Tag Archives: gratitude

12 Days of Gratitude – Nick

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Nick BR

This is my friend Nick, an amazingly creative, nerdy soul who can’t stop giving of himself.

Although Nick may not say much until he gets to know you well (or until he sees a TARDIS), he is eminently worth engaging. And once you do find your way into his heart, he is an eternal refuge for weary souls and buoys your worst days.

Those who know Nick hold that gift dear. The rest of you should open yourself to this special man.

P.S. I firmly believe Nick will hate that I did this.

(Part Two of my 12 Days of Gratitude…because the rest of the news sucks)

12 Days of Gratitude – Marsha

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mowsh

This is my friend Marsha (aka Mowsh), who is not only a beautiful and talented actor, she is also incredibly fun, funny and loving.

You will be hard-pressed to find someone more willing to offer a warm smile, sly wink or caring shoulder.

If you know Marsha, consider yourself lucky. If you don’t know Marsha, you should rectify that soon.

(Part One of my 12 Days of Gratitude…because the rest of the news sucks)

Happy Canada Day

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Canada Day

It’s time again to express my gratitude for everything that my home & native land has given me, and to wish you all–Canadian or not, here or abroad–a safe and wonderful year.

My only wish is that you all have the good fortune I have experienced and know the love that I know.

Peace be with you all.

Thank you

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Varied of tradition, but singular in purpose.

Varied of tradition, but singular of purpose.

I just walked to the grocery store without a second thought beyond wondering whether milk would be on sale or if I could get there and back before it started to rain.

Thank you.

Last night, friends and I filmed puppetry vignettes in which we satirized recent political events and social attitudes, laughing freely and openly.

Thank you.

On Saturday, I met a friend for bacon sandwiches and then walked home along the beach, smiling at kids playing in the sand and dogs excitedly greeting each other.

Thank you.

Today, my biggest concern is whether I will get off my backside and walk two blocks to change my cellphone carrier or if I’d rather just bitch about the one I am presently using.

Thank you.

My home hasn’t been destroyed. I’m not worried about my next meal. My family hasn’t been slaughtered. No one will kick in my door because I made a joke online. And you and I can completely disagree on local, national and world politics and social trends.

Thank you.

And even with all that, five “thank yous” is not nearly enough to express my gratitude to the men, women and families who have sacrificed everything so that all of the above is true.

I live in Canada. It is Memorial Day in the United States. And none of that matters. The international boundary does not make any of what I have written less true.

We may choose different days and express our feelings in different ways, yet we have but one purpose: gratitude.

Thank you.

From Ottawa's Parliament Hill to Washington's National Mall to France's Vimy Ridge, we must never forget and always be grateful.

From Ottawa’s Parliament Hill to Washington’s National Mall to France’s Vimy Ridge, we must never forget and always be grateful.

10K views and 1 year later

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Hey all,

Just surpassed the 10,000 view mark on the blog (as well as my 1-year anniversary), so I wanted to thank you for looking at the blog, reading the blog, commenting on the blog and recommending the blog.

I am grateful to all of you, but particularly want to thank those who take a moment to post and exchange your thoughts on what I write or photograph. For you to put out that effort means the world to me.

Here’s to the next 10,000 views!

Thank you…Randy

My blog universe as of March 17, 2014

My blog universe as of March 17, 2014

Focus – a 400th blog entry

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400 celebration monument

Well, it has taken about 10 months, but I have managed to reach my 400th blog entry. Now, admittedly, a few of these were reposts from someone else’s blogs, but the majority were the ramblings of li’l ol’ me.

So, first, thank you all for your patience and support. You have been victim of a seemingly ceaseless assault of verbal and visual abuse that bordered on the ludicrous with two or more posts as day for several months.

But, second, you may have noticed I have slowed down in that onslaught for the past month or so. I promise, it is not for lack of ideas but more for volume and variety of media with which I deal on a daily basis. And it is this volume that has had me thinking lately (and I hate thinking).

