Monthly Archives: July 2009

The Power Of Now

Leave a comment

I was close enough to not doing any blogaruu tonight. Luckily for you (!) I had a change of mindset, and pulled one out of the bag! I’ll try to keep it brief. I had intended on taking a break, what with not much going on and didn’t want to ramble on about drivel. However, firstly, it is far too late to worry about rambling on, or drivel. Secondly, the blog is better than any therapy. I presume, never tried. So it is better to wade through the issues here than letting them slide. I figured out today what my problem was, thanks to a few differing factors.

I’ve never actually read the book, The Power of Now. It was given to me, but after a few pages I didn’t bother reading any more. The title gave it all away, I got the gist and didn’t think there was much more to the book. Live in the moment. Live in the now. That kind of gibberish which I usually would read. Today, I clicked that I am stuck in the past a bit, and mulling about the future too much. Missing the now! If only I had read the whole book, I might have seen the signs earlier. Stupid me. Moping about, thinking about missing out in L.A, I can’t write without that creative buzz going on, I need to be there and all that. Funk that. Then, at the same time, I had started to think about the future too much. And by think, I mean worry. When was I going to get back to L.A, visa issues, financial issues, the whole waiting around issues, all this stupid worry. Funk that too. Head down and plough on time.

Nobody reads this blog for worry. There’s enough of it floating around without coming here. I kind of copped onto this as well today. Not sure if you had noticed, but the pep in the blogaruus had waned recently. It was all well and good me preaching about doing this and that, but practicing it is what counts really. I think the tide has turned. I suppose the wading through the mire is working, and I can see the other side in sight. This is needed for another key factor… writing a bloody sitcom episode. How in God’s green earth could I expect myself to write something funny, when I was being a mope. Where was the spark I craved meant to burst from. Me trudging through daily routines like an ape. Hilarious events and thoughts were bound to spring to life from that. Surely?!

Thankfully, a girl, lets call her Bernard, actually gave out to me today about this moping and sudden dejectedness. I don’t mean that actually as in an actual girl, actually gave out to me? I mean it in a good way. She brought something to the fore, that had been bouncing around the back of my mind lately. Cop the funk on. Get over it. And yourself. Things could be worse. You get the point. She didn’t actually say the last few things, but I took it as implied to hammer home her point in my mind. It is all well and good me thinking those things, then not acting on them, so having someone else point it out, did a world of good. If anyone else wants to a go, feel free, seriously!

The only down side today, to make me wish I was in L.A right now, was my buddy telling me about a game of 5-a-side I missed out on over there yesterday. Lets just say a legendary full-back (I think so anyways) had been brought in to replace me. Would’ve been nice for him, of course, to say he played alongside me and all, obviously. Oh Jesus. That was before the tide turned though, he’ll get another chance in due time!

Best part of all, I just had a shower, and what did I feel when I was in there? No, not that. I felt the inspiration seeping back into my brain for the episode re-write! Just like before, when the first draft was formulated. Characters are starting to play out scenes again in my head, little bits of dialogue are popping up, extra dimensions are showing themselves that were not there before. And, as an added bonus, my shrub style haircut is clean. Which is the best I can do in this tired state to wrap it up. Now. Power on!

Song of the day is…

Holy Fuck

Lovely Allen - Holy Fuck

Random Guilt

Leave a comment

Something I never understand is the issue of feeling guilty, when you haven’t done anything wrong. Completely stupid stuff, such as… if your buddies ask you to head out boozing. You initially give a maybe, 50/50 answer. In all honesty you are leaning more towards no. Then, in a moment of weakness, you commit a “Era shur why not, I’m up for it”. Quickly followed by you realizing, nay, bob hope, seeing as its a 12 o’clock sober situation on a Tuesday night. In Cork. Which is key. Not L.A. However, your one “Yes” is then guilt tripped on. To the stage that you think you were the one after setting up the whole thing, and you then decided to back out at the last minute. It is great fun. So, if you are an ape like me, you feel guilty for some reason, like you let someone down. Pure dumbness. 

