Here is a sample from my upcoming book, "The Bitter Bistro." If you're looking for a positive read, stop right now and put on your Anthony Robbins CD. This is as negative and bitter as they come.
the bitter intro: go home!
Thousands of hopeful comedians, actors, and writers move to Los Angeles every year. Los Angeles needs more of these people like Kim Kardashian needs another husband for publicity. Hasn’t anybody learned from the previous thousands of people who moved here and failed? I’m speaking from experience. 15 years ago, I was the same idiot.
I was living in Santa Barbara, working full-time as a bartender, and I wanted to be on Saturday Night Live. This should already tell you what kind of moron I was, because SNL shoots in New York, and I wanted to move to Los Angeles. I figured I'd move to LA, start doing improv and stand-up comedy, and Lorne Michaels would come-a-calling. He didn't. And nobody else did either. I probably should've taken the hint when I was kicked out of the Drama Department at UC Santa Barbara. They told me, “you're not ready to be pushed in the direction that we like to push our actors.” Meaning, I couldn't even act well enough in a classroom, so why even try down in LA.
15 years later: I've been hired, fired, and quit over 9 restaurant and bar gigs, performed the minimum 10,000 Malcolm Gladwell hours in stand-up, auditioned for very little, booked a lead in a celebrity driven pilot, but the only script I consistently have to memorize are the daily specials. I am stuck here, but the least I can do for the people who are thinking of moving here, or the ones who haven’t been here as long as I have is to tell you all to get THE FUCK out of here, and stay THE FUCK away!
Los Angeles doesn't have enough parking spaces for another actor. Fountain Avenue has become too congested to be considered “the fast way,” and the wait time to use the machines at the gym is longer than the “Star Tours” line at Disneyland. Do you get where I am going with this? I am saving you thousands of dollars and years of therapy. And since you won’t have health insurance, it will cost you even more.
The Bitter Bistro will not renew your faith in humanity, nor will it be a book to inspire you to push forward no matter what the obstacle. In fact, this book IS the obstacle that makes you pack up and move. I know, you think you're going to be the exception. You're in a great acting class, and you found a restaurant gig where you make decent money that is flexible enough to give you the time off you need to make it to your auditions. But that is a farce. The fact that you are working in a restaurant should tell you that you aren't going to succeed in the entertainment industry. And the only thing your acting class is going to do for you is to help you act like you like working in a restaurant.
I had an audition for the show, “Entourage.” It was for the role of a SERVER, and they were shooting the episode at the actual restaurant that I work at. I got the audition through the sales team who handled the location booking and they said that I could go right to callbacks for this part.
I auditioned and I didn't get the part. Meaning, that I'm not even good enough to play myself, in my server uniform, at the place that I work. A metaphor for all servers in life.
If you insist on reading further, then be prepared to consider another career option. The service industry will prepare you for the entertainment industry, but at the end of the day, you will be back putting on that apron, or getting back behind the bar, and working with idiots and serving people that you hate.
That’s the service industry.
You're welcome! The Bitter Bistro.
Until next time... Server's don't pay their rent with compliments.
"Bitter. Party of 1? Your table is ready."
ITUNES
STITCHER
TWITTER
FACEBOOK
IT DOESN'T GET ANY BITTER THAN THIS!
Until next time... Server's don't pay their rent with compliments.
"Bitter. Party of 1? Your table is ready."
ITUNES
STITCHER
IT DOESN'T GET ANY BITTER THAN THIS!
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