I'm in London. Have been here for a week, and I probably should be talking about the fantastic details of the trip (and the pains of travel) or of the event that brought me here - the wedding of one of my best friends, Demetri. The details of both the trip and the wedding are, by necessity, intimately woven.
But instead I want to spend some time thinking about one very small and specific aspect of the past two days...
When Jodie and I arrived last Monday - bleary eyed and jet-lagged - we spent some time visiting with the Bride and Groom and the Groom's mother while we waited for our hotel room to become available. Not to surprisingly the main subject of discussion was the wedding and extending from that who else was going to be here. Its a long and relatively expensive journey to make from Vancouver to London. I imagine it would be a select group who would both be invited and have the resources and time to make the journey.
Among the various names were Bill and Judy Russell. I honestly don't know how long it has been since I've seen the pair them. Years, but not a decade - maybe not even half a decade, but it would be a reasonable guess. I did see Judy a year and a half ago, very briefly, at Demetri's father's funeral - but it was not a time either of us had for in depth visiting.
As soon as Demetri's mom, Ruth, mentioned that Bill and Judy were coming I was immediately struck with delight. Though there were other people I was eager to see and in a few cases meet for the first time (like Demetri's groomsman, Mido - my London based counterpart) I was not more excited than to see Bill and Judy.
They didn't arrive until the morning before the wedding - that was two days ago. I didn't see them until that evening. It was the pre-wedding meet and greet at a pub near Piccadilly Circus. Jodie and I arrived and headed downstairs and said 'hi' to Demetri and Finoula (his then fiancee) and turned around and there was Bill, camera in hand snapping our picture. Judy was right on his heels, grabbing us and pulling us to the bar "let's get a drink!" And that was our night. We found a table and visited with Bill and Judy all night. Really neither of us spent much time with anyone else.
Yesterday, the day of the wedding, Jodie caught a cab with them to the church (I was off making sure Demetri was shaved, had his shirt ironed, and his tie on straight.), and then again after the ceremony (on a side note - Omigod! That church! It's the oldest extant catholic church in England, and now my name is part of the permanent record there as witness to the marriage. I'm not the least religious, but I still think that's pretty cool in a historical sense.) we caught a cab together, the four of us, to the reception.
As best man I had plenty of socializing to do, but still the balance went to Bill and Judy and when we left we all walked down the street together. Seeing them here was the best thing other than the wedding itself - even better than the play (Avenue Q - which was awesome) that Jodie and I saw earlier in the week.
Despite my excitement to see them, I wasn't really prepared for that reunion. I am guessing they are roughly ten years older than us, and though when I was younger, in my hometown of Prince George, I certainly considered them as friends they were at the time adults to me. Bill had been a Dj at one of the local radio-stations and in so being was for all practical purposes a local celebrity back when my perspective on celebrity was extremely telescoped compared to today. Judy was a dance instructor. They were both a part of the local am-dram - the Prince George Theatre Workshop. I had seen them in Finnian's Rainbow (I am amazed I can recall all this detail!) and a few years later, PGTW did a production of Anne of Green Gables and needed kids. Both Demetri and I were cast in it. Judy choreographed the show. It was a big step for her. She'd had her own studio, but (and I only just found this out this week) getting the opportunity to stretch and do a whole show was at that point a big opportunity.
Significantly there was a "big" number at the start of the second act. We all dove in and pushed our limits. We weren't dancers, but we tried our hardest and Judy did her utmost to find our strengths and capitalize on them.
After the run of the show Judy came to a small handful of the guys who had been in the show. She offered us free dance lessons on the condition that we also join her dance troupe - which performed at events and anchored her company's involvement in the regional dance festival. This, quite frankly, was a stroke of genius on Judy's part.
Three of us including Demetri and I agreed, and though I have never really been 'a dancer,' things I learned in the following two years have been among the most invaluable I've ever learned as a performer.
Only a few years ago I had a sequence of callbacks for a role that required a non-dancer to dance. I didn't get it, but I was on hold for the part. I don't think I would have made it through the first round had I not had some previous experience in picking up choreography.
Mostly those years were fun. I was just at the age where girls were really beginning to be an important part of my life, and though I never got involved with any of the girls in the troupe, that period really helped me get comfortable with the opposite sex.
I thanked Judy for that the other night, and she told me what I already knew - that those years were equally important for her. Though I didn't fully appreciate the extent to which they were until she filled in the blanks the other night.
It was obvious, back in 1987, when we attended our first dance competition that bringing us boys into her troupe had been a turning point.
I don't know what its like now, but back then in the central interior of British Columbia there weren't any boys in dance. None. Not in logging country. If you were straight you wouldn't be caught dead doing it for fear of being thought of as gay. If you were gay... it's logging country - there were no gays. No out of the closet gays. And if anything they would be even less likely to want to be seen doing something like dance that would be tagged as "gay."
So there we were, three hetero-guys in Judy's classes and troupe. Judy made it easy on us - didn't require that we wear anything that would challenge our boundaries - sweat pants were good enough... though I wouldn't be surprised if I tried to get away with jeans in my first class, but memory fades. Even so, we didn't run around letting our friends know we were in dance classes.
But there we were - at regionals (yep, set-up your Glee moment) the only three guys in the building except for a lighting technician and the adjudicator.
We won. Everything. A total sweep.
Every award and category that we were eligible for was ours - and the adjudicator could not hide his delight that the troupe had boys. But it went further than that. Judy's other students won an unprecedented number of awards. It wasn't merely us. There was something really going on here. Judy was a talent, and the inclusion of us merely drew attention to it.
The very next year there were dancers at other studios who jumped ship to Judy. Before long there were even more boys, and it wasn't much later before Judy's studio was expanding, taking over more of the building they leased and eventually buying a much bigger facility. Bill was soon going into business for himself in a related support busines that would become the city's most relied upon provider of production and staging equipment. I worked for him briefly at one Children's Festival. Their sons are all in the trade in some capacity.
Those early days of the troupe were big for Judy in other ways too - not just having made a good choice. I didn't see it at the time, but were were pushing her too. Keeping her at the edge of her abilites both as a choreographer and as a teacher - in both cases having to integrate performers who were doing their best, but were still behind the curve of everyone else on the stage.
Clearly they made a lot of other good, consistent and reliable decisions. The troupe eventually became a local theatre company in it's own right, having produced something like 21 different musicals. One of here students - a boy - made it to the top six of So You Think You Can Dance Canada?
I've never quit being fond of Judy and Bill, I just kind of let our acquaintance slip. It was so great to see them. It was great to be able to reconnect as adults - and perhaps if Jodie, who had no context of them in any kind of "superior" role, had not been there changing the context for me it would have been different. Not less friendly - it has always been friendly (even when they were the "adults" they were the cool young adults we knew) - but with more of the past relationship up front. I am not at all surprised that Jodie and Judy in particular hit it off, and I am really glad they did.
I really look forward to seeing them the next time they are visiting their boys in Vancouver... and that will be a paradigm shift in it's own right. Most of my memories of them feature the boys as kids - real kids, not the adolescent adults the rest of us were at the time - though I do also recall them as aloof teenagers as well.
In any case. I under estimated just how much my appreciation for what Bill and Judy meant in my past would translate into a happy reunion here on the other side of the planet, and how much I want that to continue.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
The Best Laid Plans....
NOTE: Seriously, don't bother reading this. This is really just blogging as therapy... and not even particularly juicy therapy.
It has been a really busy month. Holy crow, has it.
I've been working on a contract for... well I've lost specific track, I think when I began it was six-weeks until I had to be done because I was leaving the country on holiday.
I leave in less than 24 hours. I'm not done the contract. I probably should have been. I could have found a few more hours to work on it - particularly early in the contract. But who knew what this past week was going to be like - how capricious life could get. (I'll get back to that in a moment.)
I've passed some of the last of the work on - stuff that I could technically take with me, but would be incredibly inefficient for me to do while travelling. I'm continuing to do some of the other stuff in the contract. Things that I can fit into the cracks - reading on the plane or when I would be doing leisure reading... but I refuse to let it impact on the vacation itself. That is all work that would have extended past my departure regardless of whether I had managed to tackle the rest early. Indeed I'm told to expect more in my inbox by the time the plane takes off tomorrow evening.
So... I was pretty much on course to finish all the complicated work as of a week ago. Then on Monday of this week I was hit by a double whammy. First thing that happened was I woke up... to the sound of the phone... A message from Craig that our film had been accepted into the Mississauga Independent Film Festival. This was cool... except that it kind of changed our plans. We had until that moment been doing the world premiere of the film in the Okanagan over two weeks later... precious time lost.
About 3 minutes later I discovered that one of the two screens I have on my desktop computer was not working. Worse yet - it was the larger of the two. So now I had about 40% less screen real-estate, all of it on my most powerful computer. This in itself was going to make a lot of the work I had to do in this week much less simple. (You would be surprized just how much time you can lose to dragging windows around and resizing and so on.) It was a challenge to get everything I had to do done (and I failed) - including day-job, Best Picture episode final editing (I haven't mentioned this yet - I will soon), the contract, and several tasks I had to do before leaving that only I could do efficiently for Provost Pictures, that had now been bumped up by the change of premiere dates. I did spend some time and effort looking into a quick fix of the monitor - no dice. It'll have to be replaced... and I was not really going to have an opportunity to do that until I return... maybe even after I return from Mississauga!
So I forge on, working at a slower pace, trying to prioritize and put contingencies in place should I not finish everything in time... but hoping that in fact I'd manage to pull it off in the long run.
Provost Pictures' work in particular - despite the fact that most of it was being handled by other people out of necessity - just would not settle down into an easily managed pile. But wait! There's more! Not that I can really get specific for reasons of efficiency (so many details to explain to make the circumstances clear) and discretion (I'm hardly legally bound, but it would be un-cool to talk specifics on either of these) but both the contract and another item I haven't even mentioned (a grievance I am involved in resolving on another project I'm working on) each got more complicated as the week went on. Oh, and did I mention the Best Man's Speech (the primary reason for my vacation is to attend a wedding) and an episode of Best Picture that is to be shot in part while I am in England, both still have to be written... and both will now wait for on the plane. Anyhow... somehow as the week wore on I continued to keep just ahead of the wave. Until yesterday evening I really thought I would have finished everything in time. It had been a challenge, but I had some how actually managed my time to the bleeding edge of my capability...
And then the power went out.
No kidding.
And as if that wasn't enough, for some reason the power is intimately connected to our internet in our building, to the degree that when the power went out, the internet was still on. (I am writing on borrowed wi-fi now.)
That was the proverbial straw. I should point out, in case you thought I was complaining (venting, yes, complaining, no - subtle distinction, I know), that I am actually rather amused by all of this. Perhaps if I could actually recreate the precise chain of events in detail and in all its snowballing glory and just how close I came to succeeding, then it might actually seem more amusing than I suspect it does.
Even today on borrowed wi-fi, working solely from my laptop (I swaer, that going from working on two separate computers and three screens, so working on less than half the screen-space and the least robust of the processors make me feel like I'm using a rock to do a hammer's job.) - and coaxing it to perform at the level I need of it in order to successfully do all the stuff I need it to in order to finish up all I have to do before I go - including be prepared to finish those few imperative tasks I have to do while on my way, I have barely kept the engine on the tracks... but as I watch the last few automated tasks complete as I finish writing this, I remain mostly bemused. I don't know I guess this is sort of a "don't sweat the small stuff" affirmation for myself.
You didn't really read to the end of this did you? Yeah, sorry about that.
At some point early on I thought I might actually get to talk about the honour of being asked to be Best Man at Demetri's wedding, or the happy complexities of having your world premiere scooped to a festival two weeks earlier than planned... but that didn't manifest. Perhaps while I'm on vacation. Afterall, part of the idea is that I'm going to have more time for stuff like this... but don't hold your breath.
It has been a really busy month. Holy crow, has it.
I've been working on a contract for... well I've lost specific track, I think when I began it was six-weeks until I had to be done because I was leaving the country on holiday.
I leave in less than 24 hours. I'm not done the contract. I probably should have been. I could have found a few more hours to work on it - particularly early in the contract. But who knew what this past week was going to be like - how capricious life could get. (I'll get back to that in a moment.)
I've passed some of the last of the work on - stuff that I could technically take with me, but would be incredibly inefficient for me to do while travelling. I'm continuing to do some of the other stuff in the contract. Things that I can fit into the cracks - reading on the plane or when I would be doing leisure reading... but I refuse to let it impact on the vacation itself. That is all work that would have extended past my departure regardless of whether I had managed to tackle the rest early. Indeed I'm told to expect more in my inbox by the time the plane takes off tomorrow evening.
