Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Maybe I'm Just Lazy....


*sizzle* *sizzle*

Greetings, one and all! (I'm sure it's closer to the "one" part, lol) Dave the Goof again, with a blast of late-summer hot air. You'll have to pardon me for being a bit grumpy... a bracket broke on my braces and the wire is loose, and harassing my gumline. Has your gumline ever been harassed, may I ask? Gonna be a long wait until I can get it fixed on Thursday (I hope).

Thursday is also the night of my weekly acting class... still hanging in there, though it's kinda disheartening anymore. Seems no matter what I do in class, there's a reason why I should have done it another way. Frustrating. Like most people, I like to do things well.

First World Problems! Broken braces and mediocre acting skills! Run, Dave! Run for the hills and weep like a little boy!

Yeah, I know. Funny thing is, lately (and by that I mean for the past few weeks), every time I eat a meal, at some point I think about the Bataan Death March from WW2. Cheery thought, eh? 6 days marching in stifling heat, no food or water, dropping like flies... yeah, that sucked. Man, what people do to other people... anyway, for some reason, lately I think of that whenever I eat. Nothing like spicing one's food with a little guilt!


That guy's face is a classic...

In acting news, there's going to be an "agent showcase" at the end of this month... that's where a legit agent comes to see actors perform monologues, and see if anyone impresses the agent enough to warrant representation. I'm torn as to whether I'll participate. On the one hand, why not? Even if I don't "get an agent", the experience alone should prove beneficial. On the other hand, if by some miracle I do actually get an agent, that means my life will be upended to some extent. I would then need to be 'on call' at all times, for when auditions for TV and commercial (and possibly film) roles come up. I'll need to drop everything and go to the auditions, which makes sense, since that's the way the business works. An agent makes a percentage of whatever his/her actor makes on each acting job... so it's in the agent's best interest that he get his actors to as many auditions as possible... the flip side of that is an agent won't waste his/her time contacting an actor in his stable if that actor always has reasons why he/she can't/won't go to the auditions...

So, yeah, I'm torn. If acting professionally is what I want to do, then getting an agent makes sense. But that means my day-to-day schedule will need to become very flexible, to accommodate the driving around to auditions, often with a day or less notice. The good thing, in this case, is that the agent that is coming in 2 weeks is a San Diego agent, for San Diego jobs. That means local work, rather than LA. I think that will let me get a good taste of the way it all works, without having to dive right into the deep end up in Hollywood.

All that to say, I'm trying to settle on a monologue to work on, for the showcase. Who knows? In a couple weeks time, I could begin updating you on auditions and roles I'm trying out for, eh!

Ah, well. Baby steps, eh?

Friend of the Blog Havah sent me this link to a Whose Line Is It Anyway? clip that I thought was very impressive...



Wow. That's some amazing fast-thinking...

So I've been pondering "subconscious self sabotage" lately. I've been working on my screenplay about daydreams, and of course have done soul searching along the way. I don't know if you're like me at all, but I have dreams and aspirations in many arenas, but they always seem to remain just out of reach... when I take steps towards pursuing them, the steps seem quite short-lived. I think it's easier for me to hang onto simplified, vague dreams, hoping they'll somehow simply come true some day... rather than realize that pursuing them not only requires lots of focus and hard work, but also comes with the realization that the dreams are far more complex and involved and unpleasant than I want them to be. Being an actor, a novelist, a screenwriter, a playwright, a film maker, a cartoonist.... all things I tell myself I'm good at (good enough to be professional at (meaning earn some $$$)), and in my head I step right to the finish line... and in each case, actually buckling down and doing the work is usually painful.

Maybe I'm just lazy.

All that to say, the easy route seems to be to leave them to sit there as simplified dreams, assuming I have all the time in the world to somehow stumble into success... I have complex and wonderful (IMHO) stories inside me, waiting to get out to you all... I see the finished product in my head as well. Bridging the two with the actual work is where the pain is. Learning to embrace the pain; that is where I'm at as of this moment. I hate having all of these unfinished projects heaped around my head.

Bleh, end of rant. I'll grow up some day.


Something to drink? A ranch dressing-flavored soda, perhaps..?

I've rambled enough for one night. I have other things lined up to whine about, but I think I'll spare you the discomfort. Isn't that overly-considerate of me? See? See how close friends we are? SEE?!?!?!?

Hope you week is a great one.

Dave the Goof

3 comments:

logankstewart said...

Lazy, perhaps. I'd go with "undisciplined" instead, though. And that, my friend, is endemic of 21st Century America. For shame.

We aren't made to be passive and inactive, but those tendencies grab hold of us too easily with clutches that are hard to break free from. Simply waiting for change to happen is ineffective and a waste of time, to be blunt. This mindset swells from within the church to the workplace and everywhere between.

So, laziness? Absolutely. But more importantly, apathetic/passive/undisciplined. Those are the words I use. It sounds worse and doesn't sit as well with my ego. I can handle being lazy. I can't handle one of those other words as a descriptor of my lifestyle.

So fie! Pants on the ground. Papers in the wind. Dust at our backsides. Onward, march, boats against the current. Write, my friend. Write with abandon. Act. Tell your stories. Live. Live, I say. Live!

David Wagner said...

Lazy, undisciplined, passive, inactive... those all sound like thing that can be overcome... I think I'm good with that. If it's something else, I don't know.... the guy I hired to train me screenwriting said he thought I was "spiritually wounded" and needed "healing" in order to succeed at it... I was dumbfounded by that, and thought it was ridiculous. Nothing rankles me more than the thought of some guy (namely, me) thinking "Oh, I'm so broken and wounded, I can't write a story!" Seems like such a limp excuse for perpetuating inactivity. Bleh, spare me. I don't feel "wounded", you know... but I can't help but occasionally pray and ask God if there's even a shred of truth to it, you know?

So, I don't know. Whatever it is, it seems to be dormant right up to the point where I actually sit down to write something... I feel great right up to the very act... and then as I start the act of writing, straight away I feel a knot in my chest, I try for a bit to grunt it through, then I just bail out, and hope tomorrow's different. And it isn't writer's block - I have plenty to say. And I can blog easily, like breathing. The words come right away and I can't shut up. But my novels and my screenplays - you know, things that matter, as far as trying to be "pro" at it - that stuff anymore just binds me right up.

Ah, well, I'll just keep trying to figure it out... thanks for the comment, bro.

David Wagner said...

OK, I just heard a brilliant line from comedian Demetri Martin: "The closer you get to your dream, the more attractive the exits become." Wow.