Sunday, January 30, 2011

is karma really a bitch?

I usually find blatant satisfaction in thinking that bad people, or people who do bad things or act a certain way, will eventually get theirs.  Some people get it quicker than others, some get it rather subtly (I hate how that looks when it's spelled correctly) and some will live a glorious long life and the clincher isn't until the very end.


Personally, I usually try to give karma a hand.  I have always felt that if someone is doing wrong, and there is a way to fix this problem instead of just dealing with something shitty, I'll go ahead and do that.  A loose hypothetical example would be that if I were working with someone who was abrasive, lazy, and was acting completely inappropriately for a work environment, I would make a formal complaint to a boss.  On a more truthful note, I have in the past gone to a department head when I thought my grade was given unfairly, etc.  Or even when I was a kid and my sister picked on me, I would go tell mom...

yeah yeah yeah, you could say it was tattle-tailing, but I usually say that I don't deal with crap and I like to defend myself.  I wish more people would take these attitudes towards life.  Unfortunately, we live in a society where a lot of the time there's the instigator, and putz that lets themselves get walked all over without doing anything about it.  They'll say, "no, I don't want to cause a problem" instead of rightly standing up for themselves.  I find this more frustrating than when I have to deal with an instigator myself!

My largest issue with myself has always been my temper.  I could say I try to control it, but it is a struggle.  I have noticed that when in a conversation with someone, if I'm getting annoyed or find a chance to criticize them, I don't jump to snapping as quickly as I used to.  Maybe my control in that area has in fact improved.  BUT today I found that there's an exception to my own self control when I'm already in a terrible mood and someone chooses to pick a fight with me. 

If I don't know someone, I am ten time more likely to be willing to fight with them.  This will happen with customer service, (rather typical among anyone actually) where they aren't giving me what I need and I'm rather rude.  It will also happen with men at bars that try to touch my ass and I reach out and slap them across the face.  I think when someone says something to set me off, if I don't know them or have no connection to them really at all, then I won't see the repercussions right away of completely letting a screw loose because a concern about a stranger's feelings doesn't always exist.

So am I the one that karma will kick back at?  Or maybe I keep trying to help karma out by giving her a jumpstart when someone ticks me off or does something awful? I'll even admit to yelling at a stranger who I see abusing another stranger... Maybe my temper needs an adjustment, but I also know others who are far worse than me, even if that's only a justification for my own self.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

auditioning is an artform in itself

I think acting is a lot like cooking with spices; you can always add more, but you can't really take any away. 

Once you go over the top and give too much, it's hard to bring yourself back down.  Even directors have rules with their actors, making sure they say to take it down to a really low level when they're getting too intense with an action, and they can adjust the energy from a lower level to the exact way they want it far more easily.

I may also have mentioned this before, but I read a book by David Mamet last month and he made good points about how actors are trained and why they go to school.  I completely agreed with practically everything he wrote; about how objectives, method acting, specific techniques and all the "stuff" that actors learn in school can end up being completely useless.  You're either a good actor, or you're not, and the fact that so many great actors of today had certain training, could merely be a coincidence.  Acting is "merely pretending" and when we get overly technical about it, it doesn't make us any better.  He did note that taking a few acting classes is a good thing to learn about the business and how to hone in on your own skills, but the most important thing to do if you want to be acting is to get your ass out there and work.

Tonight I had a callback for a show at UMass that, if put on my resume, would be a benefit for when I get out of Amherst.  That, and I think as an actor who's always wanted to do something serious, it's some serious shit and would be fantastic to work with.  But it's also very intense and R-rated; something I wouldn't invite my parents to.

Last night when I went to try out, it was literally a split-second decision.  I hadn't read the play, and I also hadn't thought I would even be noticed.  The entire time during my audition and my callback, I was reminding myself of everything Mamet said about "merely pretending".  If you're an actor, you should read this book "True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actorbecause it's amazing.  It really got me out of my own head when I'm trying to perform a piece.

If I don't get the part, (which I'm thinking I may not) I will graduate in May as a UMass theater student that was never in a UMass production.  When I went to Kent, I was in four shows.  I doubt that my not being casted has to do with my lack of talent when considering the results of moving elsewhere for a while.  Although I will admit, it's fucking depressing.

