Time (Culture Club)

It’s insane how time passes. Seems like only yesterday I was starting my journey going to class through those red doors at the Strasberg Institute. Seems like only yesterday I was going to open mics, had never headlined, had never been on TV, and took every bomb to heart. Seems like only yesterday I was doing something stupid. Wait, what was last week…….

Everyone has their different markers in knowing they are getting “old.” For the rest of the world it’s when their friends get married, and news of an arriving child is greeting with a congratulations, not a shotgun visit from good old dad. I still remember my sister Skipper trying on her wedding dress. Suddenly tears streamed down her eyes. She wept, “I look like an adult woman that has a mortgage and pays her own cellphone bill!”

I said, “Look on the bright side. At least Boomer has a job. You are doing better than several women in our family currently.”

In show business you know you are getting old when people you know depart the business. It’s not just one or two but rather a mass exodus of sorts. The other day a buddy of mine and I were talking about a vapid creature known as Starfucker. A beautiful almond haired would be starlette, Starfucker bragged ad nauseum about her celebrity friends she had. These included but were not limited to Mischa Barton, Spencer Pratt, and Paris Hilton. Starfucker, through her friends, even had some high powered agent.

I had seen her act and wasn’t impressed. Sure she was beautiful but not much else going on. Once, I forget where we were, but she was distressed. Screaming, panicked, she said, “My butt is vibrating!”

It was a crisis. Starfucker screamed as she once again said, “MY BUTT IS VIBRATING!”

Then she realized it was her phone. As my friend and I recounted the phone incident, we remembered Starfucker’s on again/off again love Tom. He had a band of some sort and actually seemed like a dufus but a nice one. Tom was always being beaten down by Starfucker and her Lucy Ricardo need for fame and fortune. He actually had talent, he just had a girlfriend who was shortening his life span.

Starfucker announced she was moving to Beverly Hills to be near her friends and fell off the map. My friend and I had wondered what happened to her. So we looked her up. She’s no longer in Beverly Hills but back on Long Island where she is from. She’s married with two kids and sells real estate. Starfucker had that same vacant look in her eyes. We had a laugh. So much for her high powered friends. Maybe she’s smart enough to keep her phone somewhere that it doesn’t make her life embarrassing.

The memory of Starfucker got me thinking of all the people I have known over the years who have come and gone from the entertainment world. Some were cool. Some not so much. Was it an easy decision to give this all up for Starfucker and those like her? Was it not?

Who knows.

This past year I decided to get my MFA in writing. It’s a program that allows me to see LA on my own terms, network, live life, still tour, and be married to my career. It’s what I have chosen instead of a “normal life.”

In pursuing my writing for real, it’s brought a fresh perspective to my acting. I am legit acting more than I have in sometime. Part of the reason acting fell to the wayside was because of the opportunities with my puppets. But the more I brush up on my acting, the stronger I get with my puppets and live comedy.

Honestly though, the truth is, I wish I could take a time machine and speak to my younger self. Help her out a tad.

“Listen to your voice teacher about that breathing. He’s not an idiot. Don’t make him a prophet before his time!”

“Stop fucking breaking the rules stupid ass. You are a rebel without a hall pass. Some of the rules are pretty good. You will figure this out when you play a large crowd!”

“Cigarettes do not relieve anxiety attacks!”

“Alcohol won’t relieve your anxiety attack!”

“Getting drunk and making an ass out of yourself will not impress him! And he’s worthless anyway!”

Yesterday I went to a rehearsal and we talked about internal life. An old acting teacher of mine that I loved made a post about internal life. His post also reconnected me with an old friend. We ended up talking. It was amazing actually.

It also made me realize we don’t get people forever. Time slips by and before we know it, time is gone. It was only yesterday Starfucker was being herself. It was only yesterday she and Tom were the free theater minus the overdone plot. Now they are both adults. He scores films which is awesome, and he has a fiancé who doesn’t seem like she screams at him in public.

Sure, there are days that I beat myself up for not being where I want to be. There are days where it feels like I am climbing rocks and am about to be thrown off. But in those days I realize I am still following my dreams, fighting the good fight. As I completed my weekly checkin for my master’s program, I knew the other women in my group were fighting that same fight with me. Just like the students each term in my section in college. We were running towards our dreams, and hopefully we would run together forever…..

It also made me think of the acting class I took each week that just wrapped, and about how one student burst into the student lounge eager to share that he had found his beats in his scene. His enthusiasm made me think of going to class through those red doors. And it made me realize how much I love my graduate school teachers, and how much I miss some of the wonderful teachers I had in college too.

It made me hunger for a different time, when it was about beats and scene and technique, not about casting directors, producers, writing packets, pitching, auditioning, who was booking what and the shoo shoo sha sha bullshit that goes with having a career. It also made me wonder if the fact that it became about the shoo shoo sha sha bullshit was why I had seen so many of my peers depart.

