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As much as that’s a compliment I’m getting tired of hearing people say I should be something better than I am.  And I get that their intention is to fuel me to keep going but this pursuit has gone into a dark corner bordering on insanity.  And pursuit for what?  I used to think it was for artistic expression but now it’s turned into something else.  Is it a lust for money?  I don’t necessarily want to be rich, although being rich could afford some very mentally stimulating adventures and personal projects.  But that’s what these are now, personal projects.  And as entertaining as they may be, they’re sucking the life out of me.  So quit?  Not that simple.  When you’ve put as much into it as I have it’s difficult to walk away, even if it’s for a moment.  So shut-up and keep writing stuff we like to read instead of this emo shit?  Okay okay.  Let’s start over:

Everything is fine.

The big thing  you have to remember here is not to have expectations.  If there is ever such a character that should remind us of this it’s Lu.  Poor Lu.  I noticed a lot of you want him to be free.  And we play each one as if the last hadn’t really occurred so you see there how the frustration is mounting.  But I write as if the previous situation hadn’t really occurred, or at least not directly recalled for comparison.  Yet he’s still present in the on-going-ness of his situation.  Really because that would be an even bigger tragedy if his character wasn’t somehow aware that the world was handing him yet another lemon, vs. being handed his first one every episode.  And what kind of hell would Lu be living in if he did remember every roommate?  As a writer, I don’t think I could continue to give him the roommates that I’ve written if I didn’t treat this like a Sunday morning funny page where we just see this guy who knows it’s coming but doesn’t necessarily know how.  But yes I can tell the audience is getting tired of seeing him get shit on.  And that’s unfortunate because we the people (and I’m not trying to get political or specific here) are constantly getting shit on.  And as much we all think we would do something about these situations that we’re watching, would we really?  Yeah the hard motherfuckers who like to fight, those guys would throw punches upon the first insult.  But they look for reasons to throw punches so that doesn’t count.  Same goes for drama queens.  Elements of those people have been put into other roommates but there’s only so far you can go with someone who resorts to violence or yelling every time they don’t get what they want.  And oh, do those dipshits irk me.  Seems like there’s always one of them in a group.  And you want to spank them like a child, well actually that’s politically incorrect, according to the new parents it’s spanking your kids that makes them awful people when they grow up – supposedly.  I’ll leave that there…for now.

But back to the issue at hand, the metaphysical dilemma of Lu.  It’s the same metaphysical dilemma that we’re all facing!  The causal loop who’s origin can’t be determined or fixed.  You give Lu a normal roommate, it’s not going to be normal.  Sooner or later one of them is gonna pop.  And maybe it’ll be some civil dispute over who cleans the bathroom and who cleans the dishes, but it’s still a friction of ideals nonetheless.  And realistically it would be super drawn out and the events that move the story along would happen over a span of months until one of them meets a girl (or guy) and moves into a place with that person.  And the story could definitely continue there no doubt.  It’s weird, it’s like I translate people’s wanting us to move on with my own wanting to move on.  After all these useful situations made from this box, we still haven’t gotten the kind of swell to move us off the island.  We may look like we’re living our lives, but it’s more like our lives are on this island, interpreting the lives of others who have chosen to go an easier way through life, which affords them the luxury of having a life – if that’s what you want to call it.  I’m not pointing fingers at any particular roommate here, but if being able to go to a bar and drop 60 bucks on poisoning yourself is having a life I guess I’m not missing much.  And believe me, I’m not judge against the drinkers.  The alcoholics got it bad but so do the sober folks, recovering or virgin otherwise.  Unless of course your a monk who’s found his space in the in between, that might be the best place.  But how would we know, we’re emotional creatures still trying to fix problems that can’t fix so we can remind ourselves we’re alive.  If you reach existential bliss then you aren’t even surfing the internet looking for kicks anymore, you’re sitting on your floor connecting to the cosmos that doesn’t even speak a language, or emote a feeling.  Right now that kind of sounds like death, or nothingness, and my mind’s not ready for that, not this morning anyway.

