No Guru, No Method, No Teacher

hello out there

2008-07-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

Gosh, it's been over a year since I lasted posted here. I've gotten married, bought and moved into a new house, and have settled into my new life pretty nicely. I'm continuing to pursue acting, here is a link to one of my commercials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR8bLmbDQnc .
That's about it for now, hopefully I'll check back in before another year goes by...

the news from here

2007-05-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the big news around here is that I'm getting hitched. Yep, I'm getting married in August. I met her when she directed my in Anne of Green Gables and we're going to travel to her home town of Tulsa Oklahoma for the big event. Which we're trying to keep as low key as is humanly possible.
And I'm in the process of buying a house and moving to Quincy. Which for me is also big news.
Haven't gotten any acting gigs in a few months, but will be starting to rehearse for a ten minute play for the marathon at the BCA on June 20th.
Right now there's a guy working on my shower, getting the tile grouting in shape. A 'caravan' of Realtors is dropping by around noon, and I have my first scheduled showing at 2:00. And I'm still trying to arrange financing for my new place...I have an appointment at 2:30. I can't wait until all the crap is over with and I can return to my dull and uneventful life.

I am not dead

2007-02-22T12:59:00.000-08:00

Just lazy. And dumb. Therefore I have not been updating my blog. More to come. Possibly.

a blur

2006-11-11T08:28:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in quite a while because my life has been an ongoing blur for these past weeks. My new schedule is up at 6:30, fight call at 8:45, perform at 10:00 and finish by Noon. Sounds pretty mellow doesn't it. And yet, I'm wandering about in a permanent state of exhaustion. Sleep doesn't help. Of course add stressful evenings of auditions and call backs into the mix, leavened with subsequent rejection, and you begin to get the picture. Plus I'm rehearsing for the next thing...which is wonderful but perhaps a little more than I can handle at the moment. Not that I'm complaining. I'm continually having these small moments of realizing now very very very much ALIVE I am. Life is good...but I do prefer sleeping in.

opening night

2006-10-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have been a blur of rehearsals, memorizing lines, dealing with neurotic co-performers, giving rides home to actresses who like to sing along to the radio with the window open, and some general lounging about. It's been fun, but finally tonight I get to perform one of my plays in front of a real live audience. I'm ready, in fact I'm I can't wait to get it over with and move onto the next thing.

Spoiled Rotten

2006-10-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

I guess I have to admit my current lifestyle has left me spoiled rotten, when I curse the Columbus day holiday because my usual spot by the window is taken at Starbucks when I drop by for my afternoon grande non-fat latte. Yes, I unabashedly patronize Starbucks when there is a cooler, independent coffee house right across the street. And I say "grande" instead of "medium." To the world I wish to belong to, I can only apologize as I go about my business.

Stage Fight

2006-10-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we rehearsed Caeser's assassination for the first time, and it will incorporate a stage fight. Basically I get to beat up four guys (one twice) before I get killed. It will probably take less than a minute in stage time but it's pretty intricate and I'm getting all messed up with my footwork. I've never done anything like this before. Stage fighting is now taught in any decent Theatre Arts program, but wasn't in my day. We have a special fight director for this, he taught us the moves and we ran through it in slow motion a couple of times, then broke it down to each individual sequence (me practicing one series of moves on one guy, then moving on to the next) and wrapped up by running through the entire sequence in slow motion several times again. It exhausted me and I'm still sore today! Next Saturday they will be learning another fight sequence for the battle at the end of the play, mercifully I won't be in that one.

Stupid girls

2006-10-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

I was planning on joining a gym I've seen in Porter Square. It's on a second floor with big windows overlooking the intersection. I see the people working on the stair climbers (or whatever the hell they are) lined up all along the windows. How pleasant, I thought, I be able to workout and have an interesting view of the passing humanity. Alas, I found out this gym is for women only. Gadfrey Daniel! I suppose women might feel more comfortable in an environment where they won't be ogled at, or feel the need to assert their attractiveness, or just be able to avoid sexual politics altogether...but it makes it awfully inconvenient for me. What am I to be stuck with...a dank, windowless room with muscle bound men admiring themselves in the mirrors? Stupid girls.

