Our Friend Jeremiah

[Jeremiah77]

Billy Merrit

I see Billy Merrit all the time on the train. I feel weird because I know who he is but I don't really know him, we haven't been introduced. And I see him all the time on the train. He probably recognizes my face from seeing me on the train so much and in the audience of various improv shows. When my Level 1 class did a show, he was at theater before Mullaney and he was warming us up. I saw him in The Swarm once and he was in this scene where he was selling ice cream out of an ice cream truck and a kid asked him what kind of ice cream he had. He gave this litany of ice cream products that all had the word "bomb" in them. "Ice cream bomb, bombsicle, Strawberry bomb..." but he went on for like two minutes and it was right after September 11, 2001 and I laughed really hard. It was agood release. When I saw him on the train the other day I started thinking about it and started laughing almost out loud. I swear I see him everywhere. You don't understand hgow often I see him on the train. We don't get off at the same stop or anything or get on at the same stop but he is always on the car, it doesn't matter the direction. I went to the UCB theatre last week to see a show and he was standing in front. Billy, if you read this, I'm not stalking you, it's just the way the city and our lives our constructed, our lines intersect at the same X-Y intercepts.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Pootie-toot

I just let out a loud pootie-toot here in the office. I have to concentrate and focus. Must not allow others to think it was a pootie-toot but a squeak of the chair. Gently, Jeremiah. Gently.

Damn pootie-toots.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Listen up, everybody, listen up!

Ok, everybody I have some news for all of you. So listen your little ears up. LISTEN UP!

You all know how I don't like to use my journal, what I like to consider a forum about myself written by myself, to plug shows. However indulge me for two quick seconds.

This Friday night at 10pm I will not be performing, but there's going to be this really great improv show at Above Kleptomania, entitled "Stacy & Who" starring my friend Stacy Mayer (www.stacymayer.com & www.stacyandwho.com) and this week featuring my improv teacher ED HERBSTMAN. My friend and my improv teacher performing together? You know I'll be there. So if you ever wanted to meet me, I'll be there after the show to shake hands. But the show itself should be awesome. Check out Ed's bio at www.thepit-nyc.com and you'll know how cool it'll be. So, all 8 of you who read this journal (including Stacy) you better be at the show. Ok, folks?

Stacy and Who? featuring Ed Herbstman, this Friday at 10pm at Above Kleptomania, above At Show World 669- 671 Eighth Ave (btwn 42nd & 43rd St.) In Theater #2 (on the 2nd Floor) check out more at www.stacyandwho.com

Here are some things I've said about Stacy in the past.

"Stacy Mayer cuts through the bullshit."

"Stacy Mayer adds a touch of class to much looked down upon world of the theatre."

"Stacy Mayer uses up a lot of my offpeak minutes."

Look two entries back for comments about Ed Herbstman.


In other news, my boss just offered to hire me permanently for my temp job. I refused again, saying I wanted to free up my days so I could auditions. I'm proud of myself.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Wait a minute...

If you read my last entry that I posted just a few short minutes ago you'll notice that I was offered my temp job on a permanent basis.

OK, let's look at my day yesterday.

I arrived at work at 9:30am. I'm suppsoed to be ehre at 9:00am. I basically surfed the internet--had a nice long chat with my mom in the middle--until around 12:45 where I went home for lunch. I returned to the office, around 2:30. Where I finished the day completing my two main tasks: picking my nose and playing on the computer. I left on time at 5:00pm.

My boss says she's getting emails about how good a job I'm doing.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Fop for a day

I feel like a big old Fop today. It may be my v-neck sweater which goes to the bottom of my palms. Maybe its the suite pants that I'm wearing with the sweater. Perhaps its because I'm wearing my glasses and my depth perception is off. When I'm going downstairs I'm cool until I reach that last step, the bottom of my glasses leave a little room so I can't quite judge where it is, so I reach my foot out like I'm testing the water temperature of a pool, like a big old fop. I opend up a supply closet today and a toner cartidge almost fell and I recoiled like a Fop. Like the whole world depending on me not being hit the by the cartridge. i'm also constantly journaling like a fop. They was some food left over from a meeting and I went right for the min-croissant, like a Fop. My posyure is really foppy today too. I have foppy posture, like a foppy fop. What a fop I am today. And here I am complaining about being a Fop today like a big screaming Fop in my old fop journal that's on the Foppy internet. All I need is a big old foppy triple layer strawberry shortcake for my Fop dinner with some other Fops and we can all Fop it up and petty Fops.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Cheap Avenue Q Tickets

Check out this deal to be a member of the vineyard theatre company at their Theatre Artist or Under 30 member plan http://vineyardtheatre.com/member/member.htm

