You gotta love people who can just take the day off whenever they want to.

It’s never quite that simple, of course. Those who have the authority to do so are usually self-employed, and as such put in more hours at their job than anyone who’s working for The Man. Sounds odd, but it’s totally true–after all, are you willing to work harder for yourself or for some faceless corporation whose C.E.O. makes about fifty times more than you do?

Anyway, I needed a break today. Yesterday was one of those rousing up-at-five-and-go-go-go-until-midnight affairs. Today was looking like it might turn into the same thing. Thank you, but no. I’m alive and prefer to stay that way. So in the interest of getting the hell out of Dodge for a while, I thought I’d do a little flying. Catalina Island stuck in my head as a possible destination. My friend Paul (who moonlights as a movie star under the name Nicholas Cage; you may have heard of him) decided he could take the afternoon off too, so we hopped in his car and headed out to Corona Airport.

I was a little embarrassed by my inability to get the plane started on the first try. I thought I overprimed the engine, but it turns out I actually underprimed it. The primer wasn’t sucking any fuel into the first cylinder for the first few strokes. Live and learn. But the flight was great, visibility excellent and no clouds in the sky at all. And my landings were smooth as silk. I don’t know what it is about the Cherokee, but I can’t make a bad landing in that plane even if I try.

Paul had a great time, which made it all the more fun. I love introducing people to the wonder of aviation; somehow it awakens the kid in all of us. He took all sorts of pictures, and I gave him the chance to fly the plane for a bit. This was my first time flying to Catalina Island, so it was a unique experience for me as well. The airport is on a cliff which drops 1,500 feet into the ocean, so you’re treated to some of the most spectacular views imaginable as you come in for landing. It reminded me of the opening credit sequence from the original Fantasy Island television series. Catalina was quiet, peaceful, and a welcome respite from the metropolitan hell known as Southern California (you wouldn’t believe how nasty the smog on the mainland looks from out there!). Frankly, I can’t wait to go back.

The day was golden, even beyond the flying. Until recently, getting to Corona Airport from my place meant a drive on the 5, the 55, and the 91 freeways. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, those are the three most congested and frustratingly slow freeways in Southern California. I use the past tense because last month a new toll road opened which goes from Irvine directly to Corona. It’s like having a new, wide, flat, empty Autobahn which delivers you directly to your destination. So while all those suckers were baking in rush hour traffic, we whizzed back from the airport at 90 m.p.h. in Paul’s new Accord coupe and made it to rehearsal right on time, laughing all the way.

It’s the only way to fly.

You’ll have to pardon my current mood. Perhaps it’s due to the gloomy weather we’re having. Whatever the cause, I’m really starting to hate people. No one in particular. No specific ethnicity, sex, or religion, but rather the ever-present, seething mass of humanity from which there seems to be no escape.

Locales ranging from movie theaters to airports are beginning to repulse me. This crush of bodies is everywhere. It’s the reason I don’t really like Disneyland. Even state-of-the-art new entertainment centers like the Irvine Spectrum or The Block in Orange are ruined by the lemming-like quality the place takes on during the weekend. During the week, even. I love the concept sketches designers draw up before these places are built. You ever notice how there are very few people, very few cars in these things? They must have the same fantasy I do. People are everywhere, en mass. Actually, I take that back; when I’m producing a show, they’re everywhere except at my theatre. It’s maddening.

I’m trying to figure out how this mood came upon me. It’s always been there to a small extent. I think it’s reared its ugly head because of my activities of late. I traveled to San Francisco for an audition. Now, I like San Francisco. Really. The culture, the geography, the architecture. What I didn’t like was the 3½ hours I spent in my car getting to and from LAX, or the way every square inch of LAX and San Francisco International was lined with people. Not to mention the trolley cars, busses, restaurants, and streets along the way. I’m sure the lack of sleep and stress were really helpful.

At one point during the day, an image of Charlton Heston popped into my head; he was screaming “Soylent Green is people! It’s people!” as the camera panned back. And he was wearing that flaming scarf, just like he did in the movie. Go figure. Someone once said that the moral of Soylent Green (a.k.a. The Worst Story Ever Told) was that one day everything would look like the 70’s again. Far be it from me to argue with such wisdom.

Okay, I’ve vented. Time to return to reality. You just have to find the humor in all this. San Francisco is teeming with the homeless and impoverished, a majority of whom suffer from some mental problem or other. The city is also afflicted with an inordinately large population of elderly women who find pleasure driving vehicles the size of aircraft carriers, only slower. But seriously, they have no one and nothing, and here I am complaining because my local entertainment center is too crowded. Nice. Very nice.

I left Orange County at about 1:00 p.m. today. After driving for eight hours, I’m still in California. It’s almost disappointing. When you’ve put 400 miles on the odometer, you feel like you should be in some far off, exotic place.

