Isn’t it so very often the case that something we think we’re doing to help ourselves turns out to be something that’s making things worse?

 

    We are in desolate times lately….I myself am nestled all nice and warm in the cozy embrace of my first ever career crisis. One could say that I have fallen into a giant rut. I saw it coming, and I just let it happen!

 

I met my good friend Allegra many years ago as part of the fateful summer of 1999….a year that incidentally also introduced me to Spalding Gray, drinking, heartache, and drinking. She is positive and spritely. The thing about Allegra that inspires me the most is her ability to not fall into ruts.

 

    I fall into ruts all the time. They line the street outside my apartment, waiting for me to fall into one of them. Once I fall in, the rut will proceed to feed off of me until it is fat and healthy. It spits me back out just in time for me to fall right into another rut. Thankfully the inside of a rut is clean and has plentiful issues of “Redbook” with which to bide the time. Ruts!

 

    A rut can happen at any time. I could be having a wonderful day….I’m talking like a “getting woken up by a naked Naomi Watts who tells me I’m brilliant before giving me free fast food and showering me with everything in the house but water” type of day, but it doesn’t matter. A rut will suck me in, take my inspiration and I’ll slowly descend into its comfortable world. Ruts attack your will to do things….they make you lazy! When someone who is already abysmally lazy gets sucked into a rut, well then there’s trouble. How does one escape a rut, if the rut destroys one’s will to fight against it? Up until recently I always had a plan. Up until recently, one thing always stepped up to help me out whenever I was having trouble escaping a rut.

 

    TV on DVD!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

 

    It’s a great thing! One mythic time a few years ago I was caught in one nasty rut— and then I rented “Six Feet Under” Season 1. Two days, BAM….out of the rut. It was fantastic. And what a show!

 

    The next rut came when I was doing a show with our friends at Nosedive. The rut was not brought on by them of course; it was brought on by some of the less than savory reviews a play of mine the previous summer had gotten. No matter…..I hoofed my backside to Tower and grabbed “Sports Night” the complete series on sale. One weekend later, out of the rut!

 

    This strategy went on to work with “Firefly” as well, but recently I have found that TV on DVD’s power over ruts is weakening. They just don’t work like they used to. This is why being able to avoid them in the first place is such a noble and valuable thing. Ruts!

 

 

    One critical period where I have always encountered ruts is that depressing time after a long production process wraps up. Allegra once combated the threat of this by flying off to Europe spur of the moment and gettin’ down wit some knowledge for a few weeks. After returning, she went into another production process that recently ended… and I heard a few weeks ago that she’s in ITALY, studying Commedia Del Arte! She’s at 100 MPH all the time, avoiding every rut in the process.

 

    How she can just pick up and travel at a moment’s notice fascinates me. I have to over-think and over-plan everything to the point where I don’t travel anywhere anymore. I could mention Gandalf shooing a worrying and reluctant Bilbo Baggins off to adventure without a pocket handkerchief at the beginning of “The Hobbit”….but I won’t. Allegra keeps moving. That’s why her fire is always lit! She never sits on it, so it never gets smothered. Ruts don’t stand a chance. Ruts!

 

    In the world of the arts, ruts are death. Once you stop selling yourself, once you just coast by, once you stop caring, and once that little fire under you gets smothered, you’re done. I am not preaching. These are things I personally need to learn, and need to learn fast. These are concepts I am going to attempt to put into practice myself, you see. I am also going to start an all soup diet.

 

    Taking all of this into account, sitting down all day watching TV on DVD is the absolute WORST thing you can do when trying to combat ruts. It’s fantastic having a whole season of a truly great show, but take them one episode at a time. It’s hard, I know, but we can do it. I know we can. This is a temp job world where….oh, I’m sorry. I meant to say that this is an arts world where you MUST keep moving in order to survive!  We must keep our tempos at a nice vivace!  We must sustain a quick and snappy pace.  We must keep moving forward as fast as we can. If we can accomplish this, our fires will never burn out.

 

Keep moving.

 

Brian

 

PS- How many times did I use the word “rut” or its plural, “ruts” in this column? Find out the exciting answer next week. Ruts!