The End

I'm seriously considering deleting this site.
I can't really keep up the pretence that anyone is really deeply concerned with my ramblings.
Certainly they don't find it amusing or thought provoking, and I can't stand the idea of people coming here for pity's sake to see the newest bunch of my sniping and snivelling and I know far too well I'm too abrasive to evoke any sympathy.

And it dovetails nicely with my new decision to unsubscribe from several mailing lists, close up my public email account and give up my radio slot. To disappear back to the ether I came of, as it were.

I may keep the site up, unchanging, to come back to in some future place and stare at the ghost for a bit and think on what was.

About here I'd add some flip comment on my own mercurial nature, and how all this is likely to change before dinner tomorrow, but the more I write, the more certain I am in my course.

I shall read and ponder and slowly fade in memory into something better than I ever truly was. I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled, for I am old and alone before ever my time has come and I presume too much on the courtesy of others to sustain me.

Think well, if you think of me at all, for I have enjoyed being here, but I've overstayed my welcome.

Good night.

An Open Apology

For various reasons I won't go into here, I've been crazy for the past several days.
Bitchy. Mean.
I've offended several people who simply didn't deserve it and left others wondering what the hell is wrong with me.
Sorry, folks. I'm a fuck-up. I apologize.
I'll try to make amends if anyone can stand to be near enough to me to let me try.
But I don't blame you if you can't.
I'll probably hole and leave everybody alone for a few days to get over myself.

Wasting Time Is All I'm Gonna Do

Someone -- actually two someones -- tonight made me quite mad. I realized I either sounded like a total ponce or a total bitch.
I'm quite sure they didn't understand they touched a completely raw nerve.
They were making fun of actors. Specifically, they were suggesting that anyone and their mother in New York can get a bit part on Law and Order.
That had a point, granted: it is easy to get on the show, I suppose. I know plenty of people who have. I'm glad of it to, easy jobs for actors. I mean, it's a paycheck and a resume slot, all in one.
What really, really vexed me was their sneering attitude towards actors. The implicit idea that anyone can do it and that it requires no real training.

Which is so not true.
Obviously, as someone who studied it seriously for four years and who studied it for a decade before that, I take umbrage when a person belittles my profession. It takes a great deal of training, study and work to be any good at acting.
Stanislavski's students -- and most programs based on his teaching -- require besides a rigorous theatre study, fencing, gymnastics and dancing. Along with studying literature, art, history and pyschology. And when I say rigorous theatre study, I mean, poise, elocution, movement and newer programs teach tai chi and othe eastern movements.
And acting is only the beginning. Directors, dramaturgs, producers and designers all take acting classes as a practicum to understanding their own studies.
It takes dedication, understanding, and lots of work to be an actor. To suggest anyone can do it is an insult. It shows disrespect to the art.
No one says that about dancers or sculptors or poets.

Obviously, I spend a lot of time defending what I do. I take pride in it. I do what Shakespeare did. I what Marlowe did, and Tennessee Williams and Brecht and Ibsen. I can change the world, because I can change the way people see the world.

Also, it irritated me because I can't -- or probably more accurately, don't -- get on in the world of theatre.

I should go. I have to work early tomorrow.