Thursday, October 06, 2005

Why this blog aint gonna work

I only ever write this blog when I'm pissed off. When I'm busy I can never be bothered to make and entries. So I'm building up this picture of a disaffected Al. Which is wrong.

I'm off to rehearsal in a sec. Hurrah.

Todays Tarot : The hierophant (reversed). The crazy widget thing tells me that that means "From the officiousness, first understanding of the partner." Oh yes.

I'm off to Huddersfield next week to provide the voice of Stanley the Snail for a range of children's toys.

Hurrah

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Tarot of the Day 1

Todays crazy japanese Tarot card is The Devil (reversed). According to the interpretation is "It is shot from the yoke, but it is dangerous to voice desire."

Not sure what to make of that.

The devil reversed is to do with inability to make decisions, and looking to get something for nothing. It's a weak but aggressive card - manipulative. It says to me "Do some work"

I met up with Charlie Mayer, Leon Davies and a man called Tim in the O bar in Soho last night for a very serious talk about a new theatre company that they want to set up. I've thrown in my lot with them and we will have a pilot somewhere in central London on 7th December. Very high minded ensemble based stuff - really really fucking interesting and I feel lucky to have been asked.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

The Spirits have caught on

Yesterday as I sat in front of my computer in my pants at 4.00 in the afternoon, I downloaded a program called Konfabulator. It is very very cool. I got it because it has a widget that automatically finds pictures for the music you are playing in itunes. It has many other widgets and one of them is a very shoddy Japanese Tarot reader. So I downloaded it. I like tarot - I have a few decks and if I get stoned I might offer to read your tarot from time to time - usually with reference to a book for the minor arcana some of which still baffle me.

So the Japanese tarot spirits gave me The Sun, Reversed. This means "To having no stamina leads in laziness make". Well that about sums it up. So I asked the magic eight ball widget if I should go to the gym. It said Yes. Then about three minutes later I got a call from my gym saying I could come in on Friday and have a free session with a personal trainer. No more widgets for me then. I'm going to be an adonis. After all I'm single again!! Let's get jiggy.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Nothing Nothing Nothing

Life is quiet and I'm bored. Well I'm buying a house. And writing shed loads of letters. When I break it down I'm fairly busy but I'm not busy doing the things I want to do. I have a face pack on. A Face Pack!?! I inherited some special Erno Laszlo Sea Mud stuff from mum. So i've slapped some on. Because I want to have nice skin. Because I still believe that someone is going to give me a job soon. Gah.

Off to a party tonight. Lovely Kaitlyn from Twelfth Night has to go back to Canada because her visa has expired. A shame.

The face pack is probably also because I'm single so I want to look sexy. Who knows who might be at the party. But I have nowhere to bring anyone back to living as I am in a room containing enough to fill a house.

Seeing a place opposite Catford Station tomorrow for the third time. Could be good. But can I bear to live so far away?

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Faceprint Global Solutions can kiss my jacksie

What kind of Arse puts an incredibly long advert for some shite company as a comment on one of my blogs?? Is there a way of deleting it. It's utterly pointless and has only inspired me to paint "Wanker" on the door of their office if they have one and I find it.

Crazy Tour of Doom

I should have done this years ago, but now is as good a time as any. There was a blog in this space written in rage. It concerned a number of people. A young theatre director, who has since gone on to surpass himself in professionalism and dedication. I said some things about him that I should not have said, but in the spirit of purity I chose to keep these things up. "They're in the past," I thought. I recently worked with a lovely young actor called Tom who was giving his time for free to help an old collaborator of mine direct some young actors in Huis Clos. He and I were in the same boat, apart from the fact that I got to go on stage while he just had to make us look pretty.

This blog post in it's original form, of all the things I have ever written, has done me more damage than anything else, ever, in almost 10 years of work. I find it amazing that something written in anger and then signed can do such damage. Four years ago, a producer I had only just met professionally was warned about me on the strength of it. "I'm told he's a snake in the grass" said one older actor who knew the director of the project about which I was blogging. Thankfully the producer trusted me and passed the information on to me - saying "What happened?". I was gobsmacked that there was a campaign on, but chose to keep the blog up. Allegedly the same man later commented that he didn't see what all the fuss was about.

