Identifying Identity/Putting On My Podcast Hat

Getting back into the swing of blogging, here we go!

I think two factors have contributed to the drop off in how much I've been writing this past year, well three if you count Shakes and Co. But the first is, ironically I guess, Facebook. Someone I know posed the question over Facebook "do you consider Facebook status updates and tweets to be their own form of writing?" Which got me thinking why of course they are. Usually when I go to write a status update, which is at least once a day probably, I'm trying to think of how to phrase it in the pithiest, punchiest or most insightful way possible in as few words as it can be expressed. When I consider my own identity and the ways which I define myself, actor and musician come to mind, in that order but I've always struggled with allowing "writer" or at another time in my life "poet" into that equation. I think maybe it's because writers and poets are so frequently presented as caricatured figures, the idea of the pompous pseudo intellectual novelist or poet or whatever pops up a lot in popular culture to the extent that it's become a comedic archetype in our modern landscape of comedia dell arte types. And perhaps because of that representation I was always very hyper aware of being pompous or pretentious, and thought telling people "oh I'm a poet" or "oh I'm a writer" would somehow invoke that.

Additionally, I wonder if those same forces in culture make the act of creation in some sense problematic, I suppose combined with the proliferation of technology that made it very easy to print and share one's own work. Inevitably, this writer caricature tries to get the other characters in the world they inhabit to try and read their work and it's never any good and usually the butt of a joke.

Knowing what I do know, seeing this scene played out in film or television is pretty ironic because the people who make those things are writers themselves and no doubt would identify with that same caricature in the much the same way I am doing in this moment!

Where was I? This post was going to be about my podcast but it's become about identity. Also I feel a sense of vulnerability in telling people that I'm a creative person. This doesn't extend to my acting, which I've always felt very confident about for whatever reason or at least have learned to, but also it's much harder to "act" for someone in a coffee shop. It's much more feasible to say "I'm a writer, can I share some writing with you?" and then if they don't like it or it doesn't set them off or inspire some kind of praise in them, it feels like failing a little.

This feeds back into whatever need for approval loops I have that do whatever they do for me in making me create my art. And this all a big tangent to why I haven't been writing here so much!

Because Facebook makes for a very easy feedback and approval loop I find when it comes to creating things, specifically status updates. If I can write a really funny or affecting status update, people can "like" it or comment on it instantaneously and in the hours after I put something up I can see all the people who read it and liked it or whatever.

This requires much less effort and focus than writing a blog post and involves much more instant gratification!

Which is ironic because the other thing I've been pouring my energy into other than blogging has been my podcast, (The Mike Handelman Podcast, I keep trying to think of catchier names but then I've stuck with this one for this long) which takes hours of work or honestly however much work I feel like putting into it but if I'm motivated and able it can take hours and for all that probably the fewest people take the time to really give it a listen.

But that's assuming that the goal is page views or whatever, which it's not, it's to make things I'm proud of. At a certain point the snake starts swallowing it's own tail though, because you need to go from making things you like and would want to listen to into finding other people who like and want to listen to similar things and will do that enough that people will pay money to access those people such is the nature of entertainment and show business!

So I'm doing all this work with the mindset that someday I'll find a way or have an opportunity to bring this work to a larger audience and then on to some kind of sponsorship to at least make some pizza and beer money, which would be nice. And by continuing this work with dedication, every time I put out a new podcast, I'm making a slightly improved or more refined product.

Which has been the case! I've been at this for about a year now since my friend Jesse and I first got in a room with a microphone and we really have come a long way in our artistic partnership and in my skills as a producer and engineer, which is something to be excited about. I hope after you've finished this, maybe you'll check out the podcast. Even if it's not yet something you'd enjoy (it's hard for me to keep perspective on whether or not I even enjoy it, I listen to some so many times in editing them) someday soon it will evolve in a better version of the thing it already is, that you will want to listen to.

Do It Like It Matters (Until It Actually Does)

Here's a profound thought for the day. I haven't been writing as much in this blog, because I've been putting more of my energy into my joint podcasting and musical effort with my podcasting/music partner Jesse, which has not only been consuming the energy I'd been putting into writing when I was writing in this more or less weekly (times when I'd be writing I'm instead editing audio, for example) and in the process it's been fulfilling my need to be creative in a comparable way to how this blog has in the past. Also, probably because I haven't really been acting except for a few small readings and a little film shoot, and I mainly blog about acting stuff, therefore not much to blog about.

