Week 107 It’s Tuesday, and I’m contemplating the state of my career. What will I tell Mom when she calls? I don’t always know what to tell her about the life. I don’t want to lie to her, but I don’t want her to worry, either.

I’m mulling this over when I get a phone call from some indy folks about a movie shoot Friday. Can I come to Maryland to play a Confederate Officer on horseback? The pay is deferred, but they will put me up in a hotel Thursday night.
I say yes, I’d be happy to, and then my thoughts turn to Mom. How do I spin this to her? I can leave one of two messages on her voice mail:

TO MAKE MOM PROUD: ‘Hey Mom, can’t visit this weekend – I’m out of town on a movie shoot – they’re putting me up this time, and giving me riding lessons for the battle scenes – can’t pass this up – will miss you, sorry.’

TO MAKE MOM SEND MONEY AND COOKIES: ‘Hi Mom. Guess what? I’m so desperate for movie parts that I’m going to drive five hours each way to Hagerstown to play some hillbilly soldier in a Civil War flick. I’ll drive five hours, say my six lines, and then drive back to New York. Don’t ask about the hotel, ma. $49 a night, four to a room. I will probably be sharing a twin bed with one of the extras who will want to stay up all night talking about the mad cash he made on Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (true story). Glad I moved to New York so I could drive to Maryland and share a bed with a sweaty Civil War re-enactor who’s in it for the free beer and chicken wings.

Neither description is particularly true, or relevant. (For the record, all the extras I met were total pros, and the hotel had a bad ass pool). Neither is a lie, but neither speaks to the artistic truth of the situation. The truth is, in the scene, I play a Confedrate Officer who comes across infantry soldiers rounding up prisoners. He instructs them to take the Yankee muskets but leave the Yankees behind – the men will only encumber them for the march ahead.

This is my job. When the director says action, I am to embody that character as best I am able. Everything else, the hotel, the five hour drive, the costume they put on my back and the horse they put under my butt – is scenery. I should acknowledge it to the extent that it serves the work. I should control the horse as my character would, but the Confederate Officer cares not a whit for the five hour drive, the quality of the hotel in which I stay, nor the state of the career of the actor. The Confederate Officer simply wants to get his boys on the goddam move. That is his story, and that is the story I will do my best to tell. I must get off book, I must bring a few ideas to the director, and once I have done this homework, I must arrive as ready and refreshed as I am able, and listen to the director and give him what he wants. I cannot predict nor control how the horse will behave under me. I cannot control the hot weather or the itchy wool uniform. I must prepare myself in every way I can and be ready to improvise as the situation demands. I must arrive rested, calm and prepared. The rest is out of my hands.

As it turns out, humility is the order of the day. The extras and re-enactors I met had a knowledge of and passion for the subject that is going to do more to make this film realistic and engaging than my five lines. Those guys made the film. Thanks to Mike, who taught me to ride, and thanks to Kevin, who let me do the scene six times. This city slicker can’t wait to see the tape.

(Dave 6 Press is weblog written by David Stott. David hates spam as much as you do and does not want to clog your mailbox if you do not want to receive his weekly entries. If you'd like to be removed from this mailing list, please reply to djstott@nyc.rr.com with the subject: WANK ON YOUR STORIES, MR. STOTT. [Somebody actually did this last week])  ¶ 10:11 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Week 106 TOP STORY:

So, I hit another lady playing tennis. Bruised her. Hit her in the shin - and this time it was on purpose. I mean, she was beating me 4-1. Besides, my serve went in, and it wasn't my fault she couldn't get out of the way in time. In fact, that's kind of the point of serving fast. As I said, I was down 4-1.

I love competition.

I was at a birthday party in Montclair on Friday. Our hostess used to work for Outward Bound and knows all these ice breaker party games. One of them, and I'm sure you've done this before, is the one where you pass a grapefruit around a circle without using your hands. The way you grip the grapefruit is by applying pressure from your chin to your chest. In this manner, by invading each other's personal space, the grapefruit is passed around the circle. Mind you, while these fruit exchanges are taking place, you're racing the red team, and if the grapefruit drops you have to start back at the beginning.

Now, innocent little me was not intending to make a big competition out of this game, but my good pal Annah is standing next to me assuring me that this is no joke, THIS IS WAR, and I better not slow her down.

So the grapefruit begins to make its way around with the circle and when it gets to me, I am expecting a simple exchange.

Sorry.

The woman passing the grapefruit to me is a little shorter than I am, which makes it awkward. I get in there and take the fruit, except I can't get a good grip on it. The grapefruit inevitably begins sliding, ever so slowly, down her body.

To drop the grapefruit is death, because your team has to start over from the beginning. Annah, I know, will kill me if this happens, so I persist. The grapefruit drops between this poor woman's breasts, and my face is right in there, trying to get a grip on the damn grapefruit. The fruit drops lower, to her belly button, and lower, to wonderland, and, well, I'm not a quitter.

