The Plan

Latest addition to my list of things that suck: listening to a friend give you a list of reasons why they aren’t a better friend.

I’ve been rehearsing with the Culver City Public Theatre for the last few weeks on Much Ado About Nothing via Tanya, who’s playing Beatrice and doing a heckuva job. There was a lot of nonsense recently regarding costumes and line cuts that came to a head when somebody went to the Board bitching about the director. The Board called him onto the carpet in what was one of the more disgusting displays of ineptitude I’ve seen recently. It hits #2 on my list of worst things I’ve ever seen in theatre.

Anybody who acts or is involved in the biz - especially in theatre - knows that there are two types of people: actors and drama people. Actors are people who want to act, drama people are people who ‘want to do plays.’ You see a lot of them in high school, fewer in college, and - until now - I really hadn’t seen any in Los Angeles. Apparently, all of the drama people gravitate to public theatre.

They aren’t necessarily bad actors, but it’s pretty clear that being with their friends and saying ‘I was in a play!’ is a lot more important to them than, say, training. Or having any kind of artistic integrity. It can be frustrating.

I don’t think I’ll be looking to act anymore with municipal theatre, and I suppose that if any of them read this, the problem will solve itself.

If you haven’t seen the television ads for Celebrex, I highly recommend that you do. I don’t know, or much care, what problem it’s supposed to fix, but their pitch seems to be “Celebrex: Slightly Less Likely to Kill You than Other Brands!”

One of my Christmas goodies this year was a secondhand Blackberry courtesy of Erica, and it’s insanely useful. In fact, I’m posting this from it. It does, however, limit the amount of text I can enter, so expect more smaller posts as I learn it. Still and all, I get to plug in a little bit. I even found a Google Talk client for it, so hit me up if you have gmail. And, you know, know me.

I’ve once again been wrestling with cigarettes, cloves this time. It’s the loneliness that does it. They’re like little friends.

Unfortunately, all this really does is once again throw into relief the fact that these things, these crutches, don’t fix the problem, they mask it. I do not want to be a smoker again.

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I need to start making some money. I’m not yet through with the experiment; I won’t be until I’m on a journey of my choosing. Well, I guess I already am, but one with leather seats would be nice. The debts worry me, but only so much. After all, if I can’t pay, I can’t pay. But it wears.

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This weekend we shot Don’t Gag Me!, and I can’t WAIT to see how it came out. It felt good; Carla brought together a hell of a crew, wrote a fun script and gave a great performance. It’s inspiring to work with someone like that, someone who makes things happen, through sheer force of will if necessary. Today I shot another episode of The Dopler Effect, which I really feel is going to be a cut above most of what’s floating around the net these days.

I have another audition for a short tomorrow, and a few other things which could - should they come to pass - help ease some of my other troubles. Which is, of course, the fucking goal.

That, and an oscar.

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There are now ten more performances of Westward Expansion through next Saturday. Starting Monday, it will run in conjunction with the Alliance’s week of Susan-Lori Parks’ 365. This should be fun.

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Hmmm, this is kind of a downer post. Oh well, at least nobody died in this one.

First up, the Backstage West review of the show. I can’t really take issue with it; it says a ton of good things and adds a few criticisms that I think are sort of par for the course when a show tries to pack so much into such a short time. Still sounds like she had fun:

Westward Expansion
November 29, 2006
By Jennie Webb

Okay, who doesn’t like trains? And I’m not talking the metro rail or subway. No. Real trains that travel from coast to coast. Trains are fabulous things, whether it’s our personal memories or imaginary musings or just the idea of ’em: traveling across the country, inevitably reaching their destinations at a speed that allows for oh-so-many possibilities, undeniably mechanical yet somehow magical, grounded yet capable of taking us on wonderful flights of fantasy. But in this day and age, in America, as a reasonable means of cross-country transportation, they’re pretty much dinosaurs. Writer-director Cecil Castellucci gets this and then some. Her new play is a love letter to all things Amtrak, and it has a definite charm and is well-mounted, with skill and affection. Unfortunately, it’s so stylistically schizophrenic that after it’s over we haven’t arrived anywhere it seems we’re supposed to.

On a simple set, Castellucci puts two pairs of sweet young things traveling in opposite directions. Going west in 1881 we meet a stylish man seeking his fortune (Ransom Boynton) and a woman (Darcy Martin) heading toward a teaching job and possible rancher husband. The 2006 eastbound couple is made up of a woman (Royana Black) on her way to meet her Internet pal, hoping it’ll be a romance, and a quirky philosopher (Jeremy Sean) looking for answers. Rashelle Stocker plays the conductor, interacting with the couples in both centuries and guiding the audience through the history of trains, among other things. The actors relate to the audience as well as to each other, and they narrate from correspondence and diaries, relate itineraries, divulge secrets, enact fantasies and scenes from Alfred Hitchcock movies (complete with video), sing and dance, and so on.

