#6 - Midgetry and Other Blatherings

Well, we wrapped “Happy Man’s Pants” and Kunal is finishing a final edit. This weekend there are two premier events for anyone who wants to come check it out. While I was doing the ADR (voiceover to fill in where original sound quality was lacking), I was able to see a few of the key scenes. The film looks great and is frickin’ funny!

You know you’re grown up when you see a lawyer who doesn’t specialize in traffic or barroom violations. Bryan and I met with an attorney who specializes in setting up entertainment operating agreements and private placement memoranda. He specializes in lawsuit-proofing. It’s the last step before we can start raising money for the Covenant Coffee project.

In other news, Josh and I have shelved the insurance salesman story for Josh’s passion project, the story of an undercover cop in a Midwestern city. Josh has already researched it exhaustively and done a short film with related elements. Presently, we’re setting up interviews with a couple ex-cops he knows, reviewing all the material we have and otherwise preparing to write this sucker. That’s all I can say about it right now, except that I’m going to play the lead and wear a full beard and dress like a bum. And I’m going to start smoking again in training for it.

Just kidding about the smoking, although, sometimes I really feel like stealing someone’s freshly lit cigarette and inhaling it all in one breath. I probably have the lung capacity to do that, now that I haven’t smoked in over two years. Crikey, I sure have been looking for an excuse to pick up the damned smokes again. Something has been conspiring against me: the two or three roles I’ve considered in the last year which would have required me to smoke mysteriously fell through. Hmmm.

So, anyway, midgets. Whenever midgets (or dwarves, or little people, or whatevs) appear in a film, you know the picture’s going to be freaky and surreal. It’s almost as if the only role a midget can play is an ominous reminder to “normal-size” people of some sin committed by humanity. I defy any of you, Peter Dinklage or anyone else to find me an example where this is not the case.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why I brought up midgets, except that my point illustrates stereotypes that exist in show business. Hmm, maybe we can call it the Circus Freak Syndrome. A bearded lady pretty much has her career laid out in front of her when she sets out to perform for an audience. Andre the Giant is never going to play a computer geek who creates the perfect virtual woman.

A lot of times in this business, actors play types rather than roles. It’s kind of a modern circus, a cavalcade of freaks, jocks, idiots and airheads, divas and mothers and sluts, geeks, strongmen and in-bred, pin-headed, pretty people with eyes to close together. Sometimes you can cross-over from one type to another, but most people are pretty much pigeon-holed. I think I’m a little jaded this week because I’ve had a dozen good auditions without a nibble. Maybe I need a cigarette. Or just a paying gig.

Anyway, my career choice annoys me this week. And I’m still fat. And I got a corner of my big toe caught in an escalator last week. It still hurts.

Best,

Jake

PS – I had a great little vacation over Memorial Day, visiting great friends in Providence and Boston. Bob and Bill are my two best pals from college. They each have more traditional careers and wonderful families with kids and houses and all the trimmings of a life I eschewed long ago. Not sure what I’m saying, but I am really glad today that I can play the part of uncle for four awesome kids in New England from time to time!