But here's something. Often on the subject of consistently releasing new podcasts, which I try to do every Sunday and have been pretty consistent at doing (with the exception of this Sunday, which is a more complicated issue) either Jesse or I will say "oh but it doesn't really matter". And in a very literal sense this is true. According to the statistics on Buzzsprout, the website that I'm using to host podcasts (for the time being) the average number of plays for a given episode is 14, with episode 4 having been played 21 times, and episode 8 having been played 8 times and the other ones existing in a spectrum in between. This is to be expected, since I haven't gone any lengths to expose my efforts to the outside world except through my social media network and given the weird, misunderstood, nichey nature of podcasts it's even more expected and who's going to Buzzsprout for podcasts? People go to iTunes, and we're not even on there, so basically I'm the only person in the universe with an investment in a new podcast being released to the internet every Sunday.

Except, as the proprietor and creator of this product that's exactly as it should be at this moment. And I should continue to be invested in maintaining that strict schedule because if I ever want to court a wider audience, and eventually that would be nice, I need to maintain that dedication throughout the time period in which it matters to no one else until eventually it does matter.

And this is the way to success in any creative field, through sheer tenacity and not giving up. Because when you start acting, or painting, or making music or whatever of course no one's going to care when you start and probably they shouldn't because you won't be very good. You have to care though, and no matter how long it takes for other people to care enough to give you money for what your doing (if that is your goal) you just have to keep going until that happens. Ya dig?

Well anyway, I do, and it really summarizes where I'm at with this podcast thing right now. Sure only eight people have clicked on my latest podcast, but in many respects it's improved on what we'd done before and hopefully the next one will have improved on that and so on and so fourth until eventually hopefully if we've been doing it long enough someone will start to notice. Or at least I have to tell myself that, and in the meantime just take as much satisfaction as I can from the work itself.

The end. Of this blog post, but not this blog! In fact, I'll be taking a forced hiatus from the podcast during the month of January while I'm doing the January intensive at Shakespeare and Company, so look out for blog posts then, I hope! Assuming I have the energy or focus after all the intense Shakespeare boot camp stuff I'll be doing.

Making a Commitment

This weekend will mark the release of the 8th episode of my podcast, currently titled the Mike Handelman Podcast, although that may change soon... the title I mean. But hopefully not the dedication I've shown in producing it regularly! Even more regularly than I write this blog, and guess which takes a greater investment of time and energy? It's a rhetorical question, making a podcast is much harder. Yet rewarding! Even if they are averaging ten to twenty downloads a piece... which come to think of it, is how much traffic my blog posts receive on average... but for me, a big part of this experiment has been committing to an idea and sticking to it. The idea in this case being producing and regularly releasing a podcast, just like a professional person in the entertainment industry. Not that there are that many people making a living off their podcasts, in fact almost no one is doing that, but they are using them as a tool to promote themselves and their brand. The archetypal example being Marc Maron, who had worked as a respected although not particularly affluent stand up who helped kick off what's called the "alt comedy" movement, and stayed afloat in the entertainment industry throughout the 90s before joining with the ship that was Air America (an attempt at a liberal talk radio station) through it's various ups and downs and after being finally fired from it for the last time, started doing a podcast.

An example numerous comedians have followed, myself being one of them. When asked what young comedians started out should do, another well known podcaster (if you follow podcasts that is, which lots of people don't, yet) Doug Benson said "start a twitter account and then start a podcast" both of which are easy, free ways of self promotion and brand building (unless and until your podcast blows than you need to pay for hosting but that's another thing) and podcasting isn't as easy as it sounds! At least, not if you want to do it well, which is my ultimate goal.

And keeping sight of that goal has eased the transition from the end of Uncle Vanya to where I'm at now, which is focused on editing and releasing a new podcast every Sunday and listening for what myself and my partner Jesse can do better from week to week, a goal I've been accomplishing.

And thinking about it feels like a real accomplishment. I was reflecting on my past creative endeavors and I realized that I've put more focus, time and energy into this project than just about anything else I've ever started completely on my own. Sure I've put a lot of time into theatre and film things that I've been a part of over the years, but in all of those examples I've been in some way or another subservient to another person's master plan. But this is me, this is my thing, and so far it's success or failure has been dependent on my talent and dedication.

With that comes a degree of anxiety, I am collaborating with someone else and I can't take all the credit even if I am the "director" of the project (and the producer, and the editor, and the... you get the idea) and I'm trying to keep Jesse on board and motivated without being a pain in the ass. Which is a feeling I struggle with. In the few times I've taken on a "director" role, prior this point exclusively in theatre classes, it's something I've struggled with as well. The people I'm working with are volunteering their time and energy, and how do I manage that effectively and not be overbearing? If nothing else, this phase of my podcasting career will also serve as a record of how we got to know each other and have become better friends by working on this together and how do I manage that friendship aspect of the project? It would be easier in some ways to hire someone to do the podcast with me, but not nearly as satisfying or rewarding, and I can't easily think of anyone else I'd rather be working with from week to week. But there's that component, from week to week to week, I'm asking for a lot of time and so far he's been very gracious in giving it and I couldn't have gotten this far without him in the room lending his energy... I've tried it, and getting on the microphone by yourself is harder and a lot less fun than having someone to bounce energy off of. It's also a necessary skill I should learn someday, and I can think of some examples in the podcast field of people who do it very well.

