Molly Erdman

Brass Tacks: Taxing Taxes. Ack!

Saturday February 20, 2010

Well I’m putting off doing my taxes, so I’ve decided to make risotto. Not even risotto for me, but for some friends of mine who recently had a baby. Even better from a procrastination standpoint, I need to go shopping for some ingredients. On a Saturday, when the store will be packed. See you next weekend, taxes!

I’ve been cooking a lot recently, and trying to learn new dishes that incorporate lots of vegetables. Last night I made a pretty stunning roasted vegetable pizza with broccoli, asparagus, and tomatoes. I made the sauce and everything! And I’ve discovered that I love – wait for it – brussels sprouts. Well, I love them aside from how they make my kitchen, and therefore entire apartment, smell.

And should Operation Risotto not be enough to keep the taxes away, I’ve had my SAG screener of Precious sitting in my DVD player for about 2 weeks now. I know it’s great and I should see it, but I can’t bring myself to do it. But this might be just the motivation I need. In the meantime though, I’m happily watching TLC’s “What Not To Wear,” which features actual people saying actual things like “If you want to participate in a ruffle trend…”

Happy weekend!

• Permlink
• Comment [1]

InfoMania

Friday February 12, 2010

Hi folks! For the past 2 weeks I’ve been doing some freelance work for the show InfoMania on Current TV. Check out a piece I wrote that appeared on last night’s show!

http://current.com/items/92121364_this-channel-could-save-your-life.htm

Also, apologies that my last two posts had no subject line and therefore wouldn’t allow people to comment on them. From now on if nothing springs to mind for a title, I’ll put alarming non-sequiturs like “My Terrible Accident” or “3 Plastic Surgeries in One Day!”

• Permlink
• Comment [1]

Saturday January 23, 2010

Occasionally people ask me where my old Sonic spots can be found. Unfortunately, I can’t offer much assistance there. Some of them made their way onto YouTube, but the ad agency does/did a pretty good job of taking them down because it’s a SAG job and not intended for internet use. But that’s about the only way I know of to find those old spots. So for now they’ll simply have to exist in the ether as fond memories.

It’s been a busy time for auditions here in LA; I’ve gone out for everything from a 38-year-old pregnant woman to a 20-something woman with a “good personality.” It’s really good for the ego, you know?

• Permlink
• Comment

Sunday January 17, 2010

Are you going to watch the Golden Globes tonight? I am. It’s one of very few awards shows that is actually shown live on the west coast; the Oscars and Emmys are pre-recorded, which is pretty ridiculous since they are TAKING PLACE HERE. Anyway, I’m a sucker for awards shows and I think Ricky Gervais will be a fun host.

A great thing about awards season is that SAG members get screeners of films in the mail so that we can make educated choices when filling out our SAG Awards ballot. Last year, with a pending strike and generally lean times, I think I only got one actual DVD screener along with several free passed to go see the movies in theatres. For some reason I was expecting the same thing this year so I sent in my ballot pretty much right after I got it. But then the screeners started trickling in, and I admit if I’d waited I would have voted differently. I watched Inglorious Basterds and really enjoyed it! I didn’t expect to dislike it, but I never imagined I’d like it as much as I did. This week I’m planning to watch Precious and An Education. Between getting these screeners and finding a nearby movie theatre that allows free admission with a SAG card, it’s really worth the exorbitant amount in dues I paid this year! Thanks SAG! (If you’re wondering if that’s supposed to sound sarcastic, I’m honestly not sure.)

Happy Awards watching!

• Permlink
• Comment

Events of 2009: Part II

Saturday January 2, 2010

Happy New Year! So it’s 2010, which I consider to be officially The Future. It’s happening!

What else happened in 2009? I co-wrote, produced, and performed in an original one-act musical with my improv group Catnip, which we performed just before Christmas at the Comedy Central Stage here in LA. In attendance was Madeline Smithberg, creator of The Daily Show and Current’s Infomania. She even went out with us for drinks afterwards, and after discovering that we’re neighbors I ended up giving her a ride home. That’s ride, the creator of The Daily Show has graced my Ford Focus.

2009, I believe I can now officially say, also marked the end of my career with Sonic. It was 5 years ago (!) this week that Brian and I shot our first Sweetheart Blast spot in Phoenix. (Shortly after that, I started work for Second City aboard the Norwegian Dawn, giving birth to this blog in the first place.) This time last year is when I found out that Brian would no longer be my minivan-mate, and the rest is history I suppose. So sometime in the coming weeks I imagine I will be sent out on my first fast-food commercial audition in over 5 years…bring it on.

I want to thank everyone for their kind words regarding Sonic and this blog in general. I know I’m not the most consistent blogger out there, but it’s remarkable that what started as a way for me to communicate with family and friends while I was out at sea has lived on for 5 years and hopefully will continue – I would say continue into the future, but we’re already there.

• Permlink
• Comment

Events of 2009: Part I

Tuesday December 29, 2009

Merry Christmas! I’m battling some insomnia at the moment, so I figured now is a good time to catch up on various Erdmania topics. I’ll begin where I left off, with the Second City 50th Anniversary.

