Tagged: essay
Success Lives in Every Single One of Us.
The Academy Awards came on recently, and though I tend to avoid awards shows these days, it was interesting to see the various actors and actresses put on their masks and play the role of glittering ‘stars’ for the world to admire and emulate and dissect. The globe is indeed obsessed with the concept of celebrity, and people will do seemingly anything to get a piece of their favorites. Their every move is followed, scrutinized, critiqued, and discussed, and as a result, they develop a god-like persona that keeps them posted up and unattainable atop a sky high pedestal. At any rate, I don’t buy into the celebrity hocus pocus, don’t glorify them ad infinitum, and don’t succumb to the idolatrous hero worship, but watching the Oscars does remind me that dreams and goals are attainable.
Above all, those actors honored with nominations and those that won silverware were people that sought to become what they wanted to be. That much is true. Underneath it all, and before they were ‘stars’, they were just regular folk armed with a dream and some balls…balls enough to take a solid crack at an elusive goal. Whether they became actors, animators, writers, directors, sound editors, or some random and nameless dude behind the scenes, they made it to the Everest of award shows and were recognized for their achievements by the highest organization in their field. They started out just like the rest of us (albeit with a bit more luck in many cases no doubt), and made it to the top. It’s a frank reminder that not only do dreams exist, but they can be had and are there for the taking for those courageous enough to set out and go get them.
Success is a beautiful thing. It’s wonderful witnessing the manifestation of a goal, of a work recognized, and the satisfaction of a job well done. How many of us get to not only see the end product of our work, but to do it in style, in front of our peers and a few hundred million admirers? They are artists at the pinnacle of their craft, artists that have displayed their true A-game; in my opinion, it’s a great reminder that if you want something, no matter how big or unrealistic it seems, you can have it if you’re willing to go the distance. If you’re willing to work for it, sweat for it, and keep on going when it seems like all is lost and that your destination is an impossibility. Those folks that graced the stage started just where the rest of us are now, but they made it to the top. Luck, fate, determination, courage, grit, and all the rest came into play, but they made it. That says something.
SaturdayDreaming – The Unique Power of Film and Television.
This SaturdayDreaming installment just so happens to be my very first post on this blog, penned waaaaay back in 2009. It’s been a fun ride. Hope you enjoy, and happy Saturday!
Film is in my blood. When I was a kid, my older brothers and I would literally cycle through the same batch of movies every single day after school. We would craftily rotate between current and old stuff based on the mood. For the hidden singer in us, we had classics like Grease and West Side Story on standby; for the action hero side of our imagination, we watched Excalibur and Total Recall. Here’s the kicker, though – we didn’t just watch these films; we became a part of them. I can recall many light-hearted arguments involving which characters we wanted to be in the movies that we saw (we each wanted to be the coolest character, of course).
We didn’t merely watch Bruce Lee annihilate Chuck Norris in the Colosseum; we were Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris duking it out kung-fu style that day. We didn’t just watch the suave Ludlow brothers of Legends of the Fall; we became the brothers (and of course, I was the coolest). So much of our childhood developed around the TV that we can, to this day, readily quote lines from films that clinically intertwine with our day-to- day conversations.
Not surprisingly, movies and television became our go to form of comedic self-expression. Our lives lit up watching A Different World, Yo! MTV Raps, and The Cosby Show. Much of our childhood unfolded alongside these larger than life characters doing larger than life activities. Sure, we created our own characters, and re-enacted our own daring adventures, but the television was the catalyst that thrust us into that imaginative void; that realm where dreams become reality, and thoughts and deeds transcend what’s perceived to be real.
We weren’t couch potatoes either, I might add; our heroic deeds often spilled into the backyard, where we became mighty sporting heroes and dauntless explorers. In a weird way, movies and TV helped to mold and shape me into the man I am today. My artistic endeavors can all somehow be traced back to those freewheeling days huddled in front of the TV, dreaming about the tales and characters that were being projected into my psyche (and of course, I was the coolest one).
Saturdaydreaming – Where’s the history these days?
When The History Channel launched in 1995, I thought I was in heaven. I remember seeing an advertisement for the channel some months before it first aired, and I just about shit my pants out of pure joy; an entire channel devoted solely to history? It sounded like a dream! And for a long time, it was. At any given time, you could flip that bad boy on and spend hours watching specials on WWII, the Civil War, and all sorts of historically relevant goodness. The network even launched History International, which focused more on world events. It was a great time to be a history fan, no doubt, with all of those gems tucked neatly into one amazing channel.
Then the reality TV boom hit, and just like that, the fabled joy of historical television went the way of the passenger pigeon. I was flipping channels this morning and happened to see a WWII documentary on- and I did a double take. The History Channel was actually showing history? Was my brain playing a trick on me? What’s the world coming to? The channel has gone the way of MTV (and seemingly every other channel, for that matter), and almost exclusively airs reality programming. It’s all day Appalachian Outlaws (you’ve gotta be be kidding me on that one), Mountain Men, Ax Men, Ice Road Truckers, Swamp People (c’mon now), Pawn Stars, and a slew of absolute junk that has zero to do with anybody’s history. It makes me wonder why the hell I don’t have a show…I couldn’t do any worse than The Legend of Shelby the Swamp Man, right? Why even call it the History Channel, then?
I do think that it’s an absolute crime that kids today (and the majority of adults for that matter) know more about Snookie and the Housewives, Bieber, and the Kardashians than they do about the events that have shaped the climate of the world they live in. And a channel like the History Channel, the ultimate platform for promoting the genre, only showing shock value garbage like Cajun Pawn Stars, is pure blasphemy. It’s a testament to the consistent dumbing down of the American public at the hands of mainstream media. As long as folks keep watching Duck Dynasty, networks will keep putting that meal onto our plates. I’m not insulting anyone for their viewing tastes, mind you, but rather the lack of variety or intellectual fare available. As in, what are we really learning from Storage Wars? As it stands, no channel really shows much of anything anymore- it’s pretty much a steady stream of reality TV; channels like the History Channel (or Discovery, A&E, and other channels that have abandoned any attempt at real life relevance) have the power to fill a great void, but manage to maintain a viewer base with shows created purely for the wow factor (Honey Boo Boo, anyone?). It says a lot when the American public knows more about who won American Idol than they do about who won the Civil War. That’s just my take on it.
musings at random. 