Which brings to mind another source of anxiety, where am I going with this? When and how will I take it there? One step has been the establishment of a Facebook page for my podcast. A facebook page I actually established a while ago intending it as a means of promotion for my acting stuff and this blog, but I've been too bashful to share it with the world. No longer! That shits gone public! Likewise I've yet to move beyond the very small pond of Buzzsprout, the free service where I've been hosting my podcast and where no one is particularly likely to see it without first being linked to another, more professional and money costing service like Libsyn and then to the grand daddy of podcast directories... iTunes. Basically, I've been waiting until we could consistently deliver a product I felt comfortable sharing with strangers, which took us a while both from a technical stand point and a creative one but I feel like we've gotten there and my hope is when I get from the January intensive to start doing that. Assuming we can resume our present momentum, which I'm hopeful we can and even if it takes a little while I now have a nice back log of episodes to recycle.

So all in all, I feel good about the work I've been doing. I've found an outlet separate from my live performance, channeled my energy into it and taken visible steps towards developing it... all good things! Now, the next steps are to develop a live performance component that ties back to the podcast which I hope will be Jesse and I's comedy music which we can play out with first at open mics and then hopefully at real events in real venues. And of course, actually building an audience. All in good time! Time I look forward to.

To Train Or Not To Train? (it's a rhetorical question)

Hello blog. I'm writing this chunk of blog post from backstage at Uncle Vanya. Which, have you bought your ticket to yet? Its pretty great. Anyway this is week two, and we've been extended through November 11th! So there goes your excuse to miss this once in a life time piece of theatrical inspiration. 

So speaking of which, I saw the Globe Theatre's production of Hamlet today at Emerson. How was it? I liked it. I enjoyed having such a young Hamlet, it put the play in a context that made sense for me. My closest connection to the text was from doing that sort of anti Hamlet in college that I've referenced which actually had a vaguely similar conceit. And I liked all the minimal staging and the effort to bring some of the atmosphere of the old globe to the Paramount. Anyway, I'm going to try and read it this week and come up with more of a response. 

During intermission, I got an email confirming I'd been accepted to the month long intensive training with Shakespeare and Company, out in Lenox. Before you congratulate me on anything, it's not an accomplishment so much as an inevitably of my application. Which is to say, it's $4000, for the month of January in Western Mass, and considering the economic situation of most actors I don't imagine it's especially competitive. But it's sort of ironic that I received my official acceptance while watching a Shakespeare play, and since I wasn't cast in that show I blogged about going up in that same time frame, I'll probably do it.

And I'm looking forward to it. All of the people I know who've gone through the training speak very highly of it, and this will be my first exposure to a conservatory-esque environment, as opposed to all the evening and extension classes that have made up my training, I'll live and breath acting and Shakespeare for at least a month, and that's exciting, right? It'll be hard too, being away from home and my friends and family and especially my girlfriend. But worth it, I hope.

So thats where I'm at, and also figuring out what to do next. The trouble is it will keep me from doing a show until March or April, which will leave December relatively barren, and that kind of worries me, as I always feel my best when I'm active creatively and doing stuff and having a reason to leave my apartment. Especially during the winter time, which is always tough, with the cold and reduced day light, etc.

But I have this blog, my music, oh and my podcast which has been going actually pretty well. It took me a few tries after the first one to get in a groove but I released a new one and have another on the editing dock I'm happy with. So far I've had three "guests", one of them recurring in the form of my friend Jesse, and some other peeps I have in mind to invite on. My goal starting out was just to get to where I dont suck and I feel I'm accomplishing that. The question now is, when do I go on iTunes? Usually in your first day or two on the service you get listed as a new show and with that some base number of downloads which then drops off. How much it drops off depends on how good your product is. I've moved to a new, higher quality recording method, and have gotten much slicker at editing. Sooner or later I've gotta bite the bullet and take those steps. Which, actually I'm excited to do.  

And excited for what the future holds! Which, well, is anxiety until I get cast in my next thing. But there auditions, and since I keep booking things I must be doing something right. Whatever that is, I've just got to keep on keeping on, doing what I do. 

Banding Together!

In the spirit of collaboration and collaboration, check out my buddy's site, The Awesome Cave! It's being maintained and edited by an Emerson Alumni I met on set a few weeks ago, and it's pretty cool. He approached about a "link share" as the kids are calling it these days, and I thought "hey yeah cool that's a neat idea".

Because the internet isn't about competition, really. And neither is the entertainment business. The more people we can find who like the stuff we do, the better, and no better way to do that than to share readership and subsequently eye balls, right?

