Friday, May 27, 2011

In The Pitch Black; Or Maybe Not

“I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.”
- Brenda Ueland

Being alone on a very dark night doesn’t mean you’re in the dark. If you’re on the walk that Brenda recommends, it doesn’t necessarily mean it has to occur at a prescribed time of day. As a matter of fact, daytime walks might be more to your liking. But time of day has little to do with your degree of enlightenment.

There have been many before we came along who professed to have their eyes wide open, yet had difficulty with any form of clarity. Of course, those were the folks before us, living life during a far less enlightened period of time. Those poor folks only had newspapers to keep them abreast of what was taking place in the world. Sure, there was the printing press churning out books, millions of them all over the world. But books were for epics, stories of adventure, and learning. While newspapers were the communication mainstay, most people found things out by word of mouth. The country was still kind of new and there were less than thirty-five million mouths to tell it like it is (or was).

The Original Voice Over Artist

The town crier was the original voice over artist. Usually every hour on the hour after dark, from gas lamp post to post around the town square to every place of importance, the loud voice could be heard giving out with the hour of the evening, and proclaiming how all's well. And during the daytime, a proclamation might be posted and read aloud, at the town square, or the town jailhouse. The qualifications for the town crier job, or the man who did the proclamation, was much like today’s voice over artist: You had to be a good reader - actually you had to be able to read - and have a reasonably clear voice. There were no residuals to concern you with because yesterday’s news was never repeated.

In some townships, the decision making process for determining who would become the local town crier became a traditional community competition. The ultimate winner was the guy with the loudest voice.

Seeking Clarity & How Will I know When I Find It?

Explaining The English Language: Forget About It. Making my point:

"One fowl is a goose but two are called geese.
Yet the plural of mouse should never be meese.
If I speak of a foot and you show me your feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and the whole set are teeth,
Why should not the plural of booth be called beeth?"
- Author unknown

The above comic verse helps us to understand the plight of immigrants from all over the world who ventured forth to this marvelous country of ours, and discovered their own wonderful ways of figuring out the English language.

Herbert Passin, the noted anthropological scholar maintains in his Language and Cultural Patterns; no language is completely translatable. The more deeply you go into a language, the more unique it becomes.

And for every young director out there taking pleasure in an over-assumption of his or her individual communicative skills, Herbert Passin’s doctrine maintaining the inability of translating the truest of word meanings at the most sophisticated of intellectual levels, should be etched in their creative brains, never to be forgotten.

A hand extended in order to help needs no verbiage. A hand extended has no language barrier. A tear shed is universal. I remember one day in far off Korea, the war had come to an end, and, as usual, the American soldiers shouldered the most difficult of assignments. I may have still been a teenager, in a man’s body, but my mind was being permanently etched by life’s daily imbalances.

We came from all over the United States as young soldiers to this place of wounds and scars. Regardless of our backgrounds, to a man, none of us had ever experienced any overdose of merciless upheaval such as the experiences being suffered by these Korean people.

I experienced first hand, family was the most important part of Korean life. The father is the head of the family. Respect for a human beings attained position in life, was and is part and parcel of the Korean child’s up bringing. Take away the indignity and the pain and suffering brought on by the carnage of war, and we found the Korean kids to be much like children in many other parts of the world.

The mind is a miraculous work. An effortless thought is stimulated by an effortless thought. Thinking of the Korean children, I recalled a tinge of the first light being allowed to enter their lives, first as the most sparing glimmer, and then, as quickly as we could make it happen for them, the most radiant beam of hope began to brighten their souls.

I guess most of us were close to the chronological age of the children we were seeking to help. Maybe it was our youth which helped the children to quickly trust us. They all seemed to love the way American soldiers would invent all kinds of kids games to break the tensions of the day. Overnight the children learned to communicate in our language. They picked up our dialects and our unique ways of communication. And we found their pronunciation of English, especially American colloquialisms, more than just amusing. Oftentimes, it became the cause of borderline raucous laughter. Hearing a little Korean kid with a southern drawl, or another with Jersey City or Brooklyn bluster was always a tension reliever. And of course, like young kids all over the world, their minds were like sponges. They learned our language and our ways far more readily than we did theirs.

“To all out there who have experienced a seemingly impossible turn in life’s tell tale adventure of never ending hurdles to overcome; be apprised, nothing rivals the travails of the homeless child, as witnessed through the gaze of this mans eyes. No language barrier, or statement of grief can ever require more explanation than a story told by the pain in a child’s eyes forever etched.”

