All Rude Revue

When I was younger, we got some video player. Could it have really been a VCR? Maybe it was actually a television. Anyway, what matters is the little throw-in that came with it. It was a book of Roger Ebert's reviews. It seems to me that it covered nothing more recent than Waterworld, and I read it until the cover came to pieces, at which time I repaired the cover with tape to ensure it lasted for more readings.

Something I found was that the bad review were a lot of fun to read. This was years before I heard such an expression as "schadenfreude", which is supposed to be a German word for the joy one takes in the bad things that happen to others. It's not a word I like, and enjoying negative film reviews is not something that I like tremendously much about myself, but there it is. It's a truth that I must come to terms with.

Aging

I had a bit of a scare yesterday. I was watching my VHS copy of Tango & Cash. It was the third time in a row when suddenly the picture got weird. It was rather fuzzy and the VCR warned me how it might need to be cleaned. It does that sometimes. It bothered me that this all happened with that particular tape though, because it had been pristine, and suddenly it was so bad that it was barely watchable.

It did get better, and I think it's OK again, but it's a sad fact that VHS tapes wear down with use, unlike disc media. Those can obviously degrade if mishandled, but as the critical part of the disc is touched by nothing more than a laser, being played often shouldn't have any bearing on whether the disc lasts a while or not. When a disc goes bad though, it goes worse. The player skips past a bad section entirely, which I don't care for.

Career Beard

I have lately been going without shaving. As I may have said at some time recently, it began during that trip to Big Bear. It made little sense to shave on vacation, and moreover it was problematic to shave with the restroom being shared by an awful lot of people. On returning, I reasoned that there was no sense in shaving until something like an audition came up that compelled it, and so I have been letting it grow during a period of idleness.

Being an actor with headshots and audition tapes floating around puts you in a unique position. You depend on your look being a part of how you get auditions and how you win parts (and this, I should say, is the understanding of this humble novice). Consequently, I am not exactly at liberty to do whatever with my appearance as someone else could. Changing way I have my hair is not simply a way of expressing myself differently. It's a career decision.

So, Lad!

As I have said plenty of times, diet is a concern of mine. It may not be one that I act on very forcefully or successfully very much of the time, but the fact that I don't improve much along those lines is no evidence that I lack the interest. I do care, and there are a couple of successes that I've had. I did give up canned ravioli, which may sound like an easy and obvious thing to you, but for me it was not. I also recently have been edging away from hot dogs.

Add to those triumphs a very singular incident born of that universal inspiration, desperate need. Now, I had a few things on hand that didn't quite add up to a sandwich. All that was missing was the bread, really. I had the meat, the cheese, the mustard (in addition to various packets of taco sauce, dressing and hot sauce), the peppers, the lettuce and more. I just couldn't do exactly what I wanted, which was a sandwich.

Down A Notch

The other day I was in downtown LA. I had finished improv practice, and decided before I went home that I would visit the nearby bookstore as I have before. On the way to that bookstore (where I bought another seven VHS tapes) and on the way from it to the subway station, I saw an awful lot of what looked like protesters. Indeed, I saw more of them even after I'd gotten off the subway back in my own neighborhood of North Hollywood.

They were carrying signs that appeared to signal their dislike of the Monsanto corporation. This is one of those things that I don't understand as well as I ought to, but many people probably do not let that get in the way of taking action. Anyway, I gather that people don't care for the genetic modification of what becomes their food. It seems less simple than that or than these people make it out to be, but I don't say they're wrong. They're probably more right than wrong.

A New Pastime Joins The Old

I have had the good fortune of coming upon some great live entertainment in Los Angeles. Through friends, I have learned of and enjoyed a great deal such things as improv comedy, pole dancing and burlesque. I have wound up doing a good deal of the first myself, and a bit of the second. Something new has come to my attention though, and I do believe I'll be seeing more, if not doing any. It's roller derby.

This may not be as new to others as it is to me. Really, I had heard of it, and I had the vaguest understanding of how it works. Luckily, a friend is on a local team, and with her encouragement, I finally made my way to a game. It was a doubleheader, and thank goodness for that. I might otherwise not have had enough time to really grasp the rules, which don't work out to be so complicated. I think I get it now.

A Victory For Health

It has become more and more important to me that I eat healthily, but I have not managed all the time to walk the walk. I am perhaps doing better than I was, but it remains very easy for me to fall on bad habits out of some sense of ease or out of excessive frugality. I used to eat a lot of hot dogs, which I know is bad. I don't eat so many now, but I still eat perhaps a few too many. I like getting a hot dog or two once a week before my improv class.

I was going to do that again the other day, but something was working on my mind. Early in the day, a friend sent me a link saying something or another about processed meats being bad. Now, this is nothing new to me. I know the hot dogs are bad the same way I know that binge drinking is bad, but you do bad sometimes because it's no fun to do good or it's too hard. No, the facts from this article really didn't sway me.