Today’s soundtrack: each and every day of the year
Today at 2:02pm: filling the meter.



I left the house early, before noon, but after driving over the Williamsburg I realized I’d forgotten to bring the goddamn address of the meeting. People joke about being late to their own funeral but I’m the guy who’ll take the cake, regardless of whether I’m warmer than room temperature.

I remembered the e-mail saying it was across the street from P.S.1. (an art gallery in Long Island City) so I drove to Queens on autopilot and wound up on the right street, but once I got there I had no idea where to go.

After parking the car I was faced with a series of run-down industrial buildings covered in graffiti. A few cracked windows revealed what looked to be artist’s lofts within, judging by the paintbrushes sticking out of a jar by the window and what looked like splattered canvases on the far walls.

I randomly picked a building and entered. The front door was neither secured nor locked. In New York City, an unlocked door is still a relative novelty to me, like a taxi without dents or a chalk outline without the bloodstain. Gotta love artists.


The stairwells were covered in grafitti, but not the doom-portending, desperate grafitti of an actual slum; these were polished burners, the kind that make it into those coffee-table books that first-year art students from Connecticut will eagerly spend their parents’ money on.

I went up a few flights and randomly pulled some doors open, but each led into what appeared to be abandoned (though brightly sunlit) studio spaces. Hearing my empty footsteps echo through the dusty rays of sunlight made me feel I was in one of those virus movies where everybody else is dead. If I had a pizza with me I would’ve eaten it and thrown the crust on the floor just because I could.

After three flights of blank rooms I reached the roof and was surprised to find the door tied open. I stepped out onto the tar, shaded my eyes against the sun and took in the impressive views: On the west side was Manhattan stretched lengthwise, and on the east, what appeared to be a factory complex converted into artist’s lofts, judging by the abundance of yet more polished grafitti. I took a couple flicks and went back downstairs.


Eventually I found the place; it was the third industrial loft building on the block. Today’s production meeting--my first ever “production meeting”--was located in a painter named Kyu-Nam’s studio on the second floor.


[Rain, you idiot, you forgot to mention what the meeting was for. Way to go. Way to write an incomprehensible blog entry.]
Oh yeah, sorry. So remember that reading I did a few weeks ago on the Bowery? No? Well anyways, after the reading a woman approached me, said she liked my “act,” introduced herself as a director and asked if I’d be interested in being in her project. I said yes before I knew what it was. So here’s what it is:

Back in the day in Korea, they had silent movies like everyone else. But rather than add subtitles, they had a live person, a sort of barker, stand next to the screen while the movie was playing and actually voice the dialogue.

These barkers, called byun-sa, also narrated the movie and added their own wise-ass commentary, a la Mystery Science Theater 2000. The barkers became celebrities in their own right; moviegoers developed favorites and would only want to see movies narrated by their preferred barker.

So Director Woman is reviving the format. She got a hold of some old-ass Korean flicks and is putting together a show at a nightclub on the Lower East Side--silent movies projected on-screen and narrated by live, loudmouthed Asian-Americans like me. Guess who got the part of Head Barker.

A couple e-mails later I receive instructions and directions to our first production meeting, out at a painter’s studio in Queens.


The walls of Kyu-Nam’s studio were covered with paintings that looked like this:

I think the style is called “Deconstructivism.” Each painting at first appeared to be an indecipherable collection of disjointed pixels, but after staring for a moment, I was surprised to see city scenes staring back at me. The Hong Kong skyline. A Venetian canal. What looked like Lexington Avenue, up by Hunter College, during rush hour.

JuYoung, the director, and production assistant Su-Hui sat on a well-worn couch, along with Kyu-Nam, a likable, grizzled painter in his 40s or 50s. A coffee table was covered with thick books on art theory, the type that require a working knowledge of French philosophy to get through. (I went to art school, I know the deal.) I sat down and tried to make myself comfortable while JuYoung and Su-Hui went over my resume.


Presently a distinct-looking Chinese-American guy named Jackson walked in. Apparently he’d been cast as another barker (there are three, total, in this production). I can’t quite describe his face, but it’s the kind of face you don’t forget. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, and we introduced ourselves.

“I really, really want to do this project,” Jackson explained, “but I’m waiting on a callback from The Sopranos. Obviously if I get that, I won’t really have the time to dedicate to this.”

“I understand,” said JuYoung.


A few moments later a no-nonsense young woman with glasses walked in, barker number three. I recognized her from a reading we’d done together a few months back. “Tina,” I said.

“Rain,” she said. Small world.


Out of the three of us, I’m the only non-actor. Tina and Jackson apparently auditioned for this. They have headshots and acting experience and one of them went to drama school at Yale. Me, I’m just some schmuck who got through his twenties by being in the right place at the close-to-right time. My acting experience consists mostly of telling my boss I won’t be able to finish the project until next Tuesday.

I’m not sure how I keep winding up in these performance-based projects. Between this and Wendy’s upcoming short, I’ll be working with scripts a hell of a lot for a guy who’s never studied drama or said “What’s my motivation?”

Never said it out loud, anyway.


I am a sham and a fraud. And somehow, despite this, I feel okay with things.


The performance is going to happen in late October, on Halloween weekend. I’ll keep you posted in case you’re in town and decide not to dress up like Cyclops and terrorize the neighborhood kids this year.