G'day

This is what we’ve got, actually I’ll rephrase that -this is what I’ve got – completed scripts, enough to begin shooting; two new enthusiastic believers in Meredith and Evan Fishkin, through them a website (to be constructed), plenty of artwork and merchandising concepts, a social media presence in the form of a facebook page with 160 fans/likers/ whatever they’re called now ( a million thank yous to them), an SEO expert to help us expand the awareness of the project, a wonderful The Bloke Show Theme by Tyrone Noonan, and enough dreams and belief to keep it going.

What I dont have now is the original team that got TBS thus far – Harold Perry became bogged down with work and the sort of role I had him playing didn’t align with the sort of things he had an interest in doing outside of work, fair enough..don’t blame him one bit. Makayla’s story you know from a previous post and my co-writer BJ Kalms is suffering from a loss of faith primarily within himself but also in the project.

What happened?

Well its my fault. Its a recurring problem I have, I want people to be happy and fulfill their own desires even if that comes at the cost of the project – its called poor leadership. Its not something I’ve always done, actually its a problem I’ve cultivated in the past two or three years and on one occasion before that. One dilemma is how to maintain enthusiasm and excitement for the project while at the same time respecting each individuals personal needs. What I’ve failed to do is set boundaries. The project must come first, at least for the core group. Waiting for Makayla to finish her previously committed to production was fatal, perhaps had I known when I agreed to Makayla being the Production Manager that she had to finish an uncompleted project I may not have agreed to her becoming TBS Production Manager, but I can’t say for certain.

This type of project demands a dogged persistence and drive, fuelled by belief and the certainty that at the end of the day a fresh, new and above all, funny production, will be born. But it needs more than one committed soul- so its back to the search for me.

I will be meeting with Meredith and Evan Fishkin on Saturday and Meredith assures me they have lots of great ideas, which I fully believe, so here we go again

Im also reconsidering the entire premise of the show, really to provide the background of the characters and to flesh out a more defined approach for new writers – if there are any. I invited a couple of friends to do some writing for the show -if they wanted to, and like the brief I gave to Tyrone for the theme song I left things intentionally open-ended effectively giving them the freedom to write anything they wanted. No takers. Perhaps some writers prefer clearer definitions of character and a precise premise? So Im setting about doing that too. I will post the results.

Into spreading the joy as I am . Im reproducing a post from Valerie Foley’s jumpontherollercoaster blog. A blog I now have a vested interest in …details to follow.
Billy is a hero and Valerie is a wonderful storyteller and wordsmith , this one is bursting with joy…so enjoy.

Count the joys(above)

The boy is a sponge…

There’s something really cool going on at the moment.

It’s like Billy’s brain has been switched on in an awareness cognitive-y kind of way. Every where we go, there’s a little voice asking, ‘what’s that?’, ‘what does that do?’ what’s it for?’ He reads everything, he comments on everything, he shares his knowledge on everything.

I guess sometime soon it might get annoying. But for now, it’s charming and interesting and means we’re having conversations where I’ve finally stopped counting how many exchanges there are.

It makes me think back to the Bubble Days. The days after our cheeky little toddling boy retreated into a frightened dirt sifter. He didn’t really play. He seemed constantly stressed and exhausted. Everything was hard, for all of us.

First the OT came to visit. Within a few short sessions, the hopeful smile came back… you know that look that little kids get when they think something fun is going to happen? It took a bit of shaving cream, and a few goes on the scooter board and a couple of hugs on the trampoline and our Billy started breathing a little deeper.

Then came the ST. She came to the house, and Billy fell in love on the spot. It didn’t hurt that she had bubbles in her bag. She blew bubbles, his eyes lit up. She stopped, until he pulled at her hand. She said ‘More?’. He grabbed at her hand again, and she looked at him and said, ‘More?’ He looked right back and said ‘More.’

And so, it began. The Bubble Days lasted a looooong time. But it marked the point where we (grown ups) learned to speak again. Simpler, clearer, with more pauses and eye contact. By our changing the way we spoke, Billy was able to learn to speak. Words by word, phrase by phrase, topic by topic.

We counted every word for a long time. We knew how many nouns and verbs he could stick together. People thought we were crazy, as our fingers flicked and our mouths twitched through counting. We hugged him a lot (and that’s really saying something) as his count increased.

