Maybe I'm Just Lazy....

*sizzle* *sizzle*

Greetings, one and all! (I'm sure it's closer to the "one" part, lol) Dave the Goof again, with a blast of late-summer hot air. You'll have to pardon me for being a bit grumpy... a bracket broke on my braces and the wire is loose, and harassing my gumline. Has your gumline ever been harassed, may I ask? Gonna be a long wait until I can get it fixed on Thursday (I hope).

Thursday is also the night of my weekly acting class... still hanging in there, though it's kinda disheartening anymore. Seems no matter what I do in class, there's a reason why I should have done it another way. Frustrating. Like most people, I like to do things well.

First World Problems! Broken braces and mediocre acting skills! Run, Dave! Run for the hills and weep like a little boy!

Yeah, I know. Funny thing is, lately (and by that I mean for the past few weeks), every time I eat a meal, at some point I think about the Bataan Death March from WW2. Cheery thought, eh? 6 days marching in stifling heat, no food or water, dropping like flies... yeah, that sucked. Man, what people do to other people... anyway, for some reason, lately I think of that whenever I eat. Nothing like spicing one's food with a little guilt!

That guy's face is a classic...

In acting news, there's going to be an "agent showcase" at the end of this month... that's where a legit agent comes to see actors perform monologues, and see if anyone impresses the agent enough to warrant representation. I'm torn as to whether I'll participate. On the one hand, why not? Even if I don't "get an agent", the experience alone should prove beneficial. On the other hand, if by some miracle I do actually get an agent, that means my life will be upended to some extent. I would then need to be 'on call' at all times, for when auditions for TV and commercial (and possibly film) roles come up. I'll need to drop everything and go to the auditions, which makes sense, since that's the way the business works. An agent makes a percentage of whatever his/her actor makes on each acting job... so it's in the agent's best interest that he get his actors to as many auditions as possible... the flip side of that is an agent won't waste his/her time contacting an actor in his stable if that actor always has reasons why he/she can't/won't go to the auditions...

So, yeah, I'm torn. If acting professionally is what I want to do, then getting an agent makes sense. But that means my day-to-day schedule will need to become very flexible, to accommodate the driving around to auditions, often with a day or less notice. The good thing, in this case, is that the agent that is coming in 2 weeks is a San Diego agent, for San Diego jobs. That means local work, rather than LA. I think that will let me get a good taste of the way it all works, without having to dive right into the deep end up in Hollywood.

All that to say, I'm trying to settle on a monologue to work on, for the showcase. Who knows? In a couple weeks time, I could begin updating you on auditions and roles I'm trying out for, eh!

Ah, well. Baby steps, eh?

Friend of the Blog Havah sent me this link to a Whose Line Is It Anyway? clip that I thought was very impressive...



Wow. That's some amazing fast-thinking...

So I've been pondering "subconscious self sabotage" lately. I've been working on my screenplay about daydreams, and of course have done soul searching along the way. I don't know if you're like me at all, but I have dreams and aspirations in many arenas, but they always seem to remain just out of reach... when I take steps towards pursuing them, the steps seem quite short-lived. I think it's easier for me to hang onto simplified, vague dreams, hoping they'll somehow simply come true some day... rather than realize that pursuing them not only requires lots of focus and hard work, but also comes with the realization that the dreams are far more complex and involved and unpleasant than I want them to be. Being an actor, a novelist, a screenwriter, a playwright, a film maker, a cartoonist.... all things I tell myself I'm good at (good enough to be professional at (meaning earn some $$$)), and in my head I step right to the finish line... and in each case, actually buckling down and doing the work is usually painful.

Maybe I'm just lazy.

All that to say, the easy route seems to be to leave them to sit there as simplified dreams, assuming I have all the time in the world to somehow stumble into success... I have complex and wonderful (IMHO) stories inside me, waiting to get out to you all... I see the finished product in my head as well. Bridging the two with the actual work is where the pain is. Learning to embrace the pain; that is where I'm at as of this moment. I hate having all of these unfinished projects heaped around my head.

