Serving Breath

I stopped by the Talking Stick on Friday night to show my love for their Venice MoZaic series hosted by the lovely Audrey. I had a cappuccino and enjoyed one of the bands for about a half hour or so. Getting a little hungry, I decided I would head to Santino’s for a bite and check out Fabiano, one of their regular guitarists.

On my way out, I ran into a man from South America, a musician, who had been in this country for some years. He followed me to my car and asked if he could play my guitar. When he saw my standard factory Fender acoustic, he noted that he actually played Spanish Guitar, but he could still play mine. He did, beautifully, and he sang right on the street – to me and the night. I always love when Elizabeth is handled by a real musician. It makes me feel less guilty.

Then we kept talking, mostly about his personal life, which I will not get into, but to say it was heartbreaking and fascinating. In the beginning of the conversation, he revealed he was writing a book on economics. Then he went on to say that he found musicians in the United States were different than other countries in that, they were so absorbed in the music or the lifestyle of the musician, it was all there was, all they had. In other countries, he said, musicians develop their intellects and are more socially active and engaged outside of their own world.

Now, to be fair,  I do not think he meant the ENTIRETY of American musicians. He seemed as though he had been based in LA most of the time he’d lived here and, probably, specifically, Venice Beach. But from my observations of the local scene and certain aspects of the biz at large, I had to agree with him. I also thought, yeah, and they smoke too much pot and spend way too much time watching YouTube…

He went on to say that he did not know how he could continue to grow as a musician, for his composition to mature and his life to move forward, if he did not develop his intellect and spiritual life along with his musical skills. Again, I concurred. I had seen what extremely out of balance lives could do to brilliant musicians, how it negatively impacted their music and the people around them. And that goes for others, too…

I was reminded of my Chicago actor days. I fell in to being a legal secretary to support myself until the BIG DREAM came true. I got lucky and ended up with a boss who loved me and was very flexible with my actor life. I got pretty emotionally involved with the office where I worked. I also adored the partner whose office was next to my boss, and three out of four secretaries who sat next to my cubicle over the years.

Kind of a Polly Anna on crack, I was probably too involved, but I looked hard at the lives of the people around me and did my best to be, not just a good worker, but a positive influence. After all, 40 hours a week is a lot of time to simply not participate in being human. I often got angry with Chicago plays set in offices because I thought the characterizations of corporate life were incredibly thin.

Along those lines, I had a conversation with a young actor at a party once. We both revealed that office work was the primary way we ate. I mentioned that I loved the people I worked with. To which he replied, “Oh! I know what you mean.”

“What do I mean?” Since I thought it was a pretty straightforward statement, I wondered at how he had interpreted it.

“You mean you love what you observe and learn about character. You love what you can use, what you get out of those people.”

“No…Uh…I really love the people I work with.”

“Wow! You mean you actually like those people!?!”

And I thought, how can you be a good actor if you are standing back, never engaging in life, so that you are always recreating a false experience? How can you be a good actor if you are always judging the very people it is your job to portray? What kind of artist puts himself above the audience? Why do so many seem to prefer worship over love?

We like fame in this country. When I was an actor, I dreamt of fame. In that field, it was the highest level of success. Not only that, it would validate my existence, all my life choices. When I did not achieve much worldly success as an actor, my sense of self worth suffered, but it did not completely tank. Though I may have neglected certain parts of my life for my art, I never hid in it. I never ran away from my responsibilities and the messes I had made. I never saw my work as a justification to use outsiders as food or to perpetuate some narrow minded master plan against my enemies.

When I am at my happiest as a writer and performer, it is when I know that I have chosen a life of service. When I am in balance in that life, I am at peace and I always have everything I need. That’s a good life. And like any good life, it starts with love, it starts with truth. Breath first, then creation…So simple, why do we so easily forget?

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee.

White Devil and the Game of Dreams

L

It was about ten years ago, in Chicago. I lived in this great apartment in Ravenswood with my best friend at the time. We had a walk-in pantry, dining room, sun room, corner spot, top floor…

Back then, I was an actor. I had a White Devil Agent, one who was notoriously evil among actors and whose public shenanigans were legendary. I call him the White Devil Agent because, in addition to being an agent, he was a White South African of British descent – the real mother fucking deal! (Though, I should note that the other two White South Africans of British descent, whom I know, are not devils, but amazing people. One (my mentor and acting yoda) did interracial theater – underground, with his actress wife – in Cape Town, at a time you could be secretly executed for doing so…)

My White Devil Agent, though he seemed to be against racism, had a raging sense of entitlement from which most of his bad behavior emanated. He could look you in the eye and tell the most amazing lies. He was charming and intelligent and so passionate about theater, especially Shakespeare. Ok, he was also bitter, petty and cruel, but not all the time – only when you were vulnerable…

Later, while killing time at an audition, I would share personal tales about this guy to a circle of fellow thespians, who all had their own White Devil Agent horror stories.  Upon finishing my turn, everyone was silent for a bit. Finally, one of them put his arm around me and said in a quiet, soothing tone as if I were an injured animal, “Wow, Peter had his own special kind of hell for you…” Yep, I had been special…

One particular day when I was still deep in hell with the White Devil – to whom I had foolishly given my dreams – I was in the kitchen, chopping. My roommate was at the stove. It was early. We were making frittatas.

