Frankie can lick my nuggets. If it was that easy...I'd be relaxing right now. I mean, the environment seems perfect.... I'm sitting on my super comfy couch, in my apartment (in which I live alone...no roommate to piss me off.... or piss on me...sorry, not into watersports!), I have a "two-years-on-tour-earned", flat screen TV blaring in front of my punim (just throwing in a bit of Yiddish), cable, internet, Nintendo Wii, fully stocked fridge, cabinet full of snacks, office full of books, and most importantly..... Air Conditioner set at 64 degrees BLASTING at Turbo speed... YET.... I'm going crazy cause I have nothing to do... and I'm not relaxed at all. There is still this feeling of... it's not dread, or stress right now... it's more of an unsettled feeling.... like I'm not doing something I should be doing. Or like I'm not working hard enough. I feel that way a lot, even when I have a job... but now that I am back to being an out-of-work, (i'd say starving, but I haven't been able to stop shoveling food down my gullet since I got home today) struggling, actor.
I don't remember being this preoccupied with working hard growing up. I was a good student, but I never had to study much. School came pretty easily. I played soccer since I was 4 years old through my senior year of high school. Go Paladins! (Scary huh, "Hey, watch out... here come the South Plantation PALADINS!"... yeah right!) I have memories of my dad getting mad at me cause I wasn't working hard at soccer practice. He might not remember them 'cause he's old....and bald. I joke.... but he is old and bald. Anyway.... One of my coaches called me "the slowest fast guy" he's ever seen. In practice, I would just trod along, last in the line.... bored out of my mind from having to run around the field... But during a game... I'd find the speed. Not the cocaine... just a burst of energy. But basically, no interest in the practice, just wanted to play the game. This behavior continued through college.... which wasn't a great attitude to have. The last of the 4 colleges I went to was New World School of the Arts in Miami, FL whose undergraduate conservatory program basically required you to be at school from 8 am to 10pm or later 5 days a week... and sometimes on the weekend. I looked at this as "practice" and Hated It! I would do the minimum amount of work, kind of bullshit my way through the assignments.... and then if I was in one of the productions or something... I would go full out. I look back at those days.... and even the first few years in the business and realize 2 major things that were lacking. Passion, and the concept of a Career.
About a year ago when visiting my mom's house in Plantation, I found an old homework assignment of mine from kindergarden. One of the questions was What do you want to be when you grow up?" If you were to have asked me how the 5 year old ME would have answered that before I read it, I would have said... a Baker, a Cowboy, a Mer-MAN... you know.. .the norm. (what?? was I the only one who wanted to be a Mer MAN? ... Bitches!) 5 year old me wrote, "Actor." I was shocked. If I truly wanted to be an actor from the time I was 5, where was my passion? Where was the drive? I sure wasn't begging my parents to take me to voice lessons or dance class. So, looking back now, I can completely understand how shocked, confused, and upset my parents seemed to be when I told them I wanted to be an actor. To turn my nose up at the possibility of soccer scholarships, to get a Bachelors of Fine Arts. I distinctly remember my father, in his charming, weight-fluctuating way (and by charming, I mean.... not so happy) saying, "You're gonna make me pay for school?" Well DUH!? I can't pay for it with the pesos I'm earning selling cassette singles at Sam Goody at the Broward Mall! (I say pesos cause it was south florida.) By the way, if you ever go into a music store... don't expect a 16 year old to be able to know what fucking song you're trying to find if you are TONE DEAF and the only word in the chorus you know is 'LOVE'... They aren't going to be able to help you... ya retard! .....Now that that's out of the way.... I'm sure it must have looked like I was taking the easy way out, studying acting.... and hindsight being 20/20.... I probably was. But something changed a few years ago. I began to appreciate... and then fall in love with... the WORK... The craft of acting... the process of developing a character, interpreting text, scene study... all of these things that I blew off in college. All of a sudden I wanted to learn how to do what I have been doing professionally for years.... I fell in love with what I do for a living.... I found the Passion. I love what I do. Which I feel directly relates to the second thing that was lacking, thinking of jobs in terms of a Career!
When I left New World School of the Arts before graduating, all my teachers, and most of the students told me I would never make it. I would never work because I'm not ready, or I'm not talented enough. I can't act, I can't sing.... I don't have enough ballet technique. So, after booking my first job.... from my first audition in NYC, I called them up to rub it in their faces. Then through a few of my friends still in the program there I heard the mumblings..."this will be the only thing he does," "He just got lucky..." You know... good supportive things! Anyway, I kept booking shit. But that is what it was for me. Just getting another thing. No direction. They weren't connected. I was looking at these jobs as Sam Goody's.... or waiting tables, not as a career. Then I booked my first Broadway show.... and it changed! Something in my brain switched.... and I realized that if I want to do what I love for as long as possible, I am going to have to make this my Career, and make myself the Product of my business. The business of ME! The only thing I have to sell is Me. Everything I do now is about improving the 'product' (ME for those of you wearing helmets and riding the short but) and moving it up the entertainment industry ladder. It is this, that ultimately keeps me up at night, getting mad at myself because I have not signed up for any acting classes in the 13 days I've been unemployed. It is this that keeps me from being able to chill the fuck out and just watch crazy people on TLC keep everything they've ever owned in their tiny one-bedroom apartments with 15 cats and 10 birds shitting everywhere... (HOARDERS!!! LOVE IT!)
I should just breathe... take it day by day. Celebrate my victories (I got a new agent!!! I'll write about it soon.) Stop being so hard on myself (this is difficult for me.) It will all work out... cause I believe it will... and so does my Dad! (Who I pick on a lot in this blog... we have that type of banter.... but he's the only person who I truly believe when he tells me "My boy, you can do anything you set your mind to." ...because I'm his son, and I learned from him.
So, tomorrow (actually... now that it is like 2 am... TODAY) I might just do nothing business related. Might just go to the gym.... a movie.... have a drink with some friends....
...and just RELAX.
Or not.
DAMN!
"Look out for #1..... But don't Step in #2."
Ven
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