That’s enough for today,  I’ll give you a little roommate update and we’ll move on with our day shall we?

Today we’re shooting my roommate the CEO, due to air next week.  In this episode Lu get’s a first hand taste of Occupy Wall Street as a CEO on the run takes refuge in his apartment.  It’s a one act but it’s 5 pages long…  Basically I’m just not in the mood to time lapse this one.  It all happens in the now, and what happens from there is up to you.  KIND OF LIKE WHAT’S ACTUALLY HAPPENING!  Am I supporter of Occupy Wall Street?  I see it’s merit and I see it’s weakness.  I’m definitely not a fan of greed but I’m also not a fan standing around talking about what we want to do as opposed to doing it.  Hipocrit you say?  Yeah well there’s a certain threshold in a person’s life that determins whether they want to make an impact by interpretation or make an impact by enforcing.  At the moment, the whole enforcing thing seems to be going out the window, so story telling for the sake of shared ideas seems to me to be the most proactive approach.  And my roommate the CEO, although only grazing the surface, is my contribution to this movement that seems to have only just begun.  Depending on how inspired it makes me, I may just go out to Wall Street myself and record some commentary.  We shall see.

Later!

And remember, if you’re gonna be a hater, hate yourself first.  If you actually care about people that is.

That’s right!

T-SHIRTS, SWEATSHIRTS, MUGS, HATS, and yes even PANTIES are available for you to purchase with your most favored roommate characters featured on the front!

Go to our MERCH tab (upper right) to view our selection of ready-made shirts from your favorite episodes – OR – check out the DESIGN-YOUR-OWN tab to…design your own shirt from the wide selection of graphics and apparel.  For instance, you could put a picture of my face on a pair of panties.

The READY-MADE shirts are printed on American Apparel shirts, slave labor free.  Too expensive?  Just go to the APPAREL TAB in the designer and pick the STANDARD WEIGHT shirts for a whopping $10.00 (warning: you get what you pay for).

SUPPORT MYROOMMATETHE WEBSERIES BY PURCHASING SOME MERCHANDISE.  WHY?  BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU.

Well, it looks like it’s just the 6,000 of us for now.  Each video is averaging somewhere between 5 and 7 thow, which tells me we’ve established a loyal following that’s just short of hitting the kind of threshold necessary to really boom the youtube community.  And as I’m sure you guys are sharing these as much as you can on facebook and twitter, we’re still competing with the clutter of all the other webseries and home videos of cats running into sliding glass doors.  My guess is, it’s gonna take another shout out similar to that of Will of DC to graduate into the next rank of viewership.  Youtube likes us but won’t grant us partnership until we put out one video a week.  ONE VIDEO A WEEK???  If I could do one video a week I wouldn’t care to even get partnership because I’d obviously be rich enough to be making a feature film or pilot to pitch for the big networks.  It’s a catch 22 as with anything in this town.  It’s like having the popular kids in high school tell you they’ll let you into their clique if you steal the principle’s car while he’s driving it.  Okay maybe not that drastic, just steal the principle’s car.  But still!!  So that’s the next hurdle.  As always, your compliments and support are a breath of fresh air when we release these videos.  It also reminds me that in this country, fame and wealth operate on different platforms.  It’s up to us to make money off the exposure we get, not the other way around.

Speaking of which… T-Shirts are up!!

…and no one’s buying them.  But the designs are sick, yeah?  Maybe they’re not, and none of my friends have the heart to break it to me.  You do.  Tell us what you think.  I’m going to keep adding designs as episodes come out and hopefully get each episode it’s own t-shirt page so you can choose from all the quotes and characters, etc.  Go to the merch page (located at the top right) and check out what we’ve got.  If there’s something you want specifically it’s not out of the realm for me to make it for you.  And besides, it’s 15% off unil March 15th or 19th or something, I don’t have the banner in front of me.  But yeah, support the show, buy a shirt.  Wheeeeeee!

