Whirlwind of a Weekend

Hot damn I had a good time this past weekend. So much so that it ended on a Monday. I do believe I need more hours in a day to play, sleep, and then share all.

Friday was great as Genie and I went to see a show at Improv Olympic, Opening Night. She's now taking classes there and I plan on seeing as many shows as I can with her as possible. I live for the improv. Always need more. There's more to learn, more to enjoy, more to play. And they were F-ing brilliant! The hardest thing about improv is describing a show you've seen. There's just no way to capture what you've seen. Just trust me when I say brilliant.

Saturday Genie and I went to a Vegan Cupcake Thingamabob. THEY WERE GOOD!

That is a dark chocolate peanut butter cupcake. You best believe I ordered two. That was my dinner. I'm proud to admit it.

I followed that up by seeing a movie called Big in Bollywood, where fellow UCLA alum Matt McCroskey was one of the filmmakers. It was premiered at the Indian Film Festival. The documentary was fantastic, and they won Audience Favorite! Here are the guys doing a little Q &A after the screening.

It's a little grainy, sure, but you get the idea. I was there! I saw the magic!

Sunday I went to The Gentle Barn for the first time. The Gentle Barn rescues abused animals from all sorts of places. And when I hear their stories, I find I want to be vegan more than I ever thought possible. By the way, you can go on Sundays for $5, hug the animals, and eat world class vegan cupcakes and pizza. *drool* That pizza was absolutely amazing! Enjoy these pics.

Goodness me that's a whole lotta pics.

And last but not least, I saw The Vagina Monologues performed by a wonderful group of women over at the Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble in Santa Monica. I've read the book/script before, but never watched it performed. It's truly wonderful. You may turn your nose up at it, "oh it's been done before." But still there are people who haven't seen it, haven't performed it. Still people who might not understand what it's all about it. So go see it, read it, and learn. It's wonderful to see such good work performed by your friends.

You can find The Gentle Barn and LATEnsemble on Twitter: @gentlebarn and @latensemble Great people doing great work.

God of Carnage is a Must See

On Wednesday, Trina and I had the privilege to go see the opening night of God of Carnage.

I always love seeing shows in a big "professional space." There's an extra sense of magic, I think it's because there's a bigger budget involved. It feels more grown up. I'm not trashing the "little theater", 'cuz that's where my heart is at. Anyway - the extra sense of fun this time around was due to it being opening night! Ooh! Lots of people in the house! Even some celebrities! It was even rumored that Brangelina were there. But we didn't see them. I think my fave sighting was Sandra Oh.

I was going to show you the fabulous pictures I had taken with my phone before they told me no pictures were allowed. But it seems none of them came out. Well, except for this awesome, awesome one---->


I do love my R2D2 phone, but the self portraits still need work. Droid 2s don't seem to be that convenient for such a task.

Anyhoo, let me tell you about the play! GO SEE IT! It's twisted! It's hilarious! It is fucking fantastic. You start out with two couples facing the problem of their children fighting. They meet in one family's home. You start to think you're going to watch a "living room" drama. But  nooooo. It descends into total chaos. No character is perfect, and you don't care. In fact, you want to see them explode, and they all do. James Gandolfini, Hope Davis, and Jeff Daniels are just wonderful, but no one explodes the way Marcia Gay Harden does.

Originally, it's a French play written by Yasmina Reza, it was adapted by Christopher Hampton, (best known for Dangerous Liaisons), and the script just kills. There are some fantastic one liners as we learn about the couples, their marriages, and their views on child rearing. It was on Broadway, and we in Los Angeles have been lucky enough to watch the original cast play on stage. I tell ya, even from the nosebleeds, it was a joy to watch them work.

At the end of the night, as Trina and I were waiting to watch the crowd thin out, I spotted some LA Theater friends. After exchanging pleasantries, we were asked if we wanted to do an interview. I, amazingly enough, said yes. There was a camera with a bright light, and Corwin with a mic, and myself stumbling over my words.  As I was telling my mom today, I'm not comfortable in front of a camera as myself. As someone else, yes, me? No. When I get my hands on it, so will you. You will enjoy a good laugh.


I highly recommend that if you can see God of Carnage, you best do it. I wish I could go back and get closer seats. Och, it was so good. You can buy tix from the link above, and it's playing until May 29th. If you're in the LA area, you will be thrilled to see it. If not, no worries: there's a film coming out with Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, and Christoph Waltz. Looks like it's slated to come out in 2012. I can't wait, hope it lives up to the play.


And there's my mini review. I hope it was enjoyable.

Fearless

She's adorable.

This is a Test

Blogging from the phone. Can it be done?

Birthday at Disneyland!!!!

I love Disneyland. I do. Can't help it. Last year I was given an annual pass by my friends. This year, I used that pass to go with other Disneyland Aficionados. Funnily enough, they all knew me but didn't know one another. I was a bit worried, these people could decide to not get along, but truly, half the fun of my birthday was watching them play and goof around with each other.

All I wanted to do at Disneyland was to see The Muppets in 3D and make sure that I catch Fantasmic, since it had been years since I saw it last. Everything else was icing on the cake. Yummy, sugary icing. We got to explore California Adventure more than I had done so before. I even had a margarita and learned about getting a package of tortillas for my birthday!

