Yes, it’s about time that I acknowledge my mother here in this creative space… and what I have found to share with you from her is also about time. Though this project has been off my daily tasklist for awhile, I think of it often. A lot of great things are happening for me which I’m very thankful for, and increasingly, my busy days are merging into the nighttime spaces where, in the past, I’ve been successful writing creatively. Would you laugh if I told you that lately, I’ve just been too sleepy for any of that? That’s the truth…
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Saturday Morning, Age 28 by Roger Darnell film scheduling, scriptsfriendly smiling caring peoplemaking a TV show at network levelthat’s funny, aspires to and achieves quality music is lengthening its shadowswilling a promising luminance fingers tinkling atop the ivoriesharmonies released at last oh my aunts and unclesthe older friends of my parentsmy grandparents my parents my siblingsdear friends dear strangers every being exists for a purposerecognized, taunted, lost, sold, claimedtaken for granted, lived to the fullestit’s up to you and me my friends
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In the days since that last posting, we have traveled many miles and experienced much of the best that life has to offer. We are savoring the joys, and also the aftertaste of some of the sorrows, and very thankful to be right where we are. And yet, with so many ambitions still beckoning me personally, and with any given day producing only limited results of the types imagined, it is often a serious challenge to carry on, to begin the next endeavor. This quandary has been the source of inspiration for many of the poems I’ve written. Here’s one…
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. February 22, 1991: Bumper Crop, Part 1 . June 29, 1991: Bumper Crop, Part 2 . June 29, 1991: Bumper Crop, Part 3 . December 5, 2008: Bumper Crop is now live In February of 1993, together with my friends Bill Waxler, Peter Eisner and Bob Storer, I spent a very interesting day assembling the picture and sound for “Bumper Crop” at Digital Multi-Media Post, Bob’s treasure-laden post-production facility in Orlando. There, in Mr. Storer’s hands, we saw the performance Harry Phipps had given us nearly two years before edited together to present the story I’d written, based on…
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Yesterday I wrote a piece for my agency blog entitled “Start cultivating your creativity right now.” In that, I published an excerpt from the forthcoming book “An Illustrated Life” contributed by graphic designer, illustrator and book artist Roz Stendahl. Here are her words, which really made an impression on me: “I love blank pages. They scream possibilities to me. They clamor for attention. They call to me from across the room while I’m trying to do other work.” Looking back on my own experiences as a would-be writer over the years, it’s easy for me to see that my own…
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The ‘Bumper Crop‘ series has at least one more entry, but requires a bit more work on my part before I can post the rest of the story. In the meantime, I wanted to share something from a more recent work. After we moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains almost exactly seven years ago, I found my creative writing energies more or less depleted. Soon, being a father added a new dimension to my life, and the one creative project that stayed on my agenda was to write an epic poem for Amelia, detailing the first day of her life…
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. February 22, 1991: Bumper Crop, Part 1 . June 29, 1991: Bumper Crop, Part 2 . February 26, 1993: Bumper Crop, Part 3 . December 5, 2008: Bumper Crop is now live… Thanks to everyone for the feedback on “Bumper Crop,” the short script I wrote back in 1991 for my friend Bill Waxler to direct. The story is about an older man who awakens from a dream that shines a new light on a long-held misconception which had affected him deeply throughout his life. Finally understanding that he was not responsible for his brother’s accident long ago, his…
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. Feb. 22, 1991: Bumper Crop, Part 1 . June 29, 1991: Bumper Crop, Part 2 . February 26, 1993: Bumper Crop, Part 3 . December 5, 2008: Bumper Crop is now live… A new film school grad fresh off a six-year Air Force Reserve commitment, this time of life was alive with possibilities. I was in love with a girl named Beth — 15 months later we married, and at this moment, we’re approaching our 16th anniversary. With that solid foundation and a lot of experience, I ventured into the “professional” world of filmmaking. On Feb. 25, I interviewed…
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I spent nearly six years in the Air Force Reserves, beginning almost exactly 23 (gulp!) years ago. Indeed, I spent my 19th birthday in boot camp in San Antonio, Texas, and every now and then, one or another of the deep-seated memories from that time comes back to me. I remember the cold April wind and the noisy birds that greeted us each morning, and the total lack of personal liberties that led me from one task to the next, along with my fellow junior airmen. By the fall of 1988, I was doing my annual two-week tour… as it…
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Nearly five years after writing ‘The Nil,’ I was in a very unique place in my life. I’d anticipated having some great success the previous year, in 1988, when I was 22. Alas, it was one of the most difficult years of my life. But I came through it in a good way, learning to find my own way and apply what talents I had with thoughtful determination. I continued writing and submitting poetry, and collected a lot of rejection slips. I also started writing a humor column for my college newspaper not too long after this date. But on…