As this season buttons a drab grey coat over it's last blinding red and green sweater with shortbread inlays, I have a confession.

I love colour. Even the ticky tacky stuff. This is Vancouver. She rains. She rains. She rains.  i'm pretty stoked that the days aren't getting any shorter. Colour good. Dark 'toopid. 

On Wikipedia,(until someone finds this) it lists me as an actress and an artist. It’s one of many the facts on that page that isn’t true in the sense of being actually so in the third dimension. I do however maintain a glorious fantasy life in which I am not only a master painter, but also half-way to alchemist. I make my own brilliant pigments out of various pongy muds, saps, and rare(but conveniently local and otherwise pestilential,) bugs. My fingernails maintain a righteous dye- scurf, my clothes are always gaily a-splat. As I said-- all in my mind. Not an artist.  I do, however, paint. Horribly! Horribly! Horribly! WOO-HOO! So. Much. Fun.

So here we are at the fundament of December 2011, and I want to really thank the actually capable and fabulous artists who have sent me fan art, and also art unrelated to cartoons -- a delight to my raggedy soul. Really, it just makes me so happy. I truly believe that all the good things in life happen while you are puttering. Below are some of my  @ Xmas colour piles. I hope this may inspire some happy fools to muck about free from from prissy old  Mr. Perfection-pants and his box of doo-like-me-disinfectant life-wipes. And I also hope those of you who wrote to me full of kind words for my talent, will recognize your own, and take it for walkies daily and give it a biscuit and massive moodjie-moodjie-moodjie from me. 

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A few years ago on Halloween,(also a full moon) I went to a Con not as an actor, but as a writer. Still, somehow, I ended up doing an ‘Acting for TV’ panel.

I’ve been on camera, but mostly I gravitate to a fishtank and a mic. Too, I think being unseen brings out the best in people. They're not confused by illusions of body or sartorial splendor. I don't want my overwhelming physical attributes knocking out anyones speech centers.(It could happen!)  The talkback button causes one to refine feed-back. Sure, if I had a nickel for all the times director Terry Klassen has leaned on the talkback and said: “That was just weird. Can you do it better?” 

Succinct. Elegant. Actionable.

Anyway, on this panel, everyone but me and Maryke Hendrikse worked in live-action, and that was what the audience wanted to talk about. Let’s face it. That’s where the glamour is. The on-camera actors talked how hard 'the craft' was,  the process and depth of it all.  And one very good, well-respected, (other adjectives) actress made pointed remarks about this breed actors with 'attitude" who aren’t really good soldiers and just think they can stroll in and be all jokey. So of course, I made a joke. Of course I did.  Oh. Dear. Escalation.  I was one of those actors. Now herself kept referencing us and talking about slovenly acting habits and people who can't stand authority and how they don't belong in the business. And... I started to blow toony gaskets. Voices were building in my throat. I was on the verge of doing her right back to her. 

"No,' monologued the great arty beacon to other performers-- 'you can't just wear a bandaid on the bridge of your glasses, and be a 'nerd,' for example-- you have to have an inner life. What makes this person tick."

My inner life at the time: 
What if I stick this pencil in my eye?

Outer life:
SHE: " Hawhawhaw, thank you.  Yes mine too. Yes that was one of my favorite characters I've done. ...funny you should ask that. Yes, I find a touchstone for me is shoes. When I put on the footwear I really know who the character is..."


BLAARGGH. I released a stream of silly voices and accents like a completely crazy baby whose Count Chokula has been purloined.  Now normally I'm not reactive, I don't feel the need to top the floorshow and I'm a girl who gets on great with other girls. Who stole my body?  I just remember the wide-eyed expression on Maryke's face.  Hoo-mummy. 

What made me want to jump up and down on this actress head with an anvil marked "ACME" ? Still a mystery. Maybe I was the victim of microwave mind-control.   Maybe in a past life she stole my tube-top. Whatever. It was so bad,  so inexplicable, that all I can do is laugh at myself. Time to drop the pencil. Maybe I shouldn't call her a 'great arty beacon to other performers."

I'll cut that line tomorrow. 

