Scary Stuff!

It’s Halloween time and the scary decorations are out in force only to be taken down and replaced by snowmen, angels and the ever popular Christmas tree.  I love Christmas but I have to say for a pure no pressure enjoyment holiday, Halloween has got to be it.   There are no family commitments to deal with - you don’t have to make an appearance to keep the peace or drive hundreds to miles to make it in time for the stressful family dinner.  No, it’s just primo candy, ghosts, ghouls and the scores of Disney Princess costumes.  When I was a kid and you got to a certain age, like 10 to 11, you would go out trick or treating with friends instead of parents carrying pillow cases which were your Halloween bag and you'd get them filled with an assortment of M&Ms, Milky Ways, Baby Ruths, Snickers and LifeSavers.   You would also get what I call “lame candy” like Neeco Wafers (if you read my blog Nana and the Grudge – you would understand my aversion to those things), Mary Janes, cinnamon candy, peppermints or gasp – candy canes (left over from last Christmas).   We used to walk for hours on Halloween and almost all of the houses gave candy.  It was a magical night where kids owned the streets.  Back at my house, my dad would dress up as the headless horseman.  We had a mannequin head and he would hold it next to him and button his shirt over his head with a red washcloth to make it look blood (that was a gory as my parents would get).  When he would open up the door, the little kids would freak out which was fun and the big kids got a laugh.  He was always a big hit in the neighborhood and we would go through tons of candy. 

After our Halloween trek, we  would came back home and my mother would dutifully go through the pillowcases of goodies and make sure that nothing untoward had been put in there – no apples with razor blades, and any baggies of popcorn or other seemingly harmless treats that were not factory sealed were thrown away.   This was the 1970’s and there were always stories of people putting LSD into homemade candy (although to be fair, what respectable druggie would actually waste perfectly good acid on a bunch of neighborhood kids?).  We were only allowed to eat packaged candy and she would pull out the fun size Snickers because she swore that we hated them (when I finally tasted one I realized that my mother was really calling dibs on those confections under the guise of saving us from ourselves).   We had so much the candy – it would last into the New Year since my parents would only let us have one or two a day - minus what they sneaked when we weren’t looking.

When I got too old to go out Trick-or-Treating, I took over the rite of giving out candy.  I had been a huge fan of Shields and Yarnell and loved the robots that they created on their show.  I would dress up as a Robotic mime in white face.  I would stand outside on the front stoop of the house and when the children came up – I would robotically turn to them, nod, give them candy and then go back to my original position once they had moved to the next house.   The funny thing was once the kids had gotten the treats, they were perfectly happy to move onto the next house, but the parents would stay behind to see if I was going to move.  I would always end with my head down so I could blink and breathe without it being noticed.   Their kids would be three or four houses down and still the parents would stay and watch to see if I would move.   After a few minutes, I would pop my head up robotically and look right at them, shaking my head mechanically back and forth.  They would gasp or scream and move on.   It was not about scaring little kids - freaking out their parents was way more fun and I was able to do it bloodlessly without an entrail insight.

I guess that’s why I’ve never been a huge fan of slasher flicks.  It me, you’re working really hard with blood and gore give people nightmares when some good old fashion editing and scary music will do the trick.  Who can forget the shower scene in Psycho?  When my mother saw it, she spent a year only taking showers if my dad was home.   I love horror movies where the evil guy is perfectly normal vs. the guy in a hockey mask with issues – give me Norman Bates over Jason or Michael Myers any day.    One of the drawbacks to having done movies and videos is that I’ll look at the technical aspects – the lighting, the point when the dramatic music comes up, where they might have put in computer generated image, etc.   The Blair Witch Project did not scare me because I was too annoyed at the sloppy camera work.   Nightmare on Elm Street with Freddy Kruger as the man of your dreams – really?!  Maybe if he was buff and had an uncanny sense of style then the idea of him turning into a guy with bad skin and scissor hands would be scary.  Frankly Freddie just seems to be trying too hard.

 Now while I don’t really watch horror movies, I’ve always thought that Jigsaw of the Saw movies was a thinking man’s serial killer.   If you’re not going to take your life seriously then why should he?  So those that are careless with the gift of life have to fight like hell to save it.   His methods are sick and twisted but those stories have more of a moral rather than “Hey kids, if you stay a virgin, there’s a real good chance a murderous psycho will allow you to make it to the end of the movie.”   Jigsaw is more scary than the rest of them because in the back of your mind you are thinking about all the stupid things you’ve done and what if that guy had honed in on you before you got your act together.  Now that’s some scary stuff.

I do remember being scared of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.  For as cheesy as those special effects were, those winged primates grabbing Dorothy and Toto used to really upset me.   When I got older and found out how they did it, I wasn’t scared anymore although I don’t really enjoy that scene.   I also remember having nightmares about my younger sister and I being in the back seat of a car and the motor would start on its own and start driving at a really fast speed.  We’d be in the back seat, screaming for it to stop and it would go faster – I would wake up right before it crashed.   I remember having this dream every few months for years – then when I learned to drive – it stopped completely.   I guess subconsciously I knew that if the car went out of control, I could handle it. 

