It Comes Full Circle

We're shooting my movie tomorrow, so I've spent the day today shopping for props and last-minute necessities (before today, I did not own a hairbrush. Don't ask.).

Not to give too much away, but a good part of the film has my character preparing a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner. So off I went in search of hearty fall foods. I do believe I may have been the only person in the tri-state area and beyond today shopping for Turkey, taters, squash and cranberry sauce*.

I was spared a little work, though, thanks to my genius friend Becca who, when I told her I'd be stuffing turkey all day Saturday, said "just go to Jive Turkey!"

I was all, "whatchu talkin' 'bout, Jive Turkey, turkey?!"

Jive Turkey (yes, I just like saying "Jive Turkey") is a fantastic little take-out joint in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, that specializes in, well... turkey: sandwiches, salads and all things Thanksgiving. I walked into this store at noon and by 12:15, I had in my possession a WHOLE TURKEY. Cooked. Actually, it's a Deep Fried Turkey. GENIUS.

I was immediately reminded of the day, just over nine years ago, that I moved to New York. My dear friend, Will Shepard drove me to Logan Airport in Boston. The 45-minute car ride got pretty intense-- I was nervous, excited, terrified and dumbfounded all at once. And I started to cry.

In an effort to assuage my overwhelmed-ness, Mr. Shepard told me something that I've never forgotten. He said

You are moving to the greatest city in the world. You have no idea yet of the people you're going to meet. Amazing people. And this is the only place ON THE PLANET that you can have a whole roast turkey and a bag of heroin delivered to your door at four in the morning.

At the time, I had no idea why anyone would need a whole roast turkey at such an odd hour.

But now I understand. I have met the most amazing people, and to my delight and surprise I continue to encounter spectacular folk. Though I never indulged in narcotic home delivery, I have fought off many a hangover with a deli delivery of coffee, Gatorade and an Egg and Cheese on a Roll. And today, even though my bird is fried and I had to go to the store to get it, I take it as a sign that all is right with my world.

*It did, at one point, seem impossible to find jellied cranberry sauce in the Red Hook Fairway. I mistakenly thought it would be with canned vegetables, but *DUH*, jellied cranberry sauce lives in the canned fruit aisle!

Big Weekend!

At the gym the other day, someone mentioned something about the upcoming long weekend. I paused, figured it out and said

Oh, that's right! It's Labor Day weekend!

My friend looked at me with a mixture of bafflement and near-disdain and replied

You obviously don't work 9 to 5 because everyone who does is acutely aware that it is Labor Day Weekend!

It's true. I don't work 9 to 5. I never really have, save for the odd temp job/nanny gig here and there. I keep odd hours, and I'm coming, finally, into a position where I feel it's paying off*.

But instead of having an end-of-summer BBQ or taking that one last trip to the country/beach, I'm working all weekend.

I'm shooting a film. It's the first time I've written (with loads of help from dear, creative friends) and will act and direct a film. And after an excruciating development process filled with lots of ideas and excitement and the scrapping of said ideas and excitement and starting over, I am happy to say I think we've got something pretty great.

The film is called Thursday and my good friend Jennifer O'Donnell will assist me in the behind-the-camera dealings, whilst the mightily talented Katie Brack and Ian MacRae will join me on-camera. We're using the same DP and Gaffer as we did for the Benchcoach videos, and my good friend Mark Nickelsburg will take charge of editing. Will's aunt Deborah and Uncle Proctor have generously lent us their home, conveniently located just a few blocks from our apt, to shoot in, which, as I hope you'll come see, is the ideal setting in which to tell this story.


Thursday will screen on October 30 at the Anthology Film Archives and on Halloween at the Millennium Film Workshop as part of the Bride of Sinister 6 festival, curated and produced by my good friend Bryan Enk, featuring 6 short films by 6 lady directors.

So enjoy your BBQ/Beach/Country home time, and mark your calendars for the end of October!


*More on the pay-off later.

Bootcamp: Afternoon Delight

I've been having problems over the last couple of weeks with getting to Bootcamp for the 7:30 class. It's not with waking up as I've been doing that when my alarm goes off at 6:30. It's the actual leaving, the getting-out-the-door.

There was last week, when I had the shoulder blade glitch. There was yesterday, when I woke up with the same thing. Then today, I couldn't find my keys! Sounds like a bad excuse, but it's true. I've got the early-morning subway schedule down: I have to leave the bedroom by 6:42am on Will's alarm clock which gives me about 1-3 minutes to gather my things (bag, water bottle, keys, etc) and get out the door. If I'm still in the apt at 6:50, I'm not going to make it. There's a woman that is usually on my train in the morning. She has short dark hair, a thick Brooklyn accent and wears an abusive amount of perfume. If I'm not nauseated by her scent, I'm not going to make it. And I learned, back in the days of poor Wong, you just DO NOT show up to Bootcamp late.

Today I couldn't find my keys and was just generally not awake in time enough to motor out the door. So I went to the 1pm class.

