Battledog Sees God

All right, first off, shut up! I'm aware I haven't posted anything in like months. If you want to read the blog so bad then you write it! What's that? Oh, you didn't even notice the blog stopped? Well then, urm...sorry I yelled.

Now, I've mentioned throughout the blog's existence how last fall I was offered the opportunity to work as a property master on a film being produced by the SyFy Channel being filmed in Buffalo, NY. So yeah I like totally said yeah. I got to experience what it was like working on a (semi) legit film set, meet some relatively well-known actors, and see stuff I helped with end up in the final cut of the film. That all sounds nice, which is why that's all I usually tell people when describing my experience. I feel I've made enough distance in time to really look back on that time and tell an honest tale about the making of the film Battledogs. If curious, the film can be watched on Netflix instant stream. And you might see a familiar face in the background of the 13:14 mark.

Having never seen a film set except in DVD special features, I had only a vague idea of what to expect. The reality was much weirder than I had anticipated. It was pretty cool getting to read a film script before anything production-wise had been completed. I was reading everything with a fresh mind, with my own cast of actors visualized as the characters including Rosario Dawson, Robert Wisdom, Kevin McKidd, and Michael Emerson to name a few. Sadly, none of them were in the actual cast, but that's not to say the real cast was not (mostly) impressive.
I probably should've started this section off by saying the script for the then-titled Ward's Island read like absolute shit. I wasn't even sure who the main character was supposed to be until I was about halfway through it. Every major plot point seemed to be resolved with a good old-fashioned chase scene. Seriously, there were a lot, lot of chase scenes. My job, however, was not to criticize this B-movie but to read through and make notes of props or set pieces we would need to make happen.
All of the major props, weapons and such were mainly already purchased by the production staff, and our art department (a whopping three of us) were responsible for everything else. The film was being distributed by The Asylum, but we worked directly with a smaller company called Infectious Films. I don't want to say anything negative about anyone but even they would have to admit that working together was a challenge in and of itself. If my bank account matched the budget we had to work with I'd be broke within a few months, even with income. Also, some of the props the script called for were things that were quite difficult to get a find in Buffalo, resulting in entire scenes being re-blocked and re-written.

                                                      Who would've guessed these would be so hard to get a hold of?

You know what, though? We powered through it and we worked every day of the two weeks of pre-production we got (that's not a lot, by the way) and when the first day of shooting came we were...not even close to being ready. As it turned out I had no idea what I was doing, I was only there because my friend invited me to join the film crew. I learned that my job was basically, when not being yelled at by the director, to stand around and wait for an actor to need a gun. Actually, it was more like stand around and try and guess when the actor needed the gun, because it seemed like neither the actors nor the director knew either.
Speaking of guns, safety was super strict on this set and, despite the weapons mainly being Airsoft rifles, weapon safety rules still applied. Actors were not allowed to point them at anyone and keep their fingers off the triggers of the unloaded toy guns. Yeah, even the fucking Nerf gun. There was one real gun among the props, though, and it had its firing pin removed. Any time the gun was taken out of its protective case I had to gather everyone around and explain that the gun was real and not to be played with. That I understood because it was technically a weapon. Same with the real dart gun and the spark gun we got later on. Yeah, blanks were apparently outside the budget so we got this handgun that fires off electric sparks that sound like a really quiet gun.
As for the rest of the props, we had to use a lot of our own stuff. My passport and laptop are seen clearly in the movie, as well as my car. Anything else we needed we ended up borrowing from the on-set medic. I blame all the fucking hospital scenes in the script.

                                                                 My laptop was the best actor in this scene.

I liked the director of the film as a director. Even as a person I appreciated that he managed to never hold a grudge against anyone who fucked up. This was good, because I fucked up a lot. He was a very precise person, and even a minor detail being off would set him off. I had myself a new asshole ripped when an actress, who was supposed to be holding her camera in a scene, had it hidden in a bag, making it not line up with a later scene. There were a lot of days like that, including a day when we couldn't get a hold of television monitors for a, you guessed it, hospital scene. There was about half a day wasted because of that.
He expected a lot from us despite the budget we had and the limited control we were given over things we should've been entirely in control of, but looking back I'd say he was justified considering he was trying to make a god damn movie while the universe seemingly did everything in its power to keep that from happening.

The downtime was the best part of the process. There was very little of it, but every once in a while we just had nothing to do while the cameras were rolling on something else. My favorite was a day where they filmed a boat chase (don't get me started on how stupid boat chases are and should be banned from film) and once I gave the actors the props and guns they'd need for the scenes, the boats and cameras took off to film and we were left to dick around on land. I found myself getting along with the extras and the production assistants the best, the two groups who usually get shit on the most during filming. I had been feeling pretty shit on myself so naturally there was a connection. The extras seemed to like me too since, as one actor put it, I was actually nice to them. Do you know what extras have to put up with? They arrive at the beginning of the work day, wait around, and maybe get on camera. Sometimes they don't even get to do anything. And they're not allowed to get lunch at the buffet until all of the main crew and cast have gotten their plates. That's some bullshit f I ever saw it.

On the subject of actors, let's talk about the cast:

Craig Sheffer as Major Brian Hoffman

Craig might be most familiar with fans of One Tree Hill where he played Uncle Keith, or his younger years where he starred in A River Runs Through It opposite Brad Pitt. As the protagonist of the film, I would say they chose well by casting Craig. His performance was honest, likable, and he's got that everyman look to him we can root for. As a person he's a lot of fun to be around, always cracking jokes and not taking anything too seriously, except of course for his acting. He was probably the most professional actor in the entire film, which is saying something considering the familiar names you're about to see.

Dennis Haysbert as General Monning

Haysbert is immediately recognizable as the man with the deep voice in those Allstate ads ("Are you in good hands?"), as well as playing President Palmer on 24. The film marketed the shit out of Dennis as he was the most familiar name in the cast, so much so that the mayor of Buffalo requested a special visit to the set to meet him. His adorers all assumed he was playing the hero of the film, when in fact he was the villain. Dennis was an interesting person. He's like seven feet tall and could crush your skull in one enclosed fist, while at the same time he comes off as a man who was dropped into this world without an instruction booklet. I noticed while watching him work that he does not so much "act" as he just says his lines in that deep, earth-shattering voice of his, and it still come off as acting. That's when he actually knows his lines, at least, which he hardly ever did. I have serious doubts he even read the script beforehand. However, he was also a joker off-camera, playing his character as from the ghetto and awing us with Darth Vader impressions.

Ariana Richards as Donna Voorhees

Ariana played the young girl Lex in Jurassic Park and the love interest in Angus. I wish I had more to say about her but, as she hardly used any props I did not spend much time around her. She held my passport in the film, though. As far as her performance goes, she didn't really convince me she was this daredevil adrenaline junkie the script insisted her character was. It was a very plain performance. Perhaps this was a result of miscasting, but I believe it had more to do with the underwriting of the script.

