Most of the fall…from Eric

This is Eric:

I was really hoping that if I held off long enough from posting a blog I would have some sort of big triumph or victory to report.  However, any victories have been small and have been difficult to dwell in for more than a moment.  I have acted in 3 short films that are being edited now and I’m simply waiting on copies.  That means I’m 2 or 3 away from being able to realistically put together a reel of some sort.  I have a cinematography student with a crew that will be shooting the film that I wrote for Jenn and I in a little over a week so I’m please that that will finally get shot–though I won’t have time to sit and edit it with him until after Christmas most likely.  I have an audition in a week for a feature length movie that would actually take two weeks to film by way of a production company that has a real name and a real website–woo hoo.  I also wrote a one act play, that I’m pretty proud of, that I submitted for a festival/competition and we just got word that it was accepted so we’ll be doing that (with our good friend Scott acting with us)  in February.  So, I know that I have potential as a writer.  I know that my headshot is good enough to get me appointments for auditions.  I also know that I’m pretty darn good at my job.  There is a downside to all of it, though.  I don’t have enough time or ideas to be a prolific writer and really stretch where that might lead.  While I’ve been getting auditions, I haven’t felt like myself at a single one of them in the last month.  There is weird, conflicting swirl going on in my head–a bit of “oh crap, oh crap, you better get this, you better get this!” and a dash of “what difference does it make?” which leads to me resting solely on natural abilities and on-the-spot script interpretation which just isn’t enough here.  I haven’t felt completely confident about anything I’ve done or am doing in what feels like a very long time.  The job thing…well, at least for me, in this field being good at your job does not necessarily translate into making any money.  I have yet to close one deal….not a single one.  So, I’ve been working for free for about a month now…which means stirring up motivation to actually go into work has been…oh…gee…what’s the opposite of easy?….uh…right–like Rush Limbaugh selling suits and BMWs on the rough side of Harlem.  If it weren’t for Jenn’s evil eye, I probably would have given up and moved into a box by now.  Every time it feels like I nailed an appointment or have a senior agent give me some sort of approving hand gesture (not nearly as often a thumbs up as I would like…usually a point and a wink) after a “successful” phone call, I am then blindsided by some outside factor or mild form of neurosis on the part of the client and they decide that it would be better for everyone if they moved to suburban New Jersey and commuted 2 hours (1 way) into work every day—which is awesome.  It definitely feels as if God is withholding blessings…teaching me/us to trust in a way we’ve never had to before.  I didn’t realize that oh-so-subtlely began to trust, and take heart in, the number on my monthly bank statement more than God, Himself.  But I do.  After that was pointed out to me, it’s been an seemingly tireless battle to stop worrying about our funds quickly melting away and trust that He brought us out here for a reason and will take care of us beyond what we could hope for (while accepting failure if that is in His plans instead).  Thinking about as often I do and trying NOT to think about it as often as I do leads to very little progress.  At this point, I don’t even know we’ll have enough money to still be living here in February to do our play.  Right now, in this journey, the quest to quiet the potential “what if”s has led to countless “if only”s.  Mostly, if only we had made this much progress two months into our time here–instead of five–can you imagine how hopeful…how taken care of…how destined.. we would feel right now?  As it stands, it now feels like, after taking two stinking hours to figure out this whole “building a snowman” thing, it’s getting dark and Mom’s calling us in for dinner.  I guess we’ll see.

Some Randoms:

I saw this Hasidic Jew dude on the subway the other day with the most disorderly facial hair I’ve ever seen.  Instead of one beard, it looked like 635,000 individual hairs–each with their own personality.  It reminded me of an ear of corn after just peeling down (shucking?) the outer layer and then seeing all those wispy, wrangly strands hanging about.  Then I thought about how much I like corn-on-the-cob.  Then I thought about how gross it would be to eat corn that was just covered in that guy’s beard hair.  Then I thought about how unpleasant it would be to kiss that guy.  Then I realized it would be impossible because I literally could not see his mouth.  Then I saw that he didn’t have a wedding ring on so he was, most likely, not getting kissed by anyone.  Then I felt sad that he wasn’t kissing anyone.  Then I looked at his beard again and thought it was probably for the best.

So, New Yorkers talk about racism quite a bit.  But being from such a white vs. black area, I never really thought it was that much of a problem since I was witnessing so many different ethnicities intermingling and co-existing all the time.  My job though has introduced me to an unexpected source of racist attitudes:  the Greeks (is it racist to say that Greeks are racist?….hmmm).  The most obvious case was when I took a black couple out on an appointment and our last apartment of the night brought us to a neighborhood called Bay Ridge.  Apparently, nearly all of the owners and landlords in Bay Ridge are old Greek guys.  The landlord called to say he was stuck in traffic and was running about 10 minutes late.  So, we waited in front of the building and, about 20 minutes later, a older guy drove slowly past the property–his eyes searching the front of the building.  I noticed his behavior and stepped forward and tried to match his eyes.  He saw me, he waved big and pointed at my clients and made question marks with his eye brows.  I nodded and circled the three of us with my finger.  He waved again and kept driving slowly forward.  I presumed he was looking for a parking space…but he just kept going.  About two minutes later, he called me and said, “hello, Eric, I thought I was going to be there by now but it looks like now it will be like an hour…maybe two hours..uh…because something happened on the expressway…so…yeah.  If you and your clients want to wait, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts close by.”  I tried to pin him down but he warbled his way out of the conversation and my clients decided our appointment was over.  I explained to them what he said and they immediately knew what really happened.  I knew they were right.  After finding out from the other agents that Bay Ridge/Greek landlords are known for that, I thought back to Jenn and I’s first conversation with our Greek landlord.  We admitted that we didn’t have jobs yet and were moving here to become actors.  He said, “eh, I’m not worried about that.  So, you like place?”  I really like our landlord.  He’s a great guy…but we are white….so he’s probably a racist.  Which reminds me that David Mamet is debuting a new play here soon called “Race” and it’s co-starring David Alan Grier.  Not only do I think that Grier is a poor choice for just about any role but I think Mamet is extremely overrated.  There, that’s a less awkward note to end a paragraph on.

Nearly all the film students here are freaking snobs.  They all defend Citizen Kane–which is horrible (any time you use the spinning newspaper headline trick more than five times in one hour, I think you deserve an F) and they all love Raging Bull (which is about like, I imagine, watching a step-by-step movie on how a cow in the field become the burger in your mouth).  They all completely disrespect anything that has any commercial success or is actually enjoyable to watch or can move a person to tears.  Which means I really like starting conversations that make them wish they had never cast me in their film…but then I’ll listen to the looong story about their pilgrimmage from Italy to New York City and make a funny joke and then they like me again.  But their opinions still suck…and they take too long setting up lights.  Also, I’m jealous that they’re going to classes about how to make movies.  Uhhhh, Thanksgiving should be nice.

Tags: acting, broadway, christian, film students, husband and wife, new york city, racism