tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44779289552701746632024-03-04T23:43:31.314-08:00Swan Au Couranteva + acting + musings + now: one young lady's experiences in la la land (& another thing or two)EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-73483209694184497642015-12-10T19:24:00.000-08:002015-12-11T04:40:42.903-08:00By the Sea, By the Sea<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Blue is my favorite color -
and I rarely try to properly verbalize such undying visual devotion to its many
shades; I can only let myself be eternally drawn to it like a Swan to a blue
flame. There’s just something about blue that exudes a sense of transmutation unlike other tones (excepting gray & black, the other two sisters that make up the family of my wardrobe palette) among things like elements, eyes, and music to
name a few forms. It works on so many sensory levels and can reach me near the
deepest of depths. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Today, our film crew for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gehenna</i> traveled to the island of
Tinian, a smaller neighbor of Saipan, in order to shoot a transitory scene
filled with Chamorran lore, latte stones from the days of King Taga and
snare-vine terrain. Tinian is also rich in war history, playing a pivotal role
in the terror and defeat of Japan. Once taken by the Americans, Tinian was
transformed into the world’s largest air base and indeed, was the loading /
launching ground for Little Boy onto the Enola Gay, leading us to red, white,
and blue victory. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">My cast-mates and I were
given an option to travel by small commuter plane (a ten minute excursion) or
by boat (about 1250% longer). I chose the boat. I knew the water would be
healing in some way and damn, was I absolutely correct. It wasn’t until 2014
that I remained no longer a virgin to sailing – and to surfing, for that
matter. My relationship to the ocean has been virtually non-existent despite
living in Los Angeles for nearly five years. What can I say? We foolishly stay away
from such beauty at times only because we are not conscious of the ways it can
change us. And how can we become conscious unless we go and do and see and
learn? As my director and friend, Hiroshi Katagiri, was saying to me yesterday - we cannot
do what we do not know; t</span><span style="font-family: "arial";">he simplicity of this message being as full as its truth.</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"> By not acquiring more knowledge, we will remain where
we are instead of progressing forward and expanding ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">But there I am on the
Nombei, a smallish vessel with Captain Don at the helm, various crew / cast /
equipment in tow, and an invisible rope from my soul to the vast layers of
blue. The twine was already loosely in place, quite thickly so, and the tension
was only to strengthen as we pulled away from our port at 7am from Saipan. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">I do not think you, dear
Reader, are quite aware of the natural phenomenons that occur around this island
life, both breathtakingly astounding and absolutely common among the natives
and their smack-dab Pacific position. For example, one can see
rain coming from mere minutes away – these (mostly) harmless, wandering showers
traverse oft like cloud bandits alongside maritime tracks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you ever imagine such things happening at
all times of the day when you live a mainland life? Maybe you had a clue if
you’ve been to the Rain Room at LACMA.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Regardless, it was a slow,
spiritual burn for me on this trip to Tinian – beginning with an internal
warning that Dramamine seemed not strong enough to dispel as my insides turned
a tad here, there. Then, a light rain hit us as the sweet sun
simultaneously met with the water, brightening the world and breaking the moody
gray skyscape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humidity be damned because
my curly noggin loves a greeting rain. It was as sweet as sugar pie made by my
Granny Iona back in the days of Kentucky. Plus - I was armored with a headscarf
and hat and sunglasses AND sunblock soooooo…needless to say I was rather prepared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the not-too-far distance, there laid a
handful of barges – massive,
vaulted hunks of metal transporting god-knows-what and helmed by an assembly of
(probably) men that harken back to the days of Anna Christie. I prefer to think
of them all as Liam Neeson types, their stances more grounded than an ancient
Mole god, deeply equipped with a physical earthiness and seamlessly dancing with
the tempestuous ocean. I, myself, tried to adopt this sensibility as I moved forward
to the bow, where I would remain for the next 90 minutes of the trip. Thank
you, Yoga, and other balancing exercises for my liquidity of joints and
flexibility of energetic motion. Once I found myself so near to the water – one
could neither pry me away with a crowbar nor tempt me with a jar of peanut butter-filled
pretzels. I was hooked as if the sea were fishing me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Thus I see why blue moves me
so. Always, the sky and the sea are connected, almost blurred and mistaken for
one another, a pair of conjoined twins – one air, one marine; both blue, both
vast, both immersive, both rife with mystery; both garnished with white froth
that ever evolves and disappears; both caught in a mystically-designed
elemental thought cycle, that twin mentality where one knows the other through
and through; telepathically tied. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Eventually I sat, cradled in
the life-raft ring on the bow, feet dangling, hat shading, and body rocking
like a child to the impassioned sway and churning shush-break of the waves. The
intensity of silent words hanged about us all as we sat or stood, contemplative
and still, now floating fixtures and attendants to the universe; our thoughts
holding tightly to the corners of our minds. When my lids were not shut, I
glanced above to see diaphanous wisps of cloud, threads in freehand stripes
that mirrored the mellifluous smile resting upon my lips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly to my right, a rainbow appeared,
complete in the water from end to end. I do not know if I have ever seen one in
its entirety and indeed, I wondered if it continued underwater in a full spectrum circle, perhaps as a portal to a parallel world. Maybe a version of me is on the other
side - one that is closer to my dreams. Ha! I do not know if I could be
closer to my dreams than this – so I am instantly reminded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Peace. This is truly what
peace is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>White Fairy Terns diving and
weaving above the surface – they are like doves with sprigs and I am like Noah,
ready to start again; a rebirth. The New Year approaches and I am ready to shed
skins of all sorts; slyly, obviously, passionately – in all ways that fit all
circumstances, but mainly that just fit me and serve me. The ocean, the sky, my
dreams, and my loved ones – all tell me that I am on the verge of something
new, and I feel it through to the marrow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Those that I love and are
not with me – please know that you ARE with me, carved deeply into my heart and
held steady by the glowing life-energy of these magical places. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Once we finished filming at
Tinian, we rode back upon the Nombei once again, some newcomers aboard. The resonance
of such an experience marked me indelibly and exhaustingly, for I think my soul
has not undergone such a laundering in quite awhile. Spirits were higher than
Bill and Ted on an excellent adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With a can of cheap, celebratory beer in each hand, our cast and crew
all distantly witnessed an incredible block of cloudy gray dominating the sky –
and in Mad Max-like fashion, storms churned, blazed and poured just miles away while we safely gazed on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The elements, the elements. Being so free in the
elements is an unmatched thing and I am wildly in love with the world at this
time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Back to Saipan - my
fugacious, tropical reality. I have the day off this Friday. I will need it to
recover from this painful hug of the universe. We all will. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Looking forward to what comes
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gehenna</i> – so should you be as
well. Much love to you as a weekend approaches and the holidays loom closer. Be
open, be knowledgeable and be well. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-81507611527275251372015-12-05T11:54:00.003-08:002015-12-05T12:01:24.656-08:00Two Hearts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">The other night I was convinced I had two hearts – paired like lungs in my chest cavity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are connected, in tandem,
both large; yet the heart on my right side is not fully realized. Rather, it is
more of a phantom heart – one that can still affect and be affected, but lives
mostly from my imagination; present in a Tim Burtonesque way. This is
because for two weeks I have had a small space within my right chest cavity –
something that I can only akin to a tiny, plastic bubble, not unlike the one
you’d obtain with a quarter and inside was a sticky hand to throw on a wall
somewhere (or simply gather lint and disgusting debris much to your parents’
chagrin).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This bubble is real, in terms
of feeling, and it presses me internally – a hollow nodule mirrored with my
true heart. But it lives as if an empty, pulsing space; a kind of teeny,
travelling star eeping molasses-like along from the middle of my muscle/bone
now toward the back of my shoulder blade as if there were an exit sign flashing
above. It reminds me of a veteran stab wound that sometimes acts up, even years
after the incident. I was never in such an incident, but I imagine the similarity is quite uncanny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Am I channeling someone’s
pain? Whose? Yet there is something reminiscent of love and of death here. Figuratively
here and literally here – as I am in Saipan; an island that has its own
heartache from WWII, when the US battled and won it from the stronghold of the Japanese. Another
heart, another wound; something purple for war or for when you open me up and
see the color that surprises you. An old haunt of the emotional and romantic
nature, but also of survival. Is love something one sometimes feel they are
surviving? I can relate to that. Most of us can when we think of family, not
just of relationships. The double-edged swords that fly during Thanksgiving
conversation or simply on the phone. Maybe my second heart is faux for this
purpose – so that anyone who wishes to hurt it can unknowingly affect the dummy
version – and I am left unscathed. I like that. For when you are clawing
through the trenches of Los Angeles industry, there are many aiming for your
heart, despite how unprofessional - not to mention wildly unfair - that is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Saipan certainly has its
ghosts. This island, where I am to finish filming Gehenna, has both mystically
untainted and extremely dilapidated beauty. Crooked, peeling storefronts,
letters and lights missing like teeth, leprosy peppering building after
building – yet all surrounded by the fullest, unavoidable glory of nature; the
beastly sea, the throne of clouds, the unshakeable sun and endless, endless
sky. I have touched upon it all only a little, but the greatness and the
history cuts me like a laser-point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
my hollow nodule pulses as if another spirit rises alongside me, pressing a
finger so deep it is tendon-struck through my ribcage; a guide to point out the resonation and to
remind me of respect for those dead and gone and brave.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Travel certainly brings out
that resonance. (And <b>resonation </b>is defined as </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 19.84px;"><i>"the process by which the basic product of phonation is enhanced in timbre and/or intensity by the air-filled cavities through which it passes on its way to the outside air"</i> - apropos to my living air bubble, no?)</span><span style="font-family: "arial";"> And I think, <b>that is what I live for</b>; that feeling. When
something reaches you on a cellular level and some Avatar-like worship or inner ceremony begins
to stir – complete with electricity of light and warmth of rosewater. It is
5:30am and the sky has not an inch of light, but will crack in a moment. Bells are
ringing from a crumbling steeple somewhere. The ocean continues to wave and
roar. I am in the middle of absolutely nowhere and yet this is the only place that makes sense for me to be. Here. Now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Blessings to this island and its people, to the tumultuous past, to the joyous future and to the rain that so lightly visits like a sweet neighbor who needs a cup of sugar here and there. Let us think of how we can give, rather than take, when within a foreign presence - so that we may disarm it and banner our approach of love and kindness. Let us appreciate, let us absorb and let us find wisdom and beauty among the ruins. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial";">Here I go down the ramshackle sidewalk and I will let you know the result later on. For now, let the peace of the sea wash over your mind in a meditation - and I pray you find that resonation in your day as well. </span></div>
