Mike Fass's Lounge Discussions

In light of this being "Introduce Yourself Weekend", I'd like to pop my furry head in here and more officially make your acquaintances. My name is Mike Fass. To the bear community and bear culture I'm better known as Drummer Bear. Yeah, I was the nude bear model who was also a professional power drummer in addition to my work as an actor. Today, however, I'm better known worldwide as the guy who plays the Soviet Russian fight legend Zangief on the groundbreaking hit series, "Street Fighter: The Later Years". I'm currently at work on three new series: The spin-off to "Later Years" called, "Street Fighter Reunion", which will reunite the original cast and have me back in the familiar Mohawk to play The Red Cyclone once again for a Spinning Piledriving rollercoaster ride of brand new hilarious adventures. A brand new action adventure superhero science fiction outer space drama series... with bears! It's called, "Major Ursus", and can best be described as "Oz meets X-Men meets Star Trek". "Chelsea", a brand new sitcom by creator Jose Lara for whose first season I am writing all the scripts. It will be shot before a live studio audience. We think it's a hoot. I will be playing the supporting role of Russian mob enforcer Ivan and actor Danny Aiello is in talks with us to join our cast as well. Wonderful to be here with all of you.

Just want to get an idea of what you think about this. I've just recently mounted a fundraiser to cover the advance legal expenses necessary to launch pre-production of a brand new action adventure series and to clear the way for the transfer of funds from the sponsors. The fundraiser takes the form of a series of live readings I'll be doing of an original story I've written (no relation to the show being funded). The only potential obstacles into which I've run have been: a) I'd still need a sponsor to cover the rental costs of any venue presenting it and b) There's always the risk of only breaking even on a bad weather day or perhaps even losing money under such conditions. So I came up with the idea of networking to find small venues willing to donate their spaces to us in return for a 50% cut of anything the readings pull in nightly until we've reached our goal. No advance rental fees and, worst case scenario, no money is made but, at least, no money is lost. Best case scenario, everybody comes out ahead. This is the probability. This made me think; for actors and writers who read well live, this could also become a more steady stream of revenue to get us through those periods when we're "between series" and still being sent out by our agents for piecemeal freelance work and guest appearances on other production companies' shows. I'm seriously considering this as a fill-in gig until the first of my new series launches. It could be a viable means of somewhat steadier work for many of you as well. Would love to get your feedback on this. Thanks, gang.