Dateline: January 27th, 2007

Part 1... Vershizna

I have returned

Vashumpta Tikka Massala Ashwaganda Vindiloo

Loungers, loyal fans, casual stumbles and horror and science fiction aficionados...

Many have been wondering where I have been all these months. This past year. Absent? Remiss? ‘Why hasn’t Ted Raimi added jack-diddly-squat to his blog? I mean, I know I’ve seen him in movies, tv shows. Come on Ted get with the program!’

The program? Shall I tell you something? I am not the program. And yet, I AM the program! I say these things and yet I do not. I am here and yet elsewhere. Confused? You should be, dear fans, you should be...

Get comfortable, grab a chair, loosen your tie, smooth your dress, remove your shoes, dim the lights and I shall tell you the strange tale of....

THE JOURNEY!

Now listen...

In late January of last year, shortly after my last blog, I was much like any other actor in Hollywood. Auditions, movie sets, the works. But then from out of nowhere, like a decent pilot script, I had a strange thought: ... Why? What is the point of blogging? If I blog one blog there will just be one more to write. And what of acting? If I do one more picture or TV show there will just be more and more. Why do it at all? I had reached the frightful point many pass but few dare to contemplate.

And so there I sat, dear fans, day after day in my leather club chair wondering what the meaning of Hollywood and acting had to do with me. My clock chimed. The sun rose and the sun set. Weeks passed as I sat in that chair. Finally my rear end became sore and I stood up.

I KNOW what I must do!

I drove to downtown Hollywood and burst into my agency. My agent Peter stood there. “I’m going to find out what else is out there!” I said to him.

‘Out where? Can you hold on a minute Ted, I have to take this call’, said Peter, waving me off.

“I’m leaving to find out what the REAL me is!”

‘But, but, Ted!’, he stammered (not hanging up the phone), ‘pilot season and more movies are right around the corner’!

“I don’t care”, I shot back, “I’m going to find my purpose, my true self! Just like”, and I made a grand gesture to the window, “THOESE people do everyday!”

‘Ted?’

“Yes?”

‘Did you just steal five bucks out my wallet when I turned around?’

“WHAT? WHAT the $@^# are you saying, Peter?! Are you saying I’m a thief?! Is THAT what you’re saying?!

‘Well, no, it’s just that...’

“This just proved my point! Good day, sir!”

And with that, I left. Sure. I stole the five bucks, but I figured my agent didn’t need it anyway and besides they owed me for a couple of crappy auditions I did out in Temecula.

I walked out onto Hollywood Boulevard and started wandering. Wandering. Wandering. What the hell was I wandering about? Oh yeah. The meaning of it all.

I found myself on the docks, a bum. A week passed. Maybe two. I couldn’t tell, but it was then, on a freezing night, in a dockside swill pit that I heard two sea captains talking.

“Strange things out there”, one of them said.

‘A-yuh,’ said the other. ‘Round a fortnight, out a hunert miles from this very shore I spied me somethin’ awful through the fog. A-yah. Sure enough, it was.”

“Mmmm?”

‘A-yuh, scarier than a Noreaster, chilled my bones wors ‘en an iceburg! Worse even than Ted Raimi’s last indie picture! It was an image, floatin’ o’re the sea: ‘twas the great Vershizna himself!

‘Vershizle?’

“True ‘dat’, my nizzle.”

‘Eh?’

“The one who knows all!’

That was it! The one who could tell me my purpose!

“Captain! I am Ted Raimi! You must take me with you across the sea to see the Great Vershizna!”

‘A-yuh. I can. But you’ll have to pay your way. MY way!”

“Fine, whatever”, I said, “Just get me there. Do you take Diner’s Club?”

For three weeks I sailed on that dirty schooner. All the while, the Captain extracted his “Pay”: Me putting on pretty white dresses and reciting lines from my parts in Xena, Spiderman and Empty City, but what did I care? I was going to see the Great Virshizna!