Please do not feed the actors.

Nine Tips to Help You Stay Sane While Social Distancing These are strange times indeed. The hot new term this month was "social distancing", and though the thought of self-isolation can be unpleasant for anyone, it's especially difficult for extroverts: those of us who require social interaction as a necessary part of human existence. Let's be clear: when it comes to extroversion and introversion, everyone is a little bit of both and everyone can tap into different modes depending on the situation. But everyone also has a preferred method of operation which comes naturally, and I'm sure you know instinctively which you are. Extroverts, generally speaking, feel more comfortable in the company of others, tend to have large circles of friends or acquaintances, and are usually seen as sociable by others. Social distancing is the antithesis of how an extrovert functions. And now, to top it off, most parts of the world are requiring people to stay at home and seve...

As in, in the evening, before bed. I like to feel clean when I go to bed, and also I don't like the thought of the crap I put in my hair getting on my pillow and therefore onto my face. Not to mention how sweaty and oily-feeling my face can get throughout the day. So tonight, after a long and busy day, I turned on the water and climbed in, and I noticed a spider in the corner, down near the drain. In America we would call it a daddy longlegs. (Though I know that in Britain that term is designated for a certain spindly-legged insect, though I can't remember which one at this moment.) It was one of those spiders with a tiny body and eight thin, angular legs. I thought, Huh, another spider that's lost its way by coming in the house and will end up down the drain before long. I watched as it reacted to the first few drops of water. The spray from the shower head didn't directly hit it, and I didn't purposefully throw water on it, but it obviously felt a few droplets...

Going on little sleep, I had one of those mornings today where my stomach took control over my rational brain.  The place where I temp has a convenient cafeteria with a plethora of breakfast substances, all for a small fee. This morning I thought I would treat myself to a bagel, and well, that's exactly what I did. It was probably one of the most unhealthy bagels in all of human history, but boy was it tasty. I tweeted as such, and promptly got a few friends practically begging to know what was on it.  I tried, I really did try, to fit it all into one tweet, but 140 characters is simply not enough space to give justice to the description. So I'm writing a blog. I'm writing a blog about what I ate for breakfast. Oh dear, what have I come to? Anyway, don't say I didn't warn you. Like I said, my fatigue-induced brain was being controlled by my stomach, and I had quite the seducing array of topping options. To start I selected the largest, choicest bagel (a sesame...

Those who know me well know that I occasionally do freelance admin work for a man who runs his own business (a legal consulting firm) from his house. The setup is nice: I go in whenever my schedule allows it and organise the crap out of his office, calculate his expenses, pack away his old files, etc., and then invoice him at the end of the month. Sometimes, when my weekdays are especially busy with other temp work (an actor has to eat), the weekends are my only opportunity to stop in. One particular Saturday, when my work kept me late into the evening, George and his wife Jessica informed me that they would be hosting some neighbours for an indoor cookout and also to watch some big important match or something on telly. I said that it was fine, as I’d be tucked away in the office upstairs, and maybe I’d join them for a burger once I was finished. So I got to work, sat at the computer clicking away with my iPhone plugged in and playing music to keep me focused. Jessica, in her pe...

Politics. What a good way to spoil a party. Yesterday British people had the opportunity to elect their local government leaders. In London , undoubtedly the most prominent election that took place was the mayoral one: the battle between “Buffoon” Boris Johnson the incumbent and “Red” Ken Livingstone in an attempt to reclaim his seat at City Hall. The votes are still being counted as of today. I have friends who shout from both ends of the political spectrum. A quick trawl through my social networking yesterday and I could easily find both “BACK BORIS” and “SACK BORIS” as well as “Anyone but BoJo” and “Not Ken again”. My own political opinions aside, these people are exercising their free speech and voicing their opinions, which is of course fine. But among those very same pages are other comments I’ve seen which remind me that I have a growing problem with another kind of people: those who don’t vote. A lot of my friends do, don’t get me wrong. Some of the comments...

Write in this blog more.

To me, not just as an actor, but an all-around theatre person, the most important thing to do while on stage is tell a good story. All other aspects of theatre are still important, but if the story is missing or flawed, those aspects are irrelevant. For example, you can have a wonderful set design or cutting-edge lighting and sound, but without a story to support, you might as well be in a museum. You can have amazing choreography or someone with an exceptional singing voice, but without a story to tell via the dance moves or through the lyrics, all you have is someone showing off their craft. You can have outstanding actors with the ability to evoke any emotion on demand, but without a story to tell, well, they’re just being pretentious. (There’s actually a word for that kind of theatre, but it’s a bit rude so ask me later and I’ll tell you.) The same applies to other works of art as well, film and TV particularly. If you’re not telling me a good story, I’m changing the channel ...

Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow! Snow snow? SNOW! So it snowed in London last night. It started about 11pm, just in time for the Saturday night party-goers to get drenched with the first wave, which is always inevitably slush, before it sufficiently cools the ground and allows it to stick. Overnight it continued to pile up; the official reports say in places there was up to 4 inches of snow. That may not seem like a lot to my friends back in wintry Wisconsin (though apparently there's not much snow there at the moment - very unseasonal) but in London, this is a BIG DEAL. Similar to the snow we had a few years ago that ground London to a halt, there are already reports of public transport being unable to cope. Apparently a few trains on the Underground stopped mid-station, and  passengers had to disembark and walk to the next station. Sorry, Londoners, but I laugh at you. Yes, I know that you don't have snow plows (which you strangely spell "ploughs" - wh...

Well here we are. My blog, welcome back. Can I just say right now that 2011 pretty much sucked thank you very much. Last year, all in all, more shit things happened than good. I’d really like to avoid any clichés about how the New Year is good for starting new things and resetting yourself and blah blah blah. But they’re all true. So that’s how I’m viewing the beginning of this year. Never mind that it’s already February; I feel exceptionally ready to take control of my future, many thanks to the three weeks over Christmas I spent in America with friends and family. Man I needed that. Actors will agree with me that it’s terribly common to hold a day job while building up acting experience and waiting for an acting career to take off. Well I’m so sick of waiting around for my career to take off that I’ve realised how vital it is that I go for it on my own terms. I need to stop waiting . I currently have a stable but temporary day job and I’ve been telling myself I’d be able save up s...

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but even if I haven’t, I most definitely will be saying it many times in the future. This is the frustrating fact that everything in life happens at the same time. Hey Life, I have an idea. Instead of handing me twenty things to do at once, why not spread it out a little bit? Give me a few, important, manageable tasks and opportunities now, and then a few more later. You could have given me some back in January when I was pulling my hair out because nothing was happening and I felt like I was going nowhere. What’s that, you say? It’s not how you work? Fine then, I shall be tearing my hair out for different reasons. I shake my fist at you, Life.   Let me attempt to summarise my last two months, not in chronological order but in ... Jonological order, I suppose. Firstly, I enjoy my current day job as a bartender. I work in an excellent atmosphere, and it’s nice to have a permanent full-time job and be slowly climbing out of debt. I’ve had to l...

When people ask me what I'm doing nowadays, my current standard response is something along the lines of me attempting to balance my acting career with my day job. This is in a sense true – I mean, I'm not lying to myself – but for a while the problem with that statement is that I didn't really have either one of those things: an acting career or a day job. The waitering thing didn’t work out (ask me later) and for a while I had nothing on the cards acting-wise. This is unbelievably stressful and really panicked me for a long time. Thankfully I have been cast in a promising show and can spend my creative energy that way, and ideally looking for a job can take a back seat while I focus on acting for the next couple of weeks. Except I can’t. Or at least I won’t be able to until I am actually balancing the two. The process of finding a new job is in and of itself a stressful task, never mind the fact that I would prefer to find something that is flexible with...

It always seems that my busy-ness comes in waves. I can have nothing on my plate for weeks at a time when all I do is worry about how I'm going to afford to pay my bills next month, and then suddenly have five things going on at once, and feel stressed about pulling myself in many directions simultaneously. This would be normal for most people, but, with my inability to properly manage my time, I instead go through phases of freak out: when I'm stuck at home, I panic because I'm not working, and when I'm so busy working I panic because I feel I'm not getting enough stuff done at home. ("Work" here applies to both acting jobs and the day job.) Currently I am very busy. I don't usually undertake student films anymore, but I agreed to one recently because it's only one day of filming, and it sounds like it would look good on a showreel. Some actors forget that when you do a student film, it is being produced by students, and I completely understand ...

It's 5am here now, and I can't manage to fall back asleep and I don't know why. What to do, what to do? I know, I'll post something in my new blog. That's logical, right? The past couple of days I've actually gotten quite a few random sparks of ingenuity (rare I know) and inspiration concerning interesting things to write about. I've forgotten them all now. Sorry. I'll try to be more focused in the future (though to be honest I wouldn't suggest placing your bets - focus is not one of my strong suits). (Side note: I've written this in bed and on my iPhone, and I have a love/hate relationship with Apple's predictive text software, and upon proofreading this blog I found the previous sentence had said, "focus is not one of my string suits." I wish I had a string suit.) So, I'm still a novice at this blogging thing, so bear with me, but I think I'll just say what's on my mind. Welcome to the twisted world of Jon Marx...

I don’t typically make New Year’s resolutions. I kind of hate them. I could go on for paragraph after paragraph about how they only set people up for failure, and how a calendar is merely a human construct, but instead I have to stop pretending that I’m not making a New Year’s resolution and admit that I have. (Also, I don’t want to start this blog by being overly negative and turn away potential readers.) Although I wouldn’t like to admit it, I’ve made a New Year’s resolution. I’m going to start a blog and commit to it at least twice a week. I have a number of goals with it: I will document my efforts at establishing my career as a professional actor in London . I will use it to organise my thoughts in a coherent manner, and hopefully I won’t be so scatterbrained. I also want to get back into writing, since I like doing it, and seem to find too many excuses or distractions and avoid it. I think if I start a blog then at least I’m writing something and will eventually form a daily ha...