So to make some extra dough I got back into extra work.  Yeah, cattle call extra work.  I’m SAG so I’m at least making a par amount.  I don’t know how the non-union guys do it, that shit’s hardly humane.  But hey, there’s such a long line of people trying to make it, if anybody quits there’s no shortage of replacements.  Sad.  This whole town rests on the shoulders of pipe dreams.  That’s why LA exists outside the realm of economic turmoil.  There’s more layers to the layers of economic complexity in this place to ever be affected by an earthquake or oil shortage, it runs on it’s own toxic fumes.  Even if we got invaded by China or Russia, (or Aliens, that’s probably what the movie’s about – Aliens still can’t take LA because the entertainment industry keeps throwing money at them…) and odds are they wouldn’t because they love our movies too much.  Couldn’t tell you why, most of them are so embarrassing it’s a wonder we haven’t been invaded yet.

But I digress.  Extra work.  How I Met Your Mother.  I was a bar patron.  And here’s my hilarious and what ought to be -embarassing story:  The scene is New Years Eve, it’s a countdown.  The main character – Ted – has a line that takes place in his head or between the 3rd and 4th wall whatever, so we’re supposed to mime the countdown after 8.  Well first five takes I feel like I was the only one that could follow that direction, so proud of myself.  Then I had a brain fart, I got bored, I do what I do best, SPACE THE FUCK OUT.  Well on the next take, everyone in the room went silent after 8, except me.  I SCREAMED 7 and the ENTIRE CAST of the show turned and looked at me like I was the biggest fucking idiot they’d ever seen.  Jason Segel sent me a look of such disappointment it would have crippled any actor’s dream of being cast on that show.  But frankly, I thought it was hilarious, and so did the two extras next to me because they knew full well that that was the first time I’d fucked up.  I threw my hands in the air with a ginormous smile and said, “Yeah it was me!  I’m sorry!  But in my defense that was the first time I yelled it 7!”  Of course the entire time I’m saying this the 1st AD is yelling at me, the extra’s director is yelling at me, the cast is shaking their heads.  Whatever.  I went up to Jason afterwards and apologized, he was cool with it.  But the 1st AD was PISSED I didn’t apologize to him right off the bat.  Oops, I patted him on the back with a smile and said sorry.  Moral of the story is… I’m a bad extra.  Can’t quite say what they ultimately says about me, but for that moment in time – I had made my impression on How I Met Your Mother and that impression was – MORON.

Will any of those people remember me after that?  Probably not.  What does it matter anyway.  It’s only one more sign that I’m destined to be an outcast in this place.  I know that my work is solid, I enjoy what I do.  It’s only a matter of time before I make some kind of income off of my writing/performing.  But will it ever come with status and Hollywood glam?  Likely not.  I’ve got a pilot in store for you all.  If you like myroommatethe, you’re going to love what’s in store.  Think of it this way, if this was a war and entertainment was the enemy base, myroommatethe is the rocket launcher we’re using to breach the wall, and this pilot is the machine gun we’re gonna use to neutralize the enemy soldiers once we’re inside. (Now you can’t steal it Andrea, it’s on record.  The quote I mean, not the pilot.)  So keep in touch viewers, things are about to get awesome.

Off to work, photographing rich people.  See you on Monday night when we release ‘my roommate the Time Traveler part 2′!!!

Here’s pics from the premiere party!

It’s been an exhausting process, but we’re nearing the end of our three episode production and plan to release them all back to (relative) back this month, with Time Traveler acting as our season 1 finale.  Last night we finished filming my roommate the youtuber, guest starring Youtube’s own Will of DC (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0M2jQ_-42A) as…you guessed it… the youtuber. I made an appearance too in case you were wondering.  As MYSELF.  I’m not going to give away too much but it was probably my most difficult role to date.  Do you really need to ask why?

Asking me to say a line the way I would say it is like playing Russian Roulette with blanks.  Or with each chamber full.  So unless you want to count my overwhelming insecurities about being a blank and boring person, which shouldn’t count, self identity hurts my brain.  For instance, I loathe the statement “be yourself”.  Talk about killing the first impression.  If we all behaved the way we wanted, there’d be no courtesy.  It’s called self censorship, and the idealists have that shit hypno-tatted to the back of their temporal lobes (which is why I don’t trust them, shhhh).

