Thursday, February 03, 2011
Stages of LA
A friend of mine has taken the leap and is out in Los Angeles for pilot season. It's a story that makes just about every LA actor shift uncomfortably in their seats. Hell, it makes EVERYONE shift in their seats. It's making me shift around so much that I had to blog about it. She asked me if, much like stages of grief, there are stages of LA. Well, Chita, there are. Here ya go:
The Stages of LA:
Stage One: Delirious Hope
In Stage One of the LA experience, the sunshine causes a massive shift in the Hope gland. Symptoms, which are often self-perpetuating, include an urge to exercise or at least go outside more frequently, wide eyes, deep breaths, and random giant smiles. Call it the "fresh off the bus" syndrome. During Stage One you often run into random, 'meaningful' celebrities (mine was Breckin Meyer), food will taste better (surprise, its Southern California, where food is just fresher) and you will be bombarded with LA's favorite form of religion: New Age spirituality! Get ready for lots of SIGNS, and plenty of serendipitous meetings and parties. LA loves a Stage One-r and gets easily infected by their momentum. This is a good time to take meetings and buy a new pair of shoes.
Stage Two: Prideful Determination
Ah Stage Two - elusive and curious. In Nature, a Stage Two-er resembles a Lone Wolf. In Stage Two the freshness has begun to wear off, but the residual momentum has become more than just kinetic energy, it is now a habit. There is a sense of ownership of place - this is your territory now, a place you belong... but not quite. Because in Stage Two, you are still DIFFERENT. There are two major symptoms that define Stage Two. The first is a sense of peaceful superiority, rightfully earned. While others failed to take a risk, leave the pack, jump in the dangerous rapids, YOU, Oh Stage Two-er, were more daring. More brave. More crazy. And you did it. You are here, in LA, and you took the leap. This is it, the big time, and you didn't DIE when you jumped. Like a marathon runner moving one leg in front of the other, you are in it to win it, and that's more than most anyone can say for themselves. This will be enough to sustain a Stage Two-er through the most terrifying of ordeals: getting started. The second key symptom is directionless determination. While in Stage One, you taste the excitement of locating the Best Local Farmers Market, In Stage Two you are now dealing with the more undefined task of "Realizing the Dream." Stage Two-ers are easily recognizable at Headshot print shops and Samuel French stores. This is where they gather, and you will see their heads held high. Note the slight odor of denial.
Stage Three: Stupidity
Stage Three and Stage Two are like a pair of first-time two-steppers - they can never decide who's leading. It will be awhile before someone is fully in the throes of Stage Three. The shift comes when the internal clock, planted within by society, friends and loved-ones (albeit unintentionally) - when this timer starts to reach the RESULTS stage. Each clock is different, but they all eventually cause the reality check gland to start producing massive amounts of Comparison hormones. It should be noted that the Reality Check Gland is absolutely necessary for survival in most human beings, but is missing in a few select folks, namely Tom Cruise. It is also questionable as to whether or not Glenn Beck has one. Stage Three is triggered by the RCG generating an arbitrary desire to place a tangible value on experiences gained thus far - in effect, to QUALIFY the LA journey. You will question the judgment that lead you to leap from the safety of the pack into this wilderness of highways and palm trees. Had you chosen to watch the movie version of this wild, action-packed adventure, you would have left at about minute fifteen, out of sheer boredom. Is it Stupidity then, that led you to believe this leap was worth taking? In due course, a Stage Three-r has begun to recognize other LA people who have done the same thing they are doing - and unable to identify a DIFFERENCE, you can no longer maintain the Stage Two, Lone Wolf mentality. Stage Three-rs are often found screaming and crying in their cars, chugging lattes at the nearest Urth Cafe, and shaking their heads in the relative darkness of movie theaters while watching recently nominated box office failures.