Wes Studi as Col. Falcons

Let me start off by saying Wes Studi is the fucking man! I remember my excitement when I read the call sheet for the next day, turned to my friend and said breathlessly, "Wes Studi's in this movie?" Magua in The Last of the Mohicans, The Sphinx in Mystery Men, the Nav'i chieftain in Avatar, along with work in films like Heat, The Doors, and The New World, I'd seen this guy in SO many movies that he was a celebrity to me. When he first arrived on set and stepped out of his car I literally froze. But enough sucking his dick already, Wes was awesome. His character's only personality trait was "henchman" so he really didn't have much to work with, so he made up for that by being an absolute badass. He was a quiet man off-camera but he had some interesting stories, like how the one person from Mohicans he keeps in touch with is the guy whose heart he cuts out in the film. Their families have Thanksgiving together. Also, Wes Studi loves playing with toy guns. Anytime the director was talking to the cast or he had nothing to do, you could see Wes aiming his rifle around and squeezing the trigger making gun noises with his mouth. He pulled a Ewan McGregor a few times by making the "Pew!" noise with his mouth during takes.

Ernie Hudson as Max Stevens

I can't believe I can't find a picture of Ernie from the film, but this one will have to do. Ernie was a Ghostbuster, and that's all you really need to know if you don't (but you SHOULD). He also turned out great performances as the lead in the HBO series Oz, and the films Congo and The Crow. Unfortunately he was another case of an actor not using a lot of props so I hardly interacted with the man at all, not even to tell him how bummed I was when he died in Oz's penultimate episode, or to act out Congo quotes in front of him. Alas. Anyway, I was surprised they cast him in this role because even in the script it was a very small supporting part, and his character has a really lame death scene halfway through and then we're forced to watch the rest of the film without him. His performance was honestly a highlight of the finished product, despite how obvious it was that Mr. Hudson was simply phoning this one in for his next paycheck.

Bill Duke as President Donald Sheridan

Bill Duke is most recognizable from Predator as the black guy that wasn't Carl Weathers, and he played an intimidating prison warden in an episode of Lost. I unfortunately don't see him come up enough in film casts, but his performance was definitely among the strongest in the film. Particularly his monologue as he regretfully approves a city-wide nuking to contain the lycanthropy. Though again he required absolutely no props, my friend and I got the chance to sit down and talk with him briefly while we prepared something for the next scene. He is the absolute nicest man I've ever met, period. He may look tough and sleepless, but the man is as friendly as can be.

Other actors and actresses included Kate Vernon of Battlestar Galactica as Dr. Gordon; Benjamin James from Two-Headed Shark Attack and a memorable episode of 1,000 Ways to Die as Corporal Parkins; Darin Cooper from The Social Network and an episode of Monk as Secretary Woods; and horror movie scream queen Debbie Rochon in a one-line cameo as a SWAT team leader. Getting to meet and see the work of these many talented people made the entire process worth it in the end. I even managed to get myself on screen in the background of an early scene as an infected person (13:14 mark, walking arm-in-arm with a girl behind Craig and Ariana). I also acted as a stand-in for a helicopter pilot in one scene with Wes Studi but I wasn't even remotely visible in the shot. I sat in to play Wes's thigh in another helicopter scene and the jury's still out on whether that's actually my leg in the final cut or not.

The film premiered on the SyFy Channel this past April and...I can't say I was too impressed. I feel the film really suffered in the editing process, as some deleted scenes included details or dialogue that was referenced by characters later on in the film, creating some confusion. It was always going to be a bad movie, but I found the end result to be bad in a bad way, not in an awesome, Sharknado-bad way. It's not very rewatchable. Maybe it's because I watched it all get made and had a hand in a lot of it, but the film didn't seem to fit together right to me. It was a lot of fun telling my family and others all about the making-of process while the film was going on, though, and pointing out the "cool ones" in the cast. There's also a drinking game just waiting to be played involving seeing the same extras from scene-to-scene, despite them dying in almost all of their appearances.

So that's my tale. I feel I've told it truthfully. I don't think I'll ever attempt to work on a film set again unless I've got a real handle on my job and how to do it, but I appreciate the opportunity my friend and the production crew gave me nonetheless. I am now officially on IMDb and in the credits of a film. If you're curious or just want to me my infamous walking-in-the-background scene, get on Netflix and look for Battledogs.

Until I write again,
Tyler

Another World, A Better World

[Disclaimer: spoilers for the film "Cloud Atlas," The Dark Tower book series, and the television series "Lost."]

I've been very open about my not having a religion, never quite fitting the system of any existing organized beliefs group. My one true and honest belief in this world is that believing something does not make it right or so, but it says everything about who one is as a person. Religion is good when it is used the right way, to cope with the hardships of life and to feel that everything has a purpose. I think that religion's main purpose is to console us from the great mystery at the end of our roads: death. It is the one place we cannot come back from and tell our friends and family about. What is after life?

That is a trailer for one of my favorite films, "Cloud Atlas." I cannot recommend enough that you watch the movie if you haven't, but the trailer sets up what I'm about to say just fine. Throughout the film we are introduced to multiple characters across six different stories. The trick of the film is that the same actors carry over into each others' stories portraying different people. What the film stresses in many of the character cases, though, is that they are the same or similar people each time. Similar traits are exhibited repeatedly by the characters played by Tom Hanks, especially. Whereas the characters of actors Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant are consistently villainous -- in fact becoming less and less human the farther we go into the future of the timeline -- Tom Hanks's characters show a natural and necessary growth. The first chronological story, "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing," has Hanks as Dr. Henry Goose, a thieving and treacherous doctor who slowly poisons Jim Sturgess's Ewing while feigning treatment on him. Goose is after Ewing's gold, and is seen pilfering items off of Ewing's person throughout the process. When next we see Hanks he is a hotel manager who allows Ben Wishaw's character a room if he gives him his decorated vest in exchange. He is seen admiring the buttons of the vest, just as Goose admired and stole the buttons off of Ewing's vest in the previous story. A later segment shows Hanks as an Irish gangster character whose brief scene involves him murdering a literary critic. The final story has Hanks as Zachry, a native man who is a coward, allowing his brother-in-law to be killed by savages when he could have intervened. We still see the temptations of a thief in Zachry throughout the story, but in the end he finds his courage and saves the life of his niece. For the most part, Hanks's character is on a journey of redemption over the course of the film's timeline, constantly being reborn until he can achieve his full and true purpose in the world. The villainous Henry Goose becomes the heroic Zachry in the end.

What the film describes is a belief that every single person in the world has a purpose, a standard to achieve. It just sometimes takes multiple lifetimes to reach that potential. The television series "Lost" touched upon this subject matter with the character of Jacob, an immortal man who uses his mystical powers to guide people of certain character to his island where they are given the chance to redeem any past sins and achieve their true purpose in life. However, Jacob's experiments are constantly foiled by his brother, The Man in Black, who dedicates himself to proving Jacob wrong and that humanity is doomed and people cannot change.
"They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same," The Man in Black tells his brother.
Jacob calmly replies, "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."
Unlike his brother, Jacob always looks for the best in people. He looks at every failure as progress towards the eventual success.

