Tag: #Reality

  • What Defines Us

    Some people are great at coming up with a tagline for themselves, or a witty one liner that can define who they are. I love Roxane Gay’s Twitter Profile which says, “I want a tiny baby elephant. You clap, I clap back.” Man, that shit is awesome. I feel like I now know that she is funny, and don’t fuck with her.

    In the marketing world, there is the 15 second “elevator pitch,” which I always felt I sucked at. I was never able to concisely say to someone what I was all about, so they could feel comfortable and understand who I was. I felt like I was more like a tv show; you needed to get about three episodes in before I started to get good and become worth your time.

    I say all of this because last night I looked at my Twitter profile, specifically my tagline; “Theater, Pictures, and Words… Just Not In That Order.” I mean, it’s always been a placeholder until I came up with something better… because it sucks, you know.

    But what really stuck in my craw and bothered me most was the first word, “Theatre.”

    I haven’t done a show in three years. Does that word even apply to me anymore? Also, I haven’t perused any theatre work in two years. I’m not sure that word defines me.

    Now, if my puppetry friends and colleagues were to call me up and ask me to help out on a show, I would be there is a heartbeat. Yet, I can fully admit that I would be there for them, because they are my friends, and I believe in their talent and creativity.

    I think the passion for theatre has gone out of me. For twenty years, it was that thig that burned in me, that I thought about, and wanted to experience, and know about and discover new ideas about, and meet people who are trying new things in theatre. I don’t feel that now.

    When I hear about friends in shows, I do want to go out and see them, and support them. Or I see that the show that they are working on is opening, or started rehearsal, or is casting, or whatever; I am excited for them. But, I don’t feel the desire to do that career anymore.

    In fact, when I think about a theatre career, I feel like I have broken up with it. Like, “It’s not you, theatre. It’s me.”

    To be honest, this isn’t the first time I have felt like this. I was crazy passionate about theatre from like 15 to about 20. I was a high school theatre nerd, and when I first went away to college. I wrote plays, and acted, and directed, and was way too dramatic for my own good. And then one day, when I was at the University of North Texas, I just didn’t want to do it anymore, so I dropped out of school. In the meantime, I wrote, I worked shitty jobs, tried my hand as a sort of a roadie for a friend’s band, I explored playing drums in a band, and really just farted around with my friends.

    And then one of my friends went back to college, and joined the theatre department. I made friends with his theatre friends, by drinking at the same bar. Then one day while drinking with the theatre people, they told me they had a class project and were one actor short. “You used to act; can you help us out?” they asked. And I did. And it was so much fun.

    And I went back to school, and became a theatre major again. I had a really great time, and made some amazing friends. And I moved to New York City to have a theatre career, and married my wife, and had a kid. And here I am.

    So, I don’t know. Maybe this is a phase. Maybe this feeling is my new reality. Maybe looking back at it all, theatre still does define who I am.

    I do need to come up with a better tagline, though.

  • Personal Review: The Real World, Season 1, 1992

    The wife and I have been looking for a TV show to watch at night. Something to wash the pallet clean at the end of the day, but not too serious, but also not totally dumbed down. After searching around all the streaming services, we landed on The Real World from MTV on Paramount+.

    When we started season 1, which took place in 1992 New York City, it was a fun reminder of what early 90’s life was like, as we were in high school when the show premiered, and it was a neat snap shot of what pre-Giuliani New York was like. Also, this was the show that birthed the “reality” genre, so to go back to the source, so to speak, was enlightening; not only for the way things were, but how they are now.

    I was 15 when I watched the show originally, and my memory of the show had holes, but it was rather intact. Now, 44-year-old me watched it with a more cynical eye, and found the show slanted to a very specific perspective.

    Of the seven cast members, six of them were currently living in New York at the start of the show, while one member, Julie, was from out of town, Alabama, but she has aspirations to be in New York as a dancer. Thus, the fish out of water storyline that followed through the whole season. The other six members were all in the arts, at the start of their careers; one writer, three musicians, one painter, and one model. A very liberal arts group.

    15-year-old me remembered that this was my first experience with seeing people of my generation pursing the arts, and struggling. Before this show, if I wanted to see young people in the arts, it was either the Lost Generation of the 20’s, the Beats of the 50’s or the Hippies in the 60’s. What the 44-year-old me saw was that some of the people were working much harder than others. My memory of the show was that it had a very voyeuristic quality, but remained true to the proposition that it was showing people being “real.” Older me, having experienced other “reality” shows, could see the manipulation of the cast and certain situations.

    As I finished the first season, it was much tamer than I remembered. Knowing what is coming down the pipe with the reality television genre, you can see the start of how things will be edited and presented to have a desired effect. It was like a quarter of the way through the season, the producers realized that this wasn’t a documentary, but a story that needed to be compelling, so the audience would tune in next week.

  • Research and Sticking to Reality

    There was a silly question which I posed to my wife yesterday in regard to the novel. She had walked in the door from walking the dog, and I said to her, “So don’t read into this, but what do you know about getting a divorce in New York?”

    I am lucky to have my wife, who has fielded strange questions from me for years, so she didn’t even bat an eye at this one. “Not a whole lot,” she said, “but I know they suck.”

    And with that, I am forced to do research.

    As we are all stuck at home, I have started reading on the internet, and going to legal sites to discover the ins and outs of DIY divorces, and lawyers, and the fact that no one is happy about getting divorced.

    The worst part is that by starting to do the most basic of research, I have already discovered some statements that I had the protagonist make about the divorce process, are factually wrong, and not how it works in New York. I made the note, and when I start rewriting, I will incorporate this information in. Though, working this information in will affect a small subplot in the novel, which will force me to figure out how to adjust the subplot, or just cut it.

    And then I had a thought; if I am writing fiction, then I can just make up whatever I want. Who says that I have to follow how the real-world works? This isn’t a documentary, but when I write, I have this compulsion that I have to stick everything into reality. If New York State has a 60-day waiting period before a divorce is finalized, then I can’t write about a situation where that doesn’t exist.

    Right?

    I have also heard it said by a writer friend that you should only do research after you complete the first draft. “Don’t let facts get in your way from telling a good story.”