On the other hand, it is a good sign. It really is time to focus for me. Seeing as I have the time to do it at this moment, progress really does need to be made with regards to the writing. Especially as today didn’t reach the heights I was hoping for. I didn’t use my burst of energy from last night to the fullest at all. I’ll call it one final day of preparation. Podcasts were playing over and over again all day. A bit of a quantity versus quality issue has arisen though. An hour’s podcast might give me 3 sentences of information that are actually beneficial to me. I think it could be the end of them, too time consuming, even when I only have them playing in the background. I ended up re-listening to a few thinking I had missed out on stuff here and there. I didn’t.

Another thing I realized today, was that the advice I am obtaining from different writing websites throughout the internet, might not be the best thing for me after all. There is a load of info online for writing tips for sitcoms and all that. A load. Too much. It got to the stage today where I was reading contradicting articles, so who do I go with?! What do I do now?!! As if these things are gospel, or a maths equation. Again, pure dumbness for me initially thinking I really needed them before I could get going on the re-writes.

Enough with the structure lessons and all that. What I need, and the key thing for the script, is quality dialogue and a tight story. I can edit it down and re-work it again when I am finished. Parts which have been highlighted already for me need to be changed. I know what I have to do already! What I also realized while reading all the articles today, is that the majority of people who wrote them, never really went on to do much. Not sure about you, but I’d prefer advice from people who started at the bottom, and then did X, Y & Z to get to the top. There were no gurus of sitcom giving out pages of advice.

In fact, two of the best things I saw today, were two quotes from the same writer, Graham Linehan, which were used in a few articles. One was along the lines… “If you think you have a great episode written, read it again in a month, and then decide”. The other “Rewrites sometimes means you have to actually start again from scratch and write a new episode”. Like the podcasts, maybe wading through a few hours reading, for those two quotes alone, might have made it worthwhile? Who knows.

What I need is to get back some random, bizarre events into my life. Or at least get my blog stories from L.A back circulating around my head once again. Who would have guessed that I’d miss the gay gym so much?! A few events occurred today, that would have been perfect if I was trying to write a sitcom about a Joe Soap in a small city where not much really went on. However, seeing as I’m basing the sitcom in L.A, I need to get my mind frame back to there. It helps having the random, odd events occurring on a daily basis to keep the ideas coming. Plus, if nothing else, they provide more interesting and bizarre blogaruus. I feel bad about the lack of them recently. Not sure really why, I’ll just put it down to random guilt I like to feel every now and again. From this day on as well, I will not allow any day to be less than productive to the brim! I am turning into a broken record.

Song on, like the podcasts and articles I read, there was maybe only a sentence or two in that blogaruu of actual significance…

Foreigner

Urgent (Remix) - Foreigner

Self Help

Leave a comment

I’ll start with an idea which I had this morning. I think, that, like the way restaurants have the Michelin star rating, and hotels also have a star rating, surely, surely hairdressers/salons should have something similar. Some kind of rating system, to help out the poor, defenseless customer. Then, apes will not be fooled into thinking that a place might be good on appearance or price alone. It would also provide concrete proof that a hairdresser might actually be qualified to cut hair. Rather than it seemingly being purely based on the fact he/she is wearing black, and his/her hair is an extreme shade of colour, be it blonde, red or purple/black. I’m kind of surprised this system hasn’t been implemented already. Has this mini rant any connection to the 2 haircuts I got last week? The ones that have made me now sport a nice afro shrub kind of look? Perhaps.