So, I now try to see what scares me and overcome it.   I really don’t like being in a dark enclosed space – it’s not a simple fear that is momentary – I mean I really hate the idea of being stuck in a small place with no light.  My breathing starts to get shallow and my heart races.    So every summer, what do I do?  I make myself go to the public pool and I wait in line with a bunch of damp kids and get on the slide that is completely enclosed.   That’s right – it’s dark, it’s small, it’s wet and I’m hurling in the dark.  My panic starts to take hold as I’m twisting and turning blindly until I explode out of the slide into the daylight with such unexpected force, I get water up my nose every time.  It takes few seconds to get my bearings and then I burst back up through the surface of the water gasping for air with what must be a look of shock and relief.   I then get right back in line and do it at least two or three more times.  Why you might ask?   Because by the third time, it’s not so bad and I feel like I can handle things better. 

Public speaking can scare the hell out of people.  Because I do improvisational theater, I’ve never really had a hard time getting in front of people and speaking.  I remember doing it in middle school and high school and never having a problem.   I’m always amazed at the number of actors who are flat our terrified of doing improvisation and the idea of going up on stage without a script literally scares them witless.   It’s not just actors, most people are afraid of public speaking – it’s one of the number one fears that people have.     They’re afraid that they will forget what they need to say or their mouth will open and nothing will come out.    They have been watching too many reality talent shows where the image of Simon Cowell savaging them in front of everyone is enough to make them sit quietly during meetings and say nothing because putting yourself out there is pretty scary stuff.    When I teach improv to non-actors one of the first things I tell them is that if they allow ideas to flow – if they can relax and trust that they will think and speak clearly.   It’s the fear, the idea that they will screw up that is the self-fulfilling prophesy.   

I’ll have my new improvisers do an exercise called The Library where I will walk them through imaginary rows of shelves and ask them to pick out an imaginary book at the library.  I’ll ask them what it looks like, what it smells like and how heavy it is.   They start to imagine that they have a real book in their hands.   I’ll ask them to give me the title of the book and flip through the pages; I will then say “Stop, now read me a page of the book and the name of the chapter.”   At first, they will look like a deer in headlights, but I will ask them to look closer and just read the words, that they are right on the page.   Then something clicks, the resistance falls away and they start reading like they see the text.   After that, I ask them if they want to keep the book and they can sit down.   The look on their faces is usually one of astonishment.   I’ll ask how it felt and they’ll usually say that once they stopped fighting the exercise and just went with it – their perception changed and they could see all the information in the book.   They faced their fear and it melted away and was replaced by articulate thought that was not going to let them down. 

Lest you think I’m a total bad ass or a zen master that can just about anything, I will confess that I do have a huge fear of heights.   I mean I really hate being up in high places and I really hate roller coasters.   So last year, when the kids and I were offered free tickets to Six Flags, I almost turned it down.   But since we’d never gone as a family, I decided it was worth it to go.   Of course the first things the kids wanted to go on were things like Dare Devil and the Georgia Scorcher.  Then there is Goliath, a $20 million ride that pulls you slowly up the 200 feet incline before it drops you 175 feet and kicks to its top speed of 70 miles per hour.  As we start to go up I’m thinking, “Holy crap, I really don’t want to be on this.”  I’m starting to panic, but I have no choice now and can’t get off.  So after traversing 4,500 feet of roller coaster track, the ride ends and I make it out alive.   We spent the rest of the day going on six roller coasters while I scream at my anxiety “suck on this baby!”  as we loop de loop through another twist and turn.   We went again for Fright Fest this year, this time staying after dark and dealing with roller coasters at night and zealous zombies who are pretty chill about photo ops. 

 

 

Facing your fears is something I’ve had to do a lot in the last year.   I’m coming up on a year since the layoff of a job that I had been working at for almost four years.  It paid very well and had good benefits.   When I found out that I was being let go - that fear of having everything crash in around me like a roller coaster started to creep in.    I got a three month severance package but what if I didn’t have another job by the time it was finished?   Unemployment would not pay the bills.   What if Max was laid off too?  Would we lose the house?   Would be my family be homeless?  Screw Jason, Michael Myer, Samara Morgan or Freddie Kruger, those fears were terrifying enough to keep me up at night.   Losing financial security scared the crap out of me way more than taking a shower with Norman Bates, but I learned that I could handle it.   I got another job in May, six months after losing my other job.   We’re still digging out financially but we’ll be fine.  I learned that my marriage is as strong as it ever was, and that my family will stick by me no matter what. I learned to look at what I feared the most in the eyes and I didn’t blink.   I didn’t crumble and I didn’t give up.   So to all you movie psychos who think you have the market on creating fear – sorry to disappoint you but this past year I’ve been there – done that and you are just not that scary anymore.  So Jigsaw, if you want to play a game, I have one for you – it’s called Don’t Screw with the Blond or You Might Get Burned!  - because this peri-menopausel cougar knows how to scratch her way back.  Happy Halloween!