Stephen King writes on the topic of repeated chances over the course of many lifetimes in his massive fantasy series The Dark Tower. At the end of the final novel, after hero Roland's ka-tet (fellowship) have all been killed or sent away, he finally reaches the giant and omnipotent Dark Tower, to which he had been guided towards his entire life. Upon reaching the top, however, and opening the final door, he is suddenly struck with brief deja vu. He realizes too late that he had reached the tower before, hundreds of times or more, and he is transported through the doorway to where he was at the very start of the series: in the middle of a desert following his foe, The Man in Black (not to be confused with the aforementioned character on "Lost"). Roland has no memories of the adventure we read about over the course of seven books, and he picks up exactly where we started with him. This time, however, he has an item he did not have before: the horn of his childhood friend and fellow gunslinger Cuthbert, lost when the latter was slain in battle. The horn here signifies that Roland has made progress in his ultimate quest, but he still has many more lifetimes to repeat until he does it all right. Every failure or poor choice he makes along the way to the Tower curses him to repeat it all again at the end. We as the readers never learn whether Roland is ever free from this terrible cycle, but by giving Roland his late friend's horn King shows us a glimmer of hope that Roland is on his way.

The belief that we repeat ourselves over and over again across distant lifetimes and even universes is about as close to a religious belief that I get. Life is simply too short to get everything done, too brief to really discover who we are and what we are fully capable of. There is only one true ending ahead of us, one that transcends even death, and I believe that we are slowly but surely working towards it. Only when we do will we find peace and satisfaction in life, and eventually, in death too.

"I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there,"
Tyler

One Blaze of Glory

I may or may not have mentioned that I was fortunate enough to perform in a local production of RENT in my home-ish town of Syracuse. I brought it up in passing in my last post but I felt that those few sentences just didn't do it justice. So naturally I'm dedicating an entire post to it so you'll just have to shut up and read. Or don't, if you don't want to. But you should, 'cause I'll hate you otherwise. I've unfriended people from Facebook before and don't think I'll hesitate to do it again. 

So enjoy the read!

Our story begins in January after hearing from two different friends that a theatre company in Syracuse was going to be holding auditions for RENT. Now, I've been a RENT fan since high school and had dreamed of playing the characters Mark or Roger ever since then, so naturally I was excited beyond words. I even purposely didn't tell some of my other actor/singer friends about the auditions to cut down on competition for the roles I wanted. Sorry friends, but welcome to the world of community theatre. So anyways I debate with myself between singing a song from the show or something else. I'd heard the director preferred songs from the show, but I didn't want to chance it. So I decided to sing "Don't Do Sadness" from the musical Spring Awakening as I figured the character of Moritz Stiefel from that show allowed me to showcase my ability to play either the awkward nerdy Mark as well as the intense, hard rocker Roger. 

I go into the audition space, sing my song, grow more nervous when I'm asked to sing it a second time with less body movements, and then the director (Garrett Heater; he's the best) asks me that, if cast, I would prefer the role of Roger or Mark. Talk about a tough question to answer, but I decided that in the end my voice was a better suited for Roger and tell him that. I figured that him asking me that was a good sign, but other than that I had no real notion of how I did. I then left and had the most anxious two weeks of my life as I awaited a call from Garrett about my audition. One day I get a call from a number I don't recognize and, assuming it was him, I let it go to voicemail, not ready to hear potential bad news yet. Later I listen to the voicemail and hear that I'd been chosen to play the role of Roger. Jumping and cheering soon followed.

Months later the cast has its first rehearsal, which was especially nerve-wracking for me as we were scheduled to rehearse two songs that I was heavily featured in. This would be the first time the cast would hear me sing and I was ridiculously nervous. Like, what if I turned out to not be what they had in mind? After convincing myself that I wouldn't be in the cast if they didn't want me there, I walked into rehearsal and just sang. To my delight, they liked me.

It was a grueling rehearsal process for me, having to rush right to the rehearsal space from work every day, usually only half-awake. My voice wasn't always up to the task after a 13 hour shift. Then there was delving right into the romantic scenes with the actress playing Mimi who I barely knew at all at that point that frankly made me kind of uncomfortable (but now we're friends so YAY!!!). Finally I just said "fuck it" to myself and realized I was supposed to be an actor and just began committing to every single scene and action as best as I could. 

                                                   And especially committing to those pants.

Sure the rehearsals and proving my worth as a singer/actor to myself and others was rewarding, but even more than that was the cast I was lucky enough to be a part of. I've never been a part of such a talented and friendly and diverse group of people who gave their all into every little action, the tiniest of moments, and the smallest of facial expressions. Because of an upcoming orgy scene we would be blocking soon, the cast decided to have a bonding session one weekend, the events of which I am sworn to secrecy about. Now I don't know if that was what really brought us all into an unbreakable familial bond, but ever since then we'd been nearly inseparable. Not only among the cast, but our director Garrett and everyone else in the crew as well. It was just the best group of people to work with.

My fellow actors, though, were an inspiration to stand alongside of. All along I wanted to portray a darker, more intense character of Roger than was typically done. Funnily enough, Garrett must have had the same vision as many of my acting notes went along with the character I wanted to play. Roger is a terribly underwritten character and him and I both wanted to bring out the darker, honest side of him. In a great twist of fate, everyone else in the cast wanted to do the same thing with their own character. That was what made this production better than any other I've seen; it was the honesty we all portrayed, which is something that is missing in contemporary musicals, I feel. 

                                               Ladies and gentlemen, we invite you to cry with us.

But yeah, when it came to going to those kinds of places for the sake of acting, things got pretty dark on stage. Garrett told us one rehearsal that if we didn't leave a part of ourselves behind in this show, then we didn't do our job right. So, I feel like we all did our jobs pretty well. I've admittedly never been able to cry onstage for a show, but my tear cherry was successfully popped in this one. All I had to do was look over at my buddy Max (playing Collins) while he sang the heartbreaking "I'll Cover You (Reprise)" and the tear dam was broken.

                                                                Pictured: acting.

Honestly I could write an individual post about every single actor in this production, but that wouldn't be very good writing/editing skills if I went on and on like this. You guys were fan-fucking-tastic! Especially you! Yeah, you!

Finally when it came time to put on the show for an audience, the nerves began coming in. My voice had been iffy that entire week of rehearsals and I wasn't sure how I would do that night. I drank nothing but tea and honey all day, and between every scene I was pouring honey down my throat. It must have done the trick because I felt awesome that night, and the audience loved the show. Only a few days later the entire remainder of the run was sold out. The reviews we got in the paper were extremely positive, calling our show the most emotional production the reviewer had ever seen. I was ecstatic to see that I had gotten a positive mention in one review, especially since I had never been mentioned period in a review before. I was on top of the world.

Roger was the first lead I've ever played in a musical. Well, more of a co-lead with the character of Mark, actually. After multiple auditions hoping to land the lead and getting cast in roles with less and less singing parts I had almost given up on it completely, accepting that my singing voice was just not up to the standards of a musical. There just didn't seem to be a place in Syracuse for a man with a rocker-style singing voice. Getting cast in this role really boosted my confidence in my abilities. I can't help but think that I may never have an opportunity like this role again, at least for a long, long time. That was why the song "One Song Glory" meant so much to me in the show; this role could be my "one blaze of glory." If that be the case, it was a great one. I'll keep on trying, though, because I finally have the confidence now to keep on going. No matter what, though, I know I'll never have an experience like this show in my life again, with this cast and this director and just the atmosphere of the show. So thank you, Garrett, the Covey Theatre Company (named Best Community Theatre in Syracuse, motherfuckers!!!), my cast that is my family now, and Jonathan Larson for writing this show so long ago. 

It's time now to sing out

Though the story never ends

Let's celebrate, remember a year

In the life of friends

And in case you missed the show, in turn setting yourself up for a life full of regret, here is a little video clip from opening night of the song "What You Own," featuring myself and Brett Roden.