My own inadequacies notwithstanding, on-camera is acting not that hard. It’s not coal mining or sewing in a sweat-shop.  Sure, take classes, get crafty, but when it comes down to it, it's walking and talking. Most have it mastered by 5 years old. Say your lines, try not to crash into the lights. 

It does help to be a bit brazen. 

They give you sprawling meals and treat you as if you can do more than merely imitate the way real humans do things. They treat you like you invented flowers.

Now toons, see, don't work from the inside out. It ‘s not viable. The tooner that has his nose up his petunia looking for the science usually sounds like he's over-working. Who wants to hear the gears? You want that superficial marker. The vocal equiv. of tape on glasses.  Yes, tooning’s a serious job. You have to read the script, arrive on time and know how to spell your name. For the contract. Then you’re a fly on skates, Jeeves. Skim that pond. Look! Down in the gluey brown depths! Could those be people down there be stuck in their own seriosity?

Tooning is serious work you do lightly. A good rule for a lot of life. Let's face it, shoe salesmen lose their nut over 'the new heel for fall.' You can get bent out of shape over anything. Like an incident four years old, Tabitha...

Yeah. Anyway,  so... like... don't.. do like me.

I EAT MY WORDS. NUMMY.

Last week I did an episode of live-action show ‘Supernatural.’  After my makeup was airbrushed on, (graffiti-face!) I moved to the hair station. I was first in the trailer. Then came Dmitri Chepovetsky, (Sweetie actor-boo I know from theatre days,) and shortly the two stars, Jensen and Jarod-- and bugger me, but the two “J” names shorted my only working brain circuit.

They were both extremely funny, Jared kibitzing with the A.D. “You’re fired! Go Fire yourself!” Jensen had the chair next to me. He had his sides in hand. He was very open, had this inclusive capable elder-brother vibe, taking care of everyone and keeping things on track. A supernaturally supportive vibe, you might say, (lol am) but I didn’t try to yank on his attention beyond greeting. They have to learn loads of lines daily.  I had my few lines and I still managed to salad some. J Name and J. Name had woolly suits on under hot lights all day. Not a boo-boo.

12 hours plus per day, the makeup lady said. Three months off to remember how to be human. Then she laughed a long time through gritted teeth. This is their seventh season. 

The camera man said, "You caught us at a good time. We're good on Monday." 
Another crew member piped in, "Not so much Tuesday." 
"Wednesday's bad."
"Thursday there's despair."/ "Yeah, dude, Thursday. Grim" 
"Good again on Friday."/"Yuh. Or not."  

Supernatural is a fun show, but the show I'd give my liver to see was behind the scenes. That crew, fluid and familial, irreverent, bored, engaged, expert and stuffed to the gunwales with personality under pressure.  Quel show! As the French say.  If I had cameras in my eyes I'd plug ‘em into my computrid to show you. Although… Gross images… eyes jammed into ports. Eww. Eye-juice.  Erase.

The thing that makes me laugh every time I work on camera is how unglamorous it is. You sit in your little cubicle in a giant bare trailer that smells of loo disinfectant, you’ve been waiting hours, you smell like a wet bag of mice, you can’t lie down because you’ll put a dent in your hairspray sculpture. When you get to set, you’re an object that all the expensive, important pieces revolve around, the lights, the camera, ladies with brushes. Someone sticks a wire up your skirt and tapes it to your bra.

You’re a lump of monkey. 

Then it’s ACTION and you waddle in and say those words exactly as they are on the page even if the way things are realized makes the exact wording daft and wooden. You try to find the floormarks without looking.  Oh, and don't say anything compromising with a wire up your frock.

Okay, so maybe on camera acting is a little hard.

In the name of relief, here’s a moment of tooning no amount of study could prep you for...

..

I could have written this yesterday. A yawning chunk of time became available after my 1001 Nights record, because the working time usually allotted to Rated A for Awesome was going to run into the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Ready to work, I was in the minority. Places of employment cleared as early as 1 o'clock. Files blew around in the wind tunnels left by the wake of fleeing office workers. People scurried to get home. I overheard one desperate youth on his cell phone: I don't care! Anywhere with a screen! 

