Are You Experienced? Part 2: The Quick-and-Sloppy Moneymaker

Hello cyberfriends. So...it's Saturday morning, Twisted Sister is on Sirius Hair Nation, and my audition buzz has worn off. In other words, it is the perfect time to make a sequel.

There are a few malignancies I neglected to introduce you to last go-round. In the tradition of sequels through history, I am making these even more sarcasm- and profanity-laden than the first, promising gorier kills and a higher body count. Speaking of body counts--playbill.com's article about the Hair open call puts the number of auditioners actually seen at 963. NINE HUNDRED SIXTY-THREE. Jeeeeeeeezus.

Alright, enough foreplay: let's do this.

THE KNOW-IT-ALL
--These precocious motherfuckers are usually students. Undergraduate students, to be specific. Apparently, Musical Theatre 101 at NYU is prerequisite enough to preach the virtues of Sondheim, Suzuki, and Stephen Schwartz to anyone with functional eardrums. And Jason Robert Brown help you if you don't agree--they're not shy about trying to convert you. They are the fundamentalist cult of the audition world, and I wish they would just drink some spiked Kool-Aid and do us all a favor. In the space of one hour sitting on a cold sidewalk, I was told, with an infuriating God-like authority, that everyone will get 2 minutes in the audition room (for a 16-bar cut? bitch, please.), and that once you hit your mid-30s, you stop going to these things in order to "settle down and get married" (their underlying tone implying that you should stop, because obviously, you're too old to be any good if you haven't made it by then). It was 5 a.m., and I had unfortunately left my taser at home. Unsure of what threats of violence would spew from my mouth, I simply turned to my Ipod, and watched the first episode of The State. In a few minutes, Louie and "I wanna dip my balls in it" had soothed my rankled soul. Here's the problem, and it's where the fundamentalist analogy is most appropriate: you can't argue with them, because they are so fucking sure they're right--even if (or especially if) their information is based on little more than a professor dictating their opinions to them. All that any attempt at debate will do is make you crazy, and make them think you're crazy, thereby welding them tighter to their own theories. One day, though--I will not forget my taser. That will be a good day.

THE SCRAPBOOKER
--You might think this idiot is making a stop-motion documentary, he/she takes so many goddamned pictures. A camera flash before dawn is surprisingly disorienting. What was that? The cops about to break up our makeshift squat? Is Lady Gaga in line? Is it terrorists? No, nothing like that--someone just needed to save for all Facebook-eternity how he/she looks right now. I can save you the trouble: you look like shit. TIRED AND HARSH. Just like the rest of us. Now put the camera down. Nothing--nothing!--of note is going to happen much earlier than 15-30 minutes before they open the doors, and that is no less that three hours from now. Until then, chill the fuck out.

THE REBELS
--They sound badass, don't they? They're not. They're stupid. Let me explain: if engaged in conversation with someone, a safe topic is usually "What are you going to sing?" It's also the way I try to sniff out if I need to call in reinforcements from my songbook. In the immediate vicinity of where I sat, I was awestruck. Had none of these fresh-faced ingenues read the audition notice? They specifically asked for either: 1960s/70s uptempo pop/rock, or something from the show. Anyone who knows anything about Hair knows that it was one of the first shows of its kind: it used music in the style of its time (1968) to help tell its story. So why, I had to wonder, were some of these people singing one of the following:

1. pop ballads
2. 1980s-2000s pop
3. Broadway other than the show (Seesaw--which I don't know, so I can't snipe at it; Hairspray--whose sole commonality with Hair is the titular syllable; and others I can't remember anymore)

Is this just a gut reaction from a perpetual direction-follower? Frankly, why wouldn't you follow directions in this case? Isn't this the first instance they see of whether you can even do that? I call them Rebels; in reality, I think they do nothing less than shoot themselves in the foot. Footshooters? Doesn't have the ring, but it's more appropriate. I could be wearing my Know-It-All hat here, but logic would reason that if they ask for something specific, the best idea you could have would be to deliver the shit out of whatever they ask for, wouldn't it?

Time to get off my hobby horse and introduce you to the blackest smear of humanity in the audition line:

THE SMOKER
--Really? In a line of singers, you somehow think it's okay to light up and blow your poison all over us? Here, I couldn't stay silent; all The State in the world couldn't soothe this one. In this instance, the Smoker in question also happened to be a Loud Guy. He needed to be taken down a notch or two, or simply knocked on his stupid ass. As he crouched next to me, talking (loudly) to the group of girls behind me, and attracting nasty looks from the group in front of me (I am definitely not alone in my opinion, then), I leaned over and simply declared: "You need to take that somewhere else." Those of you that know me and have seen me genuinely angry know how calm I get--no question, no vacillating apologies, no room for debate. Hardcore Actor/Singer was in charge, and wasn't nobody gonna play havoc with my vocal chords today. It worked: that boy apologized and he and his friends went off to kill themselves elsewhere. Result.

So, I'm proofreading this sucker, and I realize that the manic energy that gives rise to so many fifty-cent words in the first installment is missing today. But that's to be expected--sequels are that way. I'm going to post this anyway, and if you're disappointed, well... I couldn't stop until my cast of characters was complete. And now it is. So fuck you if you're disappointed. I happen to like sequels--I think that Staying Alive is more fun to watch than Saturday Night Fever. That's the mind you're dealing with here, people.

And what comes next? It will probably have to do with hair bands or horror movies. Maybe both, if you're good. You lucky fuckers.

Watch this space.