I Wouldn’t Say No.

You know who I think I'm more important than? Pretentious people.

But apparently to others, I’m just part of the herd that clogs up the parking lots of casting offices all over town. You know casting offices, right? They’re the places that make their money from “talent” like me, when we book their TV shows, movies and commercials.

Hey, isn’t George Clooney “talent?” Does he have to park ten blocks away on the hottest day in Los Angeles history? Get back to me on that.

But I digress. I understand casting directors have to appease producers and directors maybe more than us actors, and give them access to spots next to their buildings. But maybe they could let us know in a slightly less demeaning way.

And if I can digress a little further, maybe it’s a good thing you throw yet one more obstacle in my career path daily, to let me decide if I really want to pursue this, or just think I do.

Decided already. I definitely do.

"Goliath was the best thing that ever happened to David." – Doug Weed

Real Los Angeles Heroes.

Here’s to you, Guy Sporting a Toupee With the Top Down.

You defy belief. And the laws of physics.

Earmuffs!

Whenever the young kids on the street where I grew up in New York were making a ruckus, my mom always referred to them as the “midgets.” I thought about this yesterday, in a casting office on the west side, as I waited alongside a bevy of them for an audition.

The office was divided into several rooms featuring a few different auditions, including one that called for irate drill sergeants. The casting director must have instructed the sergeants to play loose with the language, and that, coupled with the place’s thin walls meant some priceless looks on the faces of all the Hollywood moms.

To say there was an epic amount of cursing would be a compliment to the “Iliad.” Best Monday ever.

Just Call Me “The Cleaner.”

I mention my disdain for Jeff Zucker, and not 21 months later the man is fired.

And here I thought my blog didn't amount to a hill of Cocoa Puffs.

But wait, Matt, do you really think you’re the reason why a 24-year NBC exec suddenly got shitcanned? Why yes, because I blogged about a sketchy chicken joint’s inspection grade just last month:

And here’s how it looked this past Saturday:

So if you need something (or someone) bumped off, you know where to find me.

Oh TV, Where Did We Go Wrong?

The only scenario that would get me to watch a reality show is if the producers held my dog hostage and that was their one demand. And even then, I'd spend two hours agonizing over whether to do it.

Why? In a nutshell, the following casting call:

“Mistress Intervention”
Reality TV

Is your family member or friend dating a married man? Do they feel there is nothing wrong with it, but you feel like they are making the biggest mistake of their life?

We’re currently casting a new series for a major Cable Network intended to help break the “mistress” cycle. Our intention is to take women who date married men and show them that there is a better life, man and future awaiting them!

$500 referral fee.

Thanks For The Love.

I didn’t get the John Deere gig. But I was so overwhelmed by the good thoughts and well-wishes that I'm going to make love to all of you.

Wait, that's a punishment. How about I buy you a sandwich? Deal.

The Best Film Of The Year.

What’s worse than a studio now planning to remake The Wizard of Oz? Another studio is also planning to remake another Wizard of Oz.

Could the asteroid kindly plow into the Earth now, please?

Actually, hold that thought, because there are still great, classic, originals being made. And The Town is one of them.

That Ben Affleck would direct it so well is not surprising, considering he hit a home run in his first attempt with Gone, Baby Gone. It’s all part of the re-education by which we stop thinking of Ben as People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive and realize he is smart and curious. His second movie is not only intriguing as a story but great to look at, with action sequences that’ll make your hands sweat. Ben Affleck is the new Martin Scorsese.

F the remakes. See The Town. This weekend.

My Stunt Double.

I’ve come to the realization that my career might move along faster if I just agreed to work for no money while topless.

Or, I could be inspired by my post yesterday and create my own luck. I recently wrote a quick short film that involved a romantic chase between a man and a woman on a city street, and a director I recently met named Kevin “KJ” Johnson wants to take it and turn it into a promo for the Los Angeles Times. And he wants me to play one of the leads.

Working with KJ is a double-bonus, because 1) he’s former college baseball player, and I firmly believe athletes make the best filmmakers, and 2) thanks to him I acquire a new black friend. Talk about street cred – KJ just shot a new Snoop Dogg video up in San Francisco.

We shoot our promo next week, and yesterday had a pre-production run-through. Above is my stunt double, catching so much air I tore an ACL just watching him. Pretty first rate – and no toplessness.

How To Make A Grown Man Cry.

