jawed with the CD for a few moments afterward, and told her it was my first real audition. She said I did well, and the feedback she sent my agent read exactly like this:

Hi Agent,

William Vaughan was good.

thanks,

Casting Director

Which is as good as I can ask for. As long as they'll have me back, I'm happy.

So this "other one" is tomorrow at 1pm. Kinda bummed I couldn't get a coach in the limited amount of time I had, but thems the breaks. I'll talk to the school about who else is available for coaching former students, I'll clearly need more than three options.

This one's six pages for a lead in a Chris Columbus flick, produced by him and two other guys that did, among other things, Harry Potter 1&2. Also it stars Hayden Panettiere, lead actress on "Heroes" and nemisis of the Japanese fishing industry. Oops, here, let me just pick-up those names I dropped all over you. Sorry.

The character is a young American soldier that enjoys what he does a little too much, and uses his skills to make life a living hell for the kid who confessed his love for my girlfriend in his High School Valedictorian speech. He also puts on a phoney southern accent, so I'll be hardcore channeling Sawyer from "Lost". They can't all be good guys folks, and I enjoy playing the people you love to hate. I did it in RCW (just wait for that blog) and have been hoping for something like this to come along. No more Mr. Nice Guy, although I'm really not that nice to begin with. So screw you, man.

Like I said it's at 1pm and in North Vancouver which means about two hours of transit time, which guarantees another sleep-deprived day tomorrow, but if Santa could do it, then so could The Grinch. After I call my agent, I'll try to give an update here. Hopefully something interesting will happen. Even if it means me screwing-up royally to make for some good Blogging material, then so be it!

"Nick Vaughan?"

I finally got my new head shot order on Wednesday after waiting a week for the photographer to touch-up the shot and send it to Rocket Repro, and having my agent hound me.

This is how it's been for me: After getting my free photo sesh from the school, I printed two orders of 10; one bearded, one naked-faced. I got the bearded one first, but then I had the bright idea that someone might want me to shave it someday, so I had the second nudie-chin set printed. I should let you know now that each of these cost around $48 per set of 10. That's roughly $4.80 for a picture of my head. (I'd find out, as I was paying for my second order, that 25 shots was only about $60, but I didn't need that many. That's my justification, and I'm sticking to it.) So I put both of these into one package, and send them off to the agent I have today, who doesn't want to use either shot. In fact, he wants to get a new series done altogether, but doesn't want me to incur the expense at the moment, and I agree. So I used my certificate from VFS (another graduation freebie) get a whopping 50 printed (certificate expires in September, so I wanted to use it while I could.)

This will hopefully end this "starting-out" period. I expected that there would be a lot to take care of, but six trips to Rocket (seven, if you count the time I went there only to find the place closed at 5:45pm when the sign and person I spoke to said 6pm) even in the last four months is more than I wanted.

First, after the photographer sent the shot, I expected to "start my order" over the phone, but not having a credit card I would have to pay my deposit in person. Then, when I thought my glorious VFS certificate would be key to not-having-to-go-there-to-start-the-order bliss, I found out they need the certificate itself. Working at night, I find it hard to take care of any daytime business, so needless to say having to go there, place the order, and then have them call me to come in and pick it up gets tiresome, especially since I usually wake-up after they are closed.

But, head shots are important to actors, and I certainly can't blame my agent for being picky; the reason I only printed 10 shots of the two sets in the first place was me wanting to wait for my agent, whomever that would be, to help me chose one with which to start out. I'll just have to find something to do with the ones I have left.

I'll do that other photo session later, but hopefully much later, because not only do I not want to shell the $400+ for the photographer, I just plain don't like getting my picture taken. I'd say in my entire photo-taken-of-me career, 17% of the smiles are genuine. The rest just look fake and awful.

My agent was hounding me to get the new shots so I could drop them off at an office to be put in a database so he can start to submit me for roles. This is an office for a company called castingworkbook.com, so while I have a digital copy of the shot I can upload to their website from home; I needed to physically drop-off this physical head shot while my head got physical with a wall, wondering why I had to do this in person. Well, if this is what I have to complain about, I guess life's not so bad.

In more acting happs, I had my first "pre-screen" yesterday. It was a four-page read for one of the biggest Casting Directors in town. According to my agent, this guy rarely does pre-screens, but with nothing much going on industry-wise, I guess he figured on looking at some new talent (I'm not joking, me and five other classmates were all sent out for this same project).

