Ronaldo the Clown, My Agent

Now, if you’re in the process of job hunting and you’re searching for that elusive, nearly extinct creature called a career, perhaps you can also relate to some of these experiences that we performing artists go through on a regular basis in our search for work. Even when you’re fortunate enough to be in a show or you’re gigging regularly due to your own tenacity, you must always keep your eye out for the next opportunity to audition. This isn’t only important for maintaining your talent or keeping your face/name relevant to the public; it’s also important for you to earn money so that you can eat. It can be stressful. You wake up after a great but exhausting performance the night before, travel to an audition in another town or city that day, and then return to perform another show that night. Actually, that’s an ideal description of how it goes when you’re actually willing and able to support yourself as a performing artist.

If you’ve never done it, auditioning for any kind of role or gig can be extremely nerve-wracking. It’s exhilarating, nauseating and slightly embarrassing all at the same time. You’re putting yourself out there in front of a complete stranger (no matter how famous he or she may be, you still don’t know them personally) or a group of them. Within the span of a few uttered lines or a maximum of circa 7 minutes for a power aria to be sung, you’d better have impressed the pants off of the people you’re auditioning for. Well, I meant that figuratively, but these days, I’m starting to wonder. I’ve heard stories.

In any case, after a while, you may start thinking that a talent agent could do you some good. That way, you can save time searching for audition opportunities and just be notified by your agent when something possibly good comes up. Best-case scenario, you get the gig or the role, your agent gets a cut, and both of you are happily doing what you do best.

That’s what I was hoping for the first time I looked for a talent agent. I sent a professional head shot with a sample recording asking for the opportunity for a live audition. Fortunately, there were a few bites, and so I scheduled the audition dates. To save money, I chose the closest one first. I called the number and told the agent that I was looking for representation as a classical vocalist with a penchant for Broadway. He sounded completely excited and ready to add me to his client list. When I got there, I was expecting to see a professional dressed up in at least a jacket and nice pants. Instead, it was a clown.

Seriously, if you’ve ever seen the movie “IT” (“ES” in German), just imagine you’re already going to some stranger’s office, you’re nervous about auditioning so that you can get work, and on top of that, you’ve got Steven King’s love-baby staring expecting at you, patiently waiting to hear you flawlessly sing an aria by Saint-Saëns.

Ironically, I have never liked, enjoyed or trusted people in costumes off-stage. Moreover, I abhor clowns. My own mother has told me repeatedly that the reason why there are no pictures of me with Santa, Spiderman or any other character is because each time the opportunity came up, I was literally fighting for my life trying to get away from them. According to her, the first time this happened was when I was two and a half. And while I would run from the majority of them (there are a lot of them in the numerous amusement parks we have in Florida), for some reason, when a clown came along, I was ready to fight. Don’t ask me why. I couldn’t tell you. What I can tell you is that to this day, when I see anyone dressed as a clown – and I mean anyone – I must still repress the innate urge to punch that freak in the face.

So, I was at my professional best and worst when I auditioned for a clown. On the one hand, it’s pretty amazing to stand your ground, face one of your phobias and simultaneously sing a romantic aria; on the other hand, you might want to reconsider your career options when you find yourself auditioning for a clown, even in happenstance.

After I finished, he sat there with a goofy grin on his face (well, it was there the whole time), and he applauded and said, “Great. Just amazing. I’ll take you on. We even have a couple of shows lined up throughout next month. Uh, can you also sing Mariah Carey and Madonna?”

This was supposed to be a legitimate talent agency, I promise. As much as I respect and enjoy the work of both of these women, no, clown agent, I didn’t spend countless hours studying music theory and history in order to expand my repertoire to include Touch My Body and Papa Don’t Preach.

I gently reminded him that while I could sing those songs, I was looking for an agent to represent me for classical music and standards. And why was he dressed like a clown? Was it to try to throw potential talents off in order to test their resolve? I asked, naïvely optimistic and readily open to denial.

