Pandora

“So I got this box from my parents the other day...”

“Oh dear Lord, not “the box”...” my friend RJ shuddered “psychically” on the phone before I’d even begun to explain anything.  (What can I tell you, we’ve known each other since kindergarten and we both know our families all too well.)  “I got “the box”, well, actually three of them a few years ago from my parents, and I kinda wished I’d never opened them” he added.  “Did you already open yours?” he winced.

Honestly, I don’t know if this is strictly an American tradition, or perhaps just a Midwest curse upon children who grow up and move away, or if this is a worldwide phenomenon.  But where I come from, there exists an apparently unspoken parental rite of passage; an inexplicable day, month or year, when those that have labored, nurtured and sacrificed for the care of their young, purge the guano of the bat colony’s pups out of the cave for good.

Having left a precious golden chest (I kid you not!) of treasures from my childhood, high school and college years in my parent’s Fortress (again, I kid you not); apparently my time capsule of memorabilia had reached its expiration date.

And so my parents shipped me my schist.
 

 

Slicing open my Pandora’s Box, I immediately marveled at my childhood collection of spectacular geodes.  Oh, the quartz, the calcite, the pyrite, (and yes) the schist!  Oh, the hand-written catalogue of every fossil and geological stone I’d ever unearthed, or spent my hard earned allowance on the purchase of such delightful hand polished treasures!   There was even my very favorite slab of amethyst cradled maternally in a tissue!  And continuing my archeological dig, I was suddenly ten years old, holding 1,000 year old lava “glass” in my hot little hands!

(Yes, I collected rocks.  And I’ll hop on a High Horse right now if you make fun of me.)

 

Chronologically out of order, I next stumbled upon a few items from my years at the University; including some sentimental items of clothing, as well as my glitter-bedazzled mortarboard (graduation tassel still attached), which my Mom had blissfully contained in its own plastic baggie.  (Uck... GLITTER!  One tiny nostalgic peek inside the bag, and I wound up with about five specks of gold mocking me on the carpet, which having travelled across the US, had now begun to nomadically multiply and maneuver their way throughout my entire apartment.  (Sure I can run a vacuum over those glistening dots a gazillion times, flick them around easily with my pinkie and vacuum again, but they WON’T GO AWAY.)

Nevertheless!

Delving into the bottom of my Pandora’s Box, I smiled fondly at some High School items which I hadn’t seen in decades; and looking forward to all the sentimental goo attached to those formative years, I actually gasped at the Evil horrors which I had unwittingly released...

Rummaging through a Senior Album of sorts, I excavated what must’ve been an envelope of fifty or so class pictures of my schoolmates from the 80’s – all with embarrassingly gigantic Aqua Net hair-sprayed bangs in the photos, coupled with optimistic swirly handwriting on the back; most of which were emblazoned with the same sentiment over and over of “don’t ever change!”  (Dear GOD, what were we THINKING?)

Now, from a purely archeological pondering over the unfortunate documentation of our desired “look” back in the day, I couldn’t help but wonder:  A.) Was there a time in the Pleistocene period of Neanderthals when their children looked up at the cave paintings of their parents and grunted an “Ooogh” with embarrassment that the elders felt comfortable mixing and matching so many clashing animal prints?   B.) Exactly how much of the earth’s ozone did my classmates and I destroy with all of that aerosol in order to try to look like Farrah Fawcett?  C.) Will the offspring of today’s youth look back at Grandpa’s Facebook page forty years from now and wonder why Gramps’ plaid boxers rode so much higher than his pants, as well as how could Grandpa even sit down when his designer back hip pockets were drooping behind his knees?   

But I digress!

Mining further into the pre-printed album which provided fill-in spaces for our answers to such penetrating questions as “favorite teacher”, “favorite class” and “favorite part about being a senior”, I was mortified by the majority of my responses. 

