...A blue-arsed fly.

Evening all,

It's been all go on this side of the coin lately. The first big piece of news I've got is that my first ever film, the almighty "Lying Next To Larry" , made it to Cannes! Yes, as in the Cannes Film Festival. Yes, as in the one in Cannes where all the films get shown. Yes, the one where this happens.

So I am well chuffed about that. You never know what might happen.

Also, another great weekend of Dirty Pooh action was had. Our Friday crowd was absolutely epic, the place was packed to the rafters and we received a standing ovation - a first for me. To say it was a good feeling would be grossly undermining the trouser tent I had pitched when it happened. My ego was running wild that night let me tell you. Saturday was equally as fun and I really can't stress what a pleasurable experience the whole thing has been (aside from all the backstage 'divorce' jokes that are becoming commonplace).

This week I started shooting a short film too, which again was a most enjoyable experience. Film acting is a completely different animal to theatre acting. It's bloody hard and I fear I might have done a crap job. We've got a few more days shooting, and several more lengthy dialogues for myself, to redeem the situation. I'm probably just being paranoid though. Interestingly enough, after viewing about three seconds of playback on set, I think I can feel myself going down the Johnny Depp route of never watching anything I'm in. It is FAR too cringeworthy every single time. I'm not an insecure person (STOP LOOKING AT MY NOSE!) but I can't help but shudder at the sight of myself on film. Awful sight. Hopefully though in the future I'll have lots of high value bills to wipe my tears away with.




In other news, the NBA playoffs are as predictable as ever. Honestly, let's just scrap the seven game yawn-fest and just have one-match knockouts. That way there's a chance that a shite team might win and it would be infinitely more watchable than it currently is, and I'm saying this even though my underdog team, The San Antonio Spurs (purely because their name is Spurs) are winning.

Speaking of Spurs, big week for the yid army. If we win our last three games, we qualify for the Champion's League for the first...time...ever! I can hear any Americans reading this thinking..."Bovverd?" but trust when I say that it's a f**king big deal.

I also finally started watching the first Series of "Lost". It is incredible. I just finished the series last night and it's only gone and left on a massive cliffhanger. I'm now gagging for more. I can't help but feel like a TV lemming but sod it, I want to know what's in the HATCH!

P.S - If you tell me, I'll hunt you down and kneecap you.

One last thing...the first 33 seconds of this clip made me cry with laughter for about 20 minutes yesterday. If anyone can explain why, I will consider you a soulmate for life.



Peace and love,

John.

My First Review

And it wasn't bad...






Stage News
NEW REVIEW: DIRTY POOH
By Steven Leigh Morris, Tuesday, Apr. 20 2010

​Photo courtesy of Zombie Joe's Underground

How does Zombie Joe's Underground make A.A. Milne's short story, "In Which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into a Tight Place," NSFW? When Winnie-the-Pooh (John Byford) gets stuck in Rabbit's (Catherine Weiss) hole, ZJU doesn't mean 'burrow.' That's the capper of four radically-reimagined tales from Pooh Corner -- or should I say, the Pooh Corner Confessions. Writer Adam Neubauer and directs Amanda Marquardt have set a new high -- or low -- for fractured fairy tales: Christopher Robin (Lisa Younger) is a drunk, Tigger (Devavani Conroy) a sex fiend, Eeyore (Neubauer) a guyliner addict, and Piglet (Jonica Patella) is a pint-sized, tits-mad, manic masturbator who sticks a balloon of coke up her ass. As for Pooh, he's so devoted to licking every last drop of honey from his beloved Hunny Pot (charming silent comedienne Jaclyn Ngan), I blushed harder than a 12-year-old watching a sex scene with his grandma. But Dirty Pooh doesn't flinch. The cast and creative team are so do-or-die committed that you'd swear everyone in Pooh Corner had balls of steel -- if their spandex outfits hadn't already given you a good look. Go, but get a babysitter or prepare to answer even tougher questions than, "What's a Tigger?" ZJU Theater Group, 4850 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood; opens April 9; Fri.-Sat., 8:30 p.m.; thru May 1. (818) 202-4120. (Amy Nicholson)

The 1960's

The 60's fascinate and appall me in equal measure. To my generation, it remains the key decade which shaped where, and indeed what, we are today. Here are some interesting pics of the key events/players from that era. I have also included a passage reminiscing on the time by a man who was there. Enjoy.

"Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era — the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant. . . .History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights — or very early mornings — when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket . . . booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change) . . . but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that. . . .There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

(Hunter S. Thompson - Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas)

Live Music

If there's one bloke I could watch all day long, it' Kurt Cobain.

Rosebud...

This weekend saw the opening night(s) of my play "Dirty Pooh". Night #1 was a bit of a let down as only about six people turned up, which was a little awkward to say the least. The low point coming when I made eye contact with an elderly couple while whipping out my "Pooh Penis" at the end. Their faces were ones of sheer disappointment, the kind of face your grandparents pull when they come home to discover you've just shat on their carpet.

However the second night was awesome. We had a much more packed house, full of boisterous folk who laughed, cheered and generally rollicked their way through the show, which really helps the old confidence. You know you're in for a fun night when, during the first "lights out" you hear people going "Ooo Ooo Ooo" (ala Jerry Springer). Fun stuff indeed. The great thing about doing a play, and this goes for any play, is the camaraderie you build with your cast. You all go through the same things on stage...if I forget a line, everyone suffers. You all go for a drink and talk about it afterwards and, coupled with the post-coital feeling of finishing a night's work, it is a very deep connection. All in all a good learning experience. 3 more weeks to go.

