How to Break Down a Script

How to Break Down a Script

Sexy Rants & Raves aka Nadègeisms: The BREAK-UP DIET

Sexy Rants & Raves aka Nadègeisms: The BREAK-UP DIET: I was at a casting yesterday when I overheard two actresses greeting each other. A tall brunette asks a slightly shorter blonde: "What ...

The BREAK-UP DIET

I was at a casting yesterday when I overheard two actresses greeting each other. A tall brunette asks a slightly shorter blonde: "What have you been doing? You look amazing!"
The blonde replies: "Oh, I just went through a terrible break-up and I stopped eating."
The brunette:"Gosh, you're so lucky. You look great!"
There is envy in her voice. To be rail thin at any cost is worth the price!

I stare. Not discreetly. The blonde does indeed look great. Emaciated, just the way the camera loves it. She is a walking skeleton and her dress hangs perfectly. Not a bulge in sight. Not around her lower abdomen, no butt, zero percent body fat. She looks AMAZING!

I am transported back to 2003. The year of my own involuntary "BREAK-UP DIET"! This type of meal plan involves NOT having any meals. Coffee and cigarettes become your best friends because your  friends have grown tired of your fast paced descent into the bowels of hell. Couples get nervous about having you around. Break-ups are contagious it seems.  Your esophagus also shuts down. You basically live off of liquids (coffee, alcoholic beverages, water- if you can remember to drink any) air and your own salty tears.  Cells from your hypothalamus, that part of your brain that sends the hunger signal to your stomach, cease to function all together. But you will look GREAT!
I looked AMAZING too! I was swimming in my size 0 pants and had to go down to a 00. (yes, there is such a size). I felt light, empty and ungrounded.

I needed help. But before seeking help, I thought I simply needed to start eating again. One afternoon, determined to beat this "non-eating addiction", I forced fed myself.  Armed with one peach, a knife and a glass of water, I sat at my dining room table and proceeded to cut the peach into the tiniest morsels possible. Problem was, I had forgotten how to chew. So I decided to chase each morsel with a gulp of water. Tricking my brain into believing I was just having "liquid". This process took over two hours.  My journal entry that night was just one line: Recovery phase- Day 1- Ate an entire peach!

Day 2, I go to see a Medical Doctor. I weighed 92 lbs. I tell him that something is terribly wrong. My normal weight is normally 102 lbs. At my heaviest I weigh 105. But 92 lbs, is giving me pause for concern. Apparently, medical school was plan B for this doctor, had he his way, he would have been a failed stand-up comic. His punch-line? "Come on! You could never be too thin in Hollywood". I walk out feeling the need to stay skeleton thin- for my career, of course. After all, a medical doctor condoned my involuntary diet. We had just wasted each others time with my petty concern. Too thin? What was I thinking?

A few weeks later, I return to the acting studio of which I am a member and a dear "elder" pulls me aside. This very loving woman proceeds to berate me.
"I know what you're doing!", she said "My daughter is a dancer and she's lost many friends over the years who have your problem".
"What problem is that?" I ask shockingly.
(my subtext at this point went something like this:  I look AMAZING! I feel empty, I am floating, I am ungrounded)
"Anorexia!" she exclaims.
"Me? no! I am not making myself throw up. I simply can not eat anymore. My esophagus stopped working."
We went back and forth for a bit. She was angry with me.
 I was indignant! After all, according to the medical community in Hollywood, there is no such thing as being "too thin!" She should know, at the height of her popularity in a beloved TV serial from the 70's she was rail thin herself!
I walk away in a huff, adjusting my size 00, yes double zero, denim skirt. The darn skirt prohibited me from a graceful exit.  It was clearly a malfunction from the designer's end. Not my body! Everything looks great on a body that is as flat as a pancake. I will just have to take the skirt to get altered.

