Category: Actor/Musician

20
Feb
2023
21:36

Kvetching About “The Biz”

I don’t generally like complaining on the internet, but sometimes it is a really helpful part of the process to just get it out. Acting and music are the reasons I am in this universe. The things I have the most passions for and that make me feel the most fulfilled and alive. The “business” part of “show business” however is brutal, exhausting, and demoralizing. I’ve mentioned before how not many days go by that part of my doesn’t want to just quit, but also I know I can’t. I’d never be happy.

My acting career has been in what feels like the most stagnant slump ever for the last couple of years. Now of course, much of this could be simple skewed perception and many of my peers have expressed similar feelings that the business in general has been much slower and tougher. I realized last week that I felt like I have just kind of “given up.” Not given up acting, as I don’t think that could ever happen, but I realized I had only been doing things that just happened to come to me. When my agent sends me an audition, I do it and do my best. When someone comes to me with a role or a chance to audition I take it. Outside of that, however, I’m not doing anything for myself. I’m not hustling, chasing, looking. I’m not working on putting demo reels together or scouring casting sites for roles I can submit myself for. I’m just tired and demoralized and feel like nothing is really going to change unless some equivalent of a lottery ticket win just somehow finds me and drops in my lap. I feel stuck and frustrated.

While “fame” has never sounded like something I didn’t want, it has also never been the goal. All I’ve ever really wanted is to the things I love and do them well, and hopefully pay the bills while doing those things. And truthfully, from a certain perspective, I am doing that. I definitely try to never lose sight of that fact and that I’m living a life that would make younger me scream “Holy shit! You are living THE LIFE!” I definitely try to be happy in every present moment and not constantly adjust my sights so that reaching one goal is no longer satisfactory and I just push it further to something else I don’t have, but I don’t think that’s what this is. I’ve always had a vision for what I wanted to do and the life I wanted to live, and this isn’t it. It’s a good life, and on the path I want to be on, but I want more (a seemingly perpetual human condition).

I think the frustration stems from feeling like I just don’t have access to the opportunities I want and feel equipped for. There’s so much luck and things beyond our control and that’s always going to be the case. It’s almost as if I’m so close to it but still kept away from it, which in a ways is more frustrating than something seeming so far away as to the path to it being incomprehensible.

This is not necessarily anything new and I feel like it’s a common phase that all my artist friends go through. That doesn’t make it any less frustrating though. To those of you still hustling and busting your asses trying to make things happen, I salute you. I wish I could at least say “Well I’m doing everything I can on my end so I have no fault in any career dissatisfaction” but that would absolutely be a lie.

I shall try to heed my own words from the past and “Keep my head down and do good work.”

28
Apr
2022
1:31

Nord Stage 3 Compact Review

Nord Stage 3

I love it. I love everything about it. The sounds. The quality. The efficient and smart design of every facet of it. The more I dig into the more I’m just blown away by it and can understand why it’s a professional standard seen on the biggest stages around the world and in seemingly every television or video performance I see. Yes, they are crazy expensive, and worth more than many used cars but now I understand why. They are hand-built in Stockholm. The side caps and pitch bend stick are made of wood. The wood pitch sticks are all hand-carved by a man named Aaby Henriksson who is now in his 80s. Of course you can find endless information on line about specs, features, details and all, but so much of the ingenious design is in the more subtle things that you feel when you’re using it and hard to quantify in words. I have yet to encounter a single moment of wondering why they did something a certain way or wishing they had done it a different way. With so many knobs and buttons on the keyboard itself, you are very rarely diving into any menus. Many of the controls have other functions as well if you use the Shift key or hold them down which makes for more efficiency and simplicity without trying to find room to add even more controls which might start bordering on overwhelming and would also surely add to the already sizable expense, but also thanks to the smart design, is also just unnecessary.

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11
Mar
2022
18:26

Time Capsule To A Younger Me

Just sitting in a recliner in an AirBNB, reading a script for a possible future project, waiting for my call sheet to see when I film the next two days, had to turn down an audition because I won’t be back before it’s due, then when I get back I shoot a couple of things for Zero World and jump on several VO projects as well, prepare for some road shows with Texas Comedies, finish some original music for and make an appearance in a film with an awesome team, prepare for a quirky, original play coming up, and various practices and gigs with various bands. So I take this moment to project this back through time to a younger Heath with artistic dreams to say this: we are far from where we want to be (at times it feels astronomically far), and can often feel frustrated, stagnant, and weary, and want to give it all up yet also know that we could never be happy and fulfilled following any other path, but all in all in the big picture, we’re doing alright, kid. We’re doing alright. And most of all, we’re good people with a good head and a good heart. #gratitude

28
Feb
2022
18:52

Hollywood Babble-On Theme Songs

I’m a long-time Kevin Smith fan and as such I’ve been listening to the Hollywood Babble-On podcast with him and Ralph Garman since the beginning. It’s certainly not for everyone or the easily offended but I love it. From time to time they feature various things created by listeners and many of their segments now feature theme songs written by listeners such as myself, so I thought I’d chronicle my works that have been featured and few exclusive easter eggs that have not! Firstly, most of these segments are incredibly hard to explain and you would just have to hear them in context to really get it.

A few that are still being used almost every week are Inappropriate Toys where they feature ads for kids toys and such that are, as the title implies, inappropriate. They also have a segment where they play these two German characters they made up one episode, so I made a theme for The Germans. Another segment talks about bizarre things from Japan called WTF Japan? As you’ll hear here, my original version had a clip from Kevin’s “Clerks: The Animated Series” which was cut for use on the actual podcast.

Some from the past segments which eventually they stopped doing were a segment about upcoming reboots they found unnecessary called No Thanks, We’ve Already Got One and one called Hitler In The Movies where people would mock up fake parody posters inserting Hitler into them with altered titles.

Then there were some I sent in which were never used. For example, Kevin likes to tease Ralph about having “8 impressions” (Ralph is actually really great impressionist) so I made this theme. Ralph also used to do Arnold Schwarzenegger singing various songs that listeners had requested, for which I sent in this unused theme. And then, during the pandemic when they weren’t doing shows, they started doing “Caped Commentaries,” watching the original Batman series with Adam West and commenting on it.

It’s fun to be part of the show and I’m glad a few of mine are still running!

23
Feb
2022
1:04

Do Ya Wanna Taste Al?

I still plan to get to more requests, but this one is going to be hard to beat, though I do regret filming it in portrait orientation. My friend Jennifer suggested I do the #Peacemaker theme song in the style of one of my all time heroes, “Weird Al” Yankovic. It immediately formed in my mind.

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