I have spread myself too thin…I am trying to do too many things such that I don’t know that I’m doing anything. Thus, for the next little while, at least, I am going to focus my efforts on just a few projects that I think will have the greatest impact.

This is not a resolution—I don’t do those anymore—but an admission that if I don’t finalize something, I will never get out of the basement apartment and will perpetually be tied to my previous careers as sources of $$$.

So, my completion priorities for early 2014 (in no particular order):

  1. Re-evaluate, rewrite and sell/option my screenplay Tank’s.
  2. Rewrite and sell/option my Santa screenplay The Naughty List (working title).
  3. Establish a screenplay reading/coverage service to make money now!
  4. Generate a book on creativity and writing from my blog entries.

That last one was actually one of the motivating factors for creating the blog in the first place…to finally make myself write down my thoughts, experiences and understanding of the creative process with particular focus on writing. This is not to say the postings will disappear from my blog, but my plan is to assemble the most salient ones, with editing, into a book format for sale.

For all of those with whom I am working on projects not listed above as a priority, I have not forsaken you and will continue to work on those projects…just not as a top priority. I can only hope you understand (and suspect you all will).

And again, to my blog followers, I thank you for your patronage and hope to continue to amuse, intrigue or stimulate you…just at a more leisurely pace for both of us.

Love to you all…Randy

My Favorite Life

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Peter O'Toole as Alan Swan

Peter O’Toole as Alan Swan

The announcement of Peter O’Toole’s death came as a bit of a shock to me. Not so much that he died—he was a very old gentleman—but rather in how it affected me. I felt like I’d lost a friend whom I had not seen in quite some time.

Fairly or unfairly, I give Peter O’Toole a lot of credit for the life that I am leading right now: the life of a creative artist who plies his art with words. You see, Peter O’Toole was the biggest name in a little movie that might not have seen the light of my consciousness had he not been in it.

The movie is My Favorite Year.

My Favorite Year poster

For the uninitiated (For shame, Swanny), the movie tells the story of a couple days in life of a budding young comedy writer working in the 1950s on the King Kaiser Show; a clear homage to Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows. On the day the movie opens, Benjamin is going to meet his greatest hero, fading matinee idol Alan Swan; a clear homage to Errol Flynn. Unfortunately, Swann’s star has faded into alcoholism and practical destitution, and it becomes Benjamin’s job to keep Swann sober enough for the live television performance. The rest is a love story between these two men; one ascending, the other wishing he were dead.

If that doesn’t want to make you see the movie, you’re dead yourself.

The thing is, for all the university science degrees and work I had done, my life was incomplete. What I didn’t realize right away upon seeing My Favorite Year—mostly because the young are stupid and blind—was that I desperately wanted to be Benjamin. More accurately, I WAS Benjamin, I just didn’t know it.

Benjamin Stone stares lovingly at his idol and now friend Alan Swan

Benjamin Stone stares lovingly at his idol and now friend Alan Swan

I was a creative writer. I was a comedy writer. But I didn’t know how to express it beyond my own personal doodlings. And even if I had, science seemed the more rationale move (btw, I love science…really, I do).

As I’ve related in previous posts on my creative journey, it wasn’t until my wife took me aside one day and cornered me into answering what I wanted to do more than anything that I realized and embraced my inner Benjamin.

My life of today was still about a decade away, but that moment, that recognition, that admission started the ball rolling.

I had a visual to go by, a guide. I couldn’t go back in time to write for a 1950s sketch comedy show, but I could work toward the modern equivalents.

The other posts will tell you what I did, but without having seen My Favorite Year, I might not have been able to articulate my dream that fateful day.

And without Peter O’Toole, there might not have been a My Favorite Year to see.

So thank you, Mr. O’Toole. Aside from being one of the finest actors to walk this stage, you made dreams come true. This dreamer will be eternally grateful.

 

Links of possible interest:

My Favorite Year trailer

If I were truly plastered (scene)

This is for ladies only (scene)

Who the hell is Niblick? (scene)

(Images are property of owners and are used here without permission, but a lot of love and gratitude)

Top 50 Events – A personal perspective

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mirror

On Monday, November 18, I celebrate my 50th birthday. To commemorate the half-century, I have tried to look back and capture my fondest memories or most life-changing events.

