The Plan

Yeah, that’s right. It’s a Backstreet Boys lyric. Don’t mess with me.

First things first: I auditioned a few weeks ago for a sci-fi thing that I heard about through my friend Emma (if you saw Anniversary at the Alliance, she was the Princess and a fetus….that’s a phrase I never expected to type.) I found out a few days ago that I’m in, and while I have very little in the way of details, I’m extremely excited. There’s a link on the side where you can check out the trailer. Emma’s the one who’s going to teach you about DARPA.

Carla’s script for the short looks sweet, but I don’t want to say too much. She wants to have the thing shot by the end of November, so that one looks to be firing up pretty quick here as well. She’s linked on the side there, too. Yeah, she’s gorgeous.

Westward Expansion has made the transition from a WIP to a play. I’m really happy with how it’s going, and we still have a ton of time. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Cecil’s writing that one and it’s opening at the Alliance on November 9th - both the Alliance and Cecil are over there on the side. The sidebar is pretty much the place to be.

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I’ve been talking a lot with friends and colleagues about why we pursue this nonsense career. I still feel like there’s something noble in coming out here and doing this, mainly because I don’t see the goal of life as a game with a scoreboard. The point is just to live, not to score goodie-two-shoes helpy points or own a bunch a stuff - and we give up a lot of security to pursue this silly life. Don’t worry, I’m also aware that it’s kind of dark and uniformly selfish. These things aren’t necessarily limited to acting or the industry, but dammit, I don’t know everything.

I see three types of people out here: first are those who ‘know’ they can do it. I put myself in that category - nobody else can, you either feel it or you don’t. I could be wrong, obviously, but that isn’t the point. The point is that I’ll keep at it forever because I know I can and if I don’t I’ll be dead eventually anyway.

Category two is those who don’t have that rock-hard certainty, but plug at it anyway. This describes most people out here, I think. Basically it’s ‘normal.’ People who don’t get what they want out of the industry and say ‘the hell with it, I’m going to law school’ are twos.

Category three is people who just don’t have the heart. I don’t know if they know it or not, but after a while it becomes clear to the rest of us. I worry about them. They can still make it, but it won’t do them much good - Kurt Cobain would be in this category.

It’s not particularly important to me to have categories except in how it helps me define myself in relation to others (see? selfish.) Why do I ‘know’ I can make it?

I’m incredibly insecure, and I’m also extremely arrogant. My current theory is that the former applies to who I AM and the latter to what I DO. Somewhere in the collision between the two, in the swirling interior nexus where my need for love and approval fights it out with my talent and the work I’m willing to do, there’s an answer.

For now, this illustrates where I am: I get people thinking they recognize me all the time. Sometimes they tell me that I look just like somebody they know. Sometimes I’ll be at a bar or something and hear people trying to figure out if they’ve seen me in something (they haven’t.) Sometimes I’ll walk by someone on the street and I’ll see that double-take and know they’re wondering if they know me.

And what I think to myself is: Wait a year. You will.