They all took care to make sure I had a good time, indulging in my every whim, making sure I had excellent seats for the rides, and we even got to see a sneak preview clip of The Pirates of the Caribbean. I just had an amazing time. I can't thank Anthony, Ruzenka, Jake, and Gedaly enough.

There will definitely be more fun times ahead with this crowd. I'm even thinking of hosting a TweetUp at Disneyland. We'll see if I can pull it off though.

Awkward Bragging

I have to say, the Pattyverse is filled with inspiring talent. I'm surrounded by such determined, dream-oriented people. It's thoroughly inspiring.

In the past three years or so, many friends have started working in the world of the webseries. It's still a new frontier, a Wild West, if you will. You may of heard of The Guild, The Bannen Way, and Stalker Chronicles. 

My roommate, Jessica Mills is amazing. Last year, she created a webseries called Awkward Embraces. I got to help out a bit, and if you look closely, I'm the Skank in Episode 5, and if you don't blink you'll see me briefly in Episode 9. Hee. Jessica got tired of the "industry" telling her in order to get seen in the world of acting you had to A + B +C, and there's no way to bypass a damn thing. She got her good friends together and decided to make a webseries. Just about a year later, she's blown up all over Twitter, the Geek World has embraced her, and the premiere of Season 2 is just around the corner!! (February 18th, yo!).

The neatest thing about it all? Jess asked me to help co-produce! Weeeeee! What it means right now? Oh, I have a wide assortment of random duties. Is that normal? Dunno. But it's pretty fun. So far, my biggest job is to help get the word out about our fundraising to complete Season 2. Also, if you follow the hashtag #AwkwardTrivia you will see what happens when we start to tweet random silly "facts" about the cast and crew. Last night, the damn thing blew up with fans coming up with their own trivia, and damn was it fun! And really humbling when you think about it - so many people, from so many different places like Awkward Embraces that they want to engage and play along with us!

You know what else is grand? A week ago, Jessica launched the second Indiegogo campaign with the dreamy goal of raising $10,000! Holy cow! Holy mackerel! Holy holy! You know what else is even more amazing? Right now, at this very moment in time, we've raised $5,303!!!!! Just over half way there, and we have two months to raise the full $10,000.  Jessica and the gang are so delighted, in awe, thankful, and downright giddy. I can tell you right now, the emails are on fire within the troops. Just you wait, you're going to be amazed at what we have in store for you.

I'm gonna finish this blog with one final plug: On February 18th, we will be celebrating the premiere of Season 2. What's the icing on that cake, you ask? The party is sponsored by Comikaze, an expo for the Los Angeles fan of anything geektastic. It's doubly a charity fundraiser, to benefit Gamers United, an organization that brings video games to children's hospitals across the world. If you're in the Los Angeles area - please, please come! You get in by either donating $10 to Gamers United, or you can bring a new comic book or video game. How cool is that? AND there will be dancing, fun gifts, and even Michelle Rodriguez will even be guest DJing. Ah-mazing.  Reserve your tix here.

All right, here's the Season 2 trailer:


And here's our Indiegogo video:


Please spread the word about Awkward Embraces! It's truly a work of love and fun.

Hello, Again!

All right I'm blogging. I'm blogging, I'm blogging, I'm blogging! (Thank you, Clue)

Friends of mine know that I've been wanting to blog again for quite some time. Some even know of the grandiose plans I have envisioned with said blog. And yet... I think I got in my own way. So many ideas, how do I do them all at once? ....... Well then, if I can't do it all at once I won't do it at all. *stomps foot*

That's just silly, isn't it?

So Plan the First - just start blogging again for crying out loud! So maybe it can't be all grandiose at first. The point is to blog and share and connect. I can do that without fancy web-code-thingys. Right?

Right?

My intention, (aside from the sharing of my life with the friends and family I don't see enough), is the sharing of the many wondrous people I've had the fortune to meet while living in Los Angeles. Yes, LA is a small world, and yet I think we can make this world smaller and even more fun. Just think about it, I alone in my humble existence know:

• Actors
• Acrobats
• Dancers
• Teachers
• Directors
• Editors
• Pet Sitters
• Photographers
• Massage Therapists
• Estheticians
• Producers
• Musicians
• Artists
• Writers
• Bookkeepers
• Cinematographers
• Chefs
• Aerial Performers
• Clowns
• Stuntmen and women

And more!

It's amazing how many of those talents can overlap in a person. And yet, not all of you know that Lovely and Talented Friend A from the Westside, runs her own theater company, acts, has a ridiculous amount of theater connections and her husband is a actor, director, voice over teacher and artist. What about Lovely and Talented Friend B from the Manhattan Beach area who's a actor, dancer, artist, graphic designer? Wouldn't you like to know these people? Wouldn't you like to be able to share your talents with one another? And you can - 'cuz I recommend only the best!

This past year alone, I can't tell you how much fun I've had helping people connect in producing webseries, teaching classes, planning events, etc., etc. SO.MUCH.FUN!

So here's the Plan the Second. I share a little about me, and then I brag a whole lot about all of you. How does that sound?

And to start us off, I bring you Shelley Delayne. She is one of the most energetically enjoyable people I have ever been around. SO creative. Shelley just produced her first HowTo video: creating a cat toy based on Angry Birds. If you love crafts, Angry Birds, and kittehs, I totally think this is a video for you.