Today a story about paid Casting Director Workshops is to run on an LA radio station. Most people know that I am someone who finds these workshops useful in my pursuit of the business. There are several different views on this subject. Some find it to be extremely disturbing, others feel like it is a tool that is at their disposal if they so choose.

Anyway, after the story ran one of the more popular forums that I routinely go to is heating up with comments. I post that, in short, I don't feel like either side is making much progress in the winning people over to their respective sides. It didn't take long for this thread to get really hot and some of it was directed at me. That's cool with me I can take the heat. After a couple shots back and forth I was shown the door. Meaning get out, "ya can't visit no mo". I had been banned. WHAT!!! Yeah, they banned me until December 31st '01. The way I saw it was that the owner of the board took shots at me with crazy figures of what I had "supposedly" invested in workshops over a specific period of time. I shot back that I felt that it didn't really matter. I don't think he liked that. OOPS!!!

Today I shot a co-starring role on "Ally McBeal". They treated me very well. I got to work with Ally, Ling, Fish & Glenn (James Marsden). I even had a stand-in!! It was definitely the nicest trailer I've ever had. When I arrived on-set the director and producer greeted me and said they were glad I was able to do it, I got the same greeting from Ken Miller & Kara Lipson from Valko/Miller Casting. Since I knew there would be lots waiting, I prepared packages for the two other David E. Kelley shows that shoot/cast at Raleigh Studios "Boston Public" & "The Practice". So, I'll see how it turns out. It could be a nice, quick, funny shot. I'm trying to get a nice reel together for pilot season. It airs Monday November 5th.

"Foot in mouth syndrome" Around 11am I get a call for an appointment for "The Guardian" at 1:45pm. It is a fun role as a guy in a gay club. I call my buddy, Greg Lee, to help me go over the material. We work on it and come up in a strong choice. I go in for the pre-read with Chuck McCollum and Jeanne Bacharach at Sony Studios. It goes well, they give me a re-direct and I deliver. I get a callback on the spot for an hour later with the director and writer. I get to the callback and wait another hour, which is no problem. I finally get in the room; I am usually pretty good about getting in the room and getting to work. The director got up to introduce himself and then the writer did the same. This is where things go really, really bad. I continue to the other woman (Jeanne Bacharach, the CD) as if I am meeting her for the first time. IT'S THE CASTING DIRECTOR WHO GAVE ME THE CALLBACK!!! At that point I figured out that I had really screwed up. I was so embarrassed and I went down in flames. I felt so stupid, because I was right for the part and I nailed the pre-read. I guess it happens, huh.