 

[Jeremiah77]

Christianity and The Episcopal Church

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but my Dad is an Episcopal Priest. Right now, the Episcopal Church has been in the news a lot because of the election of an openly Gay Bishop in the diocese of New Hampshire. Because this man was elected bishop of his diocese this huge, very whiny and petty section of the Episcopal Church is very angry and wants to seperate. Because a bishop is gay. This is basically a bunch of people saying that they don't want a gay man to join their club. It is dumb and sickens me. My Dad has voiced support for this Bishop of New Hampshire and has been ostrasized by his fellow clergy in the state for supporting him. Please note: you don't see the Episcopal Church voicing anger over how so many in the world live in poverty, how many of us live with dividing hatred, or how we don't do unto others as we would do unto ourselves, we see a bunch of people angry that a gay man has stepped into their world.

More and more Christianity has been identified with this kind of pettiness. I don't know if I consider myself a Christian, it changes by the day, but I understand Christianity to be treating others how you want to be treated. I believe that's what it's basically reduced to and I see all these people who claim to be model Christians (President Bush, for example) but dwell on little bullshit issues instead of trying to work the message of Jesus which is basically, help other people and play nice.

What does being gay have to do with going against "Do unto others?" Wasn't one of the major themes of the bible to develop your own morality between you and God?

I remember hearing a bishop from Africa denouncing homosexuality on NPR a few months back, as we has responding to this new bishop of New Hampshire. What the hell? I think Africa has other things to worry about than whether or not Gay people are running around. He was like, "homosexuality is evil." What? Christianity means you follow the teachings of Christ, right? When did Jesus say "judge others." Where's all this judging that Christians do all the time, in the Bible?

I've been hearing a lot of this issue from my Dad and it's just disgusting how petty we all get when we don't like someone for a particular way they do something.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Lunch Fun

Here is my goal: It is now 12:53pm. I am going to run home and make a short video, post it on the net and be back at my desk by around 2:30 or so. My partment is around a twenty minute walk away. If I'm lucky I can catch the bus and be there in ten minutes. This my goal, I'll keep you posted. Who's with me?

 

[Jeremiah77]

starting now!

And I'm off...

 

[Jeremiah77]

Done!

Here it is at http://homepage.mac.com/wallacethebutler/lunchmovies/phoneguy.mov

It's about 4 minutes long with no edits.

I have to walk back to work now.

 

[Jeremiah77]

And I'm back...

Made it back at around 2:30pm. My boss told me to check out free food leftover from a meeting.

I'm a little winded.

Thoughts?

 

[Jeremiah77]

Off again...

I have an audition in like forty-five minutes for something to do with COmedy Central. I'm not sure what it is. The manager who sent me out wasn't too clear. I'll let you know how it goes when I get back.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Back from the audition...

The audition went well. There were sides provided. Basically we had to play withese pots and pans for like two seconds then look up and say a line then the woman said something back to us then we had to react to it. I did it all but messed up with the reacting to the line and she asked me to do it again. She told me to try not to "act." I thought that was a good sign that I got asked to do it again. I did it again and she chuckled and I went on my way.

I was a little discouraged because she was all chatty with the guy who went in before me. I think they had a mutual acquaintance or something. I got in the elevator with the dude on the way down and the elevator was going up even though we didn't want to go up. He put on a little show in the elevator which calmed my nerves about whether he did a good job or not. I feel if people are constantly trying to entertain while they are at an audition, they're probably really insecure about auditions and don't audition well.

Speaking of being intimidated by the person going in before me...

One time I got called back to these anti-smoking commercials. I went to the audition at this studio in Manhattan. Then right after me this girl comes in. She signs in and starts telling the casting people how she went to the wrong building and pressed a buzzer. And some guy let her into the building and she was like "uh-oh, this looks weird." And she got to the suite number and it was a guy's apartment and she was like "Is this the audition." And he was like, "Yeah, come on in." And she was like "no way this is weird." And then she realized she had the wrong building. So, she tells the casting people this story. And I'm like right next to her and am like, "Great. How do I top that?" One of the casting people went on this tangent about how he--and we should all do this to, he told us--always backs against the wall when he's in a subway station and a train is coming so no one can push him onto the tracks. They were all bonding with this girl and I'm just like some dude.

Then when I went in to the audition. This was for a whole campaign of anti-smoking ads wher they wanted all these young looking hip kids saying how bad smoking is or something. That's fine with me, I don't smoke. Anyway they have me in there and they ask me what is something I feel passionate about. At the time, one of my roommates was a little on the bossy side, she wanted everybody to have assign chores and stuff. So the first thing that popped into my head was, "I don't like it when people impose there standards on others." Way to go, Jeremiah. You're auditioning for an anti-smoking ad campaign and you tell them that you don't like people who impose their standards. Nice one, Murph.

