Last night was an awesome night. "Everybody Wants to Be Italian," a movie I did like a year and a half ago screened at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood to close out the San Gennaro Festival. I had already seen the movie at the Cast & Crew, and it's awesome, but last night was different...There was going to be a red carpet.

This concept excited and awed me. I've seen footage of movie premieres for years, but seeing myself on it, well, it was weird. It's kind of like the first time I stepped into Red Square. I knew it existed, but I never really stopped to think about standing in it. I think about the acting and the writing aspect of the biz; not "the glamor."

Having no experience in this field, I turned to my friend Ezra Buzzington, who's been in a bunch of movies and on a bunch of red carpets. He gave me the very sage advice to look for the guy with the clipboard at the end of the red carpet and give them my name.

Knowledge is power.

I got to the theater to find Brian waiting for us. Everytime I tried to get on the red carpet, a huge group would get in front of me, so I would just walk back to Brian and my roommate and just procrastinate. Finally, the producer walked by and asked if I had gotten my picture taken yet. I told her I was just on my way to do so, and I sucked it up and approached clip board guy.

I don't know why I was nervous. I guess I just realized that this is kind of a big step. It's just my picture on the internet, but I'm finally part of "Hollywood."

"Hi, I'm in the movie. My name's Martin Moakler," I told clip board guy, damning the fact I didn't have a publicist.

"Your name's not on the list," he told me, matter of factly. Curses! I thought. They know I'm a fraud!

"The producer told me to come over here. I'm really in the movie. I swear!" Oh God, I felt like I was Tara Reid trying to get into Hyde.

"How do you spell your name?" He took out a pen and wrote down my name and role.

As I waited, I was watching Cerina Vincent get her picture taken. She was such a pro and looked so awesome. Then it was my turn.

I took my place and just stood there. I had actually spent some "Blue Steele" time in front of the mirror earlier in the day. As ridiculous as I felt, I thought it would be beneficial.

Yeah, I forgot "my face." I just stood there and smiled, then it faded, then I smiled again, then it faded again. No one said "cheese." People just arbitrarily snapped my picture. I was just supposed to hold my smile. Judging from the picture, they caught me in between smile and fade.

Relieved that it was over, I saw some friends of mine and went to join them. I wasn't done yet. Clip board guy grabbed me and told me that I had to talk to the camera crew.

Shit.

I walked down the rest of the red carpet. Some guy with a mic confirmed with me how to pronounce my last name, and then we talked about...

I have no idea. What transpired over the next minute is erased from my memory. I know they were trying to get soundbites, but I just talked and talked and talked, and I don't think I said anything that made sense. I made a mental note that the next time I do this think of some stuff to say so that I don't feel like a complete idiot.

It finally ended, and I was kind of in a daze. I rejoined Brian and my roommate. I didn't know what had just happened. I tried to speak but only a high pitched laugh came out of my mouth.

I was in such a daze after that. It's easy to see how people say really strange stuff. It's a surreal scenario. Later as we were sitting in my reserved seats (with my name on them!), Brian made a comment about how this was the life we've chosen.

"Yeah," I agreed, "but up until now our chosen Hollywood life has heavily been filming short films in my living room."

Sooo, after much anticipation and Brian and I trying to figure out computer stuff, the Affirmacast is finally up (that was the big announcement, btw...if you are disappointed, you'll have to wait to find the identity of the real killer). We really would like to hear what you think about the show and would appreciate any feedback. Additionally, if there's a LA-related subject you think we should address. email us and let us know.

In the meantime, add Radio Free Hollywood as a friend and click over to the podcast. each Wednesday to hear the latest!

With the news of Kiefer Sutherland getting arrested in West Hollywood this morning for drunk driving, I was reminded of an interaction I had with him one night not too long ago. It is well documented on Defamer that Kiefer frequents the bars of Los Feliz and Silver Lake.