So... I was pretty much on course to finish all the complicated work as of a week ago. Then on Monday of this week I was hit by a double whammy. First thing that happened was I woke up... to the sound of the phone... A message from Craig that our film had been accepted into the Mississauga Independent Film Festival. This was cool... except that it kind of changed our plans. We had until that moment been doing the world premiere of the film in the Okanagan over two weeks later... precious time lost.
About 3 minutes later I discovered that one of the two screens I have on my desktop computer was not working. Worse yet - it was the larger of the two. So now I had about 40% less screen real-estate, all of it on my most powerful computer. This in itself was going to make a lot of the work I had to do in this week much less simple. (You would be surprized just how much time you can lose to dragging windows around and resizing and so on.) It was a challenge to get everything I had to do done (and I failed) - including day-job, Best Picture episode final editing (I haven't mentioned this yet - I will soon), the contract, and several tasks I had to do before leaving that only I could do efficiently for Provost Pictures, that had now been bumped up by the change of premiere dates. I did spend some time and effort looking into a quick fix of the monitor - no dice. It'll have to be replaced... and I was not really going to have an opportunity to do that until I return... maybe even after I return from Mississauga!
So I forge on, working at a slower pace, trying to prioritize and put contingencies in place should I not finish everything in time... but hoping that in fact I'd manage to pull it off in the long run.
Provost Pictures' work in particular - despite the fact that most of it was being handled by other people out of necessity - just would not settle down into an easily managed pile. But wait! There's more! Not that I can really get specific for reasons of efficiency (so many details to explain to make the circumstances clear) and discretion (I'm hardly legally bound, but it would be un-cool to talk specifics on either of these) but both the contract and another item I haven't even mentioned (a grievance I am involved in resolving on another project I'm working on) each got more complicated as the week went on. Oh, and did I mention the Best Man's Speech (the primary reason for my vacation is to attend a wedding) and an episode of Best Picture that is to be shot in part while I am in England, both still have to be written... and both will now wait for on the plane. Anyhow... somehow as the week wore on I continued to keep just ahead of the wave. Until yesterday evening I really thought I would have finished everything in time. It had been a challenge, but I had some how actually managed my time to the bleeding edge of my capability...
And then the power went out.
No kidding.
And as if that wasn't enough, for some reason the power is intimately connected to our internet in our building, to the degree that when the power went out, the internet was still on. (I am writing on borrowed wi-fi now.)
That was the proverbial straw. I should point out, in case you thought I was complaining (venting, yes, complaining, no - subtle distinction, I know), that I am actually rather amused by all of this. Perhaps if I could actually recreate the precise chain of events in detail and in all its snowballing glory and just how close I came to succeeding, then it might actually seem more amusing than I suspect it does.
Even today on borrowed wi-fi, working solely from my laptop (I swaer, that going from working on two separate computers and three screens, so working on less than half the screen-space and the least robust of the processors make me feel like I'm using a rock to do a hammer's job.) - and coaxing it to perform at the level I need of it in order to successfully do all the stuff I need it to in order to finish up all I have to do before I go - including be prepared to finish those few imperative tasks I have to do while on my way, I have barely kept the engine on the tracks... but as I watch the last few automated tasks complete as I finish writing this, I remain mostly bemused. I don't know I guess this is sort of a "don't sweat the small stuff" affirmation for myself.
You didn't really read to the end of this did you? Yeah, sorry about that.
At some point early on I thought I might actually get to talk about the honour of being asked to be Best Man at Demetri's wedding, or the happy complexities of having your world premiere scooped to a festival two weeks earlier than planned... but that didn't manifest. Perhaps while I'm on vacation. Afterall, part of the idea is that I'm going to have more time for stuff like this... but don't hold your breath.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Are you frikkin' allergic to Google?!?
Okay, so I know I can use some big words and some esoteric references. I can hardly help it. I'm a smart guy, I'm well read* and I'm a bit of a sponge for factoids. I don't expect everyone else to have the same knowledge set as me, or even the aptitude for acquiring it - we all have different strengths, that's the way of the world. But it's not like I'm Dennis Miller. You don't need degrees in History, Literature and Theoretical Physics to follow along with my Facebook statii.
But yes, I recognize that on a regular basis my status will be eliptical and vague if you don't have the foreknowledge of what I am talking about. I accept that many of my one-liner Facebook statii are going to go over many people's heads. But here's the thing - any joke that has to be explained is not going to be funny. If you 'get' it initially, fantastic. If you don't - that's unfortunate, but when you DO get the next obscure reference I make you have the added benefit of feeling superior over the rest of those folk who you damned well know didn't have a clue.
But here's the thing... I am officially stating for the record, that I am no longer going to be responsible for illuminating the details. If you 'get' the joke - congrats, you are 'in' (for what little that is worth); if you don't 'get' it, either let it go and wait for the next one ('cause really, I'm not so clever that every lateral thought I have is going to be a worthwhile gem, so you probably aren't missing anything), OR (and here's the crux)... muse on this: If you have Facebook in front of you, you also have the awesome power of Google in front of you. You can figure out what I'm referring to much more efficently by searching on one of the interwebs than by adding a comment to my status that reads "????" or "Huh?" or anything else that doesn't really add to the conversation. The ONLY way that is going to be more efficient is if I just happen to refresh the page the second after you post your query and I happen to be looking at that specific comment thread. Even then, you have to get me in a good mood - which the simple act of displaying your inability to use Google will almost certainly ruin - AND I will have to feel that I can explain the detail more succinctly than a quick trip to a relevant Wikipedia page can (good luck on that one).
If you are actually in the room with me... thats a different story - asking me is then a social act that is actually likely to get you the answer faster. Otherwise I have better things to do than type out an explanation for you that will almost certainly not be funny, and if anything, will ruin the joke for everyone else.
In almost any obscure post I make there is bound to be a word or phrase that is unique enough that even the most clumsy of Googlers can craft a search string (I use that term so loosely - in most cases said "string" will be a single word) that you'll find the info you need in order to understand my gag within the first page if not the first hit. A few recent examples; a link to their first hit (excluding news) in a google search: Sisyphean; Evel Knievel; Preakness; "down two with the hammer"; "I stab at thee" - the first hit, EVERY SINGLE TIME (with no special search terms or symbols except for the quotes around the phrases) gives relevant context.
If by some chance you can't find an illuminating reference on Google, then chances are that the reference was a more personal one - one that while not actually private, is actually intended for a select group of people. If you aren't one of those people, then you just have to let your need to know go.
It may seem that I'm making more of this than it warrants, and perhaps I am. But I have gotten so tired of explaining my more esoteric references that I've taken to simply ignoring the requests - and I know that that in itself doesn't solve anything. So this is official notice. I can't imagine any likely circumstance where a person might have access to Facebook but not Google and therefore I hereby assume that any request for clarity on any of my left-field witticisms is nothing but either outright intellectual laziness or, more charitably, a failure to realize that there are far better ways to get the answer than by tossing a "WTF?" in the comment thread. Either way, don't expect an answer. Sorry, I'm not doing your homework anymore.
But I WILL do this:
If you don't really know how to leverage the best results out of Google, here's some handy and very simple tricks. Now you can be a Google ninja.
*When I say I'm well read, I am including the voracity with which I consume all media - including TV news and podcasts... indeed I actually don't read all that much these days, and am a slow reader anyhow.
But yes, I recognize that on a regular basis my status will be eliptical and vague if you don't have the foreknowledge of what I am talking about. I accept that many of my one-liner Facebook statii are going to go over many people's heads. But here's the thing - any joke that has to be explained is not going to be funny. If you 'get' it initially, fantastic. If you don't - that's unfortunate, but when you DO get the next obscure reference I make you have the added benefit of feeling superior over the rest of those folk who you damned well know didn't have a clue.
But here's the thing... I am officially stating for the record, that I am no longer going to be responsible for illuminating the details. If you 'get' the joke - congrats, you are 'in' (for what little that is worth); if you don't 'get' it, either let it go and wait for the next one ('cause really, I'm not so clever that every lateral thought I have is going to be a worthwhile gem, so you probably aren't missing anything), OR (and here's the crux)... muse on this: If you have Facebook in front of you, you also have the awesome power of Google in front of you. You can figure out what I'm referring to much more efficently by searching on one of the interwebs than by adding a comment to my status that reads "????" or "Huh?" or anything else that doesn't really add to the conversation. The ONLY way that is going to be more efficient is if I just happen to refresh the page the second after you post your query and I happen to be looking at that specific comment thread. Even then, you have to get me in a good mood - which the simple act of displaying your inability to use Google will almost certainly ruin - AND I will have to feel that I can explain the detail more succinctly than a quick trip to a relevant Wikipedia page can (good luck on that one).
If you are actually in the room with me... thats a different story - asking me is then a social act that is actually likely to get you the answer faster. Otherwise I have better things to do than type out an explanation for you that will almost certainly not be funny, and if anything, will ruin the joke for everyone else.
In almost any obscure post I make there is bound to be a word or phrase that is unique enough that even the most clumsy of Googlers can craft a search string (I use that term so loosely - in most cases said "string" will be a single word) that you'll find the info you need in order to understand my gag within the first page if not the first hit. A few recent examples; a link to their first hit (excluding news) in a google search: Sisyphean; Evel Knievel; Preakness; "down two with the hammer"; "I stab at thee" - the first hit, EVERY SINGLE TIME (with no special search terms or symbols except for the quotes around the phrases) gives relevant context.
If by some chance you can't find an illuminating reference on Google, then chances are that the reference was a more personal one - one that while not actually private, is actually intended for a select group of people. If you aren't one of those people, then you just have to let your need to know go.
It may seem that I'm making more of this than it warrants, and perhaps I am. But I have gotten so tired of explaining my more esoteric references that I've taken to simply ignoring the requests - and I know that that in itself doesn't solve anything. So this is official notice. I can't imagine any likely circumstance where a person might have access to Facebook but not Google and therefore I hereby assume that any request for clarity on any of my left-field witticisms is nothing but either outright intellectual laziness or, more charitably, a failure to realize that there are far better ways to get the answer than by tossing a "WTF?" in the comment thread. Either way, don't expect an answer. Sorry, I'm not doing your homework anymore.
But I WILL do this:
If you don't really know how to leverage the best results out of Google, here's some handy and very simple tricks. Now you can be a Google ninja.
*When I say I'm well read, I am including the voracity with which I consume all media - including TV news and podcasts... indeed I actually don't read all that much these days, and am a slow reader anyhow.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Hey Li'l J
You kicked me tonight.
Just for that, you have to stay in your womb.
Your Mom's been trying to get me to feel your kicks for weeks now.
No luck 'til tonight. It was really weak, but it was there.
We were watching Being Erica (that's an old-school 2-D TV show on the now defunct Canadian Broadcast Corporation in your world) and I had my hand on your Mom's belly. There was this tiny poke into my palm and your Mom asked (as she always does) "did you feel that?"
My response was a simple, but immediate "yeah...." and that was that.
You kicked me tonight.
See you soon.
Just for that, you have to stay in your womb.
Your Mom's been trying to get me to feel your kicks for weeks now.
No luck 'til tonight. It was really weak, but it was there.
We were watching Being Erica (that's an old-school 2-D TV show on the now defunct Canadian Broadcast Corporation in your world) and I had my hand on your Mom's belly. There was this tiny poke into my palm and your Mom asked (as she always does) "did you feel that?"
My response was a simple, but immediate "yeah...." and that was that.
You kicked me tonight.
See you soon.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Another Old Piece of Work
I took sometime on this one 'cause I figured that the script on it's own didn't have the impact that it would if produced...
The main short coming is that I am doing all the voices... but I think I've effectively differentiated them all.
Enjoy!
The main short coming is that I am doing all the voices... but I think I've effectively differentiated them all.
Enjoy!
Friday, April 09, 2010
Help Kids Read
Or, more to the point, help kids learn the value of reading.
I'm not prone to public service announcements on my blog, but I'm making an exception this time.
I've been involved in this project before - it is a fun way to spend an afternoon...
And it is in danger of cancellation due to too few participants.
If you read for any reason in your job, then you have something to offer the kids and you WILL have a good time doing it....
Read on, what follows is from the organizer - I'll have more to add at the end.
------------
It is that time of year, some of you have helped out in the past with this. We are really struggling this year to find volunteers so are casting the net as wide as possible.