Anyways, I have decided that the main objective for the coming week, or two, is to re-write my sitcom script. I need this as my calling card so to speak, so it must be improved, until it is perfect. Only one person really to blame for it not being done already. Yes, that person is you. When I last went to San Francisco, I purely went to write the first draft of the script. Literally, thats all I did besides sleep, eat and gym. I had no other distractions. Another handy thing, which coincided with the trip, was that I had creativity spilling out of me, from incidents and events going on every day around me in L.A. I had a pool to draw from. Although looking back, and comparing it to my current situation, I had an ocean to draw from. I need to reignite that spark, to get my brain flowing again.

With that in mind, I have decided to self educate myself some more until I feel the flow returning. My writing knowledge and foundations are unknown as it is, so any help I can give myself will be worthwhile. Yesterday I copped on to why my laptop’s memory is full to the brim. Not really with all the music I have, like I had thought. It was all the writing podcasts I had signed up to before, and then completely forgot about. These are actually turning out to be gems. You can get a load of free podcasts related to writing, screenplays, film making, sitcom tips etc on iTunes. Whatever about the books I am reading, which are helpful, parts of these podcasts are brilliant, as they answer questions I have had for a while. Ones which the books weren’t really answering. I would highly recommend checking them out if you are ever trying to write something. Especially if you don’t really having a formal background in the field. And are pretty clueless. So you are relying on good old fashioned home education.

Some of the podcasts are fairly long, up to an hour, so I have been trying to weed out the key info I need. Some of the best points I got today were: 

 – Don’t have too much information in the script. Don’t be too descriptive.

 – Remember it is a visual medium that you are writing for, not a literary one (Sounds obvious, but it can turn into a book at times for me).

 – All about the arcs. Ensure your story outline is good before you start.

 – What’s your point? Say it, make it funny, get out.

 – Have a collection of work. Do as much as you can, to show a range. T.V scripts, short movie scripts, feature scripts, the more the better.

 – Write spec scripts for other shows!

The first and third will help me re-focus for the script re-write. Cut out the flowery details, kind of thing, which I think I may have an abundance of, re de de. Such as, re de de. The last two are ones which I badly need to cop on to. Without spec scripts, to accompany my original pilot, it will be harder to get a break. Apparently. I should really have copped on to this point already. Seeing as I am at the stage now where I need to optimize all my chances, I need to get these things done. 

While I was going through other notes as well today, in my day of home school, I saw something I wrote down from one of the acting classes. That is you probably need to sacrifice relationships to pursue a career in this line of work. I am beginning to see this more and more. It is not that I am avoiding people, it is just having to prioritize what I want. I just don’t want to get into a rut of familiar ways or old habits seeping in. Self discipline and self motivation are the toughest two areas to maintain at times. Have to plough on though, no-one else to hound me into doing any of it.

Just by writing all of the above, I think it has rekindled some of the motivation and creative spark again, wuu huu! Along with the help of Sigur Ros’ fine music, I can feel a flow coming back. Self medicate through the struggle!

To finish on a good note, for me, a step in the right direction was made towards a visa today. C’mon the dream, shine on! One final thing which was in some acting notes I read through earlier, was how it is always good to change your daily routine, in some way. This then will stop you just going through the motions, and make you more aware of your surroundings. Which is meant to be useful for acting out daily events. Loosely, and I mean loosely based on that, I might try a vlog soon. Ha, I’ll wait until something exciting or fun happens first though!

Song of the day is…

Yeasayer

Sunrise (Pocketknife Remix) - Yeasayer

One last song actually, just came on my iTunes, jive on!

Stevie Wonder

 Part Time Lover – Stevie Wonder

Digits

4 Comments

It has been a week of numbers. Hit and miss. A fruitless week might be another good way to describe it. Well, maybe a few nuggets of productivity, scattered amongst a field of frustration and stop-starts. However, it was Tuesday  that started my decline, from which I never fully recovered. Literally I had a fairly bad hair day, succumbing to getting not one, but two dodgy haircuts. Oddly enough, since then, the amount of people to mention to me that I should really go get a haircut for myself, has risen. Unfortunately for them, number 3 is not on the cards anytime soon. 

