Huey Lewis wanted a new drug, one that made him feel like he did when he was with his love. I'd like to suggest auditioning. I don't know if Mr. Lewis auditioned for his first gig as a band judge in Back to the Future but, if he didn't, I'll bet he got a great high from his first day on set.
But auditioning has the classic Masters and Johnson arc to it. The rumblings of nerves and excitement as you show up early. The attempting to be cool as you speak with your friends, acquaintances and competitors and then the all-out nervous crescendo as your number is called ad you wait to be called before the most powerful person in the Universe at that moment.
The audition itself is over before you know it and you're left wondering if it was as good for the other person as it was for you. And then you wait for the call...
But the time immediately preceding and for about fifteen minutes after is a heart-pounding, blood-coursing, roller coaster of emotions that are pretty exciting to experience. Adrenaline junkies jump out of airplanes, ski vertical impossibilities, surf gigantic walls of water and a bunch of other things. But none of those things is as intimate, as exciting and, well, as sexual as the act of baring your heart, soul, body and emotions to someone you hardly know.
You will just have to trust me. I've done most of it and I recommend the audition over all of them.
Drugs, of course tear you apart physically, mentally and psychically. Some of these extreme sports are rough on you but you build stamina. Sex is pretty good but even that can get comfortable. Auditioning is as exciting the thousandth time as it is the first.
Even the come-down is pleasant. You think a million things. I go over my monologue another hundred times and wonder how I could have left one word/inflection/gesture out. I have actually had to train myself not to just drive off after an audition but to give myself time to get my breathing and my racing mind and emotions time to come to some sense of normal.
The reason for this is that I rear-ended a poor woman after a particularly good audition at a local regional theatre and was offered a callback on the spot. Don't audition and drive, folks. Don;t drive after drinking, taking drugs and having really good sex either.
Just breathe. Live in that moment. The one that it over all too soon.