Stage Four: Selective Nostalgia
Stage Three is tumultuous and painful, and does not often last long. In the LA journey, one either shifts back to Stage Two, or transitions into Stage Four. Stage Four generally begins when you finally start to develop an immunity to self-loathing. Assisted by several occurrences of senseless rejection, the exhaustion of perpetual denial brings itself to a stage of almost euphoric reminiscing. A fully progressed Stage Four-er generally seeks the comforts of the noble aspects of the craft. You will often begin the Artist's Way, sign up for a Level One performance class of some sort, or apply for Grad School. The Stage Four-er has difficulty recalling the impetus for taking the Leap, and simply remembers the past as a time when life was easier, simpler, and BETTER. The 'Thousand Yard Stare' is shared by Stage Four-ers and life sentence prisoners alike. Stage Four is the darkest stage of the LA journey, and can last several years. A Stage Four actor is sometimes unfairly labeled as the Bitter Actor, and is generally not the best person to seek advice on the business from. Ironically, most Stage Four-ers make excellent dramatic actors, if the role is well written and involves a storyline about 'home'.
Stage Five: Benevolent Resignation
Stage Five is one of the most difficult stages to attain while still living in LA. Most actors will need to leave LA before they can actually shift into this final stage. In Stage Five, the awareness of the Bigger Picture has come into full realization. The Inner Clock is silenced, the Reality Check Gland is satisfied by evidence of the ability to exist and receive occasional lattes and new shoes as necessary. Recognition of others on the same journey no longer generates a need for separation, but instead is the impetus to establish a new pack, a new family. Stage Fivers have the charming habit of defending the honor of LA to those who have not taken the journey. Stage Five is not all peace and gummi worms, however. A Stage Five-r is actually a vicious fighter, a dangerous enemy, and a pain in the ass to live with sometimes, because Stage Five-rs have lived through the toughest war, the war with themselves, and are occasionally susceptible to Post Traumatic LA Syndrome. This is necessary to keep the Drama Gland, the same gland which caused them to take the leap in the first place, free of blockage. However, once in Stage Five, generally an actor is equipped to balance hope with experience, reality with television, and journey with destination.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Any of these stages is subject to be HALTED if the actor books a job or makes out with a celebrity. The concurrent stage will resume accordingly depending on how long it takes to spend the money earned, or whenever the celebrity doesn't call back.
The Stages of LA:
Stage One: Delirious Hope
In Stage One of the LA experience, the sunshine causes a massive shift in the Hope gland. Symptoms, which are often self-perpetuating, include an urge to exercise or at least go outside more frequently, wide eyes, deep breaths, and random giant smiles. Call it the "fresh off the bus" syndrome. During Stage One you often run into random, 'meaningful' celebrities (mine was Breckin Meyer), food will taste better (surprise, its Southern California, where food is just fresher) and you will be bombarded with LA's favorite form of religion: New Age spirituality! Get ready for lots of SIGNS, and plenty of serendipitous meetings and parties. LA loves a Stage One-r and gets easily infected by their momentum. This is a good time to take meetings and buy a new pair of shoes.
Stage Two: Prideful Determination
Ah Stage Two - elusive and curious. In Nature, a Stage Two-er resembles a Lone Wolf. In Stage Two the freshness has begun to wear off, but the residual momentum has become more than just kinetic energy, it is now a habit. There is a sense of ownership of place - this is your territory now, a place you belong... but not quite. Because in Stage Two, you are still DIFFERENT. There are two major symptoms that define Stage Two. The first is a sense of peaceful superiority, rightfully earned. While others failed to take a risk, leave the pack, jump in the dangerous rapids, YOU, Oh Stage Two-er, were more daring. More brave. More crazy. And you did it. You are here, in LA, and you took the leap. This is it, the big time, and you didn't DIE when you jumped. Like a marathon runner moving one leg in front of the other, you are in it to win it, and that's more than most anyone can say for themselves. This will be enough to sustain a Stage Two-er through the most terrifying of ordeals: getting started. The second key symptom is directionless determination. While in Stage One, you taste the excitement of locating the Best Local Farmers Market, In Stage Two you are now dealing with the more undefined task of "Realizing the Dream." Stage Two-ers are easily recognizable at Headshot print shops and Samuel French stores. This is where they gather, and you will see their heads held high. Note the slight odor of denial.