In a similar spirit, I recorded a podcast tonight with my friend Jeff Mosser so that we could talk about his play he's directing as part of a festival he's been involved with, 44 Plays For 44 Presidents which is being put on by Bad Habit Productions and was just featured in The Boston Globe! Cool, huh? In addition to that, we chatted about his new group, Project:Project and their Indie Gogo campaign which which just started and you should give money too.

While you're at it, contribute to my friend Anna Callahan's Indiegogo campaign for her startup ZoomTilt which aims to partner brands with production companies to produce original content on Youtube, oh and I have a little part in their promotional video, so check that out too.

While you're at it, here they are on Facebook, The Awesome Cave, Project: Project and ZoomTilt. At some point I'll write a more personal blog post about where I'm at, but until then!

Getting Better At Stuff, Thoughts on Self Criticism

I've been thinking a lot about how to be better, as a person, a friend, a cast member and especially an artist. I think I deserve a pat on the back for everything I've accomplished this year. Did you notice the weight I've lost? Or the work I've put into this blog? Did you know I've been trying to better myself as a musician and find more focus for composing? Or that I've slowly started doing my own podcast? Probably you've read about all the acting I've been doing. Since Rosencratz and Guildenstern ended, I accomplished one of my goals which had been to book some more film work and I've had several roles of varying smallness in a music video, a promotional video for a friend's company, a student film and an independent feature, all of which was from being on the lookout on Craigslist and New England Film. I've been making it out to a ton of theatre. And I helped my improv troupe find our way to our first paying gigs since I've been in it with my contacts I made doing theatre, and generally have been trying to improve as an improvisor and troupe member.

So let me stop and do that pat on the back thing. *Pat pat pat*. OK now there's still more I could and should be doing. Like, I've lost about twenty pounds, alright! One of my big weight loss goals was strictly getting my BMI to a healthy place and now I've done that. How? As I said to a friend when asked that, "I don't know working out a lot and being twenty three". That is to say going to the gym regularly, in addition to the weight I've put on a noticeable but not grandiose amount of muscle, eating less and not as terribly (fewer starbucks pastries and burritos) combined with my increased metabolism did most of the work. But I'd like to lose more weight, like ten or fifteen pounds, hopefully. Since getting around 205 though, my weight has more or less flat lined. Which is partially to be expected, usually in weight loss the first twenty pounds or whatever are largely water weight and drop off pretty easily. After that it becomes more challenging. If I want to lose the rest of that weight, I've got to get serious about my exercise routine, like working out at home on days that I'm not able to make it to the gym while making a point to still get to the gym at least three times a week and really work out when I get there not just for twenty minutes and then call it a day.

And I need to be serious about what I eat. As an actor, sometimes you find yourself surrounded by food, oftentimes with nothing really to do. When I was on the set of that feature film, I was there for maybe an hour or two before they ordered like ten pizzas, more than the cast and crew was able to eat and for the rest of the day there was just a bunch of pizza in addition to the sugary sodas and everything else the people on craft services had laid out. My part of the shoot took less than an hour, but was physically incredibly exhausting and mentally draining (it was a torture scene, maybe I'll blog about it at some point later) and then I was there all day with all this food, so I just hung out and snacked on pizza and drank more regular Coke than I normally would in a week, etc.

Point being to accomplish that goal I need to become focused. To become a better blogger, I need to focus and try to write at least once a week. To be a better podcaster, I need to make sure I come prepared and always be looking for ways to be doing better work. With everything I do, I need to be prepared to do my best work and be looking for the ways I can improve it.

This can be frustrating though, because putting time and focus into improving things is difficult and it's hard to keep sight of the big picture. With this blog, am I creating any tangible, immediate benefit? No, but I'm creating a series of reference points for my future self. I'm improving as a writer. I'm developing a good habit. And I'm engaging with the local community, which is something I know people appreciate. I'm struggling with similar issues with my podcast, but I think in addition to my comedic aspirations I may be able to start finding ways towards a deeper way of contributing to Boston theatre... keep an eye out for that.

And I'll just keep trying to focus on bettering myself, and recognizing everything I accomplish, one by one, it's all about keeping that balance.

Road Blocks

I find not being actively engaged with a show frustrating, I've realized. I think is one of the longest, possibly the longest, breaks from theatre I've taken in about two years. The other substantial lapse of not rehearsing or performing anything must have been May of 2011, I think. I remember right after finishing The Mousetrap I was feeling kind of burnt out after having done something like five or six plays of varying sizes so far that year, mind you three of them were small productions with very limited engagements, but it still had wore me down by that point.

After a week or two of not reporting to rehearsals, I remember feeling more or less ready to go again, and from there I went to New York for the Samuel French Festival, booked Crooked Arrows, and it was generally good crazy from there on out, going at a pace of every time a show would be wrapping up I would be just getting started on a new one. This was a satisfying pace for me to be working at, and I'd pretty much maintained it through Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead until now.

