RANT HERE

[Rachel Peters]

Bratz

Completely unrelated to anything performance related, as are most of my posts, which a many...

Does this bother anyone else as much as it does me?

http://www.toysrus.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&catalogId=10051&langId=-1&productId=64212

Baby Bratz. They're everywhere, in all the toy stores, and they're, like, baby hooker dolls. ...I could write an essay on everything that's wrong with this product, but I'll refrain ...for now. I think the product speaks loudly enough for itself.

me = angry at the world.

[le pire]

I just did a show with a stand up comedian who was also an impressionist.

By stand up comedian I mean he got only applause and no laughs and by impressionist I mean he just quoted TV shows.




etienne

[jester]

I WOZ WRONG!

I just got phoned by a company wanting to provide my phone service for cheaper than the company I'm with now. I get this for electricity and for gas and other utilities.

They never take your name off the list.

So I asked the guy why when the economy was booming he was wasting his obvious bright personality by phoning me....

Another f*ing actor between jobs... 3 years at a drama school so he could pretend to enjoy his job on the phone. What a waste! I'll bet he ends up working in arts administration running a course on how to fill in grant application forms.

What WANK!

So we had a chat about acting and agents and auditions and he admitted that he had been doing this job for three weeks and in that time he had done absolutely nothing in the way of auditions or looking for real work.......

I told him to get off his arse before three weeks became three months, became three years.....

"Yeah, but I have to pay the rent."

And I have changed my mind.

Telesales is a way of weeding out the lame from our industry. Evan and Ettiene survive the telemarketing raquet and move on to travel the world, and that moron continues to fill a niche where he isn't really causing any real harm until he gets a proper job so he can buy a house in Acacia Avenue.

Yes telesales provides a valid service. Let them live their dreams in their own heads, where dreams belong. I shall oppose them. I shall save their souls.....

[Evan Young]

LOL
that's a good story jester.
Last night I had Jonathan Burns and Jason Moffet up at my place so that we could hustle the Conneticut parks and rec trade show confrence type thing. I was scheduled for a shift at the phone job, but I didn't go. I was suposed to call in to cancle, but I forgot. it's not a problem; one of the supervisors told me that if I didn't show up he would just list me as a cancel and not a no show. Not bad.


The job is mind numbing though. It's hard to have a complete thought after a five hour shift, and the pay really sucks. if only I was in telesales and not tele-survey, cuz those guys get paid considerabley more.. but I have had some funny instances...... I was about to type it all out, but it wouldn't be funny unless I immitated the voices of the people.
I do get some pleasure out of being very respectfull of people who get annoyed with me for calling, and I do place them on the do not call list if they ask; a lot of times people sound surprised at how curtious I am to them. Some of the morons who work this job don't know how to work the computer, and I have to fill out problem sheet when I catch their mistakes.

[jester]

There is a company that has called me 4 or 5 times in 10 years. One thing that always strikes me is they immediately tell me who they are and that they are selling.

"Hello.. I'm... I'm calling from Zenith Windows. Are you the homeowner?"

I don't mind because they are so straight up about it. And I say I'm sorry but I don't need any windows and they leave me alone for a year or so.. Fair play.

I did warn you about the mind numbing bit though. It can be very tiring.

[le pire]

It's pretty easy to tell when a telemarketer is calling because the can't pronounce my name. So when they ask fo me I usually say "oh... I'm sorry, hadn't you heard? He just died of cancer last week."

loooooooong silence, and then they apologize profusely. Have a nice day!!!


etienne

[Rachel Peters]

or when you're single and they ask for "Mr. or Mrs. Peters", and you know they're just reading your last name from the phone book.
"Nope, sorry. They're not here right now."
Then I hang up and feel ...o so lonely.

[Evan Young]

they will just call you back if you don't tell them to put you on the "DO NOT CALL LIST".
where I work, we use a random digit dialer, so we have no idea who we are calling at all. A lot of the numbers that come through our system are non working number or buisnesses. We ask for Houshold members who are over 18. If you just say "they arn't here", we code it as a general callback. If you say, "I'm not interested", it's a refusal and it gets sent to the refusal converter team.

