I love this shot of Sam

Sam jumping like Spiderman

A Dice with Death Short film

Check out rooted films and upcoming short film starring yours truly!

Road rage ulcer for breakfast

This morning, from the get go, I had a sneaking feeling that it was one of 'those' days. A driving in day where I'd attract all the morons, all the ignorant, slow driving, lane hogging, inconsiderate knuckleheads in Melbourne. It started on the first stretch on the back way to Eastlink. Two construction vehicles in front of the Toyota in front of me. Unable to accelerate properly, hogging the entire lane. This is a back lane. They shouldn't be on in. And this guy in front of me, well.....he's no help. Content to dawdle behind them. I started to get really mad at them. Who the fuck do they think they are driving on this road? But I chilled out, hey - it's a democracy. Let 'em get on it, just turn off.....

They turned, and the guy in front of me pulled over all the way to the left to do a right hand turn, which was brilliant, cause I had to wait for him to pick his nose, scratch his arse, and wait until he couldn't see a car for miles to turn into the t-intersection. My anger returned, and I was fuming, screaming at the knob-jockey in front to fucking pull out, you fucking dipshit.


Road rage beginning? I did my left hand turn and resolved to let it go. Don't work myself up into a fury, I said to myself....not worth it just to get to work 1 minute earlier. So I again resumed my journey. I have a thing. If the speed limit says 80, I like to be ON 80. I can do it; I have cruise control. It's easy. So I'm looking forward to getting on the freeway, where I can just hit the button, and sit on a constant speed.


Before the freeway I have to sit behind three cars and a dump truck. The dump truck is doing 40 on an 80. I'm not even grumbling now. It clearly IS one of those days. The dump truck abruptly turns left, and I laugh. What a fuckhead.


Finally, I'm on the freeway. Often, Eastlink is like one's own private road, there are normally that few drivers on it, but this morning (of course), I seem to have merged my way into the middle of grannie club on a Sunday outing. A clump of vehicles, doing various speeds in all the 4 lanes, NONE of them using the cruise control that their modern cars have.


ARGHHHHH!!! I just want to get out, get off, stop. I want to ask each of them where their common sense is? Surely, it's cheaper, easier, less stressful to find a speed on cruise control, and just point the fucking car in the direction that you're going? Everywhere I look, I see a road user who is IN MY WAY.


I merge onto Monash freeway. The speed limit is 100. Everyone's doing 90. No reason that I can see, it's pretty early in the morning, the freeway is relatively clear. I make my way into the far right hand lane. At least in this lane, there's a chance I'm out of the middling lanes. And I am. I can finally sit on 102km per hour. I hit the cruise, and relax. 20 minutes to my next turn off. That's what the traffic display says. I can deal with that. EASY. Just sit on this speed, and Bob's my Mum's brother.


You know where this is going don't you? This commute doesn't end there. No way.


You're right. This day, I attract fuckheads like shit attracts flies. The first inconsiderate moron cuts in the 5 meter space between me and the car in front to slow down to 90. WHY? I scream frustrated? What was the fucking point? You could have sat in the lane you were in and done the same speed. FARK!!!! So I indicate left, and move to the far left hand lane (still on cruise control) 1 minute later I'm back in the right hand lane, the first IM (inconsiderate Moron) now two cars behind me. 14 minutes to work.


At 8 minutes, the traffic suddenly slows. Then halts completely. What happened? Accident? Cops? Nothing. Curiously, the traffic resumes its normal flow, with heaps of space in front, and no sign of anything unusual occurring. It's as if the traffic is a lumbering giant, momentarily distracted, by what I can't tell, but can only guess. Probably a fuck-knuckle attempting a lane merge by doing 55 in a 100 and using 2 kms of road to do it.


Slow cars are still monopolizing my journey, but I've stopped resisting now. I'm almost at work. What does it matter? They're everywhere, these people who get in my way. They're like a plague, or an ant farm filled with brainless automatons in tanks. I slow down to 55, forget I have an indicator, weave into random lanes and revel in joining the troupe.


I notice, for the first time, my rear view mirror, and see a purple-faced apoplectic driver screaming silently seemingly at me? What? What did I do to make you so upset? I laugh to myself, raise my left arm, extend my middle digit and slow down, to turn into my car park.


He roars past me screaming obscenities.


I don't know what HIS problem is.


