Hey Daren!

Hey, Daren Foster! Thanks for reading my blog, Daren Foster!

For those of you know who may not know Daren, he's a very funny, intelligent and (I don't say this lightly) insightful writer whom I happen to count among my favourite people.

And there's two other things you should know about Daren.

One, he reads this blog. The only one, I shouldn't wonder.

Two, he mentioned me in his column, only not by name. Embarrassed, most likely. Not that I blame him. I wouldn't mention myself by name, given the choice. In fact, I haven't.

Signed,

Mystery Man

There ain't no innoculation against bacterial Eureka

I spend a considerable amount of time thinking about this blog. I often wonder, what am I going to write about? I come with some thing great, something really great and mentally check that item off in the do to list of my mind.

Big mistake.

I walk trough life in a haze - a gut churning feeling that I had the single best idea of my life, but since forgot it. Constantly. I just can't be always writing things down. sometimes my hands are full. Or I'm in the middle of doing the dishes. Or out with friends. I can't constantly be whipping out a voice recorder in the middle of someone's story about their Patagonian vacation. I mean, I write down a lot of ideas - just, it seems, none of the good ones.

I sit down at my 'puter, flex my fingers over the wireless keyboard... and realize that idea I've been dying to add to digital memory all day is gone. And it was good.

Or maybe I only thought it was good. You ever get an idea in the middle of the night that excites you so much you can't go back to sleep, but then in the morning you think about it and it is clearly a steaming pile of tar sap? That happens too.

But some of them surely must be good. Some of the lost ideas. I walk around in a fog borne of evaporated inspiration, the very air around me is largely part oxygen, part nitrogen, part world shattering insights. No matter how hard I scrub my hands, there's always little particles of sub-atomic stories that get on my food, and leave me when I shake hands with people. Or get stuck on a subway pole, only to be transferred to someone else like a bacterial Eureka.

The next time you're on the Bloor/Danforth line and you get a good idea, that's mine you mo-fo!

I'm infecting the world with thoughts trickling out some tiny hole in the back of my head. Every time my cat grooms himself, he's swallowing the solution the second act problems I'm having with my likable villain. I'm sure that once I heard my downstairs neighbour dusting, and suddenly exclaim, "Hey, I know how to interweave the B-story! What's a B-Story!?"

Now, I want you to understand that I'm not paranoid. Just because I've taken to wrapping my head in tin foil to keep the ideas in, doesn't mean anything.

Now, if only I could remember a good subject to write a blog entry about...

Jury Duty, and no, not the Pauly Shore Movie

Ah, Pauly Shore. His mom owned a comedy club, and he got famous. He dated a porn star, and got upset because he couldn't stay famous. I think there's a tragic story there.

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to post in the last couple of days, and here I am posting that I won't be posting (most likely) for the next little while. I am, for lack of better words, going to jury duty.

Jury duty fascinates many of the people I talk to about it. Beyond, you know, the fact that anything that dribbles out of my mouth is fascinating. People are mystified about jury duty (both the thing and the movie). Where are going? How long will it last? What's the trial? How much do you get paid?

Well... I'll tell you. I'm going to some building downtown - I have the letter here somewhere. They say it'll take at least a week, if not more. They don't say what the trial is. And no, you don't get paid.

And here's the kicker - according to the sparse FAQ the government sends out along with the actual summons, you can't get out of it. If you can prove severe financial hardship, you can delay it. Being a freelance writer, I don't work I don't pay rent. I don't have any vacation pay or sick days or anything like that. And the other side of the coin is that any time I don't hustle setting up work for the future, there's less chance of work coming in. I'm off for a week, I might not get work in again for another two or three weeks.

Our whole system of government is not set up well when it comes to creative entrepreneurs. Our accountant handles creative types, and he describes a sitchuashion where this guy, we'll call him guy, guy works on getting his movie made for five years. For four years he makes almost nothing. On the fifth year he makes a million dollars. (I guess he's making a Tom Cruise movie, who knows). Our accountant feels that for tax purposes, this guy, guy, should be allowed to spread his earnings over the last five tax years, paying out at a lower overall tax bracket.

You know, it sounds a lot more exciting when he says it. I promise to limit my taw stories in the future.

I talked to another guy, but not named guy, who went through a jury duty scare. It took him a long time to convince them that he had to be on set for his TV show during that week. "Couldn't you take some time off, or have someone cover you?" They did not seem to understand that this week of being on set was something he had been working towards for months - if not (in one hyperboliptical way of looking at it) his whole life. Although, eventually he did talk his way out of it.

