Tag: work

America, Life in General

Working Wounded

Shari

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I don’t think I’m alone. It’s hard to throw myself into a new book while the world is churning with hatred and fear. Hell, with all the selfish ugliness that’s been unmasked in our society right now, it’s hard to keep any faith in humanity as a whole. I find myself stunned and bleeding. I feel emotionally hammered, bruised and disheartened.

So how do we maintain not only our ‘normal’ lives but keep working to stop our country and the world from sliding dangerously backwards.

It’s become so obvious that a large portion of Americans are making what I would call really bad choices. I’m sure some would say the same of me, though the difference is that I don’t want to deprive anyone of anything to satiate my fanaticism, make money, or make myself feel better by making others less.

As people, our choices define us, and those definitions are definitive!

It seems to come to this—Are you willing to be of service to others for the greater good? Do you respect the individual and equal importance of every member of the village? Or are you concerned only about what affects you?

If you are someone who prefers ignorance (choose not to learn anything new) and isolation (America first! Christians first! White males first!) I’d like to share some wisdom with you. It’s not my own wisdom, it’s been going on since man first stood up and walked, even before that when as little more than grunting monkeys we formed groups to hunt and protect our young. Relationships, families, cities, countries, and especially a world of seven billion people do not and will not work if you think only of yourself. If you live alone on an island—Go for it.

I wish there were an island big enough for all of you who think yourselves so much more moral than everyone else so that you could be alone with your specially cherry picked ‘ethics’.

But then how would that work? Everyone on that island would be more important than everyone else. Would you live on a little square and have no contact with others? If one has water and another has a fruit tree, will you not trade or share? Even for your own survival? If one worships the sun and you the moon, do you lay in wait at night to slaughter the day dwellers?

I understand that you are afraid. “Those day people look so scary, they have bronzed skin and sleep in the afternoon, it’s just wrong! They must be wrong because I’ve based the entire justification of my existence on being a moon worshiper, so if they are right, my whole being is invalid.” The fact that it’s okay to worship the moon and the sun cannot be allowed, your brain is too narrow. The idea that nothing needs to be worshiped but instead cared for with love and honesty is unfathomable to such a mentality. It’s hard to be comfortable with what you do not understand. I get it, you are afraid.

Then I am reminded that are so many people, the majority I believe, who are proving that they do care for the greater good. In spite of being mocked, spited, belittled and lied to. We care. We drag our eviscerated hearts out to be stomped again, and we will not stop.

It’s scary for people who know nothing except what they’ve been force fed to listen to other voices. But hear this, not only are the loving strengthened each time we are challenged, you can hear our strong hearts beginning to thrum together. The drumming of stronger wills is growing louder.

And here’s what you should fear. Being left out of the whole, alone and stranded on your island of privilege. Why not be motivated by helping others, by being part of a whole, by asking and searching for answers that work for us all? Why not choose a motion that is fueled by love not fear?

Because now as a society we know too much to cling to the illusions that crimes against humanity are ‘patriotic’ or ‘we’re number one.’ By now, we have seen the abominations that arrogant power mongers and religious fanatics have done to humanity. We have witnessed the suffering and the illusion of ‘us’ and ‘them.’

The number is growing steadily of those who see the insanity of assumed privilege for what it is, a shallow veil for narcissism and evil. More and more are refusing to become that kind of sub-person, to teach that ignorance, to pass on the onus of that fear to the next generation.

Because where will that take us? We already know, we’ve been there. Again and again and again.

To see oppression and elitism as things that are good, or far worse ‘patriotic’ tells me that you listened only to one frightened voice. You have allowed in only the words of the men and women who have justified their bad behavior, who need to control you with fear, who—if they had the courage to admit what they truly value—would stand naked and exposed for their pettiness and their heinous crimes. And all they have to cover themselves is a manmade flag.

A good quick example of that kind of misinformation and justification is an early slave trader. A man who we credit with having ‘discovered’ a country with hundreds of thousands of people living on it already. He enslaved those people, killed them, hunted them with dogs, sold girls as sexual slaves (the nine to eleven year olds were the most popular) and still, to avoid teaching our children our actual history because they might learn the truth from it, (I get it, you are afraid) we have elevated this monster to a national hero. Yes, it’s Christopher Columbus.

You don’t have to believe me. You can read Columbus’s own diary, and his son’s who went on to become governor of the islands after him. Together, they are responsible for the deaths of six million people, an entire race.We don’t teach our children who he really was and what he did because we are ashamed.

Aren’t you proud?

