The Unnecessarily Catalogued Fulltext Open Access Diary of an (Acting) Librarian Chapter 21

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Hurtlocker

Date: Can’t remember…
Weather: Unpredictable

There are lots of land mines in one’s life. By that I mean people and things that can blow you up when you are careless or most unprepared. I have my fair share of life land mines and some of them blew me up pretty uglily.

You build up these land mines usually unconsciously. It could be a comment from your parents when you were young, a scar you got when you grew up or a failed relationship. Among them, failed relationships are the worst. This is because they are less time and place restricted. When you are out of a failed relationship, any time or places that have minor references to that relationship could blow up in your face, leaving you more scarred or licking your wounds for days or even months.

As a grown up man, I had my fair share of failed relationship. This is particularly true for actors who some of us have so much emotion to spare that we just fall in love thinking that we were falling in love. However, when those relationships broke down, they won’t just break your heart. They will break everything that you once related to in those relationships. And it is worst when you feel that you are going nowhere in your life and that land mine goes off.

Being an actor is a difficult thing especially when it comes to emotional stuff. My acting career is going nowhere at the moment and I am stuck in a god forsaken spaceship earning my dole for my mum’s care. I drag myself out of bed on those working days just to make sure that I got food at night (not because I’m broke but because this job has become the token for mum’s home service). Hugo has been working very hard for me but then still all I got were stereotypical odd jobs here and there. Hugo told me I am one of the better people on the book because due to my looks, I still have some stereotypical jobs coming my way. He has one of those once extremely hot evening soap stars on his book. After he left the soap, that guy couldn’t get anything, not even an audition. This used to be my comfort for “me not doing too bad”. This is until last week.

The other day I was in a local café have a latte by the sea thinking about life and career. Sometimes you need to “make plans” so you feel you are actually living. Then I heard a familiar voice calling my name. I looked up and it was Helena – my drama school sweetheart who broke up with me to go to Hollywood right after graduation. Helena is your typical blonde good-looking girl but she comes with a brain. When she decided to leave Australia right after graduation, she persuaded me to go with her because she felt that there is no future for her or me in the Australia industry. Me at that time being a hot headed graduate who thought I could take on the world, refused at point blank because I believed I should contribute to the Australian industry to repay the training I had. She broke up with me there and then and it took us both several years to heal the wounds.

Years have passed, I found out the Australian industry doesn’t really care about my repayment at all. Helena was right all this time. She did really well in LA and is landing roles after roles. They were small ones but they kept her going. Then she landed a major role in a hospital drama and became a hot cake for the Australian industry. So she got invited to come back to be the lead of a featured film. That is why she is in the country.

Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to see her doing well and back again. But she is back with her new celebrity boyfriend Damien – also co-star in the hospital drama. That was the first thing that blew up in my face. Looking at her and her boyfriend, I feel inferior for the first time in years again. She was telling me how happy she is now but all I was thinking about was all the happy things she is doing with her boyfriend now. And suddenly all the wounds that I thought were healed opened up and were gushing with blood again. My heart felt like being stabbed multiple times during the conversation but I kept myself enthusiastic and cheerful. After all I am an actor, I can put on a great show even when I am bleeding myself to death inside.

We talked for two hours and we said we have to catch up again with all the buddies at the drama school blah blah blah and then they left. I waved goodbye energetically but by that time I was almost dead inside. Then suddenly, every single land mine from our relationship was activated. Places near my place where we used to hang out with, places we had made out, phrases she used to say, and even colours she used to like. They just blew up all over the place and suddenly the whole world seems to be out of bounds for me.

I felt like a piece of trash for days and days but still needed to pull myself together for the shitty people at a shitty job. Everyday I got home I just felt so exhausted emotionally and physically. Mum was very worried about me, and acted ultra nice to me. She even kept her close eyes on my sister so that she won’t piss me off. If I were my usual self I would have jumped on the opportunity to get myself off the hook from the library job. But I was not even able to do so. Dad and I had some father and son bonding time (obviously he was sent by mum) but I was too heartbroken to spill the beans (and who would have thought so?).

Then today, I got a call from Hugo. He said he got a call from the casting director of Helena’s movie. She said she got a recommendation from Helena about me and would like me to go in for a minor supporting role. My heart raced at 100 miles per hour. Should I take it? Should I not?

The Unnecessarily Catalogued Fulltext Open Access Diary of an (Acting) Librarian Chapter 20

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Date: Another day of full moon
Weather: Tropics of Thunder

The entertainment business is as quiet as a cemetery at night. Everything seems so dead and depressing. For people who never managed to make into the inner circles, it seems that it is forever for them to get their hands on to anything. To be honest, sometimes I do wonder what’s the point of going through three years of drama school training when all those parrots and puppets in early evening soaps get more jobs than I do? Hugo is a great agent. He manages to get whatever I can do for me but then it seems that if I want to get somewhere, I need a major plastic surgery make over. I do have some Asian parts coming by from time to time but they all required me to put on a thick “Asian accent” otherwise I was not convincing enough. It seems that for some power brokers in the industry, if you don’t look good fit into their lead looks, you are just doomed in the business.

Yes I do sometimes moan over this inequality in the business, but then when I compared myself with what’s happening to those great teachers at the drama school, I know that it is really nothing.

It has been rumoured for some time that Succubus wants to get rid of Peter, one of the prominent acting teachers at the school and in the industry, for a while. She sees him as a big threat as he knows a lot more than she does in terms of acting training. So she eventually convinced the now de-functioned and useless Board to terminate his employment with one-year extension. What does that mean? It means that Peter will still be employed for another year but his function is to teach the new person all he knows before he leaves. At one of the staff meetings, Succubus publicly humiliated Peter in front of everyone by announcing that: “As you all know, I will not be renewing Peter’s contract. We will employ better and more professional people for his position. But to show that we respect his expertise, he will extend his current contract for another year so he can teach his replacement what he knows before he goes”.

Everyone’s jaw dropped to the floor. Not because of Peter being fired so publicly but the disrespect Succubus showed in the whole thing. Succubus was so happy with her shaming stint that people said that she was in great mood for the rest of the week. Everyone felt very sorry for Peter but then there isn’t much anyone can do, as now the drama school is no longer a paradise people with creative passion but a torture chamber.

Torturing seems to be in fashion lately. In the case of the drama school it is the management against staff and in the library’s case it is the union against the management. I sometimes can’t really understand why people have that much time to play politics in workplace. Then again even in a production crew there are people who don’t like each other. The union saga at the library continued since the newsletter. George has now distanced himself from me completely since the last face off. But that didn’t stop him from going around campaigning against the management about the new wing. He even organised a meeting for a selected few (of his core supporters) as a public condemnation against the tyranny of the management over the consultation process. Out of 150 library staff, 12 turned up. 8 were his supporters 4 were people trying to find out what the hell he is doing. As reported back from people, the whole meeting was basically accusing the management of things that have no grounds to be accused of. When someone pointed out the opposite, George simply dismissed him or her as misinformed or shamed him or her as lack of support for the grass root people in the organisation. Seriously, I really have a stronger feeling everyday that the so-called union in the library is a just a scam program for idiots. There were times that I think George should start a cult with those 8 idiots at the meeting and he could be the next “big” cult leader. I have started documenting all these stupidities with the union and discussed with a few friends from drama school that maybe we can produce a satire out of it.

Anyway, I do think that some people need to be trained in a harsher environment to make their perspectives right. Maybe George and his followers should be thrown into the media world (or even the drama school now) and work their asses off there so that they can eventually appreciate how good a life they have in the library. As for me, they are just rich writing materials for personal pursuits.