“Oh, ha ha, no, but that’s a good idea. I have a troupe of many performing talents and we travel throughout the country. I’m the MC and dress like this. We’re looking to legitimize the troupe some more, and that’s why we’d love to have you join us!”

This “talent agency” was a small-time circus. In the words of George Takei, oh my. Once Ronaldo saw the expression on my face, that goofy grin of his quickly waned. “Um, well, of course, you may want to take a couple of days to think about it. These are for you. If you’re interested, just call me back. We’d love to have you…”

He handed me a stack of karaoke CDs with German Schlager, Mariah Carey, Madonna, TINA TURNER, Whitney Houston and the Bee Gees. I still have those CDs in a shoebox in our basement.

This serves as a reminder as to why I will never like clowns.

Not long after, I made two very important decisions in my life: I would manage myself and I would go back to school in a non-music related field. I regret neither. So, if you find yourself in a situation that’s not ideal, just remember that it could always be worse and more absurd than you could ever imagine.

Happy career hunting!

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

Woman-Speak versus Man-Comprehension

As you ought to know by now, I work a lot with communication. Not only do I explore communication between cultures and perceived language and ethnic “barriers”, I also like to focus on communication between genders. This brings me to this week’s blog entry, which will help every single person in the world. As a matter of fact, I will not be surprised if I get a Nobel Peace Prize for today’s contribution.

At this point, I’m going to assume that everyone has heard of John Gray’s book “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” It is on our bookshelf. I have never read it. If this book gave my then boyfriend the divine insight on how to be the amazing husband that he is today, then kudos to the author and lucky me. It must be a pretty awesome book – even Jay-Z created a song with the title “Venus versus Mars.” Alrighty then. But without having even turned a page in the book, I’m pretty sure that there must be a vital missing chapter. It’s called Woman-Speak versus Man-Comprehension.

This is a blog, so I’m not going to dump a whole chapter’s worth of knowledge on you. Instead, I’ll just give you one tip that should lead you to blissful communication with the opposite sex for the rest of your life.

More often than not, when a woman presents a man with a particularly harmless question that sounds like a spontaneous suggestion, it’s most likely a statement (okay, a gently swaddled imperative) that men must unravel in order to maintain peace in the valley. Here are a few examples:

“Do you really want to do that?” MEANS: “You don’t want to do that.”

“Didn’t you say that you wanted to cut down on the greasy foods when we travel?”

MEANS: “I have to sit beside you for the next three hours during this road trip. You’d better think long and hard about what you’re stuffing down your gullet, because ‘Excuse me’ just won’t cut it.”

“Are you sure you want to wear your socks with sandals while you walk around with me today?”

MEANS : “There’s no way on God’s green earth that you are going to embarrass me in public by wearing such an atrocity.”

See, the thing is, we all want democracy, also at home. However, when we see loved ones making the wrong poor choices, we just want to diplomatically guide them to the path that we see most fit for them (see, you’ve also gotten some political insight here as well). The problem is that the men often mistakenly view these questions as being, well, questions. Which is why the conversation usually ends up like this:

Woman: (Thinking to herself, “Oh dear. There he goes looking like Grandpa Georg wearing those horrible sandals with socks up to his ankles and shorts.* This has got to stop.”) Are you sure you want to wear your socks with sandals while you walk around with me today?

Man: (Innocently thinking that this is the beginning of a nice conversation) Yeah! They sure are comfortable, and these above-the-ankle-high socks don’t make my toes get all sweaty and itchy and stinky.

Woman: (Thinking to herself, Okay, too much information.) Um, do you really want to do that?

Man: (Still a little slow to catch on.) Of course! What’s wrong with it?

Now the man has unwittingly placed himself in the death box of gender-dialogue. He is the one who blatantly stated the previously insinuated notion that there is something wrong with his sandals and socks. Since he has provided the woman with an opportunity to fully express her opinion (which will likely be followed by a request to remove the offending shoes and/or socks), this conversation can go in a multitude of directions.

And it all began with an innocent question.