Filmmaking is like giving birth – it's designed so you forget the hardest parts, or else you'd never do it again.

The success of my film was so sweet that it kinda makes me forget I tore my vagina producing it. And now, the above clip makes me wanna have a baby all over again.

It’s a spec promotion/short-film for HBO Boxing called I Still Have a Soul, and in two minutes and twenty-five seconds evokes more emotion than Rocky and The Wrestler combined. I well-up every time I watch it.

Little Help.

There’s nothing worse than some really intense regret. I still regret the gyro I had at Newark Airport in 2005.

But I won’t be kicking myself after I break a personal rule and mention some possible good news in my career. Here goes: I’m up for a role to become the new face of John Deere. It’s come down to a couple of other guys and me, and I’ll find out this week.

That said, I need a favor. I ask that all of you think good thoughts for me, and give my chances a little nudge. I only do this once a year (last time, it worked.)

What do you say? In return, I promise to hook you all up. Perhaps with John Deere caps. The kids aren’t wearing them ironically yet, right?

Thanks for your support.
-Matthew

Brains Over Brawn.

Sure, Petey could swallow this tyke in three bites, but he’ll never figure out how to get up on that roof.

You win this round, mutt.

Random Shots I’m Deleting: A Blackberry® Purge.

As much as I’m attached to it, I’ll be pulling the goalie on my Blackberry sometime in the six months, and start dropping calls full-time with an iPhone. Until then, I’ll be unearthing photos I’ve never blogged about, and shedding a little incite.

Up first is me, the day I shot a sketch for “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”:

The above shot was taken in my dressing room, which not only had a full bathroom, but a TV with both satellite channels and NBC live feeds, so I watched the cast of “Days of Our Lives” rehearse and shoot a scene. Chick throwing a glass of wine in another chick’s face… Both times I met Jay Leno, various production snafus delayed what we were working on, and he had every right to blow his stack. But he didn’t, and always remained super nice. A guy like Bill Maher would’ve has his staff waterboarded… Also, Jay spent about nine hours on location getting the sketch right. I’d like to see Letterman spend nine minutes… “Hurry up and wait” is a phrase often used on sets (also in the military), and this was one of those days. I went into the blue makeup at 1:30 p.m., and didn’t take it off until 11 p.m. They alleviated my pain by bumping my pay way up… The woman who did my makeup was by coincidence the original makeup person for the real Blue Man Group, and told me that they used so much of the blue stuff that the makeup company they got it from now sells the color “Blue Man.” I ingested about a pound of it.

Once Again, Out-Of-Context Thank-You Notes I’ve Recently Written To Casting Directors.

• If I had a nickel for every time I sarcastically talked a friend out of blackmailing a politician…
• An MRI of my insides would reveal a fellow self-hating Jew.
• I've always found that when pretending to be your dead brother on a pseudo-date, the only dinner option is fondue.
• For the record, I’m still justifiably terrified to Google “Cleveland Tornado.”
• Take it from me – hitting on “the one” at a funeral is only good on paper.
• It was nice to take a break from playing video games to shower, put on long pants and act like I was playing video games.

Uno De Las Mejores Películas Del Año.

You ever accidentally catch someone in their underwear? That's awkward. Especially if you’re holding a knife.

And nobody wields a knife (well, a machete) better than Danny Trejo, as the title character in Machete. He plays a Mexican Federale who is wronged, then becomes a justice-seeking vigilante, chopping off any and all of his foes' limbs in the process.

One of my favorite filmmakers, Robert Rodriguez, co-wrote and co-directed this, and made a really fun, Quentin Tarantino-style film. The key is that it doesn’t take itself seriously. Take, for example, a scene in which Mexican day-laborers are recruited to take on the bad guys. They stampede a compound, and trailing the back of the charge is a dude pushing an ice-cream cart.

See it today. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll cut off a guy’s foot and use it to make a chimichanga.

Legend At Lunch.

I’m not completely versed in the California anti-stalking statutes, but seeing Mel Brooks at a café in Beverly Hills made me wonder how I might look in an orange jumpsuit.

Quittin' Words.

I’m not sure why, but I had a real kick in my step over the weekend. Maybe it’s because football was back. Or maybe it was the happy mistake I made of buying the new three-ply toilet paper. That third ply will change your life.

