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He continues ...

More so, if I am considered a friend and think you're show sucks, is it more friendly to politely keep it to myself or tell you it sucks? If I tell you your show blows and I hated it, am I now less a friend? For myself, I prefer friends who are honest enough with me to tell me the truth. Even if it pisses me off or hurts my feelings. Oh - and btw - there is a difference between "You're ugly" and "Your show stunk up the place." The first is personal; the second is about my work.

Of course the flip side of this is that I now I'm worrying how many of my friends have actually hated my work. Well, I guess that group probably includes the ones who don't come anymore. Oh well.

And isn't it hard listening to your friends' comments at all? They say, "Great work, man," and you're thinking "He said great work. He didn't have to say great. Maybe he really did like it."

I guess it'd be easier to just do without friends at all, right?

Here's a buzzy term I picked up the other day: Portfolio career.

Just because 88% of Equity members are unemployed at any given time, doesn't mean they're all standing in line at the local soup kitchen. Most artists, including actors, put together multiple part-time and contractual jobs to assemble full-time employment. So maybe they do an Equity show, they do some voice-over work through AFTRA, they do a couple of walk-on film roles through SAG, they teach a Meisner class twice a week at a friend's studio, etc, etc. They have a career, it just requires some assembly into a "portfolio."

In other words, if you consider Equity's statistics in isolation, it gives the impression that the life of a working actor is awfully grim. Not saying that it's all roses and sunshine, either; only that "unemployed with Equity" doesn't mean the same thing as "unemployed actor."