One night, my friends and I were seated at a table on the patio of Vermont. We knew that Kiefer was there, as it's a small bar. I forget what we were talking about, but suddenly we had a guest. Kiefer stood before us and tried to light a cigarette. Obviously, he had had a couple.

He told us a joke. We smiled politely and returned to our own conversation. This did not please Jack Bauer. He leaned down and asked my friends why they didn't think his joke was funny. They ignored him.

Undaunted, Kiefer walked over to me. He was really concerned about why his joke bombed like Valencia in the season finale a couple of years ago. Clearly, he was not going to leave until he got some closure.

He leaned down and earnestly asked, "Hey, man, why do you think that wasn't funny?" People of all levels seek out my comedic guidance, I guess. "What do you think I could do to make it funnier?"

I took a deep breath and looked at him pensively. "Do you have any monkeys?" I asked him. He took it all in and thought about it a second, as he looked at a street light.

"I'll be right back," he assured me, then he ran off down Vermont Avenue. Sadly he never returned, or, tragically, he returned just moments after we went home, monkeys in tow. My friends and I just laughed it off.

One friend offered up, "I suppose that would have been more remarkable if it hadn't happened to me before." The three others of us at the table then said at the same time, "Me, too."

After a quick "jinx," each of us recollected our previous encounters with drunk Kiefer over the years, from the mid-Nineties to the present (mine was at Boardner's in the late-Nineties). The stories were very similar so the exchange had a bizarre Rashemon-type feel to it.

That's Hollywood, I guess. The guy who played a scary vampire in the first horror movie I ever saw in a theater turns out to be a party boy who wants to make sure everyone's involved in the party. Don't believe me? Just hang out at Vermont, Tangier or 4100 and see what I mean.

Something Brian and I have been working on for a long time is almost ready. Our technological impediments have been overcome and we're really excited. I would tell you what it is, but I'm a showman, and this makes for good suspense. Watch this space next week for a big announcement!

...and no, we're not adopting an African orphan.

I was walking back up Beverly toward Wilshire on my coffee run in Beverly Hills today. At Charleville, I stopped, waiting for the light to change in my favor. I'm a good citizen.

Traffic was light and some people around me looked like they were going to make a break for it and jaywalk. Three people on my side of the street and two on the other stepped into the street, attempting to do a little "urban frogger," as we used to call it in Boston...OK, maybe I just called it that...when suddenly, I heard an old woman kind of to the back and right of me speak.

"Nooooo," she said, in a judgmental, motherly tone. Shamed, all five people quickly jumped back on to the curb. The light changed, and the woman said, "Yes."

Having received permission, everyone crossed. Some even held hands with "buddies" to be extra safe.

As we crossed, I looked over at the old woman.

"Nooo...yes," she said again.

She was on her cell. She hadn't been speaking to us at all. I guess some of my fellow citygoers just look wherever they can for mothering.

I've lived out here for a while now. I even consider myself somewhat of an angeleno, having spent a third of my life out here. When home, back East, I frequenly find myself defending my chosen home, saying that it's not as bad or out there as it's portrayed on TV or in the movies. But sometimes certain L.A. stereotypes just jump out at you and you have no choice but to sit back and relish in the fact that, yes, there are reasons why the rest of the world's opinions of us exist.

While waiting for sushi for lunch in Beverly Hills today (wait, that's not the stereotype), I entertained myself while watching a five year old blonde girl loudly argue with her Latina nanny over which sushi the princess knows is better for her and thus wanted.

Ah, Los Angeles. When I was five, I agonized over whether I wanted my chicken in nugget or strip form. And of course, my nanny was a white lady I called "Mom."

Ciao.

First off, I'm typing this rather slowly as I sliced my finger open yesterday on a yogurt lid. That has to be the least manly thing I've done since seeing "Crossroads" in the theater (shut up).

