Trish and Harold's Weblog

News, information, and random thoughts from the busy lives of Trish Egan and Harold Phillips.


Wednesday, December 20, 2006

An Early Christmas Present

It’s funny the stuff that sticks with you... Anyone remember Night Court? Silly little (if long running) sit-com from the 80’s with Harry Anderson, John Larroquette and Richard Moll? If you don’t remember it (and really, I wouldn’t blame you if you purged your hard drives of such useless information), you can click here and watch the first episode on YouTube.

I remember, as a kid, watching that first episode; and the show’s end is one of those memories that re-asserts itself from time to time (could I remember the Gettysburg Address or the Preamble to the Constitution? Noooooooooo… I remember the first episode of Night Court. Go figure). After wacky judge Harold Stone(Anderson) does his wacky thing at his new court gig, the prosecutor (Larroquette) asks him, "How did you get this job?"

"Funny story," says Stone (I’m paraphrasing here; click here to watch the third part of the episode that has these scenes in it - it starts about 6 minutes and 30 seconds in). "On the mayor’s last day – a Sunday - he had a vacancy to fill, so he sat down with a list of about a thousand names and started making calls. I was at the bottom of that list… and I was the only one who picked up the phone." Later, he says to his court clerk "I was at the bottom of the list… but I was on that list."


Today was one of those times that memory reasserted itself. I heard my cell phone go off in the office this morning. I was busy making coffee, building a fire in the fireplace, or some such… so the call went to voicemail. I walked into the office as my voicemail alert sounded, so I picked up the phone and checked the message.


It was my agent, Kaili. She’d just gotten word that a client of hers had an actor drop out of a shoot scheduled for tomorrow; and she was calling me to see if I might be available. I called her right back.


"Of course I’m available," I said.


"Well, it’s not confirmed yet, but I’ll let the client know you’re available in case they want to use you."


Sure enough, later this afternoon I got an email saying that I was booked for the spot. So, from 2pm ‘til late into the evening tomorrow I’ll be shooting a spot for Tricounty Temp Control that will be shown on Comcast Spotlight (local ads that play on the cable channels after the national spots run).


I don’t know how many other people were on the list… I don’t know how many of them got called, or who might have been ahead of me. I’d expect that more than a couple of people were out of town, traveling for the holidays.


But… I was on the list. And that makes me feel pretty good.


I’ll let you know when the spot is airing; hopefully I’ll get a copy that I can post on haroldphillips.net.

-Harold

Getting Into The Holiday Spirit

Hey everybody

I know, I know... I've been a baaaaaaaaaaad blogger. The past couple of months I've been so busy with various projects that I really haven't put much up here... but it's the holiday season, and that's gonna change (people who know me will read "work is slow right now, so I have the time to blog" in the above intro). I'm just overflowing with freakin' Christmas spirit (as I'm sure you can tell from the cartoon to the left).
Seriously, though, I love this time of year. Now, don't get the wrong idea, I don't LOVE CHRISTMAS (!!!!) in all its consumerist glory; quite to the contrary, the selling of Christmas makes me decidedly ill. When you start seeing Christmas merchandise in all the stores the day after halloween, when the Christmas ads start arriving in your mailbox before Halloween, when Bill O'Reilly starts his yearly whine about the mythical "war on Christmas..." you can't help but feel a little sick to your stomach.
What I love is the holiday season (sorry Bill, "Holiday" works just fine for me); this magical time of year when it's cold and dark outside, and people's reaction to those factors is to open their hearts to each other. Yes, holiday stress happens: the in-laws are coming, the shopping list still needs to be finished, the malls are crowded, the cards have to go out, blah blah blah. If you can pull your head out of all those things other people tend to expect from CHRISTMAS (!!!!), though, and look around, you might be surprised at what you see.
People walking down the streets smiling each other. People who would ordinarily be "too busy" helping to push a stalled vehicle out of the street. Money going into Salvation Army bell-ringer's kettles. Parents watching their children's grins with wistful, warm expressions on their faces. Even that annoying guy who's always talking on his cell phone is making plans for a holiday party.
See, holiday specials on the Family Channel notwithstanding, the true meaning of the season isn't the presents, cards, or bountiful dinners. The wonderful thing about this time of year is that even in our high-paced, digital world we stop and take a moment to pay attention to each other. THAT's the part of the Holiday Season (bite me, O'Reilly) that I truly love.
Yeah, the commercialism and expectation of this season is a drag, but I'm sure if you try hard enough you can step off that mad merry-go-round, sip a cup of hot chocolate (or peppermint latte, if that's your preference) and take a breath you'll remember the joy that always accompanied this time of year back when you were smaller. Here, let me give you a hand... Click here and listen to a Pandora.com station I made just for you :)
(You've heard of Pandora, right? It's the coolest streaming music station out there!)
Keep a smile on your face...
-Harold

Saturday, December 16, 2006

To Eugene and Back (and Eugene and Back)

Hi Folks

I've been burning up the miles this week... had three murder mysteries in the course of two days, with one in Eugene, OR (about 110 miles south of Portland). Then, this morning, I had to go back to Eugene to shoot a bit for an instructional video (an "industrial," for those of you in "the biz") on diversity in the workplace. Hopefully I'll be able to get a copy of it so I can post my bit on haroldphillips.net.