Stage Three: Stupidity
Stage Three and Stage Two are like a pair of first-time two-steppers - they can never decide who's leading. It will be awhile before someone is fully in the throes of Stage Three. The shift comes when the internal clock, planted within by society, friends and loved-ones (albeit unintentionally) - when this timer starts to reach the RESULTS stage. Each clock is different, but they all eventually cause the reality check gland to start producing massive amounts of Comparison hormones. It should be noted that the Reality Check Gland is absolutely necessary for survival in most human beings, but is missing in a few select folks, namely Tom Cruise. It is also questionable as to whether or not Glenn Beck has one. Stage Three is triggered by the RCG generating an arbitrary desire to place a tangible value on experiences gained thus far - in effect, to QUALIFY the LA journey. You will question the judgment that lead you to leap from the safety of the pack into this wilderness of highways and palm trees. Had you chosen to watch the movie version of this wild, action-packed adventure, you would have left at about minute fifteen, out of sheer boredom. Is it Stupidity then, that led you to believe this leap was worth taking? In due course, a Stage Three-r has begun to recognize other LA people who have done the same thing they are doing - and unable to identify a DIFFERENCE, you can no longer maintain the Stage Two, Lone Wolf mentality. Stage Three-rs are often found screaming and crying in their cars, chugging lattes at the nearest Urth Cafe, and shaking their heads in the relative darkness of movie theaters while watching recently nominated box office failures.
Stage Four: Selective Nostalgia
Stage Three is tumultuous and painful, and does not often last long. In the LA journey, one either shifts back to Stage Two, or transitions into Stage Four. Stage Four generally begins when you finally start to develop an immunity to self-loathing. Assisted by several occurrences of senseless rejection, the exhaustion of perpetual denial brings itself to a stage of almost euphoric reminiscing. A fully progressed Stage Four-er generally seeks the comforts of the noble aspects of the craft. You will often begin the Artist's Way, sign up for a Level One performance class of some sort, or apply for Grad School. The Stage Four-er has difficulty recalling the impetus for taking the Leap, and simply remembers the past as a time when life was easier, simpler, and BETTER. The 'Thousand Yard Stare' is shared by Stage Four-ers and life sentence prisoners alike. Stage Four is the darkest stage of the LA journey, and can last several years. A Stage Four actor is sometimes unfairly labeled as the Bitter Actor, and is generally not the best person to seek advice on the business from. Ironically, most Stage Four-ers make excellent dramatic actors, if the role is well written and involves a storyline about 'home'.
Stage Five: Benevolent Resignation
Stage Five is one of the most difficult stages to attain while still living in LA. Most actors will need to leave LA before they can actually shift into this final stage. In Stage Five, the awareness of the Bigger Picture has come into full realization. The Inner Clock is silenced, the Reality Check Gland is satisfied by evidence of the ability to exist and receive occasional lattes and new shoes as necessary. Recognition of others on the same journey no longer generates a need for separation, but instead is the impetus to establish a new pack, a new family. Stage Fivers have the charming habit of defending the honor of LA to those who have not taken the journey. Stage Five is not all peace and gummi worms, however. A Stage Five-r is actually a vicious fighter, a dangerous enemy, and a pain in the ass to live with sometimes, because Stage Five-rs have lived through the toughest war, the war with themselves, and are occasionally susceptible to Post Traumatic LA Syndrome. This is necessary to keep the Drama Gland, the same gland which caused them to take the leap in the first place, free of blockage. However, once in Stage Five, generally an actor is equipped to balance hope with experience, reality with television, and journey with destination.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Any of these stages is subject to be HALTED if the actor books a job or makes out with a celebrity. The concurrent stage will resume accordingly depending on how long it takes to spend the money earned, or whenever the celebrity doesn't call back.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Go East, Young Woman.
I am leaving for Berlin in two days. Yeah, Berlin GERMANY. My great grandmother came over on a boat in 1913, leaving her German roots (which were more specifically planted somewhere in Russia off the Wolga River) and headed West, young man. And now I've started a fantastic journey which involves quite a bit of heading East. Towards the rising sun. Poetry Alert - this concept is pinging on quite a few levels for me. The idea of Going West is a deeply ingrained American, perhaps even masculine, and definitely youthful spirit. Our young country went West 160+ years ago, searching for land, hope, gold... any number of symbols of American freedom. The West has, for a long time represented so much about the American spirit of space, independence, the future.
The New World is the West.
