Ahh, alleged “threat,” the new bogeyman. Just ask Mike Wallace.

I can’t even imagine the fear of two grown Taxi and Limousine Inspectors when an octogenerian “lunged” at them.

I’m praying for a phoenix from the ashes.

I’ve been ripping my place up, pulling out anything and everything and determining if it’s got to go. The result, total devastation, like a hurricane without the rain.

My hope, when all is said and done, mostly done, is more space and a sense of order from chaos. My fear, M. shows up on Saturday, sees holy hell, correctly deduces I’m a mental case and runs for the hills. The truth will likely lie somewhere in the middle, I clean up some of it, and he helps with some of it (and I graciously accept his help, despite decades of Pat’s imprinting for independence). Then, after some sweat and hard work, we morph into a fresh start. (Hey, I’m still optimistic despite my desire to blow torch the place and really start fresh.)

Meanwhile, I’ve wasted (or spent) the morning surfing a bit on the WWW. I found Big Fat Blog, which is an interesting read on body acceptance. There are some interesting thoughts, although I can’t say I completely agree. I, myself, was happy that at my last physical I was down in weight and am ambivalent about losing the 10 or so pounds I could stand to drop to meet the doctor’s charts. I feel fine and all.

The interesting thing for me is that as a chubby kid (or at least bigger than my twig-like siblings), I was always pretty self-conscience about my size. And, as a kid, I could never, ever, ever, in a fucking million years, do most of the Presidential Fitness bullshit challenges. I still remember the sheer humiliation of dropping like a wet rock from the monkey bars instead of elegantly curling my bulk up to the bar.

But, when I was in college and was on my own, I became more comfortable with my body and how I individually felt. The result was I lost weight without doing anything, just being. And, now at 4o, I think I’m healthier relatively than I was as a kid. (Although, some of the kid pictures I’ve seen of myself look more like I was overall large, not so much fat, regardless of the chubbiness I was constantly reminded about by kids and my family.) I’m not sure if a “body acceptance” movement would have been positive for me, or just provided me an excuse for personal complacency. (I’m talking only for myself in regard to complacency, not folks with their own rows to hoe.)

Anyway, it’s something to think about. And, if you are reading this post, and you are a 42 year-old man with a phenomenal ass and the ability to benchpress 190, YOU DO NOT NEED LIPOSUCTION. But, by all means, you should get your eyes rounded.:wink:

Even with the shit that’s been going on in my life, sunshine and free time ain’t bad. Yeah, look at me world I’m a fucking cock-eyed optimist, giddy and sunshiney and not vomiting on myself in disgust at all.

OK, I have reasons to be hopeful, but fucking hell, I just got carried away. Fuck the glass half empty or full bullshit. As long as there is glass there is cutting, so life is all squishy wonderful. (You gotta dig from my recent woes that somewhere in the universe some moron might read that sentence and check me out for cut marks. Truth is, I wouldn’t even stab that level of moron. Someone has to clean the world’s toilets afterall.)

Last night was cool. I did a friend’s show and what sparse crowd there was soon got up and left. But, a couple more folks wandered by, and I decided I didn’t care anyway. Apart from laryngitis brought on by allergies and a weekend of screaming lines and doing retakes (and staying up to late), I just fucked around and riffed some shit that may actually turn into “jokes.” It’s amazing how much being relaxed on stage translates to some kind of something that people are cool with hearing.

Note to self: Apparently the world hates nervous people.

And speaking of laryngitis, two separate people within 24 hours commented on the sexiness of my voice in the scratchy alto range. Maybe I’ll just do a Fran Drescher and talk in a fucked up voice 24/7 to build my comedy career.

Other than that, I’m looking forward to seeing the boy-o, who I haven’t seen since Memorial Day weekend. Let’s hope mama gets herself a little sumping, sumping, because frankly she be climbing the walls these days. (No pressure if you, the man in question, is reading this here crapfest. You’re not in danger or anything.)

Maybe I’m just feeling good because for a whole day my stalker hasn’t checked into my site.

Or maybe it’s just that the voting has started on the new poll, and it looks like M. and I will end up on the same coast. (Because, of course, we must carry out the mandate of random Internet voting, regardless of where it takes us.)

I talked on the phone last night with another chick who ain’t working where I ain’t working. We both have lost weight and have grown back formally bloody nails and cuticles since moving on. Hmmm.

If you are in the Boston area, specifically Jamaica Plain, come on down tonight (Monday, August 9) at 8 p.m. to Laughing Gas at the Milky Way Loung and Lanes. It should be a really fun show, hosted by the Reverend Tim McIntire (who I have a secret crush on (don’t tell him or his wife)), and featuring some cool and talented folks (in alphabetical order):

Chris Coxen

John Curtin

Erin Judge

Jon Lincoln

Dee-Rob

Dan Sally

Mark Scanlon

If you are in the South Shore of Boston, specifically Braintree, on Thursday, August 12 at 8 30 p.m. check out
Annette Pollack’s Comedy Night at Jimbo’s Seafood Restaurant, located at Five Corners. The headliner is P.J. Walsh, the host Stephen Smith and Annette’s shows are always interesting. In addition the show will feature: Kimberly Egan, Adam Copithorne, Gail DiPalma, Glen Gordon, Annette Pollack and me, Dee-Rob.