This week I had 4 gigs lined up, 3 DJ and 1 stand-up. Yes I know, I(think)’m brilliant. Oddly, the stand-up one was probably the best of the lot. If I never have a stranger gig than that one though, I will be disappointed. It was bizarre. To start, lets just say it was intimate. As in not the usual amount of people were there, the numbers were down from the hundreds that regularly pack into the venue. For some reason, the atmosphere was ridiculously tense. I suppose the fact a couple were breaking up at it, a family with jet lag didn’t really respond to an orgy joke, and a couple of comedians not having the greatest of banter with the crowd, did not make for a happy buzz floating about the place. It was intense, like sticking a load of people into an elevator and doing a gig there. And if everyone in the elevator also wanted to fight each other for some reason.

There was the comedian as well who pushes his own boundaries to the max while being on stage. As in he is close to snapping, or a melt-down, each time he goes on stage. I think he’s half good though, he commits to full on nut-job at least, plugging away at a joke until the uncomfortable silence from the crowd eventually turns into genuine laughter. I suppose its a cheaper option than paying for therapy. Another comedian did not have any rapport with the crowd. At all. Half the crowd ended up starting a coalition against him, not taking to his banter in the slightest. On the other hand, he did not take well to their criticism either, and was close to getting off the stage and fighting certain members of the audience a few times. All in all, a great atmosphere for a comedy gig.

Thankfully, I was up next. My nonsensical ramblings put the crowd at ease, and managed to appease some of the tension. Almost hit the 15 minute mark, which would’ve have been achieved if I didn’t see the MC flashing his phone at me to wrap it up. Like the blog, quantity, if not always quality, is being reached in the stand-up routine. Also managed to get in a brief Q&A session with the audience before I finished up. Which was nice. My buddy gave me a good roundabout compliment afterwards. Roughly, he reckoned only 5% of the laughs I got were fake ones. A step in the right direction I suppose. All in all though, those 15 minutes were definitely worth a trip up to Dublin. Still not sure if that definitely is a sincere or a sarcastic one. Have to wait and see. I did record it though, so I’ll stick it up here for anyone that might be interested. Something to laugh, or wince at, at least.

The 3 DJ gigs were just superb. Really great. Mainly as I got paid. Wuu, superb. The first on Friday was a bit different than I expected. In fact, if I never have gigs better than Friday, I will be disappointed. I kind of have gotten used to the fact that I can’t play just what I like. Play to the crowd and all that. So, after being briefed on the crowd for gig one, I thought I had a good set of songs lined up. Em, not necessarily. In fact, I had to revert to 80’s all the way (not really the good kind of 80’s either). Singalong and controlled chaos seemed to be the order of the day. Part of my soul was left behind at the venue, but had to be done, I’ll build it back up.

The second gig was in a cool place, Everyman Theatre, I would recommend heading along to it sometime. However, it was a few gems in the crowd here who threw me off. Particularly the girl who insisted on telling me that she split her drink on the dance-floor. I couldn’t figure out if she expected me to clean it up, or buy her a new one. It was odd. Likewise, the girl who told me, numerous times, that she didn’t like the bouncer, was a bit strange as well. Not sure how that was relevant to me. Not that I am calling her dumb, but seeing as she requested a Michael Jackson song, while the actual song she wanted was playing, made me think something was up. Maybe I was just too sober to see her drunken logic. Still though, the more gigs the merrier.

And my final gig, last night, was the best of the lot. Showed up, prepared to the brim after being taken aback the night before, pumped to go! I had even ironed my shirt for the occasion! And, obviously, there ended up being no gig. A mix-up with equipment being delivered, or not, as it turned out, ended up with a lack of necessary tools for me to be able to play. Which was only figured out by myself and the owner when we showed up at the same time, but was by then too late to sort anything else out. Anyways, being paid some money to show up for 10 minutes and then go home, is better than nothing I suppose. All counts towards the L.A fund!