Hockey fever here has been very, very intense. While I cheered the Canucks when it seemed required, I can’t watch hockey. I do love my city and I enjoy my fellow citizen’s enjoyment the way I enjoyed watching my dog single-mindedly chomp a bone. It’s endearing. But I prefer other food.

If there were dance numbers and a bit of clever dialogue, I might just have managed. If there was Kung Fu. A fiddler or two. If it was actually in water rather than on ice. But there are emphatically not those plateaus in hockey where the likes of me is won’t to walk their eyes… ?

No idea what I just said. Perfect. I won’t edit it.

At the salon the other week, women were having their nails painted in Vancouver Canuck colors. Those were no flukey females. It’s an epidemic. Neighbors have their extended clans over every hockey night, and as I walk my cats past their houses I see their roofs lifting off as they hoot at their tellies.

 The wrap party for Dinosaur Train was held on a playoff night. The actors in that show love, love, love the team that was flying in from Los Angeles to celebrate our last show: but the party threatened to go poof. Until they got a telly put into the posh restaurant they had rented out.

Now the dust settles the day after Vancouver lost to Boston, (where I was actually born, and where I’m still not capable of being interested in hockey). And we find that here in our convivial town, some little gerbils have been very naughty indeed. Riots! Not because of invasion, lack of food, or feudal hardship. No, because of a game.

Sure, it’s a game that’s left some lads with smashed backs and heads. But a game. 


Shouldda cut off his head with a skate!

Oh, dearie, dearie me. Hard surfaces, blades, hideous lighting, the same dreadful rising chords on a tinny synth. Anthems and Flags (Ridiculous! A player can be traded into any team anywhere) It wants balance.

I’d really like to argue for Bangara numbers in the middle of hockey games. Also, perhaps some colorful frocks for the players. Instead of sticks, why not pillows? The identical game could be played. The puck can be a pair of socks. Very accessible.  A half time episode of Care Bears.

Why don’t people take me seriously? It’s viable. I’d be perfectly willing to watch a bunch of virile young men hit each other with pillows.  I’d go to the bar and have a tomato juice to see that.

Puffy eyed from drink and sorrow, people piled back to work today.  Fellow toon Actress Sarah Edmundson discovered that the car on flames they were showing on TV as Vancouver rioted, was in fact, her car. 

No one seems to understand how downtown became Planet of the Apes yesterday.  

I think it’s the lack of theatrical values endemic in hockey.  Makes people think it’s ‘real life.’ But it’s a game. And games should not only be fun, they should look like fun, so you don't forget. Costumes, wigs, lights, dance, proper music, a proscenium arch.  And what was most absent? Humour.  Speaking of. Here's the outake reel from Dinosaur Train S2

Today after recording Dinosaur Train,  I went to Spinnaker Sound in White Rock to do a commercial for Panago Pizza. Had a lovely time trying absurd things with the text, at the end of which, actor Brendan Beiser arrived to do his bit and tag lines. We had a brief laugh and then I grabbed my purse and keys off the scoochie leather couch and fled back to Vancouver for a 2pm session of "Rated A for Awesome." 

By the time I got there I had all of nine minutes for lunch. I went into the Bean Around the World  on Cordova and ordered an espresso. They always have the horoscope taped to the cash register in there. So I read mine. I paraphrase: "Expect the unexpected. Communications breakdowns at work. Computer crashes, glitches, faux pas." 

I had a little chuckle. I'd had a great day. I looked at the picture of Georgia Nicholls, astrologer, and thought to myself: WRONG!  

Then I sat down with my coffee and had a look at my iPhone. Message from agent Ralph: Brendan Beiser was still in White Rock. He was missing his keys. Wondered if I might have taken them. I open my purse. It's dizzying. It's really a whole other dimesion in there.  But there were keys on top. Not my own. 

AAAA!

I had 2 minutes to be at work. I had unconsciously purloined Beiser's keys. 

Oh. My. Sleepy. God.

I fly into Dick and Roger's Sound Studios and Roger, my old bean, my favourite pair of eyebrows, my support hose, offers to help, using his courier company. But the courier can't get there as immediately .  It turns out Colin Murdoch, fellow actor, is going to White Rock after his session( 20 mins) to see his old mum.  

