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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