Writing, Acting: I Had Fun

or Pay Attention To Life's Little Gems

This happened to me a few years ago. At the time I was totally blown away by the Monty Pythonishness of a real life event. In these cases, it's a great opportunity for a scene - whether that scene be in a novel, film project or sketch. If you log these moments, you can also go back to them and pull out character traits for use in a role, or in writing. You'll be amazed at the vast library you'll collect in just a short time.

So, I'm working on, like, the fifth or sixth second mortgage on my house. Really serious stuff. So I get to the point where I have to drop off the paperwork. This mortgage company is on the 16th floor of the most secure building in town.

Good thing I'm not a terrorist.

First off, they're remodeling. So instead of all six elevators working, only two are. Sort of. I get in one and it takes me near the 16th floor. Yes. Near. After 20 seconds of doing its best ('almost there... little more.. little more.. oops too much, go back down a hair.. back.. back.. uh.. wait.. up.. up.. no down... up') I stumble out - okay, jump out and vow to walk down the stairs when I leave.

So now I'm at the right suite, in front of the glass door with chicken wire embedded in it, a large card reader for authorized personnel ONLY with the little push button I'm supposed to push for admittance; thick glass panels to the right and on top. Very imposing looking, except for the part where the door is slightly ajar because the latch is resting on the outside of the door frame instead of being snugly ensconced.

So, I pull the door open half expecting a siren, ringing bells and Storm Troopers to rush me. Instead, it is silent except for the multitude of salesmen in 400 3 foot square cubicles pitching mortgages to other poor bastards like me.

Jennifer, who should be the Receptionist, is currently not receiving anyone, let alone me, because she apparently had something better to do than wait for me to use my superior skills to gain entrance. After a moment's pause, during which several ideas bounce around in my otherwise empty head, I decide to use the 'smooth approach'. Not that I thought they'd pull my mortgage if I just yelled out "Anybody here?". I figured why not do a slightly classier act.

Now, if you've ever worked a phone room, you know about 'rollover'. If you haven't, it works like this: the main phone number rings at the Receptionist's desk 2 or 3 times. After that, the phone system is programmed to route the call through a series of 'rollovers' - a succession of poor jerks who have to answer the phone when Jennifer has to pee.

I decided to take advantage of this.

Pulling out my cell phone, I call the main number. Sure enough, Jenn's phone rings 3 times and then quits. Two cubes over a phone starts ringing and someone picks up.

"Blah, blah Mortgage, Mr. R. speaking"

"Hi, Mr. R. I've let myself into your office, but Jennifer seems to not be receiving guests. Would someone be able to come to her desk and deliver these papers to Mr. D for me?"

"What? You're in HERE?"

"Uh, yes. The door wasn't latch.."

"I'll be right up!".

At this point I noticed an envelope with my name on Jenn's desk, so I pick it up, as Mr. R. huffs and puffs his way up to me. Poor guy had to run all of twenty feet, too. The oxygen evidently wasn't making its way to his brain though:

"Are you the guy that just called?"

I could not have looked more stunned if he had been wearing, say, a French Maid costume.

"Uh, yes. I brought these. They are for Mr. D"

"Mr. D? Mr. D? Do you mean Mr. Q?"

"Uh, no. Mr. D. The fifth guy down on the in/out whiteboard over there. With his marker set to 'in'."

"I don't know a Mr. D. I'll give these to Mr. Q"

"Well, okay. And I'm picking these up," I offered as I pointed to my name on the other envelope."

"Oh. Is that you?"

"Yes," I said, attempting to show him my name on he envelope he had taken from me. I guess he really wanted it, because he glared at me and would not let me touch it. "My name's on that envelope, too, if you want to compare them".

"No. I'll get these to Mr. Q. Have a good day."

If he were a snotty butler, he would have pointed his nose to the door at that point and issued a withering look. Since he was a mortgage salesman, though, he sort of waved in the general direction of the door and grunted. Or farted. I'm still not sure which.

So I leave. As soon as I get to my car, I call Mr. D and leave him a voicemail something to the effect:

"I was just in your office and the Receptionist wasn't there. The gentleman who took the paperwork you asked me to bring is going to give it to Mr. Q, since he doesn't know who you are. I hope you know Mr. Q. If not, just look for the puffy, red-faced guy about 20 feet behind Jennifer's desk. He'll have it."

I hope that gave Mr. D a laugh, because almost everyone I saw in that place seemed stressed, puffy and red-faced.

Writing / Acting: Characters

or If You Don't Care, Who Will?

This is a post I wrote a few years ago. Since then, things have actually gotten a bit better. But it is still worth repeating...

