Category Archives: My life

Insights on how I got here

Transience

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The smallest of worlds can still be a pretty big place.

The smallest of worlds can still be a pretty big place.

I won’t live forever. There, I said it.

There was a time when I believed—or wanted to believe—that just because no one else had cracked immortality, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t. Now, I am pretty certain that a time will come when my tomorrow does not transition to today.

Strangely enough, that understanding doesn’t bother me like I thought it would.

Yes, there will be things I will not see, moments I will not experience, understanding I will not gain. But the truth is, this is also the case now, during my existence. I can only accomplish and experience so much in a day.

By the same token, I cannot live purely in the moment, as so many others like to crow. I need to aspire to something, to look forward, to not limit myself to now.

I write today with an eye to continuing to write tomorrow. I see friends whom I hope to see later.

What is different for me now, though, is that I do all of this for my own satisfaction rather than with an eye to leaving a legacy. Where I once feared that my life was meaningless if I was unremembered, I now live for me and care not about any grander meaning.

I am the chemistry of the universe, and I have chosen to do what I want with what I have while I have it. And when I cease, I will cease to think on it.

I can live with that.

Souls before sentience

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As human beings, we tend to make a lot of noise about sentience. The challenge I find, at the deepest level, with this is that we seem to equate feeling with awareness in its broadest sense.

To me, feeling focuses inward, toward me, whereas awareness focuses outward, on what is out there. Thus, I’m more interested in soul. Not in the religious sense of who goes to heaven, but in the sense of unity with the greater universe.

One look into the eyes of animals tells you, humans are not the only ones with souls. What do you think?

White space

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blank-paper

Earlier today, I read a blog post by my dear friend Marsha Mason, the latest in a series for Why The Face. In today’s post, she touched on the subject of use of white space in writing, whether a screenplay, query letter, whatever.

“The goal of white space,” she explains, “is to never be at the detriment of your story…but to force you to condense, to economize, to pack as much punch as you can into less.”

I agree with her conclusion, but question if the goal of white space isn’t so much bigger.

For the uninitiated, white space is literally the empty space between lines of text and/or images, the complete absence of content which appears white on the printed page or computer screen.

As I suggested in my response to Marsha’s post, I have worked for several years in careers such as magazine publishing, web design, advertising and now screenwriting, and in all that time, I have found that white space is easily the least understood and most underutilized aspect of creativity.

For whatever reason, people seem to believe that an absence of something is an absence of work. Marsha’s comment about the need to be concise and economical in your word choice partly puts the lie to this conjecture, but it doesn’t go far enough.

We live our lives like we fill our pages, with mostly useless things designed to ground us but which, in fact, anchor us and restrict our movement. It is a restriction that we accept voluntarily and without which many of us could not function, or at least fear we couldn’t.

At this moment, I have five browser windows open and yet am ignoring all but one, and only because that one is playing music. And at the same time that I write this post, my mind is on several other posts and some projects I am neglecting.

Nature abhors a vacuum. True. But think of the greater image.

More than 99.99999% of the known universe is actually NOTHING! Only the absence of ubiquitous light keeps it from being literally white space.

In screenwriting, white space is there to let your reader run free with his or her own interpretation of your work. Restrict their thoughts with clutter, and they resist. Prevent their thoughts with too much specificity, and they disengage.

Let your story breathe, as you yourself should. Your readers will be happier for it. And so will you be.

(Image is property of owner; I stole it.)

Puppet Up! is coming to Toronto

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Okay, that was either the most effective social media campaign EVAR! or the folks at Puppet Up! were already coming to Toronto.

Either way, I don’t care and am simply ecstatic that Puppet Up! Uncensored is coming to Toronto’s Panasonic Theatre October 22 to November 3.

Tickets are currently only open to Mirvish Theatre subscribers, but will likely open up soon.

Thanks to everyone who responded to, looked at or smiled bemusedly at my Bring Puppet Up! to Toronto campaign.

