Mud

I got back to work on our place today after the week elsewhere. I resumed one of my least favorite tasks, taping. Inside corners get paper tape, butt joints get nylon mesh tape and outside corners get corner bead, a metal product that you screw on. All of these nifty items get covered with layers of mud, joint compound to be exact. As the guys on This Old House once said, “everything on a job site that comes in a tub or a wheelbarrow and is smeared on is called mud”.

Although I’m a bit of a jack of all trades, if someone put a gun to my head I would tell them I’m a carpenter, and then go change my trousers. So for a self-proclaimed carpenter to have to spend his days spreading layers of joint compound on walls and ceilings is a bit like a self-proclaimed chef spending his days at the toaster, buttering all the “whiskey-downs”, or an editor collating at the Zerox machine, or an accountant sharpening pencils. or a priest tending to sheep—the woolly kind. Arguably necessary but boring!!

My wife and I went to a seminar this evening held at the Equity building presumably for the benefit of members of Actors Equity. It featured franchised agents answering questions about the business and the relationship between actors and agents. The panel consisted of one actor and his long time, established agent, a middle aged agent from a middle rung agency and a young agent from, you guessed it, and up and coming new agency. They all talked about how impossible the industry is and how many roadblocks are thrown in everyone’s way and how baffled they are that anyone would want to try to be an actor given all that. After a while, I began drawing in my head. I know why the molding should stop here, just shy of the picture rail…so I’ll concentrate on that, at least for the time being.

Here’s a picture of me “acting”, just so we all don’t forget that the title of this blog is An Actor Repairs. Not a Repairer Repairs or Some Dope Repairs.



Yes, that's my wife Leigh in the background. She's acting too.

Don’t let me fool you. It’s a mugs game, but I love it. A half hour before the seminar I got a call with a job offer for January of 2008! Like, eight weeks of work! I’m a glass half full kind of guy. These days though, it’s half full of mud.