The shards of history glared at me – the snot-nosed, self-entitled, demonic teenage rebellious ramblings of a smart-assed brat who thought she knew absolutely everything there was to know in the world at the tender age of 18.  Good Lord, how on earth did my parents ever put up with me?  (Seriously -- if I were them, I would’ve saved myself the drama and devoured my young.)  No wonder they wanted to get rid of my schist!

(Side Note:  As I so often share my dreams on this blog – nocturnal and/or realized – I must say that I thrashed uncomfortably in my sleep that night, as I found myself being bullied by modern day teenaged girls with iPhones who mocked me relentlessly whilst we were stuck in a trapped elevator of a high rise building.) 

(Yeah, don’t really need an interpretative book to dissect that one.)

However!

My archeological dig into Pandora’s Box, did proffer some long lost treasures:

Disbanding the final sacred burial tomb (actually it was a Christmas tin with two rubber bands around it), I delicately parted the Shroud of Turin (or, you know, my Mom used a towel) and stared wide-eyed at the trove before me...

Could it be?  Were there really ninety or so Pirate “pieces of 80’s”?

In perhaps my most spectacular dig into the past (lava glass rocks and fossils notwithstanding), I’d recovered promotional buttons from my favorite 1980’s musical bands!

There were Adam and the Ants!  There was Loverboy!  There were the Police!  There was Bow Wow Wow!  There was even Van Halen (prior to the Sammy Hagar years)!

 

But shining humbly like the Holy Grail among the throngs of musical idols (yes, Billy Idol was also represented), sat one innocuous button; a true homage to the days of yore; nay, a carpenter’s relic who knew not what prophecies might be built upon such a humble undertaking.

Yes my friends, I have in my possession, the VERY FIRST MTV Birthday cake pin with a one year candle on it!  (Believe it or not children, they used to actually ONLY show music videos on that channel!  (The button is dead center if you can see it above.))  And to this day, I’ll never forget the very first MTV premiere of The Buggles performing “Video Killed the Radio Star" – the unsung heroes who I believe innocently launched what has now evolved into the universal phenomenon known as You Tube.

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After spending some time with Pandora’s Box, I think I’ve begun to make peace with my past, present and future.  (Although I must say, I’m STILL experiencing lucid dreams which take place in the house where I grew up.)

But at least I now fully understand my compulsion to occasionally spend a few bucks on a piece of jewelry as long as the rocks catch my eye.  My inner youthful Geologist deserves to be nurtured and respected for the vast advances she achieved as a child.  (That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!)

In reverence to my High School years, I pulled out an iTunes gift card that had been gathering dust in a drawer since a television Director gave it to me awhile back; and sorting through the catalogue of available songs online, I now possess a small library of tracks which hurtle my pea brain twenty years back into the punk rock/post-punk era should I ever feel nostalgic for the days when I hadn’t a care in the world that was bigger than my hair.

And as to the University which provided some structure towards my “glistening” future, I’m bravely embracing the new world and all of its shining opportunities.  After all, I’ve made it all the way to Tinsel Town!  And despite a temporary slump this year in gainful employment, my hopes remain high for crawling in on the ground floor of any potentially highly rated successful sit-com later in the fall season.

Now, if I could just excavate the brain of the snot-nosed know-it-all brat from my past that once was me, perhaps I could learn how to download iTunes music from my computer to my Kindle Fire (Ooogh!), and figure out how to recover a picture lost in the cavernous depths of my cell phone!

Wishing you all a box full of joy,

~”Pendora”

Penny (the Dime a Dozen), Television Armchair Quarterback

 

 

Ah, Tinsel Town!  The glitz!  The glamour!  The fame!  The fortune!  The bounty of residual checks shining like winning Lottery tickets in the mailbox!

Ah, the EDD...  The unemployment forms...  The bureaucratic red tape... Both the bane and vein of life for an unemployed actor such as myself...

But such is a day (or in my case, months) in the life of Hollywood!