So I'm just going to put this in God's hands and see what happens.  I want to work, I want to work hard, and I want to be noticed for that work.  I guess I'm not a good fit where I am, and it's all the more reason for me to do bigger and better things when I get out of school.  I have to stop worrying about the opinions of people that are actually on the same level as I am, they just got lucky in our current status as students.  Auditioning is 10% talent, and 90% of what they're looking for (and explaining the ornate details of the business and why that is, will be for another future post my friends).






Actor Anthony Hopkins praised True And False as "[demolishing] the myths and the psychobabble-gobbledygook that pass for theory with regard to acting" and described it as "a revealing book of the highest order"

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Shakespeare and Sinatra

I'm continuing to be surprised by how happy people were to see me back this week, and how they asked how I've been and how my travels were.  I guess I was so convinced that I wasn't missed that I made myself crazy over it.  I'm starting to like being back, whereas two weeks ago I was somewhat dreading it.  Although tonight we'll have to wait and see.  But I missed the 26 story library, the gym with every machine I like, the crazy lady on the back of the bus, walking around downtown with the smell of Antonio's drifting through the cold winter air, and sitting at a kitchen table at AXO with a cup of coffee and a sister who wants to complain about boys.  Ahhhh the college life I was used to. 

Tonight is my birthday dinner/party.  I usually invite a lot of people and hope that 25% of those people show up.  I'm the girl that always wants to have a big party, and I know it's not a personal thing when some friends don't come, but I take it personally anyway.  I'm just sensitive, I can't help that.  From my perspective, if someone invites me to their birthday I think that a birthday is a day when you should go out of your way to give them a little cheer.  Even if I'm not that close with someone, I usually bring them a card or something small, and they're sometimes surprised I went that far.  I guess not everyone feels the same way that I do about birthdays, holidays, etc.   So what can you do?

When I was in kindergarten I had a birthday party and invited everyone in my class.  ONE. GIRL. CAME.  From that moment my birthday has successfully found one reason or another to make me feel like the least popular person I know.  I love parties, I love dressing up, getting excited, having food, being with friends, and I tend to feel pangs of rejection when others aren't just as excited as I am.  Some of my friends think it's strange that I get more excited than they do about their birthdays!  I think any reason to celebrate and make someone feel like they're special is something I really love.

I'm not sure where I was going with this.  Maybe that I have mixed feelings about how tonight's going to go.  My roommate asked me how many people were coming over tonight and I said I didn't want to talk about it.  I'd rather pretend that everyone was coming, because by the time I realize that ten people are at my house out of the umpteen people I invited, I'll be too drunk to care.


This paper is started, but I'm aiming for 2,000 words at least by 4pm.  Think I can do it?  AH!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

I KNOW I KNOW I should be doing my paper... geesh

I have a retarded amount of paper to write... 3,000 words and then another one is 4,000 words.  Why am I on the internet at all right now?  Oh, to tell about what I can't stop thinking...

Last night I watched this movie.  It was called "Catfish".  Watch it.  I couldn't stop laughing, and then I think I almost cried.  Both aspects are pretty good to have in a film, mostly because I hate a movie that only makes me cry.

Basically, it's about this attractive young photographer who works with his brother and friend in New York.  The brother and friend are filmmakers and documented Yaniv's relationship with someone he's never met.  Er.. rather, a few people he's never met.  If you like facebook, have ever had a long-distance relationship, or an online relationship, you'd like this movie.  Also, if you like mysteries with a funny twist, this one makes you curdle in your seat a little... but in a good way.

I don't like spoiling films for people that haven't seen them, but I do have to share what's been scrambling around in my brain all day.  I have never been against online dating, or getting to know someone that you've never met before you have to spend time with them in person.  BUT I will say this: I have met multiple people online and they are never the same in person.  Even someone that I met in person and then continued to form a long distance relationship with them after, there's just no way.  People have quirks, habits, ways they act with their friends and in front of you, and all of this can be warped on a webcam or on the telephone.  Most of it is your own view and how much you want them to be a certain way, and you get disappointed when you find out they're not.