It was not a bad class-- 7 of us all together, but there were a few doozies.

Alex has been really into the "Push-Planks" lately, a deadly combo of push-ups and plank position. You start in plank and lift your arms one at a time to reach a push-up position. It is a killer on your abs. Did I mention he worked that one in after Pull-ups? Sneaky bastard.

Then Ruben thought it would be fun to do Diamond Push-ups. This is your basic push-up, except that your hands are close enough together to form a diamond. My arms and ... well, I don't know what the other muscles are called because I didn't know I even had them!-- they were all shaking. All of my arms and arm-related muscles. Shaking.

This further supports my theory that these two men WILL NOT REST until I am in London 2012 on the Polish Weightlifting Team.

Purple Drank / Nevermind

Purple drank is a slang term for a recreational drug popular in the hip-hop community of the southern United States. Its main ingredient is prescription-strength cough syrup containing codeine and promethazine.

I believe I have now, officially, seen everything.

via Gothamist

Also along the lines of having seen everything, I heard a little story the other day on NPR. It was about the kid on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, an album that my mother and her eardrums probably wish I never bought. You know, the naked baby floating in the pool with the dollar bill in front of him.

His name is Spencer Elden and he's seventeen now. I was slightly younger when filled with the angst to which that album spoke. And he longs for something more

Life in general isn't quite as "cool" as it was when he jumped naked in the pool in the early '90s, though, he says. These days, his peers are too stuck on the Internet and video games. Ironically, he yearns for the era that gave Kurt Cobain, the lead singer for Nirvana, so much angst.

These days, Elden says, his peers concentrate on "playing Rock Band on Xbox, like, that's not a real band! That's the difference between the '90s and kids nowadays; kids in the '90s would actually go out and make a [real] band!"

Wow. Leave it to the Nevermind Baby to drop the logic that makes me feel old. Ok. I think I may need to drown my sorrows in some Tussin & Sprite.

Bootcamp: So I Took a Few Days Off...

I didn't realize everyone was so concerned about my physical fitness!

I've had a painful ... let's call it a glitch in my left shoulder blade that started on Friday morning and persisted throughout the weekend and kept on keepin' on this morning. It was so bad at one point that any time I tried to roll over in bed, while sleeping the sleep of the dead that I sleep, I was jerked awake in severe pain.

I figured a weekend of rest would make it better, but it was still there when my alarm sounded at 6:30am today. So I bailed on Boot Camp, thinking that it was pretty unlikely that we'd have a day without having to use our upper bodies at all.

Well, boy, did I cause a stir!

First, from Ruben:

WTF REED!!

What happened this morning?

Then, Nickelburg chimed in, via a Facebook:

They're gonna make me do extra stuff if you're not there tomorrow, and if I'm doing 'extra stuff' at boot camp tomorrow morning YOU ARE GOING TO HEAR ABOUT IT ROBIN!!!

(ed. note: this one went on for quite a few more sentences and involved what I can only infer are OBSCENE emoticons)

I replied, stating my case, and found a response in her Status Update:

Sari Nickelsburg wants Robin to know that if she doesn't get to boot camp tomorrow, that I am going to come down to Brooklyn and kick her butt all over the Stinky Cheese bar.

Then I got it from Friesell, also via Facebook:

they're gonna make me do extra stuff tomorrow too if you're not there... just kidding, but I thought maybe it would help get your ass to Boot Camp!

Gee. I never realized everyone cared so much. I just cried one single lonely tear! And then I got jabbed again with the stinging pain in my back. Well, either way, I'll scrap the tears and the belly-aching and report back after what I'm sure will be a hell day tomorrow morning!

Meep Meep Morning!

I'm not much of a scientist, but for my money, Beaker is just the Best Muppet Ever. Statler and Waldorf are up there, but meep meep meep Beaker has always made me smile. Don't agree? Watch this and see if you don't change your mind:

via Will

Audiciones (that means "Auditions" in Spanish!)

Within the past two weeks, I've somehow become a bilingual VO Artist. Sort of without my even knowing it, and certainly without planning.

A few months ago, I recorded a slew of commercials for Prime Outlets, a chain of outlet malls that are nowhere New York. About three weeks ago, I got a call from one of the ad execs saying they wanted to hire me to do a couple of pick-ups and "Do you happen to speak Spanish?"

Do I speak Spanish? Good question.

It was a speech in Spanish that secured me the win as Secretary of my Junior High class against the very popular Jesse Jozokos-- Puerto Rican teens made up about half the population of my class and were very excited to hear me tell them that I would make certain we had better DJs at our dances in their native tongue.

And anyone who has worked in restaurants in a major city as long as I have has to pick up at least the basics of what we, in the business, call "Kitchen Spanish". Kitchen Spanish is what you use to ask the busboy to clear a particular table, to alert the dishwasher to your immediate need for forks and to offer the line cooks alcoholic beverages at the end of a long night ("¿Hombres, cervezas?"). Kitchen Spanish is usually spoken with the most horrific of gringo accents, but it gets the point across.

