Words have meaning: parts 1 & 2

Part 1: The Audition

Read a scene for a play this afternoon that deals with the tricky issue of how sensitive words (an order of execution) from certain people (royalty) can influence and be interpreted by their recipients (the ill-fated messenger), sometimes with disastrous consequences (so long, Mary Queen of Scots). No need to say what's already been said better and at length re: current events in AZ. Just thought it was grimly fitting. 

Part 2: The Coffee Shop

After the audition, I stopped off at a cafe in my hyper-liberal, super-hip, culture-savvy neighborhood. It only took a few moments to realize that the speakers were blaring some pretty severe hip-hop. Words common to the medium and which are banned on television (and often less-than-flattering to black people and women) filled the air. Lest I sound like an old man, I love hip-hop and am no puritan when it comes to language. But looking around the room of nearly all white faces (none darker than the few Asians), I was amazed at the collective unspoken agreement that seemed to have happened: If someone walks in the door and starts screaming obscenities and racial and sexist epithets, we'll rise up in righteous indignation and expel them with the power of a liberal mob. But put a beat under those same words and play it over the loudspeakers, well, that's just what they play here and it's art and art is sacrosanct and if you don't like it why don't YOU get out, you clod. 

Or so that's maybe what everyone thought everyone else thought. But I wonder how a black person would have felt in that room of white lefties with this (well-DJ'd but lazily-MC'd) music playing? Were the female customers just ignoring it? If so, does that mean these ideas are dead? Can we finally move past ignorance and bigotry and blithely start calling each other whatever we feel like without repercussion? I'm thinking not.

Unless we put it to music, maybe.

Playground Anonymous

I hear some weird things on the playground. They come from parents most of the time. Kids are pretty boring, actually...

Grandpa pushes young granddaughter on the swing while "keeping an eye on" the older one. He calls over to her:

"Jennifer, swing. Swing, Jennifer!"

She has never not been swinging.

"Hold on, Jennifer. JENNIFER HOLD ON! JENNIFER!! You hold on now."

She has never let go of the swing the entire time.

"JENNIFER. Just swing and hold on. Jennifer..."

She is swinging like a champ all by herself. She seems to have tuned Grandpa out. Grandpa gets the message:

"Jennifer, got off the swing. GET OFF THE SWING JENNIFER. Go take a break. GET SOME WATER AND TAKE. A. BREAK, JENNIFER!"

Jennifer sighs and gets off the swing. She goes over to the bench, takes out her water bottle and sips casually. Grandpa is still pushing the younger granddaughter rather forcefully as he glares at Jennifer. After a loaded pause, he can't take it anymore:

"Jennifer, relax. RELAX! Drink you water and sit back. Drink your water and sit back. TAKE A BREAK JENNIFER."

He then turns to me and confidentially says:

"Sorry about that, guy. You know, you just gotta INSTILL it in them, or..."

I smile knowingly and mumble something about how I hear that, boy howdy. I continue pushing my sunny, giggly kid on the swing and silently make a vow not to try to "instill" anything in her for the rest of the day, at least.

Anyone checked in on Skynet lately?

I recently downloaded a virus-scanning app to my phone the other day. It works pretty well, except that it's ad-supported which sometimes makes for a confusing narrative.

Case in point, last time I ran a virus scan:

"Your phone is very clean."

read the screen as usual, followed by a green-checked list of clean files. However, the small banner ad at the bottom (for life insurance?) was made up of a single, jarring sentence:

"When will you die?"

Taken together as two sentences (excluding the bullet-list), I was looking at the beginning of a very odd, existential conversation that I couldn't resolve for the better part of the day.

I'm still having trouble not thinking my phone has it out for me.

One... Crazy Summer

Or was it Fall? Don't trust any temperature over 30!

The weather in Seattle this summer has mirrored a bit of the nutzoid, roller coaster-y business that we here at Beets Central have been experiencing, career-wise. It's been lots of great stuff, to be sure. The type of opportunities, along with their all-at-once-ness, has made this a rare and welcome season of bounty. I suppose I wouldn't be a Westerner if I didn't sit back and soak it up a bit. Not to say I'm entitled beyond being the right person for the job, but, well, it's nice to be the right person for the job for a change. More than once, even.

Of course, I wouldn't be an East Coast kid if I didn't also squint into the bright lights a little. I want to hang on to these successes, to bank them a bit and leverage them into more things like them. Less greedy than hoarding, I think. Perhaps more difficult than the lack of film and TV work in Seattle is the uphill struggle to produce any momentum with your successes here. Once the summer is over, these exciting new credits sit quietly on the resume and become old news. Holding the top positions for months, perhaps longer, before another "big job"rolls through.

Not to get all gloomy, though, and truthfully my overall ambition is pretty focused. I'm working with the good folks at WA FilmWorks to help keep local actors informed about what's going on to bring, keep and foster film production here in the Northwest. And I do know it's not about waiting for those big jobs. There are plenty of opportunities that come up locally, between indie film stuff, voice-overs and commercial work. As always, though, it's a matter of continuing to be the right person for the job - as a friend recently said, "it's all about the hustle." Indeed, the mantra this summer has been I just want to work.

And just to round out the summer, I managed to get cast in another indie feature. Stay tuned for more info there. In the meantime, check out "The King George Job" episode of Leverage on TNT, this Sunday at 9/8c. I'm the British customs chap at the end. Cheerio!