Adventures in the Ephemeral
This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly blog/newsletter/blogletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--
DID I MAKE MY GOAL?
Last week, I committed to finishing the text for a pitch deck to raise funds for a feature film. And I did it...from a certain point of view. I successfully set aside time to work on the pitch deck, but I was too frazzled for the kind of writing required--a delicate mix of organizing facts and emotional persuasion. It just wasn't where my head was at.
But instead of berating myself and mumbling my "you're a garbage person" song (detailed here), I pivoted to working on the graphics. I had a lot of fun digitally painting a monster while listening to David Bowie's Scary Monsters album.
So I didn't succeed in completing the specific task I set, but I did succeed in the big picture goal of moving the pitch deck forward. I'll take it!
ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--
As I type this, my voice is still scratchy from all the great TALKING I did this weekend. I had several events converge which gave me a great burst of socializing. My wife and I had dinner and saw a show with our old friend Bill Corbett on Saturday. On Sunday, our old friends Pat Harrigan and Carrie Rainey were in Redlands (an hour drive from LA) for a college reunion. We enjoyed a lovely day around town and ended up playing a geography-based board game in a hotel room until midnight. (The Scottish now control the majority of Great Britain.)
And on Friday, I attended the great Doctor Who convention Gallifrey One. I've performed at the con on and off over the years. Sometimes doing big mainstage shows for 100s of people, sometimes doing fun comedy and discussion panels. This year, I was only able to attend one day and do one panel--Paul Cornell's annual comedy panel, The Cornell Collective. (Check out Paul's very inspiring weekly newsletter here!)
The panel started out many years ago as a podcast recording and has since evolved into a lightly naughty, late night comedy game show focusing on Doctor Who absurdity. One of the games was a "Name That Tune" round where a panelist had to hum the mystery song and their partner had to guess it. But ALL of the tunes were different orchestrations of the Doctor Who theme song. Hilarity and weird noises ensued.
Anyway, here's why I'm writing about this panel: To celebrate balance. Specifically, the balance between big long-term projects and ones that provide immediate ephemeral reward.
I started my creative career in theater. I've done everything from one person shows to children's theater to Shakespeare to audience interactive murder mysteries and I even wrote one Shakespeare-themed audience interactive murder mystery called MacBeth's Awesome Scottish Castle Party. (Sadly, the show did NOT end with the Scottish controlling all of Great Britain.)
I adore theater and live performance, but the ephemeral nature of it started to eat at me. I'm lucky to have some of my plays continue to be produced and I've got a few decent recordings of shows. But it's a kind of work that most fully exists at that moment in time, in that room, with those people.
Partially in response to that, I'm putting a lot of work into filmmaking. An art form that is arguably about capturing beautiful unique moments and freezing them in amber to exist forever. I've been making hard choices to focus as much of my time and energy on film goals as possible.
But I deeply miss live performance. Which put me in a great place for The Cornell Collective. There's a little bit of prep work (Paul sends the panelists several fun prompts ahead of time) but for the most part, it's just show up and have a good time. A fantastic visit with my old friend, EPHEMERAL LIVE PERFORMANCE.
A great comedy panel like this one is dictated by its time, its place, its moment. At night after most of the other programming is done. In the last panel room on the lower floor. Everyone ready and wanting to laugh, after a day immersed in community and celebration of a shared love. Almost no sub-topic too niche. The rustle of too much ice in overpriced hotel cocktails and the plastic bits of someone's Cyberman cosplay as they shuffle to their seat. Pre-planned jokes and total surprises. Maybe we'll remember specific jokes or maybe we won't. But people will remember the FEELING of that panel, in that room, at that time.
I need that balance in my life. Some projects that can (in theory) be experienced years after I'm gone. And some performances that only exist in the memories of the people who were there.
In that spirit of balance, I'm going to share one other thing from the comedy panel--freeze it in amber on the ol' internet. Paul had sent us a great prompt--what if David Lynch had agreed to direct an episode of Doctor Who? But we skipped over it during the show for the best flow, which was absolutely the right choice.
So I'll share it here for the community of people floating around with me in the weird center of the Doctor Who/David Lynch Venn Diagram.
Please read this to yourself (perhaps out loud) in the distinctive voice of Mr. Lynch as he pitches his vision to terrified executives at the BBC:
DOCTOR WHO: TWIN HEARTS
There’s a man who lives inside a box. On the inside, the box is very large and dark. But on the outside, the box looks like a dumpster behind a Denny's. How did this man get that much darkness in one little dumpster?
Well, the man is an alien and he has two hearts. One heart is made of velvet and birdsong. Just beautiful. The other heart is a big rotten fruit. A rancid apple covered in maggots.
The man hears a baby crying. So he digs in his pocket and, by golly, he pulls out a bag of candy. And it’s just full--I mean full--of babies. Wriggling, screaming little guys made of gelatin. And they’re yelling, “Eat me! Eat me! For the love of god, eat me!”
So he pops one of these crying jelly babies in his mouth. And it makes him sick. He vomits everywhere. But the vomit is pure gold. He's retching California sunshine out of every part of his body! He's changing! He's changing! And pretty soon his whole body transforms and he becomes...Laura Dern!
Now, not a character played by Laura Dern, but the dynamite actress, Laura Dern.
And Laura Dern decides to eat another little jelly baby. And it HAPPENS AGAIN. She changes AGAIN. She transforms from Laura Dern into...Laura Dern but now she’s a REDHEAD.
And it goes on like this for two and a half hours. Eat a baby. Change into Laura Dern. Eat a baby. Change into Laura Dern.
Then her companion steps out of the darkness. It’s a little capuchin monkey. He’s got an oldie-time microphone and he sings a real slow version of “Doctorin’ The Tardis” by the KLF.
And the little jelly babies start dancing. And the camera moves real, real slow into a beautiful close-up of a little jelly baby face. And it squeaks out in its little jelly baby voice, “I am the hybrid.”
Blackout. The end. No closure. Some things are just meant to be...ephemeral.
MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
This week my goal is simple and direct. I'm working on another short horror film, currently codenamed The Commentary. I'm filming it this Thursday evening. So no sub-goals, no lies to myself about how much I can put on my plate. This week my goal is to film my new short and have fun doing it. I think I can nail this one.
YOUR GOAL FOR WEEK--
What's your goal? Hopefully, Buttondown will add a comments section soon, but until then feel free to reach out to me on social media and let me know what projects you’re working on this week. Or you can respond directly to the email version of this blog, if you'd like!
LIGHT PLUGS--
Films! I have films to plug! Our short horror film, THE NIGHTMARE ADORABLE is making its Los Angeles premiere! Sunday, Feb 25th at 2 pm. Myself and the cast will be in attendance. So if you're in LA, come enjoy the horror and say hello. Tickets are here. Once you hit "buy tickets" scroll down to Horror Program C-25!
THE NARRATOR! As of today, Feb 20th, all members of my Patreon will have exclusive months-early access to my experimental comedy film, THE NARRATOR starring the great Phil LaMarr. If you're interested, you can check out the Patreon here!
You can also check out Strange Path t-shirts and wall art on Threadless. And my comedy albums and cosmic horror tale on Bandcamp. Thank you for the kind support!
A LITTLE SKETCH--
This week's sketch is inspired by a quote I read from David Lynch years and years ago about being open to receiving creative ideas from all around. I've lived with this general picture in my head ever since-- a big brain tower, open to transmissions. Here's hoping you AND your brain tower have a good week and meet all your goals. See you in the FUTURE TIME called next Tuesday!
