When was the last time you played?

As I douse myself with antibacterial hand sanitizer, I can’t help but smile at all the cute kids at the Halloween costume contest at the Mall.  Ok, so escorting the big shrimp isn’t the most glamorous job in the world, but every once in a while you get to remember what it was like to be a kid.  Today was one of those days.

There was a woman, who I later found out was Grandma, standing in line to register for the costume contest with her toddler.  I’d guess 2-3 years old.  Pacifier in mouth (the kid, not the grandma).  I walked up holding a sticker out for him and said, “Hey Spiderman, do you want a sticker?”  And Grandma promptly answered, “He doesn’t talk yet.”  Thanks, Grandma, The pacifier was a big hint.  I bet your grandson isn’t, in fact, Spiderman either.

I’ve always wanted to have a kid, and I didn’t really know why until today.  Yeah, kids are disarmingly cute and they have unbelievable imaginations and you can mold and shape them into little versions of yourself.  Perhaps even cooler versions of yourself, if that’s possible.  But that’s not why I want to have a kid someday.  I want to have a kid because they give you a whole different perspective on life.

As a dude in his 30s (yeesh), I know I have responsibilities.  There are rules to follow, and a lot of that boils down to one word: Fear.  Fear of what people will think, fear of losing everything I’ve built up, fear of failure, fear of looking foolish.  You probably won’t be surprised at how many adults turn down the stickers I hand out, while this one sticker seems to make their kid’s day.  The stakes are high for us grownups.  But when was the last time you played?  I mean, yes, we all have responsibilities to attend to, but why can’t we do both?  Why does being an adult mean that we have to abandon the joy of life that being a kid brings?

Kids remind us that we all have the capacity to believe, to love unconditionally, and to live for each moment.  They’re not trying to win some prize or tell themselves “I’ll be happy when…”  Their mere presence in a room changes the energy of that room completely.  Something innocent and pure; they wear their emotions on their sleeves, along with the requisite amount of mucus.  Their joys and their sadnesses are fully expressed, they don’t get self conscious or try to hide their feelings for anyone else’s benefit.  They just are who they are.

I think I have a lot to learn from kids.  There’s a part of me that’s yearning to remember what it was like, and one of the few ways to do that is to be around them every day.  To be invited to play and be silly.  To give myself the permission to smile and laugh as boldly and completely as I feel.  And to let my life be affected, changed by someone else.  Maybe even someone cooler than me.

Speaking of playing:

She said. He said.

She said she didn’t want to get married.  He said he wasn’t asking, and that he probably wouldn’t ask on a first date.

She said relationships are about experiencing things together and, once she was done doing that with him, she would simply move on.

She said that the only way for people to stay compatible is to stop changing.  He said, “What if they change together?”

She said she was a free spirit and didn’t want to be tied down.  He said that free spirits do what they want to do, and it seemed like She really didn’t want to be with him.

She said that, technically, they weren’t boyfriend/girlfriend when she kissed that other guy.  He said that that kiss broke his heart.

She said it was just a kiss.  He said when He and She are together, they don’t do more than “just” kiss, and he wondered what the difference was.

She said She didn’t want any contact with him when She was on vacation for a month because she needed “time alone.”  She emailed him within a week.

She said She didn’t want to be with the other, other guy cuz he smokes pot, drinks, and cheats on his girlfriend.  He was told that people were surprised to hear She had a boyfriend, cuz She was really cuddly with that other, other guy.

She said that She tells all her friends that she loves them.  He said he thought he was more than just one of her other friends.

She said she wanted to work on things.  She also said that she was busy.  And tired.  And didn’t have time.

She said she liked him because he made her feel like it would be okay for her to take off to New Guinea, alone, for a few months.  He said he hoped she would want him to come along.

She said, “What am I gonna do when you’re out of town for a month?!”  He said, “Congrats on the job that’s taking you out of town for 4 months.  And is keeping you out of town for another 3 months.  Then the other job you have lined up that will be another 5 months.  I want to be supportive, but this is gonna be hard.”