I empathize with the Blonde, for I know that this involuntary diet comes at a great cost. Her self-esteem must be shot. I look closer and notice how puffy her eyes look. I could see that the white of her eyes have a pink hue. She probably cried on her way to the audition and will cry once she gets in her car and again before bed, if she can fall asleep sober.  I imagine that her world as she knew it or hoped it would be, will never be the same. She probably woke up that morning with the taste of blood in her throat from her broken heart.

I envy her skeleton-like new figure though. I envy it so much, that, for a brief moment I toy with getting back on the "BREAK-UP diet" meal plan. Problem is, that level of pain associated with a break-up will never exist to that same degree again. Once the veil has been lifted, you know beyond a shadow of doubt that it will definitely pass. And if you happen to skip a few meals in the process, you will look AMAZING!

Criminal Minds "Restoration" (Season 8,ep.18) Nadege August guests Sheil...

Happy Endings (The Straight Dope) Season 3, Episode 15

Fruitvale Station

I've been shooting an indie for the last fifteen days under grueling conditions. The bulk of my action takes place in a camping site, at night. Between the elements (critters, bugs, poison oak) in a forrest and the radical change of climate between the hours of 4PM and 2 AM, I've been off the radar. I wake up most days not sure of the exact date.

Friday was my first day off in awhile and I decided to catch a movie in the middle of the day. I don't do well in crowds so a weekday matinee is ideal. I am sometimes one of five people in a vast theatre and it feels like a private screening of sorts.

I'd been hearing a lot of buzz about Fruitvale Station. I had no idea what the subject matter was or what to expect until I got to the ticket line. While standing in line, I felt a gentle tap on my right shoulder followed by an "Excuse me". Standing next to me was an African-American young woman, her dress style was hippie-chic and her hair was wrapped à la Erika Badu.

         "What are you going to watch?" She inquired in whisper.
         "What do you think?" I replied, with a slight playful grin with the subtext of WTF! Just in case this was a setup to get "jumped". Ya' can take the girl outta Brooklyn, but...
She reacted with a slight shift in her body that seems to question her decision to approach me. I decided to keep this conversation going by answering her question with an answer:
         "Fruitvale Station!"
         "Bring tissues with you." she offered as her eyes welled up with tears. She just as quickly walked away before I had a chance to say anything more.

I wasn't sure if I was in the mood for anything heavy. The role I am shooting is emotionally demanding and I frankly was hopping that a movie with the word "Fruit" in it would be FUNNY!

I decided that she was just highly sensitive and while she may have been moved to tears even after the movie ended, I may not be as moved in the end. I selected my seat, payed the whopping $14 fee for "my semi-private" screening and skipped the popcorn for once.

I will not review the movie "Fruitvale Station" because I want to encourage as many people from all walks of life to go see it. Especially after the verdict on the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. I will simply say that it is based on the true story of 22 year-old Oscar Grant who was shot while handcuffed by a BART police officer. Ryan Coogler, the writer and director of the piece, brilliantly gives us an insight into the last day of Oscar Grant's life. By the way, I have never seen silence used so brilliantly in a film before.

It is what happened once I walked out of the theater that I was well worth my $14.

The stranger who forewarned me was correct. I made a detour into the ladies room to soak my entire face in cold water. Standing against the wall on my way into the ladies room, was a thin African- American young man about 6 feet tall, he was on crutches and holding a yellow cushion. He was obviously waiting for someone and the cushion was probably for his broken leg. I wondered if he'd just come out of "Fruitvale Station". One look into his eyes, the answer was a resounding YES.

When I stepped out, I found a woman in her late forties holding the same cushion in the place where the young man was. I approached her purposefully:
          "Did you just come out of Fruitvale station?"
           "Yes, I came with my son and I've gotta tell ya, I am scared for him every single time he leaves            the house. He's only 18." she replied, she'd been dying to share this but knows better to tell him probabbly.
          "I can imagine and I am so sorry that our sons and brothers are an endangered species", I offer   earnestly.
          "I know, and no one seems to get that. In fact just last week, I was dropping my son off at baseball camp while on my way to the gym. I got pulled over for no apparent reason. When the officer approached my car, he asked my son:"Are you on probation?" I said, excuse me officer, I am his mother. He is NOT on probation! "Oh sorry, the office replied, it's just that he looks like someone we are looking for."