Mo Money

If there one thing that I’ve had to battle constantly in my life – its money.  We were not always foes –in fact when I was a kid, we were the best of buds.  If someone gave me a dollar, it was like I suddenly had power.  I could go out on my own and buy things –even if it was a soda and a candy bar – it was still my choice and my dollar.   I remember the thrill of handing that money to the cashier at Buy-Rite or Sentry Drugs and getting my things put into a bag and then getting of all things – change!  Change to either save or use to purchase something else another day.   Oh, the feeling of financial freedom – the feeling of being a customer!  The money would change form, it would ebb and flow, but it was there to help you get things that you needed or wanted.   You have to admit – that’s one hell of a friend.  When I was 10 or 11, there was no job to worry about, no mortgage to pay, no utilities, no credit card bills, no student loans, just the exhilaration of being a pure consumer.   When my dad would lie on the floor and change would bleed out of his pockets, us kids would circle like sharks going for chum. Once he got up, we made a mad dash because most of the time, the change was there for the taking.   I remember thinking that shiny pennies were like manna from heaven.  They were these perfect spots of change – more sparkly then their friends the dimes, nickels, quarters and half dollars.   Just seeing one as a kid made me so damn happy – it was like I was the first person to send this little coin on its long trip through the financial waters of our economy – where it would get used and tarnished.  I still smile when I get a shiny penny because it’s money in its simplest and purest form.

Growing up, my family was middle to lower middle class.  There were five kids in the family and it never felt like we wanted for much but I knew there were times my parents were really struggling.   During the recession of the 1970’s, there were gas lines, and boycotts of lettuce and ground beef because the prices were so high.   Much like today, people were hurting.   Saying that you couldn’t afford something was not something to be ashamed of – it was a fact and the reality was that many people had to cut back to make ends meet.   Good God, interest rates on home loans were 19% - that’s not an interest rate – that’s loan sharking!  You would see episodes on All in the Family about how they had to cut back and it made you feel a little better about where you were.  If Archie, Edith, Michael and Gloria had to eat spaghetti with just tomato sauce for the fourth night in a row, then maybe sausage noodle casserole twice a week was not so bad.  The emphasis on designer jeans had not hit until I was in high school and things then were a bit better for my parents. Even though I could have asked for them, I always thought it was stupid to pay so much more for a label that you wore on your jeans like Calvin Klein or Jordache.  You were paying the designers more money to wear their label on the pocket to promote their product?  Really!?   The fact that nothing came between Brooke Shields and her Calvins was a bit gross.  I even did a song for the school talent show lampooning designer duds.  Shabby chic and the Annie Hall look were fun, cheaper and way more comfortable then really, really tight jeans.

When I was a junior at Southwest Senior High, my first job was to work at Publix Supermarkets and I got paid $3.10 per hour minimum wage in 1980.  I would work 12 hours on Saturday and then another 12 hours during the week.   I was so disciplined that I would take out $20 per paycheck for spending money and put the rest of the bank.  I was tough keeping my grades up and working that much and sometimes I felt really burned out but I was able to save close to $3,000 to go to college with which my father matched.  I had a really nice bank account and a chance to study at Florida State University – so now me and my besty money were together to set the world on fire. 

So how did my elation about money turn to so much anxiety as an adult?  Why do I spend so much time worrying about it?   Probably when I had the responsibility of actually paying for things on my own.  I was able to go two years without working and living on what I had saved in college.  I was living in a dorm which my parents paid for and I just needed money for food, going out and clothes.  I didn’t even have a car that first year so I didn’t have to pay for gas and at FSU – most things that you needed were within walking distance of the campus.   But then I wanted to move out of the dorms and live in an apartment and have a car – so things got more complicated financially.  Money was tighter and I needed to go back to working – this time waiting tables.   I began to worry about money especially when my roommate was consistently late with her share of the rent.  One time she wrote me a bad check which then made me bounce checks which sucked.   Money wasn’t there as a sure fire friend – sometimes I could depend on it and sometimes I couldn’t.  It was very unreliable.  Worse, I would get tight feelings in the pit of my stomach wondering how I would pay for things.   I could no longer take it for granted and maybe that was money’s payback. 

When Max and I got married, we were worried about money but we always seemed to get by and we were both working.  Except for the time when we won a lawsuit about six years into our marriage, we were always just scraping by and if we came up short, we would ask my parents for help which they were always willing to do.  I hated asking for help but my parents were always nice and understanding about it.  We actually moved up to Georgia in 1998 with the lawsuit money and bought a house.  At that point, I decided to take a year off from working to spend more time with Amber who was just a toddler.   It was weird not working.  I didn’t feel like I had an identity and as much as I loved spending time with Amber – I longed for adult conversation during the day and something do to that was not focused around when the Teletubbies came on.   The money would not hurt either as the lawsuit money was beginning to run out- another ebb and flow that my friend money was all too often prone to.

So I went back to work doing what I did best - working for non-profits.  The kind of organizations who have very little disposable income.  The kind who are dependent on government agencies, grantors and kind benefactors to get their funding.  That’s how I’ve lived the bulk of my financial life so I’m comfortable with organizations that just pray that a big grant or check comes in just in time.  I’ve worked for international agencies and know that money does not come easily to some parts of the world –where  so many people are just getting by on $1 to $2 per day, no clean water and terrible medical conditions.  In this country, we spend $5 on Starbucks when that would feed a family of four for a day in other parts of the world.   Hey I’m not knocking loving your Mocha Light Grande or your tall Salted Caramel Frappanchino – I’m just pointing out that there are people in this world that would do more with that $5 then get a java buzz.

