Acting About

Feeling

2010-01-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

Oh, we're getting into dangerous territory now.

One of the earliest and more difficult realizations that I came to in the semester was that much of what we're learning isn't up for deliberation. As someone who has always prided himself on being fastidiously deliberate, that was a tough pill to swallow to say the least. I'm tempted to use the phrase 'to take on faith' but that carries with it a nexus of associations that don't quite fit the bill. It's not that I'm blindly following my professors and their lessons towards some unknown destination that they tell me is 'being an actor.' It's more that what they're trying to help me see is that the mind and the body more often than not inherently know what action to take and that stopping to think, to weigh A vs. B vs. C and so forth, often mutes the immediacy of the knowledge I already have within me - the feeling becomes less potent and consequently less interesting to an audience.

A strong qualification here - I'm talking about acting, not day-to-day life. Natsuko has a story about an actress she was coaching who after a while became convinced that her husband needed to come in and be coached himself to improve his life. When she told Natsuko that her husband was a surgeon the response was an emphatic "Absolutely not." Do you want a surgeon to not be deliberate in his or her actions? As I've said before, being an actor isn't a normal thing and, as counter-intuitive as it may sound, day-to-day life and replicating day-to-day life take very different sets of skills.

At the same time, this isn't to say that thinking and deliberation are not vital in acting, they absolutely are. This is what textwork is all about. It goes back to the Paradox of Freedom - to do the work of knowing the text, weighing the actions of all the characters with respect to the others, using my mind and my logic to see the flow of the plot, imprinting all this work on my mind and body, and then throwing it away. All that work will still be there if I've been disciplined enough to absorb it but when I'm there, in the moment, I can't be anywhere else but feeling what I am then and there. But that's the question, isn't it? What is feeling (for an actor, at least)? Well, as it's something that nobody can really discuss except in relation to themselves, I guess that's a place to start.

I started my first relationship in August of 2008. A late bloomer, obviously. I entered into it understandably excited, eager, and not just a little bit desperate. Twenty-four years of delay, in some ways this was more an act of deliverance than a relationship. Obviously I had no way of knowing what I was getting myself into. Yes, I had fantasized, I had created jumbled amalgamations of relationships I had been witness to both real and fictional and I'm sure a part of me thought that, while this was going to be something new and thrilling, that there would be no reason it couldn't be handled the way I felt I handled most things in my life - with thoughtfulness and deliberation. Those more experienced readers out there can now take a moment to smile and shake their heads or just laugh outright.

Almost immediately that part of me that thought that I could handle this with any kind of logic went straight out the window. I was blindsided to find myself in a situation where feeling - irrational, illogical, often stupid - was the singular factor in everything I did with respect to this girl. It's hard to describe just how disturbing this was to me. Here's the point though: thinking over it now I see that rarely over the course of this relationship was I ever not squarely in the present with my feelings regarding the situation. Plans were made and the past was talked about, sure, but everything was in service of trying to maintain the immediate feelings that accompanied being in a relationship. And when it ended (messily)? It was the other side of the same coin. Every thought was still rooted in the now only the thoughts of affection were replaced with those of betrayal.

So what am I getting at here? It's ultimately the idea of engagement, I think. When all I'm concerned about is how I'm feeling right now and if I let that dictate my actions and my responses then I will be engaged in the dialogue. If in that moment I'm thinking ahead or thinking about what has already been said then I will necessarily not be engaged in what is going on in the present. Of course I must be aware of what has been said/done and of what will be said/done but that awareness will be in service of my intentions in the present.

Oftentimes we're told that acting is a strange thing partly because what's essentially being done is normal interaction, only backwards. In reality we enter a dialogue knowing what has happened and the text is created from that knowledge. In acting, traditionally speaking we're given the text and we know how it's going to end and we must construct the history of that dialogue ourselves. The challenge is to do this, to have this knowledge, and to not let it in any way mute the true feelings that would be generated by the interaction in normal life. It's where imagination and experience are really the only tools at our disposal.

My experience of my relationship, of all the factors that went into its formation and the pain that resulted from its end, these are things that won't soon be lost on me and will serve as touchstones for my acting. I think many, myself included at times, scoff when people say that being an actor requires courage but here's an instance where that idea comes to bear. If I'm truly committed to acting, to the act of providing an image of reality, then in this one way I can't leave anything in the past, it's too useful, and I must be prepared to revisit those past feelings both joyful and traumatic, over and over and over again. The skilled ones can deftly separate this clinging to the past in their work from their everyday lives. For those of us still in training all I can say is that it's a constant struggle. That's the way it feels anyway.

Ensemble

2009-12-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

Funny how I started the last post intending to write about this topic. Took a turn somewhere there.

I started talking about the idea of theatre and how so many of the aspects of theatre may be unfamiliar or seem antiquated to most people. One of the cornerstone ideas here, I think, is that of ensemble. I'm in a class of eleven people. All of us have very different backgrounds, some are just out of undergrad, others have had full performing careers already. We have students in their 20s, 30s, and 50s. It's an intimidating amount of experience. And yet we're all starting from the same place, from a desire to improve ourselves as actors and to learn this craft. If we have nothing else in common, it's that. Here is where we start on the idea of ensemble. So what are we talking about here? Honestly, I don't have a full grasp on it myself, but let's explore.

First and foremost, we're being brought together in order to do work, in order to support each other through the training that we're going through and then to ultimately produce acting work. This is what every cast is tasked with and, especially in the theatre, each member of the ensemble must be able to produce their best work possible in relation to the other cast members for the process to be deemed successful. So the question then becomes, what has to happen for a grouping of people to be able to work together smoothly and successfully? A level of respect, certainly; a recognition of the other ensemble members as your peers, no one being superior to the other.

Here we run into a serious stumbling block though. That is, the risk of confusing respect with friendship. Our class gets along very well, I think. We all have a certain amount of deference that allows for understanding. But it's a social situation like any other and throughout the semester conflicts did arise. They were dealt with and learned from and we all moved on, but when it comes down to it, this is a grouping of people that none of us had control over. In our social lives we pick and choose who we befriend based on innumerable factors. In the program we've been given our ensemble and the significance of that shouldn't be underestimated. Again, I think we've been relatively lucky to have a class that, while incredibly diverse, demonstrates a relatively uniform kindness one towards the other. But, let's be clear here, it is not a necessity for an ensemble to 'like' each other, only that they're able to work effectively with each other. In fact, there are those instances when friendship might just get in the way of doing the work. If you need something from your fellow actor and you're hesitant to voice that need in fear of hurting their feelings, this is not productive. No matter what level of friendship you have with your fellow ensemble members, there must be an agreement that, in the work, demands are known and addressed. This is, after all, a workplace.

So often people think of acting as a fun diversion, as a chance to get together with a bunch of people and put on a show and have a good time. And I'm not saying that that's not the case. But at a certain level, certainly the level that us MFAers would like to believe we're at, this becomes our life, what we aspire to make our means of support and the last word that we would want to associate with it is 'diversion'. In short, things get serious and when things get serious it leads to all kinds of unpredictable things. Tempers start to flare, boundaries start to get crossed, authority starts to be seized, all of these things can constitute a threat to the work at hand. At the same time remember that we're talking about acting here, which is a strange animal in these sorts of situations. Heightened emotion can lead to great work. So is it a matter of channeling those emotions when/if they arise? Is it best to try to avoid such chaos? That's something I can't answer, I guess we're not really there yet.

What it comes down to is that we're all moving ahead both on our own and as a group. By the end of three years we will no doubt have developed our own unique dynamic and I'm very interested to see what that will be. I think we've seen glimmers over the least few months but I look forward to the time when we're so comfortable with each other's work processes that putting up the most successful products possible becomes second nature.

Freedom

2009-12-20T00:10:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons acting school can be so hard to explain, especially in America, is that the fundamentals of what is learned are based in the world of theatre, a world that most of America hasn't been familiar with in decades. But what's important to note here is that while the foundations of the training may be based on ideas that were formed around acting for theatre, the goal of the training is to make us better actors regardless of medium. All of our instructors have based their careers in all three formats - theatre, film, and television - you can't make a living as an actor if you don't. And it's not as if they 'endure' their film and television work just to support their 'serious' theatre work, it's all acting work. If you're given an interesting part, if you're given the freedom to explore, and if you're treated with respect, then as an actor fulfillment shouldn't be difficult to attain. Yes, there are unique things about acting for a camera as opposed to acting for a live audience and we will be learning about these unique requirements in the years to come. But we're talking about maybe one class per semester for two semesters. Knowing how to act for a camera is not something that takes three years of conservatory training. Knowing how to act(.), well, three years barely covers it, I would think.

Obviously this isn't to say that everyone must go through this training before they can act. Talent is talent and anyone can name those actors throughout the years who simply possessed and possess the freedom of self to go out there and act flawlessly without all this three-year mumbo-jumbo that we're doing. And that's really what the training is all about - freeing oneself in order to be and transform oneself. Yes, I know how flighty that sounds but it's actually a lot more functional than it would let on.

For so many of us, we approach our work as performance, we go out there and we try to BE other people. We try to BE Hamlet, we try to BE Willy Loman, as if that meant anything. Hamlet doesn't exist and so for me to say that I'm going to go out on stage or on set and BE Hamlet, it's a lost cause. What I can do is to take the words Shakespeare has given me and internalize them, marry them to my imagination and reach a point where the words become mine. Oh, but your uncle didn't really kill your father, you're not really a traveling salesman, there aren't really super-powered villains trying to kill you. Well, yes he did, yes I am, and yes there are. I mean, honestly, what are we talking about here? We're talking about playing make-believe. We're talking about pretending. This isn't the grand search for some platonic ideal of a character, this is putting oneself in the situation the text ordains and acting accordingly. Which is not to say that this is a simple matter. It means you have to know the text intimately, understand it to the point where it's second nature. And then, after you've done all that work, slaved over the words and the context and the connections, then you have to abandon that to a certain degree and just be there and trust that the work is there too.

I watched Tropic Thunder last night and while, yes, it's a farce and in most ways it's lampooning the entire idea of the 'actor,' the couple of exchanges between Stiller and Downey Jr. about acting, the roots of those conversations ring true in a fucked-up kind of way. Also true is the image the movie creates of both of these characters as complete fools because the goal of all of this is to get to that point where you don't go on and on talking about your 'process', your character - you just do it.

So many aspects of this training are paradoxical. I'm making things harder for myself and yet, at the same time, I'm shying away from the real challenges of the craft. I have to do the work and then I have to abandon it. And I don't think that the answer is 'balance' either. The last thing you want to do in drama is to find a middle ground. That's boring. Freedom and awareness, those are the things we're striving for - we want to have the dexterity to be aware of ourselves, our emotions, our bodies, and the freedom to express our desires openly and without reservation.

Los Angeles

2009-12-16T22:06:00.000-08:00

Since winter break started last Wednesday I haven't really been taking advantage of the time. I did promise myself I'd let myself be as lackadaisical as I wanted for a few days but the 'few' is over and now I need to actually be doing things. So today, just to wet my feet a little, I drove down to Venice Beach. I also got my brand new GPS unit today so this was a good opportunity to test it out. Of course I planned the whole thing horribly taking no cash for lot parking and with about 35 cents in the center console of my car for a meter. In the end I drove about an hour and fifteen minutes to walk along the beach at sunset for 20 minutes. But, honestly, it was worth it.

I've had no time since getting here to really explore Los Angeles. We had a 'get to know you' beach party in the second week of classes but since then my experience of the city has been limited more or less to the half-hour commute. Weekends were normally filled either with seeing shows on campus or I simply didn't muster up the motivation to go out and discover what LA is all about as a city. I will say though, that having direct access to the beach is a real treat. Yes, I guess I did have this in San Francisco and just didn't take advantage but the beach just isn't as much a part of the culture in SF as it is down here. I walked along the sand today, watching the sun slowly lower down into the water on one side and a perfectly lined row of palm trees swaying in the wind on the other and, I don't know, it all felt so right.

Outside of that little slice of serenity, of course, is a concrete jungle with highways stretching every which way and traffic that is hellish half the time. Funny thing is though, and maybe this is just because I haven't driven a car on a consistent basis since high school, but I've found driving, even the city driving, to be enjoyable enough to the point where it's not one of my primary concerns about living here. Being stuck in traffic and searching endlessly for parking are pains, no doubt, but sitting in my car listening to the radio or my music, I find genuine pleasure in that. I fully expect this state of affairs to end sometime in the near future but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

But, like I said, I really don't "know" LA as of yet. I have these moments though, I'll be driving down Hollywood Boulevard with a pink sunset in front of me framed by curved palm trees and I think "Holy crap, I'm living in LA" and it's both jarring and exciting.

Starting From Scratch

2009-12-15T17:06:00.000-08:00

It feels impossible to describe the process that's been going on since I started the MFA program.

When I was still in SF I had a friend crash at my place for a night who was in from the east coast where he had just finished up his first semester at the MFA program at Brown. His eyes were wide, his thoughts vast, his enthusiasm seemed limitless. He saw great things for what he would accomplish, where he would go. Frankly, I thought it was all a bit ridiculous. I was in the real world, toiling in bit parts but working consistently for respectable theatres which counted me amongst the lucky ones in the area. Part of me thought he was being just a little bit ignorant since he hadn't really been hitting the pavement like I had over the last year or two. But even then I also knew that he was on the path that I wanted to be on. I needed more training and an MFA always just seemed in the books. But certainly I would be a bit more realistic about the whole thing.

So am I? I really can't answer that. The three years I spent working in SF were invaluable, no doubt. I know, even to the smallest degree, what professional theatre is like. It's fucking hard and it doesn't pay the bills. You meet fascinating, wonderful people, and you meet assholes. The work can be fulfilling and fun and glamorous. It can also be empty, soul-sucking, and depressing. But once you're in, you kind of know if this is what you're going to be doing and until it kicks you out, you'll just keep coming back. Normal people don't do this. This isn't a normal thing to do. If I learned anything, it's that.

So I do think I have some perspective on this. Still, if you try and ask me about what I'm experiencing in this program thus far I'll answer with words that will scream hyperbole. So keeping that in mind I'll try to maintain some measure now.

I don't know to what extent, but I think I've always considered a lot of acting as an intellectual exercise. To take the text you're given and to find the intricacies of the plot, to breathe life into the words by finding creative use for them. What I'm beginning to realize more and more, though, is that all that effort I would put into flourishing the words, into linking themes and ideas, these are all things we do naturally. When we're talking and we're engaged and we're actually in the moment of speaking, we do all these things and we don't think about it, and if somehow we don't do it or we neglect it, it's for very specific reasons. That's the goal here; when we form our words from ourselves, that's when things get interesting, that's when an audience perks up and pays attention. When we put constructs onto the words, when we decide how they should be said and what would be the most effective delivery of a line, that may well end with an adequate product, but it will always be limited to what we can think of, not what we can create.

Describing it is so innately castrated. All I'll say is that in the last few months I've experienced moments when I've acted in a way that I've never acted before in my life. In those moments I felt I wasn't standing there saying the words, I was needing to say the words, there was something I was desperate to say and I was saying it. And that something was my text. It was thrilling, bewildering, and exhausting. And watching the ten other people in my class go through the same process? It was the most engaging theatre I've ever been a part of.

I feel ridiculously lucky to be here. And not only for all the obvious reasons of the audition process but in a very real way, I think, this program as it is right now, will be fleeting. Again, the lack of objectivity here is overflowing but I really do believe that USC has gathered a core faculty of four that are so dedicated, so engaged, so committed to their students and so amazingly talented largely because the majority of them are not accustomed to teaching in this rigorous manner. Andy and Charlotte are actors through and through, they're not career teachers who have gone through the slog of decades' worth of students. As such, they give every inch of themselves to the craft, to the students. Natsuko, while she has coached the best of the best, has never committed to a full program. David is the only one who has spent much of his career teaching and he's brilliant, a genius. And he's a director first and foremost, which permeates the movement work we do with him. But a part of me sees them and feels their energy and can't help but feel that this is a flame that will burn bright and hard and then go out. To be replaced by another flame, no doubt, maybe one that matches or surpasses this first one, but this grouping of faculty, it just feels like lightning in a bottle. This is the fourth year of this program's existence and I wonder if all the great MFA programs started off in this way. To be here now and to know that I might be one of the few students to learn from this grouping, I almost feel undeserving at times.

So obviously my first semester has made me enamored with the program. I've never been this engaged and, consequently, exhausted in my life. And it only gets busier from here, which I look forward to. This coming semester will see us work on our first limited production which promises to be exciting. Will all this enthusiasm wain? I don't know. Watching the second and third years the dynamic of everyone is just so different. There are definitely those who feel that they're ready to move on and others who still speak of the program like I'm doing right now. It's inevitable, I guess, that that's the way it is.

I saw my friend from Brown a year later when he was visiting the Bay again and he was markedly more down to earth, talking about going back to his hometown, starting a small theatre company. I never asked him what exactly had changed if anything. At the time I was happy to see him being more realistic but now I'm starting to think that one's reality is what one strives for. You go for a goal until your interest turns to another one. My goal right now is to grow and to work and I feel the last six months has seen me take a steady pace towards it.

Resurrection

2009-12-15T16:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a year and a half since my last post and here I am in a new city with a new life and in so many ways a new man. Updates for those interested:

1. Not posting for a year and a half had to do with basically three things: starting a relationship, break-up, getting over it. All that took up so much thinking and feeling time that I just really didn't find the motivation to share those thoughts and feelings with the world. So there ya go.

2. I'm in LA now. I was accepted into the MFA acting program at USC and I just finished up my first semester. This I'll make a separate post because it's been such an amazing, challenging and fulfilling few months that it deserves to be ruminated upon separately. Leaving the Bay was an interesting experience. So many things happened to me in those three years I spent working in San Francisco and I'll forever be indebted to the Bay for keeping me motivated in my acting. I was so fortunate to work in so many shows and meet so many wonderful people. It's the people, the friends, that I miss the most. I'm not a Bay Area native, is the thing. Even though I haven't lived there in almost eight years, my heart still longs for Canada when I think of "home." So moving away wasn't the difficult thing. It was actually pretty easy since the break-up was only a month or two before I left so getting the hell out of there was a relief beyond words from that perspective. But the Bay was great to me and I'll never forget it. But I'm in LA now and looking forward to seeing what it has to offer.

3. I did one last full show in San Francisco right before leaving which was Mr. Marmalade by Noah Haidle at Custom Made Theatre. It was a fun, dark script with a great cast. And I was able to reunite with one of my favorite people from King Lear, Daunielle Rasmussen, who directed it. I also did a whole bunch of staged readings, including a pair for the Asian American Theatre Company and a new Eugenie Chan play which was a treat. One of the readings for AATC was for a play by Christopher Chen, a good friend who was one of the first writers I worked with after I graduated Cal in 2006. It was actually the only time since 2006 that our schedules coordinated well enough to work on a project. Ending on such a note of symmetry was great, a real sign of a chapter ending and another beginning.

5. I am officially a car owner! I bought my first car in April in preparation for coming to LA. Much meticulous research was done and I finally found a great little 2008 Yaris in Fremont with less than 13,000 miles on it for a price I was more than happy with, especially as I discovered recently that it has a built-in bluetooth system that I don't even think the dealer was aware of. Luckily the upholstery did not need to be replaced after the gadgetgasm that that discovery caused.

There's so much to write about and I'll give all the topics their own posts. For this first one in the resurrection of this blog though, I'll just say this: I'm a richer person thanks to the last year and a half. I've experienced so many things, wondrous, beautiful things that will live in my memory for a long, long time. I've also seen these things crash and be destroyed. I've felt love like I've never felt before, diddo with betrayal. And while I wouldn't say at this point that I'm a happier person because of it, I would say that I'm a richer person, a fuller person. And, perhaps most importantly right now, I've learned over the last semester that being this more complete person makes me a better actor. How can you hope to imitate love, pain, and persecution until you've actually experienced those things? In my admittedly limited fashion, I feel I have, for the first time, felt these things and moving forward I know I need to seek out and feel more.