Her son hopped over in his crutches to join us and to include him, she said :
      "I was telling her about last week when we got pulled over and the officer asked you if you were on probation."
      "Oh, yeah" he replied shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

I can't bear to look at him. I wanted to hear his thoughts about what his experience was like about the film, getting pulled over, being a target just because of what he seems to represent in the eyes of those who are supposed to "Serve and Protect".
Part of what helped Oscar Grant's family get some justice was the fact that so many witnesses pulled out their cell phones and recorded the officers beating him and the one shooting him point blank. What about all of those instances where no one is around to bear witness? What if this young man whose mother divulged so much to me at the movie theatre was not alone when the cops decided that he looked like a fugitive.
         "Do you have a son?" she asks me.
        "No, I answer" weakly.
As I walk away, unable to come up with anything encouraging or polite to say to a mother who is rightfully fearful every time her son is not with her. I wonder if I would want to raise a Black son in a country where he would be assumed guilty just because of the color of his skin.

Built-in Birth Control~ Who knew?

I just got back from Dr. Bobbie Wax’s office. Bobbie Wax is my "secret pocket's doctor". 

I decided to pay for yet another visit because our phone conversation, a week after my pelvic UltraSound results were in,  was too abrupt, curt and hurried. I hung up feeling like an imbecile. The woman sounded as if she had a stop watch in hand and had to get off the phone within one-hundred and three seconds or else there would be some stiff penalty.  

Squeezing another payment just to get the results explained to me seem like a wiser option. I believe in face-time when I need to learn vital information. I liken it to taking a classroom course versus an online course. 

I ask Dr. Wax to: " pretend that I am a world-class imbecile and breakdown this lab report about my uterus to me." 

My uterus is also known as the womb. I prefer to think of it in cruder terms. It's  an oven, a “baby-baker” essentially. All I know about it is, that it sometimes has to be removed and once it is removed, no babies ever, forever and never.

I have never had to think about these life altering things. So I admit to having dwelled in some avoidance behavior for a bit. I ignored the pain hoping it would just go away, like headaches, colds and flu do. 

She begins the breakdown.  

My "baby- baker "is tilted forward and that is very good real estate in reproductive parlance. The dimensions are in centimeters and the width is just fine.

 Now, onto the hospitality factor. Is my "baby-baker"  a hospitable environment? 

Apparently not.  As it turns out, I suffer from one of the most common ailments that affect over 50% of women of child-bearing years. 

I have a common condition known as uterine tumors, fibroids, leiomyomata, myoma. Non-cancerous growths that may hinder impregnation, cause heavy bleeding, make a woman anemic but most importantly, hurt. 

These growths seem to love my "Baby-Baker". There is a shy one occupying the right side. It is only about the size of a larger plum. One on the left is the size of a ripe grapefruit. And finally, the Grand Pouba of them all, the beastly-bitch,  is located on the posterior wall and is subserosal and exophylic- meaning- it has wrapped itself around the uterine wall and has had the audacity to grow a stalk. Like a tree, this beast may start to grow more branches and bloom- some day!

I am wrestling with how I feel about any of this. I am shockingly calm. For what I do for a living, one would think that this would be an opportunity for hysterics. For me to have a gorgeously poetic meltdown in Dr. Wax's office. Squeeze  prescriptions for Valium, vicodin and xanax while I'm at it. But I don't. 

I go into "adult-critical parent mode". It feels like a failure on my end. A defect. Not a genetic one since my mother and two other sisters have not had these issues. So, something is definitely wrong with... ME!!!