 

[Jeremiah77]

what dreams may come

Last night, I dreamt that the federal government dismissed its charges against Zacharias Moussaoui and agreed to settle them in The People's Court.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Level 3 Class Number 2

I had another good Level 3 class last night with Ed Herbstman. It was a good class. We worked on scene work, monologues, and character definition.

Here, I'll just jot down some notes. I think this will be better for me and better for anyone reading. These notes are not notes I took during class but what I've taken from it the day afer. Also Some of these notes are reactions from a workshop I took this weekend with Bob Kulhan. It was an excellent workshop and if anybody's in Chicago I recommend taking a class from him. He was in town for Above Kleptomania's Octoberfest. Once again these notes are in no way the outline of the classes I took with each of these teachers but reflections from the classes and what they have made me remember from previous classes.


Scenes

Eye contact before speaking
Give your partner a name
Initiate with an action
Indicate place before you vocally refer to it
Jump into the scene if you're not initiating it
Match partners energy, don't half-ass activity of scene or hesitate
Give audience a character they haven't seen before
Let the scene progress slowly
Start the scene with a connection with your partner
Start the scene in the middle
Know who your partner is, stay away from scenes where you jsut meet for the first time
Look like you're on top of your game, be a con-man
Support your partner
Focus on making your partner look good
Yes and, push the offers to a further extent, don't qualify offers, do it to it
Allow the scene to progress
Morph to agree with your partner
Start a scene in a place
Use the environment around you
Have the environment help create the scene
Avoid conflict
Agree and agree stonger
slow scenes do not mean soft and quiet scenes
put away your tricks
don't try to be funny
allow things to happen
don't grab things out of nowhere
something unusual in a usual context
Avoid: Teaching scenes, transactions, arguments
don't censor yourself

Monologues

Relationships
Locations
Similar Situations
Characters/People
Phrases
Details
Insititutions
Actions
Circumstances
Flavors

Listen
Categorize the monologue in your head
Memorize a couple points
Don't script a monologue in your head while someone else is speaking


Characters

Use small things, small choices and see how they affect the whole character
Consider your options, how you hold your body, how you use your voice, how you move
Do things differently than you usually do
Give yourself a name
Give yourself small details and build
Small details will do the work for you

Sketch Writing Class Number 2

I also had another sketch class with Ali. It was cool. I like how he runs the class. I feel like everyone gets a lot of atteetion and he's real good at spotting things that can be punched up in our writing. I know it seems like I plug all these classes that I take but I haven't taken classes in a while and I really like all of them.

We worked some more on commercial parodies. i wrote another one. I liked it better than my previous one. i felt a little more free and not afraid to be as silly as I usually am. We're going to be writing another commercial parody for next week. I have an idea that I started writing last night. I hope I work on it during the week as opposed to waiting for Sunday during the day. But isn't that what most writers do? My goal is to write a sketch that makes people in the class laugh audibly. RIght now, everybody's sketches just kind of get muffled chuckles.

I saw this sketch group this weekend at Above Kleptomania called "Two for Flinching." I think they were from Toronto. They really had there act together. They did this vaudeville sketch that made me laugh louder than any of the other people in the audience. It was a little embarassing.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Bachelor Party

I have to go to a friend's Bachelor Party tonight. I'm in no mood. It starts off at a bar, then the Plan is to go to some high-class strip club. The evening will probably set my savings back to 1983. I'm probably going to have to tip some dude to help me pee. I'm going to be like holing it extra long so I don't have to go into the bathroom multiple times and tip the bathroom attendant. I hate bathroom attendants. It's not their fault they have such a dumb job, but how am I supposed to get out of tipping them.

I know, I know, the poor baby has to go to a strip club. But cover charges, tips, $15 drinks kind of make me want to take the party back to my place and slip in that DVD I keep crammed in the back of my dresser.

I'm also going to have to hang out with drunken straight guys. I don't have anything against straight guys, I'm one of them, but packs of drunken straight guys can get real unpleasant. In the past I've hung out with drunken gay guys. Their pleasant drunken demeanor has spoiled me. It's a lot more easy to deal with then the quick to anger, sexually frustrated, I drink to let loose attitude that packs of straight men have when they drink. They get in fights, they yell, they scream, the veins on their neck bulge, they pick on the weaker members of the group. Not all the time, but you've seen these guys around town.