The shoot went great, by the way... if you ever get a chance to work with Will Doolittle at Moving Image Productions, take it. He and his crew run a tight ship; they got me in, I did my bit, and I was out the door inside of an hour. A very efficient shoot!

Boy am I glad I bought that Prius last year... getting 40+ miles to the gallon has really taken the sting out of all the driving I've been doing this week.

Incidentally, when I logged into Blogger to post this I saw that a post I made earlier in the week wasn't "active," so none of you got a chance to see it. It's below this one.

Hope you're all doing well...

-Harold

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

A Pre-holiday Update (Long Overdue!)

**Note** I originally wrote this on Wednesday, December 13, but for some reason it didn't get posted. So... this is pretty old news at this point :) _________________________________________________________________

Hey folks It's been WAY too long since I've done an update to tell you all what's been happening in Trish and my lives... and I'm sure you've just been breathless with anticipation. Sure ya have.

Right... So, what's been happening lately...

>>Theatre: Trish is still knee-deep in the run of Inspecting Carol at Artists Repertory Theatre. They close on Christmas eve, so her holiday season is pretty much spoken for. If you haven't seen the play yet, get your tickets quick; they're packing the house as the run winds down to its end.

It's a funny play... if you've already seen it, you know that she gets doused with water towards the end (I won't tell you how; don't want to ruin the surprise for those of you who haven't seen the show). Here's something that's not so funny, however; running through the chilly corridors of ART dripping wet gave her a really bad cold a few weeks ago. This of course was passed on to me (and her brother Pete, who's been staying with us). We've been suffering the after-effects of this little bug for over a week; most of the symptoms have gone away, but the cough is sticking with us.

I've got a couple of murder mysteries set for this week. As silly as it sounds, now that I've got a couple of those on my schedule it feels like Christmas :) Trish and I have been working with Wild Bills for over ten years now, and it honestly feels nice to be the entertainment for someone's Christmas party; it kind of makes you feel like you're playing a part in bringing the warmth of the season into someone's life. Plus, we get to work with people who, in some cases, we haven't seen since last year's murder mystery season.

And the money's nice too :)

Still, I think about this from time to time... the holiday season just doesn't feel "right" to me if I'm not working on some kind of performance. It could be a murder mystery, a holiday reading, or a full-blown production... but I need to be involved in something. When Trish and I went to Europe over Christmas a couple of years ago, I felt a nagging lack, because I wasn't taking part in bringing a little holiday cheer to an audience somewhere. Murder mysteries like the ones I'm doing this week help me fill that need; I feel like I'm doing my part to make the season a little merrier.

>>Film Well, Trish is certainly the working actor in our household lately. Aside from her Inspecting Carl run, she's shot parts of two independent films and finished filming a third that she started last month. She also had a great audition for a new Hollywood movie coming up to shoot in Oregon next year starring Diane Lane (she got a call-back, her audition was so good... me, I was starting to get sick the day I auditioned and totally blew it).

Plus, we're both going to shoot an industrial down in Eugene at the end of the week (an "industrial" is an industry term for an instructional, or non-entertainment-oriented film). I'm still trying to keep my finger in the pie... but Trish is outpacing me by a long way.

That's pretty much all I have time to share with you at this point... I'll try and post more later on in the week.

Hope you're all doing well...

-Harold

L.E.A.D. Premier

Hey folks

A more detailed update on Trish and my comings-and-goings is elsewhere on the blog (click "home" at the bottom o f the page if you're only seeing this post). I wanted to let you know, though, that L.E.A.D., a short film I shot earlier this year, is having its premier tonight (Wednesday, December 13) at the Hollywood Theater here in Portland at 6:30pm and again at 8:30pm.

The screening is part of the Art Institute of Portland's senior showing. L.E.A.D., a futuristic film noir drama, is Director of Photography Galvin Collins' senior thesis project. His company, Screaming Inside Films, is going to distribute the finished film.

If you're looking for something to do tonight, drop on by The Hollywood and take a look. I won't be there, though... I have a Wild Bills show tonight across town. I have been promised a DVD copy of the film by the producer, however... once I get my copy I'll post a couple of scenes on the web site in the yet-to-be constructed Video section. Galvin also sent me some still from the shoot that I'll post in the Photo section of the site... eventually.

Hope you're all doing well...

-Harold