Thanks to everyone who voted for our sketch "Senator Addresses Gay Scandal" funny on funnyordie.com . It's still doing pretty well, but if you haven't seen it, go there, and vote us as funny! It also got featured by Ziddio.com, who really seem to like us, as a classic example of a "viral." Validation is nice. Actually, in this town filled with rejection it's g-d orgasmic. By the way, "g-d" is short for "God damned," not the preferred Jewish way of typing "God." Since it is the High Holidays, I thought I'd make that distinction. Oh, and l'shana tova to our Jewish friends.

We're hoping to have the Affirmacast (our podcast) up within the next week. Add "Radio Free Hollywood" as a friend and look here for an announcement. Brian and I are learning way too much technology too quickly to make all this stuff happen...for you, I might mention. You're welcome. We're really excited about it, and can't wait for you to hear it.

A movie I'm in called "Everybody Wants to Be Italian" premiered this week in New York to a packed house filled with the stars of the movie and lots of press. What's more, I wasn't cut out! Our East Coast spies confirmed it! Not that I thought I was getting cut, but I'm insecure. What's even more exciting, it's playing right here in LA at the Egyptian in a couple of weeks! It's an awesome movie directed by an awesome director, Jason Todd Ipson, and I'm really thrilled to see what happens with it when it has a wider release next spring. I'll post more info when I get it.

So, that's it. Look for another sketch up on Monday. I haven't decided which one yet. In the meantime, if you're at IO West tomorrow night, Brian and I will be the ones on the balcony recording our podcast. Say hi.

Ow, my finger.

We got another sketch up today, "Senator Discusses Gay Scandal." The latest challenge we've had (besides being deemed "to hot for myspace") has been finding different locations in which to shoot our videos.

We've shot a lot of them in my house. Most of the similar locations can be identified by the color of the paint on the walls. We've shot all over my house using different angles to convey entirely different locations (I hope).

For the aformentioned most recent video, I tore apart our living room to look like something in which a closeted gay senator might hold a thrown together press conference. It was like a lowgrade version of one of those room makeover shows would do. I found an old rattan bed frame in the basement I attempted to make look like a piece of furniture. It looked like I was leaning a bed against a wall. Finally I settled on the fireplace as a focal point and a leopard throw rug clipped up with some binder clips as flamboyant curtains. The whole set up took about four hours. That was fun in 105 degree heat.

Last night we taped another video. The location proved problematic. You see, it was only available after midnight on a weeknight, and even then, it was a maybe. I go to work at around seven a.m., but this week my boss is out of the country, so we decided to take advantage of my open mornings and do it this week.

Monday night was the first night we were going to do it, but I had just gotten back from New York and was out of it, so I was only good to tape a couple of sketches (which will soon be up online) before I had to collapse. Tuesday night, the location turned out to be unavailable around 11:30 at night. Finally, last night, all was a go.

I had put aside a couple of late night hours to tape the one sketch. I got my tired ass out to Hollywood, and Brian and I taped the sketch in about half an hour (we work really fast together). We spent the rest of the alotted time just hanging out, having caught my second wind.

Up next, we're hoping to get some locations on the fly...guerrilla, if you will...and we will. We just have to come up with the sketches.

Anyway, we hope to start finding some new locations soon...maybe even some outside ones, once we get some personal mikes (the ones we have now are cold and distant). For now, I'm just relieved that the late night sketch is shot, and I can try to get back on my normal West Coast sleep schedule.

We hope you're enjoying the videos and encourage you to give us some online feedback! We're actors and, therefore, needy.

When I was a teen, there was some Disney family movie on one year about these two nerdy kids (spoiler alert: they will overcome their nerdiness, become cool and then realize it is far better to be one's self, which makes them even MORE popular). They're hopeless and long to be at the cool table. One of them comes up with this awesome idea to spend the summer each learning a foreign language and, after a makeover montage, they create a fashionable new wardrobe for each other (since one used to spend her Saturday nights knitting or something) and then on the first day of school in September...they pretended they were sexy exchange students from Italy and France. And guess what? Everyone loved them! And, like I wrote, yada yada yada, they were happier as themselves, even though pretending to be someone sexier got them laid...or it would have had it not been a Disney movie. Rather, pretending to be sexier than they were got them invited to the most boring high school parties masquerading as cool parties on screen.