It's gonna be a happy new year,

Tyler

P.S. Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson is now playing Wednesday-Saturday nights at 8:00pm at the Redhouse in downtown Syracuse and you should go. I'm in it with two of my fellow RENT alumni and we're all amazing!

The Road So Far...

This week's post comes to you courtesy of bullshit. I really didn't have time to think up anything meaningful to write about, but before I sat down to just hammer the keys into decently-formed sentences and see what happened, I realized that I never explained to you readers what occurred in my life between my hiatus and the blog's revival, and after all, if you're bothering to read anything I post, you all just wanna know everything about me. So here we go: my life from January 2013 until September 2013.

And you're required to play this while you read:

JANUARY

When I left you all I had been talking about how I was recently cast in a production of RENT as Roger, and was then desperately looking for employment. Well, since I had a long wait ahead of me until RENT started I decided to try out for the annual production of Jesus Christ Superstar here in Syracuse. I went in, sang "I Want to Break Free" from the musical We Will Rock You, and secured a nice role in the ensemble. I wanted to play Judas or Simon, but considering the talents of the guys who did land those parts I wasn't too bummed in the end. I did get a cool solo as a Priest in "This Jesus Must Die," one of my favorite songs from the show. But wait: a last minute recasting brought in Tony-nominee Philip Boykin to fill in as Caiaphas, meaning I would get to be on stage with him in that song and singing to him. A Broadway dude. So that was awesome. He's a real nice guy. Also, my killer beard made a grand return to my face for the show.
Oh, and somewhere in that time period I got a job as a host at an Olive Garden. I'd like to forget that experience as much as possible so we'll leave it at that.

FEBRUARY

Um...not much. Single Awareness Day came and went. I did my usual act of listening to The Smiths and wallowing in single despair. Alone. Oh, and the Groundhog Day marathon on Groundhog Day. That was awesome.
Jesus Christ Superstar rehearsals still going on.
Still at Olive Garden. Hadn't yet gone postal.

MARCH

Woohoo more theatre auditions!!! I tried out for a bunch of shows at the Red House Arts Center received multiple callbacks for further readings and singings. Jesus Christ Superstar had its one and only performance on the 31st and was awesome as expected. I managed to make some new friends out of the show and had an all around great time in one of my favorite shows.

APRIL

Red House got back to me and I learned I was cast in their productions of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Dog Sees God as ensemble and Matt, respectively. Also, that SyFy Channel film Battledogs I worked on last fall had its television premiere, and my background cameo was in plain sight. It's also streaming on Netflix currently; look for me around the 14 minute mark. I'm wearing black scrubs and looking cold.
Later this month I managed to catch a show starring my good friend Amanda called Suds, a '60s jukebox musical. She was fantastic, of course. She always is. Girl's gonna be famous.

                                                   Yeah, we're cooler than you. Deal with it.

MAY

I went up to Buffalo to celebrate my birthday for the night. One of the few things I remember is almost lighting the bartender on fire. I spent the next day with the girls moaning and writhing on the floor and couches before driving home.
Also I was offered my old position at W.B. Mason back so I quit Olive Garden faster than you can say...like, anything. However, my shifts go from 6:00am 'til when-the-fuck-ever. So...that catches up with you.

JUNE

I start rehearsals for RENT, and that and work become my life from now through...

JULY

...until...

AUGUST

And I wish I had the time to properly explain just how amazing the experience was, but I don't, so here's a picture.

                                                That's me in the pants. You know which pants.

I tell you, I've been in a lot of shows, but the people in this cast were some of the best people I've ever been lucky to meet, let alone perform on stage with. It was a time I'll never forget. Also every show was sold out, so that fucking rocked.

SEPTEMBER

I restarted the blog and started rehearsals for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. So that gets us all caught up, really. And now I can actually say I'm sticking to my one-post-a-week promise. So, it's win/win, right? Now, let's see if I can stick to that policy next week when I start my 12 hour weekend rehearsals. I really can't promise anything, so...hey, find something else to read.


Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog,
Tyler


P.S. Idris Elba is the fucking man and if you disagree I will fight you.

Wake Me in Time to Be Lonely and Sad

Good morning readers! It's not morning when I write this, and it may or may not be morning when you read this, but someone somewhere is just waking up, I know it. My plan for my Blog Comeback Tour was to write a new post every Sunday night. However, tomorrow night I begin rehearsals for the next show I'm in, "Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson," and once that starts I will only be half-existing in the conscious world until October. See, rehearsals go until 10-11 at night, and it takes me 45 minutes to drive home after, and I get up at 4:30-5 Mondays through Fridays for work, and will be going straight to rehearsals after my shifts now, so...if you see me on the street just don't talk to me unless I have a cup of coffee in my hand.

                                                        This will be me on a good day.

But this post is not about my slow, painful death from exhaustion. No, today we're going to talk about escaping from that shit. One of my very first posts was about my dreams and how beyond fucked up they are. This post will be a sort of continuation of that one, but on a different theme entirely. You see, I may complain about how my subconscious makes me question my sanity, and how I'll unfortunately never be able to try LSD for fear of my head having a Scanners moment, but at the end of the day I love my dreams because they're not my real life.

You're confused? You stupid motherfucker, I'll explain it, then. Most of the time when I'm dreaming, I'm not even in the dream, if that makes any sense. It's just my eyes watching something unfold in my mind, like watching a movie that no one else could ever write because they wouldn't even know how to have it make sense. I see characters that either I thought up, have seen in other movies, or that I know personally, and they're all running around from monsters or shooting each other or just doing cool shit. And where am I during all of this? Up in the air, gliding over all, watching these scenes unfold.

                                                           "Aw man, I wanna play too!"

So what? you may be asking. So you get to watch cool movies in your sleep. My dreams do that too sometimes. Yeah, but I'm not saying that I'm the only guy who does it. Maybe I do it best, but I can't be the only one who has dreams like that. What I'm saying is those dreams are really cool because they defy what is available to us in the real world. Those dream movies are perfect because they are everything I want in entertainment without the restrictions of money or special effects or actor availability. They are an escape from our earthly limitations, a brief moment of perfection. And isn't that just wonderful when we can get it?

I'm not saying I'd rather live in my dreams than in reality, but I kind of am. It's just, I've been very, very unlucky in my affections throughout my life, and whenever I get a dream where I'm spending some time with a girl or kissing her or fighting off monsters with her, it's one that I'm just devastated to wake up from. I've mentioned before that I never have sex dreams per-say, but what I have is so much better in the long run, I think. I'll dream about a girl I like and we'll just be hanging out somewhere, getting dinner or a drink and just talking. I'll kiss her maybe, and that's just the fucking best because it'll feel so real. Then when I wake up I remember that whoever I just dreamed about is not my girlfriend, whether she was a friend or a celebrity.

For example, the other night I had a dream that I was hanging around with Lea Michele, 'cause we knew each other somehow (it's a dream, reasons be damned). She was sad about something so I hugged her in a comforting manner, and the next thing you know we're locking lips. It was amazing, and now I suddenly have a crush on Lea Michele. I mean, before I just thought she was hot, but it's different now.

                                                      I love a girl with coffee in her hand.

