In the office I share with the other writer at my job I face a haphazardly hung white board. We use the white board for...well...whatever writers and other creatives use white boards for: jokes, drawings and quotations. In the upper right corner is one of a dozen or so condoms that were left in my desk drawer when we moved offices four weeks ago. The wrapper is a girly bubble gum pink and, with enough tape, stuck nicely to the board. Underneath, in matching girly bubble gum pink white board marker, I've written (in girly bubble gum-ish) cursive, "For inspiration."
But this post isn't about the condom or the whiteboard.
I brought it up in the first place because it holds another quotation from last week. During an initial interview, one of our clients told our messaging director that he's counting on him for creativity because -- and I directly-ish quote the client -- "You could say that [he's] mentally handicapped when it comes to creativity."
We couldn't help but laugh because the man was just so frank about it and, by our profession we're labeled as creatives, the other writer and I posted in on our board, lapping up its irony.
I'm not lapping anymore because apparently, according to a survey we got back from a client today, I totally and completely lack creativity. That's a paraphrase of course. The real comments included winning phrases like, "not very creative," "not slick or cool," "lacking uniqueness," and -- my personal favorite -- "clearly not what we wanted."
You see, after a client gives us the "Heck ya! Okay!" on a script, we -- the writers and messaging director -- don't have to deal with it anymore (Which is usually worth celebrating), enabling the client to fill out a survey about the writing/scripting process. Pretty much we ask how they felt their initial interview went (Which...sidebar...I get to host my first one tomorrow!!!), how we can improve our process and what, if any, concerns they might have going into the development process.
This client wrote a fucking novel. Perhaps it's because I wrote them a novel...giving them 14 different drafts. Fourteen different messages, all selling the same blase product. And apparently, it wasn't until we gave them a final ultimatum that they actual decided to choose to accept the final script which, unfortunately for them, wasn't anywhere near my best work.
Creative? Sure. But only to the extent of "I guess this will have to do and I've been working on this for four months and lose the ability to care just a little bit everyday."
I shouldn't complain, really.
But come on...I KNOW I'm creative. I don't flaunt it necessarily (Come on, like any sensitive artist I'm far too much of a pansy to let everyone read everything. This blog works well enough for now...it's an outlet where I don't really have to put my REAL work in front of whoever you all reading this may be), but I know I've got it: Whenever I hear music I'm either directing its music video or choreographing a dance to it in my head. Whenever I watch a thrilling, suspenseful or scary movie I'm always expecting THAT MOMENT (You know...the one that makes you pee your pants just a little...not too much...just enough that you can blame it on the condensation of your $4.25 soda) to be WAAAAY WORSE than it ever turns out to be (One exception is The Departed. Sure I thought that Leo might get shot point blank but come on Scorcese...could he have AT LEAST stepped out of the elevator first? Damn. So good. [Which makes Shutter Island such a shame...]. But I digress...). I imagine different scenarios in my life which I know everyone does...that's just called hope and futuristic wishful thinking but do you think about leaving everything to start an 80's tribute band called 80s Limbo Montage?
Save for Tony, I didn't think so.
I'm trying not to take the survey remarks seriously or to heart but it's a bit of a struggle. I want to do a good job. Fuck, I want to do a DAMN GOOD SUPER AWESOME job.
Shoo (Hey Kurtis...that one was for you)...I KNOW I do.
Damn Canucks. They should know that too.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Crossword Love
Some call it love. Some call it an obsession. I call it an absolute necessity.
The crossword puzzle is an indulgence I get -- no, have -- to partake in every morning, thanks to the year long subscription to The Oregonian that my parents so lovingly got me for Christmas. Everyday I plan out at least 30 minutes of coffee and crossword time....so yes, during the week when I'm waking up at 4 and 4:30 in the morning to run before work, I'm also figuring in a solid crossword and coffee session.
I know, I know, I already hear people gawking that I wake up THAT early JUST to do the crossword.
But I can't help it.
I've tried -- like today, when I simply woke up, laced up my Nikes with my building key tucked tightly in the tongue and headed out my building door into the early morning darkness without caffeine running through my blood and crossword clues running through my head. It was a good run -- heck, it was a great one (10 miles before 6:15? Yeah, it was real good). But here I sit, with nothing to do at work (Literally nothing. It's been like this for three days now and my writing fingers are itching with idleness), feeling slightly amiss because I have yet to complete any crossword puzzles.
In fact, my little Oregonian is still wrapped in its blue plastic sheath, begging me to read it and not succumb to the diabolic lure of Internet news. I actually think I can hear it sighing, holding back weepy tears from my desk drawer...
