From the "Hey Diddle-le-dee, an actor's life for me" file:

PROLOGUE

At 70, the "calls" get rarer and rarer...so when a world premiere of a really fascinating play comes along, and you really dig the character, and they call you in at the "head" of the day to read for it, you trip over yourself to "accept" the audition...

But you also start to lose attention to detail…

THE DAY BEGINS

I showed up, dutifully, at 10:15 AM for my 10:30 call...to an empty parking lot....to a locked theater...and it was now 10:30...I even got the theater business office manager to check her booking schedule...and nothing was there... 

 

I had been sucked into the vortex known as THE ACTOR'S NIGHTMARE...

The casting office called me at 10:40...on my bluetooth as I tried desperately to get back to my home computer-stored emails and check the address...the casting people wanted to know where I was...I replied "At the ________ Theatre, well I was but now I'm rushing back to my home to find out what was happening..."  

"The ________??  No, hon, we're at the ___________ in Hollywood...."

Picture, if you will, the map of your local area.  Now...place a point somewhere near the lower left edge of that map....now place another point somewhere towards the upper right sector....if you can, place all kinds of natural and man-made obstacles between points A and B....that was my location in context to their location....it would take any human being at least 45 minutes to traverse LA catty-corner during business hours...I could do it in 30, but not in a car with a very unhealthy transmission...

I gave my profuse apologies, told the assistant to make sure that his boss knew how much I appreciated this opportunity, how much I loved this script and this character and how I really would love to read for it, but I was now in Playa Del Rey, and Hollywood was an unrealistic goal in less than an hour...."We're breaking for lunch from 12:30 - 2" was the reply.  

OK.  I could get back in my now-seriously ill car, already overtaxed from the morning's first journey, and drive like a NY cabbie to this spot in Hollywood, and get there before the 12:30 lunch break.  I suggested this possibility, and was told to try it and I would get in the morning run...

I asked my trusty steed, my Saturn, if she had this one trip in her.  She said, "hell yes...or I'll die trying"...and we were off...

We got there without bloodshed or violation at 11:50, parked and checked in...the young blonde woman monitoring the call told she had made the same mistake during the previous day's business, and was very sympathetic to my Homeric journey..

.

Once inside (they even bumped 7 guys to get me in the door...imagine my apologies to the room on my departure) everyone was lovely, my abject apologies on entrance warmly received...the playwright and the director, first meetings for me, had the glimmer of true “mensch” in their eyes, and they were outgoing---rare and refreshing qualities, when genuine, in my industry--and the producer and casting director were pleasingly friendly, so... "Let's do it", I said.

THE SCENE BEGINS

I have the first line...and, since there's no designated "reader" with whom to interact, I prepare to launch with option "B":  you play it to an imaginary fellow actor somewhere on your plane...somewhere within "the 4th wall", as it were...something resembling the final product given the medium...

Foolish boy.

A slightly annoyed tone arises from outside that 4th wall..."read it to me"...the casting director is telling me to break 4th wall, and to play the scene with an audience member--namely himself?....ok....been there done that..."Let's go", I say again, this time in the guise of the first line of the scene, waiting for the reply which will prompt my next response, etc. etc. etc....and what comes back sounds like someone reading the minutes of some local Kiwanis Club meeting...no inflection, no emotion, not even the attempt at eye contact...and at an inaudible level and at breakneck speed...

Listen, please....I can play it any way I'm told to...I pride myself on being a "money player", a craftsman who can provide a quality product to my clientele...you want "representational" acting, especially important for most media comedy?  No problemo...you want a certain style, you want a certain sound...I'll give it my best shot...but IMHO this play deserves more, and these two men I just met deserve a chance to judge my work with all the steam in the engine and at pressure, and this beast was never going to take flight with that lack of commitment on the other end of the see-saw, so..

..

"What?  What?  For Chrissakes, I'm an old man!  Speak up, boy!"  hurled from my mouth, in the appropriate dialect of this complex character, in his eighties....and it got my scene partner's attention...

The rest of the scene went...ok....but not what I would have been chosen as my ideal scenario for this once-in-an-ever-so-quickly-shortening-lifetime chance at reaching for the ring...