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-69659499863993854012015-11-03T23:09:00.002-08:002015-11-04T10:51:12.740-08:00On the 10th Day...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Day 10 of filming my feature, <i>Gehenna: Where Death Lives</i>. I am not allowed to paint many pictures for you, but I can always give a subjective point of view which, I promise, will not compromise or reveal the pertinently protected things and stuff. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Early in this day and late in this night, I sit at home looking at my script, which is toothpaste blue. I could easily fix a scuffed robin egg with the hue of this page. Every day I work long hours, trying to find the most natural and sensical way to live within the circumstances of the moment. It's a beautiful thing to try and obtain, when one has truly found the apex sling to rest into. Not that I do that that often, but it is a challenge and I try vehemently because I like challenges. I like to prove things to myself and sometimes that takes the impetus of others, sometimes not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's been a wonder to abide by this particular schedule of life. I definitely prefer it, despite it taking up so much time. Normal life feels neglected at the moment - but that's only because my normal life is not exactly acting all day long. I mean, it is NOW, at least until the film ends; a career tease that I would like to water-into-wine industry-wise. Or water-into-blood is more appropriate, deeming the horrific content of this current story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The interesting part about a horror film is to try and capture the psychological effect on my character so that I may interpret this (for the camera) in a journey and way that makes sense while also feeling quite palpable. Did I mention also while filming out of sequence? Yes. Yes, there is that too. Also quite normal, but relies heavily on the clarity of the actor for where they've been before this moment and where they end up. Where is the dot on that line from Minute One to Minute One Hundred? And which dot are you looking at - the Emotional Dot, the Spiritual Dot, the Physical or Psychological Dots?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All of these elements belong inside a person that is experiencing things to the extreme. Films and plots contain extremity; stakes are about extremity. And we have to think of how we may actually respond to those conditions of extremity. I am learning ways to access myself as an actress / emotional human that require expediency and great change. I just hope whatever I'm cultivating reads on the big screen. Or at least your iPad. There have been many laps, push-ups, burpies, soundtracks and other assists utilized while in my private dark portion of the warehouse where no crew needs to go. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Regardless of the fulfilling character work, the crew and other cast members are of stellar work mind and the experience thus far could not be more delightful. All work together to reduce the stress and alleviate the pressure of the environment that is viced by time and money. This is movie-making, people, and the process is arduous on top of fast on top of complex on top of Dear God Please Let Us Know What We're Doing. The last bit is not a problem for most - and that gives me great relief. It also gives me great permission to play which,<i> indeed</i>. I. Do. My cackle echoes nicely in this warehouse each day and I am not judged by its frequency or volume. I thank everyone for that. It feels good to laugh with one's whole body numerous times a day. I swear my soul gets a little younger with each tiny pressed step of the crow's foot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lastly, there is nothing - NOTHING - that I'd rather attach to such crisp, fall La-La days than driving down to the outskirts of the city under a bright California sun, windows down, beloved beanie and Ray Bans donned, and tunes a-blasting while I gage to encounter the edge of the Gehenna forest. My character is full and my internal life is roaring much like my engine down the I-110. Talk about an acceleration into the holiday seasons as time simply races by. Yet, each day, all I can do during such speedy transit is marvel at the frothing puffs of cloud on the horizon, still and stoic and magical. How strange that such planes of time can exist together, passing through us all peacefully; well, hopefully peacefully.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More later - I've got to go fight for my life now.</span></div>
EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-54800504889256526702015-10-27T21:08:00.000-07:002015-10-28T22:19:11.227-07:00Underwater Tied<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I woke up underwater today. If you were at the edge of the pond, you would see me lying there, just under the clear surface, starkly ivory and hair weaving gently within the weeds that wave to no tide. If you peer more closely, you can see three small pronged openings just below my left ear. Let me blink and bend my long neck in a slow turn, mocking a lazed palm for your viewing understanding and hypnotic pleasure. Those pulsing black points are something like gills because I, as most of you already know or carry an inkling of, am not quite of this earth. I'm rather in between worlds, depending on my waking; depending on who's asking; depending on the strength of my word. Some, though, just have too widely grated belief vents and all kinds of things go falling through their cracks. A fine filter is hard to obtain. I understand and cannot completely help you with that. Especially since with each opening of my mouth, bubbles and gurgles seem to escape rather than words. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I think in the night I was dry and on land. That is, until my dreams welled and rose and foamed, never calming - much like a sea of champagne eventually pouring from my eyes and mouth in a sparkling, spilling fantasia. My mattress melted into the wooden floor, mixing into mud on which I would still lay. The soft click of my lids, back and forth, back and forth, churned falling threads that soaked my pillow into disintegration. The touch of water turned all things bedroom to sandman cove complete with floor-skimming bobby pin minnows (so fleeting!), a comforter of fluffy lotus blossoms , and tiny torn paper frogs with ribbits of acting tidbits upon them.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Black, beady, piercéd grains roll around with liquid gravity, boba-like and matching the dark tones and shadows that angle strangely in an element such as this; in the calm, gray light of morning with the eventual sword-like ray slicing through my magic water box. My slip, well, does just that - off a shoulder, up a thigh, hugging me like a child and just as wont to be invisible. Curious fringe peeks here and there. Lashes blink with full serenity and I tell you - with these eyes - that this is all a display. It's a partial dream halfway happening in a pure imagination. A blend to be unsolved and relished within. Go on. Dip a toe in and do tell me when it hits this warm, languid, neutral perfection; when it disturbs the surface or is disturbed. You'll have an entire foot in before you know it or can acknowledge it. Mark my words, you can be unknowingly immersed.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">But what is this thick syrup layered atop my emotional tank? I "awoke" and found everything stirring below with slow, frenzied intensity - yet unable to break through via word, tongue or cord. Kind of....sperm and egg, if you will. It sometimes takes forever to conceive or birth a thought healthfully into the world; or just outside of oneself. Somedays it all stays just behind the eyes, does it not? The eyes - which are rich, wet, mysterious ecosystems of their own. This is what comes across in film. This is not what people often look for in life. Every once in a while someone will turn to look at me (as I normally have addressed them) and their gaze is so resonant that I feel both sonically blown <i>and</i> pulled; almost stuck, as if plastered on the outskirts of their inner universe, and possibly totally unprepared to sustain myself if I fall in to their mind. The last time I experienced this, I darted my energy away from the heat of this burning bush, fearful that I would be...seen too deeply for my current comfort. But is that a choice I am to be concerned with? Is that something to turn from? To shorten one's breath near? Does it matter?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I wish we were more willing to take on that mutual risk. Enter my world and I will enter yours - perhaps we can even draw two bridges and cross them with binoculars and tin cans, remaining visible, audible and childlike to one another; trusting and curious in every step. Unafraid. For even if I am different and dark, so may be you. It is a keen piece of sight to see the dark with the light - a quality to be embraced and rejoiced, not hidden from as if only exuding hints of eau de shame. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It's perfectly okay to remain and stew in your own tank for a day. Bump into those corners and eat up that introspective algae. Look at everything consciously outside of yourself. Just remember to resist temptation toward the safety of the cave. Find ways to expose yourself - happily, beautifully and mutually. With my 51% introversion, I am often of both land and sea. It does not always lessen my fear to leave one for the other, but it must be done - for who knows what I will discover. Joseph Campbell it up, kid, so that little by little we shed our old selves and thinking, only to glisten in the sun. </span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-91074866784585753952015-09-11T21:34:00.000-07:002015-09-11T21:38:27.912-07:00The Value of Pollen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Roughly three years ago, I decided that I no longer have to subject myself to the mercy of devils. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In case you were wondering, a devil's mercy runs as thin as the second-cousin ghost of a shred of wax paper. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thus, people in the industry that I meet or that scurry across my path (or that try to inject themselves into my bloodstream) are thoroughly measured and/or pricked with a device that actively susses out and determines the temperature of hot, red flags - if indeed one or more is present. Pink flags are of less concern - they are everywhere and on everyone - so those are only considered when a situation is suddenly "strength in numbers" and such. They are more... discolorations of the flesh than anything else; harder to distinguish between human flaw and streak of darkness. Though I will say, a Queen of Deceit will know exactly how to paint her roses pink, so it is always wise to carry that bit of salt in your pocket (and in La La, perhaps around your neck - borrow a tiny bottle from Alice and etsy it up for the safety of your soul). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ladies and Gents, know the climate of a conversation and you can eventually tell what should and shouldn't be growing in the garden. I've seen enough fake plants in boys' apartments to know a synthetic leaf when I see one. F is for Fake, Orson Welles said. This is not an attempt, but a lifelong mission to dismiss and eradicate the boll weevils running amuck; to diminish their presence in my field of happiness, health, and thriving creativity. I am telling you - yes, you - to develop some allergies while out in the wild. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because there are so many vulnerable little eggs just DYING to hatch in Los Angeles (especially among the Actress variety), the raptors circle oft with tongues quivering and beaks tacking. I am no longer one of these eggs, a thing blind to / not safe from the harshness of the world. I will not take the warmth of ANYTHING in order to cultivate my career. I am already a bird - a full grown Swan to be exact - and I refuse to remain in the crook of a crooked arm, especially if that arm needs deodorant and the cheap cologne just exacerbates the stench. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am recalled to the sour, rotten peach breath of a past "mentor" assigned to me at school. As fascinating as his depth of Eastern culture knowledge was, my olfactory strength would collapse faster than Sampson with hair shorn. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look, wherever my career may be (and it is in various places via the eyes of myself, my family, high school FB comrades, close friends, fans, and the seeming Sauron of IMDB), I will not accept, much less declare loyalty to, a hand that scatters crumbs before me, as if it is assumed I am starving for any kind of satiation in order to survive. I survive perfectly well on my own, thank you - and that is NOT without the power to ask people for help because I have learned to wear a fair shade of pride, one that compliments rather than washes out. Do not mistake this for stubbornness, though I have been known to ride that bull here and there; who has not? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, I had a meeting with a seemingly prominent producer. Oh his praises were sung by a choir I didn't know, but the tune was right familiar - and filled with dissonant promise. But what do you do when in the land of opportunity? You take the meeting. You show up. From there, decide if you stroll, Uber, or marathon-sprint home. He happened to catch me as I was attempting to settle into a rival of my batcave - the beach. But yes, of course, I <i>will</i> stop by your studio before you leave for the day. That won't be a problem and I thank you and I will see you this afternoon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leaving a mild trail of sandsmoke, I promptly returned from whence I came to "paint the barn" (as a woman named Charlda used to say). To my credit, I did not rudely leave the sun and ocean hanging for I laid courteously before them round the better part of an hour, then made way to traffic hell. Also to my credit, I didn't wash my hair so NYEH (tongue sticks out here). The seasoned mentality I have slowly acquired allowed me to somewhat relax and not immediately mar my personal plans for the day. Yes, that's as far as I've gotten in this life - to the "somewhat". But hey, that's a big deal for me, maybe small potatoes for you. I've known for a while I will never live in Venice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fast forward to my sitting in this dude's office, across from him all patience, manners, denim, Crema warmth and full absorbance yet in that panhandler way. I suppose this is because I was expecting fool's gold, if anything. I have come NOT to expect, but rather...to experience and observe that experience. Thus, 25 minutes into our banter absolutely nothing has risen topic-wise concerning acting or a path to. And I am now not unlike a cheetah with Nikes on a treadmill - this conversation could go on forever toward nothing and I would simply be robbed of all energy come endpoint.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then it happened - the pivotal point of our meeting, the moment I had been waiting for that truly called a spade a spade and erased any hint of rose-color: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So... are you dating anyone? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aaaah. Yes. I see. As the scales were already tipping this way, I see the weight of your belt and it is light and may I say, also gross. I am not Eva Swan here in this office. I am not an actress that has upped her game in the last year so much so that she has surprised herself in the pushing of limitations - mentally, physically, emotionally. I am not, here, who I wish to be; who I am. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nonetheless, I remained immune to his inappropriate and contradictory conversation - his Mitt Romney flip-flopping and asinine questioning of my love life. I found myself simply stating truths, not without additionally asserting cocks of the head upon each further and more ridiculous probe:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are you a virgin? (<i>nervous laughter)</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>(blink, beat) </i>No. No, I am not. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Being from the Midwest you must go CRAZY with all the hot guys out here. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>(polite laughter)</i> Um, well, no. There are certainly very attractive and beautiful people here in Los Angeles, but that does not phase me in some unusual way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't you get lonely at night? - WELL, that's none of my...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Right. Right, no. That IS none of YOUR. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trust me, if it came down to having your company as an option, I would 100% choose to be "alone at night". </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mr. Producer, despite the fact that this meeting is hinged upon the status of my love life - allow me to explain some very real things. I want to write and act for a living. I am not yet in a pair of successful shoes, so I spend my time exploring my own creativity and skills while I sometimes schedule navigation of dating waters. I want to (and do) value myself - but because of people like you, I have to fight to do so because suddenly you turn on me while we lay intimately in the benefit-of-the-doubt-ditch. You think I'm afraid; I'm </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">unprotected and vulnerable. The word "incapable" is reflected in the glass of your eye. And guess what, sir? I'm not those things. I have a grenade that will blow at least one smithereen of you from here to Timbuktu and I will ALWAYS pull the key on those that pathetically prey and betray.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">P.S. For the love of God stop dying your hair.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I share this precious memory with you because being targeted under the guise of some industry tarp is all too common in this industry. "Luckily" for me, I'm well-trained in this arena via years of experience. I went into that meeting with this mantra: <i>I do not need anything from this person.