Rehearsing every night for this play called Decay that I have stumbled into. Having a great time learning the art and craft of acting. The other cast members who are all trained actors in one way or another have been very nice, showing me the ropes and teaching me the technology of it, and the vocabulary. Scripting, blocking, crossing, off book, all this new nomenclature, a lot of fun. Fascinating really. I always took acting for granted till a few weeks ago. Now I am just in awe of people who can do it so well. It is so transparent when they are doing it, you don’t even know that they are acting. I get chills watching everyone rehearse. They must think I’m funny. I clap for everyone when they rehearse a scene, but I just get so impressed. Then I go up and try to do my part, you know, I still have the script in my hand, the rest of them have already memorized their lines. I’m digging it. I love getting to know them, these actor types. Totally different than the musician types I’ve been hanging out with forever. I mean these are the same people who were in drama class in high school, you know. And we never hung out with them. They were always the biggest geeks, and we were always really hip and cool. We played guitar, surfed, did drugs, smoked, and always dressed cool. And they just didn’t. The drama kids were always God I don’t even remember; well for one thing they never dressed cool. They dressed like poor geeks. You know I’m stereotyping here, but for a reason.
Well here it is ten years later, at least for me, and the lines have all blurred. There are still these huge differences. I’m sitting in this den of inequity where we all rehearse every night, this artists’ work space, where I think maybe a thousand people live or something. You’re working on something and people just crawl out of corners with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths and no shoes on. It’s wild. And then in walk these actors and actresses. And it’s just so wild compared to the musicians. They are so prepared. They have all these notes on their script and they are so reserved and then all of a sudden they burst into this scene like no body’s business. And you are like shocked. Also they are so friendly. Compared to musicians. Who are so caught up in themselves and worried about being taken seriously and all of that. Where as the actors are pretty open and friendly people. I mean really, the space will be half filled with musicians who live there and half filled with actors who are working out of there and you can really tell the difference between the two groups. And I can relate because for a long time I was one of those dark and moody serious musician types myself. But I gave that up. God I am so much happier now, having my attention out, rather than in. Well that’s a different story, but I’m digging this acting thing. These people are real, which is really funny to say, because they are actors.
Also Transcendent Radio is here. it is so cool.
Current Read: Tropical Truth, a story of music and revolution in Brasil by Caetano Veloso
Current Spin: Alone Again by Father Bloopy. Sort of an underground t. rex meets dinosaur jr., quirky trippy lo-fi.
Last Movie: The World at War, the 26 hour documentary about world war II