It was the Butler...in the Hershey Store...with his Ego!

Joseph Marcell needs your help.

Who is Joseph Marcell? Why, he was the Fresh Prince's butler "Geoffrey", of course! He came into the Hershey Store on Sunday night with two of his friends, practically begging for a free sample! I was in the back at first and wasn't aware we had such a celebrity in the store, but when we turned down his request, Geoffrey's buddy began to lay on the guilt.

"Not even for a TV star?" We weren't sure who he was talking about (by this point, I was out front, but Geoffrey had moved to another part of the store). "Don't you recognize anyone in this store from TV?"

My co-worker then began to wonder, "Doesn't that guy look like the butler from 'Fresh Prince'?"

All I could see was the back of his head. Then I noticed another associate of mine with a look of recognition on his face. Clearly, this was the man!

Geoffrey turned around and came back to his friend at the Bake Shoppe, pleading to leave. "I didn't come in here for a public appearance," he said in his thick Carribean British accent. At this point, my co-worker offered a disheveled looking Geoffrey and his friends a truffle sample (not your standard free sample, we are to use discretion when doling them out). Geoffrey pointedly thanked my co-worker without making eye contact with anyone else, took his truffle, and left. And at one point he argued with his friend as to whether the truffle was more like a Symphony or a Toblerone. If you've never heared a bitter British man say 'Toblerone', you truly haven't lived.

Please, friends, I implore you: Help Geoffrey! The man is begging for free samples. According to IMDB.com, he has been working since "Bel-Air" but use your judgment...have you seen him? Find out how you can reach Joseph Marcell and help this fine gentleman receive the star treatment he deserves. Send candy, coupons, letters of appreciation. Make Geoffrey the Butler feel loved!

February 15th Doomsday for Many Marriages

More divorces are filed for on February 15th than on any other day of the year. I heard this mentioned on “Fox and Friends” this morning only in passing and I’m not sure what their source was, but feel free to snoop around their website.

Divorce is a national epidemic and the number that’s commonly thrown around is that 50% of all marriages end in one. I need to look no further than my immediate family to see identical results.

Even with such a high rate of failure (yes, 50% is a failing grade), people still want to be married. Men want to marry women. Women want to marry men. Men want to marry men. Women want to marry women. Some Mormon men want to marry lots of women. And recently, I read about a woman who married a dolphin!

This whole debate about whom the state should allow to be married has really worn me out. In my opinion, the state should have no say in the matter. In the Catholic Church, marriage is a Sacrament, one of seven! You don’t see the U.S. government licensing civil Eucharist or civil baptism, but they have taken it upon themselves to intercede here and say, “We can marry you, regardless of faith.”

Unlike other government licenses, a civil marriage license cannot simply be revoked. I mean, think about it: If you want to drive, the state issues you a driver’s license. You have to take a test and once you pass it, you have to continually have it renewed and always run the risk of having your license revoked if you break the binding laws of the license. (And on the other side, you don’t see churches issuing driver’s licenses.)

If you wonder why the “sanctity of marriage” has deteriorated to such depths, it’s because there is little “sanctity” left to it. You begin to see the truth behind the argument that marriage is “just a piece of paper”. It’s a rubber stamp issued so the government can collect money from you. If you screw up, there’s nobody there from the government to rescind your license. Nope. There are two ways to get out of a civil marriage: death and divorce.* Infidelity, spousal abuse, imprisonment…these are the D.U.I.s of the marriage license, but none will get yours revoked without divorce.

So when the question of whether the government should permit gay marriage is posed to me, I answer a stern “no”. The government shouldn't be sactioning marriages, period! It’s right there in the first amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”. And for the record, I don’t believe the Constitution should be amended to define marriage as “between a man and a woman”. Leave marriage to the faithful and keep the government’s rubber stamps away from my Sacraments!

*I’m not counting annulment because that officially means the marriage never happened. Therefore, there’s nothing to get out of.

A dead body never seemed less important...

Happy Valentine's Day!

I saw a dead guy today. Interesting. He was a large-sized black man who appeared to be young, but the way we was just kind of flopped on the subway platform floor with his eyes open and security buzzing around the perimeter kind of gave away the obvious. He was, in fact, dead.

There was no time for me to marvel in wonderment at the man (besides, it seemed that things were being taken care of) because I was on my way--and in fact, was running late--to an audition. This was my third audition in about a month and it was the least eventful. Except for the dead guy.

I arrived at the audition hall and sang my song and that was pretty much it. I think it went pretty well, but you never can tell with these things. By the time I got to the platform to go back home, the recently deceased had been removed from the premises (I observed a fire engine, an ambulance, and countless police and security on the scene). When I left my train to transfer to another, I saw my friend Maria. Maria and I went out on one date over a year ago and have remained friends. In fact, it was that night that I met her roommate Erin for the first time. Until today, I had thought it was the last time as well.

"You auditioned for a children's theatre that my roommate works at," Maria told me. The first of my three recent auditions was for a touring children's theatre. When I came to think about it, I did meet a girl named Erin there. "She said you had a great audition and they all loved you." Yeah, but I didn't get cast. I remember thinking I had given the audition of a lifetime and when I got called back I was certain I would get the part. In my mind, I had already spent my new weekly salary. Before I could say any of this, however, Maria added, "They decided to go with a more diverse cast."