Although the talented actors seem to have a grasp on the all-over-the-map pieces of often-fun material—the playwright’s honest and humorous dialogue works particularly well in the hands of the vulnerable Black and Sean, who couldn’t be more adorably dysfunctional—and Castellucci makes use of her admirable chops as a director, at this point Westward Expansion has a ways to go before it becomes a journey audiences will get much out of.

$10! Come see it….

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“I don’t recognize myself anymore” is a bit of a cliche, but I find myself thinking it more and more often these days. It starts with the physical changes, mainly due to exercise and weight loss. I found a couple of little ridges on my eye sockets that I’m fairly sure I’ve never seen before. I look in the mirror, and not only do I not recognize the face, I’m not entirely sure what to do with it. Then I start to feel like I don’t recognize my facial expressions anymore, and then my thoughts. I don’t know if any of that makes any sense, but it freaks me out a little bit.

—___—___—___— It’s been really cold the last few nights, and when you live in a car, cold is COLD. I can’t help but think how much worse it is for those who don’t even have that. Every night in Santa Monica, near the Promenade, you can see people sleeping in the parking lots of closed businesses. They use the little cement blockers as pillows, and roll themselves up in blankets and sleeping bags like stinky little Blunts. That must suck.
 

A big chunk of Alliance members attended the Valley League Theatre Awards (called, for some reason which I do not care to research, the A.D.A’s) last night, where as far as can be determined the company finished an incredibly close second in every category where we were nominated. There was a surprising amount of overlap between presenters, League board members and winners (not that I’m suggesting anything….) but it’s pretty cool that the company picked up as many noms as they did in what seems to be a pretty insular little club. The ceremony ran longer than it should have (Fred and Mary Willard hosted entertainingly, although as the evening wore on their patience seemed to wear out) but it was nice to see everybody and hang out with the Kids.

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So I’m trying to be good about…pretty much everything, at least in terms of my general physical health. This past weekend marked the first time in my life where I could suddenly fit into something that was too small when I bought it. The downside is that I’ve given up so many bad habits and such over the past two years (and, let’s face it, I’m pretty addicty) that when things get tough I get all sorts of cravings. Not so much for alcohol, definitely for cigarettes and pills and stuff. With food I go the other way, and decide that instead of eating a burger I won’t eat anything. For a few days at least, then the burger

But I’m realizing now that the worst, most dangerous cravings aren’t for food or drugs, they’re for people. Insane cravings for absolutely the worst possible people. Damned if I know why.

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I woke up in the middle of one of those dreams that are so soft and sweet that an extra hour of sleep would feel like the most precious gift. Even in a car.

Of course it was about her. One of her, at any rate.

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I realize now that I’m just sort of moody, but I’m really hoping to develop it into full-on brooding.

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A strange happening in the night: I was awakened around 3-ish by the sound of shouty fighting right outside my window. This was odd, because my window is a driver’s side Toyota window, which placed the shouting directly in the street. The combatants were a couple who were allegedly attempting to park.

So the guy opens his door and bangs my car. I’m sure this happened in the service of some subtle dialectic point which I couldn’t quite hear from right next to him. He didn’t hit the car that hard (and if you’ve seen the left side of my car, then you know it would be undetectable visually) so I didn’t really do anything about it.

So dude storms off, leaving chick to parallel park behind me. I would never traffic in stereotypes, but god DAMN girls can’t parallel park. She hit my rear bumper three times. Again, between my sleepiness and the fact that she wasn’t hitting me very hard, I decided not to worry about it. After all, the last thing I need to do is start an angry discussion that will sooner or later include the disclosure that I live in the damn thing. I have a feeling that will generally suck up most of my credibility.

The thing is, it would have been really funny if I had come screaming out of that thing as soon as they woke me up, blankie a-flappin’ in the wind, screeching some automotive equivalent of ‘you kids get off my lawn!’ Ha ha!

I would have been shot so many times.

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.

The answer, of course, is Talk Radio.

I know that the Internet doesn’t make people stupid, and I know that there aren’t a higher percentage of stupid people on the Internet than there are in the general population. Unfortunately, one of the things that the Internet does do is embolden the Stupid to express themselves on topics where they would normally be silenced by some primitive limbic shame.

