Rest In Peace, Sir.

Comedian Patrice O’Neal died at age 41 yesterday, and I was really sad about that. He was ballsy and hilarious and a great actor as well, recurring on “The Office” and “Arrested Development,” and in less than 40 seconds (listen to them here) of a standup routine he made me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe.

After you’ve clicked on that, click above for a more recent bit that may make you miss him as well.

Thanksgiving, Part II.

If you want to support yourself these days, you gotta get creative. I invested my money in a company that dismantles bank signs. I’m doing quite well.

And I got to rub elbows with my fellow fancy types at my friend Duncan’s annual “Gobbler,” the day after Thanksgiving party at his parent’s swanky home in Santa Monica.

I always look forward to hanging with the one-percenters, chowing down on the spread provided by a fabulous food truck parked in their driveway, and catching up with Duncan, a really successful movie CGI expert who works for George Lucas’ company ILM, creating scenes for all of the Transformer and Pirates of the Caribbean films. (One of which was running during the party.) Lately, he’s been in a harness hanging off the 75th story of the Chrysler Building, snapping shots of Manhattan for the Iron Man flying scenes in next summer’s The Avengers.

Truth be told, I’m not quite that well-off yet, but I’m working on it. In the meantime, it was nice mingling with folks who wear dinner jackets and sip Boujalais, as opposed to everyone else, who spent their Black Friday bidding on a bag of bras on eBay.

Things I Was Thankful For.

Numbers: 38 people – which meant the dining table stretched from one room through a hallway into another room.

Menu: including 55 lbs. of turkey, three different batches of stuffing and 13 desserts. Two cases of wine.

Other people’s children: who turned my niece and nephew’s playroom into a crime scene. (I laugh, but my brother is fuming about all the broken shit. Parents, what the F is wrong with you?)

I Received A Text From A Wrong Number Yesterday.

And I hope Jerry appreciated my reply.

Happy Black Friday.

I’ve already gotten all my stocking stuffers.

I Give Thanks.

My friends don’t celebrate Thanksgiving; they side with the Native Americans. And the turkey too – they’re vegetarians.

I kid. But I don’t kid about all the people, places and things that make my blog possible each year. My sincere thanks go out to:

• Blizzard rage
• Sitting next to the Six Million Dollar Man
• Acting facility bathrooms
  
• Hairy Jews
• Jerkoffs who wear costumes to auditions
• $17,500 bottles of champagne
• Notes on jalopies
• Four years without a Patriots playoff win
• The best bathroom keys in all of LA
• Calling dudes the C-word
• Michael Bolton’s softball hitting instruction video
• Dyslexic billboard hanger-guy
• X-rays of my middle finger
• Deep fried Kool-Aid
• White Kanye West
• 100 Chicken McNuggets
• Fast street-crossing old women
• Fog-free freezer doors
• Do-not-shave ultimatums
• Betty’s House Cleaning and José’s

This Week In @mattshevin Tweets.

• (ABOVE) For some, it’s the name of a sandwich. For others, a motivational phrase on a post-it in an underwear drawer.
• Ladies, do not let the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas” deter you from finishing your snack of that yogurt that makes you poop.
• Is it just me, or does the cops’ orange pepper spray give you a hankerin’ for huevos rancheros? #OccupyMyTummy
• Commercial break during Regis’ final episode. Time to change Frank Gifford’s diaper.
• Right now, a crew is working feverishly to get the Gold Bond Medicated Powder smell out of the studio. #HappyRetirementRegis
• If the guy who just swiped my credit card at Jiffy Lube is going for the Rosie O’Donnell look, bullseye, my friend.

And Every Comedian On The Planet Had So Much To Be Thankful For.

The Annual Christmas Shopping Trip To The Grove: An iPhone™ Photo Gallery.

I blogged about this place last year, and with my mom in town, we went back with my niece and nephew:

This much is I know about all you parents taking pics of your kids in front of the Happy Feet Two promotion: in your house, wild sex is confined to the hamster cage.

After I give my nephew one too many pink bellies and he finally snaps and kills me, Janie and Jack offer a tasteful selection of suits for his arraignment.

The complete antithesis of “Just Do It”: sitting in a walking cast smoking a butt.

I was going to say this Pottery Barn Star Wars themed bedroom will wreck your kid in much the same way George Lucas wrecked the Star Wars franchise…

…but I’ll wait until after I sue for defamation.

TV: Now A Little Less Excellent.

