Airport 2

This is the man I'm sitting next to on the plane! I'm getting really confident with this clandestine picture-taking-from-one-foot-away-from-my-subject thing. Now I know how Jane Goodall feels...

This man fucking stinks. He smells like a burning mass of barley and hay. And inside the fiery pile, is a huge human poop. That is what this man smells like.


And I'm NOT being a mean person right now. I'm being JUST. Because his stupid, fat, German arm is like, completely fat-ing all over on me. It's in my Personal Space, and he doesn't have the right to put his body in my Personal Space!! I've been to camp!!!

The whole ride I was seething, concocting different plans for ways to move his Turkish Delighty elbow out of my face.

I decided to tell him the simplest way; by explaining that as a child, my rib was broken in two, and it hurts me every time he jabs me in the side. But then I realized he'd PROBABLY assume I broke it because I am a gymnast.
And I there's one thing I hate, is when people assume I'm a stupid gymnast.

Airport

Watching old men very, very slowly take off their belts in the airport security line makes me extremely uncomfortable. It makes me think of all the young women in the course of history that have also watched this repulsive act unfold right before they get raped.

Housing Works Bookshop & Cafe

Still in New York and trying to finish the first draft of a kid's movie before I get on the plane. Ideally, I have a shitty first draft to scribble all over and spill my gin and tonic and smudge my salty fingers on. I do not think this will be the case.
I was on a roll, almost done with it, then I remembered, "hey, wait a minute.... I tooootally forgot I hate myself!" And then stopped. These kid characters are way better than me, they deserve something better than this stupid story. It's either too simple, or too complex. No, it's never too simple; scratch that. It's too easy, I should say. Nothing is ever simple!!!

Delaney The Sister took me to her favorite place to write this morning. I was pumped, but then realized we were in a bookstore. I can't write in a bookstore!!! Even this super cool, altruistic one.
Every time I look up from the stupid blank page (yeah.... I write free hand... So retro... Jealous?) there are all these people I know. "Omg! Herman Hesse! Totally haven't seen you since I was like, 16 and deep into existentialism! This? Oh, this is just a screenplay I'm writing. For kids. You're right, there ISN'T meaning in life! I'll put this pen down this minute, pick you up, and spin in circles till I puke. Because why the F not!?! Dude, you so get me. Am I high?"
Coffee or no coffee, I can not write in bookstores.

Black Lung

I'm dating a guy that quotes "Zoolander." A lot.
One step further away from giving birth.

I Miss My Old Boss

I moved  to Los Angeles because the man on the right gave me a job that usually takes kids years and years and years of awful PA-work to reach. This is Craig Wright. I first read one of his plays in school, ("Lady") and I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever read, simply because of its simplicity (redundant).

I write completely differently now because of him. Or, better, I write the exact same way, except I think through (and harder) about the story I'm trying to tell. Differently.

When I see this picture, I become incredibly sad. They all represent the most important moments in my life, and  taught me how fleeting those moments will always be.

The guy on the left I auditioned for when I was 17 and still in high school.  He made me cry my entire flight home from Chicago to LA because after my monologue he said, "You really don't understand what you are doing at all, do you?" to me after my monologue, and I thought that meant I was the worst 17 year-old actor in the world. Then he accepted me into this incredible school that made me such a better person (though, he still tells me I need to work on my vulnerability on stage... I'll get to that).
The due in the middle represents Chicago theatre, which, for those couple hundred of you that are enmeshed in it, understand how it's an untenable world to articulate; both sweet and sad and intense and simple. Maybe because I'm not in it anymore I'm glorifying it more than it should be, but I don't think so.
And the other taught me how to tell a story. All of them represented these intense moments in my life that vanished within a day. I graduated, I moved, the job was over.

I'm just realizing this now, but I think most of my emotional life is spent convincing myself I'm not affected by things. Because if I didn't do that, I would just cry all day long. I let things that don't have anything to do with me personally affect me.... I don't mind that I cry every time I turn on NPR on my drive home. But things about myself... you HAVE to create this wall, because if you don't, how do you wake up every morning? I guess other adults just aren't affected this much by things ending. Specifically (like these three above), extremely personal and emotional things ending.

The last time I saw Craig, at the MTV premiere of his show that I worked on, I was teary-eyed and wanted so badly to convey this to him. But he always thinks I'm joking. Because 9 times out of 10 I am. Okay, 10 times out of 10 I am. I was raised by emotionally stunted comedians, so sue me. I was so frustrated that he wasn't listening that I put my tongue on his neck as he hurriedly tried to leave/get away from me. I thought that would stop him. That's the universal sign for trying to get someone's attention while hugging you goodbye, right? Sticking your tongue on their neck/ear? I'm sorry, Craig, it was instinctual. Dexter told me to be instinctual.

But that didn't work. So I'm destined to see images like this that boil up a myriad sweet emotions, and patiently wait until 5:30 when I'm on the 101 listening to Lakshmi Singh discussing the children living in the Gaza strip, to let them out.