I've had another dream similar to that one, although there was no making out at the end of it. It involved myself and some friends including a girl I'd just met, and we were all hanging out in some big park at night. The girl and I broke away from the group because she needed to talk to me about something I don't remember, but it was just the two of us walking through this park in the dark with the little path lights glowing around us. I don't remember what we talked about, I just remember being there with her and not wanting to leave. In the end, as my dreams seem to show me, more than a relationship I just want to be able to be there for someone I care about when she needs someone.

Before things get too serious, though, some of the girls I've completely dreamt up have been pretty awesome dream-girlfriends too. There was Dawn, the super hot Asian girl who I was in a group of freedom fighters with, and Krystal, a princess who I rescued from some weird mutant guy in a shopping mall (after various failed attempts. I died a lot in that dream). I started to make things happen with this one girl in my infamous post-apocalyptic LARP quest dream until a treacherous Steve Buscemi started some shit. Seriously guys, if you want some hilarious and spine-tingling entertainment you need to check out my Dream Logs I used to post on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/tyler.ianuzi/notes

There are a lot of them, I know, but they're good. You'll wish you had my dreams, too.

As with all forms of escapism, though, these little excursions all must come to an end. I wake up from these magnificent visions and I'm still in my bed at home, about to go to work and continue my boring, single life. But hey, there's always the chance for another one the next night, right? Lately I've been having dreams featuring Benedict Cumberbatch, though, so the jury's still out on the significance of that.

                                                 "Oh stop pretending you don't like it, Tyler."

Hopefully I'll be able to write something for next week too, but there can be no promises. This is going to be one busy theatre guy for a while. But hey, living the dream, right?

Dream until your dreams come true,
Tyler

P.S. So Breaking Bad last week. Holy shit, right?

I'll Never Turn Back Time

I don't mean to generalize or make assumptions, but I think you're lying if you think the following isn't true: we all have those moments or entire years we feel we'd like to go back and do better on. I, for instance, wish that I had been a goth in high school. I loved the color black and always thought the gothic style was really cool. Plus, I had a thing for goth chicks. However, I never really had the gothic mentality, or money to spend on the clothes/chains. But hey, gothic or not, teenage me was still pretty cool.

                                                                    Coolness

In all seriousness though, while it's fun to imagine being a completely different person all those years ago, there isn't much I'd want to change. I had a great group of people in my circle and was able to do more or less all of the things I wanted to do in high school. I can't look back on my high school years with any real regret. Even my awful bummer of a senior year I believe helped mature me into who I am now. Although, if I could do it all again, I definitely would have at least asked that girl out.

Or would I have?
Now wait a minute, Tyler -- yes, I'm talking to myself but bear with me -- don't you still have trouble asking girls out to this day? What makes you think you'll have any better luck finding the balls to ask her out the second time around?
Well, I...I...don't know. I just figured the second time's a charm, you know? That's what second chances are all about, aren't they?

It's easy to think that way, though. We convince ourselves that, had we just gotten one more chance to do something over, we would've done it right. We tell ourselves: "if I could go back to high school I would bury my face in my books and get into a better college," or "if I could do college again I would focus only on my classes and then get a better job than the one I have now." Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, no, you wouldn't, because the minute you touch back down into your high school or college years, you'd have the exact same feelings about work you did back then. You'd sit down to read that textbook when your buddies call you up to go bowling, and just like the first go round out the door you go, leaving the reading for another day. You get back to your dorm and decide to get a head start on that 8-pager due at the end of the month when you get a text: "yo dawg we hittin up teh bars lol lets get krunked brah!!1!". Yeah, you're going drinking, 'cause fuck that paper, you'll write it tomorrow, or the night before it's due, you don't care. You're young and will live forever. When you're older you'll look back fondly on the fun you had and not the papers you bullshitted, 'cause that was how you were in your school atmosphere. You could go back in time with the knowledge you have now and try to do it different, but when placed back in the same place with the same homework and the same friends inviting you out for another night of your life, you'll do exactly what you did all those years ago. It wouldn't be you if you did anything else.

                                                         This still would've happened.

I'm not proud of a lot of things in my past, but knowing that there's no other way they could've played at least makes me feel better about what happens now. There's more I could've done but there were reasons why I didn't, and those reasons don't change the second time around. I didn't ask that girl out in high school because I was scared of being rejected, and I didn't study harder because I simply wasn't interested. I spent more time with the theatre club at college than focusing on my major because I was frankly more interested in that. Also drinking. But put me on the spot in front of that girl today and I'd still chicken out and I'd still say "fuck it" to that essay and go get cast in a play or something. To quote one of my favorite songs by Green Day:

"The regrets are useless in my mind."

And that's really the truth, because there is no going back in time. There are no do overs. Whatever happened happened and you acted accordingly with what you thought was right (or wrong but fun anyways) at the time. Your strengths and your flaws can be traced back to that time but that's you now and you're stuck with it. Do I think some things would be better in my life had I done things a little differently? Absolutely. But would I be any better? Who can say? But I'm satisfied with myself. I'm smarter now from the mistakes I've made, and I'm driven more now to do the things I didn't do before. Life, unfortunately, is one giant learning curve, and the prize at the end is self-satisfaction (the good kind). I won't ever have the chance to ask that girl out now, but you know what? Since then I've asked many girls out, and...still nothing, but at least I've tried, dammit, and that's more than that 15 year-old dork with the stupid Anton Chigurh haircut ever did. But it could've been worse, I think. I could've endured some terrible relationships and come out a bitter, misogynistic jerk off like some people I know. Am I sad that I've been unlucky in my many affections? Yes, but never bitter. And girls dig that, I think.

So in short, "forget regret, or life is yours to miss." And there's no such thing as time travel so quit actin' a bitch and move on.

See you in another world, brotha,
Tyler

P.S. If you're really my friend you should have a leather jacket.

Don't Feel Bad for Me, I Want You to Know

Hello again. Some of you may remember that sometime last fall I started a weekly blog and then inexplicably stopped after a few months. Well, here's an explanation at last. If you new readers go back far enough to my first post, you'll get a real good idea of why I started the blog in the first place, as a coping mechanism for that depression thing I was doing in my spare time. After a while my life started to really pick up and I realized I just didn't need the blog anymore to get through the once rough days. Well, fear not, loyal readers, for the blog MUST RETURN!

No, I'm not depressed again. Well...no, nothing's definite, but there have been many a great change in my life since I shut the blog down and many more ch-ch-changes to come in the near-future, and with them the need to chronicle them. Also, it's good practice for my writing, which I've been slacking on, so maybe a weekly exercise like this will help get me back on track. And since I'm a bit of a shut-in, this will help you all continue to get to know me better when we're not Skype-drinking, or drinking downtown, or having a couple beers while...boy I drink a lot, huh? 

So you old readers may notice this blog has a new name. I decided to change it 'cause fuck that old name. I'm using my soon-to-be-old Tumblr name, once I actually take the time to delete my profile and never return to that God forsaken site. I may blog about my new crusade against Tumblr in future posts, but for now I just wanted to write an introduction to PHASE 2 of my blogging. This way I'll have no choice but to post again soon. Seriously, I've been trying to start this up again for the past month but always lost focus. Writing's hard, brah. 

To satisfy you until my first official new post, please enjoy this video of the best thing ever:

                              

                                                   Do you got the moves like Jagger?

Good night Denise!