I don't mind going to an actual party for the soon to be married bachelor. He's a good guy and I like him a lot but parties where I'm invited to something and have to pay upwards of fifty bucks kind of irritate me.

I'll keep you posted.

I went to a bachelor party a couple years ago. It was sad and boring. A bunch of guys going from bar to bar running out of stuff to talk about. One guy started giving me lessons how to deflect a gun that's pointed at me. That was interesting. I left shortly after. Before I left the bachelor hugged me and told me that he loved me.

 

[Jeremiah77]

The Day After the Bachelor Party

One hundred twenty seven dollars. That's what last night cost me. I had three drinks. And one was a half glass of champagne. The party was fun. Fortunately, I don't need loads of drinks to have a fun time. Unfortunately, it somehow still managed to cost me one hundred twenty seven dollars.

 

[Jeremiah77]

Way to Go Pops!

Here's my dad in action, not afraid to speak his opinion and defend the true spirit of the Episcopal Church. http://thenewmexican.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=34680&SectionID=2&SubSectionID=&S=1

This morning I read an article that Gene Robinson, this elected bishop who is gay, is under FBI protection due to death threats. I think we'd all like to believe we live in a country where one isn't killed simply for who he or she is. I don't undertsand when people justify any type of killing using Christianity, Judaism, or Islam as a reason. None of these religions embrace killers but a lot of killers embrace these religions. Why? DO people who have bad thoughts feel the need to have some comfort that causes them to hijack these religions from their peaceful, love thy neighbor roots?

 

[Jeremiah77]

So, Jeremiah, tell us what's been going on?

Yesterday I ahd a callback for this commercial audition I went on last week. I called in sick to my temp job and deciced to mkae a day of it. I sat around for around an hour before they saw me. During the waiting around part they brought a bunch of us back into a room to view a documentary that was in the spirit of the commercial. I thought the documentary was going to last forever. They told us they wanted us to view the documentary for tone and style. They didn't want us to copy what the guy in the documentary was doing. They wanted the realism. For some reason that kind of insulted me. Why did they have to drag us all into a room and show us this documentary for like ten minutes? Couldn't they just say "play it real?" I thought the documentary was never going to end. I think part of the reason I got so angry was that the documnetary was about this fifty year old guy talking about womanizing. It was sad because he was like fifty and I got this picture of this man with the last twenty-thirty years of his life being an emotional void. I think that bothered me. It was raining outside too.

The actual audition was cool. I tried to play it real. I'm afriad I might have come off a little monotone, but I tried to throw in just enough spice to make it real but interesting. The crew smirked and had slight laughter more than once, so I guess that was good. The commercial shoots at the end of the week. So, I'll probably hear today if I got it.

After the audition I wanted to have like a playing-hooky kind of afternoon but I just ended up eating burger king and walking around Times Square in the rain. I stopped by the Actors Equity lounge. There weren't any auditions going on, but I over heard an old man talk about how he was a sniper in the army. I don't know if you've ever been to the AEA "lounge" its the big room where you wait to have an AEA audition. You can only get in if you're Equity, so it has a slight bit of prestige.

Last night I had Level 3 again. Three people were missing. That kind of bummed me out, but we had a good class with the six of us. We worked on doing a harold and establishing the second beat. I was a little nervous because I haven't done a Harold in a while but it went pretty well. Ed's a good teacher and took time to explain the process. I sometimes fear when an improv teacher starts talking more than having people do scenework because I once had this teacher who would really get in a tizzy about art and truth and kind of steer away from the fundamentals of what were trying to learn. But Ed keeps it real, besides with the six of us we all had plenty of work-time. I scribbled down some thoughts and keywords I had from the class, but I don't feel like reaching for my notebook right now.

On Sunday I had sketch writing and that was a good class. I really like Sunday night because after class, I went to Wendy's and wrote for like 45 minutes. I haven't done that in a while and felt really liberated. I don't know what other word to use. I really think I need to be outside of my apartment to get some writing done. I also went for a run in the park and it felt really good.

I feel like some sort of change ha shappened to me in the last couple days and I don't know what it is, like I've crossed though to somewhere. But the details remain unknown.

 

[Jeremiah77]

while I'm gone

One of my bosses just headed out of town. This is the email, he left me before he left.


Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 11:53:18 -0500
To: jeremiahdmurphy@yahoo.com
From: "XXXX XXXXXXXXXX" <XXXXXXX@XXXXXXXX.edu>
Subject: while I'm gone




Dear Jeremiah,
Could you reset the clock on the microwave? If you need to
get in touch with me before Tues., don't hesitate to call me at (XXX)
XXX-XXXX.
see you next Wed.,
XXXX