The Vs. Studio Blog

“Doing something that might not work for the benefit of others”. That’s our inspiring definition of art.

A perfect example of this definition are all the mutual aid organizations that have sprouted up across the country (and the world) in response to Covid-19. Read more about them in this excellent New Yorker piece HERE.

Those who started these groups had little to no money, resources or plan. They had no clue if their ideas would work. They just had a burning desire to help. And proceeded from there.

It’s remarkable what they’ve been able to accomplish.

EUSTRESS: a positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance, and emotional well-being.

First coined by the pioneering Hungarian endocrinologist, Hans Selye, it consists of the Greek prefix “Eu”meaning good and “Stress.”  It literally means “good stress.” (The opposite is “Distress” or “bad stress.” It leads to negative symptoms like depression, illness and anxiety.)

We cultivate eustress when we seek out challenges, leave our comfort zones and grow as human beings.

Examples include learning a new skill, engaging in athletic competition, traveling to a foreign country, making a career change, and yep, you guessed it…

…Making our art.

Yes, it’s hard. Yes, we’ll have growing pains. Yes, we’ll feel stress.

But it’s the good kind. The Eustress.

Seek it out. As often as you can.

“Follow your instincts.”

You hear this a lot. Especially in acting class.

It’s sound advice. Trusting your gut is generally a good thing

But is it always right?

In many cases, following your instincts is the exact, wrong thing to do.

When you swing a baseball bat or golf club for the first time, ypur instinct is to use all arms. That won’t get you very far in either sport.

When you’re hungry and a giant plate of food sits in front of you, your instinct is to shovel it all down as fast as you can. Enter stomach ache.

When someone or something stirs up your emotions, your instinct is to respond immediately. To react with whatever you’re feeling at that moment. This usually leads to doing something you’ll regret later.

Even when acting…yes, as the character we should absolutely feel everything. Have our instincts firing.

But then we should conceal. Try and regain control. That’s riveting to watch. Because it’s truthful. It’s what we do in real life.

And isn’t what makes us uniquely human our ability to go against our natural instinct at times?

To be courageous when we’re afraid.

To be generous when we want to be selfish.

To lead when we’d rather follow.

To make a change when we’re told it can’t be done.

Greatness happens when we persevere in spite of the odds.

Sometimes going against our instincts is exactly what we need to do. That’s where “the better angels of our nature” can prevail.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” -Viktor E. Frankl

When any external event happens to us, big or small, we have three decisions to make.

What does this event mean to me?

What am I going to focus on?

What actions will I take?

Those three decisions determine the quality of our lives and the affect we have on others.

Go make your art.

Welcome Fellow Travelers. Below are my March picks. Thanks in advance for reading. I look forward to your feedback and your own picks!

Here goes…

FILMS

1. Honey Boy. How did Shia LaBeouf not get award recognition for this film? Easily the performance of his career. Absolutely magnetic. He wrote this super-personal story and it shows in every frame. (Thank you Ron for urging me to watch.)
2. The Big Lebowski. I re-watched this Coen Brothers masterpiece with my wife Amy who’d never seen it. She loved it! It was so much fun to hear her laughing throughout.
3. Happy Gilmore. We had to put our beloved Bernese Mountain Dog, Wilson, down because of cancer in March. This was the first film we watched to lift our spirits and I’m grateful to Adam Sandler for making it. It’s silly of course, but man is it fun. Shooter McGavin! One of the best villains of all time. (Bill Simmons did a great “Rewatchables” podcast episode on this film too. Check it out HERE.)

BOOKS

1. Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen. I’m a huge Springsteen fan, but even if you’re not, this is a phenomenal read. Really well written and compelling. Just like his music, the Boss puts it all out there, warts and all. An inside glimpse into an artist’s struggle. You root for his success…Springsteen came from nothing, had no connections; he just worked his ass off to achieve his rock and roll dreams.

ARTICLES

1. “Why Americans Are Dying From Despair” by Atul Gawande. It’s probably the article I’ve recommended the most in 2020. It’s more of a review of the recently published book “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism” by Anne Case and Angus Heaton. Regardless of your political persuasion, you come away with a deep understanding of just how impactful jobs are. Work is more than just money. It’s identity.
2. “Coronavirus Is Serious, But Panic Is Optional” by Margo Aaron. Take back your time and attention from the media. It’s the most important asset you have. Don’t give it away freely.

PLAYS

1. King James by Rajiv Joseph. I admit I’m a sucker for any story about basketball. This one is about Lebron James and his impact on the city of Cleveland. But Rajiv brilliantly centers the story on two friends–one black, one white. Their friendship, falling out, and eventual healing perfectly mirrors Lebron’s relationship with Cleveland. The play isn’t published yet but when it does come out, get it. Also, CTG and Steppenwolf were supposed to produce it this year, but it’s been indefinitely postponed. If/when it comes back to LA, I’ll be sure to organize a Vs. outing to go see it!…Pair this play with the awesome “30 for 30” episode “Believeland.”