Crossroads

2008-06-23T23:34:00.000-07:00

I'm in a pickle. Which is nothing terribly new, but it's a pickle which has forced me to confront some rather daunting aspects of my desired career as well as forced me to make some preliminary evaluations on my own self-worth. I'm not good at self-evaluation. It's one of the reasons a person becomes an actor, I think, they need others to validate their worth. Being raised in an environment where you're never really lauded for your accomplishments tends to deaden one's ability to objectively give oneself credit for one's merits. At the same time, what little I've learned about being an actor to this point has taught me that one risks much the minute they start considering themselves "above" anything. You take the gigs you're offered, if one gig is better than the other, you take the better one, simple as that. But recent events have made me question what constitutes the 'better' gig and where, exactly, my so-called talent-level lies in the larger sense of the theatre "community". There are echelons in the theatre industry just like any other industry and, to a certain extent, it is somewhat important that one recognizes where they stand in those echelons so that they know just how far they have to go in order to reach the heights they desire. Problem is, in this industry, it seems like things are constantly in flux. So much rides on who you know, on people knowing, liking, and trusting your work to the point where they'll get you work later. This lends credence to the idea of "work wherever you can, with whomever you can" since you never know just where those people might end up. But, at the same time, when you're just trying to scrape by and line up gigs, you can't get caught up in what might be best for you five or ten years down the line, you have to do what's best for you here and now. It's a paradox that I'm sure isn't exclusive to the theatre, but it's within the context of theatre that I'm facing it right now.

I think maybe it's more useful to not look at it within the context of "Am I above X?" and look at it more in terms of "Will X aid me in accomplishing my career goals?" In that sense, if X is your only prospect, then the answer would be "Yes." But if you have X and Y, then the question becomes "Will X aid me in accomplishing my career goals more than Y?" And that's where things get trickier. Because that's where this paradox comes into play. You look at each project and decide their worth in terms of the people working on them, the merit of the script, the notoriety of the producing company etc... Again, though, it's ludicrous to hinge your decision on the idea that Director X will be somewhere far beyond Director Y in ten years. There's no way for you to know that. So, in the end, you just have to do what's best for you at that moment while still considering just how much it will help your resume in the process. The "intangibles" are just that, intangible, and since you can't measure them, since your entire evaluation of them is nothing more than masturbatory guess-work, there's little merit to the conclusions you would draw from them. But it doesn't keep us from doing it, now does it?

This whole thing may be a non-issue. I may be in no pickle at all. I might not even be in a cucumber. Only time will tell. But, until then, things are needlessly complicated and I just hope they turn out for the best.

Neglect FTW!!!

2008-06-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

Why, hello there little Blog. How are ya doin'? Gosh, it seems like weeks since - oh my god! What happened to you? You look terrible! Emaciated! Haven't you been being fed? What monster did this to you? Tell me! Come on. Stop wimpering in the corner like that and tell me who should be punished for allowing an innocent online diary to suffer such - OW! Why'd you slap me like that? Stop hitting my head! Why are you - oh, right. Hey, gimme a break, I've been really bus...I've had a lot on my pla...dammit. Okay, fine, so I really haven't been busy at all. Whatever, you needed to lose weight anyway.

So, yeah, three months to catch up on. Hm. How sad is it that I can't really think of anything substantial to say? "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at CenterREP opened and closed. A successful production and a helluva lot of fun to work on. A lot of enthusiasm on the cast, probably because there was a fair amount of younger cast members as well as a crew made up entirely of teenagers. Great, responsible, organized teenagers, mind you, all very hyped-up on theatre. I tried to make the most of my Mechanical role and the run went very smoothly. I'd love to work there again. The theatre works out of the Lesher Center for the Arts which was built by the City of Walnut Creek and while CenterREP is the only professional company that uses the building (other productions are all pretty much community-based), the facilities reflect perfectly the obscene swaths of money floating about that part of the Bay Area. Great green room, spacious dressing rooms, fully hooked up for wireless internet, it was pretty sweet. At the same time, working in a city-run building meant that we were forced to deal with levels of bureaucracy not normally associated with a theatre such as daily door-passes and restrictions on when you could and when you couldn't be in the building due to the availability of security staff. That definitely got annoying at times but all in all it was a worthwhile trade-off.

Since then, it's been the all-too familiar routine of the unemployed wannabe actor with a dayjob. The same fear that no one will ever call again, that I've exhausted the well of fortune that has gotten me cast before. Well, I guess it's been a little more active than that. I had a week where I did three staged readings in a row, one of which was instigated quite suddenly. So that was an interesting week but all too soon those were over and here I am at my desk again, contemplating where to turn next.

My urge to take a visit back home to Edmonton which was whispering, then talking, then screaming in my ear has long gone hoarse and now stands in the corner of my brain, glaring and making a "See! See what I'm trying to tell you!" gesture everytime tedium sets in again. However, as I've recently discovered that my passport has been expired for two months, the poor mute is shit-out-o-luck for at least the next few weeks.

So, seeing as how my professional life is on one of its all-too-frequent hiatuses, I guess we could take a look at what else has been occupying my time.

Only movie I've seen recently was the new Indiana Jones. Now, I'm not an aficionado of the series. The only one I remember with even fleeting detail is Last Crusade. I remember liking it fine. This new one...I dunno. It's stupid in the way that I get the feeling old-school Indy fans will appreciate. Things happen that are patently outrageous no matter what your scale, but I don't think any of it pushes into the realm of the 'offensive.' More often than not my thought process would be "They're not actually going to - oop, and there it is." I'd laugh at the sheer preposterousness of it all and I guess that's worth something. Had Cate Blanchett not been Cate Blanchett, I would have forgiven her performance, but I have to say that she seemed to put in a rather lacklustre effort, especially with an in-and-out accent. Normally it would be alright if the actor couldn't quite get the accent to work on a particular word, but when that word is "Jones"...well...it becomes a bit of a problem.

Moving on to TV - or, well, TV through Netflix and the Internet since I haven't had actual TV in, gee, must be almost 5 months now - only Deadwood and Battlestar Galactica have been holding my attention. At this point I'm pretty much obssessed with Deadwood and the days between Netflix deliveries are almost unberable. It's amazing how effective, entertaining and moving a series can be when the honest effort is made to make every character human. There isn't a single character on the show who isn't somehow redeemable and irredeemable at the same time, it's uncanny.

Maybe some vague spoilers? I dunno, be mindful.

My favourite moment so far and what I think to be the most emblematic of the entire series: Tolliver discovers that a teenage brother-and-sister pairing have been playing innocent whilst swindling his saloon. He confronts them and they make a break for it. They make it outside in front of the saloon before Tolliver and his men catch them and proceed to beat the living shit out of the two innocent-looking-as-fucking-baby-seals children. The action causes a stir with onlookers yelping in disgust. At one point Sol Star, one of the 'good guys' on the show, generally portrayed as a sympathetic, honourable, bleeding-heart sort, starts to protest the beating. Tolliver warns everyone not to interfere, that the kids had been stealing from him. After a wonderfully short bit of hesitation, Star answers "Well you don't have to do this out here in the open." Tolliver takes them back into the saloon for the rest of their punishment. That's Deadwood. Star is no less honourable a man for accepting what will happen to those kids, it's simply that the code of honour in Deadwood is its own creature, and anyone who doesn't recognize it ends up with the other cocksuckers in the pig-pen. Gotta love it.

As for BSG, I'm not quite sure what to make of the show at this point. This is their last season and so shocking deaths and revelations are being thrown about with reckless abandon. It makes for a helluvan entertaining hour but the hectic pace of it leaves me feeling a little baffled every time. As has been noted by others there's very little Happy so far this season. Characters generally range from confused to desperate to miserable with all the angsty shades in between for good measure. The constant baiting is sometimes just shy of annoying but keeps us engaged. The payoff better be momentous the way they're playing it up at every possible corner, is all I have to say.

I also took a day or so to watch the first season of "Dexter" which Netflix has streamed on their site. I find it useful to look at Dexter and Deadwood and see how they're both effective but in somewhat opposite ways. Deadwood takes a broad, somewhat generic premise - life in a town in the Old West during the gold rush - and infuses it with vigor through the complexity of its characters and their interactions. Dexter starts with a very specific, very jarring premise - forensic analyst is a serial killer who murders the people he investigates - and relies on that premise to carry it through. The characters, save the main protagonist, aren't nearly as nuanced as those on Deadwood, which is fitting given that Dexter is more of a procedural with hints of serial (so to speak) while Deadwood is a full-on serial drama. Overall my heart is still with Deadwood, but I thoroughly enjoyed Dexter for its dark-romp qualities.

Not that Deadwood is without its failures. The depictions of Chinese immigrants might very well be historically accurate, but they still rub me the wrong way a little. And at times I just want to chop down Timothy Oliphant with an axe and make a cabinet out of him, he's so wooden. But none of that keeps me from wanting more, which is somewhat of a mixed blessing given that I'm led to believe that the series ends rather poorly. Might just be setting myself up for disappointment, but I'm having fun getting there.

So, there you have it, a nice longish post to get myself reacquainted with rambling on about nothing.

Well Said

2008-03-07T12:34:00.001-08:00

I'm a fan of Penny Arcade because it often fulfills both my computer game geekery and my rhetorical fussiness. Case in point, Tycho's post today, discussing the merits of the recently released "Army of Two" also contains one sentence which does a good job of summing up the discord between effective rhetorical writing and personal intellectual trepidation:

"I like to speak in declarative terms here in this space, but I always operate under the assumption that I'm wrong about virtually everything."

By and large I'm of the same mindset. I know that an effective piece of writing isn't filled with "I think"s or "Perhaps"es or "I might be wrong, but"s - these are tools of the unsure and the unresearched. They suggest a lack of confidence in what you're saying and if the reader senses that the author isn't certain in their statements obviously they're not going to be as easy to convince of their veracity.

But I, and I would wager many people, just don't really think like that. We're conditioned to leave room for error and to never assume we're right. It's arrogant and unbecoming and people won't like you if you think you're always right. They might follow you, but chances are they'll think you're a dick. And, let's face it, who wants to be seen as a dick?

In the context of an argument this intellectual sheepishness isn't ignored so much as masked. There's the idea that if you can predict the possible refutations to your argument and then smash them to smithereens, then you're appropriately addressing the possibility of your being wrong. Or, rather, that you're effectively dismissing that possibility. While I'll agree that doing this makes for a much stronger and more persuasive argument, I wouldn't say that it really succeeds at its goal or that it even deflects the possibility of the author being refuted. You can't predict every single argument that could be raised against your own partly because many of those arguments could simply be outside the discursive context in which you're operating. That is, they may be 'unreasonable' as defined by who you think your audience is and at what level you're addressing them. Can you really argue against "I don't believe you because you smell" or, perhaps more topically, "I don't believe you because you're not the same race as me"? You could take the time and effort to address such counter-arguments, but it would ruin your work and you could never predict every unreasonable thing someone might throw at you.

So the argumentative writer does what they can. Be concise, be thoughtful, and be prepared for conflict - it's a mantra that I think most writers (most PEOPLE, really) should ascribe to but in the end I can't shake the feeling that it's based on a fallacy for many people. Their strongly declarative writing doesn't accurately reflect their true thought processes. I dunno, it just feels like there's something missing there, a disconnect that prevents the real will of the author from being expressed.

...

Did I mention I like video games?

...

Penny Arcade

What Now?

2008-03-05T23:07:00.000-08:00

A little blog-neglect, as usual. Sure, a short little bit on my bday, but that doesn't really count.

So it seems I stand at somewhat of a crossroads, once again contemplating where I'm headed with myself. MFA auditions were a glorious failure for the second time. Not unexpected but no less disappointing. The worst sensation is probably that of learned puzzlement. You come to accept that there's no way you can know what it is they're looking for and that it's useless to speculate. Sure it may offer some twisted form of catharsis to look back and say "They already got their minority" but, come on, eventually you have to realize that that's a bullshit idea made up by bitter rejects. Just because it might be true doesn't change that fact. But I was hoping that this might have been my year for a program, even if I did unreasonably restrict my choices. But there ya go, no overpriced theatre-camp for me this year.

Easing some of the disappointment is the fact that I at least have a gig to reassure me that I'm not completely delusional. Not just that, but I actually seem to have a parent who is at least paying some lip-service to this 'career' choice. She still hasn't and probably never will buy into it unless she sees me on TV or in a movie, but the fact that she's accepted that I need to give it a go is nice, if not a little disconcerting. Just wasn't really expected, I suppose.

But, so here I am, all pleased with myself for getting my name out there and starting myself on the road to becoming a 'professional' yet somehow becoming more and more restless with my situation. Is a move in order? A change of dayjob? The former just seems so drastic and considering the fact that I do seem to be getting some credentials and building union points here in the Bay Area, a change of that magnitude just seems uncalled for. As for the latter, well, it's definitely more plausible but it's very difficult for me to shake the fact that I'm damn lucky to have a job that affords me some flexibility and that until I can have some modicum of assurance that I could support myself by other means, I really shouldn't go shooting a healthy horse, even if it's not...the one I want to be riding? That was a weird metaphor.

And I'm not saying that a change has to occur, that I feel some deep, pounding inevitability to the decision. I'm just getting a bit anxious, getting that feeling that that risk of stagnation might be rearing its head just a little. But, then again, if I'm working then that means things are going better than they could be, and I should be and am grateful. I'm just not sure what to make of it all, I suppose.

Oh yeah, also

2008-02-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to someone very close to my heart. They surround it, in fact. It's kind of creepy.

New Energy

2008-02-27T12:43:00.001-08:00

I watched "An Inconvenient Truth" this past weekend and found it to be alternately compelling, entertaining, and downright scary. Will it motivate me to green-up my life? Well, I hope so, but we'll have to see. At the very least it's made me more aware of my consumption. I also watched a documentary called "Helvetica" which has also made me more aware, although in a much more trivial manner than the former.

But on this environmentalist string, I present this:

Love

2008-02-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

I love this.

And this.

And, finally, this.

Year in Review, Part 2

2008-02-01T00:04:00.001-08:00

Well, it's taken long enough to stir up the drive to continue with my review. I suppose it'd be a good idea to leave the acting aspects be for now. There were things in my life outside of the world of acting, even if they might have been intimately tied to it.

Bill Paying

Or, rather, "dayjob". Very soon it will be two years at the firm, the amount of commitment they had asked of me when they first offered it to me. Things have been rather turbulent around the office in the past few months with an attorney leaving but two new attorneys coming in. It's hard to know what to make of it all. As far as the firm goes, it seems to be indicative of a growing success. Which is a good thing, I guess. But, in the end, this job is exactly that - a job. I'm lucky enough to work in an environment with some really great people and with bosses who not only don't object to my acting pursuits but in some cases have actively supported them. These are the same bosses, remember, who were more interested in my role in "King Lear" than in the fact that I had to take a month off to do the show. And it's paying my bills and even allowing me to save some money every month. I'm lucky to have this job and I'm grateful for it and I know that there are a whole lot of other wannabe actors who don't have it as good. Still, I'd be lying if I didn't say that there's a malaise growing about me. It's not that the job is hard or taxing, it's just that I know that this isn't what I want to be doing. This is what I'm doing so that I'm not destitute, but frankly everything I'm striving for is to get me in a position where I don't need to be in that office. I know that that's about as "Well, duh" as you can get, but that's just how life is sometimes. I was IM'ing with my paralegal friend in Portland and at the exact same moment we both typed in: "It's getting old". I know how to do this job and there's nowhere to grow. Oh sure new projects come up where I have to do certain things that I haven't done before, but all of that is irrelevant because this isn't going to be my career. I don't resent having to do my job, I just know that it's not leading anywhere substantial. It's an inner-tube keeping me afloat when what I'm looking for is a ship to take me ashore.

Personal

Why the hell did I say there was 'a lot' more to say about my personal life? This is by far the least interesting of any of the already-uninteresting sections. Like I said at the beginning of the last post, I have learned this year that being on one's own isn't a terrible thing. Of course one can't live a comfortable life without friends to give love to and to receive love from, but there's this absurd idea promulgated by commercials and sit-coms that one should be constantly seeking companionship by any means necessary. Frankly I think I struggle enough to remain mindful of myself, much less a love interest. That's not to say that there weren't pursuits in that direction this year. Ok, there was one. And it failed. But considering how green I am to the whole 'asking girls out' thing, that's something of an accomplishment.

So that's about it. This year might bring change. Or it might not. Strangely enough that determination both is and isn't in my hands.

Pretty Good for the Money

2008-01-08T21:48:00.001-08:00

Now, I'm all for the writers getting their due and coming back. But, until then, we can observe some instances where hosts, forced to improvise to some degree, can come up with gems all on their own. Now, it seems to me that interviews are probably only loosely written if at all, but this Conan O'Brien/Jim Cramer interview is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while, and it's all thanks to the improvisation skills of O'Brien and the liberty he has to bring up personal beefs.

Edit: The clip got taken down from YouTube. You'll have to slog through NBC.com to find it. Sorry.

Year In Review Part 1

2007-12-31T20:42:00.001-08:00

Well it's New Year's Eve and I find myself alone and ponderous. Oh, it'd be easy to be all melancholy and weepy, but, I have to say, one of the lessons of this year has definitely been that being alone really isn't all that bad. I mean, it's worked for me so far, I don't see why being in this state at Christmas time or New Year's should make it a negative thing. I have friends, I have family, I just don't happen to be in a situation this year that allows me to see them at this particular time. I'll see them later. Sure, we won't be sipping cheap champagne and watching fireworks on TV (oh, it's just a good as the real thing...really) but chances are we'll have just as much fun and without the holiday pretense. We'll make our own pretense, thank you very much.

Still, with the year ending it does illicit in me the desire to evaluate how this year has gone, to comb over the significant events and see what can be drawn from them. Feels like the best way might be to divide it up into categories. So let's do that, and we might as well get the biggie out of the way first.

Acting

I was gonna label it 'theatre' but I actually did technically do my first film stuff this year so the larger umbrella seems more appropriate.

This was the year, my first full year out of college where I fully expected to be slammed down to earth, to have the industry tell me bluntly to my face that I am unemployable in the entertainment field; to tell me I'm not pretty enough, not talented enough, that there's no market for male asian actors, and that all of that positive reinforcement I received in school was merely the result of some skillful brown-nosing on my part combined with overly-optimistic instructors. I was ready for that, ready to have my innocent dreams dashed by the spectres of popularity and marketability.

Well, the truth is, that didn't happen. Yes, life in real-world theatre is a great deal different than in an academic setting. Yes, the market for male asian actors is small and any of us trying to make it are facing an uphill battle. But we're far from unemployable. The word I would use to encapsulate what I've taken from my work in the Bay Area this past year is "depends". Am I 'pretty enough'? Depends. It's not so much a factor of attractiveness as it is versatility. Not all characters are supposed to be pretty. Does my race hold me back? Depends. Yes, it will limit my options as most of the theatre produced in this country will be written by white people, for white people. But these are modern times, directors can play with race, especially when the material is so familiar and ingrained in our culture (read: Shakespeare...seriously, you should read Shakespeare) that manipulations of these sorts are almost expected in order to add some freshness to an interpretation. And yes, the odd production will come up when an actual asian is called for though, at this point, I don't really think that that's a legitimate argument to say that there's a 'market' for asian male actors - unless they know how to kick a pigeon flying ten feet off the ground or something (note: I don't).

More than the difficulties of me, individually, as an actor, the year made me face the difficulties that every young actor faces. The average young theatre actor will generally, we learn,

1) make little to no money acting. You're not union yet (maybe not even close), you're a dime a dozen, and you're more than likely going to be relegated to ensemble work. Be prepared to work for free or for very little.

2) Have little clue as to how to go about getting their career on track. Assuming you're really focusing yourself on pursuing acting, you'll still have to deal with how you're going to pay the bills (unless mommy and daddy are super nice) which means getting a day (or night) job which can threaten to seriously derail your focus from acting. You're also going to be so focused on getting any gig that you won't really take into consideration whether that gig will help you grow and build your resume or if it'll just take up a lot of your time (we'll call this the "Emperor Norton Effect" or ENE, shall we?)