Ask yourself, do you need to see “America” as an unassailable shining ball of light? Or can you acknowledge that it has deep veins of evil, profiteering, power mongering that, far from being wiped out, are alive and festering in today’s Americans. Perhaps because we have not faced the truth about ourselves and our history.

The US is not fucking Tinkerbell. It’s a living, breathing, changing organism of which we are all parts, cells, if you will, of a greater body. When one part gets a cancer, the whole being suffers, shrivels, and wastes away.

So today I will hitch up my sagging heart, try to lift my jaw from the floor where it keeps falling and love again. I will raise my eyes to the horizon and focus on a happier future. I will create, I will help where and when I can with what comes before me. I will fight, broken and bruised, flinching even, but moving forward, embracing the change that is the evolution of our species.

I didn’t start out this way. I was raised white, privileged, Christian, and if I’m honest, afraid of what I didn’t understand. So I set out to meet my ignorance and I changed. I know this fight may leave me with cauliflower ears and permanent brain damage, or I may die trying to pull out a comrade, but I will have learned, listened, traveled and acknowledged the rights of others as equal to my own. I will know what my choices are and why.

I will belong.

Will you?

Come on, if I can do it, you can do it.

 

Shari, January 30th, 2017.

 

 

Acting & Experiences, creating character, family, Life in General, writing

I’m Write and You’re Wrong.

Shari
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Backstage at “Much Ado About Nothing” with three women who are terrific friends.

As the publication date of “Invisible Ellen” looms ever nearer, and the premier screening of “Scream at the Devil” is less than two weeks away, I find my focus turning to two things, reworking the book’s sequel, “Emerging Ellen,” and making time for my neglected friends.

I’ve been in a work frenzy for the last year, and I have a rather large family, who must, by needs, often come before friends. But now I find myself longing for that simple shared laughter and warm support that only a long time friend can offer. And friends, I realize, could sometimes benefit from some attention from me!

As for the new book, I am doing something I’ve never done before, (though that, in itself, seems to be a theme in my life!) I am removing one complete story line and replacing it with another. Not because I don’t like it, not because it doesn’t have it’s value, heart and excitement, but because I think I’ve gone one plot point too far, and I want to spend the wordage on the building of character.

Sound familiar? They are both the same thing, aren’t they? I could continue to focus on work—which is to say, plot, story, complexities, etc—or I can balance it with time spent with friends—character, laughter, tears, and the arc of developing relationships. As always, I choose both, but my focus, and therefor my time, will be split more evenly.

There’s no right or wrong way to live your life, there’s no ‘supposed to’ or ‘rules,’ there is only what you can do with the strength and passion you have. There are only the choices you make. Do you spend your time seeking ‘success’? Money? Fame? Or do you give to family until there’s nothing left for you? Do you know that there’s a place in between? For us all, there are times, times of great sadness or stress, when we have nothing left to give, and that is when, hopefully, we can turn to others, for a little while, to cast the net that keeps us from falling. And sometimes, we are the ones who need to ‘spot’ our friends, to catch them when they fall.

One good friend just had a baby. She was not trying to get pregnant, did not particularly want children, but it happened and she embraced it, but now finds herself overwhelmed. She said to me, “I don’t really know who I am right now.” Everything in her life is being redefined. I will do what I can to be there for her, to take the baby for a few hours so that she can breathe and remember who she is. I will take her for walks in pretty places so that she not only remembers who she is, but also discovers the magnificent new person she is becoming. And I will devote some of my attention to lauding her for the strength it takes.

I have another friend whose husband passed away a month ago. He drank himself to death, and in the process of his destructive behavior, he left her in a legal and emotional battlefield which she must now face alone, deserted by him. I cannot bury my face in my computer and ignore her pain and need. I might not be able to fix all that, but I can remind her of her grace and class, buoy her up to face the legion of lawyers and the nightmare of uncovering the depth of her husband’s betrayal. I will talk to her as often as I can, I will take a day off to visit a museum with her and remind her that life is bigger, that there is more, that the future holds beauty.

These things take time and energy to do well. That time and energy will come from other areas of my life that will have to slip from fevered pitch to low idling hum. But I feel lucky all the same.

What more can we do? I cannot live others lives for them, they must do that, I am only a character in their story. Writing a book, I can change the story, I can effect the change that brings about the ending as I want it to be, and I truly believe that it is the same in life. We create our friendships and relationships in a different way, and to a different degree, but we can rewrite our story, we can be a strong supporting cast in the dramas that belong to others. And this, we must do, not because it’s the ‘right’ thing to do, but because it makes us complete.

