The State of the Union

It's a been a beat since I've really sat down and given some thought to writing these past few weeks. I won't bombard you with a twenty page dissertation, although I feel i could write one; instead, I'll do a few smaller entrees to break it up (and make it look like I've written more this month).

I guess I'll start with the job hunt. Yes, I'm still unemployed, filling my days with online searches, phone calls and coffee breaks. Sometimes, it's a lot of fun, but mostly it's stressful. Stressful to the point of mental cloudiness and foreboding emotional forecasts. We'll get to that a little bit later.

I've been applying to numerous jobs a day and making calls to every person I know in the Greater Los Angeles Area in hopes of a new lead. There have been a few opportunities, but mostly I wait.

I consider myself a proactive person: I haven't slept past 9:30 on the weekdays, I've successfully secured unemployment benefits from the government and I apply everyday to at least three jobs. Some opportunities have come my way, but it's all a waiting game. Waiting for things to actually go through. Waiting for a green light. Hurrying up to wait. I've filled this time with new activities. I've been working out about everyday; hiking, yoga, pushups, pull ups, etc etc. I cook for myself now. I eat healthy. I think I'm in the best shape of my life.

In lieu of full-time work, I've also found a few day gigs, assisting directors, sitting desk, getting on music video shoots. I use plural, but I think I've actually done each of those once now. Let's not sugarcoat the situation. Still, between all of these different paychecks, I'm getting by. I've resigned myself to not panicking anymore. It does no good and more often than not, it makes things worse.

I'm working this coming Thursday, Friday, Monday and Tuesday sitting desk at my old job at HSI for one of the executive assistants. I'm excited to be out of my house and off my couch. I'll still be on my computer all day, juggling my situation and my bosses, but the change of scenery will be great. I'll be happy as a clam - or maybe more like an oyster. An oyster with a pearl. A pearl that the oyster pawns for money to pay his rent.

A huge positive about of this whole experience is that I'm beginning to dip my toes back into acting. Networking with other actors, sitting in on a master class and, yes, even auditioning. Randomly, I found myself signed up for two auditions this week. I won't describe the projects because I don't want to jinx them, but I'm excited to finally start this journey! Auditioning is a skill apart from acting. A skill which requires lots of practice. Practice which I haven't had much of the past year. I think, thought, that I'm ready to tackle the beast and this weekend will be the first of many, many auditions in my near future. This venture is it's own full-time job!

So, that's about it on the job front right now. I'm secretly hoping I'll be sitting desk this week and another job will open up, or some I'll get to talk to some producer that puts me on another gig. We'll see. This game is all about the hustle, who you know and lots of luck (or fate or divine intervention - however you wish to view it). And so, the waiting game continues. Patience truly is a virtue and it's a lesson I welcome. Sort of.

The Job of the Actor

As I start/continue to pursue acting on a professional level, I have started reading old plays and curriculum from college. This week I picked up an amazing book from one of my acting classes "A Practical Handbook for the Actor" by Melissa Bruder and a list of others. The authors studied under David Mamet and and is full of clear ideas and explanations and is by far one of my favorite books on the subject. In the chapter for which entry is named, there was a passage that really stuck out to me:

"Acting requires common sense, bravery, and a lot of will: the common sense to translate whatever you are given into simple actable terms; the bravery to throw yourself in the action of the play despite hear of failure, self-consciousness, and a thousand other obstacles; and the will to adhere to your ideals. even though it might not be the easiest thing to do.

In our world, it is becoming harder and harder to communicate with each other simply and honestly, on a gut level. Yet we still go to the theatre to have a communion with the truth of our existence, and, ideally, we leave it knowing that that kind of communication is still possible...

The theatre may now be the only place in society where people can go to hear the truth."

I'll be posting more about this topic as I continue to dive further and further in, but I thought this was a great passage to get me started. It speaks to something beyond the art of acting - that our society is deprived of real communication. We sit at our desks with our AIM open having 10 conversations while our Gmail chat pings and our Facebook chat blips. All of this while updating a status for each in addition to our Twitter account.... from our Blackberry/iPhone... while driving.

I say this because I'm responsible for said communication cluster fuck (pardon the term). We've allowed ourselves to remove real interaction from our lives and replace it a watered-down version that requires little to no responsibility or reaction on our part.

Sorry. I digress. The passage also highlights the reason why I've always wanted to act. This idea of "communion" with reality is incredibly powerful. To have the ability to take however many people on a journey with you through the annals of the human psyche - to help them forget their own problems - to help them find a truth that they couldn't see before; and all of this simply from playing make believe. It's a wonderful gift. One that I am anxious and excited to pursue.

Step One: Forget everything you just learned

As I said before, I'm starting to look beyond this transitory period of my life, and focus my attention on the path in front of me. What steps will I be taking in order to succeed in what it is I want to do with my life. What is that exactly?

I told myself after college that I needed to stop being a "jack of all trades" sort of person and focus. Someone in the past few weeks said this in a conversation - I can't remember who, but it's so true: The really successful people in life are obsessed with what they do." There's an exception to every rule and many paths to the same destination, but as a whole, I think this assertion is pretty spot on.

I've spent much of my life trying everything to see what I liked (I learn from experience, remember?), but when I came to California, I told myself that I would be the obsessed person, the one who fights for a single dream. So, my first obsession was getting settled; finding a home, earning a living, etc.. And now, on to the dream part: I want to act. I always have and I've always known this. After three years of acting school and Emerson College, I felt somewhat in disarray. Here I was with this great education, great connections and a vast comprehension of the "work." I know that I am business-minded as well and that my ability to promote myself is pretty good Still, I felt the need to put it aside for a while and walk away.

Like a lot of things in my life, I think I needed to find it (acting) again on my own terms. Regain control of my passion and see it from my perspective, not the perspective of a school or career or other people. This has become a pattern in my life, starting the piano. A lot of people outside of middle school and my family don't know that I've played the piano since I was in kindergarten. I was classically trained, my parents saw this as my free ride to college and I was to be a concert pianist. The pressure became too much. The passion overshadowed by a necessity and goal. I walked away my sophomore year of high school. Four years later, I decided to take lessons again. I wanted to relearn and teach myself music and feel it again on my own terms. I wanted to understand, after all this life experience, what the composer felt and meant with their notations. I wanted to play for me and no one else. It's funny to think about what an exhibitionist I used to be with the piano and now, I can barely play for people. It's become a personal thing to me. Anyway, I digress.

You've read numerous entries like this regarding my faith, so I won't go into that again, but you get the correlation. Acting fell into the same file for a time. I needed to find my roots in LA; define myself, assert a strong foundation, rebuild my confidence. I needed all of this before I could ever think of stepping into an audition - they'd see right through my forced smile. During my trip to Boston, I met with one of my acting teachers who just sat across from me and enumerated on how I'd changed since the last time she saw me. She agreed that my efforts to settle before auditioning were well-placed. She also recounted my last performance at Emerson (The Philadelphia Story) and she affirmed my passion and my desire to press on.

Being back at school, seeing shows and talking to teachers and peers, I know the next step I need to take. I need to grab this by the horns and go. My life has settled into an easily recognizable pattern. The first step to moving forward for me is to forget everything I've learned, step away, get some perspective on the lessons in regard to my life and then dive in. I've taken this first step and now it's time to start running. I'm confused and a little bit scared, but, for some reason, I think that's a sign that I'm on the right path.