Most accustomed to filling out the banal paperwork for my Government cheese on the dole, I took off my glasses to delicately scribble in the miniature bubbles of the standard document. (What can I say; I’m an anomaly.  Blind as a bat my entire life; but seriously, sans eyewear, I could etch your name on a grain of rice.)

But I digress!

I wasn’t sure if I was saddened at the one year “anniversary” of losing my feline sidekick Pretty, or feeling a bit out of sorts that one of my best friends was suddenly incommunicado into the “drunk tank” (not my words) for a month; but staring at the aforementioned form before me, I waxed philosophical at the questions:

1.  Were you too sick or injured to work?

Hmm... 

Having purchased new bedding months ago with my tax refund, the unopened box still sat quietly in my living room.  Pillows, shams, a duvet and matching sheets awaited the glorious redecoration of my sleeping sanctuary – a cleansing homage to moving on in Life, as well as a tribute to my beloved feline sidekick that (should she choose to pop by again in a dream), Pretty could pounce on kitty-barf-free linens! 

Of course that also meant a tedious load of laundry, a minimum of ten quarters (if I got the inefficient dryer) and trekking outside to buy a new bottle of bleach...

Not to mention the fresh hell picture below:

Seriously?  I’m supposed to toddle outside to the laundry room beneath a two story ladder looming ominously over the front gate?  Just what kind of superstitious mind-fuckery are my crappy landlords playing at now?  Come on!

But once again, I digress.

So was I “too sick or injured to work?”  (Well, only to do the laundry!)

Color bubble “NO” on EDD form.

    2.    Was there any reason (other than sickness or injury) that you could not have accepted full time work each workday?

Hmm...

Having taken Cecilia (my Toyota) for a proper bath and triple foamy rainbow-colored frothiness, she rewarded me by once again turning off her “check engine” light in gratitude; so with the assurance of my trusty automobile in my quiver of arrows with which to attack any cowboy renegade cable sit-coms still up and running, I confidently colored in the “NO” bubble once again.

   3.    Did you look for work?

DID I LOOK FOR WORK???  Are you KIDDING me?!?!  I’m ridiculously blessed to be a tiny part of a massive industry that won my heart as a child!  My kingdom for a new show and a steady paycheck!

And yes... I even succumbed to humbly checking the recorded line from the Casting Company that usually hires me – only to hear that they were currently seeking only Background Actors for three projects:  one which required a “student” with a back pack (I have a back pack!), who is “18 years old to look younger, African-American, and small in physique to shoot in San Pedro” (I’m a great actress, but I’m not THAT good...) (And where the heck is San Pedro?); secondly, a Non-Union gig for females size 0 to 10, ages 25 to 50 (I’m in that range!), willing to be available for filming in Irvine (Where the fuck is Irvine?); followed by a final listing of women who possess automobiles that were manufactured prior to 1975.

(The blinds were down, the windows shut in my bat cave, but I’ll be darned if Cecilia didn’t “Harrumph” from her parking spot outside at the mere thought of playing older.)

So did I look for work?  Color bubble “YES” on EDD form.

4.  Did you refuse any work?

What am I, stupid?

Color bubble “NO” on EDD form.

     5.  Did you begin any kind of school or training?

Whilst I’d not spent any money to enroll at the local Annex for a class on learning the ins and outs of show biz, I had taken to some serious studying on my own... 

With nothing but idle hands during my down time, I focused on the research that might help ultimately provide a new insight into the field of television production; specifically a broadening of my horizons, should I ever be offered the opportunity to work on a single camera one-hour drama.  (Not my forte, but I’m willing to learn!)

Sure I could stand-in for a shot for lighting here or there; but the more I studied the shows, the more petulantly annoyed I became with the entire process...

In the fertile land outside of sit-coms, approximately ten actors/actresses are hired to star in absolutely everything!  And guess who the villain, villainess or victim always turns out to be? 