A pre-screen is what Casting Directors use to determine whom they want to see for auditions, which I originally thought was dumb, that we're essentially auditioning for them anyway, but when I considered that a lead role audition is anywhere from 10-20 pages, while this was only 4, it made a bit more sense.

I arrived 45 minutes early, because I didn't know how long the bus would take or where exactly the office was, so I wanted to give myself some time. I just had a coaching that morning with a teacher who always fills me with confidence when I'm done with him. He coached me for my 16-page read with my agent, and was a big reason for me being signed. He's not doing it as a favour, believe me, he gets paid, but I'm glad that I have someone I can trust and work with, not matter what the audition may be, or how much time there is to prepare.

When I walked in, the waiting area was eerily silent, with a couple of actors quietly preparing to enter the dreaded room. From that dreaded room came the only sounds, an actor auditioning for a role different (and more shout-ier) than mine. I signed-in and noticed how early I was compared to the others on the list. I sat down with my headphones on, wondering how I was going to kill 45 minutes. I had already signed-in, so I didn't know if I could step out for a moment, or tell them "brb" or what, so I just stayed there, listening to my headphones (more specifically the music coming from them) and paused every time the reader would step out of the room, in case he said something pertaining to me, like "you got a life kid, or what?"

They called me in early, but they got names mixed up and asked for "Nick Vaughan". After me and Nick Whoever looked at the reader, he just said "Vaughan?" "Uh, that's me," I said, so I got up and entered this illustrious and important Casting Directors office for the first in, what I hope would be, many visits...

... only to be immediately shooed-out when they were really wanting this Nick guy with the last name no one bothered to know. So, I left, and went in after Nearly-Nameless Nick, and thought I did pretty well. I stuck to the choices me and my teacher made in the coaching session that morning, and was rewarded with a hearty "good, thanks." Ah, the feeling of a job well done.

The film is called "ALTITUDE" (fun story, I got a weird feeling on the bus on the way home from work that morning when I saw "ALTITUDE" highlighted on someone's page they were studying, obviously nothing to do with the project, but still) about some teens on a plane, some sort of teen thriller where things kind of go horribly wrong. I say teen twice (and now thrice) because the part I auddied for was an 18-22 year-old. My agent told me this going into it, and I wasn't really going for results anyway, I just wanted to show this guy what kind of work I can do. As an actor, you're not auditioning to get the role; you're auditioning to get another audition. If a Casting Director likes what they see, they'll want to bring you in the room again and again. Maybe you were edged-out for the role in other auditions, maybe you just weren't right for the role, but something will come along for you eventually. But you got to work for it.

Monday I have an audition that every Vancouver actor worth his/her salt has auditioned for: Stargate. This is Stargate Atlantis, a whopping two-liner, but I'll have fun with it. Much like the pre-screen, I'm treating this as my chance to show the Casting Directors what I've got. The first role is the hardest to book, and I'm not counting on anything for a while, especially the way the industry is today. All I can do is the best work I can with what I'm given.

How To Move A Friar In Nine Days

My parents gave him a cheque for $150.00, partially for gas, but also as a bit of compensation for dragging my lucky tuccus along for the ride. It was also for some "Iced Capps" on the road, but he had countless Tim Hortons certificates already that he'd amassed over the years of Christmas presents from parishioners who knew the dude liked his coffee.

Iced Capps were a way of life back then. Helping him move, we'd be working for about ten minutes before he sat down, his collared shirt already soaking wet, and ask me in his New England accent, "Wanna get an Iced Capp, Willie?"

The original plan was flawless in my eyes. I had just been accepted into Vancouver Film School's Acting For Film & TV program when just days later Father David told me he had an offer to move to a Parish in Richmond, BC, which was just south of Vancouver. I don't recall why exactly, but he had the idea to drive out there. I think the reason was, why not? When would he get another chance at this? And when would I? I'd load my stuff in his new, grey Saturn VUE, save on the cost of a plane ticket, and get the trip of a lifetime. I was eternally grateful he let me come with him, but he keeps insisting that he's the grateful one; and he's got a point, it would be a lousy trip to make by himself.

However, I wouldn't be loading all my stuff in the VUE; just enough stuff for nine days of travel, and a week and a half in Richmond. Y'see, my parents didn't want me going to VFS that year, but that's another Blog for another time. I will spoil the ending for you and say that making me wait was one of the best things they've done for me.

