dying is easy

i used to do a lot of improv comedy. for about 15 years solid. i have not done any in almost a year. in that time i've played bit parts on tv and in movies, pitched products on the radio. let's say my nights are freer.
the other night i did a murder mystery with some friends of mine. it's tests any actor's pride to do a show for people while they are partying.
we performed a delicious little school-pageant-murder-skit at a church recently. i was moving through the buffet with an electrician and his family, grieving in-character over the dead janitor "rotting in the kitchen." a guest's mom had just died that morning, it was announced. suddenly, it seemed nobody cared that our janitor had died. but we sure as hell did. we made those selfish bitches solve that crime.
a colleague commented that "a little part of your soul dies each time you do a murder mystery." so i've done maybe a dozen now. which roughly equates to 12 parts of my soul expiring.
i had a small scene in a film the hawk is dying which premiered at sundance this week. secretly hoping it would play on the big screens here in atlanta, i'm almost certain it will not. one reviewer saw no direction in all miserable two hours of it. a 'dance blogger (his abbreviation) noted many walkouts in the first screening. rumor has it, the 'dance has returned to its roots, is therefore very low-budget, and acquisitons are slim.
miles davis in 1975 proclaimed "jazz is dead."
to me, it's more about the forms. the forms aren't dead. the scene might be. maybe the style. some jazz really stinks like a rotting janitor. and some movies are miserably long and pointless.

one of the few good things about modern times: if you die horribly on television you will not have died in vain. you will have entertained us.
--kurt vonnegut