</i> You know why? Because I don't. And<i> you </i>don't. This is wonderfully and simply true. If someone wants to work with you, to work FOR you, to do you a favor? So be it. Do it! Do it then! Don't entice me with falsities. Don't blow hot air into the atmosphere when its already 100 degrees in the Valley. Follow up those words with some matching behavior. Someone of authenticity will act out of combined good heart and good mind to propel somebody forward. Rarely does this happen because rare is that person. So please, PLEASE keep your eyes peeled for the claptrap, the riff-raff and the Execs that think with their....well, not their brains. You do not have to pander to them, you do not have to be polite, you do not have to sit/stand there and absorb the blows. Do not be available for abuse - it is YOUR choice. You. Yours. One person will likely <i>not </i>make you or break you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please, Ladies and Germs, let respect for yourself be the number one rule from now on. You don't have to answer certain questions, you don't have to carry out certain tasks; you only need to be your beautiful, hard-working self. Goodness attracts goodness. Let your light attract and shine upon those of like mind. Know the value of YOU and know that when people don't seem to recognize it, you have every right to inform them. Or to make a fast getaway and get back to your own life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Listening to Aerial Ballett, Harry Nilsson. Talk about creativity. Versatility. Genius. Heart. There's a doc on HBO about him I've gotta see. But let me delve a bit more into his repertoire. Love to you on this night and in memory of those fallen on this fateful date. Love to Oliver Sacks too, who is resting on an indigo cloud somewhere. You'd be wise to pick up a book of his.</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-87815882505304939662015-08-16T16:14:00.001-07:002015-08-16T23:18:12.989-07:00Fool for Adler<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm in love.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm in love with my studio.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My acting studio.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I tell people about my love.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And they say Hey gimme the information.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And they feign to come.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finals day yesterday in the Master Class off of theatre row in Hollywierd. There it was, our tiny little black stage, the flooring beaten to death by a myriad of heels - spiked, spurred or period-driven; the thick black strips of marley slowly parting from each other into new continents and the struggling chaperones of tape curling into competition with a wig from "Amadeus". It is here that my bare feet leave blackened, looking as though I've been parkouring up chimneys all day. (Trust me, I will not miss a good chance to mimic a certain classic Cockney number from Mary Poppins if called upon.) But hey, scenework among my peers at the A/M is not far from watching them draw a chalkboard outline, grab our hand, then jump into a magical (though sometimes terrifying) world, together traipsing suddenly through this sphere of another realm, time and character. Another geographic location. Another socioeconomic period. Another earth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We work on one 15 (ish) minute scene for six weeks, with three total "rehearsals" not meant to be performance driven. But WE, the students, are allowed to be as driven as we like, for we are driving ourselves. Then we have a bit of critique and talk about obstacles, observations and odds 'n' ends of study. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I was discussing with another class member tonight, that carefully strained quality of cold brew acting happening around me is what friggin' wakes ME up in the morning. No, for reals. Nine total scenes went up this round. I am turned into salt and blown away by watching my peers grow - and even astound - via their hard work and blooming creativity. Validation is granted for the weeks of solitary confinement from which we've eventually emerged, battered playbook in one hand, mad scribing in the other. Oh and let's not forget the public shamings we host of our own accord upon that meager platform - the eyes that question all that just proceeded, unconvinced and burning for either death of this work OR... another chance!!! Put me in, Coach, put me IN! AGAIN! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I mean, that's MY interpretation of how people approach class. I'm sure I am completely wrong and I alone torture myself repeatedly for six weeks in Toluca Woods. ;) But it <i>is</i> difficult to wrap one's head around a real technique of acting, something I have never adopted due to a hodgepodge education (ahem, code for: many teachers that don't know what they're talking about). Adler is what I speak of. The only technique I have <i>ever</i> really enjoyed and find works with my other quirky Eva ways of creation and development. I marry them each semester and indeed there is bickering, fighting, some domestic violence (my neighbors probably think I'm nutso) but there's also Really. Great. Sex.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have truly, TRULY enjoyed revisiting and settling next to the Sea of Theatre Works. Since September last, I have had the pleasure of swimming inside such plays as CRIMES OF THE HEART (poor Lenny, her hair is fallin' out!), STOP KISS (dude, Callie is a part of my soul and the love story kills me), PROOF (bring on the cold-hearted shame machine), THE HEIDI CHRONICLES (Wasserstein's themes ring just as poignantly and true today for me as a woman in this world), and most recently, FOOL FOR LOVE by the existential cowboy himself, Sam Shepard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sam Shepard is unlike any playwright I have studied thus far, less interested in naturalism than others and a-leanin' toward the affect of the moment - the thing happening <i>now</i>, and how it will translate the emotional states of the characters, usually in matrix-like fashion. The staging is a specific tool used often for this purpose, which is unusual to really pay attention to in class because "blocking" is a somewhat dated term and almost concept. Believe you me, I love a fantastic composition on the stage - as well as on film - but that receives the least focus when in a rehearsal space / learning ground. The acting is the thing and the play is the thing we use to sharpen it with! Anywho, Shepard is SO specific in his stage direction for FOOL that it seemed a bit of an obstacle for my little acting brain to work through. I mean, if I'm supposed to crawl along this wall during this monologue - how do I make that a REAL choice by this character in REAL time? I don't. I do what I can by diluting the stylized feel of his play and filling it with the truthful bugle call of Adler. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is this, a fox hunt? Well, yeah. There are a lot of elusive little foxes within a scene you have to discover and conquer, in the form of sly beats, furry objectives and such. And if your Adler beagles are unhealthy pups, they won't sniff out shit. It'll be like people I see on hikes carrying their dogs who doth protest too much against the heat so .. PEACE! - collapsed they are on the mountainside awaiting your removal. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But FOOL FOR LOVE is, admittedly by Shepard, not his best work - yet a fun piece for women who wish to wallow in a tour de force kind of role - albeit oxymoronically. It is a dark ill-fated incestuous love story that culminates in one long relentless exchange out of a lone mojave desert motel room. The surroundings are bare and so are the personality traits of his characters, Eddie and May. Little is said ABOUT them outside of what they've "experienced". There are memories and speeches, but there aren't a lot of statements about who these people ARE outside of vague things like "She likes movies." His writing rather focuses on the communication - in body <i>and</i> word - thus the relationship is identified more strongly than the individual. Also, the <b>feeling</b> is what Shepard is striving to capture, not the personality. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thus it was a kind of a bitch to work on. I mean, May is the victim of cyclical infidelity for a number of years with the love of her life, her half-brother. Unfortunately, they fell in love before they knew of their blood share, found out quickly thereafter, and then it was just too late. The love had fallen on them both like a sickness, complete with paralytic yearnings and pinings that left them on the floor when apart and worried all those around them. But the infidelity...four years of an affair with another woman - a woman who seemingly has money, education, EVERYTHING the upper class could provide and May <i>does not represent. </i>Four years of denial from Eddie; four years of secrecy, of anxiety, of waiting in a trailer alone, of time passing in stagnant hours, of questions, of diminishment of worth, of being mortared and pestled into a mash of self-hatred and blame despite it not being her fault - all of this cradled in the hammock of desperate co-dependency. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oy. Vay. Dude.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All I can surmise about May comes from how she feels and also how she is different from this "other woman". The latter is a more guesswork arena to the Adler approach, but hey, I gots little to go from. I will say this, though: this scene kicked my motherlovin' ass. And I have Shepard to thank for it. May ended up as switchy and twitchy as an epileptic fencer. Child-like in her emotional intelligence because there was no room within or model from which to develop it. Probably bi-polar, but I didn't choose to study it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sadly, I will not be within the next two rounds of Master Class (that's 3 months that will sadly go by - one quarter of a year!!!!!!!!!!!! I may be in a coma at that time). But hopefully, I will be filming GEHENNA come October and acting in front of a camera, not my peers. And on a tropical island. Hells to the yizzah. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the meantime, I <i>will</i> be working on shorter scenes in Monday night's excellent Hybrid class. So the pencils will get sharpened little by little still. I have RED LIGHT WINTER and OTHER DESERT CITIES to tackle. I am determined to discipline myself within Adler and to apply it one day with just the tools of my imagination. Some of them come into play more naturally already - almost archeologically, as the bones of my colorful mind emerge and shake off their dust, then proceed to do a Disneyesque dance that seems all wild, dark and hilarious. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enough! Off to rehearsal...Let a little 39 into your life.</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-50317295194986986462015-07-30T20:10:00.000-07:002015-07-30T20:11:10.526-07:00BatWoman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This morning I was cackling like a madwoman at a million different silly things.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This afternoon I was holding my steering wheel, sobbing at the beauty of such voluptuous, volcanic cloud formations on which were these long, misplaced slits of steely blue - like God had taken a knife and stabbed them carelessly into existence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyone else feeling strongly today? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So fitting is this parallel as I, this very afternoon, auditioned for a commercial that required some wailing, sniffling ridiculousness paired with a separate moment of raucous, side-splitting laughter. You could say I was rather prepared.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today has definitely been a day of emotional bats flying around the internal cave. I have undoubtedly measured the depths of certain cavernous corners and they are not only vast, but filled with both jagged and soft angles. The forming of which come from the carpentry of my dreaming heart, my talking head, and the people that drift in and out of my life like spectres....or banshees - depending on if and when they choose to haunt me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Driving, I looked up at this apocalyptic cloud and wished to geyser-dive into its massive, white, roiling purity. The fluff would disintegrate against my body like meringue on a hot, wet tongue and I would see nothing, as my eyes remain shut and my mouth beams blissfully and nothing at all can touch me in this sky. Can we not disappear here from time to time? I can. And I will. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I have things to do. Things and stuff. Lists to be checked and errands to run. Can bravery be awarded for our everyday tasks? What, for the normalcy? Sounds vain, sounds unfair. Sounds like an instagram-ridden society wanting applause for their latest crop-filter-manipulation. I'm thinking all we will be left with is a caption upon our grave. A meme, if we're lucky. What will we be remembered for? Certainly not cleaning our kitchen floor. Ridding oneself of dog hair for the day. A feat to one may be a marathon while to another it is a shower. This is not particular to me, yet it is not free of attachment to me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The urge to capture the sky, the clouds, the caverns, the swellings - it runs under me like a river. I want it any way and every way - in a photo, a painting, a background, a poem, a script, a status and a novel. I will take it and I will soften into the memory of Sonora, California - where I was for four months of 2013; where I drove often the curved road and treaded merrily through the thick air. Sonora - where the wildfires showed up from your balcony's view at night; ah, that sobering marmalade haze. Sonora - where the blackest tarantulas cross concrete amidst waves of wheatened hills. Sonora - where the morning mist sirens you to a walk, only to gag, cough, and take cover. Sonora - where a hospitably brown-eyed gaze turns to a cold, dead plank of a stare and you know you need to move along. You know. When the pupil blends seamlessly into a blubbery Brannon filter of eye and all you see is a dead whale on the beach. And you ask, How did I not see it before? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I must get back to my script - my tale of Sonora. I must forgive myself for time that has passed, then move forward into the paradigm that is this place, filtered through Eva's imagination. If this filter had a name, it would be Lynchang. The film will visually strike with an Ang Lee "Brokeback" essence while story is tugged by a strange, heightened yet twistedly relatable Lynchian arm. My only obstacle here is not over-laying, as I am wont to do. I layer and layer and layer with creation, only to find I have made it too hard to swallow - or even bite! No, no baklava. No triple malt. Leave simple things alone that remain beautiful as they are. Or profound, as they are. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Same is true with the people in my life. Leave them alone to be as they are. Love them, polish them, admire them, and sometimes put them aside or out of view. We can only ingest so much every day, hm? We can only allow so much into our perspective lest we collapse from the pain or beauty of it all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I urge YOU to lie in the cradle of your imagination. To let it seep and slide down to the creviced corners of your most secret caves. Then? Well...keep a pen handy. And paper. Paper is good. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More to come on Classwork. A blue moon on Friday, btw. Not another until 2018. Take advantage, take a look, take a gander and take a seat. Ciao for now. </span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-53838371408448201432015-07-07T02:50:00.000-07:002015-07-07T21:56:23.505-07:00Coming in for a Film Landing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Japanese director plus hand-tailored special FX equals unique horror film of dark terror. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The above formula is a NEWS FLASH! I was recently cast as the lead (shoulder brush, shoulder brush) in a feature length horror flick to shoot mid-October - <i>possibly</i> in <i>and</i> out of the country (heh heh). I would like to say that doing a short at AFI actually brought about this opportunity - thus, plan with that intention successfully implemented, executed and exceeding i.e. continuing to exceed. Including travel to an incredible island with clear blue water! Oh no - I just watched Jaws yesterday soooooo maybe I'll admire the water from a distance. Regardless, travel es muy importante. Quick, where's my Pimsleur set for Japanese I bought at Goodwill like eight years ago?!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back to the film - yes, it is entitled GEHENNA: Where Death Lives. Hey, funny coinkydink - the AFI short also had a finicky culture-specific name attached. Not necessarily of a REAL culture, but a culture nevertheless - or real to someone, somewhere - depending upon whose ankles the roots wrap around. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The director, Hiroshi Katagiri, is making his feature film debut here after working for various big dogs of Hollywood. Check out the info on his <span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b><a href="http://www.gehennafilm.com/">website</a></b> </span>(he obviously has a lot of people that believe in his abilities and aspirations), his ever-clever <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/HKStudioFilms"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>youtube channel</b></span></a> (the man has a sense of humor, thank GOD), and his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/gehennamovie"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><b>FB</b></span></a> page for you to visit and "like" - because I know you will! (Points finger in public social media shaming fashion! Someone call <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/books/review/jon-ronsons-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed.html?_r=0"><b><span style="color: #741b47;">Jon Ronson</span></b></a> to bring the fire extinguisher...)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So this movie is real. It is happening. It is exciting. I'm proud to attack it newly equipped with a brilliant double holstered belt toting my two guns, Stella and Adler. I get to play a bereaved single mother who buries her emotions with real estate work. Cut off emotionally from the world, floating in her own individual purgatory of guilt, then faced with the stuff of true nightmares. How do you like them apples? I, personally, like them from an exotic island fresh off of a tree. Hint. Hint. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a ways down the road, but hey, now I can relax in the hammock of preparation. Just as if I were between two palm trees drinking out of a giant scripted coconut.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In other news, my next class assignment comes from Mr. Sam Shepard - with whom I think I will get along very well. Just did Wendy Wasserstein and I tried my damndest, but the intellectual quality of it kept me a wee bit too internal. I think I am understanding something important, however. That everyone onstage has a rich emotional history if not present life. They can. They are capable of that. Otherwise what are we investing in from our Arclight seats? Everyone has emotional drive, whether or not they want to admit that or understand it. I have to understand it, that is my job. So here I come "Fool for Love". Now, <i>here </i>I don't have any time to find any goddam hammock because I put it up this Saturday for the first time - fifteen minutes of scenework...GO!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wish me luck, folks...</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-6040717398890915382015-07-01T22:04:00.002-07:002015-07-01T22:10:37.639-07:00Imagining the Reality of You<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I feel like Seinfeld. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<i>What's</i> - the <i>deal</i> - with <i>texting</i>?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, what is the deal. Here I am, left to figure out how I might gel with a person via communication completely lacking in TONE? Tone is everything. And so we project tone into these lines, these words because we are human and are talking to someone else, but through an email version of conversation - one send at a time. We are left with nothing but ourselves to talk to inside the boardroom of our minds, having coffee and discussing the meaning of things; debating, deciding FOR the other person, WITHOUT the other person. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe the monosyllabic generation of twenty-five-year-olds I continue to encounter has it right: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Twenty-Five-Year-Old: hey</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey. Yeah, hey. Hey how are ya? Hey, let's call each other and let our voices float in blackest space somewhere! Hey - let's meet up in person, step back in time to a live animatronic version of history where humans sat face to face trying to master the art of conversation, trying to articulate, trying to speak one's language well. I don't always speak it well, but hell, I like to bend words to my will sometimes. Or brand them with a big ol' E on their behind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eva: hey is for horses...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This neon 24-hour connectivity is finding us all with little to say. And deflating the willingness to say things aloud. Where is this Connectivity Cowboy wrangling our millenial herd to? I think Joaquin falling in love with his OS system isn't really that far down the river. Hey, if your phone could READ your texts to you in a personalized manner? That would mean that a computer is then deciding exactly how the other person's <b>tone </b><i>is</i> - injecting it with the judgement of a computer brain. And then the Robot Apocalypse (or something) is just around the corner. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Robocalypse" - the title of my next screenplay, starring <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY1eetDgOw4">Amanda Linda</a>. She's a big youtube star, ya know. And those people are also taking over the world - or...portions of particular ones. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is the point - we want to get to know each other. We meet more people through technology and dance around them in a tone-less setting. But I don't want Scar-Jo to read me their words. I want to hear them. I want to know the timbre of your voice. I want to see the expression on your face. I want to feel the energy of you, whoever you are, and feel...normal about it. Don't we have a hard enough time evaluating - much less knowing - what other people <i>mean</i> when they talk? Take ALL of the clues away and how will you protect your capacity to care from shrinking away entirely? The care is diminishing before our eyes and hearts in various puffs of magic smoke. You lose interest. They lose interest. You're all just....not very interested. And if you (heaven forbid!) ARE interested, you are terrifying. At least, these are the messages I am seeing people send to each other every day. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're all feeding this fear that deeper human interaction is a big, scary monster that comes out at night and wants to breathe on us with slobber dripping from its pointy, yellow teeth. And we are missing out on what is exciting and real. I feel forced to live in my imagination with a Brian Greene version of this person I want to get to know because I am now responsible to re-create the dimension lost in translation. All due to the safety net of textersations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't want to have to guess what someone else means. I don't want to be my own interpreter - like I have to look at some version of me signing from the side of the stage. What if I'm wrong about what you are saying? Who will tell me? Who will correct me? Do I continue on with my misperceptions, misunderstandings, and inefficient subjective absorption? The cost is that we may miss each other completely. If you had just showed up on my doorstep and walked me to the coffee shop... I'm just asking - what is the point of communication at ALL if we can't (and I hate to use this word) <i>successfully</i> get our messages across? We are breaking apart into tinier and tinier islands, doomed to end up like a Gary Larson cartoon where its just you and somehow, a duck that talks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No one wants these responsibilities. No one cares to own anything anymore except the newest gadget. A handful of us... if you just put that phone down and grasp a handful of us, you won't be sorry. </span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-40876983377359202912015-06-24T13:04:00.001-07:002015-06-24T13:04:25.362-07:00Amanda Linda in LA LA!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She made it! She made it! She's......barely making it. Amanda Linda thought everything was awesome when she moved to LA - cause she's scrappy and can steal a nutri-grain bar from 7-11 if need be. She even found an awesome sublet for the el cheapo via a shady Armenian landlord! She's living the dream - just Amanda Linda, a box of wine, her dog, and a big ol' dream. But sometimes our HABITS get the best of us... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Check out this original parody from myself and my writing partner, Lisa Mamazza. Our first endeavor - admittedly an ambitious one - and we're oh so happy with it. The old man might not be though...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Courtesy of:)</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-50307111174395998442015-02-03T13:57:00.000-08:002015-02-03T13:58:31.596-08:00This is How You Tub-let...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">STOP!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">KISS!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What a funny pair of directions that would be. STOP WHAT YOU ARE BOTH DOING NEAR EACH OTHER AND KISS! Sounds kind of fun actually, but no, that is not what the play is about. It IS about courage to create a moment in which two people finally kiss - giving in to their realizations of love and really GOING for it. It's a fricking beautiful play as the structural chiarascuro is fantastic. I think, anyway. It can also be overdone like any show and a poor production may have soured a mind or two. It soured mine just by HEARING about a bad production - and then I never explored it. Shows you how close minded we are about SO many things even subconsciously. (No we <i>can't </i>explore everything but don't claim to have an opinion due to someone else's judgement.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway - this play is my assignment for my second round of scene study at Aquila/Morong. A class I'm gonna start calling home when I go in for a third session. I love it. I've expressed to others my happiness there. You should audit, perhaps. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I must say, as time flies by in La La, I am finally finding my sort of hammock of freedom in my craft - and that is not to suggest a laziness, but rather a sweet, sweet spot where I can go and daydream with abandon and pretend or be a conduit or just enjoy it all so much. A grave difference from last year's beginning - when all I saw was a question mark. Last year was not a simple year - and yet I found my writing partner. Since then we have been unclogging the comedic pipes that have been neglected so long. At least in MY body and mind. Don't worry, its like a waxy build-up. I can still hear quite well...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I once cleaned the tea kettle of a good friend by buying him a steel wool sponge. I could see my reflection after that small investment of time...that's pretty much what it feels like to be writing comedy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So one is serving the other - my writing is serving my own acting on wholly other dramatic notes. I don't have to take myself so seriously - thank GOD. No, really, thank ALL the gods for that. I can let go of my ego and just play onstage with all the skill I've mustered over the years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This weekend I shot and starred in my very first sketch, a musical parody of "HABITS" by Tove Lo. Oh - I KNOW, I know that look on your face. Trust me, parodies are the HARDEST to do well. Why I started with it? Well, that seems to be my way. Go for the gold when you do it. Test your limitations immediately to see what you can learn from it. It certainly won't be perfect, but let's hope its at least really gd hilarious. ;)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think you'll enjoy the parody - its called "Tub-let". Coming soon in February. Me with red hair. Me illegally subletting a tub in a one bedroom apartment. Me being slightly felonious.</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-43004339393619661912014-09-11T17:26:00.003-07:002014-09-11T17:33:42.371-07:00Are. You. A....GOD?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Why yes it IS the anniversary of <i>Ghostbusters </i>and yes my best halloween costume to date IS Gozer the Gozerian, but no, that's not what this blog is about. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I KNOW WHO GOD IS!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He is a trim, bald Jew who probably needs a girlfriend with a pair of tweezers. If I am to worship anything, let it be the God of Comedy - his name....is Larry David.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Myself and a recently discovered writing partner (hooray!) decided - without discussion - that we've been climbing small to medium to large comedic mountains in our minds for many a year and thus, as we venture together creatively, why not tackle the impossible Everest with sheer, guffawing ambition....and write spec for <i>Curb Your Enthusiasm</i>?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yeah yeah I know - "How do you write spec for a show that's improvised?" - Highly intricate outlining / story-weaving for one thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What's that? You don't watch it? SHAME ON YOU! Trust me, I understand the discomfort some express when having tried to get on the Curbwagon - much like I used to feel watching Ben Stiller films. Back in the day, I recall sinking into my theater chair while Stiller was caught, humiliated, shamed, defied, unsupported - all in the name of supposed funny as he "met the parents". But armed today with my myriad of life experiences and perhaps some tempered doses of cynicism, I can easily ingest the comedy of Mr. David with glee. I think much in part due to his brilliant tap into absurdist nuances on all things mundane. I will drink buckets of that highly-concentrated syrup and never tire. Who needs pancakes?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But comedy is the thing. I never liked choosing between that or drama - instead, I am fleshing out (quite shamelessly) my comedic side as the year progresses because....well, it's just about time! I came out of the womb laughing. I crack myself up far too much. I study stand up and listen to numerous comedians' podcasts and most of all - I just feel free inside the funny. There ain't a feelin' like it. I also did three comedy shows on stage last year - and that momentum really became the impetus to stop RESISTING comedy. I've always resisted it professionally - whether it is plain old fear, self-consciousness, strange expectation, being forced to choose - who knows? It no longer matters. Comedy's been a-knockin' on my door my whole life so I'm just going to let him in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hence my watching Broad City: Season 1 in three days. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the other hand, I continue to work diligently in my Jaffe intensive. It has been a side-swiping bitch to find my own material - GOOD material - on which to work and hone. Sifting the internet for a great scene is very needle-in-haystack, especially when you are always craving perfection like myself. After hours and hours of research, it feels darn fabulous to find some dialogue that goes down like the perfect glass of water - refreshing, quenching, a part of you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, the best and final challenge of my course: find a scene that you ASPIRE to. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh BOY! Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tilda Swinton, Marion Cotillard - yes of COURSE I think of to WHOM I aspire to first. Then the titles will flow in later. Might as well pick a crazy hard, ball-buster of a scene that requires the chops of a giant. I might fail miserably, but that's the point of class, isn't it? It's a learning ground. Life is a frickin' learning ground. So go for the gold, baby.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking of - just enrolled into Aquila Morong Studios. SUPER excited. Let's go bask in the light of tough, intelligent, grounded feminine power. And John Hindman. He's cool, too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now here are some clips from one of his best episodes "The Bare Midriff" co-starring the ab-fab comedy starlet, Jillian Bell. </span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-39130470441552318742014-08-24T22:51:00.001-07:002014-08-24T22:51:18.384-07:00Layer Cake...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I serve a loooooooooot of cake over the summer. Almost every Saturday somewhere in Malibu. Usually the view is killer, the sun sets brilliantly and the rental fee is sweetly over $20k. I'm serving up this wedding cake that has been snagged from public presentation to be cut covertly in the kitchen and dispersed in perfect portions by sweeping the room. Trying to fill the hands of a swaying Aunt who has wandered aimlessly near. Also, maybe a bartender you've been ranting with all shift. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">All day today I have been responsible - not without restless Cheetah syndrome round my room, but hey, good things come to those who slowly chew on them while chewing on other things way too simultaneously and inconsistently and it ends up taking an inefficient amount of time. Did I mention I'm sometimes like a befuddled physics professor / octopus that is reaching around myself for answers and actions to pair? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have tormented myself all afternoon by trying to complete the homework assigned: find a final scene with which to audition (in this specific intensive I have mentioned previously). The FINAL scene. That means, the most dramatic? The most meaty? The most hilarious? Of the highest standards? Layer by layer, the pressure builds albeit like a bunch of heavy blankets, but suddenly I'm sweating and there's clearly a fan directly over my head - the only soundtrack I have for hours upon end searching online. I can't concentrate on reading scenes while listening to tunes. Lessen the distraction for Professor Octopus. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So many options to consider when beginning a search (which subsequently began Thursday): Film or television? Well that question will never get resolved until I look at all actresses I resemble/aspire to - and how far back in history should I go - oh I love Carole Lombard but dated material and lofty ambition? Well, no I should be funny and sophisticated and this IS a comedy office, but wait what about Meryl Streep's resume, something from when she was younger? Is that too hopeful or too foolish? Make it your own. Dear God, there's so much television and I watch many things but not enough like Homeland - um, Claire Danes is too award-fresh for me to take a scene from that show, especially having never really seen it - again, who am I? Jean Valjean? If I can't choose from drama or comedy, there's a problem when that intersects with film or television and maybe I should have chosen that genre first but I didn't want to discount anything. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can understand that I might black out in front of a wall of soup cans at the grocery store from the pressure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Regardless, I've made headway. In other news, I saw a seamlessly gorgeous film today (also a part of my "homework", heh heh) and was pleasantly surprised: <i>Sin City (A Dame to Kill For)</i>. Stunning cinematography, perfect transitioning of a graphic novel brought to life, tons of terrifically dramatic voiceover by Rourke and Brolin with gritty, whiskey-sodden words. Blood lessened in its grotesque nature by being often white - I appreciated that, Rodriguez, nice touch. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I do have a small bone to pick with Eva Green, however. I love... eighty-five percent of her. But that fifteen percent is what bothers me each and every time I closely survey her performance. Something is missing that sells me entirely. With certain lines and moments, she seems to be skimming the pond, intention lost, point of view less seasoned and suddenly you realize you're eating tofu. Still, she is beautifully shot (no pun intended) and often completely naked - something for you boys to look forward to. But the scenes in the pool are devastatingly pristine and her career is going swimmingly as of late - a more resonant path of roles in an actress's career is nice to see after a slew of big-budget deflations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As I continue to mull over my own branding - which roles are most appropriate for moi at this time - there are some wonderful examples of casting today, especially on television. Higher grade actors being cast as repeating leads, carrying the weight of a season rather than a snippet of an afternoon. Also, unknown actors surfacing and adding butter to decadent cake mixture. Now, there are way too many delicious cakes to try. A good problem to have as an audience member and a good one to pollinate with as a bee in the industry hive. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We are most alive when we work - actors. We should be drawing energy and excitement from what we love and then pouring it right back in. The choices TO make become clearer and clearer the more time we spend ruminating on what they might be then seeing what sticks. Hold up - hey, this scene has a wholeness and points of view, relationships, moments - are all so clear to live. Trust me, it will become a piece of cake. <i>"Preparation should free you to the unexpected." </i>And fearlessness will quickly expand your understanding. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The other day, on a break from work (oh I have interesting jobs) I shot an actual bow and arrow onto an archery target for the first time, Hunger Games style, yo. With some professional guidance and fifteen arrows, I stabbed those hay bales to death. But four wobbly sticks made it to the target and even punctured it. That's four more than I ever had before. #closertobeingapro</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Let's make this a week of accomplishment, growth and strength. Aaaaaaand cake. Throw a piece of cake in there for yourself. Work a wedding or something. Make $. Get by. Hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle....</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-35888371461410245412014-08-15T11:13:00.004-07:002015-08-18T00:21:05.869-07:00Building the Bicycle (in Reverse!)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last night, I audited a fabulous scene study class. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A marvelous quote about the importance of research uttered from the whip-smart lips of our class leader: Preparation should FREE YOU to the unexpected. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, yes, YES!!!! I am Meg Ryan in the diner at hearing these words. Dear God, Yes. I sat there fighting the urge to kick myself at this most obvious key to acting - because it may as well be an iron-like skeleton thing buried deep in the mountains of Mordor as far as most actors are concerned. I don't spend much time in New York, but I know enough to understand the vast difference in acting culture between here and there. One that involves the letters A, Y, Z and L. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How refreshing to sit in a classroom where someone is kneading and pounding on you like the acting dough that you are. Sure, their forming methods are carried out mainly with fists and rolling pins, but the pressure of those hands come from a love of the craft. I can endure the stretching, pulling, tearing, repairing, shaping, baking, burning, icing, and sprinkling if it means I will be a damn fine cookie one day. You should too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I walked to my car, I thought - these people are truly teaching us how to ride a bicycle. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, they are teaching us the mechanics of the bicycle, too. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NO - they are teaching us how to </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">build</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> the bicycle in reverse - very </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Halt and Catch Fire - </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by breaking down all of its mechanics and going over every groove of every part and every connection between every piece.</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But one must understand that the bicycle isn't acting itself, the bicycle is YOU - in a scene, in those circumstances, in that skin. Then, once you have thoroughly explored that particular bike (because you never get to build the same one twice), you have to learn to ride it. Upon learning to ride, suddenly the repetition and depth will allow room for grace, for panache, for freedom to explore the land through which you ride. You can do tricks - and you can modify them to your talents alone. Wheelies, handstands on the pedestals, hopping...around....okay, my terminology of bike tricks is quite limited. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Research, research, research - an endless task for an actor. READ - a good general rule. Find the time. Pull that time out of your ass. It's 2am and you have work in the morning but there are 10 more pages to read. Grab that cold brew coffee concentrate from TJ's, pop that addy, and giddy up, my friend. Preparation - a word foreign to many in the La-La Mer. I think the lifestyle ideal of sitting poolside all day is a diseased dream, a cloud of red sickness particles floating around actors' heads like that flu epidemic on that one Simpsons episode. (Dating myself? Um, so...?) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jude Law. I remember when <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212720/">A.I.</a> came out, I read this snippet on his preparation for his superb execution in the role of <i>Gigolo Joe</i>: "</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white;">Law spent months studying the great movers of old-time Hollywood: Valentino, Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Cary Grant. He also borrowed from top-heavily graceful screen baddies like Robert Mitchum, rock'n'roll knee-tremblers like Presley and Gene Vincent, even from the Johnny Bravo cartoons he watches with his children."</span></i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, Arial, Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> All <i>that </i>to capture the smooth, flawless movement of his robot character - despite only actually dancing for a mere moment in the epic film. He went for it like a honey badger. This is WHY I became an actor - because I love to learn - but I see that despite being better, despite having a stronger muscles, I am still lazy. And if I'm lazy? Then at least 90% of my peers in this town are in a coma. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I look forward to taking this class (once I audition, that is). I like to see a teacher spew questions faster than an arcade gun in a mega-space war game. It's thrilling. Don't get me wrong, I have met some incredibly knowledgable teachers while here in Los Angeles - and grateful to have had experiences with each of them - but these peeps were the real deal. The Pushers. The Pokers. The Provokers. The Thinkers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I talk often on this blog about fear. Fear is not unlike the idea of Satan - a great enemy that we can defeat over and over again, but can never destroy entirely. (Note: Religious metaphors born from my upbringing, not meant for present day endorsement.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of us have our daily battles with fear. Even Greats, like the late Robin Williams - an alien of talent who is now moonwalking with MJ somewhere in the clouds while Bacall watches from an ornate chaise. He shot through our lives and our hearts like a blinding ball of pure energetic joy. Truly an Empath was he - else he could not so brilliantly portray a body of work that delves from one extreme side of the human spectrum to the other. Let the preparation, let the work - the hours and hours and hours of work - free you to the unexpected. And don't forget to be kind and make people smile in the meantime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In related news, I am getting my hair did this afternoon. Perhaps a journey into the unexpected? Hey, not every battle has to be so serious. Lighten up, will ya? ;) </span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-39323242435747911862014-08-05T03:18:00.002-07:002014-08-05T10:33:41.821-07:00Post-Mortem or Roll Away That Stone!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is it about inspiration at 2:30 in the morning? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Who cares, is my response. It's like finding that rubber ball you lost six months ago under the couch, clouded in dust bunnies (the cleaning of which was your original impetus to move the damn thing in the first place) and then saying "Hey! THAT'S where you are" proceeding to bounce it around joyfully while all else falls away. Remember? You really missed that ball - and now you've got it back and life can go on a bit more freely, with a little less weight. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's what writing does for me anyway. That and getting those crazy thoughts down to smirk at later. Or learn from again. Or from which to recognize the patterns and wap my forehead with a smacking palm of self-chiding. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After parting from particular agents and a particular manager - many things have changed in my career. I have many exciting pots a-boilin' - none QUITE roiling, but perhaps on the cusp (like me - The Virgo/Libra that I am. What? Don't worry, this isn't about that - though don't discount some astrological strums here and there. In fact, take a moment to ingest the possibility that humans may in fact be influenced and molded by the stars and sea. Whaddya think about that? Tell me later. On to the news.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two-thousand-fourteen has been largely a creative year. I am developing my first screenplay based on a resonant experience doing theatre in a quaint mid-California town and also a dream I once had involving a needy, teenage spirit. Never before have I truly delved into the development of such a story - conceived as a short film, originally - but my imagination took the proverbial reins and galloped to other lands. The horse's mouth was (and is) foaming. It's been surprising, sensitive, terrifying, and incredible to create thus far - and I cannot weigh on it so much expectation, though the temptation is certainly there as my chest swells with pride. Regardless of where this particular script goes, it will forever be a milestone on the road of E. Swan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm also learning guitar - three months in, folks. As impatient as I normally am (I want to be good NOW!), I continue to tell myself that music is more natural to my make-up than blood. Too true are these words. Dragons are to Khaleesi as music is to Eva. Wielding an instrument gives me a new power of creation I did not pursue before - and writing music is wonderfully validating for all the years of singing in the Great Halls of My Head. Maybe one day I can add this to the "special skills" section of my resume. Maybe one day I'll have an EP. Every day of practice is another closer to fleshing out these once distant possibilities. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What else? Weeeeellllllllllll (deep breath) new headshots at the end of the month, back in Janet's Meisner class and its oh-so-sweet, watching the crap out of some HBOGO (and feeling inspired), writing a spec episode for a show on HBO that I absolutely adore with all of my little <i>harts</i> (and feeding the funny bone while at it), began an audition intensive this very evening with Sheila Jaffe's casting office, making nut butters like there's no tomorrow (because who knew I had a talent for it???), doing many things for the first time, calling out to the Ladies of La La for support and love as we veer forward in this strange land where indigenous jerks roam, and looking forward to homework that is creatively necessary and self-assigned! Books, shows, scripts, live theatre, magazines, websites, and talking of many things - of cabbages, of kings!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's just say, it's nice to resurface from a complex New Year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We can't control the darkness around us. I find it is easier to take a breath and let my eyes adjust. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More to unfold. </span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-7143824843223809992013-12-05T02:49:00.003-08:002013-12-08T02:23:23.621-08:00Lateness of the Hour<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">About the disappearance of my blog, I have merely been lazy. That I can claim. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many other things in the universe have been stirring about and thus, my attention has been drawn, focused and laid elsewhere. However, I have many things to say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have just finished my third theatre show in 5 months. Since I began my resurgence with theatre in late June, I have officially become an EMC member and am on my way - if I so wish - to becoming Equity. Oh, and I do wish. But I must garner the connections and experience before suddenly joining the union. Such is also said of SAG, but I was DEFINITELY ready to join that. However, the connections are devastatingly important. I'm still trying to establish a name among certain casting directors, but you can imagine such a ongoing task was nearly impossible while away in Sonora. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am back in La La to stay, though. Ready to shake ropes, crawl under barbed wire fences, trespass, bullhorn my way around the city. Wait, no, that's not exactly how it works. But there is no exactly, is there? Nope. Especially in the City that Never Texts Back. That is the NY equivalent nickname of Los Angeles, by the way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead, I have been using my time to understand the manifestations to be called out of the world's energy. One foot in reality, one foot in idealism / delusion / dreams - and one eye, too. We must measure out the levels of reality with our consciousness. Awareness is key. And those that do not realize that are many. But carry on we do, through conversations, situations, moments and lives while struggling to understand the reality. It does come to us, but it is within our perception - and that is a filter that must be continuously honed and refined.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My episode of <i>Days of Our Lives</i> has aired. I am auditioning for the Actors' Studio come Sunday. The number 39 is out and about and retaining space in my brain. Theatre ties are strong for a newbie. My reel will soon be getting a facelift and photos, well, photos are waiting to be taken. Not just on Instagram, mind you (but definitely also on Instagram). I have hiked a monster hike in Yosemite. I have made the greatest almond butters of all time. No joke, I was taught to do so and I am now a butter fiend...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Will the city of La La allow me to manifest these great, deep desires? I certainly hope so. Perhaps I will meditate on these urges - though I have an aversion to do so. Why, I do not know. Meditation makes perfect intellectual health sense. And yet, I find myself not taking the time to do it, despite its obvious benefits. I hereby vow to change that. Since letting go is a giant factor in my life, so should I allow that theme to hold hands with time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You should too, if you have fifteen minutes. There's a great Ted talk on it <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes.html">somewhere</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Love to you on this night.</span></div>
EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-19419241833947942862013-10-11T12:46:00.001-07:002013-12-05T02:50:06.865-08:00Kinky-Haired Scrutiny<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Desire, oh, desire.<br />
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Do you find it like you turn over a rock, if you have the courage to do so? Does it already live in the hammock between your heart and mind, rocked by those more curious and prominent breezes and winds - or merely gliding over the negative space round body, skin and crevice? When I desire something or to be a certain way, I find the resonance is what weights me into that decision - IF we are thinking of it carefully; IF we have practiced and questioned our sureness about what we want, wish to do, must have. Resonance can be instinctual for some - free, impulsive, and they will run toward it with open arms, teeth flashing and gums salivating. But for myself, it was once instinctual, then sadly obstructed by the wool-pulls of life, and since it has been a careful journey of recognition through my natural introspection. Like navigating an underground Mayan temple, Indiana Jones hat in tow, and finding a beautiful item among the stony passageways. The untempered instinct will wish to pick it up for their possession at once! However, could there be an unseen rig or trap attached to its removal? Is there a cost for having that thing, that thing we so desire and that so resonates with us <i>at that time</i>?<br />
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I admit that I have ruined many a moment by questioning it TOO much, but happily - and in this small mining town in Northern California - the instincts are re-materializing in my core, whole and beautiful. And I merely strengthen the muscle that scans the warm of that resonance so as to make sure it isn't the warmth of radiation instead.<br />
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Nurse Kelly - my role in HARVEY - is getting into full hip-swing. It may not be the Joan Holloway hip-swing that I wish it to be, but I am surveying the sex-bomb quality of this character with relish. The nurse uniform doesn't hurt either. Quickly I hit upon a vocal quality that is already transforming me in a direction I like. But does the director like it? I have no clue. He is allowing his actors to play while our blocking evolves with the patience of a spider - albeit one that isn't waiting to PREY per se, but as one who will know when it is time to strike; his many eyes watching over our cast of twelve. This being my (unexpectedly) third show in a row this year, I am keenly aware of the blessing to be on stage. Live. Different audiences, different moments. Letting all of the factors affect you without completely sweeping you off of your feet. I am digging and deepening into my acting instincts like bare feet into thick, sopping mud right now and I love it. Most saliently I question: how can you allow somebody else to delegate your creativity when only you hold the key? Only YOU know what is in that magnificent and infinite box of your imagination and soul. Yes, remain open to that direction, to those new moments of listening, and to the wisdom of fellow actors always, but you have to know your own ground. Especially in the case that those others might be WRONG.<br />
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This is the constant problem of La La. An actor is a product, easily categorized and placed into the money-making machine. Unfortunately, we are relying on others' judgements and assessments - many under the guise of "professional" - which may or may not be accurate. Our industry is FOUNDED on people allowing us to go on to the next level because they have deemed so. Someone has to take you there. Someone has to introduce you. Someone has to SEE you. And most of the time? I find the eyesight of Hollywood to be in desperate need of prescription glasses.<br />
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Sonora has told me otherwise. It has told me that I don't have to change myself in any way that helps someone else make sense of me. I alone need to make sense of me. If you know your product, you can tell someone about your product. What roles are you perfect for? What are your strengths as an actor? Use their language to interpret those parts of you that only YOU might know, creatively and marketably. Often, it seems a game of helping others to visualize what you CAN be, never just what you are. Trust me, I am now tempted to walk into my first CAA meeting with my high-top Levi sneaks, skinny jeans, an oversized shirt and the kinkiest blonde hair this side of the Mississippi. Why not? I'm not like the other gals anyway. And if I know that, I'm ok with that, why can't I walk the line <i>just like that? </i>Acting is about transformation - and THAT I can talk about with abandon.<br />
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Be cautious AND live without inhibition. Is that possible? Of course. It is about being wise while also living freely. Then sit back and watch what life repeats in your face. It might be a word, an animal, a person, an astrological sign, a number, a kind of light, a kind of darkness. What is speaking to you? What resonates with you? When you find it, offer it your hand and regard its touch. You don't have to run off into the sunset with it. You can have a moment, let go and move on. You have a choice. Just choose what makes you happiest and adds nicely to YOUR reality.<br />
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Oh - and go act your ass off somewhere too. The stagnant pond gets pretty scummy and no brave soul wants to take a dip after awhile.<br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-80775120535912336212013-09-04T00:54:00.003-07:002013-09-04T16:53:43.424-07:00Look Itsa Pooka!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, yeah the play was written in 1944 and yeah, its been done a million times and yeah, Jimmy Stewart starred in a movie about it in 1950, BUT I was just hired on for another show with Sierra Rep in the fall. Whoop, Ety, and Doo, folks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm incredibly excited. A wide sprint closer to Equity status. A paid professional theater job. A chance to continue honing and disciplining skills on which I sorely need to work. A continued relationship with Sonora, the socially pocked capital of California. A longer time to explore personal, artistic endeavors. More time to ponder the IOOF. More time to explore Yosemite. More time to thrift. More time to read. More time to write. More time to practice yoga on my lonesome which I do often now and love. More to watch hummingbirds. More yards from which to eat organic tomatoes, plums, peaches, apples. More ponds to ponder near. More cheap Knob Creek at the Iron Horse. More life to live and work to do toward goals I was already churning like butter in LA - and knowing I am near enough to be back soon. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I feel very patient about everything right now. I don't know why except the change of pace. The stir-crazy feelings that should usually encroach don't because I am working as an actor. Its like my process and energy in rehearsals translates to a swipe of the blood of the Lamb on my front door frame while the Angel of Death floats past toward a different poor soul to envelop. Ten Commandments anyone? Anyone? Charlton Heston? Cecil B. DeMille epic? Oh. Man. Pom-Pom. So good. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey, I know where to get good espresso, a great salmon salad, so-so sushi and I have a simple syrup lil' gym to visit if I want to be surrounded by high schoolers and their funny masks. Yes, we were all like that not long ago and wait, many haven't changed except to evolve their mask, refining them to a tee no one would quite notice because others are either too self-involved or are adept at doing the same thing and bored by yours. What? I didn't say that. Even though you know its true, though I'm not admitting it for a second. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Instead, I can be truly concerned with this incredible script by Mary Chase - a woman who is apparently indirectly responsible for the Donnie Darko screenplay (I'm speculating!) because in 1944 she wrote about an extremely pleasant alcoholic man who is best friends with a six foot (and a half!) tall white rabbit named Harvey, who is a Pooka. What is a Pooka? Here is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%BAca">Pooka</a>. It's kind of fascinating. And the fact that Ms. Chase could popularize such subject matter within such a strict era context was pretty groundbreaking. Reading about the main character, Elwood P. Dowd, I was inspired by his wonderfully lovely demeanor and overall true embodiment of tolerance over all things - specifically people and the handling of life that he is tied to. It doesn't matter how many options are before us, there are always people pulling us in directions without our approval or consent. Elwood, despite his alcoholism and constant companionship with a Celtic spirit, added the most truly evolved element to the lives of his loved ones and well, basically all newcomers to his conversation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He represents fairness, love, peace and many of the qualities we yearn for our own race on a majority level. Global loveliness. John Lennon-like levels. But this was all in 1944. So I really just want to talk to Mary Chase and understand who she based these people on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In La-La, time is of the essence. No one is getting any younger. Time is money. In it to win it and all that. All I can say is, I'll be right back after these messages...from the Universe. </span></div>
