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Personal Blog of Steve Baumber
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Just came back from seeing Mark McKinney in "Fully Committed", a one-person show playing at the Arts Club Theatre in Granville Island. Rosemary and I had gone down there just to wander around and maybe have dinner. On a whim we asked if there were tickets available, and they had two in the centre section, fifth row back. Increadible seats for a fantastic show. His multiple characters were seemless and the show was 80 minutes of immense, non-stop energy. Just a great show, from a super actor.
About a week ago I had an audition at the Revue Theatre next door, and it was quite simply the first audition I have fully blown. I was terrible. I was unprepared, I lost my focus and had to start over, I forgot my lines but pushed through, and I'm sure the Artistic Director knew it. I've gone over it in my mind (usually in those niggling hour-minutes where I'm trying to get to sleep) and I don't think that on the outside it looked much better than it felt on the inside. Perhaps I gave a desparate earnestness to the monologue? Perhaps I had a raw edge he would find artfully intriguing? Perhaps he knew my monologue blew goats? Perhaps it would have been better had I blown a goat on stage to at least provide something interesting? Yeesh.
So, I could argue, I applied to audition by mail. Three weeks later, they call me on a busy Thursday morning to say that I was on the waiting list, and a spot had opened up, and would I be available to come in that evening, say 5:55pm? Short notice indeed, considering I had given up on getting an audition and had not prepared anything. I ressurected an old audition piece and polished it up that afternoon after work, then I hopped the bus to the audition. I practiced on the bus. I practiced while I walked to the theatre. I was sure I was ready - at least, I thought, I won't forget my lines. Yeesh. I wasn't prepared, and it showed.
I could console myself by saying that it can happen no matter how polished and ready you are. Something in the air throws you, and you suck. Nothing I could've done. Besides, it was sooooo last minute. But tonight I saw a fantastic performance by a good actor. Of course, it's a rehearsed show, and he's not holding another job. But I want to be a good actor. And if acting is what I want to do, if acting is what I would rather do than anything else, then I should be ready to go. I should have an audition piece at my fingertips and practice it every night or every afternoon. I should have several ready to go. I should be ready to perform at the drop of a hat at the bus stop if I have to. That's the job. That's being professional. I can do my job at the drop of a hat, shouldn't i expect the same ability for the thing that I really want to do? Yeesh. It was a good experience because it's made me realize that, next time, I will be ready. I refuse to go through that again. I refuse to be unprofessional.
The table is finally finished and the top is beautiful, but the legs are silly. I have to rethink and redesign. One must know sour to taste sweet.
Lastly, a shot of love to Luckybuttons, who lost her father recently and suddenly from a heartattack. It feels unreal to type it, and I'm sure it will feel unreal for her to read it here in the Blog. But I'm thinking of you, and of my own Dad miles away. For all of us reading and typing we can never do enough, we can always do too little, but the best that we can do, is to love the ones we love.
posted by Steve @
11:09 PM
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6.27.2003  |
To all of those I've emailed before... ADSL is down in the apartment. Been down for six days. Apparently they're working on it.
posted by Steve @
10:35 AM
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6.23.2003 |
Table top is now glued together, sanded and trued up on the edges. Funny, when you use less glue it doesn't get everywhere or endanger your health. I'm quite happy with the end result - it's very close to what I wanted it to be like. The next adventure is the legs (found some neeto folding brackets at Lee Valley Tools) and varnishing the thing. Wish I had a shop, but I guess the living room floor and the patio will do.
Rosemary and I were in Kamloops this weekend playing croquet at Ev'n'Ian's place. Lovely time. Saturday I had some Zen and motorcycle maintenance, and then on Sunday I drove the Tempter back to Vancouver. You know the feeling of rolling down the window on a beautiful day and hanging your arm out whilst driving? Triple it and that's a motorbike. Well, mix in the ocassional dread as you wonder what would happen if the front wheel fell off, but you get the picture.
Liking my mountain bike more and more - we had a good ride in Kamloops that gave it a better run. Last week it wasn't shifting properly, but Dave gave me some advice, and I screwed some screws and turned some knobs and now it seemes to be working. Ain't technology grand.
Tristram and Anna are coming to visit in October! The Aus connection continues and we can catch up on all the goss.
