I'm sitting in a small theater in La Canada, a place preseved in time without stadium seating, the screen staring out over our heads...okay, wait...I am...the only one here. Blame the rain. The news suggested, because of rain & lightning, that people might want to stay indoors. For me, lightning lost and cabin fever won. Rain is one of those things that I just can't resist. Plus, I had a free ticket for a movie, so I came out to see Juno.
I was in a different theater last night, and the irony rests in this: I don't wonder for a second why I'm sitting here instead of my beloved Arclight. I did, however, wonder what the hell I was doing back at Playhouse West last night. I was originally asked to help with a recording session, and then had to jump on the logo because the crazy director wanted to use a noose to represent the two one-acts. A noose. I ended up burying it in the text of the title, but still, those two responsibilities formed the hook that brought me back to Playhouse to oversee two small productions which the director eventually hailed as the Second Coming.
Both shows have been exhausted in classes, and one of the two was produced at least twice before at Playhouse. The three actors did a nice job - which was to be expected at the beginning of a run - but I just don't know that I saw the same shows that the director did. I have, in the course of the hundreds of performances I've seen over the last decade, seen some chilling performances, including the entire run of the first production of one of the two shows. It irked me when the director said that he had been waiting for 30 years to see work on that stage that resembled the work in his class, because he has come to see my shows and loved them. (Maybe he's just talking about his students. Yeah, that has to be it.)
And then it hit me. This is exactly the kind of culture that the director, who also happens to be the founder of the school, seems to love. Over the years, the people trying to find a voice in the theater company have fought, competed for time and space, and struggled against an apathetic student body to get seats filled. Each production becomes an army unto itself, knowing that a good percentage of fellow actors and directors who come to see it will only come to tear it apart. I've even seen the same behavior at the film festival, where the slogan has been repeated: "Lie, cheat, steal."
So why, I have to ask, do these people work so hard at trying to squash competition on the home front? Why do they work so hard on their own productions and fill their minds with the need to be better than everyone else? Call it my insanity, but I worked with the tunnel vision of why we needed to do the show we were working on. I wanted my actors to act seamlessly and not think, and to never finish working on a role. I wanted my production to stand on its own, with my particular brand and style, to speak for itself as a living thing. In the end, because of my failed struggle to keep the theater company within the reach of the entire student body (just a couple of people in charge did everything they could to squash those efforts), I ended up flying my pirate flag and focused my casts entirely on the center of the production and nowhere else. I isolated my casts and only depended on the school for production space and advertising. I have been with the cast of one play for about nine years now, having played more than a handful of roles in it. Whenever the founder gets involved in the production, I see the same culture coming up again, this time with a handful of people with questionable talent being held up and apart from everyone else. I isolate myself and stay focused. Why does it have to be this way?
Ultimately, I like to think they only win the moment of recognition, the conditioned response that they maneuver people towards, and the people they fool are spent mindlessly. Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, preached the concept of 20-70-10, in that 20 percent of the work force gets promoted, 70 percent do much of the grunt work, and 10 percent need to be fired. He based this on a competitive performance curve. Acting schools, and I imagine the entertainment industry, are built on something closer to 10-50-40, in which 10 percent are held as the elite, 50 percent are what pay for the acting school and the teachers salaries, and then 40 percent drop out. Know what that means? Everyone is expendable. This probably holds true just about anywhere that greed and insecurity can take root, but I guess in hindsight, the noose in the logo shouldn't be so shocking. It serves the same purpose it always did, to intimidate and illustrate the law of the land.
In the moment where I'm faced with this reality - which I've had a lot of experience with over many years - I always have to make a choice, and it becomes clearer every time. Am I who they want me to be, or am I what I believe I am? The actual answer falls right in line with my search for work. It forms the relevance of my close friendships. It's built into the rhythms of the journal/blog that I've been writing for 23 years now. At the risk of sacrificing everything - and I have sacrificed a lot - I am what I believe I can be. I'm not done evolving.