The trip began with a flight on what became known (even before it took off) as the “Party Plane,” a Southwest flight chartered for folks traveling from LA to Chicago for the event. The first official Second City alum/celebrity I met was on the shuttle from the parking lot at LAX to the gate: Danny Breen, formerly of my first exposure to news parody, HBO’s “Not Necessarily The News.” The show’s primary claim to fame is probably that it was the birthplace of Sniglets.

The flight itself was certainly the most…energetic flight I’ve been on. Kind of like the bus en route to an 8th grade field trip. Upon our arrival at Midway in Chicago, the plane went into a hangar where we were greeted by SC owner Andrew Alexander, Producer Emeritus and everyone’s grandmother Joyce Sloane, and assorted other SC brass. In addition, people from the mayor & governor’s office were there, as well as a lot of press and some Southwest ground crew, all of whom watched eagerly as we got off the plane, looking for some big names – Steve Carrell, maybe? Tina Fey? Bill Murray? Nope. But people did recognize Nia Vardalos (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) and Neil Flynn (“Scrubs” and “The Middle”, so hopefully that was enough to satisfy them and justify the hubbub and flowing champagne.

That night (Friday) was the SCTV reunion show. This was an expensive ticket, so alums were invited to watch the shows on huge screens in the brand spankin’ new and surprisingly impressive training center. The training center was sort of Party Central all weekend – there was constant food, open bars, and rarely more that a foot of space around you at any point. My group was lucky enough to find a seat at a table for the viewing, and even though we were watching it on TV, the second the cast came out it was really exciting. We knew that these folks, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty, and Harold Ramis (filling in some parts for the absent Rick Moranis and the late John Candy), were all just a floor below us, reuniting for the first time in ages, and they were KILLING! I imaagined some rusty old-timers struggling through old sketches, trying to remember lines, cracking up constantly. Instead, it was a pretty flawless show. They still had it. No matter how much the face of comedy has changed in the past 30 years, you just can’t argue against funny material and impeccable timing. And that’s what they have. It was inspiring. For me, watching Catherine O’Hara was especially encouraging; she doesn’t do big wacky characters, and a lot of time she’s the voice of reason in scenes – a role I found myself in a lot at Second City – but she still pulls huge laughs. In general, my biggest, happiest lesson of the weekend was that subtlety and intelligence can still make people laugh, even living in the era of “hit ‘em in the nuts” comedy.

The next day, Saturday, started with a tech rehearsal for that night’s alumni show. There were two alumni shows that night: at 7pm the show was open to the public (tickets were $125) and the 11pm show was for alums only (basically us performing for ourselves). The 7pm show was a lot of 70’s & 80’s alums, but I was fortunate enough to get to perform in this show with my old castmate Brian Gallivan, doing our scene “Killer” from our last show (the one where I’m Hillary Clinton trying to get rid of Obama). We were the youngest alums performing in that show, and it was a real honor. Other people in our group (we did our scenes in the ETC stage and then went over to Mainstage and did the whole thing over again there) included Dan Castellaneta, Richard Kind, Bonnie Hunt, Jeff Garlin, Shelley Berman, David Steinberg, Isabella Hoffman, Mike Haggerty, Nia Vardolos, Ian Gomez, Neil Flynn, Brian Stack, Miriam Tolan, Fred Willard, Rachel Dratch, Scott Adsit, Jenna Jolovitz, Kevin Dorff, Horatio Sanz, Jack McBrayer…the list goes on. It was overwhelming and amazing. Brian and I were very nervous, but once we did our scene we were given really nice compliments from the other alums. It was a true thrill.

While we were doing our show another group was doing an alum show on the other stage (we switched stages so the audiences got to see all the same scenes regardless of whether they were in Mainstage or ETC). After I finished my scene the second time, I snuck over to the other stage to try to catch some of the other show. I entered in the dark between scenes. When the lights came up, standing on stage were Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert, reprising their scene “Maya.” As soon as the audience saw them, they were on their feet. The applause lasted at least a full minute. I got a little emotional at that point because not only was it incredibly exciting for 2 of TV’s biggest stars to be standing right there, in this intimate theatre doing a scene from nearly 20 years ago, but also I realized that these two particular stars were not alums that immediately went from Mainstage to stardom. They put in a lot of time and work to get to the point where they were arguably the two biggest draws at this event. It’s always encouraging to encounter success stories that were many years in the making, because in this business it’s easy to feel that if you don’t attain success by a certain age, it’s just not going to happen.

I could go on for another day or so about this weekend, but these were the high points. Overall, I give Second City a lot of credit for pulling off an incredible event. I think all the alums went in thinking it could very well be a disaster, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing. It was the weekend of a lifetime, a collection of comedic talent that will most likely never be under one roof again. I couldn’t be more proud to have been a part of it.