Actually, it’s quite simple math, as the actor/actress is either portrayed in the opening credits as a “Special Guest Star”, or provided with the divine “AND” at the end of the credits.  (Don’t get me wrong, a “with” credit is a strong showing, but a “with” is never as financially lucrative as an “AND”.) 

AND, studying my television for further tell-tales signs of the formula behind one hour dramas, I shook my head in dismay...

Apparently, before asking any simple question of a distraught widow regarding the death of her husband, she’s granted approximately ten minutes of utter silence in deference to brewing hot tea for the detectives.  Really?  Everyone sits there quietly for as long as it takes for a kettle to boil water?  (Well, there go my real life chances of ever being considered as an expert eyewitness, since I’d be lucky to dredge up a twenty-year old packet of Oolong.)

So did I begin any kind of school or training?  (Only if you count the fact that I learned how NOT to win an Emmy someday!) 

Color bubble “NO”.

6.  Did you work or earn any money, WHETHER YOU WERE PAID OR NOT?
 

Uck.  This one always gets my goat. 

In my opinion, I’m working every single second that I watch TV.  I study the actors, I observe the lighting, I question Director’s choices (seriously, one more pot of tea?), I rewind at poor grammar, and having ever-so reluctantly spread my wings into the occasional dose of “reality television” have wanted to bitch-slap whoever came up with most of that crap.  (Insert two guilty pleasures:  “Bar Rescue” (essentially an intervention for people who can’t run a business), and “Beyond Scared Straight” (a no-nonsense jail program to help at-risk children change their rotten behavior).

So, yeah, in a way I’m forever working during my down time (albeit not as defined by the Unemployment Department).

Humbly once again color bubble “NO”.

Yet meanwhile, I feel quite good about continuing to hone my craft at home!

I’ve re-learned that if you’re working with a burly veteran actor such as John Goodman (I did!), find your key light! 

If you’re stuck with a newbie fresh-faced comer out of God-Only-Knows-What-School-of-Sucky-Acting, teach him to enunciate! 

And should you ever be blessed to work with the genius actor Jere Burns (I did that too!), stand back and let the Hollywood magic happen.  (Insert personal television armchair quarterback opinion, that as truly lovely as a person Jere is, he scared the CRAP out of me with his performance on the A and E series “Bates Motel”!!!)

Cheers to Tinsel Town,

I’ll be watching you...

~Eagle-eyed P

Author’s Addendum:  In a spectacular twist of Fate whilst writing this post, I accidentally tripped over the leg of my computer table and landed flat on my tail bone.  (OW!!!)  I’m sure I’ll be fine - but for now, I’m a slave to Advil, ice packs and a heating pad.  Thank God for cable television to keep me company! 

Oh!  And if Simon Baker from “The Mentalist” should happen to want to comfort me by brewing a cup of tea for me in my current state of distress, well, I suppose that would be okay...  ;-)

 

NIGHT TERRORS

 

After a full day of serial killers on my TiVo and a large bowl of pasta for a comforting late supper, I drifted contentedly off to sleep to the lulling sounds of my television, only to “wake up” in what appeared to be an insane asylum.

Naturally I hadn’t any idea that I was a complete lunatic as my delusions seemed quite real; so I felt absolutely no hesitation as I attempted to cuddle maternally on a couch with “Dr. Spencer Reid” (aka actor Michael Gray Gubler from Criminal Minds), whilst bonding amicably over the fact we were both sporting mismatched socks.  And agreeing to be my “special friend” who would protect me from the rest of the patients (I assumed they were just Hollywood extras), I felt my left arm go numb as I drifted off to a deep sleep.

Coming to (in what felt like only moments later), I found myself roaming the grounds of the massive estate with FBI liaison “J.J.” (aka actress A.J. Cook, also from Criminal Minds) as I confidentially shared the story of Dr. Reid and myself, although I was relatively certain that the whole experience had been nothing more than a mildly lucid dream. 

