Notes On The Process Of Doing Stuff

Type "A" Doing Stuff. The process of doing stuff consumes just about all the time in our lives. Even when we're not doing stuff we're thinking about it. In fact, the time we spend actually doing stuff is relatively brief compared to the time we spend preparing.

Not only that but as we do stuff we find more stuff that needs doing and it becomes a vicious circle. If we could just get away from doing stuff in the first place (especially the stuff we'd be better off leaving alone) we'd probably have a lot more time on our hands. But we can't. We have to do stuff. It's a rule.

Type "B" Doing Stuff. Then we may find ourselves doing things without thinking. A whole nuther story. One might think this process would take up less of our time, but it doesn't. Truth is, we spend just as much of our time afterwards figuring out why or how we did that or how we're going to explain it. So, we're not really better off, time-wise.

The good thing for those of us who find ourselves doing stuff without thinking is we're not control freaks. And we don't do things like order the Waldorf Salad just so we can pick the walnuts out.

Note: "Sorry, I just wasn't thinking" is a great excuse. People have to forgive us when we say that. (The first time.)

Gotta go. Stuff to do.

Type Art and Laughter Playtime

I'm not a type guy. Or at least a good one. (You want to see some fine type check out my colleague Alan Ariail here.) I have an appreciation and fondness for type. But I play. There's a lot of type "art" on the internet and one thing I could never get was people spending all those hours on a piece that ultimately takes you forever to figure out what the heck it says... or means.

Not only that but often what it says doesn't make any sense. Like it's something esoteric or something. To me, type is about when you're trying to tell somebody something, and anything that interferes with the communicative value of that message is something that should be avoided. Unless it's hip art meant to be put on a loft wall and looked at for hours to find the hidden meaning.

On the other hand, there are some interpretations of type out there that are playful, friendly and easy to read; that lend a human character and appeal to words. (Bad example above.)

Ultimately appreciation of lettering is not just about how many fonts or typefaces you have or how you pick them, but about what they say and how they say it.

And in posting this I don't mean to pose as someone worthy of giving some wise wisdom lesson necessary to fulfill your life.

Thank you for taking the time to look at these playtime experiments of mine, done while at home recuperating.

Bill Murray, Bailiff Byrd and Time Shifting

"If you walk up to some random person on the street, grab them by the shoulder, and say 'Did you just see what I saw?!'... you'll find that no one wants to talk to you." ~ Bill Murray

I don't exactly know how to say this so I'll just blurt it out. My cable company recently stopped providing me with a network channel from out west which was giving me the chance to watch a Judge Judy rerun at 7 p.m. if I missed it on their eastern affiliate at 4 p.m. But they took the channel down. At first I didn't know how to take it but I'm okay with it now.

But I left it on my channel selector favorites list because I believe it still provides me with sort of a connection to people 3,350 kilometers away; a few I know but most I don't. When I flip by it on the menu it's nice to know what they're watching and if they're watching it then that means they're probably okay. And that's comforting. It makes me feel at one with them.

And I imagine myself sitting there with them, stealing their popcorn and we're laughing at Bailiff Byrd as he tells people to leave their papers behind on the table as they exit the courtroom. I realize this confession probably upsets a few eastern people because I'm not imagining myself with them but heck, my mind can't be everywhere at once. That would be nuts.

Some day I'll call someone on the phone who lives on the west coast that I don't know and ask them if they've been missing any popcorn lately. If they have I'll confess; knowing they can't tell anyone because no one would ever believe it.

And we'll laugh about old times we haven't had and chat for a few minutes about Newton and Einstein and the physics of time shifting and about how this is not like that at all.

How Much Does It Hurt?

Qualitative scales are all around us and sometimes we get tired of being asked to rate our shite "on a scale of one to ten". Quel ennui.

But things don't have to be humdrum. Here, for example, is a rating scale for pain. There are nine levels without numbers (because ten is just so common and numbers are sometimes just numbers):
None. Think of yourself in your comfy bed, not having to go pee, with cake. And ice cream
Reality TV Star. On par with stubbed toes, while distracting, appearances can normally be tuned out and walked off
Telemarketer. Like a dull headache, this bane of our existence is certainly a nuisance, especially when it calls during dinner
Stupid Commercial. A special quality of misery; the stupider it is, the more it tends to show up over and over again.
Corrupt Official. Nothing a few kind words will fix. It takes advantage of your good nature and needs to be dealt with immediately
Animal Cruelty. A type of distress that digs deep. It makes you wonder who's responsible and how it can be made to go away... and not come back
Child Abuse. Now we enter the realm of the intolerable. This type of insanity defies all logic. Not a level of pain that chanting your mantra is going to help
School Massacre. A totally unbelievable injustice. It makes you forget your name and what language is for, and
Hiroshima. The utmost. This is like the aftermath of being hit by a big truck. Several of them. At once.