In the 20 years that I’ve worked for non-profits and I’ve gotten to know some really wealthy donors.   Some are real down-to-earth type of people who would give you the clothes off their backs to help.  They understand the mission of the charities that they are trying to help.  They have a real desire to make a difference in the lives of the people that you are working with.  It makes raising money so easy because it’s not a donation – it’s an investment in the social cause they are passionate about.  Those are my favorite type of donors – they are not pushovers but they know how their money can help and ask you directly what you need.  There are those that write the checks to get their names on things or to be recognized.   They are still doing good with their money even if it’s just for the recognition- it doesn’t matter because in the end they are helping your cause.  Then there are the ones who use their donations or promise of donations to manipulate the organization to do things their way.  Those are the donors that use their money to hurt – not to help.   That’s the side of money that I really hate to see.   How many times have you heard about a donor at a major university that donated millions of dollars to build a building but reneged because they weren’t happy with a campus’ stance on gay rights, or the use of the medical building for something like stem cell research, or an editorial in the school newspaper that they didn’t agree with.   Sure, the fundraising department probably needed to spell things out little clearer for that donor, but sometimes there’s just the unforeseen.  When a donor takes back a donation or pledge - it’s obvious they never really had the institution’s best interests at heart to begin with – it was all ego.    

I’ve seen donors dangle even something as small as $5,000 or $10,000 donations to try to get what they want.   You jump through hoop upon hoop to never see the donation or maybe a $1,000 here and there because that donor is too busy playing games than to give you the money.   In the meantime, you could have been cultivating a major gift donor who was sincere rather than playing fetch with Mr./Mrs. Nevu Riche.    Again, it’s a side of my frienemy money that I really hate to see – manipulating those in need – kids in abuse shelters, international healthcare organizations to satisfy this misguided need for financial power.   

 

I also hate to see money squandered in the name of fame.  Who can forget the Kim Kardashian $10 Million wedding that lasted only 76 days.  How many people in developing countries could you have helped with that kind of money that went for essentially nothing but to satisfy a spoiled brat with an overinflated ego?  Millions or enough to build schools in Africa to help thousands of girls become leaders and not winey celebrities.  I’m not preaching socialism – I just think that we need to take a look at what we as society spend money on and who we support.   If you don’t like Kim, then don’t watch her show or buy her products and with any luck she and her family will go away. 

Max once told me that “Everyone is broke on a different level.”  Maybe we want too much and when we can’t buy it – it feels like we’re barely getting by.  For me, it’s the simple times, the ones with my kids at the park and seeing a wild rabbit or going to the library and checking out books for free that we read at storytime  when they were little that I cherish the most.   Does that keep me from having knots in my stomach at the thought of having $40 in the bank and still four days from payday?  No, but when the money flows back in – I do have to remind myself that less is more and we don’t need the latest and greatest to be happy.   Maybe if I keep on remembering that, money and I can be friends again.  Maybe we’ll sit down at the 5 and Dime, have a soda and a moon pie and remember the power of a shiny penny.

Child Star

When I was a kid, Family Affair was a huge hit.  It was a sitcom with the premise that a successful bachelor engineer with a butler could take over the raising of his nieces and nephews after this brother and his wife are killed in an accident.  Not exactly fodder for a sit-com, but the cast made it work.  Cissy was the protective big sister and who looked after her six year old twin brother and sister.  When they had to move in with their Uncle Bill they also got a very proper English butler named Mr. French.  I loved watching Buffy and Jody try to outwit Mr. French and live in a huge apartment in Manhattan.   I wanted a Mrs. Beasley doll so badly and when I got it for Christmas, it was like all my Buffy dreams came true.   I would wear my hair in pigtails just like her and wished that my parents would get us a British man servant to take us out to eat or to the museum.   It was fun, harmless and having child stars that I could identify with just made it worth watching.   It must be fun to be those actors, I thought to myself when I was little – I have been hooked on acting ever since.

Then in 1976, when I was 14 years old, I found out that Anissa Jones who had played Buffy had died of a drug overdose at 18.  I remember standing in the middle of Sentry’s Drug Store - hearing the news on the radio and being stunned.   Buffy, the sweet little girl from my favorite TV show when I was a small child was dead from drugs.   I still had my Mrs. Beasley doll in the bottom of the toy chest and now it seemed to have lost its innocence.  She was just four years older than me and now she was gone.  Of course, things hadn’t gone well for her after the show ended – but 18 and out just seemed too soon.  The next day at Glades Jr. High, many of my friends were also reeling from the news.   I mean, where were her parents?  Why didn’t anybody try to stop her?  Why didn’t anyone care?   Sadly that seems to be the case for too many child stars – after the lights dim and the fame goes away, they don’t have much in the way of support or a passion to pursue acting or much of anything else.  It’s just too much too soon.

I’ve always thought that being a child star must be a very strange dynamic.   Here you are - a kid - yet so many adults have their livelihoods depending on you.  There must be days when you want to say “Screw this, I’m going outside to play.  I want to be a kid who wants to be the pretend king of the mountain rather than worrying about if our stupid Neilson ratings make us king of the network,” but you can’t.  You’re stuck inside a studio dealing with the meltdowns of the director or the adult actors who are worried that if the show is cancelled they won’t make their mortgage payments.   That’s a hell of a lot of pressure to put on the shoulders of someone who is just a child.   Add the fact that these kids are probably spoon fed their lines by the director so that they say it exactly like the adults tell them to and you have someone who has never really learned how to act – just be cute and parrot the lines the adults told them to.   The parents of these kids start to get dependent on the attention their children receive and the money that it brings in (and thanks to the Coogen Law, 15% of their earnings is put into a trust fund so they can access it when they are legal adults).  The life of a child actor can be a life of someone who adults look to for their livelihood and depend on - it’s just not natural.