The following list is not in order, although the subject of event #2 would likely have no problem believing she ranks after #1 and possibly as low as #5. She can be assured little of this would have nearly the meaning or significance to me without her presence for much of it.

  1. Had my sketch comedy performed at Second City Toronto
  2. Married an amazingly intelligent woman
  3. Interacted with a Henson puppet
  4. Saw Star Wars (you cannot overstate the impact of this on me)
  5. Wrote my first screenplay
  6. Met Nicholas Lemon, puppeteer, actor, friend
  7. Coached adult hockey (beer league but it was hockey)
  8. Performed stand-up comedy (never again)
  9. Discovered the Beatles (not saying I was first to)
  10. Was bylined in a magazine
  11. Wrote sketch comedy for a television show
  12. Attended Patrick Roy’s last game as a Montreal Canadien
  13. Watched a Habs game at the Forum and the Leafs at the Gardens
  14. Snorkeled in Barbados, Costa Rica and Hawaii
  15. Became friends with my brothers
  16. Was a scientist
  17. Performed improv on the Second City stage (as part of SC Training Centre…don’t want SC mad at me)
  18. Visited Chichin Itza
  19. Taught college/university students
  20. Owned a collie named Rebel
  21. Photographed orcas in British Columbia
  22. Went to Disneyland
  23. Attended the Austin Film Festival
  24. Met Chris Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey
  25. Published my own magazine Aliquotes
  26. Experienced 9/11 from Washington, DC
  27. Impacted by murder of John Lennon
  28. Visited Iceland
  29. Played with ferrets
  30. Saw Shakespeare performed in Stratford, ON
  31. Eloped to and married in Algonquin Park
  32. Received spread in Globe & Mail from my PR efforts
  33. Saw George Carlin, Bill Cosby and Billy Connelly on stage (Gods)
  34. Skated on the Rideau Canal during Winterlude
  35. Eulogized my grandparents
  36. Traveled to both coasts with grandparents
  37. Had my heart broken
  38. Discovered bipedal locomotion (hey, it was the 60s)
  39. Watched the movie My Favorite Year
  40. Received an electric typewriter for Christmas
  41. Saw the crystal structure of the active site of a GTPase (it’s a geek thing, but beautiful)
  42. Watched the Toronto Marlies make the Calder Cup Finals (see also ‘heart broken’)
  43. Saw an ad I created on the Toronto Transit system
  44. Met Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits
  45. Discovered sex (again, not first; obviously, this list is not in order; strangely, Star Wars still ranks higher)
  46. Witnessed Toronto Varsity Blues win Vanier Cup on blocked last-second field goal attempt
  47. Rode in a submarine in Hawaii
  48. Did astral photography on a mountain top in Hawaii
  49. Birth (it meant a lot to me)
  50. Celebrated 40th birthday at pool hall with wonderful friends

Forgotten tribute

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Railway 4

A nation born

On the backs

Of men not welcome.

Forgotten thanks

Never remiss,

Never too late.

Humble peace for your

Nation-building sacrifices

[Dedicated to the sacrifices of the Chinese population within Canada as they helped build the railway system that connected the country shore to shore, as commemorated in an art instillation in downtown Toronto]

Building a trestle, the basis of a bridge perhaps

Building a trestle, the basis of a bridge perhaps

A lone man stands in the line of fire should that rope fray

A lone man stands in the line of fire should that rope fray

His safety harness, a lone hand

His safety harness, a lone hand

WordPress numerology

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So, WordPress just congratulated me on the number of “Likes” I have received so far on the blog.

Image

First, let me say thanks to all of you who hit the appropriate button.

But 1337? Am I missing some numerological significance to this number?

Two seconds on Google and I learn that I may have fallen into the ASCII rabbit hole, having entered an elite or “leet” status.

Alternatively, my blogs are being blamed for initiating the 100 Years’ War.

Regardless, I repeat my thanks to the many visitors.