Not long after the start of the Bubble Days, we worked out that Billy loved songs. He could speak the lyrics of songs easily. So we started singing a lot (maybe that’s flattering ourselves), really we started putting everyday activities to a dodgy beat. We invented songs about dinner, songs about the toilet, songs about the car, songs about the dog. Bit by bit, Billy joined in.

Then we started video modeling. It was a stroke of genius in Billy’s life. First we watched Watch Me Learn. Seriously, within one viewing, Billy was answering the question, ‘What’s your name?’ He saw other kids do it, on a screen, distanced from the social pressure of being around actual kids, and he learned it. Just like that. Of course, once he’d done it once, we jumped up and down like idiots and reinforced it again and again and again.

We loved those dvds. We still love them. He still watches them. They’ve taken him through friends and play skills and school…

There’s a tiny little interview at the end of the WML dvds, with Mary Beth Palo, who created them. She talked about how they saw their son learned easier off a screen, and so they started taking their video camera everywhere with them… we’ve got a video camera, I thought… so we did the same. And boy did it work.

A couple of our first outings, to the train shed (a Thomas themed family place… be prepared, beyond the Thomas trains, it’s grim as hell) and to the zoo. These were repeated a million times, but these home videos (and may others we didn’t put on YouTube) changed everything for Billy’s language development. Seriously, everything.

Then we discovered he loved other languages (thanks to Dora the Explorer). He started seeking out alternate language subtitles on dvds, and looking on YouTube for French, Spanish and Japanese translations of his favourites – especially Thomas and Hi-5. Again, the logic is easy, once you get into it… it’s language, without meaning. He already knows what it means, so he’s not struggling with understanding. This gives him the freedom, the joy of freestyling with the beauty of words… like we all do (or maybe I’m revealing what a nerd I am… bit of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milkwood, anyone?)

It’s been four years of focussed slog really. The confidence of knowing that, pragmatic challenges aside, he’s linguistically safe, is immense. He can express his needs. He can parrot his address. Man, he can parrot entire episodes of David Attenborough’s Life of Mammals… but (again) I digress.

The point, for Billy, was to reduce the stress around both receptive language (understanding) and expressive language (talking). First, he needed to understand – hence my annoying, sing song on the early videos. Then he needed the space to talk (I try my hardest to STFU now).

To see him filling in the gaps, asking strangers questions, offering his services as a ball thrower for dogs at the park… it makes me want to cry with relief. He still makes mistakes, but all it takes is a day in Billy’s class to see that kids all make mistakes, in all sorts of ways (and so they should).

We didn’t think we’d get to this point.

And it makes the future seem so much more possible. Makes me want to go outside and blow bubbles for the hell of it.

From the album Live at Ronnie Scott’s

If Nina doesnt touch your soul there is either something really, really wrong with you or you’re dead.

If You Knew
Mr Smith

And one from an unknown album – my favourite

Here Comes the Sun

Kaizen

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967)

The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC)

Relationship breakdowns suck. A friend and I had a couple of reds last night and the topic of our respective relationship breakdowns became the focus of the night. She told the story of her relationship breakdown – she doesn’t want to have anything to do with her ex and doesn’t want to expend any energy thinking about him, shes moved on. Good for her – nothing wrong with that. Maybe.

The relationship with her ex was a lot longer than mine, nearly fifteen years, and the breakdown relatively new, around six months. It is a very painful and difficult time for her – as the period of time immediately following the failure of a relationship is for all of us. She went on to tell me an anecdote – she and her ex both attended a concert of their daughter’s recently, she attended with some of her girlfriends, her ex went alone, they sat apart but he had bought the tickets for them both. It was a rainy night, my pal arrived sodden , she has naturally curly hair which becomes really curly when wet. She met her ex before the show to get the tickets from him, their exchange went something like this-

“What is it with your hair”
“You know my hair”
“Yeah I know”
“Have you got a problem with my hair? Have you got the tickets?”

He gave her the tickets, walked off by himself ; they didn’t exchange words again that evening.

Pretty brief.” What was it with that?” she asked me. I know she wanted me to back her up on this, but I just couldn’t. Frankly he doesn’t deserve my support, he lied to her and he cheated and left her.