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-48500183152629472402013-09-02T02:14:00.001-07:002013-09-05T12:33:19.644-07:00Where the Wild You Is...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Welcome to the Afterlife. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm in</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sonora, California. It's not heaven, nor is it hell - despite the glowing fires visible last night from a lone Tuolomne cabin burning not so terribly far away, sitting like a vermilion fog across the mountainside. If Mordor was ever a real vision...Truly wild and uncontrollable rage of nature, awakening locals as normally as coffee brewing. The smell of smoked branches and foliage permeating each household, clamping the hearts of loved ones personally tied to the meek bravery out there among the trees, or what's left of them. I'm awash with helplessness and little relation to the whole thing save for my current location. Pay your verbal respects, know the containment percentages and buy a firefighter a Blackeye at Starbucks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rage, rage against the dying of the light. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't think Dylan was referring to a rim fire, but it is certainly fitting. I sat awestruck on the stroke of midnight, absorbing the orange cloud with my tired eyes and feeling nothing about myself, just wonder at a thing so powerful and so pure yet so foreign. A sense of guilt lay suspended in the air for having thoughts of beauty tied to such a monstrous, damaging thing. I think I had the same experience with an ex once. What can I say? Dark needs light and so on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Earlier today, I claimed a need to be stirred and roused with emotion. I mean in the sense that one can have that uncontrollable, unconstrained wailing release of pure feeling. The dam is breaking. I am seeking a perfect host through which I can wet the dry walls of the well. You know, that Well that lives at your core being. Music has definitely stormed the sea up into a tizzy, but there is no wave yet to upturn the boat and lose oneself to the elements. Danger Mouse, Doves, Norah, Jack, Cass, CocoRosie - the emotional and the strange. I will take it for now despite their lacking crowbar efforts to crack the safe. Pair these things with a winding, rural drive and there is nearly a solution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong, it is a blessing to be moved by things. But it is an intake/outtake issue. Like Lion's Breath in yoga, one needs to exert as much as take in. The Libra in me screams balance, the Virgo in me seeks urgency and the Scorpio Rising watches with distanced interest how it all might play out. Release is craved, in so many ways. I believe the answers lie in the finely combed honeygrass 'cross these California landscapes. The land may be burning, but it is also calling. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I age, the battle against myself to allow feeling, to allow instincts and to trust my own joys, horrors and reactions seems both less daunting and yet far more sensitive. I have been trying to give in to the wild parts as of late. I AM wild in certain parts - even the most conservative countryside has some wild patches here and there. But how will you know who you are if you don't explore these territories? If you let fear keep you on the same path day after day, letting the familiarity not only cloak you - but rob you of fresh air? Breathe, my darlings, breathe. Breathe every single day, long glorious breaths - unless there is smoke in the air. I think therein lies the problem. I am tumbling through youthful emotional spaces that may or may not have rattlesnakes. I say to all, yes, go, journey, but there are no promises of safety. Belt out a glorious peal of laughter but do not be affected by the emergence of judgement. Don't even give those disrupted humans the time of day. But go, GO into the wild, what's a little poison oak?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Round Sonora, I drive from town to town, county to county, location to location, rehearsal to rehearsal. I often pass the IOOF, it's proud electric pink lettering mockingly reminding me to enter on the side door. I'm not a man, so I'm not allowed (though I may be an odd fellow, I'll give myself that). But as I steer away from the main strip, my headlights catch what appears to be a cat playing furiously by the sidewalk in the dark street, easily in harm's way. I wonder all at once if he is feral or a kitten or if he needs a home or has caught a rat. I park instantly around the corner and walk back to see if I might rescue the thing or at least absolve my curiosity. On approach, the little beast is revealed to be motionless in a pool of blood. The witness of such wild writhing was actually of his last moments in death, a mere... ten seconds ago. I stand still, mouth covered by hand, and imagine the wealth of pain. Again, beauty in the horror. Or is it horror in the beauty? This strange portrait experience seems related to so many planes of the day and of Sonora in general. Equal parts terrible, true, lovely and pungent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rage, rage against the dying of the light. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps this is all too cryptic for you today. Perhaps my head is so chock full of things from a lack of blogging and lack of release that things are thick as coconut oil been sittin' in the fridge too lawng. Perhaps being out of urban territory has inspired way more synapses firing than I ever dreamed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't know, darlings. But have a beautiful day, won't you?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(PS, I took a photo of this door in Sonora four days before this event. It not only happens to be the very street on which my ill-fated stray died, its body was lying directly in before it.)</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-57189283370532558742013-08-07T14:22:00.001-07:002015-12-12T03:41:48.365-08:00Go North, Young Man<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fool's gold. You might say that one finds alotta that stuff in La La. If you pan the creek day after day (mostly because you don't have access to the A-List Ocean and also because doing extra work really isn't that different of a task), you're bound to find bits and pieces of something perhaps worthy. At least, that's a little of what it was like moving here in the first place, not knowing really anyone, growing up outside of the industry, searching for scraps - scouting - hunting. I always say that and imagine growing up on the outside of a great, incredible wall that encases some glorious, inaccessible city. How to find a way in and survive in the meantime?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, you're always a bit like Rick Moranis in <i>Ghostbusters</i> looking for the Gatekeeper; glasses askew, shirt untucked and heaving forth with an air of desperation and also unpolished debate. Why are you worthy to go inside? These answers develop over time - as one gets to know one's self. I think many actors' problems have exactly to do with that; being unsure with what they are capable of, where their limits are and how they fit in now and perhaps later. I find pitching myself to be exhausting, so lately I've been letting the work speak for itself. Someone once communicated the sound argument that if you include, by practice and other means, your art in everyday life, like a true fusion of your mentality/physicality with said art, the work we desire will be drawn to us like a magnet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This makes sense to me, except that waking up with the concept of acting is not so simple. There are plays to be read, workouts to be planned (and executed!), lines to be memorized, places to rehearse, diction to be perfected, movies to be seen, creativity to be tapped, people to meet, people to stay in touch with, people to run away screaming from, auditions to attend, hair to be done, checkbooks to balance, jobs to be found, and fool's gold to be panned for - among other things. To incorporate the acting life is very much like stretching all the muscles of the body, as in yoga. We breathe and flex for further progression into each category, all while trying to remain calm and focused. The latter is much harder than it seems - Worry & Concern are terrible twins that tirelessly threaten to bully and mar the day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have been proud of my progression this summer. Yes, I'll claim that statement! I have shot a national commercial, a guest spot on <i>Days of Our Lives</i>, a gun into the air as Annabella Schmidt in <i>The 39 Steps</i>, and soon I'll be heading up north near Yosemite to do <i>Don't Dress for Dinner</i> in the role of "Suzette", a French caterer and opportunist (Hey, I can play a caterer!! I can do that really REALLY well!!!). I'll be working toward Equity status under this show as well as having a much needed vacay from La La. Don't get me wrong, love this town, but I need to TRAVEL, my friend. See some overgrown trees and squirrels, marvel at a cactus somewhere, move to a gold rush town in the middle of the northern state. Yes, let's do that. Oh, and I can't wait to attack their only thrift store.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More later on future endeavors. I've got other projects up my sleeve but they are in liquid form. I'll call you when they solidify. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By the way, <i><a href="http://www.amctv.com/breaking-bad/videos/a-look-at-the-final-episodes-inside-breaking-bad">Breaking Bad</a></i> is in four days. Four. August 11th. You haven't seen it? What is wrong with you? Get out your Netflix. Now.</span></div>
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-84652246852797745912013-07-17T23:55:00.003-07:002013-12-05T02:54:31.083-08:00Like a Rolling Hourglass...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My LA TV debut is a long time coming. Boy oh boy, I tell ya.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I got the good news this afternoon from my agent about booking a role on a very famous soap opera that I am wary to mention. Quick, lend me your tv guide articles! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (Who gets those anymore?) Anyway, I auditioned for Marnie Saitta in February when I was dog-ass sick with the flu, BUT nevertheless very, very skinny - thanks, Flu! I did my scene and Marnie just flat out told me that I'd never get cast in this role, or probably any role, because I look too much like one of their main stars. I didn't know who she was talking about, but I appreciated her candor. Hey, no skin off my toenail.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Suddenly last week I get a breakdown for a lookalike to this exact star for DoOL. I just realized that nobody probably ever abbreviates that title due to this outcome. Yikes. Anyway, COOL - Marnie remembers that I look like this woman and is calling me in! Mah-velous, dah-ling.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was in the final throes of tech week for my play <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.glendalecentretheatre.com/shows/the-39-steps/">The 39 Steps</a></i> when I received the audition. There was a bout of confusion on Saturday (the audition being Monday) when I finally had a moment to open the sides. They were for a 17-year-old high school girl named Kira. And I thought: surely, they don't want me to play a 17-year-old version of this woman. Is this a flashback to her high school days moving forward into her...ahem, late twenties? How odd! I finally deciphered that these are probably the wrong sides. So I received the right ones in the nick of time and ran to 3400 West Olive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bada-bing bada-boom. My only question thus far is, if this role is indeed an "Addict" (which that IS the name of the role and she is certainly high as a kite in the scene), then what drug is she using? I have to do some Youtube research....or I could just knock on the gypsies' motor home door up the street and ask them if I can observe for a while. In exchange for a side table and some unwanted clothes, of course. Maybe a discman.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway - I shoot next Tuesday. I do the show tomorrow night starting our second weekend of performances in Glendale. Oh yeah and I just shot a commercial for <i>American Standard </i>with a bad ass director in the shortest amount of crunched, stressed out time for a crew EVER. His work is here: <a href="http://www.buenofilms.com/index.php/directors/albert-kodagolian">Albert Kodagolian</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I leave you with a montage for <span style="color: #38761d;"><b>THE 39 STEPS</b></span> because its fun and you'll see a bit of what it might be about...</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-87698194318933003432013-05-29T10:42:00.005-07:002013-06-30T00:23:19.942-07:00The 39 Steps<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or..."Ze Serty-Nine Shteps" as my German spy character, Annabella, would say. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This just a blog of self congratulations. I saw a notice of audition for this play. I bought said play. I made an audition appointment for said play. I rehearsed German, British and Scottish dialects for said play. I attended TWO callbacks for said play. Now I have BOOKED said play! Hoorah and hooray! Huzzah and kazoo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm most looking forward to the following spokes in the wheel:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. It is an intimate cast with only four folks - I play three characters within the play - all love interests, fleeting to slightly more involved. The main squeeze, Richard, stays himself throughout. The other two guys tackle a whopping 150 roles <i>combined</i> filling in every other character in the show - at points they are playing two to three characters within a single scene.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Physical comedy in the round - this play moves FAST because our hero, Richard, is running AND pursuing AND just going going going until the end. There is little room for a moment of boredom, even for the cotton-candy-haired. Time to pull out some heroes of physical comedy and get a-studyin'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. Dialects! Yeah, I know, I won't shut up about them. Well, I LOVE THEM DADDY! I LOVE THEM AND YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! (Runs away sobbing to bedroom, slams door.) Other languages can not only be fascinating but hilarious. The mouth is a keyhole, the voice a key, and suddenly there you are unlocking perfectly wild characters from inside you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. I haven't done a play in over 4 years! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? That is absolute craziness. I miss live theatre horribly - oh, the stage! - and I have a feeling this will sort of purify my acting spirit. All that distracting stuff floating around inside my head and chest? It will be shaken out and the good stuff will compress at the bottom near the diaphragm. That's where it needs to live. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course I will remind everyone when this show is going up and I will personally strangle anyone that doesn't show in what will be a 5 weekend run. We open JULY 13th at the Glendale Centre Theater and run until August 17th. Very much excite! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is a fun history of the theater if you are so inclined. A long-standing staple of La La and Glen-Glen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.glendalecentretheatre.com/about/">GLENDALE CENTRE THEATER ABOUT</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, here is the entire film of the same title on which this play is based, an early Hitchcock endeavor.</span></div>