Sure, there is the shoo shoo sha sha bullshit, but there is love for it and maybe I can marry the two. And maybe I should give myself credit for not throwing in the towel.

With this thought in my mind I decided to write my old acting teacher a note saying hello after reading his post. Time teaches us that we don’t have people forever and they might be taken at any moment.

As I crafted my letter once more I laughed as a memory of Starfucker yelling at the unfortunate Tom raced through my mind. I shook my head. Those were the days. The other part of me now saw that I had been judgmental towards Starfucker even in the nickname. She wasn’t vicious or plotting, just shallow. More comic relief if anything.

As I sent the note off to my teacher I put a thought out to the universe. Time makes you less judgmental because you realize life is indeed short. Instead of condemning Starfucker, I started to hope she was happy in her life in Long Island. After all, people change, and maybe marriage and motherhood have given her more dimensions.

And maybe I should stop calling her Starfucker.

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Dropping the Rock

There is a guy who lives in my neighborhood who I was once friendly with that I will call Bob. We both used to run in the same circles. I was young and crazy, and he kind of had it together. We were more online friends than anything back in the day. Anyway, it looked as if comedy was going to take off for Bob there for a minute. But then he got into a relationship and comedy was on the back burner.

Meanwhile, I cleaned up my crazy mess of a life and started to gain some momentum. Life became about getting spots, performing, and doing all sorts of things. Bob's relationship, meanwhile, ended when he was dumped like a bag of wet laundry. This changed Bob. He went from a nice guy to a jealous, self-centered, bitter harpie of a man. As I began to gain traction, Bob would correct my grammar online. Then he would take other snips at me, along with his little clique. These were online fights, so they were squashed very quickly. After one, Bob wrote me a three page note about how his life sucked after the breakup with his boyfriend. I knew he wasn't in a good place, and it wasn't about the things I was achieving, it was about the fact Bob's life sucked and misery loves company.

Well the peace was short lived. After a string of good things happened for me career wise, Bob proceeded to very publicly bash me online. This was beyond internet fighting, this was slander. Bob was shameless in his barbs, and was even willing to sign his own name. This was brazen and stupid, because Bob and I had many of the same friends. Much of what Bob said wasn't even remotely rooted in truth. More or less it was about that, in his not so humble opinion, I didn't deserve what I was getting. I didn't do things the correct way. I was never supposed to be anything, and now I was becoming something. How could this be? This wasn't a part of the universe according to Bob.

To make matters worse, my former fiance (yes the one I have the different mailing address because of) started a hate group. Bob had once upon a time defended me against this man. A Benedict Arnold move, Bob joined the hate group. For the record, I was not looking, friends told me. Either way, this move was juvenile. This insight into Bob's mind disgusted me though. A few weeks afterwards, I got some letters from some dudes who came across my videos. They told me they loved my videos, and it had been better than the comedy show they had seen with this unfunny comedian named Bob White. I barreled over laughing. God writes better punchlines than anyone.

At first this angered me. I had done nothing to this man to provoke this intense hate. From time to time, I saw him in the neighborhood and just wanted to tell him off. For as fun as it would have been, I stopped myself. That would be stooping to Bob's level, and I do not stoop to conquer. One time, Bob was walking his underfed dog and gave me this angry look. Then again, these days he's pissed off in general cause what is so good about being a self-centered whiner? Oh, and on a hot day last summer I was passing an outdoor eatery and there was Bob with a friend. He proceeded to speak about me as soon as I was out of ear shot. Part of me wanted to say, "Keep talking, Bitch. You have a good subject."

Today I saw Bob walking his dog. I was talking to a hairdresser friend, and Bob walked by. The dog stopped and went for us to pet it. I was not petting Bob's dog. My friend Carlito did, not knowing Bob or his penchant for drama. However, Bob didn't want to stay too long for obvious reasons. So off he went. I thought about telling Carlito what happened between Bob and I, but I stopped myself. It wasn't worth it, because that would mean Bob mattered. Bob wasn't that important. He was just another wannabe in the sea of wannabes who would always be a wannabe.

And why be angry at Bob? He was holding on to a time that was gone. Jealous people are deep down sad, fearful people. They grab without impunity because they are scared they won't get what they want and will lose what they have. Their belief is that they aren't enough, and there won't be enough. There are enough breaks for everyone, and what is meant for one person might not be meant for another.

As Bob walked off, I saw I had no reason to be angry. I had done nothing wrong It was him who should be ashamed, and rightfully so. He had shit where he ate. Bob is an internet cowboy, tough behind a keyboard but lost and confused in the real world. When I see someone like him though, I take it as a lesson on how not to act let alone how not to be. That is why I go out of my way to be happy for others. Because again, there is enough for all of us. Oh, and I am living and doing well which is the rest revenge.

With that, I found myself hoping Bob would find peace, and therefore wouldn't have to act like an arrogant fool much of the time. That he could find happiness, and therefore stop taking the low road, being jealous of others.