Since then, I've been intermittently successful in filling my theatre hole with other stuff. I've had four or five improv shows this past month, worked on music (including a new song) tried and mostly failed to blog (I have a whole bunch of incomplete blog posts in my blogger), auditioned for and booked some film stuff as well as had some fall into my lap, sort of started a podcast (for which I have one episode done, and a bunch of material recorded which I'm still figuring out what to do with) oh and have gone to see a lot of shows.

Despite all that, I can't get over a sense aimlessness. I've been finding it very hard to finish the things I start or start the things I'd like to finish. It's weird for example with the podcast, the strange alchemy we found with the first episode which at first appearance looked like a train wreck I was able to craft into something sort of remarkable, I think. Maybe one of the funniest things I've made just with my two hands. Which isn't necessarily saying too much, I haven't made too many things like that (some songs and poems, a few bits of stories, a few pages of a screen play much of which I was ripping off at the time, etc). But I haven't felt us recapturing that yet, which is understandable we're still figuring it out. But more importantly, I've made about half way through editing both recording sessions and still haven't finished either! And then when I sit down to work on them, I find myself lamenting that the sessions weren't more successful, but that's not really a productive way of working.

Something I took away from Making It, the podcast I tend to reference, and also from when I attended "If I Knew Then" back in February or whenever that was, is that as an actor you need something else fulfilling in your life. For me, I really want to find to find a creative outlet that does that and ties back in to my acting pursuits, like hopefully helps get more acting stuff. Music is good, but doesn't accomplish that as directly as I would prefer. Improv also is good, but is very dependent on the presence and participation of other people and also various gatekeepers between you and having shows, etc. Maybe it could be writing eventually, but I can't get my head to go that way right now. So I really wanted it to be podcasting. And I hope it still can be. And I still have this blog, as much as I've been neglecting it.

I guess it's OK to feel like I'm in a little bit of a slump, these things happen and I'll come out of it then back into another one, inevitably. Such is part of the life of an actor. Success and disappointment, agony and ecstasy, and part of growing as an artist is learning to deal with all that stuff. So I'm spinning this frustration into a learning experience. And I've got some film stuff coming up this week that will hopefully challenge and energize me in a meaningful way. And then Vanya, of course. And everything else I can't foresee. And I feel better having written about it. Maybe that's what I've been missing, writing, so I'll try and do more of that too. Talk to you soon, I hope.

Judging Your Own Work

...From an objective perspective is very difficult, or even trying to appreciate it from the subjective perspective of a potential audience member or consumer, "if I were stumbling upon this, how would I react?" and I think if you're goal is to create good work, as opposed to work that's explicitly commercial  (nothing wrong with that) the main question should be "is this something I would enjoy?"

But of course, you want other people to enjoy it too, and probably if you and your friends have a long list of convoluted inside jokes that have taken on various lives of their own inside and out of their original contexts hearing them parroted back and forth would be entertaining, it would sound like a conversation between you and your friends. Which is not an unworthy goal for something like a Podcast (that by the way is what I'm going to be talking about, get ready) to make something that sounds like an authentic and fun conversation between friends, because doing that is actually pretty difficult, especially doing it in such a way that would be compelling and entertaining to an outside listener.

I've been gradually realizing things like this throughout the process of editing down the recording session of July 22nd, going through various incarnations, finding what works, whittling things down, removing the pauses, adding background music, mixing, etc, etc and now listening to what I'm calling the finished product (while resisting the urge to go back and fix this bit of mixing or cut that piece of dead air I'd missed before) and trying to decide for my self "is this good?" Well yeah actually, for a first attempt ever at this medium, I'd say it's pretty good but then "really how good is it?" my id asks my ego or whatever model we use for the voices in our heads that doubt.

(Side note, I actually spoke to my Mom about it, and even though she's my Mom so of course she did she said she liked it, and specifically the bits I'm going to get into in a moment of a more philosophical nature. This actually made me happier than she probably realized, because I believe that if you can make something which appeals to 60 something baby boomers and people in your peer group, or any wide audience like that, you are really truly doing something right.)

Something I didn't do which is my goal in future recording sessions was to respond from a completely earnest, thoughtful and honest place (as myself, basically). Something that I tend to do in improv/comedy stuff is make a game of tossing curveballs at my partner, which is something I did a lot during our recording session. Like if someone is doing something to enhance the atmosphere of the scene, or has allowed a changed in their character or given circumstances based on a failed communication (like if you, my theoretical scene partner, or I establish one thing, say we're partners in a detective agency but then one of us changes it to make us siblings which doesn't break the scene but inexplicably changes it pointing that out or whatever) or even when something like that hasn't happened, just to see how the other person reacts.

