2008: The Year I plus an Amazing Acting Tip

Fainted. For real. I fainted. 

I never figured myself as the type with 'the vapors' but proved myself wrong. I was in rehearsal, ready for my 'kill the baby' line and felt so very tired. I remember thinking 'I will just bend my knees a little' then a black curtain showed up and I was having a great dream about the show until I was woken up and pissed off that I was in a gymnasium not my bed. I thought, 'why are all these people in my bedroom?', then I thought, 'Oh, it's Saturday at 7:30, I am in rehearsal, how am I on the floor, my teeth hurt.' I guess everyone thought I was 'acting' when I face planted in to the floor but when I missed my line they realized I wasn't that good of an actor. Paramedics were called, fainting the diagnosis. Now I am hyper aware of myself. Any feeling of tiredness I am concerned my knees might go out again, which wouldn't be too bad since the dream was really nice. 

I understand why people faint for fake now or feel faint for fake. (Warning Amazing Acting Tip) What a great way to get attention, out of whatever you were doing and an excuse for almost anything! And for actors, fake feeling faint or fake fainting provides an excellent opportunity to test one's skill at acting physical distress without needing actual symptoms. During your exercise in fake fainting you can gauge your success at acting by how much attention you are receiving from those around you. The more concern=The better the acting!

Happy Acting!

Current Nostalgia: Reading Out Loud

Paragraph Reader!

Learning by reading paragraphs. I guess it works. Not for learning but for counting. IN elementary school to achieve the double whammy of practicing reading aloud and absorbing whatever new information we were learning at the time. The teachers would have us all open our books to the same pages and go around the room each reading a paragraph at a time. I don't know about anyone else but I would always count ahead to what paragraph I would be reading to see how long it was and if there were any words I didn't know in it. If there were words I didn't know the I would scan the previous paragraphs to see if the word appeared earlier and then wait for whoever was reading that paragraph to pronounce or mispronounce the word to save face when I had to read it. If the word appeared for the first time in my paragraph I would then fret and explore the ways to say it, sounding it out, guessing what it rhymed with or practicing my "I don't care if I say it wrong, you try to get it right inflection". The pre-counting of paragraphs didn't always work. Sometimes paragraphs are only one or two sentences long and then I didn't know if the reader would read the super short paragraph only or read the next one as well. Sometimes the teacher wanted the student to read more than the short paragraph. This always messed up the count. I then would have to prepare myself for reading any number of paragraphs, not knowing how the super short paragraphs would be treated. Another wrench in this plan is not knowing the direction the student to student reading will go, up and down rows, across tables, in a circle, I never knew so I had to determine the pattern of reading first, or guess it. I don't remember actually learning anything from the out loud reading other than how to strategize my potential paragraph.

Once I got to high school, I thought that panic was over.

And yet, this is how I am trained in my pretend job. If I am not being read to from a text heavy PowerPoint slide, I am reading aloud paragraph by paragraph in a group of adults. Doing the same things of course, counting ahead to see what paragraph will be for me to be able to prepare myself and impress everyone with my reading out loud skills.

Good thing I can pronounce more words now.

Honestly Vermont Ugly It Up

Vermont. Choked with pretty. Everywhere I look is a
perfect postcard. I want to lick a stamp the size of
Rhode Island and stick it on Vermont. It is just
Vermont too, sure new Hampshire is nice, but when you
cross the state line it to New Hampshire is there a
speckled doe standing on the edge of the forest at
4:00 in the afternoon? I don't think so. I am sure
that deer is paid to be there because what deer in
their right mind stands next to a highway during the
day, not looking to dart in front of a car? But still,
it was there. And the hippies! Crocheted stocking hats
on adults and children, flowing skirts, sandals,
vegetarian options and wheelchairs with giant
hand-woven baskets attached. They were even teaching
the children dowsing on the State Capital lawn.
Dowsing! Public education and the government endorsing
such a hippie activity!
But the pretty. I can't even imagine the pretty in the
fall with the colors and the leaves. I would explode
and my glistening inners hanging from the majestic
gold, amber and bronze leaves would only make the
pretty even more inspiring and beautiful. My scarlet
blood only enhancing the warm tones of the burr oak
leaves.

