Quiche Us A Song

It's eight AM on a Friday. The regular crowd sips their coffee. There's a gay man, sitting next to me, making love to his eggs and toast. La dee da ditty da. La dee dah ditty da. Complain again mister actor man, complain again today, cause we're all in the mood for some really good complaints, and once again you're complaining.

I actually have nothing to complain about, but last night I sort of hit a funk, and needed a friend to talk through it. It had nothing to do with my career/s... All personal stuff, wrestling with recurring themes. But the theme of the conversation kept coming back to...

You can change that if you want to change that. They're just choices. These are things you've chosen.

Choices... that is our life. Choices and decisions. Not something new. Not something shocking. Not even something new to these blogs I write. With a minimal schedule my weeks are full of choices to make. Next week, there's only two things I have to do. One is show up at a workshop I have in my datebook... The other is call for jury duty. Yup, that's right... Jury duty. Part of me is actually looking forward to it, the fact that something different this way comes...

Course this week I found out I have a pin in me for a nice sized guest role, that would work all next week. I would imagine today I'll be finding out if they in fact do chose to go with me. I don't really know the process of being assigned jury duty and then booking work, but since acting jobs come up so infrequently, I'll have to do what I can if I'm offered the role. Pay the fine, do the time... Whatever. And it being Los Angeles, I'm sure I won't be the first person with this predicament. If I do go I'll be sure to bring my laptop, and perhaps I'll be inspired to write something new... Blog like a crazy person... Or just finish up a first draft of the latest western I'm working on (my second).

There is sort of a line of logic with this particular blog, though it might be pencil thin... Yesterday before my conversation with a friend, I was able to talk with a casting professional that I've known for a few years now. The numbers she mentioned were astounding. Nothing new to my ears or your eyes, but once again, astounding... For every role she casts she must get over a thousand submissions. Of those submissions only fifty or so are right for the role. Out of those fifty and actors she knows only twenty she may see to pre-read. Out of those twenty, at most eight go to producers. And out of those eight, one gets the role. So, where one can't cash "you got a pin in you" and landlords don't accept "I'm going to producers" as rent payments...

We are judged every time we audition, by a jury in the room or in other rooms watching us on tape. We don't get to choose what roles we go in on, or what roles we get called back for, or what roles we book, but we do get to chose whether or not we want to continue to go in. If I wanted a 9 to 5 job, I have that option... If I wanted a family with the white picket fence and 2.3 kids... I've had that option too. Whether or not, like the defendant behind the desk, our "fates" are determined by a jury. But unless we were framed into becoming an actor, we probably had something to do with the reason we're sitting in the room...

What am I writing about? Wouldn't it be cool if I'm actually going insane right before your very eyes... If you can read the slow deterioration of a healthy mind into the mind of a raging self-obsessed lunatic?  Wouldn't that be something?

To book a job is a wonder... But to string a career of ten, twenty, thirty or forty years together is a wonderment. With salaries dropping and quotes not being met, cost of living going up, and houses ridiculously over priced...

And the waitress is submitting herself on line, as a kitchen guy stares out the window... Yeah, we're sharing a dream in Los Angeles... But it's better than... it's better than... it's better than...

Oh La dee da ditty da. La dee dah ditty da.

-- Quichetcase ~ Tom Kiesche

If I can dissuade just one person from becoming an actor, I've probably done someone some good.

Oh and that picture is a still from the feature THE ANIMAL.

This just in...

Didn't get guest role... But did find out my agents renegotiated a commercial. For at least one cycle KaChing!

Comments

[Lilac]

Oh yes, the movie The Animal. Even I know how to spell your last name.

"If you can read the slow deterioration of a healthy mind into the mind of a raging self-obsessed lunatic? Wouldn't that be something?"

Okay, I'm a little frightened.

~~L

[JimTodd]

Brutal post. Yet, oddly, consoling in a validating kind of way.