Fuckhead.

I FOUND MY BLOG

I lost you, and now I am found. And there's a pic of Doug Chappel and myself, for the last comedy festival show I did - all those years ago. Makes me want to get up off my lazy butt and get back in.

Since I last posted, I have become a dad (about to be a dad again). I've gotten married too.

Moved from the bank that I was working in when I started the blog.

Starred in 3 TV commercials, Floorworld, ACTU Workchoices, REPCO, oh, and Holden and Hesta. Been in City Homicide, Rush, Underbelly, SAVED, The King, Hawke, as well as a couple of short films.

I've moved back to the big T, and I'm coming up to 10 years. I showed NextG to the world. Travelled to Thailand. Wrote some more songs. Done voice over. Stopped smoking and drink less. The Pies still haven't won a flag.

I'm on facebook as are most of my firends, and twitter and these weren't really alive the lasy time I blogged. 4 years.

Phew.

4 months later

Geez. Last blog, 22nd Decemeber.....Man, how time flies.
4 months. Funny. I'm living with Tan now, and loving it. In this time, we've been on holidays, I've auditioned for heaps more ads, I've performed in 4 of our comedy festival show (Photo of me and Doug Chappel above). I've paid for a holiday to Thailand with Tan, the Commonwealth Games have been and gone, as too the Grand Prix, as too Christmas, Easter, the Anzac day footy clash, 4 rounds of golf, 13 Gigs, new job....Strewth Ruth. Heaps has happened.

No Joy in TV land

Hmmm. Well. I didn't get any of the parts I auditioned for in my previous posts. Missed out on 2 commercials and the spot in Neighbors. I didn't 'hit' the neighbors audition, but I'm confident I represented myself well enough to be considered again. So, let's see what next year will bring.
In the meantime, I've registered a comedy festival show (always busy). It's called Two Collars, (as in Blue Collar, White Collar) and myself and Doug Chappel will be starring in it. Starring in it. tosser.
I'm also doing a writing course at the moment, in my spare time. Here is an example of a poem I wrote yesterday.

My laptop sits
quietly on my desk.
well, not really.
It can't sit:
It's a thing
Without a bum.
So it lies,
No, can't do that either.
It's a thing.
What does a thing do
when it is on a desk?
my thing
searches the web for
Nude pics of George Bush.

Yep. This writing course is great. Get's my juices flowin.
Sometimes it's a flog, sometimes a blog
Mick

Neighbors

How unreal is this....I have an audition for Neighbors tomorrow. This is weird, all these auditions. Not normally this busy, but that's a good thing. I'll keep you posted. Funny. Neighbors. Russell Crowe, Kylie, Guy Pearce, just three of famous actors have been on this show. Next will be Mick Alford.....

Had a great weekend, relaxing and loving. Went Christmas tree shopping on Sunday with Tania and Luke. We found a good 4 & 1/2 footer, and we all decorated it. Should have put a photo up of it.

Tonight I'
ll be at Tania's to celebrate Luke's 3rd Birthday. Bought him a Thomas Tank set, about 30 pieces. He'll be Thomas'ed out come the end of Christmas.....

Tomorrow night I'm off to the Foo Fighter Concert with Garp and Petey. That's gunna go off...right off....

You know, I actually live a pretty busy life. Pretty full. I've always figured my life was kinda boring, but writing in here helps me to see how good it is. I'm not all that good at planning my days out, and this means that I always seem to have lot's of stupid things on, and my head is always too busy to enjoy what's in front of me. For instance, here's my list of things to do this week:

Monday: Luke's birthday, speak to the bank about my loan account being overcharged, cancel my gas and electricity accounts, call Bigpond to find out how the prospecting went in order to have Cable at Tan's, fit work in, and learn my lines for the audition piece.
Tuesday: Audition at 2:45, Foo fighters at night
Wednesday: I'm kinda thinking a bit of a goodbye session (bottle of wine or two) at my flat while I pack boxes and stuff
Thursday: Dad's Birthday, more packing
Friday: Work Christmas drinks, Comic's lounge to talk about 2006 Comedy festival show with Doug and Tony
Saturday: Hire trailer and move my flat.
Sunday: Complete move, clean up my old place.