Dear Diary

2006-10-03T13:02:00.000-07:00

They recently opened a Dunkin Donuts on Mass. Ave. right near where I live. So on these last warm (hot actually) Fall days it's been my pleasure to walk over and get my last ice coffee's of the season. The last four days I had absolutely nothing to do, although I did use them to memorize my Shakespeare lines. Most of them anyhow. I got to a certain point and my brain refused to work anymore. So I stopped the grueling process of drilling words into my head and then repeating them from memory over and over and over again. In fact I think I may have over burned the circuits a little bit because the very thought of running my lines feels painful and distasteful now, but it'll pay off I think...it's easier to re-memorize things. (I'm really freakin' out about lines.)
Today I had a rehearsal in the morning for Hans Brinker...we learned the Dutch dance, nothing too intricate but I still didn't pick it up as easily as the girls. Then tonight another rehearsal for Anne, tomorrow Caeser, then Hans and Anne again. Five rehearsals in three days...it feels good to be busy again. I'm dreading December when I'll have nothing to work on, I hope something comes up between now and then.
Sorry, I have nothing clever to say...just a rambling diary-like entry. I thought perhaps once I had free time and started working at being creative again I would have all sorts of witty things to say. But...um...no.

Great Caesar's Ghost

2006-09-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

I had my first rehearsal for Julius Caeser last night, and the rehearsal space is if anything even spookier than an old haunted Opera house. It's located above the State Police headquarters on Soldiers Field Road. It's an entire second floor of abandoned offices and wharehouse space...it's decripit. Old furniture and books piled up everywhere, long ago screens fallen off windows and left to rot in place, the dust of many years lying undisturbed, the ceiling falling down, just general crap piled up here and there. I wandered along the dark hallways listening vainly for the sound of human activity, beginning to think I must be in the wrong place. Finally I heard a tittering chatter, and came to a large space with the cast and crew gathered around a long table sitting in odd, musty upholstered chairs.
Other than that, it all felt very professional, if not quite as immediately chummy as my community theatre production. It's a talented cast, Brutus in particular came off very impressively in our first reading. The director, who had seemed a bit dismissive and intimidating during callbacks, was all smiles and charm. Everyone seemed to know someone else so I was odd man out starting off, but that will change after a few rehearsals. I was a little overwhelmed by it all but managed to do ok. We were shown the set and costume design (key word: colorful). The costume designer is a friend of someone I used to work with who is a budding playwright, so I am beginning to make connections.
All in all, a good start.

Three Eerie Things

2006-09-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

1.) Our theatre is haunted. It's an old Opera house that has been gutted twice by fire, and on one of those occasions a performer died. She has been spotted from time to time ever since. They call her Esmerelda. A purple chair is reserved for her for all the performances, and it must have fresh flowers placed upon it or bad things happen. The last time they forgot the flowers a giant hanging fish came crashing down on a crowded stage, though no one was injured.

2.) The other day I decided to stop off and get a sub for lunch. For some reason I had a yen for something I hardly ever order, a small Italian with the works. So, I go into the sub shop and the woman has just finished making a really good looking sub and is about to wrap it up. She asks what I want, I tell her...and she hands me the sub she just made. Eerie.

3.) The Patriots lost, thus discouraging my vision of an undefeated season and undermining the veracity of my intuition. Truly the eeriest thing of all.

Garlic

2006-09-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

I had a great night out last night, heard some great music with some of my favorite people in the whole wide world. Today I was supposed to go over to a friend's house for dinner, but they had to cancel at the last minute as the host was not feeling well. So, since it's kind of a gloomy day I decided to make some chili to warm up the innards. Went shopping for some last minute supplies, not at my normal store. And, can you believe this...they were out of garlic. How the hell can a store run out of garlic? It's not like it spoils rapidly...christ it keeps for weeks. And it's not the sort of thing that stores have runs on..."Please give me 120 cloves of garlic...and all your lupines." Stupid store. I had to buy some minced garlic in a jar...hardly sufficient.
Oh well, the pot is simmering on the stove...and it smells good enough. One makes due. City grocery stores suck though.