 

I remember hearing Simon Cowell once say that he doesn’t like to pick singers who still in their teens because “child performers make very weird adults.”  You don’t have to look further than Michael Jackson to see some truth in that statement.   Joe Jackson seemed to be the devil incarnate and the stories of how he treated his children are pathetic.  So when Michael had the money, he created “Neverland” and had this odd fixation with inviting kids over to his house as an adult for sleepovers, no one said anything.  Even if nothing happened – it was still weird that no one could tell him no because so many were so dependent on him for their jobs.   As he spiraled more and more out of control emotionally and financially, this man-child with the high voice continued to demand drugs to sleep that you would only get from a hospital and had a greedy doctor that was only too happy to give them to him for $150,000 a month.  I’m sure some folks might have tried a few interventions but by then it was too late.  He had retreated into a fantasy world where no one could reach him.   When he died, people were upset but not surprised.  Sadly a great talent expired because he never got a chance to be a kid and never got the normal discipline that helps you grow into a healthy adult.

But it’s not just Michael Jackson; it’s so many others who haven’t had parents that looking out for their best interests because they got caught up into the fame machine.  Lindsay Lohan’s father has been incarcerated twice.  Her mother seems oblivious to her daughter’s problems as she tries to cash in on her success.  She even parties with Lindsay and gets drunk with a daughter who needs to be in rehab.  It’s no wonder Lindsay is such a train wreck and it’s a shame because she’s actually a good actress when she’s not high.   Then there are the kids from Diff’ent Strokes – two of them are gone before their time and one has been in and out of jail and has also had problems with drug abuse.  Gary Coleman died at age 42, Dana Plato died of a drug overdose at age 35 and Todd Bridges has been in trouble with the law for decades but seems to have finally straightened his life out.   These young stars faced physical and sexual abuse either while they were doing the show or after and it sucks that no one at the studio system took the time to see what their home life was like and tried to protect them.   

The fact is that many child actors fall on hard times after they hit the pinnacle of their careers and those precocious catch phrases seem creepy when they are uttered by their teenage selves.  “The road through all child stardom is strewn with carnage,” explains Robert Thompson, pop culture professor at Syracuse University. “Being a child star is a high-risk occupation, not unlike being a coal miner or an oil rig worker.”  If the parents don’t have a strong sense of how to handle the child who is a big shot on the set but just another member of the family when they get home with chores and an allowance,  these children get crushed in the Hollywood shuffle and have a hard time recovering and dammit – that’s just so sad.   No one should have their childhood stolen in the name of entertainment

There are the success stories – like Ron Howard who was smart enough to figure out after Happy Days that he wanted to direct and asked B-Movie film director Roger Corman to help him learn how to do it.  Jodie Foster decided to go to Yale to get an Ivy League education and came back a stronger actress for it.   Natalie Portman also went to college, can speak Hebrew fluently and once said that she would rather be a smart person than an actor – which is why that woman has a great career and a strong sense of self.  Other child stars like Christian Bale had smart adults around them who loved and nurtured them and were happy to have them step away from the spotlight for awhile and come back when they were ready. 

On a few of the reality shows, they have psychologists who counsel the contestants who get voted off to prepare them for life after their part of the show is over and they have to go back to their regular lives.  They also get an initial psychological assessment to see if they can handle the strain and instant celebrity that it might bring.  It seems like if they have that in place for the contestants who do Survivor and The Apprentice, they should do that for the children who have the potential to be cast in a big network or movie project.  You would avoid a lot of post production meltdowns years after the fact if the child actor and the family had the opportunity to find out if they were really equipped to handle it all in the first place.   As adorable as the cast of Diff’ent Strokes was, it would have been better for all of them if they had never had fame thrust on them so soon and having no way for their family  to handle the down times.  Someone other young girl could have been cast as the twins in The Parent Trap who had a stronger family support system then Lindsay Lohan.   My prayer is that the kids on Modern Family, The Middle and Suburgatory have family members who will step in if they see their children starting to lose their way.

So who are the next Joseph Gordon-Levitts, Kurt Russells, Leonardo DiCaprios, Mayim Bialiks? They are the ones who can survive the fame monster and come out stronger on the other side.   It’s the ones who have adults that treat them like children in a good way – setting boundaries, giving them discipline and not allowing them to run rough shot at home.   They get down time and a chance to hang out at the mall and go to movies with their friends and are encouraged to study either acting or any other subject in an academic setting.  They get to run outside instead of being paraded from one dingy casting offices to another grueling auditions.   They get to be kids.  You have only 18 glorious years to be a child and the rest of your life after that to be an adult.   Show business can be a very lonely industry but what every young actor needs is having an adult in their life who is willing to make their healthy childhood a family affair.