The Camp Read program occurs at an inner city school in Surrey where folks come in from the community and read stories to the elementary kids. A lot of these kids come from pretty rough backgrounds or are brand new immigrants to Canada, so they need to have some positive role models.
It is a really relaxed and simple community event. You simply come, have lunch, read a couple of stories to a class of kids (you can pick the grades/ages you would like), they ask you a few questions (supposedly about how you use reading in your daily life... but more often it is just crazy stuff kids ask). All in all it takes just a couple hours.
We are in need of around 20 people still, so it is quite a shortfall this time.... so if you know folks who might be interested we can use all the help we can. This school has a very diverse population so it is especially great to have volunteers of various ethnicities to show positive role models of all types. Kids are still talking about Sewa coming in his fireman's uniform last year as they hadn't seen an East Indian fireman before and unfortunately a lot of them in this area don't get to see positive role models that look like them and they can relate to.
The details are:
Thursday 29th April
12-2pm
Info Sheet:
Lena Shaw Elementary is having "Camp Read" on Thursday April 29th, 2010. We are asking good role models from the community to volunterr their time and visit Lena Shaw for an afternoon of reading to students and talking about how reading is important to their lives. We are asking for volunteers to arrive at the school between 12:00 and 12:15, and then be available until 2:00pm. The volunteer can bring their own favorite book or let us know if they want one picked out for them.
Lena Shaw Elementary School
142500 100A Avenue,
Surrey, BC
------------
If this sounds like something you would like to give your time to, please let me know and I will connect you with the organizer.
If you are concerned about getting to the school, I have been assured that they will be more than happy to arrange transport from the SkyTrain to the school.
I will see you there... RIGHT!??
- Kennedy
I'm not prone to public service announcements on my blog, but I'm making an exception this time.
I've been involved in this project before - it is a fun way to spend an afternoon...
And it is in danger of cancellation due to too few participants.
If you read for any reason in your job, then you have something to offer the kids and you WILL have a good time doing it....
Read on, what follows is from the organizer - I'll have more to add at the end.
------------
It is that time of year, some of you have helped out in the past with this. We are really struggling this year to find volunteers so are casting the net as wide as possible.
The Camp Read program occurs at an inner city school in Surrey where folks come in from the community and read stories to the elementary kids. A lot of these kids come from pretty rough backgrounds or are brand new immigrants to Canada, so they need to have some positive role models.
It is a really relaxed and simple community event. You simply come, have lunch, read a couple of stories to a class of kids (you can pick the grades/ages you would like), they ask you a few questions (supposedly about how you use reading in your daily life... but more often it is just crazy stuff kids ask). All in all it takes just a couple hours.
We are in need of around 20 people still, so it is quite a shortfall this time.... so if you know folks who might be interested we can use all the help we can. This school has a very diverse population so it is especially great to have volunteers of various ethnicities to show positive role models of all types. Kids are still talking about Sewa coming in his fireman's uniform last year as they hadn't seen an East Indian fireman before and unfortunately a lot of them in this area don't get to see positive role models that look like them and they can relate to.
The details are:
Thursday 29th April
12-2pm
Info Sheet:
Lena Shaw Elementary is having "Camp Read" on Thursday April 29th, 2010. We are asking good role models from the community to volunterr their time and visit Lena Shaw for an afternoon of reading to students and talking about how reading is important to their lives. We are asking for volunteers to arrive at the school between 12:00 and 12:15, and then be available until 2:00pm. The volunteer can bring their own favorite book or let us know if they want one picked out for them.
Lena Shaw Elementary School
142500 100A Avenue,
Surrey, BC
------------
If this sounds like something you would like to give your time to, please let me know and I will connect you with the organizer.
If you are concerned about getting to the school, I have been assured that they will be more than happy to arrange transport from the SkyTrain to the school.
I will see you there... RIGHT!??
- Kennedy
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
The Re-lighting of the "W"
I really needed to do some refreshing of editing basics so I took some half-assed footage that I shot on my balcony the night after we moved in and a number of stills I've taken over the years, and a few other sourced out pieces and made a very short documentary...
Monday, March 29, 2010
Les MiseRap
I cannot tell you how happy I was to find an extant copy of this. If only I could find a video copy of it.
No doubt it hasn't aged well, but there was a time when it was the best sketch The Juanabees had in our repetoire.
The story of it's creation goes like this...
We were doing our first tour. It was kind of limping along.
We had arrived at the Winnipeg festival but weren't scheduled for the first few days, so we took advantage by distributing a LOT of flyers. One afternoon while working a line-up at someone else's show, Don was asked if we were "a rap group." (I still have no idea where that came from - never will.) Don explained that we weren't but that we would prepare a rap number and if the woman came to the show, she would see it.
Our original response to that was "For fuck-sakes, Don! Don't make promises you can't keep!" Later that night as we were making our trip home we were passing Centennial Concert Hall (which happened to be right across the street from our venue) where Les Miserables was playing. We were all big theatre geeks and some of us had seen the show at least three times. As we drove past, I looked at the sign out front and murmured "Les Mis...er - rap...." This actually turned out to be one of two times on that trip that week that something would get said along that stretch of road home that would result in a show-stopping sketch... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
We actually thought that we might be able to do something with "Les MiseRap." I don't specifically recall, but we must have tossed ideas around in the van through the ride home, so pretty much everyone got to lay claim to some corner of the sketch, but when we got back to our billet's, it was Don and I who stayed up into the wee-hours hammering out the script, and figuring out what popular rap songs we were going to use throughout it, and when we'd rely on music from the actual show.
In the morning we shared it around, divided up roles and rehearsed the pants off of it. Later that night we did our first show, and we took a leap of faith and made Les MiseRap our curtain call sketch. It brought down the house.
As we were cleaning up after that first show, an audience member approached me and said "Hey, as a cast member, I have to say, you made my night." I was confused. He pointed at his hat - on which was emblazoned "Les Miserables - CAST."
His name was Sylvain. He was a swing. (Sort of a back-up cast member who understudies a bunch of smaller roles.) They had got to intermission and no one had sprained an ankle so he headed out to see a show at the festival. He picked ours, simply because it was close.
The next day as I was cleaning up after our matinee, a woman approached and handed me a note. She said that Sylvain had sent it.
It was an invite to show up at the back door of their theatre at intermission to perform the sketch for the Les Mis cast. We did. They loved it and gave us tickets to a matinee show on the weekend. A photographer for the Winnipeg Free Press showed up and took photos. It was one of a few things that catapulted our show into the forefront of the Winnipeg Fringe that year. Les MiseRap ended every show for the rest of the tour.
EPONINE:
And pain...
CHORUS:
And what else?
(Eponine falls into Marius' arms.)
(He drinks.)
VALJEAN: Proper! ...Urk!
(Valjean dies. Everyone is sad.)
CHORUS LEADER: (Spoken.)
Yo!
Do you hear the people sing?!
FIRST CHORUS MEMBER: (To the tune of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from Les Miserables.)
Do you hear the beat box beat?
(SECOND CHORUS MEMBER joins him.)
No doubt it hasn't aged well, but there was a time when it was the best sketch The Juanabees had in our repetoire.
The story of it's creation goes like this...
We were doing our first tour. It was kind of limping along.
We had arrived at the Winnipeg festival but weren't scheduled for the first few days, so we took advantage by distributing a LOT of flyers. One afternoon while working a line-up at someone else's show, Don was asked if we were "a rap group." (I still have no idea where that came from - never will.) Don explained that we weren't but that we would prepare a rap number and if the woman came to the show, she would see it.
Our original response to that was "For fuck-sakes, Don! Don't make promises you can't keep!" Later that night as we were making our trip home we were passing Centennial Concert Hall (which happened to be right across the street from our venue) where Les Miserables was playing. We were all big theatre geeks and some of us had seen the show at least three times. As we drove past, I looked at the sign out front and murmured "Les Mis...er - rap...." This actually turned out to be one of two times on that trip that week that something would get said along that stretch of road home that would result in a show-stopping sketch... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
We actually thought that we might be able to do something with "Les MiseRap." I don't specifically recall, but we must have tossed ideas around in the van through the ride home, so pretty much everyone got to lay claim to some corner of the sketch, but when we got back to our billet's, it was Don and I who stayed up into the wee-hours hammering out the script, and figuring out what popular rap songs we were going to use throughout it, and when we'd rely on music from the actual show.
In the morning we shared it around, divided up roles and rehearsed the pants off of it. Later that night we did our first show, and we took a leap of faith and made Les MiseRap our curtain call sketch. It brought down the house.
As we were cleaning up after that first show, an audience member approached me and said "Hey, as a cast member, I have to say, you made my night." I was confused. He pointed at his hat - on which was emblazoned "Les Miserables - CAST."
His name was Sylvain. He was a swing. (Sort of a back-up cast member who understudies a bunch of smaller roles.) They had got to intermission and no one had sprained an ankle so he headed out to see a show at the festival. He picked ours, simply because it was close.
The next day as I was cleaning up after our matinee, a woman approached and handed me a note. She said that Sylvain had sent it.
It was an invite to show up at the back door of their theatre at intermission to perform the sketch for the Les Mis cast. We did. They loved it and gave us tickets to a matinee show on the weekend. A photographer for the Winnipeg Free Press showed up and took photos. It was one of a few things that catapulted our show into the forefront of the Winnipeg Fringe that year. Les MiseRap ended every show for the rest of the tour.
The touring cast of Les Miserables delights at the 5 minute condensed rap-version of their show.
The success of our show in Winnipeg not only made touring again a viable option, but it also resulted in Winnipeg being the cornerstone of every tour that followed for the Juanabees. They loved us there, and while other cities approached the level of support that we got in Winnipeg, Winnipeg will always hold a special place in my memories of touring.
Here is the sketch. For once I'm not going to present it as it appears on the page. I'm going to include additional notes that will help illuminate how it was staged. Note that there are way more than six roles in the sketch, but there were only six of us on stage. Part of the fun was how we'd change characters simply by changing a prop - or perhaps a hat for costuming. In the script I am identifying roles, not performers - you'll simply have to imagine that Javert and Marius were played by the same person; that Eponine and Enjolras; were the same actor, and so on.
LES MISERAP
-------------------
CHORUS LEADER: (Counting in the 'music.') 2 - 4 - 2-4-601!
CHORUS: (Hums two figures of the main melody of "Look Down" from Les Mis.)
The Chorus Leader breaks away from the group.
CHORUS LEADER: Huh!
CHORUS: (Hums the main guitar riff of "Walk this Way.")
CHORUS LEADER: (To the tune of "Walk this Way" as performed by RUN DMC.)
At the end of the day (CHORUS emphasizes the bolded words.)
You're another day older
All you say for the life of the poor
Its a struggle its a war
That anyone's given
Standin' 'bout what is it for?
At the end of the day
She's the one who would play
With her skirt flyin' up in the air
Singin' Hey diddle diddle
Like a piggy in 'a middle
She cut off all fo her hair
She'd swear...
FANTINE: (To the tune of the chorus of "Just a Friend" by Biz Markie.)
I... I dreamed a dream
Life has killed this dream I dreamed
Life has killed this dream I dreamed
Oh, Cosette!
VALJEAN: (Generic rap.)
And so Javert
You see it's true
This man bears
No more guilt than you
CALLER: Who am I?
RESPONDER: Who am I?
VALJEAN: 2 - 4
CALLER & RESPONDER: 6-0-1!
Javert breaks through the row of chorus members.
JAVERT: (A la, the bridge of "U Can't Touch This" by M.C. Hammer.)
Javert time!
CHORUS: (Hums the bass line from "Super Freak" by Rick James.)
Javert and Valjean circle each other like animals.
JAVERT: (To the tune of the verse of "Super Freak".)
You're a very slippery eel
The kind we like to put behind bars
Twenty years ago in jail
And you're on your way back there now
They grapple.
VALJEAN: (To the tune of the "oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" part of either of the above songs.)
No-no. No-no. No-no-no...
JAVERT & VALJEAN: (Simultaneously. Generic rap.)
You will go there. (Javert.)
I won't go there. (Valjean.)
Valjean throws Javert to the ground and escapes.
CHORUS LEADER: Let's do it.
CHORUS: (Hums the guitar riff from "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc.)
Cosette enters on her knees with a broom.
COSETTE: (To the tune of the verse of "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc.)
There is a castle
It's way up on a cloud
Nobody beats me
Ever mistreats me
Ever talks too loud
I dream of my Mother
She's all dressed in white
She sings me lullabies
Never ever cries
Holds me through the night
(With a mighty stroke of her broom she leaves the stage.)