For more about Puppet Up!, visit their web site or FB page.

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Cross-border puppetry – Puppet Up!

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PUT_wide

As many of you well know, I am interested in puppetry and am currently working as a writer on a sketch comedy television show in development called SomeTV! that involves both human (fleshies) and puppet actors (felties). More on this later.

In the meantime, I am also striving to get an irreverent show called Puppet Up! to come to Canada (more specifically Toronto) and perform. A product of Henson Alternative, these people have taken the inside humour of the Muppet Show and ratcheted it up a thousand-fold.

I’ll let them describe the show:

What happens when Henson puppeteers are unleashed? You get a new breed of intelligent nonsense that is “Puppet Up: Uncensored” – a live, outrageous, comedy, variety show for adults only. Enjoy an unpredictable evening when six talented, hilarious, expert puppeteers will improvise songs and sketches based on your suggestions! With a motley group of characters brought to life by the world renowned puppeteers of The Jim Henson Company, this is not your average night at the improv and it is definitely not for children. But all others are welcome to enjoy the uninhibited anarchy of live puppet performance as never seen before!

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Strangely, it seems the show is bashful and so I am asking for everyone’s help to encourage them to come to Toronto with a social media campaign entitled: Bring Puppet Up to Toronto. (How’s that for imaginative!?)

I’ve set up a Facebook page that I ask you to “Like” and “Share” with your friends, colleagues, and that guy you met once who glommed onto your page when you weren’t looking.

As well, please visit the Puppet Up! Facebook page and let them know they should visit Toronto…even if you don’t live here.

And if you follow me on Twitter, please retweet and favourite the relevant posts…most of the other posts are completely irrelevant.

PUT tweet

As Animal is my witness, I will wear them down and they will either have to come to Toronto or file an injunction!

And even if you don’t do any of these things (I feel tears coming on), then at least enjoy these YouTube videos…they are very funny and you should get something for having read this far.

Thanks.

12 Awkward Days of Christmas – Miskreant Puppets

Puppet Up! Hit the Streets of Edinburgh

Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Filion in Doctor’s Office – Neil’s Puppet Dreams

Where do babies come from – Puppet Up!

Another year, another AFF Second Rounder

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20th AFF poster

So, it would seem that rewrites work.

Last year, I entered my screenplay Tank’s into the Austin Film Festival screenplay competition and other than some amazing notes, it went nowhere in the competition. (My spec teleplay of The Big Bang Theory, however, reached the second round before bowing out.)

Fast-forward a year and four rounds of revisions, I just learned that the same screenplay made it to the second round of the competition before bowing out…Tank’s made it to the top 10% of its category, which feels pretty good considering the AFF received more than 8,600 screen- and teleplays this year, its highest submission rate ever.

Aside from the $200+ refund on my registration fee, what makes this really awesome is the esteem in which Second Rounders and higher are held at the screenwriting conference portion of the film festival. You see, the Austin Film Festival is more than just a whack of movie screens and Hollywood A-listers (like my own Toronto International Film Festival; on now). The AFF is also a 4-day screenwriters’ conference and love-fest, as 400+ introverts try to get just drunk enough to come out of their shells and commune with Hollywood screenwriters and film-makers.

If you are a screenwriter and have never been to the AFF, GO! It is worth the money.

Sure, some of the sessions amount to little more than hero-worship where you’ll hear questions like: “Remember that scene in X-Files when Mulder gave Scully that look? Did you write that, because that was awesome?” But most of the sessions are actually helpful discussions and learning opportunities with the film and television world’s elite writers…and best of all, these Gods not only stick around, but they’ll actually talk to you at the BBQ or in the bars. It’s like they give a shit about your shit.

Last year was my first AFF, and I was the introvert amongst introverts looking for the closest corner in which to nurse my beer or G&T. This year will be different. This year, I will move out of the corner and occupy the middle of the room…who knows, I may even talk to someone. (God, I need a drink!)