Horrible story. I pulled up a number that had been called many many times before, and the result for most of them were no answers and a couple fax machines. Someone picked up and I went into my intro. When I finished the woman said, uh, no this is a hospital. I said, "oh, okay, we are only calling private residences so we won't call again, but I need to confirm that this phone number is ###-###-####."
She choked up a little and said, "I don't know the number here, I'm here because my husband is in a coma and I just don't know".
I paused, and she hung up. It sucked.
All the other shit people do to try and fuck with me don't bother me at all, they actually just break up the monotony of the job.

[Rachel Peters]

Originally posted by le pire
I just did a show with a stand up comedian who was also an impressionist.

By stand up comedian I mean he got only applause and no laughs and by impressionist I mean he just quoted TV shows.

poor guy. ...that's what I'm afraid of -- people being polite and not telling me that I suck. ...but I'm also afraid of people not being polite and telling me that I suck.

[jester]

When I first started doing stand up I was so scared of it I sucked. I had to go through a massochistic series of gigs where I got indifference, cruelty or just plain people talking over me....

All these other comedians would go on about how difficult it was and then I met a comedian who told me to lighten up and stop treating it with so much reverence. So I stuck a few props in my act, more to give me confidence and an escape route if anything sucked and suddenly.... It worked.

Now I can perform new jokes, even if their poor becuase I've learnt how to do it.

Go ahead and suck. I became a decent stand up when I threw away my pride.

And I've had plastic beer glasses and allsorts thrown at me in the past...

[Rachel Peters]

yeah... I know that the longer something sits in my head, the scarier it gets. I've let this one go on for too long.
I know the frame of mind I need to be in -- the same frame of mind I go into when I'm mingling with people I think are really amazing, but treat it like I'm talking to the guy who runs the hotdog stand down the street (ie: all these Oscar mingling moment ...seriously, it's like they pass those things around like candy at this place. crazy.) I need to get into that "this is just like having coffee with my buddies" place in my head.
Logically, I know I've got the material. I've just got to get comfortable, stop fretting, and do it.

[jester]

When you go on stage remember that everybody in the room wants you to do well. They want you to entertain them.

So you need to break the ice. The first thing you do should be to elicit a response. The first joke is about getting to know one and other. It should set the tone, it should be about letting the audience know where you are coming from. If you are nervous let the audience know you are pleased to be talking to them.

If you think all of the audience are amazing people, then you like them.

It is mostly about the audience liking you, and you liking them will be a large part of that.

I used to mingle with the audience at my comedy club The Comedy Forum years ago. It made me feel good about them and that gave me confidence. But that's easy to do if you're the regular compere, when you are the open spot its a different game.

Get good material and get stage time. write and perform, and practice in front of the mirror and NEVER practice in front of aunties and uncles... trust me on this. They are too in touch with the real you and it won't help one little bit...

Now stop procrastinating and go for it. You are a naturally fun person so you will do well.

[Rachel Peters]

oh my aunties and uncles are not at all in touch with the real me. I haven't even met half of them. But all the more reason to not practice in front of them.

On a related note, a film prof once told me that "granny rule", when asked what he considered to be "clean". He said, "A rule for keeping your show clean -- If what you're writing would be embarrassing to show to your grandmother, then it's probably safe to not use it." ...I told him he doesn't know my grandmother.

but that has nothing to do with this conversation. just popped into my head.

[Rachel Peters]

I just noticed that I've cut my bottom lip, and I can't imagine how. ...Eating pepperoni really hurts. But I manage.

I should probably stop licking cheese graters and zippers.

Once -- this one time... I picked up a razor which I intended to gently blow the dusty, gross hair off of. I lifted it to my face a little too enthusiastically (either a caffeine induced spasm, or a simple malfunction of depth perception) and I smacked myself square in the mouth with it. I had four microscopic, horizontal slices across my lips. Nobody could see it, but it really, really hurt. ...that's what this feels like. But I haven't been licking knives lately.... oh wait. Nevermind.

[jester]

Those tiny little cuts are the WORST! Take paper cuts. Everybody knows that paper cuts are the worst.

I once mugged a city gentleman down a dark alley by weilding nothing except a manilla envelope... he knew better than to risk a paper cut, and he could afford it. It was the perfect crime.