And for maybe more than a few years I have been drifting back East. Back to Atlanta - sure, that's an obvious one. Over to the Old World of Germany, where East and West have only recently been on speaking terms. But there are other metaphors that I can't help but apply as well. Eastern spirituality has been calling to me lately - yogic retreats, Hindu prayer groups, poly-theistic notions of God within everyone and everything. What does it mean to feel this need to unstitch myself from the fabric of generations of ambition and progress? Am I just getting old, too tired to push further West? Is there any meaning at all in this faintest of patterns? What's left to discover and explore?
When we got to the Grand Canyon last May, I had this little game I would play with myself. I would pretend that I was a pioneer, traveling for years across the uncharted trails of the Midwest, dragging my restless family in tow, not knowing or being able to explain why I needed to keep moving or where the hell I figured we'd end up. And I would imagine that insane moment of vertigo when after the hundredth boring hill you looked up and saw the canyon gaping out in front of you. 'Oh crap.' And 'Oh wow.' In the same breath.
There IS something new about being pulled East. Something more feminine, more creative, in a way the opposite of the pioneering spirit, in the way that one side of the coin is the opposite of the other. If going West is the Young Man's dream, maybe going East is the Young Woman's path. Or maybe I just like to travel.
And one last note: the link I placed up there is a link to the fundraiser campaign we are hosting to generate some financial support for this international collaboration* which has already brought me so much expansion, and may in the future (as it builds momentum) support other wandering artists like me. If you wish to contribute in any way at all, I would be very grateful, even simply for your thoughts and well-wishes. Thanks in advance. -T
*International Collaboration: I am traveling with a small group of artists to Berlin to perform a Fassbinder play titled Bremen Coffee. I play the lead. I will also be doing comedy improv shows every night after the play. It is a dream come true.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
How Do You Measure Excess?
Ah... even the title of my blog post is indulgent. It sounded like such a clever title that I had to use it, whether it really applies to what I want to say or not. "What the heck am I doing?" is probably a better title. The novelty of my move has worn off and the old habits are rearing their ugly heads. I haven't started yearning for LA. I don't know that I ever will. I truly don't think I 'pulled a geographic.' But I'm going to be straight with you here. I think I may have lost my navel-gazing mind. I don't think I can even admit to you what a strange place I am in... I don't want to sound, well, crazy.I gave up my career, which I had previously given up everything else for... but I never really had a plan. I didn't really ever know what I wanted, specifically, so I couldn't ever really say if I got it. The title of my Blog is Lucky Star, because the phrase that I have found best describes this phenomenon (or essence) is "I was born under a lucky star and I'm just trying to stay under it." I get this image of me, staring straight up into the night sky, like a seal with a ball balanced on her nose, just trying to keep that star balanced above my life.
And now here I am, Square One. Again, I have no goals, no plans, just whims and urges. Most days I pretend that it's fine with me that I live this way - many of my urges lean towards having fun, eating, sleeping and having adventures. But then there are the days when I realize that I may not be able to keep living this way forever, or worse, that I may not WANT to. Its kind of like there is some sort of protective chemical inside my body that puts me to sleep soon after I start thinking this way. If I could just stay awake long enough to make some real choices... And now I'm getting sleepy, very sleepy...
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Home
I've been living in Atlanta now for four and a half months. I'm sitting tonight in my little attic apartment with the door open to let in the cool Fall air. Tomorrow morning I will go four blocks down the street and spend the day working as an office PA for a film production company, helping to coordinate commercials, corporate videos and even indy films. And then in the evening I will go rehearse for a hilarious Christmas improv show at the theater that I have been playing in since I was barely drinking age. I will sneak out afterward to have dinner with two amazing German directors who came in to town five weeks ago to help us put up a Fassbinder play in Decatur. They will be leaving on Wednesday to go back to Berlin, and I will be close on their heels. Well, maybe I'll wait til Spring, but it will be difficult to be patient until then - the work we did together was some of the best work I think I've ever done.
I'm on the stage again. I'm trying to pay my bills doing things that I am proud of - voice overs, production work, plays... It's not glorious. But it's what I can give and keep giving, because it doesn't drain my heart. I love being busy, I love being challenged, and I love being close to my family.
I will never say it was a mistake to have moved to LA. I don't hate LA. But four months later, I still cannot tell you why I left. I do know that I have not spent one moment wishing I hadn't moved. And I can give you plenty of reasons why I'm glad I'm here now.
Seasons.
