A New Year is a Continuation but With Hope

So, not much happening on the first day of 2024. New Year’s Eve was almost a total bust, except that I donated blood platelets for cancer patients. There are several kids with cancer in the children’s ward of the University Hospital here, so I was especially happy doing that if my donation goes to them. Tuesday, January 2, 2024, however, started with a ride to meet motorcycle buddies for breakfast. It was quite cold and a longer ride was not planned, but we had good conversation and good food at Jimmy’s Cafe. In the evening my in-person acting class was canceled and replaced with a Zoom meeting. I always enjoy the classes either way, since my classmates are quite interesting and range in style and age. Some are excellent actors and others are working to improve enough to get an acting job. Some write screenplays. One is an opera-trained singer in a superb classic rock band: 505 Unchained. One creates episodes of a show she calls Treasure Expeditions; she searches for treasure with a metal detector but also visits antique shops and historical houses. Her videos appear on Wire Ride TV, which is a channel produced by our acting coach and mentor, Steve Burhoe. I sometimes bring poetry to class.

On Wednesday I brought two recent spoken word pieces to a bar with a monthly event called Poetry and Beer. There is usually an Open Mic. Then there’s a Poetry Slam – a competition between poets for the approval of volunteer judges who score it like an Olympic event. Of late, there has been a cash prize for the top-scoring poets. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough non-poets in attendance to have judges, and the regular host hadn’t been able to attend. We had a substitute host and just had an open mike. It was glorious. We all had such a good time. The poets who planned to slam performed those poems, and a few were totally hilarious. There was a rule about doing only one thing at a time, but the rules ended up not being hard and fast. And there was music as well. Anything goes at an Open Mic. I had a lot of fun and two microbrewery stouts.

I received an audition opportunity, one I intend to do very well. It will be for a voiceover role. I can do that – everyone says I have a great voice for that. I have been working on it for days and had hoped to do it in class for some feedback, but the in-person acting class was canceled on Friday morning. I went out to breakfast instead. But, at 5 pm I attended a gallery show at a theater company’s place called Fusion. The art was way overpriced, but I don’t need any of that anyway. While there, I chatted with the woman staffing a kiosk of things to buy – books, small artworks, and games – things like that. I mentioned that I used to print and sell photos of mine. She offered me space in the kiosk for some small items I have, which is great because the two places I used to sell my prints closed permanently. So that’s good news.

Saturday was a fantastic day! I had performed in a short movie that had its premiere at a small theater and we packed the place. There were three shorts, and the one I was in was really funny – a parody of Popeye. I had some great lines that got some laughs, so I was elated. Afterward, we had a wrap party at the Slice Pizza place across the street. Today, Sunday, I attended a playwright’s Zoom meeting where new scripts are introduced and dissected. One of them was set in Ireland, and I loved the writing.

So that was my first week of 2024. This next year holds promise!

Tomorrow morning I will have professional help for my audition taping. I’m excited. Things are looking up after Covid, and after the writers’ and actors’ strikes, which left all of us without much to do. However, in acting class, I spent over six weeks working on a two-person play that my scene partner Abby and I performed. It is a Harold Pinter comedy sketch called Trouble in the Works (1959), with lots of tongue-twisters and sexual innuendos. My scene partner Abby was wonderful to work with. We got together often, in person or on video calls. Her drive to learn and excel, as well as her humor and creative spirit, were contagious and encouraging. On Christmas Eve we also delivered toys that had been purchased and wrapped by the Children’s Cancer Fund of New Mexico. We got them to the kids with cancer who are in University Hospital for the holidays. Their parents stay with them. I brought 24 delicious candy canes with me and ended up giving them to the parents, who looked so worn out. Abby arranged everything. She’s wonderful. She also just got appointed to the board of the Cancer Fund, so she’ll be doing lots more things like this.

Abby Max

Last month, I had planned to go with her and motorcyclist Santa David on December 11th to see some of the other children who were going to spend Christmas in the hospital, but I was scheduled to work on a film set. It was two days of background acting. I had to be on set by 7:30 am, so I had expected to get out early so I could go with them, but I worked 13 hours, well into the evening. However, that netted me enough money for acting classes, and I still got to go on Christmas Eve, and Abby got the overworked Santa Doug to come with us.

Life is good again.