Pepper Spray, Waffle Makers & Black Friday

When I was a kid I never heard the term Black Friday. Some people have told me the term “Black Friday” is fairly recent but according to Wikipedia, it was coined in 1966 by Philadelphia police because of the traffic due to shopping. When growing up my family never talked about going shopping on Black Friday, the only memory I have of that day are stories of my Uncle Jimmy getting up at 5am so he could go to the Hallmark store and get all the collectable holiday ornaments. I also remember watching the news that night and seeing all the women running into the store Cohoes to buy cheap purses. Even in high school there never really was a talk about “Black Friday.”

It wasn’t until in college that I worked at The Picture People in Crossgates Mall that I understood the madness of “Black Friday.” I remember this particular day because it also was the grand opening of the new Best Buy (you remember, where the old Caldor store was). The mall had just expanded and it was time for a new electronics superstore to grass the capital district. I was part of the opening shift; I was to go in at 9am. I woke up fairly early because my mother said “Jer, you better get up early because traffic is going to be crazy and it’s going to be hard to find a parking spot.” At 8:15 I was out of the shower and not wanting to go into work because I was 20 and hung over and hated my job, but alas I had to go in. I went upstairs to my bedroom to get on my uniform and because I slept with the TV on I noticed the news reports warning people who were going to Crossgates that the traffic was backed up really bad. While driving I finally put two and two together “Wait if the mall opens at 6am, I’m going to be three hours late.” I remember wishing I was rich enough to have a cell phone. I arrived at the mall at 9:30 parked at 10am and ran into the mall. I walked up to my store and the gate was down and my manager was sitting on the bench in front of the store. He arrived at 9:45 and forgot his keys. He forgot the mall opened early too. We got the keys at 10:30 and I, my manager and another co-worker sat bored in the store. No one wanted to brave the mall just to get pictures taken. It was pretty much a do nothing day and I was fine with that. The day consisted of taking pictures of each other with all our crazy props, me going outside to smoke…cigarettes…that’s right cigarettes and taking turns going down to Best Buy to watch the craziness. Let me break down what happened that day at Best Buy: they were not fully ready to open on Black Friday so most of their products weren’t in the computers yet so employees had to manually enter each item with a manager’s approval. By the end of the day there were fist fights and someone after waiting in line for five hours promptly threw a computer which I thought was funny due to all the…cigarettes I smoked that day. 

Fast forward to 2011. I know most of my friends thought this year’s Black Friday was absolutely crazy including me. I would never ever go out there that early to save little money on a TV or a Waffle Maker. I’ve listened to so many people call Black Friday shoppers crazy and after watching a woman fighting over a $2 Waffle Maker with her pants halfway down (FYI if anyone got me this present I’m selling it on Ebay as “The $2 Waffle Maker from the YouTube Video”) I thought people were crazy too. It sealed the deal that I will never go out on Black Friday to shop especially for the fact that I don’t want to be pepper-sprayed at Wal-Mart! I was fully content this year working at Circus Café and seated all the exhausted shoppers and pointed the men to the bar who exclaimed “I need a Black Friday beer.”

This blog was supposed to be about my support of anti-Black Friday shopping until I saw an ad from a company who said “We ask you to buy less and to reflect before you spend a dime on this jacket or anything else.” The short of the blog was that a company asked you to think socially before shopping on Black Friday and to wait to buy their products after Black Friday. Well guess what folks that jacket that they asked you not to buy costs $149!!! That’s right, so a family of four on a fixed income who wants nothing less than to save $100 on Black Friday was looked down upon by this company. I don’t care for Black Friday but I would never look at a family who are trying to save some money. I know everyone is saying “but JJ Christmas is not about the gifts, it’s about so much more.” This is what I have to say about that, “Its 2011 not 1845 you expect me to believe you would prefer just to feel the spirit of Christmas rather than getting that new phone or Ipad you asked for via Facebook newsfeed? I think not.” I say go to buy your discounted Black Friday TV’s and the then come to Downtown Saratoga Springs and spend the money you saved at a locally owned business.” 

JJ's Rant on Local Theater

I woke up this morning to a huge number of facebook messages concerning another production of Avenue Q that was supposed to go up in January but unfortunately was cancelled. I feel I have to address this issue as well as some other issues that have been on my mind for a long time.