I decided long ago, or perhaps ‘realized’ is more the mot juste, that I need balance to make a real life and be happy. Success to me, equals happiness, not fame or money, or the envy of others. I needed something besides the pursuit of stardom and big houses, that is to say, the things that other people tend to envy. What I needed was to contribute sometimes, and sit back and revel other times, in sunlight on leaves, on the victories of others. What use is a life lived only for how it appears to others? The greatest danger there, in this world of social media and constant exposure, is that people invent themselves to look good to others… and then they begin to believe it. And then they can’t live without that approval and admiration, because they have nothing else.

It reminds me of Michael Caine, when we were working on “On Deadly Ground.” We were sitting in the makeup trailer and I was laughing about a story I had read about myself in an Italian rag magazine that stated that I had been institutionalized for mental illness, overwrought with jealousy. I said, “It’s crazy, the Italians just make stuff up and print it!”

And Michael leaned around his makeup artist and said in that charming cockney accent, “The Italians have got nothing on the British. In England, they make it up…and then they prove it!” We laughed about it.

So, make up your own story, but live it honestly, and make the story about you, not about someone else. Do it for you, not for what you think others see. Give because it makes you better, spend time supporting and cheering for your friends, and even strangers, because it fills your heart and reminds you that we are connected and that without that connection, we are unfulfilled and no trip to the mall, no McMansion will ever fill that frightening void of separation. Remember only this, other’s lives belong to them, yours to you. Own it, fill it, live it, share it, and do it for love and joy.

Write your own story, so that when you read it back, you smile.

 

Shari April 23, 2014

Life in General

Sleep and Other Luxuries.

Shari
The glorious bedroom of the Medici suite at the Fairmont on Knob Hill.
The glorious bedroom of the Medici suite at the Fairmont on Knob Hill.

Well, it’s official, the film “Scream at the Devil” is, as they say, ‘in the can.’ Though of course, ‘on card and logged into the computer’ is more accurate these days. It’s strange to make a film without actual film, but hey, times change. And speaking of change, and time, I have a new book to write!

We had a blast during the shooting, and when it was over, well after dawn on a Saturday  morning, I went to bed, leaving the crew to whoop it up around my pool until all hours of the early afternoon. For the next few days, I took my daughter to school, and then went to bed again. Now I’m up in San Francisco and I’m still not sure when I’m supposed to sleep or get up, mostly though, it’s really nice to get into bed.

Especially in a suite at the Fairmont, a little congratulations gift from my amazing mate. Let me tell you about those five star sheets. If you are a man and you are not a biker, a swimmer, or a cross dresser, then I’m sorry, because you will never know the joy of that egyptian cotton on freshly shaved legs. Mmmm. It’s, frictionless, and yet, so fluffy.

Writing is a solitary business, except for editors, of course, and there’s nobody to screw up your work with bad lighting or silly sound design. But a film is another animal, (perhaps ‘zoo’ is more the mot juste) and it isn’t over when we call wrap! Now we get to put the film together, shot by shot, and add in special effects, sound and music. This, my friends, is where the movie is made or lost. It just doesn’t matter how good my performance is if the the editor has no sense of timing or drama. I can manifest all the fear of Satan I want, but if the composer puts a spritely polka underneath it, the tension, we can assume, will be lost. Post production, almost more than the visuals themselves, tell the audience where to look and what to feel.

So once again, I come back to the refrain that a film is something we do with a group of people and no one person is more important than any other. I did have one ‘actor’ experience on this film, where the actor thinks that it’s all about them, and I swear I wanted to stab them. Perhaps that’s because I was holding a butcher’s knife at the time.

Here’s the deal, do not—ever—show up on a set without knowing your lines and call yourself a professional. What would people think if the camera assistants showed up, and then began to figure out how to pull focus? You would fire them and get someone who knows what they are doing and doesn’t waste everyone’s time.  When you keep fifty people waiting while you get your shit together, whether that’s knowing your lines, or building up to a emotional point, you have not done your homework, and you are not good at your job.

Period.

In any other job, you would be ostracized at least, and eventually fired if you did it more than once, yet in film, actors are coddled and even ‘bad’ behavior has come to be expected and accepted by the unwitting crew. Not that anyone behaved badly on “Scream” far from it, we had a terrific group of people and I’m lucky to have a bevy of new friends, but you get my rant, uh, drift.

One of the things I’m most proud of in my acting career is the fact that almost every director I’ve ever worked with has worked with me more than once. There’s been a few I declined to work with again for a variety of reasons and, I’m sure, a few of them who are more than content to continue in their careers without me, and that’s fine. Personalities happen. But I hope to hell I was on time, prepared, and easy to work with. It’s my job to make their job easier, not harder, to Serve the Piece, and the most important thing to remember in a film or TV  show, or play, or any job actually, is—Am I doing the best thing for the overall result? For the Company? For the charity? For the school? Whatever it is you do. The question should never, ever, ever be—Is this the best way to get more for me?