She said, “why can’t we just have peace and love?”  He said that all he wanted was for her to acknowledge that there was some stress in their relationship because of the distance.

She said that if he didn’t want to be in a long distance relationship, he shouldn’t date actresses.

She said that She needed to go to bed cuz She had a long day, has to be up early for a 14 hour workday, and can barely keep her eyes open, but “is everything ok with us?”

She said She can’t win with him.  He said it was because She was trying to win.

She said it was her birthday curse.  Her birthday was a month and a half away.

She said relationships are about experiencing things together and, once she was done doing that with him, she would simply move on.  He said it sounds like she already had.

Family Values

Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah Palin, had a child out of wedlock.

Sarah Palin thinks abstinence-only sex ed works.

Hm.

Harrison Bachmann, son of Michele Bachmann, has joined the Teach for America program, which is a member of the Americorps program.

Michelle Bachman was quoted as saying: “It’s paying people to do work on behalf of government. There are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people get trained in the philosophy the government puts forward and then they have to go work in these politically correct forums.  As a parent, I would have a very, very difficult time seeing my children do this.”

Well, my heart goes out to Rep. Bachmann during what is, I’m sure, a very trying time for her and her family.  Re-education camps, as we know from our Vietnam War unit in high school history class, were camps where captured south Vietnamese (pro-democracy) former military were brought to be tortured at the end of the Vietnam war.  There, the north Vietnamese soldiers would take their revenge, claiming that this would indoctrinate the south Vietnamese prisoners into the Communist ideology.  Let’s hope that that’s not what Rep. Bachmann meant when she compared re-education camps to progams like Teach for America.

We’ve all heard it, the Republican party is the “family values” party.  I respect that.  I have family values and I live family values.  So what does it say when the children of these family values hardliners don’t share their parents’ family values?

10 Things I’ve Learned After a Month in Chicago

[note:  This is a post that I started after my month in Chicago, May '09.  I thought I'd posted it already, but apparently I hadn't]

The bus system here is better than the train system.

Chicago is not so much with the independent coffeehouses.  Mostly Starbucks, some Caribou.

I don’t walk enough.

BYOB Restaurants:  They sound exactly like what they are.  Go to the liquor store, buy your favorite booze, and bring it in to the restaurant to have with your meal.  I’ve even have servers suggest that I go to the store even after I’ve sat down.  I don’t really know why since I’m not buying from them and thus will not be tipping them any better.  People here really like to drink.

People think Minneapolis is cold.  But since I’ve been here, the amount of rainy, cold, windy days make me miss the warm Minneapolis weather.

There are  flowers that smell like semen.  They line the entryway to my bldg.

It seems as though people here are more apt to just strike up a conversation with a stranger.  It makes a bigger city seem a bit warmer than the standoffish Twin Cities.

Even though people say that it rains a lot in Seattle, it really doesn’t rain the way it rains in the midwest.  Apparently in Seattle, it’s more of a mist.  According to another cast member who’s from Seattle, “This is CRAZY!”

You can’t find a Totino’s Party Pizza in any grocery store (at least not in the ones I’ve been in).  Pizza Rolls, yes.  I think Chicagoans have a snobbery about their deep dish.

True Cubs fans don’t need the jersey, hat and accompanying paraphernalia.  True Cubs fans are there to watch the game.  If you’re there to get wasted with your buddies, you’re just a fan of beer.

Farewell, my twenties

Now that my 20s are officially over, here are some of the highlights:

20 (1999) This was the year I went to China.  It was definitely one of those tent-pole events in my life.

21 (2000) Got my first paying gig as an actor.

• Haroun and the Sea of Stories

22 (2001) Graduated from college and got my first job.

• Song for a Nisei Fisherman

23 (2002) Moved into Uptown.  Worked at the Ordway with Sandy Duncan.

• Cowbird
• Anything Goes

24 (2003) The Non-Profit I worked for lost its funding.  Told myself that if I couldn’t find another job I’d become an actor.  Moved in with a girlfriend for the first time.  Worked at the Guthrie while closing home mortgages for Wells Fargo as a temp.