And promising never to divulge my secret, J.J. and I ambled arm in arm along, taking small notice of both “Kimball Cho” and “Grace Van Pelt” (aka actor Tim Kang and actress Amanda Righetti from The Mentalist); who jumped feet-first into a deep ceramic fountain beneath a monumental sculpture of Venus de Milo, so as to interview a massively-scarred Vietnamese woman who was currently swimming the backstroke.

“She’s just another extra without a speaking role, but don’t worry; they’re paying her a lot of money for both treading water and sitting in the make-up chair for four hours” J.J. patted my hand comfortingly.

Suddenly back inside the Common Room, I espied the aforementioned Matthew Gray Gubler, offered him a seat on the couch and promptly apologized for confusing him with his on-screen character.  Of course I knew the difference (since I too am an actor in Hollywood), and I was looking forward to an intellectual discussion about his favorite episodes that he had actually directed.

But with a noticeable “cuckoo” twisting finger next to her head, J.J. telepathically transmitted my embarrassing dream to him; which sent him reeling into a maniacal fit of humiliating laughter as my right arm suddenly became numb. 

And back to sleep I went.

Sitting in my padded room with the door wide open, I felt distracted.  The little dollhouse shadowbox in my lap glistened with shining gems that I was somehow supposed to collect, but a youngish character actress (whom I couldn’t quite place) was hounding me to watch her pet rabbit for a week while she got to leave the grounds for a few days.  And finally agreeing to do so, I placed the floppy-eared bunny into my deceased kitty’s carrier for safe keeping, whilst the girl unpacked a cardboard box of complex Doppler weather monitoring equipment.

Returning to the diorama however, I only had enough time to amass three diamonds, which actually turned out to be miniature Barbie doll-sized light bulbs in the palm of my hand. 

And that’s when it (literally!) dawned on me... 

I was seriously an inpatient in an insane asylum!

Well, no wonder everyone was acting so crazy!  Oh, but now I had the proof!  Yes, the next time the doctors stuck a needle in the arm, I’d have my little stash of light bulbs hidden somewhere next to the bunny rabbit to prove my sanity!  After all, clearly I’d burrowed deep Undercover with the assistance of the FBI to expose the ugly secrets of mental health care; and upon discovering my encoded notebook which would eventually lead to the Nobel winning story I would publish, the staff had taken to medicating me to maintain my silence.  Duh!  (Naturally, I felt a twinge of guilt that Barbara Walters would have to come out of retirement to host the special interview, but I figured the ol’ gal could hack it.)

Back in the Common Room, I found J.J. working on a legal file folder, sitting at a wooden table under a large white umbrella.  (“Quite smart of her” I thought, since it was raining indoors that day.)  And taking a seat on the throne at the head of the table, I asked where my favorite Dr. Reid had gone.  Without so much as a blink, she pointed upward, and then steadily continued to secretively complete my paperwork. 

Sure enough, climbing steadily up the side of the umbrella like a monkey in the Amazon, there appeared Dr. Reid, who stopped momentarily to shriek at me through the canvas.

“You do know that you have to give back the rabbit, right?” J.J. suddenly looked up at me with shifty eyes, whispering as she scanned the room.

The BUNNY!!! 

Tearing my padded cell apart, I eventually found the cage which I’d left unattended for a week, and panicked at the sight of a furry misshapen creature which had morphed into something not of this earth.  “You must be so hungry!  You must be so thirsty!” I cried in horror, racing outside into the darkness to bathe the creature in the fountain – only to discover that massive steel bars surrounded the water to prevent the inmates from drowning at night.  “Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh, I know there’s a hose around here somewhere!” I shrieked, lapping the massive estate twice until I finally found one.