Sa-weep!
CHORUS: (Hums the guitar riff from "Wild Thing" one last time.)
CHORUS LEADER: (A la, the opening of "Unbelievable" by EMF.)
Oh!!!
CHORUS: (Hums the main guitar riff from "Unbelievable" by EMF.)
M. THENARDIER: (To the tune of the verse of "Unbelievable" by EMF*.)
Welcome M'sieur, sit your self down
And meet the best innkeeper in town
As for the rest, all of them crooks
Rooking the guests and cooking the books
MME. THENARDIER:
What a cruel trick of nature
Landed me with such a louse
God knows how I've lasted
Living with this bastard in the house!
CHORUS: (To the tune of the chorus of "Unbelievable" by EMF.)
The Master
Of the house
MME. THENARDIER:
Hypocrite and toady and inebriate!
CHORUS:
The Master
Of the house
Huh!
M. THENARDIER:
I'm unbelievable!
CHORUS:
Ho!
Huh - huh!
(Two chorus members grab chairs and majestically bring them together mid-stage as a very tiny barricade.)
CHORUS: (Generic rap.)
Red!
Red and black - red and black - red and black
ENJOLRAS:
To the barricade!
CHORUS:
Red!
Red and black - red and black - red and black
CHORUS LEADER: (To the tune of "Colors" by Ice-T.)
Colours
Colours-colours
Colours
Colours-colours
(The chorus forms into a wedge and marches in formation with a flag waving in the air behind.)
Welcome M'sieur, sit your self down
And meet the best innkeeper in town
As for the rest, all of them crooks
Rooking the guests and cooking the books
MME. THENARDIER:
What a cruel trick of nature
Landed me with such a louse
God knows how I've lasted
Living with this bastard in the house!
CHORUS: (To the tune of the chorus of "Unbelievable" by EMF.)
The Master
Of the house
MME. THENARDIER:
Hypocrite and toady and inebriate!
CHORUS:
The Master
Of the house
Huh!
M. THENARDIER:
I'm unbelievable!
CHORUS:
Ho!
Huh - huh!
(Two chorus members grab chairs and majestically bring them together mid-stage as a very tiny barricade.)
CHORUS: (Generic rap.)
Red!
Red and black - red and black - red and black
ENJOLRAS:
To the barricade!
CHORUS:
Red!
Red and black - red and black - red and black
CHORUS LEADER: (To the tune of "Colors" by Ice-T.)
Colours
Colours-colours
Colours
Colours-colours
(The chorus forms into a wedge and marches in formation with a flag waving in the air behind.)
ENJOLRAS: (To the tune of the chorus of "Walk this Way" by RUN DMC... though admittedly the chorus of the RUN DMC version is pretty much the Aerosmith version.)
This revolution's got...
CHORUS:
One more day
One day more
One more day
One day more
EPONINE: (To the tune of "Joy and Pain" by Rob Base & DJ E.Z. Rock.)
Joy!
(A gunshot rings out.)
This revolution's got...
CHORUS:
One more day
One day more
One more day
One day more
EPONINE: (To the tune of "Joy and Pain" by Rob Base & DJ E.Z. Rock.)
Joy!
(A gunshot rings out.)
EPONINE:
And pain...
CHORUS:
And what else?
(Eponine falls into Marius' arms.)
EPONINE:
A little
Fall of rain
CHORUS:
Come on - here we go
MARIUS:
Don't die
'Ponine
CHORUS:
Help - help - help her up
EPONINE:
Don't cry
For me...
(Eponine dies in Marius' arms.)
MARIUS: (To the tune of "this song" - to type it out would ruin the joke.)
Argentina...
(The 'dead' Eponine looks at Marius like he's completely out of line.)
CHORUS: (Hums the bass line of "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice.)
PROUVAIRE: (To the tune of the verse of "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice.")
Heres to pretty girls who went to our
JOLY:
Heads
Heres to witty girls who went to our
PROUVAIRE:
Beds
At the shrine of friendship never say
JOLY:
Die
Let the wine of friendship never run
PROUVAIRE:
Dry
Bring it down
CHORUS:
White - white - rappers
CHORUS LEADER: (To the tune of "this song" - to type it out would ruin the joke.)
Kick it!
(Enjolras leaps up on another student's shoulders.)
ENJOLRAS:
You gotta fight!
CHORUS:
Fight!
ENJOLRAS:
For your right!
CHORUS:
Right!
ENJOLRAS: (To the tune of "Red and Black" from Les Miserables.)
To a night at the opera now.
JAVERT: (Spoken. Well... shouted.)
Yo, Blood!
(Javert shoots Enjolras who falls to the ground.** Valjean steps up looking upon the fallen body in horror.)
VALJEAN: (To the tune of "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables.)
God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need...
(The chorus stands about confused as he sings. Cosette steps up with a Pepsi.)
COSETTE: Yo! Valjean!
COSETTE: Yo! Valjean!
(He drinks.)
VALJEAN: Proper! ...Urk!
(Valjean dies. Everyone is sad.)
CHORUS LEADER: (Spoken.)
Yo!
Do you hear the people sing?!
FIRST CHORUS MEMBER: (To the tune of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from Les Miserables.)
Do you hear the beat box beat?
(SECOND CHORUS MEMBER joins him.) Does it sound at all like drums?
(THIRD CHORUS MEMBER joins them.)
Real musicians have more talent
(FOURTH CHORUS MEMBER joins them.)
Than a rapper in their thumbs***
(FIFTH CHORUS MEMBER joins them.)
When you hear a record scratch
Do you scream and hold your head
(CHORUS LEADER joins them.)
Just be thankful it's not disco you're hearing instead
Instead
Dis-co in-stead....!
HUH!
(All pump their fists in the air.)
END
*Yeah, okay. This stretches the definition of 'rap' to it's limits. What can I say? Van-full of white Canadian kids.
**If you are familiar enough with the show, you know that this transition makes no sense as it it Marius who Valjean sings over... but it's all in service to the humour in the end.
***I have to admit that my appreciation for rap has grown since then - this was, after all, written in the same year that Apocalypse '91, the album that got me interested in rap, came out and it wasn't 'til months later that I first heard it.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
A David Lynch Family Christmas
Second to last one. One that is close to my heart.
This was written for the Reelfast 48 Hour Film Contest. In short, teams are given a bunch of elements to use as inspiration and then are expected to make a 10 minute film in 48 hours.
In the third (of seven) year of the contest I asked my friend Rob Frederickson (you may know him as the artist, Robert Ives) who was teaching animation if he thought we could make an animated film in 48 hours. He figured we could.
We spent some time working out with the organizers what would be allowable for us to plan in advance. Basically, we had a stable of pre-designed characters and sets. To this day there are purists who think that this was "un-fair." They seem to forget that our characters are no different than the actors they already had on their teams... except that their actors can change more of their costumes than just the colour; and their actors are capable of programming their own movements. Not to mention that the live action teams had an entire city (and more, if they were resourceful enough - and the occasional team was) to use as sets. If anything - anything at all - was "unfair" it would be that each subsequent year the animation team had all the previous characters and settings at their disposal, as well as any new ones that had been created since the previous year. Anyhow... it's all academic. We had the organizers' support and consent. Besides - it was years ago, in a contest that no longer exists.
The first year there was a HUGE learning curve. None of us had ever made a film in 48 hours, let alone an animated film.
The animation studio was in Victoria. The contest started and ended in Vancouver. I got the inspiration package and headed for the ferry, chatting on cellphone with Rob and his animators on my way. By the time I got to the ferry we knew what direction we were heading. We had previously discussed some loose ideas based on the character resources we had. Among the characters was a family and a non-specific horned ungulate. We knew that the creature could pass for a reindeer and we could do a "Christmas Special" with the family. We had also discussed the possibility that some sort of surreal randomness to a plot line allowed us to squeeze in all kinds of elements from the inspiration package.
One of the elements in the package was a collection of small shaped plastic baubles. Rob figured that he could model and rig a christmas tree by the time I got to Victoria and we could scan the baubles and add them as ornaments... we were pretty much committed to a Christmas Special. It was simply a matter of me writing something that pulled all our random bits together. (I actually don't even recall what most of those elements were... Some backwards music, I think? A can of something - soup? Something worm-like I think too... a photo of worms or snakes maybe? I'm fairly certain there was something that made us think of the clock... but not a clock. And I did go to Jericho Beach first and took some reference photos... 'cause it was our 'location' - though I'll be damned if I can recall how we used/justified it.
Anyway, while I wrote my ass off on the ferry, Rob and his guys did as much advance work as they could. (Making presents and other anticipated animated props.) When I arrived at the studio I read them what I had scrawled and they got down to more specific work while I typed up a copy (oh those pre-laptop days) for distribution... 'cause no one could be expected to read my handwriting.
More thoughts after the (for some reason not properly formatted) script...
Don't try to make sense of it. There is no meaning to the story. More than anything it was intended to be sort of an excercise in disturbing tension.
As an excericse, it ultimately failed. It was simply too much to chew in too little time for a team that was doing something no-one (let alone us) had ever attempted. The learning curve was damn near vertical. The number of unfinished shots was long. We had zero-time to do any real editing. All we could do was assemble the completed shots in order. It didn't make much less sense than the original script, but we had no chance to tweak the timing and otherwise finesse it. Add to that that one team member fell through a glass table and had to be taken away in an ambulance, and a major last minute system crash that nearly resulted in me not being able to catch the last ferry back to Vancouver to submit the film under the wire... It was a wonder we finished at all. In the end, that was the victory.
But it had it's moments. Scott's vocal performance as the three year old (The three year old would end up being the 'star' of every film the team made.) was hysterically funny - it remains a running in-joke to this day.
The following year we tweaked the team - added more animators, and more people who could handle multiple jobs. One animator did the trip from Vancouver with me to help massage "impossible" ideas. The same team member was charged specifically with editing - though we still didn't have as much time for finessing the cut as we'd like. and we arranged to fly the finished product back to Vancouver, rather than losing the time on the ferry back. In that second year we actually completed a film that made some odd sense and won a special achievement award for our efforts.
The third year I decided I wanted to try something new. I had never done a live-action film for ReelFast. It was time.
The animation team entered again without me. This time a well oiled machine full of mostly veterans. With literally dozens of characters to pick from and a very complete western-ghost-town set at their disposal, they delivered a tour de force. It was still rather bizarre and at moments inscruitable (but honestly, plenty of live action ReelFast films suffer that fate), but it was the most beautiful looking and smoothly animated film yet. They placed in the top ten films of what was a highly contentious contest. My team did not - but that is a tale in itself. I could not have been happier for them.
The next year I returned to animation with a new team - this time doing stop-motion. The old team did not compete. One other team did stop-motion that year - together we were the first two teams to do stop motion. They kicked our ass. But that shouldn't be too surprising... that team was headed up by Zach Lipovsky who would go on to the final five of On the Lot... and frankly, he should have won - but that too is another story.
This was written for the Reelfast 48 Hour Film Contest. In short, teams are given a bunch of elements to use as inspiration and then are expected to make a 10 minute film in 48 hours.
In the third (of seven) year of the contest I asked my friend Rob Frederickson (you may know him as the artist, Robert Ives) who was teaching animation if he thought we could make an animated film in 48 hours. He figured we could.
We spent some time working out with the organizers what would be allowable for us to plan in advance. Basically, we had a stable of pre-designed characters and sets. To this day there are purists who think that this was "un-fair." They seem to forget that our characters are no different than the actors they already had on their teams... except that their actors can change more of their costumes than just the colour; and their actors are capable of programming their own movements. Not to mention that the live action teams had an entire city (and more, if they were resourceful enough - and the occasional team was) to use as sets. If anything - anything at all - was "unfair" it would be that each subsequent year the animation team had all the previous characters and settings at their disposal, as well as any new ones that had been created since the previous year. Anyhow... it's all academic. We had the organizers' support and consent. Besides - it was years ago, in a contest that no longer exists.
The first year there was a HUGE learning curve. None of us had ever made a film in 48 hours, let alone an animated film.
The animation studio was in Victoria. The contest started and ended in Vancouver. I got the inspiration package and headed for the ferry, chatting on cellphone with Rob and his animators on my way. By the time I got to the ferry we knew what direction we were heading. We had previously discussed some loose ideas based on the character resources we had. Among the characters was a family and a non-specific horned ungulate. We knew that the creature could pass for a reindeer and we could do a "Christmas Special" with the family. We had also discussed the possibility that some sort of surreal randomness to a plot line allowed us to squeeze in all kinds of elements from the inspiration package.