To the casual observer, I looked like a simple pervert. To my teammates, I was both an inspiration and an embarrassment. After lots of wiggling, the grapefruit is now on Mrs. Robinson's thigh, and finally, right before it rolls off her knee, I get a grip on the pesky little thing. Of course, by that time, there's really no one to pass it to, because they're all dying laughing and the other team has long since beaten us.

So I did the gentlemanly thing and apologized to the woman for taking so long. She replied that it wasn't so bad and makes a joke about how glad she is that her son (my age) is in the other room, not watching.

Are we ready for round 2? our host asks. Sure, we say. And I'm sure I have learned my lesson, and will not repeat my mistakes, but I do, to the delight of the crowd, and history repeats itself, and I find myself, once again, buried in the decolletage of someone who is old enough to have dated Eisenhower.

After the party's over, my roommate Jen, who watched all this with great humor, asked me why I persisted in molesting a perfectly nice fifty year old woman after it was obvious that I had no chance of gripping the fruit. Why, Jen asks me, didn't I just let it hit the floor?

I thought for a moment and then I realized I had no answer for that. The thought never entered my mind, Not once. DROP THE GRAPEFRUIT? No way - that was the cardinal rule. We'd have lost the race. The truth was, I didn't notice the poor woman's breasts or crotch on shapely thigh until after the game was over. During the game, I was concentrating on winning. You might say I was victorious.  ¶ 10:07 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Week 105 - The Tennis Story So I've been in New York about two years now. I've exercised twice. I hate the gym, man, and that late night walk home from the subway station doesn't really count, does it? I've been meaning to get back into tennis, which I haven't played in years, but the work-all-day, theatre-all-night schedule doesn't leave much time. Plus, last time I was on a tennis team, I was twelve, and the team mother would write a weekly newsletter to the parents, and in the newsletter she always advised the parents that children were NOT to wear in the matches whatever it was I had worn at the previous match. No Jams, no soccer shirts, no wet bathing suits, no soccer cleats - she was a tyrant. Anyway, I enjoy the sport despite its strict code of dress and so I decided that tennis would be my way to exercise. I decided I would make time.

I finally found a place to play - the only problem was, I didn't know anybody, and hitting against the backboard gets boring after a while. Well, turns out the tennis club has Twilight Tennis on Friday nights. I thought - great - it's right as the sun's going down - picturesque - it will be a super way to get to know people. So I went, and, turns out, I was 30 years younger than anyone else at Twilight Tennis, having overlooked the double meaning.

So I was partnered with a 65 year-old woman named Jo. But no problem, as it turns out: as we play, Jo is chasing down balls, serving consistently, and holding her own. We're doing OK. My game is a little rusty, so this is a good way to warm-up.

But the problem is, we're getting our butts kicked, and I tire quickly of getting my butt kicked, especially in any sports-related activity.
So eventually it's my turn to serve, and I decide to turn up the heat on our opponents. My serve can be pretty deadly when I get it in, so I decide to go for it.

I stare down Larry, the 55 year-old real-estate salesman, and my first serve is an ace. Larry didn't even get his racquet on it - it was awesome. Next up is Bill, 62, helluva heart surgeon. My second serve, ACE. The guy goes down looking. Third point, back to Larry, ACE. I am on fire. I am starting to gain notice from the other courts. People are starting to talk about the new kid. I'm one point from serving out a perfect game, and I know I got a doozy of a serve left in me. This shot is going to be hot. I toss the ball up nice and high, rear back, and the slam the ball right between Jo's shoulder blades.
Jo drops her racquet.
Jo stops breathing.
Let me repeat that. Jo stops breathing.
I know I have a tendency to spice up my weekly tales from time to time, but folks, today, I am not exaggerrating. There is no need. For, I, David Stott, have managed to knock the wind out of poor Jo FROM BEHIND. She's up at the net, her back to me, gasping and choking for air, and I run up to her, sputtering apologies, and she signals, no, no, get out of the way, don't touch me, DON'T TOUCH ME and I watch hopelessly until finally, finally, she breathes. She catches her breath. Can I get her some water? No, she doesn't want water. Can I get her a towel? No, she doesn't want a towel. She walks it off like a real trooper and I tell her I hope in the next game she will drill me at least twice in the back of the head. She says don't be silly, it happens.

But my game is gone. I play the rest of the set with a lot of caution, hitting lobs to Larry and Bill instead of topspin forehands, serving them grapefruits instead of aces.
I think back to that serve I drilled into my partner and I tell you folks, I couldn't have hit that serve any harder if I wanted to. Jo's going to have a bruise for a good long while.