My friend Mark and I have a new agreement. If one of us dies, we stage it to look like a suicide caused by the unjust cancellation of “Community.”

Actually, the show’s not officially gone yet, but it has been “shelved” by NBC, and we’re thoroughly bummed that a program unlike anything on TV is most likely going away while all the horseshit shows like “Dancing With the Stars” thrive. This sucks.

Question:

If a neighbors move and leave this behind for you, what does it mean they thought of you?

Get Your Butt To LA, Part 29: The Good New Days.

Life isn’t always effortless. I honestly think it’s easier getting out of the Sicilian Mob than off the Bed, Bath & Beyond email list.

And the pursuit of acting is a real grind. It’s neither fast nor furious. You’re going to eat a lot of shit. You’re going to get punched in the throat with rejection. You’ll be so poor you’ll feel like you’ll never get to eat in a restaurant that doesn’t have a TV in it.

And that’s why you really gotta love the game.

Every actor dreams of what must be the thrill of life as an A-list celebrity. But when Brad Pitt decides to say yes to a role, he doesn't feel a rush. In fact, in an interview this week, Brad said he’s going to retire from acting in three years. He’s done everything there is to do in this business and the thrill is gone. Meanwhile, there’s no bigger rush than the one an aspiring actor gets when his agent calls and tells him he booked a role.

I don’t blame Brad Pitt. Keep in mind that when you’re doing a movie, you’re doing a page a day. It’s piecemeal work. Think about what actors do for 16 hours a day, especially if they’ve been a celebrity for a long time. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re living exciting lives. It doesn’t mean they’re constantly adding to their repertoire of knowledge. Imagine Brad Pitt sitting on a set all day and having a director say, “Can you stand over here and you’re gonna have the gun here but we gotta spritz your arm because you’re sweating in this position, now just hold that there because we gotta work that light.” And he’s doing that all day and he’s done that for 20 years, and by the way he’s treated like he’s royalty for being good at doing make believe, so now he’s got a warped sense of reality.

So quite possibly for the aspiring types, these are the best days. The struggle. The lows that make the highs so high your heart pounds. The tight friendships you make with so many fellow actors because you’re all in this together. And the obstacles that help you realize how much you really want it. A few weeks ago, I was all the way down in Irvine and needed to get to Hollywood for a casting workshop during rush hour. It took me three hours to get there and I wanted the 5 Freeway murdered. I’ll bet no actor in the history of workshops has ever driven that long to get to one. But when I arrived, I relaxed and did my scene and the casting director smiled and really liked it. And all the shitty stress just evaporated away. I’ll miss that feeling someday.

You gotta love the game. Enjoy your classes and improving your skills exponentially every week. Know that while you’ll come up short in auditions most of the time, you’ll learn from each one and have fun getting to live the life of a different character every day. Sometimes the journey is better than the destination. In the meantime, let’s turn it up to 11.

My NFL On FOX Commercial.

With JB Smoove and Jay Glazer. Enjoy.

This Week In @mattshevin Tweets.

I went a little Penn State berserk:

• The most heinous crime in all the Penn State scandal is Susan Paterno’s wig.
• And here I thought Penn State was the ultimate safety school. #irony
• I'm taking the Nittany Lions to cover. #PunState
• Joe Paterno hangs his head under the huge weight of his incredibly thick glasses. #bulletproof
• “Support the victims of child abuse. Flip over a news van.” #NoteToSelf #BumperStickerIdea
• Your best defense is a fancy civil attorney from D.C.
• Hey Franco Harris – instead of telling us Joe Paterno shouldn't have been fired, stick to what you do best. #RunningOutOfBounds
• Penn State interim coach Tom Bradley: “Coach Paterno will go down in history as one of the greatest men." #DrConradMurrayACloseSecond
• Coming soon: more busts at Penn State than all of their running-back draft picks combined.

Weekend Recap.

I watched the Pacquiao/Marquez fight at my friend Dan’s house, which features this little slice of aquatic heaven: a remote that controls the temp and current of his resistance pool… Speaking of Pacquiao, it’s disturbing to see his wife in tears the entire time she watches her husband get pounded. But then you realize all marriages are wall-to-wall crying… Saw J. Edgar, and as much as people love Leonardo DiCaprio, with his astounding range he’s actually underrated. (He really pulls off fat, old and flaming in this film.)… Outside the ArcLight Cinema there is an epic battle transpiring: ukulele vs. saxophone. You know who loses here? America.

Little Tokyo, Los Angeles:

Not the epicenter of Italian cuisine.