The poll on whether I should leave hit the perfect percentile pool of 100 respondents, so I’ve created a new one.

The final tally:

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO NOW
100 votes

You’re a New Englander, stay put, it’s what they do.
17 %
17 votes

Go West, not so young woman.
83 %
83 votes

I am slower to start today than I ought, but I am full of vim and vigor, as JFK might say, or piss and vinegar, as the “colorful” yet purely evil mother of a chilhood friend might say.

So the shooting finished for the “Bush Focus Group” thang, and it was almost done on time. It went long both days, but not as long as it felt like it might have to at various points on Saturday and Sunday. And, for anyone who doesn’t think “acting” is hard work, fuck you. (I put “acting” in quotes not to cast doubt on any thesbians out there; the quotes are in regard to what I do. And, really, quotes don’t even do justice to the dubiousness of my “work.”)

I was dead dog tired when I went to bed last night. Tired from two days of saying the same words over again and again and again and again for a whole lot of different reasons. And, tired from the sheer boredom of waiting to say the same words over again. I know it’s a rinky dink indie short and all that, I have no illusions of grandeur, but still and all, it was a multi-camera shoot so there were a lot of different angles and whatnot, and the crew was pretty fucking great about trying to keep all the movie magic kind of shit together–same props and costumes and room changes over time, no noise, blocking outside light and sound as much as possible. Mostly, when you watch a flick you don’t think about how papers on a table in different successive shots that physically take hours to shoot have to be relatively the same in the one-minute edited chunk of the final film. Or if you do notice, it’s because it’s so bad it’s distracting or the movie is show shitty you have time to worry. I don’t think that will be the case for this one.

For anyone out there who doesn’t know and cares, in any film you see in order to get all those editing cuts from different angles, closer and further, blah, blah, and in order to milk out the words the way they should be emoted, there is just a fucking shitload of repetitive shooting so the editor and director can pick what they need and trash the rest. So, I was saying stuff one way, and then saying it again with more emphasis or changing the emphasis on different words or yelling more or who the fuck knows what I was doing. And, then, I was doing all of that yelling and emphasizing with my chair moved or a different camera on me or no camera on me but on the guy next to me. Over and fucking over again.

By the end of it, I had repeated everything so many times, the sentences lost a lot of meaning and just seemed more and more absurd, which was pretty fucking absurd, since my character said some of the most absurd shit anyway. By the end of it, I was also pretty convinced that I suck, since you’re redoing stuff so many times for so many different reasons, it’s hard to fucking tell if any of them were right at all.

The only gauge I have that I probably didn’t suck as bad as the voices in my head always imply is that folks all seemed to still want to talk to me afterward and maintained eye contact and stuff. I also got invited to do an improv/stand-up hybrid thing at some to be determined future date. (If you ever hung out at bad comedy shows, you would know the special awkward feeling of people avoiding eye contact and communication post death on stage. Fucking painful to witness.)

Of course, I’m not really bitching. OK, the “of course” there is stupid, because I am ALWAYS bitching, but I had fun and learned a lot. Besides, if I were truly bitching, I would be truly a whining pussy. The one other guy who was in as many shots, actually I think more than me, fell down stairs (at the MBTA no less) last week and fucking creamed his knee. He actually had to take the brace off his torn ligaments for a couple of shots, because last week he was brace free, and behind the camera he was periodically wincing in pain. Another guy has a very sick, sadly young member of his family terminally ill and was, I think, sticking with this project to keep himself a little more occupied.

Among the reasons I wrote all this bullshit down is because of an argument I once had with an arrogant woman who will likely never see this shit at all, but given the roads of gossip may possibly hear of it. Her point of view was everyone should have productive work that benefits other for a life of value. Her definitions of productive and beneficial were unbelievably self-serving for her career choice and disparaging of others’. Specifically about performing arts, while allowing some value to a society of the arts, she dissed acting as the most useless, because it’s just people reading. Per her view, actors don’t create or make anything they do, any more than a parrot speaks. In deference to my stand-up comedy, she allowed that I was writing, which has value.

Whatever, bitch, you’re wrong. It’s really a shame you think you know so much about life and the world, enough to opine about everything and anything, but in truth, you are as myopic and limited as the folks you dismiss in your intellectual elitism.

Preparing before the final shooting BFG

Somewhere between 8 a.m. yesterday and 3 a.m. now, I wish I could have slept more.

On tape tomorrow, I shall be haggard, and dark circles shall rein under my eyses. Yet, I was smart to have my character wearing rose-tinted glasses. The tint might hide a myriad of sins.

Still and alll, it’s a balance. “Acting” or whatever it is I tried to do in the daylight followed by a late night on account of a friend’s birthday. A couple of guys arguing the worth of Bukowski, some general talk about shows and whatnot. A seed perhaps deliberately planted for new shows, new ideas. A day and night both knowing that some folks think more similarly to me than I would have known by what 9-5 would allow.

Some people turn to coke to keep it up, and some to narcotic downers to rest. For me? I just wish on a normal night I slept more as it is.

Too bad a day of shouting for film ended in a night of shouting over music.

No rest for the wicked.