Because it isn’t about any one person. Just like life, just like families, offices, countries, just like…fill in the blank. We are in this together.

I had a wonderful, exhausting, exhilarating, draining, and heartfelt experience with this group of people, and I’m so glad to have met all of them. It was my first experience where most of the cast and crew were younger than myself, and it was really very cool to be the ‘mom’ to everybody, and to see so many of them at the beginning of what will be very long and rewarding careers.

As far as the sleepiness is concerned, it’s understandable. Just consider this; not only did I work 13 hour days, or nights, as the case may be, but I put myself through an emotional sieve. To recreate all the insanity and sorrow, I went through the equivalent of five funerals, four near-death experiences, and a week’s worth of cocaine paranoia.

While I hope you have experienced none of these things, if you’ve been through even one, you’ll know how exhausting it can be. No wonder the sheets at the fabulous Fairmont are singing me a lullaby.

And now, back to mom-hood, and writing. I owe a sequel to “Invisible Ellen” by the end of year and I’m not really sure what that will be about yet. Multiple careers are a blast, but I do sometimes feel like I need someone to turn me in the right direction. Point and shoot. It’s a question of focus, but only of that. Even as I write this, I feel ideas forming, stories lurking, and plots unfolding. The blurriness is starting to clear. Oh, there she is, Ellen, and she’s beckoning, “Come on, lazy bones, write me!”

Gotta go, darn, I’ll miss this duvet.

Do what you love until you are exhausted, and then, let yourself rest, you earned it.

Shari, June 12th, 2013.

Life in General

When it Rains…I Love It!

Shari
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The view from my front porch where I won’t be spending much time in the next few months!

Okay, I’ve been hesitant to write a blog since my return from Italy and I figured out why. I miss it and I think it was my way of prolonging the experience.

But, like so much in life that we look forward to with such excitement, we must learn to look back on it with fondness and gratefulness. I feel so thankful for my time in Venice, yet it is only with the promise that I will return that I can ease the gentle twist on my heart that is so much like home sickness. 

Of course, we spent a good deal of time filming while we were there, and got some amazing footage. Venice in the snow, churches of remarkable beauty, streets that echo the footsteps of a thousand years and more, and now we are back and into full scale pre-production for the shoot of “Scream at the Devil.” 

And not just that, but while I was in Venice I sold a new book! The hardcover of “Invisible Ellen’ will be out spring summer of 2014. 

Yep, 2014. Here’s what non-writers don’t know. I wrote the book, I worked with an editor on my own, I had it copy edited, it sold—and now the work begins. 

The book was picked up by a senior editor at Penguin. Nita has been around for a while, she was so excited about Invisible Ellen that she bought it in two days. I think that’s a record, my agent had to ask her twice what book she was calling him about, he’d never had that happen before, and that’s all great. But this is one savvy woman, and her notes are both insightful and extensive. 

So I have 400 plus pages of homework, and every note she gave me is good, complex, and requires major thought, creativity and old-fashioned hours of work. 

Yea!! I do love this part, it’s intimidating at first, but as I go, I usually realize that what seems like a major story changer that will require massive rewrites can actually be condensed into touching up a few segments. I should be able to get it done in a month. 

Except of course, I’m producing and acting in a film at the same time. Yesterday we had our leading man tell us that he’s booked a major movie for some of the same dates as our filming, and that’s all good for us, publicity wise, but when you’ve packed the majority of a film into 15 days, and scheduled cranes, jibs, dollies, camera packages, crew, makeup, special effects, other actors, locations, reworking the schedule is equivalent to putting your good china in a large wooden box and shaking it really hard, then sorting out the pieces and gluing them back together. 

So…not a lot of time for delving back into Ellen’s very unique and complex story. 

Yep, when it rains, I say, bring it. 

I don’t  know if you are like me, but I find that the more I have to do, the more I get done. So, here’s my blog wisdom for the day— when it comes, take it on, you will find a way. 

Oh, yeah, and also, because we had to slide the film shoot, on top of everything else, I insisted that we be done filming in time for younger daughter’s graduation and my older daughter’s move-out day from college. 

Because nothing is more important than living your life. I didn’t take 10 years off of TV and film to raise my girls to miss those landmarks now. I love acting and writing, and being a mom and a wife. I will do each of these things to very best of my ability. 

So, here it goes, ask, receive, do. Success isn’t the job you have, it’s how well you do it. 

And do it with joy, what else is there? 

Shari April 16th, 2013