Oh, the Austin Film Festival runs October 24-31 from the Driskill Hotel.

PS If you think I’m bragging, my prowess is kept in check by a friend I met at AFF who had two Second Rounders and one Semifinalist screenplay in last year’s competition alone.

A man of letters

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The other day, while driving with a friend of mine, I came to the sudden realization that I no longer know the alphabet. Please understand, this is not an Alzheimer’s moment—not to make light of that debilitating condition—but rather a sign of the place I have reached as a writer.

You would think, if I am a writer, that the alphabet would be the most subconscious of things in my life. Everything I have just written has relied on the use of letters. But it’s not the letters I’m having problems with…it is the alphabet.

My first experiences with a typewriter were during typing class—how ironic—back in high school, where I was the only boy in a class of about 20 girls. So much for paying attention to the typewriter keys. As I became more comfortable with the idea that the girls and their developing curves would still be there for my next class, however, I slowly paid more attention to and became more comfortable with the keyboard.

Olivetti_Lettera_35

As a side note, I am old enough that my initiation to typing was on a manual typewriter, which meant pounding on the keys to make keystrokes. To this day, my various computer keyboards suffer mercilessly as I continue to pound the keys rather than simply depress them.

In the decades since high school, I moved to electronic typewriters and then to computers and smart phones…and in all cases, I worked the old standard QWERTY keyboard, on which the keys were supposedly arranged based on usage in the English language and finger ergonomics.

My understanding, however, is that the facts supporting this arrangement were actually incorrect, and that there have been several attempts over the past century to try to introduce new letter arrangements on keyboards based on more accurate usage statistics. These efforts have universally failed, and I have always wondered why. Now I know.

The event that triggered my alphabetic crisis was a trip to Buffalo, NY, to see the chicken wing movie I described in an earlier blog post. As my friend and driver Mike was unfamiliar with the streets of Buffalo, he asked me to type the address of the theatre into the GPS unit, which is when the proverbial if not literal wheels fell off.

The keyboard was in alphabetical order starting left to right from top to bottom.

I couldn’t find any of the letters I needed. Despite knowing immediately that they were arranged in alphabetical order, my fingers instinctively flew to where the next letter would reside on a QWERTY keyboard.

It took me for-freakin-ever to type in “236 Main St”. I haven’t felt that stupid since…well since I was in kindergarten learning the alphabet.

We eventually made our destination, but I am now terrified at the prospect of having to travel anywhere that requires a GPS.

I wonder if the Children’s Television Workshop has given any thought to a remedial Sesame Street for adults, because I really feel like I could use Cookie Monster’s help right now. That would be good enough for me.

Just say k(no)w

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What once was common knowledge may now be a lie

What once was common knowledge may now be a lie

There was a time in my life when knowledge was vitally important to me. A time when nothing was more important than learning new facts that would help me understand my universe. I wanted to be smart and being smart meant knowing lots of stuff.

This belief lasted decades. Kept my shelves full of books. Kept me glued to documentaries. And in many circles, made me “that” guy.

More recently, however, I have come to decide that knowledge isn’t all that important in my life. That its pursuit, while never a waste of time, can never be an end unto itself. And as much as anything else, I have decided this because I have learned that knowledge is transitory.

I don’t mean transitory in the sense that I will ultimately forget the very facts I spent all that time learning, although this is true. You can’t believe how much stuff I don’t remember. Rather, it is the malleability of the knowledge itself to which I refer.

Facts are not absolute and unchanging. Facts are incredibly well supported theories given what we know right now. Tomorrow, those thoughts I considered facts today may no longer hold.

I look at the book I received from my great-grandmother decades ago—a very trusting woman who understood a young child’s thirst for knowledge. When this natural history was published in 1886, its contents were fact. In the intervening 127 years between now and then, however, many of the “facts” have changed or been significantly reinterpreted.

The same is true for the science I studied and practiced only 20 years ago. In many ways, I might as well have been chipping rocks to make spears as measuring compounds on scales and in Erlenmeyer flasks.