Don’t get me wrong. We women don’t necessarily do this on purpose. It’s truly in our nature to read between the lines, which in turn, often leads us to unintentionally speak between them as well. It’s also quite clear that both men and women use this method of expressing requests. Sometimes, this approach works well, or it can lead to two people being exasperated and thinking that the other is ninny. Instead of presenting a request for action in question form, make it a statement. Any counterpart can figure it out from there. (*By the way, thankfully, my husband is not one of those guys who would wear such a thing. Yes, this had to be clarified.)

Wouldn’t it be funny if all of this were actually in that book? Then this week’s entry would have been this: “I suggest you read page 121 from that book.” And everyone would have understood exactly what I meant.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

30 Seconds of Medical School

Ranting time.

Now, I’m not being judgmental here (wink, wink), but there are some moments in life where I simply have to resort to using one of Mugatu’s most awesome lines in Zoolander: “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” Well, if I am to follow the advice given by the flood of commercials for various medications, I suppose I should. This also drives me nuts. Just take a moment to think about it: You watch one commercial for, say, 30 seconds, and all of sudden you’re a freaking expert on the solution to your health problem. Forget any extra (or actual) research or finding out about alternatives. When those commercials say “Ask your doctor about _____.”, we all know what that really means. No American asks for something. We tell people what we want. Go back to the last time you went and ordered something from the drive thru. Your conversation probably went like this:

“May I take your order?”

“Yeah, I’ll have the number three with no ketchup, cheese, onions or mayonnaise. But I want extra pickles. And I mean extra pickles.”

So you drive up and the first thing you do is aggressively interrogate the server before you’ve even seen the sandwich. “Did you get my extra pickles?”

(By the way, what ever happened to using “please” and “thank you”? It’s as though the use of basic manners is comparable to the fragile existence of an endangered species.)

Now, taking this natural tendency that most of us have and then couple it with the diabolical genius of the pharmaceutical and marketing industries, and well, we’re basically done for. That’s how it’s become the multi-billion dollar industry that it is. Just show images of happy people with perfect teeth playing in front of a perfectly manicured lawn, a painted house, sunshine and a frolicking, non-mangy dog. Throw a puffy-cheeked kid in the scene and/or a car and you’ve basically covered every pharmaceutical commercial except for Viagra. Or maybe some anti-depressant commercials.

All of a sudden, you want this. You’re starting to associate yourself with that images that you’ve seen and turn a deaf ear to the last spoken portion of the commercial. “Side effects may include: loss of appetite, sleep depravation, increase in appetite, weight gain, weight loss, depression, losing an ear, growing a third ear, hallucinating to the point of wanting to have as much plastic surgery as Joan Rivers, sleepwalking, an enlarged heart, shortness of breath, sudden death and thoughts of suicide.”

Really, with the exception of the ears gained/lost and a direct comparison to Joan Rivers, I’ve actually heard all of these comments on real commercials! And this is super-scary to me because I know that people have truly been going to their doctors, “asking” to receive Product X without truly having looked into it. (Otherwise, the frequency of such commercials would have decreased – not the opposite.) And by asking, we all know that means “strongly suggesting”. Forget the fact that their doctor most likely has nearly a decade’s worth of specialized schooling and training under his or her belt; that commercial has made the patient, no, the consumer, the expert. 

And now, during their 5minute consultation (don’t get me started on that), the doctor is likely in the precarious position of having to explain why one shouldn’t take a certain drug just because it was advertised so beautifully on TV. And let’s be honest here: Whether these people walk away with or without that prescription, they feel kinda smug because they’re convinced that they know just as much as their doctor. Then they go and brag about this misconceived perception to others. “Can you believe my doctor didn’t even mention Product X? The nerve!"

Then, months later when scores of people are sleep eating, operating vehicles and heavy machinery while asleep, or worse, lose their lives or endanger the lives of others, a world collectively questions why such things can happen.

xoxo  CountryEuroCityMouse

© 2012 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.