I promised myself I wouldn't mention the Tottenham match yesterday but....f*@&ing **** ******* ***** ***** bunch of ******* **** sucking *********** ******** *********'s!!!! Looks like our season is over now, after having so much promise for so much time. I'm seriously considering not watching football anymore...it's just too painful. What saddens me most is that, with the way the Premier League is currently set-up, my team will never in my lifetime win the league. Never. Personally I think there should be a shake-up, but I'm probably just pissed off because we lost to sodding Portsmouth!

Rounded up my weekend by having a good jam session with my mate Stas til the wee hours and driving home in the pounding rain. Driving through LA late at night in the rain always makes me feel like I'm in a Raymond Chandler novel, looking for the dame who did it or the cheap hustler who knows more than he's letting on, spying the world through weary, smoke-filled eyes, wondering what a guy like me ended up doing in a town like this....whatever, it's my fantasy!

Then I got into bed (probably a bit too much detail) and watched the brilliant "Citizen Kane". As you may know, it is widely regarded as the greatest film ever made, and for me it would do well to top another couple of classics. However, it is a bloody brilliant film and a brilliant study of how savage life can be at the top.

I'm off now to find my childhood sled.

Peace.

Quote of the Day

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Michael Jordan

Peaks and Valleys

Here's an interesting thing...

So far, April has been a month in which I have been very busy with the craft of acting. Rehearsing for my play, rehearsing for the upcoming film I am shooting, auditioning, and rehearsing for the outrageous amount of scenes I have coming up in class, which in itself is enough to keep anyone busy. Thus I have been saturated with the world of acting. I even attended the Beverly Hills Playhouse famed Master Class on Saturday morning. While it was a very interesting experience, I didn't see anything intimidating or indeed anything I hadn't already seen at my 'level', which I suppose means that us barnacles on the underbelly of the ship have just as a good a chance as the so-called 'masters'. What was also interesting was the fact that, despite working solidly for 20-30 years in most cases, these people were just as unsure, insecure and nervous as the rest of us. Heartening, in a sick sort of way.

Acting, proper acting like, has become a massive passion for me. When all the elements are in place - the right part, the right partner, the understanding of the character - and you become something else, that you didn't ever think you could so completely - there really is no feeling on earth that I've ever experienced that comes close. Except maybe seeing Radiohead at Glastonbury 2003...but that's another matter.

The problem that I'm now seeing, and from watching E! True Hollywood Stories it's not an uncommon one, is this: a few times already in my short acting life I have experienced this symbiotic feeling and it is overwhelming...for a brief moment in time you feel utterly amazing (for want of a better word) inside and everything makes sense. Then of course, you go home to your empty apartment and the only thing to comfort you is a box of kleenex (take that how you will). 'Normal' life continues and therein lies the dilemma. Look at the amount of nut-jobs, drug-addicts, sex-addicts, suicide cases there have been in the entertainment world. I mean, Owen Wilson tried to top himself for god's sake! Owen Wilson!!! I'm not saying for a second that I want to follow, or indeed justify, any of these paths. I'm just saying...I understand.



After jumping over the fence and seeing the other side, job-hunting, paying bills, getting your car fixed, paying taxes (etc. etc.) just doesn't quite hold the same esteem anymore. It's almost in direct conflict with that feeling you have now come to know and love. It has become a problem for me already, and I am (as the title of my blog alludes to) at the very bottom of the pile. So, while talent, artistry and passion is one thing...the other thing, handling the peaks and valleys, is probably twice as important. Because as we all know, you could be the biggest talent that ever lived, the next Jesus maybe (or the first Jesus depending on your religious views) but if you sit around your apartment doing nothing and longing for that feeling to be there all the time, you ain't gon' do sheeeet son! In the words of a wise man "Hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard"

And I'm not just talking about acting, it is whatever your passion is. Be it welding, selling insurance (gag), playing footie at the weekends, whatever. It's all related to the same thing. The highs and the lows, the ying and the yang, the Drum and the Monkey. Well, that last one is actually a pub in London but you know what I mean.

I'll tell you one thing though, all this soul-searching and what not...it definitely beats my former life.

Peace and Love,

John.

P.S - Lionel Messi is a footballing god.

P.P.S - Love and Death is a really funny film.

P.P.P.S - Smoking in your car, while sounding like a cool movie-starish thing to do, does not work if you're a non smoker...as the hole now burned into the side panel of my car will attest to.

P.P.P.P.S - Tuuuuune.....Jamie T - Sticks and Stones

Heroes to Humanity: #235 - Ronnie O'Sullivan

In a regular feature of this blog, I will be randomly picking people whose contributions to society are deserving of mine, yours and everyone's acknowledgement and appreciation. This week, Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Despite having the single worst nickname in sporting history (The Essex Ocelot???) there is no denying Rocket Ronnie's place in our fair nation's heart. The man responsible for the world's fastest 147...and for anyone reading this not knowing what that is, it is pretty much impossible for the average human...the man who quits half way through games when it's not going well, the man who beats opponents with his left hand when he feels bored! Yes his dad is a murderer, yes he might moan a bit too much for a millionaire and yes he might be a bit flash. But, he is the one and only reason snooker is ever, and I do mean ever, worth watching. Better than all of this is that he is another local lad done good. Plus, anyone who openly says "anybody wanna give me a nosh?" during a press conference gets a massive thumbs up from me. You can take the boy out of Essex...



Ronnie, we salute you.