Father David (FD, as I shall henceforth call him) let me come along anyway, for the aforementioned company and camaraderie. He even used some airline points he had to book me a flight from Vancouver back to Halifax after my stay. I never understood why he like me so much, despite what I've put him through:

In 2003, after my failure at Dalhousie University (again, another Blog for another time) he hired me as a summer work student at the church. I knew some friends that did it before, and a nice, easy-going day job would fit well with my night job at the video store. I'd be rolling in the Sir Robert Bordens by summer's end. I started in May, and it went downhill from there. I was there to do odd jobs, and what I ended up doing for the rest of the summer was sit at the computer in the counting room and enter hundreds of Baptismal records from some old church books, going back as far as the 70's. It was heinously boring and sooner than later I found other uses for the computer I was using. So many uses that eventually there were days that I had entered ten or less records. Couple that with my being late every single day and the fact that I was spending all my money as soon as I made it, and I was not shaping-up to be a model employee. And that wasn't the worst part.

The position I was hired for was paid for by a government grant, one of the requirements being you need to be a student IN BETWEEN school years. I had the before part taken care of, despite my grades, I just needed the after. However, because of my grades, I was put on academic dismissal. Read that last word again. Not probation. Dismissal. This meant that I could not go to Dalhousie for a full year and if I applied to any other school, or even to re-enrol at Dal after the year, they'd have to review my file. So in this situation I did the smart thing and ... waited until the last minute to apply for some programs I sort of wanted to do. At the Community College. And if you've heard Chris Rock's opinons on Community College, you've heard my views as well. Needless to say I did not get accepted into anything I applied for, and I ended-up costing our church, with a $99,000 roofing bill debt, another couple of thousand dollars because I didn't meet the grant's requirement. And the Priest I did this to was letting me ride shotgun and stay free in hotels all the way from Dartmouth, NS to Richmond, BC. Ladies an gentlemen, I give you forgiveness. He'll be here all week, try the veal.

He got the Saturn VUE specifically for the trip. He got a new car every two years or so, and he loved his Saturns. I still think it funny today that he drives an SUV. He made the back windows super-tinted so thieves couldn't look in and steal all our stuff. It was also a standard. He's always driven a standard, and he got to telling me about his first car. It was previously well-used, with a rusted-out floor, so if it was raining that day, chances are your pant legs know it by the time you got to your destination. Also, the sun roof's seal was broken, so if there was water on the roof when you braked suddenly, the back of your neck would get a nice cool surprise. On top of this, you couldn't operate the left turn signal and windshield wipers at the same time without blowing a fuse. He bought it for something like $100 and sold it for the same amount. He would have broken even on it, if you didn't consider all the fuses he had to buy.

We planned for me to do some of the driving, having gotten my license a few weeks before we left. My first driver's license, at the tender young age of 20. FD was giving me a crash-course in stick-shift in the church parking lot a few weeks before the trip. I didn't feel at all ready, but I didn't want him to be stuck driving for who-knows-how-long, so if relief was needed, relief I would be. From the thousands of kilometres we logged on that trip, I ended-up driving a grand total of five metres.

We left from my house, and stopped at his before we split town. There were still boxes everywhere and a maid was cleaning. We crammed some more boxes in the VUE, and Father David finally left his home for six years with a casual "Bye, house." Man, that guy gets way too attached. One last goodbye with his now former church staff, and we were on our way.

We didn't have a concrete plan, but we did have a route in mind. He had wanted to get there in ten days, and had no reason to rush. We wanted plenty of time to make the most of it.

On the first day we drove to northern New Brunswick, a town called Edmonston. New Brunswick was probably the least interesting portion of the entire trip, probably because I've seen a lot of it before. We stayed in Edmonston with some friends of FD's, and proceeded to Quebec the next day.

Quebec was a belle province, but FD with all his learned languages (Spanish, Japanese, and pig latin) and a french last name, knew as much french as I did. And I didn't know beaucoup. I never took immersion, but I knew enough from school to get by OK. Fortunately it never became an issue, as most of the locals knew enough english that they put us to shame. Quebec City reminded me of a french Halifax, with the citadel and Oldey-Timey feeling of the portion of the city we stayed in. After sleeping on the floor of the small room at the Chateau Fleur-De-Lis, we made our way through some hectic Montreal traffic (my role as a navigator was going as well as my summer student job) on our way to Ottawa, but not without embarrassing myself trying to order some Timbits in french at a Tim's near the Ontario border. "Une de chaque" means "one of each" in case you were wondering.

