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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The Mr. Ripley Complex

For years I have lived in NYC. It is a fast paced, wonderful mecca where anything can happen. However, it is also a place where people can be who they want to me. I wanted to be a ventriloquist, comedian, actress, singer and writer. My quest has been somewhat successful. I perform in the clubs, I have been Off-Broadway, my music has been on the radio, and I published my own book. Some people are ordinary and want to be extraordinary. There are two ways to go about this. One, develop a skill or talent and become good at it. Two, make up an identity that is so fabulous and put in all your energy to being a brilliant bullshit artist. Some people go with the second option.

I remember my first exposure to a Mr. Ripley was one year at the Heisman's. It was the year Troy Smith won. A man showed up, nice looking young African American with diamond studs in his ears. He told everyone he was Reggie Bush. Reggie had won the year before and was playing pro. Maybe he was swooping in as a former winner to say hello. That did happen from time to time. Anyway, he looked like Reggie, just maybe a little taller and less stockier. Reggie is very sweet and quiet in person. This dude on the other hand was introducing himself as Reggie Bush and people were buying into it. He was taking photos etc. At the end of the night he disappeared and my mother and father concurred it was not Reggie but some poser. We never found out who the poser was. But I just remember thinking something wasnt right.

There are some who impersonate celebrities, and others who claim to be related. One wannabe I met on my journey claimed to be related to Angie Harmon from Law and Order. They looked nothing alike but people believed her. The young woman was a reasonably talented actress and a wonderful singer but had a lot of mental problems, a severe eating disorder being one. She eventually disappeared to LA where she was never heard from again. I met people who knew her later and said the young woman was prone to lying and this was yet another yarn she spun. Another young woman I went to a summer workshop with claimed she used to party with Spenser Pratt from the Hills and it was because she was related to Heidi Montag by marriage. This chick claimed to go to parties and know people and blah, blah, blah. Well one of her stories fell apart one evening when the actual cousin of Heidi Montag showed up. Interesting and shit show were the understatements of the year.

There are some who have a fabulous career, and others who just make it up. A few summers ago I was working on a project with the former dance captain of Cats on Broadway. This kid was trying to worm our way into our circle. He claimed to be a former child star appearing on such programs as Sesame Street and even going so far as to claim he was in Up With People and Chunk in Goonies. I was at a party where he told a room full of people they were gossiping about him on TMZ and he was afraid for his life. Well it turned out the dude was homeless and had issues with drugs and alcohol. He was quickly persona non grata in our circle. But there were some people that he really had going. They believed him hook, line and sinker.

Then there are some who lead a mundane life that want so badly to be exciting. I dated a lawyer briefly who was bright but wanted to shine like a star. So he would tell tall tales about how he knew celebrities, rubbed elbows with the rich and famous, and even went so far as to make up a boxing and music career. I remember once he met my mother and told her flat out about how he almost made the Olympics for boxing but got hurt at the last second. My jaw dropped open at this obvious lie. The relationship soured because I never knew what was true and what wasnt. As he rubbed elbows with these trust fund kids, he would try to keep up which was sad and pathetic and I got tired of seeing a liar in action. We broke up and he found himself on the rocks with debtors because he lied about not having money to pay his bills, and he had champagne taste on a beer budget. And also on the rocks at his job. Well suddenly he had "cancer," and everyone felt bad for him. I had my doubts about this story. Well the cancer was gone in three weeks as fake cancer typically is. About a year later, my story with my puppet children aired on TLC and I spoke about my former fiance. This dillweed told everyone in his circle he was the former fiance which made his current girlfriend, a drug addict who is sober for an hour a day max, go on the war path of sorts against me.  Needless to say I blocked them all online.

But the one who takes the cake is the kid who pretended to be the son of the North Korean diplomat. He showed up to swanky eateries with his posse and answered any and all questions about Kim Jong Ill. He had photos of himself with atomic weapons and he seemed legit. He spoke about his country proudly and even said he hoped to introduce the idea of democracy to his people. I was swayed by the man and found myself wishing he didnt have a gal pal. Well it turns out that he was LYING. He was really from the Midwest. His parents were immigrants, yes. But he was no diplomats kid. They came from modest means and stuff. He had everyone fooled. The ugly curtains came down after one evening, a former friend of mine called him who knew him better than I did. He was no where to be found, left town, and turns out had a record as a scam artist. This man had all of us bought and sold. It was beyond terrible. We had all liked the diplomats kid and I often wondered who offered to spot me dinner in that swanky place that night. Maybe I will never know.

I guess in my travels I have met and worked with a great many celebrities. Many want desperately to be seen as normal and down to Earth, and when speaking to them in conversation tend to drive the focus away from their stardom rather to. And those who talk about how famous they are, well they are not really all that famous at all but rather wannabes. Even children of celebrities dont want to focus on their famous parents. I went to school with the daughter of a famous director who was very sweet, very down to Earth, and never dropped her father's name once. While we all knew, she didnt want it to be the pinnacle of our friendship. Still, some people very much want to be a part of that world.

Why not just become good at something that gets you recognized? A therapist friend of mine called it negative attention seeking. Basically, it is when someone wants attention and adoration but childhood trauma and low self esteem leave them feeling they have no skills or talents. But their desire to be the center of attention either causes them to make excessive drama or to fabricate a life that is so unbelievable that people can't help but look. Or maybe it is that reality for them has been so torturous and unbearable that they must create a fantasy world where they can be who they want.  I know this was in fact the case with the woman who claimed relation to Angie Harmon, the druggie who claimed to be Chunk in Goonies, and my ex.

Or maybe it was a childhood where they had nothing and there was a lot of lying and they want to be extraordinary. Who knows? That is why we have Clarke Rockefellers. They lie and are just that good at it.

Liars make me giggle sometimes because they are so obvious. But they also make me sad. Not only because they hurt so many people in the aftermath, but they don't believe that their truth-which is themselves- are good enough to begin with.

They inspire me to be rigorously honest.

Love
April
I Came, I Saw, I Sang: Memoirs of a Singing Telegram Delivery Girl
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