3) Face the hand of the reviewer. Chances are, if you get cast in a show at a moderately reputable theatre, it'll get reviewed somewhere, whether it be an actual paper, a local daily, an online publication, or some random blog. It's your choice whether you decide to seek the reviews out. My year has left me with the impression that most vets of the theatre don't read reviews (at least the actors) but, hey, I'm young and still pretty dependent on outside validation. It's something I'm going to have to change but until then, I'll admit to seeking out any and all reviews of a show I'm in. They're not all going to be nice. I was lucky that Norton was small-scale enough that only one review popped up and that it was nothing devastating - merely tepid. But this is a dangerous game and highly dependent on the thickness of your skin and the length of your fuse. Me, I try to be deliberate in my life, try to weigh the perspective of the reviewer with the goals of the show and of the acting choices to which I'm privy and the reviewer is not. But, then again, I've been mentioned all of once in any review, so I really haven't had the opportunity to react to a personal criticism from a reviewer. But, with luck, someday soon I'll have a role substantial enough to get direct evaluation and when that day comes...well, we'll just see what happens.

So, what does this all mean? Am I convinced that I can eventually earn enough from acting to support myself and still have a fulfilling, comfortable life? I have no idea. Gimme a break, it's only been a year. But what I have learned is that there is work out there, good work, work at reputable, professional theatres, and that I do, indeed, have something to offer them, something they're even willing to pay for. The ball is rolling - just how big that ball is and how much momentum it will gain, only time will tell, but I can honestly say that the year has steeled my resolve. I'm going for this, it is my goal and my passion and until I have been beaten down to a bloody pulp, I'll keep pursuing it.

And to Steven and Robin - in a way you guys are keeping my hopes alive. When I know that I have friends who will come out of their way to watch a show just because I'm in it, well, it's warm and fuzzy, and who doesn't like warm and fuzzy?

Alright, let's continue this review later, perhaps in the New Year. There's more to say professionally and A LOT more to say personally. But goddamn if this post isn't too long already.

A Return to Geekery

2007-12-11T00:10:00.000-08:00

This blog has been decidedly theatre-centric for a long time and that makes sense considering that theatre has been taking up a lot of my time and energy. Still, I feel I've been sorely neglecting my inner geek and since I canceled by cable TV some weeks ago (Comcast is, unfortunately, a necessary evil for Internet, but I just had it with them on TV), I've been able to catch up on some games that had been collecting dust for some time. So I figured I'd take the time now to give my thoughts on these games. Also, there have been some developments in the gaming world which have caught my attention as well, so I thought I might address those at the same time. So be forwarned: if you can't accurately differentiate the acronyms FPS, RTS, RPG or MMORPG, this post will have little to no value to you. That being said, on to the games.

Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door

This was actually a more recent purchase. I had had trouble finding a copy in the local stores and online so when I saw that Amazon had more in stock, I ordered it. I'm really liking getting these games much later than when they were released when they're already-established classics and have entered the "Player's Choice" category, meaning they're 20 bucks. It's surprising how well the creators of the game were able to meld the Mario formula so well with RPG elements to create something wholly original in and of itself. One can imagine the pitch for a Mario RPG being something along the lines of "Just make it Final Mario Fantasy" which would create something akin to filet mignon ice cream. Some things just don't mix. But they didn't just tack on Mario into the FF formula, they created something new out of whole-cloth. A game with simplified yet intricate item and leveling schemes and, perhaps most importantly, a method of execution which requires the player to remain active in the game. It's not just a matter of choosing your spell (or "special" as the case may be) and then watching it be done, each ability you choose requires you to execute the action with timing and coordination, successfully marrying platformer gameplay with RPG fundamentals. Of course, "Thousand-Year Door" is arguably the third game in the Mario RPG series to implement this, so it's not like it's entirely original, but it takes the concepts established by the previous games, adds on its own formulas, and ties it all together with a lengthy and loopy story. If I'm to knock the game for anything, it's that it offers a lot of content but not a whole lot of payoff in terms of the traditional RPG items and abilities. You can spend a whole lot of time and energy fighting to get to a huge boss (and have fun doing it, mind you) only to be rewarded with a badge that may only be marginally better than the ones you already have. On the one hand this lends balance and challenge to the experience. On the other hand, if I slog my way for hours to get to a final battle, I want a kick-ass item to trick my character out with. TYD never really delivers that. Still, it's as much fun as a Mario RPG can be, and that's saying a lot.

Resident Evil 4

Now this one had been collecting dust on my shelf for well over a year now. I had bought it on a whim (another 20 bucks) and on the fact that it had basically been the most well-reviewed game of its year. So my expectations were high. In the end, many of those expectations were met, but I definitely left the experience with the sense that it had been overhyped. My theory is that the reviewers had understandably spent a lot of their time comparing RE4 with the previous installments in the franchise. I've only played the first RE and, based on that experience, I can say definitively that this is a far superior game. Not that the first was all that bad - there's a reason it's become a successful franchise, the fundamentals are fun - but there were definite flaws and the pace was often maddeningly erratic. The conceit of RE had been, by my estimation, founded on the idea of "Gotcha" scares as opposed to active gameplay. You'd walk down a window-lined corridor at one point in the game and nothing would happen. You'd walk down that corridor again later and "Gotcha!" a zombie or zombie-dog would burst through one of the windows, making you jump in your chair. An effective trick, but a trick does not (or should not) a game make. RE4 does away with the gimmick and instead focuses all of the gameplay on the action of shooting and combat. It was a good choice on the developers' part and they pull it off flawlessly. The gameplay has an impeccable pace to it. I rarely ever felt rushed nor did I feel like it was dragging. Not that the game isn't scary at times - it's just more of a sense of impending dread than a "Boo!"-type of scare. And that's more effective and thoughtful, I think. So why do I say it was overhyped? Perhaps it's the fact that I've been raised mostly on PC games, particularly adventure games, so I've come to expect a lot from a game's story and, if there's voice acting, the quality of that voice acting and, in those categories, the game is...lacking, and that's being kind. The story awkwardly tries to meld occult themes with James Bond-like nefarious plans and it just never really works. And while you, as a player, are feeling a true sense of urgency while playing, anytime you hear "Leon", the character you're playing as, speak, he sounds as if he's taking a jaunty stroll in the Hamptons. And there are some significant quirks that I often found infuriating. An example (with a story spoiler, if anyone cares):

The game takes place somewhere in Spain and early on you encounter an ally named Luis. Now insofar as he speaks with an accent it's relatively safe to assume that he is Spanish. Thus, his name should be pronounced "Loo-eess", correct? That's what I think. But I don't know whether it was simply that the actor saying Leon's lines wasn't told the character was Spanish or whether he was just a moron, but every time he refers to Luis, he pronounces his name "Loo-iss". It becomes interminably annoying, particularly when Luis dies halfway through and Leon is forced to yell over his corpse "LOOOOOO-IIIIIIIISSSSSS!!!!!!" It's things like these that show that the developers just weren't all that interested in the story elements of the game, and with the gameplay being so polished, it mars the experience quite a bit.

Still, aside from these caveats, the game is deserving of most of the accolades it's been afforded.

Speaking of the accolades and reviews, one story that has caught my attention the past few weeks has been the firing of Gamespot.com senior editor Jeff Gerstmann. I've been a loyal Gamespot reader for years, it was my first gaming site and I've found that their reviews are pretty consistently in line with what I'm looking for in a game. They're the ones who alerted me to both "The Longest Journey" and "Grim Fandango", my two favourite games of all time. But the speculation that Gerstmann was fired over a bad review he gave of a game that was heavily advertised on the site is troubling. The website has gone through some major changes over the past few years after it was bought by online media conglomerate Cnet. Now I don't have anything against Cnet persay, I actually frequent their site quite a bit, but the spectre of non-objectivism in gaming reviews is a scary one. I depend pretty heavily on those reviews. When I'm plopping down upwards of 50-60 bucks for a game, I want it to be as safe an investment as possible and the idea that the reviews I use to make that determination may be tainted by the corporate overlords of the websites is problematic. My knee-jerk reaction to the controversy was that I would abandon the site wholesale. I've tempered my decision somewhat since then and from now on I think I may simply rely less exclusively on Gamespot, opting instead of try and gather as wide an array of reviews as possible. It's a bad situation for Gamespot to be in, with much of the gaming community with torches at their gates. We'll see what happens.

So there we have it, a giant ode to geekery that none of you were interested in. Hope you enjoyed it!

The Payoff

2007-12-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

Acting can be a terribly interesting game. Both terrible and interesting.

There was an announcement at yesterday's performance that Victor, our Scrooge, would be leaving the show the Saturday after next. Under other circumstances, this would likely have been a scene of despair and anger - anger at a cast member abandoning their duties, despair at having to find a replacement and then getting this replacement to fill the shoes of the original. But, in this case, the overwhelming feeling was a excitement and pride. See, the reason Victor's leaving is because he's been cast in David Mamet's production of "November" going up on Broadway and starring Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf. It's huge. It's thrilling for him, and we're all so happy for his success. Of course, Victor's a vet, he's been in the game for decades, making a living (and a good one) out of acting, but, still, this is Broadway we're talking about here, the highest level in theatre you can get; this is a special moment.

A replacement has already been found, another veteran Bay Area actor by the name of Howard Swain. A quick search for him in the sfgate.com reviews turns up dozens of glowing accolades, so I don't think any of us are afraid that he won't be able to step-in and make the role his own. He also happens to be the son-in-law of Joy, our director. A close-knit group, this Bay Area theatre scene.

It's fascinating to step-back and look at this situation, at how the trajectories of one's career can be taken through the heights and the depths. And it's invaluable for a young actor such as myself to be witness to such events, I think, so that I can see the range of possibilities that are out there. I've been on several auditions in the past week where I simply did not feel I fit the part and there's a real sense of...I dunno...low-level nihilism, in those situations. The sense that all may be for nought and that you work so as to get work but that this cycle never leads anywhere. But then you see someone you respect and admire take flight and it gives you some more resolve, perhaps just enough to get you through that next audition.

Holiday Mischief

2007-12-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

So the holiday season is upon us and I find myself strangely separated from it all. It just doesn't feel like Christmas, at least not yet. I get the feeling that this is because I normally associate the holidays with a sense of ease, a slowing-down of one's life so that they can sit back and take in all those good, soothing feelings that we normally associate with this time of year. But between work and the show, I've been relatively busy with little time to sit back and relax. I'd like to take an evening and sit by the Union Square tree, or stroll along all those cozy little shops I saw in Noe Valley. But, perhaps most of all, I'd like to visit my friends back home. Normally I'd be able to make it back to Edmonton in time for at least New Year's, but the show runs through January 12th, so that can't happen this year. Of course, better to be in this situation - I'd rather be busy doing a show than not - it's just prevented me from fully embracing the warm feeling I normally get as we approach December 25th.

The show opened Saturday and it went well. We had been a bit nervous leading up to it since our dress rehearsals and previews varied in quality quite a bit from a pretty tight, pithy show on Monday to a Tuesday night that felt like it would never end. I think we're all pretty relieved that the run has started and that most everything is in place for us to be confident that we'll run a smooth course. As long as we keep the show moving at a lightning pace, the laughs are there. It's when we slow down that things go off the railings and we lose the audience (and ourselves).

I think I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing. It's fun and outlandish and insofar as I never play a character who appears more than once I don't really have to worry about things like "character consistency" from scene to scene. I've said several times backstage that it feels like I'm implementing lessons from Overacting 101, but it's what the play calls for and Joy seems happy with the choices I've made. And, frankly, when you have an asian guy playing a suicidal Dutchman, a "matrimonially available" daughter, George Bailey, and a Romanian housemaid, I don't think you're going for subtlety of performance. I just try to commit to every character and have fun.

We had quite the spread at opening. More food than I had ever seen at a show I've been in and I took full advantage, believe me. I was afraid at first that all we had was champagne (not a huge fan) but was greeted to a nice big bucket of ice and beer as I entered the lobby. I can think of very few nights that will end badly when they begin with one of those. So we had fun, put up a good show, and tried our best to spread some holiday cheer, even if some of us have yet to fully integrate that cheer into our own minds.

Sometimes It Just Doesn't Pay...

2007-11-06T10:25:00.001-08:00

...to be a nice guy. Cliche, but it rings true.

Mrs. Crachit Cast

2007-10-31T12:04:00.001-07:00

Alright, our instructions were to make a goofy face. So why am I the only one looking like a total putz?

Here You Go

2007-10-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

Well, seeing as how I've been called out, I guess a post is in order. Not sure why it's taken so long to get another one up since the show closed, but I suppose my mind has been preoccupied with other matters.

In anycase, Lear ended on the 14th. It was an amazing experience on many levels, alternately fulfilling, inspiring, harrowing, and always exhausing. As my first professional show, it was everything I could have hoped it would be. Cast interaction was friendly. We may not have all become bonded at the hip as is wont to happen on some shows, but you can't expect that, especially on a show that is, in some ways, just asking for problems and we weren't short of those. To list a few: almost freezing weather on most nights, strained vocal chords on several cast members which threatened to incapacitate them, Edmund going down with a sprained ankle in the last week (more on that in a bit), restless and rude students at the student matinees (not unexpected), and rain, oh the rain.

The story surrounding Edmund's ankle is interesting. Not the manner in which he got injured (tripped during his fight scene with Edgar during a matinee) but because of the resulting events. It was one of the five days during the run where we had a student matinee in the morning and then a performance at night, meaning the cast had some five or so hours to kill in between. Obviously we all knew that Ravi (the fine actor and all-around great guy playing Edmund) had hurt his ankle but we weren't exactly sure how serious it was and we definitely didn't know what would happen if he couldn't go on. We assumed he had an understudy, but we knew that that understudy was none of us, so it would have to be someone new. Several of us spent our free hours in Oakland at our castmate's apartment watching our Lear's (Jeffrey DeMunn) fine performance as the lawyer in the first fifteen minutes of The Shawshank Redemption and then watching Lord of War which, sad to say, doesn't really hold up to multiple viewings. In anycase, as we were leaving the apartment to head back to Orinda, I got a call from the theatre. Assuming I was with a good number of other cast members, our stage manager was calling to tell us that Ravi would not be performing in the night show and that his understudy was going on. This of course sparked a flurry of speculation among us. Would this guy be any good? We knew they didn't get this guy until the run started, so would he be ready? Was it Mark Ruffalo?

Of course there was nothing any of us could do about the siutation, so we just went back to the theatre and went about getting ready for the show. Hanging out backstage, I could hear the understudy being put through his paces with the monologues and fight sequences (which were now all cut to about three moves). I couldn't help but feel that the guy somehow sounded familiar. I couldn't put my finger on it though. Well my feeling was confirmed when, as I'm changing into my costume, my Berkeley classmate Josh walks into the room. The classmate I was pretty sure was living in New York which, if I'm not mistaken, is quite far away. So, there I stood, with basically one pant-leg on, eyes wide, wondering what the hell was going on. The shock of the situation really never died down all night for me. Apparently CalShakes didn't know he had moved to New York between the time he auditioned for this show, didn't get a part (or, rather, didn't get a part he wanted) and the beginning of rehearsals. So when they were looking for an understudy for Edmund, they called him up and he, looking for an easy way to get into the equity program and a little cash, agreed, expecting to fly back to the Bay Area and hang for three weeks before flying back. Well, wouldn't ya know, Ravi goes down and Josh is thrown to the lions. He stayed on for two performances before Ravi returned to action and did a fantastic job given the circumstances. It made for a bewildering final week though.

So the week and a half since the run ended has mostly been a period of recovery, of having my nights back and of trying to get back into an exercise routine. Things haven't been all quiet. I got my first gig from my agency, some extra-work on an infomercial for Starwood Hotels. A learning experience if nothing else since I won't be seeing much money from it, but it was good to get some camera experience, even if it was just background work. I also acted in a short student film which, while not an unpleasant experience, is something I'll have to think long and hard about doing again considering the amount of time and effort involved for no pay.

My next theatre gig has its first reading this Sunday and rehearsals start in earnest on November 6th. I have a small ensemble part in SF Playhouse's production of "Mrs. Bob Crachit's Wild Christmas Binge", written by Christopher Durang and being directed by Joy Carlin, a highly regarded Bay Area actress and director and stars some veteran Bay Area actors. I'm excited to start work on it and, if it's a successful show, I'll see it as a sort of redemption. See, SF Playhouse's stage is in the same building Emperor Norton's stage was in. So if I can go back to that building with a good show, maybe it'll make up for the shite that was Norton. Plus it'll be fun to be doing a goofy comedy after coming off Lear.

So that's pretty much an update on the past month and a half. Lear was my life for two months and now I move on. No deep insights at this point, but I'm sure there will be many to come.

Confidence

2007-09-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

I said I'd have further posts about The Incident, and I will, but right now I'd like to talk about acting a bit.

I might argue that a good 90% of the 'bad acting' I see either onstage or onscreen can be diagnosed as a distinct lack of confidence on the part of the actor. If the performer is not convinced of their own ability and right to be performing, then that lack of confidence will be apparent to the audience, who will then invariably confirm to the performer that they DON'T have that right. It's a vicious cycle and one that only the performer themselves can remedy.

Having been working with professional actors for the past few weeks, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the greatest benefit that experience and training can confer upon the actor is confidence. I'm young and I haven't gone through any kind of intense training regiment in order to hone my craft. As a result, when left to my own devices, I will often lack confidence. I don't know how to judge myself and I am constantly convinced that there is something to be improved in my performance. Now, while it may always be true that something may be improved in the performance of any actor, regardless of experience and training, to display that insecurity in one's execution is unacceptable. The past week has been a struggle due to a number of causes but I think the greatest is the young actor's need to be validated from the outside. When I feel I know what a director wants, I am reasonably confident in my abilities to fulfill their vision. But sometimes I'm unclear on certain aspects of it and sometimes, as was the case this past week, input from multiple sources can throw the whole system off-track.

We have a wonderful voice/speech coach for Lear. I've met with her twice so far. At the second meeting, we veered away from the voice/speech aspects of her expertise since our director had asked her to work with me on my physicality. Another symptom of my lack of formal training is that my body sometimes takes time to catch up to my head. This all has to do with being present in the moment, it's simply that, as of yet, I have no mechanism whereby to access this ability to stay in the moment immediately. It takes some cajoling, it takes a lot of thought, and it takes a lot of time. It's a weakness that I'm going to have to remedy whether it be by experience or training.

In anycase, I left both meetings with our coach really jazzed and excited. New things were discovered and, perhaps most importantly, I was offered much validation when what I was doing seemed to fit what the coach was looking for. So I leave the meetings confident that I know what track I'm on because I've been told just that. Problem: turns out much of what we discovered in those meetings is not at all what the director wants. So when I execute my performance in rehearsal, there is a palpable feeling of disapproval from the director. There's a feeling one gets when they know that they aren't delivering what their bosses want. For an actor, there is a terrifying immediacy to this feeling because you're performing directly in front of that boss, being judged with every movement, every word. But this is a collaborative process, it isn't productive to chastise the performer, they'll do enough of that themselves. The actor is simply told that what they are doing is not what the scene calls for, given suggestions to try to get them back on the right path, and left to find their way.

All of this seems logical, but what is so frustrating is the sense of confusion. I've received so much validation for the work done to this point, but I must now disregard all of that and return to a point of uncertainty. It shows just how self-destructive it is to rely upon positive feedback exclusively to determine one's performance. I have yet to develop that inner judge, the voice within myself which can aid in guiding me through the mass of possible choices. Again, this is a collaborative process, and what I can't forget, but what I have yet to master, is the idea that I am, myself, a part of this collaboration. I am not merely a vessel to be manipulated from the outside, but an autonomous being which can give and take feedback and which must not use applause as a crutch.

I think I'm back on track now, travelling down a path that the director wants. But I'd be lying if I said that confusion isn't still there lingering.

Runnin' the Hustle

2007-08-31T22:41:00.000-07:00

This story ends with me deciding to take the bus. In the realm of 'immediate impacts' that's really all that's changed. But there are implications to today's events which I find both curious and concerning.