My biggest achievement of the week, might have been finishing the book Zen & The Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance. It only took me 203 days to complete. I know this, as I started it on Christmas Day. An embarrassingly long time to finish a book, but it was worth it in the end. Read on, if you haven’t already, even if it does get bogged down in certain places. Speaking of books, I would recommend The Road Less Traveled. I am having to draw on lessons I learnt from that a lot this week. That is, you have to struggle and persevere through the bleaker times, in order to appreciate the good times more. All part of the cycle! I am in the Dark Ages. Struggle on, the only way is up!

Song of the weekend… I think this video is ridiculously good, similar to my dancing style really!

Foreign Born

Winter Games - Foreign Born

Labour

Leave a comment

Last week I started to wonder if I was spreading myself too thin, and not focusing enough on one specific area. Acting, it seems, is on the back burner big time. That’ll come, in my own head at least. This week I have 4 gigs, 3 DJ and 1 stand-up. These take a bit of time to prepare for, so I was wondering if I was taking on too much, trying to do all the re-writes, new stuff, visa issues and all that, at the same time. Plus there was all the usual daily stuff  – sleeping, eating, gyming, blogging etc. I was purely making up excuses for myself though. Not only was this going against my L.A mantra  of “Many fingers in many pies” kind of thing, but it is mostly just me not utilizing my time as efficiently as I should. Today, is a prime example!

I mentioned yesterday that I have started to give birth to the first proper re-write of the sitcom episode which I am working on. Proper re-write since I got feedback from different sources and asked to make changes. However, even though I said I was pushing hard for the creative spark to ignite, and thought I saw the head coming out, it has become apparent that it might be a long labour. A long, arduous labour. That was my mission today, to start on the first scene, make some sort of progress.

Unfortunately, I made the call to get two minor things on my to-do list out of the way first in the morning. These have been on the list for ages, so finally gave in. First, get my camera fixed. Thanks to the highly competitive Irish prices to fix a minor problem in my camera, it turns out it’ll be cheaper to just buy a new one. Second on the list, was something I do twice a year perhaps. No, not that, I should be so lucky to do it twice in one year. Obviously, it was to get a haircut. On paper, should be grand. An hour tops. However, I can make quite a mountain out of a bird’s nest.

Have you ever been to Las Vegas? Two things stand out the most for me about Vegas. Number 1 is the heat. Unbelievable. Number 2 is the fact that a lot of girls there actually chat you up. It is weird. Until you realize that they are in the same profession as Roxanne. So much so, that you end up suspecting that any girl you talk to will just whip out a price list for their services, within 3 minutes of them approaching you. Great fun. They were the top 2 things I remembered about Vegas. A distant third, was how good the mirrors in the hotel room made you look. It was beyond a joke. After a 10 hour drive, with no sleep the night before, the mirrors somehow conned you into thinking you were looking alright, acceptable at least. Vegas wouldn’t know what hit it! Only when you catch your reflection on a slots machine in the casino downstairs, is it that you get the true picture, of how horrific you are actually looking.

There was a point for that tangent. I am convinced that they use the same mirrors in hairdressers. I never have any notion of how bad my haircut is initially, until I get home. The deceiving lights, the friendly small talk, and the well placed smiles, do not show the full extent of how bad your hair actually looks. I am more at ease going into surgery, than I am at getting a haircut in Ireland. With good reason too. After coming out of the hairdresser today, thinking it had went well, I arrived home to look at this in the mirror…

Worzel

Not what I was expecting. Well hair wise anyways, I’m used to the facial imperfections. Thankfully, I did something that I haven’t really done before. Seeing as I had so much fun doing it the first time, I went straight back in to get another haircut. What fun! The girl who cut it the first time was sound, and didn’t mind fixing it for me. I wonder if hairdressers would give a refund? Anyways, this time, I noticed a big difference was in the amount of small talk we had. It got chopped. Again, no real clue what it actually looked like in real life, only the Vegas style mirrors to work with. When I got home the second time, this is what was looking back at me in the mirror…

Ellen

Before you ask, yes, I did lie down like that in front of the mirror when I got home. Could be worse, I’ll take a woman’s haircut over a scarecrow’s one. The whole affair did remind me of what I should always remember before I go to a hairdresser in Ireland… It will grow back, and, bring a hat. As you can see, I managed to waste a good lump of my day, doing something fairly meaningless and pointless. Good to start getting them all out of my system really. Push!