Last night I received a text about the Avenue Q production being cancelled; most people in my position would have been overjoyed. I have to say I really wasn’t. I want this to be known and I hope that every actor in Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga and Troy read this because I do not like when I hear about a show being cancelled. I don’t know the reasons it was cancelled and quite frankly I don’t care. I feel awful for all involved to lose the opportunity to be in such a great show. Some people have said to me “now you have the regional premiere,” that’s all good and such (and believe me in the beginning I was mad that I wasn’t) but what people seem to not understand is all the hard work put in by the theater company, cast and crew is now gone. That makes me sad. When I lost my job a while back I had to cancel my production of “The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” and I was depressed and sad. Regardless of the reasons I felt I let a lot of people down. Everyone rallied around me and gave me support but it still hurt. So, my heart goes out to both the cast and crew of the cancelled production, I know how it feels and I’m sorry you are feeling this way.

That was my first point. Now, here is my second point.

Every couple months there seems to be an argument on Facebook about local community theater. I love and hate these discussions. Yes, there are a lot of valid points made by everyone involved in these discussions. As a theater owner I look at all these points and most of the time I just shrug them off because the points made are unfixable unless we go back ten years. What I mean by this statement is if you look back ten years can you name the theaters that were doing shows? When I think back ten years the theater I remember are: SLOC, Schenectady Civic, Albany Civic, Park Playhouse, Family Players, HMT, Schuylerville Community Theater and Glens Falls Community Theater. Those are the ones I remember and if there are more I apologize but I’m trying to make a point. When I went to see shows at these theaters I saw the same people in leading roles. I never thought anything bad about that. It seemed that each theater had their “set of players” that were the “workhorses” for that company. Again, something I never thought anything bad about. I used-to go to theater auditions and I would see a filled audition room with the ability to cast the shows three different ways. I go now and that doesn’t happen anymore. Is it sad? Yes. Is there anything that could be done? Yes and no. Yes we can all say “there are too many shows going on and the talent is spread thin.” I have to say I’m so sick of hearing that, it’s called variety. It’s like walking down the street in Saratoga or Albany and complaining that there are too many places to eat. I do find that most people that complain about too many shows are the people who would never take anything less than a leading role. When I was younger I would go see a show at theater “A” with actor “A” playing the lead and then go to theater “B” and see that actor in the ensemble. That doesn’t happen a lot now-a-days. I know most people are going to be angered by that statement but it is true. If you take offense to that ask yourself the question if a theater is doing “Oklahoma” and you really want Laurie and you don’t get cast would you be in the ensemble if offered? So unless you are willing to step back from the spotlight a couple times a year then the world of local theater will never be free of Facebook rants. I know you all are thinking “But JJ you cast yourself in all your shows at your theater company and you play leads too. You cast all your friends and no one can ever get into one of your shows because you pre-cast all of your shows.” Which brings me to my final point of the day.

Hell yes I do all those things. If you ask me or anyone that has ever worked with me you will know my response is. “I started my theater company so me and my friends could do shows that we wanted to.” Plain and simple. Is that wrong? I don’t think so and for a long time it was accepted. I never had any backlash. I pre-casted my shows and life was good. When I couldn’t cast someone I knew in a role that I had available people would recommend other actors and I used them. They then became a friend and I used them again. If you truly look at my casts there are new comers to my company all the time. Those new comers come from recommendations. I always say to people “if you want to come be in a show with The Local Actors Guild, just ask me. It’s that simple.” Whenever I put up a notice on facebook that I’m looking for actors for a show I get a good response and 9 times out of 10 I get an actor or actress that I will always use again. My choice to audition Avenue Q came from drum-roll please…the actors. It was expressed to me that pre-casting this show in particular was un-fair. I couldn’t agree them more and even before they said it I was already going to hold auditions. I do on occasion hold auditions to bring in new actors. I do generally get new actors by other actors recommending people and it works out beautifully. In my last production I used a new actor on a recommendation and wouldn’t think twice about casting that person again.

I really want to make other actors feel like they have a chance to work with The Local Actors Guild. There are certain shows that I do for certain people. I could hold auditions for those shows to make it look like I didn’t pre-cast a part but I don’t believe in hiding pre-casting by holding auditions. So, I’m putting this out there right now. If you want to be a part of my company talk to me, come audition for Avenue Q, if I don’t cast you in that show there is a big chance that you will get a message offering you a role in another show. It might have been my mistake for not making this clearer in the past but now it’s all out there and I’m happy I will never have to make this point again.

I hope this makes people feel better about approaching me about future productions, I realize this will also make some people mad but you know what they say about opinions.

Let’s make the theater in this area thrive. Let’s all remember why we do theater in the first place.