the awesome/terrifying freedom

i've returned! my nike commercial has been shot, and will hit the internet waves around august 15th. it was an amazing, surreal experience that taxed my physical ability to sprint and scream.. took a couple days to recover. you can see some pics here! now i'm back to punching holes in stacks of paper so that they line up nicely in the office's central files.

so i was watching 'next action star' last night and the first quarter of the episode just totally infuriated me. the gang of hopefuls is taken to an 'acting' class where they are talked through the process of 'emotional recall' by a flaming homo who clearly gets his kicks from the power of making grown straight men cry (which is, incidentally, the origin of the bogus 'emotionall recall' process). so yes, one by one, each contestant gets up, spills a sob story and then, yes, sobs. and then they are judged on how well they sobbed, how 'brave' they were, and whether their sobs were 'deep' enough.

one man, nicknamed 'house,' went to a place so 'deep' that he couldn't move for several minutes - tears dripped off the point of his nose while mr. lispy kept asking 'house? are you with me? talk through it house, talk through it.' you can see the false concern in mr. lispy's eyes, the greedy thrill of having this kind of power, and the satisfaction that he's been able to provide some good tv to nbc. i can imagine that 'house' sat so still because it took every ounce of energy to keep himself from decking the teacher. ugh. it took me back to undergrad when we were asked to do the same thing. and i remember so clearly the corky st. clair acting teacher i had and how he thrilled at watching us all cry and then he tried to pass off what was truly an emotional rape as another day's work, as progress toward becoming good actors. and if you couldn't cry, well then you just had no hope. you would never be believable. it makes me so angry to think about it. and it makes me angry that now - this - is the country's perception of what an acting class is, and that -this- is what acting is about. ugh. so be it. cry cry cry and cry.

of course no reality show is complete without its omarosa, and here viviana fits the bill. too bad she's genuinely psycho, though - rather than a tv-savvy hamstress. viviana unleashes some brilliant psycho moments like saying 'i'm not a psycho! if i was psycho i would do this!' and then she hops onto a table, grabs a flower, bites into it and rubs the petals on her coochie. a compelling argument, viviana. well stated. had she not had a moment of sanity and said 'i'm too immature to go on with this show,' the producers would surely have kept her.