This is a biased tirade. You're welcome to leave feedback, however, nothing will change my opinion.

The "official" entertainment business' products suck. That's why I'm such a proponent of Independent Film. While Indie stuff can suck, too, at least it has an excuse. The non-Indie's only excuse is money, as expressed in laziness and quick to-market times.

Characters suck.

From the writers who write them, to the actors who act them and everyone in-between; director, producer, etc.: they all contribute to the fact that characters suck. This suckiness of characters boils down to the simple fact that no one pays attention to them. The writer sketches out some half-baked human and the director and actor trot him or her in front of the camera or on-stage and are done.

Creating and deploying a character like Yogi Bear doesn't require any effort other than compositing several silly characteristics on top of a basic framework. Yogi Bear likes picnic baskets, hangs with a dude name Boo-Boo and sort of seems to maybe kind of be interested in a girl bear named Cindy. And he runs around bragging about his intelligence. If you knew a real guy like that, you'd think he was pretty shallow, self-centered and a bit weird. Yogi's a cartoon, so it's okay, though. It may be funny, but it ain't real.

In my opinion, though, dramatic shows (tv, film, etc) are not doing much better. That old "suspension of disbelief" gets harder and harder with shallower characters. Next, I suppose, we'll have robots reading lines and be expected to "imagine" the character traits. What happened to the craft??

As an actor, you have to use your imagination in order to portray realistic characters. That's hard to do if your Director and/or Producer are shooting for quick and dirty. "Ah, just play some old man" doesn't cut it. If the writer doesn't flesh the character out, then the Director and/or the actor must. Of course, it is best if the character has some depth to begin with.

As a Director, or Producer, you need to either rely on your actor, or take the bull by the horns and have character meetings with the actor(s). Develop, or have the actor develop the character's backstory. Subtext is cool. Subcharacter rocks.

As a writer, do not get lazy and assume the people bringing your characters to life have enough experience to 'fill in the gaps'. If you're writing solid characters, then you need to at least hint at backstory items. I realize everything in the plot lines must be important. I know that no extraneous things should be in the script to distract the viewer. But that can happen by not providing good characters, as well. There is nothing more confusing, irritating and show-stopping than a baseless, cartoonish character appearing in the middle of some emotionally charged scene. It ruins it.

Ah, well. Think about it. If you're guilty of building or portraying vapor-characters...... please stop doing it.

Writing: A Collection Of Notes On Mashing

or The Mash Monster

Mashing (aka collaborative fiction writing) is the process of building a (hopefully) complete story out of (hopefully) interactively written chapters by one or (hopefully) more people.

It's a good acting exercise for building character and doing improvisation.

It is not everyone's cup of tea. Some people resent having their writing "messed with". If that's you, then mashing isn't for you. Some people want the glory of having written an astounding piece that's "perfect". Again, mashing isn't for you.

If you enjoy picking up the thread of a story, running in the same or, better yet, a different direction with it, while trying to second guess every/any one else writing part of the story, keep the story cohesive and can handle writing as almost a game, then: yes! Mashing is for you.

I've been involved in the practice of mashing for longer than mashing was used at the term. I am much older than I sound. Anyway, interactive fiction, for me, started even before the Internet. Yes, kiddies, there was a pre-Internet period. In those days, we direct dialed into a system known as a BBS with our speedy 300 baud modems and paid huge telephone bills to post an interactive paragraph or two.

Later, Usenet groups and IRC channels picked up the habit and produced some weird, if short, compositions. The new BBS (i.e. "the Boards") popped up on the Internet maybe 8 years ago or so and were a revival of the old dial-in pre-Internet BBS. Natually, people decided to ply their interactive skills there, as well.

Now, the Mother Of All Interactive Fiction is here: StoryMash.com. An Internet website which not only promotes interactive fiction; not only is the future of interactive fiction: it is also the
only site I know of where I can make money having fun with interactive fiction. And win prizes, too!

I'll let you visit the site to see how it works. Suffice it to say that it is a wonderful work in progress.

Now, I'm no expert at mashing. I have, as I said, participated for years in its various forms. I even was a member of an Improv Troupe once. There is an Improv game called "Directed Story" which is very similar to mashing, in that a group of people keep adding (verbally) to a story from the kernal of an idea – in this case, an idea generated from the audience. So, having those qualifications under my belt, I thought I'd write a primer on story mashing. Realize that these are my ideas and are not cast in stone. They are, I think, pretty good guidelines to get
you going if you're just starting out. Maybe even if you've been at it for a while...