Being in two old theaters reminds me of how simple things get complicated. I beg you to understand that it doesn't have to be this way. Even a cynical heart like mine can find the simplicity in life and appreciate it completely, but you have to have hope. That is the best preparation for the very next moment.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The Trip Home - Part 2
The last leg of my trip home was spent without dread, without anticipation, without so much as a moment of concern over arriving at Union Station in LA. I was occupied with the moment - truly living in the present as it perpetually unfolded in an ever-expanding bloom of landscape and life. The view out my window was spectacular, and that was a given, but the really unexpected part about the whole trip was the experience of meeting so many new people on the way. These weren't just any people. The kind of people who travel by train know what they're getting themselves into, and are not blase about the adventure they're on, either. They're open, generous, and friendly, and they teach the value of the moment by example. I only wish I could have shared the experience with Flora.
Flora was my mother's closest friend in Miami, and she has been stuck in a wheelchair for many years now. She was the grandmother of my niece's youngest child, and she talked with my mother on a daily basis. By the time I got to Miami, she had checked herself into a hospital because of some pain that she was having, and she hadn't talked with my mother for a few days because she hated being drugged and incoherent. On the road to getting better, they finally talked on the phone and she said that she was going to be home soon. Flora lived vicariously through my 40th year adventures, wanting to hear all about my trip in October, when my dad and I drove up to central Florida to see the space shuttle launch, and this time she was really anxious to hear about my long train trip across the country. On that phone call from the hospital, she aske my mother to make sure to bring me with her as soon as she got home. I immediately thought that it was great that I had taken hundreds of photos on the way, so I could show her my whole trip. My mother told her that she loved her, and ended the phone call with the plan to talk again the following day at 3pm.
At about 2:30 the following day, we received the news that Flora was dead.
The cruel interrupted expectation of hearing from her best friend left my mother weak with grief. The whole house was quiet for hours, everyone sitting in their own corner, distracted with their own thoughts, trying to reconcile the uncompromising loss. There's no way to flip it over in your mind, even when the doctors were clearly to blame for Flora's death with careless drug prescriptions. Any way you look at it, she was taken away.
...and I sat there...and I thought about my parents...I thought about things left unsaid...and undone...and I exercised some re-evaluation in my mind. Have I told the people close to me how I feel about them, even if not everyone has been ready to hear it or is able to accept it? Have I wasted any moments with my family, taken them for granted, or worse, said things in the heat of the moment that I didn't really mean? When I make plans from now on, how can I count on any guarantees and then greet that appointment, that friend, that phone call with a blase attitude of entitlement? All I need to do is hear the sound of my mother being given the news, and I know - even better than I thought I've known before - that EVERY moment counts, and some things just shouldn't take you away from what is most important in life. This experience shook the hell out of me. The rest of my time in Miami was spent a little differently.
On that train ride home, I really opened my eyes a little wider, approached more people, and tossed any hesitation aside in favor of experiencing more. My last night on the train, I found myself at dinner with Art and Winnie sitting across from me, and Ann sitting by my side. The kinds of stories I heard from these people - their collective experiences, their amazing lives - could have made me feel like such a small person at that table. Each one of them could not speak without fascinating me, as if by sitting there I was as much in the presence of greatness as I was throughout my steps in Chicago and Washington DC. Art had knowledge about everything that came up, especially medicine, which was his field. Winnie had once auditioned at 20th Century Fox studios in the era of the greats. Ann, an interior designer, had dated Mr. Bushnell of Bushnell binoculars, and traveled the world. There I was, merely eating steak and drinking wine. When my turn came to talk, I told the story of my parents in Argentina and their trip to the United States, their sacrifices and difficulties, and then when I got to the lives my sisters and I have chosen, the whole thing became a story about honoring my parents, about their continuing inspiration and the closeness of my family. It slowly dawned on me shortly after I followed Art and Winnie back to our sleeper car (they were two doors away from my room). I sat in the freshly made bed by Jesus, our car attendant, and realized that we all carry our family history with us, that by being where I am and having had the experiences I've had, I've helped to fulfill my parents' dream of living in the USA, and that yes, although I fully felt the loss of Flora because she wanted to hear my stories, my parents still live through me. And I'm a writer, not for studios or for any industry but my own experience, which lends a bit of responsibility for having the ability to write.
