2006-Feb-21 - What Do Aspiring Actors Do For Their Bread?
I received this message the other day from one of the people who frequent my blog:
"Hey, KYJoe, or whatever it is you call yourself, if you ain't making any money acting, what the hell do you actually do for your bread? -from Dad-
I happen to be in good with one particular school. I won't mention any names, because of the day last week I am about to recount, but it's where Ray Bradbury went to middle school.
Last Friday was an especially memorable day, and also a cake sub job. Fourteen students and I took a bus downtown through the garment district and around Skid Row to the Inner City Arts complex.
Now I know what some of you are thinking about this "Inner City Arts", and no the students do not learn the ins and outs of tagging, pimping out their rides, or rolling the perfect J. They learn sculpting, music, painting, and other useful and non-vandalistic type things.
Before the first class, studentslike Daniel enjoyed
a middle school diet staple: Hot Cheetohs.
My group had one class of animation and one of storybook making. In Animation, they had collectively come up with a story about a pilot and his secretary whose plane loses control over a remote island and the two parachute out just in time. The pilot's parachute gets caught in a tree and a monster grabs and carries him to his cave to make a stew out of him. But the secretary comes to the pilot's rescue and beats up the monster who flees in tears. However, (and this is where it starts to get weird) the secretary doesn't fish the pilot out of the stew. No. She continues on with the same recipe the monster was using. Maybe she was tired of being a secretary to a pilot- I mean it must have been a boring job- there's not a lot of filing or phone calls being answered in mid-air. But to resort to cannibalism? That's outrageous.
But at least the kids were learning and creating- eh.
 
Moises and Kenny operate the three-tiered animation plates like Jose makes the plane go boom!
old school Disney pros.
After Animation and another snack break, it was time for those storybooks.
Here, Giovanni pens his story about a boy who shoots fire out of
his hands and with this power heats all the homes in the world that
formerly were heated by the burning of fossil fuels- wait, some of
that I concocted...
By the time storybook making had finished up, I was quite exhausted and the children took advantage of my near vegetative state.
It is a good thing no admins were there to witness this debacle.
Other than my sleep deprivation, things went very well. Another day, another dollar, and fourteen- actually fifteen including mine- minds enlightened, at least to the slightest of degrees.
That's my job. Other than performing mostly pro bono, that's what I do.
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