But then I had to go and study Italian for six months. When I began, all I could do was think in Spanish. As my Italian progressed, my Spanish went Adios.

So when I was asked if I happened to speak Spanish, my fairly honest reply was "Well, I used to speak better than I do now, but I'm sure I could do it with a script!" Why say no to a job when all you need to do is try?

When I was actually in the booth recording, I was so nervous that the bottoms of my feet were sweating. (I like to take my shoes off when I record-- I'm always in that room alone, so hopefully this doesn't offend anyone!) I got an extra flutter in my belly when they brought Elizabeth, the account rep from Puerto Rico, on to the conference call.

But, I'm happy to report, I pulled it off. I even overheard Elizabeth say at the end of the call "it sounds like she really speaks Spanish!"

I had an audition yesterday and was the first to arrive. The casting director asked me if I spoke Spanish. I said "uh, actually... well, I can read in Spanish." So she had me prepare both, though I think my lack of a straight answer didn't exactly instill her with confidence in me.

When I went into the booth, she had me do a dry run in Spanish, just to be certain it was worth the disk space. I think I actually read the spot better in Spanish than in English!

I left the room and walked out to see a bench full of full-blown latinas, so I'm not holding my breath for that one.

Bootcamp: Extra Killing Yourself!

2 days in a row of suicides. I think that qualifies me as officially near dead. My hands are torn to shreds thanks to my love-hate-love-HATE relationship with the monkey bars, and my knees make me feel like I'm closing in on my 85th birthday.

I just have to remember (as Will is so kind as to keep pointing out) that I willingly pay these guys to do this to me. Oy.

Bootcamp: Suicides*

It's been an odd week for me and Bootcamp. There was the aforementioned Nyquil/Sudafed debacle which left me in rough shape. I took yesterday off, choosing rather to stay home and attempt to cough up a lung**.

Today was my first day this week where I felt really good enough to be there. I probably should have stayed home one more day, though, to escape the dreaded Suicides***!

There were two teams of circuit training today, and we all got stuck doing the suicides. I guess my team had the easier one (ha!) because someone on the other team told me theirs involved the stairs! Ours was two sets of suicides (see below), two laps around the gym, hurdles then monkey bars.

I absent-mindedly left my gloves in my bag, so the monkey bars helped me add to my hand callous collection yet again!

While it was one person's turn to do the suicides, the other three were doing things with resistance bands, dumbbells and some awful jumping onto a bar on the wall thing that I'm sure is precisely what passes time in hell. Four circuits, so we all got a turn on each thing. Joy.

I have to give them credit-- Alex and Ruben manage to come up with something new each and every day. Sure, we repeat stuff, but NEVER have I done the same workout twice.

I guess that's a good thing?

* Dear Friends and Family: Do not be alarmed by the title of this post. Or the photo attached. Just remember I am paying these men to do this to me.
** Came close, but not didn't quite pull it off.
*** Suicide Sprints: sprint from an end line to other designated line on the field or court. Once this designated line is touched, the athlete is expected to turn around and sprint back to the original line where he/she will turn around again and sprint towards another line that lies beyond the first line he/she touched. This process is repeated until each line has been touched.

Bootcamp: Proceed with Caution

Don't take Nyquil the night before Bootcamp and expect to be super-alert during class.

I was walking when I was supposed to be running, my legs were bent when they were supposed to be straight, straight when they were supposed to be bent and I was just all sorts of out of it.

And taking Sudafed in the morning does not, as I simply thought, counter the effects of the "So You Can Rest" medicine.

Accept No Imitations!

The BBC reports on a new search engine, Cuil.com. It was created by three former Google employees and they say they rival their former boss in search-able pages alone (they claim they search over 121 Billion pages).

Though I often heartily resist change, I thought I'd check it out. I Cuil-ed myself and determined on my first search that Google has NOTHING to worry about.

First off, the "magazine-style" layout is unfamiliar to me and not as clear and easy to navigate as a search on Google.

Second. Well, look at this clip from my search:
Now the search results are for me, but who is Eff is that blazer-clad woman? Certainly those are not her Promo and Commercial demos linked to that posting! No, that Robin Reed is the General Code's new representative in the State of Michigan, as well as Indiana and Ohio. I have a sneaking suspicion she does not do voiceovers. And, might I add, thank the Internet Overlords for Google, for without it, I would have no idea who this impostor was!

Another blip I don't understand is the "Search by Category" section on the page:

What on earth does "Robin Reed" have to do with Oregon, Beavers and/or Sports? And notice the measley 45,449 search results; Google came back with over 300,000:


Maybe Cuil is still working out some kinks, but I don't see myself switching over any time soon. Google is as much of a household name as BAND-AID, Kleenex or Xerox.

After all, you can't be a chump product and a verb!

via Popgadget