Friday, November 20, 2009

There Are A Lot of Electronics Next To Me

You know how you get that problem where you can't start writing and then you're just staring at a blank page and nothing's coming out? Yeah, writer's block? That's what it's called? Cool. Yeah, I have that shit. It'll go away once I start writing, but whenever I try and push through these stupid blocks, the writing always ends up being really shitty. Eh. Time to plough through it.

So in the meantime, maybe there's a little warmup course on blogger while watching Sunny, then maybe I can get through this review. It doesn't have to be that long after all, it's a one woman 70 minute show. Great show, to be honest. Sometimes the hardest thing is to write a review about a good show. Way to go theatre to actually make it hard for me to write something interesting!

It was a pretty awesome evening. She's an amazing performer. Very human. And... very absurd. Cool beans. What she does in a one woman show is better than most full fledged productions around the area. It certainly helps that she has TONS of experience, something like 20 years solo performance and writing experience. And boatloads of awards. Granted, awards don't mean anything around here, but in this case, it really does.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Three shows in three days is going to be my limit when it comes to watching and reviewing. It's an enlightening experience, and it certainly is fun to reread my writing from the past couple of days and seeing a marketable improvement; who knew that practice would actually work? *looks over at ukulele and guitar and piano and any other things that I've wanted to do for the past forever*

Also, it's been giving me an opportunity to wear some pretty cool outfits. Usually I'm in pajamas pretty much all day to save time in the evening where I don't need to need to wear pajamas. For example, today I'm wearing my vest and pocket watch. Rocking out that pocket watch.

Other stuff. I've been preparing for my audition on Monday for MTC. In contrast to most actors, I don't usually prepare enough, I don't think, so this time around there will be much more practicing of the monologues. At least a couple times a day, figuring out some other shit that I'd need to do, rather than just trotting it out like I usually do. Who knows, maybe it'll make a difference... positive thinking!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Addendum

Completely forgot to mention that we went to Asqew Grill last night before the show. It was delicious, if a little overpriced. They have a great happy hour, so that might be something to try out whenever we're free between 3-6.

Finished the review; thought I would write it this morning, but ended up not being able to sleep last night and writing it in the dead of night. I wish writing was always that easy; words just flew from my head onto the screen. Of course, I had to do a bit o' editing, but for the most part it was solid. I guess I like writing again.

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Monica and I have been playing Beatles Rock Band more and more, and it's awesome to play some video games with the one you spend the most time with. I mean, it would be cool if I could get her to play an MMO sometime, but.. these things take time, and after all, there's always LEGO Universe coming out; she likes legos! We'll see.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Notes and an Observation

Just saw a pretty okay play this evening. At Marin Theatre Company. That seems the thing for this theatre company, mostly okay plays, sometimes really good ones, but mostly okay, and hell, they seem to be doing great by that; a sparkly theatre, plenty of sponsors, and lots of booze for the people who don't have the orgasmic feeling after seeing their shows. Ya see, that way, we can get drunk, and still like it? get it? It's not a perfect image, I'd imagine.

Anyway, just jotting down some stray ideas here so that the full thing is a little better when I plunk it out tomorrow. Funny, but unbelievable. Both main characters had no chemistry (which was the point, but it got a little tiresome). Third character broke the action too much, probably because there was really nothing going on with the first two. Brechtian in a good way at times, bad way in that it drug out the storyline a bit too much, and adding a subplot then tacking on an ending (who starts their own museum, anyway) was a little eh. The writing was good, the direction was a little off (no chemistry, weird blocking where every huge monologue was given center stage), and oops, the writing wasn't that great; up until the very end, the two main characters hated each other... there was no progression, it was even made more abundant with counting the times a certain character tried to hmph the hmph.

Good though. Just not well executed. Typical problem with MTC.

You know what I also just realized? Since installing windows 7 on my netbook, I deleted a bunch of writing I did on here when I was doing LEAD. Oh well. Obviously if I didn't care to back it up, I really didn't have much invested in it, but it's still a little disheartening; one should always keep every bit of writing. Anything helps, even if it's the writing that will never see the light of day.

Time to stew the play over over a good night's sitting awake for 3 hours and then getting spotty sleep throughout the rest of the night.

Currently Eating: frozen yogurt.

