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Greed…um…Greek…um…Greed Tragedy
Date: Labouring Day
Weather: Frosty and cold
Many things had happened since I last wrote two months ago. We got a new Prime Minister and Australia’s first female Prime Minister who is being commented more on her style than her work. Mum got really upset about the change as she loves the previous Prime Minister because he has a Chinese son-in-law. She basically voted for him because of that.
Mum: “Of course I will wote for da family!”
Me: “When did he become our family?”
Mum: “A Tzainese son-in-law is as gud as a family!”
Anyway politics isn’t anything that I’m interested in unless they developed a more friendly art and cultural policy that helps actors getting more work. Another friend of mine has moved overseas and saw that there are more opportunities in L.A. However the catch is you will need a Visa before anyone is interested in you. My friend is half American so there is no problem for him, but for me, unless I can get a sponsor, things are not as easy. And apart from that I don’t really have an extensively varied showreel that I can put together to impress potential employers about my versatility in my art. I met a Blogger of the Herald Post the other day at one of the functions. He said basically there are no well-trained Asian actors in Australia to do any roles so I should stop complaining about it and settle with stereotypical roles. I told him that I am Australian and for his information there is lots of Asian and ethnic actors graduated from drama school so it was very deluded of him to make that statement. He said he went to more casting than I had eaten pasta so don’t argue with him. I told him I know more well trained ethnic actors than the hair he lost on his head so don’t argue with me either. He was obviously offended by my statement and walked away. Why is the truth so difficult for people to digest?
On the drama school front, the saga continued to unfold when Angela finally resigned with an explosive email about “she doesn’t want to work in an environment that doesn’t treasure her contribution and experience”. Obviously the all staff email was sent directly against Succubus. The interesting part was that under Succubus’ strict curfew Angela still managed to get the email to all staff AND students. Succubus’ was furious about that but then there was nothing she could do. She tried to locate the culprit but the IT department refused to give in to her own private detectives – yes she has employed a company to investigate “ethical” issues in the drama school.
A few weeks later, Leonard, the founder and a current Board Member of the drama school announced his own resignation. There were fights at the Board for quite a while now. The two camps were Leonard and the teaching staff representing the artistic direction and Succubus and her main minion Little Tommy. The tug-of-war was an even game until the point that Little Tommy went around bad mouthing Leonard and his allies to the sleeping members and hypnotising them into surrendering their votes to them. Seeing that she will have sufficient majority votes, Succubus then moved forward to marginalise Board Members who were against her and eliminated them one by one. The Herald Post has long been following the story since dad broke that news on his program. So at the latest open Annual General Meeting, they sent a journalist into the auditorium. When Succubus and Little Tommy found out there were journalists in the hall, they asked security to remove them as “the meeting intended to discuss internal issues that should not be of journalists’ interests”. When being pointed out that since the drama school is federally funded by taxpayers and it is an open meeting, everyone should be able to attend, Succubus and Little Tommy called for “proximity removal”. However that kind of action didn’t go well with the media of course. A week later, there was an explosive coverage in the Herald Magazine on the front page titling “Dramas at the Drama School”. In the story, there were interviews from Leonard, Angela, Danielle etc. there were also whistle blower stuff from current employees within the drama school. Although no names were mentioned, everyone knows who are rebelling against Succubus silently. I was told that Succubus was furious about the coverage and called the paper demanding an apology. However, Herald said that they will only do so if Succubus turned in all the information they need for an extensive coverage of the school – including the accounting details about why the school turned from black to red in just two years. As expected, they never heard from Succubus again.
Against all advice, my sister did queue up for Australian Idol two weeks ago. As expected, she was completely mocked and ridiculed for her lack of singing talent and fashion backward taste. Mum had repeatedly told her that she sounds like a chicken being slaughtered but my sister insisted that the music industry needs a unique voice like hers. She reckoned she would be the multi-platinum singer who can even crack the US market. She also thought that if she threw dad’s name at the audition, she will get through. Dad was quite on arms on that idea as he knew that it will just tarnish his reputation in the industry if my sister did that. So the family was in war the week before my sister got bombed at the audition. After her epic failure at the audition, she locked herself up in her room for two nights and threw all her “Singstar” games into the bin. As for me, I picked them all up and sold them on eBay for a good profit. As mum always said, there is always something good from bad situations. This is definitely one of them.