What is the ettiquette for stranding an actor four hours in White Rock? My mind went doo-lally.

I had a pen hovering over a check. Brian Drummond, fellow actor, said: "Is that a check? Tabitha. That's just creepy." So I wrote a note and took all the actual money out of my wallet to send with Colin. He wouldn't take it. All my fellow actors went: "Tabitha! That's creepy!" 

So, for his inconvenience,  Beiser ended up with a bag of chocolate chip cookies, which I happened to have. Unless Colin deeked and took them to him mum.


Later:  talked to Beiser, finally. He told me what he felt about the whole thing and let it go. Then he told me what a good actor he thought I was! Wow! A nicer guy to strand for four hours, you couldn't find.

 ...and, why I love my agent

My agent is a gentle giant, name of Ralph. Although he ferries his little family of actors toward their various dramas like emergency crews come to remedy any blandness, he himself is drama-adjacent. You can’t make him mad. You can’t get under his skin, you can’t make him blow a vein. I believe the word is ‘unflappable.’(which is a very funny word. Think of all the poor flappable people flailing about). Not that I would try to rile Ralph. But in the business of entertainment, that level head of his, is gold.

Which is why it’s weird that last week he and I were sitting in his office together bawling our eyes out.

Thing was, late last month Ralph announced he was going to Japan to attend  his partner's nephew’s wedding. I asked him if he would take a donation and see if he could find someone affected by the quake that he could help directly. He ‘d been thinking the same thing.

I had to laugh while he described his encounter with the Japanese nation. “Everything works! Everything’s on time!”  Ralph is very organized. Japan was a Ralphy heaven. He took many pictures. Even of the washrooms with their little slipper sets. 

The wedding was at a Shinto Shrine near a beautiful beach. The bride’s Kimono apparently cost 250, 000 yen(@3000 dollars)for a three hour rental. After the ceremony she wisely got into a frock she could frolic in on the beach.

Like most hotels, one where Ralph and his partner stayed had extra rooms and allocated a percentage to refugees from Fukushima. There was a young couple there in one such room. All their worldly possessions in a van. It seemed like a perfect opportunity. But then Ralph’s nephew? cautioned that in Japan, custom had it that if you offered a gift the recipient was not only obliged to match it, but had to top it. That was a baffler.

He considered leaving the money anonymously in the van, but was told no, it would just embarrass the couple. Nothing else presented itself as a venue so when he and his partner, Daryl returned to Tokyo, the gift money was burning a hole in is pocket.

They were on their way to a mall type place to buy last minute gifts for friends when they passed a man soliciting funds for both people and orphaned domestic animals in Sendai.  Perhaps it was the proscription against giving, but people passed him by without much notice. Ralph alerted his partner. That’s our man.

He took out the envelope containing the yen he had converted and crossed to the animal rescuer. The man glanced in the yawning envelope and here… as Ralph was relating the story, is where he started to tear up. The man took his hand, and held it. He didn’t speak English, clearly, few people there do. And in a place where people are so conscious of one another’s personal space, it was unusual for someone to hold on like that, but Ralph said he could just feel this tremendous wave of…

And here, back in the ofice we both shed tears, tears, tears… I could feel it as Ralph was telling me. So we just hung out and had a weep. The boat rocked. His office is on a boat.

It wasn’t even that much money. There was no language. It was communication by feeling. After the transfer, Ralph and Daryl went to a mall, which was just odd because both were reeling from the power and the beauty of this seemingly minor connection. They got in an elevator. Ralph who is taller than Daryl, noticed him, stock still, staring at the floor. Then Daryl said: “Don’t say anything.”

Ralph went into a shop alone. He bought the trifle he’d been planning to buy. It may have been a pair of underpants. However small, a saleslady took it away to wrap it beautifully and carefully, leaving him alone with a pretty cup of tea, while she did so. He wept. And sipped his tea.

That animal rescuer, true to Japanese tradition as we now understand it, gave back far more than he was given.

People, eh. You gotta love ‘em.