Jun 29, 2010

What will I do?

Week one of "HAIR" is done. Recharging, resting my voice until thursday now. Three weeks left. That's it. Do you know how fast that will go by? I rarely get caught up in the "what will I do post show" anymore. But this time is different. I have a feeling I'm gonna be a little blue. Sure there will be other shows. Things already look *potentially* good. But it's my "HAIR". I want to do it forever. I want to do it for a month after. Two months after. A year! Everything about the show is truly kismet and I am so in love with it I don't know how long it will take me to get over it.

So. I've checked nearly all my dream roles off my to do list. Almost all of them. Let's put some wishes out into the universe, shall we?

1.) Gypsy
I've wanted to play Gypsy for years. Come on, it's perfect. Will someone put this on already?

2.) The Donkey Show
I was THISCLOSE to getting it Off Broadway in NYC. Now it's playing through 2010 at American Rep.
Let's do this here. I'd love to play Tatania, but I'll take about anything.

3.) Romeo & Juliet
Juliet. I'm a chick, what can I say.

4.) Chicago
I'll take Velma or Roxy

5.) Summer and Smoke
Alma. It's been one of my favorite plays since I was in high school.

And...let's throw in a Urinetown, a Jekyll and Hyde, a King and I, I'm sure there's a few more.

Okay universe, work your magic!

Deena Marie xo

Jun 26, 2010

"HAIR" opening night!




Last night was the opening night of "HAIR".

What a surreal day. It was THE day. The day I'd waited for for years. I just wanted it to go well. To be special.
It was. It was maybe my favorite opening night yet. It felt fun. It felt right. It felt magical.

It was a rare moment in life where everyone and everything was as it should be. These people, this building, this night.

During the last song was when I could feel it sweep over me at it's strongest. I felt more than ever I was living in THAT MOMENT. Right now. Letting it in, feeling so much. Almost unexplainable. AND we got a standing ovation!

I've done this a LONG time. I've done some absolutely amazing things in my career this far. But I don't know that it will ever feel quite like THAT again.

Wow.

That's when you know there is a higher power, energy, whatever it is that creates good. That does look out for you at times and for whatever reason gives you something truly special .

I'm so grateful for this experience I could burst.

Jun 23, 2010

Hypocrisy, Forgiveness & Perfection

On my mind...

The definition of Forgiveness:
To excuse for a fault or an offense; pardon.
To renounce anger or resentment against.


I never thought I'd be one to forgive. How can you forgive when you can't forget? And when I've been wronged, I'm an elephant. I held onto grudge like nobody's business.

A great blog on Holding a grudge:
http://drjoelwade.blogspot.com/2005/03/dont-hold-grudge.html
An excerpt: "To hold a grudge is to keep yourself in a Mercurial orbit about whatever has hurt you. To accept what has happened, to forgive when and as you genuinely can, and to will yourself to look around at the larger context within which that solar event is but a point of light, is to give yourself the gift of a continuing journey."

I've learned (I'm still learning) that it's okay to change your mind and ideals. I've recently forgiven something big and I couldn't be happier about it. Consider forgiveness for each fall-out you may have. Time and reflection make a difference. Honor the guts it must take someone to come back with an apology. Especially if it's something you couldn't have done yourself. I thought that forgiving would make me a hypocrite (next section below) but I no longer believe that to be true.

A quote: "If you are at war with others you cannot be at peace with yourself".


* * * * *
Definition of a Hypocrite: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue and religion.
a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.

Definition of Hypocrisy: the act of persistently professing beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities or standards that are inconsistent with ones actions. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie.

Hypocrisy scares the bejesus out of me. I know we all do it. Now if we mean to or not, is another story. I am who I am. I've always been myself and true to what I believe to be right, right for me. I don't worry about what people think, or people pleasing. I could care less. I think everyone should be that way, and stand up for themselves and their beliefs. What I can't get past are people that blatantly tell one person of their hatred for someone or something, then go to that very person or place and shower them with compliments. Who are you lying to? What's true? How can there be any kind of trust in friendship when you live your life that way? When done in such a calculated manner, it's something I'll never understand.

A quote: "Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds."
On my mind...

* * * * *
The definition of Perfection:
freedom from fault or defect.
An unsurpassable degree of accuracy or excellence.

Just googling and reading the definitions alone makes me laugh. Freedom from fault or defect? Unsurpassable excellence or accuracy? Well, that's impossible so that should make perfectionists breathe a little sigh of relief. I used to be the queen of the perfectionists. This manifested itself over the years in different ways. Too personal to get into now. But physically, mentally, emotionally, you name it. I used to beat myself up over my "lack of perfection" like you wouldn't believe. It was enough to ruin a day, a week, an entire experience. With time and growing up I've naturally chilled out. I've learned to savor and enjoy much more than I ever would have thought possible. But every now and then I'll get hit with it. Maybe it won't last as long, but that feeling can come up out of nowhere to bite me again. Maybe it's something I'll always struggle with at various times in my life. Maybe when I have a handle on one aspect it will sneak into another. I currently know where it's living, so I'm keeping an eye on it.

