ADVENTURES IN ACTING: PROSTITUTION

All actors are whores.

It's been said before, and to me, but it is nevertheless the truth. For every fantastic, glamourous, I-can't-believe-you-got-that-part-it's-so-COOL role an actor portrays, there's another one somewhere that they've done that they're somewhat less than proud of.

I did one of those yesterday.

Strictly speaking, it wasn't my role; it was a friend of mine who had signed up to do a publicity stunt downtown and then found that he couldn't make it, and asked me to sub for him. So I did.

Holy crap. By the time it was done, I had to ask myself if he had been MAD at me when he asked me to do this thing.

The stunt was for Out There, a mountain equipment type of store downtown. The talent was provided by a local "events and characters" type of agency here in town.

Normally, I never work for this agency. Their rates are RIDICULOUSLY low. For my four hours' work yesterday, I made a hundred dollars. Agents, just FYI my rates start at a hundred dollars AN HOUR for talent-on-demand stuff, just to give you a ballpark.

But it was for a friend, so off I went. I got there at 9:35 and at 10:15, a panel van arrived to disgorge my prop for today's event (talk about a "spy" themed rendezvous!): a filing cabinet. Which was then chained to my person.

Yes, I knew I'd be dragging office furniture around a three-square-block radius downtown. The whole "chained to your office" symbolism, y'know? But I thought it would be PROP furniture.

Oh HELL no.

It was real, HEAVY, honest-to-god office equipment, Agents. My filing cabinet was a big, black, two-drawer metal monstrosity-- and not that namby-pamby "tissue paper" metal like the cabinets you'd get at Wal-Mart-- oh no. This was Old Skool.

And I had to DRAG it-- no wheels, no sissy-mary DOLLY to cart it around-- it was chained to me with STEEL CHAIN and I had to drag it three blocks up, three blocks across, down, and back again.

For a hundred bucks.

He works hard for the money, Agents, to paraphrase Donna Summer. That song was about a prostitute-- and so it was with me, yesterday. I've been on stage, screen, radio and web-- but I'm not too good to risk pelvis and leg injuries dragging fifty pounds around my waist on a chain for mortgage money.

Because I am, after all, a whore.

Naturally, of course, I ran into a couple of Marci's family members downtown; they just couldn't believe what I was doing. "Welcome to my glamourous life. Next time I tell you how cool being an actor is, remember this day," I said. They laughed and strolled on. I headsmacked myself and dragged forward.

Some observations I made while downtown: Those who work the STREETS in our city centre-- the bike messengers, coffee couriers, street sweepers and boardroom caterers wheeling their dessert and sandwich trays-- they're the ones who know What's Going On. They GET it. They've seen it before, they understand it, they know. The Suits-- those who work INSIDE the concrete and glass towers-- have NO clue. Nothing exists for them outside their Career Capsules. If it isn't to do with them, (and nothing ever IS,) it doesn't exist.

On the whole, the stunt failed. Nobody understood what the heck these 20 people were doing dragging office furniture. Our scripts that we were supposed to follow did nothing to explain.

"Hi, can you tell me how to find Out There? I hear they can liberate me."

The store's name isn't conducive to answering questions.

"Out There? Yeah, you sure are. What are you protesting?" and so forth.

Ironically, it was a street sweeper who got it. "Hey, you're like the Ghost of Christmas Past-- shackled to your earthly works. OH! I get it! That's like, symbolism for being chained to your job! I hear ya, brother." I was agog. I praised him and told him he was the ONLY PERSON TO GET IT. Then we chatted about how marketers are crazy and how we were just working stiffs putting up with the craziness.

Visions of Metropolis the movie in my head, I dragged along my merry way, ripped thighs gleaming, my sweat-sheened shoulders heaving with...oh, sorry, that was all in my head.

The most disturbing encounter I had was with a Dutch man. Perhaps he was from South Africa. I don't know. He looked at me with DISDAIN-- and hauled me aside to say "That is SLAVE LABOUR." As if he were accusing me of something. And the impression I got was that I, a WHITE MAN, shouldn't LOWER myself to do it. I don't know if that's what he meant, but man, it gave me SHIVERS.

Eventually I finished. Which was fortunate, because my MOM saw me doing it and, after testing the weight of my chained burden, was about to try and find my boss and tell them Her Son shouldn't suffer so-- what if I HURT myself?-- fortunately, I managed to re-focus her in her quest for office furniture of her OWN.

Adventures in Acting indeed, Agents. Every time. But just remember: Prostitution can be an adventure, too. And if you ever really want to feel dirty-- like you've just gone down on a wino behind the dumpster at the liquor store for five bucks' beer money-- by all means, be one of the actors that does publicity stunts. OH yeah.

GOD, I'm such a whore.

Posted by Agent M at September 24, 2003 09:36 AM