I might just be a sorry-ass bowman—sorry, bowwoman—in retrospect.  Missing the target, focusing on the wrong thing, distracted by the shiny one. Jumping on a bandwagon, maybe, picking up a clue and running with it. Playing percentages.

Not gonna say it makes me ill, but I will say that I have gotten a little cynical watching shows these days. Shake my head, mutter work for actors. This is no surprise. I mean I watched Days of Our Lives for 50 years? Yeah. 1970 when I first started watching it out of boredom. Taking a break from school. Then as always, some ludicrous inspiration strikes me. I start making a beaded curtain to separate our dining room from our sleeping room. Mind you this was a studio apartment with a Murphy bed so you could walk the length of the entire space at about count of 10. So I bought 5 pounds or so of sunflower seeds, some waxed thread, a heavy duty needle and a piece of one by one to make the header. Then I proceed to soak the sunflower seeds so that the needle could go through. Measured the height of the doorway and the length wise dimension of a seed. Once equipped and launched, I realize if I had just done the math I would've dropped the whole project like a hot rock. Conservatively speaking, a month of working all day to finish. And that's including applying some varnish to seal the strands.

For a while I had all of the finished strands—maybe five of them?—in a box somewhere. I don't think they started attracting flies or anything. But along with my macramé lampshade and a few other fits and starts, I think I just applied two three drops of Inspiration into a petri dish and then watched it rot. Apparently I couldn't let go of something once I got a yen. Didn't matter how many times I crashed and burned, the ideas just kept coming.

Now I look back on all of that and I realize I might have something in common with 95% of the artistes who are out there waiting to catch a break. I’ve said recently that I'm at the point where if all I really had out there was Aunt Eller in Oklahoma that would be the end. And wouldn't you know? I just saw the 1998 Oklahoma production with Hugh Jackman, looked up the actress playing that so-called minor role and by God she was not minor at all. Apparently she was very well-known English actress, and either they pumped up her role or she pumped it up for them, but it was impressive. The problem was always the same though; you go to an audition and there are 15 women to one guy and only one appropriate female role. It’s not that guys don't wanna play Curly, there just aren't enough guys. And there's always enough women.

Nothing new here move along. I'm talking about the frustration that comes with having creative energy that simply feeds off of anecdotal crapola. Like the YT I've been watching that breaks down iconic movies and gets archival interview footage with the actors, directors and cameraman and producers and what not—whatever's available. Everything from the sublime to the ridiculous. Silly people doing vacuous things. I keep thinking why can't you just watch stupid people doing stupid things on TeeVee? That way you don't have to be the stupid person doing stupid things. And I find it sometimes worth a look, but also there's a through line. No way no how is anybody gonna cop to the absolute and mystifying certainty that all of this so-called success works only in the rearview mirror. And as we all know that don't butter the bread.

There's this guy I know in the neighborhood who used to be a well known career coach; for all I know he still is, but I don't think so. I think he's semi-retired. Always maintained that he adores his job, self-made and very opinionated, had a call-in radio show. His advice to people is don't become an actor because everybody wants to become an actor. And only 5% are gonna make it. You could apply that to pretty much anything like artist, dancer, musician, blah blah. So what is he saying? Do something you love and don't worry about it. I always said I don't wanna move to LA. I don't wanna be a part of a union cause that's a sure bet that you won't get any work at all not that I begrudge unions. I don't, but unless you get a waiver, you don't work.

Maybe what got me started thinking about this is the number of things that I'm facing right now that don't have anything to do with something as concrete as union work or auditioning. I ran into that neighbor the coach in front of my house the other day. He’s walking his dog and I’m putting stuff in the compost bin. He says my name and I turn and say hi. Asks how I’m doing, and instead of a canned response, I say eh, not so good. We have a brief exchange, his face full of concern and affection. We Namaste each other and he says be well. I should only wish.

One foot in front of the goddamn other.