I've also gotta fit in writing Chrissie cards, finding out addresses ('cause I could drive to my family/friends - I could even call them, but I'd NEVER write to them, so I have to call everyone, and find out addresses. 80 odd cards to write and send. Average 3 minutes per phone call, that's 6 hours worth of phone calls just there).

And of course, because this week is so busy, I won't have any time to spend worry about things. I worry about EVEYTHING: how many cigarettes I smoke, about my writing jokes, about me working full time (I am wasting my creative juices here!), worry about money, lack of it, or too much of it, I worry about next week, next year, last week, last year. I worry. I won't be able to fit much of this worry in this week, so I'm going to delay the worry, but then I'll only have to catch up on it the week AFTER, which will be worse, because more things will have popped up then, and I'll need to take a day off, just so I can worry and be anxious.

Does that sound dumb? Well, it's what I do. I worry.
Ah Well, a blog's a blog...sometimes it's a blurt too.

2nd Audition and a warble

Well, yesterday's audition went OK enough. At least I got some feedback:
"He started off a bit nervous, but warmed up in the end." That's what I figured. I realised that unless I have lines to rehearse and deliver, like an actor, I find it difficult to relax and be myself in these 'chat to cameras'. I'm happy to realise this, it gives me something to work with. Would be a pretty cool gig if I got it. 12 months Australia wide exposure can't hurt. Bit of humour in the ad as well, which is a big help.
This morning's audition required me to suit up and again, another chat to camera. Felt better about this one, probably because it was hot on the heels of yesterday's and also because I could put into practise what I'd learned about myself. I left thinking I did the best I could, which is all I can really expect.
Hopefully I'll be meeting Tania at lunchtime. She has come into the city to see the Myer windows with Luke (her son). I'd love to meet up with both of them.

Had Jim the mortgage broker over last night. Was late, and hopefully now we are pre-approved for a home loan. We'll take our time, and find a great house for us.

On the way into work from the audition, I got into a cab, and spoke to the cab driver about the Van Nguyen hanging. I felt a sense of loss, knowing that a human had been executed - by hanging. Is crazy to me, the harshness and finality of that punishment. In my mind, it doesn't fit the crime, and says more about that government being unwilling to lead with empowerment. Can't see death as a solution to a problem. But the thing is, the media here has given this case a lot of publicity, and co-incidentally, our PM has been able to get a bill through which will erode worker's rights, now and forever. It's almost as if this guy's charmed....the media go in a frenzy about a law in another country, which relegates the important things happeneing HERE to 2-3 second grabs on the nightly news. Something smells wrong about how quickly and without rigor this bill has been approved. Healthy and rigorous opposition has been vacant. Not just from the opposition parties, but the general public. What is it? Apathy? Greed? The generation of Australians who are prospering RIGHT NOW, are prospering because of the rights that the government is desperate to remove. Without thought or care as to the welfare of future generations. They'll be the first to complain when the next generation take NO CARE about their senior citizens, because they didn't care about them.
Phew.
And all I wanted to talk about was my audition.
Ah Well, a blog's a blog. Sometimes it's on a soapbox.
Until tomorrow.....

Audition tonight

I have an audition tonight in Malvern for a commercial. brief is of a 40 something cab driver. Commercial is for an insurance company. Good payer. Only thing is, it's a chat to samera, and, well, these chat to camera things can be awkward. I mean, what do you say? They ask: "What have you been doing?" And I don't want to say; "Not much at all really, waiting for the next nod for some paid work is about all I can do..." I mean, my day is spent in a Help desk, DOING NOTHING. I've top scored on Spider solitaire for Pete's sake! 1207 on medium. Anyways. Any tips on getting over extreme boredom at work would be greatly appreciated.
Also have an audition tomorrow morning, for an employment company. Another good payer, if I get it. Had to go out an buy a tie at lunchtime. The other thing with these auditions is that you only find out if you get them. You walk in, do 2 minutes, and leave. You then sweat for a day or two - if you don't get the phone call, you don't get the gig. I'm getting much better at relaxing nowadays. a few years ago, i would have been anxious and sweating about the result (and making it mean I was no good) for days.
Also writing a show for next years Melbourne International Comedy Festival, in cahoot with Doug Chappel. So plenty of things on the go right now. Oh...Also having a lending manager pop around to Tania's house tonight, we're looking at buying a house in Aspendale - or at least giving a good shot at the auction on the 10th December.
Hmmm...That's enough of an intor for now. Bye!