Progress

2006-09-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

A cold morning, it was nice to sleep in. I've finally progressed to the point where I am staying up to 1:00 and getting up around 9:00 . I've been enjoying these first weeks of idleness, but managing to keep busy enough with rehearsals, classes, bike rides, walks about town, and various chores (I spent one entire afternoon buying a pipe to be used as a prop). Next week I start rehearsing two more plays and so will begin to be very busy indeed. Plus, performances start to loom and lines will need to be memorized...so that means real work and various anxiety's will start to intrude on my pleasant existance.
I must say I don't miss work one single bit. It's like a big cramp has dissapeared from my brain and all is relaxed and whole again. Though I do miss the people I worked with, some more than others.
This new play I've picked up is a children's play (Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates) geared towards the K-4 crowd. It's being directed by the same person I'm doing Anne of Green Gables with. It's to be toured whenever anybody buys a date at schools and libraries over the next year. I'm told we can expect 1 or 2 shows per month. We get paid per performance...yay!
I took a class a few Saturday's ago with one of the top casting agents in town (there are only 3 or 4 of them so I guess they're all tops in their field) about how to make it as an actor in Boston. It was mostly geared to commercials, industrials, and film. Her only comment on theatre work was "It's good for developing your craft, but you can't make money at it." I've been really lucky so far.
Okay, now I have to get back to doing the Crossword and Sudoku.

2-0

2006-09-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

The Patriots remain undefeated, thus continuing to validate my sneaking suspicion that they would go UNDEFEATED this year. Of course, I had a sneaking suspicion the Red Sox would win the world series every year since 1968.

Sleeping In

2006-09-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

In mind and spirit I have adjusted quite nicely to quiet days of retirement. My body, however, has been trained too long in working day routines...I continue to wake each morning at 6:00 ready for strife and turmoil. I can see it's going to take some serious training in the other direction to break that habit. It doesn't help that I'm still going to bed relatively early...though I can feel the vestiges of my youthful night life existance stirring.
By 7:30 the noisy boy upstairs is off to school, and by 8:00 or so the entire family has dismbarked for the morning. I have no choice, under the circumstances, but to enjoy my quiet respite reclining under my comfy sheets. I'm getting so much damn sleep I'm working on some kind of premanent headache. All part of the adjustment process I guess.

9/11

2006-09-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

I can't tell five years from ten years from 6 months anymore. It's well and good that this anniversary be marked and commented upon...but after much deliberation I've come to the conclusion that really have nothing worthwhile to add.
I did spend hours radically re-designing my blog. Okay, I spent seconds choosing someone else's template...but those are seconds I'll never get back.
Finally...have the Patriots come up with the appropriate song to celebrate losing productive players who want to be payed as such? I'm still predicting an un-defeated season.

Pats

2006-09-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

Much bad food and many beers later, we won. A typically semi-satisfying win...can't say we were overpowering but winning on a safety is cool enough.
I think the major problem was that Belichick was dressed way too neatly on the sidelines...he looked like a regular human being. Maybe he's saving the grungy gym rat clothes for when it's important. I think it's going to be a fun season.
A big anniversary coming up, I'm watching a special on CBS about a film crew who were following a station house before, during, and after 9/11. It brings back a lot of memories. I guess it's time to dredge it all back up again.

That was the week that was

2006-09-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

The only lick of work I did last week was two rehearsals, just blocking for the most part. Go here, stand for a while, then go there. I have a great part for me...a lot of presence, not a lot of lines. So I spend a lot of time looking on. Very boring, technical rehearsals.
It's strange going through a week with so little turmoil and angst. The weather was as perfect as I anticipated it. Long bike rides, lying in the Autumn sun listening to the birds and insects, plenty of time to do my favorite thing: nothing.
And today, finally, FOOTBALL! I've larded up with junk food and beer. I'm predicting another Super Bowl season for my beloved Patriots. These are the golden years for a Pats fan.
Next week things will start picking up as I start classes, acting on Wednesday and improv on Sunday (Sunday at 4...god it's going to cut into my football viewing addiction).

Don't Quit the Day Job

2006-09-05T11:12:00.000-07:00

I quit the day job. My last day was Friday, today begins the first day of my official retirement. Now I am a full time actor. I've been cast in two shows this fall and tonight is my first rehearsal. I'm feeling good. One would think the moumental proportions of what I've just done would be paramount in my mind, but one day just follows the next. So it goes. Yep, just another day...slept in to nine, read the paper to ten. Shopped, took a nap...what day of the week is it again?

Emporium PA

2006-08-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

Some things I learned on my recent visit to my home town:

1.) If you're going to re-unite with your far flung family to bring your father's ashes back to the family plot, make sure you remember to bring them. Do not remember them half way to Albany and then have to go back for them.

2.) When you get to the cemetery and start looking for the family plot, try looking for it right beside where you parked the car. Do not immediately scatter to the far ends of the yard and spend an hour fruitlessly wandering about.