I finally arrived in LA, and with a little perspective, I believe I figured out a good analogy for how I see my home city on the map. As I sit here alone in a restaurant (well, writing this part of the blog, anyway), I think back to life on a train and wonder how someone like me can thrive in a slow, social place like that and then turn around and carve my little bubble in this city. Here's the best I can do to explain LA: Imagine all of us at the supermarket. We're constantly shopping, pushing our carts and tossing both our basic needs and little luxuries into the basket. Not once would we think of looking in someone else's cart, not even at checkout, when we're laying everything out on the conveyor belt. At least, we don't look at the different items and attempt to decipher a story. Our groceries - our choices - are our own, and in the supermarket aisles we do not compete for a better collection than the next person. We're merely providing for our own and those who depend on us. It would be too self-serving to say that LA is competetive (with the exception of the entertainment industry), and I do honestly think it's inaccurate to say that LA is unfriendly or selfish. My city of angels is nearsighted, perhaps unwilling or unable to look deeper or beyond.
That's why I fit in. I don't blend in. I don't exactly even stand apart, either. I know, because of my actions and the legacy I carry from my parents, that I am the way I am because I've chosen to be this way. It's not inherent in the geography or tradition of where I live. It's not even valued much of the time. It takes me getting out of the city to find affirmation, or even the simple action of bridging the gap between people and exercising a little selfless curiosity.
Flora recognized this openness that I'm often encouraged to hide. My parents are proud of it. Thanks to Art & Winnie, Ann, Jesus, and the people whom I shared the whole trip with, I'll continue to trust my instincts in this wicked little town and do a little more than merely survive.
Art & Winnie, arriving home
Jesus, proudly standing guard
The rest of the hundreds and hundreds of pictures I took are at my Webshots page:http://community.webshots.com/user/sjirel
Flora was my mother's closest friend in Miami, and she has been stuck in a wheelchair for many years now. She was the grandmother of my niece's youngest child, and she talked with my mother on a daily basis. By the time I got to Miami, she had checked herself into a hospital because of some pain that she was having, and she hadn't talked with my mother for a few days because she hated being drugged and incoherent. On the road to getting better, they finally talked on the phone and she said that she was going to be home soon. Flora lived vicariously through my 40th year adventures, wanting to hear all about my trip in October, when my dad and I drove up to central Florida to see the space shuttle launch, and this time she was really anxious to hear about my long train trip across the country. On that phone call from the hospital, she aske my mother to make sure to bring me with her as soon as she got home. I immediately thought that it was great that I had taken hundreds of photos on the way, so I could show her my whole trip. My mother told her that she loved her, and ended the phone call with the plan to talk again the following day at 3pm.
At about 2:30 the following day, we received the news that Flora was dead.
The cruel interrupted expectation of hearing from her best friend left my mother weak with grief. The whole house was quiet for hours, everyone sitting in their own corner, distracted with their own thoughts, trying to reconcile the uncompromising loss. There's no way to flip it over in your mind, even when the doctors were clearly to blame for Flora's death with careless drug prescriptions. Any way you look at it, she was taken away.
...and I sat there...and I thought about my parents...I thought about things left unsaid...and undone...and I exercised some re-evaluation in my mind. Have I told the people close to me how I feel about them, even if not everyone has been ready to hear it or is able to accept it? Have I wasted any moments with my family, taken them for granted, or worse, said things in the heat of the moment that I didn't really mean? When I make plans from now on, how can I count on any guarantees and then greet that appointment, that friend, that phone call with a blase attitude of entitlement? All I need to do is hear the sound of my mother being given the news, and I know - even better than I thought I've known before - that EVERY moment counts, and some things just shouldn't take you away from what is most important in life. This experience shook the hell out of me. The rest of my time in Miami was spent a little differently.
