So Very Tired, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #186 | @MDWorld

July 4, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 3 Comments

Being popular is hard folks.  I’ve been in high demand lately, high for me anyway.  I really miss the weeks and weeks when I could get away with scarcely talking to other people and I could work on the close personal relationship between me and my couch.

I don’t want this to sound boastful; I’m not actually doing important things.  I shot a pilot for a reality show last week.  That was five 19+-hour days of production followed by a marathon 24-hour drive home.  The thing is while some pilots end up being TV shows most of them end up being nothing.  I didn’t go through rounds and rounds of grueling auditions; I knew the show’s creator and he liked me for it.  The lack of sleep feels exactly the same though.

After getting a not-at-all relaxing ~55 hours back in Los Angeles I had to skip town again, this time to perform in the 14th Annual Del Close Marathon.  Run by the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, the Del Close Marathon is a three-day non-stop celebration of improv comedy held in several theaters in New York City.  I was lucky to participate as a member of an all-velociraptor team of improvisors.  We really played our hearts out and I can honestly say that leaping from the stage to the first row of the audience to attempt to eat viewers and completely taking out a row of chairs in the process is one of the highlights of my performing career.  Everyone should do it at least once if at all possible.  It’s worth noting that this festival does not pay performers and if you count that I destroyed my iPhone during the after party I’m considerably in the hole on the trip

This isn’t the end though.  I’m writing this column in JetBlue’s Terminal 5 at JFK Airport.  I’m flying back to sunny Los Angeles where I can expect to spend all of 65 hours (ten more hours!) at home before uprooting myself again for a trip to Las Vegas.  While this is a family vacation and I will have absolutely no professional obligations for the week I’ll be there I think we can all agree that Las Vegas doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being the most relaxing place in the world.  I know I can’t take a call at a Blackjack table but do you think they have firm rules on catching a quick catnap in-between hands?  What if the drunk guy at third base takes a real long time to make decisions?

I shouldn’t really be complaining about this.  As an entertainer having more opportunities is definitely not a bad thing.  There are probably people struggling through menial food service jobs that would kill for a pilot and a comedy festival.  A week’s vacation is a real luxury in our modern self-hating work-everyone-to-death culture.  I should be grateful for all the things I have in life and I’ll get right on that as soon as I wake up from my next nap.