Best Boy

If there has been one thing that I've always very grateful to my parents for - it was their unwavering support of the arts.   We lived in Miami and my parents loved the theater.   They enjoyed being season subscribers to the Ring Theater which was the University of Miami performance program, the Coconut Grove Theatre which had the distinction of holding the world premiere of Waiting for Godot, and the Jackie Gleason Theater of the Performing Arts (TOPA).   I got to see incomparable Lena Horne in The Lady and Her Music, and Broadway legend Jerry Orback in Chicago, the traveling company of Porgy and Bess and Annie at TOPA.   I also got to see Hal Holbrook in Death of a Salesman whose portrayal of Willie Loman was awesome and heartbreaking at the same time.   There were always a host of original works and innovative plays from the Ring Theatre.   It was great as a kid who dreamed of performing to have parents that understood how important the arts were.  They loved to take us to the theater every opportunity they could.  I would get to see a live play or musical once or twice a month whether it was professional, amateur or college level.   I remember sitting next to my parents and the smell of the theater which was sort of musty with a slight hint of new paint if we were going to a preview or opening weekend and hairspray (back in the 1970's and 1980's - women were all about the hairspray).  The lights would dim, the murmuring of the audience would cease and those brave actors would enter to start the show.   I would settle back and get a big smile on my face, transfixed by the bravery of the people who came onto the stage to bare their hearts out to us.   How Porgy loved Bess, the many stories Lena Horne had about being a black woman singing and doing movies in the 1940's, how Jerry Orback give us the old razzle dazzle and how the orphans from Annie would remind me that I was never fully dress without smile.  It was some of the best times of my life and I wanted to be part of that world so badly. 

When I expressed my dream of being an actor one day, it was never dismissed as stupid or frivolous.   Their feeling was - "Hey, why not?"  Give it a try."   When I tell my fellow actors this, they are amazed and a bit jealous because their parents were not always that supportive.   But mine were different - I guess they were natural born hams who loved the idea of having a child in show business and secretly wanted to be part of it themselves.   I started taking drama in junior high and doing mostly short sketches.   Saturday Night Live was just a few years old then and Gilda, Lorraine and Jane were my inspiration.  I had to beg to stay up at least until midnight on Saturdays to watch the first 30 minutes.  I would be exhausted but happy the next day at church thinking about the nerd sketch or the killer bees instead of the scripture - to me comedy was a religion because it helped your soul feel good and isn't that what religion should be about?   My dad used to laugh at my impressions.   He had a great laugh - full, hearty and sincere - even if he was just humoring me.   My parents were usually pretty good about that - allowing us to create and not putting it down like a lot of parents would have back then.   With five kids, I imagine it would have been easier to let us be us then to expend the energy to make us into something we're not.   I guess they had the wisdom to know that was a losing battle. 

It was great to grow up in a household where you could have an imagination and be allowed to use it.   My brother Steve also has a wicked sense of humor and when we would rift an improv together - it was pretty funny.   In fact when I went to try out for a Mental Floss improv workshop for the first time - he was right there with me.   Now, he's an attorney by day and a iPhone App creator and novelist by night.  My brother Bill was serious as a kid but in adulthood has developed a good knack for the tall tale.   My sister Kathy was ernest as a teen - full of angst and willing to protest the Vietnam War but now, she dabbles in theater and has done some very solid performances at a theater in Tallahassee.  She also enjoys photography.   Sharon, my younger sister, used to do drama with me and was also really funny.   We'd get pretty silly together growing up.  She's now a professional photographer with her own studio.   So there we were, five creative very different kids and two parents in a small one story four bedroom, two bathroom house where you needed to learn the fine art of getting along because there just was not enough room to be able to go off by yourself and sulk. 

When I started to work with the improv group Mental Floss, my parents were there at the first show.   They loved it and loved me in it.  It was a great feeling to have that sort of support especially as you were taking that tentative first step out into the theater world professionally.  They were supportive in the good times and when things started to go bad in the group - they were there for me and encouraged me to do something which was hard at the time - leave a well established group and start my own.   I used to be one of those people who would put up with a certain amount of theatrical crap as long as the prospect of performing was dangled in front of my nose like a carrot.   I would jump through hoops for that group only to be denied the chance to perform over and over again even after I had established myself as a solid player.   If you've ever worked with an improv troupe or a theater company and there is not a strong hand to keep the actors (or inmates) from running the asylum - chaos ensues and the actors with the biggest egos start to call the shots and force out the anyone they perceive as a threat.   I would come home crying, not sure what I had done to have some of the key guys who I thought were friends turn on me.   My parents, especially my dad, were there to tell me that it was bullshit and that I was better than that.  He would tell me if I wanted it bad enough, that I should start my own company.    So I took his advice and it was one of the best, hardest and most exhausting things outside of parenthood that I have ever done.   I got away from an un-supportive passive-aggressive boyfriend who was in the group and made me feel like I was never good enough.  Thanks to my dad, that fear of being on my own turned to anger and then into action.  I started the Eclectic Company Comedy Troupe and never looked back.   They would come to my comedy shows and sometimes they were 40% of the audience, but my dad's contagious laughter would fill the theater and it felt like a full house.  I knew that I could do anything. 

When I met Max, I knew that I had found my creative soul-mate.   He was the first person that I ever dated who didn't put my dreams of performing, directing, writing and producing down.   That was his passion too, and he got me.   His stuff was more David Mamet plays and grittier fare, but we balanced each other out - after being together 25 years - we still do.   My parents saw how much he respected me and how happy I was when I was with him.  They overlooked the fact that this was just not going to be a guy who would wear a suit and tie to work each day - that just was not the man I was destined to marry.  