Since starting rehearsals I've been walking from the Ashby BART station to the rehearsal space everyday. It's about a two-mile walk which, on a temperate day, can be rather pleasant. Choosing to walk also has the benefit of not becoming slave to the AC Transit bus schedules which are notoriously late and only come by every half-hour. However, today the not-unexpected happened. While the neighborhood along this walk is decidedly residential, it's most definitely lower-income and, as anyone who has lived in Berkeley knows, trolling around lower-income areas invariably leads to run-ins with guys looking to hustle you (particularly if you're an asian guy with a backpack.) The irony of talking about hustling while simultaneously having 'acting' paying my bills is not lost on me. In anycase, walking back from rehearsal today I ran into my first hustler. Now the only other hustle I had experienced was as a freshman at Cal. Still green-nosed and lilly-livered, having just moved from my cozy upper-middle-class suburbia in Edmonton, I was unprepared for the event and ultimately left 40 bucks poorer. Today, I'm a bit more seasoned and a lot more stubborn (at least with my money). Now, it's my understanding that these hustles all follow the same general formula. Begin by attempting to have the subject assert that they are compassionate to the plight of the less fortunate, give a sob story, profess repeatedly that you are not asking for a cash donation, then ultimately ask for a cash donation. Back in freshman year I fell for the sob-story and forked over what cash I had. Immediately afterwards I was kicking myself for having been taken so fully, but, hey, you live and learn and those lessons often cost you. What hadn't occurred to me at the time was the fact that I hadn't actually seen the entire trajectory of the hustle since I had acquiesced so quickly. Today was a different matter. Steeled by a few more years' experience and a distinct disdain towards my assailant, I was resolved not to give in to any demands. Either the hustle would end or I would make it to my BART train and ride off. What I hadn't expected (but perhaps what I should have expected) was that the end of every hustle is the threat of physical violence. It think it obvious now why I've decided to take the bus from now on, but that's not really the point. I still didn't give in. The only reason that it got to that point was because we had reached the BART station. It being the middle of the day, it was relatively populated, so I wasn't overly concerned that anything would really happen. Perhaps that was foolish, but I was in one of those moods. And though the hustler in question did threaten to board my train with me, the minute I was past the ticket gate, he turned and left. It was pretty obvious that he lived in Berkeley and the idea that he'd A) pay actual money for a BART ticket to continue this chase or B) jump the gate at which point I would have told the station monitor - were slight at best in my mind. Even if he had followed me, it would have meant an uncomfortable BART ride, and (assuming I actually got off at the correct station), we would have emerged in the middle of a packed Union Square.

I've had a few hours now to contemplate the incident. Yes, I tried to find a place that sold mace (turns out only gun stores and Wal-Marts sell the stuff, who knew.) But the more I think about it, the more I gain confidence in the idea that the probability of me actually getting hurt in this type of situation is slim. Assuming I'm in a relatively public place, the threat is just that. Not even that, because a real threat normally carries with it the possibility of action while this one does not. Of course this isn't a concrete rule and the risk isn't worth it. Hence the bus note from the beginning of this post. But I just don't see someone risking jail-time over the twenty bucks some Cal student (or ex-student as the case may be) has in their wallet.

I'm going to write more about this, because there's more to say on an abstract, socio-philosophical level, but this post is already too long, so I'll get to it later.

From Page to Stage

2007-08-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

We're now four days into rehearsals for King Lear and it's been enlightening, entertaining, and educational. Only today did we actually start blocking the show. The first three days and half of today were devoted to table-work. That is, reading through the play and analyzing each scene (each line, really) in order to gain a, if not complete, at least better understanding of objectives, meanings, storylines etc... Strangely enough, we've found the play to be somewhat dense. This Shakespeare guy, he had a lot goin' on in his head it seems. As such, all of the table work was essential for the actors to fully understand their lines and to see how the smallest comments relate vitally to the greater goings-on of the script. Seeing professionals at work is a constant learning experience and I feel extremely privileged to be on a cast that is just bursting at the seams with veteran actors with decades'-worth of experiences to impart on us young'uns. At this point I've mostly been trying to learn through observation, but I feel the time quickly approaching where I'll be asking for advice straight-out.

Being in an equity production has also introduced me to the idea of the 'scheduled-break' in rehearsal. 10-minute breaks must be allotted on a consistent basis (every hour or hour and a half from the trend I'm seeing right now) and a full hour for lunch. It's a work-day schedule which makes perfect sense, but for me it's something I'd never encountered before. Non-professional theatre normally runs 4 hours at night and 'breaks' are usually not part of the equation. Like I said, learning new things all the time.

I'll be back with more later (or so I say).

For the Sports Junkies

2007-08-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

Baseball isn't my top sport. But...holy crap.

Horses, Start Your Engines...

2007-08-20T21:11:00.000-07:00

Here we go. Finished my last day at work for about a month. I give myself an even chance of either actually being called to rehearsals 5-6 days a week or spending a good chunk of the week in my apartment sitting around going all Uta Hagen on my five lines. Oh, Burgundy's getting a backstory, you better fucking believe it.

Bullshit or No?

2007-08-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

"I'm not unwilling to..."
"I'm not unsympathetic..."
"I'm not unexcited..."

Bullshit double-negative or legitimate phrase modifier? I only ask because I've found myself using it with a higher frequency lately. Not that I'm concerned about that. Though I'm not unconcerned either.

Sagas

2007-08-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Alright, that title is ridiculously exaggerated, but the events of the last few weeks have represented the culmination of at least four or five months of building.

The California Shakespeare Theatre (CalShakes) is a professional company working in the East Bay that I have known about ever since starting theatre at Berkeley. The advanced acting professor, Lura Dolas, was one of the founding members and many Cal theatre faculty members have had long-standing relationships with CalShakes. Many students have also gone on to do shows there either by just being cast or by going through their internship program. I believe it to be the pre-eminent Bay Area Shakespeare company, though perhaps people would dispute that claim. In anycase, back in...May? June?...I remember we were still in rehearsals for Take Me Out...I got a call from the theatre inviting me to audition for their summer production of Man and Superman. Unfortunately, the show conflicted with TMO so I had to decline. Since I couldn't participate in that show, they invited me in instead to audition for their production of King Lear going up in September. Being a professional company, CalShakes rehearses during the day and as they were calling me in to audition for an unpaid ensemble role, after some thought I decided I couldn't justify the commitment even if it represented a great opportunity to work with a company I had admired for years. I want to say about a week after that call, I got an email from the theatre informing me that, due to some changes, a paying role had opened up and that they'd like to call me in to read sides for it and for the ensemble while we were at it. With the prospect of landing a paying gig, I excitedly agreed to come in and audition for them.

I remember the morning of the audition being somewhat nerve-wracking not only due to the usual pre-audition jitters, but also because I had never been to the CalShakes offices in Berkeley and so I was fumbling around with public transportation, keeping my eyes glued to every street sign we passed in the bus. Luckily I found the place without too much trouble. The facility is interesting. A section of desks and offices which the casting director wove me through until we got to the door leading to the rehearsal space which turns out to be a large workshop/hangar-type enclosure. Walking into the space and seeing what had been set up for the auditions got me my first taste of the expected unexpected processes of professional theatre. The director wasn't there. In her place was a video camera. Lisa Peterson, the director, lives and does much of her work in Minnesota and so the auditions for the smaller parts in the show were taped, then sent to her for review. I had known that hopping from place to place was a very real aspect of professional theatre, but I hadn't expected to be taped. It wasn't anything overwhelmingly disturbing, but it definitely made me regret that the 'on-camera' portion of the acting classes at Cal had been phased out the year I took them. What was a bit disturbing was that, after doing an untaped dry-run of the side they had given me the week before, the casting director informed me that CalShakes doesn't use English dialects in their productions opting instead to keep a standard American accent. So for all of my taped readings I was trying to harden my "r"s and gutteralize my "a"s, going against much of the training I had received in my Shakespeare classes at Cal. I can see the appeal in this approach to Shakespeare, particularly when you're trying to reach out to those who haven't been exposed to much of his work in the past. Still, it was slightly distressing, but I felt I came out of it relatively in tact. At the end of the audition I'm thanked and informed that I should be hearing word by the end of the month regarding the decision.

So I go back to doing what I do.

Pretended to play baseball (I think I hurt my arm from the stress, btw, I get the feeling I should see someone about it).

Got over the whole being naked onstage thing.

The end of the month rolls by. No word. Another month rolls by. No word.

So I write off the audition. I hadn't been expecting too much anyway. We finish the successful run of Take Me Out and I return to the routine of work, home, try to exercise, sleep. After a week of that I'm sick of it again. Mike, Sumudu and I start planning a trip to New York, I start looking forward to the firm retreat to Tahoe. A weekend on the boss' dime sounds pretty damn good to me. Then, as you've all no doubt predicted by now, I get a call from CalShakes apologizing for taking so long in making their decision and asking whether my schedule is still open. I say yes. They say that they'll give me the final word soon. So I wait. And I stress, and I fret, and I can't focus on anything except the fact that I may have to ask for a month off work and put a bunch of plans on hiatus. This opportunity outweighs all those plans. And I wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait ,wait. Then the Friday of the next week I get offered the gig. The next Monday I meet with the Powers That Be and get leave to be taken off payroll for a month (one of the partners is actually a season ticket holder). And things seem in place. I'm excited, I'm thrilled at the prospect of doing a show at CalShakes and being paid. Thrilled to be working with two professional companies at the same time. Wait. Back it up a minute there.

See, around the same time as the CalShakes audition, I was also called in to read for a staged reading that the Berkeley Reperatory Theatre was doing in conjunction with UC Berkeley. And I got that gig too. I got that gig the day I auditioned. It was my one bit of excitement the whole time I thought I had fudged the CalShakes audition. A three-rehearsal, two-performance staged reading, but an opportunity to work with the artistic director of Berkeley Rep and to return to the Cal campus not as a student but as an arguably "working" actor. Dammit, if only things could work out so tidily. For the first week after being offered the Lear gig, I thought the schedules could work out. I had informed CalShakes about the reading, telling them that it would be the first week of September. But I was wrong. I had been working off an out-of-date schedule and the rehearsals and performances were actually in the second week, landing directly in conflict with tech for Lear. Well, there wasn't much to be done about the situation. I wasn't going to be let out of tech, no matter how small my role. So I backed out of the reading, hat in hand, as apologetic as I could be. It all put a real dampener on the excitement of the previous week.

And that's where I stand. I start rehearsals next Tuesday and, despite the disappointment of having to back out of the reading, I'm still plenty excited to start work on my first professional show and to have the right to say that, for at least one month, I'll be paying my rent by acting (but just barely).

HA!

2007-08-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

This is what I get for being ambitious and trying to do a two-in-one post. I finish the first section then get distracted for over a month before getting to the second. The past month, particularly the past two weeks, have been pretty insane. But I'll be dealing with that later. I promised you a second review, and a second review you shall have. Just keep in mind that it's been over a month since I've seen the movie in question, so my memory is foggy, my opinions more than likely based upon faulty recollection. But here we go anyway.

Ratatouille

Most of the reviews I read of Ratatouille lauded the film as the height of Pixar animation and story-telling and, on that count, I won't argue. Of the Pixar movies I've seen, this is their work at its finest (I haven't seen The Incredibles). All of the usual touches are there, the witty offhand dialogue, scenes of frantic, perfectly-animated action, the poignant but not-too-preachy messages. So on the level of a Pixar movie, I enjoyed it alot. The thing is though that, at the same time, I found myself wanting something more. It's a testament to Pixar's body of work that the one sense of disappointment I had with the film was that it was too by-the-book, the book having been written by Pixar itself. A perfectly cooked and seasoned dish that could have used a drop of hot sauce, is that corny-movie-reviewerish enough? I suppose this may all be symptomatic of my not leaning towards overtly family-friendly movies in general. I can enjoy them, as I did this, but they never tend to stick with me afterwards. The first few Pixar movies tended to break this general trend, just by the sheer quality of the writing, but I guess I'm now acclimated to their techniques and so their movies have fallen back a bit into the "Really Good Family Movie" category. I'm not tired of their bag of tricks yet, I've just recognized that they have one.

That being said, this is still a worthy movie. The laughs are genuine, the voice-acting strong across the board. O'Toole's monologue was perhaps a bit much, lacking the subtlety of the rest of the movie in its intentions, but who's going to argue with Peter O'Toole? Me? Hell no.

**Update: I just happened to see "The Incredibles" last night and the same general principles still apply. It was decidedly more action-oriented and a hair darker insofar as it actually confronted the audience with the idea of death and murder, but overall, not a whole lot of surprises, but, hey, not like we need that all the time.

Paris, J'aime Ta Fromage

2007-07-04T20:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why, but I'm finding that lately my movie-going has become almost wholly dependent upon critics' reviews. Maybe it's the worry about being disappointed, or maybe it's the fact that I have way too much time at work to read the reviews posted by every Joe-Failed-Screenwriter on the net. My guess is it has more to do with the latter. I'm beginning to think that this may not be the best situation to be in insofar as I am essentially letting a stranger dictate my taste, but at the same time I do feel I'm discerning enough to know when a movie might appeal to me even if it doesn't appeal to the critics. Nevertheless, both movies I've watched in the last three days were chosen largely because of the glowing reviews they've received. I've yet to determine if the movies' mutual admiration for a certain capital of France has something to do with their appeal to all those snooty, book-learned critics.

Paris, Je T'aime

Alright, the critics didn't have everything to do with me seeing this movie. The reviews have been very nice, but me seeing this movie had pretty much everything to do with a coworker having a free pass to the Embarcadero One theatre that she wasn't going to use and the movie having the closest start time to the end of my work day. Not that I didn't want to see it, nor that I knew nothing about it. I saw the review on E&R (why are they still using that title? Shouldn't it be "R 'nfriends" by now?) which was very positive and I liked the idea of all these directors and actors working on five-minute shorts. But of the pseudo-indie artsy movies out right now, Paris was a distant second on my list to Once. However, though both were playing at the theatre, the earliest showtime of the latter was around 9PM, way too long for me to stick around the financial district. So I was off to France instead.

I'm not particularly familiar with classic French cinema. I've heard passingly of names like Godard but I've never seen any of his nor his contemporaries' movies, so, as much as I suspect that many of the directors were paying homage, I really can't say that with any certainty. Still, even without that knowledge, I was able to enjoy myself quite a bit with the array of cinematic "amuses-bouche" offered by Paris, Je T'aime.

The whole thing is really a tribute to the city with each 5-minute story emphasizing the various forms of love for which Paris is renowned. What's great about a movie like this from a would-be actor's perspective is that it embodies the playfulness of the artistic process. With a full-length feature there's always the onus on the writers, producers, directors, actors etc... to forge this fully-formed being, a complete film that will be engaging for the full 2 or so hours. Not so with these shorts. While a considerable amount of work still goes into the shorts, you get the feeling that it's these opportunities that the true artists cherish, when they can just let loose with an ambiguous theme and let their imaginations run wild for five minutes. Of course, in stringing these exercises together, you'll end up with segments which seem more inspired than others. While there were definitely some shorts which hit me harder than others, they all came together to form a lovely tapestry that, impressively, had me wanting more by the end. And while my recollection of each short isn't comprehensive enough to give an acceptable evaluation of each, I do feel compelled to hand out some love-centric awards.

Love of Seeing Steve Buscemi Getting Punched in the Face: "Tuileries" from the Coen brothers

Love of Crazy, Incomprehensiable Non-Stories with Blonde Asian Chicks: "Porte de Choisy" from Christopher Doyle.

Love of Holy-Crap Gerard Depardieu is the Size of a Freaking House!: "Quartier Latin" from Gerard Depardieu

Love of Cringe-Inducing American Accents Butchering the Most Romantic Language in the World: "14ieme Arrondissement" from Alexander Payne

Love of Creepy Abercrombie & Fitch Male Models Seducing Just-As-Creepy Male Non-Models: "Le Marais" from Gus Van Sant

Love of Being Reminded that Natalie Portman Could Easily Play the Queen of the Oompa-Loompas Since She Has At Least a Good Inch-and-a-Half On All of Them: "Faubourg Saint-Denis" from Tom Tykwer

Okay, this ended up being way longer than I had orginally thought. I'll be back with the second review later.

A Funny

2007-06-21T23:50:00.001-07:00

I was buying some take-out sushi today. I ordered a Spider Roll, an Unaku Roll, and a Godzilla Roll. The first two, being unfried, came out first. After delivering them my Japanese server said, in his great accent:

"Godzilla's coming."

And I smiled.

Good Ones

2007-06-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Two posts in two days, it's amazing. Just wanted to make a quick post about a few movie recommendations.

Watched "Knocked Up" over the weekend and laughed pretty much throughout while being touched at points as well. Apatow 'nfriends know their funny. They do their best to mitigate the 'slovenly guy sleeps with hot hot hot girl' suspension of disbelief (mostly by making her REAL drunk) and they make a number of smart, self-referential jokes about the premise. In the end it's still a little hard to believe that a woman that beautiful would hook up with a guy like Ben, but I forgave it early on because it was just so damn funny.

I bought the "Planet Earth" BBC series and watched the whole thing in the spance of about 3 days. That's 11 or so hours of material; amazing, beautiful, and fascinating material. I just wish I had a huge HDTV and a BluRay or HD-DVD player. That would be incredible.

Got "Pan's Labyrinth" on DVD. Haven't gotten around to watching it but I'm sure it's still wonderous.

Back to Business

2007-06-05T17:24:00.000-07:00

These lapses in posts are inexcusable, I know, but between work, the show, and my computer starting to crap out on me for no good reason, posting has taken up the venerable I should but later section of my brain. But here we are, ready for an update on my less-than-spectacular existence.

The show's been running about a month now, which is a weird thing to say considering that represents about 20 performances. Doesn't feel like that many, which I guess is a good thing. That's not to say that the show is exactly fresh every night, we've definitely made a routine out of it, but I guess I had just gotten too used to Norton where every show felt like a chore. From an acting standpoint, there's always the fear of things becoming stale, and I find that things do need to be shaken up every once in a while. There's that tipping point where a groove becomes a rut and it takes some concerted effort to work one's way out of that. I don't think we're there yet with this show (whereas with Norton we never found a groove to begin with) but the latter half of last week's run did feel a little less energized, like we reached a mini-peak with one of our shows and may be on the verge of needing to find new inspirations. And so the wheels spin on...

Looking back at my posts, it seems I've deftly avoided the 'nudity' aspect of this show in my musings. Well, let that end here! I knew going into the audition that the show contained nudity and that, were I to be cast, that I would have to be onstage naked at some point. When I was auditioning, this was no big deal. "Sure, yeah, that's fine" was my response to the "Are you okay with nudity?" question. Of course, things changed once the prospect of nudity became real. It would seem irrational that the nudity would become more of an issue between auditioning and being cast, but for me it hearkens back to the fundamental idea behind an audition in the young actor's mind. That is, "Please please please please please please please LIKE ME!!!" We're so desperate for that affirmation we don't really fully digest the implications of receiving that affirmation. Once we do, then we start realizing where we've landed ourselves, and must subsequently deal with the results. I would, of course, love to fancy myself above this desperate need for validation, but it's the best answer I've been able to come up with so far.

And now that I'm appearing nude onstage five days a week? Well, obviously I came to grips with the idea, due largely to Ed's (our director) intelligence and sensitivity regarding this aspect of the show. Am I happy about it? Do I feel that doing this has, in some way, broadened my horizons as an actor? Well, I'm not sure if I'd go that far. The whole thing has very much been a 'jumping off the cliff' kind of experience (not that I'd know) but insofar as once it was done, it was done, and I learned to live with the decision and now it's not such a big deal. But just because I've come to grips with it on this show doesn't mean that the next time (if there is a next time) will be any easier. Each situation will bring its own set of circumstances and there will be no solace in the idea of "I've done it before" if I'm called on to do it again.

A good example of how each situation will differ is the script. While I'm not going to say that all the nudity in this show is exactly integral to the story, what I will say is that this show uses the nudity towards a purpose beyond mere voyeurism or titillation. The show won a Tony based on the merits of its story, dialogue, and, yes, its success in putting (clothed) butts in the seats for which the nudity most assuredly played a part. Greenberg says this is a play about baseball, and I'd like to think he's sincere in that statement. The writing is so good, the prose so clever, that 3 scenes totalling maybe 15-20 minutes of nudity in a 2 and a half hour play just seems less unnerving. When all is said and done, I'm happy to be doing this show. The cast is great and the direction has been stellar. As for the nudity, well it happens and we've all dealt with it in our own ways. I'm not ashamed of anything being put forth by this production, but, at the same time, I'm not ungrateful that my character leaves the stage about one minute into that shower scene.