One of the elements in the package was a collection of small shaped plastic baubles. Rob figured that he could model and rig a christmas tree by the time I got to Victoria and we could scan the baubles and add them as ornaments... we were pretty much committed to a Christmas Special. It was simply a matter of me writing something that pulled all our random bits together. (I actually don't even recall what most of those elements were... Some backwards music, I think? A can of something - soup? Something worm-like I think too... a photo of worms or snakes maybe? I'm fairly certain there was something that made us think of the clock... but not a clock. And I did go to Jericho Beach first and took some reference photos... 'cause it was our 'location' - though I'll be damned if I can recall how we used/justified it.
Anyway, while I wrote my ass off on the ferry, Rob and his guys did as much advance work as they could. (Making presents and other anticipated animated props.) When I arrived at the studio I read them what I had scrawled and they got down to more specific work while I typed up a copy (oh those pre-laptop days) for distribution... 'cause no one could be expected to read my handwriting.
More thoughts after the (for some reason not properly formatted) script...
A DAVID LYNCH FAMILY CHRISTMAS
Fade in.
A quaint family bungalow.
Woman at stove. Cauldron of soup boiling.
Clock on wall ticks once. Second hand moves forwards 2 seconds.
Woman stirs cauldron.
Soup boils.
Living room. Two children. Ten year old boy, decorating tree. Three year old of indeterminate sex, humming gutterally to (him)self. His hair looks like a bad wig.
A present at the bottom of the tree is shaking back and forth.
Clock on wall ticks once. Second hand moves three seconds backward.
Woman at stove stirs cauldron. She shakes in some seasoning.
Several creatures swim to surface and feed on seasoning floating on top. The soup is too murky to see them clearly.
Woman stirs cauldron.
There is a quiet, shy, polite knock at the door.
Woman looks up from soup but does not acknowledge the door.
WOMAN: Your father.
She listens tentatively for a moment.
The clock ticks once and moves forward two seconds.
The two children are at the Christmas tree.
TEN YEAR OLD: Mom!
The three year old has found a jar of marbles.
The present gives a quick shake and quietly whimpers.
PRESENT: oooh.
TEN YEAR OLD: Mom?
The three year old stops humming long enough to stuff a fistful of marbles in its mouth.
The clock ticks backwards three seconds.
The woman stirs the soup.
There is a quiet polite knock at the door.
Something slivers just beneath the surface of the soup.
The ten year old enters the kitchen.
TEN YEAR OLD: Mom, when is Dad coming home?
The woman laughs.
WOMAN: Your father.
The three year old is chewing ambitiously on the marbles.
The present lurches slightly.
TEN YEAR OLD: Can I have something to eat?
The woman sighs and looks wistfully at the soup.
There is a polite knock on the door.
WOMAN: Your father.
The ten year old sighs, disappointed.
The clock ticks forward two seconds.
The three year old has found a rubber ball the size of a fist. (S)he is humming gutterally again.
The present shakes back and forth, making helpless noises.
A door opens behind the three year old. A man dressed as a penguin comes out.
The penguin sets an iron chest at the foot of the tree and shuffles into the kitchen.
Elsewhere, an axe is being dragged through the snow.
The penguin enters the kitchen.
The ten year old boy watches the penguin.
The woman ignores.
The penguin opens the door to the fridge, climbs in and closes the door.
The woman shakes her head in disapproval.
WOMAN: Your father.
Something in the soup makes a sudden dive to the bottom.
The three year old gnaws viciously on the rubber ball.
The clock ticks backwards three seconds.
The woman goes to the fridge and opens it. A penguin wing hands her a can. She closes the fridge.
There is a knock at the door.
Elsewhere an axe is dragged through the snow.
Under the tree, the present shakes violently and tips over. It murmurs.
PRESENT: Ow.
The woman pours a chalky, lumpy red liquid from the carton into the soup.
The soup seems to stir itself. A small fin briefly rises above the surface.
The ten year old boy curiously opens the fridge.
There is no penguin inside, simply a wall of cans like the woman just took out.
TEN YEAR OLD: Mom?
There is an irritated knock at the door.
TEN YEAR OLD: How does Santa know what to bring?
The woman is visibly agitated.
WOMAN: Your father.
The clock ticks forward two seconds.
The three year old is humming again. (S)he has found a ragged softball.
The present shakes slightly and cries.
The ten year old enters the living room.
There is a loud irritated knock at the door.
The woman follows the ten year old into the living room.
The clock ticks backwards three seconds.
Elsewhere an axe is dragged through the snow.
The ten year old opens the iron box.
The three year old dogs ravenously into the softball, tearing the cover off with his teeth.
The clock ticks forward two seconds.
The soup churns violently.
The ten year old pulls several small penises from the box.
WOMAN: Your father.
The present shakes desperately.
There is a loud, insistent, irritated, pounding knock at the door.
The woman acknowledges the door expectantly.
WOMAN: Your father.
Elsewhere an axe is dragged through the snow.
The clock ticks backwards three seconds.
The ten year old begins hanging decorative penises on the tree.
The door bursts open. Four evergreen trees rush in.
Something in the soup preys on something else.
The trees enter the living room.
The woman watches.
The ten year old hands penises.
The three year old furiously destroys the cork centre of the softball with his mouth.
The present shrieks and shakes violently.
The trees seize the ten year old.
Red clad arms lay a frightened reindeer's red-nosed head against a large chopping block.
The clock ticks forward tewo seconds.
The trees rush out the door with the ten year old.
The woman watches.
Something slithers contentedly in the soup.
The three year old picks up the present. The present makes weak frightened whimpers. The three year old is humming gutterally again.
WOMAN: Your father.
Red clad arms swing an axe over a red-capped white-bearded head.
The ten year old stands amongst presents. Baubles hang on his outstretched arms. An ornate star rests on his head. Lights are strung around him. A family of trees surrounds him, exchanging gifts.
A frightened reindeer with it's head against a chopping block looks up in resigned terror...
Blackout.
A wet chopping noise.
A dull thud of something heavy landing in the snow.
WOMAN: How was your day dear? I've cooked your favourite.
- END -
Don't try to make sense of it. There is no meaning to the story. More than anything it was intended to be sort of an excercise in disturbing tension.
As an excericse, it ultimately failed. It was simply too much to chew in too little time for a team that was doing something no-one (let alone us) had ever attempted. The learning curve was damn near vertical. The number of unfinished shots was long. We had zero-time to do any real editing. All we could do was assemble the completed shots in order. It didn't make much less sense than the original script, but we had no chance to tweak the timing and otherwise finesse it. Add to that that one team member fell through a glass table and had to be taken away in an ambulance, and a major last minute system crash that nearly resulted in me not being able to catch the last ferry back to Vancouver to submit the film under the wire... It was a wonder we finished at all. In the end, that was the victory.
But it had it's moments. Scott's vocal performance as the three year old (The three year old would end up being the 'star' of every film the team made.) was hysterically funny - it remains a running in-joke to this day.
The following year we tweaked the team - added more animators, and more people who could handle multiple jobs. One animator did the trip from Vancouver with me to help massage "impossible" ideas. The same team member was charged specifically with editing - though we still didn't have as much time for finessing the cut as we'd like. and we arranged to fly the finished product back to Vancouver, rather than losing the time on the ferry back. In that second year we actually completed a film that made some odd sense and won a special achievement award for our efforts.
The third year I decided I wanted to try something new. I had never done a live-action film for ReelFast. It was time.
The animation team entered again without me. This time a well oiled machine full of mostly veterans. With literally dozens of characters to pick from and a very complete western-ghost-town set at their disposal, they delivered a tour de force. It was still rather bizarre and at moments inscruitable (but honestly, plenty of live action ReelFast films suffer that fate), but it was the most beautiful looking and smoothly animated film yet. They placed in the top ten films of what was a highly contentious contest. My team did not - but that is a tale in itself. I could not have been happier for them.
The next year I returned to animation with a new team - this time doing stop-motion. The old team did not compete. One other team did stop-motion that year - together we were the first two teams to do stop motion. They kicked our ass. But that shouldn't be too surprising... that team was headed up by Zach Lipovsky who would go on to the final five of On the Lot... and frankly, he should have won - but that too is another story.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
MVP
This one makes me howl. It was probably funnier ten years ago when the references were that much fresher. I didn't write this for any reason but to amuse myself... that happens a lot.
EXT. OUTSIDE MADISON SQUARE GARDENS, NEW YORK - TWILIGHT
Broadway is barren of people. The sky is a dark, dirty red. There are huge potholes in the pavement. Abandoned cars litter the street. Windows in the surrounding street are long since broken. Vines and creepers cover many things. It has been a long time since this place was disturbed by sentient life.
Madison Square Gardens itself is in terrible repair. The roof appears to be caved in and the doors are broken off, hanging on their hinges.
A lonely wind blows dust down the street.
The sound of horse hooves echoes between buildings.
A pair of horses appear at a trot. They slow down to a walk outside of MSG. Atop one horse is an earthy, busty, beautiful woman in a short buck-shin dress. On the other - Brendan Shannahan. Shannahan is dirty and unkempt. He is wearing a loin cloth.
He dismounts and helps the woman down. He looks at MSG in awe. The couple enter the colesieum.
INT. MADISON SQUARE GARDENS, RINK LEVEL VOMITORIUM - MINUTES LATER
Dim light fingers through the huge hole in the ceiling. Rubble is strewn across the rink and the seats are all in dis-repair.
A lonely zamboni, broken, sits mid-rink.
Through the passageway enters Shannahan and his female side-kick. He enters the rink area and looks around, gaping in disbelieving horror.
He casts his gaze upwards where his eye falls upon a banner in the Rangers' colours. Boldly printed on the banner - which hangs askew from a broken girder - is the number "99."
Shannahan falls to his knees and pounds the floor.
SHANNAHAN
You did it. you finally did it you bastards! Damnit all to hell. You blew it up, you bastards. God damn it, you blew it up!
VOICE OVER
Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
SMASH CUT TO:
INT. HOCKEY RINK - MODERN DAY
A chimpanzee stick-handles down the ice.... Skates in on goal.
He shoots! He.....
EXT. OUTSIDE MADISON SQUARE GARDENS, NEW YORK - TWILIGHT
Broadway is barren of people. The sky is a dark, dirty red. There are huge potholes in the pavement. Abandoned cars litter the street. Windows in the surrounding street are long since broken. Vines and creepers cover many things. It has been a long time since this place was disturbed by sentient life.
Madison Square Gardens itself is in terrible repair. The roof appears to be caved in and the doors are broken off, hanging on their hinges.
A lonely wind blows dust down the street.
The sound of horse hooves echoes between buildings.
A pair of horses appear at a trot. They slow down to a walk outside of MSG. Atop one horse is an earthy, busty, beautiful woman in a short buck-shin dress. On the other - Brendan Shannahan. Shannahan is dirty and unkempt. He is wearing a loin cloth.
He dismounts and helps the woman down. He looks at MSG in awe. The couple enter the colesieum.
INT. MADISON SQUARE GARDENS, RINK LEVEL VOMITORIUM - MINUTES LATER
Dim light fingers through the huge hole in the ceiling. Rubble is strewn across the rink and the seats are all in dis-repair.
A lonely zamboni, broken, sits mid-rink.
Through the passageway enters Shannahan and his female side-kick. He enters the rink area and looks around, gaping in disbelieving horror.
He casts his gaze upwards where his eye falls upon a banner in the Rangers' colours. Boldly printed on the banner - which hangs askew from a broken girder - is the number "99."
Shannahan falls to his knees and pounds the floor.
SHANNAHAN
You did it. you finally did it you bastards! Damnit all to hell. You blew it up, you bastards. God damn it, you blew it up!
VOICE OVER
Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
SMASH CUT TO:
INT. HOCKEY RINK - MODERN DAY
A chimpanzee stick-handles down the ice.... Skates in on goal.
He shoots! He.....
Friday, March 26, 2010
"Termination" an excerpt of "Missing Women"
I'm getting into the real cream of the crop now. Four more - including this one - to go.
This short piece was one of two contributions I made to a collaborative effort called "Missing Women."
It was created for Theatre Under the Gun. I think it was 2002.
For each of the previous years of TUtG at least one team had made a point of being a team comprised entirely of women. So a group of us decided to make a point of being a group made up entirely of men. I don't think anyone thought we were being (ahem) dicks about it. It was a largely tongue in cheek "statement" and I think everyone (including us) pretty much expected us to do something that was equally tongue in cheek.