And so when I hear our troops referred to today as occupiers, I cringe. The term occupier doesn’t remotely fit the comportment of who, what, and how we really bring forth to others what American soldiers are all about. Those Korean children never looked at us as being occupiers. They attempted to emulate our every move. They picked up on our mannerisms, they learned our songs, our dances, and most of all, they loved to play baseball. We shared what we had, and taught them everything we knew.

Today I have many Korean Americans in my life, many of whom have recent ties to the very people who depended on us, not as occupiers of their homeland, but much more suitably considered as saviors. I’m sure there are moms and dads who managed to grow up and become nurturing parents because of the communication which managed to surpass any possible language barriers. I expect one day to have a Korean actor step forward and relay a story of how his mother or father went to school because of the help given them by an American soldier or Marine.

We had a field first sergeant that had a way with words. During the darkest of moments he’d come up with something, which came across as a rallying cry or call to arms. This guy was a huge man; standing about six foot five inches, and weighing in at about two hundred and fifty pounds. He was a classic case of looks being deceiving. When the man spoke, his words bellowed out with perfect diction. He may have been big and bulky, but it did nothing to detract from the humanness of his intellect. He was voice over personified. Pure gold. I find myself thinking about people like him whenever any of our country's important holidays roll around. The sergeant made all of us proud to be on the same team; especially on this one freezing cold day as we made our way into a small North Korean village. The sight of the children stopped us in our tracks. Imagine the worst and you have conjured the picture of what we found. “Bring that mess truck up,” the sergeant shouted. “Assemble,” he yelled. In seconds, certainly less than a minute, we were ready and waiting for our orders. And as the sun shone threw the bleak and overcast sky the sergeant gave forth with the command, "Let’s bring some light to these kids.”

Occupiers? I think not!!

Monday, May 23, 2011

A Writer Writes About

On a day in May...

A writer writes
Where he’s been
Where he is

Where he’s going

All while void of coherence
Forgetting his past
Unsure of his present
Fearful of his future

Then as the success bell tolls

He’s congratulated

He relates stories of his past

Enjoys his present

And sells many books predicting everyone’s future

Still, perhaps not his own

Then on a day, as yet not fully lived

Sanguineness somehow prevails

And only to himself he reveals:

“Never have I been more touched by life than today.

For special reasons which will forever be unclaimed,

Yet so deeply felt.

Understanding, perhaps not a possibility.

Reasons for what transpires don’t find themselves getting in the way of the most unimaginable emotions beyond previously experienced recall.”

A message saying one's breath is far more important than its description. This is the moment for the writing to stop. This becomes a new time to capture new meanings, for quiet to resound within.

A writer listens intently though without prescription,

And just maybe an American pioneer was heard to say:

"Begin now!

Start the rest of your life

With this first day,

And each day thereafter

Serving as the canvas for your own

Personal masterpiece.

Each day is your audition for the next!"

hk

Thursday, May 19, 2011

1859 As A Philosophical Abstraction, Or Maybe Not.

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens.

Excerpt:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

The man wrote in an era when much of what God had beseeched was still in a "to be determined" process. His A Tale Of Two Cities was to be ultimately dubbed a masterpiece -- in my humble opinion, not the least bit an overstatement. The two cities were London and Paris. They were, at the time, a mixture of the extreme haves and have-nots: Those who never worked because of their life’s station, and those who didn’t work because work wasn’t available. They were the rich and the poor with inactivity as their sole mate.

Was it the past of which Charles Dickens scribed what he saw, or was he gazing into our future, here in 2011?

The words of the past, mainly those expressed in a form of complaint, seem to always resemble today’s most common disorders. There were those who dwelled high up on a hill, while the rest hunted for a place to sleep, and a crumb or two in order to keep their inner fires burning. Nothing has changed regarding our subsistence needs. Lets face it. It’s what all human beings have in common: We need to eat.
Grilled Cheese

Around 4,000 years ago, people started to breed animals and process their milk. That's when cheese was born. It was most likely a strong reason for the first politicians to get elected.

Villager #1: "Elect me as your mayor and each of you will have a goat to milk.”
Villager #2: "Elect me as your mayor, and I’ll send a serf to milk your goat for you.”
Villager #3: "Elect me as your mayor and I will deliver a jar of milk to your abode each and every day of the year, free.”