• Pride & Prejudice
• Cradle Will Rock

25 (2004) I was naked in 2 shows this year.  This was the Year of Nudity and Shows about Vietnam.

• Bill of (W)Rights
• HAiR
• Miss Saigon
• Monkey King

26 (2005) Joined Actors Equity Association.  Shot a Subway Commercial.  Tried to move to NYC.  Racked up some debt and moved back when West Side Story called.

• Awesome 80s Prom
• West Side Story

27 (2006) Closed West Side Story.  Tried working at Monte Carlo, but gave that up to become a manager at Hollister.  That only lasted about a month before I went back to “full time actor.”

28 (2007) Broke up with what’s-her-name and went to California.  I had to relearn that I’m a good guy and that I actually have a life.  This was the beginning of the Year of the Mexican.

• Pajama Game
• Cowboy Versus Samurai
• Salsalandia
• The Seven

29 (2008)  Reacclimated myself to Minneapolis and moved in with Johnny Z.  There was a lot of Man-Love this year.  Shot a Rasmussen College Commercial.

• Altar Boyz

Things I’ve Learned After Doing a 3M Photoshoot

1. Napping is essential.

2. There is a distinct difference between a Model and an Actor.

3. 3M products don’t make me smile on their own, but apparently it looks good in pictures.

4. I am not a contortionist.

5. ALWAYS wear your safety goggles.

6. Just because you feel like an idiot doesn’t necessarily mean you look like an idiot.

7. I am not cut out to be a maintenance man.

8. Some people don’t really care what you’re thinking about as long as you’re smiling.

That is all.

You can take the Filipino out of the Ghetto…

Yo.  I ain’t stupid, aiiight?  All I’m sayin’ is don’t be tryin’ to play me unless you want this boot up yo ass.  I just want you to know that I’m quicker than you think I am.  Me and my gut do just fine.  I listen to it and it don’t never leave me hangin’.  So you gonna have to get by bouf of us.  For reals.

Straight up, I’m like Mutha Fuckin’ Chuck Wollery ‘n’ shit:  I put two ‘n’ two together.  My deductive reasoning is like Sherlock Holmes’, son.  Sherlock Mutha-Fuckin Holmes.  So unless you want the Filipino Jack Bauer up in yo’ grill, you best step back.  STEP. BACK.   Feel me?

Don’t sleep on this level of mental comprehension fo’ I get all ricey on you, brah.

You heard me.

“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain,” -Longfellow

It’s raining today.

As I drove down Hennepin Av to the tea place, I saw this person in a parked car open their door just enough to shove their umbrella through. The door closed on the umbrella before it could open and the person struggled with it, trying to find a way to free up the umbrella without opening the door the whole way.

When I was little, the whole topic of Acid Rain came up. I always imagined it like the plagues in the Ten Commandments where Yul Brynner is the BA Pharaoh standing out on the balcony when the hail falls and starts burning stuff. I thought Acid Rain was gonna fall from the sky and start dissolving buildings an burning holes in people clothes.

I can understand it to a point. You don’t wanna get wet, that’s fine. You might catch cold. After all, Zuzu caught a cold just because she walked home without buttoning up her coat. So I get it. I don’t like wet socks cuz that often means cold wet feet. But barring some highly acidic rain burning a hole in your skull, the rain’s not so bad, is it? Is it really worth spending the extra time struggling with your umbrella against your car door instead of just opening the door and risking getting hit with a few droplets of water? You don’t see too many woodland creatures fashioning umbrellas from maple leaves, do you?

Rain is a necessity. Plants get greener, dust and dirt washes away. It’s like a baptism. In the bible, the Acts of the Apostles talks about baptism as washing away one’s sins. A renewing of life.

Thich Nhat Hahn’s book Living Buddha, Living Christ talks about a farmer who prays for rain while some picnickers who pray for a sunny day. The question becomes: who’s prayer does god answer? Does god value one over another? People, myself included, seem disappointed when it’s rainy. Rain is talked about as something that ruins outdoor plans. Then the drought hits and people start talking about how we need rain. It cools things down, it becomes a welcome change, a break in the tedium of the ordinary.