I am not sure if I should be anything about it? I try my positive hot yoga-kale-and-almond smoothie loving hat on to handle this. This Zen version of Nadège tells me  that I should be gratefully happy with the fact that I do have health insurance through the Screen Actors Guild and that now I know for a fact that what I had been describing as stomach pain for the last four years was just a case of being a woman, fully equipped with defective, but fixable female body parts, where stuff happens on the INSIDE.

Dr. Wax throws a few of my options at me. Turns out, these tumors, if not removed can prevent a spermatazoid from making its way onto fertilizing one of my eggs. I chuckle internally. She wonders why my frown is suddenly turned upside -loudly.- This convo isn’t exactly terrific news after all. She is telling me that I am in need of surgery after all.

 I ask her quite seriously: 

         “You mean to tell me that I have had "Built-in Birth-Control" for years?” 

Dr. Bobbie:

         “Well it’s one way to look at it. But had an egg gotten fertilized, the chances of it...” 

she is trying to be Politically correct here.

 “....uh...making it...” she remembers she is not God or something too special 

“...well, let’s just say, it would’ve been complicated.” 

Armed with my referral for a specialist,  where invasive surgery is the ONLY viable option if I ever want to bake my own baby... 

I step out of the Health Center onto another spectacular Southern California day feeling informed yet confused but disoriented and knowledgeable. 

I call my sister Mimie in Petion-Ville, Haiti. She has a decent sense of humor. 

Humor is my coping mechanism and wine is my unwind. 

     "Mimie" , I exclaim, "Guess what?" 

      "OMG" Dadou, "what's wrong?! I am under a deadline here and I really can't take any more shocks. There was no gas to be found in Haiti today and Aristide is gonna go on trial, I just ..., what? what is it?

 Me:   "I just came from my secret-pockets' doctor to get my ultrasound results explained to me. Turns out,  I have had "Built-in BIRTH CONTROL for years and did NOT know it!" 

Mimie laughs so uproariously, she drops her phone! She needed this release more than I did. Who knew?

Sexy Rants & Raves aka Nadègeisms: Tootin' My Own Horn sans Business Acumen

Sexy Rants & Raves aka Nadègeisms: Tootin' My Own Horn sans Business Acumen: When I was a child, I used to watch "grown up" flicks. I preferred them over cartoons. Especially the ones with people who looked...

Tootin' My Own Horn sans Business Acumen

When I was a child, I used to watch "grown up" flicks. I preferred them over cartoons. Especially the ones with people who looked like me. Black and White. Yup!  Pre-technicolor, technicolor, and colored stuff. I love(d) Eartha Kitt, Brigitte Bardot, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier, that deep throated scene stealer Katherine Hepburn, and Spencer tracy. "The Apartment" starring a young Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon is still at the top of my favorite flicks.

I would go around proclaiming that: "I don't know nuffin'  bout burfin' No babies!"(you know that movie about some plantation named Tara that the Wind done gone blew off).

And finally, THE line that has haunted me most:
"Success is NOTHING if you have NO one to share it with."
These words were uttered by Billy D. Williams' character, "Brian", to the glamy-iest of the glamest Divas,  Diana Ross!
 The movie, "Mahogany" (1975).

I was being reared outside of the United States of America, so movies would literally make their way to us  decades later. I was forced fed the oldies, but goodies. I barely grasped the subject matters, but somehow that "Mahogany" line had a tremendous impact on my psyche. So much so, that I feared it became a sort of leit motif for my earthly existence.

Diana Ross' character was a woman who raised herself up by her bootstraps, all on her lonesome, managed to have it all, opted for single-hood, speed, booze, false adulation AND a MINK coat, bitches! As if all of that was not enough, she also had a handsome, bleeding heart liberal, highly educated man chase her twiggy-ass around the planet to physically try to shake her out of the seduction of all of the illusory good she'd accumulated. He tells her - no warns her, quite wisely with enough anger and Mandingo juice, squeezing her broomstick-like arms:"Success is Nothing if you've got NO ONE to share it with!". 