A quote: "Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing"

xo DMM

Jun 16, 2010

Oh, just rehearsing...






If you would have told me ten years ago that I'd grow up to play most of the dream roles I'd wanted to play, to be onstage *knock on wood* regularly, that I'd hear of a musical called "HAIR" one day, fall in love with it from the first time I heard "Flesh Failures" and think to myself, "I'd give anything to play Sheila", wait six years for the opportunity and finally get it, I probably would have passed right out.

Today is June 16th. We open on the 25th.

It happens as it does every time. The first day of rehearsal seems so far away. Then it's here. A week or so in things feel impossible and you wonder why you do this to yourself. A day or two later you're over the hump and you remember that anything is possible. Before you know it you're a week away. Then you'll have a month of performing...and that will be that.

I have a little over a month to live in the world of "HAIR".

This one has really, really got to me. It's different. It's so precious, so special. I've had hardly any other distractions. I haven't split my focus on anything else. I needed to have this experience 100%.

Isn't acting weird? We live for this. For fleeting moments of pure happiness. For total heartbreak when it's over. For the hope of what's next. For falling in love all over again with a new role. It never changes through time. It's what we gave ourselves to years ago, and that's that.

A job where you don't get to pick. You don't choose when you'll work and when you wont. You are ready and willing and hungry at every moment. You get two hours at night to do that job. A magic, unexplainable two hours when all is right in the world and you can feel it from the inside out, this is what I was meant to do.

xo Deena Marie

Jun 12, 2010

Update from last post - SUNLOVE Beauty Scandal

Get a load of this!
Please read my last blog if you haven't!

Apparently I'm not the first to go through the SUNLOVE scam/abuse.
After putting the word out of my own personal experience, I've been sent many links to videos, blogs, screen shots & more from other (young female internet personalities) who have gone through the same thing.


Take a look at this and read the comment section!!
http://www.contently-managed.com/blog/2009/09/28/beauty-and-the-beast-is-sunlove-attitude-as-fake-as-their-tan-or-is-fuck-off-the-way-forward-in-social-media/



Video from a youtuber
more youtubers are mentioned that sunlove treated poorly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HqREjxSJeQ


And her blog:
http://www.gemsmaquillage.com/2009/09/important.html


Another
"Abuse from SunLove"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HFDSzee-Ro


Another
"SunLove Drama"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKcPBs_26Ds


And another - This one is especially an important read
"Tanning Scams"
Several "SunLove Drama" blog entries here
http://tanningscam.blogspot.com/



And (as I'm updating this blog from a couple of days ago) just today (June 14, 2010) I received another menacing message to my youtube account from Darian Braun.

Looking at the comments on that first blog post, if he really is a 50 year old man... I'm speechless.

I believe all of the above to be completely true, that he's the only person behind SunLove. That he doesn't pay up, that there is an excuse after excuse for awhile, then he threatens, harasses and tells YOU to apologize to HIM. Meanwhile, he's either made off with your money or hasn't paid you. BEWARE.

And I'm glad the word is out.





xo

Deena

Jun 11, 2010

Sun Love Beauty - scandal

If you've seen my tweets the last two days you know something went bad with a business deal I was doing with Sun Love Beauty, which is a self tanner. Let me tell you in detail what happened and why I was mad enough to tweet publicly.

Over three months ago I was contacted several times from Sun Love Beauty's youtube channel via messages. They wanted to pay me to do a video promoting their product. I've done this for various companies numerous times. I've never had a bad experience. When this kind of business goes on, in my experience, there hasn't always been a contract signed. I was feeling trusting, it was not only a fellow youtuber but a real business. After checking out their website I agreed.

At first we discussed ideas of spoofs, the contact who was writing back & forth with me throughout signed the emails Darian. He was very nice. I came up with Little Miss Honey Bee using the product in a fake commercial and told him it would be awhile, as securing studio space and editing green screen takes awhile.

The deal was to have the video autoplay on my channel for about a week, tweet, promote, etc. I did more and left it up longer. When I emailed Darian at youtube Sun Love the link he wrote back saying thank you, that he was having a bad day and he was cheered up by my video, etc. And that he had 125 units of lip gloss he was going to give me.

No mention of payment was included in his message. I waited awhile and finally wrote to ask (and I hate being the one to broach it) what the time frame was of being paid, finishing up this deal. I should mention this was not for much money, at all. The money itself was never the issue. What began to bother me more and more, as you'll read, is the fact that they were flaking on me.

I had been able to write back and forth with Darian regularly. I always quickly responded to him and vice versa. Suddenly it was becoming quite difficult to get a response.

The next message I get is that he was away for passover and wasn't there to sign checks and would take care of it asap.

I wait another couple weeks...nothing. I write back and a message comes back awhile later saying Darian is in the hospital with heart trouble. This time it's signed with a different name.

I wait a few more weeks. Nothing. I write back, I resened, I wait. Then Dairan writes back telling me he's stopped checking the youtube messages as often and he's still not feeling well, god is telling him to slow down. He asks if I can please email him instead.