Bleh, end of rant. I'll grow up some day.

Something to drink? A ranch dressing-flavored soda, perhaps..?

I've rambled enough for one night. I have other things lined up to whine about, but I think I'll spare you the discomfort. Isn't that overly-considerate of me? See? See how close friends we are? SEE?!?!?!?

Hope you week is a great one.

Dave the Goof

Man, What a Steaming Pantload!

I'm flying!

Well, hello all! How's things, eh? Come on, don't be shy. Tell me! Wait... you mean this isn't a round table discussion? It's more of a narcissistic monologue, whereby the speaker imagines that everyone is actually interested in hearing him prattle on wearily about himself?

Oh, ok! I'm good at that!

Ah, all the exciting things that have happened since last we spoke! Where to begin!?!?

Got my annual physical today! Woohoo! Actually, I'm a few years behind on the "annual" part. Speaking of "behind", yes, I did get my prostate checked today. Oh, joy! When my doctor got out the latex gloves and the little bottle of KY, I knew I was in for a treat... I asked him, "Hey, don't you have to buy me dinner first, there, big guy?" Needless to say, I'm glad that experience is "behind" me. BUAHAHAHAH!! Oh, and he said everything was fine in there, lol. So I have *that* going for me...

What else? Well, I got my braces fixed a few days ago. Had some interesting dental issues while I was on my 6 week sabbatical. It involved a root canal, antibiotics, and wildly wandering tooth, a couple weeks of snaggle-toothed embarrassment, and several woundings of my pride. Probably good for me, ultimately. Anyway, that's all fixed now, so now I can flash my stunning smile at you all again. Through my webcam, I mean... I will be Skyping each of you individually and smiling at you for a few moments, and then rudely hanging up on you. Prepare yourselves...

A small refrigerator, for a single can of soda! And it's USB powered! Someone needs to win an award for that!

That reminds me, I lied to my doctor today. Twice, actually. First, he asked me if I drank sodas, and I said no. I drink soda maybe once every other week (that's twice a month, for those in the back rows)... not sure why I didn't just say "twice a month"... maybe I thought it was close enough to a "no" to qualify. The other lie I told was that I exercised three times a week. That's a 50% overstatement of the facts. I work out once with my trainer, and will throw the weights around my livingroom once a few days afterwards. So the real answer should have been twice a week...

I LIED!!!! What is wrong with me!!!?!?!? Oh, the shame and the ignominy! See? See the type of openness and soul-bearing and honesty that goes on in this blog? See what I sacrifice of myself to entertain you!?!?!

There's also sole-bearing happening. Here, see the bottom of my shoe? See?

So today was 9-11. Like just about everyone, I remember where I was when I first heard about what happened that day. I was driving into work. By this time, the collapses had occurred a few hours earlier. I turned talk radio on, and they were talking about planes hitting towers and towers collapsing, and the remarkable video of it all. At the time, I thought they meant at the airport, referring to air traffic controller towers. I figured it must have been foggy and maybe a plane missed the runway and hit an airport tower, knocking it down, causing a crash. Honestly, I shrugged and turned the radio off. Bummer, right? Plane crashes suck. It wasn't until I got into work that others filled me in on what actually happened. Weird.

Of course, then I got really into the whole thing, reading everything I could find. And, as many of you know, kinda got into the whole "government is behind 9-11" conspiracy stuff for a while. Thankfully, I found my way out of that mindset.

On a wildly different note, I have a quick summary for you, of Things I've Seen Lately that have either Impressed Me or Disappointed Me.

On the positive side, I watched 3 seasons of Justified, and loved every bit of it... although now that I've had a few days to let it simmer, I'm seeing some of the weaknesses in the series that I didn't see before, being too close to the action. I still love the writing, the acting, the storytelling, the production values, the presentation, etc.... but really, some of the characters were inconsistent. And some of the choices that were made were kind of PC when I think about it. I mean, many of the characters were rather hard-core white supremacists... but other than some dialog demonstrating such in Season One, they toned it WAAAYY down, such that even though many of them had the nazi tattoos and such, they never really did or said anything to demonstrate that they were any different in their beliefs (and thus, their actions) than any of the other non-skinhead characters. I'm not a fan of racism, real or fictional... but I do wonder about those character choices.