You can generally assume that whatever it is they’re trying to dribble into your favorite forum, message board, mailing list or chatroom is going to be offensively dumb - but I often find myself so enraged by the ignorant fluff surrounding their ‘point’ that I never actually get to it. When I run across one of these classic idiocies, I don’t worry about the state of our country, I weep for the fucking species.

who cares?

Any discussion of any pop-culture or current events question (i.e. ‘Who killed Dumbledore?’, ‘What did Michael Bay say about Starscream?’, ‘How many fucking Koreas are there?’) will see this one eventually. It’s meant to say ‘you’re dumb for being interested,’ but it invariably comes across as the kind of petulant whining one usually only hears from fourth graders and Puritans.*

Who cares? The other 500 people posting in the forum, fucktard.

Twisters

Twisters are really irritating because they tend to show up in discussions that show signs of intelligent debate, and then fuck everything up. In a nutshell, they take either the topic at hand or a specific comment made by someone else and twist it. Understand, we aren’t talking about your standard strawman nonsense. These cats throw out responses so mind-bogglingly incoherent and/or unrelated that it’s a wonder that their brain stems don’t just give up and spontaneously pop out of their heads:

MisterBoppo: I don’t see how we can afford to keep fighting without a major tax increase.

Guff: Tax increase!?!?!?! I didn’t hear you bitching about taxes when I had that bear in my yard!!!! And the children!!! Haven’t they been molested enough??? LEAVE MY TAXES ALONE YOU CHILD MOLESTING BEAR LOVING SON OF A BITCH!!

MisterBoppo: *dies*

The Lazy Angry Stupid ‘Expert’

I realize that name, poetic though it may be, doesn’t necessarily conjure up the same strong image for you that it does for me. The game here is to make a bunch of deductions about whatever the topic is and come up with a conclusion, completely ignoring the fact that you don’t know what you’re talking about AND could have learned exactly how wrong you were had you spent ten fucking seconds on Google. Imagine that you’re reading a page about the Segway, for instance, and you see something like this:

“I’m no engineer, but I bet you could get the same kind of performance if you just strapped a couple of babies to your feet, doused them in kerosene, and fired ‘em up. Segway sucks. First post!”

How could you not destroy something beautiful?

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* I don’t mean that figuratively; I’m referring to actual Puritans, the whiny little bitches. First it’s “Waaah, we’re being persecuted, we can’t worship freely,” then it’s “Waaah, they’re trying to worship freely” and finally it’s “Waaah, witches are hard to burn.” Every damn time.

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=263204439&size=m 

If it’s night, and you’re single and alone, the Santa Monica Pier may not be the ideal place to kill some time. Every single person there will either be part of a happy couple, part of a group comprised of happy couples, or all by themselves and sobbing because they recently stopped being part of a happy couple.

My favorite Pier person is the rose lady. At night, when the arcade is closing and the crowd thins a bit (the Pier is never empty), she really turns on the hard sell: “Roses! Romantic, no? You love her?” Ouch. I’m going to have to talk to her one of these days.

It’s not a depressing place for me to be, but a side effect of my project is that I often feel like an outside observer. There are few places where that feeling is reinforced with the intensity that it is on the Pier. Still, it combines so many things that I like: the ocean, lust, that strange energy created when music, people and neon lighting all come together.

I’ve been there before when not alone, and when not single, and the attraction is easy to see. It’s full of people, sure - but after midnight the crowds thin out, and there are all sorts of dark nooks and crannies. And everybody else is thinking the same thing that you are. What nonsense couldn’t you get away with?

Just don’t get skewered by the fishermen. Those dudes are madmen.

Yesterday (Thursday, October marked the end of the fourth week of the Plan, and so far I have to say it’s working out pretty well.

In a nutshell: I’m looking better, feeling better and taking advantage of more opportunities as an actor.

Now, I don’t want to do the rose-colored glasses thing; there are difficulties, to be sure. The financial picture is still pretty ugly - I have a lot of debt and a teeny income stream - but headway is being made on expense reduction and debt consolidation. Now all I need is more freakin’ money.

Some of the personal progress I’m making has been (and continues to be) painful. It’s necessary stuff, and I can’t imagine how or when I’d be facing it if I wasn’t doing this, but that doesn’t make it fun.

Having said that, I think this may end up being a defining moment for me. One of my hopes with this is that I come out of it ‘improved’, both personally and professionally. When I get out of the car, I want to be able to say ‘things are different now, and they’re only going to keep getting better.’ It’s becoming clear to me that this is something that I can actually have.

To be totally honest, I feel like I’m on the verge of the best time of my life.

So far.

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You know what won’t make you popular? Taking pictures while driving on the 10 East.