” Do you think it was possible he was trying to be nice, in his own socially inept way?” I asked.
A pause.
“I suppose so.” came the reply.
“He was trying to find common ground, have a shared moment?”
A longer pause
“Maybe”

Here’s my point. Its probably not good to see an ex for some time following the dissolution, let the pain pass, let the resentment dissipate- but isn’t it best and reasonable once that period has passed to try to remain friends? Isn’t that best for everyone? if not for everyone at least for the child/children – if there is one/are any, to retain some semblance of mutual respect and maybe even affection. At one time you enjoyed each others company you both shared intimate moments; its probably not unfair to suggest that at the very least you liked each other. While the relationship will never be the same, there is no harm in recognizing and even treasuring those times, decency, if not friendship, is the very least that we should do for each other and ourselves. Anger and hatred and resentment just fester within. Remembering the good, joyful, giving and loving times and forgiving releases us. We are all flawed. This doesn’t mean attempting to re-ignite the extinguished flame, it doesnt mean being a doormat or remaining in a situation where there is unrequited love. It’s an inner peace thing and good for all concerned, a guilty party always has to live with their decisions and M.O. I’ve been on both sides of the equation and I can assure you this is true.

Too often one party or both demonizes the other – a ridiculous and destructive practice. If love has died thats all the reason needed to part, actually, no reason is needed at all , just exercise your free will. Demonizing someone’s character whether they are guilty or not, only succeeds in allowing them to justify their dishonest actions to themselves. To demonize your ex-beloved is really tantamount to saying I am an idiot and my ex-partner had no values that were worthy of my love – it is self critical.

Over Christmas I contacted the women I have loved and offered my friendship and simply asked how they had been , it was good to know they were okay. I loved them once – and truth be told, I still do – just not in the same way I once did. Re-building burned bridges is part of my kaizen practice.

My friend disagrees with me about remaining friends , she is still recovering I think, but will hopefully reconsider her position, given time. She was particularly surprised to hear that I am considering getting the initials of those I love/have loved tattooed on my chest. My parents, my Reason,my brother, the children I love and the initials of the few women I truly loved. The way I feel is that they all hold a piece of my heart and I a little of theirs. They have all given to me and I to them. So I will have it done – I will shave my mat of a chest and have their names inscribed there, of course after a while my chest hair will grow back ..but I’ll know they’re there.

My non-judgemental friend thinks I’m crazy – in “love la-la land” she said.

I’m okay with it.

Simon

A quick caveat – this doesn’t hold true for abusive relationships – psychological or physical.

Aaaaaah The Housemartins

The 80s lacked style? I think not! (With thanks Valerie)

Another busy weekend. On Friday night went specifically to see The Satellite 4 play at Nectar and they did not disappoint. It’s not good to compare bands but they were so much more to my taste than the headliner band and much more accomplished musically. By happenstance I managed to meet band members Jeff Conlin and David Hudson before the gig both were really great guys who love the music they produce – and it shows. After the gig I bought their new CD and have been listening to it constantly ever since. My Reason love it too and are half dancing in their car seats as we drive, they cant stop moving to it.
I want to use excerpts from their songs as incidental music for TBS it would work perfectly so I’m going to call to see if they will let us …if we can at the very least, what with Tyrone Noonan’s quirky theme and Satellite 4s hip vibes we’ll be the coolest soundtrack on youtube without a doubt. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

On Saturday I had an appointment to sell windows in Seattle, the jury is still out on the success of that mission, however the owner of the property Meredith Fishkin and I got on very well, she told me of the work she is doing at Killiandrake and I told her about TBS. Meredith is keen to help out with us – thanks Meredith! and she mentioned that her family is in the SEOing business (her mom, Gillian Muessig is the co-founder/Director of SEOmoz ) she was hosting a gaming party that day so I hung around to meet the guys. One of “the guys” is her brother, Evan Fishkin who once being told about TBS also wanted in, and has agreed to build our website and help SEO it for us…oh joy oh bliss…Thanks Evan! We should rename our production company Ferkin, Merkin and Fishkin – but we’d end up sounding like a bunch of dodgy lawyers …which may not be a bad thing. We bashed around a number of ideas , some of which are fantastic. I’m so stoked we have them onboard and wished I could have stayed longer that day.

I’ll keep you up to speed with events as they happen …maybe.

Simon