Grown-ups in Sandbox of Life! (as Actors in Music+Music in Actors)

In 1970 the UK art rock band “The Pretty Things” (then on the Warners label with previous releases on Fontana, EMI and Motown offshoot Rare Earth) became Rolling Stone Magazine’s only pick for album of the year that didn’t show platinum or even gold sales numbers. Hey it happens...

Nine years later (1979) a young inquisitive NYU grad (namely me), called Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song headquarters in Manhattan looking for a job and ended up booking an audition appointment to sing for Swan Song execs and with “The Pretty Things” on a Union City NJ soundstage. Still a haze after all these years as to whether they were replacing their lead vocalist who just quit, or attempting to put a frontman on “The Pretty Things” offshoot “Metropolis” (also signed to Swan Song) is not clear but there was deeper meaning afoot which I'll get to in a paragraph or two...

I do recall that many of those awaiting their audition slot that day were quite nervous. I hadn’t a clue so wasn’t nervous till I took the stage immersed in how large it was as I stood in front of several Marshall Stacks. A few were only offered one song or worse were cut off mid-song and immediately escorted off stage. I made it through one tune and was asked to do a second, confident in my command of the material and enjoying the experience. However, at the end that day, I was Pistachio and they were buying chocolate. Oh well…The best part is that I wasn’t even a lead vocalist but a guitarist!

Years later I became an actor today see clearly many acting parallels to the events above. As an actor you might arrive at an audition as one flavor say Pistachio but the folks hiring have a taste for another say Vanilla or Chocolate. Then there are those performances where you’re delivering Pistachio but it may be a little melted. In other words it’s not your best performance or maybe you misinterpreted the sides. At least you made a choice or did you? Choice of course is another discussion all together but one thing is for certain that with out it your audition, hell your life, is gonna be pretty damn boring. There are those who make choices but just don’t do the work and you certainly can’t deliver any flavor whatsoever if you haven’t done the work.

Last week I was prepping for an audition as the lead in a new web series. The script appeared to be well written. The sides consisted of 2 ½ pages of straight dialogue which in and of itself is quite a challenge. I was excited and worked hours on it. The dialogue began w “a greeting”. I believed that greeting put me in my scene partners’ office. I made a choice. Nowhere in the script did it say nor imply other wise. That led me to make other choices as well that would affect my approach and ultimately my performance. The day of the audition I walked in the room and was informed I was to appear on the phone not in person in someone’s office. Once again I made adjustments to my approach utilizing the new information and made a choice. Next I was told to ‘have fun’ with an emphasis on the word fun which allowed me the freedom to add further adjustments. Therefore I made even more choices which might impact an animated conversation with someone on the other end of the phone. Nowhere in the script did it say otherwise. After getting through the massive amounts of dialogue and returning home I learned my dialogue was supposed to be a long message. I was supposed to be leaving a freakin’ message!

I’ve always been taught right or wrong make a choice. No choice translates to “boring” and I’d made a definite choice only this time it was evidently the wrong choice. I received no adjustment, no light bulbs going off that I’d brought a new dimension to the project just that I’d made the wrong choice. Sometimes you eat the Bear and sometimes the Bear eats you…

I say you have two choices. Build a better mousetrap, take each challenge as a karmic lesson to overcome and meet every failure with a possible solution or you can find a dark corner and huddle in a mass of depressed flesh. It’s your choice. I’m back in the saddle. Life is an adventure and it is the journey I live for and learn from. Success is but a byproduct of an exciting journey. This boy ain’t waitin on the bench or standin’ on the sidelines. I’ll see you in the game.
Greg
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SELF INFLICTED SABOTAGE, A GUN SHOT TO THE HEAD

Quite a sobering title for this weeks self deprecating diatribe. Challenges and pressures in life come at us from every direction. Sometimes we plow through and sometimes we’re stopped in our tracks in need of re-grouping. Sometimes we see ourselves as loyal subjects prepared to do battle but in reality we are far from that. Our subconscious tells us we’re not worthy and we sabotage ourselves even though we have the tools for success hand and the ability to command an audience with the king. Do I not deserve success? Do you not deserve success?

I attended a class several evenings back and came out feeling rough like an expired can of store bought chili that suddenly finds itself in the midst of a 5 star chef chili cook-off in the southwest (where Chili should be king no less)! I had died with my boots on. It was as though I’d had open heart surgery without a doctor. Ouch! I then proceeded to further add to the bruising and beat myself up on the way home and the rest of the evening before bed as well as the following day. I awoke the next morning with a sabotage hangover from the previous evenings fight and subsequent destructive behavior. There was and/or is no one else to blame but me, myself and I.

You see I hadn’t put in the time necessary for my once pristine memory to absorb the dialogue and digest (that is analyze) the subsequent objectives, moments before, secrets and so on amidst the pages of dialogue before me. Somewhere, somehow I’d allowed halitosis of the spirit aura to flush away the golden light we all have access to. In plain English I crashed and burned. You could say my flight missed the runway. You see I didn’t do the work, spend enough time on it, really immerse my body, mind and soul in it cause I didn’t think I had too for the desired results but here’s the kicker, I convinced my subconscious I had. Sly huh…

I put this out in the universe in hopes that someone reading this blog will not fall into the very same pit I allowed myself to slip into and then wallow in, not for one second. My life journey with all its’ twists and turns has the potential to deliver priceless growth. All of us have such potential and it befriends or confronts us everyday, depending upon our outlook on our constantly unfolding life experience. As performers we are for the most part sensitive creatures that all too often go through our day wearing many layers of armor just so we can attempt to appear like we’re not wearing any. I’d better go put my study hat on and get to work…I ain’t goin’ down again, at least not without a fight…


TAKING COMMAND WITH A SURGICAL STRIKE, CREATIVELY

Additionally should we not also consider the possibility that maybe our creative receptors are clogged from time to time and a rejuvenated mind might give rise to deeds of perfection?