Anyway, the trip up to San Francisco was uneventful (read: boring). There is so little of interest to look at. It’s pretty much the same way wherever you go from the Los Angeles area. Have you made the drive to Palm Springs or Las Vegas? I used to make the Irvine-to-Vegas run all the time when I was tired, and lemme tell you it ain’t no picnic. Especially on a holiday weekend. I once got stuck in traffic on I-15 during a three day weekend and it took me 21 hours to make the 300 mile trip. No shit. The road was so congested that you couldn’t even get off in Baker or Barstow to get a hotel room. I swore I would never again travel to Las Vegas on a holiday weekend, and I haven’t.

I feel kind of guilty, because I’ll be missing two days of Pagliacci/Carmina Burana rehearsal while I’m up here. I think this is my tenth show with Opera Pacific, and I’ve only missed one rehearsal since I started singing with the company in 1995. If there was ever a show where missing rehearsals was a bad idea, this is it. We’re onstage for the entire evening. The only time we’ll see our dressing rooms is… well, when we get dressed. It’s nice to feel like you’re really earning your paycheck, though.

Hmm. I’m making it sound like I dread this weekend. I don’t. Sure, my college friends are partying down in Mexico, and I’m missing it. But San Francisco is fun city. My travel agent managed to get me into the Monticello Inn which, in addition to its colonial charm, is only a couple of blocks away from American Conservatory Theatre’s offices at 30 Grant Avenue where the auditions are being held. The Monticello is in the heart of the Union Square area, a shoppers paradise and home to San Francisco’s “theatre district”. The Geary Theatre, Curan Theatre, Theatre on the Square, S.F. Actor’s Theatre, and numerous other companies are located within blocks of each other.

The more time I spend in San Fran, the more it seems to be a west coast replica of New York City. It has the high-rises, congestion, foot traffic, eclectic culture, and bank-breaking cost of NYC. It even has it’s own equivalent of New Jersey: Oakland. But one of my favorite things to do while in the Bay Area is sample the cuisine. Tonight, for example, I hit a little place on Sutter which had a live six piece jazz combo. The ordering was a bit limited because it’s Valentine’s Day weekend and they have a special menu in use, but the food was as good as I’ve come to expect from the vaunted proprietors of downtown San Francisco. After the long drive, it was great to eat a leisurely dinner and soak up the mellow acoustic sound which permeated the room.

Tomorrow is going to be an early day, with three auditions scheduled before noon, so I’m gonna pack it in.

Two days, seven auditions, fifteen monologues, one crowded floor of nervous actors.

I’m in San Francisco to audition for MFA programs in theatre. The odds of my being accepted are quite low, as I’ve only applied to the top schools: Juilliard, Yale, American Conservatory Theatre, American Repertory, etc. I figure that if I’m going to foot the bill and put in the time needed to obtain an MFA in this discipline, I only want to consider the finest schools.

Most of these schools audition over a thousand people each year, yet have only five or six slots available. And sometimes half of those need to be female in order to maintain an acting company from which they can cast the shows. To say these programs are exclusive is an understatement. They make medical school admission look like a lock.

   

This is American Conservatory Theatre’s Geary Theatre, one of downtown San Francisco’s cultural and historical treasures. It was destroyed by the 1989 earthquake and remained closed until 1996. When it reopened, the building had received a much needed renovation that went beyond just repairing the damage done by the earthquake.

The Geary has never been one of my favorite spaces in which to see a show. The house is not terribly deep, and with four balconies, the folks on the top levels often have a hard time hearing the player’s voices. I saw an ACT production of Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal there recently and couldn’t hear a thing. The seats are narrow, the aisles likewise. Even so, it’s a beautiful space.

Anyway, back to the auditions. To the uninitiated, the scene at A.C.T. must have seemed like a Twilight Zone episode. So many actors, each with their own preparatory ritual. To oneself, it’s a perfectly natural thing, but to everyone else it’s a freak show in progress.

My first year auditioning for grad school, I got into a conversation with another auditionee about the absurdity of what we were doing. It was one of those moments of self-realization, and we both had it at the same time. You have to laugh at yourself when you realize what you do on this earth sometimes.

He said, “Yeah, this would make a good subject for a play–all about getting into grad school: the expenses, the odds, the travel, the rejection, the acceptance, the weirdoes, the whole bit.”

The name, of course, was obvious: “30 Grant Ave” It’s the address of the building in San Francisco where the major programs hold their west coast auditions. It’s also where ACT’s offices are located. Anyway, I told myself that someday I’d write 30 Grant Ave, even if no one else ever read it. They say you should write about what you know. And after four years, I know 30 Grant pretty well.

