Witness

I got vindicated at work last Sunday. It was my first day back at Starbucks since the audition, and I knew I'd have a lot to answer to. I'd been hyping myself up there for almost as long as I had been training, so most everyone knew. Some even still from last year. The wounds were still open and sore, but I had gotten a lot of it out of my system. I just didn't want to have to field the sympathy from others. More than anything, I just wanted to continue moving forward. On the drive over I semi-justified it with myself that this was indeed the situation I was heading into: Deep sympathy. Quite honestly, it was exactly what I had been asking for. Cheer with me if I make it, share a round and curse the fuckers if I don't, remember that? I had buttered my bed, and it was time for me to sleep in it.

I got more than I bargained for.

No one mentioned anything to me as I entered the store. Even talking with Jon, the weekend Shift Supervisor, in the back room I had to remind him that I auditioned. I was beginning to feel like the shift was indeed going to be cake, that perhaps the hype died out before I even got there and normalcy would reign. Took my place as supervisor and began to count the safe. Not five minutes into the shift, a customer walks in: Female, large fashion sunglasses with a white frame, pink shirt, a pair of crutches and a bum right leg, and she's not a step into the store when she looks directly at me and blurts out,

“Didn't I see you on TV?”

Not to sound all braggy and boisterous and, quite frankly, actor-ly, but I have been asked that many times before, mostly under the concept of me introducing myself as an actor and the person wondering aloud if I've done anything they've seen, however occasionally my looks have gotten me mistaken for some other well-to-do actor with something respectable to show for their effort. On the other hand, in my defense, I did shoot a commercial and a training film in the past year, and although I haven't seen either of them in popular media, there existed a remote but distinct possibility she had been exposed to either one. So, honestly, I had no idea how to properly answer the question.

“Uh,... I don't know,”, I responded quite chagrined. “I hope so. Was it a commercial?”
“No, it was the news. You auditioned for that blue man thing.”

I just about lost my shit. My face exploded like a supernova and I started bouncing like a kid after too much candy.

“You saw that?”
“Yeah it was on the news last night. They showed the people trying out for Blue Man and I saw you up there drumming.”
Crutch still expertly tucked under her right arm, she pointed across the store to an imaginary TV set.
“I said to my kids, 'See that guy? That's the Starbucks guy! He's trying out for Blue Man!”

There was a camera. The memory of it got lost in the bile and therefore was considered moot, but there was indeed a camera. While we were sitting inside the theater, lining up one by one in a little corridor to the left of audience seating, open and free that you could see the pipes and tubes wound round the scaffolding, anxiously waiting for our chance to be on stage, a rather large man came by to address us. We were all bubbling with anticipation like lost ships at sea and he appeared like a big huge rotund lighthouse. He knew this and first apologized for being a tease since he had nothing to do with our impending judgment but then explained there was a camera crew there that was going to be filming us, that we wouldn't have an audience per se, but that some people would be watching, and to ask us to be quiet during the auditions. Come to think of it, there was a film crew shooting the outside of Briar Street while we were lining up outside as well. I had commented to the people around me, a wonderful little family who traveled all the way from Milwaukee to see the show and the son was auditioning as well, that last year a local news crew came by to get footage of the cattle call and even interviewed a female auditionee. This crew had no identifiable logos on any of their equipment nor on their staff, whereas last year it was plainly Channel 7 who showed up. It could've been Cable Access or even a well-organized prank set up by the Blue Men. The running joke in line amongst us shaky hopefuls was that they would use the footage during their performances, editing it quite tragically hilariously while still maintaining our dignity or perhaps creating an homage to their kindred soul Moby and his video for “Bodyrock” But no. They were on the level.

I couldn't stop bouncing. Or grinning like a complete and utter dumbstruck idiot.

“Oh my god, that's so cool! You made my week, miss!”

And she had. With all the crap I put myself through, the building myself up, the focus and training, the unashamed overhyping, it was nice to know I acutally got to reach someone, especially since I didn't get the gig. Y'know that thing people say? About if what they've done touched just one person's life, then it was worth it? It usually comes to mind as self-justification after undergoing some colossal blunder and, quite frankly, always sounded like the Token Speech for Second Place.

It's not.

It's true.

Thank you, Mystery Lady. Your timely intervention fueled the cockles of my heart for years to come. I hope your leg gets better.

Lost and Floundering

I'm really at a loss of most everything nowadays.

Honestly, with everything I've been focusing on in the past couple months or so, I completely had no idea just what would happen this week. Yeah, I took into account many different outcomes and the pros and cons of each, but nothing was really able to prepare me for reality.

