Its offical I am a whore.

I have been bitching and moaning about how I need a break and how I was going to take one after this show closed. Well someone dangled a role in front of my face and asked me if I wanted to audition. I said yes. I need to learn that "no" word I have heard about.

And Speaking of Talent and Beauty

I saw a show this past weekend that a friend was in. I wont speak of what I thought of it because that's between she and I and this blog isn't here to review peoples shows.

But what I do want to mention was that there was a woman in the show who was just amazing. She did not have a false moment all night on stage. She is also extremely attractive. I don't mean cute or pretty I mean just drop dead gorgeous. Maybe what's happening is what I posted about below but being aware of this I would never ask her out.

There is something else about her that I think adds to her beauty that you usually wouldn't think would do so. She had a couple scars on her arms and an impact scar around one of her eyes. Now the ones on her arms are no big deal. Short sleeve shirts will cover those but its almost impossible to hide scars on your face. Especially around your eyes and even more so when it is a scar that was made when the skin has obviously just been shredded and the surgeon had to pull it all together the best they could. You would think that such a scar would detract form her beauty but in my mind it enhanced it. It seemed that a imperfection like that on an otherwise beautiful face made her beauty all that more apparent.

Is Talent an Aphrodisiac?

I wonder sometimes if having talent or having people perceive you have to talent, makes people attracted to you. I know in my case that recently some women who, I believe, would never go out with me under normal circumstances are willing to do so after seeing me on stage. I don't get it. I'm no different then I would be if I didn't act. I have the same values, beliefs, failings and desires that I would have if I wasn't an actor so why should it make a difference if I can act or not? I don't get it.

I do know that I personally have seen women on stage who I thought did wonderful jobs and I found them very attractive. But I don't know if I had seen them in real life and not on stage if I would have done so.

Oh well I did it now..

My voice went last night. Its not completely gone. I can still carry on a conversation but there is a big difference between having a voice that works for regular conversation and one that works for the stage. In the end of the Act I last night I felt a little tickle in the back of my throat. I noticed from the beginning of the Act II that I wasn't able to project as well and that I was losing some of my range. By the end of the show it was all I could do to just be able to project loud enough so the audience could hear me.

So today it is Throat Coat and laying off the cigarettes. Hopefully I will be able to make it through the weekend without ending up sounding like William Robert Laughlin.

I'm an ass, an ass, an ass!!

Well I blew it. I mean really fucking blew it. I did the one thing you should never do at an audition. I showed up late. Not a little late like 5 minutes, which is still huge when your audition window is 15 minutes late, but 41 fucking minutes late. I mean so late that I almost shouldn't have gone but I figures "hell its 6:20, I'm just getting off the Dupont Metro stop, I was suppose to be here at 5:45 so I may as well go down there and see what happens. I can at least apologize and give them my headshot." Wells that I got to do. They were done and I got to show up just in time to say I am sorry, give them my head shot and show myself to be an ass.

The walk down from the Metro was filled with anxiety and adrenaline. The walk back was if life was passing me by. Everyone else had some place to go, something to do, a goal in mind. Mine was gone. I was just going home from something I had come into town to do but didn't get a chance to do. So I just slowly walked along Q Street from 15th to Dupont as if nothing had happened. Which is what happened. Nothing. The air seemed thick as I walked. The calm and stagnant air perfectly reflected my mood.


No reason to kick things throw a fit, be pissed off. Well at least not outwardly. Inside I was disappointed in myself and taking myself to task. Its what I do. I will always be harder on myself then anyone else will. But it doesn't mean I lose it. I am hard on myself because I have to be if I want to get the results I want but it doesn't mean I do it outwardly.

So I will drown my sorrows in rum, only a little, and know tomorrow night I will get to go stage, entertain people and channel this disappointment in myself into my performance. It should be a hell of a show. :-)

Drinking and the craft.

Do you drink? I don't mean like have a beer with your dinner or a glass of wine but are you capable of really drinking. I mean like Richard Burton drinking but without all the falling down and throwing up on yourself. I can drink. I know it, my friends know it, my bartenders know it and I am sure my liver knows it. I fully expect one day for my liver to just jump out of my body scream "fuck you" and run down the street. Well I hang out with some serious drinking actors. We consider it part of the craft and look upon actors who don't with suspicion. I think its part of the romance of being an actor. You work hard and you play hard. If you didn't you wouldn't have anything to bitch about and trust me actors love to bitch.

But every now and then I see someone who has crossed the line when it comes to drinking. I , and most of my buddies, know when to stop and know when not to drive, but there is one who doesn't. He no longer has his license because of a DUI. He lost a job in a bar because he showed up for his second shift of the day too drunk to wait tables. He also almost didn't get cast in a show because he had let his drinking interfere with a previous show he was in. As it was he had to drop out because he had to take a different waiter job to replace the one he lost and didn't have time to do the show. The thing is he is a hell of a guy when he is sober, nice, charming, funny but when he is hammered he is incoherent, rude and has a habit of passing out in public places.

Which he did last night. He came to see the show I was in and afterwards I could tell he was drunk and that he must have been really drunk when he showed up as after 2 hours he was still pretty hammered. After the show a group of us went out to eat and drink. I almost didn't go because I didn't want to be around him when he was like that and I knew it was going to get worse , which it did. He was stumbling around the bar, he was spilling drinks and finally he passed out in his chair and had to be helped to a friends car and driven home. The friend came back and told me he had to physically carry him into his apartment.

Now that is just sad and the worse part is none of us will confront him about it. Either out of just not giving a rats ass enough to confront him or in that by confronting him we may have to admit to ourselves that we may have a drinking problem.

I know in my case I just don't like to be around sloppy drunks. Who does? I always thought it was because I prided myself that I could handle my booze. With my friend its handling him and I have to admit that my desire not to be around him may grow from that fear that it is handling me too.

Remembering to duck.

Well I finally did it. I forgot to duck, or at least duck early enough. As I am being moved on the scaffold for the spinning sequence I need to duck or I may catch a light instrument in the head. I usually duck down as soon as the lights are out but last night I didn't and as I was being moved I thought "mmmm I need to duck down" right as I started to do so I caught a light in the top of my head. Not bad enough to cut me or really hurt me but just enough that the audience heard an "owwww" emitting from a dark stage. stage.

Actors can be such whiners

Well the cast seems to be getting into the swing of things. We still have over three weeks to go and people are already bitching about the show. We've got people pissed off because they didn't get mentioned in a review. We've got people pissed off because other actors have changed what they do on stage. We have people pissed off because there are people who haven't changed what they do on stage. Its just such a fucking mess. All I will say is this 'SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!!! " Jesus is that too much to ask?