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2:23 am - Thu 7/17/03
It's all so simple, really--when I become rich and famous, I'll be happy and everything will be perfect...or will it?

It's all so simple really--When I become rich and famous, I'll be happy and everything will be perfect...or will it?
Wed 7/16/03 7:23 pm

Have an audition tomorrow for American Express, a spot with Andre Agassi (This is cool on two fronts�It would be a high-visibility national commercial, and I'd get to work with Andre Agassi, who's on my short list of favorite sports celebrities).

I should have known this would be the case�I was very hot to get the HBO spot, in part because I wanted to go back to Lansing having had at least some measure of success out here, but now I'm thinking "Okay, getting a commercial is good, but if I got one more thing before I went back to Lansing, that would be really cool...".

Speaking of the HBO thing, one of my little "things to do" tomorrow will be to go to Ametron, a place Daniel C. recommended, to get a 3/4" tape to send to the production company that shot the commercial (Apparently, a 3/4" tape makes for better dubs). I have to send it to the "vault master"�Didn't Rick Maranis play him in Ghostbusters?�along with a self-addressed stamped envelope. But I still don't know when the thing will actually be shown (I guess I have to call HBO, though the one call I made there so far�I got a machine and left a message�was not returned).

Thu 7/17/03 12:30 am

Yesterday afternoon, there was a terrible accident at the Farmers Market in Santa Monica; An old man plowed into dozens of people, just before 2:00 pm, as the market was about to close (I guess eight people were killed on the spot�one of which was a three year old girl�and last I heard, at least 15 more people were critically injured).

This makes me angry, because from the guy's description of what happened�He hit the accelerator instead of the brake�and eyewitness accounts, it seems apparent this was one 88-year old that shouldn't have been behind the wheel of a car (Sorry if you're an elderly person reading this, but I think there absolutely has to be a national mandate for yearly driving tests after a certain age. Yeah, it's hell to get old and lose your faculties, but people shouldn't have to die so you can keep on feeling independent).

___________________

Feeling very lonely these days...

I think Jane's away on a trip�Haven't heard from her in over a week--and Lauren has been stressed out at her new job, and pretty much unavailable. And outside of work, those are the two people I "talk to" most.

At times like this it occurs to me that I've been out here almost two-and-a-half years and I haven't really made any friends (Cary and Kay don't count, because I knew them from from Michigan, and I can't really "hang out" with them anyway).

The other thing I've been thinking about is how to not make "acting" the be-all-and-end-all of my life out here.

That's a tough one, because acting has always been the thing. Beyond Monday lunches with Mark and Jane, and Sunday jogs and breakfasts with Kevin, my social life in Lansing was, essentially, being in plays (My dating life died in the early 90s, and hanging out with people at Schulers died a couple years after that. Ironically enough, when everyone in "the gang" but me started dating). Acting was my social life, a cheap hobby, my biggest creative outlet (I guess now this is), and the one thing I had that made me feel really good about myself.

Why am I babbling on about this? Here's why...When there was a three week drought recently where I didn't have any auditions, I felt myself really crashing emotionally. Then I got the one audition, and I was happy (Until it didn't really go very well. Then I was unhappy). Then I had the industrial audition, it went well, and I was happy...for awhile (Till I had to go to the bookstore, and found myself obsessed with the idea that I'm going to be trapped at Borders for the next number of years, waiting for the dribs and drabs of acting opportunities to coalesce into an actual career. Then I was unhappy). Then I got the call for the Amex audition, and I was happy...sort of (My initial hope, when I got the page, was that it was JS telling me I'd gotten the industrial).

Are you catching my drift here? I am living and dying by the commercial audition, and it's not good.

I'm struck by a certain "irony"; One of the big motivations to come out here, one of the big motivations to be a professional actor period, is that I want to just act�I was tired of feeling like acting was getting short shrift in Lansing, the thing I had to sneak in at the end of the day, after work and sleep apnea had sucked most of the life out of me�and I've done less acting out here than at any time in my life.

And here's where things go off into two branches...

I should be acting more, figuring out a way to be acting more. That's one branch. So I can keep myself entertained by feeling guilty about that (I should be doing theatre, but if I'm doing theatre, I'm working in the daytime, and then how am I doing commercial auditions? Not to mention my theatre experiences out here so far have sucked with a capital "SUCK").

And the other branch is that, whether I'm acting more or less, whether I end up in the gutter or being my generation's M Emmett Walsh or Harry Dean Stanton, I still need to have other things going on in my life.

Of course, I've tried to get someone to go out with me, but that's not happening. And Jane has suggested attended the Unitarian Church, but the last time I attended the UU Church, I found it staggeringly boring (On top of which, I'm a small "l" liberal, and I don't want to be made to feel guilty cause Ilike a steak every so often, or have essentially given up on the idea of there ever being peace in the Middle East).

But I have to find something. My current big two hobbies�going to movies by myself, and doing this, also by myself�are things I enjoy, but they don't exactly draw the crowds in.

But you know what? I don't want to do anything. That's the great mystery of being me�I am both genuinely unhappy and dissatisfied with my life, and I also genuinely don't really want to throw a garden party, or find solace by working with homeless people, or basically do anything I'm not already doing.

Cause I'm tired. I'm really fucking "I-feel-like-someone-woke-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-beat-me-with-a-stick-before-letting-me-go-back-to-bed" TIRED.

So why haven't I gone back to the doctor? All I really need, I think, is to have an ongoing prescription for something that will keep me from getting clogged up at night (Then I just have to muster the Herculean effort involved to keep the CPAP clean. The CPAP I gave up on some time ago).

And here's where I'm going to stop, because I feel the unhelpful, "I'm getting very frustrated and angry with myself" vibe bubbling up.

Not sure why I can't muster the will to help myself, to solve my problems. But I know no one else is going to.

Maybe if I could just become a famous actor all my problems would be solved...do ya think?

 

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