*Picture is (from L to R) of: Dexter Bullard, one of my favorite teachers from acting college, Michael Shannon, a company member at the first theatre I worked at in Chicago - A Red Orchid Theatre-, and Craig. Dexter is directing Craig's play "Grace," which is on Broadway now starring Michael.

Writers' Room

The back of the heads of a lot of very, very funny men in their 40s. I really wish I could take a real picture of the men I work with, but that would be embarrassing. I feel like I'd ask, there'd be a silent beat, then everyone would go back to talking.

This is the second writers' room I've worked in. The first was Underemployed on MTV. I wish I had a picture of those writers as well. Or a secret picture, like this. I really like writing jokes for television.

I'm trying hard to write interesting blog posts, but I am very tired from staying up until 2 AM the last few nights doing re-writes for a children's show. So my interesting world view is dwindled down to "I like this job. I like TV. I like pizza." "I don't like bugs. I don't like meanness."
AKA This is not good writing. Maybe with some more years doing this, and a couple shades of balding, I will get better.

LIL' P-NUT

Is the coolest kid in the world.
He is an actor on the Nickelodeon show I am working on, and usually you'd call a child actor an "actor" but this kid is a fucking Actor. He's incredible. And this is his first show! And he's not a stage kid! He's a rapper from Memphis. And. He's. Amazing.

It's like... you give him a joke, and he can get three separate laughs out of that one joke. He reacts to everything, even when he knows the camera isn't even on him.

And when he wraps a scene.... he does a back flip.

Lil P-Nut is the coolest kid in the world.

His conversation is amazing as well

What are these guys up to....

Father and son... matching Indian Jones hats.... going into Ralphs in the middle of the day... something fishy is going on....

My Gym

Is disgusting.

Last week, an old man came up to me when I was on the stationary bike to let me know he recently, "Got a yeast infection off THAT VERY bike."
And this woman:

Cornered me in the locker room
(fully, completely, terrifyingly naked) (you can't tell from this picture, but she's like 90 and was wearing what seemed to be, 1940's Call Girl stage makeup)

and told me she was An Artist. 
"Oh yeah... cool... great..."
"You look like a young girl that likes art."
"Okay."
"Would you like to go with me to my car?"
"What?"
"My name is Rusty."
"I'm sure it is."
"I have a truck full of BEAUTIFUL hair clips I make because I'm an artist that I would like to show you."
"Oh... I don't wear hair clips..."
"Maybe your friends wear hair clips?"
"No... I don't... have any friends..."
"They are a reasonable price."
"No, no I think I'm fine."
"I would really like for you to come to my car to look at my artistic hair clips."
"Look, Rusty, I don't want any hair clips."

I didn't say that, but I hope sometime in my life, I get to say something as cool as that. I also could have said that not half an hour ago, I had surreptitiously taken a picture of her on the treadmill, trying to get a picture of her outfit and more specifically, the nutty hair clip she was wearing!!
It was like a rose the size of my fist with an equally large butterfly sitting on it. To the gym?

90% of me almost went with her to her car so I could take pictures of said hair clips. But then she might have told me even more about her life, and I just don't care.

American Federation of Muscians: Part III

After about a month, the Head Hancho sat me down and asked me what my intentions were with his daughter (company). It was so weird, because I'd just been used to making fun of this super, super silly place. Writing down wacky things the old people were saying... taking pictures of them when they weren't looking... making sure I was documenting some of the work they were having me do... such as when Dick's partner in crime, a great-grandmother who is OBSESSED with David Boreanaz, asked me to file some of her recent work.
Evidence:

(I LOST THIS PICTURE. IT WAS A BUNCH OF SHIT IN A PILE. THERE WERE NAPKINS, MAGAZINES, AND POST-ITS WITH SCRATCHES ON THEM, AS IN SOMEONE WAS OBVIOUSLY TRYING TO TEST A PEN'S INK OUT. I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS POST IS NEITHER FUNNY, NOR INTERESTING BC I LOST THIS PICTURE. BUT I BELIEVE IT AN IMPORTANT  STORY TO BE REMEMBERED. MOSTLY FOR THE HUMAN RACE.)


What, did she want me to make a file folder labeled "used napkins?" "Scribbles?" "Extremely old hair magazines that I don't know what you do with because you don't have any hair?"
Ay-yi-yi.
In conclusion, this is a good example of the "work" I was doing at this place. I.E. try to sift through chaos. At first it's funny, but then it's just terribly sad. It would be so incredibly hard to be in the work force right now as an older person. Everything you know about life has been changed instantly. I just feel so bad that I try my best to help, and try not to sound patronizing. And by trying my best to help, I mean I take pictures of them and make fun of them on The Internet.
But it's okay, because, like a 9th grade English paper, I end of whole bunch of shit with one empathetic comment, and somehow that makes everything slightly okay.
I feel so, so bad for them.