What's It All About?

Is it just me, or do my subtitles seem to be developing a personality of their own?  It’s like I have this acerbic little side commentator who gleefully deflates anything I’m about to write before it’s even written.

Wonderful.  I’m developing a split personality in my old age.

If the next bit of code works the way I think it will I’ve already contradicted what I said in my “last” Live Journal post and used the equivalent of a cut-tag.  Hooray flip-flopping!
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Restless

I feeling kind of restless.  Antsy.  Don’t want to go to bed.  Don’t want to play World of Warcraft.  Don’t have any money to go anywhere.

If it was 20 years ago it’s the kind of night where I’d go pick up Beau and take him out to the beach to sit for a few hours smoking.  It’s not, though, and while I could go do so by myself (Krys is in bed already) I have to take into account that I am dead broke until Friday and gas is now four bucks a gallon.

So instead I think I’ll transfer Picasso at the Lapin Agile to my Kindle and go read for a bit.

Welcome

Thank you for visiting my new domain and blog.  I hope you enjoy what you find here.  There’s a whole slew of neat features that this new setup has enabled me to integrate and I think you may enjoy some of them as well.  If you’re REALLY interested in my writing you can register on the site and get email alerts whenever I make a new post.  How cool is that?

Not that I really expect many of you to DO it, but the option is there.

Anonymous commenting is enabled on the site, so you don’t have to register if you want to leave a comment.  If you like what you see, please let me know!  There’s going to be some additional changes in the format over the coming weeks, but I went ahead and went live because I wanted to shift to writing her full time and stop using Live Journal.

Thank you again!  I hope you stick around.

Welcome

Thank you for visiting my new domain and blog.  I hope you enjoy what you find here.  There’s a whole slew of neat features that this new setup has enabled me to integrate and I think you may enjoy some of them as well.  If you’re REALLY interested in my writing you can register on the site and get email alerts whenever I make a new post.  How cool is that?

Not that I really expect many of you to DO it, but the option is there.

Anonymous commenting is enabled on the site, so you don’t have to register if you want to leave a comment.  If you like what you see, please let me know!  There’s going to be some additional changes in the format over the coming weeks, but I went ahead and went live because I wanted to shift to writing her full time and stop using Live Journal.

Thank you again!  I hope you stick around.

It's time to take the final bow. It's over now.

If you’ve been paying attention to my Twitter feed over the last few days you may have picked up on the fact that I have purchased a new domain name and have been making not-so-subtle noise about creating a blog there.   The decision to do so is something I’ve been considering for a while now, and recently I’ve just decided to get off my ass and get it done.

In short, I’m “leaving” Live Journal.

Now, I put “leaving” up there in quotes for several reasons.  For one, I’m not deleting my account and I’m likely going to leave all of the content that is currently here alone.  I’m not taking any kind of “salt the earth” attitude with all of this.  I’m also still going to be reading live journal, although I’m planning to do so with the use of an RSS feeder in the future.  I’m also going to set up a syndicated feed for my new blog here so that those of you who wish to simply add that to your friends list instead of browsing to my new site can do so.

But as far as new content posted in this blog?  Don’t expect much.  I’m even removing the Twitter updates from my feed.  My new site has a Twitter sidebar on it, and if you’re really that interested in my tweets you can set up an account for yourself.

There are many reasons why I’ve decided to do this.  If you’re really interested in them you can click the cut tag below.

While I appreciate the fact that you just clicked on the cut tag to read more of my post, you’ve touched on one of the reasons I’ve decided to move from Live Journal.  I’m no longer content to have to consider the social responsibility of friends lists when posting to my blog.  If I decide to write a 5000 word dissertation on how satisfying it is to take a dump in the morning I want to do so without having to worry about cut tags, images, or having someone leave a “too long; didn’t read” snark.  We all go through our “this is my LJ and I’ll post what I want here” periods, but regardless of how often you say that you’re always going to have that little nag in the back of your head and I no longer wish to be restricted in that manner.  I truly believe that one of the reasons I do not write as much in my journal as I used to is because I always wonder if the sheer FORMAT of my words is going to cause someone to go all postal on me.

When you’re self-censoring because you’re more worried about offending someone with your layout over your content it’s seriously time to take a step back and re-evaluate the medium you’re presenting your words in.

Another big factor in my decision to leave Live Journal is the fact that I no longer feel that the internet is an anonymous place and as such I am making an effort to adopt a “if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it online” attitude.  If there is something I need to say to only a few people, I should probably say it to them directly.  If there’s something I want to say ABOUT someone that I don’t want them to hear, I should probably keep it to myself.  I believe that the days of it being “safe” to bitch about someone or something behind the “security” of a friends tag are gone.  I have seen far too many examples of “private” content getting leaked out beyond the audience it was intended for to have that kind of trust any more.

That being said, if there IS any new content in this blog it is very likely to be of the type I described above and am attempting to move away from.  Nobody is perfect, and I’m sure there will be occasions when I just need to write about something I don’t want out for public consumption.  I’m going to do my best to resist those urges, but I can be just as catty and petty as everyone else and won’t always win that struggle with myself.

