Saturday, May 21, 2011

The Rapture...silly but ultimately mean-spirited.

My time in Los Angeles has finally reached the point where I need to keep a calendar. That's a cool thing. In Chicago, before I moved here, I actually had a person responsible (working for me at Naked Face Studios) whose sole job it was to keep my various projects juggling in the air for me: mostly teaching, but also writing and acting and directing gigs. Of course, when I moved to the City of Angels, that was, um, not necessary, to put it mildly. I knew very few people and was lucky to have one gig happening, much less several on different artistic fronts.

Well, now it is.

I spend my days alternating my time between two writing projects, one for a German producer and a new film and the other a stage production with infinite possibilities. The former is nearly done and the latter falls under the category of 'top secret.' Not for long, though. Soon, we'll be workshopping it and, I suspect, dealing with a great deal of publicity. But we'll see.

Also in rehearsal, as an actor, for 'The Interlopers,' Gary Lennon's cutting edge new play about the world of transgender love. That's going just swimmingly and I suspect, again, it will get a lot of ink once it's available to the public.

And finally, much to my great satisfaction, I've finally tied up my representation on all three performance fronts: theatre, commercials and film and tv. It took me awhile to find the right fit for all three, but I think I finally have.

On another note, I was watching a bit of a documentary last night about 'the rapture.' It's supposed to happen today, according to a whole gaggle of blithering idiots that have completely missed the point of Christianity. You know the ones, the ones that think religion is based on good and bad, that it's about the meek and faithful getting their just dues in the end and that anyone remotely considered unfaithful will be left behind to wallow in their arrogance. The very notion is maddeningly smug.

The whole idea has been met with a great deal of derision from the local and national press, as well it should be. It's the part of Christianity that galls me: the part that dwells on 'revenge.' Yes, it's funny. Yes, it's ludicrous. Yes, it's even embarrassing. But above all it's mean. Biblical literalists, mean-spirited to the last, masking their 'faith' in false humility, living an entire spiritual life in the very bowels of a passive-aggressive mentality. It sickens me. An unspoken lifestyle that reeks of a B movie theme...'Ooooh, you're gonna get yours.' Jesus, whatever he may mean to anyone individually, was very specific about this: change yourself and the world will follow. It's a lesson easily preached but infinitely difficult to implement. And, as Salinger says in Franny and Zooey, the one thing about Jesus, regardless of one's belief in his diety, was this...he was incredibly smart. Too smart to base a life's teachings on the philosophy of revenge.

Okay, got that out.

In any event, Angie and I finally shelled out for a new computer, seeing as how I was suddenly involved in a bunch of writing gigs. It's a bit of Nirvana for me. I love it and my work has quite literally doubled in speed because of it. I'm staring at the huge, new LED monitor right this very minute, in fact.

Another good day in SoCal. They're all good days, really. Life is good.

See you tomorrow.