Take Me Out

2007-05-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

Interestingly enough, a non-show-related post, at least not directly. Steven was kind enough to invite me to a Giants game last night, and it was good times all around. The seats had a great view of the entire ballpark yet we were close enough so I could still make out the finer details of the player movement. I'm still working out the kinks in my pitching form for the show, so it was good to be able to see the real guys in action. The game actually turned out to be a real good one, with the Giants trailing halfway through by two runs only to come back with two 3-run innings. The Phillies' closer seemed to be the issue there, for the most part. Steven noted how momentous a day it was as Pedro Feliz (a Giants player for whom Steven has the utmost respect) actually took a walk. I'm led to believe that this is something akin to seeing the Aurora Borealis hovering over the Golden Gate Bridge, a spectacle to be cherished. I got a lesson on baseball theory and got to see Steven's Slingbox in action. I'd been reading about the little technological marvel for some time on Cnet, so I was interested to see it work. Overall, a night well spent, let's do it again sometime! Oh, and it was free blanket night at the park so, on top of it all, I got a useful souvenir out of it.

30 Rock

2007-04-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

Going off of several tips from a number of, who I consider, trustworthy people, I watched the first season of 30 Rock which NBC has graciously uploaded to the Web with limited commercial interruptions.

Like most nerdy guys, I find Tina Fey appealing. Just how much of the awkward, book-smart, Star Wars/junk food-loving persona she creates in her character of Liz Lemon on the show is actually representative of her real-life persona is impossible to tell and is, ultimately, meaningless. The fact is that the character she's written is attractive to guys like me. So, in essence, she's created a character who's on our level, if still out of our league. At the same time, she's juxtaposed this character with one who represents what guys like me wish we could be in Alec Baldwin's Jack Donaghy, the uber-successful, Type-A who would sooner cut off his own leg than lose a battle of wills. So in many ways I think there's little downside to the 'situation' in this 'situation-comedy'. The show greets us at our own level, attracts us through empathy and an attractive female character, and then gives us someone who embodies everything we wish to become (in order to attract the kind of female character the show greets us with...are you getting me here?)

All this really boils down to is the fact that this is a smart show. It's smart about its characters, it's smart about its storylines, and, most importantly in a 30-minute sitcom, it's smart about its jokes. The misunderstandings are...well, understandable. Unreasonable characters are so in a way that seems...reasonable. It's refreshing to be surprised by things on TV nowadays and 30 Rock accomplishes this. Not sure if I'll be tuning into the televised incarnation of the show, I just can't stand watching 10 minutes of commercials, but if they keep the web-feed going into the second season, I'll be there watching.

Oh, I almost forgot, the show has also given me one of my favourite burn jokes of all time:

What's the difference between your grandma and a washing machine?

After I put a load in the washing machine it doesn't follow me around for the rest of the week.

I'm An Immature Frat-Boy Sometimes

2007-04-19T18:37:00.000-07:00

And, as such, this stopped me in my tracks when I passed it on the street today. Luckily the copies were free.

Healthy retreat, indeed!

Compromises

2007-04-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I've posted anything of substance. So let us return once again to the world of amateur-one-day-I'll-make-it-theatre and see what we find.

I've had some time now to reflect on the whole "Norton" experience and I'll reiterate the idea posited in the post I took down from a few weeks ago. The show was fine for what it was, but it didn't merit a three-month run. Still, I do feel that the most of us remained professional about the whole thing, trying to keep everything fresh each night. When it came down to it though, when people I knew came to see the show I was infinitely more excited to see them afterwards to catch up than I was in them actually seeing the performance. Luckily by the end of the run we were giving out comps like candy, so I didn't have too much to feel guilty about if it didn't blow them away (sorry John, Dom, Scott, Sue-Ting, and Sean, you guys came too early in the run to take advantage of that, but you did get to see Steven as Norton). The show did get somewhat of a second wind in the last two weekends, our anticipation of the end perhaps raising our spirits a bit. Marty and Kim are apparently going to try to re-work the show and put it up again. I wish them the best of luck, they're such great people, you can't help but want them to see their baby succeed.

"Take Me Out" rehearsals started right on the heels of the Norton run ending, they actually overlapped one weekend but luckily the rehearsals didn't conflict with any of the performances. They've been going pretty well, I think, but it's always tough to tell this early in the process.

The show has reacquainted me with an aspect of theatre that I dealt with when I took the directing series at Berkeley - casting. Not that I'm doing the casting, of course, but this show is so race-specific that I can't help but remember how difficult it is to cast a show with these specifications when drawing from a limited pool. You hope and pray that you'll be blessed with wonderful actors who look, speak, and think the part but, in all likelihood, that ain't gonna happen.

So, taking a look at this show, we have a mulatto main character, a black best friend, two Hispanic players, a Japanese player, and a hillbilly player, all of whom must be at least passably inoffensive-looking in the buff (save for the black best friend, Davey Battle, but he's still supposed to be a star baseball player so physical fitness would still play a part, I'd imagine). It's tough not to feel hogtied when the script calls for such specificity in the casting. This is the Bay Area and while there are plenty of 'actors' living here, the chances of finding good ones who will be willing to work for next to no pay for an extended run and who fit these descriptions is a daunting task.

Obviously compromises are made. Me not speaking a word of Japanese nor really having had any contact whatsoever with the culture outside of the Naruto episodes I used to watch with my roommates would constitute one such compromise. Does a Chinese guy really look like a Japanese guy? The PC answer would be "Of course not! There are a number of visible differences between the facial structure of a Chinese man and a Japanese man." The 'reality-of-non-professional-theatre' answer? "The medley of white (gay) suburbanites, sexually confused teenagers and boyfriend-dragging girls that this play is catering to probably won't be able to tell the difference. Now get onstage and say your damn lines." Them's the breaks, kiddo.

Other compromises are made as well. That girl who has the perfect look for the part but iffy acting chops may get the gig over the girl who made you cry at her callback reading but whose round face just doesn't fit the role. It's the risk the director takes. Some might take the first girl believing they can sculpt her into the role, and they might be right. They might also be horribly, horribly wrong. Problem is they'll never know until it's too late, especially if there's a contract involved.

As for this show specifically, I won't say we have the perfect cast because we don't, looking at myself that's already clear. But where I do think we're lucky is that we do seem to have a cast that's open to direction. Ed is a wonderful director. He knows what he wants and he knows how to work with actors to realize his vision. Coming off of Norton where direction was either non-existent or, worse yet, served to actually hinder the performance (Mr. So-Called Norton Director Who Shall Remain Nameless: you're an incompetent prick and I think you know it) it's wonderful to be working with a sensitive and talented professional like Ed.

So I'm feeling good about the show. We have a good crew and a sure-handed captain. As always we just hope that the necessary compromises don't overtake the show, and it doesn't appear like that'll be the case at the moment.

Um, Were We Talking About You?

2007-03-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

A general note to all those I know and to all those I may encounter: Me talking about a particular problem of mine does not give you a free ticket to divert the conversation to talking about a similar problem of your own. Believe me, the last thing I want to hear when I'm bitching about something is "You think YOU have it bad...".

If you don't want to hear me complain, then tell me to shut up. Or, better yet, smile and nod politely, give a meaningless gesture of sympathy (a quick "aw" or "that sucks" will do fine) and then turn your attention to something more worthy of your time. Just don't try to turn my catharsis into your own.

Sorry, Friends

2007-03-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

Blame the Governator.

UC Berkeley: We Train'em Up Good

2007-03-08T00:45:00.000-08:00

I'll tell ya one thing, you'd never see a Rhetoric/Mass Communications/Theatre student doing this kind of shit. Mainly because they'd be too stoned and/or drunk to pull off the heist in the first place. Funny though, I would have expected some Haas rat.

A Little Sanity

2007-02-28T15:48:00.000-08:00

The very least, and hopefully only the first step.

Absolutely Sickening

2007-02-28T11:14:00.000-08:00

I call myself a self-hating Asian. Now you know why. My culture is and has been one of the most ignorant for as long as I can remember. I'm blind with rage that people like Eng exist and are being allowed to have their hate perpetuated by similarly minded editors. This kind of thought will only lead to hardship and death.

Days Gone By

2007-02-28T00:52:00.000-08:00

Another birthday come and gone. I have things to say, but they're too scattered right now, which is really the whole problem. So let's just say that a year is too much to waste.

The Price

2007-02-20T21:05:00.000-08:00

A topic came up backstage during Norton. Or, rather, it came up in the hovel to stage-right that we call 'backstage' when it's really more of a glorified foxhole. A cast member mentioned that an acquaintance of his, a female acquaintance, had gotten a boob job. I forget what the conversation prior to the revelation had been about, but suffice it to say he brought it up in order to paint it as something he disagreed with. Now, good, progressive, Berkeley-boy that I am, my first instinct was to agree with him. Whenever the topic is broached I'm reminded of a quote from Sports Night where Jeremy, writing a letter to his deaf sister, makes a point about Dana's desperation to win the approval of her boyfriend Gordon by saying something along the lines of "I understand why a woman would think that having a man is better than nothing; I just don't understand what makes a woman think she has nothing." I think the same kind of logic applies to anyone who goes under the knife in order to somehow raise their self-esteem, as if their lives were somehow being hindered morally and spiritually by not having bags of goo in their chest. But there was something nagging at me about the topic, so I asked what this acquaintance did for a living.

"She's an actress."

In that one answer, I somehow lost all motivation to protest the choice she made. Now this is likely going to sound trite and socially regressive and no doubt it will be severely oversimplified, but the way I see it, anyone going into acting as a career is, from the outset, entering an oversaturated market and thus must do what they feel is necessary to give themselves the best chance at success. I immediately came to the defense of the choice the woman had made and, considering I was in an underground theatre in San Francisco in the company of a cast more likely to reach for the Chinese tea leaves than the ibuprofen, I'd say I was outnumbered in my stance.

The point was made that there are actors out there who have made it despite not (supposedly) having any kind of surgery, actors who have been able to find success by playing outside the box. Sure, we all want to be the William H. Macys, the Maggie Gyllenhaals, the Steve Buscemis of the world. We'd all like to make it in a "classy" way, to be acknowledged because of our unique characteristics rather than our ability to fit into the showbiz molds espoused by Hollywood. Blonde bombshells with big chests are a dime a dozen in LA, right? I bet they are. And why? Because the number of jobs calling for blonde bomshells with big chests far outweigh the number of jobs calling for intricately nuanced character actors who really make that hooked nose work. And let's make a few things clear here. First, Maggie Gyllenhaal is beautiful, a naturally beautiful woman who could easily have gotten all the bombshell rolls she wanted. She's just had the good fortune of being talented and lucky enough to be able to act and flourish in the indy-film world. Second, I would argue, though I can't say I have any numbers to back this up, that it takes far longer for an incredibly talented character actor to build a career. One has to convince the industry that one's supposed flaws are really assets and that just doesn't seem like something that happens quickly. I'd say that both Macy and Buscemi didn't make it 'big' until their late thirties at earliest. Is one willing to wait tables for 10-15 years while they wait for Hollywood to "get it"? If they are, then fantastic, but there's still no guarantee it's going to happen.

This isn't to say that getting breast implants means that an actress will be immediately on the fast track to stardom. Hardly. But no matter how you look at it, I don't think you can argue against the fact that the industry rewards or at least seeks a certain aesthetic. Will the aesthetic change with time? Of course, but we're not talking about 20, 30, 40 years down the line, we're talking about actors looking for work now and now the aesthetic tends towards a certain face, a certain chest, a certain waist, a certain everything.

Another argument was made that if one changes oneself to look like the model, they'll lock themselves into a certain role and never have any degree of artistic versatility. I can't say that isn't true but I would argue that this is where talent and training come into play. I use Nicole Kidman as an example. She's beautiful, she's strikingly, mind-blowingly beautiful, but I would be hard pressed to call her looks 'unique'. She is about as close to the Hollywood ideal as one can get. But has she been locked into the same role? Maybe early in her career, but today she's recognized as one of the classiest, most versatile actresses out there, because her talent has pushed her free from the "dumb blonde" or "girlfriend of action hero" roles.

Of course, talent levels vary, and indeed some actors will find themselves locked into the same role for as far as their looks, manipulated or not, will carry them. And in these cases it may just be those implants or that liposuction pushing them over the line of unemployment to steady work. Does it mean they won't get that role as the sullen, complex loner-lesbian with an antique snuffbox fetish in the next Sundance movie? Maybe. But it may also mean they have a shot at that sexaholic bimbo-but-not role in the next David E. Kelly series. And something tells me the paychecks will be slightly different between the two projects.

But of course, some people aren't in it for the money or the fame. Some people want genuinely to act for the sake of artistic enlightenment and would rather do work that they feel fulfills them rather than playing into the tried machinations of a corporate Hollywood machine. That's fine, it's wonderful, in fact. In reality, given the fact that, no matter how much physical manipulation one goes through, one's chances of earning a living from acting are slim at best, working for the art is probably the best way to go. All I'm saying here is that it is a specious argument to say that a woman getting breast implants will limit her potential as an actress. As the industry stands today, I would argue that trying to fit into the mold opens more doors than it closes and that no one can be faulted for trying to give themselves the best chance possible to succeed when it doesn't hurt others. And, really now, if you're only taking on those projects which will "fulfill you as a person," and don't betray some unrealistic moral boundary you've set for yourself, then you're not going to be making a career as an actor.

Of course this whole argument could tailspin into any number of other scenarios (the old cliche of sleeping with a producer comes to mind) that would require further refinement of the assertion, but what it comes down to is that in an industry where those seeking employment far outweigh the number of jobs, where it's tough enough to get one's foot in the door, let alone get all the way into the room and shut the door behind you, to fault someone for increasing their odds seems patently unfair. We're all just trying to eek out a living doing something that hopefully stimulates us and that holds the promise of better things to come.

Wonderful Headline

2007-02-20T12:52:00.000-08:00

From MSN.

"Falcon Denies Beating Dog to Death"

Could only be made better if it read "Emu Denies Running Over Cat With SUV".

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-02-13T11:23:00.001-08:00

Is wondrous. That is all.

Positive Monotony

2007-02-06T23:17:00.000-08:00

Been a while since my last post. I've found it hard to motivate myself to sit down and reflect on what's going on since that would mean I'd have to consider the implications of whatever it is that's going on, which is something that scares me so much it threatens to cause me to regurgitate any number of vital organs.

Truth be told, I'm really not sure where I stand. I had laid out this neat little plan, see. I was gonna putz around for the first half of this year, finish off "Norton" and "Take Me Out" and, by the end of the two runs, have decided what kind of schooling I wanted to pursue. I would then spend the latter half of the year prepping the applications and taking any requisite tests in order to qualify myself for this schooling. The plan is still feasible, it's only February, but these first few weeks of the year have brought about events that threaten to throw everything out of whack. We'll see in the coming months what happens, if reason or ambition wins out. At the present time, it feels like I should be back in school as soon as possible, but if opportunities reside elsewhere...well, let's not even get into that.

Norton has been going smoothly enough, but I came to the conclusion some time ago that three months is a ludicrous amount of time to be doing the same show in the same venue. It's not that I'm sick of it (yet), but I find it more and more difficult to motivate myself in the role. Everything becomes so rote that the 'acting' involved in the process is almost moot. I'm trying to play around a bit more, but there's really only so much I can do. Plus there's always the danger that whatever I try doesn't work, but with more than a dozen shows left and audience attendance apparently dwindling, I figure a little experimentation can't hurt. At least it'll keep me from being bored.

Looking forward, I've had two meetings with a tutor so far, trying to learn and memorize my Japanese lines for "Take Me Out". The lessons are going well enough and while I doubt I'll really sound fluent to native speakers even by showtime all those months from now, I'm hopeful I'll be able to convey some real meaning and emotion in the lines. We'll see.

I'm finding it funny that, months ago, I was pouting over having nothing to do and feeling aimless. Now I find myself too occupied. I want my weekends back but that's not gonna happen until July. And you know what? I'm feeling even more aimless than I was when I was spending my weekends watching hours of "Mythbusters".

Theatre Bay Area Magazine

2007-01-13T01:20:00.000-08:00

The Last Piece of the Puzzle...

2007-01-13T01:12:00.000-08:00

Look at the size of that woofer!

This Was a Challenge?

2007-01-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

IT'S HERE!!!

2007-01-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

And I still have to wait till this weekend before enjoying it. Well, here are some pics of the glory (taken on another new Christmas gadget, a new Canon SD800IS.)

The Nag and the Splurge

2007-01-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but every year around this time since my first year at college, I blow a tire. That is, one of my feet, it seems to alternate which one, becomes terribly gimped to the point where I can't put more than a little weight on it before I'm whining like a baby. I really don't know why this happens. For a while I thought it was the fact that I was overweight but some 60-70 lbs later it's still happening as my noticeable hobble at work today shows. It doesn't seem particularly serious (*knock knock*), for a few days I pray to the God Ibuprofen and it corrects itself. But I have yet to explain it, which makes it a definite concern and if my health coverage wasn't of the bare-minimum variety, I'd have it checked out, but alas. Maybe it's the shift from California to Edmonton and then back the California. That's the only thing I can think of that has been consistent beginning my freshman year. In anycase, yeah, poor me.

So, of course, in order to console myself, I go out and buy $1,700 worth of computer equipment. Alright, I actually bought most of it before the pain returned. We have indeed begun the cluster-fuck geekification that I alluded to a few months ago in a post about my new monitor. So to appease the hard-core out there, here is a list of my most recent purchases:

Intel Core 2 Duo e6400 2.13Ghz Processor
Asus P5W DH Deluxe Motherboard
EVGA GeForce 8800GTS Video Card (!!!!!!!!)
OCZ GameXStream 700W Power Supply
Corsair XMS2 2GB Dual-Channel DDR2-800 SDRAM
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
Samsung 18x DVD-R Burner with LightScribe
Logitech Z-2300 Speaker System
Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Full Tower Case

Christmas bonus, we hardly knew ye. I can pretty much say that this is the most money I've ever spent in one sitting that didn't have to do with paying back loans. Though I actually don't think this will be the most expensive computer I've ever used. I believe that 486 my family bought back in the early nineties was indeed much more expensive than this system.

I'd say the system is pretty tricked out. I didn't go for the top-of-the-line processor since "word on the street" is that, if you don't overclock the new Core 2 Duo chips, you're wasting a valuable opportunity since they do it so well. The major luxury item, if you couldn't tell from the exclamation marks, is the video card. I was originally going to go for the 7950 but found that, when all was said and done, it was within my budget to upgrade that to nVidia's current monster. If there's going to be a bottleneck on the system it's going to be my hard drives, the only components I'm salvaging from my current system other than the DVD-burner. What am I going to do with 2 DVD burners?...BE COOL, THAT'S WHAT! Uh, yeah, they're relatively cheap, so I threw another one in just for the heck of it.

If the forums and customer reviews are to be trusted, the case I chose is about half the size of my apartment. I hadn't really realized this at first, but am hopeful it won't turn out to be too much of an issue. Since I'm having all this stuff delivered to my work address though, that means a hell of a schlep with the case back to my apartment. We'll see how that goes.

John's going to come up to help me assemble everything and to hopefully ensure that I don't screw it up. This being my first build, I feel I really need some more experienced eyes monitoring. I'm excited though, and have my Oblivion DVD in hand ready to be pumped to its max settings. My inner geek has finished its cigarette, rolled over and gone back to sleep.

I'm Not Weird, Dangit!

2006-12-31T15:43:00.000-08:00

I actually think that's true for the most part, I'm really quite boring. But, as I've been tagged, I suppose I have to think of something.

"Here are the Rules: Each player of this game starts with the six weird things about you. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says you are tagged in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

SIX WAYS I’M WEIRD…."

1. I enjoy theatre (not excluding musicals), cooking (to a certain extent), AND my heterosexuality.

2. I tend to use big words to make myself sound and read smart while I really think cussing conveys more meaning on the whole.

3. In the winter I would gladly trade in California's climates for Edmonton's.

4. I shun the worlds of computer science and math and yet somehow manage to be a giant tech-geek nonetheless. Maybe that just means I'm a poser.