Starting A Story:

The easiest way to 'break in' to mashing is to concoct the beginning of a story. Since the ball is in your possession, you don't have as many pitfalls as when you add to a story. There are some
requirements, though!

And remember, this is just my opinion on the whole thing. Not law!

1): Stop. Don't write the whole story. While that may seem a "d-uh" rule, you will get on a roll as you start writing. You will see the story advance in your head much faster than you can type. You will want to write 50 paragraphs, and that will not entice anyone to add to it. So stop at 5 paragraphs, tops. If you really, really have to, save the rest for a follow-on chapter after someone adds to your story.

2): Set up the beginning. A story, of course, has a beginning, a middle and an end. Although you can have all that in your head, a prospective follow-on author will want enough details to continue the story and nothing more. You are really providing a character or two or three,
fleshed out, put in a place where something has happened that affects them. You want to describe the characters: make them living, breathing and reacting to something that has happened to them. That's the seed formula for some great interactive writing.

3): Open hard. The first five words have to grab the reader. Somewhat. That is an art in and of itself, and I'm not great at it. But I know it has to be done and I keep practising. Do not use "This is a story about..." or "I'm going to tell you...". The first words should make the reader ask "what will happen next", or "why", or "what the..?". So use things like "I should have never survived" or "Impossible!" or "Green is good. Unless you want trouble.". The mini-mystery of it should pull people in to see what the heck is going on. Just don't forget to answer those questions
in the rest of the story – or, in the case of mashing, maybe leave it unanswered for the next author to deal with...

4): Details, details. The middle part of your piece of the puzzle should be rich with details, or the lack thereof. Don't waffle. "Tim had an evil lurking just beneath his friendly exterior". Now the next author can use that. "Tim just had something going on inside that bothered me." The next author has even more choices. In either case, Tim is weird and the next author can use your specific clues or your vague awareness of "something not right" to further Tim's
character. "Tim was a nice guy." may be a valid specific detail but it also ends any discussion of his character with respect to demeanor. So if Tim is a main character, you've just opted him out of any heavy duty stuff. Which may be exactly what you want: however most of your characters will not be cut and dried. Otherwise you have "Tim was nice. Mary was nice. They were nice together. They had kids." Compare that to "Tim seemed like the nicest guy on the planet, unless he was angry. That vein that popped out on his forehead was scary. His wife, Mary was always pleasant, too, but had that faraway, frightened look in her eyes most of the time." There's a
story in that, somewhere!

5): Don't close. Obviously you can't end the story. Quite the reverse: the end of your part of the story must have suspense (you want readers to proceed to the next chapter(s)). So if the characters all die, or live happily ever after, the story is done. If the main character is about to open a door he's heard a noise behind and you end there, you got follow-on written all over it! You don't have to be that obvious, either. Your character can just go to bed, leave for work, get a phone call or make a sandwich. However, whatever conflict you've detailed as the major conflict in the whole entire story should not resolve. You may resolve any "stepping stone" conflicts you want: just not the main one. So, if your story is about Tim and Mary's divorce, then don't divorce them. Have Tim move out, or Mary throw him out. That moves the story in the right direction, without killing it. Or have Mary secretly wishing for reconciliation and Tim obviously not wanting that.

You get the idea? Good. Then go write!

http://storymash.com/

http://storymash.com/u/OriginalSim -- my stuff.

Drumming: The Ate Of The Start

or The Electronic Frontier version 5.5

Consider, if you will, the electric guitar. Developed in the early 1930's so that the guitar could be a viable instrument in a big band. It simply wasn't loud enough to be heard, with all the other instruments blaring, bleating and banging. Even with a microphone nearby, there was no way to get that full-fledged guitar sound one heard from 5 feet away.

So, after about 30 years and several design changes and modifications and genres of music and innovations in both playing style and electronics, we hit 1962 and the Ventures are using a fuzzbox on their guitar for their "200 Pound Bee" single. From then on, innovations and playing styles (Hendrix, Zepplin, Ozzie etc) skyrocketed until it just seems plain dumb (or inversely innovative) to suggest someone play a Speed Metal Shred Guitar Solo on their Acoustic guitar. Oh, it can be done. But it has limited appeal, in the end.

Consider keyboard instruments. Piano. Organ. Flashback 30 years ago when synthesizers made huge inroads into music. True, the synth was first 'discovered' in 1876, but it certainly wasn't as portable as an Arp Pro Soloist or the MiniMoog. And of course, think about now, where we have computers pretending to be musical instruments in the form of microprocessor-based keyboard instruments digitally reproducing the analog waveforms, or playing back sampled sound in a surreal Mellotron Goes Digital way. It's mind boggling.