PODCASTS

1. “Seth Godin” on The Moment with Brian Koppelman. Stop day-trading your emotions.

MUSIC

1. I listened to tons of Springsteen while reading his book. It was fun to listen to entire albums after reading what went into making each one. Darkness On The Edge Of Town and Nebraska remain my two favorites. But I’ll tell you what, The Ghost Of Tom Joad is giving them a run for their money.

P.S. – Why the name “Fellow Traveler”?…We’re all traveling on our own artistic journey. The journey to find and manifest the art we’re passionate about. Let’s travel together.

January Picks HERE

February Picks HERE

“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it.” -Ernest Hemingway (giving advice to a young, aspiring writer)

The above quote is from a terrific Esquire piece written by Hemingway himself. You can read it HERE.

This is great advice. Not just for writing, but accomplishing any task.

First, break the task down into chunks. Daily, repetitive action.

Then, at the end of each day’s action, stop at a good point.

Maybe you could do more. But don’t. That way, you’ll be excited to return to it the next day. And, you’ll know where to start. Not have to think about it. With momentum on your side.

Give it a shot. Let me know what you think.

P.S. – For a deeper dive into yesterday’s post about Expectation and how it relates to acting, check out Uta Hagen’s masterpiece, A Challenge For The Actor. She writes beautifully on the subject. One quote…”Remember that in life, what we do is always accompanied by expectations of the consequences of our actions, what we think will happen next. However, we never know for sure what that will be. How we receive what actually happens brings about our next action, which is again sent with certain expectations, hopes, speculations, or assumptions about its consequences…We must strive to be newly alive from moment to moment, alive in every fiber of our being, surprising ourselves every time we repeat a performance.”

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.” -Shakespeare

We should avoid having too many expectations in life. They lead to disappointment if we don’t get what we want.

But they sure are wonderful for our acting. Give yourself as many as possible.

“The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile.” -Gerard de Nerval

Even though cliches, by definition, are so overused that they’ve lost their original effect, they still can contain good life advice. There’s a reason something sticks around as long as it does. We’d be foolish not to at least consider cliches for our daily living.

All that glitters isn’t gold.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

When we’re making our art however (especially writing), realize that we tend to think in cliches. That’s often our first thought. Our first point of reference.

Nothing wrong with that. We need to get down what’s in our head first. (See: “Vomit Draft“)

But then we need to go deeper. Push the envelope. Figure out what we’re really trying to say.

That takes work. A lot more work. But it’s worth it. Especially if you want to make a lasting impact.

And who knows?…maybe you’ll start a brand new cliche.

P.S. – Bonus points for anyone who can catch the Tom Wolfe, first-inspired cliche in my post.

100 blog posts today. Woo-hoo! Let’s celebrate!

Thank you for reading, for commenting, for encouraging, for sharing these posts with others. You inspire me to do my best work every day and I’m very grateful to all of you.

And thanks to my virtual mentor Seth Godin. (Be sure to check out his awesome blog HERE) Seth was right…Starting a daily blog has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I’ve loved doing it and highly encourage any of you to do the same. Count me in for your first subscriber!

I promise to continue giving you one hundred percent effort every day.

See you at 200.

My friend and world-class acting teacher, Howard Fine, often says, “There are no genius acting mistakes.” 

What he means is that no matter how accomplished the actor, if something isn’t going well in a scene, it’s always the basics.  Not listening, not having strong actions, not playing the given circumstances, etc…We don’t reach a level in our work where we make “higher-level” mistakes.

The same can be said for all of life.  When we mess up, it’s the basics.

This is good news! Because it means that when we mess up, and we will, often, we can more easily diagnose what went wrong. And then take steps to fix it.

It also means that to get great at anything, we just have to practice the basics.

A lot.

P.S. The pics above are…

(1) Bill Buckner (apologies Red Sox fans)…was a great baseball player. All-Star, Batting Champion, near Hall of Famer, 20-plus year career in the Majors. Yet in Game 6 to close out the 1986 World Series, he miffed a routine ground ball. He picked his glove up, the ball went through his legs, and the rest is history (the Mets came back to win the Series).  A little leaguer easily makes that play.

(2) “Inverted Jenny” postage stamp…A rushed, flat-bed printing process led to several sheets being printed with the airplane upside down. All the stamps were destroyed, but one sheet of 100, somehow got out to the public.

(3) Ford Edsel…Ugly, overpriced, overhyped, poorly made and poorly timed, the Edsel was a colossal mistake. Easily the biggest in the company’s history and a staple case-study taught in business school classrooms.

P.P.S. – All three mistakes are rare collector’s items. The Jenny sells for over $1 million.