Everyone coming to my house for Thanksgiving.
Neighborhoods.
Trees.
Theaters.
Friends.
Smaller Ponds.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Leaving LA, Part 2
Let's see. May 29th, the last entry in my blog, was a Friday. I was sitting in an Extended Stay hotel - now I know what that is, and its terrifying. Tiffany and I needed one last place to stay in town so that we could get her to LAX in the morning. We had spent three weeks insisting on the Four Hour Rule: Do not plan anything further than four hours ahead. The exceptions were few, but included such things as booking the flight, which Z had done a week earlier, when we had been on the road two weeks and it felt like things were coming to a close. When we started the trip, we honestly didn't know where we were going to end up, or how long it would take us to get there. But after two weeks I had started to tap into a long buried well of... for some reason the word 'spirit' feels right here...Anyway, I had begun to feel like a seed probably does when it's been tucked deep into the richest earth, warmed sufficiently and soaked just enough that the shell that has kept it safe has now become a flimsy, uncomfortable restraint.
In church retreat terms, it was time to come down from the mountaintop. So we booked a flight out of LA for Tiff, because all my stuff was still there, and while the Southwest has amazing places every 150 miles, Texas is a Whole 'Nutha Story. We could have called some friends and stayed at their house, reveling in one last night of vacation. For some reason though, Los Angeles didn't feel like part of the deal. So we chose a crappy cheap airport hotel, spent way too much on a neo-cuisine sushi dinner, and went to bed early.
When I came back to the hotel after having dropped Tiff off, I felt... well, that's the thing. I can't really say what I felt, even now, months later. Ask a prisoner what they feel the day before they are to be released. I bet the answer is not relief, or anxiety, or excitement. I bet instead, their eyes will glaze over a bit and they will get quiet, and you won't get any answer at all. Wow - I guess I'm being a bit dramatic here, but it's true - when I got back to LA, when my big roadtrip was over, I didn't really feel anything at all. I just kept going. In my mind I was ready to find an apartment and get going again on my acting life. That was Friday.
Sunday afternoon I called my Dad. He flew into town Wednesday night and by Thursday afternoon I was back on the 10, heading East. By Sunday I was sitting in Tiff and Z's apartment in Atlanta, and I'm not quite sure how I made it that far. I wasn't relieved, I was devastated. My life was irrevocably changed, going back to LA was an insurmountable obstacle - I had jumped into the void.
Without question though, I had to do it. I just knew. It was time to go.
This summer has been intense. Someday I'll be able to look back and describe the highs and lows, the moments when it was almost a disaster, or the glowing signs of change and forward movement. Or maybe this will all be a blur, like a car accident. Right now I feel like I'm simply along for the ride. Like my life was heading this way inevitably, and I'll be lucky if I get to pick where we stop for dinner.
So if I'm not steering, who is? And where the hell are we going? If success is only an accident, and if we aren't in control at all - What would you do with your days?
Friday, May 29, 2009
Flying over Phoenix
Ha ha! Take THAT! Warner Music Group! That will teach you to try and protect copyrighted material! For my next trick: a final episode of Southwest Escape 2009, using music that other people created, in order to (GASP! SHOCK SOUND!) introduce great bands to my friends and family, who might spend their hard earned coin on an album of their own. What a nasty music pirate am I! YAR!Thank goodness for broad sweeping corporate censorship. And... bitter rant finished. It really didn't take much to get my selfish way, of course, and now you can enjoy the sounds of Widespread Panic and Kings of Convenience while viewing the final adventures of Tiff and Tara one-point-oh.
A friend mentioned that it seemed there was a lot we were leaving out. Which of course is true - this trip was very much about some soul-searching for both Tiff and I, and I quickly realized soul-searching makes terrible web-vision. It does, however, make for good bloggering, so I will take some time over the next month to try and reflect on what 3400 miles can give a person, besides a lot of gas receipts. In the meantime, thanks for watching and leaving comments, sending prayers and thoughts our way. It all, without a doubt, made a difference.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
If I Tell You...
... then I'll have to kill you. But someone leaked some top-secret footage of Tiffany and I visiting a very unusual gas station in the middle of Southern Arizona, just off the I-10 Southeast of Tucson. I really can't say anymore. I may have already said too much. If you are reading this...
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