Is it simply wanting what we can’t have? How can we learn to appreciate the balance of the natural world without waiting until the situation is dire?

Looks like I’ve taken the off ramp to tangent-town.

What I’ve been wondering is: Do we make our lives more difficult by struggling against the natural flow of things? Obviously, this person in their car could have been out and on their way if they weren’t so worried about getting hit with a few drops of water before they opened their umbrella. Maybe the 10 seconds it took didn’t really matter that much to them. But for my money, the rain drops on my clothes will eventually dry and I’ll be 10 seconds ahead of schedule. It’s a small thing, but things add up. Sometimes accepting the way the world works means getting out of our own way, releasing our kung fu grip on what we might want, and allowing life to happen.

21 Revisited

Click here for an article on the “whiteout” that is 21.

The Year in Review, Chapter 3: Coming Home

A friend of mine and I got tickets to see a show in downtown San Diego and I had arrived a little bit early to the theater. We’re talking about a Saturday night at about 7:30pm. Suddenly my phone rang.

It was the General Manager of La Jolla Playhouse.

“Have you seen The Seven?” She asked.

“Yeah, it was great.”

“Well, a few people are pretty sick and we almost had to cancel some performances because we don’t have an understudy…”

I honestly don’t remember much of what else she said because my inner monologue was going, “what? HOLY SHIT. OH MY FRIGGIN’ GOD. They want me to understudy The Seven? I can’t believe this is happening.”

So I said yes.

She asked if I was available to come to the Sunday performances and I was, so she set up up with comp tickets for the entire week. Since it was the weekend, we had to wait until Monday or Tuesday to get all the paperwork together, but that I should start studying the show.

Walking into a situation like that is always overwhelming. You watch the show from a completely different perspective. I’m the kind of person who likes to get caught up in the story, but when you’re an understudy everything becomes technical. The problem was that I didn’t know who I was supposed to watch. So here I am in a theater trying to track 10 people and see what they’re doing at any given moment in the show. I started to sweat. Flop sweat.

I tracked down the Stage Manager after the matinee and introduced myself. She hadn’t heard about the theater’s plan to hire me as an understudy but she seemed glad that someone was available. I snagged a copy of the script and we talked about when I could rehearse.

Keeping in mind that thru the week, I was still working 6am-2pm on Salsalandia, I scheduled rehearsals for Tuesday thru Friday. I met with Shaneeka, the dance captain, and Wendy, the Stage Manager and we started working thru the show. I tried desperately not to show my fear. Understudying is probably one of the most stressful jobs in the theater business. You gotta learn the part with minimal rehearsal time and be ready to go on at a moment’s notice.

That moment came at the following Saturday matinee. I rehearsed through the week, after doing Salsalandia in the mornings, then I’d stick around the theater and watch the show to see what I’d retained. I showed up early on Saturday hoping to get onstage to rehearse on my own, and when it was almost time to open the doors for the audience, I picked a quiet spot outside of the lobby to keep rehearsing.

The Stage Manager found me out there.

“Hey. I don’t want to make you nervous, but I want to give you a heads up that Shaneeka is pretty sick. She’s gonna do the matinee, but you might want to focus on watching her during this performance.”

Flop sweat.

“Ok.” I said.

“Oh, and could you come backstage during intermission? We have a costume for you to try on.”

She did her best to calm my nerves before she retired to the booth to start prepping for the show. But my stomach was in knots. I went into the theater and was very hawk-like in my pursuit of watching Shaneeka’s track.

During my last-minute-impromptu-costume-fitting, the Stage Manager knocked on the door.

“How would you feel if I asked you to go on during the second half?”

Flop sweat.

I was honest and told her that the second act was where I felt weakest. Of the 4 or 5 hours of rehearsal I’d gotten, we had focused mainly on getting the first act down.

