Category: True Life Adventures
Creative Mondays #007 – Nothing ever comes out done
Last week I wrote about the concept of: Don’t do what you don’t want to do. It was an idea that had struck me when I went to see Joel Hodgson’s Riffing Myself show last weekend. I had two more thoughts from that show and I want to touch on the next one this week.
During Joel’s show he spoke a lot about the things that influenced him growing up as a kid. He talked about being captivated by the artwork of Roger Dean. If you don’t know, Roger Dean was an artist who is probably best known for doing the artwork for the covers of several albums for the band Yes. Those far out, alien looking, landscapes? Those were by Roger Dean. When Joel was younger Roger Dean released a book called Visions. It collected a bunch of artwork to that point in his career, but not only did the book include the artwork, it also showed the process of the artwork. From pencils sketches, through refinements, to the finished project, Roger showed step by step how things were made. Roger Dean also introduced Joel to the concept of kitbashing, or taking different parts from different model kits and combining them together to create something new. A technique Joel would later use to build robots for a certain television show.
One part of the book that really captured Joel’s attention was a page where Roger showed the process he took to create the logo for the band Yes. The swooping, sort of intertwined, logo that the band still uses to this day. That page, that showed the evolution of the logo from start to finish in a series of different photos of drawings was a lightbulb moment for Joel. Until that point, he had never realized that finished products aren’t just instantly created.
During his talk, Joel said the phrase, “If it’s not perfect, it’s not done.” I later talked to him about this statement and clarified clarified a bit saying that nothing comes out perfect the first time. It takes work to get something right. There’s a lot of trial and error in working to get something right.
I was happy for this clarification because the word ‘perfect’ opens up a lot of troubling doors, in my opinion. I’ll write about the ‘quest for perfection’ in the weeks to come. But the point Joel is making here is, as I said above, art just doesn’t come out perfect immediately.
If you’re writing a song, very rarely is it finished on first pass. Same with writing a book, play or script. Painting, sculpting, the list goes on. Creating art doesn’t just come out as a finished product.
I will take this stance however, it’s it okay to continue to create as you are refining your process. My example for that is my podcast The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd. If you listen to first season episodes and compare them to season eight episodes there is a world of difference. The pacing is tighter, the sound quality is better, it’s just an overall better show. That’s because there was a huge learning curve in how to edit and create an episode over those eight seasons. I learned a lot about editing audio and it shows. Also I think my writing improved from season one to season eight.
In sticking with the topic of ‘nothing comes out done,’ I wouldn’t say those season one episodes weren’t done. I worked on them just as hard as I did season eight episodes. I was just better at the work in those later years.
I think the takeaway here is that it takes some time to create art. Nothing ever comes out done
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Is the idea of ‘nothing ever comes out done’ true in your creative work? How long does it take for you to finally say, “That’s done, I’m moving on to the next piece?” Let me know in the comments below.
Creative Mondays #006 – Don’t do what you don’t want to do.
Saturday night I got to see one of my creative mentors, Joel Hodgson, speak at the Tower Theatre in Roseville, CA. He was presenting his one man show ‘Riffing Myself’ which is a look back at what lead to his creation of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and a talk on how he approaches creativity.
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Laughing until I cry.
I’m currently developing a live show with my good friend John B. deHaas. If it ever happens it’ll be an interactive show for families to enjoy that’s filled with music, improv, comedy and more.
In doing the research for this show I’ve been looking up a lot of clips on YouTube from Walt Disney World’s, now extinct, Adventurer’s Club. If you are unfamiliar, the Adventurer’s Club was a nightclub at Walt Disney World’s Pleasure Island. It was an intracately themed nightclub that was set in the year 1937. The moment you walked in the door, you were transported to the time of big game hunting and world exploration. The, mulit sotired, building was filled with the usual artifacts and, fake, animal heads, you’d expect and it was also filled with seven or eight actors playing different members of the club. These characters would interact with you and then lead you in to various rooms where there shows including a radio drama broadcast, a telethon and a tall tale telling competition.