We start to email and the first response back, he doesn't know who I am and I have to explain. He says he doesn't recognize me without my youtube name (even though I've always signed our messages with my real name.) I'm told he's sent someone over to another office to find out what's going on with my payment, as he had issued that over a week ago.

I hear again a payment was sent and am given some 4 digit tracking number.

I keep trying to get ahold of someone and nobody seems to want to help anymore so yesterday is when I tweeted, warning others that doing business with them is shady. In my experience, it absolutely was. I don't want another youtuber putting the time and effort into making them a video to help them promote, and getting ripped off. If I can warn them, then I'll do it.

Now I'm tweeted back that the video wasn't what they wanted so it didn't benefit them. In their tweets they tell me "you were hired to do satire and you did your own thing" and that I "have a lot of nerve".

Let me link to my video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OSQH3cz9pI

Let me define satire.

satiric - satirical: exposing human folly to ridicule; "a persistent campaign of mockery by the satirical fortnightly magazine"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
satirist - a humorist who uses ridicule and irony and sarcasm
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Now there is an internet battle. So. Lame. I tweet them back telling me they have a lot of nerve for deciding NOW the video wasn't what they wanted.

This just in.

I check my email, and Darian has sent me several emails. First he's outraged that I made fun of passover? And called him a liar (heart trouble)? I tell him uh, no, nothing is being made fun of, I'm merely listing the excuses for why I wasn't paid. Did I use the word liar? Nope. Did I make fun of a religion? Nope. Wether the excuses I was given were true or false, those were what I was told. I get two more that say I might want to mention (insert here other terrible things that have happened to him) and that he's going to make this personal, that I need to apologize, I'm not important to the company, that we had discussed a pink house and I made it green (I have no idea what that means, we've never discussed a house lol so now clearly, things are being made up) so how can I want money when I didn't do what he asked, (again, there was a deal to make a video and be paid and this is the first I'm hearing that they didn't approve the video) to GO TO HELL and that he wishes he WAS A WOMAN SO HE COULD BEAT MY ASS. Yes. He said that. Yes, I'm saving all of this. Yes, he's threatened me.

At the end of the day, I think my point is proven. Never in my life have I encountered business people like this. In the end they win, they got a video out of me and had no intention to pay me. If I mean that little to their company, they should laugh at my foolishness (no contracts signed) and go on about their day. But no. I get threats! Unreal. If they're gonna be like this, you bet I'll spread the word.

I hesitated with making it public, it's just more promotion for them. I don't know if they realize that.
Probably. They're probably having a good laugh over this, the messing around with me.
Nobody is that dumb. They can't be for real.

But like I said, I don't want fellow youtubers having to deal with this.

And like I've said, I have every bit of correspondence saved.
I stand by everything I've said / sent to them. I'm guilty of nothing other than persistence.

Wow....

Moral of the story, kids. Always sign a contract!
Be CAREFUL who you trust online.

Jun 2, 2010

Yes I changed my hair. I do it often.







Every time I change my hair it's a huge deal....to some of you guys.
Never to me.

What you may not realize, is my hair has been every color and cut known to man. Within the last three years alone I've been a brunette, pitch black, bright red and blonde.

It's a never ending cycle. Change is good. I'll always be mixing it up, and have for over ten years.
Everyone has their favorite, and whatever mine is at the moment is mine.

I haven't seen my natural (medium brown / with a reddish tone) in years.

I strongly encourage gals & guys to embrace change and have fun! I know some people are afraid to cut, dye, etc. Don't be. It's a ton of fun and the quickest way to spruce up your look.

Okay? Okay. LOLZ :)

Deena Marie

ABOVE PICS:

top one was taken yesterday
blonde is 2007
black is 2008
red is 2007

Jun 1, 2010

People are buggin'!

WORK.
In the last week, I've come across not one, not two, but SIX flaky business people. Nearly half an hour late to a meeting and no apology. Not showing up on time at a designated meeting spot, leaving me locked out and heading home. #WasteOfTimeAndGas Another three who have told me they want to hire me and are not good about details / getting back to me. Last but not least, another who suddenly keeps giving me the run around every time I have asked for the payment I am owed and is LONG overdue. Seriously? I was taught from the time I was a little girl that on time is 15 minutes early. That you NEVER flake. Gonna be late? CALL. Hold up your end of the bargain. Be responsible. This is business. This is you. Professionalism is EVERYTHING.

PLAY.
When did I make so many one sided friendships? When did people start expecting me to be the one to initiate everything? Why do I only come to YOU? Give YOU gifts (no, I don't care about presents, it's the gesture)? Listen to YOU on the phone and am never asked what's going on with me? Never congratulated on what I'm doing (when I've been the biggest cheerleader for these "friends")? *OR* It's the opposite. You want too much from me. You expect too much and show no appreciation (and in MY opinion, from my husband, too).

Enough already.

I don't appreciate being given the run around, treated poorly or taken advantage of.

I might have to stop giving second chances here :(

#Bummer