A Cabbie Account

Sometimes I use the services of taxicabs to help me get to my audition locations more quickly than mass transit can provide.  Frequently the trips are uneventful.  However, one recent cabbie in particular really caught my attention.

After opening the door for me (which no taxi driver has ever done for me before), inquiring of my destination, observing that I "seem sane" and noting that his previous fare "was mad, but only because of the full moon", I realized the frail-looking, animated driver would make this a ride to remember.  Here, in no particular order, are some of the more salient facts I learned of my rather egotist and unkempt chauffeur en route:

• He stated matter-of-factly that he is "the best driver in the universe."
• He spends most of the year in Cambodia.
• He lives "in a mangrove", not in a "hectic, chaotic city like Bangkok or Hong Kong"
• He dislikes the hybrid cab he drives because "it's not safe in an accident" and prefers the larger, converted-from-cop-cars vehicles.
• His father and brother died of cancer due to pollution.
• He doesn't sleep well in the United States because the full moon here disrupts his "energy".  Instead, he sleeps much better in Asia where the "full moon is further away".
• It's easier to earn money in the United States than in Cambodia, where he teaches English.
• A fare he carried the previous evening had been "gypped" by a previous cabbie that same night who dropped them off at the Piano Factory and not in the North End, and as a result he "knew [he] would get no tip".  They were Bulgarians.

It should be noted that about halfway through my six-minute ride, he realized he had forgotten to turn on the meter.

• He has a cell phone but tries not to use it or touch it.  He doesn't have a television, either.
• People in the United States should be nicer.  "Not nice like Taiwan or the Japanese, but nicer."

With so much active listening, I felt thoroughly informed and a bit tired by the time I arrived at my destination.

Haste (and a Clean Toilet)

This morning, while I was in my pajamas and cleaning the bathroom, I received a telephone call.  It was from a number I didn't recognize, and since my hands were a bit damp and dirty, I didn't answer.  Upon returning the call (once the toilet was cleaned), I discovered the number belonged to the line producer of the commercial for which I had been booked, and who was on set and wondering if I could arrive earlier than my call time, which brought up an interesting issue and a revelation:

• I had yet to receive any information regarding the shoot's call time and location (leading me to believe the commercial was not filming today as previously mentioned), so this phone call was news to me; and
• I was expected on set in 12 minutes, per the call sheet.  

Needless to say, I was late to set.  I had been as responsible as I could be, calling and sending multiple emails at various times to follow up and check in regarding any information pertaining to the shoot.  Unfortunately, I never received any responses to my inquiries from the parties I knew to contact.  So, I figured something had happened to the production schedule and things were changing.  This was not the case, actually, and somehow the ball had been dropped when it came to contacting me.  (It is nice to note, after my arrival the line producer was reassuring, letting me know my tardiness was not my fault.) 

Thank goodness for Zipcar and GPS!  I was able to reserve a car as soon as I hung up the phone and jump into it a half-hour later.  (I still had to wash my face, put on clothes and make my hair look not so bed-headdy, after all.  At least I had ironed and bagged some wardrobe options the night before!)  GPS helped me get to the set in 14 minutes.  (No, speeding was not involved.)  

To date, today's hair/make-up/wardrobe session stands as the fastest I've ever experienced, with all of it taking place in less than 15 minutes.  The shoot was great, involving crew I've had the pleasure to work with before.  Again, I played a teacher, and I had a classroom filled with professional fifth- and sixth-graders, many of whom fancied themselves 'tween-shot comedians.  I shouldn't divulge too much about the content of today's spot, but know that when completed it will involve bread, a survey and a statesman.  Despite the hasty and harried start to the day, I look forward to seeing the completed spot!

Saturday Night Laments

Last evening an actress and friend of mine told me she worked on one of my favorite TV shows--a show for which I've been campaigning for an audition for years, literally.  I couldn't believe it!  Friday Night Lights, a show that films in and around Austin, TX, was in the Boston area filming all day Saturday!  My friend said she and some other actors were on set, discussing the fact I would be disappointed to know I wasn't working with them.  But she also pointed out that I didn't seem to fit the demographics the casting director was tasked to fill: college freshmen (an age bracket for which I can no longer pass, really) and university professors (I would look a bit under-age to most as a faculty member, don't you think?).  Didn't they need college seniors or grad students or an administrator or something?  Man!