For the past year and some change, I've had a radio in my car that was unable to pick up any stations. For the past week and some change, flipping through the stations, to find my FM transmitter's station, it's flipped past a station that's crystal clear. Joy! And its the spanish language station! So I get international exposure, and something to end my crippling boredom while driving through meaningless traffic. I mean, totally, what's up with traffic these days? And turn signals? NO ONE uses turn signals anymore.

I'm such an old man, as stated by a facebook dialogue I had last night: okay, well I can't quite get the thing down right now... can't select all the text, but it was exactly that; instead of going out last night, I wanted to stay in and drink warm milk. It's more hilarious with the dialogue, but I'm way too lazy (and old) to work on it.

Monday, November 16, 2009

After writing this, I'm doing some organizing.

Today is a day of relaxing and staying warm. Even though it's quite warm outside, this lovely apartment I live in holds in the chill. It's quite refreshing, and gives me the excuse to sit in this chair with a blanket over my legs. Just practicing for when I'm 75 and in a nursing home on the moon.

Man, that would be awesome.

The Miser's going to be great. We have an excellent cast, which, like I said, was surprising, because it is pretty community theatre oriented (we have to do strike at the end of the run, for example)... but man, this cast is pretty nice. And it turns out I have a pretty awesome part; I always thought the other servant's role was the better one. I even have a little subplot! It's going to be cool. And I love having a fun part to do, in a really honored play. It's going to be great to have stuff on my resume that people know about. Not that it's going to really ever get me anything.

Speaking of not getting into some place, I have an audition at MTC coming up! I'm going to do an audition that *I* want to do, rather than something I think they want to see. Still having a hard time finding goat's blood though.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Shows

It's about four hours until I have my first rehearsal of The Miser. Now, this company is very community theatre oriented, and I certainly hope that this won't be a weird experience in the whole pantheon of shows that I've been doing lately. However, my very best friend is the director, so... when it comes down to it I'm sure everything will be pretty awesome. He's on the ball in many ways. And I don't mean on the ball in the sexual way.

Going to Target the other day, I found an excellent bowler hat and bought it for Monica, because I liked it. Because that's what we do for our loved ones; we find presents that we personally really love, and then get it for them, so we can play/use it ourselves. I love relationships. THEN, I found some gauntlet type gloves with the fingers cut out. So cool. Target is great. Capitalism is terrific.


The Hat


The Gloves. Yes; they're ladies' gloves.

I'm happy with my purchases.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Funny Coincidences

I think my chair is sinking. I suppose that happens when one gets a cheap chair from Ikea, and then moves into a soft floored house. Not that moving into a soft floored house is a bad thing, but it's just funny how low to the ground I am whilst playing my games. I mean, whilst applying for jobs. Yep. Jobs.

So anyway, furthering my acting studies, I've been watching 30 Rock, and then just started season 1 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Both shows are pretty amazing, and finding jewels like these in the normal horrendousness that is television is awesome and good for my future. Even though everyone on these shows is super attractive and unrealistic... it's hard to get behind a show when everything seems unrealistic.

What's new? I have an callback tonight for The Miser, am very excited about it. In two weeks Monica and I are also going to New York! So everything's coming up Ben. Things are awesome now. And I love saying the word awesome. This holiday season is full of really fun shit. Super exciting.

As for the rest of the month before New York, I have to review four shows, and of course I haven't been keeping flexible in the writing department, so I'm a little worried about how I can push these out as quickly. But when it comes down to it, it's more about substance than length. Funny coincidence: that's what I tell everyone who's seen my penis, as well.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Halloweenrific

Taking Monica's nephews trick or treating last night was one of the sleeper awesome things for this Halloween season. Seeing those two kids' faces light up with candied delight was awesome! Not that I ever really want kids, but it's neat to rent them out for a little while.

That came out WAY wrong.

We had been invited to 5 parties later in the evening, but we bailed on them all to have chocolate beer at Iron Springs. And salad. Yeah, I was surprised at the salad part too.

So what I forgot to say was that we participated in a giant Thriller dance last weekend, breaking the world record for the most people dancing Thriller simultaneously. And my costume that I built won a costume contest. And also we should rent those out, because many people are asking if we rented them.

It's been a pretty wonderful couple of weeks. Especially considering two minutes before firing up the old blogger I said no to a gig on New Year's Eve to spend close to home and just relax with the lurve.