Well...

i told you about the audition, so it's only right that i tell you about the callback.

monday was james "blood" ulmer's birthday. he thought i forgot. why, i have no idea. i didn't know what to get him because in a way, he already has everything. if i had a jillion dollars and if i could get him anything in the whole wide world, i'd get him a cool guitar. but he loves that big black ivory trimmed hollow-bodied thing that he already has so much, he'd probably never play it. he'd just point at it when anyone came over and say, look what "b" gave me! (that's what he calls me all the time. i have no idea why.)

i came over to his house bearing long stemmed fresh cut flowers and black grapes and hung out all afternoon. i got them from chinatown after lunch with a friend. chinese new year is wednesday and everything is even more abuzz with activity down there than usual. just walking through it sparked something in me. i wanted to get blood a little cake or something special but there's so much that he can't eat, just like my daddy. oh, well. birthday grapes would have to do.

it took awhile to find something to put the flowers in. we finally decided to use these high long carved ceremonial looking wine goblets made of wood. next week, i'm going to come over with my baby taylor (which he'll think is cute, i bet) and have him give me a guitar lesson. he says he won't teach me "no do-ray-me shit." he wants me to tune the guitar to A and keep it there, and play to make this singular sound. i wonder what he'll show me?

from there i went to the callback. same location--in the 30's, all the way on the west side. this time, there were people milling about. as i walked in, i saw a sign for "RENT" to my left--they're probably casting for the movie version of the musical. (yeesh.) i veered to the right and in short order, i was polaroided by a perky assistant and sitting there with two other black women, going over the same four lines that i said last week. one of them was pretty mum, the other was pretty friendly. small talk. very small. over my shoulder, i saw a few white guys and realized that we were all in clusters and they must have been auditioning for the same part. there really weren't that many people there. the casting agent was about 20 minutes off. just enough time to nail my lines.

i didn't wear any makeup because i thought it would make me look older but before i went in, i looked at my polaroid to see what they'd see. sure enough--i looked late twenty-something, at best. i sighed, secretly pleased but slightly concerned. clearly, sticking to my exfoliating regime coupled with all of those weekly NARS mud packs have been doing me a world of good but this mom part is mid to late 30's. my skin was glowing, for crying out loud. i looked peachy.

the next thing i knew, i was in another area right next to the room i was to enter. there were two people in front of me: the black woman who wasn't chatty and a waspy looking white guy. she went in and then there was screaming and stuff and me and the white guy both looked at each other at the same time. we were probably making the same face. the "crying on cue" face. (yeesh.)

finally i was in the room. and yep, there was a camera. both scott rudin and joe roth stood up and introduced themselves to me at the same time which made a funny and pleasant exchange and broke the ice for me because it made them regular guys. we talked for a few minutes. we talked about the music i do. scott was the one who knew who blood was. joe was the one who had been to the low country. i remember doing it three times and readjusting as he instructed. and then it was over as abrubtly as it began.

i did fish all of the mary janes out of the candy dish that was on a big desk as i made my exit. i thought i would shove them into my bag to find them there all week at random, when i needed a pick-me-up.