The In-betweens

You know the times when you laugh out loud and everyone looks at you wondering what the duce you're laughing at and you're a little embarrassed...except you know it was really funny?
Or...Right after that really satisfying kiss, they walk away and you savor it for a few more seconds?
Or...The feeling you get as the blood rushes up through your chest into your head when you know you're about to get into an argument?

Those times when you've just done something so stupid and there's no going back or the moment before you walk into a party where you know you're "ex" will be, waiting, ... with those eyes. The times when someone touches you and you shake a little as your body responds to the feeling of touch, you try to hide the enjoyment of it and revel in it at the same time. Or those moments when you look at someone for a bit too long but you both acknowledge that its good, you smile, they smile, and then the awkward turn away.

Do you remember the pit in your stomach when someone is about to tell you that a friend was in an accident and is...or aching you get when you realized that you've failed one too many times and as the world closes in on you, all you can do is wait?

Do you remember? These are The In-Betweens, the moments that no one sees, the seconds we keep to ourselves and then store away in our memories. The little idiosyncrasies that make us all human, in my opinion the best and most honest part of us. If you're reading this, rub your arm, I dare you, take a second to just feel what it's like. It can be amazing...living.

It's just a thought, one of many we've had today but didn't think important enough to write down. Well I think you are important,..who ever is reading this, I think you're pretty damn great.

Love,

Blu

Wallace

Wallace...The path to finding Wallace has been one of self examination. It is

uncanny how much Wallace's life mirrors my own yet we are still very different.

As I move into the final days of rehearsal, I look back at my work and remember

a phrase from the play.



"There is a certain kind of agony that seers the s oul of an average man

yearning. Who sees, you know? What might be if he were just a little bit

more..."

Every night, I get the chance to tell the story of a man who yearned to become

more, just like me, and every night I am tested, prompted, and pushed to achieve

that goal. To show who this man was and to try to do it well, that's all I

expect of any creative person and Wallace was as creative as any. In a show like

this, for me, it is not about Jerry, the audience, Jennifer the writer, or

Richard, it's about me and Wallace. He lurches over my shoulder and taunts me to

do the work, his work. He is the muse and he whispers ever so softly and

requires of the listener, me, a state of absolute focus and perfect delivery.

This is the kind of role an actor dreams of and dreads, putting everything you

have to the test. In my eyes it is the greatest challenge of my acting career

yet and I owe it to Wallace and I to do it justice . "To make manifest my own

clarion call, to sing the notes the I have written and to know that they are

beautiful." And in the end, when all is said and done, I will take the weight of

portraying a revolutionary off of my tattered shoulders and keep faith that the

audience received the right message. The message that just like Wallace, I am a

human being, nothing that is human is alien to me.



"Oh fyah, fyah lawd, fyah's gonna burn my soul. "



Carleton Bluford

If you can't Hold on...If you can't hold on...Hold on!

To all the soldiers of the revolution. To all of the people who have reached out to grab their dreams and returned with a fist full of nothing. To everyone who has dreamed of a better world and then awoke in this one. To all of the single mothers, to all of the single fathers, to all of the lonely people. To all who love art because it inspires, not because in brings in a net profit. To all of the parents who see their children on stage and are proud because their kid is trying, not because he/she is getting exposure. To all of the dreamers who believe that love is something so powerful, it's still undefined and misunderstood. To all of the romantics who work to try to define and understand love. To anyone who's ever cried at the end of moulin rouge. To all of the uncompromising family in New York still trying to make it, to everyone in Chicago still on the grind, to everyone in L.A. trying to move on up, and to all my peeps in Utah keeping their dreams alive in a state where only one dream is excepted as they sing "Any dream will do". And to everyone who knows deep down in their core that there is a better way, Hold on.

Believe it or not, Reinforcements are coming.
Viva la Revolution.

On the set of "The Green Hornet"

As I sit on the steps of building 1201, my belly begins to rumble. I haven't eaten all day and my energy begins to run low. Downtown L.A. stares me in the face as pre-movie magic happens before me. I'm early, and although I knew I would be and would have nothing to do for an hour and a half, I came early anyway. Maybe to make a good impression. Does it matter? (The grumpy woman signing us all in Says "I'll deal with you at 4:30, until then, Sit down!") Apparently not! Yet we don't fight fire with fire now. This lesson I have learned in my travels, time to strap on the guppy smile and take on the honor of being an extra.

Today I saw the sunset in the east. As the sun sets in the west, it reflects off of one of the mamouth Downtown L.A. buildings so bright that it looks and feels like a real sunset. Remarkable, imagine watching the sun set in the middle of a city.

It's a funny thing to put aside your pride and continue forward. It makes everything feel new. like the first time you were on set, the amazement and wonder felt by your eyes as they take in the scenery. We all remember that first time, your smile is as wide as the nile river, continually hoping they give you a speaking part upgrade, watching the actors perform. I decided way back then that this would be my career and I began my journey. 15 years later, I begin again, this time in L.A. Hopefully I will yeild the same results as in previous years.

Time

With all of this talk about the end times and what will happen in 2012 and whatever else, I feel we are neglecting to look at the present, this is the Apocalypse. When people decide that money is more important than other people, when coffee is more important that taking your baby to the emergency room, when you make six figures in a business suit but can't afford to give change to the homeless because you're running late or because they may just be another CEO in a business suit on there day off. When medicine stops helping people, all people, and continues to keep them sick, when a government can't pass a bill that will help everyone because of fear of change,when a man beats his wife and family because of work and social pressures, when Starbucks raises prices on already expensive coffee, when art is considered expendable in our schools, when bailouts are given to people who have been stealing from everyone(and this is public knowledge), when actors are judged by their marketability rather by their talent or the content of their character, when dreams are made to be silly and hopes categorized as dreams or as make believe, when a generation has forgotten how to love so we just say it's "uncool".
It's time for us to create our own future, our own destiny.
Thank you to all of those people who help when you see a car ran out of gas, thank you for holding the elevator, thank you for waiting 2 more minutes for your extra hot, no foam, skinny vanilla Latte, Thank you for doing your job even though you are sick because you know others need you, thank you for putting in extra hours at work, thank you for having a dream that one day all men, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, protestants and Catholics would be able to sit together at the table of brother hood. Thank you Tracy Callahan for believing that we can say something with words that can echo through to a persons soul.

The time for concern is now, if ever you were going to be a revolutionary, if ever you were going to speak about injustice, prop #8, racism, if ever you were going to do a play in a courtyard in the middle of the town in the hopes of expanding minds, if ever you were going to write that one song, glory, before you go, if ever you were going to love for real and forever, until death do you part,... Now is the time.
Don't wait until the end to begin.

For all that I love,
Viva la resistance,

Blu