Thank you, you're adorable!

I used to be courteous, adorable and polite too...but that was when I was young and stupid.

I work as a barista at a monster coffee chain. When I first started, although overwhelmed, I followed that golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. Problem is New Yorkers are fucking assholes! There's only so much abuse one person can take and remain considerate and kind. Don't get me wrong, I have my regular customers who are awesome people, but I also have more than my fair share of despicably high-maintenance, impatient, patronizing, self-centered douche-bags. I have no problem now engaging in full blown arguments and blatant looks of disgust.

It's true, I hate my day job. An actor friend of mine reminded me that I will always hate my day job, that's just a given. I completely understand where she was coming from but I have to disagree. When a person spends 20+ hours a day at their asinine day job they should not be wishing for death every single minute of it! A person's day job, should not squelch one's firey, driving, spirit and kill every creative instinct in one's entire being. I refuse to waste hundreds of thousands of hours of my life being utterly miserable. It's a ways to a means...that's the part I need to remember. Maybe I should worry more about the day when I stop hating my day job because I have become content in the mediocre, under-stimulating, easy way out.

In the mean time I could just look for another job.

Alas, pain is good for my art.

Attainable?

This television season is insane! It is the first time in my life that I’ll turn on a show and think, “I know that guy, how do I know that guy?”

I’ve been taking classes and seeing shows at Upright Citizens Brigade for a couple years now and it’s getting to the point where I’m seeing people actually succeed. It reminds me of when I was a freshman in high school and I walked by the varsity football players and I didn’t really know who they were but they were kind of mysterious, and big and meaty, and could grow facial hair. But then they graduated and disappeared and a new class of varsity football boys moved up the ranks.

With a “senior class” of UCB actors hitting it big constantly:
SNL’s Bobby Moynihan
Accidentally on Purpose’s Lennon Parham
Community’s Donald Glover
The Office’s Ellie Kemper
Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza to name a few,
I am not overwhelmed with hatred and jealousy as I would have predicted. I am excited and hopeful that there could quite possibly (eventually) be a place in this industry for people like me.

In high school, I didn’t actually give a rat’s ass about football. Turns out not many people do. And I have no idea where those 18 year old athletes are now, if they played college ball, etc. But these talented performers “graduated” from UCB and followed through to the next bigger arena. The biggest arena: the real world.

Thanks "friends"

There was an SVA actor/filmmaker mixer the other night. As pessimistic as I was feeling about flaky directors who talk a big game but never deliver, School of Visual Arts has by far produced the best student films I’ve done.

I was expecting this thing to be lame (perhaps just a projection of my bad attitude) but when I approached there was a line to get in! When I was standing there this girl comes up and cuts the line by merging next to me. I was kind of put off but kind of didn’t care until she started talking to me. I was there alone so when she decided that we would be friends I was kind of grateful. Once inside we pounced on some animators pronto to chit chat, and I don’t know if it was the slight bit of competition from my “friend” or if I just don’t give myself enough credit, but I was a fabulous schmoozer. As me and my buddy met other people together I began to sense more and more that we were not actually friends. I mean, I was selling my self as improv-trained comedy and writing girl whereas she was very much period piece dramatic emoting girl but still- bitch bolted while I was very passionately sharing my gut wrenching disgust for horrendous network sitcoms like Two and a Half Men and (gag) Big Bang Theory. Good riddens. I frickin worked it solo! I handed out all of my headshots and business cards, lost my voice by the end, and I even got some sprite young things interested in MY project. BOOM! FO’ REAL!

AND to make my evening even better, I stopped in a bodega on the way to the train and saw these rare beauties:
I’ve only had the mango one once and it was THE SHIT. I look for them everywhere but to no avail until…ta-dah! Is this a sign from god? I bet it is.

SUCK MY ARIZONA! I OWN THIS CITY!

Jesus, John

I’m taking a comedy class with John Gallagher. When I signed up I had no idea who the dude was. He likes to name-drop all day and night, which made me skeptical. He’s a very nice guy but I’m still not completely sure what my read is on him yet. Yesterday in class he gave us some auditioning advice, which apparently won two of his very successful actor friends (whose names he most certainly specified at the time) the greatest auditions of their lives.

As one of the stories goes, this guy was on his way to a huge audition when he was accosted. The event left him rattled and took his mind off the audition entirely. When the guy entered the audition room he explained his odd experience and gave a great audition, landing the part.

Ok, I certainly see the merit of getting out of your head and acting completely on impulse in an audition room. It keeps the scene honest and fresh.