We all know that pain of any sort is a message that says, "pay attention, something is going on" and we should use our discretion whether or not to seek medical advice. You might label the levels something totally different and I invite you to take the concept to where it makes sense for you. But you get my drift...

Sometimes numbers just don't do things justice.

Just a thought.

The Magic Of A Few Extra Letters

Down to your last dime? Got something you're trying to market that just isn't clicking with people? Here's a little known, well protected secret. It amounts to an unfair advantage, really. But I'll share it just with you. For free.

Add "pro" to the end of the name of your thing.

Instantly, your endeavor becomes better. Magically, it will become the thing to have. People will snap them up, trust it to perform and forgive it when it doesn't, love it, download the heck out of it and brag about it to their friends. It will trend on Twitter and have its own Facebook group of admirers.

You'll become successful, rich and famous. People will want you on talk shows and publishers will be fighting for the rights to your book. You'll buy an island off the coast of Tahiti and form your own country, which you'll call Proland.

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Of course the above is not true. And more than a bit silly. And the names in the visual are fictional. Plus, I made them up.

Sorry for the lame post today. It's been a strange few weeks. I won't bore you with the details but I will say one thing. Like adding a few extra letters like "pro" to the name of a thing doesn't, in itself, make it better; the same goes for people. Sometimes we meet people with a few extra letters after their name who figure those extra letters automatically makes them superior to others. And that gives them the right to treat others like idiots. It doesn't.

Those Who Spy On Us

They do you know. Birds. They spy on us. They have eyes everywhere. But it's nothing malicious. You're there and visible and therefore available for observation. This is not a new phenomena. The truth is, we've been observed since the dawn of humanity, by a species that began in the Jurassic Period.

They listen from perches, from telephone wires, from limbs of trees and they make mental notes on our activities. They keep tabs on us through windows and some generations of birds have volunteered to be caged and kept in human domiciles.

And they tweet each other about what they see. Not the high tech kind. The original.

Their observances over time could probably fill several hundred libraries, if birds were into writing. There would be many lessons we could learn from their studies. But, they're not; so we can't.

And what do they see from their bird's-eye point of view? There are five strong possibilities:
1) We plant grass just so we can cut it every week or two
2) We tell stories that makes water come out of our eyes
3) We molt a new set of body coverings practically every day
4) We get angry when they crap on our moving machines, and
5) We stay out of the rain but wet ourselves to get clean.

I know all this because I keep an eye on them as they watch us.

It's one of those services I provide to humanity.
 

Overused, Overexposed And Overexamined

Certainly under each of the above subjects there are many more; some more deserving, some less... all depending on your own point of view. These are but a sampling of top of mind. Please note: no messy scientific data included.

Act 2, Scene 1: Where I Forget My Lines

Just when you think life hasn't anything new to offer along comes a little film that rocks you. An Indie film. No major studio involved. Just folks getting together with what money they can drum up and doing something they believe in.

Caught one the other night. A gift. It made me think: 1) How the mainstream studios often miss the mark when it comes to being intelligent and engaging, and 2) How these Indie films aren't always about stuff we can't understand or want to. And that made me think of a third thing: 3) How much our lives may be like little mini-Indies. Raw, real, gritty, funny and at times poignant. Or weird. Sometimes weird is good.

If you subscribe to this last point, you probably already know your own mini-Indie need not be full of pathos and wrought with angst. (Angst is so passé anyway.) Because you decide what your story is. Maybe yours is more romantic comedy. Mine is more of a quirky story and if I had the gumption I'd ask Steve Buscemi to play me. And if I can't get him, I can always play him playing me. If you do something like that too you won't have to worry about it being cheesy. Because people you'd choose probably wouldn't do cheese.

And once in a while, if you're into it, I'd zoom out and give everyone the full picture. It helps others know where you are. And what folks around you are doing. And maybe what you're eating.

As the story evolves, with all the nonsense surrounding us these days, and if we're being real, it's no wonder that sometimes we are at a loss for words, forget our lines, and at times even struggle to find the plot line. But chances are we figure it out in the end. If we don't, why, that's a story in itself.