As audience members, we get served that a lot in our contemporary "absurdist" comedy in the vein of Tim & Eric or much of the current Adult Swim programming block, and it's a perfectly valid aesthetic which is much easier to pull off than something like Louie which is completely dependent on the strength of Louis C.K's actual point of view on things as refracted through a semi realist depiction of his world and real life. Doing absurdist comedy well sounds easy but is difficult, depictions of life and adding to them the lens or angle of a specific comedic viewpoint sounds difficult but is actually nigh impossible.

And then again, at this moment I'm focusing on film and television, which is what I'm working on, I'm working on a podcast. In that respect, let's say two analogues entities to the Tim and Eric/Louis paradigm might be Comedy Bang Bang and WTF with Marc Maron, two extremely popular very different podcasts. Comedy Bang Bang sets it self as an interview show, and then becomes absurd (and is one of my primary inspirations for the model I'm trying to work out) and WTF is actually an interview show, which oftentimes becomes as much about it's host and his weird and compellingly specific world view as it does about the person he's interviewing. In the case of Comedy Bang Bang it works because usually all involved are world class improvisors who've been doing it in various forms for years and years, and have had a while to develop the specific voice of their show and Marc Maron is an incredibly compelling interviewer and for that other stuff he draws on 20 plus years of life as a stand up comedian and more than that as a thoughtful but doubting human being. Really, you should just go listen to them to see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, in response to those two archetypes, tons and tons of imitators have inevitably sprung up. One of my favorites from the WTF mold is You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes, which has much of the same structure as WTF where Holmes talks to a guest about his or her career in show business or whatever but often spirals off into very heady discussions about sex or religion or whatever.

I'd like to think that where my goal had been to do something purely resembling Comedy Bang Bang with just lots of comedy bits and improvised sketch type things (which are present in the pilot) we added up going into a lot of You Made it Weird-esque territory, and I actually kind of like that, but doubt my own ability to consistently make something like that work.

But at the same time, what am I gaining by doubting myself? I've only done one of these, and it developed organically and in the process of my editing it into this particular thing, next time will probably be something different and the time after that. And the reason why I'm trying this out is to scratch that creative itch to be making my own stuff that I've blogged about, and to just start learning how to do this thing. Certainly none of the podcast people I admire were doing their shows at the level they do them over night, no one does that, it takes time and practice and dedication. Well, right now I've got some time, so let's see how long I can keep this dedication going and where it takes me.

Blogcasting? Podblogging? (with a sidebar on dreams)

I've thinking about it and blogging about my desire to do it, and this past Sunday it happened; I recorded my first podcast. I should say we had our first recording session, we being my friend Jesse from Rebels Without Applause who I knew to be a generally funny guy, a good improvisor (especially with voice based characters which are the basis of what I want to do) and basically up for anything. So I met up a microphone in the middle of my living room, plugged into my laptop and we started going. Unfortunately, I did a poor job of setting up Garageband and some of our funniest stuff from the two or three hours of hanging out we did was lost but such is life. What remained was about two hours of material, which I've cut down to forty five minutes and which I'm continuing to massage, trimming pauses, false starts, umms those sorts of things and adding transitional music where appropriate.

One thing I've learned so far from this process is that making your own stuff, and doing it well, is a difficult and time consuming process. Especially when your working in a medium like say film or radio where you have to painstakingly comb over every piece for usable material, organize those pieces into piles and then compile them into a whole that makes sense and is effective at conveying your theme or message or whatever.

But anyway, the first episode is done, it's online here http://mikehandelman.podbean.com/, so I guess in addition to this blog I now have a "podblog" or whatever that's supposed to be. I have limited storage space, so I might need to upgrade to a paid account for like $2 a month which isn't bad... until we fucking EXPLODE AM I RIGHT?! No of course that won't happen. Do you know how easy it is to do something like this and how many people are out there doing it, many of whom are much more experienced and better at it than I am? Lots, that's how many.

This brings to mind a tension that sometimes becomes a problem in my relationships with fellow artists and actually hit a violent boiling point to where someone I've considered a friend for a while has declared he won't talk to me after I perhaps too harshly criticized his idea, which I found rather extreme and outlandish as an in to the entertainment industry and questioned his ability to actually do it, which he took as unsupportive and insulting in the extreme and I've been feeling bad about since. This habit of unerring rationalism of mine, and my sometimes poor filter, alienated a bunch of my friends in high school as well when they were really into writing hyper ambitious genre screen plays which they then planned to film using the school's TV equipment. I would point out how A) violent they tended to be, and B) called for a level of production values we simply didn't have access to, and they would get pissed and we'd argue and I wouldn't back down because I was a stupid 17 year old and after a while they stopped talking to me. Which is understandable because I was always being negative, even if I thought I was being constructive and I was probably pretty frustrating and irritating to deal with at the time. Losing those friendships, especially so close to the end of high school, made me pretty sad.