Maybe I'm being lazy by not fighting against my civic duty, by I'm biting the bullet (so manly!) and going in. Sure, it's causing me problems, but what's interesting is that I have no idea how this is going to go. And neither does anyone I've talked to. This is an entirely uncharted area.

Oh, as I spend a lot of time telling you what everyone always says to me about things, here's what people always say to me about jury duty; tell them you're racist. I know they're joking, that's the common joke you say about Jury Duty - a little like the 'who's there' to a knock knock joke. If people stopped saying 'who's there' the entire culture of knock knock jokes would be extinct, making second grade a much less humourous place.

Anyway (as my mom always says) my point is that I just out and out could not sell being racists. It would come out in a mummble, while I'm blushing like mad and stuttering over the juicy bits. They wouldn't believe me. And then that would be more embarrassing than actually being a racist. Because I would be the guy who said horrible, hateful, hurt filled things just to get out of jury duty - and everyone would know it. All my fellow jurers. They'd be shuffling away from me in that wooden box off to the side.

And the twenty year reunion would suck.

Coming Soon! Maybe...

This is just to say that I have been working behind the scenes on a post involving a beloved moment from Sesame Street. I'm only telling you this for the comedy value in the wink wink nod nod understanding between you and me that, in all likelihood, I will never get around to finishing it.

Enjoy!

Footloose and Fancy Free!

Much of my life is modeled on the Muppet Movie. A flick that I'm sure will be recovered in a thousand years and turned into a religion. Time will be expressed B.K. and A.K. (Before and After Kermit). Muppets Tonight will be rightly dismissed as Apocrypha. Theologians will argue how many of Gonzo's chickens can dance on the head of a pin, and elaborate rituals will be undertaken to ensure that your protected against the sinful mutterings of Statler and Waldorf. The only part they don't like will be pigs in space, because by that time they will have conclusively proved that pigs can not fly space ships. Cows make much better astronauts.

The reason I'm humming an upbeat number from Kermit and Fonzie is entirely due to the mail. You see, as a self employed freelancer, checking the mail is exactly like playing the lottery. Each time you have big expectations, but most times you are deeply, deeply disappointed. And sometimes, you are in for s big surprise. We never know exactly when money is going to be coming in, so when it does it is like it comes out of nowhere. And it is usually so far behind the actual work that it really does seem divine.

I guess, somewhere, the lord Kermit is watching out for me. Through the intervention of his... uh... nephew Robin. Nephew. Right.

Keeping up with Your Responsibilities is a Very Important Aspect of our Adult Lives

It's late but I have told myself I can't go to bed until I do a blog post.

Huh. That was easy! Good night!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Solomon Burke...; Spaceship Earth, the other kind

I'm listening to a song, right now, that never fails to get me. "None of us are free, if one of us is in chains, none of us our free." By a very overlooked singer that goes by the handle of Solomon Burke.

My fiancee and I just re-watched the Sopranos. I know, there are two things everyone says to me right away. (I always seem to be talking about the things that everyone always says to me. Why is it?) One, is that there were a bunch of bad episodes "in the middle somewhere." But no one can name any of those episodes. The other thing is people say, "I think they all die at the end." Everyone's entitled to their opinions, even when they're wrong. But that's not what I want to talk about. If you've seen the last season, you'll know these words, "We go about in pity for ourselves, when all along a great wind carries us through the sky."

These kinds of things really resonate with me, because it seems painfully obvious to me that we're all in this together. Kinda like the whole Spaceship Earth thing, except not in an environmental kind of way. I think a lot of people pay lip service to this idea, but then go about their day, cursing the guy at Starbucks and their boss and the price of gas at the pump. We tsk tsk at China burning Tibet and get ready to watch our guys win at the Olympics.

I like to think that I'm helping people out, in my chosen profession. I like to think that songs that Mr. Burke's and shows like that of Mr. Chase spread a tiny morsel of insight to unsuspecting audiences. Maybe I can do that, some day. It has become out of fashion to read fiction, or (shudder) watch TV. Like that kind of empty entertainment is only a waste of our valuable time. Instead we could read yet another non-fiction book that tells us how right we already are. So we can all be reading the same book at networking events and see and be seen charity events.

Fiction is the single greatest crowning achievement of humanity.

Fiction lets us step, for however brief or imperfect a time, into another's role. To see the world through their eyes. To understand that our point of view is not the only point of view.

The very act of living vicariously through someone else, even someone fictional, is an act that makes it easier to feel like we are part of something larger. A part of something to which there is no whole.

The more we learn about how others live, the more we understand how we live, the more we understand others.

We're all in this together. It would be better if more of us started to act like it.