Matt's Favorite Things.

Oprah’s audience members take home her faves. You guys get mine:



O’Keefe & Merritt Oven. Its broken clock truly is right twice a day. And that slight gas leak lets you know: it’s working. Retail value: probably bought for some wampum.





Laundry Hamper. Exclusively at Target, one of a matching set of 60. Retail value: your pride.




Andiamo Luggage. Toddler’s diarrhea brown. Retail value: free for your Bar Mitzvah.





1996 Nike hiking shoes. Scale the Palisades and still be home in time for tonight's episode of “Webster”. Retail value: the minimum hourly wage of a small, but earnest Indonesian child.




Phone. Slightly smoke-damaged. Retail value: suburban New York home my mother almost burned down.





Raid. Kills roaches and ants, and has a country-fresh scent. It’s a triple threat. Retail value: priceless.

Building Houses With The Bluths.

As a guy who came dangerously close to having to retake wood shop in summer school, I was hesitant when my friend Ann asked if I wanted to participate in her company-sponsored Habitat for Humanity event.

Then Ann, who works for Fox Studios, mentioned the cast of my favorite TV show at the time, "Arrested Development", would be participating. Three days later, I was a drywallin' fool.

It was a nice touch of irony that on "Arrested", the Bluth family business is real estate development. But unlike their lazy, self-absorbed TV counterparts, these actors really got their hands dirty. I peeked into the house attached to the one on which I was working, and saw David Cross swinging away with a hammer. Michael Cera dug trenches. Unfortunately, Annyong was nowhere to be found.

Posted outside of each future Habitat home is a biography of the family for whom the home is being built. The one on which I worked was for a saint of a single women who was adopting a brother and sister from Africa and bringing them to live here. Words can't describe what it felt like at the end of the day to have worked so hard for such an amazing cause. But I'll give it a metaphorical shot: it was like cutting a line out of a kilo of cocaine and snorting the kilo.

Guys, trust me– visit Habitat's website and volunteer. Your therapist won't know what hit you.

Help Me Help The Big Guy.

As positive as I try to remain in this business, there are days that I could really use an Advil. Or Tylenol. Or that HeadOn stuff that you apply directly to your forehead.

On these days it's crucial to have friends that root hard for me to succeed and push me to get there, and I am blessed with several of them. Right now, one of these friends needs me to step up for him.

His name is Ben Mall, and he's a very talented advertising creative/copywriter, and one of the most selfless men I know. So much so, that when his wife suddenly wanted to move from his beloved Texas to Portland, Ben dropped everything and went with her.

Being the new guy in town has been a real chafe for Ben to scrounge up a job, and he needs one badly, so if anyone has connections to some advertising work in the Portland area, please hook him up.

You can read more about it on Ben's blog here.

Yo-

Hack actor, in my casting workshop last night– if you ever answer your phone in the middle of my scene, and then chat until I have to stop and ask the respected casting director if I can restart again, I will break that phone over your skull.

And if you think I'm kidding, ask anyone.

Have a terrific weekend.

Beg To Differ, Jim.

Today I procrastinated DVR-style with a marathon of the show to which my blog pays tribute: "Inside the Actors Studio".

James Lipton, your show is great. Love the beard. But I have a beef with that Bernard Pivot "what profession would you not like to attempt?" question.

Guests each week give their typical answers: anything with numbers, operating a jackhammer, etc.

But I've mentioned before that it's important for actors to always believe the character their playing believes he's right. Whether he's filing a 1040 short form or cutting open his mother's belly like a trout. How can you fully portray something from which you distance yourself?

So I'd have to abstain. For me, every career is interesting, and I wouldn't pooh-pooh nary a one. Mopping up a porn store video booth? Bring it on. Handling Mel Gibson's PR? Where do I apply?

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, my lost afternoon feels somewhat worthwhile. Tomorrow I'll go back to my usual, productive behavior, eating peanut butter with a spoon and putting my underwear on my dog.

Wanna Be In A Movie? Buy A Plane Ticket.

Forget your acting classes, workshops, and agents, and get on the blower to Delta, United and JetBlue. It's the Matt Shevin Proven Route To Acting Success™, and I personally guarantee it.

Just about every actor in Hollywood will vouch. It never fails for me.

The key, however, is to purchase a ticket, but not actually take the trip. If you do, you'll be screwed– like me, in Scottsdale last week, when I got a call for a callback for a film.

Or two months ago, when, right before an audition for an independent film, the director asked me if I was available for his shoot on the 2nd of March. I said yes, but knew I would be in Utah that week. For practice, I auditioned anyway. The director called three days later and offered me the role.

Or two years ago, when, sitting at a baseball game in Seattle, I got a call that I was being given a role in a commercial but was needed that afternoon. I cried in my Raineer Beer.

Next up, I'll be booking an Alaskan cruise. And putting the kibosh on working opposite Tom Cruise.

Kickass Actor/NFL Star/Beer Pitchman Meeting Of The Month.

"I get paid to practice; I play the games for free."

It means preparation is a bitch, but gameday is glorious. I've quoted it often, including Wednesday night, to a fellow actor who was growing weary of the daily grind.

The next morning, at LAX airport, I saw the man responsible for it: Bubba Smith.

I covertly took this pic of him before summoning up the guts to approach him, and when I did the man was outstanding. He talked to me for half an hour about his family, his football career, the Police Academy movies and the Miller Lite "tastes great, less filling" commercials. Here are some things I learned:

• Even though his mom named him Charles, she never once called him that
• He has a 15-year-old nephew who is 6' 9 1/2", 325 lbs., and USC is already recruiting him for football
• He never lifted weights until nine years after his playing career
• He doesn't own a cell phone. He believes women invented them to keep track of their men
• Super Bowl III, a game in which his Colts lost to the Jets in the biggest upset in NFL history, was fixed
• There are more Police Academy movies on the way, now featuring Bubba in charge of new recruits

As I approached him, he was chatting with an older white woman who knew he was a celebrity, but wasn't quite sure which celebrity. "You're not Morgan Freeman, right?" she asked. Bubba kindly shook his head. And I never hated being Caucasian more.