Also, man, so many people get killed in that show... I bet Raylon (the lead character) uses his gun more in one episode than most US Marshals do in their entire careers. The dude goes through ammo like it's coffee... Harlan Country must be the murder capital of the country, lol...

OK, so Justified is still awesome, in spite of its emerging weaknesses. Also, I got Star Trek Into Darkness on Blu-ray and watched it again. MAN, what an awesome movie. That movie is like a Master's class on making an action film. They should show that in Director's School (if there was such a thing, lol). So well made, it isn't even funny.

On the flip side, I've seen some real stinkers lately as well. I watched a Jason Statham movie called "Parker" recently with Wifey. Avoid this movie at all costs. It is rank fecal matter on celluloid. Also lame is the film Riddick, in which Vin Diesel tries (in vain) to make a gourmet meal out of baloney (figuratively speaking, of course. In other words, bad script). So sad to see "them" destroy a cool action character like that. I'd elaborate on it, but it would depress me.

Finally, I watched, after all these years, "Chaplin" (1992), in which an Oscar-nominated Robert Downey Jr tries to bring Charlie Chaplin to life on film. I suppose I simply waited far too many years to actually see this one... I was prepared to like it. I was not prepared for the schlocky, hokey, poorly-written, limply-acted 2+hour mess that I sat through. I was stunned! It was shocking how lame it was. Perhaps for 1992, that's what the world considered Oscar-caliber acting and film-making, but it definitely does not stand up today. 1992 was the year Unforgiven won for Best Picture, and Al Pacino won the Best Actor statue for Scent of a Woman. Also nominated for Best Actor were Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven), and Denzel Washington (Malcom X) and that dude from Crying Game. That RDJ was included in that group is kind of amazing to me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy his current acting, especially his Sherlock Holmes and Tony Stark... but, man, his Chaplin was so ham-fisted, it was stunning to me. And his accent! OMG his Cockney/British accent was hilariously bad...

So, yeah, avoid Parker, Riddick and Chaplain.

It's been too long since I included a "you can't just walk into Mordor" reference...

Oh, and that fantasy short story collection I'm reading (called Unfettered) has hit two homers at last. After a string of mediocre attempts by many prominent names in the fantasy genre, The Sound of Broken Absolutes by Peter Orullian and Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood are absolutely wonderful efforts. Definitely made the book worth buying. I'm about half-way through the title at the moment, so many more pieces of writing lay ahead. I'll keep you posted, eh!

I think I'm going to hit the road now. Hope you're all doing well.

Adios for now,

Dave the Unfettered

Entertain Me!

A little Bora Bora to get things rolling tonight...

OK, first things first. Improv! We had an "all improv" night in acting class tonight...

Gads, I hate improv. I am sooo bad at it, it's painful. Let me qualify that... when it's not my turn, and I'm watching other people do improv from the comfort and safety of my own seat, I can think of all kinds of awesome, clever and/or funny things I'd do and say if I were up there at the moment. But as soon as I get to (have to?) get up in front of the class, I get brain freeze, sweat like a pig, and painfully bumble my way through the exercise, and then retreat to my seat with tail between legs... it's humiliating.

I guess it's a pride thing... I want to be good at it. I am not. From what I understand, the purpose of doing improv is to teach us to listen to the other actors we have scenes with, and to be "in the moment", etc. Yeah, I get that. I just wish there was a different way to learn those skills. I'm wondering how long I can continue to try and improve on a skill I really dislike. Love acting; starting to hate improv. Robin Williams I am not.

Anyway, that's that.

One of the improv exercises we had to do was "Sit, Stand, Bend"... here are some pro's doing it right...