THE EPILOGUE

Now I descend into that darkest of cellars in the actor's psyche:

How to do I rationalize my blowing this without losing the last, slim glimmer of hope that keeps me caring about being an actor? …without using the "ok, you didn't get it, the callbacks were today and you ain't called, so..." dialog, which if not monitored becomes a spiraling descent into the dark and desperate and oh-so-attractive-to-all-us-Brando-era-“mavericks” place…the portico of the hellhole of the "Oh God I need This Job" place, that chant of the serf, and which so demeans your personal sense of value as a person and as a product?....

And there are dozen levels of perfectly logical reasons for “not landing” this plum…”With this director’s ‘cred’ and this kind of writing, there may be three ‘A-listers’ already being wooed to play this role”, “you were too young to play him (What?  Have you seen my selfies???)”…even the “Simple. You suck!” response…you name it, it’s part of the dialog…and it’s being spoken right now…

(Author’s Note: Keynesian-inclined responses proposing that "a more accurate assessment of the offered commodity" might be in order are welcome.)

Ah, f*ck it.  I'll feed the dogs...

Thanks for listening...

I'm getting to know the meaning of "Bro"...

It has been far too long since I have opened the door to this room...

My last posting, in October 2014, is a curious lead-in to this writing...

Lisa and I are in dire peril right now....she almost died shortly after I posted the October piece...stress and a faulty liver almost took her from me, as she lay bleeding out on a ER gurney from an esophageal varices...

Short version:  she made it, because she is remarkable and our guardian angels were on the job.

Now we are faced with the slings and arrows which are flung upon the poor...the unemployed...the folks at the base of the Murikan Pyramid...

We had no health insurance...a mixture of "eligibility windows" and an entrepreneurial attitude about the relative unimportance of protecting your most valuable asset--your employee--had thrust us into the cadre of peasants who sludge through the mud on a daily basis, fearful of slipping into the mire, with no safety nets to save us if we fall...

We are facing massive medical bills...and the whopper, the one from the hospital with its 18 hrs of ER, 3 days of ICU and two in "general population"--with all their attendant charges for the 8 units (yes, the body only holds, roughly, 9-10 units) of blood, 4 of plasma, countless more of saline...the $50 gauze pads, etc.--has not yet come...

Prior to this incident, we barely had enough, robbing this Peter to pay that Paul, to keep the electricity and gas flowing and provide for the fuel needed to get around LA to work...and pay for prescriptions...and "walk-in lab" procedures (a great boon to patient care, BTW...you can get virtually any lab procedure done without having to traverse the Yellow Brick Road of "primary care physicians", and their oh-so-expensive colleagues "specialists", to find out precisely what your thyroid or liver or kidneys are doing..or what your testosterone level really is).  We have kids who need to be fed.

We are Murika.

So we are at a crossroads.

We will probably have to sell our home (hopefully while market conditions are favorable), pay off the first and second mortgages and the bulk of remaining medical bills, and hope to have enough to find a community where our balance of assets can provide us with a new field in which to plant our gifts.  We will have to "re-invent" ourselves...

I'm probably sharing too much.  I apologize for that.  I guess I'm just really feeling a long-overdue fraternity for my fellow Americans.  I fought for you, and you spit on me when I returned.  I nursed and saved you--when I could-- from death as a paramedic, and you showed me the horrors that man does to fellow man--or oneself in the depths of despair...and made me leave a career which I earnestly felt an affinity for, but which was too overburdened with bureaucracy and a "caste system" mentality to be bearable on a daily basis...a career which I chose for me, as opposed to theatre which was--lovingly--imposed upon me from birth...a career I left because the consequences of failed decisions were life and death matters, not just playtime drama...

Hence my personal crossroads....

When Lisa lay bleeding out, after me missing the precursor symptoms for 72 hours, I ripped myself a new one...I lost 10 pounds in a week just pacing the floor....I cursed myself in 4 languages...  Despite my keeping my MEDSCAPE subscription--and CME credits--current (although it is than 40 years after my turning in my "whites") my poor ego thought that I could see the deteriorating condition of my beautiful mate fish, despite being inside the tank with her.  Foolish boy...