What was the post about? It was about a young director, a young company, and a disastrous tour. I was employed to replace an actor who I dare not name. If you want to know why I won't name him I refer you to the comments posted below, and to the distance in time between them, and the time of night they were posted. Occasionally, evidently, he gets off his tits and googles himself. Then he raves on and on to this blog. Hopefully this edit will remove that problem too. The man is not particularly well. And mildly intimidating, but that's by design so not a concern. In retrospect, I was cruel. And I told the young director as much by email when he found the blog - also removing his name from it and generally softening it up. But it galls me to edit the past. The past is the past, surely? Not so for some though. And refer to the PJ comments below if you don't believe it to be so.

Since this blog I have NEVER directly blogged about work, or people I am working with. I learnt my lesson. Sure I'll blog about subjects and ideas that come up in the course of work, or the show in general, but never again have I named names. Which makes it difficult to maintain the blog as when I am not on holiday I tend to be working. I may rectify that as well - I just underestimated the ability of people to get drunk and google themselves, but to be honest I normally just love my work and the people I am working with. I imagine I won't rage blog again - and if I do, I'll take a leaf from Wordsworth. He may have been an old prig, but "emotion recollected in tranquility" is a good starting point for writing, like the man said. I went for the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." And stopped there.

Why am I removing it at long last?

My friend Hanna Berrigan recently directed Huis Clos. I had just got back from Thailand having finished some filming which I am not blogging for reasons which will become apparent, beyond in the vaguest terms, and partly because i have signed an NDA. But it was fun, working with a director I have admired all my life, a male actor I never dared to believe I'd be in a shot with, and an actress I fell in love with the first time I saw her on film. A small part, but in a film the subject matter of which I really deeply connect with and think is massively important. So I was feeling pretty flush and when she asked me to play a tiny part for her, I said of course as my assisting at The Finborough didn't start right away. I know Hanna as a director well enough to understand that even in a tiny part she will push me out of my comfort zone and I'll learn something. And the time commitment was low and flexible so I could work it around my money jobs. On the gig was a young actor called Tom - he was clearly very professional, personable and able, and had agreed to operate the show for his friends, who were self-producing. I very quickly warmed to him, and it didn't take long to realise that we both knew the man who produced the crazy tour of doom. And in discussion with him, I came to realise that he has learnt from the mistakes that made me so angry in the first place. Tom had been employed by him as an actor, and came to respect and love him as a worker and enabler in this industry. He has made it a priority to pay his actors as well as possible, rather than sinking the extra cash from gaining audience into production. This is a huge relief to me, as I saw a man capable of going one of two ways. And he went the right way. He seems a good practitioner, and - based on my conversations with Tom - someone I would recommend. Now. Not then. But now.

Words are more powerful than I thought. I would never have taken this post down if I had not constantly been snagged back to it. I hate revising the past. Such is life. If you read this, mister AW, I would like to tell you that I am seriously proud of what you have achieved since last we met, and wish you the best of luck in the future. From what I understand you are well loved, and run a good company. You need to know that there was never any animosity between us, and if this blog came as a surprise when it first was published it is because it was a rage blog. I got home and could not pay my electricity bill, owing to money I had expected from you not coming forth. It is the equivalent of the drunken evening where your best friend punches you. Sadly it has constantly - and I suspect indelibly - affected any friendship we had. You were my friend on tour. I enjoyed travelling with you, and sought your company on the long journeys. I wrote this blog once, many years ago. Then I forgot about it. Completely. The only reminders I have had have been comments made, your email some years ago when I removed your name, and the idiotic ramblings of a complete stranger. Now it is prevalent in my mind again, since a man I like and respect and have done since the very start of my career has referred to it negatively. And I am fed up of taking flak for something I wrote in anger once many many years ago. So it's gone. I hope I never do this again. It feels like revisionism. We must be honest to who we are as much as to who we were, or how can we pretend to be artists? Pfft

Friday, February 18, 2005

Did I get my bag back?