Tyler

P.S. I'm now the proud owner of a pair of red plaid skinny jeans. And honey, you should see me in 'em.

There Will Be No Scripts on the Night

About a week ago I received some exciting news in that I had been cast to play Roger in a local production of RENT in Syracuse. I'm more than ecstatic over this as since high school it has been my dream to portray Roger in the show, and assuming those Philadelphian mobsters don't catch up to me between now and then that dream will be coming true this summer. I mean, yeah, I have higher aspirations than community theatre, but for artistic reasons this is a great start for me. It's made me reflect on my long history in theatre and acting, the bad times and the worse, and boy, have I learned a lot that I wish everyone could know right out the gate. Things such as:

1. Your castmates will fuck up

And you will never be prepared for it, so you just gotta shit your pants and dive in and swim. My most memorable incident like this occurred in my middle school musical The Music Man. I was playing Tommy Djilas, and the scene called for me to run out onto stage, get caught and held back while the Mayor chews me out, then get inadvertently introduced to the Mayor's daughter to go on a date, resulting in a wacky misunderstanding that gets young Tommy into trouble down the road. Here's what happened instead. I run out onto stage from the wing, I'm stopped by other cast members. The kid playing the Mayor approaches me for the one-sided screaming match. "Tommy Djilas!" he begins, "...What are you doing?" This was not his line. He stopped speaking altogether. There was silence. Nobody was stepping up to save the scene. I did the only thing I could think to do. I replied, "Jeely Kly, I don't know!" And that was the extent of my improv skills. Following my brief but brilliant added-on-the-fly line the scene continued with 10 second stretches of silence interrupted by a kid saying something, ANYTHING, just to stop the awkward. Finally the kid playing Harold Hill managed to fumble his way to one of his actual lines and allow me to run off to the other side of the stage where he would then call me back to him. I hear no line signaling I should return so I just keep going off into the wings. Meanwhile the Mayor's daughter had walked onstage, stood around awkwardly, and then left. Those on stage dispersed, and despite nothing being set up, or even actually happening in the scene, the kid playing a cop still finished the scene with his line, "Well Mr. Hill, you did make one mistake. That was the mayor's daughter." Audience silence. Can't blame them, I'd be wondering what the fuck just happened too.

2. You will fuck up

And you won't be prepared for this either. If there's one part in your dialogue you know you always forget and so focus on getting that right, chances are you'll forget some other line that you remembered every time. The first time I had ever forgotten a line it blew my mind. I had been flawless up until that point, but it was during junior year of high school in the drama production of Rest Assured, a shitty little "comedy" that rips off It's a Wonderful Life, only the protagonist discovers that everyone is actually a lot better off without him. I couldn't care any less about this show than I already did, and maybe that's why the line just fell out of my head. I was supposed to tell someone that the protagonist is "walking in his sleep." Instead, I keep silent, waiting for whatever idiot was late on his or her line. The protagonist's wife, after a brief pause, says to me, "What's he doing, George? Is he walking in his sleep or something?" Alerted to my mistake, I use my acting genius to cover myself as if there was no mistake at all and reply, "He's...walking in his...sleep." See? Like nothing ever happened.
Another time, in the same goddamn play I couldn't give a shit about, I was supposed to enter a scene with a girl as soon as I heard a cue line. The only thing was, all of this guy's lines sounded the same and I entered on the wrong one. I walk on with the girl but before I can speak I see another cast member step forth to say her monologue, you know, 'cause she actually knows what she's doing. I mutter a curse under my breath, turn to the panicked face of the girl I dragged on with me, and then start miming that we're talking...for 10 goddamned minutes until my line actually comes up.

3. Your family is only there to watch you

Whenever I'm in a show, that show and the people I'm acting with are the best things in the world to me. If I'm really into the show, everything we do feels like Broadway. My co-stars are Daniel Day-Lewis and Robert Downey, Jr. The choreography is spot-on and beautiful. The orchestra is worthy of playing with John Williams. Needless to say, unless you're actually in a professional show, this is almost always not the case, but I love it regardless. Whenever I'm in a show, I'm excited for my family and friends to come see the show. Not just to see me, but because I want them to see how great the show as a whole is, and how amazing and talented everyone else in the cast is, or see how hot my female co-star is. It's making the show as whole entertaining to watch that helps me perform as well as I do. Then after curtain call and when the cast goes out to meet the audience, I make a beeline for my family. I get loads of "You were so great" and Congratulations hun" before I ask them back, "Did you like so-and-so?" or "Wasn't that dance that I wasn't in awesome?" I get nods and "Uh-huhs" as a response before they delve into more compliments meant just for me. My favorite has been "I wish you hadn't died so early," which I've actually heard more than once. At this point I just don't need a shower of compliments for myself, I'm confident enough in my abilities that I no longer need constant reassurance. What I want is for them to enjoy a show I was a part of aside form the fact that I'm in it. The ultimate test of this was when I directed my college production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, where I wasn't in it at all. I know my family enjoyed it, I just didn't hear it vocalized enough as if I had been in it.

4. Funny shit will happen

It is inevitable. Whether it is a result of you or others messing up or just a wacky happenstance, you will come away from every show with a hysterical memory that you will tell everybody you know twice. In Romeo & Juliet I was legitimately stabbed by Romeo, on 3 different occasions. On a show night for R&J a tech member was still onstage when the lights came up. He stood perfectly still in his jeans and t-shirt while men dressed in tights and petticoats walked around him speaking in Shakespearean dialect before making his escape to the wings. During a practice sword fight for I Hate Hamlet I accidentally stabbed my sword straight through the wall. On opening night of Deathtrap the lights came up on me typing but there was no paper in my typewriter, but I committed to typing on nothing throughout the entire scene like a pro. Yeah, people noticed. In Grease the car got caught on a curtain and nearly tore down the backdrop, leading to us jumping in with gems like "Nice driving, Kenickie!" and "Dude, you hit Marty's house!" Also in that show the girl playing Sandy, when asked how she was liking her new school, answered with a line meant to be used when asked about coleslaw and said, "It smells kinda funny." And during a rehearsal a guy's pants split in the back at the end of a huge dance number. Actually, there is an endless supply of hilarious instances from that show, especially that time a girl got dehydrated and was throwing up in the bathroom between all of her scenes. Hmm, actually that wasn't funny at all. She had to go to the hospital after.

5. You will kiss someone in a show

Whether you're the romantic lead type or not (I'm certainly not) there will come a play or musical where you will lock lips with someone. I stress the word "someone." Your makeout partner will not always be your ideal choice. You may get cast as the love interest to someone who you would much rather kick in the eye, or someone who has a crush on you who you'd rather didn't. In rare cases, you'll have to kiss someone of the same sex. I have. It was weird. But ever once in a while you'll get cast as a co-kisser to someone you've only dreamt of getting to first base with. I have. It was awesome.

6. You will work with people you hate

This is unavoidable, unfortunately. Even in the most perfect casts there will that one or two that you just hate being closer than a stick's length to. Even worse, this can affect your performance. Oh yes. For an example I was in a show once where my character was supposed to hate two other characters. One of the actors I got along with really well, but the other I legitimately despised. Funnily enough, my fake-hate towards the one was more believable while I wanted absolutely nothing to do with the other. You would think actual disdain would translate well through acting but it doesn't. You can't work well with someone you don't like, and it's no different when it comes to acting. I was once cast as a romantic lead opposite a girl I absolutely could not stand and...well, you can imagine our onstage chemistry translated very well. I don't have any real advice for this dilemma, as I've yet to overcome it myself. And so I wish us both luck with that.

