Greetings, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Happy... Groundhog's Day?  There's always something, huh, for those of you north or east of here, at least.  I hope Puxatawny Phil sees his shadow and grants you with an unreliable forecast of spring, a forecast utterly irrelevant here in SoCal; I'm in a tank top and shorts at the moment.

So, how's my journey going these days?  Well, I took some new headshots, as always with my brilliant friend Farley, and I'm thrilled with them.  I've always really hated taking headshots, and I wasn't sure why-- I'm a model, I love the camera, I love taking portraits, and I like making eye contact, too, staring down into the bottomless well, the eye of the beholder who only knows me at my best.  But headshots... always felt uncomfortable... making eye contact is a requirement, and with headshots it feels extremely self-conscious, and wrong, like accidentally stealing a glance at the lens while filming a scene, you blew the whole take, you broke the third wall, oops.  Yeah, it's always felt like that, and I've never been happy with the result, just so unnatural and visibly stiff.  Whether modeling, acting, singing or playing an instrument, the performer must be relaxed in their foundation, connected with their breath, allowing the emotion to come naturally, and focused.  And with those darn headshots I could never relax, because I never had a focus, I didn't know where to go emotionally, or what I should convey.  And this time I figured it out, to just relax, and think and be and make eye contact when I wanted to, relating to the camera like I always do.  So, there's that. 

January has been an interesting month, internally, musically, experientially, but not with acting. There have been some scripts, some introductions, and one audition, which I blew off.  The script was just awful.  I'm uninspired.  I don't care, to drive to these auditions, to seek them out, to nag my manager and agent about projects, I just simply don't care.  I spend hours writing music and performing around town, and hours upon hours writing, prose, letters, my blog. But taking five minutes to check out a breakdown or forward a headshot requires so much energy and effort, I find myself putting it off for days. 

I've been here before... kind of.  I've been here before, but not in years, not for this long, not in presumably the right place, with the right credits, and the right team.  I know if I were given an opportunity to work on something that inspired me, I would snap out of it, and I also know that opportunity won't come when I'm slacking like this, when I can't be bothered.  Though, you know, these things come when "you least expect them," and "when you're not looking."

And indeed they do.  My agent called me a few minutes ago with a big audition.  I normally don't tell people about my auditions, or my plays, or my movies, or my music. Talking shop is boring, and so many people in this town announce their perceived triumphs long before they occur... a throw-away late night conversation, a project in its infancy, an audition, like any other, but that they're just damn sure they nailed, because they just have that inflated self-confidence, and rocket-fuel drive, and wide-eyed optimism, and downright denial that just might be beneficial, even necessary in this industry.  And then those projects are never mentioned again, and nobody asks, because everybody knows it just never happened, and that's just expected, and accepted, and the proud proclaimers are not embarrassed that they've been crying wolf since you've known them.

To be quite honest, and that seems to be the tone today, the aforementioned attitude-- the one before honesty-- just doesn't sit well with me.  It's Taco Bell.  Turns my stomach just a bit.  The air of desperation and delusion that's so prevalent here it's become the norm, has weighed on me and trapped me in my room, howling and pounding on the windows at night, scolding and sweating with the dawn, atonally singing with the ringing in my ears.  I get it, LA, I get it.  We're all here to reinvent ourselves and chase dreams.  And dreams come true here.  Dreams come true.  Maybe one in a thousand, one in million, maybe fifteen years down the road, maybe never, maybe you'll stare them in the face and come so close to touching them and back away, because up close they're not so seductive after all. In order live to like this, always wanting, around others who are always wanting, around people so hungry they seem to be honoring a deathwish, clay pigeons for young sharks, carrion for the swindlers, lifeblood of the dejected bullies with the plastic smiles and empty promises, one hand always behind their back, clutching wool to pull over hungry eyes.

And among them, the brilliant, the honest, the selfless, the dreamweavers.  And living in all of it, and walking that tightrope between cynicism and naivete, is hard, and it's exhausting, and it's not for everybody, and I, personally, don't believe that choosing not to choose it is a failure or a character flaw.  "Quitter."  Why is it such a pejorative?  What's more ineffectual and passive than sticking with something you hate?  Sigh.

Inspiring in January:  Paul, my acting coach for years and years.  I started studying with him, with his upstart school in America, when I was 19 in New York City.  At the time it was completely unknown, small and inconsistent groups, in small and inconsistent studio spaces in Hell's Kitchen.  And I had one student thesis film on my CV... I had take one class-- or rather, started-- before, at a well-known, very affordable school in the city, and quit after two classes.  We only went up and performed, for two minutes, every two weeks, and the teacher spoke in a false British accent, and deliberately, but UTTERLY embarrassed me the day I went up, part of his great technique, no doubt.  I stopped acting for a couple years.  I was in a band.  I'm playing music all the time again now, and I love it.  But funny always, the symphonic symmetry of life.  I'd quit, and then started this new class, and it was wonderful.  It is wonderful.  I have seen, and heard of, and studied with a lot of coaches, many with some cache, and they haven't measured up.  My teacher is just passionate and intelligent and funny and caring, to all of the students, and the techniques we learn are invaluable and direct, and unpretentious.  And just yesterday, he asked me if I'd like to come in and help out while the school auditioned new students.  And of course I did, after having been out of class for months, and I walked into this enormous space, with a theatre, and a loft office, and on-camera auditions, and a sort of sister-company casting director workshop, and UC-accredited degree program.  Six years.  We came up together, the school and I.  I was blown away.  I'd told an acquaintance about it, maybe six months ago, and she was there yesterday to audition.  She called me last night to say she'd signed up, and my teacher thanked me, and she's so excited to do it, for the emotional release alone, its therapeutic power, the confidence it will build. 

I am inspired, January.  That's what I know.