Tolerance Levels

I feel like I'm winding down when I should be winding up. That may just be the effects of a Monday morning, grey and soft, beckoning me back to bed.

I had to go to Sacramento for my day job, which necessitated getting up at what is, for me, an obscene hour in order to make a 6:25am train. It was for the best, I suppose, as if I was still driving it would have taken me just as long to get to the office (2 hours) but I would have felt that I could dawdle more at home before leaving. Trains do tend to make one punctual. I did try to sleep on the train ride out, to limited success. At least on planes they give you pillows. I would have loved a pillow, or a seat that reclined. But beggars cannot be choosers, no matter how much we want to be.

As it was, I was able to fix lots of annoying problems they were having in Sacramento before heading back. One of my goals is to get a few weeks ahead on RadioStar shows so that I can start passing off foley work to a gentleman named Taj Moore. This is a first step towards the general goal of distributing editing duties on RadioStar to a larger team of people so that I can give other projects their due. I haven't touched the novel in months now, and I fear that entropy will devour it completely. I was able to use the time on the return train trip to tackle this week's show, which felt damn good.

This week's RadioStar is much more drama than comedy. I like to mix them up, so that we have at least three funny shows between the dramatic ones. This is based on my own suspicion that people want comedy more than they want drama in their podcasts. I have no reason for believing this outside of my own observation of human consumer patterns. Maybe someday, when people start actually posting to the Cassandra's Call Discussion Board, I'll have a better metric for this sort of thing. We're all pleased with this show, though. It has a thematic consistency and dramatic completeness to it that our shows can waver from.

That night I was looking forward to going to Rykarda Parasol's CD release party in the Mission, and did actually attempt to do so. I was so exhausted however, that I had to leave after purchasing my CD, before Rykarda took the stage. I found myself nodding off to the excellent opening band, which is just disrespectful. I fell asleep on BART, waking up in Lafayette and having to jump off the train and catch a return one in order to get back to Oakland.

I caught a colleagues show on Friday night, which was more of a final rehearsal than an opening, although I was very pleased with my friend's contribution to what was a rather mixed bag of one-acts.

Of more interest was getting brunch with Suraya on Saturday. She returned a few days earlier from a trip to Israel. She went intending to do some spiritual work, and to ground herself, and ended up in a war zone. In some ways, it reminded me of our first brunch together after our separation, when she had narrowly survived a horrific car crash the day before. She's had a few near death-experiences lately: car crash, almost drowning on a white water rafting trip, and being bombed. It's a strange thing, to hear about these things after the fact, when the danger is done and all I can do is be amazed with her that she's escaped all these things without a scratch.

That night brought another game night with the guys, and then I went to a club gathering that was organized by a new acquaintance on Consumating. It was a much larger gathering than I expected in a club that I didn't even know existed. Sadly, it wasn't really my "thing" and I left in time for the last BART train. More and more I'm finding out new things about myself, things that I've known but am growing more aware that they are things that aren't going to change. For example: Burning Man. I went for two years and found it to be a very good experience... if not always pleasant. But I've never really been able to buy into the Burning Man aesthetic or lifestyle. I appreciate it, and I encourage it for folks who find it liberating, but I don't find that it resonates with me personally. Perhaps I'll explore my theory on this in a later post, as this one's getting long enough as it is.

As it was, it was good that I got a good night's sleep, as I had a production meeting for a short film I'll be shooting in two weeks. It was mostly a costume check, and a chance to do a quick run through so that the director/writer/lead wouldn't have to explain things too much on the day of the shoot. The AP has got things on a very tight schedule and the last thing we need are actor issues the day of filming. I wasn't sure that the meeting was necessary until a ten minute conversation took place when an actor couldn't understand why he needed to stand up from his desk and walk over to where everyone else was talking.

Let me say right now, that while this kind of thing is often made fun of, it is not behavior that 99% of actors I have worked with ever engage in. It's actually so rare, that when it does happen, I rather goggle at it. When a director says, "Move from point A to point B", it's our job to create for ourselves a reason to do so that makes sense with our understanding of the character and the scene so that it looks natural. It is not our job to say "I don't think my character would stand". Now, if the character does something that seems violently out of its nature (I don't think the gentle old grandmother would throttle that baby), then yes, there's a good chance for some dialogue over a point in the script that needs work. But this "what's my motivation" stuff is a joke both inside and outside the acting world. It's a degree of hand-holding that wastes everyone's time and immediately flags the person as someone that I wouldn't hire on one of my own projects.

Harsh? Perhaps. But I'm growing more and more used to working with very talented people who aren't divas or drama queens, know their shit, and consistently push projects forward instead of holding them up.

Case in point, RadioStar. We had a phenomenal recording session on Sunday, having just welcomed Janna Sobel on as a permanent member. We recorded three shows: a satire, a drama, and a warped fairy tale. Everyone was engaged, clear, attentive, and brilliant. My standards rise with each show that I do, whether it be a film, a podcast, or a play.

This is a good thing, although it does make me a little less tolerant at times.