5. I got my first job EVER just a little over six months ago.

6. I espouse a general philosophy of skepticism to all authority and yet will blindly follow most orders of a superior. That doesn't make me weird though, just a hypocrite.

Tagged:

Santa's Six Elves

Home for the Holidays

2006-12-23T00:04:00.001-08:00

Leavin' for Edmonton tomorrow. Might post if anything interesting happens or if NOTHING interesting happens.

More Stage Schooling

2006-12-16T20:23:00.000-08:00

Great, now I can't stop thinking about it and I have to write another post just minutes after the last one.

But it's occurred to me, the biggest factor in me not working hard enough on the character is the fact that I had been convinced that what I was doing was 'enough'. No one was saying negative things, in fact we were getting positive feedback for adding 'depth' to the scenes. But I shouldn't have been happy with that. I could feel that I wasn't giving enough, that I didn't have enough invested in the scene or the character. Even if our director or our assistant director gave us some encouraging notes (probably to make us feel better with our small roles), I should still have sensed that there was a problem and tried to fix it.

It's also a problem that I'm thinking about the New Conservatory show next year. I'm trying to work out at least 6 times a week so I'll be in shape for the show, so at least a part of my day almost everyday is taken up with an activity that has me thinking about a show that won't even be in rehearsals for another 3 months. That's diverted my attention from the show I'm in right now and made me slack off on my work. Of course there's no guarantee I wouldn't have started slacking off even if I didn't have the role next summer, but I can't help but feel that my attention left Norton behind and moved onto Take Me Out. The job now is to reel it back and to give this gig the attention and work it needs.

Stage Schooled

2006-12-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

Our Norton rehearsal tonight was enlightening. We had a cast member from the previous run come and watch the rehearsal and she provided a lot of feedback at the end. Since she played one of the two Asian roles, I decided I wanted to have a good talk with her afterwards and it was one of the better decisions I've ever made.

The talk reminded me of a fact. That showbiz saying "There are no small roles, only small actors"? It's crap. There are most definitely small roles, roles that will receive little to no attention from the director, roles which are there purely to be placed in the background. Careful now, it's tempting to now say that good actors will elevate those roles so that they're no longer small. That's a mistake. If a role is written small, it is meant to stay that way. It is there to establish mood, to create setting, and to add a slight bit of depth to the show as a whole. It is NOT there so that the actor in the role can steal focus from the main action on the stage.

A good actor will understand this fact and respect it. At the same time, a good actor will take this role and make it as real and as interesting and as engaging to themselves as possible. Just because it's a small role doesn't mean that it's a 'bad' role or that you now have leave to do nothing interesting with the role. You're still an actor and you still have a job to do and that job is to ensure that the character you portray is as real and as believable and engaging as possible so that, if an audience member happens to glance over to you during a scene (maybe because the main action isn't doing its job), they will still remain engaged and not spot an actor who isn't IN the scene themselves.

The talk made me realize that I had, in some respects, been taking myself out of scenes where the Chinese characters are serving as background filler. The filler still has to be believable. I had no character, I was just going through actions that seemed appropriate to be doing in the given circumstances. But the actions had nothing behind them, they were merely rote movements that I did while having some vague (a word that is DEATH in acting) idea of a character in the back of my brain. This is amateur bullshit at its height. Having realized this, I'm a little depressed that I didn't notice it earlier and I only have myself to blame, really. I hadn't been doing the work, I was lazy and complacent in my character work because I believed that my small role didn't merit that work.

Well now I'm aware because I've been told about it. I think being brought in late had a bit to do with it along with the fact that I'm not used to not having any direction which is basically the situation I'm in. The director focuses, rightly, on the main action while giving the rest of us general instructions and leaving it at that. I feel I don't respond too well to that or, at least, I find little motivation to do work when I see little chance of it being noticed or appreciated. But more and more I have to learn that, just because someone doesn't tell you they liked your performance, doesn't mean that you didn't do your job. But if your laziness ends up detracting from the show, then you're NOT doing your job and you should get your ass in gear. I need to get my ass in gear.

If only...

2006-12-11T16:42:00.001-08:00

I want one.

Feelin' a Little Frisky

2006-12-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

Well, when isn't that the case? But I just can't be that straight-forward, can I? So the friskiness in question isn't solely lecherous in nature. No, that particular form became the background music of my life back when puberty hit. Such is the life of the straight male, I guess. It's like the rhythm section now, always there, itching to get that drum solo.

Anyway, I get the feeling that the friskiness I'm feeling right now is really the ungodly bastard-child of excitement, worry, and unease. A child borne of three parents, yeah, I'd say that's pretty ungodly. Normally this would be the point at which I'd say "A number of things contribute to this feeling" and, indeed, insofar as one or two are numbers, that is true. But I've found that now that I'm no longer in school (for the TIME BEING, dammit!) life is actually significantly less complicated. Problem is, this reduction in the quantity of issues doesn't do much to reduce the amount of worry. So now I just have a few issues that I focus on with more attention. And that ain't necessarily a good thing, brother.

We've been rehearsing Norton for a little while now and it's all coming together slowly but surely. A little too slowly considering we go up in less than a month with a holiday break, but there's still hope we'll get it together on time. The experience so far has been an ongoing lesson in the practicalities of theatre. I'm becoming more and more aware of the fact that the idea that you can make your living solely off of acting in the theatre is a statistical fantasy. And I'm not just saying that you'll have to do commercials and magazine ads to supplement your pay. No, I'm saying that unless you have some sort of nest-egg (read: filthy rich, very understanding parents), you're going to have to have a day job to pay the bills that your acting gigs aren't. I think the popular misconception is that the struggling actor waits tables until they get a gig when, in reality, at least in the theatre, they're still waiting tables even after they land that juicy role. Only now, instead of their day ending at 5, it ends at 10. I've seen what the equity rates are and let's just say I'm making more at my job now than most of the working union actors out there, to say nothing of the non-union actors (ie, me) getting a stipend and nothing more.

So has this disconcerting realization turned me away from the idea of acting professionally? Have I finally decided to be reasonable and focus my attention on getting a "real" career? Oh, if only that were the case, life would be so much easier. Instead, on top of the three months I have committed to Norton, I've also taken on a role in the New Conservatory's production of Take Me Out next summer. So I've committed myself until July of next year doing theatre and, as excited as that makes me feel, and I am VERY excited, the same distracting thought keeps popping up: "But I don't WANNA be poor!"

I can see my Lexus fading away like Marty McFly's parents in Back to the Future. A hand, there goes my own house, an arm, oops guess no kids, and finally the whole thing just evaporates and I'm left penniless and probably jobless considering the market.

But then I start thinking about the shows, about the three months of audiences, about working at a more professional theatre in the New Conservatory of, maybe, just maybe being mentioned in a widely circulated review. Good, bad, whatever, it'll be out there. And the excitement grows, and that nasty little acting bug they talk about starts nibbling again and, wouldn't you know it, I can't help but wonder what show I can get cast in after July!

I wouldn't say I'm being 'torn apart' by the conflicting feelings. Rather, I'd say that I'm engaged in a debate that shows little sign of coming to a peaceful resolution.

Oh...

2006-11-22T16:58:00.000-08:00

Oh, and in case people were actually curious about the production itself...

www.emperornortonthemusical.com

A Confluence of Forces

2006-11-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a rather odd 24-48 hours. Not so much the events themselves but the fact that they happened so quickly. What it all boils down to is whereas two nights ago I was still on the hunt for casting opportunities with no real possibilities arising, I now find myself cast in a show that will run for 3 MONTHS.

I was sitting in my apartment two nights ago not doing a whole lot (and enjoying myself just fine, thank you very much) when I got an email inviting me personally to audition for a show in need of an asian male actor. The email itself came from one of the two authors of the play who had found me through my headshot and resume posted on the TBA website. That in and of itself was kind of baffling as I had always considered that particular feature of the TBA membership as a bit vestigial. Over 500 actors listed and the website listing them takes minutes to load over broadband and more often than not crashes your browser. But I'm not one averse to being proven wrong, especially when the result benefits me. In anycase, I responded to the email and subsequently emailed the director of the piece to set up an audition. He emailed back asking me to call him the next day to concretize a time.

The next morning showed the signs that they were pushing hard to get this role cast as they had posted general notices to TBA and to the Bay Area Theatre Bums email list which I receive. Just for good measure, a friend forwarded me the notice yet again. So that's three notices in probably under 15 hours. On top of that, I realized that the venue they had arranged for the production was located literally less than a block from my apartment building. Things were aligning rather strangely before I had even auditioned.

I tried not to get my hopes up, as I always do, and called the director to hopefully set up an audition sometime next week. Instead, he asks if I can make it later that same evening. Uh, sure. I was a bit uncomfortable with it since it's a musical and I hadn't really prepared my song to the point I was completely ready but I figured I had the rest of the day to prep my singing voice which hadn't seen use in at least a year.

I also still wasn't entirely sure I wanted to commit to the project. A 3 month run is longer than any show I'd ever taken part in and there had been no indication of even a stipend in the notices much less actual 'pay'. But auditioning couldn't hurt, so I agreed to a 7:45PM meeting that night.
So I finished work and proceeded to try and cram "Sorry/Grateful" back into my head despite having not sung it in about two years by looping the song on my iPod while I BARTed to the Mission. I must have listened to it a dozen or so times before I got there and was mildly confident I could do it. Of course, I don't end up singing a note of the song. Instead the director and I chat for a little bit and I lightly sing a few bars from the few lines of singing assigned to this character. It becomes obvious this isn't so much about how good a singer I am as much as it's about whether I can sing on key which, luckily, I can. Having established this, I then read a short scene with the actor playing the main character in the play (establishing I can act) and...it's done. The director essentially casts me on the spot, hands me the script and a CD of the instrumental music. The three of us chat for a little while and I become much more enamored of the play, it feels like a great, fun little production in which I will likely be proud to participate.

Now, it would be SO easy and tempting to rain praise upon myself for being cast so quickly. I must have wowed them with my charisma and unspoken talent. But that would be both naive and unreflective of my usual self-deprecating nature (although I'm still not convinced that calling oneself 'self-deprecating' isn't, in itself, a little self-ingratiating). In anycase, no, what it comes down to is that they had a small role and needed an asian male who could sing and act reasonably well to fill it. I automatically filled the first criteria and it didn't take a full audition to confirm that I filled the latter two. Really, it's just another lesson in 'Real World' theatre. You spend so much time in training, convincing yourself that you have all this talent to showcase, that if you're just given the chance you can blow the casting directors away. But much of the time the directors aren't looking to be blown away. They're looking to fill a need and if you fill it, you're gravy, and if you don't it doesn't matter how well you belted that Jesus Christ Superstar song, or how you really cried during your Crucible monologue, they still can't use you. Taking the Directing Class series really helped me to realize this. Once you've been on the other side of the equation and are forced to think from the director's perspective, it makes swallowing rejection easier. Not that it rolls off your back (go back a few posts to see proof of that), but it removes a lot of the confusion from it.

So, yeah, the events really aren't that weird, but the speed at which they happened has left me really dazed, and the idea that I'll be acting in a show from January to April next year is something that'll take a little while to come to grips with.

Waawaaweewaa!

2006-11-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

Finally saw Borat last night and it was pretty much everything I thought it would be as my laughs were stifled only by me trying to simultaneously say "Oh my god". However, what may have been even more entertaining than the movie itself? The elderly couple sitting near us who didn't crack a smile the ENTIRE time. Now that's comedy!

Good Times

2006-11-09T13:57:00.000-08:00

What a couple of days. Things are looking slightly up for the first time in years and the recount everyone was expecting isn't happening. Here's a great article from the times on how Allen fucked it all up. Macacas all around the world are cheering.

The Very Least I Can Do

2006-11-07T01:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes being a Canadian living in the States during a time of inept rule has its drawbacks. I get all riled up and then realize that I won't even have a say. Well, so be it, but Michael Moore will have my say for me then.

If you're American and you're reading this, VOTE!

----------------------------------------

Friends,

Tomorrow night, those who sent 2,800 of our soldiers to their deaths -- all because of a lie the president concocted -- will find out if America chooses to reward them -- or remove them.

As good as things look for the Democrats, do not pop the corks and start the partying yet. Do not believe for a second that the Republicans plan on losing. They will fight like dogs for the next 24 hours -- relentless, unforgiving, nonstop action to squeeze every last conservative voter out of the house on election day. While the rest of us go about our day today, tens of thousands of Republican volunteers are knocking on doors, making phone calls, and lining up rides to the polls. They're not sleeping, they're not eating, they're not even watching Fox News. A day without Fox News? That's right, that's how insanely dedicated they are.

But the reason they have to work so hard is that, before they can get the vote out, they first have to completely turn around the massive public opinion against them. Almost 60% disapprove of Bush. Over 60% are opposed to the war. Those are landslide numbers. And the American people are not going to turn pro-war or into Bush-lovers by tomorrow morning. So it should be easy for us, right?

Yup. Just like it was when we won the popular vote in 2000 and when we were ahead in the exit polls all day long in 2004. You know the deal -- the other side takes no prisoners. And just when it seems like things are going our way, the Republicans suddenly, mysteriously win the election.

Well, it's not really that mysterious. They're out there busting their asses this very minute, right down the street from you. What are YOU doing? You're on a computer reading my cranky letter! Stop reading this! We have only a few hours left to wrestle control of the Congress away from these "representatives" who, if returned, will continue shipping our young men and women over there to die.

Here's what I'm imploring you to do right now:

1. Go through your address book on your cell phone and computer and call/e-mail everyone you know. Tell them how much it would mean to you if they vote on Tuesday. If they don't know where to vote, help them find their polling place.

2. Contact MoveOn.org ASAP. They will connect you to the folks who need you to make calls.

3. Contact your local Democratic Party headquarters. There are close races in nearly every state. They'll put you to work -- on the ground or on the phones. Or go to the local HQ for the Dem candidate running for the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate and say, "Put me to work!"

OK, turn off the computer -- and I will, too. There's serious work to do. The good news? There's more of us than there are of them. Let's prove that, once and for all.

Is there anything more important that you have to do today? Nothing less than the rest of the world is depending on us.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com

The More Things Change...

2006-11-01T01:09:00.000-08:00

My life the past little while has only been as complicated as I've made it. I'm confronting career issues that I hadn't anticipated and they're wreaking havoc with my ability to plan for the future. I had thought, quite logically in my opinion, that, having left the safe haven of college theatre, so full of positive reinforcement, I would be brought down to reality and forge my way down a more reasonable route. Getting a job at a law firm just seemed to be the first brick along this road.

Has this happened? Well, here's where we run into problems because, as too many things in life tend to be, the answer is yes and no. Theatre outside of the collegiate setting is no doubt different, populated by tiny stages, even smaller rehearsal spaces and, almost without deviation, uniformly impoverished participants. At the same time, there's an energy to this kind of theatre that I can see becoming infectious. It's all so very 'underground'. I dunno, there's something about acting in a studio on skidrow that makes one feel as though they're part of some strange occult community.

But, in truth, it isn't the San Francisco theatre culture that has been causing problems with my plans. Rather, it's the fact that the few acting trials I've had to this point have only served to convince me that the fundamental experience of theatre as an exercise in incredible highs and abominable lows is the same no matter where you're performing.

The highs: I auditioned for the season of staged readings for the Playwright's Center of San Francisco and was cast in their first full reading of the season. The format was sort of a combination of a staged reading and a performance. Scripts in hand with limited blocking, but included some costuming (even costume changes) and styalized 'entrances' and 'exits'. After each reading the Center holds a Q&A with the audience in order to help the author develop the play. For some reason, they kept the house lights down for this, so I snuck up to the back seats to watch and listen. A little way into the process, as the discussion came to which characters were the most enjoyable, one audience member raised his hand and expressed how much he enjoyed my performance. It's tough to convey how happy that made me feel; the fact that he was unaware of my presence and felt compelled to give me a good review. I rode that high for days. Talking to the audience face-to-face after a show always feels fake, as if you're pandering for compliments even though you'll never be able to tell if you're getting their true opinions. But this was real; I could hardly contain myself.

The lows: Audition-Callback-Rejection. It's a simple process and one every actor has to get used to, but it still hurts. This was just last night, in fact. There's nothing too dramatic about this one in particular except for the fact that they kept me at the callback, reading for the same character with different actors coming in and out, for over an hour. This left me with the impression that they thought I fit the role. That can be the toughest part of this process, one's constant state of ignorance. I'm not one who enjoys being denied knowledge and I enjoy even less being misled. So when I got the call earlier tonight that they weren't casting me, it came as a disappointment not because of the rejection per se, but because I had interpreted their treatment of me the night before as something it wasn't.

The risk one runs here is an overreaction in either direction. After the "real compliment" moment, I'd be lying if I said that the thought of "I could totally do this for a career!" didn't cross my mind. And yet, after the rejection call, those oh-so-familiar thoughts of "What the fuck was I thinking? I could never make it as an actor" were stirred up once more. Neither of these paths are anywhere near reasonable. The praises of one audience member, bonafide or not, are nothing to base a career decision on while a single rejection from a group of strangers similarly says nothing about one's promise in the craft. But from an actor's perspective, that just seems to be the way it goes. When you splay yourself before an evaluating committee, you're bound to become invested in the process, thus magnifying the resultant affirmation or rejection.

Though perhaps I'm premature in my evaluation of the "actor's perspective". Perhaps I'm not really qualified to make such assertions. I have to imagine that 'professional' actors have developed, through sheer volume, a deference towards praise and rejection. When the experience crosses from passion to career, things must shift somehow. Not that the passion diminishes, rather that it becomes tempered by the realities of business. I dunno, it's a vast and scary jungle to me at this point.

All I can say is that the first few months out of college have done little to steer me in any clear direction and it's quickly becoming eminently frustrating. I simply want to find something reasonable that I'm passionate about. But who knows, that may be asking for an oxymoron.

Bobbed a Bit Too Slowly

2006-10-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

It seems like I had manged to deftly avoid illness for maybe a whole year but, alas, my body is currently fighthing a mighty battle against millions of microbes as we speak. Damn those sweaty cheering goths at the Dresden Dolls concerts. Still, if that was the cause, it was worth it for two nights of PRIMO punk cabaret.

Pedagogical Acclaim

2006-10-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sis put up a post the other day commemorating World Teachers' Day in which she went over a few of the most notable teachers in her life. I thought it a nice tribute to some of the most influential people one is likely to encounter and decided to put one up myself, and given I likely have more than 20 minutes to do so, I'll maybe be a bit more long-winded about it. So let's take this chronologically, as ordering by any level of 'preference' would be useless.

Mme Zerr - Grade 5: One of two entries from the "Catholic Elementary School" phase of my education. I don't remember a whole lot from those days, but a few stick out. I remember entering her class with dread as she had been labeled the 'mean' teacher by the consummately reliable peer grapevine. However, what came to be realized in this case was that 'mean' didn't represent the 'I never wanted to teach so I'm not going give the little pukes an inch'-mean but, rather, reflected the fact that she saw no reason to coddle us. Not that she treated us like 'adults', that would be ludicrous, but she held us accountable and rewarded achievement with a more sophisticated grace so one could really feel like they'd accomplished something. It's these vague impressions that pervade my memories from that time of my life. And, incidentally, were I to become a K-12 teacher, I would, in all likelihood, be the first form of 'mean'.

Mlle Chalifour - Grade 6: I suppose it might be "Mme" by now. There isn't a whole lot to say about her. She came in as a teaching assistant still in college in Quebec (why she was in Saskatoon I'll never know), but I really have no recollection of what kind of an actual teacher she was. What lands her here is that she started the extra-curricular improv drama club and I, being the little brown-noser that I was (alright, am), signed up as fast as I could. Thus started my tumultuous affair with the theatre world. Well, that and having seen sis in her high school productions which I held as the paragon of theatrical achievement at the time.

Mr. Irwin - Grade 7: Moving into the Edmonton Junior High/High School phase, we find the first teacher who managed (or even attempted) to connect on the same level with the students. In retrospect, I think grade 7 may have been a bit early to be attempting such a connection, as reflected in the abject absence of discipline which pervaded the class, but he tried and we appreciated it, so much so that we started a petition to keep him employed even though the school had only hired him on a temporary basis. He was the first 'buddy' teacher I came across which was quite a revelation at the time.

