Oh The Drama!

Imagine that you are in this situation. You have either dropped out of college, skipped college all together, or just quit your job in your hometown, packed up all of your things, and moved to the absolute cheapest apartment you could find in LA in hopes of making it big as an actor or actress. Your parents, siblings, grandparents, boyfriend or girlfriend all say they support you in this decision, after all you are so talented. You always got the lead roles in the plays at your 2A high school. Or maybe you are just always the one cracking jokes and making everyone smile. Whatever it is, you have a flair for drama and it would be a shame not to share it with the whole world.

So you're in LA. You have a weird drug addict roommate who spends a lot of their day at the beach, the rest watching TV, who knows really, you don't really talk to him. You have an agent, but unfortunately they charge an arm and a leg and you don't know exactly how many connections they really have. But hey, it's something! After you've taken your headshots and gotten as settled as you can in your ramshackle apartment, you realize just how expensive this launch of your career is going to be. It's really a shame you are from Nebraska and not LA, you just loved freeloading off of your parents. Next on the agenda while your agent sets up all of your auditions is finding a job. You apply everywhere. Every cute clothing boutique, every surf shop, every fine restaurant, every store in every nice mall. No good. Finally, a call comes in one day- you have an interview! "Who did you say you're with again? McDonald's?" You hang up the phone discouraged, you don't even remember applying to McDonald's and you haven't had any auditions yet.

You've got the job. Though it sucks to work with a bunch of high schools and to constantly smell like grease, it's at least some income, though it doesn't nearly cover the cost of your monthly bills, let alone your rent, food, and going out budget. Fortunately you have at least some flair for the drama because you have convinced your grandparents you are in dier need and they are sending you monthly checks to cover the rest. All seems to be going along, not well, but at least you are surviving. Unfortunately with no acting job, it makes telling all the new people you meet at bars and clubs that you are an actor kind of difficult if you can't tell them what you are currently working on. Likewise, it's never a good choice to tell someone you work at McDonald's. You have resorted to telling people you are taking time off from school. You tell them you go to University of Nebraska, it's not like they will ever know.

Months later, your agent calls you with a number of auditions (what have they been doing all this time I've been paying them?). They are for a variety of projects including some cable TV shows, one network TV show, some parts as extras in a movie, etc. They are a broad range and you are so excited. Unfortunately, between your wild party life and your long hours flipping burgers and making change at McDonalds, you've spent little time profecting your auditioning skills. Most of your auditions are a complete disaster. You leave feeling fairly defeated. Days pass and you wallow in your apartment. You call in sick to work. You don't feel like going out with your new "friends." You just lay in bed and watch trash TV. Even your weird roommate is beginning to wonder if you are OK. Then, you get a phone call. You figure it's probably your boss firing you, but it's your agent. You've got a part and you need to come sign contracts. You are so excited that you hang up the phone before you even think to ask what part it is.

Your mind is racing as you shower, dress, and jump in your car to go meet with your agent. Your mind is racing. Are you going to be a star on the next ABC drama, or maybe opposite your favorite hunky actor in a steamy romantic comedy. You get to the office, park your car, and nearly race up the stairs to the office. You find your agent and sit down at a table for a  discussion of your part. You tell yourself, you don't even care what it is, this is your big break. After all, at this point desperation doesn't even begin to describe the mind set you are in. Your agent begins to tell you that it's a TLC show that is dying to have you, however, chances are you will only be used in one episode of their show. What a disappointment. He continues to tell you all about how great this job is and that it's going to jumpstart your career as a television actress. Finally, you ask "What's the show I will be on again?" He responds shyly, as if embarrassed, (he probably is!), "The show is called I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant. It turns out you look exactly like one of the girls who is going to be on an upcoming episode and they need a dramatization actress."

You are shocked. Really? That's what they think of my acting abilities? I am only talented enough to play a girl who was too stupid to realize she was with child? You don't know whether to be flattered that you look like her or just disturbed about the entire situation. After all, who wants to be a dramatization actress? All the credit you get is simply acknowledgement to the audience that you are, in fact an actress. Is this worth the one day's work before you have to go back to slumming it at McDonald's, or should you just go back to Nebraska and live in your parents' basement. Oh the drama!

Tourist

It absolutely cracks me up to go on vacations and see what people choose to take pictures of. I understand that sentimentality is important to an extent. Yes, sometimes we do want to show our friends and family what we did while we were away. However, there are things that we absolutely DO NOT need to take pictures of because, quite frankly no one we are sharing our pictures with wants to see them and we would have to be insane to want to look at these pictures again. Two places one is likely to visit while away are a zoo and a museum. Both have plenty of photo opportunities but neither have worthwhile ones. As a tourist photographer at the zoo, you will walk around and take pictures of the lions, tigers, elephants, and giraffes in their cages. Because they are at the zoo and bored out of their minds, they will probably be sleeping and you will struggle to get anything more than a picture of their rear end. Additionally, because zoos house dangerous creatures, it is impossible to get remotely close to the animals and any picture you take will look like you took it out of an airplane. You might as well look up YouTube montages of googled images of the animals with some soothing Enya song in the background to share with those close to you. Museums are equally worthless places to take pictures for similar reasons. First of all, everything at museums is behind glass and therefore uautomatically impossible to get a decent picture of. Furthermore, if you want to look at pictures of a Navajo pot or the inside of a human body or a stuffed polar bear, you can find all of these images online, in greater numbers and higher quality. Do yourself and your friends a favor next time you are at a museum or zoo or really any other tourist attraction for that matter; live in the moment, not in a constant effort to preserve this moment for the future because then it will pass you by. Sure, take pictures, but take pictures of the people you are with, not the random things you saw.