But as the two days of preparation came together, we found ourselves doing quite a sober piece called "Missing Women." It featured one of us playing a drum riff over and over again while the rest of the actors in business suits walked back and forth in business suits our heads buried in newspapers. The drums would stop. One or more actors would break away from the marching line and do a scene while the others froze.
Each scene explored an aspect of how women could be missing from our lives: Deceased mothers, ex-girlfriends, lost children and so on.
This was while the crisis of missing women in the DTES was at it's worst. But we never had a secene that directly reflected that situation. Indeed, if you didn't count the title (which could be interpreted in a host of ways) we didn't plan to cite the situation at all - letting people make their own connections. But then a really weird confluence of things happened. Over the course of the two days of preparation significant developments unfolded in both the Vancouver missing women case and the decades old Green River killings. Both were plastered across the front pages of every newspaper you could buy. So through synchronicity we did have a somewhat subtle reference. It was a happy accident.
People really expected us to be doing a light piece. But it wasn't - and that made it all the more effective.
The first scene within the larger piece was the following monologue. I don't recall where exactly, but somewhere within the first few sentences someone (you know who you are - I won't shame you here) laughed uproariously, clearly expecting us to be funny. By the end of the monologue, it was clear to everyone that we had played a shell-game with their expectations. When the review was posted we were one of two companies in the festival that was singled out as a highlight.
This short piece was one of two contributions I made to a collaborative effort called "Missing Women."
It was created for Theatre Under the Gun. I think it was 2002.
For each of the previous years of TUtG at least one team had made a point of being a team comprised entirely of women. So a group of us decided to make a point of being a group made up entirely of men. I don't think anyone thought we were being (ahem) dicks about it. It was a largely tongue in cheek "statement" and I think everyone (including us) pretty much expected us to do something that was equally tongue in cheek.
But as the two days of preparation came together, we found ourselves doing quite a sober piece called "Missing Women." It featured one of us playing a drum riff over and over again while the rest of the actors in business suits walked back and forth in business suits our heads buried in newspapers. The drums would stop. One or more actors would break away from the marching line and do a scene while the others froze.
Each scene explored an aspect of how women could be missing from our lives: Deceased mothers, ex-girlfriends, lost children and so on.
This was while the crisis of missing women in the DTES was at it's worst. But we never had a secene that directly reflected that situation. Indeed, if you didn't count the title (which could be interpreted in a host of ways) we didn't plan to cite the situation at all - letting people make their own connections. But then a really weird confluence of things happened. Over the course of the two days of preparation significant developments unfolded in both the Vancouver missing women case and the decades old Green River killings. Both were plastered across the front pages of every newspaper you could buy. So through synchronicity we did have a somewhat subtle reference. It was a happy accident.
People really expected us to be doing a light piece. But it wasn't - and that made it all the more effective.
The first scene within the larger piece was the following monologue. I don't recall where exactly, but somewhere within the first few sentences someone (you know who you are - I won't shame you here) laughed uproariously, clearly expecting us to be funny. By the end of the monologue, it was clear to everyone that we had played a shell-game with their expectations. When the review was posted we were one of two companies in the festival that was singled out as a highlight.
"I lost it," she said.
And that was it. Just like that it was over.
"I'm sorry, I lost her." So non-chalant. She couldn't look me in the eye, I knew. I could tell she was lying.
From the moment I walked in the door I could tell something was wrong.
Something about the way she gingerly padded across the carpet and all too gently wrapped her arms around my neck... intimate, but not 'good that you're home' intimate.
"I lost our baby." No sadness. No shock. Relief.
"Did you? did you really?" Cold. Angry. Confused.
She looked into my eyes.
But faced with the piercing, intuitive and absolutley precise leap, the lie could not hold.
"No, I..." The sentence enjambs, waits and never ends - snarled up in shame.
She loved me. I loved her.
And although we fought it, that moment was the end.
Long slow death. Terminating that August - about the same time it would have all begun.
Could we have survived the abortion alone? I don't know. Coupled with the lie, we didn't stand a chance. I wish we could have known before we started to hate each other in our own home.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The McMadden Family Speaks Out On a Northern Interior University
This is hardly the best piece of old writing I've uncovered, but it has a bit of a story behind it that is worth telling.
In the years before I started touring Canada I had gone through a series of different comedy troupes - most of which spawned directly from th Prince George Theatre Workshop's Summer Stage project.
One of them - The Machine Gun Canaries - ended up getting a coveted TV gig. There was a local TV magazine called 54-North. The producer and host decided that a comedy troupe would be an interesting addition to the weekly commentary. We got the job.
On about our second or third week the subject of the week was the debate over whether Prince George should be the home of the planned fourth university in BC. Locals variously supported and criticized it. At least one other city was trying to get the University built there. It was all up in the air. But we were young homers, naturally we were in favour of it being in PG and the arguments against it were silly - what better way to support our position than to stuff a few strawmen in the mouths of our opponents?
We put together two sketches . One poked fun at the proposed names for the University - I don't recall it clearly, but I know at one point we referred to it as UPiG and there was something about UNBC "proud as a peackock." ...the eventual university would in fact be named UNBC. They left out the rest of it... not that anyone would get the joke anymore.
The second sketch follows below:
ELBERT: (Slowly with a hesitant drawl.) Hi. My name is Elbert T. Mc Madden Jr., and this is my wife, Ma.
MA: Or 'Ma' for short.
ELBERT: Ma and I run my hay farm in the Blackburn area.
MA: Where we farm... hay.
ELBERT: The farm has been in my family since my great grandaddy came and arrived here when he came and... arrived in 1889.
MA: One hundred years ago.
ELBERT: Of course Great Grandaddy hasn't been around for a few years now. (Pause.) I have come here today to express my concerns about a Northern Interior University. I think that a university at Fort George.
MA: That's Prince George now, Elbert.
ELBERT: Oh, that's right. "The times they are a changin'" as that hip folk song does say. I think that a university in Prince George would be a waste of tax payers' money. I feel that money could go to better causes.
(Enter their son.)
SON: Pa! Pa!
MA: Now hesh up a second there boy. Your father 's speakin'.
ELBERT: No, Ma. Let me introduce my boy. Afterall our youth is our future. This is my boy, Elbert T. McMadden Junior Jr. Junior Jr., we is on TV.
SON: Golly!
MA: Now what did you want to ask your father, boy?
SON: Pa, I got a real hot date tonight. An' I was wonderin' if I could use the tractor to go to town?
ELBERT: Sorry Junior Jr, but Ma and I was goin' to take the tractor to town to watch them buildin' that new fangled hockey rink.
MA: Now, that's progress.
ELBERT: I'm afraid that you'll have to take the combine.
SON: The combine! Pa, I'll look like a geek!
MA: Now Junior Jr., don't argue with your father. Run along now.
(Junior Jr. leaves, upset.)
ELBERT: The money we save on taxes could be out towards buying a new tractor so that we could be a two tractor family.
MA: Now, that's progress!
ELBERT: An Interior University would be about as much good for the city as that new fangled cultural centre they wanted to build. Why I got plenty enough culture just sittin' round watchin' Wheel of Fortune on the television.
MA: ...Actually Elbert, we could use a new TV set...
ELBERT: What in tarnation are you talkin' about Ma? We just bought a brand new enormous 12 inch black and white in 1959.
MA: Of course, we couldn't receive any channels back then... But it sure was nice to put something up where we used to stare against the wall in the evenings.
ELBERT: Yeah Ma, we always have been ahead of the times, ain't we?
MA: Shore have. We believe in progress.
- End -
Now I'll be the first to admit that I can think of a dozen ways to improve this sketch - if it were still relevant. It's really not even close to being one of the best of the old pieces I dug up. But it is special for another reason...
A day after it aired, the TV station recieved a number of complaints about the sketch.
Some people in the Blackburn area of town were upset about the portrayal of Blackburn farmers... a complaint I still feel is kind of quaint, sort of misses the point and if anything kind of serves to further the point. I should also add... my Grandmother's maiden name? Blackburn. NOT a coincidence. My uncle and cousins still operate the Blackburn farm in the Blackburn area of Prince George.
Anyhow... I don't know whether the producer of 54-North buckled under his own weight or under pressure from above at the station, CKPG, but we never appeared on the show again.
UNBC (proud as a peacock) DID get built in Prince George. (As did one in the Okanagan - UBCO.) The "New" arena is now in need of replacement, and they did eventually build a new cultural centre.
Somewhere along the way my adolescent brain got the message that comedy can push buttons and effect change. Perhaps I don't practice that as much as I ought to... but if someday I can convince someone to green-light my TV series "Big Wig" - I'll be back to pushing buttons, making points and effecting change on TV. Or maybe TV producers are too scared.
In the years before I started touring Canada I had gone through a series of different comedy troupes - most of which spawned directly from th Prince George Theatre Workshop's Summer Stage project.
One of them - The Machine Gun Canaries - ended up getting a coveted TV gig. There was a local TV magazine called 54-North. The producer and host decided that a comedy troupe would be an interesting addition to the weekly commentary. We got the job.
On about our second or third week the subject of the week was the debate over whether Prince George should be the home of the planned fourth university in BC. Locals variously supported and criticized it. At least one other city was trying to get the University built there. It was all up in the air. But we were young homers, naturally we were in favour of it being in PG and the arguments against it were silly - what better way to support our position than to stuff a few strawmen in the mouths of our opponents?
We put together two sketches . One poked fun at the proposed names for the University - I don't recall it clearly, but I know at one point we referred to it as UPiG and there was something about UNBC "proud as a peackock." ...the eventual university would in fact be named UNBC. They left out the rest of it... not that anyone would get the joke anymore.
The second sketch follows below:
ELBERT: (Slowly with a hesitant drawl.) Hi. My name is Elbert T. Mc Madden Jr., and this is my wife, Ma.
MA: Or 'Ma' for short.
ELBERT: Ma and I run my hay farm in the Blackburn area.
MA: Where we farm... hay.
ELBERT: The farm has been in my family since my great grandaddy came and arrived here when he came and... arrived in 1889.
MA: One hundred years ago.
ELBERT: Of course Great Grandaddy hasn't been around for a few years now. (Pause.) I have come here today to express my concerns about a Northern Interior University. I think that a university at Fort George.
MA: That's Prince George now, Elbert.
ELBERT: Oh, that's right. "The times they are a changin'" as that hip folk song does say. I think that a university in Prince George would be a waste of tax payers' money. I feel that money could go to better causes.
(Enter their son.)
SON: Pa! Pa!
MA: Now hesh up a second there boy. Your father 's speakin'.
ELBERT: No, Ma. Let me introduce my boy. Afterall our youth is our future. This is my boy, Elbert T. McMadden Junior Jr. Junior Jr., we is on TV.
SON: Golly!
MA: Now what did you want to ask your father, boy?
SON: Pa, I got a real hot date tonight. An' I was wonderin' if I could use the tractor to go to town?
ELBERT: Sorry Junior Jr, but Ma and I was goin' to take the tractor to town to watch them buildin' that new fangled hockey rink.
MA: Now, that's progress.
ELBERT: I'm afraid that you'll have to take the combine.
SON: The combine! Pa, I'll look like a geek!
MA: Now Junior Jr., don't argue with your father. Run along now.
(Junior Jr. leaves, upset.)
ELBERT: The money we save on taxes could be out towards buying a new tractor so that we could be a two tractor family.
MA: Now, that's progress!
ELBERT: An Interior University would be about as much good for the city as that new fangled cultural centre they wanted to build. Why I got plenty enough culture just sittin' round watchin' Wheel of Fortune on the television.
MA: ...Actually Elbert, we could use a new TV set...
ELBERT: What in tarnation are you talkin' about Ma? We just bought a brand new enormous 12 inch black and white in 1959.
MA: Of course, we couldn't receive any channels back then... But it sure was nice to put something up where we used to stare against the wall in the evenings.
ELBERT: Yeah Ma, we always have been ahead of the times, ain't we?
MA: Shore have. We believe in progress.
- End -
Now I'll be the first to admit that I can think of a dozen ways to improve this sketch - if it were still relevant. It's really not even close to being one of the best of the old pieces I dug up. But it is special for another reason...
A day after it aired, the TV station recieved a number of complaints about the sketch.
Some people in the Blackburn area of town were upset about the portrayal of Blackburn farmers... a complaint I still feel is kind of quaint, sort of misses the point and if anything kind of serves to further the point. I should also add... my Grandmother's maiden name? Blackburn. NOT a coincidence. My uncle and cousins still operate the Blackburn farm in the Blackburn area of Prince George.