So after we had been married a few months, Max wanted to make a movie based on the life of the Mississippi Delta Blues artist Robert Johnson, a legendary musician who many believed had sold his soul to the devil.   Max wanted to expand on certain mythic aspects of the story including casting me as the bisexual she-devil that would lead the main characters to their deaths.   It was going to be a movie that was at least 60 to 75 minutes and it would take a huge amount of planning to accomplish.   Max would shoot some on super 8 film (back in the early 1990's you could still get it - but it was hard to find and it had to be mailed off to be developed) and the other on VHS video.   When he told my parents about it, my dad was intrigued (although I'm pretty sure Max left out the part of me playing the demon murderous whore).   My dad was excited about the prospect and wanted to help produce it in exchange for one thing - on the credits he wanted to be listed as "Best Boy."   He would always chuckle when he saw that credit in a movie.    For the record, a "Best Boy" is the first mate of the chief lightening or electrician on the set who is also known as the gaffer.   So for $2,000, my father got to have his dream along with helping to finance Max's.    Gentleman  in Black (which was produced years before the Will Smith movie series Men in Black) started filming in early the summer of 1993 and that adventure is a blog unto itself.   But suffice to say that my dad has a cameo role as a prison guard and loved every minute that he was on the set.   My mother was the set photographer and it was great to have them there cheering us.    When they saw the finished product, my dad let out a "hurray" when he saw his name next to "Best Boy."  

Since then, I've had the courage to start two improv companies - The Eclectic Company and The OTC Comedy Troupe and I've learned to be myself creatively and not let other people define me artistically.   After my dad died in 2002, I realized that I had lost touch with doing improv - I was teaching it but not performing it as much as I wanted to and it had been about three years since I had actually stepped on-stage as an improvisor.   I got back into it to help me work through my grief at having lost my biggest supporter and the man who was always there for me.    Every time I hit a milestone with the OTC like getting 250,000 views over a year for our web-show, I'll think about Dad and how much he would have loved it - watching it on-line and giving us suggestions in the chat-room. He'd love Steve's Apps like If You Give a Conservative a Cookie, Bill's work with for the disabled, and Sharon's and Kathy's photography- because by creating we're expressing who we are which is something he always encouraged. 

Luckily, I've passed that love of the theater onto my kids and they even look forward to seeing an OTC Comedy Troupe show.   It's great to have them in the audience and just when I think that a line or sketch is not working, I'll hear my son Daniel's infectious laugh - not a deep or full has his grandfather's but still serving as a giggly prompt for the rest of the audience to have fun and laugh with us.   I think about my dad when I'm about to go on stage and be that brave actor that we used to see when I was a kid.   Maybe I'll inspire someone out there to take a shot and fall in love with performing and want to make the world a better place through laughter.  There are so many things that I'm grateful to my father for.  Allowing me to be who I am is just one of many but most of all - he'll always be my Best Boy.

Clooney It!

I've been doing improvisation since the early 1980's and if there is one thing I've noticed in workshops and performances (with probably at this point, hundreds of people) is that most improv actors have a hard time with over-talking.   There are actually two types of over-talking - one type is actually talking over another person so you have two or more people speaking at the same time.  The second one is simply talking too much.   Actors and particularly improv actors really hate the sound of silence.   I can see if you are doing a play and there is silence for more than a few seconds because then everyone thinks you've forgotten your line.  But in improvisation there are not scripts so silence can be organic to the scene and a way to draw the audience in.  In my experience when you try to pause for comic or dramatic effect, it gets treated like a cardinal sin by your fellow actor, like you are bringing the scene to a screeching halt.   The result is that your scene partner tries to over compensate - the scene becomes very frenetic, unfocused and hard to follow.   Over-talking is a note I've given a lot over the years to the members of the OTC Comedy Troupe.   So a few weeks ago, I decided to develop an exercise where we would "Clooney it" or communicate without really talking too much in the scene to see what happens.   This exercise was named after the master of the pause - George Clooney.   I love George Clooney for a number of reasons (okay ladies, I know we all have our own ideas about why we love him, but stay with me and stop thinking like that with the kids around!).  I love that he's not afraid to let his characters think before they act or reflect afterwards.   It's a cinematic way of acting that can actually benefit stage actors  and non-performers if they just give it a try. 

The Clooney Method (I've coined this term without his permission but he's welcome to call me anytime to discuss it) in my mind centers around a basic concept of film acting which is to "just think it."   I've seen him use it since his earliest days on ER which allows the audience to see how you feel without having to tell them how you feel.   It's a smart way to act but it's not an easy way to perform.   It's nerve wracking to experiment with silence in a live performance.  What if the audience thinks you are boring or you just forgot what you are going to say?   However, if you do it with intention, it's a very intriguing choice.  The thing I like most about pausing is the feedback you get from the audience.  They tell you how much liked it because they could interject their own interpretation into what was going on during the scene rather than having it spoon fed to them.   That's what makes George Clooney such a great actor - he respects his audience and their ability to get what he's doing.   He doesn't have to do it all for them.   The ending of Michael Clayton is a perfect example of this.   After exposing Tilda Swinton's character for the evil lying bitch she is - the last three minutes of the movie have just a couple of lines and a reaction close up in a taxi of Clooney contemplating what he's just done and what he's been through as the ending credits role.  It's a ballsy shot because it gives the audience a chance to think with the character in real time about what's just happened.   It's just one example from a whole range of movies in which his characters take their time to react to things. 