Unfortunately, the landscapers had gone digital, and the only way to get water out of the hose was to interface the cable with a USB port.  “Oh, you poor thing” I wept profusely, trying to un-mat a dirty clump of fur as the creature began to wearily lap at the water running over its “head” and “back”.    

“Don’t worry, he’s relatively resilient” the character actress (whom I still couldn’t place) suddenly appeared.  “Just tell me; where the hell is the Doppler weather equipment?”

I wasn’t sure how we got there, but the next thing I knew I was standing in someone else’s kitchen, trembling in terror as the furry creature morphed upright into a raven-haired man with piercing black eyes.  “You’ve still got some gunk in your fur there...” I fearfully pointed to the back of his head.

“Ghirardelli dark chocolate squares” he snapped at me, slapping away my hand irritably.  And breezing past me through a wall of hanging beads into a room full of actors dressed in Shakespearian costumes, I knew I had to ask the hard-hitting question for my Nobel winning research.

“So are you a rabbit who changes into a man, or a man who changes into a rabbit?”

And theatrically slinking toward me to stare me down face to face, he took my chin in his hand and announced sagely, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your ring, ring, ring.”

Bolting upright in a cold sweat in the sanctity of my own home, in my own bed, I was relieved to be awakened by the sound of an annoying telemarketer abusing my land line and answering machine, as well as my television volume on low, which happened to be airing an old episode of CSI: Miami, with actor David Caruso starring as “Horatio Caine”. 

Good grief, what an exhausting sequence of events!  I was amazed at the highly specific details of the dream in the light of day; yet still moderately shaken up at the experience as the sanitarium had seemed as real and plausible as the cold rain in the Common Room!

In hindsight of course, quite a bit of the bizarre events did make a modicum of sense...

Obviously the open-door padded room reflected my current comfort zone; the numbness in my arms were likely my pea-brain’s gentle way of subconsciously reminding me to occasionally roll my ass over during hard-core sleep; the diamond light bulbs were probably flashbacks to spending too much time playing games on my Kindle; the cameo appearances by actors were noticeably fresh from my day of TiVo cleaning; and the blurbs of confusion over the Doppler effect could easily be dismissed as a couple of simple reports from local weathermen on the television.     

As to the attention to detail – well, that’s understandably a nudge from my right brain feeling neglected by repetitious logical overuse of the left brain whilst solving crossword puzzles; and even the “bunny” (I suspect), symbolically represented mourning over the upcoming one year Anniversary of losing my heroic feline best friend Pretty last May 25th...

>>><<< 

Methodical interpretations aside, I couldn’t ignore the yearning for a bit of comfort food (no pasta or after-dinner mints this time!) to assist in my mental recovery.   

And where would I naturally choose to go?

Wheeling Cecilia (my car) into the McDonald’s drive-thru, I drooled (non-psychotically, mind you) in anticipation over the juicy, properly seasoned Angus burger patty (complimented with double slices of Swiss cheese and a dollop of mayo) that I hadn’t savored in approximately two weeks. 

“I’m sorry, but we don’t carry that specific menu item anymore” the employee informed me flatly.

(What, wait, WHAT???)

“They weren’t really selling all that great, so yeah” he continued.

(What, wait, WHAAAT???)

“We have a few of the other Angus choices left for now, but Corporate’s totally discontinuing the Angus burgers May 23rd.  But they’re introducing a brand new line of sandwiches after that!” he offered cheerily.

And the nightmare continues...

Paging Dr. Reid for medication (STAT!),

~Patient “X”

Author’s Addendum:  I debated over whether or not to include the following; but after the last two weeks of countless hours of talking, and with my friend’s blessing, I wanted to put out a universal wish of love and good luck to “Logan” as a new journey begins.  Logan has bravely faced a personal severe alcohol abuse problem, and will be voluntarily checking into rehab tomorrow for the next thirty days.  I’ll miss you my friend, but clearly (since I’m dreaming about being in a padded room) I’m already with you in spirit!!!