Let’s go with the former for now. Football is here, and my Jets have a big game tonight. The Jets were the team featured on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” this summer, and it was a fascinating look inside their training camp.

Super-charismatic head coach Rex Ryan wants a Jets championship more than anything, and will curse up a storm to get one. For instance, he often uses an old football term “slapdick” to describe a player that goofs off. I’ve been calling Petey that full-time now.

I was talking to a friend of mine about the show, and we couldn’t understand why some of the players, who were on the bubble of making the roster, wouldn’t use any means necessary to avoid getting cut. Hurl your body at guys. Take chances. Play like a maniac.

But some of them just wouldn’t. Like Larry Taylor, a very undersized receiver who had a chance to make it via special teams. Larry took a knee in the end zone rather than return a big preseason kickoff, and lost his chance. Meanwhile, Jason Davis, a long shot to make it as a fullback, grew so frustrated with his lack of carries in practice that when finally given the chance, he refused.

I see this behavior among fellow actors, and have an almost daily conversation with one who is thinking about quitting. I’ll never, ever quit myself, but it does beg the ultimate question: when do you quit on your dream?

I’ve given it a lot of thought and come up with a very simple answer: if you’re able to just walk away, then it’s time. No guilt means the business just isn’t for you. But if you want it bad enough, yes, the odds are horrendous, but you persist because this is what you do, and you love it too damn much.

Jets/Ravens tonight. Panic pooping, commence.

Take That, Hippie.

I’m a firm believer in driving skills reflecting a person’s true personality. Which means my neighbor must be cuh-razy.

She got t-boned last month trying to take a shortcut the wrong way on a one-way alley. And in her latest exploit, backed into my SUV in my driveway. She was mortified about it, and wanted to pay for any damage, but I didn’t have a scratch. Her Prius, above, didn’t fare as well.

Hell yes, SUVs. Saving a spine beats saving gas every time.

Hey, come to think of it, another chick gave me a good thump recently while text messaging as she pulled up behind me at a red light. No damage to me that time, either.

Is it just me, or has my bumper become a hottie magnet? And is that not a really great euphemism? Discuss.

Hand It Back, Douchebag.

Writing about Reggie Bush, the most selfish player in all of sports, is enough to make me wanna give this blog a courtesy flush.

Thanks to Reggie accepting $300,000 in gifts while attending USC, he screwed future Trojan teams out of two years of postseason games, and a bunch of scholarships. He hasn’t owned up to it or apologized once.

Recently, my friend Marshall, a former college QB turned actor/director, was supposed to shoot something with Reggie, but Reggie was such a colossal prick that Marshall canceled the shoot.

Well, now the folks who gave Reggie the Heisman Trophy want to take it back, and here’s where I thank God that they do.

(Hold on, I’m not done thanking God yet.)

(Still going.)

(And… we’re good.)

Ragin’ Cajun.

Recently, I saw on CNN that the Taco Bell dog died – along with my belief in real journalism.

Speaking of fast food, my commercial agent called me Friday morning, and I was given short notice to get to an audition for Bojangle’s Cajun restaurants that day.

When I arrived, as happens often, the guy running the video camera gathered all the actors from the waiting area and brought us into the audition room to let us know what would be required. In this case, it was a takeoff on the TV show “The Bachelorette,” in which I would play a host standing between a bachelor and a bachelorette.

When Camera Guy was finished, he sent me out, noticed a few new actors had arrived, and brought them in for directions. He told me to wait outside.

Way, way, way too much time passed, until finally the door opened and all of the actors left the room and went home. It seems Camera Guy had taped them all, forgetting I was there. So now I had to audition on my own, without a bachelor or bachelorette to play off.

Internally, I was so furious I almost had an aneurysm. I had shaved for this audition (which I hate), put on a suit (also hate) and rushed all the way up to the valley and its 97-degree inferno for this (loathe that.) And now I was going to show up on the tape as the lonely douchebag. It was all one gigantic waste, and in the eyes of my agent, an audition I wouldn’t be getting called back for.

At the time, Camera Guy said to me, “This could a good thing that you’re all alone. Sometimes a cute actress next to you distracts attention away from you.” I wanted to punch him in the throat.

Instead, I went at it alone, did some improv, did my thing, and left.

Driving home, I was so furious at Camera Guy that I called my friend Jim, a great actor/acting teacher, and asked him to meet me in a parking garage at 3 a.m. to plot an assassination.

And then the weekend passed and I got a callback.