But spring in the Vermont is stunning enough, light
green budding trees laced through gray-brown bare
branches with deep green evergreens punctuating the
display. Talk about composition! It is like a freaking
design school project. Foreground, background, rule of
thirds, depth, landscape, focal points, in Vermont any
moron with a camera is Ansel Adams.

Vermont is where all movies should be filmed and where
foreign visitors can only go. The pretty will improve
the world's view of America, the hippies will dispel
the notion of fat stupid Americans and the pretty will
make everyone want to be nice to us, like how people
are nice to pretty girls, even if they are stupid.

Vermont. Who knew they had the entire pretty?

Paper Bag Monster!

So unassuming brown paper bag, beneath your crinkly,
dry, flammable form stews a commanding evil force.
Beware the wrath of the monster of paper bag! Or at
least carry your lunch inside!

Inbox Delight: Unsolicited Pork Shoulder

Bigger Copulation Organ in Two Weeks.

That is what spammer Georgette Kerns is offering me. I will have to turn down her offer but I am impressed with the use of a book of synonyms, often including related and contrasting words and antonyms to entice consumers. I guess she's trying to reach a higher, less crude class of under-representative copulation organs. 

Two weeks, huh? Sounds like a deal.

Tryin' to be Learned

After five years of saying I was going to apply to
graduate school, I finally did. I even made it to the
interview round at the more prestigious of the three
schools I applied to. And was swiftly sent a rejection
letter. I think I might have been discredited when I
referred to myself as 'artsy fartsy' in the interview
or when I reference a 'triforce' of power in my
discussion of a certain play.

I got a rejection letter from my 'safety school' too.
I guess I am just too awesome.

Rick Reilly, it is all your fault.

Rick Reilly, you are the reason I have not been blogging. You are the reason my home is a mess and the cause of my debilitating case of procrastination. And you know what? I don't even subscribe to Sports Illustrated. It's your book. No, I can't sneeze fifteen minutes away each week on your column, I have the whole book, 100 columns, 100 reasons to not do stuff. And such easy chunks. How many times have I said to myself this week, "Oh, I'll just read one." One turns into two which turns in to reading fifteen columns and I am laughing, crying and contemplating my way to presidency of  ProcrastiNation. 

I haven't picked up my tennis balls in months but it's not serendipity that I am reading your book. I used to read your column, like a real sports fan once a week from a subscription in my high school years. Then you had become my favorite columnist and I had easily packed you away as I ventured on my artistic career. But now you are back in my life, all 318 pages of you. 

I am supposed to be the opposite of an athlete. I am an artist, for Pete's sake, even better an actor. I am not supposed to be interested in the lives of professional golfers, high school football teams or even figure skating. 

Rick, let me tell you. Tomorrow is the opening night of my directing and playwriting debut and this past week I have laundry list of details to complete including finding appropriate "I am a director" clothes that say well-dressed and artsy at the same time. But this has be usurped by lounging on the couch soaking up columns from six years ago about you coaching girls basketball. Six years ago! 

And let me tell you, if you think coaching is hard. Direct a play. There I am the coach, but I can only coach them in practice and come the big game is it all up to the players. I don't get to call 'time' when things suck to say, "We're dying out there, quick I wrote this new dialogue, get in there and emote!" No substitutions and if any pulls a hammy, they better not let the audience figure it out. Man, I broke my ACL in a show once and did I get to be on the DL?  And there is no score board. I can't strategize how many points we need to get the lead back. The audience doesn't hold up score cards letting me know how the show is going. We are just supposed to know. 

Yeah, Rick Reilly, everything is all your fault.