As an Army BRAT, this concept fascinated me, since every year or two I moved to a new army post. I tried to reinvent myself in each place but usually there was some kid I knew when I was younger that would reveal that I wasn't really an Olympic gymnast who suffered a tragic injury in Seoul or a Viscomte in exile.

Even after I moved back from Russia, it wasn't like I was going to be able to affect that accent or a British one, like the kids who studied in London did. My attempts to take on the qualities of a secret agent failed, as well. Oh, well, I get to live out my characters through acting and writing, right?

But the loophole in all this facaderie didn't hit me until I moved out to Los Angeles. Moving to Los Angeles can be an exercise in humility. There are so many hot people out here and, in the biz, so many people telling you how you're not good enough or right enough for whatever. It beats us into submission, and we take it out on barristas or other people in the service industry...circle of life.

I just got back from a quick jaunt back East. Every time I go there, I forget what I quickly learn soon after my arrival: the East Coast Theory of Relative Hotness. This theory is basically that once you head East of Los Angeles (Vegas and certain NYC neighborhoods not included), you will be perceived as hotter than you are in LA.

It hits you in subtle ways. For one thing, I was carded the other day...in the morning, when I hadn't had a chance to wake up and shower and all that (yeah, so what? I had a beer with lunch...I was on vacation; don't you judge me). It struck me as odd, but then I remembered the Theory.

At night, I was getting flirted with and hit on. At first, I thought I had something on my face or maybe my fly was undone, but no...I was considered desirable. It's a weird thing for a poor actor in LA to feel. Like, maybe they were just planning to trip or rob me, but no. People wanted to talk to me...and they didn't even care what I did.

I felt like the most special boy in the world.

It all came to an end when I had to leave, though. The stewardess from Albany to Cleveland flirted with me (in the most creepy passion, by the way...it involved a double entendre with a popular nickname for a Heinekin), but once I was on that flight to LA, well, I was whipped right back into submission.

Chin up, I thought. I may be going to Texas in a couple of months. I've never been there, so I wonder how my relative hotness will be judged there. As a mick from New York, not only will I not be in LA, in Texas, I'll be downright ethnic, which will also make me ten kinds of wrong, but oh so right.

If anyone needs me, I'm going to be working on my high school New York accent in preparation.

Sunday evening rolled around and I realized I had no food for the week. I headed up to Vons to load up on foodstuffs. Anyway, boring grocery store stuff. The real fun started at the checkout.

I loaded my stuff on to the belt and watched as the cashier rang up my stuff. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a blonde woman load her stuff onto the belt. Moments later a guy in his late forties loaded his stuff, including a twelve pack of some wheat beer, on to the belt, too. The blonde pointed to the beer.

"That beer is really good. I got fucking wasted off of it," she announced to this little group of strangers. The cashier kind of glanced in her direction. I struggled not to turn around and shout "Classy!"

I got a better look at the woman. She was pretty and in her mid-30s; not the kind of person I would have expected to say that. The beer guy searched for words for a response.

"Yes, I heard it was good," finally finding the words to counter her demure proclamation.

I was trying so hard not to laugh, by this point. With every passing second, I was thinking of different scenarios that could have transpired….stuff that I wanted the guy to say:

"Say, we're having a book club meeting on Tuesday. You would be a delightful addition to our little meeting of the minds. Of course, there will be wine."

or

"You are refreshing! I've been walking around this supermarket for the past half hour lamenting all the people with sticks up their asses walking around. Would you think me bold if I exchanged this "soup for one" for a "soup for two?"

or

"Did I have sex with you once?"