So why are drummers, by and large, being so silly? Dead animal hides stretched over wooden frames seems a pretty archaic and primitive way to keep a beat, in light of the aforementioned examples.

The state of the art in electronic drumming is here. And no one seems to care, much. Oh, I see some innovation here and there, but for the most part all I hear is complaints. I don't want to start a flame war, so I'll say here and now that acoustic drums are wonderful and have their traditional place and should still be used just like pianos and Mariachi guitars should still be used.

But lets see some innovation, people!

Here's what I know to be true.

You can drum a heckuva lot faster on an electronic kit. That's not to say you could match that speed on an acoustic set. As a matter of fact, you probably can't. So before you brag about how fast you are, make sure you specify! Yeah, I can almost match Buddy Rich's speed - on my electronic kit. I would have to practice my butt off to do it on the acoustic set Buddy used. And then I'd only be somewhat close. Hydra-stic Drastic Drum Solo 2 of 3

You can be a rock drummer on one song, followed by an orchestral percussion section on song two and do Afro-Cuban-Dub on the third. You can choose from a whole palette of sounds, so your snare can sound like a cheap tin drum, a concert snare, a piccolo snare or a Swiss Army drum.

Since you can make your snare sound like any snare, why not follow this guy's lead and change the sounds of everything: Electronic Drum Solo #2 - Christopher Kobylarz

Or, to a lesser extent, this guy: Alesis.com Show Your Rig Video Competition

I know there are more famous people out there doing this. But even they aren't all that mainstream.

Let's take it to the next level, folks!

A Bit About The Author

or How An Old Toot Is Still Struggling

I mentioned I've done a lot of things of little notoriety. Just because there is a chance that it may be amusing to you, I thought I'd provide a sort of "blogsume" or blog-resume. Admittedly, some of it is good, in my opinion, especially the Steve & Kathy Show stuff.

Some of the stuff I intend to talk - er, oops, blog about is my opinion on various aspects of Entertainment. But since I'm no star, I guess it would be appropriate to present some things I've done just for the sake of letting everyone know I have experience, and that I'm not just making all this up out of thin air. Well, I'm not making most of it up, anyway.

Enjoy, or skip, as you wish. In no particular order:

The IMDB Acting resume
The Steve & Kathy Show which I'm a cast member of
The totally non-Christian movie where I play an evil Reverend Turner
The totally non-Christian movie where I will play an evil cult leader Tiberius Carr
My Actor and Composer MySpace pages
Books I have authored (a long, long time ago!)
Story Mashes. These used to be called interactive fiction. Not everything I wrote is suitable for all audiences.
I'm an opinionated cuss
Music, comedy sketches and drum solos all in one convenient place

A few of my favorite Steve & Kathy Show sketches:

I'm an Entertainer, but I'm really a nobody.

And I'm pretty good at it.

In my life so far, I've done a lot (thank you God!). Not much of it is available to a large number of people, but that's okay by me.

Acting, writing and music composition have been, and probably always will be, a big part of my life. I think I've finally figured out, though, that the acting part is my main passion. I do music and writing to fill in the gaps. Oh, and then there's the financial aspect: a day job.

During the day, I'm an IT guy. Programming and otherwise convincing a computer to do something useful. I'm no hotshot there. Probably at this point, technology-wise, I might be a little behind the times. Or maybe a lot behind. Over the last 7 years or so, I've found myself migrating into the business process/analyst/problem solving arena. Probably another impetus for my starting to blog.

I thought long and hard about all the questions I've been asked over the years and finally decided I'm old enough (although probably not wise enough) to start a blog. Since people might benefit from my experiences, I figure I'll document them. Maybe someone, somewhere will have a better life because of it. I hope so. Of course, it likely will be a study in what not to do.

So, here we go a-blogging.

Disclaimers, et cetera:

I talk about my faith openly. I don't usually 'soapbox' about it, or rant and rave. But it is a big part of my life and, so, for me, it's as natural as breathing or eating or sleeping.

However, unless I have some really superb dream or an excellent linguini or suck in some particularly fresh breath, I don't talk about it. With faith, however, things tend to be quite a bit more remarkable than a great ham sandwich.

So I will be talking about my faith, here and there. And the final answer on that is: my faith is not debatable. It is a fact. You may consider the Bible questionable or the existence of God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit questionable. Good luck with that. I've resolved any of those doubts to my personal satisfaction, with the end result that my faith is real and unarguable.

I won't demand that you believe me, but I will present items for your consideration and possible edification. If that bugs you, then please feel free to skip those parts, or this entire blog, for that matter. For what it's worth, I would prefer you read on.