On that train ride home, I really opened my eyes a little wider, approached more people, and tossed any hesitation aside in favor of experiencing more. My last night on the train, I found myself at dinner with Art and Winnie sitting across from me, and Ann sitting by my side. The kinds of stories I heard from these people - their collective experiences, their amazing lives - could have made me feel like such a small person at that table. Each one of them could not speak without fascinating me, as if by sitting there I was as much in the presence of greatness as I was throughout my steps in Chicago and Washington DC. Art had knowledge about everything that came up, especially medicine, which was his field. Winnie had once auditioned at 20th Century Fox studios in the era of the greats. Ann, an interior designer, had dated Mr. Bushnell of Bushnell binoculars, and traveled the world. There I was, merely eating steak and drinking wine. When my turn came to talk, I told the story of my parents in Argentina and their trip to the United States, their sacrifices and difficulties, and then when I got to the lives my sisters and I have chosen, the whole thing became a story about honoring my parents, about their continuing inspiration and the closeness of my family. It slowly dawned on me shortly after I followed Art and Winnie back to our sleeper car (they were two doors away from my room). I sat in the freshly made bed by Jesus, our car attendant, and realized that we all carry our family history with us, that by being where I am and having had the experiences I've had, I've helped to fulfill my parents' dream of living in the USA, and that yes, although I fully felt the loss of Flora because she wanted to hear my stories, my parents still live through me. And I'm a writer, not for studios or for any industry but my own experience, which lends a bit of responsibility for having the ability to write.
I finally arrived in LA, and with a little perspective, I believe I figured out a good analogy for how I see my home city on the map. As I sit here alone in a restaurant (well, writing this part of the blog, anyway), I think back to life on a train and wonder how someone like me can thrive in a slow, social place like that and then turn around and carve my little bubble in this city. Here's the best I can do to explain LA: Imagine all of us at the supermarket. We're constantly shopping, pushing our carts and tossing both our basic needs and little luxuries into the basket. Not once would we think of looking in someone else's cart, not even at checkout, when we're laying everything out on the conveyor belt. At least, we don't look at the different items and attempt to decipher a story. Our groceries - our choices - are our own, and in the supermarket aisles we do not compete for a better collection than the next person. We're merely providing for our own and those who depend on us. It would be too self-serving to say that LA is competetive (with the exception of the entertainment industry), and I do honestly think it's inaccurate to say that LA is unfriendly or selfish. My city of angels is nearsighted, perhaps unwilling or unable to look deeper or beyond.
That's why I fit in. I don't blend in. I don't exactly even stand apart, either. I know, because of my actions and the legacy I carry from my parents, that I am the way I am because I've chosen to be this way. It's not inherent in the geography or tradition of where I live. It's not even valued much of the time. It takes me getting out of the city to find affirmation, or even the simple action of bridging the gap between people and exercising a little selfless curiosity.
Flora recognized this openness that I'm often encouraged to hide. My parents are proud of it. Thanks to Art & Winnie, Ann, Jesus, and the people whom I shared the whole trip with, I'll continue to trust my instincts in this wicked little town and do a little more than merely survive.
Art & Winnie, arriving home
Jesus, proudly standing guard
The rest of the hundreds and hundreds of pictures I took are at my Webshots page:http://community.webshots.com/user/sjirel
Saturday, January 05, 2008
The Trip Home - Part 1
I begin this very first entry of the year in a small busy coffee shop in downtown Chicago with a warm cup of coffee and Donna, the sweetest and most efficient server I've had in a long time (they establish eye contact here in Chicago!). The snow has mostly been rained away outside, and the clouds hang low, skirting the buildings and thwarting my plans to see the whole city from atop the Sears Tower. This particular restaurant – Lou Mitchell's restaurant and bakery – came as a suggestion to me by Kevin, a man handing out the local homeless shelter newsletter. Wearing earmuffs and an eyepatch, he led me a few blocks away from Union Station with a little bit of the local history and an enthusiastic impression of the breakfast at Lou's, and I'm now sitting in front of the greatest salmon and onion omelet I've ever had. It's taking me a little time to get through it; It's served in the skillet it was cooked in (all of the breakfast dishes seem to be), and it's huge.