Maybe Camera Guy was right about a hot actress drawing attention away from me, but I’d like to think that I deserve some credit for hanging in there and using my improv skills. Either way, I’m a little calmer now. And Camera Guy lives another day. For now.

A Cautionary Tale.

I’ve been slacking on my studying for “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader” lately, but I’m not entire at fault. I hereby blame all procrastination (and weight gain) on Netflix “Watch Instantly.”

But I’d better get back into playing shape soon, because the folks at the game show could be calling any day, and I don’t want to become the new Tyrone.

“Shit Tyrone Get It Together” has become a catch-phrase for anyone dropping the ball. It even has its own Facebook page. Well played, Internet.

I think I’ll hit the books today. And lose the dreadlocks.

And What Did You Learn Over Labor Day Weekend?

I’ve never done a drug in my life, but I’ll never get all preachy about it. I mean, how bad can drugs be when no one’s done more of them than Keith Richards? That guy’s been at the top of every dead-guy pool since 1974, and people have lost more money on that son of a bitch than any stock they’ve ever owned.

So consider me somewhat fascinated with this stuff, especially pot, and at a great party over the weekend, I was given a quick lesson in hiding one’s weed. The above photo of a mild-mannered analgesic bottle is actually a clever contraption that contains a spring-loaded cigarette-shaped pipe, which is packed with ground marijuana in a separate compartment. Pretty brilliant, below.
Again, you potheads impress me. I suppose you could use your ingenuity to solve world hunger or help the Cubs win a championship, but priorities, priorities…

Horseshit. Coming This Fall.

I think reality shows truly embody the American dream. Because technically, a nightmare is a dream.

I saw a casting call the other day that read: “Looking for the REAL GLEE – a new TV show is currently casting for a REAL GLEE club or CHOIR.”

Is this what TV programming has come to? The compelling drama of a glee club?

Maybe it’s a good sign for us actors – the scumbags that produce reality shows have officially run out of ideas. Though on the other hand, audiences have, and will, watch anything.

So I guess it’s time to cancel “Modern Family.” And “Mad Men.” And for that matter, you can shitcan “Glee,” since people want the “REAL Glee.”

I’m starting to think that Earth is a pilot that's not going to get picked up.

The Blog Entry That’ll Get Me Whacked.

It wasn’t the “John Gotti 1940 – 2002” tribute on the license plate holder that piqued my curiosity so much as whose body was inside that trunk.

And I’m Thawing Out A Turkey Next Week.

I wash my sheets every Thursday. It's just an optimistic way of going into the weekend.

And speaking of weekends, will any of you suckers out there that actually work for a living explain this whole “Labor” Day thing to me? Sounds fascinating.

And speaking of holidays, Halloween in LA is so huge, it’s like the Christmas of holidays. I took the above pic last week at a Rite Aid. That’s right – Halloween candy hit the shelves in August.

Have a good three days off. And a fistful of Reese’s fun-size on me.

I Make A Blog Guest Cameo.

Fame has changed so much that I believe in the future, everyone will be obscure for fifteen minutes.

But I’ll enjoy a little of it now, as I proudly pop up on my friend Pat’s blog. Pat, an incredible artist and teacher in New York, spent his summer riding his motorcycle across the country and back. It took more than six weeks, covered over 12,000 miles, required 121 gas fill-ups (“Not one BP station,” Pat proudly reported) and included a stop at my place. Check out his trip here:

Cross Country 2010

Nerd Alert.

My mom sent me this killer pic of my hero, George Clooney. It’s pretty astounding he grew up to be the guy all women want, seeing as back then he must have gotten his hair cut in a bouncy house.

Talk about aging with grace – Jason Reitman, director of Up in the Air, said in the film’s audio commentary that George never wears makeup. Bastard.

Tonight, his new film opens, and in a pretty lousy movie year, I’m excited for what looks like the beginning of a big upswing. (Also crossing my fingers for Ben Affleck’s The Town, and Aaron Sorkin/David Fincher’s The Social Network.) Can’t wait to see them.

Last week, a couple of my friends ate lunch in a sushi restaurant in Studio City, and the only other people in the place were seated at a table next to them: George Clooney, and his producing partner Grant Heslov. It's probably for the best that I wasn't there as well, or George’s meal might’ve come to a halt with me vomiting up hamachi on his shoes.

Let's all see his film.