"Read me." "Open me." "Do me." "Finish me."
Hmmm. Somehow that turned slightly pornographic.
[Insert commercial break]
My love for the crossword puzzle grew, thanks in large part to the boring classes I had during my college years at the University of Portland.
IMPORTANT CLARIFYING NOTE: Not ONCE did I EVER EVER EVER pull out a crossword puzzle during an English class.
That being said...
Had I never been forced to take Biblical Traditions from a professor who adamantly called me Annie the entire semester (But then mysteriously called me Amie a year and a half later on a random campus pass-by), I probably never would have learned to fold the newspaper just perfectly to cleverly camouflage it amidst my notebooks. Were it not for freshmen level communication studies classes I took as a fifth year, I wouldn't have learned the codes of the crossword (For example: Abbreviations in a clue means an abbreviated answer. And, not Or, adds an "S" to a name. You get the idea).
Nor would I have learned that an "aerie" is an eagle's nest, that Ella Fitzgerald is a jazz legend, that Erma Bombeck is absolutely awesome (Okay the crossword didn't teach me that but her constant appearance in the grid piqued my interest to put my Google skills to work) or that Nikola Tesla was a rival inventor of Thomas Edison.
I don't think I would have learned any of that in my theology or communication studies classes either.
I guess I like the crossword so much for the simple reason that it gives me something to do. It's a time-wasting past time that's actually productive -- I'm learning (as aforementioned factoids clearly prove evident), working my brain and, on the glorious occasion that I fully finish a puzzle, experiencing a glorious rush of accomplishment and pride.
It's dorky, I know. An obsession, of course. But few things are as satisfying as unsheathing the newspaper, flipping through to the crossword puzzle and burying myself in the black and white boxes while I wake up over a hot cup of steaming coffee.
The crossword puzzle is an indulgence I get -- no, have -- to partake in every morning, thanks to the year long subscription to The Oregonian that my parents so lovingly got me for Christmas. Everyday I plan out at least 30 minutes of coffee and crossword time....so yes, during the week when I'm waking up at 4 and 4:30 in the morning to run before work, I'm also figuring in a solid crossword and coffee session.
I know, I know, I already hear people gawking that I wake up THAT early JUST to do the crossword.
But I can't help it.
I've tried -- like today, when I simply woke up, laced up my Nikes with my building key tucked tightly in the tongue and headed out my building door into the early morning darkness without caffeine running through my blood and crossword clues running through my head. It was a good run -- heck, it was a great one (10 miles before 6:15? Yeah, it was real good). But here I sit, with nothing to do at work (Literally nothing. It's been like this for three days now and my writing fingers are itching with idleness), feeling slightly amiss because I have yet to complete any crossword puzzles.
In fact, my little Oregonian is still wrapped in its blue plastic sheath, begging me to read it and not succumb to the diabolic lure of Internet news. I actually think I can hear it sighing, holding back weepy tears from my desk drawer...
"Read me." "Open me." "Do me." "Finish me."
Hmmm. Somehow that turned slightly pornographic.
[Insert commercial break]
My love for the crossword puzzle grew, thanks in large part to the boring classes I had during my college years at the University of Portland.
IMPORTANT CLARIFYING NOTE: Not ONCE did I EVER EVER EVER pull out a crossword puzzle during an English class.
That being said...
Had I never been forced to take Biblical Traditions from a professor who adamantly called me Annie the entire semester (But then mysteriously called me Amie a year and a half later on a random campus pass-by), I probably never would have learned to fold the newspaper just perfectly to cleverly camouflage it amidst my notebooks. Were it not for freshmen level communication studies classes I took as a fifth year, I wouldn't have learned the codes of the crossword (For example: Abbreviations in a clue means an abbreviated answer. And, not Or, adds an "S" to a name. You get the idea).
Nor would I have learned that an "aerie" is an eagle's nest, that Ella Fitzgerald is a jazz legend, that Erma Bombeck is absolutely awesome (Okay the crossword didn't teach me that but her constant appearance in the grid piqued my interest to put my Google skills to work) or that Nikola Tesla was a rival inventor of Thomas Edison.
I don't think I would have learned any of that in my theology or communication studies classes either.
I guess I like the crossword so much for the simple reason that it gives me something to do. It's a time-wasting past time that's actually productive -- I'm learning (as aforementioned factoids clearly prove evident), working my brain and, on the glorious occasion that I fully finish a puzzle, experiencing a glorious rush of accomplishment and pride.