3.) When traveling through small towns, never order anything fancy at restaurants with names like "Capt. Morgans Fish Fry," and "Pizza...PLUS!" Eschew the fettuccine alfredo for strip steaks and hamburgers...and never ever order the fish.

4.) When passing a perfect stranger in a small town, expect to make eye contact, smile, and say "Hello!" To fellow Bostonians this may sound insane, but trust me on this one.

5.) When wandering about your old home town in a nostalgic glaze, remember the sun block. Nothing interferes with happy memories like the persistent burning of pink flesh on one side of your body.

6.) Spending time with beloved family members is always to be treasured...even if you have to grit your teeth doing it from time to time.

7.) Repeat after me: "You can't go home again."

45 minutes of shame

2006-07-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

God, I can be obnoxious. That was confirmed today when the one HR person at my table told me so to my face during my performance. They hated me, it was beautiful. I ended up with a table of almost all women. My first 'behavior' was to complain about a female CFO client I was working with who "runs her company like her personal checkbook, she has to figure out which coupons to clip before she goes to the store to buy some groceries." You can imagine how that went over, and it was all downhill from there. By the end I was reminding them in no uncertain terms that I was the money-maker at the table and that the diversity project they were working on, while important, had better show a payoff on the bottom line.
I definitely had some rough spots and made mistakes but all in all it's amazing how gratifying it can be to have a whole table full of intelligent, friendly, nice women hate my guts.

There's no business...

2006-07-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

...like show business. So I've taken three days off of my regular job to take my very first paying show business gig. It's pretty weird. I've been hired to play one of the roles in a pilot program to teach diversity awareness at a large financial institution (I signed a waiver so if I get any more specific than that they have the right to kill me.) There's a bunch of actors who've been hired to play workers who are getting reviewed (by unsuspecting real employees who think the whole thing is real) and of course they all have various issues; we have 3 three angry black women, 3 hard working but too demure to be noticed Asian women, and three superstar but secretly gay men. After the interviews everyone breaks for lunch...which is where I (and 2 other guys playing my part) come in. I'm the arrogant, total jerk boss. I grab a couple of groups (three of my fellow actor "employees," an HR plant to monitor and six real employees) and take them down the hall to lunch. And then proceed to be rude to people, bring up politics, ask inappropriate questions and just basically try to make things as uncomfortable as possible, but realistically...which is harder than it might sound...especially for someone such as myself; sensitive, quiet, and always the soul of tact.
Anyway it's been fun to meet all sorts of interesting people, some of whom make their living doing various low level show business type things (commercials, industrial films, etc.) . And if this pilot program flies it has the potential to turn into a steady job for a period of time.
To be honest at this point I hate it. I'm a nervous wreck and I keep forgetting the various lines and behaviors I'm supposed to introduce...not to mention the various acronyms and business-speak unique to this firm. I come home each night exhausted.
We've been learning, cramming, and rehearsing for the last two days. Tomorrow I'm "on" for my big 45 minute lunchtime performance. I'll let ya know how it went.

Mitt, Mitt, Mitt

2006-07-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who upon seeing our Governor’s picture on the front page of the Globe this morning, immediately began formulating obscene captions? He has such a look of Mormon earnestness on his face as he exuberantly demonstrates the correct way in which to plunge a sturdy steel shaft into a well drilled hole. And this before my Cheerios!

Happy Independence Day!

2006-07-04T18:05:00.000-07:00

I got so enthusiastic about Canada Day that I bought a six pack of Molsen Canadian. One side of the bottle has the normal label, the other side has one that says "Certified Love Technician." It's possible I'm not their target audience. I'm going back to Bud Lite. Yay America!

Happy Canada Day!

2006-07-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

Let's here it for the old red, white and...oh um...just the old red and white! Two years ago on this very day I was driving from Nova Scotia to P.E.I. listening to the CBC as the various hosts and guests waxed poetic about their national holiday. I love the CBC, it actually sounds like real normal people talking rather than the slickly defined persona's one has become used to here. Anyway, people kept mentioning Canada Day Cake. As best as I could determine this was a cake with red and white frosting. Driving along on my solitary jaunt it sure sounded good, in fact it sounded like the best thing ever. I began to formulate strategies and fantasies of how I could acquire a slice of this exotically patriotic pastiche. Alas, I never did. Just another one of those pleasures denied that remain an ever fresh temptation. This year I did buy some cupcakes with red, white, and blue sprinkles. A worthy compensation, but no match I am sure...for Canada Day Cake on July 3rd on a quiet sunny day half way between here and there.