Shaneeka decided to go on for the second act, and I stuck around backstage to get the lay of the land. Backstage is usually a dark maze of set pieces, props and blue lighting. Shaneeka looked like hell. Like deathbed kind of stuff.

She made it thru the show and I stayed in between shows to rehearse with the Stage Manager, assuming that Shaneeka would be too sick to do the evening show.

At this point there were 2 options: 1) rehearse for a bit, bring in the cast an hour early for a short put-in rehearsal and do the show, or 2) cancel the evening performance and do a full put-in rehearsal. Nobody knew if Shaneeka would be able to do the Sunday shows, so we plowed forward with that whole “the show must go on” attitude.

The cast came in an hour early, the theater bought me and the Stage Manager dinner, and the flop sweat showed up right on cue. I got into my costume and tried to enjoy the playful banter of the guys in the dressing room.

Shirley, the literary manager of the Playhouse, made a speech before the show about what had happened and that I was filling in on short notice. That took a little bit of the edge off, but I still had put a lot of pressure on myself to not fuck it up.

I don’t remember much about doing the show. Bits and pieces. I went zen. Moving from moment to moment. The cast was really great and supportive, and I appreciated their nonverbal cues that told me where to stand, when to move and what to do. I remember the curtain call, where the cast gave me a little shout out right before the full cast bow. I went down to the dressing room, took off my mic and costume, and headed back out into the cool ocean breeze.

On my way up the stairs from the dressing rooms, I started to cry. Don’t know where it came from, but I did my best to find a corner where I could hide until the rush of emotion went away.

For the rest of the week, people referred to me as a hero, but I certainly didn’t feel like one. I felt like the kid crying in the corner.

Thursday approached quickly and the anticipation was killing me. My crush had developed into a healthy infatuation for this girl. I was looking at pictures of her online and wondering if I should hug her at the airport or not. I was excited to see if/how our hands would fit together… if we even got to the point of holding hands.

Her flight got in just after Midnight on Thursday night/Friday morning. Because it was spring break season, the only ticket we could get flew into LA, so I drove up to meet her. After circling the airport loop for a half hour or so, I saw her standing by the curb. I had spent a few hours doing my hair and picking out an outfit to wear. After all, I wanted to make a good second first impression. I went for the hug.

“Wanna go to the beach?” I asked when we got back in the car. She agreed, and we took the first exit off the interstate with the word beach in it. Manhattan Beach.

I love the beach at night. There’s just something about the way the surf moves and the sounds and smells, the darkness, and being alone.

I had misjudged one particular wave and ended up soaked from the waist down, instead of the intended calf down, which is what I had prepared for. We left the beach covered in sand and salt water, and seeing her smile as we played in the surf made me all warm and tingly inside.

It was a 2 hour drive home to a warm bed and a dry pair of pants.

During one of our conversations I had joked about sleeping in the bunk beds that are in one of my aunt and uncle’s spare rooms. She held me to it and we spent the night in the bunk beds (she got the top bunk).

Friday I still had shows to do and she came along. I had cleared it with the production assistant and stage manager, at this point they were probably getting sick of hearing about her. I even made everyone audition what they were gonna say when they met her. I insisted that we keep all the “I’ve heard so much about you”s as far away as possible. I didn’t want to freak her out, especially since we had the next 6 days to spend together. The cast was cool and teased me incessantly in front of her, but they were entitled.

She looked beautiful. She was excited to escape the Minnesota cold and try out a new summer outfit, and I was immediately smitten. We held hands on the way back to the van after the performance. I’m not usually one to snuggle and tell, but there was a little back seat snuggle on the way back to the theater. Naturally, I was ecstatic.

I’ll spare you the sordid details of the following weekend, but for my money, it was quite possibly the most romantically fun weekend of my life. I still had shows to do, but she was fine with going to the zoo and hanging with the elephants, panda bears, koalas, and apparently, a parrot that had learned to hit on the pretty girls passing by.

We packed up the car and headed to the Grand Canyon. This was the only condition of her coming out to drive back to me. She wanted to see the Grand Canyon. We got there at about mid-afternoon and stayed until it was dark. It was considerably colder in that part of Arizona, so we bundled up and braved it.