It's dorky, I know. An obsession, of course. But few things are as satisfying as unsheathing the newspaper, flipping through to the crossword puzzle and burying myself in the black and white boxes while I wake up over a hot cup of steaming coffee.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Adrien Brody, I'm sorry.
It's 8 pm on Thursday night and I should be at Powell's listening in jaw-dropping awe to Frank Bruni but I'm not because Powell's was at capacity and so instead I am at home, watching 40 Year Old Virgin, drinking gin and moping in absolute misery.
So here's a blog...not about Frank Bruni as I had originally planned (I will write about why he is so important to me but right now the disappointment is too fresh so I'm going to have to wait on that one for juuuuust the moment), but instead, about a conversation I had last night:
I was tipsily Facebook chatting with my dearest friend Meghann last night (Woes over work forced both of us to the bottle) when we started talking about Adrien Brody. You see, she sent me a link via Facebook that I had yet to respond to so, in my remarkably accurate though not terribly efficient manner of randomly recalling unfinished items on my man "To Do" lists while inebriated, I told her, "Thanks."
Side Bar: Unfinished items on my To Do lists:
1. Cancel Clear Wireless
2. Tell Piper our Pulled Pork Party is postponed (Wow, what an alliterative sentence)
3. Take the giant cardboard bed frame box to Pottery Barn
4. Get my schedule from Pottery Barn for next week
5. Figure out how to successfully terrorize West Vancouver, Canada without getting caught
6. Stop boring people with my random and ridiculously mundane To Do Items
End very elongated and winded sidebar.
After thanking Megs, we sighed because, three years ago when we lived together with Caitlin in the sketchiest apartment-on-stilts (Sure it was only $825 for a 3-bedroom apartment but still, can you spell G-H-E-T-T-O?) we fell in love with the gangly New York-born-and-raised, thrice-broken-big-nosed actor. But just like the letter to Adrien Body said, he sort of just fell off the earth after The Darjeeling Limited, only to return to roles in less-than-rave-reviewed sci-fi flicks. What a shame.
But this blog isn't about Adrien Brody (Or Frank Bruni...siiiiiiigh). Almost as quickly as we reminisced (at this point more drunkenly than tipsily) over Mr. Brody and the three months of Netflix movie watching we dedicated solely to his work, I -- like a fickle seventh grade girl -- voiced that I was "soooooo over" Adrien and into a "more sophisticated, rugged and older man."
A man who isn't afraid to take on crappy roles because when he takes on the good ones, he's really ridiculously good...
An uncredited rough rumbler in The Outsiders? Check.
An ex-con who marries a cop he can't make babies with? Check.
An alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter (Is there any other kind?)? Check.
An Angel who, for some god-awful reason falls in love with Meg Ryan? Yup.
An FBI chemical expert who's the military's LAST HOPE for neutralizing an apocalyptic terrorist threat? Total check.
An ex-Army ranger soon-to-be-ex-con just trying to get home to his wife? (Cue "How Do I Live")?. Check.
A hero AND a villain...at the same time? Check?
A non-alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter (And his fictional brother)? Check.
An OCD-swindler? Check.
An eccentric historian who abides by the skills of Disney screenwriters? Check.
A weatherman who gets hit with a Frosty? Check.
An arms dealer who turns his brother into a coke-fiend? Check.
A motorcycling superhero with a flaming skull? (Unfortunately) Check.
A coked-out cop (Ooooh you thought I was going to go with ex-con, huh?) rolling around in post-Katrina New Orleans? Check.
A faux-superhero with the most seriously awesome sideburns ever? Ooooh baby yeah.
Yes, dear friends. I am currently in love with Nicolas Cage.
I don't know what it is about him...most will agree with me that he's not particularly attractive (Though when the man's wearing an expensive suit and carrying lots and lots of guns, I'm a bit turned on). Still, women find him attractive and guys want to be him. If it weren't for the fact that he's famous, he'd be just another awkward American holding a 9-5 job. With that hair and pasty complexion he could probably be some kind of computer nerd; a coder or (no offense Tony) animation developer perhaps?
But his acting....it's pretty freaking awesome. I personally like Roger Ebert's words:
"There are often lists of the great living male movie stars: De Niro, Nicholson, and Pacino usually. how often do you see the name of Nicolas Cage? He should always be up there. He's daring and fearless in his choice of roles and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in the air. No one else can project inner trembling so effectively. He always seems so earnest. However improbably his character, he never winks at the audience. He is committed to the character with every atom and plays him as if he were him."
