Ripley’s Roost

So… true enough… my graduation has come and gone. I have officially completed by B.A. in Theatre at Arizona State University.

How do I feel about this? I’m honestly not sure. I think I’m happy to see it done. Everyone keeps saying it’s quite an accomplishment for anyone. I agree, but I think that’s largely from a financial standpoint because with skyrocketing tuition every year, fewer people can afford to attend college to get a four-year degree. I myself took a huge risk in the last couple of years by not working — and racking up a huge student loan debt in the process — in order to focus on my studies.

Everyone also keeps asking me “what’s next?” Again, I am not certain yet. For now, like a number of my fellow graduates, I will have to find work outside my field of study in order to save up some funds for a while. I do know that I want to leave Phoenix. I think I need to live somewhere else for a time in order to get a better sense of the world and really push myself in some way. But I also would like to continue my studies in graduate school at some future point as well. We’ll see, I suppose…

Graduation is so freakin’ close, I can taste it.

Freedom!!

Poverty!!

Oh, yeah… almost forgot about that. The umpteen thousand dollars of student loans hanging over my head. The need to find a job most likely not in my field of study.

Dang it.

I came across an article by David Gergen today. You can read it here, but what he said really struck me as true. The Democratic candidates are spending a lot of time quiblling over personal attacks and alleged racist comments rather than dealing with the pressing issues of this nation. After reading all the various comments, none of which struck me as particularly insightful, I decided to post my own there. And I’m reprinting it here as well:

While it is true that they do need to focus again on the problems actually facing this country and its citizens, I don’t know if that’s been true in any recent election, going back almost as long as I’ve been alive.

It’s become a world of sound bites and photo ops because that is all that both politicians (I include their operatives) and the media think we want to read or see. A world where all we get to see are video clips of candidates preaching to the choir, made up of those who can afford to pay $1000 for a fundraising dinner in the hopes that they have some chance to exert influence in a way that benefits them (the buyers, not the candidate). It is one giant Potemkin village of shiny, happy “voters” and I mourn the loss of a truly inquisitive citizenry.

This is why voter turnout has plummeted in this country… because we know deep down that our votes really don’t matter and that those who run for national office really don’t care one whit for what we have to say or what our concerns are.

I think it’s becoming more and more important in this day and age for we the people to challenge the government as much as we can through intellectual discourse. Only by questioning and challenging their actions can we hope to make our government and those who seek to control it do better on our behalf, which is why they are supposed to be there in the first place.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have donated to Barack Obama’s campaign and support his candidacy for the presidency. However, I have never had any direct contact with any of the candidates or their campaigners, even though I am a resident of Arizona and thus a constituent of John McCain in his role as our senior Senator. I feel that my comments above express my feelings about the political process in general and my hope that it will get better.

And now, the exciting conclusion:

“Hello, Brian?” the voice on the other end asked. I cleared my throat and replied in the affirmative. “This is Milward Simpson over at the Horse Barn Dinner Theatre. The reason I was calling was to thank you for your audition and that I’d like to offer you—“

“I’ll take it!” I’m just glad he never saw me dancing like a wild man in my bedroom. I nearly knocked over my computer in excitement.

“Well, take a breath, now,” Milward cautioned. “Let give you some details about this, because it doesn’t pay a lot.”

“I don’t care about that,” I stupidly replied. “I’m just glad for the opportunity.” The next morning, I woke up realizing that even the severe hangover acquired from the celebratory binge drinking I did with my brother the night before hadn’t diminished my excitement and anticipation. I had done it. I was on my way. I tossed off a silent message to God: Tell Grammy there is money in it.

I suppose I could add an ironic post-script to this, but I’d rather not.

Part 3 of my continuing saga to become an actor:

“I’m gonna be an actor,” I declared, my face beaming.

Awkward pause.

My mom and grandmother looked at each other for a long moment in surprise. Their eyes locked, as if formulating a response to my statement via telepathy. Then my grandmother preceded her thoughts with what I had learned even by that point was a mark of disapproval from her, that sound like a clock that sneers as it swings… tchk. I braced myself from the blast of her feeling that “There’s no money in that!”

To be fair to my grandmother, she grew up through the Depression and several wars and she and Grampy were very frugal people. As a result, we were reasonably centered in the mid-upper-middle class of working professionals. A lot of doctors, nurses, engineers and the like… focused, reasonably successful people. We were living in what I called the “White House” of Quakertown, mainly because it looked like a smaller version of the actual White House. We were comfortable. So I can understand now that this sounded like to her like a declaration that was going to strip naked and go live in the forest.

I turned to my mother in surprise, hoping for some support here. I was her genius son, the gifted kid who finished his homework in school ten minutes after it was assigned. I did what I was told, could do no wrong… surely she’d let me pursue this dream, this firm goal that I had held firm for all of two hours. And then I got her response – the patented “I don’t think that’s such a good idea”. I’ve heard that response many times since and understand it to translate as “you’re my genius boy and I love you, but if you think I like that idea, you are f—ing insane”.

