Charles Bronsom is...MANDOM!

i loved charles bronson when i was a little kid. he was a man's man -- the ultimate tough guy. now that those million dollar japanese commercials that american celebrities have been doing for years have come to light, gems like this one are starting to surface. he must have done this in the 70s.

as i watched it, all i could think was, that's totally the life i thought i'd have when i grew up: there i'd be, all dressed up and having a cocktail of some sort while some nat king cole look-a-like tickles the ivories. and then some midget doorman would give me that hearty "goodnight" along with my car keys, and i'd zip through gotham, feeling powerful and arrogant and in control. wheeee!

i wonder what that stuff smells like. do they still sell it? or has it gone the way of right guard and hai karate, two other very important emblems of my manly childhood...

auditions

dunkin donuts audition today. an audition to understudy celie in the broadway company of "the color purple" tomorrow. absorbing three scenes and two songs for that audition right now, and musicwise all they gave me was sheet music. i didn't have the money or the time to track down a pianist or find it in the performing arts library or locate a musical theater-obsessed friend with the original cast recording, which meant having to cough up twenty bucks for the cd. i should have been annoyed and some part of me was, i suppose. but ultimately, i was too grateful that i could afford to pay for it.

yes, it's true. being able to pay all my bills on time and having health insurance feels wierd. you know what else? having to learn this stuff all at once feels like i've entered a pie-eating contest. just thinking about doing a musical theater audition makes me a little queasy. no small wonder. when i go in, they know me or they've heard of me, so i've got to give them something of a performance and that means i have to know the lines and material i just got the night before, even if they sit there and say it's okay that i don't. i'm exhausted just imagining what i'd have to do, to pull that off. i mean, really. feh.

i remember what it was like when i first came to nyc. getting the audition, finding appropriate sheet music, learning the material, finding something decent to wear -- that was the tip of the iceberg. they wouldn't let me into the union auditions because i was non-union. i had to wait until they'd seen all of the union people on the list and then they'd say, we've seen enough, please leave your headshot in this box, thanks. or they'd say only the first ten people on the non-union list, thanks -- and i'd be number 11. or they'd say dancers who sing only, everyone else -- thanks. there was always that bouncy, overly enthusiastic thanks at the end, which to my ears sounded a whole lot like get out. funny thing, though. i got good at auditioning. i guess i had to, what with all of that going on.

i was working it off broadway and i was writing songs and in and out of bands while i was in and out of auditions like that. my non-union status went on for six years before i landed the first national tour of RENT on a straight-up non-union cattle call. i guess all those non-union wait-all-day-and-get-nothing auditions were preparing me for that one because it was a motherlode.

wow. why didn't i quit?

yeah, you guessed it

i got a callback for that Verizon commercial audition i did last week or so. a big yippee for me, for making it past the common herd. more details soon.

another day, another audition: verizon

they said local, regional. they said casual business attire. they also said that there was no copy. i knew what that meant: almost everyone would get typed out at a glance. still and all, i wanted to be a nice enough girl and make a genuine effort. i blew my hair out, put on a light camera-ready daytime beat, got into a dark grey cowl neck woolen dress and some flat comfortable boots and hit it. let's face it, it's too cold to be cute or impractical about these things. i suppose i could have changed clothes there but i was betting that they would use a medium shot (and i was right). the shoot date was in a week. there would be callbacks. cool, i said. but what i was really thinking was, i'm getting my hair done this weekend so if they want me, they'd better call me before sunday because i'm not undoing my china bumps once they're in and i've made that commitment -- especially when they're fresh. they pretty much undo themselves, anyway.

i walked into that oh-so-familiar space at House and rounded the corner and saw all of those uncomfortably well dressed actors pacing and fidgeting and glancing at each other furtively, and i thought i am so far removed from all of this, i may as well be on the moon. maybe i was unfazed because i had already done my first commercial late last year. i was over that hump. that can i do this? pressure was gone. sure, i was nervous, in the moment. but i was confident and i was also objective, so nerves really didn't matter. this wasn't going to make or break me but everyone around me was sweating bullets. it was almost laughable, the tension in the air. what was it? ah, yes. it was desperation.

i sat there and stifled a yawn as it dawned on me: i'm not desperate. you treat auditioning like a job, you do it full time, you'll book something eventually. it is what it is -- no more, no less. it's not magic. it's just life. some guy passed by me as i checked my make-up in the mirror and said, good luck. i laughed and said, it ain't up to me, mister. i do everything i can to do the best i can, with that in mind.

and what do you know? the woman who auditioned me was the one that saw me through the audition/callback process that ultimately landed me the ocean spray spot. everything comes back around and around, and always when i least expect it.

can't. shouldn't. won't.

my manager called me last night and asked me if i wanted to go to japan for six months. We have an ironclad agreement that he is not to call me for three basic things: cruise ships, regional/stock theater and disneyworld -- or any combination therein -- but he feels obligated to let me know what's out there. and evidently, mickey mouse is hiring in Tokyo.

But there was more: several months on a cruise ship and a philly production of caroline or change were waiting in the wings. how odd that in one phone call, he would tell me about all three things that I categorically refused to consider.

as he went on about the disney thing, i remember thinking, wow -- i've always wanted to live in a foreign country. but to tell you the truth, it was strange, listening to all the details: pay rates, per diem, LORT agreements. it felt like he was talking to someone else. Those are the kinds of opportunities I would have followed when I first came to the city. Until I began to develop my own ideas, I was at the mercy of this business, forever wondering what I was or wasn’t doing to make the phone ring and waiting around until it did. My strategy was to throw myself into the fray and say yes to everything. I was a roman candle, exploding in every direction, sure, I was exhausted and broke. but it felt so good to run after my dreams at full tilt that I really didn’t care. My successes shaped my goals and priorities. When the ideas I came up with were more interesting than the opportunities that were being presented to me, I began to say no more and more often until I hardly said yes at all.

Suddenly, here I was, going no-no-no all over again, without hesitation.

I know that I’m not a negative person but when the moment presents itself, I genuinely enjoy saying no – and I honestly don’t mind hearing it. I think it’s a freeing thing to say and to accept, as long as you’re objective about it. The word no has to find its way through a situation that the word yes never seems to know of. Yes gives it to me. No compels me to shift gears and find another way. And work harder.

it's not that i can't go to tokyo and do a show in disneyworld if someone offered me the part, or that I don’t want to take the gig. it's just that, at this juncture in my career, i would rather do commercials/tv/film, so I probably shouldn't. and that means i won't.

What it really boils down to is this: Say yes to what you really want. Say no to everything else.