In the end, though, the main reason I’m leaving LJ is because I want my words to matter.  I want them to mean something.  If someone is reading my blog I want them to do so because they WANT to read it, not because there is some kind of artifice of me being their “friend.”  If you choose to follow my syndicated feed or not I’ll never know unless you comment on my site.   There is no way for me to track who is or isn’t watching that feed, so there is no need to feel “obligated” to read what I write.  I’m going 100% opt-in.  Beyond that, though, I’ve noticed that when it comes to search engines, links, and generally having your words branch out beyond those who you already know Live Journal really doesn’t cut it.  There are so many users here that you get lost in the crowd, and I want to stand out.

I will be a unique snowflake, darn it.

I’d also like to, potentially, make a little money off of what I write.  That’s a pretty minor factor in all of this, but it’s there.  If I get a decent readership I can perhaps do some advertising or maybe put a few more products into my Cafe Press store.  Like I said, this is a pretty small factor my decision but it’s there.

I truly appreciate all the comments that you, gentle readers, have left me over the years and I truly hope that you make the decision to add my new blog to your daily browsing list.  I have genuinely made a lot of friends here over the years, and when

convinced me that I needed to start my own LJ it was absolutely the place I needed to be.  I don’t think it is any more, though.

As I said on my new blog – onward and upward.

My new domain is https://michaelcmcgreevy.com

To add my blog feed to your RSS reader you can use the following link : https://michaelcmcgreevy.com/rss.cfm

If you want to follow my blog using Live Journal syndication you can add the following to your friends list –

Audtioning Sucks

I am an ensemble member of the Jobsite Theater, and have been since the program came into existence in 2005.  What this means, in a nutshell, is that I do not have to attend the annual general auditions that they hold for the public.  They are aware of what I am capable of doing and when it comes time to cast the shows for an upcoming season they do not need to see a monologue from me to determine whether or not I have any talent.  I do, however, have to go to the call backs for specific shows if a director feels that I might fit for a role.

If you’ve never been through an audition process I can honestly say you aren’t missing much.  In all the experiences I’ve had in my life, I can honestly say that the emotional roller coaster that happens during the casting process is right up there as being one of the most grueling.  You may perhaps think I’m exaggerating, but consider the following – If you’re working with a company that you’ve worked with in the past chances are that you know most of the competition.  In my case, this means I end up reading against a bunch of men who I think are insanely talented AND who I happen to like quite a bit.  You want to talk about conflicted emotions?  You may want a part really badly,  but chances are that your peers want that same part.  In order for you to get it you have to beat out those folks.  They have to “fail” where you succeed.  You stand there, smiling and chatting like friends should but inside you’re wondering if this is the person who the director is going to choose over you.  It’s gut wrenching.

Along the same vein, you usually know and (again) consider the director to be a friend.  Do you have any idea how hard it is NOT to take it personally when you’re “rejected” for a part by someone you consider to be a friend?  You can sit there and rationalize and say that you just weren’t what they were looking for all you want, but in the end it still feels like a kick to the gut.

It’s even worse when someone at the audition is considered a favorite by the local media.  An actor who has won a “Best of the Bay” award or who is frequently cited as being someone to catch in the area before they move on to “bigger and better” things.  When you see someone like this at an audition and they are reading for a part that you want the temptation to just pack it in is insanely powerful.

So, ok.  You make it through that night.  As soon as you get in the car to head home you start trying to figure out who got a part.  Sometimes it’s pretty obvious, to be honest.  Generally speaking you can bank that if one actor reads for the same part multiple times and hardly anyone else reads it said actor has the part.  This is by no means a hard and fast rule, of course, but I’ve seen it play out this way more often than not.  If you have any doubt, though, you start watching your email or checking your phone constantly waiting for some kind of word as to how you fared in the process.  Depending on the director or size of the cast this process can take weeks.  The longer you wait the more time you spend convincing yourself that you didn’t get the part and the more you dread the email you know is coming.  The “Thank you so much for you’re time.  You’re wonderfully talented but we have our cast” email.  There have been a few occasions when I’ve convinced myself so thoroughly that I was getting one of those emails that I’ve been literally shocked to get one in which I was offered a part.

If you do get that rejection notice, though, it begins yet another period of emotional trauma.  If you’re anything like me it does, anyway.  You flagellate yourself with self-depreciating comments like “I’m not talented enough,” “I’m too fat,” “I’m too ugly,”  and other teenage level emotional suicide bombs.  You being to wonder if you’re really all that good or if, in the shows you’ve been cast in, you’re just the only person they could get.  This usually lasts all the way until you actually see the production, at which point you generally have to admit that the person who was cast was really the person who was right for the job.

Which, in the end, is the only truth there is in this.  As an actor, you are not perfect for every role.  You may think you are (…may?  who the hell am I kidding?  Actors are some seriously egotistical bastards…generally speaking it’s why we act in the first place), and you may even be right, but you’re never going to get every part you go out for.  It’s a hard, depressing reality to face but there it is.  It sucks, and every year we put ourselves through it.  Not because we’re gluttons for punishment, but because it’s something we’re driven to do.

And because, frankly, we’re a little bit crazy.

Wouldn’t you have to be to go through something like this?