Now we must march like Patton's troops to make her strong and well and back to health...mental, spiritual and physical health.  We have enrolled her in a Covered CA Platinum PPO...an extra $150  month but covering essentials much better than any competing product.  She's got a new, sharp, young primary care physician, she's seeing the gastroenterologist this afternoon for a consult on a follow-up procedure...

Once this immediate hurdle is cleared, it will be time for some serious soul-searching.  I really must commit to either art or medicine, because I must relieve my poor, overstressed and overworked mate fish from the endless duty of keeping the tank clean...

And, maybe, make a mortgage payment...or a healthcare insurance payment....or car insurance...or Time Warner...or...

Female experience, the follow-up

For those who give a rat's ass (and from the response to this morning's post on FB, not many do), here is the description of my distaff detour:

I was standing at our overcramped-with-dirty-dishes sink at 6:30 this morning, struggling with a load design which would allow all the offending dishware to be done in one, water-and-time-saving bunch...  As I did so, I felt distinctly female...

Before you unleash a salvo of commentary about my sexism, let me explain...  Women, especially women in marriages or other types of domestic partnerships, are often not the breadwinners...therefore they try their best to find other ways of being essential in the crewing of the ship of life....  They work overtime to play a supporting role, and to play it well...  They are the maids, they are the sex toys, they are the friendly ear, they are the oil for the pistons...

That was me, today, standing at that sink...

Lisa has been the breadwinner of our family for quite a while...my acting career is like those subterranean fires that burned for decades in Pennsylvania--yeah, there's still heat, but damn little flame...  I collect my S/S (early retirement) and my actor's union pension (meager at best), so I am able to contribute to the expenses of running the house, but...with over $800 bills for utilities, and the mortgage, and our prescription drug costs, and our pets, and, and, and...it falls upon my 20-years-my-junior wife to bring home the bacon...and she was disabled for a year and unemployed with nothing coming in for a couple of months thereafter...

Happily, she has found a position where her remarkable and very unique talents can shine, and she is enjoying helping a small-business owner build a successful insurance practice....but the rewards from this effort, aside from a minimal hourly wage, will take time to reap, so...

The point is, it is up to me to be the cheerleader, the physical trainer ("Hey, Champ, how's that shoulder today?...Did you get enough sleep last night?"  etc. etc.), the logistics and supply officer...the soccer mom driving the kids to the match...you get it....all those duties which fall, with regularity, to women...

Women, who are not only eminently better equipped emotionally and psychologically to the task, but who also are conditioned from birth to bear pain and frustration and feelings of inferiority with silence and grace...unlike the members of my sex.

Men are taught to bellow and bray.  We are taught that "men don't take that shit lying down"....we are taught that we are the kings of the universe, made in (male) God's image and worthy of (male) God's worship...

It is a brutal lesson--often fatal if not to body then to mind--receiving the memo that all the misogynist bullshit you learned about "male superiority" and male entitlement was a lie...and it is inevitable, even if only on the deathbed, that the memo will be delivered.

I, for one, am glad to experience this humiliation--essential to my growth--in increments while still aware enough to incorporate them into my daily life.

LALAland, up close and personal...

Wrapped a shoot for an ultra-low budget today...

As I sat in my self-provided canvas chair between takes, I took full advantage of our location--an "elite" little plant nursery next to Sherwood Magazines  (if you know LA, you know this place....if not, all the explanation in the world won't help).  I devised a little game where I would cast each passing person into a sitcom or "reality" show, past or present...  Lots of "Vanderpump Rules"--the 20-somethings who are oh so concerned with their looks...a few "Cheers", even a "That Girl"...a "Girls Gone Wild" segment with 7 or 8 vaguely Midwest-looking sorority sisters, all down-dressed in sweats, fast approaching La Cienega with plans to launch a meaningful Saturday Night assault on the local bars...

There was the mid-thirties fellow who talked to the plants as he passed by...he then actually came behind the gate and conversed with one of the exotics, then smiled and explained:  "My therapist!"  I smiled back and told him I approved of the choice...