The trick to getting here is to not begin by asking anyone in the stations. Regardless of which one you're at, the people who work there are usually one moment, one key phrase or an off-center look away from snapping. I've tried to keep transactions light, brief, and simple, but at the same time I can see how I might blend into an unthankful population. All I have to do is sit in the wrong coach car, and I immediately know what they have to deal with.
Oh…hang on…free soft serve ice cream right after breakfast. Can't write now. I'll be with you in just a few lines.
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
11:21am MST
The view outside my window perpetually reflects the question "How did I get here?" Right now, I'm sitting in my little roomette with a cup of coffee next to me, typing away at my laptop and watching New Mexico roll by. We are about an hour away from Las Vegas, NM, and a little less than a full day away from Los Angeles. We should be arriving at Union Station at 8:15am tomorrow morning. In total, I will have logged 8,381 miles by train on this vacation (not including the local train I took with Monica and my parents for dinner in downtown Miami). That's four days there, four days back, with sights and experiences throughout the whole vacation that have changed my life. Truly.
Let me quickly recap the Chicago experience and what led me here since then. Right after a conversation with my waitress (mind you, the restaurant was busy and she had other customers, but she had time for everyone) and then a chat with the hostess, I walked away from the restaurant shaking my head. Everyone in there felt like family. Where in Los Angeles is there a place like that? Anywhere, not just restaurants, even in peoples' homes – is there a place like that? The work family cut the umbilical cord and set me free. The theater family is mostly the same. I digress.
I left the restaurant and entered the old Union Station, which is now both used as a waiting area and preserved as a historical place. This was the place where Elliott Ness fought the mob and had the famed shootout with Al Capone. I walked across the Chicago River from there and hopped on a little red bus for a two hour tour through all of the city's sights and attractions. I was pretty much the same wide-eyed camera hungry person I was in Washington D.C. I roamed a freezing Washington with a heavy backpack and layers of clothing, a camera bag slung to my side and a map in hand. I absolutely – and I don't know how to stress the absoluteness of this – made the most of my time there with the seven or so hours I had to roam I saw:
The White House
the Vietnam Memorial again (I bought one more bracelet from the vets nearby and said a little prayer for John Pagel's buddies and all of the vets whose families we've met over the years)
The Lincoln Memorial (I sat on the steps and looked out at the pool, embracing the moment as if I would forever more see myself on the back of the five dollar bill)
The Korean War Memorial (I said a little prayer for Tom Aki's father)
The Air and Space Museum (which also had exhibits from the museum of American History, which is closed for renovations. I was in the presence of….)
The Library of Congress (a building that awed me with both its contents and architecture)
The National Archives (I stood two feet away from the foundation for our whole country, the original set of rules in existence)
All of this, I did on foot. If you look at the map of the area, you'd see I did a lot of walking. Before I did all this, however, I didn't want to repeat the zoo of my Miami to D.C. trip, which was noisy and eventful, complete with a bad cover band playing classic rock five rows behind me and a crazy woman going through peoples' belongings. I got a sleeper to Chicago and assumed that the trip from there to LA would be easier. As soon as I got on the car in Chicago, things started going a little crazy in the car, all the way to Kansas City. It was one thing or another, and I asked about any available sleepers. Amazingly, one became available, and as I sit here now, I'm in my own little cabin writing away, pausing only to sip coffee or snap a picture outside my window. Since Miami I have taken 464 photos. That is considering that the whole time, I've been very conscious of seeing everything with my own eyes first, and then the camera captures the moment after.
In one year, I have seen some amazing things, and what I find most curious is that I could have merely chosen not to. It makes me think…and it makes me thankful. If I didn't write, if I didn't love photography, if I didn't appreciate everything I've seen, I wouldn't be able to tell the story. That, after all, is what I do.