And I think there is a tendency towards a manic quality in creative people, and to an extent in myself which I try extremely hard to be self aware about but which other creatives may or may not, especially when their in the middle of on these manic phases. So they'll lay out their ambitious screen play idea (more often than not it's a screen play idea) and I'll poke various holes in how difficult it is to write a good screenplay or make something produceable on the level of a very small time film producer and they'll get frustrated. Or you know, that conversation with your (possibly intoxicated) actor friend about how their going to be a movie star, and I'll usually say "the likelihood of that happening is nigh impossible" and they'll ask me "well don't you have some big dream? Don't you want to shoot for the stars?"

And yeah, I do, sort of. I allow myself to indulge in grand fantasies of movie stardom every once in a while, but in my mind the path of seriously considering those possibilities leads primarily to disappointment and failure. Both of which are simply parts of life and especially part of being any kind of an artist where it's incredibly difficult to get anything to catch on commercially on any kind of large scale, much less to the point of being able to support yourself... and so I make that my big dream, that small goal to support myself as an artist. Occasionally I allow myself the slightly bigger dream of doing that while making work I'm truly satisfied by. Then we go into the realm of large scale commercial success or recognition or whatever. And that's not why I want to be an artist, it's just for the joy of art.

As is the case I'm sure for all or most of my peers, certainly for those I feel close to. But sometimes they allow themselves bigger dreams than I do. And when confronted with those dreams, my reaction is similar to when I see that in myself, I try to bring them to Earth. Sometimes too harshly, like in the case of my friend, who misunderstand that and took as a personal slight and offense or declaration that he wasn't good enough or as good as me or whatever. Which wasn't the case. I tried to explain that, he hasn't responded. And it could be that friendship is lost to me, or that he'll come around, I don't know. I don't know where he's at, after the provoking exchange I saw him several times before he left and we seemed cool before I got his message condemning me. So I wonder if something else is going on to put him in that headspace, I can only speculate. And feel a certain amount of sadness, which has been very distracting from the work I've been trying to do getting this modest podcasting project to resemble something I can happy with...

Anyway, it's a problem, how to be both supportive of friends and their endeavors and also truthful and honest and how to know when someone wants to hear honesty or just faith and support, which are not mutually exclusive. Even if I don't believe in an idea, I can still believe in a person. I don't know, I shouldn't say anymore in case they read this. I want to talk about my feelings of frustration and even anger at being unjustly condemned for expressing an honest thought, and so far after the fact. But it wouldn't make a difference.

I just have to keep my head in the game and keep moving forward. I feel like I've made a lot of progress this summer. I grew and discovered so much studying movement, and portraying Alfred. I began learning the principles of editing video and now podcasting, all of which is very exciting. Thinking of the future, I know it will hold more frustration like I'm feeling now. And struggle, oh God will it hold struggle. But also hope for friendship and art which are the truly essential things in life.

Topping From The Bottom

I had one of my favorite discoveries thus far in the R&G rehearsal process just the other day when I discovered this weird new persona for Alfred; a gender-queer street smart bad ass drag queen doing what he has to do to get by. This runs contrary to my initial intention, and to Stoppard's script, but since we've cut all of the really explicit rape jokes and Alfred's exchange with Guildenstern, and also considering my physical size and the world of the play as my director has been shaping it... it makes the most sense. At first, I was interested in the idea of Alfred as a victim, someone who's been put through a lot, has probably been assaulted and is clearly used when necessary in a sexual way by the player. So I was interested in how that affects someone's physical state, you know when someone has been a victim of trauma it affects them in a certain way. Except I realized with Alfred, and remembered from people I've been close to the in the past who I know had gone through those kinds of experiences, it doesn't necessarily translate to weakness and in Alfred's case it's made him very tough and weirdly strong and resilient. I mean, just considering my physical size, I don't look like someone who takes a lot of shit when you remove my gentile personality from the equation. And neither does Alfred. Danielle is really interested in bringing this ongoing sense of menace and danger to the Players as a unit, and it's been really enjoyable exploring that with Alfred. And with the gender-queer aspect, Alfred wears the dresses and plays the women because he wants too and because he does it damn well, and when he gets down to business with the evil king in the dumb show, he really gets into it.

All of this power and toughness though is in spite of his intrinsically low status, arguably in the text as written Alfred is the lowest status character in the play. This kind of changes when you remove the rape element, and instead of Alfred being a smallish 14 or 15 year old as he would have been in Shakespeare's time and so might be traditionally played in a straight reading of Stoppard's text, he's me, a 6'2" 200 pound 23 year old dude, so I have to bring the truth of "what if I were this person" and not "what if this person in the text was me" does that distinction make any sense? I guess I mean I have to bring the character to myself, rather than vice versa. And I've been exploring that, and this new sense of physicality and having tons of fun with the costume (the full version of which I saw today and it's pretty great), and especially the physical comedy.