And so I hope most of this was helpful, or at least entertaining. As I'm only just getting into serious acting I'm sure I will be learning more and more lessons along the way. So good luck to you all as well, my fellow actors! As I once said in a play, "You already learned everything that is important. You've tasted glory -- Now, reach skyward!"

Until sometime,

Tyler

P.S. If you ever wanted to hear Tywin Lannister narrate Fifty Shades of Grey, it is indeed on Youtube.

Question I Honestly Need an Answer to:

What song(s) should I audition for The Voice with?

Do I Remind You of Someone You Never Met?

This blog post is for any fellow writers out there.

Do you ever think about the characters you've created for your stories, I mean really think about them, their lives, their personalities, the things you put them through for the sake of your plot, and do you ever feel like crying?

Maybe I take this too seriously, but I'll begin with an example of a story I wrote from the age of 16 and finished when I was 19, and am currently going through and revising so that it no longer reads like the mind-vomit of a fantasy-loving high schooler. The story as it stands is about 300+ pages in length, and though there are really only 4 characters I consider "principle," there are a dozen or more supporting and minor characters whose actions and fates all assist in the story's ultimate outcome. And despite there being so many of them, and aside from the fact that so, so many of them die before the end, I find myself loving them all. And I want you to love them too.

                                  Like this, only with less laughing and more crossbows.

Of course I never intended to have so many characters in the story, in fact the original idea was for a short story 'cause I was 16 and didn't know how to write a long book. It was originally going to end with a terrible misunderstanding that resulted in an unnecessary death and the remaining main characters going their separate ways on terrible terms. I was more curious how the story would turn out if the plot took a different turn, and then 300 pages later I found out, and made some new "friends" along the way.

There was a firstish draft I wrote when I was 16, but then I got a computer virus because that was around the time I discovered Limewire. So we rebooted the computer and I lost 80 pages of my book. So I take a break and write a different story, and when I get sick of that one I decide to revisit the fantasy story I thought was long gone. Turns out it being deleted was the best thing for it 'cause I was a slightly better writer this time around. It's interesting talking to my friends who have read it and telling them what parts of the story weren't in the original draft, particularly certain characters. It's like when I lent my friend the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven and after he watched it told him what parts weren't in the theatrical cut. He had a hard time believing that the movie made any sense without the cut scenes. And honestly, the movie really didn't make much sense without those scenes, but that's besides the point. You see when I started the story the first time I was writing as I went, making up a main character on the spot and writing the first chapter, not knowing where it was going. As I went along I found an endpoint I could work towards, then it got deleted. In round 2, I knew exactly where I was trying to get to, and so I was able to have more freedom on the path there. I added some characters, created new plot points, and discovered all of those themes and metaphors that teachers tell you the authors intended to have. Here's a hint, those are almost always accidents. The ones that aren't are shitty books.

                                                                     Ahem.

But where was I? What am I trying to say? Oh right! So obviously I don't write a 300 page book in one sitting. I write a paragraph or a chapter here and there, then leave to do other stuff or go to bed. It was never while I was writing that I truly discovered a character. When I'm typing I just spell a name and describe what they look like, write some dialogue to move the plot along, leave it at that. It's when I'm in bed when I really think about some of them. I mean as people. What their personality is, why they do the things they do, what happened to them prior to the story. And this isn't pretentious writerly bullshit they feed you in school, I really think about this stuff. But it's not because I want the story to work, or because I want to create diverse, interesting characters, the characters literally are people to me. I know what makes them tick, I know what their parents were like, and I don't even put most of that shit into the story. For the more likeable characters, it gets to the point where I wish I could just pull them off of the page and hang out with them.

                                            Believe me, I wish it were more like this.

It's bad, man. I don't want to always be thinking about people who don't exist but they're there all the time. Because of this it can sometimes be really difficult when the time comes for said characters to die. Oh boy, that can sometimes be a tough job. There was this one character, when I thought him up he was just supposed to be minor, just be around, but I needed the main character to have a best friend in that section of the story and so I promoted him. Eventually I realized I wanted to have an unrequited love story going on and so I again promoted this character to the hopeless romantic in addition to the main character's best friend. In the back of my mind, however, his fate was always to be killed near the end of the story. When I decided he should die, he was a nobody. A background character. Even after his subsequent character promotions his fate hadn't changed, he still had to die before the story's final chapters, because frankly  I hadn't thought up anything he could do during those parts. Yes, he partly died as a result of my laziness. I've already had that talk with myself. So anyways, when the time came to type out his death scene, I was hesitant. "Maybe he doesn't have to die. I have the power to stop this," I told myself. But I held strong and wrote out his demise, and then I felt horrible. I had to stop and walk around for a bit. I know that sounds like such a J.K. Rowling thing to do, but it felt really weird to off a character that I'd been thinking about for so long. Maybe it was also the fact that he wasn't the only one who died in that scene.

                                                 "Hmm...still not enough death!"

Yeah, I killed off two kinda important characters in one go. Yes, I felt bad. And I wouldn't if, again, I didn't think about them so damn much. But dammit, they're so cool! There this other character, a girl, who was just kind of in the background here and there throughout the story. She never really did anything of note until this massive attack thing happens and this is when whoever's reading the story will start to get to know her. Through her struggles and acts of bravery the reader will start to think, "This chick, she's kinda cool." Then I pull the rug out from under you and kill her like I'm all, "Sucks to suck!" And admittedly, that was my intent all along, to make you just start to like this girl who seemed like a nobody and then have her die so you feel sad. That didn't make it any easier to write, though, I liked her too. Especially now during the rewrites where I'm thinking up a whole new backstory for her. I might even have a bit of a fictional character crush on her, which makes me feel slightly guilty about having her leg get blown off.

It's more than just those two, though. All of the characters I've invented (or "discovered" if I wanna sound douchy) I feel like I know through and through, and if I don't now I will eventually. Sadly, I have all of their fates mapped out and most of them die horribly. It's not 'cause I hate them, I just decided to kill them before I really grew to like them, and then I was stuck with a death scene I'd be forced to write, all the time trying to apologize to someone who doesn't exist, and who therefore is not actually dying.

                                                                     Whoa.

But none of that matters, 'cause everybody is sad when their favorite character dies in a book or movie. I just happen to feel like that about EVERYBODY. It's like, imagine if a part of you died every time a random soldier died in the Lord of the Rings movies. Welcome to my world. What's worse is when I find a song that I specifically identify with a character or circumstance in my story. I listen to the song "My Junk" from Spring Awakening, a song about the young characters in that show growing up and thinking about each other in romantic (ish) ways, and when I listen to it now I think, "Oh god, it's just like in my story, and just like in my story most of them are dead by the end!" Obviously I've added it to my "writing" playlist. I also recently heard the Scala and Kolacny Brothers cover of Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters," and oh my god does that song make me think about the aftermath of the attack scene I mentioned before, especially hearing it from a choir. Hearing the right music puts a whole new spin on what I'm writing and who these characters are.

                                             Embedded so you too can feel my pain.