I was stunned. How could they not understand how easy and rich a career this would be? I knew deep down that it would be, even without the necessity of actual facts and statistics to back me up. I could do anything I put my mind to, according to Mister Rogers. Surely if I show the women of the house my exhaustive research, they too would see the wisdom of this endeavor and support my chase for my own big brass donut. But no, just like that, they shut it down as a career. No child in this house is going to waste their life that way. Eventually, I was allowed to act in school and church plays as a hobby, but I tucked the dream away for the moment, never far from my reach where I could pull it out when I was grown up and on my own.

Fast forward… approximately 20 years later. I was living with my uncle in Wyoming when I came across an audition for a local summer job as an actor. I had started acting again when I was living in Flagstaff by getting involved in a radio drama (which never got finished) that reawakened for me. That led to some work in community theatre through out most of 1998. The amount of free work I was getting made me start believing again that I could make a living at this. But of course, I was destitute in Flagstaff, living out of my truck… and winter was coming. So I did the sensible and moved in with my uncle, who was very welcoming while I got back on my feet. Laramie being a college town, there was a company that offered call center jobs to attract the student body. So I was working there, helping people with technical support and thinking about finishing college, when I heard about this audition. It wasn’t a fancy gig, but it PAID MONEY. How could I not give it a shot? Sure, I didn’t have a headshot… or a really great resume… or family support… but once they see my talent, how could they not hire me?!

I went there that evening. There were about 40 people or so that showed up for this. We did some cold readings and actually did a dance audition. Not that I could dance, but neither could most of the guys there. We even sang a little, which I could deal with, despite not being in the shower at the time. Then we were sent on our way back to our lives. And the waiting began. Which brings me back to that day. I had the day off of work, so the lack of people not able to figure out how to plug my modem into the phone jack to dial in to AOL left me with just my own thoughts, which naturally settled and focused on this job. I just knew deep down in my soul that if I could land this job, I would work hard and some agent would visit and see my genius, catapulting me to the very heights of stardom. And that’s when the phone rang.

I continue with the tale:

This probably needs a little background, doesn’t it?

With my childhood in the late 70s and early 80s, I was growing in the infancy of the phenomenon known as cable television. Pay channels like HBO were a brand new concept. Not that we had it, of course; it was far more expensive than its local competitor, Prism. But the idea of programming that was accessible beyond the antenna was as awe-inspiring as I imagine watching the Apollo 11 landing had to be for my parents’ generation. The birth of Nickelodeon and MTV, CNN and ESPN… I don’t have to “Love the 80s” on VH1 because I lived it.

My favorites were the cartoons. You know the ones — those that were based around marketing the toys. GI Joe (yes, with the kung-fu grip), the mighty Transformers and their rather stunted cousins the Go-Bots, He-Man, Voltron… I watched them all. I noticed after some time that I was getting more interested in the credits at the end than the episodes themselves. So I started making a study of who was actually supplying the voices for these heroes and robots in disguise and the gang in the Mystery Machine. Day after day, I mentally tally the names and make notes to myself in one of those legendary marbled composition books you can still get for a dollar even today. I stopped after a month of this for three reasons. Firstly, I had the data I needed for my study. Secondly, I had become concerned that my love for my favorites shows would diminish if I kept going on this path of obsessive over-analyzing. And lastly, my mother told me to, most likely out of concern that a 7-year-old would undertake such a task like a would-be conspiracy theorist.

The results fascinated me. It appeared that only about 12 people were providing the voices for about 85-90% of all the cartoon characters out there. The names of talented people like Jack Angel, Michael Bell, and Casey Kasem danced across my crayon-crafted spreadsheets like the spinning wheels of a slot machine, taunting me with the promise of some big jackpot but never delivering. And then when it seemed I had spent for-EVER trying to make sense of this, the truth hit me: I want their jobs. To be able to work on so much at once must mean that what they do is really, really easy! Low risk, high reward… that’s the life for me.

My grandmother (Grammy, as we knew her) had cooked another fabulous meal for dinner that night. We all parked ourselves in the dining room (yes, we washed our hands, Mom) awaiting the repast comprised of some new way she had discovered to serve chicken. And lo, it was good. And as I polished off a piece of her amazingly gooey chocolate cake for dessert, she turned to me with a bemused smile on her wrinkled face and asked me, “Did you find what you were looking for, Brian?”

“Yep,” I replied triumphantly, “and I even figured out what I want to be when I grow up.”

“And what is that?” Grammy prodded. My mother looked on as she sipped her coffee, curious herself at the answer.

“I’m gonna be an actor,” I declared, my face beaming.