Last night at around half past eleven I got a call from the Chandos. The man on the phone told me that he had found my bag!! In order to confirm that it was mine HE started listing the contents to ME. It reminded me of Frank Oz at the start of the Blues Brothers - "One propylactic ... soiled". He had clearly had a good rummage - "Yeah - and there's ... some sort of script here..." *rustle rustle*

The script is for a show at The Old Red Lion. I have no idea when the show is, but once I work it out I'll post it here in some sort of attractive advert format. It's written by this very sweet parochial middle class woman in her sixties, who turns into a slavering demented psycopath the moment she puts pen to paper. She wouldn't say boo to a goose and keeps on trying to buy me sandwiches in real life, and then has me running around behaving like a retard and swearing more than Tarantino when he burns himself on the oven. Bless her.

But yes - the bag is returned. I would give you a photo but I don't have a camera. So that's a pretty useless sentiment.

Why is the time on this stupid site set to PST? There must be a way I can make it GMT so I don't have to change it everytime I post.

Social experiment

I have lost my bag. Quite literally it contains a torn magazine and a chocolate bar. I left it in The Chandos pub in St. Martin's Lane - upstairs. Nice pub. Good leather sofas and odd beers and soft drinks that you can't normally get. I have just phoned them. It has been an hour since I left it there and what I'm wondering is - has someone nicked it? This sorry saggy bag with an ancient white chocolate and berry bar that I bought reduced in a motorway caff before christmas and never quite had the guts to put in my mouth. And a torn PC magazine from about three months ago.

I brought it out in order to put my wallet and phone into it in order not to stretch the pockets on my jeans - a new concern and one that is more my girlfriends than my own. My wallet and my mobile phone are safely in my pocket. Bad habits are really useful sometimes. Who cares about stretching my pockets - at least I haven't lost my wallet and my phone.

Incidentally the staff at the Chandos are superb. The barman was this big Aussie guy who seemed a bit of a brute but the guy I just spoke to on the phone was really helpful and he took my mobile number and is going to call me back if he rescues my bag. If not I don't relish telling my Harriet how I lost it. Ah well.

I was meeting up with a chap called Geoff tonight - I don't know him terribly well but he is joint best man with me at my mate Dan's wedding. Organising parties - all very serious.

Oh god and I discovered today that one of my ex girlfriends got married. Not only that but she only went and bloody married the guy I used to live next door to at school. Lovely guy - tall and blond and polite and all the things I'm not. Dammit. I didn't introduce them though - they met at scottish dancing. She kept on trying to get me to come with her and I really didn't fancy it. Ah well, That's life. Dammit.

Ad sales suck

I've never even seen one of these things before but as far as I know I'm expected to put down all the things that are going on in my head. I also understand that blogs are always deeply political which I'm sure is nonsense but that's the flavour they've been given. Partly to do with the fact that the only blogger I've ever heard of is Salaam Pax or so I think his name was - the Baghdad Blogger. I did a play with this crazy greek / not really greek at all director called Tassos Stevens which involved Salaam Pax mixed with oscar acceptance speeches and journalists writing from warzones all thrown together under the title After The Last Days of Mankind. It's a homage to a play that was created by throwing together transcripts taken from WWII from both sides detailing human responses to tragedies and war in general. The original play lasted three days. Our one thankfully came in at considerably less - more like half an hour. Anyhow, ad sales suck. This is what I have come to tell you all about. I'm selling advertising space in a men's lifestyle magazine. I'm not even being paid for it - I'm doing it as it helps me to develop a thicker skin so I can put up with more rejections from shite commercials that I don't really want to do anyhow. I get commission on any sales I make, but what i have discovered is that the Media Buyers in this country are all endemic racists. Drum is a superb publication with a hell of a lot of promise, but nobody is prepared to trust it - I come across an endless instinctive lack of trust. People expecting to be conned. I am told that there was a previous mag called untold that took the money for six months worth of ads and then did a runner. But as far as I can tell these people are just not willing to give money to a black mens lifestyle mag and not one of them can come up with an adequate reason why not. "This sort of publication is not really in our brief" they tell me and they are putting ads in Arena and GQ. Sod them all. I feel a little better exposing them all for the nasty smug bastards that they are. I'm sure something will turn around soon. But in the meantime Media Buyers are all swine. So now I'm going to click a button and see what happens with this rant. And I'll come back and throw more crap at the walls if it doesn't just delete it and send me to whitescreen hell.