Song for today…

Gigamesh

Etoile Pollaire (Remix) - Philip Glass

Bob Dole!!!

2 Comments

Wuu huu! I am on the dole!!! Happy, happy days! Not literally. Unfortunately. Especially as any money is good money. Figuratively, however, I am on the Bob Dole. Which is great news. Finally, finally, my simple mind has gotten it’s head around the whole patience issue. About funking time.

Earlier today, I was talking to a buddy of mine, who was telling me about his quest for the dole. I asked him was he lined up to get a big bumper lump sum, seeing as he hadn’t worked in a good while, not since leaving college. Nay, was his answer. Well, more a plain “No”. Why so, I enquired? Because… “the dole office didn’t care about me and all that time I spent bumming around, or trying other things. I only came onto their radar, when I first went into them, for my first meeting. If my application goes through, then I’ll get a lump payment from that first meeting only, not a huge lump sum stretching back any further. Until then though, I’ll try to find something else while I am waiting to hear about it.”

If it is not jumping out off the screen at you, I will explain why those words made the internal struggle in my head gently float away. To an extent. Swap the dole office with television stations I have been courting/having meetings with. Application, with t.v show proposals. And a lump sum payment, with a green light to get the project made. See, all makes tremendous sense now. If I was to burst into the dole office, work some charm, and have the initial meeting go well, they would not simply say “Good work, you convinced me, here’s a bag of money, off with ya. Good boy.” Why would the t.v station be any different? Obviously that is not how things work. My brain likes to keep this kind of sense out at times, for as long as it possibly can.

My buddy told me that the dole process alone takes about 12 weeks. To get the dole! And I am trying to get a t.v show made?! Why was I frying my brain, thinking I should be told a.s.a.p. The t.v stations have no obligation to give a flying funk, or should they even, about my lack of patience or immediate desire to get the green light. Or to find out otherwise. They don’t really care that I have been struggling away at this for a while. Why would they be bothered with the ups and downs I’ve gone through in the past however long, since the adventure started. As far as they are concerned, with regards to these proposals, I am now only just after applying, and just now on their radar!

Hopefully I’m not giving off the impression either that I thought initially – Do they not know who I am? Do they not realize the struggles I went through? They should be knocking on my door. Nay, what I am trying to say, is that I couldn’t find the patience or self awareness to realize that I just have to wait. Simple as that. My buddy isn’t tearing his hair out, or frying his head, wondering about all these outsides factors that may or may not go his way. Nothing he can do, but he wasn’t really complaining about it. Obviously he would prefer to hear that he’s getting the lump sum sooner rather than later, but, tough. Just have to wait and see.

Same goes for me. “Patience is a virtue” and all that. Virtue on! Plenty to keep me occupied while I await the verdicts. Re-writes, proposals, spec scripts, and other stuff has filled up the to-do list.

Thankfully, I realized something last night while watching the show about Graham Linehan. (Again, not comparing myself to his genius. Just that I saw similarities. Which put my mind at ease. That I was not going nuts). That is, it is not just as easy as sitting down and the episode, for example, just flows out. I need to get my head back into that creative frame of mind. However, like a pregnant woman, I am pushing hard, and can see its head popping out. A delightful visual to end on. And, in case you were wondering which friend I was on about, it is… not me. 

Song of the day, two actually…

Little Joy

Don't Watch Me Dancing - Little Joy

Interpol

Untitled - Interpol