I once met a guy who had hott pictures and sounded great on the phone, and then when I met him he was 5'8", and gave me that, "I'm actually a controlling asshole" vibe which you can't really get unless you spend time physically in front of them and getting to know them in person.  By the time I left him, I wanted to punch him in the face, when two days earlier I had butterflies speaking with him over the phone and gazing at his perfectly angled pictures, (in the end, they didn't really look that much like him... some people photograph differently than they actually look which warps opinions.)

A friend of mine got involved emotionally with more than one girl off of a website he used for online dating.  One girl was a compulsive liar and made up where she was even from, and the other girl was just plain strange and secretive.  I think some people get off on flirting and staying at an arms' length, which would probably be half the people that are online and "dating".  They don't care about actually meeting you, because half of the things they have told you may not even be true.  They just want to feel like someone want them for the parts of themselves that they like, because they may not have someone in their lives that currently want them for any of their traits... or maybe they're just bored.

This is why I'm all for actually meeting someone you meet online, and the sooner the better.  You could get emotionally attached to someone that doesn't even really exist!  Or worse, just attached to the parts you choose to see in that person, and you can't ignore the traits you don't like when you finally see them, which makes it even more emotionally disappointing when they are not what you thought they were.

While I watched "Catfish" I couldn't stop feeling bad for this young man who was probably falling in love and wanted everything he was told and was picturing about this girl.  I've been in the same boat... reality bites.  Facebook and all those other sites are good intros to meeting someone you may not have met otherwise, but I don't trust anything but real life instincts when it comes to dating someone.  This film just confirmed to me that meeting someone earlier rather than later in the game of getting to know them from the internet is absolutely vital.




(ps, Nev if you read this I'm in Massachusetts)






....bahaha I couldn't resist a shameless plug

Monday, January 10, 2011

simple lyrics for complicated feelings

Every time I listen to Neil Young, I get a picture of dancing slowly in my livingroom to my record player, burying my head in someone's chest and connecting in some way.  He's no one in particular, he's just sort of... faceless?

My favorite movie, (as most of my friends know) is When Harry Met Sally.  Harry at one point asks Sally to tell him about the sex fantasy she usually has in her head and her response is:
"There's this man... and I don't know, he's just sort of faceless... he RIPS off my clothes... and that's it.  Sometimes I vary it a little... what I'm wearing."

I die laughing every time I hear that.  Mostly because I'm the same way in that when I picture myself with someone in the future, I don't really know who it's going to be.  I don't think most of us know, but little things like what I'd like him to look like, how he might dress, or just how it'll feel when I've got my head in his chest, they cross the mind sometimes when you listen to one of the best songs on the planet or when your girlfriends start saying, "I'm going to marry this type of guy, our house will have this many rooms, and I want this many kids, and I'm going to name them this..."  But somehow a girl knows things about this guy that she would want to be with, and for now he's just sort of faceless.

To be fair, I'll agree it can be nutty to start planning out your future boyfriend or husband, but it doesn't hurt to think about what you'd like in a mate.  And on another note, kids are not on my agenda until at least 30.  I love kids and all, but I have no patience for them and I'm not ready to sacrifice being a selfigh twenty-something for said children.
So if, on the off chance that I do meet a guy that I can stand for longer than 24 hours and he doesn't peace out after that, I'm still not looking into his eyes and picturing what our baby would look like.  Mostly I'm just trying to figure out if I can trust him farther than I could sling a piano at his head.

My point?  I think this every time I hear the song, but

Neil Young makes me want to fall in love.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

a short note on health care...

This past year has made me HATE republicans... at least the morons that are fucking everyone's shit up.  As an actor, I will have no hopes of having health insurance for a long ass time unless it's publicly provided.  So, I can try to keep claiming my residency in Mass and cheat the system my whole life, (which is a bitch) or I can hope someone will smarten up and see that we're one of the few countries that don't have universal health care and we need to catch the fuck up with the times.

ALSO when I was a kid my family had Mass Health (the program that Ted Kennedy my love came up with, that the new healthcare system is based upon) and if we didn't have that, we wouldn't have been able to afford health insurance, and my sister would've died of a throat tumor and I would've died of a tooth infection.  If this system doesn't keep proceeding, we'll continue to have more childhood deaths because of all the people that don't have health insurance in the US.
END OF STORY