Which is a fairly efficient segway into the other thing I wanted to blog about tonight. As of tomorrow morning, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning at 9 AM I'll be reporting to movement class with Yo-el Cassell courtesy of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. As you may now, Commonwealth in it's third or fourth year of offering an apprenticeship program where you give them a bunch of money and in return they give you training, farm you out to do a "selection of scenes on this theme" style show in the 'burbs and you understudy and/or play a spear carrier in their main stage production. This year, in addition to all that, their offering parts of their training to the public, which will include me. So I'll be in with the apprentices and whoever else responded to the Stagesource post and had $500 doing Alexander Technique, Grotowski, Laban (don't know who that is but I'll find out), dancing and generally getting sweaty early in the morning for the next month. I'm excited! Having not done a BFA, movement is a big gap in my training and I'm looking forward to filling it in, becoming a more rounded actor and of course blogging about it.

Briefly, before I sign off, progress has been made in the podcast front. I have a tentative partner in the venture, someone I'm very excited to be working with and hopefully we'll be recording some stuff in the next few weeks. Till then!

Making Your Own Stuff

I was listening to one of my podcasts the other day, and one of the hosts, I think it might have been Kevin Pollak, said something to the effect of "if you're not creating, you're waiting". And you know, it's true. If you're a creative person, you're either waiting for someone to give you an opportunity to do something (which can take a long time as an actor) or you're making your own opportunities. Right now is the best time ever to be any kind of an amateur musician, the internet and digital technology have so throughly leveled the playing field that no matter what your vision is, you can find a way to achieve it. That's music though, and the nature modern of musicianship and today's digital recording and synth technology is you can collaborate purely with yourself and a computer and no one else to make just about anything.

Less so with acting, which is inherently both interpretive and collaborative. Generally as an actor you're pulling from some kind of material either in the literal or metaphorical sense, which you interpret through your performance into art. Usually that mean's a script. But I think it can be defined even more generally as just a medium. You need some kind of physical medium in addition to an intellectual or spiritual starting point of some kind. It used be that film making was incredibly prohibitively expensive because of the cost of film stock, to say nothing of editing and communicating all that material to the outside world. Of course no longer so with the internet and Youtube so thousands and millions of aspiring creators are as we speak slaving away at their attempt to get beyond the confines of their physical reality and touch someone far away, and maybe feel something back. And maybe make a life out of doing that, of connecting with an audience, because isn't the truest and purest nature of acting? Just connecting with another person, either on stage or on camera (or on a microphone) who's either their with you in the work or seeing it happen or what you made it into. An audience. And the internet is a giant access hub to the entire world.

So if you want to be a professionally creative person, like I do and maybe you do as well, you have to be channeling that creativity somehow right now and getting it to the outside world of you're making a big mistake and missing out on the opportunity to find out what you do and get as good as you can at it. Did how I mention how easy the internet makes it to receive criticism of your work? If it's constructive or not is completely besides the point.

I'm frustrated at myself for making that mistake every day that I don't pursue developing and sharing my own voice as an actor, by writing and performing my own stuff into a camera or a microphone and out into the world. I've been making that mistake quite frequently, exceptions being when I write this blog, or the little bit of music making I've been doing. Or my foray into video blogging, which I have to continue but am still intimidated by the naked feeling of being on camera.

What I really think could be personal medium though, might be podcasting. Ever since I was very young, and I was just a goofy little kid and then adolescent, I've liked making characters and a lot of that was always in my voice. That practice was what ultimately lead to me booking Crooked Arrows, and a number of the other creative experiences I've had in my life. One of my favorite things to do because I get to make those kinds of goofy voices, is improv comedy. Improv is great for me because it removes the pressure I feel when I try to write my own stuff to act out, and instead I just get my brain working in real time and enact all the different parts in the moment through the inherent sensibility of my own voice and mind.

All you need to put out a podcast is a microphone and an internet connection. As it so happens, left over from when in late high school I fancied myself an amateur producer and audio engineer, I have a collection of rather nice microphones and a nice 4 channel mixing board, and also a very effective USB input to my computer's sound card. And an internet connection. Everything needed to make well... a podcast. Even if it's just me talking to myself. But I would like it to be with other people.

So I posted to Facebook, I'm supposed to be meeting with someone next week, and now that I sort of have an idea that I think could work I've written some emails. Exciting, I know! I'm posting this to my blog so that I will accountability... I am starting a podcast! Look it for it in your iTunes or RSS feed in the near future!

PS This might have been the most pretentious post I've ever written DEAL WITH IT