But then came along a guy on an old, battered Honda scooter...he was shirtless, skinny as a rail, sunburned...he stopped his scooter in front of an apartment complex dumpster, opened the lids and started to rummage...his attempt at finding an honorable meal...

That brought me back from fantasyland to Murika 2014....with the simple thud of a dumpster lid...

God bless and help us all....

Bloomberg may have done some good things while in office as mayor of NYC, but the one thing he did which I find unforgivable is the feeding frenzy of the rich upon the poor which he encouraged while in office...

The city of Gershwin, the city which prompted the visual love poem photography of De Salignac or Bofinger, the early paintings of Georgia O'Keefe and the cinema of Woody Allen--none as vivid as the collage of images I carry in my mind and heart, taken through the camera of my child's eyes--has given way to a neon/steel/glass temple to the uberwealthy...

All of the "mom and pop" businesses have been pushed out by Starbucks and Gaps...all of the 4 and 5 story walk-ups have been torn down to make way for square-block monoliths, 30 to 40 stories high, blocking out the sun and driving out the working class which can no longer afford to pay $1000-$2000 per square foot prices to live there...

Union jobs, paying living wages and good benefits, are being squeezed out...even raw materials for construction projects--and the labor on those projects--is being purchased from China and India in lieu of local product...

Some say this is "progress"... 

I say it is collusion between the uberrich and the politicians who they have purchased wholesale; a pact to create a world where they and they alone can live in comfort, being served by an underclass which must commute to and from their compounds to wash their laundry and walk their dogs...

All this preoccupation over the "C" word...

No, I'm not speaking about Coulter, or the word used to describe her...and I don't mean "conservative" or "commentator"...

Coup...is the overthrow of Morsi in Egypt a coup, or isn't it a coup? That seems to be preoccupying the entire commentary on the situation in Egypt and our national reaction to it....

Of course it's a frigging coup...to the extent that, in the face of intransigence on the part of Morsi and his Theocratic, Iran-sympathizing thugs of the "Muslim Brotherhood" to yield to the people's demands for constitutional reforms, the army stepped in and made him step down. That's a coup...or a revolution backed by the indigenous armed forces. Take your pick.

What's the big deal? "People are dying in the streets"! Yes. In revolutions, people die in the streets. They did in Russia in 1905, and again in 1917, and for decades thereafter (not in the streets, but in gulags)...they did in France in 1787, and again in 1832...and then the French killed people in the streets of Algeria a century later... Name a revolution--and I am not even going to try to enumerate the incidents of revolutionaries dying in the streets, the mud puddles, the barrios of Africa or South America--name ONE revolution where people did not die, by the hundreds...men, women, children...and worst of all animals--who never asked to be part of this crap...

Wake the f*ck up, kiddies... Gandhi's revolution of peace gave way to what amounted to virtual genocide in India and Pakistan... Things get dirty and nasty when people revolt, and when the other side of the argument really gets pissed they start shooting. Then people shoot back. Hatfield and McCoy, times infinity.

Wanna really, and I mean REALLY have something to get your knickers in a twist about? Hmmm? It could happen here. Yep, right here in Mayberry, Opie...

When Theocrats raise their ugly heads above the water-line, and start to infiltrate the air with their putrid stench of intolerance and bigotry, and that stench starts to permeate the body politic, that's when things get ugly.... And things here in Mayberry are getting pretty pungent....

Theocracy is arsenic to Democracy. It is kryptonite to the superpower of the plurality. It's what brought down the French monarchy--in a staunchly Catholic nation...it brought down the Romanoffs--in a nation virtually ruled by the Russian Orthodox Church... The realization of the poisonous nature of Theocracy is what prompted our founding fathers--you know, the boys Bachmann and Palin are so fond of misquoting?--to make damned sure that Church and State would remain separate...