So to answer the inevitable question “how did it go?”, the straight answer is “I don’t know”. All I can say is that I delivered the work that Martha and I prepared. That’s what I went there to do. I put forth my best effort. If I get in, great. If not, I’ll have no regrets about it. The minute the audition is over I try to forget about it. Several schools did ask to see additional work (i.e. a third monologue) and a song, which I took as a good sign.

The results of these auditions are somewhat random, as I see it. All you need is to have the person you’re auditioning for wake up on the wrong side of the bed that day and you can kiss your chances of getting in goodbye. There are just too many people. If they need more diversity, or more females, or a specific look for some show they’re doing in the upcoming season, that’s what they’ll go for. Talent certainly plays a role, of course. But talent alone does not dictate who will be accepted.

After the auditions were finished for the day, I had dinner at a little Italian restaurant next to the hotel. The waitress was pretty hip–she gave me the names of a couple of swing clubs in town. So after dinner I hopped a cab over to North Beach to dance at a club called the Highball Lounge.

Can you say “out of your league”? Well I said it several times while I was there. The Highball Lounge looked more like a movie set than a club; it seemed everyone on the floor was a professional dancer. While highly entertaining and educational to watch, actually going out to join the talent pool was pretty intimidating. But I’m proud to say I did. Talk about baptism by fire. They were mixing every style from Charleston to some Latin stuff in with the swing. My favorite was watching the lesbian couples dance. They were good, although as Seinfeld once quipped, it must have been hard figuring out who would lead.

I also did a bit of shopping at an upscale leather store on Market Street. My old leather jacket was purchased in 1989 when I was about 15 lbs lighter. It still fits, but it’s not as comfortable as it was in days of yore, so I don’t wear it as often.

The coolest experience of the whole trip? I bought a hot dog from a stand on the corner of Market and Grant. I felt so urban. It may not sound like much, but remember, I’m from Irvine. The closest thing we have to an authentic hot dog stand is the cartoon swan which gets roasted during Carmina Burana.

A pleasant surprise awaited me at the Orange County Performing Arts Center when I arrived for yesterday’s performance of Pagliacci & Carmina Burana: one of the tenors in the chorus had put a couple of old photos on my dressing table as a gift. One of them was from Carmen (1996), and another was from Rigoletto (1997). It’s such a trip to look back on those shows now; so much has changed in my life since then. I look at the pictures and wonder who that guy is, the one who looks so much like me.

I’m really starting to get interested in photographs. Taking them. Getting ‘em. Storing, organizing, scanning, and showing them. Most people are shutter bugs, but I’ve been contrarian in that respect for quite a long time. I never wanted to be one of those people who missed out on enjoying a moment because I was too busy trying to record it with a camera. Life is supposed to be lived, not “captured”.

I recall one college professor who epitomized this behavior perfectly. He was a professor at Concordia University’s music department. Whenever we were performing locally or on tour, he would invariably be trying to get everything on tape. He was into videography in a big way, and though he always seemed to do it out of enjoyment, I felt as though he had to be missing out on experiencing a good portion of what was in front of us. After all, anyone can see Europe or the Rockies on a screen, right? But that’s how I’ll always remember him. I think he remembers me as the guy who always had a can of soda in his hand.

Recently, my attitude about photography has begun to change somewhat. It started when my grandmother and sister-in-law gave me a number of photographs of my parents and other family members. Some of these were taken as recently as the 1970’s, and others as far back as the 1930’s. My parents have been deceased since I was a little kid, so those photos are a priceless memory for me. Or rather, a replacement for ones I never had. Secondly, I’m finally realizing that unless I take some pictures and make sure they survive, no one is going to have any idea what I did with myself for all these years. The shows, the flying, the traveling, the friends I’ve made and lost. I’ve worked hard to build a life. If I ever have kids, I’d like them to be able to see what I’m doing today, just as I can look at the photos of my dad when he lived in Burbank 60 years ago.

Organizing all these photos is a lot of work. I’m trying to build up a library of electronic images as well, since they’re so convenient for e-mailing and posting on the web. I’m thinking of trying the Kodak CD method, where the photo lab automatically puts scans of your photos onto a compact disc when they’re developed and printed. It’s a little more expensive, but at least it would be done right.

I really have some great pictures in my collection. Some are from shows; in fact, I have two great ones from Flying Dutchman which I’ll post in the near future. One of my favorite photos of late was e-mailed to me by a friend who went skydiving for the first time. As you can see, he’s having a lot of fun. Either that, or he’s trying to sign-language his last will and testament before he hits the ground at 130 m.p.h. I’m no expert in signing, of course, but I think what he’s indicating in this photo is that everything, including the Playboy collection, is supposed to go to me.