Chapter 7: LA part 2 – Slower Pace

Recording date:

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Tuesday evening 15th July 2003.
Later in the day after finishing the scene for 21 Grams.

I will attend my acting class again tonight after having been gone for three weeks. It will be good to get back into the class again after having had this period away focusing on my spiritual life. It is usually something I do every summer, pull back into the core being of who I am to look at my own spirit and where I am from.

Acting class

I was about an half an hour late for class. Most often before I attend anything, I mentally check in to see if they have started. This time I felt confused, as if something was blocking me from checking in. When I am a part of a gathering I am most often able to check in to see what is going on before I physically arrive and find out first hand. I have done this many times before with attending class at Augsburg the college I attended before coming to LA, so I can mentally notice when class begins and how late I actually am. This time it did not work, as if I was not a part of the group any longer. I did not know at that moment how close to the truth I was.

I arrived and went inside. There were only three people in class tonight, and one of them I did not know. He had started class during the time I was gone. I do not know if others have quit class or if they were just away that evening. As I came into class I felt separate from the group, as if I had quit and had come back for a short visit. Jules the instructor began talking to me about my lack of dedication in how I suddenly just disappeared from class. I told her that I every summer pull away like this to attend my own spirituality, placing my normal life aside. It also meant placing my acting aside. She continued on about if I was fully dedicated that I would not leave for any reason, and she told me that she had not seen her parents in a very very long time. I heard what she said but did not fully grasp the meaning of what she was trying to share with me. But as she continued I began to feel the weight of her words sink in. I realized that I had lost some of my dedication to acting a while ago, and had also partly lost some of my focus. In ways I felt lost similar to so many other actors in Los Angeles who begin to focus elsewhere and forget the main reason why they came to Los Angeles in the first place. I sat down depressed. Jules told me that she only wanted dedicated actors in this class and if I could not be dedicated I had to go. The others had partly sat around during Jules dedication to acting talk, and it was now time for them to begin the class.

I sat and watched for a little while before I left to go to the bathroom. I knew I could not go back in again before class was over with, as I knew I could not continue class. I had to refind myself, not only my dedication to acting, but to life. Suddenly I understood why God had lead me to a role of a blurry shadow being firing a gun into the camera. It was like a warning to myself that it was time to refind myself and become clear again in who I am. It was as if the shadow being wanted to step into the light and become truly alive, letting go of all the darkness he held. Letting go of darkness is taking away the illusion of having a safety net, to realize that life is not safe that I have to take chances all the time. To let go of fear of falling flat on my face. I have heard so many times “have a safe journey,” “drive safely,” but safe does not exist for me, for life is not safe. Death is safe, life will never be safe. I need to take away my own illusion of being safe so that I can really be alive. Going deep into who I am to find the areas of myself that I put aside a long time ago, areas that I defined as “not safe.”

It turned into one of the most depressing evenings I have had for a very long time. I drove home and watched the movie Minority Report, knowing well that I want to become an actor. Knowing also that there are issues in myself from when I was young that I need to face. The issue of being psychic which I am to certain degree. I know that there are senses in myself that I have put aside that I need to rediscover in myself again. I knew that I was in ways like the “Precog” in Minority Report that can see things that have not happened yet with an opening to the psychic realm of knowing.

Christine my room mate came home at the end of the movie so we spoke for a while about things in her life and in mine. It was closer to 4am before we both found our beds and went to sleep.

Wednesday 16 July 2003

I woke up in the same depressing mood as I went to bed with, and as I was thinking about dreams during the night while eating cereal one dream came to mind. I saw old friends from Norway and saw that they had families and had moved onward in their life, while I saw myself stuck in the same place I had been for a very long time. I had not moved onward, and I felt a sadness that I was stuck, almost jealous that they had moved forward in life. It became a day of resting.

Later in the day I received a call from John Robert Powers Entertainment division. Lenora invited me to an audition for commercials and sitcoms tomorrow night at 7 pm at their office close to where I attended the spiritual conference a few weeks ago. She said that they had met me on the Starsky & Hutch film set a few weeks ago. I can remember that I left my business card with the 2AD (assistant director), so I am guessing that they got my cell phone number from him. We will see what is to be.  

In the evening I drove the few minutes to the beach and went for a swim. It is the first time I have gone for a dip in the ocean as I other times have just walked on the beach, so it felt great to finally take the plunge. I also felt I took another plunge later that night, as I realized that life has no safety net, that one has to go full onward in life without holding back. I kept repeating for myself before I fell a sleep “there is no safety net,” “there is no safety net.”

Thursday 17th of July 2003.

Life is raw, and not polished.  
I had about one and a half hour to get to John Robert Powers Entertainment office in Sherman Oaks. To get there I had to leave at 5.30 pm and go north on the 405 freeway in the middle of rush hour traffic. It was slow going and I thought I would have time to drop by some place close by their office for dinner, but as I got there 6.45 pm, I decided to wait with dinner until I was finished with the “audition.” I came in and filled out a form about interests etc and waited. At 7 pm they took the small group mostly very young kids over to the office next door where they had a big room. In the corner they showed a 2 minute video of some of the people who have gone through JRP, and afterward various people were to talk with the Executive Director a guy who has lived in Sweden and played soccer. After having talked with him people were supposed to read a commercial in front of a camera. Since most of the kids were really young, they did not read any commercial. I spoke with the Exe for a little while and told him that I had been in contact with JRP in Minneapolis. I gave him my headshot and ZED card and he asked me if I was satisfied with these guys meaning ISM who are listed on my ZED card. I told him that they have done nothing for me in regards to getting me jobs, so he asked me if I had an agent in which I replied no. So he got out his business card and wrote on the back the agency he is with. DDO – Agency. He told me that he did not have their phone number in front of him, but that it was back in his office, so that I could call back tomorrow and get the number from him. It seems I went to John Robert Powers to get a number to an agency. I will find out where it leads me.  

I left and decided to walk on over next doors to the Buddha Lounge a more upscale dinner restaurant. I asked for a table by the window, and sat down an looked over the menu, and noticed the salmon, which I ordered.   As I sat there I became more exhausted as if the people around me were sucking the energy out of me, so I began to visualize God’s light coming into the place and the people around me. As I visualize light I begin to feel energy move through my body in the same way as when I do energy healing on people. It is about how I focus my attention. A little while later the waitress came over and asked me if I wanted to join the four women sitting behind me. I said yes and got up and brought my coat and backpack along over to their table, and said yes I would like to join you. The one blond girl got very embarrassed as I found out later that she had suggested for the other girls that I join them, but I am sure that it was not her that asked the waitress if I wanted to join them. It was probably the group in general that asked the waitress. So I joined the four married women in their middle 30’s to beginning 50’s for dinner. It was pleasant being around them and joining their conversation.