472 photos now. It happens just like that.
The trick to getting here is to not begin by asking anyone in the stations. Regardless of which one you're at, the people who work there are usually one moment, one key phrase or an off-center look away from snapping. I've tried to keep transactions light, brief, and simple, but at the same time I can see how I might blend into an unthankful population. All I have to do is sit in the wrong coach car, and I immediately know what they have to deal with.
Oh…hang on…free soft serve ice cream right after breakfast. Can't write now. I'll be with you in just a few lines.
Sunday, January 6th, 2008
11:21am MST
The view outside my window perpetually reflects the question "How did I get here?" Right now, I'm sitting in my little roomette with a cup of coffee next to me, typing away at my laptop and watching New Mexico roll by. We are about an hour away from Las Vegas, NM, and a little less than a full day away from Los Angeles. We should be arriving at Union Station at 8:15am tomorrow morning. In total, I will have logged 8,381 miles by train on this vacation (not including the local train I took with Monica and my parents for dinner in downtown Miami). That's four days there, four days back, with sights and experiences throughout the whole vacation that have changed my life. Truly.
Let me quickly recap the Chicago experience and what led me here since then. Right after a conversation with my waitress (mind you, the restaurant was busy and she had other customers, but she had time for everyone) and then a chat with the hostess, I walked away from the restaurant shaking my head. Everyone in there felt like family. Where in Los Angeles is there a place like that? Anywhere, not just restaurants, even in peoples' homes – is there a place like that? The work family cut the umbilical cord and set me free. The theater family is mostly the same. I digress.
I left the restaurant and entered the old Union Station, which is now both used as a waiting area and preserved as a historical place. This was the place where Elliott Ness fought the mob and had the famed shootout with Al Capone. I walked across the Chicago River from there and hopped on a little red bus for a two hour tour through all of the city's sights and attractions. I was pretty much the same wide-eyed camera hungry person I was in Washington D.C. I roamed a freezing Washington with a heavy backpack and layers of clothing, a camera bag slung to my side and a map in hand. I absolutely – and I don't know how to stress the absoluteness of this – made the most of my time there with the seven or so hours I had to roam I saw:
The White House
the Vietnam Memorial again (I bought one more bracelet from the vets nearby and said a little prayer for John Pagel's buddies and all of the vets whose families we've met over the years)
The Lincoln Memorial (I sat on the steps and looked out at the pool, embracing the moment as if I would forever more see myself on the back of the five dollar bill)
The Korean War Memorial (I said a little prayer for Tom Aki's father)
The Air and Space Museum (which also had exhibits from the museum of American History, which is closed for renovations. I was in the presence of….)
The Library of Congress (a building that awed me with both its contents and architecture)
The National Archives (I stood two feet away from the foundation for our whole country, the original set of rules in existence)
All of this, I did on foot. If you look at the map of the area, you'd see I did a lot of walking. Before I did all this, however, I didn't want to repeat the zoo of my Miami to D.C. trip, which was noisy and eventful, complete with a bad cover band playing classic rock five rows behind me and a crazy woman going through peoples' belongings. I got a sleeper to Chicago and assumed that the trip from there to LA would be easier. As soon as I got on the car in Chicago, things started going a little crazy in the car, all the way to Kansas City. It was one thing or another, and I asked about any available sleepers. Amazingly, one became available, and as I sit here now, I'm in my own little cabin writing away, pausing only to sip coffee or snap a picture outside my window. Since Miami I have taken 464 photos. That is considering that the whole time, I've been very conscious of seeing everything with my own eyes first, and then the camera captures the moment after.
In one year, I have seen some amazing things, and what I find most curious is that I could have merely chosen not to. It makes me think…and it makes me thankful. If I didn't write, if I didn't love photography, if I didn't appreciate everything I've seen, I wouldn't be able to tell the story. That, after all, is what I do.
472 photos now. It happens just like that.
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