After the game, Jo calls me over. "Dave, you're new here, right?"
"I am," I say.
"Are you having trouble making friends?"
"Yes," I say.
"Huh," she says.
She walks off.
I am, once again, alone with the backboard.  ¶ 10:03 PM 0 comments links to this post

  Week 104 - The V Word (This one rated R for language)

Dear Lexington friends,

It's been a few weeks since the scrambled eggs and the pancakes and the lemonade and the writing/acting/directing madness of upstate, but I've finally gotten my act together to check in with everyone, and I hope this email finds you fine and dandy and enjoying this week's wonderful Republican National Convention wherein the Elephant party will surely nominate a coke-snorting C-student once again to lead the free world into the future.

But I digress.

I write this weekly epistle to you in an effort to stay connected. Originally, I used my weekly letter to try to keep in touch with friends back home (some of them even wrote back) and while I may occasionally plug a show or two, the main idea is to keep in touch. If you'd like to stop getting the letters, please reply to this email with the heading 'Get Lost' or something similarly colorful and I will take the hint...

DAVE 6 PRESS presents:

Week 104 in the Big City

Ah, friends, the last week of Summer. A time for reflection.
One Last Look At Lexington: A story I have not shared heretofore. A wonderful story about love, life and the V-word...

My third week at Lexington, one of our teachers offered a lovely morning yoga class for those of us able to get up at 7:00 a.m. (I think she got there at 6:00 a.m. and did an hour of yoga herself before instructing us - she's amazing.) Anyway, I'll admit I was going to the class just to try and make a good impression on the teacher - this was foolish since I am the world's worst yoga-er. I can't touch my toes - haven't been able to since college and karate class, but that's not the point. The point is, at one point in the class, towards the end, everybody's nice and loose and feeling flexible and Shane's breakdancing in the corner or something and the instructor tells us to get our hips nice and low, low, low on the floor, and then she tells the women, quite distinctly, that their vaginas should be nice and open. And while my first instinct was to laugh, as that particular phrase was not one I'd ever heard in polite company before, I did not laugh, because in her delivery of those words, the teacher made it clear that she was in love. She loved all the vaginas in the room, and she loved them more than anything else in the world. At that moment there was peerless, unparalleled vagina love in the universe. If you're wondering where the love was that day - it was in the Barn Theatre in Lexington, NY.

Now, there's more to the story than the gratuitous use of the word vagina numerous times in the preceding paragraph. The love shown in that yoga class made it dawn on me that there are two essential forces in the world: the creative and the judgmental. The reverence for the vagina was expressed out of general reverence for the creative force, all creative forces in the world. So now, if I think back to the morning of vagina love, and I judge it as merely funny, I am missing the point. If that's all I take away from the moment, 'ha ha, she said vagina' then I am missing worlds of wisdom, and I will never be as intelligent as the teacher. In fact, were I to make a joke of it, I would make myself dumber. If I were to go for the easy laugh, I would lose the experience. Nothing against comedy, heavens no, but any time anybody stops AND POINTS and says 'that's funny,' he misses the point, because he is judging instead of participating. The best comedy includes everyone. And that returns us to two weeks ago, when Rom Linney told me to write truth instead of writing jokes. Making cracks about people, art, their speech, their appearance, is not just bad. It's getting in the way of the creative. And that's why the artist and the critic will never see eye to eye. One creates, the other judges. Now, the artist who uses the critic to get better, and the critic who appreciates the screaming demands of craft made upon the artist, these people are the enlightened ones among their respective clans. A bad review, if it's honest, can be a gift. A good review, if deceitful, is a curse. So don't come to my show and tell me you loved it if you hated it, but don't come to my show and take pleasure in the awfulness of my work either.

Things to say when you see a friend's show: I list below some examples of what the friend says, and how the actor/writer/director interprets the compliment.

FRIEND: That was great.
ACTOR: Don't pity me.

FRIEND says: I liked that piece you were in when you didn't talk.
ACTOR hears: When you speak, your acting gets worse.

FRIEND says: Great costumes.
ACTOR thinks: If you're looking at the costumes instead of watching me, the play is crap.

FRIEND says: That's the best work I've ever seen you do.
ACTOR thinks: You didn't like my work before?*

However, if the actor is having a good night, the reverse is often true.
FRIEND: That was great.
ACTOR: I know.

FRIEND: I liked the piece where you didn't speak.
ACTOR: My command of my craft is so powerful and amazing, that I can rivet the audience with my very gaze.

FRIEND: Great costumes.
ACTOR: Yeah. The costume designer used all my ideas.

FRIEND: That's the best work I've ever seen you do.
ACTOR: Get used to it. I'm on my way up, baby.

Do I have a conclusion? Creativity is the positive force. Judgment is too often the negative. The world needs more creativity than judgment. So, actors, next time your teacher speaks with reverence about something you don't understand, listen and do your best to keep up. Friends of actors, you have a tough job. You must always tell the actor they were wonderful, but you can never lie.  ¶ 9:55 PM 0 comments links to this post