But now, all bets are off. Under the guise of a "democratic process", the Machiavellian Masters of Koch/ALEC have seen the light....they have infiltrated our legislatures with Right Wing Regressive pseudo-Christians, with an agenda devoted to creating an America carved in the image of the KKK, merged with a sprinkling of the Taliban...marching us inexorably towards a bible-thumping, woman-hating, race-baiting, serfdom where the Plutocrats will reign supreme...all hail the conquering, White Supremacist, misogynist Oligarchs...

Do you really think this will not lead to something very ugly here? Do you really think that "No Justice, No Peace" rallies will move them? Do you really, and I mean REALLY think that all the brutality they are starting to demonstrate to the peaceful opposition they are encountering in Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina or Florida is as far as they will go? And do you really think that those of us who have lived through the battlefields of Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan...or the battlefields of the civil rights movement of the 1960s...are going to go quietly into that "good night"???

So, please kiddies...wake the f*ck up and stop thinking that this is just some reality show, something that you can flip the channel and avoid...Big Brother or Survivor Raleigh...

It's real life...

and it's your asses on the line...

An Open Letter to the "Tea Party"...

I awoke this morning expecting to hear that all the obstructionist crap of the past few months had been put to rest...that we had, in fact, averted the dreaded "fiscal cliff" (OMG how I hate those words)...but instead was greeted by the same crawls and bullets on CNN and MSNBC...the same "no agreement reached" nonsense that I closed my eyes to over 6 hours ago...the same instransigence...the same doctrine-driven avoidance of reality...

I don't know how else to say this:  If you really think that you pay too much in taxes...that your country is too deeply in debt...that our society has gone too far from God and the Bible...then please get on a plane, or boat, and leave....or please kill yourselves...but please, above all, just sit down and shut up.

If you think that this world we have created and that we live in...this high-tech-300-channel-everything-on-demand-high-speed-Interstate-highway-cheap-six-pack-in-every-convenience-store-on-every-intersection-fresh-milk-every-day-flip-a-switch-and-lights-come-on-turn-a-faucet-and-something-other-than-mud-and-benzine-comes-out-of-the-tap world we live comes cheap, then you are just plain stupid or really, really, REALLY FUCKING NUTS!  So, unless you are Amish and don't avail yourself of all these things. sit down, shut up, open your wallet and pay your share.

If you want to be able to drive your Dodge Ram Turbo to the woods, pull out your Bushmaster and kill stuff, or tow your boat to the lake and go fishing and catch and THEN kill stuff...if you want to have electric lights so you can home school your toothless brood...or, especially, if you want to socialize them and send them to public school, in the hope they can then have the privilege of putting themselves and you in perpetual debt paying off their college tuition so that they can go out and get a job working for some asshole who will pay them less and less in proportion to the profits of the company they work for...if you want to have the ability to wave your "Don't Tread on Me" flags at rallies held on public property--parks, public squares, etc.--built, maintained and protected (by police and firemen), all paid from tax revenues...then sit down, shut up, open your wallet and pay your fucking share.

If you want to pretend that you are patriots and continue to pollute our world with your vitriol and diatribes, the right of which to do is guaranteed by our maintaining the largest military force in the world--a force populated by, for the most part, people from the lowest economic brackets of our society and who are being forced to go into 3rd, 4th and 5th deployments in combat zones, only to return damaged in body and soul and find themselves without adequate infrastructure supports to tend to their wounds--then sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up and pay your motherfucking share.

Or leave.  Find someplace else where they will put up with your bullshit without hitting you in your empty heads with a baseball bat, then rape your wife and daughters.  Good luck with that.

If not, then PLEASE sit down, shut up, open your goddamned motherfucking wallet and pay your
share...and stop thinking that your "idealism" even vaguely resembles patriotism or concern for your country's future.  It doesn't.  Your ideas, your words, your ideology is crafted and broadcast by a cadre of plutocrats and oligarchs who could care less about you or your country.  They have their assets, and their asses, covertly covered in tax-shelters and offshore accounts.   They are multinational warlords, and they are laughing all the way to their Swiss bank accounts every time they see you march and scream and elect the flotsam and jetsam you send to Congress to further their interests.

Wake the fuck up.  Sit the fuck down.  Open your wallet...go to Walmart, and then pay your fucking share.