I went there for the first time in the early 2000’s and was instantly captivated. Unfortunately, my first trip would be my last as I didn’t get back to Walt Disney World before they closed it down. The loose insanity of the the goings on in that club have stayed with me though and have inspired me greatly. Wen we used to do the old Dr. Floyd Live shows we tried to capture that spirit. Or at least that was my goal. Also, I sing Bessie The Heiffer, a song I first heard at the Adventurer’s Club, in my kids show.
At any rate, the fun thing about the Adventurer’s Club was that there were several songs that rotated through the night. In doing my research for this show I’m working on, I came across the song Don’t Go In The Lion’s Cage Tonight. Below is a video. Please watch.
Hilarious right. Really funny. And while some may not think that it’s 10% family friendly, I think it actually is. I think kids wouldn’t get exactly what was going on with the maracas. Maybe they would. But it is not raunchy by any means.
Anyway, after searching for clips and coming across that one and watching a few different versions, I came across the following one. Now, yes, I know you’ve just watched the song seconds ago. Watch it again. Do not skip to this one, watch the previous one first and then this one. You’ll thank me.
I have watched this at least 5 times today and I have cried with laughter each time.
This is the type of show I’d love to create. A show that parents can bring their kids to and still have a blast. Okay, back to work.
A Tribute To Charley & Humphrey
I’m sure I do not have to tell you that the internet is an amazing place. If you are sitting around and you suddenly have a fleeting thought of some obscure childhood toy you had as a kid, through the power of Google, second later you could be browsing a site devoted to that toy.
I remember, as a kid, I once played with this weird toy that was a a goat that ate things. That’s all the toy was, a big plastic goat that came with all this stuff you could make him eat. I type in the phrase ‘goat toy eat” into google and seconds later I’m looking at videos of the toy in action. The toy was called Gobbles The Garbage Eating Goat and there is discussion about him going on all over the internet. Heck, if you’d like to see a 3 minute video of Gobbles in action you can CLICK HERE.
The internet is truly an amazing place.
The internet is also responsible for reconnecting me with a nugget of childhood nostalgia in the form of Charley & Humphrey. When I was a kid, after school cartoons and shows in the San Francisco Bay Area were on KTVU Channel 2. G.I. Joe, Diff’rent Strokes and more would occupy the time between homework and dinner. And during the commercials of those shows, KTVU would run little PSAs called Bits & Pieces. There were several that rotated throughout the afternoon but my favorites always included Charley & Humphrey.
Charley, the horse and Humphrey the bulldog were two puppets who gave little one minute lessons on topics including leaving bees alone, the importance of the Coast Guard and this classic on borrowing without asking…
These characters were created by KTVU’s weatherman Pat McCormick. Looking back at these with some puppeteer experience under my belt I can see what I didn’t see as a kid. Pat is puppeteering both characters. True, he’s a little off on lip sync but when you realize he’s doing both voices back and forth, it’s pretty neat. I had these memorized they played them so much. Even to this day I can recite the bee one (which has yet to surface on the internet) by heart and part of the one about the Coast Guard. A few years ago I found a guy selling T-shirts of Charley & Humphrey online and, of course, I bought one.
In trying to come up with ideas of short videos to make featuring Uncle Interloper I stumbled upon the idea of doing something in the same vein as these Bits & Pieces PSAs. I sat down and wrote about ten of them, they were super fun to write, and on New Year’s Day my friend Russ Walko and I shot a few of them. The first is scheduled to go out this weekend over at UncleInterloper.com and on his PODCAST, but I thought I’d share it here with you, the readers of my blog.
They came out a touch longer, I supposed they could do with some editing down, but I think they are fun and capture the spirit of those old vignettes I used to watch as a kid. I hope that if Pat McCormick ever saw them, he would enjoy the tribute.
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How’d I do? Did I capture the spirit of these classic bits? Let me know what you think in the comments below.