Freeze-Frame back to MY, Nadège August's,  reality - 2013.

I haven't bitched, ranted, kissed and sort- of -told in three months. Where have I been?  Replenishing my undried well. Let's call this "well":  procrastination, coupled with a fear of criticism over my still evolving, writing. You see, I have an extra small group of dear friends, led by my all time favorite, the metrosexual Lenny.

 Lenny has been my harshest and most punishing critic. Lenny will not deny sleeping with me because he can not and since he is being accused of it anyway, he's gone along for the ride. Lenny is my parent. A praiser and a stone-throwing critic at once. He loved the blogs that had absolutely nothing to do with him but hated anything where he recognized an iota of himself. But I digress.

I am back, undried well and all and may Lenny be damned! (Sidebar, Lenny is getting hitched, so he is too busy to judge me anymore. I am sad to report too, that I've lost him...again)

Tonight, I am on Television. Whilst writing this blog, my image is appearing on the western part of the United States, but I am opting to "express", to "expose" another little centimeter of my heart to be devoured by an audience of 10. To "publicly journal" instead.

Admittedly, the allure of blogging is that it promises the potential for immediate feedback. For me, it's been a gorgeous, naked ride, where my wit either offends or hooks a reader. In fact, I see one follower who will likely un-follow me before he even reads this because we went on a date, hang out for a bit and the very next morning, he felt the need to send me sexually explicit texts.  After a few days of dodging, I decided to tell him the opposite of an untruth. I told him that his texts were a literal "turn-off".  I will soon blog about him. And, henceforth refer to him as the "Gardner of girth-less wonder". Stay Tuned. (I did warn that this was a public journal)

Smash cut:  back to "Mahogany".

In Los Angeles, part of being healthy involves the help of a" head - doctor", 16 oz of detox green juice, yoga, hiking, boot-camp, cross-training, a couch and a checkbook.
Because I am  a self-proclaimed conservative misfit, my head-doc dared me to TOOT my own HORNS!"
-"It's okay, it's what social media is for."
She confidently proclaimed. I don't back away from many challenges. I tackle this challenge with a plan:

•  I post this TV guest gig on my FB fan page. Immediately, four (4) fans UNLIKE my image.
•  I post on my regular FB account and a few unsubscribe from Nadège-land. 
•  I don't do mailchimp, vertical response or constant contact but rather, go through the tedious process of of sending an email to people in my contact list. 

In the past, I would get a lot of: " Why didn't you tell me you were in...(name the show), I happened to be flipping through the channel and there you were ?"
 So, the head doctor's challenge while fabulous was reinforced up by the mild accusations on my lack of business acumen. I am happy to report that I got no response from more than half. Terrific! Because it was just that, an "announcement". Not the kind of email that begged for a response o a RSVP.
The other half was a panacea of "Really? Seriously?! And head scratching from me.

 Here is small sample:
1) Would love to, but, unfortunately, I am working...tonight
2) Oh no, I just got this text/email now and I...missed it. :-( (sad face) - It's nowhere near 9PM PST where you live.
3) Your email ended up in my spam box :-( (sadder face)
4) Unsubscribe me from your list! (my favorite cause I sure like a threat! Considering we've emailed each other enough that you are on my contact list and not a random stranger) Insert Laughing face (:-)

I am ending this glorious evening knowing that strangers, family and former BF's have written to me about tonight's show. The subject matter, mattered. 

I, Nadège August, understood it to the core and for that week, while we shot, I lived it. 

When a relative skyped me hours before the episode aired Pacific Time and proceeded to give me the play by play of the episode,  I lovingly stopped him and said:

"Brother, I was there!" Sheila Goode (the character I played) was Good.
 Leit motif, courtesy of Mahogany? ~ broken and done.