"There's No Money In That", part 3

Part 3 of my continuing saga to become an actor:

“I’m gonna be an actor,” I declared, my face beaming.

Awkward pause.

My mom and grandmother looked at each other for a long moment in surprise. Their eyes locked, as if formulating a response to my statement via telepathy. Then my grandmother preceded her thoughts with what I had learned even by that point was a mark of disapproval from her, that sound like a clock that sneers as it swings… tchk. I braced myself from the blast of her feeling that “There’s no money in that!”

To be fair to my grandmother, she grew up through the Depression and several wars and she and Grampy were very frugal people. As a result, we were reasonably centered in the mid-upper-middle class of working professionals. A lot of doctors, nurses, engineers and the like… focused, reasonably successful people. We were living in what I called the “White House” of Quakertown, mainly because it looked like a smaller version of the actual White House. We were comfortable. So I can understand now that this sounded like to her like a declaration that was going to strip naked and go live in the forest.

I turned to my mother in surprise, hoping for some support here. I was her genius son, the gifted kid who finished his homework in school ten minutes after it was assigned. I did what I was told, could do no wrong… surely she’d let me pursue this dream, this firm goal that I had held firm for all of two hours. And then I got her response – the patented “I don’t think that’s such a good idea”. I’ve heard that response many times since and understand it to translate as “you’re my genius boy and I love you, but if you think I like that idea, you are f---ing insane”.

I was stunned. How could they not understand how easy and rich a career this would be? I knew deep down that it would be, even without the necessity of actual facts and statistics to back me up. I could do anything I put my mind to, according to Mister Rogers. Surely if I show the women of the house my exhaustive research, they too would see the wisdom of this endeavor and support my chase for my own big brass donut. But no, just like that, they shut it down as a career. No child in this house is going to waste their life that way. Eventually, I was allowed to act in school and church plays as a hobby, but I tucked the dream away for the moment, never far from my reach where I could pull it out when I was grown up and on my own.

Fast forward… approximately 20 years later. I was living with my uncle in Wyoming when I came across an audition for a local summer job as an actor. I had started acting again when I was living in Flagstaff by getting involved in a radio drama (which never got finished) that reawakened for me. That led to some work in community theatre through out most of 1998. The amount of free work I was getting made me start believing again that I could make a living at this. But of course, I was destitute in Flagstaff, living out of my truck… and winter was coming. So I did the sensible and moved in with my uncle, who was very welcoming while I got back on my feet. Laramie being a college town, there was a company that offered call center jobs to attract the student body. So I was working there, helping people with technical support and thinking about finishing college, when I heard about this audition. It wasn’t a fancy gig, but it PAID MONEY. How could I not give it a shot? Sure, I didn’t have a headshot… or a really great resume… or family support… but once they see my talent, how could they not hire me?!

I went there that evening. There were about 40 people or so that showed up for this. We did some cold readings and actually did a dance audition. Not that I could dance, but neither could most of the guys there. We even sang a little, which I could deal with, despite not being in the shower at the time. Then we were sent on our way back to our lives. And the waiting began. Which brings me back to that day. I had the day off of work, so the lack of people not able to figure out how to plug my modem into the phone jack to dial in to AOL left me with just my own thoughts, which naturally settled and focused on this job. I just knew deep down in my soul that if I could land this job, I would work hard and some agent would visit and see my genius, catapulting me to the very heights of stardom. And that’s when the phone rang.