Vice-Versa Again

This past Friday, I accepted a last-minute audition with good potential. And, again, it turned into a less-than-ideal experience wherein I tried to make the best of the situation. I had been told the audition would be completely improvisatory and I would be playing a customer in a quick-service restaurant. So, I arrived to audition, signed in, and learned there were lines to memorize and that I would be portraying an employee in a quick-service restaurant. (Knowing what I knew at that moment, I would have worn different attire.) And--once more--I auditioned with other actors in the room. So, upon entering the room (and after waiting 40 minutes), I politely paid attention as other talent auditioned before me while silently running through variations of our lines. (We all had the same lines, after all.) I auditioned with the remaining talent watching, providing the most interesting delivery I could muster, and left, irked.

Sometimes I sincerely wonder if CDs understand that giving all the specifics they have to the talent before arriving to audition, as well as providing a top-notch environment for auditioning, could result in high-quality results that may benefit all parties.

Flubs

Vlogging is not always a cakewalk*.  In creating yesterday's vlog there were a few behind-the-scenes flubs I thought you might enjoy. 

1.  The first take was recorded with the mic on mute.

2.  Then the video camera had a minor flip-out.

Too much sun, perhaps? 


3.  There was also this:

Oh well.  Practice makes perfect, right?

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*As a personal digression, once, when I was in elementary school, my family and I attended my school's fair where I participated twice in the musical cakewalk.  I won both times!  We went home with two huge cakes.  Bizarre!  

Advice and Perpetration

(n.b. Did you catch that misuse of the verb "perpetrate"?! Wow! Talk about a crime! That's not how that verb should be used; legitimately working as an actor is not illegal. I could have used: portray; present; depict; characterize. Did I? No. Oh well.)

Watch and Learn

A week ago I attended the first annual Boston Book Festival.  It sounded fun and there was a superb lineup of speakers/authors.  While I didn't get to attend every session my heart desired, I did sit in on three great ones that were not only informative but which left me, surprisingly, with a single realization that I've been pondering all week: few of the people I heard attained the goals they set out to achieve.

John Hodgman: John Hodgman wanted to be an author and, in fact, did end up an author, but only after publishing a single (but brilliant!) short story in the Paris Review, becoming a literary agent instead, appearing on The Daily Show, making a-bajillion ads for a computer company that shall remain nameless but is my favorite nonetheless, acting in movies and amassing a small army of slightly off-kilter but passionate followers.

Scout Tufankjian: American photojournalist Scout Tufankjian didn't know she would become so intimately affiliated with the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.  She just wanted to take pictures.  Her agency sent her to New Hampshire to cover some unknown junior senator as he launched a run for the presidency.  It was the reaction of the attendees (and perhaps the quality of her photography) that resulted in her following the campaign for two years from inception through inauguration, and producing 12,000 images that became her best-selling book Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign.

Chris van Allsburg: Chris van Allsburg relayed the story of a young, average high school student with a vivid imagination who set out to become a lawyer, but talked his way into art school (without having had any formal art training) after the college admissions officer discouraged him from pursuing a legal track.  He's now a Caldecott Award-winning author and illustrator of children's books. Perhaps he would have made a good lawyer anyway?

Tom Perotta: Tom Perotta is currently a successful author who had difficulty getting published, even though he had a professional relationship with former student and then-literary agent John Hodgman.  He took up teaching creative writing at Yale as a side gig, then switched to expository writing at higher-ed competitor Harvard. Maybe he needs a good actress to star in his adaptation of his own work, The Abstinence Teacher?

These folks have become successful but perhaps not in the fields they had first imagined  What does this say about goals and desire and success?  Does it have to do with their go-with-the-flow type of attitude?  A relenting focus on the end result?  Are goals, desire and success at all related?

My mom gave me a book a few years ago called Rules of the Red Rubber Ball by Kevin Carroll.  Memorably, it actually comes packaged with a red rubber ball which I have sitting on my desk.  The purpose of the book is to remind the reader to keep one's eye on the ball and not lose sight of the goal.  For Ken Burns, it worked out.  He wanted to become a successful documentary filmmaker and did so.  In the cases of Hodgman, Tufankjian, van Allsburg and Perotta, they had their eyes on balls, but the routes that took them too their balls involved detours or turns to another ball entirely.

What could this mean?  Was use of my early science successes to pursue music a wrong choice?  Because I earned two degrees in music but now act more than sing, have I failed to achieve my goal?  Is acting the detour?  Are we the governors of our paths?  I hope next year's Boston Book Festival is as thought-provoking.

(n.b. Is it ironic that I have been humming "Nice Work if You Can Get It" as I write this?)