The Good Are the Enemy of the Great

How can I possibly say that with any humility? Being human can feel so mediocre - so lazy, mundane and repetitive. I am tired and bored with the resentments and fears dancing in circles between my ears. I want to grab a couple of actors and do some raw shit on film. I want to eviscerate. I want raw emotion from an actor's guts.
I had this audition recently - more of the same phony pantomime shit like my last audition for a commercial. Result direction. No callback. No desire to get better at hamming it up.
I taught class last night. Lots of evasion and ego on the part of the actors. Not completely. A couple of actors tried to stay with themsleves and managed to do so well enough. One actor opened something. I wanted to call the whole thing off - I wanted to get up and scream something like - TELL ME THE FUCKING TRUTH, PLEASE! SOMEBODY!
Later on I met an actor that is new in town. We talked. I gave him my spiel. I was true, but I doubted our compatibility. He had been referred to another acting coach on town by his agent. I thought that particular agency was giving actors my name as well. Certainly in some cases but apparently not others. I've been thinking about that a lot today. I've also heard a rather nasty rumour about me that originated out of that other studio. I am somewhat indifferent, which isn't to say neutral.
I'm reactive. I've been increasingly reactive lately. Emotionally raw. DIsturbed.
I am not happy, joyous or free.
I am at the mercy of patience - not biding my time, but staying with myself moment to moment. I've been trying to contact the moment all afternoon. Driving up the Gorge. Simple prayers. Love is greater than fear. Love is greater than fear.
I used to spend at least one twenty-four hour stretch in Atlantic City every week. I could work two hands on a $25 Blackjack table well, working the odds and the cards with patience to build a stake. Playing with house money. Though my cronies and I always reminded ourselves that once we won it was OUR MONEY. The failure of my brief career as a professional gambler was due largely to an uncanny streak of dropping a $50 chip on number 26 of the Roulette wheel and hitting it, to which I would regularly boast - Seventeen hundred and fifty mothereffin dollars! As I collected my money I was reminded to watch my mouth by pit boss after pit boss. I also rolled fours and tens on the craps table. As one denizen of Trump Taj Mahal serenaded me one early morn, You don't bet 'gainst a man that roll fo's and ten's! Someone betting against my forty-five minute turn throwing the dice and those deadly fo's and tens lost over a hundred thousand dollars while the rest of us cleaned up. Every run of luck runs out. Lack of patience burns. To be a professional gambler one has to have an ass made of leather, a will of iron and ice water in the veins. Like I said, my career was short-lived.
I didn't have the emotional endurance.
I want to be your horse, but I feel like a longshot.
That's me - not the good, certainly not one of the great ones, just a longshot on a sunny, boozy trip to the Meadowlands. So tear up your ticket and head over to one of those air-conditioned Jersey strip joints where everybody looks like an extra on the Sopranos.

Washed Up and Wrung Out,
Signore Direttore