Mr. Gallagher seems to think the moral of the story is to make up some cockamamie tale to tell at the beginning of your audition so that the auditioners have a window into your true personality. He insists that this will make you unforgettable and win you the part. I’m not even kidding, we spent time in the class one by one entering the “audition room” with and impromptu tall tale.

What the?!? I find this advice extremely hard to swallow. Wasn’t the whole example based on the fact that the terrifying event really did happen to the auditioner and what that event actually did to the actor and his performance? If you enter an audition with a bizarre-o story and then do a bad job on your sides, you will simply be remembered as that bizzare-o individual that must be avoided. John’s comments on my wild entrance in class was that I can come in and tell a completely manic story and then audition for a somber part and TA-DAH, I’ve just shown them my range rather than just the somber sides….Hmmmm. This kind of makes sense. John also strongly believes that an actor as a person is hugely important during the auditioning process in addition to acting skill and that this little story does give the auditioner a glimpse at that person, whether they plan on breaking the ice or not. Jesus, John. I don’t know what to think anymore.

I kind of get what he’s saying…but I also kind of think it’s weird and manipulative to go around telling made up stories about freak accidents and traumas.

Get the f*** out of my way.

I’m sick of auditioning for people’s shit. I’m sick of getting my hopes up for a great role only to wind up in a room reading sides with more typos than I can count in front of an overweight dude with a handicam basking in his temporary power. Honestly, I auditioned for a role, in a non-porno mind you, playing a prostitute that gets murdered (along with all the other prostitutes in the whore house) by having a lit firecracker jammed up my vagina. No thank you. I’m sick of auditioning for rinky dink projects with heinous scripts and absolutely zero forward momentum.

I’m not one to sit around and bitch. I bitch and then I rack my mind to be proactive. So, deciding to take matters in my own hands, I decided I would write my own script. A script that wasn’t horseshit and a script about a kick ass character I wanted to play. I did this. TWICE. The first time, with the help of a few co-writers, we wrote a pretty awesome 30 minute sitcom pilot. The creative part was easy, I can trust myself to do that and do that well. I was at a sort of roadblock, though. I don’t know jack about the technical stuff. I don’t know how to get locations, equipment, lighting, camera angles, and so on and so on. Turns out having a delusional friend thinking your script is their ticket to fame, claiming ownership, and then forcing you to get lawyers involved will completely make all technical aspects of that project completely disappear.

Currently I’m at that same roadblock again on another project. At this point I’m slightly jaded and feel like I’m the only person I can rely on. I could take matters into my own hands and go back to school or put a massive amount of effort into learning all of the technical stuff, but I don’t really want to. I can’t afford to spread myself too thin, I want to be an actor! Not a writer, not a producer…I think. Shut up. I’ll do what I have to do. Geez.

So I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having to rely on other people. I somehow have to find people that give a shit as much as I do, will work as hard as I will, and, oh yeah, AREN’T BRAINDEAD. They’ve got to be out there somewhere. As pissed off as I know I sound, ultimately I’m pretty sure that I’m an optimistic person. I guess I have to keep auditioning for other people’s crap too. I mean, counting all the ri-god-damn-diculous situations I’ve found myself in so far, maybe probability is on my side by now?

A Blog is Born

I’m an actor. Or at least I’m trying to be. Do I get paid to act? No. When people ask me what I do, I hesitate to say I’m an actor. I don’t want to be lumped into the giant cesspool of lazy waiters, bartenders, and temps that say that they’re actors because they don’t want to admit that they’re just lazy waiters, bartenders, and temps. Am I just like them? Sometimes…whatever…shut up. I guess the good ones (and the persistent ones) rise to the top?

That’s what I love and hate about this industry. I really do believe that you have to be tough to make it. As a white, 20-something, female I’m pretty interchangeable with lots of other white, 20-something, females BUT I’m a lot tougher than most of them. As their feelings get hurt and success, in fact, does not come easy they’ll lose interest and leave a smaller pool of white, 20-something females. I’ll still be there, a battered wife, taking the abuse but maybe, just maybe I’ll be a little bit stronger and a little bit wiser as a result. I’ll also, perhaps, be a white, 30-something, female by then but you get what I mean.

Am I talented? Hells if I know. I know I don’t completely suck but I also know that I’m not god’s greatest gift to stage and screen. Not yet, anyway. You know, I don’t actually think it matters. Plenty of awful idiots get cast all the time, which is infuriating. But why can’t I be the next (questionably) awful idiot to get cast? Word.