Moviestar, Footslip And There You Are>Act 1

"They're gonna put me in the movies/They're gonna make a big star out of me/ We'll make a film about a man that's sad and lonely/ And all I gotta do is act naturally"-Act Naturally, Buck Owens

About a year or so ago, after I moved out of the swamp (soggy basement studio) and into my new apartment and a little more than three weeks after I performed at the fourth annual sound poetry festival in Portland, Oregon, I made an accidental discovery that forever changed my life.

One night while I was going through the myriad of publications I collected both from the festival and within my brief passage through the city, I happened upon the name of a website within one of the publications. Instead of typing in the website http://www.cragslist.com/, I accidentally typed in the website http://www.craigslist.com/ and stumbled on an entirely new world of fun and excitement!

As I’ve found, http://www.craigslist.com/ became for me, what it has become for most people; a wonderful Internet bulletin board full of every imaginable listings category known to mankind and then some! In the beginning I mostly utilized http://www.craigslist.com/ for acting jobs, poetry publication listings, artist listings and events, giveaways (free), barter & exchange deals and dating purposes. Some of these panned out mighty fine, while others turned out as dismal as a dreary rainy weekend. For this first part, I’ll focus on my first acting role.

In my first week alone while surfing http://www.craigslist.com/, I started applying to any or all real acting jobs I could find. Prior to this role, my acting experience wasn’t much. I had played Santa Claus in a suburban mall back in 1986, a few extra roles in graduate student films along the way and most importantly, I played a dead body in my eldest brother Louie's experimental film back in the early 1980s, a few plays and all of my performance and poetry recital work; in other words, I didn’t think I had much experience, but lo & behold; when I wasn’t looking very hard for a role, I caught my first taste of acting, by landing a small role as a Rabbi (Rabbi Sterling) in a film originally titled “Skips Stevens Project,” later changed to “Tough Times.”

The premise of the film centered on the main character Skip Stevens, a TV talk-show host, whose father was well known in the entertainment business during the 1960s & 1970s. Skip had a hard time adjusting around his father and also his own self worth, trying to fit in, when most of the time he didn’t.

Initially, I tried getting the role for my Rabbi, but he insisted I might be a better fit. The director Jason Pittman told me they had a set idea in mind for this Rabbi character; primarily to perform a graveside service for the father of the main character Skip Stevens, a television talk-show host.

Pittman had also told me that he had been working on the production for two years and that the scenes I would be in were the last few to be produced before the editing began. Filming commenced at one in the afternoon, yet I had to be at the director’s apartment by 11am. On Sunday, October 17, I left my apartment early, about 10:15am or so, in order to get there on time and of course, I mangled the directions and ended up getting lost; so I called the director’s apartment and one of the cameramen answered and eventually guided me into down the right streets and soon enough, I pulled up to his place.

Once inside, I met the other members of the cast. Almost everybody was standing around, dressed in black, casually talking, joking, snacking on the finger sandwiches, chewing on the cookies and sipping on the Coca-Cola. I didn’t eat or drink that much on that day, save for perhaps a few chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of water I brought with me.

I went into a separate room inside their apartment and changed into my suit, emerged from the room and then I went into the living room where everyone was hanging out and introduced myself around to the different members of the cast. At about 12:15 pm or so, we paired off in cars. I drove with all three of the cameramen, while the director drove ahead of us and the rest of the cast drove in other cars. We arrived at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago, (a cemetery on the northwestside of Chicago, also known for its civil war dead buried there) a short time later. It was a warm day, I recall, but a little nippy in the shade.

My role was simple; all I had to do was recite a Hebrew prayer for the dead, interspersed with English text, plus shake the hand of the widow and offer my condolences. My costume consisted of a black suit, purple yarmulke, black shoes, blue shirt with a red striped tie (I think) and my glasses. If I had known I was going to have taken this role, I never would have trimmed my long moustache & beard into a short cropped moustache & beard a few weeks prior to taking the role.

I must have done at least 20 takes of that Hebrew text scene until they got what they were looking for. Throughout the scene, they kept calling me “Rabbi” and not my real name, which seemed kind of funny in the moment. The shaking the hand of the widow scene was seemingly less times to perfect, which came out to only 10 takes!

Another oddity that struck me that Sunday while filming my two scenes, was the mere fact that every time I was filmed, we had no interference whatsoever, meaning no car noise/exhausts or engines running or airplanes flying above.

Every other scene that didn’t involve me, though, they had to take and retake over and over, much to the chagrin of the director and the lead cameraman, due to the described conditions of interference. When the director asked aloud why my scenes were perfect and why the other scenes were imperfect, I simply said straight-faced, “Well hey, I’m the Rabbi,” to which the entire cast burst out in laughter!

At approximately 3:30pm, we wrapped up the filming. I caught a ride back with the director’s wife and then changed back into my street clothes. It was about eight more months before I would hear from Pittman, when one day in the mail I received a DVD copy of the film, plus an additional reel of all of my outtakes.

Overall, only 20-30 seconds of my scenes were in the 14-minute film. I was pleased and called the director to thank him. He appreciated my efforts and told me I was a natural on film, and he was surprised when he learned that this was my first film role ever! All my years of small acting roles, performance and reading poetry had at last paid off. And this was only my first role!