Recollections from a Laundromat

Ohboy, I am backlogged.

Here comes a long one, folks.

Last time we spoke, i was complaining about a high school of artsy kids who didnt appreciate our work as much as i would have liked and it hurt my feelings so i talked about it on the interwebs.

A blogger nerd venting his feelings on the vast, anonymous expanse of the internet?  NO.

Anyhow.

Our egos have since been sufficiently bolstered that i feel as if i can pull my tail out from between my legs and start trying this writing thing again.

That, and i've finally sobered up.

KIDDING!

Let's get down to business...

Herein we shall discuss: Vocal fatigue, the joys and trials of 'long term' residence, the snobbery of 4G, how Pandora has served as a form of cheap therapy, and why it is I want to become a better actor.

Vocal fatigue is a occupational hazard for any actor.  Even the obsessively healthy actors who drink just enough tea and warmup for 30-45 minutes before every show are periodically victim to the dreaded Vocal Fry.

I am, by the way, not the best.  I should get better.  Obviously.

I bring the pesky bugger up because I did, just recently, fall under the raspy shadow of vocal fatigue.  

I hate the feeling of vocal impotence for a few reasons but the most pressing is that it's my job to speak and speak so that i can be heard, so not being able to do the fundamental function of my job is infuriating.  Also, and less to my professional credit, i love to sing.  I sing in the shower, i sing as i walk.  I love it.  That i get to include it in the landscape of my professional life is a great joy, and i am persistently surprised and pleased that i make sufficiently pleasant sounds with my face that i am allowed to do so.  

Unless i've got vocal fry.  

And then i just sound like shit.  

And that feels terrible.

Perhaps it's a byproduct of my laziness, mayhap a side effect of being allergic to Any quantity of dusty particulate in my breathing environment (which makes living in hotel rooms a fun exercise in congestive inevitability) or maybe, just maybe, I am patient zero to some sort of nasal nastiness that is making a slow but steady crawl across the troupe.

Here's hoping I'm just allergic to the world.

Murray State University was a hell of a place.

A warm, friendly community of students and professors never made us feel like anything but honored guests.  'Honored' sounds a little more feudal than i'm going for, but suffice to say, these folks made every effort to accomodate us and inspire in us a feeling of welcome and friendship.

Denice and Stephanie held a dance workshop and the local dance club put a piece together to present to them.

Let me repeat: These folks Choreographed an entire dance BEFORE we got into town, just so they could engage with their teachers on a deeper level.  Wow.

I helped Patrick conduct a fight workshop that came after a 30 minute demonstration from the local Fencing club.  A club that, i might gleefully add, was gracious enough to make their gear and facilities available to the ASC troopers on campus so that i could play with swords!  I got to fence again for the first time since i left WVU and, despite how miserable i've become (or always were and am just now self-aware enough to acknowledge) i want to play again!

I walked away from that place with more friends than when i walked in, and i a very pleased to report that Murray, Kentucky has a thriving community of all the best kinds of nerds.

The community, combined with a dining situation that could be conservatively described as generous and honestly called something like 'The Freshman Fifteen in Five Days or Less' made our time in Kentucky an honest hoot'n'holler.  I hope to soon have an excuse to see the friends i made there, until then, i look forward to continuing the internet rediculousness we have already taken up.

Now, all of this said, there is something truly arduous about a week run of 10am Midsummer performances.

I think i have, here and in my life abroad, stated time and again just how much i Love this job.  I love what i do, i love the people with whom i do it.  

But sweet Jeebus, do i loathe high school matinees.  

It's not just the early call (which, i recognize, is not terribly early at all; but c'mon, i didn't get into theatre because i'm a morning person), a morning through which i cannot sleep is compensated when i get to perform in front of people who Want to see what i'm showing them.  A high school matinee, in front of auditoriums of high school students, all of whom are living high school lives with high school brains…i remember those brains.  

Shudder.

Even in my most enthusiastic (and if you've met me for any length of time, you know i bring a certain fervor to most everything i do) days of high school, i was hard pressed to keep my ass in a seat and my head in the game for a two hour performance of Anything.  

"Hey Dan, the Cheer Squad is doing a dramatization of the highlights of the Marquis De Sade's canon of work in the gymnasium, wanna come?"

"Hell yeah!  How long's it run?"

"What?  Um, i dunno, hour and half, two hours?"

"Oh, something shiny!"

and then i'm out.

So, i get it.  It's morning, you're young, and some dude in puffy pants is trying to get you to pay attention to him while he waxes philosophical from the perspective of a mythical equivalent to queen Elizabeth's exasperation with her relationship to public appearances…i get it.  

But c'mon, man!  Put your phone away!  She'll call you in an hour.

Anyhow.

We're back on the road. 

