Hello from under here

Nothing is more annoying than listening to the wail of self pity, particularly if its coming from the inside of your own head.  I just got to act in a real movie.  A real one.  With lines and other actors acting back. And yet the whine of indignant ego because I don't get asked to be in a stand up show is drowning it out. I suck at this Buddhist shit.

You go to an audition and they call you afterward, asking you to come in and read again.  The casting director hadn't called you in in two years with the exception of extra work. And even that took some loud squeaky wheeling to get.  You pound the crap out of not one but two different roles.  The casting director calls up and offers you the part.  She tells you how much the director loved you.  She tells you how much she loves you, how she will call you again for sure.  Mission accomplished.  Shooting day roles around.  It's like going off to college.  Real people don't make movies.  You show up at the production office and they call you an actor.  It gives you a little tingle.  It is used so infrequently when applied to you on a movie set.  The hair and make up people fuss over you.  The wardrobe people fuss over you.  There is really expensive equipment surrounding you.  The director blocks your dialogue.  You discuss approach and solidify the marks with the director, the other actors...one being well known enough to make you want to touch his face to see if he is real...the camera man, the A.D.  Your head is in business and tweaking and hitting exactly how you want to play this while keeping it within the confines of what the camera is encapsulating. It isn't real.  It's work and you know that you are good at it, you know what you are doing.  It's comfortable.  It's the best work in the whole world.  The crew sets up and lines up the shot, turning it around on each actor, making sure all of the angles that are needed to glue a scene are there without losing continuity.  When you aren't in the shot, you are watching the monitor and you marvel out how cool it looks.  High def is terrifying because it is so honest but beautiful to see.  Clear and soft at the same time. In between set ups, the actors talk about business.  Trade stories.  You hang out with the lead who is just visiting the set for the day, trade more stories.  You both did the same fringe festival.  You both studied improv but different approaches.   Actors talking about dialect.  Actors talking about unions and release limitations.  Actors talking about technique and memories.  The best place in the world wraps up.  You wipe off your make up.  Touch your weird hard hair.  Take off the clothes of the person who was borrowing your body.  They clap you off because that is tradition when you wrap out a principal on their last day on the set, shake hands with everyone, discuss the release, tell the famous actor it was an honor to work with him, get in your shit heap car. 

And then you get upset that no one is asking you to be in their shows.  While you are being an actor, stand up comedy is passing by.  And  its time to start over yet again. Sigh.  Don't bitch.  Because for a day, thousands of people were out there struggling, wishing that they could be you just once.

Night time

This is the time when I give up worrying about things.  Jessie Baade has been a world class worrier since she was a new Jessie Curtis, pit stopping at Jessie Robles.  Somewhere along the line, it became too much work before going to sleep.  I learned to say what the is going to happen between the going to sleep and awakening part that worrying is going to fix. It is freeing.  Baby steps.

The bathroom drawers are slamming open and shut and my nerves have had enough noise for one week.  I'm really hoping that the wardrobe fitting tomorrow goes off without them tossing me out as a ineptly attired prop.  This money is crucial.  And it isn't winter so a wedding scene doesn't equal freezing to death as it has in the past.  Doing this kind of work has given me a level of patience that I didn't know I could acquire in my youth.  It's a job.  Don't piss people off and if there is an asshole on the set, it ain't your problem in a couple of days so ignore it until the asshole is no longer in your life.  Being cold sucks but sooner or later you will be warm again.  It gives you something to look forward to.  So it ain't principal work.  It isn't waiting tables either and at least this you are good at doing.  Principal work is another job.  Be gratetful that you get that too.  They have nothing to do with each other except location. Breathe.  Walk.  Pray the food is good.  Try not let lack of sleep fuck you up too badly.  It's only five days....It's only five days....

I am so tired now from last week.  At least I hope its from last week.  I can't seem to wake up.  The human body needs consistency.  I don't get that.  I don't know too many who do.   I guess I'll try.  And tomorrow, if I do catch up, I will tell you a little more about my adventures in all things show business.  It is amusing, I think.  If I can remember it....

Ann's Blog

Usually I have a theme to write about. Not just a journal.  But I guess I'll get used to it. Living in the present more or less.  Mostly fiction is my thing.  Plays.  Even my stand up has a lot of fabrication in it because I never promised that it was the truth.  Just to make people laugh.

Yesterday, I went to my friend Ann Podolske's funeral.  We weren't particularly close but liked each other a lot.  Friends whom talked occasionally, happy to hang out and play catch up on the phone. I was always delighted to get to perform with her whenever I was given the opportunity.  She was an extremely talented stand up.  It made me so sad that the rest of the world never will never see how fucking good she was and even sadder that the world never gave her enough of a chance while she was alive.  Thank God she wrote a wonderful blog documenting the end of her life.  She left a voice for those who find it, mapping out a graceful death that she marched into bravely (after caring for her partner who also died from cancer months before Ann was diagnosed).   And she lived every second that she could as hard as she could while God gave her a breath and then faded out to the next place, saying good bye to her friends, preparing us for life without her and leaving a firm confirmation that it was all right.  She was ready for her next place.

She showed me the power of a blog.  Inspired me.  Her blog (www.apodolske.blogspot.com) enabled her to communicate her feelings, her experiences of her fight and her preparation for death to all of the people that could not physically be there with her.  It gave us the opportunity to communicate back with her via her comments that her friends at home read to her, giving her the knowledge that we were out there with her too. Earlier on, before she knew that she was losing the fight, it gave many other cancer patients a road map of what to expect.  She had a mercurial marvelous sense of humor that permeated her writing, like it did in person.   Most comics have that ingrained into us as a defense mechanism but, in Ann's case, it kind of flowed out of her pores.  It wasn't held up as a shield.  It was just part of who she was. It makes this blog of hers extraordinary.  The life of a person losing the fight against multiple myloma done palatable because she was so damned funny and positive and wise in her core.

So here's to you, Podolske. It's awfully hard to bitch about life when you are following a dying from cancer blog.