Real Casting Notices I’ve Seen This Week.

• A freakishly good-looking man with a great body. Tall, dark and handsome. Ben is the picture of health, beauty and fitness. Ben is in psychological therapy to get over his fear of his own freakishly large penis. He is a crier.
• 6’ or taller Chinese basketball players.
• Looking for a Princess? Is this you or someone you know?? Someone who thinks she can have it all right now on someone else's wallet! Do you have champagne tastes on a beer budget? Do love designer duds? Respond now with how you are perfect for the show.
• Should have a hairy chest. Scenario: He pulls out some hair on his chest and sprinkles it over a bagel with cream cheese, then hands it to his buddy.
• We are seeking models to help promote our calendar, "6 Packs/9 Lives," featuring hunky, sexily dressed men, to help dispel the misconception that cats are only for women. Partial nudity is REQUIRED.
• Reference Donald Trump Hair tasseled, his face red, a sweat starting to form on his lip. Before his rage can reach full potential a sudsy Brillo pad is stuffed into his mouth.

Get Your Butt To LA, Part 28: Featuring Visual Aids.

There’s a famous book called How to Audition, by Gordon Hunt. It’s informative, but Gordon Hunt is like a bazillion years old, and I follow two strict rules: old people should not be trusted with cell phones or anecdotes.

And that senile bastard never mentions what to do the second you find out you have an audition. So step aside, pops.

In the event of an audition, you’ll get an email (and accompanying text) from your agent giving you all the info you need, including which headshot was submitted, so you’ll know which one to bring along with you. Though these days, commercial auditions are doing almost everything electronically, and you really don’t need to bring a hardcopy of your headshot. Just in case, keep a few in your car’s trunk.

At the bottom of that email is a prompt to click to confirm your audition. You’d better break your damn thumb clicking that fast, and then check the “confirm” box on the popup page, because casting directors are trying to fill their audition sessions with actors, and if they don’t hear from you, they panic. I once thought I’d checked the box but I hadn’t, and I got a call from the head of my agency, Daniel Hoff himself, and holy shitbombs was he pissed.

Arrive at the audition a little early, and don’t sign in until you’re familiar with the script or story board for the commercial. That way you won’t risk being yanked into the casting room before you’re prepared. And when you fill out your name and info on the above sheet, “X” the boxes if it says to X them, rather than check them. Show them you follow direction on even the tiniest of details.

It’s important to arrive at your audition at your assigned time, because there’s a method to the casting director’s schedule. Being late is bad, but being too early can be worse. I was once in the neighborhood of a casting office hours before an audition I had for Blockbuster Video, in which they were pairing up sets of couples as if they were in a movie theater. I figured I’d knock it out early in the day so I didn’t have to go home and come back. The casting director accommodated me, but the problem was they were auditioning teens at that time, and my age range later, so I went in with a girl so young that eventually when the advertising people watched the recorded auditions, I must have looked like, well, Gordon Hunt on a date with his baby niece.

Am I a card-carrying ageist? Pretty much. But this whole notion that old people have a wisdom from which we can benefit went right down the Penn State football shower drain this week. Remember when we use to rely on our elders for guidance? Yeah, me neither.

So to recap: respond fast, be on time, kiss ass, shun the old. You rock.

California Penal Code Section 538d: Impersonating A Peace Officer.

I don’t know if I’ll ever see eye to eye with the police. At least not until they give me back my t-shirt cannon.

But I’m more than happy to play a cop, and did just that a couple nights ago for a new film called Saints and Sinners. This is me portraying an LA County Sheriff hunting down a guy who knocked over a liquor store and shot two people.

There’s nothing more fun than shooting movies. You get to meet people, do things and go to places you’d never imagined. For instance, I’d never been in a squad car before. (Okay, the front seat of a squad car, but still.)

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It sucks my neighbors are moving soon. They’re a super nice couple who walked my dog, fed me often and gave me the benefit of having two ER doctors 15 steps away. When I hurt my finger, they were here. (Though I’d always imagined the first time I’d knock on their door needing help I’d be choking on a meatball sub. Live and learn.)

It was all good. And then I found out they bought their hospital scrubs from the “Grey’s Anatomy” collection, ruining all the work I’ve done here dispelling the myths about LA.

Way to go, guys. How do I block you in real life?

Weekend Recap.