Mr. Miller - Grade 10 + 12 History: Here we have a case of simple, old-fashioned good teaching. Nothing special, he was definitely not the 'coolest' of teachers. But he knew the material, and found intellectually creative ways to convey that material. Of the more "orthodox" teachers I've had, he was the best. I learned and I excelled, what more can one ask for?

Mr. Smilanich - Grade 10 English: The next step up from Mr. Irwin. The ultimate buddy-teacher, and luckily we were ready this time. We may not have gotten a whole lot out of the readings but that was mostly because he would motivate us to explore thoughts and concepts ourselves. Always ready with a joke and a snide remark, we all loved him as a person even if we didn't like him so much as a marker (he was a bit tough on that front). A very 'cool' teacher, he held a weekend job at HMV just to get cheap(er) music. Last I heard he went back to school to get a master's.

Ken Agrell - High School Drama: The single most influential teacher in the entire pre-university phase of my life and I never even had a class with him. Since I was in the fancy-shmancy "International Baccalaureate" program, I had no room in my schedule for it. Instead, I took part in as many of the school productions as I could. If you read sis's post, this is kind of similar to her "Mr. Ramsden" post insofar as, to the untrained eye, Agrell would seem to be a callous, brash, bastard of a man, only made more perplexing by his uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus. But if you spent enough time working with him, you could see why and how he became one of the most respected teachers at that school. If you were willing to put in the work and not bitch for no reason, he empowered you to explore the world of theatre with a wonder that was unmatched. I get the feeling there were only a few of us who really got the most out of our time with him, but it only takes a few every year to create a legend, and that's what he is. He recently retired after some 30 years at Harry Ainlay High.

Steven Rubio - Mass Communications 10: Perhaps the only teacher on this list who might actually read this thing. We're now in Berkeley territory, the four most formative years of my life to this point. I didn't actually have Steven (Professor Rubio back then, of course) as a prof until the summer after freshman year. My first year, while definitely eye-opening on the academic front, was much more about social development, so the profs during that year didn't really get a chance to stick deeply in my mind. By the time I got around to this class, I was ready to have the material really reach me and was lucky enough to have Steven teach the first class in this phase. In a way, his was one of the more revolutionary classes for me insofar as it was the first one to utilize pop culture in meaningful ways. Before this class pop culture had either been categorized as, at best, trite nonsense or, at worst, the sworn enemy of true academics. What I learned from Steven is that if one focuses one's view on only certain aspects of the world, then one will never have a complete basis upon which to assert a thesis. If you ignore parts of reality, you ignore reality; just because it wasn't written by a dead European or a pre-1930s gussied-up Nazi, doesn't mean it isn't just as meaningful as the words of a Socrates or a Heidegger. Steven also holds the prize as the only prof with whom I've maintained contact AND the only prof of mine to whom my sister has sent gifts without ever meeting them. Now that's pretty impressive in my book.

Daniel Coffeen - Rhetoric 132: Moving to my other major, Coffeen's class, titled "Truths and Delights of the Surface", is the only class I've ever taken that literally changed the way I think. I can't detail exactly the manners my mind was blown by the ideas he brought up, but suffice it to say I really believe I came out of that class a different person than when I went in. I've heard Coffeen described as a "beatnik", a "hipster", an "asshole", but, in the end, for me, he was one of the most important vessels of thought I've ever come across. Like many of the most important teachers I've had, it would be easy to misinterpret Coffeen's take on Rhetoric, Philosophy, and life. As an example, his last piece of advice to us was to make as much money as possible, as easily as possible. And when asked what challenges he faces day to day, his #1 answer was the fact that he is still too controlled by conscience. To someone walking in on such a class, they would have the understandable impression that this man is nothing more than a narcissistic anarchist purveying a meaningless and perhaps even harmful manner of thinking. But spend a whole semester digesting the concepts brought out of his readings of Nietzsche, Foucault, and Merleau-Ponty, and you'll begin to get a sense of how much more complex the whole situation is, and how the perception of one thing may indicate the reality of another. I could go on forever, but to sum up how this class distinguished itself from others, I'll offer one event.

I've received more than my fair share of positive reinforcement. Good grades and a temperament which avoids conflict tends to lead to authority figures raining praise upon you in the world of academics. While it's always nice for people to say nice things about you, one gets used to it and it lessens in meaning after a while. Well, I came into Rhet 132 on the day we were expecting our grades back on the first essay of the semester. I was proud of the essay I wrote, I thought I argued well thanks greatly to how engaged I was with the material. The first thing Coffeen does when he sees me is shake my hand and tell me my essay was great. Fine, that's fine, he tells that to a few others as well, so I could at least be secure in the fact I got an "A". But later in the class a discussion begins on the idea of politics. Coffeen asks the class, genuinely, how one is supposed to make a choice about who to vote for. It's not as an intellectual exercise, he actually asks because he doesn't know (or at least that's how he portrays it). At one point, a student asks simply "Well, who do you trust?" and jokingly or not, I don't know and don't really care, he blurts out, "Arthur! I trust Arthur!" and points to me. Now I had been active in the discussion, so it's not like he pulls it out of nowhere, but when he said that, I felt perhaps the strongest sense of accomplishment in my life. My words had convinced him to trust me. I just couldn't get over that. Was he being genuine? Probably not. He was probably just trying to turn the discussion down a new road, bring a different frame to the idea of grand Big Brother politics, but the fact was that, in his improvised attempts, he connected me with the idea of trustworthiness, and I couldn't have been happier about it.

Oh, and for the record, I responded:
"Hey, don't look at me, I'm Canadian."

to which he responded:
"Figures."

To this list of college profs I would add 4 or 5 drama teachers whose encouragement and passion pushed me even further into the dicey but wonderful world of performance.

It's interesting to read this and see a rough summary of what has been my life for the past 22 years, my academics. School, for the most part, has been great to me and I've done some damn fine work over the years if I do say so myself. There's more to come, and I'm glad I was able to put down my thoughts on how much the people who have helped shape my perspective have meant to me.

White & Nerdy

2006-10-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

Here's another curious consequence of the disconnect with pop culture I was talking about two posts ago: I no longer know the songs Weird Al is parodying. Nonetheless, his new single is KILLER. And to any haters out there, I have only this to say: Donny Osmond breaking it down urban-style.

My Inner-Geek is Smiling

2006-09-27T20:02:00.002-07:00

I am now blogging to you all while sitting in front of 20.1 inches of widescreen LCD goodness. As geeky as this is, keep in mind that I predict this to be nothing more than a prelude to a masssive geek-overhaul of my computer next year. Let's hope for funds...

It's All About Me!

2006-09-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

I was chatting with Mike the other night on the topic of aging. Basically, we were waxing nostalgic over junior high and high school, alternatively pining for and expressing our disdain for the various aspects of our lives way back in the late 1990s.

At one point I brought up the fact that, as I've gotten older, I've noticed myself becoming less and less interested in mainstream popular culture. It's not that I reject it or harbour any disdain for it, it's simply that I've found myself less interested in exerting the effort to know every pop star the kids are listening to or watching these days. Parallel to this development has been the dread that I'm becoming (CLICHE) exactly what I thought I'd never become when I was a teenager. At that age, I was staunch in the belief that I would never lose touch with contemporary pop culture. I would never become one of those lame adults who didn't know the difference between Radiohead and Coldplay, who failed to break out of their 1970s AC/DC-listening ways and embrace what "everyone else in the world" knew and loved. How could they live like that, so willingly ignorant of the most fundamental cornerstones of the world around them? It seemed simply irrational that someone would choose to exist without at least a basic understanding of modern cultural references.

Fast forward to today. It's not that I'm completely ignorant of popular culture, not quite THAT old yet. As far as movies go, I'd say I'm pretty up to speed. However, in other aspects of popular culture, particularly music, I've fallen behind. A quick glance at the current Muchmusic Countdown reveals names of bands like "Stone Sour", "Blue October", and "Alexisonfire", bands I have no knowledge of nor any real desire to gain knowledge of. Now back in junior high my younger self would have shot me the Evil Eye for spouting such blasphemy if he could tear his eyes away from watching those bands' music videos. I used to hear back then that it was simply "too hard" to keep up with pop culture. I saw this as a paltry, rote excuse from people who simply couldn't let go of their tie-dye t-shirts and get with the times. Today, I still don't think the excuse quite works, only because it attempts to garner sympathy for the older generation, as if they (we?) were the victims of the situation. It's not that hard to keep up. Listen to half an hour of top-forty radio and you'll hear the newest songs (three or four times). It's not that it's too hard, it's just that WE DON'T CARE. In a way, I'm validating everything I believed back in Grade 9. But the important question here is why. Why is it that one ceases to care about these aspects of the culture around them?

The answer I came up with intrigues me insofar as it works against the typical definition of the teenage mind. Popular 'old-people' thinking would declare that teenagers are nothing but self-centered brats, uncaring of others and satisfied only when their own needs are fulfilled. I don't think this is the case. On the contrary, I would argue that teens, perhaps more than anyone, are hyper-aware of others and, more importantly, how they are perceived by others. It is important, however, to note that 'others' in this context does not represent an all-inclusive group. Figures of pre-generational authority, I believe, are rarely included in this group, and thus, from the perspective of these authority figures, the teens seem completely uninterested in the regards of others when, in reality, they are merely uninterested in the regards of these particular individuals. When it comes to their peers and to the various other categories of individuals placed within this 'others' group, they are not only aware and desirous of their regard, they sacrifice their own individuality in order to gain it. We thus have a sort of paradox, a teenage culture which exists in order to please the other members of the culture without a fully developed identity for themselves. How do you please an 'other' when the 'other' is trying to please you, when neither of you have a secure definition of your own existence?

Going back to the music issue. Did I, as an individual, actually like everything I exerted so much effort to listen to and watch? Did I really believe the MTV Video Music Awards Show to be the paragon of entertainment? That would be a resounding 'NO'. But I watched it, I sought out information about it in order to ensure that, were the topic to arise in conversation, I would not be perceived as lacking in cultural awareness.

So what changed? Simply put, I became more selfish. Or perhaps self-centered would be a more appropriate term. Once I entered college I began to become much more concerned about how I perceived the 'others' rather than the other way around. This overturning of the paradigm yielded a number of consequences. One, it afforded me much more versatility in my interests. Rather than moulding my interests to the group, I now had the freedom to pick and choose those particular aspects of popular culture that truly fulfilled my own needs and desires. An alternate consequence, however, was that I was now segregated from the group, I was/am now an outsider looking in and as the group goes, I don't necessarily follow, thus resulting in the ignorance of many aspects of pop culture. Could I keep up? Sure. Do I want to? Do I care that much that I won't be able to join in on the next conversation I run into about the new Justin Timberlake single? Well I can't say that there isn't some melancholy at the fact that I've reached the point where I can't hang with the kids anymore, any reminder of the aging process is necessarily a little grim. But, ultimately, I don't gain anything from those conversations, I don't care enough what the people having that conversation think of me, so I see no need to understand their references. I'm self-centered, and anyone who sees themselves as having progressed past the point of needing to know every lyric of every pop song is just as self-centered as I am. The teens care about the 'other' in order to gain the acceptance of that group, nothing (or very little) more. Those of us past that point in our lives now concern ourselves with how we can use the 'other' to satisfy those other aspects of our lives which are concerned with our own personal satisfaction. We're selfish, must more selfish, and we may be better off for it, who knows. Ideally, we would be able to strike a balance between the two worlds, to be able to keep up with culture while still being aware of our own identities. But balance is a tough thing to acquire and maintain for some reason, so some of us may just be stuck in this pseudo-curmudgeon state. Let's just hope it doesn't go too far.

We'll Miss You, Mr. Irwin

2006-09-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

This took me by shock. I've been a fan of Steve Irwin's work for years, finding his specials exhilirating, entertaining and educational. As happens with most eccentric personalities in North America, his real contributions to the improvement of life for animals across the world was overshadowed by the character traits that were exploited in the general media, but I still think the population at large, especially in his native Australia, could see what he was doing for the animals under his care.

What always impressed me about Irwin was the genuine love he demonstrated in all of his appearances. There was never the feeling that he was simply doing this as a television personality. His words were filled with the love he had for the animals he was interacting with, and that is what kept his fans coming back time after time. There are so many hosts who jump and jabber and yell solely for the sake of sensationalism, but every action of Irwin's was meant to teach us and to instill in us the same love of animals that he had in his heart. It was one of my hopes that I would one day be able to visit his zoo so I could see a place where the balance between putting animals on display and still caring for them was at least being attempted. You get the sense, generally from zoos, that they couldn't care less about the animals up for display. Cramped in tiny cages, barely kept sanitary by undermanned staffs, they always seem more like prisons than habitats. But with Irwin at the helm, The Australian Zoo must be a place to behold. Let's hope it continues to estoll the virtues he lent to it.

I wish all the best to his wife and their children during this terrible time. I only hope that they are comforted somewhat by the fact that he lived a life completely devoted to those he cared about. It was not a wasted life by any means, but one filled with the love and resolve the rest of us aspire to.

I Need a Damn Drink

2006-08-30T00:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Evolving Interests

2006-08-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

I wonder if people are innately aware of all their interests. That is, in the plenum of each day, does one consciously take stock of those activities one does which could be labeled as 'interests'? The big ones usually float to the top. By big ones, I suppose I'm referring, bluntly, to those which one believes separates them from (read: makes them better than) other people. Not to say the interest must be unique , but when I say 'big ones' I have in my mind those interests which one uses in a social situation in order to further (here it comes) their own interests.

An example. I like acting, I would characterize it as an avid interest of mine and were I to be asked 'what sort of interests do you have?' chances are the first one out of my mouth would be theatre. On the other hand, I also enjoy sitting in front of my computer not doing a whole lot. And guess what, I spend a WHOLE lot more time doing the latter than the former. So, if my theory on 'principle interests' (sounds more academic than 'big ones' no?) holds true, it would say that I categorize theatre as a main interest because I find that it affords me some sort of advantage in society. Now this is a debatable assertion at best. I'll say right now, as far as being a relatively shy, straight guy goes, being in theatre is nothing but a hindrance in the area of romance due to an unfortunate (thought perhaps statistically accurate) association of theatre with guys whose interest in women is, shall we say, more fashion-focused than fashion-removing focused. But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't think touting an interest in theatre didn't provide me some sort of social ammunition in my daily life. It expresses a sophisticated association with the arts (much more than 'I like movies' ever would), it conveys the sense of my being a sensitive, deep individual (an association which, I would argue, is NOT supported by the statistics of everyone involved in theatre), and it suggests a perhaps higher than average level of intelligence ("theatre, that's...like...Shakespeare, right?").

So the idea would seem pretty simple. We're given two completely valid interests and the one that takes the fore is the one which is perceived as painting a better picture of the individual. When I spend a lot of time in front of my computer I can't say that I'm thinking to myself "This is an avid interest of mine, it fulfills my needs in some way" yet when I'm participating in a show (even one of quesitonable quality) I am aware of the satisfaction I get while engaged in it. Is this percetion of increased satisfaction solely derived from the fact that I either subconsciously or consciously believe the interest in theatre to be more socially advantageous than checking my email or updating my Facebook profile? Could it not be that I simply DO derive more satisfaction from one than from the other? Perhaps, but that's not what I've been inquiring about. What I'm interested in right now is whether we're aware of the less prevalent interests in our lives. Checking your email, taking three sugars in your coffee, aligning your workspace with the walls of the room, can these be categorized as interests or merely 'preferences' or 'quirks'? It's hard to say and it's even harder to pinpoint when these things change.

I've found, ever since finishing college and starting work, that interests have been shifting. Not the 'big ones', still love theatre, but the little things, the things I hadn't really paid much attention to before. I've found myself more interested in TV (hopefully that won't go too far) and cooking (again, not helping the immediate romance situation). Thinking about it, I suppose these may be taking the place of all that time I spent studying (ahem) in college, but I find it a little disconcerting that these interests arose in such a way that it feels like they were always there, that it merely took the freeing up of my time to have them reveal themselves.

But the more I think about it, the more I come to realize that these interests really were either always there or that I made a concerted effort at some point to start them. I watched copious, excessive amounts of TV before college. It was the only real escape I found from a household I held very little interest in. When I got to college, I found myself 1)much more interested in the social activities of my surroundings and 2)with no TV in my room. So it makes sense, I supppose, that my interest waned and now that I don't have the flurry of activity of a college environment and once again do have a TV in the same room, my interest in it has been rekindled. As for cooking, I'm actually lying when I say that the interest arose without my knowing. I made a real effort senior year to learn how to cook (through downloading TV shows oddly enough) and, again, now that I have the time and the means to engage this interest, it has grown. Alright, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this except to note that my quotidian behavior has changed but in subtle steps which have culminated in a rather significant shift in my lifestyle. You'd think these little things wouldn't affect you in any meaningful way, but they add up and now I find myself in a profoundly different situation than when I started.

I really wish I knew that this post had a direction, but I don't think it does. It's taken me about a day and a half to finish it and, reading it over, it's a bit of a mess. Anyway, take away from it what you will, I'm gonna watch House and make a gratin.

Let's See More of This

2006-08-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

That is, real actors calling out the fake ones.

Travesty, but not for what you think

2006-08-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

I found and still find the JonBenet story to be a travesty. Not for the fact that she was killed, although you're not going to sucker me into saying that WASN'T a travesty, but for the fact that, somehow, her death became more important than any other in America. Child beauty-queen gets killed, it was media gold from the instant it happened, thus trivializing all other deaths in the country. Anyway, I can rant and rave later, but I just wanted to post quickly something I found in an article on the capture of her confessed murderer that I find to be emblematic of the American psyche:

"Lin Wood, the Ramsey family's longtime lawyer in Atlanta, said Karr had sent numerous e-mails in recent months making statements about the murder to a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Wood said those e-mails were key in linking Karr to the slaying. "

The powers of deduction at work here boggle the mind.

Broken Record Much

2006-08-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, it's an old and tired topic on this blog by now, but I found this article on CBC.ca about the plight of Asian comics and just had to link it here. It makes several good points (some I've made myself, I'd note). The focus on Asian comedy does separate it somewhat from the context in which I've been writing, but the gist of the article is the same.

Reflections from the Void

2006-08-05T20:01:00.000-07:00

It's been too long. I wanted to say it's been too long 'in general' but that's not exactly how I feel. I suppose the more accurate wording would be 'It's been too distant.' It seems I've entered into a new phase of life but this entrance lacks so much of the excitement, the fanfare that went along with the high school-to-college transition. I want to say that it feels as though college was exiting a tunnel into the light whereas work is entering a new tunnel. But that's overly pessimistic. I'm not unhappy and there have been great moments of joy in the past few months.

Mike visited for a little less than a week and having him here allowed me to truly relish my life as a San Francisco resident. It allowed me to appreciate the city and my place in it and had me feeling like I truly 'lived' here instead of existing as some sort of transitory migrant within its limits. In exploring the city with him, I came to appreciate the beauty of the place and there were moments where I could really feel myself developing a connection to this mass of concrete and humanity. Walking along the streets of North Beach, taking in the casual bustle of the cafe crowds. Admiring the works at the Museum of Modern Art and realizing what it means to live in a true cultural focal point. Some of the greatest minds in the world are here on display. And being able to enjoy good drink and food (albeit at exorbitant prices) with a friend; sitting back and relaxing with a beer and engaging in conversation. I've learned a lot in the past month or two, but it feels as though it has only scratched the surface of what needs to occur.

The cliche I keep coming back to in this post-college phase is "X is what you make of it". Whether that "X" is your social life, your health, love life, whatever, things aren't handed to you anymore, you have to go out and find them. And I'll tell ya, I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to go out seeking. Much of this is compounded by the fact that you only have a few hours each day (the hours after work and before bed) in which to do the seeking. Unless you're blessed with a job where varied social action occurs (I am not), you're more or less relegated to your coworkers during the day. In college you could at least count on the various hundreds of other students in your classes but when you spend the majority of the day in an office with the same 7 people (not that these people aren't good people) it limits your options. Then you get home and, chances are, you're tired. Unfortunately, this fatigue stems not from the engaging physical activity you've been doing all day, but from the fact that you've been sitting on your ass for 8 hours not doing much of anything so your body shuts down.