But anyways, I hope I'm not the only writer who goes through this, because if I am I'm either a freak or the best writer around, and I'm not particularly comfortable being either of those. Regardless, I hope that if I ever get this thing published you will all pick up a copy and forget all the spoilers I revealed throughout this. Please support a hungry writer, because my acting career isn't exactly keeping the power on. And if you also like getting attached to characters only to see them get horribly murdered, I highly recommend watching Game of Thrones.


With regrets,
Tyler


P.S. Who has two thumbs and just got cast as Roger in RENT? THIS GUY!!!

Dream Roles:

Completed:

Tybalt - Romeo & Juliet
Bernardo - West Side Story
and soon Roger in RENT

Still on the horizon are:

St. Jimmy - American Idiot
Moritz - Spring Awakening
Iago - Othello

One day the list shall be complete. One day...

The Little Insult That Could

Who here knows what an A-wing is? I surely can't be Facebook friends with anyone who hasn't seen Star Wars but I'll elaborate anyways. This is an A-wing:

That's right, it's that ship that nobody likes to use in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 'cause its shields suck and its weapons are weak. Its one saving grace is that it's faster than the other ships, but who needs speed in a game where the goal is to blow space shit up? Essentially, if the A-wings were in a gym class, they'd get picked last. They're small and weak and can't do much damage. What chance do these things have against the Imperial armada, especially when they have the Super Star Destroyer, dubbed the Executor?

                            For a scale comparison, this ship's bigger than everything ever.

Oh wait, in the final movie Return of the Jedi, the Executor got taken down by one of those little fuckers. The rebels had destroyed the Executor's bridge deflector shield, pretty much painting a big fat red target on the ship's control bridge. Admiral Piett orders all power be directed to the star destroyer's firepower. Caught in the guns' crossfire is a random A-wing, who, in his final moments, steers his damaged fighter towards the Executor's shieldless control bridge and rams it head on. The bridge explodes and the Executor nosedives into the side of the Death Star and explodes.

                                                               "Too late!!!"

Holy shit, that was awesome! What a spectacular and brave final act by...that A-wing pilot. Huh? What? You don't remember his name? Everybody remembers Lando's name and he didn't do shit. Well, thanks to Wikipedia, I've learned that this random A-wing pilot's name was Arvel Crynyd, and his one line of screaming battlecry was portrayed by actor Hilton McRae, who you might recognize from nothing. Now going by traditional means, you would think they would've had the Executor taken out by a more significant hero, like Lando or Wedge. Or hell, why not an Ewok? But it was an unknown pilot keeping his shitty little A-wing afloat just long enough to help turn the tide of the battle. And you know what? I could give a shit about Luke or his sister-with-benefits. This man was my hero of the films.

It's something like that that just goes to show how little, seemingly insignificant things can make a huge difference. They can be so small, one has to really look back in order to see where the seed was first planted. Take the sitcom Friends, for example. Monica and Chandler hooking up in London and eventually marrying was awesome and seemed to come out of nowhere. Yeah, it really seemed like they were just talking in one scene and when it cut to the next, they were in bed together. How did that happen? Well, you may recall a minor event that led to Monica seeking out Joey for comfort sex but finding Chandler instead (it's a complex show). At Ross's wedding rehearsal dinner, Monica was feeling bummed out that her brother was getting married while she was still single, when suddenly a man IMDB credits as Older Guest approaches her and, after telling her how wonderful Ross is, then says, "My god, you must've been a teenager when you had him." Monica is Ross's younger sister, in case you're just that uncultured. And with that, Monica finally snaps and turns to Chandler, thus beginning their beautiful and, frankly, show-killing romance. Seriously, the show started to suck right around that point. Meanwhile, Older Guest can be credited as jumpstarting the eventual marriage of Monica and Chandler, and actor Heathcote Williams (good LORD, what a name) can forever claim to his friends that he was responsible for one of the series' biggest plotlines, to which his friends would presumably reply, "Shut the fuck up, Heathcote!"

Now, did the writers of Star Wars or Friends intend for their audience to look back at Arvel Crynyd and Older Guest and ponder the fate of their respective mediums without their minor acts of heroism? Probably not, but people like me (probably just me) have noticed and will never forget these important nobodies. Tiny acts like those can have huge effects later on, just like when that kid in high school quit the track team 'cause everyone was calling him slow. Ah, there's the moral he was getting at.

We say things to people we know everyday that mean nothing to us, but to their ears it could be lifechanging. Little insults or sarcastic remarks can slowly tear down a person's self-esteem. Not holding a door open for somebody one day could just be the final straw that was keeping that person's cynicism from leaking out, and now they hate humanity. Good job. Blowing somebody off when you were supposed to go to the movies could give that person the idea that nobody wants to be around them, if it happens enough times. Picking fun at any little thing about a person, such as their weight or their athleticism or the fact that they're wearing jorts, could lead to them giving up on socializing or quitting school or worse. Don't even get me started on the bullying crisis in America's schools and what results that produces.

                                                        But seriously, jorts = no.

During my middle school years, I was not a bully. I was too skinny. I was something worse, though. I was the bully's friend. You know, that skinny asshole who hides behind his giant bruiser buddy and flings insults at you. I was that, and I regret everything from that time. I stood by as my friends bullied the "losers" and just let it happen, all the while saying things to make it worse. I once told a kid that he should run away from home because it would be doing us and his family a favor. Christ, I said that? I don't know what that kid's doing now or where he is. He didn't actually run away from home, in case you were wondering, but I don't know what's become of him since we graduated. I'm very glad I stopped being that person once I got to high school, otherwise I could've evolved into full-on bully. And you know what they say, "No one's gonna cry on the very day you die, you're a bully." Ok, maybe only Shinedown says that.

But yeah, think about your actions and how, down the road, they could change a person's life. Maybe you tell someone in your creative writing class that you liked their story. Someday they might be a published author. Tell someone you like their jokes, they might turn into a renowned stand up comedian. Tell someone they have a good singing voice, then they may go on to embarrass themselves in an audition for The Voice. Everything goes a long ways. Just smile at somebody walking down the street and they might not kill themselves that day. And be mindful of the little things you say to bring people down, like when I rub it in my sister's face how I dominated our "A Year in the Life" Christmas card that year. Maybe she really gets jealous when it appears I did more than her that year. I'm not immune to the actions of others, either. Maybe somebody made fun of my music tastes years ago and now I'm embarrassed when people hear what I listen to. Maybe that same person also tried to tell me I couldn't act or sing even though he'd never come to any of my shows to see if I could or not. Maybe I don't draw anymore because he told me my drawings were shit. Think about it, then shut the fuck up, you moron. Who made you king of trends? Nobody likes you and you're gonna die angry, you fucking douchnozzle. Go drink detergent. Seriously. I won't care, and neither will anyone else.

                                               As you can see, I'm totally over it.

So in conclusion, remember, one small and random act can alter the course of everything. Whether it be an A-wing taking out a Star Destroyer or you calling a kid fat and him dropping out of school and joining the Navy, our current fates can always be traced back to one tiny seed planted in just the right spot, and my god did that come off sounding more sexual than I thought it would. But hey, I started out talking about Star Wars and ended with a pretty good life lesson. You see, that's writing.

Goodbybe,
Tyler

P.S. Still no word on my RENT audition. Is no news usually good news?

Best News of 2013 So Far:

New David Bowie album out in March!!!