When people ask me my occupation, I usually tell them I’m an extra. It feels pretentious to say, “I’m an actor”, when I don’t go on auditions and I almost never get speaking roles. Background acting is what I do: standing around for hours on the sets of television shows or films, usually for what will amount to no more than a few seconds of entirely forgettable screen time that will not even register in the memories of the few people tuning into “Dirt”, or “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”, or “The War at Home”.

Despite all of its inanity, being an extra is a good job. It couldn’t be easier. You get to drift from set to set in the vast world of Los Angeles’ entertainment industry, rubbing shoulders with celebrities, psychos, starry-eyed delusionals, disillusioned veterans, and occasionally some really interesting folk. Not to mention, it pays the bills… at least for union hacks like me. And on certain occasions– very special occasions– you get to be part of something glorious, like the world’s greatest soap opera: NBC’s “Passions“.

If you are one of the many people who were taken aback by the absurdity and outrageousness of this anomaly of daytime television in the past eight years, you may be saddened to learn that it is being canceled this fall in order to make way for a fourth hour of the “Today” Show. Personally, I spent a few weeks following it religiously the summer it debuted, and I was never the same. So, when I received a call one November morning– moments before the opening of Los Angeles’ first H&M clothing store, while I stood in line, where I had been waiting for seven hours for a chance to put my hands on a much-coveted pair of Viktor & Rolf for H&M jeans– informing me that I would be working the following day on “Passions”, I was filled with understandable excitement.

After my experience on that legendary show, I found myself on a new plateau of contentedness. Because, really, what more could I ask for than to be a wine server at a wedding on “Passions” where, amongst other scandals, the jumbo wedding cake is found to be concealing none other than the corpse of a murdered tranny?