In Fantastic Mr. Fox, Clooney is the voice for a fast talking red fox who tries to stop stealing from three farmers that he's been victimizing for years so he can raise a family.  But despite his wife's pleas, he goes back to trying to get that one last big score.  Think Ocean's 11 but with cute little possums, badgers and foxes.   What makes this stop action animation movie so good is that the characters are not jumping around or singing but will pause to look at each other and blink before they say anything.   It's those moments of silence that are pure comedy gold.   He's perfected it in other movies like The Descendants, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Up in the Air and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (which was his directing debut.)   The "Pause" is something I've tried to incorporate more into my own acting and improv workshops.   It gives the actor a higher status and the audience a chance to reflect on what has just happened.

 In the Clooney improv exercise, I ask my actors to start the scene doing an activity and to not talk to each other right away.  I explain that 90% of human communication is non-verbal in real life and we need to explore how a character is at just being rather than forcing a scene to be funny.    So the actors will be doing something like packing and really exploring their surroundings and their physicality.   They need to show a physical reaction to each other without words.   At first it was hard for some of the actors to do - they could go maybe 20 to 30 seconds without speaking.   But as we did the exercise more and made people wait longer and longer to talk, something really interesting happened.   The pausing made the scenes really funny.  What wasn't said and implied physically was more comical then any one-liner we could think up.   The scenes had a new maturity to them and taking our time to respond just made the lines that were said with a straight face hilarious.    The players watching noticed that the scenes were actually easier to follow since there was not all the usual over-talking to distract from the scene - having the option to "Clooney it" gives the actors a wider range of techniques to pull from during the course of a show. 

In the show The Office, Steve Carrell, John Krasinski and the rest of the talented cast use the Pause on a regular basis.  In fact, most of the time, John Krasinski's character Jim gets the non-verbal reaction shot which is always priceless.   This sitcom mockumentary on life in a fictional paper company captures some extraordinarily moments between the characters which are unsaid.   Pam and Jim's early relationship and missed chances at love stem largely from their inability to actually speak to each other about how they really feel and those almost moments are the ones that are the most poignant.   I think any actor who wants to learn how to act for the camera needs to watch as many episodes of The Office as possible.   If you actually work in an office, you'll see a wide range of office dynamics and business prototypes that makes the show feel so authentic and the little silences feel real.

Now for those of you who are not actors might be wondering how the gift of the Pause might work for you.   How can learning to "Clooney it" make your life better?   I've applied it strategically in my own life and believe me using silence in a conversation can definitely give you the upper hand, especially in business.   My day job is as a fundraiser and I've been doing it for over 20 years.  At my last job, we had a consulting group come on who definitely had the market on condescension and arrogance.    Each week we needed to meet one-on-one with a consultant who would belittle us because their overpriced consulting was not getting the results they were hoping for.   I used to hate those meetings especially with one of the consultants who was about 15 years younger then me with far less fundraising experience.  She was also the daughter of the woman who owned the firm.   She was toxic and difficult to talk to because she would belittle everything you said - I suppose to deflect her own inexperience. It was demotivating for everyone.   However, she had the power to report to the powers that be that the staff was being uncooperative and that's why the their "methods" were not working.   So after doing an improv workshop where we did a status exercise in which you had one character not speak while another was allowed to speak as much as they wanted - I learned that when you don't talk very much you yield much more power.  I decided to try this theory the next day with the young consultant.   She would ask what I had done that week, I would tell her and she would begin to tear me down.   Rather than becoming defensive as I usually did, I looked her in the eye and didn't say anything.   She would ask me if I understood what she had said and I simply replied "Yes" and maintained eye contact.   The silence was very uncomfortable for her.    She would start to talk, repeating herself extensively and using circular logic.   I would simply reply "That's an interesting point," maintain eye contact and say nothing else.   She would talk more and more stopping only to ask me if I understood which I answered "Yes," still maintaining eye contact.   After an hour of her doing all the talking, I left the meeting knowing that she was exhausted.  I was elated.   It had worked in real life and my nemesis didn't know what had hit her.   Interestingly enough, she requested to meet with me less than the other people in the office.   When we did meet, I looked forward to it  - happy to play that little mind game and wear her out so she went easy on my fellow staff members. 

But silence does not have to be used to manipulate people.   It's also great listening tool.   When I've met with a potential donor and asked them what projects excite them and what they have a passion for - I sit back and listen.   I get great information because it's them and not me doing the talking.  When you are not worried about what you have to say - you flat out become better at understanding where the other person is coming from and it can help meet their needs.   The actor Larry Hagman of I Dream of Jennie and Dallas fame has been taking a "talking fast" one day a week for over 30 years and will not speak for 24 hours.   According to him, it is enormously freeing to not have the pressure to speak and you connect to people on a deeper level.   

So if you're tired of feeling like you talk too much and that gets you into trouble, try to "Clooney it."  Give pausing or hell just not talking for a while a try and see what happens.   It can help your acting, your business and can help you listen better to those that are nearest and dearest.  There is an old adverb, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."  So try not talking.  It can help you think clearer and rather then being pushed into reactive-defensive traps that keep you from being able to go to the next level.    Take a cue from George Clooney- a silver fox who is not afraid to use silence to get his point across.