Well, if you’re interested in the outcome of that very early mayoral race, I’ve taken it upon myself to do a little research. Villager #3 was a big time winner. In those days, the counting up of votes didn’t take very long because most of the villagers were functional illiterates. They voted by physical acclamation. The three candidates would stand in front of the gathered villagers in the town circle. At the precise signal (I was unable to determine what signal was used), the villagers moved directly behind the candidate of their choice. It wasn’t really a difficult process because at the time of this election, less than one hundred people inhabited the village. All worked out well until directly following the mayoral inauguration. In short order, the people began to complain about not receiving delivery of their free milk. Some unforeseen problems which were not allowed for began to pop up directly following the election campaign promises.

Word of mouth had spread the news from township to township. Come and get the free milk, even if you’re not a citizen of our village. Bring you’re family and friends. The only good thing to come from all of this was it didn’t affect their village school system. They had no schools. The mayor made many speeches telling the villagers how things were improving. But more and more of them were unable to earn any money to give the mayor in order for him to supply enough free milk to make the cheese. Most of the villagers found it far too expensive to buy their own goat. Soon the people began to leave what had become a large community in favor of finding a different village to live and work in. The mayor served one term, and is now a very successful goat handler.

Way back when, not that very long ago, in these United States of America, the most famous sandwich of all time would have to be the grilled cheese, or up until that point in time, depending on who was the reporter writing the food column, and what were his or her leanings, politically. Some would ask, "What sort of abstract baloney are you spewing now? What could cheese have to do with anything politically?" To them I would answer, "Just everything, you dolt."

(If you consider the foregoing as being in the abstract, then it would never be my wish to visit an art gallery as your companion.)

The facts have been with us for centuries. If you make it, bake it, milk it, grow it, farm it, raise it, sell it, or live in the vicinity where any of the former transpire, it will be now, or ultimately a short time in the future, a political boondoggle (a scheme, which wastes time and money).

But for a short moment, long before governments knew anything about taking large quantities of oil from the ground, the healthy business of extracting oil from the fat of whales thrived, that is, thrived for those countries which could boast a strong maritime fleet. Many of you won’t recognize the name “kerosene.” It was the main product for lighting one's home - lamp oil - that and, of course, the development of natural gas.

Ancient societies were known to be using the oil, which managed to seep up from the ground in many parts of the world, since prehistoric times.

Petroleum became a major industry following the oil discovery at Oil Creek Pennsylvania in 1859.

Please take note: A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens.

Do you think I’m being a little too abstract? Not for me, I’m very happy with it, and myself. You see, I take the greatness of this country of ours very personally. Think about it for a minute. Oil has been around since prehistoric times. In 1859, the United States of America was an infant state. We were just then beginning to bind the wounds suffered by every American during the Civil War.

Charles Dickens might have named his book “A Tale Of All Countries.” It may have begun in 1859, but by the late eighteen hundreds, the United States was producing more oil than any other country in the world - 83% of which took care of our own needs. Our capitalistic society was almost in full bloom. What followed were all the necessary ingredients for brewing the greatest success story in the history of the world. At the time we had a total of 31,(443,321 M) - thirty one million, four hundred forty three thousand, three hundred and twenty one of us Americans preparing to serve grilled cheese sandwiches to the rest of the world.

320,000,000 later


I hated grilled cheese sandwiches when I was a kid. They lacked gusto. I remember some kids bringing American cheese sandwiches to school for lunch. I never traded with them. I was so pleased to find out later in life, the infamous American cheese was processed, and those in the know were quick to point out the drawback of eating processed food. Those infidels were not only eating processed cheese, but were in the process of shortening their lives by doing so. Yet, to my deep chagrin, just yesterday I was made aware of the fact, processed cheese in some countries was considered a deterrent to contraction of scurvy while sailing around the world. I’m going to hold off believing the credibility of this report, as it was filed by an Afghanistan wire service. My operatives were unable to check out their reliability do to a shortage of electric power service in their area of the fifth world. It does however sound suspicious, since Afghanistan keeps no admiralty records. The United States continues to fund the Afghani Navy in expectation of them one day having one. Credit must be given to our general accounting bureau as they have formally discontinued any shipments of grilled cheese sandwiches earmarked for shipment to Afghanistan.

And speaking of Afghanistan; where were they back when Dickens so vigorously went to the quill? If you said: “They were being occupied by a foreign country,” your answer would be correct. Dependant on what one reads, it appears since 500 BC, all kinds of folks have been trying to take hold of them. My point is, we aren’t the first to enter with thoughts of calming the searing heat, freezer chest winters, and mountainous terrain of this cruel societal location; land locked, desperate, and without structure.