The Navajo Reservation was our next stop. The Quality Inn somewhere just across the Arizona border into Utah. We went back and forth about which hotel to stay in… Hampton Inns are her favorite, which she learned on a national tour. But The Quality Inn was the best we could get. Then the day that will live on as a day of greatness.

We woke up the next morning, grabbed a little continental breakfast and got back out on the road. Over the Rockies and into Denver. That was the plan. As we wound our way up the Rockie mountains, a thought creeped in our heads. We might not make it back in time for the classes she needed to teach. She started doing the math, and we decided to forgo dinner and drive on. As it got dark, we crossed into Nebraska, hoping to make it to Omaha for our next stop. The math didn’t sound promising, however. We would need to leave Omaha at 6am at the latest to get into Minneapolis in time.

I had been driving most of the way and decided to nap so that I could drive later into the night. When I woke up, there was a very stressed out and frazzled girl driving my car.

“We’re not gonna make it. We’re gonna get to Omaha at like 2 in the morning, then we have to leave by 6.”

We pulled of the road, stopped for gas and to grab some munchies, I took over the driving duties and we headed out again. An hour and a half to Omaha. It was a little after midnight.

I was feeling pretty good as we neared Omaha, a beautiful girl with her glasses circa 1993 crookedly smushed against her face as she slumbered in the passenger seat. I read the signs and calculated in my head that I might be able to make it to Des Moines in about an hour and a half. There were only a few cars to deal with and the semis were easy to spot as I quietly dreamed that if I had a flux capacitor, I’d be able to travel thru time.

We pulled into West Des Moines, and found I-35. Then I spotted it: The Hampton Inn tucked neatly in the corner of I-80 and I-35. I pulled in just as she mumbled in a half-asleep daze:

“Are we in Omaha?”

“No babe… we’re in Des Moines.” I couldn’t help but be filled with glee at my accomplishment: 4 states in 16 hours.

“What?” Then she realized that we were at the Hampton Inn, and she smiled.

Des Moines is only about 4 hours from Minneapolis, which meant we could sleep in til about 10. We got up the next morning, another continental breakfast, and then the home stretch. As the license plates changed from Iowa to Minnesota, there was a sense of something familiar mixed with a feeling of anxiousness. There were a considerable number of ghosts that hung around Minneapolis that I knew I’d have to tackle, but it was good to be home.

30 hours in a car will do something to you. When I dropped off my wing-woman, I felt something akin to what an amputee must feel like. We’d spent the last 6 days together and I missed her instantly. If not for the company, for the occasional sound of the window rolling down whenever she needed to fart. See what I mean? 30 hours in a car will do something to you.

The X had one more cameo in my life. I was scheduled to do a reading at Playwright’s Center for the following two days. When I arrived on Thursday morning, I met the playwright and she and I were the only ones there. “God, please don’t let me sit in this room with just my X…” I thought. Luckily a few more people showed up before she did. I kept it cordial, but disengaged.

A formerly mutual friend, Sun Mee, showed up and dashed any hope for normalcy on my part. There was a very pointed, very obviously awkward, and what can only be described as the worst attempt at discretion that I’ve ever witnessed: “Hey Rose… ARE… YOU… OKAY?” It was the opposite of nonchalant. It was chalant. It was dipped in a vat of pure chalance. I buried my nose in my script. “Professionalism will set you free,” I thought.

I survived it without cutting off my arm just to have something to hit me over the head with, which was a blessing. I spent a few days with the fam, saw some friends, started going back to my acting class, went back to the BGSC, and my driving companion was transitioning nicely into TGID. Things were moving along.

The month of April flew by and I started looking for apartments. I had been living with someone of my parent’s generation since last July and it was starting to wear on me. I needed my own space.

So here I am, 29 and a few days. I can’t help but think of this time of my life as the moment when the clouds break and the sun peeks through. I’m a pinata. Occasionally, life beats me down, but at least candy spills out.

It’s gonna be a good year.