Our attempts were nowhere near as good. Ouch.

Next, I found a new TV program to watch called "Justified"... perhaps you've heard of it? Anyway, I haven't enjoyed a show this much since my "Lie To Me" binge last year. Man, what a great show. The main character is a US Marshall named Raylon Givens (played by Timothy Olyphant), and the dude is all man... capital M! I admit I kind of have a man-crush on him... wish I was that cool. Anyway, here, check out the trailer for Season One...



Trust me... top notch writing, acting and storytelling. Great characters. I especially like Walton Groggins as Boyd Crowder and Jeremy Davies as Dickie Bennett. If you've seen Saving Private Ryan, you know Jeremy Davies as Corporal Upham, and he was also on LOST as Daniel Faraday. His performance in Justified is awesome.

Anyway, check it out, if you want. If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch four full seasons.

Speaking of great things I've seen lately, I saw Star Trek Into Darkness earlier this week (on Labor Day, actually), and was blown away by how great it was. I mean, 10 out of 10. The third 10/10 I've awarded a movie in the past decade (besides Batman Begins and Inception). Love the multi-layered villain Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), and loved the dialog, but I was most amazed by the way it was shot. Each scene was staged and framed so incredibly well. Major props to JJ Abrams. I don't recall another action/adventure film I've seen that was crafted as well as that one. I can't wait to see what he does with the next Star Wars movie...

What else? Well, my reading has tapered off. Still inching my way through Unfettered (a collection of short stories in the fantasy vein, by various heavy hitters in the genre). So far, I'm grossly underwhelmed. I won't name names, since I've been stung by that before.

Hey, Christmas approaches. Time for the church holiday drama to begin! And by that, I mean the Christmas play we do each year (not the *other* type of annual drama, lol). For those that may recall, we had to pull the plug on last year's attempt, due to my inability to keep a cast together (in the midst of some other church drama going on, unfortunately), so it was the first time since 1996 that we didn't do a play of some kind. The plan was to regroup and attempt the same script again this year, but I think it will be harder to get a cast of 14 together this year than it was last year (unless I bring in some ringers from my acting class, or hold open auditions).

So I decided to dig out a script from my archive that I wrote a bunch of years back that we never performed. It has a cast of three. It's about the wisemen. I dug it out and re-read it recently.... at the risk of sounding like I'm tooting my own horn here, I really like it. It's good! But the three roles have a lot of lines... it will take three serious actors... fingers crossed. I have some ideas. We'll see...

Hey, if you want to read the script, let me know and I'll email it to you...

Met with a new local MEET-UP group called "Collaborative Film Projects", whereby people with moviemaking/acting skills gather to get projects going. Writers, actors, directors, editors, sound/lighting people, musicians... it's pretty exciting, actually. We all pitched ideas this time, and one was picked, and now it's underway... the script is ready, but everything else needs to be done. Should be fun to get some actual work in front of camera done. I'll let you know how things proceed.

Well, I think I'm going to call it a night. Going to go watch some more Justified and then hit the sack.

Adios for now,

Dave the Entertained

Back In the Saddle Again

Well, hello everyone! It's Dave the Recalcitrant, back in the Saddle again. Why did I capitalize the word Saddle? I have no idea... perhaps I've lost my edge, taking 6 weeks off... will you still respect me if I Randomly capitalize words in this post?

So, you all look good! Looks like the summer has been good to you all. You look well-rested, a little more tan, refreshed. Nice. You smell good, too!

Me? Well, plugging along. I'm glad I took the time off. Got some writing done. Read a couple nice books. Had a birthday celebration week (I'm 43 now! Don't believe me? Well, cut me in half and count the rings!) Still plugging along with the acting classes (not famous yet, but I'm working on it!). Didn't go hiking in the mountains - sorry, those aren't my feet in the opening photo... basically, it was "the road well-traveled" for me. Work, church, sleep, play, create, in various combinations.