Alright, this is making it sound like I hate my job. I don't. I like my job, quite a bit actually. There are good people and at least one interesting thing tends to pass by the desk on a given day. But one tends to focus on the negative aspects in one's life, don't they?

In anycase, socializing has become somewhat of an issue, as has maintaining a healthy exercise regiment. I'll do a trite post about hating commercial gyms at some point in the future. Suffice it to say that I decided not to get a membership despite wanting to do so desperately for the sole reason that I am opposed to giving my money to people I'm convinced will use it to buy tiny instruments of torture to use on babies.

But back to this issue of distance. I went to Berkeley on Thursday to attend Erin's going-away shindig and I have to say that I felt separated from the campus in a new way. Friends were still friends but the students I passed all seemed like kids. Granted, given it's summer they were all probably high school students, but still, it wasn't really their appearance that distanced me from them. It was the fact that I'm not part of their covenant anymore. My experience of the campus has become a series of "I remember when"s instead of being rooted in the present. I'm not sure how to feel about that.

But all I can do is keep moving on, trying to push myself to stay engaged in life and in the social aspects of one of the most exciting cities in the country. I'll keep y'all posted.

Sad to Sadder

2006-07-03T18:44:00.000-07:00

As if losing the Cup wasn't enough, now we lose Pronger. I'm sure the "personal reasons" are warranted, but, I have to say, if us fans don't get something more specific, Pronger's eventual return to Edmonton as a Duck will be a bitter one, and that's unfortunate.

Happy Canada Day...a Little Late

2006-07-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

It was an oddly busy day today, so I had no time to post about this, ma patrie's birthday. But it's the American-tainted thought that counts. Happy Canada Day!

W00T!!!

2006-06-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

That's all there is to say right now.

Someone Please Tell Me What the Fuck is Going On

2006-06-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

No, this is not about hockey, though given the fact that we have to win two games in a row, the title could very well apply.

Some may argue otherwise but, personally, I don't consider myself incapable of coping with sudden changes in my life. That is, I believe myself to be perfectly competent in dealing with change, in 'going with the flow' as the overwrought cliche goes. This isn't to say that I thrive on it as some do. Routine can often be a good thing and in the past it has served me well. Having a set routine lost me about 60 pounds, for instance. But having a routine broken doesn't constitute some sort of massive rupture in my consciousness. I absorb the change and I deal as best I can. But please consider the following: Just over two weeks ago I graduated from university. Just over one week ago I got my first job EVER. And, finally, just over five DAYS ago I signed a lease and moved into an apartment in San Francisco and started working. In light of this, I have to say that "as best I can" in this particular situation means existing in a state of psychological shock that will take quite a while to subside. I would like to take a look, while I have this short respite from the chaos, to consider what confluence of forces led to this Road-Runner-esque pace of events.

First, I suppose, was my own desire to find a job. It was exciting considering the closest thing I had ever done that could be considered paid labor was getting donuts at a police station after 'acting' in a Crimestoppers TV spot (you'd think they'd want to dispell that whole 'donut' stereotype, eh?) I was eager to see what the paycheck-getting, gindstone-nosing life would be like. Second, and perhaps more pertinently, was my MOTHER'S desire for me to find a job. As I was forced, after leaving Berkeley, to stay at mom's until alternate financial and living arrangements could be established, I came under the shadow of that motherly-nag that drives every adolescent to the brink of insanity before they are able to break free into college or real life. Only this time it wasn't the faceless universities that would spell my freedom, but the sprawling yet menacingly FACED spectre of corporations looking to fill their entry-level gallows with recent Cal graduates. How much did I want to escape the nagging, the prodding, the incessant suggestions to call-up every ambulance-chasing law firm in the phone book 'just to see' if they needed a clerk? I give you a paraphrased transcript of something I IM'd a friend:

"I just want to get a fucking job so I can get out of this fucking house...fuck."

Indeed my desperation had actually de-aged me into that pimple-faced eighteen-year-old looking to get away from their 'hella-lame parents' and 'score some major tail'. I'd be lying if I said that neither of these pursuits were present in my mind (the latter almost always is, afraid to say) but the degeneration of my usual ivory-tower, smug eloquence was distressing. So I had pressure from the inside and pressure from the outside causing even more pressure from the inside. I was kind of like an employment-geyser...or something. In anycase, this led to an increasing urgency within me to find a job and, low and behold, on my third interview I get offered the job on the spot. From there the snowball rolled right down Market Street, took a right on Powell and exploded all over Union Square. I got the job, I got a place (after some wholly uninteresting drama), I got a stomach flu, and I started work.

The work itself is fine. I'm still in the training phase which will not change for at least a few weeks. A paralegal at a small law firm has quite a bit to take care of, apparently. But the staff is great and everyone seems genuinely happy and inviting. A departure from the law-firm stereotype, that's for sure. The apartment has yet to lose that nauseating new-paint smell but I'm hopeful that when I go back (I'm at mom's for the weekend to gather stuff to move) with a strong fan I'll be able to expedite its destruction. Rent is too high (did I mention it's San Francisco?) but I'm close enough to walk to work, which is nice. And after doing the math I should even be able to spend some money every month on non-essentials (do keep in mind that the Internet and Cable TV constitute essentials). Physically I should be fully settled within the month. Psychologically it could take quite a while longer. But that's just the way it's been.

2-1, 2-1

2006-06-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

It's a start.

Third Time's the Charm

2006-06-08T19:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I got lost both going into San Francisco and then IN San Francisco which made me 15 minutes late to my third interview in this job-hunt extravaganza. So imagine my surprise when I got offered the job on the spot. Interesting. The job looks appealing, a law clerk position at what seems to be a relatively cool small firm for a wage that's higher than I expected (though not mind-boggling by any means). So I guess I'll be gainfully employed come the next week or so.

5-0...it was nice while it lasted...

2006-06-07T20:59:00.000-07:00

Alright, some may see that as overly pessimistic and defeatist. But...come on...5-0. Without Rollie we're nowhere near the team that made it this far. So until I'm proven otherwise (which I hope/pray/wish I will be) it was a nice run for the Oil. But don't think I'm going to be congratulating Carolina anytime soon.

Alright, Fine

2006-05-27T00:52:00.000-07:00

I was resistant at first, but the man is like some fucking virus and before I knew it I had to watch it again.

Be prepared.

Oh, and if people have actually been concerned over the lack of posting, I assure you a "I'm done with undergrad, holy crap" post will be forthcoming but as it stands my time is being taken up with trying to find some sort of employment that doesn't involve the words "Double-espresso latte coming up."

Pretty Freakin' Cool

2006-05-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

I wish I had the gall to do something like this. Keep on fightin' you German superheros, you!

Greatest Public Washroom in the World

2006-05-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

This picture was actually posted on Rick Mercer's blog as a response to his ongoing Photoshop Challenge where fans take pictures of politicians that Rick (or his webmaster, whatever) posts and photoshop them into other pictures. The one I'm posting here, however, while mildly amusing in its political function, caught my attention for other reasons. Namely, that it is a photo of perhaps the greatest idea for a line of urinals ever conceived by humans. I just want to know where the hell in the world it is!

Want to Know?

2006-05-01T22:37:00.000-07:00

Wanna know why my posts haven't been regular recently? Wanna know why I haven't started the 20-page paper I have due in less than 2 weeks? It's really quite simple. Hockey, playoffs, I'm a good Canadian. And I'll tell you what, this makes it all worth it.

GO OILERS GO!!!

The North American Asian Dilemma Pt.2

2006-04-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

Sis emailed me a fun little movie made by a fellow Canadian on the topic. It's done greatly for laughs I think, but there is some good documentary material here. Particularly noteworthy is the point made by author Terry Woo about immigrants in general wanting a better life for their children and thus working hard to provide it.

Overall, not sure if the film brings a whole lot that's new to the table, and I did have issues with some of the tests, particularly the language test, but it's fun and I'm glad to see the issue being addressed in one form or another.

A Feast for the Ears

2006-04-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

Quite a music-filled weekend. Friday I went to see Sarah Harmer who was in SF with an intimate concert at the Cafe du Nord. I was hoping to go with some people, but I bought my ticket early and then didn't think to tell people until the day before, when the concert had sold-out unbeknownst to me. Still, being there alone wasn't too bad. I staked out a standing position right at the front so I had a great view. The only downsides were standing for the better part of three hours and the fact that I missed her last song and any encore she did 'cause the damn BART closes at midnight and I would have been stuck in SF if I didn't leave early. A public transport system that stops running at midnight is inconvenient beyond belief.

Apparently, Sarah and her band were involved in a serious bus accident the night before in Oregon in which they collided with a truck going 60mph. Miraculously no one was seriously injured and they were able to get into town and perform. The sort of bewilderment and wonder of the incident pervaded the performance and lent it a sort of appreciative gravity. Like they had grown an even deeper appreciation for the work and its meaning.

I picked up her new album as well as the album for her opening act, an interesting little band from Vancouver called "Great Aunt Ida". I've heard that bands get more direct revenue from CDs they sell at concerts, though I wonder if that still holds true for bands who are signed to labels.

When I bought the CD, which was being sold by the very "Ida" of the band, I felt compelled to mention that I was from Edmonton. I did the same thing with Steven Page last year. I don't quite know what I mean to accomplish by this. At best it engenders an appreciative but unsatisfying smile and at worst it makes me come off as an acutely ignorant fan. I always feel as though I'm reinforcing the kind of ignorance that makes Americans think that all Canadians should know each other. Do I think I have some sort of special connection with these people? We live hundreds if not thousands of kilometers apart. And even if we were from the same city, what does that have to do with anything? Still, I say it because it feels like it deserves some sort of recognition.

Continuing with the music theme, I checked the mail today to find the new Dresden Dolls album that I had pre-ordered about a month ago. I was surprised and impressed by the speed with which it arrived, I just got the email from Tower saying they had sent it out the day before. I had actually listened to the whole album Friday since the band had posted it all on their MySpace page. I thought this was a clever move insofar as anyone befriending them on MySpace are probably guaranteed buyers anyway, so the posting of the album could serve only as a gesture of appreciation towards the fans. I indeed felt appreciated. I'm also pretty sure I love the album, though I'll give it a few more listens before confirming.

Here's a music question I'd like to find some concensus on. I find that when I get an album that I really enjoy one thing inevitably happens. I listen to the album non-stop for a month, maybe two or three times a day. But then, for some reason, I stop. I drop it almost completely. There have been some exceptions, Sara Harmer's "All of Our Names" being one of them. But Nelly Furtado's last album, Green Day's "American Idiot", even the first Dresden Dolls album, they all followed this trend. It's curious, I find. Does this happen for others?

Put on a Happy Face

2006-04-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

Well, politics seem to just be getting better down here.

Wrapping up Break with Some Films

2006-04-02T23:22:00.000-07:00

Procured a few movies in the last two days and decided to finish off spring break by watching a couple, Walk the Line and Lord of War.

Walk the Line is very good. It's strange, but I don't have a whole lot more to say about it. The music scenes are fun and I was amazed at what Phoenix managed to do with his voice. The acting is top-notch and the story was deep enough to keep me engaged without falling into corny pitfalls. It's tough with these biography movies, I think, because no matter how well done they may turn out to be, in the end you can't really cover a whole life in 2 hours. The movie only ends at Cash's marriage to June, but it still felt rushed. There was no time to focus on his connection with the inmates of Folsom, no time to reflect on why it was he wanted to reach out so much to the less fortunate. Still though, a very good movie, I enjoyed watching it.

Lord of War. I feel a little embarrassed to admit this, but this is my kind of movie through and through and, accordingly, I devoured every single minute of it. I finished watching it and proceeded to giggle, that's right GIGGLE for a couple of minutes, I loved it so much. Of course, I may go back and find things that I didn't like, but I really think that, as far as a movie's lasting effect, it's the first time that really counts. If I were to pick a single aspect of the movie that I enjoyed the most, it would probably be the fact that Yuri always seems to be one step ahead even, perhaps ESPECIALLY, when he doesn't want to be. He knows what's coming, and he knows it will be in his favor, and for that he's actually a little, just a little, regretful. I must emphasize the 'little' there. While the character may have some redeeming qualities, he's surely as deep as any character I've seen, I'd still say that even on our modern scale of morality, which is admittedly a little murky, he still falls on the 'evil' end more than the 'good'. But I loved him for it. Does that make me a bad person? And, no, it wasn't even on that 'Oh, it's so hilarious how evil he is' level, there was just something more, something REAL about his perspective that appealed to me. Hm...I'm getting more and more afraid that this does make me a bad person. Whatever. In anycase, I loved the movie.

It may seem funny, me chiding WtL a little for not being able to cover a biography while lauding LoW which is itself a biopic of sorts. But I think we should keep in mind that LoW is a fictional biopic, one where the writer and director have full discretion to focus on whatever particular topics they want to without fear of legions of fans and experts crying 'What about so and so aspect of their life'. There is a balance in LoW that gives every aspect its due, while it seems there is a balance in WtL that slightly short changes all of the aspects, or maybe just BARELY gives them their due. Were I to suggest a movie to the wider audience out there, I'd say Walk the Line is by far the safer bet. But if you're anything like me and walked away from Fight Club and Kill Bill Vol. 1 practically high off the experience, Lord of War will not disappoint.

Let's Get Controversial

2006-03-27T20:27:00.000-08:00

So I've been thinking the past few days about the place of the modern Asian North American with regards to the entertainment industry. This is by no means a new topic, it's one that's stewed in the minds of Asians all over the country at one point or another, I'm sure, as I'm sure the ideas I've come up with are hardly unique. Nevertheless, as one who still harbors some thoughts of entering the industry, it's a thought that has particularly personal implications. If I were set on becoming a doctor, I'm sure this wouldn't be concerning me as much as it is.

So here's my tenuous conclusion: It makes sense. That is, the relative lack of an Asian presence in American entertainment save for martial arts films makes sense. Factors going into this assessment:

1. Asians, as a culture, do not have a deeply cemented history in North America, at least when compared to African Americans and, of course, the various European cultures. Yes, Asians have been in the country for a long time, and yes it could be argued that we did help build some of the foundations of the continent, but, from my admittedly unresearched perspective, Asians simply haven't left their mark in North America, thus an avid and popular interest in Asian American culture is difficult to form.

Now of course there can be arguments made against this. Anime, for one, and what about those martial arts films? Yes, these are both relatively large and money-generating phenomenons in North America, the latter one being decades-old. But the kind of interest I'm concerned with is interest in the Asian experience in North America, not across the ocean and that, I think, has received little to no attention, let alone success in American entertainment.

2. This one might get me into trouble. As a minority culture, Asians haven't suffered enough. Some conditions on this statement are in order. First, I am speaking strictly as it pertains to Asian culture in North America, not in Asia. This may come, understandably, as little comfort to many, so let's get some things clear. Japanese internment - abominable. Inhumane treatment of railway workers - unfathomable. Persistent racism - ridiculous. These are all terrible, terrible things and have caused thousands if not millions of Asians great harm and suffering, killing many along the way. But keep in mind that the only point of comparison I have to work with is the only minority culture that, from my perspective, has been able to find success in the American entertainment industry: African Americans. I'm sorry, but Japanese internment, railway workers, these were events affecting a fraction of the population of North America for a relatively limited amount of time. I simply cannot bring myself to compare them to something like slavery. It's morbid and somewhat reprehensible to say it, but in the competition of suffering, Asians come out pretty well off when compared to African Americans. Look at the status of Asian North Americans today. As the percentages go, the average income is much higher than African Americans, the status of living for many is downright affluent. Look at the student ratios on the freaking Berkeley campus and you'll see where the social divide lies. What does this have to do with the entertainment industry? Well here comes another morbid statement, but suffering sells. I don't want to single out African Americans, but that's all I have to work with. From my view, no other non-white minority culture has achieved as much success in the entertainment industry as African Americans. The fact is, the plight of African Americans is an integral part of American history, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, these are names that every good American should know. There is simply no counter-example for Asians. And, again, that makes sense. So there is no starting ground, no compelling historical suffering potent enough to grab firm hold of the population at large. Movies and plays about Japanese internment are important and vital, but they won't hold the attention of the population at large because their scope is not, and cannot be, wide enough.

I remember watching Better Luck Tomorrow, a well-made film and a good representation of Asian culture in America. But that's exactly my point. What was the film about? Rich, smart Asian kids pretending to be gangsters, pretending to be criminals but the audience is always aware that these kids are gonna go to university, get degrees, and make good incomes. So what, you say? Movies about rich white people are made all the time and they rake in the bucks. Yes, because movies about rich white people will appeal to their base, which is tens of millions of people if not more. Movies about rich Asian people won't EVEN appeal to their base since a good portion of their base doesn't even speak English.

This whole suffering issue is something I still have to grapple with, but I am pretty certain that I'm right on this one.

3. Asians in North America are still divided along lines of ethnicity. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Thai etc... these divisions are pervasive in Asian American culture and they prevent any unified push for an Asian presence in the entertainment industry. The biggest divide, of course, is language. But wait, you say, the movies you're pushing for will all be in English, so how is language a divide? Well, the divide isn't between Chinese and Korean and Japanese etc... Of course I'm not expecting native-language movies to appeal across the board. This is an English-based country and I accept, even embrace, that fact. The language divide that I refer to is the unwillingness of many of the cultures to learn English beyond the level that is required to get along on the continent. Ultimately, it won't matter if the movie concerns Cambodians or Laotians, if it's in English, chances are it won't be seen by either. I'm not faulting anyone for this. God knows people have a tough enough time getting along without having to gain an intricate knowledge of a second language. But I'm just saying that this is one of the bigger hurdles to Asian Americans getting a foothold in the entertainment industry in North America.

Now, I have a myriad of other reasons I could cite, ones that have been alluded to already (there just aren't ENOUGH of us) and others that are a bit far-fetched (I'm still convinced the perception of Communism comes in somewhere). I'm also aware that my use of the term 'Asian' has been fast and loose (I haven't mentioned Indian culture, for instance, because I don't feel I have a close enough knowledge to discuss it in an informed manner) but none of it matters all that much. The fact is, I don't think Asian Americans will ever really gain a firm place in North American entertainment the way I'd like us to, at least not in my lifetime. So, why the fuck am I still harboring interest in trying my hand at it? I'm not setting out to change the face of American entertainment, but the atmosphere does seem to be changing a little so that individual success may be had. I'd love a piece of that pie, however bitter it may turn out to be.

Too Long

2006-03-16T09:13:00.000-08:00

I've decided there are too many people I haven't seen in a long time. Sis, for one, along with friends spread out from Iowa to Texas. Not to mention everyone back north. I'll be seeing Sis in May for graduation, but I see no getting together with the other friends in the forseeable future. This is rather disheartening.

Must Be the Weather

2006-03-05T20:29:00.000-08:00

I was fine all weekend during tech for the Barestage show. Then we came out this afternoon and it was raining, now I've been kind of depressed ever since. Just kind of feel like sleeping even though it's 8:30.

Shouldn't I Have Done Something By Now?

2006-02-27T00:43:00.000-08:00

On this day some 22 odd (oh, how odd) years ago, a child was born who would one day become a slightly confused college student yearning for some kind of stardom. Hm, I think I need to work on doing more stuff...

Johari Window

2006-02-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

Meme picked up from Pinxie. Fill mine out!

*Update: Alright, just to be fair.

A Geek in Mourning

2006-02-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

My LCD is more or less dead. It's sad. Though I do get to order a new one I guess. I'm using a ghetto CRT we had laying around. Boo-urns.

Maybe the Best Lyric Ever

2006-02-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

Rap has always been one of those music genres that can both annoy and engross me. Over the break I heard one song from Kanye West that has perhaps the best lyric I've ever heard in a rap song. Of course, 90% of its effect is in its delivery, but here it is, from the song "Gold Digger":

18 years, 18 years
She got one of yo kids got you for 18 years
I know somebody paying child support for one of his kids
His baby momma's car and crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV Any Given Sunday
Win the Superbowl and drive off in a Hyundai

I dunno what it is about it, but listening to it, it just seems...I dunno...perfect.

Whoa

2006-02-01T20:51:00.000-08:00

Someone I haven't seen in three years just added me to their facebook. Trippy. Praise the Interweb.