My roommate was upset because I had received a strange card, the day before, from my White Devil Agent, following a spat where he had deliberately excluded me from post-class drinks. This was immediately after a session that my agent and teacher had led me through an emotional break down and had been oddly physical. White Devil Agent had feigned innocence when confronted, fawned endlessly about how he would never deliberately do such a thing to one of his most talented clients, and promised to make it up to me.

Soon, I received a card in the mail decorated by two intertwined golden hearts with a lovely, though ambiguously toned, handwritten note inside. Happy, but confused, I left it on the table and dashed to rehearsal. I had hoped making it up to me would mean an audition at Steppenwolf or the Goodman Theater; but oh well, as long as Peter cared…

When I returned, my 5′ 6″, 140 pound roomie was in a rage, waving the card he had found in my opened mail: “What is this, honey?!? What the hell is this?!? What? Is this asshole making inappropriate advances on his client or is he a mother fucking manipulative queen being all fussy over his diva?!?” My roommate was gay. My agent had been rumored to be bisexual. I had a crush that he liked to use against me when I caught him in professional lies. My roommate did not like it.

It came up again while making breakfast the next morning – the aforementioned frittatas. My roommate had worked himself into another little fury, probably because I had remained so passive. In a raggedy white T-shirt and his tri-colored, near knee-length sleeping shorts, my little buddy pounded his spatula against the skillet, “Honey, I know you do not play games, but other people do! Would you get that in your fucking head before somebody kills you!!?!!”

Nobody has killed me yet. But, sadly, I do finally realize that people play games. When people play games with your dreams, it is hard to extricate yourself, because you believe someone other than you holds your hopes in his or her hands. When you play games with your own dreams, you might as well throw them into the incinerator.

If you must give them away, hand your dreams to God. They do not always come back, but they do rest in peace.

After defining myself in a certain way for almost twenty years, I accepted that I am not an actor anymore. I accepted that, because it made me happy.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee

The Brutality of Nothing: Modern Love ‘Game of Thrones’ Style

I never really had an inclination to be a feminist until I lived awhile in LA. Before I get going, let me say to all my Chicago Theatre Boys (not the bullshit lawyers who bought their way into theatre companies to play at acting), but to the real Windy City Male Theatre Artists – you guys have your problems, but archaic, over sexualized views of women is not one of them – at least not as a general rule.

I did not know how good I had it back in Chicago. I took for granted being taken seriously as an artist just on the merits of my work. Or, in regards to the ridiculous standard of mediocrity that was often in play within a pretentious theatre scene, where nobody made any money – God love you, you Chicago Theatre Folks applied it equally, across the board, waylaying the careers of great male and female performers alike!

Here in Los Angeles, I have been sexually harassed on at least half the projects I have worked. I have had a director step into a scene for my fellow actor and use it as an opportunity to grab my ass and to kiss me. I have had a producer hire me to direct a show, then make remarks, while we are on a conference call to another producer, that I was there “sitting on his lap.” Male actors often thought it was ok to greet me, their director, with a wet kiss on the lips. I’ve taken a dinner meeting with a creative executive to discuss a spec script that I had written, only to discover that I was on a date and would be expected to put out by the end of the evening. That was especially true, if I ever wanted that script to go anywhere. Ah, Los Angeles…

So, on Monday, I fasted from sunrise to sunset. (No, not to be thin and therefore more sexually desirable to men). It was the last day of winter and I wanted to clear everything out, so I’d have some nice fresh soil to plant new seeds for Spring. By the morning of the Vernal Equinox, I felt almost like a different person. Five days ago, I was the kind of woman who would lie in bed all day and into the wee hours of the morning, watching the entire first season of Game of Thrones. Today, I am the kind of woman who will probably not even watch one episode of the second season, though it is one hell of a Fantasy Medieval Soap Opera.

In reflection, the well-acted though over the top series, was better therapy than I might have given it credit. There is something about the borderline misogynistic view of women that seems to pervade LA culture that I saw reflected in Game of Thrones, though it is set some hundreds of years ago in a time where women were considered personal property.

In the story, one of the many plot lines, follows Daenerys Targaryen. She is betrothed to Khal Drogo by her brother, Viserys. Drogo is the warlord of the nomadic Dothraki, undefeated and whom I begrudgingly admit is pretty freaking sexy, in a barbaric warlord kind of way.

On their wedding night, we see an awful, yet kind of hot, sex scene between the warlord and his princess bride. In reality, being taken roughly from behind the first time you have sex by a seven foot tall, ripped warrior who is hung like a bear, is not going to be pleasant. It is going to be painful, degrading and probably bloody. They were wise to cut away the second before penetration. It is like never seeing the actual deaths in The Matador. The brutal images would prevent the audience from later sympathizing with the character.