And just maybe an American pioneer was heard to say:
Begin now!
Start the rest of your life
With this first day,
And each day they’re after
Serving as the canvas for your own
Personal masterpiece.
Each day is your audition for the next!

Friday, May 6, 2011

(A Primer On) Compiling “Ten Thousand Hours Of Experience”

Theater Shows Film

Just prior to this monumental period of my life, I had merely dabbled in the world of show biz. My ex-wife’s opinion of what I was doing represented far more than dabbling. A couple of years before, she had asked me pointedly if I didn’t think I was getting a little too old to be an intern. Her question followed directly after she found out Hitchcock didn’t pay interns. As a matter of fact, the man didn’t even speak to us (I do believe the woman was beginning to tire of my antics). Come to think of it, my ex-wife was wrong. It was a great time to intern, be alive, and make the most dominate decision of my life: To follow my heart.

Ten thousand hours of storage begins at birth for all of us. I refer to what enters our brains as storage because, not being a medical man, it’s the easiest way for me to remember what many refer to as "our own personal think tank." Is it a mental or physical attribute? We’re usually equipped with both. Storage begins for most at or around two years of age.

All things being equal, regardless of the time period, I had not yet arrived as "da harv," but neither had Walmart. That same year, 1962, Sam Walton opened the First Wal-Mart discount store in Bentonville, Arkansas. All Sam did was become the biggest and most successful retailer in the world. He didn’t begin at the top, and he wasn’t the first to open a store. At the time, the J.C.Penney Company had seventeen hundred stores, and Sears Roebuck & Company boasted seven hundred fifty department stores. Then there were others, like Macy’s, the May Co. and many, many more.

There are those who argue it was much easier to make it back in the old days. I think not. Sears Roebuck began in 1886, and the first J.C.Penney store opened under a different name in 1902.

Today, about fifty years later, some new giants have arisen: Home Depot, Kinko’s, Costco, and of course, the most famous of them all, “SpongeBob.” Few were given any likelihood of having success.

Let’s face it, how many of you would have invested money in a Starbucks coffee shop? I mean… give me a break. They’d have about as much chance of making it as a talking square pants sponge named Bob.

Cost Of Living 1962:
Year-end close of Dow Jones industrial average: 652.
Average cost of a new house: $12,500.00.
Average income per year: $5,556.00.
Average monthly rent: $110.00 per month.
Tuition to Harvard University: $1,520.00.
Average cost of a new car: $3,125.00.
Eggs per dozen: 32 cents.
Gas per gallon: 28 cents.

Folk music was evolving into protest music thanks to young artists like Bob Dylan, and the birth of surfing music by The Beach Boys grew in popularity. Meanwhile, in England, the Beatles were recording the single "Love Me Do." The new hit on TV for that year was "The Beverly Hillbillies," and the first of the James Bond movies, "Dr. No," was an instant success. Some of the other movies released included "Spartacus" and "El Cid."

Alternatives:
In Beverly Hills, on little Santa Monica Blvd., there existed one little theatre group seemingly on every corner. These groups began forming in the forties. Just about every character actor you might think of at one time or another took part in some form of little theater. Most came from locations all over the country, seeking to make it on what we knew as the silver screen.

It was also the era of big time radio broadcasts. During the daytime hours, the soaps prevailed. In the early and late afternoons, all the kid shows came on. The history of film and radio go hand in hand.

New York’s Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway was a respite for most of the actors before coming to Los Angeles (they thought), attempting to break into films. As they arrived, they encountered what actors had been experiencing since time and memoriam: Competition.

It was an absolute certainty: Without radio and little theatre, actors in general found few venues for practicing their craft, let alone making a buck.

On January 1, 1962, NBC broadcast the first coast-to-coast color television presentation of the Rose Bowl football game. Walter Cronkite replaced Douglas Edwards as the anchor for the CBS Evening News. He lasted nineteen years.

But most importantly, 1962 was the official kick off for da harv. I do believe that comes to a total of forty-nine years. Let’s see now… if we count it up, forty-nine years would be 2,548 weeks, and at fifty hours per week it comes to a total of one hundred and twenty seven thousand, four hundred hours of me practicing my craft.

The last nineteen plus years have been devoted entirely to the field of voice over.

I chose 1962 because much of my official academic world schooling had come to an end. Truth be told, and that’s what I’m doing at this moment. My theatrical training began with the subliminal exposure I began experiencing as a child. Anything vaguely resembling a group of people (two or more, sometimes even one) became my audience. They didn’t know it. They were sent to me by a divine power in order to have their way of life improved upon. They all needed me - even those who attempted to push me away. It was all to no avail. Even the Army, in a much earlier time period of my life, recognized I was the guy put on earth to tell people what to do, whether they liked it or not.