At my callback, there were four people. There was me, there was a skinny white girl, a tall, fat guy, and a bossy, black girl. As I watched the others, I thought the skinny, white girl had a lot of talent. She was a perfect fit for any children's theatre. The tall, fat guy was pretty good, too. He even had a theatre degree with an emphasis on Children's Theatre. Wow! But the black girl was just awful. I mean, she had the basic theatrical instincts--not upstaging herself and that sort of thing--but she was a terrible performer and a miserable team player.

As part of the audition, the four of us had to enact a story that was written by a child. We had only about 7 minutes to choose the story, conceptualize it, and rehearse it before performing it as an audition. I knew from experience that in times like this, there needed to be a voice of determination--someone to make the quick decisions. If not, you wind up with a whole lot of ideas and nothing to perform. That said, I shouldn't have had a problem with the black girl's bossiness. Whereas the other three of us were making suggestions as part of a collaborative effort, this girl was framing all of her ideas with "This is what we're going to do." No room for dissent.

Having the most experience of the four of us, I quickly realized the peril we would be in if we followed these--not suggestions, but orders. To begin with, they weren't good ideas. Additionally, they would have to be shot down with care to ensure that she didn't feel completely rejected. Thinking back, I still believe I was able to do that. Together, with working ideas from everybody, we came up with a damn fine audition!

I had hoped that, since I wasn't cast, someone good was. I would've been fine with the two from my group or even possibly with someone from the group that auditioned after mine. Anybody but this bossy girl. When I found out that she was hired so the company could be more "diverse", it didn't make me feel any better, to be sure. No, I felt worse; as if it was an exercise in futility. It made no difference how "great" my audition was, so-called "equal opportunity" had trumped talent.

I admit I was depressed when I found out I hadn't been hired, even before I found out who was. It's hard for me to get excited about auditions now, even after I've nailed them. Like this one I went to on Saturday.

My friend Curtis suggested I take a trip up to Madison, Wisconsin with him for an audition. Curtis had a set audition and the idea was that I would try to get a vacant slot. It was a joint audition for over a dozen different theatres. Even though I wasn't able to properly prepare for the audition (Curtis had given me the wrong information which I only found out was wrong about 20 minutes before my audition), I still kicked ass. At the callback for one of the theatres, the auditor kept mentioning how funny I was.

I'd like to think his enthusiasm would get me a job, but I refuse to get my hopes up. You never know when someone less qualified than you will swoop in and take your job right out from under you.

But I guess I shouldn't complain. At least I'm not dead on the subway platform--on Valentine's Day.

"Real" to "Reel" not what Americans want

Happy Groundhog's Day!

There's an awkward segue to talk about movies.

Now this is something. I laughed out loud today while reading an article about Oscar nominees and Hollywood in general. In an article in the Christian Science Monitor (delivered to my virtual doorstep via Yahoo) titled "Moviegoers to Hollywood: 'Make it Real'", director of the film studies program at Boston College John Michalczyk is quoted:

"People want more honesty and authenticity....Twenty years ago, if you made a biopic it was a canonization of values. Now you have to make it balanced and honest."

The article offers similar opinions by other "experts" in the field and even admits that some "culture watchers" believe that the Academy Awards "reflects, and even guides, America's collective direction and values."

This is Hollywood's line of thinking. They really believe that their movies reflect and guide American values. This year's nominees for both Best Picture and Best Director deal with Middle East politics ("Munich"), race relations ("Crash"), the death penalty ("Capote"), gay unions ("Brokeback Mountain"), and media trust--or distrust ("Good Night, and Good Luck"). Have these movies guided our "collective direction"? Do they reflect our values? Judging by your attendance, I'd say no.

If the American moviegoing public is longing for "reality"-based movies, they certainly aren't showing it. According to the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), the highest grossing movie of the new millennium, domestically, is "Shrek 2"! That's right. The story of a green ogre and a talking donkey, a swashbuckling cat and a bunch of wise-cracking pigs--THAT'S REALITY!

Let's not stop there. Since the year 2000, these movies rounded out the top ten in America:

2. Spider-Man
3. Star Wars: Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
5. Spider-Man 2
6. Passion of the Christ
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
8. Finding Nemo
9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
10. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

A young boy bitten by a radioactive spider and given superhero powers. Aliens of all shapes and sizes from a galaxy far, far away. Hobbits, wizards, dwarfs, elves, ogres, trolls, and orcs battling for Middle Earth. The adventures of a lost fish. And a wizard goes to school. I see a theme here, but reality isn't one of them.

Oh, did I forget one? How about the two thousand year old story of a man who rose from the dead. True? Well, the accounts have been believed for as long as the story's been around. But Hollywood would rather not believe that the story of the Passion of Jesus Christ could possibly reflect or guide "America's collective direction and values". They'd prefer to think of Mel Gibson's masterpiece as an aberration. America is guided by female boxers having abortions and gay cowboys.

Honestly, I haven't seen any of this year's best picture nominees. They may, in fact, be wonderful cinematic achievements. It is agreed by almost everyone that the Oscars don't honor necessarily the popular movies because those aren't always the best made movies. (Note: "Titanic" is the all-time highest grossing domestic film. "LOTR: Return of the King" is eighth. Both won top honors.) But don't be fooled. Hollywood is not making many "real" movies that most Americans want to see. They are merely rewarding those films which push Hollywood's "collective direction". If they keep it up, Hollywood will go the way of it's highest grossed film. It'll be sunk.