So if you're into it, consider your days and even particular moments as part of a grander script. Because if we appreciate the subtleties, wackiness and richness of our little lives as we go along, we are tempted to treat those moments of ours, when we're just being human, as treasures.

And maybe the next Indie film that rocks your world will be a very special story.

Yours.

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Above: Studies from "Welcome to the Rileys" written by Ken Hixon and directed by Jake Scott (son of Ridley), with James Gandolfini as Paul and Melissa Leo, as his wife Lois, who become involved on a with Kristen Stewart who plays a teenaged prostitute. And by helping her out a bit the couple finds they feel better and can move on from their own troubles. Along the way cinematographer Christopher Soos does what more people in film and video should. He sets the scene (maybe reminiscent of Edward Hopper) with quick establishing shots. The ones he provides throughout the film obviously took time and vision to set up but those few seconds of unscripted ambient silence speak volumes.

The Irene In Our Dreams

The song is, as kids used to say, as old as the hills and twice as hairy. Some say Goodnight, Irene was the creation of Gussie Lord Davis in 1886, while others believe it older than that – passed on from an old guy to a younger guy. Lead Belly (Huddie Ledbetter) learned it from his uncles (Terell and Bob) around 1908 and by 1932 he had made it his own. In fact, while working on a chain gang in Louisiana, he sang the song to musicologists John and Alan Lomax who presented it to Governor O.K. Allen; an act (legend has it) that helped gain his release from prison.

The last line of the chorus has changed over time. Most recorded versions replace Lead Belly's original "I'll get you in my dreams" with "I'll see you in my dreams," notably the Weavers (who hit number one with it in 1950, a year after Lead Belly's death), and hundreds of others; Pete Seeger, and Willie Nelson included. Tom Waits preferred "I'll kiss you in my dreams." Both a little less feisty than the original.

Such is the way of the old songs. People may change a word here and there to suit themselves but most of the time the overall gist of it remains the same.


The lyrics tell of the singer's troubles with ramblin' and gamblin' and (of course) love. But maybe the essence of the song is rooted in the phrase in my dreams. The words appear set into the song as something of a savior.

The song touches on the fact that we are all toughened from an early age to accept less than we might hope for. The world out there is a great equalizer when it comes to whether our hopes are realized or not. But the "in my dreams" part of the song gives us something of a key to that dilemma: that if we're tough enough, and just crazy enough, we might find that secret place inside of us where all hopes, both impossible and improbable, can be kept safe.

Because, if they're in our dreams, they can never be taken away.

Typos: Bud And Good?

I meant "bad" of course. "Bad And Good." Damn them typographical errors. Guaranteed to drive all us obsessive compulsive, perfectionist, high-brow, nit-pickers totally bitty. (I meant batty.)

You can be a great speller (should I have said spellist?) and very meticulous in everything you do but eventually the ugly, child-eating typo gremlin's gonna get you. You can look at a job for hours, days, even weeks. The job can be proofed twice by three different people. It gets client sign-off and goes for the print order of 250,000. With varnishes, foil stamping and embossing. There's, like, three press checks. Finally, your print samples arrive while the bulk of the order is sent to the direct mail company, personally addressed to a quarter of a million people and sent. It looks gorgeous. Then, somebody walks by your desk, glances at the piece for like a nanosecond and utters the most-hated of hated words; "That's not how you spell that." Curse words, defibrillators and certain prayers of entreaty were invented for moments like this.

Now, a typo may be a mistake that does an instant number on your blood pressure but spotting one that someone else has done can be a bright spot in an otherwise hum-drum day. Like “This contract shall be effective as of the singing of this agreement.” See what happened there? Reverse two letters and you are no longer signing a legal document, you're agreeing to a singalong. Which can be fun. Or miss a single word space and you get a totally different meaning, as in “The penis mightier than the sword.” That there's more than an oops, it's a pack your bag and touch up your résumé thing. Or omitting one little letter, i.e. “Sign up now for our Beauty and Fitness Curse” or “Our massage treatments help relive your pain” is a sure way to attract attention. And “We proudly feature some-day shipping” could be a stab at truth in advertising but most likely not. 

And you might laugh at seeing these but the sad part is that some of that laugh belongs in the "because it wasn't you" world. Not because you're a sadist and enjoy seeing other people shoot themselves in the foot but because some days it's reassuring to know that the gremlins do attack other people as well... and they, too, can have bud days. (I meant bad.)