I was in a West Hollywood coffee shop today, when a man came wandering in, searching for something. He paced about a bit. He left the shop, then came back in. The man looked at the two customers seated at tables. He selected the guy who wasn’t me, and asked him a question: “Excuse me? This is weird, but… are you by chance an actor?”

I was struck for a moment at how unlikely this was. Walk up to a stranger and guess his profession? Need a person with a certain skill set, and just assume maybe the next person you see will possess it? Sure, the fellow at the other table was a good-looking guy, but otherwise there was nothing that should hint he was an actor. The man was nuts, I thought. No chance he would succeed in finding an actor just by polling random people.

Of course, the other customer was an actor.

I didn’t eavesdrop on the conversation further, but the first guy wanted to read a scene with someone, and so they worked on it together for a while.

I guess it’s true what they say about not being able to swing a stick in this town without hitting an aspiring thespian. I’m just glad he didn’t approach ME and ask if I had a screenplay in my bag, so that I could avoid being the other stereotype.

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