Anyhow... I don't know whether the producer of 54-North buckled under his own weight or under pressure from above at the station, CKPG, but we never appeared on the show again.
UNBC (proud as a peacock) DID get built in Prince George. (As did one in the Okanagan - UBCO.) The "New" arena is now in need of replacement, and they did eventually build a new cultural centre.
Somewhere along the way my adolescent brain got the message that comedy can push buttons and effect change. Perhaps I don't practice that as much as I ought to... but if someday I can convince someone to green-light my TV series "Big Wig" - I'll be back to pushing buttons, making points and effecting change on TV. Or maybe TV producers are too scared.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Tragedy of Pebbles
Expect a bunch of this over the next week or so. I've uncovered a bunch of old short-writing that amuses the hell out of me that isn't amusing anyone locked in a box, so I'm transcribing it.
The first time I appeared on Loose Cannons happened to be the day that Dana Plato from Diff'rent Strokes died. I got the call in the afternoon asking if I had anything I could present on the show that night. I said I'd write something. What follows is what I wrote.
Pebbles would have turned forty-one today. But like many a child str, things got complicated - dense - after she'd gone supernova at such a young age, during the hey-day of Hanna-Barbera, when "The Flintstones" was the best on the box.
Former co-star Bam-bam Rubble, now a stock promoter in Aristona remembers her fondly...
BAM BAM: Peb was so sweet. Always popular on set, shewas everyone's favourite with her innocent charm. I've often wondered if that was where things started to go wrong.
Certainly that is a distinct possibility. Pebbles' downward spiral began in the show's fourth and last* season when he began a Lolita-esque relationship with character actor Edwin Slate who played Fred's boss on the show. It is generally assumed that the child starlet - who was once described as having 'all the innocent delights of Shirley Temple combined with the girl-next-door charms of Annette Funicello' - was introduced to drug use by Slate. Slate died destitute in 1974 in freebasing accident.
The signs of drug use on the set of the landmark animated sitcom were thin, but by the time spin-off show "The Pebbles and Bam-Bam Hour"** tried to cash in on the beach-party-rock craze, Pebbles had developed a habit estimated to be costing five to six thousand dolars a day. Her star falling, and her blood toxin rising, the young teen became difficult...
BAM BAM: She ws denying everything, but it was clear just how strung out she was. You could see it in her eyes.
Says Rubble...
BAM BAM: Somehow, her natural charm masked what was going on inside her head from the camera. But off screen things were ugly.
Things got so bad during one hallucinogenic episode that she attacked the show's director - a young Robert Zemeckis - with chair, breaking his wrist...
ZEMECKIS: We were shooting a scene at a roller-derby event.
Recalls the director, who has since won an Oscar fr his efforts on "Forrest Gump..."
ZEMECKIS: Pebbles kept charging at the camera, insisting that it would look 'groovy and psychedelic.' It was getting really tiresome andI kept asking her to stop. Next thing I knew, she was throwing a stool at me... uh, a chair - not the uh... other thing.
The incident was prety much the end of the show. Pebbles was fired. And in site of the program's impressive showing at the Emmys in that, it's freshman season, without Pebbles, the sponsors didn't expect the show to fly. A simple equation: no backers - no money; no money - no show.
Following the show's demise Pebbles spun into a seedy descentwhich somehow managed to maintain her celebrity. She spent the majority of the seventies rubbing elbows - and possibly other body parts - with the likes of Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley and Keith Moon. Not the most auspicious of company. She even recorded an updated version of her novelty hit "Let the Sunshine In" with Sly and the Family Stone...
SLY: Yeah, Pebs was so hip and that was such a funky little groove we got a good twenty minute jam out of that on wax. But it seems like everyone already had enough of that repetitive little ditty the first time 'round.
Her image as a celebrity groupie was forever etched in stone when her two-year marriage to consumate party-animal John Beushi started in a dramatically public manner - with a headline stealing indecent exposure trial.
Pebbles and Belushi had been separated for over a year upon his death in 1981.*** His family employed top civil litigators when it came to dividing his estate. Belushi died intestate and by the prevailing law of the time all of his worldly trappings became possession of his wife. The Belushi family won the case in precedent setting fashion - citing her role in advancing his ultimately lethal drug addiction and the fact that she and Belushi had not shared an address for thirteen months.
Pebbles public image limped along for a few years supported by guest appearances on shows such as Love Boat and Hollywood Squares, a few cereal commercials and a cameo in a John Waters' film. The entire time she struggled with her addiction and appeared to have cocaine beaten in 1983 when she spent six months in rehab after she was found naked in a delusional state wandering the Santa Monica Freewat.
Things went well for several years during which she gave birth to twins out of wed-lock to her then boyfriend Bib Goodyear. Then in 1989 it looked like Pebbles was poised to make an enormous comeback. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
GROENING: Fox had offered us an excellent development deal but they told us they weren't going to move further forwards without a star.
Groening went to Fox with the suggestion of building a sitcom about a chroncially dysfunctional family around a retro-nostalgia celebrity. Groening suggested Pebbles.
GROENING: Fox went nuts. They thought the idea was inspired. We started negotiations and set her up with an excellent pay or play deal where whether the show went ahead or not, Peb was in the green.
Pebbles sudden fiscal liquidity was ultimately her downfall. An alcohol and prescription drig dependency quickly accellerated out of control.
GROENING: Peb started not showing up for meetings and soon Fox got worried. But they were liking the potential of the show we were creating and started looking for options.
Fox changed the show concept and instead of a shrewish matriarch for the "Plimpton" family, they found an ex-steeplejack turned stand-up comedian and renamed the show after him. Homer Simpson was an overnight success.
Pebbles took the news hard. Leaving her twins behind, alone in her Venice Beach home, she disappeared for thirteen days before being found in a Tijuana jail where she'd been arrested for driving a car through a poncho stall at the public market, and firing a gun into the air. Luckily for her, The Flintstones was, at the time, the top rated show in syndication on Mexican television.
Her sentence was reduced and she was transferred to the United States and put on probation. Due to her abandonment of her twins she was declared an unfit parent and was denied access to her children.
In November of 1990, shortly after the start of The Simpsons' second successful season**** a despondent Pebbles started making rounds to old friends.
BAM BAM: I feel I should have known. Should have sensed something was wrong.
Says Bam-Bam from his split-level in Phoenix...
BAM BAM: If I knew the truth about what was going on for her - the show falling through; the probation; the twins - I might have seen that she was saying goodbye. She just... I remember - sh just kept on telling me how she'd quit. How she had finally beat the drugs. When she left I couldn't help but think how good it was that she was back on track.
Then on November 13th - a Friday***** - she missed her meeting with her parole officer. The next morning she was found in her bathtub, drowned. No note. No sign of foul play. No immediate trace of drugs or alcohol in her system. A traic and confusing end to a life long streak of bad luck which plagued a desperate and insecure woman who had once won herself a place in the hearts of a country, and a page right out of history....
*Ah the days before Google... the show ran six seasons.
** Was actually called The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and was not an hour. Though there was a show called The Flintstone Comedy Hour which incorporated it.
*** It was 1982.
**** I did get that date right.
*****November 13th 1990 was a Wednesday - you can check it out on your computer's calendar.
The first time I appeared on Loose Cannons happened to be the day that Dana Plato from Diff'rent Strokes died. I got the call in the afternoon asking if I had anything I could present on the show that night. I said I'd write something. What follows is what I wrote.
Pebbles would have turned forty-one today. But like many a child str, things got complicated - dense - after she'd gone supernova at such a young age, during the hey-day of Hanna-Barbera, when "The Flintstones" was the best on the box.
Former co-star Bam-bam Rubble, now a stock promoter in Aristona remembers her fondly...
BAM BAM: Peb was so sweet. Always popular on set, shewas everyone's favourite with her innocent charm. I've often wondered if that was where things started to go wrong.
Certainly that is a distinct possibility. Pebbles' downward spiral began in the show's fourth and last* season when he began a Lolita-esque relationship with character actor Edwin Slate who played Fred's boss on the show. It is generally assumed that the child starlet - who was once described as having 'all the innocent delights of Shirley Temple combined with the girl-next-door charms of Annette Funicello' - was introduced to drug use by Slate. Slate died destitute in 1974 in freebasing accident.
The signs of drug use on the set of the landmark animated sitcom were thin, but by the time spin-off show "The Pebbles and Bam-Bam Hour"** tried to cash in on the beach-party-rock craze, Pebbles had developed a habit estimated to be costing five to six thousand dolars a day. Her star falling, and her blood toxin rising, the young teen became difficult...
BAM BAM: She ws denying everything, but it was clear just how strung out she was. You could see it in her eyes.
Says Rubble...
BAM BAM: Somehow, her natural charm masked what was going on inside her head from the camera. But off screen things were ugly.
Things got so bad during one hallucinogenic episode that she attacked the show's director - a young Robert Zemeckis - with chair, breaking his wrist...
ZEMECKIS: We were shooting a scene at a roller-derby event.
Recalls the director, who has since won an Oscar fr his efforts on "Forrest Gump..."
ZEMECKIS: Pebbles kept charging at the camera, insisting that it would look 'groovy and psychedelic.' It was getting really tiresome andI kept asking her to stop. Next thing I knew, she was throwing a stool at me... uh, a chair - not the uh... other thing.
The incident was prety much the end of the show. Pebbles was fired. And in site of the program's impressive showing at the Emmys in that, it's freshman season, without Pebbles, the sponsors didn't expect the show to fly. A simple equation: no backers - no money; no money - no show.
Following the show's demise Pebbles spun into a seedy descentwhich somehow managed to maintain her celebrity. She spent the majority of the seventies rubbing elbows - and possibly other body parts - with the likes of Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley and Keith Moon. Not the most auspicious of company. She even recorded an updated version of her novelty hit "Let the Sunshine In" with Sly and the Family Stone...
SLY: Yeah, Pebs was so hip and that was such a funky little groove we got a good twenty minute jam out of that on wax. But it seems like everyone already had enough of that repetitive little ditty the first time 'round.
Her image as a celebrity groupie was forever etched in stone when her two-year marriage to consumate party-animal John Beushi started in a dramatically public manner - with a headline stealing indecent exposure trial.
Pebbles and Belushi had been separated for over a year upon his death in 1981.*** His family employed top civil litigators when it came to dividing his estate. Belushi died intestate and by the prevailing law of the time all of his worldly trappings became possession of his wife. The Belushi family won the case in precedent setting fashion - citing her role in advancing his ultimately lethal drug addiction and the fact that she and Belushi had not shared an address for thirteen months.
Pebbles public image limped along for a few years supported by guest appearances on shows such as Love Boat and Hollywood Squares, a few cereal commercials and a cameo in a John Waters' film. The entire time she struggled with her addiction and appeared to have cocaine beaten in 1983 when she spent six months in rehab after she was found naked in a delusional state wandering the Santa Monica Freewat.
Things went well for several years during which she gave birth to twins out of wed-lock to her then boyfriend Bib Goodyear. Then in 1989 it looked like Pebbles was poised to make an enormous comeback. Cartoonist Matt Groening...
GROENING: Fox had offered us an excellent development deal but they told us they weren't going to move further forwards without a star.
Groening went to Fox with the suggestion of building a sitcom about a chroncially dysfunctional family around a retro-nostalgia celebrity. Groening suggested Pebbles.
GROENING: Fox went nuts. They thought the idea was inspired. We started negotiations and set her up with an excellent pay or play deal where whether the show went ahead or not, Peb was in the green.
Pebbles sudden fiscal liquidity was ultimately her downfall. An alcohol and prescription drig dependency quickly accellerated out of control.
GROENING: Peb started not showing up for meetings and soon Fox got worried. But they were liking the potential of the show we were creating and started looking for options.
Fox changed the show concept and instead of a shrewish matriarch for the "Plimpton" family, they found an ex-steeplejack turned stand-up comedian and renamed the show after him. Homer Simpson was an overnight success.
Pebbles took the news hard. Leaving her twins behind, alone in her Venice Beach home, she disappeared for thirteen days before being found in a Tijuana jail where she'd been arrested for driving a car through a poncho stall at the public market, and firing a gun into the air. Luckily for her, The Flintstones was, at the time, the top rated show in syndication on Mexican television.
Her sentence was reduced and she was transferred to the United States and put on probation. Due to her abandonment of her twins she was declared an unfit parent and was denied access to her children.
In November of 1990, shortly after the start of The Simpsons' second successful season**** a despondent Pebbles started making rounds to old friends.