As i write this, i'm sitting in the backseat of our blue van with my lap desk and a cup of not-nearly-strong-enough hotel coffee, sleepily trying to line up my thoughts into some kind of readable narrative (how'm i doing?).  all the while, i find myself trying to take mini brain breaks and check in, not with a novel or any kind of hard-copy periodical, but with the INTERNET. 

And, invariably, i am slave to the available wireless coverage of my cell phone provider.  

So, as i have recently come into the future-space-world of 4G, i am actually given an opportunity to turn down my nose at places who do not offer that service.  Not that i do turn down my nose, nono, but it does present a new, fascinating addition to the world of techno-snobbery that i can enter a delightful new town, one with rolling hills and a charming historic district, a booming economy and a community so eco-friendly it's host to one of Al Gore's summer homes and, unless they've got the right number of Gs i think i'm in some kind of quaint, backwoods hamlet.

I embarrass myself when i admit these things to you, People of the Internet, but i do not think i am alone in this snobbery.  

I signed onto this whole 'internet' thing because it felt like, and still feels like, the future.  It feels like i am participating in an incredible jump in human socialization and communication and, for as pervasive as it has become in our lives, and for as involved as people can become in their online personae, i do believe that we are at the Beginning of a great cultural and technological revolution.

THAT SAID...

Those of you who carry a space-phone, i challenge you: when next you find yourself making any kind of interstate road-adventure, see how you feel when you watch your wireless coverage diminish and then disappear.  You're not sad, nor even angry, you just feel some part of your plugged in brain (your IP id?) air an exasperated 'Meehhhhhh' and then you have to try to engage with the people Next to you.  

And that hardly feels like the future at all, does it?

Just a couple more here, folks, and then i'm done…

I have had, in recent months, ample opportunity to languish in my own depressive torpors.  i'll turn on something morose and discordant and walk around Staunton (or whatever town we find ourselves haunting) letting my feet wander while my mind wallows.  

In fact, i have a habit of letting my music determine my mood.  i sync my iPod while i am in one mood and then i leave it in that configuration for weeks, walking, exercising and doing all else with the same soundtrack i might have needed only once and then only because i was in the midst of a particularly enthusiastic mope.

For this reason, i have found a great solace in the wide world of the music genome project.  

It must have been around the time when i got my fancy ass new phone and tried out the Pandora app.  By plugging in one of my favorite party bands (The Cat Empire.  Try them, they will make you smile, even if it's while you're changing the channel) i have been immersed in the celebratory world of whatever the hell it is Pandora thinks is related to the styles, sounds, and suggestions of this Aussie-Ska-Jazz-Latin-Reggae-Indie wonder.  

And, because of this, i'm in a damn chipper place.

It has been brought to my attention that i present a rather chipper personae in most situations, which is nice to hear, since i know that i am not always IN a happy place.  No one is, i am not unique in this.

But i have, recently, been in a more genuinely happy place, and i cannot help but think that scrubbing my brain with the sounds of celebration have helped in this.

Now, to the whole point of this thing: the acting.

Whenever i talk about this gig i try to find a chance to mention the fact that, because i am an apprentice, i am approaching this as a continuation of my education and training as an actor; like this whole thing is some sort of free ride scholarship in the craft of being a working professional.  

And i like it that way.

I'm learning how to be a grown up (in a manner of speaking)

I'm learning how to sustain a role for a period so extended it's downright daunting to thin about.

I'm learning how to peacefully coexist with a group of my peers and contemporaries and to persistently present the product we've been paid to perform.

I'm also learning about what i want from this work.

I went into this industry (and how industrious 'tis) because i love the job; i love learning a character, learning their language, and trying to become an honest representation of an author's imagination.  

It's exiting, and liberating, and hugely gratifying to know that i have satisfied my own exhibitionists impulses while (we hope) entertaining the imaginations of strangers.

And, now that i've been doing this same shtick for a while, i want to get Better at it.

I work with a group of true professionals; men and women who honor their craft by giving everything they have to give to every moment of what they do (unless we're hungover, then fuck it.  KIDDING!).  All of them have something that i value in a performer, something i want to learn from watching and take unto myself; here we have vocal production and a stage intensity that stops my heart in it's cage; there a spontaneity and capacity for creative approach to tried forms that manages to make some of the oldest words still spoken new, and alive, and fun.  

Craft, practice, diligence, excellence.

And i want it.  

I enjoy performing when i do it, but i truly feel as if i am being granted the greatest opportunity to learn from watching and then to try what i have seen.  

And then i will go back to school, i will put myself into a situation where my objective is more about self-mastery than the creation of any particular product; where i can let myself flush out this impulse for self-examination, use it to it's extreme, and then make it a recourse in my tool-kit and not the central focus of my daily life.

I'm tired of over thinking myself, and i'm ready to start living again.

…

Damn, got a little intense there for a second.

Thanks for reading, guys.  If you'll excuse me, there is a rolling landscape of american countryside to ignore; the internet calls to me!

…crap, no service.