I love making movies, films, television, and anything else that is in the genre. I work tirelessly to know what I am doing at all times and how to execute them beautifully and, my specialty, affordability. I examine tons of footage and writing to soak in all that I can only to come back and learn some more. It is genuinely in my whole being and precisely what I was made for. Not too many folks can say that they know what their true calling is. I am one of the lucky few.

This also means that I am not only a Photographer, Videographer, Motion Graphics Artists, and Editor; I am an Actor too. Sure I can direct actors, but what good would I be if I couldn’t practice what I preach?

Because of my inner “actor,” sometimes I get called in to audition for roles. Sometimes they are for movies, but mostly it’s commercials and PSA type things. And just like most other working actors, I get called back or land the role rarely. Not too infrequently, but enough to call it rare, I suppose. As an actor, this is just how the business works, good or bad.

Most roles that an actor can audition for in Northwest Arkansas and be reasonably assured they have a chance to land, pay either one hundred or three hundred per day or you have to drive to Oklahoma City just to audition, if not both. I am with you on this part, There is no way I am going to drive three and a half hours for a role that pays a hundred bucks a day, no matter what kind of exposure I “might” get. It just doesn’t make economic sense. But this time, the pay for this part was above scale. Scale is the minimum amount of money an actor gets paid if they belong to the union. When I saw that, I submitted. Much to my surprise, I was selected to audition. But it in Oklahoma City, figures. But that pay... Yeah, it suckered me in.

I rented a car and drove to OKC. I figured my 2006 Mustang could handle the drive, but I wanted to go as economically as possible. My Mustang gets 13 mpg in town and 27mpg on the highway, but this little KIA gets almost twice the city gas mileage and a solid 37mpg on the hwy. In real terms, I would have needed to fill the tank on my Mustang four times while I didn’t even have to fill that KIA up twice. That alone saved me the money I spent on the rental; not to mention the wear and tear on my Mustang.

I would say the audition went well, not really great, but that’s how these things always feel. For my actor friends out there, high-end auditions are really the pits. They are impersonal and cold events that make you feel like you have just stepped into a world where everyone hates their job and anyone they come into contact with. No one leaves an audition feeling like they “got the part.” Everyone leaves thinking that they must have done something wrong. And I mean everyone. For those that have never had the pleasure of experiencing the pain and torture of a Hollywood audition; if you had a job interview that went like these always go, you would second guess your career path and leave whimpering. They are worse than brutal, they are soul-crushing events. They also take about five minutes at most.

So, I just spent almost four hours and fifty bucks in a car to attend a meeting that made me want to give up acting forever, and now I have to drive back home.

Now, we have had a lot of rain recently, as we all know. The River Valley (Fort Smith Arkansas) has flooded, levees have broken, and roads are closed. The water from the Arkansas River hit record levels, and here I was driving through it. Another reason for a rental car.

Before I left for OKC I called the Arkansas State Transportation office to make sure I40 was open, and they told me everything was just fabulous with the interstate, but I don’t know if that was entirely true. It seemed to me that the water was only a few feet away from covering the highway, wow.

While I didn’t stop to take photos with my pro camera, these shots show just how close the water came. Good thing my trip was ruled by the sun.