Knowledge doesn’t just expand—more true for some than others, sadly—but it also morphs into new and wondrous things, like so much quicksilver. Grasp knowledge too tightly and it runs everywhere, and again like quicksilver, may poison you and the people around you.

I no longer feel the need to know anything but merely to allow knowledge to wash back and forth over me like a tide, and with each arc of the moon, taking what I need to function that day and leaving the rest to chance or another day.

I don’t know and for the first time in my life, I am comfortable with that.

Who's the dodo now, eh?

Who’s the dodo now, eh?

The next level

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Really? What a surprise. More stairs.

Really? What a surprise. More stairs.

Why does getting the next level always involve an uphill climb?

Not once in my life have I ever approached the entry point to the next level and been given the opportunity to walk down an incline or flight of stairs (except in a department store).

In a world of supposed ups and downs, you would think that half of the trips to the next level would involve moving downhill and yet, not for me (and I expect you, too).

Sure, you may be thinking, any move to the next level involves adding energy to push you from one state to another (we’re all physicists here), but walking downstairs takes energy too, you know. Lift the leg, move it forward, put it down. Energy, energy, energy.

If anyone has any insight on this dilemma, I would love to hear it…but don’t put yourself out…the universe is already doing enough of that for both of us.

A Bug(gy) Life

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I run toward bees, not away...and they me, it seems

I run toward bees, not away…and they me, it seems

There is a scene early in the film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective where Ace calls out to all of the animals living in his apartment and they swarm from every crevice to give him the world’s biggest group hug (scene was totally ripped off in Evan Almighty). Well, every once in a while (aka daily), I feel the same way with insects.

Insects—and here I also include arachnids—love me. I don’t know why, they just do.

The best I can figure is that there is something in my personal chemistry—blood, sweat, breath, pheromones—that drives bugs wild.

When I go to the local beach to work—hard life, I know—I cannot sit on a bench for much more than an hour before I become a buffet for biting flies. And when I get home from the local park or ravine, I invariably find a couple small beetle hitchhikers somewhere on my clothing. That I have not yet contracted Lyme disease eludes me, although I am grateful, because that shit’s nasty.

When my grandmother’s seniors’ complex became host to a bed bug invasion, I became the canary in a coal mine. After her place had been sprayed, it was my duty to sit on her couch and see if the fumigation had worked. If there was a bed bug within 1 km of her apartment, it would find me within 10 minutes and leave its mark as a large red welt. I was bed bug fly paper.

As luck would have it, I also seem to attract spiders, which is fine as long as they focus their attentions on the various flies and other critters and not on me. So far, so good.

Perhaps this life-long attention from creepy crawlies has made me immune to the sociological ick-factor and has in fact turned into a fascination with them, as my many photographic blog posts would attest. In short, I like bugs. (I’m not quite ready for a love connection.)

On one of my recent walks through a local ravine, I ran into a young gentleman who also wandered the woods with a camera. As the conversation proceeded, we shared our interests—his was birds. When I told him mine was bugs, he was confused. It made no sense to him that anyone would be interested in insects. He wasn’t questioning my sanity, just my logic.

Other people who wander with me, however, do question my sanity as I approach a flower bed covered in bees rather than run the other way as they do. Or as I walk into a swarm of dragonflies rather than swat them away as a nuisance.

I wish I could explain my interest. As I believe with all other life forms, I believe there is an inherent beauty in the specialization of bugs to their environments—their shapes, decorations, behaviours. It probably doesn’t hurt that they will also stay still when I’m trying to examine them, rather than scatter as most other animals will.

Having recently moved into a basement apartment (as mentioned in the previous post), I will have the opportunity to test the limits of my fascination…and undoubtedly of my camera lenses. Should be fun!

Ironically, I co-wrote a comedy show that became known as Bed Bugs & Beyond

Ironically, I co-wrote a comedy show that became known as Bed Bugs & Beyond