I awoke this morning with a call to arms ringing in my head, amass the Teddy Bear army and ready them for battle! As Supreme Commander of the magical realm my mind stands at the ready on the edge of a vast alternative reality as far as one’s imaginative radar extends. I thought soon I shall command loyal legions of a stuffed menagerie, my stuffed menagerie, loyal legions that responded in turn with a resounding silence. They can not talk. But first I must arm these battalions of the battle hardened so their dance on the edge of darkness will be devastating for all who stand in their path. What powers shall we deliver unto them? Take your place atop The Suitcase Throne, center of the garage universe, where decisions of merit are made and orders carried out. If life were only that simple…However, on screen we can make it appear that way. Its’ called film making and the demand for content is on the rise as the small screen begins to take hold of a market in turmoil.

Study and create. Do the work before it does you. Get back on your feet and never leave yourself for dead while there is still a creative breath to be had. O.k. so now that I’m out of my head let’s go to work!

IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST! (Sometimes You're On-Fire and Sometimes You Get Burned!)

Villains are fun to play. They have so many intricate layers and they’re usually quite intense. Utilizing your character as the vehicle for your actions, you can act upon thoughts in films and/or on stage you wouldn’t dream of acting upon, let alone even thinking, in real life. It all starts out rather fun but eventually the laughter shared backstage envelopes a more serious tone which in this case affects my sensibilities as an actor. A villainous character portrayal on stage night after night begins to meld the realities of the character into your own temporarily. It is at that point the nuances of darkness in my character tug a bit at my soul and my inert sense of right and wrong. The situation is both fascinating and a bit disconcerting.

Last week I played the “motivation” game. That is giving my character a unique motivation and captivating moment before in that short space in time I waited offstage to enter the scene. The last couple of performances I’d adjusted the darkness of my character dialing it back slightly. I began playing to several comedic moments which had been getting results from the audience in the form of laughter albeit fleeting and fractious on occasion and raucous on others.

There is a scene where I write a check for a fairly large amount of money. The other day the audience seemed to be in a near death trance. All quiet on the western front I said to myself under the lights, with the exception of a gentleman somewhere in the front breathing with the help of an oxygen tank. It gave the scene an ominous fleeting Darth Vader frame. It was at that moment I began writing the check. I wanted the audience to feel me writing that check, to feel what it’s like to have such a check written to you and in your hand.

The audience remained silent as I wrote and wrote and wrote…The seconds ticked on like hours but I was determined to elicit a response from them. After quite sometime the laughter finally came for I was no longer pretending to write this large check but I delivered and not a moment too soon. I was up on that stage to be real and to entertain and I damn well did. The entire cast did. It’s moments like that where each cast member drives the next upward and then all are as one. It’s a taste of eastern philosophy on the boards…I like to think I accomplish this every evening. It’s just that some audiences are a bit more challenging than others.

We’re now in the belly of the beast, halfway through our run. I keep thinking of this analogy that life is like a merry-go-round. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes your down but the cycle continues either way. Sometimes you fall off but you can always get back on and sometimes on a really good day, you get to stop along the way, take a breath and appreciate your mount. Eventually the music stops and we all get off…

CREATING HOLLYWOOD FAME IN THE DIGITAL AGE?

Recently creating Hollywood fame in the new digital age was the topic of a successful Pasadena Convention Center seminar entitled the Hollywood Hook-up; Creating Hollywood fame in the new digital age.

Speakers included Shadow Mihai, Esq. Entertainment Attorney and Producer/Director of four independent feature films and Co-Creator and Director of the online series “Coming 2 Hollywood”, marketing guru/actor Joseph James, artist Manager Cordell Capone currently representing several Grammy Award winning singers and Casting Director Anna Miller.

Actors, musicians, singers, models and dancers were in attendance, all with a single purpose, to build their Hollywood celebrity and move their careers forward.
Actor Greg Philippi, an attendee with an industry resume in both the creative and business sides of entertainment commented; “The seminar was a pleasant surprise. Building my brand in the digital age has proved to be an exciting challenge in the face of an ever changing technology landscape that is constantly providing both new hurdles and new opportunities for exposure, distribution of product and the ability to immerse one self into the creative process. There seems to something for everybody at this type of industry event. From an actor’s standpoint the Hollywood Hook-up provided a platform from which to network with potential scene partners, a means to share valuable casting and production tips, analyze market trends and to really spur creative thought. With changes in technology moving at lightning speed it won’t before long before we’ll need to have another just to stay current”.

Does talent translate to fame or do those who’ve achieved fame then have an opportunity to show their talent? How do we re-define and monetize an industry that is being turned upside down with a never ending sequence of rapid fire innovations? Is it possible to monetize “change”? As fast as these questions are answered new questions raise themselves. One thing is for certain, now is the time to think digital. What are your thoughts?

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