Why networking is not working

I know people. I like those people I know. Why do I need to meet more people? Oh, for my career, right.

As an actor, I have to go out and meet people and be seen. Not something I should do, but something I have to do. Every single week, a bunch of actors and major(ish) players in the Portland film community (including the casting director in town) have drinks at the MoHo. Tonight was my first night there. I was surprised to see I knew about a third of the people there. I even liked most of them, which is always a bonus. The problem is when I wonder why I am there. To see people I haven't seen in a while is nice, but I think the reason people go there is to be seen. This is the biggest thing I do not like about actors, we are needy. Yes, we need attention, but these weekly social gatherings make good career sense in that you are seen by your peers or whatever, and you get to know people in the community, so when you walk onto a set or into an audition, you already know a bunch of the other people there. You are in.

I know that it's not who you know, but who knows you that counts in this career, this city, this world. What if I'm just tired of meeting new people? I'm sure I would enjoy them once I got to know them, I am earnestly positive that they are mostly intriguing people, but why do I have to meet them all? I already have too many friends and family to keep track of. I've wanted to catch up with so many people and just not. I feel no urge to go out and meet more people I won't have time to follow up with. I have connections with people I've known since before I could grow facial hair, heck, even before the hair on the top of my head started to recede. Now that's history.

Am I a stick in the mud, an old man who wants to stay where he is comfortable? Yes. I'm okay with that. Should I go out and meet all these people working in the industry, or at least wanting to get further ahead in the industry? Probably, yeah. Would I create a weekly routine where I would catch up with these people on a regular basis? Damnit...now it makes sense.

Flip side of the coin for me is the question of what I want. Do I want to be a Portland actor? I think I do. That's what I say my goal is...but when I analyze my dreams...I really want to be a Hollywood actor. I want to work with my heroes, Mitchell Hurwitz, Joss Whedon, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Gus Van Sant...well, that last one was Portland, but he really is a Hollywood director who lives in Portland.

If I am honest, I really want to be a huge-ass fish in a small pond. It is ridiculous. I want to be an LA guy, but I do not want to ever live there. I want fame...which is not something people find in Portland. I guess one reason I find the P-town socials droll is that it's really getting to know the people also stranded on the same island while you are looking across the ocean imaging what wonders lie beyond the horizon. How impossible a dream it is I have. I don't know how to change it. I don't control my dreams, and yet they fuel me. Am I afraid of shrinking my impossible dreams into something based more in reality...Yes. Who wouldn't be? Am I going to do it: acknowledge that I need to climb every step of the ladder? Maybe. Will I hold on to the notion that I can skip a few rungs based on luck, tenacity, ignorance and even more luck? Damn right I will. This is still my adventure.

Would you lend me a Q for my A?

I think I know my issue with blogs. I can't help but feel like I am talking into a vacuum. I'm not used to that, I am used to feedback. On stage, I get instant feedback. Even if there is no sounds of laughing or coughing, I can feel when the room is focused on the story, on the moment of interaction. I hate to admit it, but as much as I pretend to be a writer (I do enjoy being on my own), I am an actor, and I need people, I need conversation, I need interaction. What I've really felt writing this blog is that while I may have an audience in mind (albeit one person, depending on my mood), I'm really writing to no one, at least that is my feeling on this end. Doesn't that sound so whiney and camp? "Ooh, poor poor me, wasting my fingers away on this cold, plastic mat, coated with the most basic elements of language with nobody to share it with." Yeah. Lame. Ignore that bit, that's the actory side of me. Now, the equally vain but deeper part of me wants this to be a dialogue, or conversation. At least less of me talking to the Great Wall of the internet.

Man, I remember my metaphors being much more intelligent. I thought doing a lot of reading today would have helped that bit. Oh well. Here's what it is: I want questions. I want to answer questions. I do have thoughts all day long, but it gets tiring answering my own questions, especially when if I know I'm the only one listening, I won't surprise myself with the answers. I only surprise myself when I'm talking with other [real] people. Like when you have a problem that's bugging you, and the second you ask someone else about it you get the answer. That's what it's like, but I am also aware that when the pressure is on, that's how writing is. When I've truly had pressure to write, the most amazing connections and solutions come out of me, because I can't rely on time and thinking, only on the moment and how brilliantly ideas coalesce, like turning coal into diamonds with heat and pressure. Then again I sometimes get ridiculously long sentences. Short ones too. For effect.

All my ramblings aside, I want questions. Whatever they are. Bring me the heat and pressure.

Apparently specific

Crap, I forgot I committed myself to doing this every day. I think that was only one or two blogs ago. Life happens. I just need to deal with that fact...no, I just need to accept that as fact. The two might look the same from the outside but make all the difference inside. The point is, I'm here saying things when I have nothing to say, but so much I want to say.

I want to talk about my first improv show at the Brody (level 3 class), and compare the art form to Hopi sand painting. Etherial, temporal. You have to be there to see them, because they are not built to last, they are built as a brief experience alone, like life itself. I want to talk about how I am happy to have gotten an email from the Brody people saying I am invited into level 4 performance lab, which means more chances to to this in front of people, but also means new people, which is what it is.

I want to talk about how I'll miss some of the people I've worked with, knowing that even if we all move on to 4, it will be about 16 people strong vs the 5 people intimacy of level 3. I want to talk about the past classes, how through all of them people have come and gone, with only, what, 3 or 4 of us that went through levels 1, 2a, 2b and 3 together? I want to talk about how my life has had wonderful moments with people flitting in and out of it, and that the moment is really all you have...or maybe that's just the song from the recent 30 Rock episode fumbling through my thoughts.

What I really want to talk about is life itself; the mystery. Though I guess I did, looking up at what I wrote. The more specific I am, the more people can relate to it. That's one of my favorite paradoxes in writing, or creating. The sheer volumetric power of specificity.