52 Podcast Interviews #02 – Vanessa Whitney
I first met Vanessa Whitney almost 10 years ago when we tool an improv class together. Form the moment I meant her I could tell she was incredibly talented. She’s a wickedly funny improviser, a heck of a singer, a great actress and she’s a darn fine puppeteer as well.
When I started this 52 Podcast Interviews project, she was immediately someone I knew I wanted to talk to. I’m so glad she agreed. This is a fun interview with a very creative person that I hope you’ll enjoy.
If you’re not already subscribed to my podcast, The GrantCast, search it out on iTunes or Stitcher or use this RSS Feed in your podcaster of choice – http://www.mrgrant.com/feed/podcast/
Subscribing to the show means you get new episodes the MOMENT they are released. Why not do that?
Also, let me know if the comments below if you enjoyed this interview. I’m having a lot of fun doing this project and already have about 10 interviews done! I hope you guys are enjoying it too.
52 Podcast Interviews #01 – Beth Geiger
I met Beth Geiger several years ago when we were both in the same improv class at Improvatorium. Right off the bat I could tell she was super talented and hilariously funny, but I was also impressed because she owned he own thriving business, GoGo Acting/Casting Workshops, a business she has since sold. Beth was a natural fit for my first interview because I’m a big fan and I wanted to talk more about her career. She has some great insights on art and creativity as well. Enjoy the interview via the player below or you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes. I’d love to know what you think.
2016 Creative Goal
Here it is, the tail end of January, and I’ve finally nailed down my personal creative goal for 2016. I actually nailed it down the second week of January, but I’ve just now found the time to write about it.
Last year, my goal was to create and publish a piece of audio every week for a full year. I’m happy to say I achieved that goal and then some. But that triumph left me in a little bit of a quandary. After producing 52 weeks of content, what was I going to do with the podcast? Keep it going and just relax the schedule and work on something else? I wasn’t sure.
But then I remembered an idea I had a few years ago about doing a podcast where I sat down and talked to my friends for 15 or so minutes about their life and creative pursuits. I actually recorded a few of these interviews and so I found the card they were on and listened through them. That’s when my goal for 2016 hit me: record 52 podcast interviews in 2016. (Please notice, I didn’t say one interview a week. I’ll be releasing them once a week but I will be stacking the recordings.)
So, that’s my plan for 2016, record 52 podcast interviews. I’ve already recorded 5 of them and I have one more scheduled to record tonight. I’ve also reached out to several friends to schedule recording times and the response has been positive. The first of these interviews comes out tomorrow morning over on the GrantCast (which now has a website http://www.GrantCast.com). It’s an interview with a friend I’ve known for a few years now and it was so much fun to sit down and chat with her about her creative pursuits. Who is it? You’ll find out tomorrow on the podcast.
Now, not all of these 52 interviews will wind up on the GrantCast. That’s not the plan at any rate. I have an idea for yet another podcast that some of these interviews would be recorded for. For right now, the focus of that podcast will be kept under wraps but it’ll be fun. I have feelers out to some very good interview subjects for those interviews. Stay tuned.
So, I hope you enjoy the new interviews starting tomorrow on the GrantCast and please, feel free to drop me a line and tell me what you think.
Happy New Year!
2015 Recap
Well, that was a year.
Deep in my gut, I feel, it wasn’t a very good year at all. Lots of stress. Lot and lots of work for little or no money. Lots of promises of work that never panned out. Last year, I noted that 2015 may have been the last year I try to ‘make it’ in the entertainment industry. I feel that now more than ever. I have been perusing jobs in other cities: a news reporter spot in a tiny town in Oregon, researching the steps to become a National Park Ranger. Anyway, I’m looking into everything.
I figured instead of focusing on the negative, I’d take a look back at 2015 and the things that really meant a lot to me in 2015:
- Unfriend (The Facebook Song) was the #2 most requested song for the year on Dr. Demento
- Produced 26 episodes of Uncle Interloper content and completed a series of ads for the Feed A Puppy App that featured Uncle Interloper and Pasquale
- Produced 30 pieces of video for the Country Bear Collector Show.
- Spent my 41st birthday in the best way imaginable, by myself, at Disneyland with a dinner at the Big Thunder Barbecue.
- Completed my goal for 2015 of producing and releasing a piece of audio every Saturday for a whole year with the GrantCast, which included publishing the audio version of my novella Agents of the Vault.
- Continued to improve in my ringside and backstage interviewing skills with Championship Wrestling from Hollywood.
- Filmed and edited two seasons of The Ultimate Nerd-ament for Stan Lee’s YouTube Channel. (Released three seasons total).
- Performed a Throwing Toasters 20th Anniversary show.
- Performed in 2 of the 4 Puppet Up Shows in Culver City, CA earlier in the year. The other two shows I was hired on to produce a series of promotional videos for the show.
- Conceived and recorded the first two episodes of a new podcast, Elf Centered.
- Doing my ‘Mr. Grant’ family act, I performed 5 library shows and a regular series of shows at Flappers Comedy Club as part of their two milk minimum show.
- Was a Instructor’s Aide for the Henson Diversity Workshop and got to work closely with Kevin Clash for several weeks. (This was a highlight.)
A fine list of accomplishments indeed. As great as they are, none of the above brought in any amount of money that can be considered a livable wage. I’m sure if you worked it all out, I made less than a minimum wage employee would have this year. Hence the reason I need to find something else. This just isn’t cutting it.
So here comes 2016. Only thing to do is slam into it and keep going on, but there’s got to be a shift this year. This year something has to pan out. Some sort of stable work using my creative abilities or I’m going to have to shift and look elsewhere.
I often feel that everything I’m currently creating (the videos, music, podcasts), I can create from anywhere. There’s nothing that’s keeping me here in Los Angeles, so perhaps a change of venue might be a good thing. I can keep creating but far from the Hollywood machine and the pressure it puts on creatives.
I can never not be creative. But the dream of trying to be creative and having any large amount of people take notice, is not going to pan out. That’s not negative self talk, that’s just the facts. It is time to move on. So, I will begin looking at where to move.
Here’s to a better 2016. It’ll have to be, won’t it? I don’t see any other choice.