I met with a long time friend of mine who was working for the Minister of Veteran's Affairs as a summer job. Some guys get all the summer job breaks. He was able to use his Ministerial hook-ups to get us a free tour of the Parliament building. It was something else. The view from the tower was amazing, and just being inside that building is something I will never forget. We bid adieu to my friend, and went to stay with another friend of mine from back home. While FD went to bed early, my friend and some of his went to their favourite watering hole where beer pitchers were on special. That night I shared an intimate heart-to-heart with his toilet. I woke up the next day hungover, which FD just found amusing. After all, this is the guy who mixed me zombies and gave me cigars, all in the company of my folks.

Ottawa was one of the high points, and from the time we entered until the time we left, we were in Ontario for four days. The width of the province coupled with having to drive around the Great Lakes contributed to the never-ending province. We stayed in Sault Ste. Marie, then drove through Thunder Bay to a town in northern Ontario called Kenora.

After Kenora we made one of the longest hauls of the entire trip, blowing across Manitoba, and through Winnipeg in one day, and ending up in Regina that night. My aforementioned five metres of driving entailed me daringly pulling away from a gas station pump back in Edmonston at a blazing 20 km/h. FD, with me supplying his fuel (coffee) was a driving machine. I was really surprised at how long he could go. We were pulling 8-12 hour days on the road, always with him at the helm.

I remember when I was a kid, driving to PEI with my family crammed in the back seat of a Toyota station wagon for three hours with no AC, thinking it was agony. Back then, my butt hurt and I was bored and sick of being jammed with my bros in the back. But this trip was different. I was riding shotgun (which, when I was little, was my mom's spot, and she enforced a strict "no callsies" policy), and we had AC, although we used it sparingly to save gas, which actually wasn't bad. We both had our iPods with FM tuners so we could pipe our tunes through the car radio. He had his classical music and Broadway show recordings, I had my Queen and Led Zeppelin. I believe we listened to Zepp's entire catalogue twice during the trip. And then there was FD himself, who knew everything about anything you could think to ask him. He is one of the smartest and well-educated men I've ever met, and will likely ever meet.

In Regina, we had to try a few hotels before we found a vacancy. It was Saturday after all, and when we finally found a vacancy,it came with a compromise: There was only one Jacuzzi in our room. On a trip like this, you have to take the good with the bad. We never ended up using the Jacuzzi, but the room was suite. That morning we made our way out of Saskatchewan and into Alberta. This was Sunday, and travelling with a Priest meant going to mass was a priority. After poking around for a church in league with Rome, we came across a Ukrainian church, but by the time we got there, the only available mass was in Ukrainian. Not wanting to have to bust our our Ukrainian/English dictionaries so soon, Father David went to plan "B".

For dinner I wanted an authentic Calgary steak dinner experience, so we ate at The Keg. Can't get food like that no where else in the country, I'll tell you what. FD asked to get our remaining bread boxed-up for us, and we headed to the liquor store for a bottle o' red. We drove out of Calgary and headed for the mountains, easily the most breath-taking part of the whole trip for me. I'll never forget seeing the haze of a huge mountain range as far as the eye could see on our approach into Calgary. FD asked if I saw them and when I asked if they were mountains, he said yes. I said "They're not so big". He kept telling that to the people in Richmond after we arrived. He knew I was joking. He told people in praise of my wit, not to showcase my ineptitude. I had no idea The Rockies started in Alberta, but hey, I took history, not geography.

The Rockies were especially beautiful because it was sunset when we were leaving Calgary. We were looking for a place to saty before it got too dark, but Canmore had some sort of folk festival happening, so we continued on to Banffffff (I never know when to cut-off the "f's"). FD had to shell a lot for our room, which wasn't anything spectacular, but y'know, location, location, location. In the room that night I celebrated my first hotel room mass. He was technically still Pastor at Pope John XXIII at the time, and I was honoured to celebrate his final mass as my home pastor with him. For the Gospel Reading he rattled-off a passage from Matthew from memory, and then we offered-up our mass intentions for the world, for us, and for our journey. Then he consecrated the Keg bread and liquor store wine, and we celebrated the Eucharist.

I tried to drink some of the left over wine that night, but it wasn't my thing. I stepped outside, thinking that the stars in the clear night sky would look incredible from where I thought was the middle of nowhere. Banffffffff smelled like a Christmas tree, but had no lights in the sky. I suppose I underestimated the light pollution where we were. It also bothered me to see people walking around with bulging shopping bags, like this beautiful mountain town was some sort of shopping mall. Was this the best thing people could think to do there?