I really had my heart set on going to New York for training. I had planned out ways to tell my boss I was leaving. Tried to search my memory banks for people I knew who lived in Manhattan. And how would I handle two different rents in two different cities? I was ready to take on this challenge. So ready. Not that I wasn't ready to stay home and continue my career. But that really had a different progression: If I had to stay with Saks, I would've spent a lot of time attempting to change careers, taking on a position with a Medical Staffing Agency and transitioning back to hospital work. Plus, continuing on my writing and performing, still aiming for that Late spring/Early summer deadline for my one-man-show.

But now nothing seems right. I'm really at the point of doubting most every decision I make now. I was so sure and dedicated with every choice I made for myself that it just seemed like it would all work out to my expectations. I've been given a lot of luck this year, which reinforced my ironclad beliefs in my potential. And, honestly, I can't believe one non-response from one audition is placing me in such a hole.

I have no idea what step to take now. Sorta stabbing blindly in the dark. Started up a whole new website, proposed a whole new publishing venture, and just yesterday I spent most of my time looking up apartments and condos 'cause I'm so wanting to move closer to the city. And I'm loudly proclaiming this to the Internet because, underneath it all, I'm craving attention. I'm wanting so badly for someone to look at me and think I'm cool. 'Cause I feel like such a douchebag.

Granted, it's not even been a week since the audition, but I'm already sick of the aftermath. This is why I ceased auditioning in the first place: I would build myself up so much, knowing I was worth every part I tried out for, and just got pissed off to hell when nobody called. I ended up taking it way too personally. And in the end, all I want to do now is work for myself. It makes little sense to me to put all of my talent down in a dancing monkey act for someone else's means. I can do my monkey act for myself. I play a damn good monkey.

So yeah. Limitless potential, ecstatic impatience, and no place to go. No, that's not completely true. I want to work for myself. That's probably the clearest, most definite idea I've been able to take from this whole fracas.

Color Me Surprised

Okay.

So, a lot of bitterness and frustration came out in that last entry. If there's one definite thing I've learned in doing these auditions, it's that you can't let your energy just sit and wither away when it's over. Gotta take the momentum and keep it moving. It's the only way to bounce back.

So, moving right along...

I'm a bit confused as to where to go next in my creative venture. I'm dying to get back up on stage, so I'm gonna be hitting Open Mic nights again starting next week. But, in the meantime, I'm focusing on ways to branch out my media empire.

Self-publishing has really captured my attention. Not publishing like "post-it-on-the-web" publishing but actual "publishing" publishing, that concept Gutenburg gave birth to and has since gone the way of the dodo: Tangible media. I'm conceptualizing a compendium of my writing, poetry and essays, journal entries and stories, edited to perfection and collected in a slim, handsome natural-pressed-paper booklet to display and sell at performances. Wouldn't it look so damn good on your bookshelf? Plus, Uncle Freddy, another entity gone by the way of the dodo, is so close to just being done with that I want to paste the last 10 or so minutes together and sell the whole Uncle Freddy cycle as a CD complete with unreleased demos and other stuff I've recorded in my free time. Ooh! Homemade comedy! The BEST kind!

You'd buy that, right? I know I would.

I know it's self-serving and narcisisstic, but I've come to realize that to succeed in this business, or any business, you have to play like you already belong there. So yeah. I'm gonna carve out my niche in the Library of Congress.

What Does It Mean?

The Yellow Emperor went wandering
To the north of the Red Water
To the Kwan Lun mountain. He looked around
Over the edge of the world. On the way home
He lost his night-colored pearl.
He sent out Science to seek his pearl, and got nothing.
He sent out Analysis to look for his pearl, and got nothing.
He sent out Logic to search out his pearl, and got nothing.
Then he asked Nothingness, and Nothingness had it!

The Yellow Emperor said:
"Strange, indeed: Nothingness
Who was not sent
Who did no work to find it
Had the night-colored pearl!"
("The Lost Pearl", The Way of Chuang Tzu, translated by Thomas Merton, Book xxi, Chapter 4)

What does this mean?

It means
After two and a half months
Put on hold
To focus and prepare and practice and study
And envision
Myself into this audition,
After listening
To drum polyrhythmics for weeks
And banging on everything
In my car
Pulling my sticks out at every red light,
After sharing my dream
Incessantly
With everyone I knew
And keeping my career blissfully ignorant all the while,
After changing my schedule to get the
Proper days off
When my timeline shifted at the last second,
After showing up four hours early
First in line
And spilling the beans to my linemates about callbacks to come,
I actually did twice as well last year.

I encourage you to go see Blue Man Group this summer. It is an awesome show and a quality production, and I have earned a lot of respect for their work and vision. They will step over real talent to get exactly what they want. And that takes true grit.