One thing I didn't do was run a marathon... unlike this guy (Eric Strand), who decided to run a double-marathon in Duluth earlier this year. He got up in the middle of the night, the night before the official marathon... he started at the finish line at 3am, ran through the night, ending up at the official starting line at starting time, turned around and ran back again with the masses...



Wow, 52.4 miles... Impressive...

So let's see... where to start...

I had a birthweek instead of a birthday this year (back around August 16). It involved various outings and events that stretched over the whole week around my birthday. I had things planned for 7 days continuous, but hey, things don't always work out as planned, eh? Some got cancelled, others got moved, but in the end, I had a nice dinner, had a LAN party, and a Scrabble party, and saw a movie or two... so all things considered, I'd call it a win.

New SEALS recruits...

I also went downtown to see the "Best of" screening for this year's "48 Hour Film Festival", in which teams of filmmakers compete to create a short film from scratch in 48 hours. It was a fun evening: some great short films, a cool theater, some passionate, nutty people... my kind of scene. To participate, you gather a team of actors, sound people, an editor, director, etc, and sign up. Then one Friday night, everyone gathers to grab a genre out of a hat. You also get a character name, a prop, a line of dialog, and a concept which all have to be worked into your final film (between 3 and 7 minutes in duration), and boom, you have to create a script, film it, edit it and submit it before Sunday evening. Pretty cool concept, actually, and some of the finalists were quite good.

My acting instructor was featured in one of the final 12... can't seem to find it on YouTube, but when I do, I'll post it so you can see the man in action. The winning film was called "A Man Called McClane". You can click the title there and see it, if you want. There are competitions in cities around the country and beyond, and the winners from each city go on to compete at the national level. It's fun to pop "48 Hour Film Project 2013" into the YouTube search bar and watch some of the winners from all over. Just to see what people are doing, and are able to do in 2 days. Very fun. I will definitely participate next summer.

EDIT: OK, I found my acting coach's 48 Hour film entry... it's on Vimeo, not YouTube. It's horror/thriller genre, so prepare yourself accordingly, if you dare to watch it. My coach plays the doctor (he's Stephen Walters). HERE is the link. It's called "Deranged"... honestly, I don't really understand the film...

What a cool idea...

So I read a couple books since last we spoke. Colours in Steel, by the great KJ Parker is the opening book in a fantasy trilogy about an aging swordsman. Excellent book, enjoyed it greatly. Another title I read was a collection of story "episodes" in a series called Black Book, by Dylan Jones. It was an intriguing tale, but not much of it was told in Volume One, and I'm not sure I'm interested enough to pursue the series any further. The third title I read, in a nod to blog friend Logan, was my first ever "graphic novel" experience.... Volume One of Sandman, written by Neil Gaimann. I like the art, but I'm not sure I like graphic novels as a story-telling medium... the story moves so fast, and uses so little info/dialog, I didn't really feel like I could savor the story at all. I'll try another graphic novel (I bought The Watchmen), and try again before abandoning the medium.

Currently reading a non-fic book on "story maps" for screenplays, and a collection of Fantasy short stories by various genre luminaries, called Unfettered. I'm a half-dozen stories in, and frankly, I'm rather disappointed by the content thus far. Pat Rothfuss has a piece in there which is wildly unlike anything of his I'd read before, and really, I couldn't finish it.

Movies I've seen include: Wolverine, We're the Millers, Pacific Rim and I will be seeing a double feature on Labor Day with my friend Lloyd consisting of Star Trek Into Darkness and World War Z. Plus, a truckload of titles on Netflix too numerous and varied to mention.

This guy is great at impressions...



So what dost the future hold? Well, more dental nonsense, a physical, jury duty and more of the same listed above (work, church, reading, writing, entertaining myself as my life drains away, etc.) What? You expected me to suddenly transform into someone interesting on my hiatus?! Sorry to disappoint you! It's just me! Plain ol' me!

If anything fun and/or interesting happens, I'll be sure to add it to my next post. In the interim, have a great week, eh!

Adios for now,

Dave the Returned...