Audition. No word in the English language tightens my taint quicker. If you’ve never had the pleasure of ‘auditioning’ for anything before, I’ll give you a brief synopsis of the process, in general:

You get a call from your agent/manager telling you that you have an audition in three days time. He or she will subtly tell you to make sure you don’t suck during it. You will work all week on the audition until you are completely ‘off book’ (code for memorized). You will arrive to the casting director’s office early and see a plethora of younger, better looking versions of you with flatter stomachs. You will make a note to do crunches every morning (but you won’t). Then you will start to feel panic and do weird shit to not feel panic, including bizarre breathing exercises and stretching and praying to Jesus and Buddha and the ghost of Karl Malden. As you do this, you will wait by a door until an assistant comes out to get you. She will announce your name to the group of bored decision-makers in the room. Upon hearing your name, they will decide not to cast you. Unperturbed, you will read your lines directly from the page in your hand (because your brain forgot you were ‘off book’) and notice that your handing is shaking like Michael J. Fox after a hit of crack and 6 hours on a Jetblue middle seat. Finally, you will stumble on the last sentence of the scene and then smile fakely like Miss South Carolina after an explanation of ‘maps.’ In turn, they will smile fakely-ier and you will walk out, convinced that they are all looking at your ass, because it is tingling. The end.

Of course, it’s not the end in your pesky, overactive, and annoying cerebellum which is conjuring up permutations of infinitely fractal alternate universes where you left the room to applause and a certain offer! Little do you know that the second you exit, the executive producer said, “Let’s make this character Asian.” All your worry, usually, is for naught.

Sometimes, however, you really do just blow it…

Recently I went in to audition for an MTV pilot. The role was perfect for me. Late twenties, early thirties, good looking, but not TOO good looking, blonde, surfer-y burn out with strong comedic skills. As a stand up comic, your thought is usually ‘Pfft, I tell dick jokes to strangers on a Tuesday, this is a piece of cake!’

When I got to MTV, I felt pretty good. I had my hair all spiky and my ‘outfit,’ sponsored by the Urban Outfitters clearance section, couldn’t be more perfect. Dan Faustino from ‘Married with Children’ was at the audition too. “Wait, he’s going in for my role?,” I thought. He was wearing a black tank top (a al surfer/gay modern expressionist dancer) and I couldn’t help but notice he was effing ripped! I looked down at my stomach and noticed the smallest of bumps between my navel and my kit-and-caboodle. If I was pregnant, I’d be ’showing.’ What the hell? Bud Bundy has better abs than me? Doubt crept in on silent haunches. The casting director came out to get me just as all of the saliva in my mouth decided to dry up.

I walked into the audition and was amazed to see 15 people crowded into a tiny space – it was more cramped than a Mexican pickup truck.

“Hey everbody. Wow, there’s a lot of you,” I said, instantly wishing I hadn’t.

Since I am a veteran auditioner, I kept my smile on and my eyes darting between all the expectant faces as I walked backwards. There was NO WAY I was going to turn around and let them look at my ass and feel it all tingly. Screw that. I was going to slowly and gracefully walk backwards until I could feel the presence of the chair behind and then I was going to sit down. So I kept walking backwards slowly… no chair… more backwards walking… where’s the chair?… Should I stop? Should I turn around an look?… no, Bill, just take a few more steps back. CRASH!

Alas, there was no chair. Instead, there was a round stage or some kind of orb-like structure elevated at about one foot high that clipped my ankles like a DB for the Dallas Cowboys.

My knees buckled and I wheeled around with my arms flailing. My script flew into the sky. Some distant part of my brain yelled at my body to turn the whole thing into some Jim Carrey-esque dance, which I’m sure only served to make me look more ridiculous.

‘Whoa!’ I announced in my best Keanu Reeves impersonation as I landed. Nobody laughed. Even worse, out of the corner of eye, I couldn’t help but notice a couple of people making notes on a notepad. Great, I thought, what were they writing? ‘This guy has epilepsy.’

I picked up my pages and faced the casting director and camera with a nod as if to say, ‘Okay, I’m good, let’s do this!’

“Slate for the camera,” the cd said dryly. “Just say your name and height.”

“Okay,” I said, looking at the camera. “My name is Bill Dawes and I’m 6 feet with tube socks on.” What DID I JUST SAY??? Is there a language in which that comment is actually funny? No one even seemed to register the dumb remark. I felt like saying, “Oh, trust me, that expression is hilarious in its original Japanese!”

Instead, I waited a beat for the cd to give me the go-ahead cue and I launched into the actual audition. In the awkwardness of my arrival, I had completely forgotten that my saliva had morphed into sandpaper. I felt myself swallowing and audibly smacking my lips in the beginning and then, about halfway through the first scene, my upper lip completely desiccated, curled up, and stuck onto the enamel of my two front teeth. So, the “burnout surfer dude” did the rest of the hilarious comedy scene in a twisted True Blood snarl.

Somehow, I managed to get through the first scene, even with my Fire Marshall Bill face in full effect.

They didn’t ask me to do the second scene.

Instead, one of the producers said, “You might want to check out your ankle after this.” I looked down and, sure enough, noticed that the mysterious orb-stage had nicked my Achilles tendon and it was bleeding slightly. Since I am a comic genius and make my living on quick comebacks, I said, “Oh shit.”

I walked out of the room, my ass feeling tingly the whole time.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm and is filed under All blog entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.