Per wikipedia, the self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness.  You walk into a room, you’re gonna behave based on a)the mood, b)the demographic, and c)your own mood which totally depends on another a-z that I don’t care to go into.  As an actor, we’re told to fill in as many of these details as we can to give our character realistic qualities.  So what the fuck am I supposed to do with “be yourself”.  I have a headache, is that the person I’m talking to’s fault?  No.  So I’m going to smile and be kind to them so as to spare them of the pain that might actually go away if that’s what I talked about when they asked me how I’m doing.  No, conversation, especially with strangers, is very SAFE, and boring, but necessarily safe.  ”iHola, coma esta!  Bien, gracias, y tu?”  It’s a dance, and the more you try to jive up that dance so you can feel like an individual, the more you distort the natural process of actually being seen as an individual rather than an ego driven bore.

Wait, that’s kinda what I just did.  Damn it.  Can’t even defend my point.  So that’ll have to be the point.  Be yourself. Pysch – literally.

Tomorrow we’re shooting green screen pick-up shots to add people to our future crowd from the desert.  You know, the crowd of people I lazily tried to round up two weeks ago?  Yeah, well our graphics specialist Mike Manning brought forward the magic of Hollywood to help multiply those people to give us a giant crowd.  Tomorrow we’re having actors come by to give us more people to multiply so it doesn’t look like there’s just clones of the seven people we had on location.  If you’re in the area of LA tomorrow around 1pm, and you’re not a psychopath (If you are I’d be careful, I eat psychopaths.  It’s a disease, I’m working on it.) , shoot me an email byrneowens@gmail.com and I’ll send you further details.  It’s not a speaking role, though.  So if you’re a diva, fuck off.

Here’s some juicy teaser photos from our two most recent shoots.  Love you.

Happy New Year!

Today’s comment codeword is FLUX.  Put that before your comment so I know you’re a real person.

Lu is in Haiti for two weeks.  As soon as Lu returns we’ll be back into shooting the rest of my roommate the Time Traveler.  If I haven’t said it before, this episode will be our most ambitious one yet, making it both very challenging and exciting as hell.  But then again, I was saying the same thing back when I was shooting Hippie so take it with a grain of salt.  On January 18th we’ll be driving out to the desert to shoot a scene in which Lu time travels too far forward and encounters a civilization that’s based their entire religion and existence on his arrival (sans his roommate writing to him from the past..).  I have a small cast of actors that will be playing the forefront of the civilization’s ambassadors but I want LOTS of people to be there.  I thought before I do a traditional casting call I’d shout out to all the fans who might want to be apart of this, considering this episode will be the finale to our first a season and celebratory cap to everyone that’s ever supported us and cheered for us along the way.

I’ll be posting a video with more details as soon as I have a location locked down but I’ll get the ball rolling in here first.  If any of you live in LA, OC, SD, SB, or even SF, I strongly urge you clear your schedule on Tuesday January 18th to join us in the desert (likely somewhere 2 hours outside of LA) to be apart of this monumental scene.  What I’d like to do (and I haven’t cleared this with Lu yet so I won’t make it official) is send all the episode’s earnings to Lu’s family’s school in Haiti, which was heavily damaged during the earthquake last year.  See   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgNK__MFhIk to learn more.  If it’s not enough that you’ll be helping to make the best my roommate episode EVER, then know that it’s for a good cause.  Even though, all these episodes are for a good cause because once Lu and I are famous we’re gonna do all kinds of crazy good shit for this world.  Believe that.  But in terms of this particular episode, the more people who show up, the more views we’ll get, and the higher the likelihood this episode will qualify for Youtube’s adsense.  So bring on the people, bring on the views, and let’s give the internet a webisode unlike any webisode they’ve ever seen!

cue orchestra