Rosemary and I purchased tickets and are heading to Costa Rica for three weeks in December, and stopping over in Dallas to harass Wayne S. for New Year's Eve. When we spent time with Tayt and Lila at New Year's Lila got pregnant. I hope Wayne's on the pill.
Presented to a small Christian school today - great kids and a nice place, and not obviously religious considering it's run by "The Brethren". Some kids came up to me afterwards and I was ready to talk about Forestry, but they wanted to talk about guitars and singing. If I can't get them into forestry, I'll start a band.
posted by Steve @
9:44 PM
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6.16.2003 |
At Kendo last night, the head instructor decided that I should be back in the bogu (armour) and so there I was flailing around in bogu, without the skill to justify it. Or at least that's how it felt! I now have to go and by the hakama and kokogi (pants and top). And another shinai (practice sword). Money in, money out. I feel a bit hard done by, just because I didn't feel I was ready for the equipment, and I didn't want to spend the money on the uniform. Oh well. I guess it's better to be serious about it than half-assed.
Glued the first two pieces of my table together this morning. I think I have my father's genes and am allergic to the polyurethene glue. The stuff is insiduous and nasty and gets everywhere and I feel funny right now. The bottle said it expands, but it's coming out of the joints like rats from a sinking ship. After fifteen minutes of dabbing the stuff up I just left it with paper underneath to catch any drips so I could get to work. It was even coming up through the knots! I just hope it sands off and cleans up okay. Then again, maybe I put too much on. Then again, I could just tack it together with paper clips.
posted by Steve @
8:19 AM
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6.03.2003 |
Bikes are home again, and the new shocks have 10mm more travel than the old ones. 10mm more between me and an uncompromising-front-end-caused endo. Dave's bike rack seems to be doing the trick. Thanks Dave. We'll see how the apartment fares when we shred through the Endowment lands and the dirt begins to fall in the front entryway. Rosemary's staining picture frames and shelves. I'm building a table. "Trading Spaces" is a bad influence. Except for Page Davis who rates the "hottie" label, and has taken over from Jill Hennessy, who ain't the hottie she used to be on Law and Order. Was it the girl or the writing...
May has come and gone, and with it passes another year Michael has been gone. This year was my thirty-third, the year he never had, and as Mum and Dad out-lived their son, I've outlived my older brother. The CBC had a few days with a series of stories and interviews regarding brain injury. I listened with some interest, and it brought back memories of Michael. I have sketchy memories of his recovery from coma to wheel chair to Guelph graduate. Imersed in my own teenage drama, and he being absent, first in Calgary and then in Guelph, I often wonder how much I was truly away from him, or how much was it that I willfully dissociated myself from having to deal with his struggle? I have often tried to comprehend the process he went through to regain his speech, mobility, writing, intellect, memories, slowly a personality, and ultimately his identity. The retraining processes of physiotherapy, memory association, and education are all tangible to me. It's the frustration, the glimpses of another time of being, of being someone else, of yearning to regain skills and memories that were yours and then stolen away. Of losing friends and family. Of knowing that you were different from before. Those are the things I can't readily touch. And yet, for him to have achieved such a monumental, almost incomprehensible feat of healing, and then have it amount to nothing. Essentially wasted. At least that's how it feels sometimes, and it adds to the bitterness and long-term sadness of his passing. The CBC radio spots also made me frustrated because here were stories and interviews that were giving me glimpses into brain injury, into understanding his process. But that understanding seemed pointless, because I couldn't put it to use. I can't use the benefit of my understanding to love him more, or communicate better or even ask him about that period in his life where my own memories fail me. In a sense it would've been ludicrous asking him to remember a time for me, when it was the very time he was coming to terms with how to "remember". One would think it would be my responsibility to fill on the gaps for him! But the irony can't come to pass, and it is in this that I find a new loss, a cliched, Hallmark-card loss. I never got to ask, or tell him anything, really. But then I remember eating fries with him in Kuala Lumpur talking about his relationships in China, and together we chased the biggest waves either of us had seen in Cherating. Given time, I would have asked and we would have talked. All of us could lose opportunities we have before us, regardless of doing and saying everything right. Of course I regret what I didn't have a chance to say to Michael, and to ask him about himself. But I was on the road to these things, and so was he, and that is a comforting thought.
posted by Steve @
9:05 PM
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6.01.2003 |
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