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-72623783780083659552013-05-28T08:01:00.002-07:002013-05-28T08:01:38.501-07:00Behind the Candelabra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was Memorial Day and I celebrated by watching<i> Behind the Candelabra</i> - the new Soderbergh experiment. I call his films "experiments" because he has that snowglobe-director style of perpetual motion genre, never quite settling into one. He's a less masterful version of Ang Lee, but they are neighboring provinces in the game of Risk. It is both enticing and admirable to watch a director kind of "work out" his kinks cinematically over the course of a career. However, I have a love-hate relationship with Soderbergh because his concepts keep charming or intriguing me all the way to the box office and then I leave deflated or disappointed. <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1103982/">The Girlfriend Experience</a></i>? Please. A dump in a toilet could act better than Sasha Grey and MAYBE since the movie is entirely CARRIED by her it might be a good idea to cast an ACTRESS who has perhaps a little LIGHT behind her dead, dead eyes. Hey, maybe she's considered the Garbo of Porn but Steven's "crossover" worked as well as a zombie and a chicken falling in love. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454792/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Bubble</a></i> - a super low budget indie flick starring no one, but apparently it was the first film to be available for immediate dvd purchase at the counter when you've....just seen it...I mean, maybe you wanna buy the movie you just saw cause.....you loved it so much. And you wanted to take it home TODAY. To watch LATER. Or, immediately again if that is what you prefer. My question is: DID ANYONE BUY THAT FILM? I don't even know anyone who saw the damn thing except myself and an ex. It might be worth calling him just to recap our vague feelings about a film from 8 years ago. I actually remembering liking it at the time, but not enough to be a proud owner afterwards. Also, that's when dvds were like $20.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't even get me started on <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130080/?ref_=sr_1">The Informant</a>.</i> Yes, I walked out on Matt Damon. He was sending me on a fast train to Snoozeville and I hate fading in public. And you cannot make me watch <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452624/?ref_=sr_1">The Good German</a> </i>again no matter how loyal I am to a Clooney flick. A message to all directors: never ever shoot Tobey Maguire in black and white. His eyes were so bulbous and vacant, they had a natural 3D component.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of this sounds like a Soderbergh hate party, but it ain't. Look at his credits on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001752/?ref_=tt_ov_dr">IMDB</a> - there are a ton of good films all with astounding differences and risks that may or may not have been successfully sussed out. But he is creating, doing, pouring, shooting, writing, producing, directing his passionate little heart out with projects that obviously aren't the easiest Hollywood sells. Who, I ask you, wasn't a little bit queasy imagining Michael Douglas and Matt Damon as star-studded (not crossed) lovers in a Swarovski whirlwind that is the story of Liberace? Well, curiosity prevailed on that one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MAN, first I must point out that Matt Damon just gets better with time. Six-seven years ago, someone proposed a seemingly common argument that Damon was better than DiCaprio and I scoffed mightily. But I see the wonderfully connected strains, like gleaming golden threads, in his performances. In <i>Behind</i> he is subtle - almost subdued - but very, very present and also marvelously committed. Michael Douglas comes across as everything you might expect him to be except that he is LIKABLE batting those deep brown eyes like they are swimming with innocent intention and not mixed with perversity. He is a charming Liberace, but not overly so. He doesn't really have all the right words, he just has lots of flamboyance (period-appropriate), talent, and luxury - lots and lots of luxury. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Matt Damon mirrors the starlet who just moved to La-La. Drawn to but entirely unsure of this extravagant, wigged man who may indeed be genuinely enamored, but is also very old and incredibly horny. We cringe and flinch when Douglas is near because he looks like such an ancient chic freak. Plus we all know what he really wants - and what rich, famous Liberace wants? He gets. Such is this story - and Damon is sucked into a world that changes him completely and literally. No, he<i> literally</i> gets plastic surgery in this film and the make-up is just fabulous, darling. Mad props to that department.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Behind the Candelabra</i> successfully reveals a sad transformation at the hands of the rich and powerful. A case of someone fair, grounded, moral and good being called by a siren and slowly sailing to her shore, only to have his head snatched off in a scorpion's instant. If you date someone famous, or at least that deep into their own career and persona, beware that you will NEVER be - or at least stay - a true priority. The self is first in this case nearly every single time. But Damon was being pursued by a skilled hunter on the hunter's land. In the hunter's own LAIR even. So he didn't have much of a chance coupling that with, you know, LOVE - that darn concept, always obscuring everything.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will keep watching Soderbergh's work. He is one of the few true directors we have today despite not always executing with greatness, but he has his moments. And those moments are available for immediate purchase or download on your itunes. PS, in staying true to his cat's cradle of media games, Steven made this film for HBO but it will be theatrically released come June 7th. PSS, BRILLIANT casting with Rob Lowe (and in general). Nice work, Carmen Cuba.</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-37967231804870123432013-05-13T13:02:00.003-07:002015-07-07T01:14:35.381-07:00Plague<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A dream plagued me last night. Or, a specific character. Over and over again I awoke in a bothered state and looked at my cell. Thirty minute bouts of time. Each moment of waking was heavier, more tired, and eventually a throbbing deeply rooted itself in the left temporal lobe. The sun was shining but the room cried rest so a silent spell was muttered to banish its clarity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As usual I went about my day unsure but dreamy. I decided on the first few order of things - breakfast, yes, but then what, how about reading that play, writing that blog or cleaning the floor of your room? Since the OCD nerves are most sensitive in my feet, I desperately swept the dirt and cat hair from the bedroom floor. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Amen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I nestled in comfortably to read "The 39 Steps" by Patrick Barlow - a comical and staged adaptation of the Alfred Hitchcock film. I have not been so thoroughly entertained when reading a play in AGES. It wasn't just structured in perfect cleverness, it is also the kind of play one would have the time of their life performing. Marvelous dialogue, classy melodrama with hilarious tongue-in-cheek tones - and dialects. Lots and lots of dialects. I wound up dreaming within the reading, imagining the only female role so vividly and almost achingly, delighting in every banter and move she made. (<i>'Why, I'd be perfect for that role!' the Actress thought</i>)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then the combatant mental reel turned on like a haunted radio, invading my mind not with possibilities, but possible impossibilities. Obstacles, hurdles, and skittish opportunities that appeared like brown rabbits in an autumn wood, lost upon approach. These thoughts were draining the half cup full! Not destroying, but threatening and bullying any attempt to dream in good faith. It's strange when something we love - even an idea - is also so prone to our pain and hurt. We lash out at our own good thoughts. Just the other night, a strange human sound wafted in from outside leading me to step onto the fire escape: was it laughter, was it tears? Protest? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I looked down to see a man, huddled but standing against the brick wall by a dumpster, in a half light from the alley lamp-post. He was sobbing uncontrollably as a larger man moved to embrace him saying," I'm sorry, I just can't control it sometimes." I froze, but was drawn forward to calculate and understand. I wanted to yell "Are you okay?" but there was only fear of the worst in my throat. This moment carried on with incessant crying at some sort of apology without being an apology. Resistant embraces. Fear and love. Words not reflecting behavior. I silently turned and ran to call on some help. It became apparent that these two men were lovers and were physically and verbally abusing each other. Eventually, the sob-stricken man weakly followed his boyfriend like a dying shadow down the alley and out of the light.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My heart sank. Because when you need someone THAT much - that you allow them to strike you, lash out at you and then <i>hold </i>you, as if they were the only thing that existed (and not just once or twice) - <i>it is not worth it. </i> I do not want to NEED my dreams because that is not how they are born. They are born out of a simple love and pure desire of the heart. They are meant to be followed with strength, optimism and personal illumination - not crawled after in shame, surrender or especially guilt. A dream should not be both your lover <u>and</u> your tormentor. And the harping voices that whisper-scream to jade, fade, and beat down the beauty? Don't just avoid them in the school hall between classes. Stand up to them and reveal WHO YOU ARE and who you've always been since you - the Creator - began your dream. This isn't <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.">R.U.R.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That broken man obviously felt he had no one else to turn to, but that was his delusional crux. Understand that one cannot live on a dream alone - else it is a foolish attempt to sustain health on imaginary food while in reality the body withers away. In the meantime, sow fulfillment in the normalcy of life - however that materializes; friends, gardening, cooking, writing, church, books, film, cleaning (ahem) - something! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have to hold on to my dream every single day. I also must to add to it, but it <i>is</i> worth questioning what is becoming of the plant we water. Is it a grand perennial or is it Audrey II from </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Little Shop of Horrors</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">? (FEEEEEEEED me, Evaaaa!) How is pursuing your dream changing you? Make sure it is for the better no matter what enemies lurk and grasp - physical, mental, emotional or otherwise. When you spot an enemy on the horizon - simply breathe them away. Recall a moment of joy you have had connected to that dream. Or...just say "Hey, it's a dream." And stride on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I want to you leave you with the words of Ang Lee upon winning his first oscar for <i>Brokeback Mountain</i> (Um, sidebar they are making that into a musical...hm....). <span style="color: #cc0000;">Warning</span>: a brief sob is possible and also perfectly okay. It should always be. This may be serious stuff but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy it. </span><br />
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<a href="http://whatshihsaid.com/2013/02/26/ang-lee-a-never-ending-dream/"><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>ANG LEE: The Never-Ending Dream. </b></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hopefully when I see you next, I'll have something dream-related to boast about...</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477928955270174663.post-19160126955668425982013-05-03T04:47:00.001-07:002013-05-03T04:47:19.431-07:00Late Wanderlust<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a lonely tail of an evening off the boulevard. My door is open onto the balcony and cars are whizzing through my brainwaves as I sit, words taught as a tightrope over my tongue. I hear them passing at all distances - some near, some far - but mostly a pleasant burst of crescendo-ed air and the occasional engine roar, more like a kitten than a lion. I think about having a cigarette, but it would only be an excuse (in poor taste) to be closer to the boulevard. It seems worth it. A smirk. I never thought about wanting to be not just literally closer to a street, but somehow spiritually, like it is a heavenly place of traffic and those machines are just clouds gliding through with sound. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A smoke and a concrete beckoning seem like a romantic notion. I give in, not without lugging my ancient PC laptop along, the one with the poorly researched and accidentally purchased-from-ebay double battery that mirrors a sort of orthopedic shoe. Hey, it's a lunker, but it's my lunker. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's nearly 4 am and I slip some headphones on so that the world is a song and the cool night air is within it. Music is the ultimate expression of art, tiered and molded any way you desire because sound cannot be limited in its shape. Even a lack of conventional notes, like John Cage was wont to do, composed an audience moving, breathing, coughing, anticipating, rustling programs and squeaking their chair parts, perhaps uttering confusion or pretentiousness - all for nearly five minutes. All music is an experiment and reflects exactly that in your life. To what memory or part of the imagination does a song attach itself to? Maybe it's this late theme of transportation and open road, or the fact that this song is called <i>Universal Traveler</i>, or that I heard a novel critique on the radio about a woman and her motorcycle this afternoon, but a fantasy of wanderlust and freedom is caught on the line and I'm dreaming of the possibilities I have yet to encounter (which are also born in the moment of my going). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Go</i>. For years, my internal response has been "<i>I can't. Not yet.</i>" It feels like a permanent and binding chain until I one day catch some current of success and suddenly I am whisked around, though aside will be eagerly scheduling my own personal, entirely overdue whisking to lands I've only read about or experienced second hand. I'm all for second hand things (I still love a good thrift store) but to travel is to physically go. Nothing can stop you from having a first time over and over again - with land, people, architecture, food, history (a first time with history? Sounds impossible!). Nothing can rob your eyes of the sights meant for you to behold in that moment then and there, whenever and wherever that is..</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How DO other people live in the rest of the world? What is totally alien to us as Americans that is perfectly normal for just as many folks? Why do we live and die our entire lives in one location without understanding something about how humans cultivate these indigenous societies and behaviors? I have a yin and yang of understanding. I can't fathom being manufactured into this world without an explore button, but I get the reasoning of choosing not to switch it on. It's always fear. Everything - literally EVERYTHING - can be boiled down to fear of the unknown. But oh, when you are in that sweet, confident state of mind where nothing scares you at all - you can go and be and talk and snark and breathe and break a rule and just have FUN and you will find yourself in the most liberating place of all, nevermind location.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Until I can afford to control the hands of the clock (and maybe slip a large bill into one), this will be my mental wanderlust. How far into my character am I willing to discover? How much will I reveal to the world and really, to myself? Lately, a heavyset and parallel thought I've been recycling questions how deeply I will immerse myself into this acting thing until a mentally tangible and relentless muscle develops. There are so many levels to explore and I've been wasting time. But, I sigh it away for the night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, tonight I had an adventure at work. The spirit was moving among all of us because the energy was brazen and experimental and filled with humor. The joy of people shined through - and yes, it was bright but also enlightening - because the beauty was visible, but well, so is that pile of crap over there. All, not some, is highlighted and clear. And that pile of crap doesn't matter because it is a part of it all and that....seems fine. In fact, I don't really give it much thought. I just accept that this world wouldn't be what it is without darkness AND light. Now watch the impossible walls disintegrate and blow easily back into the great expanse of sand. No obstacle and, well, no excuse.</span><br />
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EShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04408520526035236428noreply@blogger.com1