Once again, we corrupted my nephew at the bar, watching the Jets game. This is him sitting in my lap (Penn State assistant-coach style), playing the latest great contribution to mankind: the Mattel electronic football iPhone app... Now that you Oklahomans are having earthquakes, I’d like to personally remind you that living anywhere other than Los Angeles sucks shit. Better check those Earthlink accounts for my email… The More You Know: the temp dropped into the 40s here, so I fired up my heater for the first time this season and got that odd smoky smell. According to the Interweb, that’s caused by dust collecting and is responsible for over 400,000 residential fires each year, so it’s smart to turn your heater on once a month to avoid this. Like I always say, burning to death is not really my thing – I prefer to be assassinated… My friend Tina tweeted: “Every Sunday a.m. should be ‘fall back.’” I greenlight that proposal.

Meanwhile, On The Best Coast…

My friend Mark: “How many times are you going to talk about LA being better than New York?” Me: “I don’t know. Is ‘your mother’ a number?”

Hope everyone back east maybe/sorta got their power back. If not, feel free to visit me. Above is yesterday’s storm. In California, even when it rains, it shines.

This Is Stupid.

Tom Brokaw loves to write about the good old days, when people cared more, worked harder and behaved.

Yo, Tom – “The Greatest Generation” sure said the N-word a lot.

In fact, they did a lot of suspect shit. Like censoring everything. I don’t know why that still happens on TV; we know what the bleeped-out words really are and we know how people really talk. I’m starting a personal mission to bring full cursing to television. It’s time.

I saw part of Katt Williams’ standup on Comedy Central last night, and decided to grab half a minute of it and post it here. You tell me if it’s watchable.

Get Your Butt To LA, Part 27: Giving Postal Workers One More Reason To Live.

No matter what level of success they’ve achieved, all actors want more. You might be at your wit’s end, and for you I say you’ve got to get back on the horse, dude. The greats don’t quit after one bad day. I mean did Babe Ruth quit after his sex tape was criticized? No, he went right back out and made another sex tape.

I received a question from a guy named Kevin: “What are some helpful ways to learn to market yourself, etc.?”

If your career doesn’t have heat, it’s mainly because you’re not doing enough PR. Sure, work begets work, but more importantly, marketing begets work. You’ve got to let casting directors know what you’ve been up to on a regular basis.

And the go-to guy to help you do this is my friend Rich Montague. Rich heads up 80D Creative, which specializes in everything an actor needs to separate himself from the herd: postcards, flyers, he’ll even create your demo and voiceover reels. Rich is an outstanding actor in his own right, and he’s got strong showbiz genes – his uncle is Matt Riedy, a recurring cast member on “Big Time Rush,” in addition to booking dozens of other guest-starring roles each year. (Plus a part in Oliver Stone’s new film.) That kickass postcard above was designed by Rich.

But what do you have to announce to casting directors if you’re not booking the big stuff like Matt? Plenty. Even if you’re in a short film or a student film, send a postcard. You don’t have to get specific – just include the title of the project and CDs will assume this is a feature film. Is this a little sketchy? Sure. But your career isn’t going anywhere if you don’t have the balls of Babe Ruth. (I apologize for that mental image.)

The key is to remind casting directors about you often, so that when roles pop up that are good fits for you, they’ll say, “That Kevin guy, he’s always working. Let’s bring him in.” Ultimately, if you bump into any casting directors on the street, they should know you by name, and if they don’t, you aren’t marketing yourself well enough. And you’re too talented an actor to stay on the canvas for long. This is a process, designed to build lasting relationships with important people.

Check out 80dcreative.com and get your face out there. Or don’t, if you’re not really into the whole success thing, or if your definition of success is being huge in the abandoned gas station circuit. Up to you.

Visual Aid.

My mom keeps saying, “I want to see your commercial.” Yeah? And I want microwaveable socks. A lot of people want a lot of things.

Actually, a bunch of people have been really nice, wanting to know how they can see my commercial for the NFL on FOX. It’s airing now until the Super Bowl, so you’re bound to see it.

My big brother TiVo’d it, and I grabbed the above frame of me behind the bar so you’ll know what to look for. I’m really proud of the way it came out – it’s funny and it’s shot beautifully. But before I get too carried away with myself, I won’t, because my niece saw it and asked if I was playing a waitress. Yup, this is my family.

Bittersweet.

The weather was appropriately foggy, the houses crazily decorated, the midgets worked their tiny butts off retrieving candy that their uncle eventually pilfered. Was Halloween as good as ever? No, not by a nautical mile.

Missed you this time, Pete.