Playing Against Type

Every year is a little stranger than the previous one, and this school has been marked by me being sought out, illogically, by students to participate in their projects.  In addition to my ill-advised performance in Kerry's play in the fall, this semester has brought small roles in three student films and now a video game voice over.  This is all a bad idea because a) I'm not an actor, 2) I don't aspire to be an actor, 3) I'm really bad at it, and 4) I have a horrible voice.  Nevertheless, my students keep coming out of the woodwork to dragoon me into participating in their projects.  This time it was Amos Byrne, who has never actually taken me for a class, and Michael Manfredi, who, at least, has been in my class once.  They both went on last spring's trip to Zanzibar, and Michael also went to India last month.  Amos showed up with the recording equipment, and the script, and I worked through my character.  I do feel like I'm increasingly typecast as a grumpy and snarky old man, which at least gives me the opportunity to explore that unused side of my nature.  My character, named Scudds, and apparently written with me in mind, is a doctor who is dealing with issues.  Here is my favorite line from today: "Great, I get absolutely no fucking say in this?  Is that it?  I just fucking sit here and stitch up whoever you fucks bring in?  Is that it?"  I don't know why I was chosen for this role.  Well, I do have a theory about that, which brings me back to the time when the nice woman who ran the Georgia Radio Reading Program asked me to read Playboy and Esquire over the radio, "We knew you would say the bad words."  Since I had not seen the script in advance I couldn't warn the professors in the next office, who thought I had gone insane and was screaming at a student, endlessly.  I guess I should take the student requests as something akin to a compliment, although I suspect it is probably still mainly a recognition of my willingness to say the bad words.

The picture is a little blurry, but I think it captures how hard we were both laughing.  Seriously, how can I person who uses the word fuck so much in casual conversation fuck it up while reading it?