We were getting on the last legs of our trip, and the next day I would bring my "visited-provinces" list to a whooping nine. Whoo, doggy.

The next day we drove through Banfffftheletterf National Park because that's where the Trans-Canada Highway took us. This drove FD crazy because the road was two lanes the whole way through, and everyone drove like the were a float in the Orange Bowl parade, taking in the sights. Throughout the trip, whenever FD would get behind a slow person on a two-lane, he'd start to steam. At one point in our travels, we passed an RV from Quebec, only to come across it again way down the road the next day. I played the role of sight-seer, using FD's digital camera to take pictures of the mountains, which were very beautiful. It was a clear blue day, and with a slight blue haze, the mountains in the distance looked like a painting in real life. Some people had stopped to look at some elk, and I took a picture, but mistimed it. "There, now you have a picture of an elk's ass," he said. I sure did. We stopped at Lake Louise, again, beautiful. I took some more snaps of the fake-looking blue water and a squirrel and we hit the road again, making for the BC border.

BC began as beautiful as it would remain, and I knew their license plates weren't lyin'. (Fun fact: when I was a kid, I though "Canada's Ocean Playground" was a theme park somewhere that I didn't know about. To this day, I still wish it were true). FD wanted to stop at a place called Radium to soak in the hot springs.

This was a destination he had planned from the onset of the trip, and something he was very much looking forward to. When he told me about it I had expected a craggy, rocky place with steaming geysers and pools hot scalding water, somewhere in the mountains. Maybe there would be some large eastern European men laughing at me complaining about the hot water while they doused theselves with the boiling liquid that would have some strange natural healing qualities or something. What I got was a big hot tub that wasn't anything special other than the fact that it was near a hot spring, but I never saw one. The place was pretty busy, a big touristy attraction, the type FD hated. But he wanted to soak, and after all the driving he'd been doing, maybe a massage wouldn't be too bad either.

So with his glasses off, and being blind as a bat with no eyes (dude wore trifocals), I led him to the hot tub, where we soaked for a good fifteen minutes. We then went to check on massage prices, which were far too rich for our thinned blood.

After that we were off again, stopping at a small town called Salmon Arm. We were going to press-on and head to Richmond that day, but we both thought it better to rest first and do the last six hours the next day. The place we stayed was cottage-style, with little bunnies in cages out outside our room. How cute. Before going to bed that night, I saw a small creature on the floor scurry out of sight. How not cute.

The next day we checked out of our last hotel of the journey and made for FD's new home, and hopefully near where my future home would be.

We pulled into Richmond in the afternoon with the front of the VUE sporting a hot, dried-bug collection of specimens from across the country. It looked like the VUE had a mustache. FD got acquainted with his new staff, and introduced me as his old Parishioner to everyone he met. I was honoured to share the trip with him, and the destination made all the road hours worth it.

During my days there, I'd make day trips to Vancouver just to walk around and get familiar with the city. It helped me get through the next year working at the Call Centre knowing where I would be going after. My academic advisor at VFS met me for a tour of the acting campus where I met Bill, the head of the acting department. I liked Bill the first time I met him, and my respect for him would only grow as I worked with him throughout my school year.

The day I was leaving, FD and I went to gorgeous Stanley Park in downtown Vanouver. On of my favourite things about the city is it's conservation of the nature that surrounds it. I had the idea to dip my right hand in the bright blue Pacific Ocean, and within 24 hours I was back home dipping my left hand in the Atlantic.

From ocean to shining ocean.

So that's where it ends. Living in downtown Vancouver now, I sing in the choir every week at FD's church in Richmond. I've gotten to know some great people there, people who make living here a joy, but I don't hang-out with FD nearly enough. It's a very big parish, and he's very busy, but very happy there, and I'm busy with my own life. It was much easier when the church was about a ten-minute walk (and yet I couldn't make it for a 9am mass ... ), and not the hour-and-a-half bus ride it is today. Plus, even with being in the choir, I'm not nearly as involved with the church as I was in Dartmouth. I missed him when he left, and now that I'm near him again, I feel like I take him for granted.

As for the trip, it's something I'll remember for the rest of my life, and even though I just sat there enjoying the sights and sounds, it's one of my biggest accomplishments, with tales I love to tell people.

In summary, Canada is big, but not impossible. It gave me a better appreciation for my country, and an appreciation for just how far from home I would be in Vancouver. Nine days by car, and eight hours by plane.

And although those eight-hour flights are no picnic, they're completely worth making just to see home again.