28 Backwards is 82

An observation:

Birthdays are funny things.

When we're babies, we need people to take care of us. We can't control our bowels so we need people to change us. We can't feed ourselves so we need people to spoon babyfood into our mouths. We can't walk so people push us around in wheelchairs.

On our baby birthdays, friends and family stick you in a highchair and set a big fat cake in front of you so they can watch you attempt to eat it.

The results are always adorable.

Then we get older and the same thing happens. We're old and we need people to take care of us. We can't control our bowels so we need people to change us. We can't feed ourselves so we need people to spoon babyfood into our mouths. We can't walk so people push us around in wheelchairs.

On our birthdays, we also get cake. It almost exactly the same, only it's not quite as adorable. Because you're not a baby anymore. You're wrinkly and old. And no one wants to coddle an old woman with one eye, no teeth, and a wooden leg.

Isn't life funny?

Happy birthday, Queen III!

Heroin!

I've decided to become a REAL New York actor, so I've started doing heroin.

I'm really excited about it. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Forkulele Friday

It's Friday, which means there's been an update to the Forkulele page.

Actually, I updated it on Tuesday. But I kinda figured people wouldn't go over there without being prompted to, so let's just say I updated it today. Maybe we'll even make a weekly thing of it!

This week's addition to the playlist includes a song was written by the guy who wrote the music for the show I was recently cast in.

It's this show.

It's the lead.

A couple of things may strike you by the show's website as it stands here at 4:30 on Friday afternoon.

A) Wow. This show could be really quirky and fun! I'd be interested in seeing it if I didn't live safely away from the City that keeps getting eaten by giant monsters like the one in that movie I saw with my friends last night.

B) Wow. This show has the potential to be a total nightmare and I feel sorry for Fork, but hey. It will probably receive lots of attention due to the "ukuleles" and pulse-quickening exclaimation point in the title. Silver lining.

C) How come there's no director listed?

How you feel about A and B are entirely up to you. As for C, that's a bit more recent.

The fun begins. All so soon.

Yeah, I don't know anything about that. There WAS a director listed. I even SPOKE to the director. He was the one who told me I was cast and then refused to tell me a SINGLE THING (a single thing!) about the show in terms of characters, musical styles... ("Uhh...you'll...you'll see when you read the script.")

So who knows folks! I MAY still be doing this show. Then again, I MAY also be granted the power to jump very high and far so it won't take so long to walk down these stupid blocks. And by blocks, I mean these. Not these.

Anyway, the song is not my favorite ever but the recording turned out pretty fun--even if the songwriter DID happen to write a song all about how much he likes playing his favorite quirky instrument (can you imagine the Beatles writing a song about how much they like to sit around and play the sitar?). The one word chorus sends a shiver down my spine.

Why not "musical instrument! Musical instrument! Musical instrument!"

Or "little guitar! Little guitar! Little guitar!"

There's no winning in this world. None at all.

Happy Friday!

I Have A Dream

Yeah, MLK Jr.

I had a dream too.

Carol Channing was doing damage control for Nofriendo. I was in the room asking her lots of questions. She came off very authoritative. I was intimidated. Then someone asked her if she believed in the company.

"Well yesh, I do. But you shee, I don't know innytheeng about videeeoh gaymsh!"

The End

Audition

I was at an audition for a documentary film a few weekends ago. The film was to be an exposé on the life of a typical New York actor.

The girl running the audition explained to the crowd of us in the hallway outside that the audition would consist of an interview in which the filmmakers would ask us a number of questions to get a feel for how we relate to the camera, how personable we seem, if we're interesting...that sort of thing.

One girl raised her hand.

"Yes? Do you have a question?"

"Yeah. So...when we do this interview...do they want us to act?"


*sigh*

Well, they wanted a "typical New York actor".

Teenager

Hey folks--

The song you've been waiting for is finally done! Despite some serious sinus congestion due to the obnoxious New York weather these past few days, I managed to finish up the oft-requested ukulele version of "Teenager in Love" as featured in our little Brooklyn "Midsummer" this past December.

Also, to appease the folks clamoring for "more boobs" on the Forkulele page, your wish has been fulfilled. 'House of the Rising Sun' was uploaded just moments ago and the accompanying graphic features Forkette with...well. I'll let you see for yourself.

So head on over to Forkulele and give these new old tunes download (oh yeah, you can DOWNLOAD the songs now)! I don't think they turned out too badly, if I do say so myself!

P.S., for those of you confused by "Say Something Sweet..." it's supposed to sound that way. Scooping into the notes and all that sort of thing. I had it imported it directly from 1923!

Disaster Averted

Well, turns out Osama's weather machine still has a few kinks that need to be worked out. The blizzard of 2008 missed us by a long shot and wound up in Boston. At least, that's what the weather lady on the TV behind me is saying.

I'm in Café Netto for the first time in a long time. I'm stalling, you see. I just finished up at the gym and I'm trying to give my roommate plenty of time to get the crap out of the apartment before I go back there.

Not that there's anything up between us.

It's that he never really LEAVES anymore. He sleeps until 12:30, cooks for an hour, eats for 30 minutes, does dishes for 20, then goes back to sleep, then gets up, eats again, leaves for, like, an hour, then comes back, makes thanksgiving dinner, and goes to sleep somewhere around 3 or 4.

I was under the impression he was a student. That usually means you have to BE somewhere at some point during the day.

Today I need to pick the songs I want to prepare for the Ukulele audition on Thursday. And I don't want to sing these songs in my room with him there. I mean...Julliard opera student... The pressure. You understand.

Oh, and

NEWS FLASH!

"That guy" went with someone else. He said they usually barely find ONE person who would be good in the role, but this time (probably due to the interest from the $6500 typo on their freakin' website) they wound up with FOUR people. In the end, they couldn't decide between us so they put our names in a hat and just picked one of us. The others would be kept on file and called at some point in the future. The day and the hour being unknown even to them.

In that sense, it's EXACTLY like the Second Coming.

Okay. I've killed enough time. If Roommate is still there, I'm going to be...well...not SURPRISED. More like disappointed.

Eh. Whaddya gonna do.

At Long Last

Psst! Click on the forks!

Jazz Hands

An addendum to the previous post:


In case you're curious, this is exactly what musical theatre auditions look like. All the polish, all the desperation, all the cheese. This picture does what words can never do.

Happy Friday!

Slender

Remember this guy?

No! No! Not him!

THIS guy!

Yeah...you totally remember him. It's no use pretending you don't.

I keep using general terms like "he" and "him" and "this guy" and "the face of terror" so it will be harder to find this post when the people from "his" corporation go a-googling.

Well, you'll be happy to know that "this guy" is still around. And this time...he wants ME.

This is the last time I go to an audition because "I probably won't get cast anyway."

Days ago, the day after Christmas, in fact, I got an email saying:

"FORK! You HAVE to audition for this! It's a one-man show that tours schools in the northeast which isn't great...you'll be by yourself the entire time...but--are you ready? Sit down for this! According to the posting online, it pays $6,500 a week!"


I couldn't sleep the night before the audition. If only I got this gig, my life would be changed forever.

That morning, I got a phone call.


"Oops. Uhh...Fork...there was a typo on the website that posted the audition notice. It's not $6,500 a week. It's...$650."


Driving around in the dead of winter, dancing around in a spandex body suit, singing about nutrition to school children in gymnasiums and cafeterias from here to Ohio...

For $6,500 a week, I could do just about anything.

The helium behind my solar plexus drained out with a farting sound. I contemplated not going to the audition so I could focus on the different shows and classes going on in New York City. Yes. That's what I wanted to do. That's what I WOULD do. No question.

The audition...I'll just do it as a courtesy. I mean, I probably won't get cast anyway.

I showed up before my appointment time with a whopping three minutes to spare. There were dozens upon dozens of leotard-clad tap-dancers at the audition center that day. Lots of them were practicing their 16 bars in corners here and there. It was one of those scenes I see played over and over again in my nightmares. It's the stereotype that comes to everyone's mind when they think of auditioning in New York City.

Imagine a hundred of these:

It wasn't a pretty sight. I came down with an instant case of musical theatreitis.

It hit me right about then that I was auditioning for a musical. A MUSICAL! I began to hyperventilate. I looked frantically around at the skinny guys (and one chubby. "Hey," he said, "Yuh never know!") sitting in front of the audition room.

Someone went in before me. I heard an American Idol sound emanate from the room. He came out moments later.

The audition monitor looked at me.

"M. Fourchette?"

"Howdy! That's me!" I said, rapidly syphoning the contents of my Abject Terror tank into my Happy-Go-Lucky Texan/Look How Laid Back I Can Pretend to Be tank and hoping no one would know the difference (I do that a lot at auditions).

Someone asked the monitor a question.

"Good question," he said. "The directors want to see 16 bars of an up-tempo song and then you'll do a cold reading once you're in there."

16 bars of an up-tempo. Oh holy night. All I had was 16 bars of a ballad I hadn't sung in two years.

In retrospect...

I should have gone in and just sang the bloomin' ballad.

I should have thrown the audition.

But you don't think about those things when you're at an audition.

All you can think about is survival.

I walked right back to where I dropped off my stuff...

...and picked up my ukulele.


To be continued...but I bet you can see where this is going. Suffice it to say, after seeing dozens of musical theatre bois, all polished, all technically perfect, they had never seen someone like me who, when asked, "Which 16 bars of an up-tempo will you be performing, replied with total abandon, "I don't have one! But I have a ukulele!"

Fork... Fooooork! I want your Good Body!

Christmas is Over

Today at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on 5th Avenue (hey rector! Google THIS!) was the service for the epiphany. For those of you who may not know, that's the first day Christmastide (you know, the 12 days of Christmas) is over and is traditionally observed as the day the magi shook hands with the Baby Jesus. It's kind of a big deal, but not incense-worthy. More like the gateway to the rest of the year.

I was looking forward to today's service. I settled in at my usual time, 11:02, on one of the side pews near the back of the building and noticed something unusual the minute we finished the opening hymn.

All the conservative clergy--that is to say, the church leaders who don't think the Bible is a 2,000 year old piece of Middle Eastern fiction--were absent.

That meant the pulpit belonged to the extremely liberal one. You know, the guy who refers to God as "He/She" and makes everybody scratch their heads wondering what chapter of 2 Cachinnations he pulled that from.

Today we simple-minded folk in the pews had the great good fortune of hearing declared that the nativity account in Matthew is "improbable" and "imaginative" with Matthew probably being one of those who would subscribe to that whole "Christmas is magic" falderal because he was the father of that whole notion, littering his legendary account with things that, well, quite simply could never happen.

But that's okay because Christmas is just about love anyway.

Whew! I'm sure glad someone managed to reach into the gloom of history and pull out the truth at last!

I'm not sure I quite get this mamby-pamby notion that ab-so-lute-ly everything to do with Christianity can be boiled down to "you don't have to believe it--it's just a bunch of pretty stories about being nice to people." Somehow I feel like there must be more to it.

In the email-in-my-mind I composed to the rector as I stormed out of the church, the guy in the pulpit saying something to the tune of "this will probably sound heretical to most of you..." I said,

Dear Sir,

For the sake of those of us in the congregation who actually believe this stuff, please do not plan any vacations on or around Easter. 'Preciate it.

Your best friend,
Fork


Srsly.