• Permlink
• Comment [1]

The Second City turns 50

Monday December 7, 2009

As you may know, this weekend is the 50th anniversary of The Second City. I will be traveling to Chicago aboard a plane that Andrew Alexander has generously chartered from LA to Chicago this Friday. Those of us on this flight have oh-so-creatively dubbed it the “Party Plane,” but that’s primarily because it’s a Southwest flight and all those planes are party planes, am I right? Whoo!

The festivities are as follows:

Friday night: SCTV reunion shows at 7 & 10 on the mainstage. Alums are “invited” to watch on closed-circuit TV from elsewhere in Second City. This will either be insultingly lame or incredibly fun, mainly depending on if refreshments are provided.

Saturday: panel discussions, including The Colbert Report, SNL, Sitcom folks, etc. I’m not going to any of these, but they’ll probably be fun.

Saturday night: Alumni shows. The 7pm show is open to the public (and by that I mean tickets were on sale for $125 and sold out within minutes) and will feature alums doing scenes they did back in the day. I’m lucky enough to get to perform in this show; co-alum Brian Gallivan and I are reprising our scene “Killer” from “Between Barack and a Hard Place,” in which I play a pre-Obama-getting-the-Democratic-nomination Hillary Clinton, trying to get rid of Obama.

The 10pm alumni show is a bit looser and will be by alums, for alums. As in, we’re all going to sit around and watch people try to remember the words to a song they sang 11 years ago. I will be performing the song “Less Offensive” (about gay marriage) from the show “War! Now In Its 4th Smash Year!” By the title, you should be able to figure out how old that show is.

Sunday morning: some kind of brunch.

And that’s the rundown. I haven’t been back to Chicago since August, which is the longest I’ve been away from there since 1996. So it’ll be a fun trip, despite it being December.

I’m going to try, TRY, to keep folks updated via Twitter on the various goings-on, so if you want to check it out I’m on twitter as erdmanmolly.

• Permlink
• Comment

Happy Halloween, neighbor!

Monday November 2, 2009

Halloween. A holiday that I’ve come to equate with stress and procrastination. Every year when Halloween candy starts appearing in grocery store aisles (June), I think, “This Halloween is going to be different. I’m going to think of a great costume and start working on it now.” Cut to Oct. 29 and I’m wandering various thrift stores and wondering “Would people know I’m Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company if I wear this dress?”

This year, around the beginning of October I started really giving my costume some thought. I had 2 major guidelines: comfortable and cheap. I have a bunch of odd flea market articles of clothing that I figured I could put together into something, but who would I be? I thought, “If anyone asks who I am, I’ll just say I’m a woman who dresses like this” (“this” being a polyester halter dress with pearls and fur in the fabric pattern plus an enormous faux fur jacket). Sounded ok, but I wanted a backup plan. So the day before Halloween (and the night of my first of two parties to attend) I headed to a strip of thrift shops in Burbank, including “That’s a Wrap,” which features used clothes from TV and movie sets. There I purchased a $3 windbreaker that said “Event Staff” on the back and figured I could roll with that.

And then at home that evening getting ready for the party, I became unsatisfied with my options. The flea-market clothes were funny but uncomfortable and the Event Staff person was androgynous and boring. So I looked in the closet in the back bedroom where I keep fancy dresses and things I never wear, and what did I see but a comfortable, warm, soft bathrobe. I put that on, happily noticing the ample pockets that would allow me to leave the purse at home, added some slippers, messed up my hair, and carried a large coffee mug. And there I was, this year’s costume, “Your Neighbor In The Morning.”

I wore this costume to parties on Friday and Saturday night, greeting people by saying “Morning, neighbor” and occasionally talking about the neighborhood watch program and how some young punk was stealing my newspaper every morning. My friends, dressed in various combinations of corsets, wigs, face paint, furry paws, and high heels looked at me enviously and, I have to think, were taking a mental picture and saying to themselves, “Next year. Next year.”

• Permlink
• Comment [1]

Thursday October 29, 2009

Dear toddlers in the apartment above me who spend their entire day running on their hardwood floors,

Someday in the future, I will be the old woman who lives in your apartment building and listens to her TV very, very loudly.

Sincerely,
Waiting For Revenge

• Permlink
• Comment

Snoozies

Saturday October 17, 2009

Los Angeles got its first rain in 4 or 5 months this past week, and usual, judging from the local news you would think the apocalypse was coming. But somehow LA has survived and we’re in the midst of a 90-degree heat wave.

I know I’ve mentioned it before, but LA’s local news is laughably terrible. Cheap looking studios, horrible banter even by local-news-banter-standards, and absolutely no focus on national or international events. And how better to demonstrate this point than by recounting the following news-watching incident from earlier this year.

Top Story: A bear is sighted in the foothills of LA. We see interviews with residents of the bear area, each one with their name appearing on the screen below them and the caption “Saw Bear.” Each one told us amazing tales like, “Well, the bear came into our yard, took a drink from our pool, and then wandered away.” After 4 or 5 such harrowing eyewitness accounts, we are informed that “Bear sightings are a common occurrence in this area.”

Second Story: A house fire in some far outstretch of the city. No one was injured.

Third Story: General Motors declares bankruptcy.

Ta-da!

• Permlink
• Comment