{"id":2369,"date":"2014-12-18T00:07:56","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T06:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/?p=2369"},"modified":"2014-12-18T00:07:56","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T06:07:56","slug":"mike-bobbitt-fear-and-loathing-in-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/?p=2369","title":{"rendered":"Mike Bobbitt, Fear and Loathing in LA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ladies and gentleman, we are proud to welcome Mike Bobbitt to the A.L. front lines.\u00a0 Mike is a comedian from Detroit who recently moved to L.A. to cross swords, and make his bones as a gen-you-wine Hollywood writer.\u00a0 Mike is a good egg, and he’s going to be on here rattling off his trials and tribulations and spouting off about whatever is on his mind.\u00a0 Have at it Mike!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"8x10_portrait\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if this bugs other creative types as much as it does me, but I hate it when someone else claims my title as their own. I\u2019m a comedian. I worked hard to be a comedian. I make my living telling jokes. I\u2019ve performed in front of almost 2000 audiences. I\u2019ve sacrificed an entire life for comedy. I\u2019m a comedian. An attention starved lunatic at an open mic show can also claim the title of comedian. That bugs me. I don\u2019t know why, but it does.<\/span><\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t happen in the medical profession. If you tell people you\u2019re a heart surgeon, chances are you\u2019re actually a heart surgeon. There isn\u2019t some weirdo in an alley somewhere cutting open stray cats, calling himself a heart surgeon. At least I hope not. If you know that guy, seriously, call the police and more importantly, don\u2019t let him operate on you. He\u2019s not a heart surgeon.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wonder if that happens to Douglas at conventions. Some greasy guy with a crudely drawn sketch book comes up to him and says, \u201cHey man, I\u2019m an artist, just like you!\u201d And if that does happen, does it bother him or is that part of the convention circuit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now I want to be able to say that I\u2019m a writer. I sold a script to a web series. It didn\u2019t turn out like I wrote. It\u2019s a collaborative art. I get it. I\u2019m not proud of it, but I accept that it is what it is. I, more or less, gave up the life of a comedian to move to Los Angeles and be a writer. How\u2019s it going? In a couple weeks, I\u2019ll be fighting the Midwestern snow to tell jokes again. I really want to be a writer. I\u2019m not yet. Despite selling that one script, I don\u2019t feel like a writer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since moving here earlier this year I\u2019ve made most of my money acting. I\u2019m not an actor. I haven\u2019t studied acting. I don\u2019t take it seriously. I understand the process of auditions. Auditions are made up of three variables. Did you show up on time? Were you prepared to say whatever words they wanted you to say? Do you look like what they imagine the character looks like? You can really only control two of those things. I show up early and have my lines memorized. I can\u2019t really control how I look. This is it. There\u2019s no pressure for me and maybe because of that, I land about half the roles I audition for. Maybe I am an actor? I don\u2019t feel like one. Acting is a craft, albeit a silly one! I\u2019m a guy who is passable at pretending. I have imagined winning an Oscar and having my acceptance speech be, \u201cWell, I think this proves that this thing is pretty much worthless!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s the humility I want the attention starved lunatics at the open mic shows to have. You\u2019re not a comedian. You\u2019re a person who gets up on stage and says words into a microphone.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can draw fairly well. I\u2019m not a cartoonist. I\u2019m not an illustrator. I\u2019m not an artist. I\u2019m a guy who can draw fairly well. My favorite articles that Douglas writes are the ones where he breaks down the design of covers and pages. I love the attention to movement on a page. I think, like playing an instrument, that\u2019s a skill you have to be born with. It\u2019s hard to articulate, but he does a good job.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to contribute some articles on here with the intention of focusing on the craft of writing both scripts and for the stage. I hope I do a good job of articulating that too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Keep track of Mike on twitter<\/a> or at his own site www.offthemike.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ladies and gentleman, we are proud to welcome Mike Bobbitt to the A.L. front lines.\u00a0 Mike is a comedian from Detroit who recently moved to L.A. to cross swords, and make his bones as a gen-you-wine Hollywood writer.\u00a0 Mike is a good egg, and he’s going to be on here\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arseniclullabies.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}