Considering I'm not a movie critic nor nearly as skilled as a reviewing wordsmith as Ebert, I'll deftly admit that I cannot say it better myself.
And that's okay...for now I'll just sit back, relax and pop up a great Nic Cage flick to cheer me up. after all, there's only so much slap stick comedy I can take.
So here's a blog...not about Frank Bruni as I had originally planned (I will write about why he is so important to me but right now the disappointment is too fresh so I'm going to have to wait on that one for juuuuust the moment), but instead, about a conversation I had last night:
I was tipsily Facebook chatting with my dearest friend Meghann last night (Woes over work forced both of us to the bottle) when we started talking about Adrien Brody. You see, she sent me a link via Facebook that I had yet to respond to so, in my remarkably accurate though not terribly efficient manner of randomly recalling unfinished items on my man "To Do" lists while inebriated, I told her, "Thanks."
Side Bar: Unfinished items on my To Do lists:
1. Cancel Clear Wireless
2. Tell Piper our Pulled Pork Party is postponed (Wow, what an alliterative sentence)
3. Take the giant cardboard bed frame box to Pottery Barn
4. Get my schedule from Pottery Barn for next week
5. Figure out how to successfully terrorize West Vancouver, Canada without getting caught
6. Stop boring people with my random and ridiculously mundane To Do Items
End very elongated and winded sidebar.
After thanking Megs, we sighed because, three years ago when we lived together with Caitlin in the sketchiest apartment-on-stilts (Sure it was only $825 for a 3-bedroom apartment but still, can you spell G-H-E-T-T-O?) we fell in love with the gangly New York-born-and-raised, thrice-broken-big-nosed actor. But just like the letter to Adrien Body said, he sort of just fell off the earth after The Darjeeling Limited, only to return to roles in less-than-rave-reviewed sci-fi flicks. What a shame.
But this blog isn't about Adrien Brody (Or Frank Bruni...siiiiiiigh). Almost as quickly as we reminisced (at this point more drunkenly than tipsily) over Mr. Brody and the three months of Netflix movie watching we dedicated solely to his work, I -- like a fickle seventh grade girl -- voiced that I was "soooooo over" Adrien and into a "more sophisticated, rugged and older man."
A man who isn't afraid to take on crappy roles because when he takes on the good ones, he's really ridiculously good...
An uncredited rough rumbler in The Outsiders? Check.
An ex-con who marries a cop he can't make babies with? Check.
An alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter (Is there any other kind?)? Check.
An Angel who, for some god-awful reason falls in love with Meg Ryan? Yup.
An FBI chemical expert who's the military's LAST HOPE for neutralizing an apocalyptic terrorist threat? Total check.
An ex-Army ranger soon-to-be-ex-con just trying to get home to his wife? (Cue "How Do I Live")?. Check.
A hero AND a villain...at the same time? Check?
A non-alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter (And his fictional brother)? Check.
An OCD-swindler? Check.
An eccentric historian who abides by the skills of Disney screenwriters? Check.
A weatherman who gets hit with a Frosty? Check.
An arms dealer who turns his brother into a coke-fiend? Check.
A motorcycling superhero with a flaming skull? (Unfortunately) Check.
A coked-out cop (Ooooh you thought I was going to go with ex-con, huh?) rolling around in post-Katrina New Orleans? Check.
A faux-superhero with the most seriously awesome sideburns ever? Ooooh baby yeah.
Yes, dear friends. I am currently in love with Nicolas Cage.
I don't know what it is about him...most will agree with me that he's not particularly attractive (Though when the man's wearing an expensive suit and carrying lots and lots of guns, I'm a bit turned on). Still, women find him attractive and guys want to be him. If it weren't for the fact that he's famous, he'd be just another awkward American holding a 9-5 job. With that hair and pasty complexion he could probably be some kind of computer nerd; a coder or (no offense Tony) animation developer perhaps?
But his acting....it's pretty freaking awesome. I personally like Roger Ebert's words:
"There are often lists of the great living male movie stars: De Niro, Nicholson, and Pacino usually. how often do you see the name of Nicolas Cage? He should always be up there. He's daring and fearless in his choice of roles and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in the air. No one else can project inner trembling so effectively. He always seems so earnest. However improbably his character, he never winks at the audience. He is committed to the character with every atom and plays him as if he were him."
Considering I'm not a movie critic nor nearly as skilled as a reviewing wordsmith as Ebert, I'll deftly admit that I cannot say it better myself.
And that's okay...for now I'll just sit back, relax and pop up a great Nic Cage flick to cheer me up. after all, there's only so much slap stick comedy I can take.
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