BAM BAM: I feel I should have known. Should have sensed something was wrong.
Says Bam-Bam from his split-level in Phoenix...
BAM BAM: If I knew the truth about what was going on for her - the show falling through; the probation; the twins - I might have seen that she was saying goodbye. She just... I remember - sh just kept on telling me how she'd quit. How she had finally beat the drugs. When she left I couldn't help but think how good it was that she was back on track.
Then on November 13th - a Friday***** - she missed her meeting with her parole officer. The next morning she was found in her bathtub, drowned. No note. No sign of foul play. No immediate trace of drugs or alcohol in her system. A traic and confusing end to a life long streak of bad luck which plagued a desperate and insecure woman who had once won herself a place in the hearts of a country, and a page right out of history....
*Ah the days before Google... the show ran six seasons.
** Was actually called The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and was not an hour. Though there was a show called The Flintstone Comedy Hour which incorporated it.
*** It was 1982.
**** I did get that date right.
*****November 13th 1990 was a Wednesday - you can check it out on your computer's calendar.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Dirty Fridge Poetry
I'm sorting through all kinds of old papers. (Far too much teen-angst poetry for my liking.)
I just uncovered something I have to share. I think I'd have to say that this is NSFW - though there are no individual words that would offend anyone.
I don't even actually recall what this was for - maybe Theatre Under the Gun, perhaps one of The Stands, possibly an episode of 1000 Year Itch, or it could have been a Loose Cannons show. (If anyone reading this happens to recall, please refresh my memory.) I do recall that there was some need for an off-the-hook fridge poem. Just about anyone who has been in my kitchen between 1999 and 2009 knows just how many fridge poetry words I have. (They are not currently on my fridge, but they still exist.) I do have a vague recollection of going home and playing with the magnetic words until I came up with something. I can't even picture which kitchen/fridge it was that I sullied so. I don't even recall if the original intent was to write something so pornographic.
The original page is pretty much one endless un-punctuated string of words. I'm punctuating and spacing things for slightly easier reading. Okay... here we go...
Yes. All those words are ones I have in my collection of fridge poetry magnets.
I just uncovered something I have to share. I think I'd have to say that this is NSFW - though there are no individual words that would offend anyone.
I don't even actually recall what this was for - maybe Theatre Under the Gun, perhaps one of The Stands, possibly an episode of 1000 Year Itch, or it could have been a Loose Cannons show. (If anyone reading this happens to recall, please refresh my memory.) I do recall that there was some need for an off-the-hook fridge poem. Just about anyone who has been in my kitchen between 1999 and 2009 knows just how many fridge poetry words I have. (They are not currently on my fridge, but they still exist.) I do have a vague recollection of going home and playing with the magnetic words until I came up with something. I can't even picture which kitchen/fridge it was that I sullied so. I don't even recall if the original intent was to write something so pornographic.
The original page is pretty much one endless un-punctuated string of words. I'm punctuating and spacing things for slightly easier reading. Okay... here we go...
May I wear you like sweat?
Smear your bed pie all over my naked animal apparatus as I explore the steaming skin beach which lies above your blushing ocean.
Let me seep into the bitter perfumed peach and light the moistest of flowers ablaze with a feverish kiss of squirming pink.
I am drunk on the hot champagne of your luscious woman rain.
I will moan wild delirious music that pierces the liquid night when your sacred tongue meat poisons my screaming dirty lust candy, and a bath of juicy joy celebrates down those long icy fingers.
You think it felt like angel milk, playing a symphony on your hand.
Breathe the languid mist of our black velvet gardens.
Swim in a sea of a thousand arms and legs.
Your lathered love parts rusting beneath me.
Whisper when its time to change the TV.
Yes. All those words are ones I have in my collection of fridge poetry magnets.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Leviathan - A Short Piece of Fiction
I wrote this about a year and a half ago. It's an odd little thing that I've been told borders on poetry and is harder than hell to truly understand.
I'm kind of of the "so what?" mind set. I wrote this one for me first - anyone else is a bonus. I know what I was shooting for and I captured it for my own needs... even if it is a bit obtuse for general consumption.
You can love it. You can hate it. Neither you nor I has to make excuses about it.
LEVIATHAN
She alone humbly knew that it had been more time than they had songs for, since the Ancient-voices of From-above had first been heard. How long had they played? There was no knowing. Soon there would be no knowing when the Ancient-voices had last sung with them.
Time - measured by life. Lives. Lives in turn by knowing, by lore, by wisdom. Full of wisdom, deep into time.
There were only songs for those who lived, and for those who were gone but had lived while those still alive were already birthed.
There were those who came before that. But their song was One. Their individual songs forgotten. Forgotten except for the songs intoned by those vain with wisdom. Vanity was such heroic shame. To know yourself to be so wise that you could compose a song for the ages… immoral.
Those who had heard the Last-song From-above had lived while she was alive, and no other alive had emerged, had swam, had abided as deep into time as she.
Those who heard the Last-song had sung to her about strange melodies that came from those who had once lived From-above. Inscrutable songs played by the Ancient-voices of From-above when those of deep wisdom – as she now was - had been shallow, as she had been when those then of deep wisdom sung for her.
To be shallow again. To embrace the freedom of imagination that time would fill with wisdom. To dream. To play at being one who heroically sacrificed great humility to compose a song for the ages. She recalled the frivolity of composing trite melodies to herself, to her head, yet never intoning, singing, sharing. Not one new song was composed in a generation, let alone by one so shallow. As she grew wise she would see those dreams for what they were, not heroism. Shame, abase, disgrace. Shallow naiveté.
From-above. Where breath came from.
A place where she and her kind could go only briefly - a fleeting moment before crashing back to the substance of the world. It was glorious. A brief surge into outer space, before the great Compelling drew one back as though the Compelling itself knew that there was nothing for them out there.
Nothing but death.
Soon she would die from great accumulation of cognition. She was wise. Very wise. She knew how decrepit she must look to those whose lives did not run so deep as hers. She recalled those who had been this wise when her life was shallow. Those who had heard the Last-song. Those who she alone had a song for, but when she was gone, when she became one who had lived while those alive were alive… then their song would be the song of the One. Timeless. A duration lost.
She was the last wise enough to sing their song. The song, the archive, the science. The last who dove so deep in time. When she was gone, they would no longer know when the Ancient-voices had last been heard.
The song of the Ancient-voices had been bereft of true meaning, that was known. Nonsense. But there had been an understanding.
Long before. In the time of the song of the One, there had been great terror. The Terror.
Those From-above had come to draw them one at a time to outer space. Not for the brevity that the great Compelling allowed, but forever. For death.
There was a song – a variation on the song of the One - that told of the Terror.
A wise one whose life ran at the same depth as the Terror had sacrificed humility, to compose the song that explained, that told, that warned, of the Terror and sing it for all to remember.
The Ancient-voices, it was sung, came as an apology, an appeal, an instruction. For the duration that they sang, the voices had told them – promised them – that everything had changed.
But those who came From-above were now part of the One.
The last who had heard their nonsense melody were gone, and when she was gone, they too would be the remotest memory.
It saddened her.
Their voice may have had no meaning, but the intention, the understanding, the song had… that should not be lost.
Perhaps someday it would be understood. Perhaps those of the Yet-to-come – the young, the future, the foolish – may see a purpose in the song. Perhaps what it said might tell them what had become of those of From-above. Where they had gone and what their departure had meant. It was too important.
There needed to be a song.
A song that would mean everything she thought about the Ancient-voices.
There had not been a new song since those who lived the Terror had become part of the One. It was to sacrifice great humility to intone a new song.
Only the wisest could dare. For all others it was folly. Only the wisest could know enough to compose a new history, to build a new song in the language.
To sing a new song, it was sung, one must know that the song to be sung would be the most important melody one would ever sing.
To intone a new song was to enact despicable pride. But some things must be known. Each of the One who sacrificed great humility had recognized that they alone remained whose wisdom ran so deep into time as to be able to compose the song that must be sung. Each in turn had realized the price of hubristic heroism had fallen upon them. The decision, the choice, the dilemma to compose and sing or lose the knowledge, lore, wisdom was the burden left to those who alone swam deepest into time.
So, heroically, she embraced the dreams of the shallow and she sang.
I'm kind of of the "so what?" mind set. I wrote this one for me first - anyone else is a bonus. I know what I was shooting for and I captured it for my own needs... even if it is a bit obtuse for general consumption.
You can love it. You can hate it. Neither you nor I has to make excuses about it.
LEVIATHAN
She alone humbly knew that it had been more time than they had songs for, since the Ancient-voices of From-above had first been heard. How long had they played? There was no knowing. Soon there would be no knowing when the Ancient-voices had last sung with them.
Time - measured by life. Lives. Lives in turn by knowing, by lore, by wisdom. Full of wisdom, deep into time.
There were only songs for those who lived, and for those who were gone but had lived while those still alive were already birthed.
There were those who came before that. But their song was One. Their individual songs forgotten. Forgotten except for the songs intoned by those vain with wisdom. Vanity was such heroic shame. To know yourself to be so wise that you could compose a song for the ages… immoral.
Those who had heard the Last-song From-above had lived while she was alive, and no other alive had emerged, had swam, had abided as deep into time as she.
Those who heard the Last-song had sung to her about strange melodies that came from those who had once lived From-above. Inscrutable songs played by the Ancient-voices of From-above when those of deep wisdom – as she now was - had been shallow, as she had been when those then of deep wisdom sung for her.
To be shallow again. To embrace the freedom of imagination that time would fill with wisdom. To dream. To play at being one who heroically sacrificed great humility to compose a song for the ages. She recalled the frivolity of composing trite melodies to herself, to her head, yet never intoning, singing, sharing. Not one new song was composed in a generation, let alone by one so shallow. As she grew wise she would see those dreams for what they were, not heroism. Shame, abase, disgrace. Shallow naiveté.
From-above. Where breath came from.
A place where she and her kind could go only briefly - a fleeting moment before crashing back to the substance of the world. It was glorious. A brief surge into outer space, before the great Compelling drew one back as though the Compelling itself knew that there was nothing for them out there.
Nothing but death.
Soon she would die from great accumulation of cognition. She was wise. Very wise. She knew how decrepit she must look to those whose lives did not run so deep as hers. She recalled those who had been this wise when her life was shallow. Those who had heard the Last-song. Those who she alone had a song for, but when she was gone, when she became one who had lived while those alive were alive… then their song would be the song of the One. Timeless. A duration lost.
She was the last wise enough to sing their song. The song, the archive, the science. The last who dove so deep in time. When she was gone, they would no longer know when the Ancient-voices had last been heard.
The song of the Ancient-voices had been bereft of true meaning, that was known. Nonsense. But there had been an understanding.
Long before. In the time of the song of the One, there had been great terror. The Terror.
Those From-above had come to draw them one at a time to outer space. Not for the brevity that the great Compelling allowed, but forever. For death.
There was a song – a variation on the song of the One - that told of the Terror.
A wise one whose life ran at the same depth as the Terror had sacrificed humility, to compose the song that explained, that told, that warned, of the Terror and sing it for all to remember.
The Ancient-voices, it was sung, came as an apology, an appeal, an instruction. For the duration that they sang, the voices had told them – promised them – that everything had changed.
But those who came From-above were now part of the One.
The last who had heard their nonsense melody were gone, and when she was gone, they too would be the remotest memory.
It saddened her.
Their voice may have had no meaning, but the intention, the understanding, the song had… that should not be lost.
Perhaps someday it would be understood. Perhaps those of the Yet-to-come – the young, the future, the foolish – may see a purpose in the song. Perhaps what it said might tell them what had become of those of From-above. Where they had gone and what their departure had meant. It was too important.
There needed to be a song.
A song that would mean everything she thought about the Ancient-voices.
There had not been a new song since those who lived the Terror had become part of the One. It was to sacrifice great humility to intone a new song.
Only the wisest could dare. For all others it was folly. Only the wisest could know enough to compose a new history, to build a new song in the language.
To sing a new song, it was sung, one must know that the song to be sung would be the most important melody one would ever sing.
To intone a new song was to enact despicable pride. But some things must be known. Each of the One who sacrificed great humility had recognized that they alone remained whose wisdom ran so deep into time as to be able to compose the song that must be sung. Each in turn had realized the price of hubristic heroism had fallen upon them. The decision, the choice, the dilemma to compose and sing or lose the knowledge, lore, wisdom was the burden left to those who alone swam deepest into time.
So, heroically, she embraced the dreams of the shallow and she sang.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)