I doubt if there are many who may claim fame or accomplishment without fording an endless stream, or taking less than ten thousand hours of their life’s dedication. Admittedly, any thoughts of hours of study were not an occurrence of mine as I embezzled the first moments as they came to me. There were no explanations, because no one close to me was prepared to understand a person toiling without monetary rewards, either gained or offered. In the beginning, I cherished the smallest plaudits more than any man should.

Seeing my name printed on a playbill for the first time was an unequalled event. Stepping forward to begin a show produced by me brought my heartbeat to a crescendo I knew could be heard by those in the back of the house. Sharing the pain with a troupe of my players about to strike a set, the next day reborn and hopeful over an unexpected gig to direct a dream cast. The radio programs, the industrial shows, the films, the commercials, and the thousands upon thousands of actors I have had the pleasure of directing, are all in a special place within my now incomprehensible number of hours at work practicing my craft. But at the very top of my list, and what I would deem as the most rewarding adventure of my lifetime is an easy one for me to choose: It is as an educator where my most treasured plaudits lie.

What I didn’t know then, I do know now. It began during the first twenty-nine years of my life. The physiological brilliance of my father. When he asked if I would give him a hand with something was by far the most important life shaping moment of my young existence. He knew his kid well. I was bursting at the seams to show him my talents as a helper. I don’t remember what he had asked me to help with. It doesn’t matter. The thought of being paid to help someone with whatever they were up to never occurred to me. At eight years of age, I guess I was feeling like a pretty big, big shot. We lived directly across from the schoolyard, so I never ran out of kids to help.

There was this one kid in particular who became a fan of mine. He was a poor soul who was a real klutz. He constantly showed up in the school playground with his shoes untied. When I called it to his attention, he told me how his mother yelled at him for not being able to tie his own shoelaces. I kind of felt sorry for him. I learned how to tie my shoelaces by watching my dad do his own. I told the kid I would tie his shoelaces for him every day until he learned to do it for himself. It turned out to be one of my simpler feats to accomplish. Each day before he was called to return home, we both untied our shoelaces and then as I retied mine, he merely mimicked my every move. By the end of the week, he was functioning on his own. But something else happened: The kid no longer came across as the playground schlep. (Schlep: A person who drags his or her feet in an ungainly fashion would be referred to as a shlep; German origin)

Nothing has changed. A teacher is a helper. A person who is always joining in for a free ride is known as a shlepper. Schleppers rarely make it in acting - a profession where a free ride is almost nonexistent.

Saying "try it this way" to an actor, and then seeing the proverbial light go on is an amazing feeling. Nowadays, many of the actors I run into aren’t wearing shoes that need lacing, so I have resigned myself to helping them improve their acting skills. What I ask our students to do is continually practice their craft. The question comes up quite often. How long do I think it will take for them to make it? There will never be an exact answer for any question with as subjective a nature to it.

I remember seeing Tiger Woods as a child of no more than six years of age come on the Mike Douglas show along with his Dad. He put on a demonstration of his ability to hit a golf ball. Well, by the time Tiger had his ten thousand hours compiled, most golfers were just beginning to play the game.

Questions only you can answer:

1. When did you begin?

2. How much do you work (number of hours) at it each day?

3. Are there things in the way?

4. How badly do you want it?

5. Are you financially able to hold out for an indefinite period?

6. What must you do to avoid being average?

Within my hours of practice, I have experienced many of the lifestyle encumbrances which would keep the average guy from making it in our voice over world. The most important word in the previous sentence would be “average.” Average is a term which, when applied as a description of an actor, translates to “unable to support himself or a family."

For the answers to all of the above questions, please take a time out, and with not another soul around to disturb your process, answer the six questions presented above. I was honest with you. What I recommend is you be brutally honest with yourself.

da harv’s answers up:

1.When did you begin? Around age eight.

2. How much do you work (number of hours) at it each day? I usually hit it for about ten hours, six days each week.

3. Are there things in the way? Only I get in the way of me!

4. How badly do you want it? To be able to say, "I have helped more actors to win than any other man in history!"

5. Are you financially able to hold out for an indefinite period? I have been for the last twenty-five years.

6. What must you do to avoid being average? Continually seek out my goal to live and make each day of my working life a masterpiece.

Baruch Spinoza (November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677) was a Jewish, Dutch philosopher. He said:

“Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.”