And, as the series progresses, we do grow to have some affection for the barbaric Drogo, when he falls so deeply in love with his new Queen. Daenerys recovers from the early sex, and literally, figures out how to get on top. Thanks to some advice from a Pleasure House Gal turned Hand Maiden, the soon to be true Khaleesi, gives old Drogo something in their tent that he had no idea ever existed. She ends up with a lot of power in the relationship and, to her credit, she also genuinely loves her Khal.

It is a love story that could not exist in modern times, well, not in this part of the world. Ok, so she wasn’t technically raped as it was a marriage and she was consenting, but she was clearly treated as property and as having very few rights or options in a world of men. WARNING: BIG SPOILER ALERT: That is why I am hoping my little Khaleesi, (who literally rose from her husband’s funeral pyre in the season finale, with three baby dragons clinging to her naked, yet un-charred, body), will win the game of thrones. END SPOILER.

What I guess all this really brought up for me, was that I have made the mistake my entire life of NOT manipulating men with sex (other than the time I got pulled over for committing three moving violations in four seconds, and I played the lost damsel to the big strong officer of the law). I find it to be rather the social norm here in LA to jump in bed first and figure out if we like each other later. The idea is that, as a woman, you get a man into bed, knock his socks off with how amazing you are. Then, when he wants to keep screwing you, you use that to force him to get to know you. You get him really into you and then you deny him sex, until he gives you what you want.

I’ve never been able to do that, although I think guys have expected it. There are a few reasons that I fall short. The first being that, when I am into a guy and we start getting busy, I usually love sex so much that it is hard for me to deny myself. Since I have no will power, I can’t use it against the guy.

Secondly, I don’t want to believe that my only real power as a woman is sex or that sex is about power at all. As I am getting older and losing my attractiveness, one does begin to see signs that one finds disheartening, though. In addition, I’ve always tried to give a man some credit for having a certain degree of control over his own genitals, so that if a situation were truly bad for him, he would not put his prick into it. In this regard, I have generally given men way too much credit. Well, the men with whom I have been involving or trying to involve myself as of late, anyway…

It always amazes me when I go to the supermarket and I glance at the covers of magazines like Cosmo. I read all these headlines about how to drive a man crazy in bed, in the middle of these beauty articles and various advice on how to hide who you are long enough to trap a man. There are all these do’s and dont’s that involve pleasing a man’s ego and giving him a false sense of how you will be in a long term relationship, so as to secure a commitment. I am sure in Men’s Health or GQ, there are articles that basically are teaching men the same kind of manipulations, though probably with a different outcome in mind.

I am pretty much a “what you see is what you get” kind of gal. Now, granted I have good days and bad days, so what you’re seeing and getting may be opposite things on different days, but it’s usually honest. I’ve tried to be truthful and open. On a hopeful note, men are drawn to that. It’s just that we are so conditioned to be something for someone else, in order to get what we want, men never really know what to do with me. Add to that, the complication of great sex and you’ll get a man telling you a lot of lies, if you don’t have one doing that already. That is how I learned NOT to sleep with men who are filled with fear, no matter how much pity they might illicit.

I have found that a lot of LA men expect, if you show them any interest or are remotely friendly, that you are pretty much ready to get down. It is later, as Daenerys does in Game of Thrones, that you get your lover to acknowledge your humanity. For me, even if the sex is hot, there is still a nasty psychology kick back, if it is anonymous – if I could be any open pair of legs in the situation and it wouldn’t matter.

It leaves me in a tough spot, because I feel a man needs me to be nothing for him in order to feel secure. Then, if I am lucky, he will decide that I have worth – only after, of course, I have proven myself satisfactorily as a sexual partner. In the mid 1970s, there was a really great episode of All in the Family utilizing a storyline with the Stivics to intelligently deal with this issue.

Like Gloria (who often proved brighter than her educated husband), I have no tolerance for the brutality of nothing. In life, you don’t get to cut away before the shitty stuff happens. Even if the sex is not physically rough, being nobody for me is too painful, especially when I am naked and there is someone inside me. You end up absorbing a man’s pain, frustration and fears with no way to release it, because there is no real relationship within which to put a context on anything. When a woman is open and spiritually connected, screwing someone who is filled with fear turns the womb into an anonymous dump for masculine emotional sludge. Trust me, this causes physiological health problems.

It doesn’t take you long in this life to realize that men and women do terrible things to each other. Hollywood has been a huge contributor to the kind of socialization that has led to our modern version of accepted romantic cruelty. Anymore, so many plot lines of movies and sitcoms rely on men and women wildly deceiving each other, or, people equating sex as the only validation for love. Women get message after message from the entertainment industry and the media that looking good and being sexually desirable should be their number one concern. To be fair to men, in these modern times, they are starting to hear that same tune – LOUDLY!

Even though I reside in the heart of the beast, so to speak, if I can keep outside of it, laughing at it all, maybe I’ll hear someone else on the outside laughing at the same things. Maybe it will be a man. Maybe he will be straight. And maybe, he will see me as a human being…Regardless, I will keep laughing. What else are you going to do? Other than figure out how to raise three baby dragons…
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee.