Lyrically Motivated

Success in any venture can be influenced by a multitude of factors, such as natural talent, personality, existing connections, or simply luck, but all of those elements are influenced by the ability to generate and maintain motivation. However, motivation, in my experience, is the most difficult trait to not only maintain, but make a core part of your overall personality.

Motivation levels influence every element of daily activity, and the weekday work routine can grind that level down to zero. Following a nine-hour work day, bookended by a combined two hours of commuting, I personally don't want to do anything other than aimlessly read soccer blogs and play Mass Effect 3 (I've beaten the game twice already, but I need to finish my Renegade, Cortez-romancing play-through...video games are bad for you, you guys). I'll admit that lack of motivation is the core reason I've only updated this blog once since October 2012, and why my fully outlined fantasy comedy/noir novel has been stuck on page 40 since January.

Yet, particularly in my professional field, living in a market where stable creative marketing jobs are scarce, it's not enough anymore to punch a clock and go home. Achieving the visibility needed to become a financially successful creative marketer requires you to be "on" until you are sleeping. I know four people, all of whom are more advanced in their marketing careers than I am, who also run their own startup firms* and blog regularly.

The next set of posts I plan on writing detail the steps I have taken to try and grow consistent motivation levels, and the one I am highlighting today is finding role models in unconventional channels - artists who have carved their own niche through creativity, hard work and willpower, and carry an inspiring message.

Outside of work, my major interests are in comic books and pop culture. When it comes to those interests, the best site in terms of editorial quality and content diversity is ComicsAlliance, and that site led me to the fantastic world of YouTube musicians.

I've always admired musicians and songwriters because of the multiple intelligences and imagination required to make truly vibrant music. Musicians need to not only be master linguists and imagine the complementary nonverbal tones and beats necessary to create memorable music, but they have to have a confidence and stage presence that connects with audiences at a universal level.

My personal problem with popular music, though (and this is obviously not a new complaint) is that it's too manufactured. Record companies recycle the same songwriters constantly, and the goal of these writers is to apparently ensure the song can fit in a movie trailer. These companies' influence over what airs on major radio stations guarantees their chosen artist becomes popular due to sheer overexposure. The lyrics are so thematically indistinct and artificial that to me it really just becomes noise. Even musical instruments are disappearing. YouTube musicians, despite working in a largely uncharted channel, I feel are taking music back to its roots, letting their creativity run wild in a way that isn't present on the radio dial.

One of the most prominent YouTube musicians and the personification of the channel's vibrant creativity is Lindsey Stirling. I first found out about Lindsey when her Zelda Medley was posted on ComicsAlliance, which led me to track down her other music videos. A classically trained violinist, Lindsey has taken the instrument out of the narrow confines of classical music and into the realms of rock, electronica, dub step, and even nu-metal. Drawing inspiration from video games ranging from Skyrim to Just Dance, as well her own original compositions, Lindsey has parlayed her 2010 quarterfinal appearance on America's Got Talent into a worldwide touring schedule and six-figure record sales without major label backing.

I attended one of Lindsey's concerts this past winter and it's easy to see why she's developed a hugely devoted fan following (nearly every Facebook post she makes has multiple marriage proposals in the comments, in multiple languages) and nearly three million YouTube subscribers. Literally a bodily-kinesthetic genius, Lindsey is self-taught in a hybrid of ballet and club dance, effortlessly floating across the stage while flawlessly playing one of the hardest instruments to master. Her show is a confluence of amazingly detailed costuming, choreography and stage production, creating one of the most enthralling live performances I have ever attended.

Beyond the uniqueness of her music and live performances, Lindsey Stirling's obvious appeal as a role model for motivation is the intensive work she put into growing her personal brand. Acting as her own agent, location scout and seamstress, Lindsey independently produced a tremendous body of musical work, cultivating the needed connections to create professional quality music videos in a variety of evocative settings, while crafting her own costumes and compositions. Her connection to her fans has also not wavered despite her success, holding question-and-answer sessions before her concerts and spreading a message of personal confidence to young adults as a motivational speaker.

Lindsey Stirling is arguably the most successful of YouTube-grown artists, but she is far from the only one breaking through the musical glass ceiling online. I first heard of Adam WarRock as a result of being an unabashed, enthusiastic fan of Chris Haley and Curt Franklin's "Let's Be Friends Again"** webcomic (to the point of wishing I could be their 18th century Europe-style patron so they could create awesome stuff forever). Haley and WarRock (real name Eugene Ahn) co-host the Gravity Falls Gossiper podcast, where beyond talking about the cult Disney Channel show they carry a thoughtful, compelling and often hilarious dialogue about "life and stuff." During a particularly tough time for me mentally, listening to those podcasts got me through the day with a smile, and led me to check out the Adam WarRock catalog in earnest.

A former lawyer who decided to pursue his musical ambitions as a career, Adam WarRock has toured the country as a pioneer of "nerdcore" rap, composing critically acclaimed songs about offbeat pop culture ranging from the X-Men and Firefly to Futurama, Game of Thrones, and Parks and Recreation. What's most impressive about him, beyond his prodigal lyrical talent, is the sheer volume of creativity that pours out of his head. Producing new, free music every week, WarRock has amassed song production in the triple digits in the space of a few years.

I went to the Adam WarRock concert at Comicazi in Somerville last week, and despite the unusual and intimate setting (it was definitely my first time attending a concert surrounded by action figures) it was the only concert I've been to where a smile never left my face. One of Eugene/WarRock's greatest strengths as a performer is his ability to make you feel like you're his best friend even though you've never met. Between songs, he told amusing stories about his friends and past performances with the ease of a seasoned standup comedian, keeping the crowd rapt with attention even when not rapping about "that Hawkguy dude" or ""the Kingslayer".

Beyond his tireless work ethic, what I admire most about Adam WarRock is his advocacy in pop culture as a positive force, especially for young people. His song "Tell Me" is a reassurance to young adults that they should be proud of their interests and to protect them with integrity, which is difficult in a culture where bullying is becoming increasingly invasive and harder to avoid. During the concert he also spoke about how comics and comic shops can create a supportive community for all groups and orientations, which was evident by the friendly atmosphere and frequent regular events at Comicazi.

I am not a musician, beyond a few fractured attempts at playing the guitar in college, but it doesn't mean you can't find sources of motivation outside of your typical aptitudes. The drive, success and positive messages of people like Lindsey Stirling and Adam WarRock has played a huge role in my efforts to effect change for myself, and reinforced my belief that just because you have external and internal challenges to your success, it is not impossible to overcome them and achieve the fulfillment that you want.

Postscript/Plugs:
*Since I mentioned the startups of people I knew in this post, I thought I would note them here and help with some awareness-driving:

• The Paper Compass, a creativity coaching and consultancy run by my former graduate professor, Brenna McCormick. You can vote for her and Thomas Vogel's SXSW Interactive panel here.
• Tidal Strategies, a social media strategy firm co-run by Christine Turnier and Jessica Krywosa, both of whom were a tremendous help in initiating me in the world of higher education marketing.
• Rogue Social, based in Rhode Island and offering services in PR, social media and events, run by my childhood neighbor and pop culture blogger, Adri Cowan.

**"Let's Be Friends Again," or some form of it, returns to regular posting on September 4th. I'm looking forward to my wedding more, but this is a close second.

A Dark Matter in Cultural Collaboration

I have been very disappointed in myself for not posting on this blog since October, particularly since I feel like I have an enormous backlog of topics I want to cover. I have posts half-written in my head about Big Data and its impact on creativity, reviews of documentaries on the creative process starring some of my favorite auteurs, lessons learned from my recent job transition, and even more comic think-pieces. However, even with a lot of milestones and changes going on in my personal life, I've had the time to write all of them, but not the motivation to sit down and sketch out an organized piece.

Unfortunately, the one topic that's spurred me to write immediately is one that might force me to shut down the email account associated with this blog. While browsing my usual news networks last night, I came across the news that Dr. Stephen Hawking pulled out of the Israeli Presidential Conference, joining the "cultural and academic boycott" against Israel. I was so infuriated and disgusted after reading that article that I felt the public thought inhibitors in my brain break and I rushed to my computer.

The Israel/Palestine conflict is (almost literally) the hottest-button topic in world politics and blanketed in a thousand shades of grey. As someone whose formative years took place during the growth of the Internet and is sharply aware of the damage online brain leakings can cause, I'd like to make clear this is not an opinion piece on that issue, and this post is not supporting one nation over another. I would feel exactly the same way if it was an academic and cultural boycott against Palestine, India, Pakistan, North Korea, or I don't know, Micronesia.

Dr. Hawking, beyond his reputation as the most brilliant theoretical physicist and cosmologist in the post-World War II era, is also the world's public face for advanced science in popular culture. I grew up watching Dr. Hawking's likeness on The Simpsons, Futurama and most recently, America's most popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory. Along with Carl Sagan, Hawking's books (both children's and adult) and documentary specials paved the way for other "celebrity scientists" like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku, helping make daunting subjects like physics more accessible to the public than ever. Hawking's role as the figurehead for all of popular science is, to the world at large, a far greater part of his legacy than his resolution of the black hole information paradox.

Despite Dr. Hawking's obvious brilliance, by joining this boycott he has failed to recognize what was obvious to high school graduate Stan Lee, that "with great power comes great responsibility." Science, and in my opinion especially physics and cosmology, should remind us that there are exponentially greater forces in the universe than what we experience on Earth and as a unified species, we have so much more to strive toward understanding. Science is supposed to appeal toward collaboration among all of humanity in order to build a more livable and enlightened world. Hawking has now utilized his position as the world public's scientific ambassador to endorse shutting off a nation from knowledge sharing, the most basic and essential tenet of the scientific process.

The exclusionary attitude of this boycott is not only the basest and honestly, most obscene form of hypocrisy from a man in Hawking's position, it runs counter to the nature of modern scientific advancement. One of NASA's central figures in the mid-20th century was Wernher von Braun, the "Father of Rocket Science" and developer of the Saturn V launch vehicle used in the Apollo missions. He was also a highly decorated military officer during World War II, and it's fairly easy to guess he didn't work for the Allies. The International Space Station (key word International) is a joint project among the American, Russian, Japanese, European, and Canadian space agencies, not exactly a set of groups with complementary agendas. It has been noted in multiple media outlets that the technology that allows Dr. Hawking to communicate is based on work by Intel's technical team in Israel. BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, a biotech firm that's developed an encouraging treatment for ALS, which Hawking has suffered from the majority of his adult life, is also based in Israel.

The basic idea of intercultural relations building knowledge in the global community is hardly new, and dates back to the dawn of civilization. Our modern understanding of mathematics and algebra was cultivated by Arabic cultures in the pre-Rennaissance era. A quick Google search revealed this timeline site which reveals major advances in multiple disciplines originating all over the world dating back to 2400 BCE. You can crack open any history textbook for countless other examples, which makes the concept of "cultural and academic boycott" all the more blasphemous, and Hawking's tacit approval of it all the more disappointing.

The timing of Dr. Hawking's announcement could not be worse, as there is an ongoing struggle in the United States to prevent the marginalization, and in some cases outright exclusion of the scientifically accepted theory of evolution from classrooms. The controversy over the Louisiana Science Education Act has become the most prominent battleground among leading minds for ensuring that all children and young adults are given complete access to knowledge that forms the basis of chemistry, physics and biology. Does Dr. Hawking realize the damage that could potentially be done to that effort, now that one of the world's most recognized scientists has now essentially said that knowledge exclusion is acceptable?

Science, as well as all academic thinking and creative thought, is wholly dependent on open collaboration. No political agenda should ever impede humanity's search for greater knowledge, as a healthy and sustainable cultural dialogue is imperative for humanity as a whole to thrive. I would think that's something that would be universally understood, and it's a terrible shame Dr. Hawking and other figures involved in this boycott do not.

Work, Love and Bruce Campbell

My personal favorite piece in my creative portfolio is called "Reboot Your Life," a spec ad promoting Monster.com that I created for one of my graduate classes at Emerson College. Beyond the fact it's the only piece where I demonstrate more than rudimentary design talent, it conveys the "Journey" deep metaphor in a narrative format that is pop culturally relevant and makes full use of color theory to clearly chart the protagonist's emotional arc.

However, just because you really like your own work doesn't mean you should let it sit there, inert. While I presented the main character's journey as a fairly direct trip through a sea of irritation until he reached his source of happiness, I just recently recognized it as an Orphean journey. A journey for happiness is essentially a journey for love. You spend the majority of your life with (ideally) one person and one career, and you go through a figurative Hades for both, sometimes without total success. Dating and job searches are even essentially equivalent processes now as well. There is no basic difference between criteria like "must love dogs and musicals" and "3-5 years experience required" (a phrase I'm come to hate with an intensity reserved for pedestrians who wander into traffic when the light turns green).

Careers are no different than relationships in that the first love isn't necessarily the final one. The first love though, is unique in that it comes in the time in your life when it feels like it will be the only one. It's impossibly hot and intense and you forsake almost everything else to make it work. However, when it ends it's also the one that hurts the most, and in my experience it also plays a major role in shaping your permanent worldview.

My first love seduced me with a devil-may-care swagger, a great sense of humor, and a spectacular chin. While in high school, I was having a great time trying out television production, going out for school clubs and internships but not really ready to make any real commitment. There were other stable options like psychologist and lawyer that were compatible with my educational profile, and my parents were dying to set me up with them.

The catalyst for taking the plunge into television came from reading Bruce Campbell's autobiography If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor. While I was only somewhat familiar with Bruce from Army of Darkness, Hercules and Xena, I bought the book due to positive word-of-mouth and a constant interest in genre television.

Bruce's story, without any hyperbole whatsoever, changed the course of my life. His story about growing up with a close-knit group of friends who loved filmmaking, and had the confidence and entrepreneurial spirit to both create and market their own movies, spoke to the life that constantly filled my dreams. When Bruce and his pals (who included legendary director Sam Raimi) hustled for funding and ultimately got the chance to film the cult horror classic Evil Dead in rural Tennessee, it read like the ultimate adventure. Though the crew had to endure numerous injuries, production setbacks and difficult living conditions, the various hardships only made independent filmmaking seem like a rite of passage to adulthood and eventual greatness. Their ultimate success in securing a distributor for a film that eventually became one of the most celebrated independent films of all time, made any dream seem fully attainable.

If Chins Could Kill was full of cautionary tales - the story of working in a Budweiser factory between jobs and the "Anatomy of a Paycheck" chapter were plenty scary - but I was fully infatuated by then. I bought that book for everyone I thought would be similarly inspired by it, and throughout college I amassed a DVD collection including Jack of All Trades, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. and Bubba Ho-Tep for continued inspiration. My final senior project at BU was actually a proposal for an adaptation of his novel Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way complete with a budget projection, casting shortlist and merchandise in the form of Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way condoms. (I got an A, in case you were wondering).

The problem that often happens with first loves though, is because they burn bright it's easy to blind yourselves to the serious problems in them. It's not always one specific party's fault - the problems on my end were detailed in PA'ed - but at the same time it's hard to ignore the relationship issues when they put you in personal danger (like the time I got mugged during a production run) or expose you to situations where you feel like the worst of yourself instead of the best. Eventually, after years of essentially working a combination of all the worst summer jobs I've ever had, I hit a breaking point and called it off.

I still think about that first love a lot, which is obvious from this post and from the earlier post. My regret is I never got my big Evil Dead adventure - the closest I came was working as a grip on an Instant Film Festival production which resulted in the director (a TV director of some note, actually) never returning the portable hard drive he borrowed from me. However, I did learn a lot of lessons during that Orphean journey. I learned about how to collaborate with a diverse range of personalities and effectively prioritize projects for multiple departments. I also learned the proper way to present myself professionally, and only seek work where I felt I could use my brain and reach my full potential. When true love finally comes along for my career, I'm sure I'll know it in my heart immediately, because my first love showed me what I needed to be happy.

I've never met Bruce Campbell (although I did attend a preview screening of My Name is Bruce that he hosted which was awesome). If I ever get to meet him at a Comic Con or book signing, I'd like to personally shake his hand and thank him for his work influencing my personal journey, helping me learn a lot of valuable lessons for (hopefully) future professional success, and most importantly, how to love the Bruce Campbell Way.

The Arts and Sciences

While I don't actively work in film and television anymore, I am still an avid reader of blogs and news sites that track the development of upcoming projects. A trend that has been noted (and complained about) by everyone on these sites is the huge volume of films and TV programs that are reboots, remakes, and well-worn adaptations, with recent announcements ranging from the new Beauty and the Beast series coming to the CW (which was already a TV show in the late 1980s) to a reboot of the The Mummy, which completed the final film in the original series all the way back in 2008.

There are a lot of obvious reasons for the endless stream of rehashed pop culture. The entertainment business is high-risk with a margin for error that makes "razor thin" seem like the size of the Grand Canyon. The decisions of a few executives affect the lives of countless cast and crew. The 2008 WGA strike, which lasted only 100 days, cost the industry over $2.5 billion. When that amount of money is at stake, key decision makers are prone to stick with proven success.

I believe there is another reason beyond financial preservation, and that is that many producers at the studio level and the creative level have no frame of reference outside Hollywood. Have you ever wondered why there hasn't been any truly original live-action kids' television outside of Sesame Street? That's because the majority of senior Nickelodeon/Disney Channel writers came from the "TGIF" family or have been entrenched in those shows for decades. The lack of true creativity on multi-camera sitcoms, long dominated by Chuck Lorre, is largely because his shows have always shared key creative personnel, in some cases dating back to Roseanne. The recycled nature of popular programming prevents the infusion of new ideas.

The inability to incorporate the wider world beyond Hollywood, at the expense of higher-level creativity, is more apparent and damning in the adaptation process. One of my favorite books is World War Z by Max Brooks. Utilizing the malleable framework of a worldwide zombie plague, Brooks structures his story as a historical anthology, with various narrators from around the globe recounting the story of their nation's response to the epidemic and subsequent war to retake the planet. The stories featuring characters from countries like Israel, North Korea, India and Russia were compelling because of their foundation in the countries' actual history, religion, cultural values, politics and international relations.

This book was optioned by Paramount as a future tentpole, but the eventual shooting draft stripped away the novel's structure and global scope, reducing it to essentially War of the Worlds 2 with Brad Pitt instead of Tom Cruise. Even worse, the book was blatantly ripped off by Daniel H. Wilson's vastly inferior Robopocalypse, and that book is getting a movie adaptation too.

I believe that to create a work of pop culture that truly resonates with audiences, you need a muse beyond pop culture itself. The best recent high-profile Hollywood example that immediately comes to my mind is District 9, which used alien contact as a metaphor for South African apartheid. While District 9 was sold by this high concept, it's also an intensely personal story of identity and loss, providing timelessness beyond its social message.

My personal creative portfolio largely focuses around the idea that the human experience requires a full appreciation of life's landmark moments, as well as the progression of world society in general from both a scientific and social standpoint. My initial inspiration came from reading physics books by Michio Kaku, whose work I was fortunate enough to be introduced to by my Dad.

Kaku's work, from his landmark book Hyperspace to his most recent Physics of the Impossible and Physics of the Future projects human scientific progress beyond the 21st century to tens of thousands of years from now, outlining the possibility and even inevitability of fantastic technologies like interstellar travel and artificial intelligence. Learning about potential space flight technologies like solar sails and ramjet fusion engines, as well as astrophysical theories like the Kardashev civilization scale, not only provided a strong knowledge base for authentic speculative, but a belief in human ingenuity that can be incorporated into any creative piece, either personal or commercial.

My desire to further my education beyond television and marketing was further strengthened while working as a part-time copywriter at the American Program Bureau. One of the reasons that I accepted the position was because APB's CIO told me "it's very easy to be inspired here" and it was honestly an understatement. As an industry-leading speaker's bureau, the company represents the top minds in fields ranging from geopolitics and biomedical research to environmental protection and entrepreneurship. I was exposed to fascinating works about the global women's rights struggle (Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn) and national economic disasters (Harry Markopolos' No One Would Listen). Constantly writing promotional copy about vibrant figures and their causes taught me how to speak in the language of multiple fields of study, and provided a creatively fertile range of settings and issues for future creative pieces.

I read an article when I was living in LA about how the one of the easiest ways to get a "bad" script sold was to craft a narrative that combined low shooting costs with more infamous pop cultural trends. While it may be tempting (and honestly, a lot of fun) to have The Situation team up with the Long Island Medium to rescue Khloe Kardashian from a hostage situation at a WWE show, I will always maintain that the best creativity comes from education.

Don't 'Fabe Your Nerd Stuff, Bro.

A couple months ago on the T I ran into my friend Kenny, who happens to be a top blogger on Boston.com. Kenny's articles primarily focus on emerging trends in youth culture that often walk the line between fringe and mainstream in the public perception, such as dubstep or the proliferation of Internet memes. While talking, Kenny said one thing that while fairly innocuous, stood out to me, "hey, everybody has a weird interest."

While I think it would be hard to disagree with that sentiment, it led me to think about why people hide their interests or hobbies, if they're not somehow criminal or otherwise damaging. As I've gotten older, I've found that sharing your hobbies with others can be one of the one of life's most fulfilling experiences, and has allowed me to grow personal connections and stimulate my creative mind.

My number one interest/hobby for half my life, which was a key element in shaping my personality and relationships today, was professional wrestling. Wrestling caught my interest when, after loving WWF Royal Rumble for the Super Nintendo, I found out the legendary Hulk Hogan was retiring after WrestleMania 8! (I was only in 2nd grade at the time, and did not yet realize that wrestling retirements were less permanent than comic book deaths or celebrity marriages, and Hogan would wrestle another 20 years.) Once that show passed with a Hogan triumph, and "Macho Man" Randy Savage defeating Ric Flair for the WWF Championship in one of the greatest matches of all time, wrestling faded out of my consciousness. Two years later, it re-entered with a vengeance when I found out that the Undertaker was going to wrestle a second Undertaker to determine the one true Undertaker, and I had to see it! (Amazingly, I've met other fans with the exact same entry point, which blows my mind.) Similar to WrestleMania 8, that show, SummerSlam 1994, had a brilliant match, Bret Hart vs. his brother Owen in a Steel Cage, to supplement the gimmicked main event, and that was the match that hooked me for good.

Wrestling appealed to me for a number of reasons, none of which were the violence, foul language and sexual objectification of women that parents fell all over themselves to attack during its peak years of popularity. Wrestling, to pre-teen me, was an action-packed morality play, where heroes tried to prove that skill and willpower always triumphed over dishonesty and ruthless behavior. Occasionally heroes fell to the dark side, but other times, the villains were redeemed. One hero who on-screen never wavered in his beliefs was Bret "The Hitman" Hart, even as he got booed mercilessly for refusing to change with the times and embrace the late-90s antihero fad. That refusal to bow to peer pressure, and the value of hard work over gimmicks, made Bret Hart the character, and to an extent Bret Hart the person (who weren't that different) an early childhood role model.

As I moved into my teens and early twenties, wrestling's appeal to me wasn't so much the soap opera but what happened behind the curtain. When you're in late adolescence, pro wrestling can seem like an impossibly romantic lifestyle. While more performance art than a sport, it's one of the most athletically difficult endeavors to pursue, a chaotic combination of gymnastics, martial arts and even modern dance in its reliance on coordination and cooperation with your opponent. Matches by independent wrestlers like Jack Evans, PAC, and El Generico remain some of the most visually stunning athletic accomplishments I've ever seen. My viewpoint perceived pro wrestlers as getting the opportunity to travel the world, from Mexico to Europe to Japan, doing what they love with no other responsibility, performing in front of electric crowds and enjoying a battle-hardened camaraderie with their peers.

My formative young adulthood became a wrestling-fueled odyssey, from New England to London, England, from Montreal, Quebec to Los Angeles, California, meeting a huge variety of fascinating people simply because I could speak languages from "lucha libre" to "puroresu" to "catch" and "World of Sport." I met one of my closest friends, at the time an aspiring wrestler, on a trip back from a WWE event on the Green Line simply because I overheard him talking about a recent independent event and decided to join the conversation. During the course of our friendship, our back-and-forth discussion of his pro wrestling training options led to his decision to move to Los Angeles, where he met his wife and started his own business. I don't want to credit myself too much, but eventually, a very specific kid will be born because I was a wrestling fan.

My friend's move was also a key factor in convincing me to make my own leap to move to LA and pursue television production, knowing I'd have an immediate support system. While in LA I continued to be heavily involved on the indy scene, writing for SoCalUncensored and traveling to shows with my writing partner/good friend Paul Newberry, who I met on a different wrestling site and was a part of my wrestling writing collective I had started in college. Together we drove day or night, in both sunshine and tropical storms, from the High Desert to Orange County, visiting tiny converted auto garages, JCCs and Elks Lodges. The SoCal wrestling community, from the wrestlers to staff and fellow fans, felt like a makeshift family, helping me navigate the often overwhelming experience of living in Los Angeles. I actually got my first vaguely "Hollywood" job in Los Angeles due to wrestling, as my boss was a cousin of one of the wrestlers performing and happened to be sitting next to me at one of the shows. Networking truly can happen anywhere.

No matter where I happened to be, I was writing about wrestling the whole time, and in addition to gaining valuable practice in long-form writing, it also gave me a unique education in storytelling. Wrestling at its most basic is a serial television series, with decades of detailed continuity. Sharing my opinions on wrestling required an understanding of story structure, dramatic escalation, and proper characterization in terms of motivation and logical action, and the lessons I've learned from decades of wrestling viewing inform my fiction writing today.

Wrestling even drove me toward my college major. As a high school student volunteering the local public access station, one of the younger station coordinators was also a pro wrestler and developing a locally syndicated show for his promotion. I eagerly jumped in, eventually serving as that show's cameraman, play-by-play announcer, co-editor and "Associate Producer" (I insisted on the title because it sounded cool.) The confidence I received from that experience, co-producing my own aired show, made me believe I could be a working communications professional. Even though it didn't work out, I have credits no one can take away and tons of stories to tell.

Personal passions, whether artistic, scientific, or just plain "nerdy", represent a huge part of your identity, and expressing them and sharing them openly can open up a huge variety of personal, professional and social pathways. So next time you're thinking putting about putting your favorite anime program as your office laptop's wallpaper, why not go a step farther and put it on your second monitor too?

Comics, A Teaching Booster

Green Lantern, Booster Gold and Captain America battle Vengeanzo, the Vexing Villainous Veiltail! (aka our fish Bubbles).

I officially entered the "very late" period of my late 20s a short while ago, and now that I'm closer to an era of fatherhood than childhood, I've been thinking a lot about different teaching tools for my future kids. I know I want them to be literate, moral, imaginative, openly curious about the world around them and naturally think beyond themselves. Beyond the obvious methods like early reader books, trips to museums and Sesame Street, for later childhood my mind immediately turned to comic books.

It's totally understandable if you laugh, scoff, condemn or use some gesture that encompasses all three. There are obvious complains about modern comic book storytelling and they are all completely valid. Comic publishers prominently feature juvenilia masked as "adult themes." Multiple high-visibility, tentpole events and promotional initiatives in the last two decades have come under fire earlier for objectifying women, gruesome violence and using sex for shock value.

However, like all popular media, you have to look for the right comics and most importantly, the best representation of the industry's iconic characters. A character like Superman has endured for generations and will endure for countless more because he represents a timeless idealism, presenting the idea that if a being is given limitless power he will always work for the greater good with unbreakable integrity. Spider-Man is arguably the most beloved character in comics because he paints the struggle of growing up, coping with personal loss, and accepting adult responsibilities in the context of battling Green Goblins and alien symbiotes. Grant Morrison, in his excellent book Supergods, eloquently summarizes the lasting appeal of superhero comics: "We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who they are and what we wish we could be."

While the current narrative in popular culture for superhero fiction is "grim, gritty and dark," these heroes being used as avatars for high ideals are not relics of a forgotten Golden, Silver or Bronze Age. While building my personal pull list, I've found that Tony Stark in Matt Fraction's The Invincible Iron Man is one of the coolest characters in the Marvel Universe not because of his bleeding edge weaponized armor, but because he applies his genius toward green technologies and building a future that ensures a thriving and healthy humanity. Geoff Johns' Green Lantern at its heart, is a story about how willpower, imagination and bravery are the strongest forces in the universe and can overcome even cosmic crises.

The character that speaks to me the most though, is one that's been considered a joke for the majority of his existence. Booster Gold, created by Dan Jurgens and also written at various points by Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, Keith Giffen, and J.M. DeMatteis, was originally the superhero personification of the me-first 1980s. A time traveler from the 25th century who used future technologies to become a superhero and leave behind his tainted football career, Booster was primarily motivated by fortune, glory and tabloid headlines. His reputation as an underachieving goofball was reinforced through his close friendship with the Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, with their antics including the pair buying living islands and hoarding New York's Oreo cookie supply.

However, as DC's storylines in the past decade progressed through story arcs such as Infinite Crisis and 52, both the Beetle and Booster evolved beyond silly caricatures into more well-rounded personalities. Ted Kord, who now had a renewed focus on his creative brilliance, resourcefulness and good nature, was tragically killed. A devastated Booster, realizing the cost of his irresponsibility, dedicates himself to true heroism, and almost immediately is chosen to carry the literally Herculean task of protecting the entirety of time.

Booster Gold Volume 2 narrates Booster's adventures in the timestream, and throughout the series is revealed as a superhero who is flawed and completely unsure of himself in the face of unimaginable, terrifying adversity. He is forced to make impossible decisions, such as the opportunity to restore Ted Kord to life at the expense of the universe falling apart, and constantly doubts he has the strength to do the right thing.

When confronted with these choices and these obstacles (and there isn't a single second in Booster Gold Volume 2 when his ordeals stop), he perseveres and does the right thing. He looks deeps inside himself and accepts his responsibilities no matter what the repercussions may be or how afraid he feels. As "The Greatest Hero You're Never Heard Of," Booster accepts his anonymous burden of protecting time knowing he will never get respect from the superhero community that still treats him as a joke. While he still wants that respect and popularity, he has the support of a small but loyal group of friends and loved ones that carry him through his mission, and that is most important to him.

These character traits make Booster Gold to me, one of the best identification figures in modern comics. As kids grow up, they may not have to be protect the planet from a three-eyed warlord, but they will have to face issues like peer pressure, moving away from home, chasing a career dream or personal relationship crises. Booster is far from a perfect hero and makes mistakes, but he learns from those mistakes and retains his ethical compass and integrity. As Morrison writes in Supergods, "we've always known we'd eventually be called upon to open our shirts to save the day, and the superhero was a crude, hopeful attempt to talk about how we all might feel on that day of great power, and great responsibility." When choosing a role model for my kids (besides their family, and prominent scientists/academics), I'd much rather trust heroes on the page who will never let them down, rather than celebrities/athletes tainted by 24/7 social media culture, when the time for their figurative "shirt-opening" arrives.

Unfortunately, in the transition to the New 52 Initiative, DC Comics retconned (erased) all of Booster Gold Volume 2. According to the current DC Universe, Booster's adventures in the timestream never happened and his best friend/catalyst for character growth, Ted Kord, never existed. However, while these stories may not exist in continuity, they will never leave the printed page, and I plan for the Booster to be on my shelf for many years to come, to be enjoyed by a certain group of new readers, along with his pals Green Lantern, Iron Man and Captain America.

PA'ed

While going through my three year starving artist experience in Los Angeles, I had the privilege of joining The Office as a Production Assistant for the back half of Season Four. Since this was in the immediate aftermath of the WGA strike, which likely derailed the careers of countless assistant-level aspiring auteurs, this was the Holy Grail of PA jobs.

If you're looking for scandalous insider gossip you won't find it here, as every member of the cast and crew was totally friendly and professional. John Krasinski once bought pizza for everyone, and multiple cast members provided ice cream and Dippin' Dot carts. I got to ride in a Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier with Creed at the wrap party and listen to him talk about the beginnings of his performing career. I got fist-bumped on multiple occasions by Craig Robinson, who was an unbelievably cool guy to the entry level staff. The only way it could have been more of a Heaven on Earth for a TV nerd is if the cast of Community arrived from the future in a TARDIS.

This does have a point, in case you think I'm name-dropping for SEO purposes. What stood out to me about The Office was that since it was such a well-oiled production machine, there wasn't a whole lot of work to do for 3 off-set PAs. Work primarily consisted of occasional deliveries to the Universal studio lot, sets off-site, or the dreaded and harrowing script revision run to cast and executives. [Fun Hollywood Fact: the true power of a film/television executive is directly proportional to how probable a drive to their house at night would result in death. Some of those estates make a trip to Dracula's Castle look like a suburban cul-de-sac.] Two of these production runs may have permanently altered the course of my life if my mentality had been different.

I was tapped to make a script delivery to one of the producers during location shooting for the "Night Out" episode. While waiting for the all clear to walk on set, B.J. Novak formally introduced himself to me for the first time since I had joined on the show. While I don't remember the details of the conversation, I did bring up that I was a fellow Massachusetts native, was interested in standup comedy, and had seen him perform at the Hollywood Improv in the past.

I didn't think anything of that encounter at the time, but a few days later B.J. came by the production office and actually initiated a conversation with me, asking how much standup I had done and if I had been to any shows in Boston. I mentioned I had performed a couple times so far (in bowling alleys),and had been to nearly every Boston comedy club, with my favorite being The Comedy Studio (the site of many failed first dates in college). B.J. mentioned that he had a few connections in Boston comedy clubs and if I was interested he would refer me to them. So, to recap, based on a couple of short conversations, one of the hottest television writers in Hollywood was willing to help me get booked at legitimate venues in a major metropolitan city.

I never brought it up again. It gets worse.

A few weeks later, I went to deliver new pages to the show's casting agency. I dropped the pages off and quickly walked away when the casting director caught me and asked me to stay and actually read for a part in the "Job Fair" episode - the 17-year old nerd harassed by Michael Scott. I'm sure having thick glasses, a round face and acne at 24 played at least a small role in this turn of events. I went in, read the pages, and related the experience to the production staff. They told me that since the show had a history of rewarding crew with on-camera roles or notoriety, (the most obviously notable being that Ellie Kemper's character is actually named after longtime Office staffer Kelly Hannon) I actually had a solid chance at getting the part. I spent the next week chugging Airborne to avoid getting sick in case I got my big break.

The character's speaking role was expanded from three lines to three pages of dialogue in rewrites, so the show now needed an actual actor and I didn't get the part. I wasn't that disappointed since I always knew I was a long shot, but I was even told later by casting it was a close call and I had a look that might fit Apatow-type projects, and with some formal acting training I might have a niche.

I never sent a thank you letter to casting. I figured I had gone to LA to become a writer and producer, not to act, so it wasn't a big deal and I didn't want to invest the money for acting classes. I could always do something nicer for them next season to thank them for the opportunity.

A month later I was informed I would not be retained for Season Five. I was given reasons why and heard others from third parties, but it would be unprofessional to speculate which reason was true. I did get a recommendation letter from one of the producers for my later grad school applications, which I appreciated.

I imagine many people in the entertainment industry work far harder than I had for far longer and never get golden chances for a big break, and I had blown two in the space of a few weeks. I had figured these unique and valuable opportunities would simply be there "when I came back." Instead I was expelled from TV Heaven so abruptly I didn't even get the chance to get my audition tape as a memento. I never considered that in LA these moments are rare and fleeting and if you're out of sight, you're permanently out of mind. I had even just learned this lesson a few months prior, when the WGA strike permanently cost me my job on iCarly (where I was actually the tenured PA and also worked with a tremendous production group) and it hadn't been ingrained.

Beyond these lost opportunities, I have multiple spec scripts and original work that I never bothered to submit to any talent agencies before I moved home. I was afraid of being rejected, or being perceived as an imposition, or bothering people like B.J. to the point I would have a black mark on my entertainment career. I decided I would simply do the job I was doing the best I could until I had a high enough profile for my talent to be recognized. That never happened, and now I'm completely out of the industry, which would have been the end result even if I had been an "annoyance" to famous and powerful people and gotten "kicked out." You only get one real chance to make your mark in the entertainment industry, so you might as well approach it by being assertive and fighting for every inch of recognition. The overwhelming majority of aspiring artists and producers flame out anyway, and you're out of the industry whether you feel like an "embarrassment" or not. There's no difference between going out with a bang or going out with a whimper, you go out just the same.

Life has still worked out fairly well for me despite those missed chances. I have a Master's degree in a growing field, a stable job with actual benefits (which, newsflash film students, most studios don't give PAs), and a salary that allows me to save for my future (ditto). I live with a beautiful, funny, and bright girlfriend who constantly blows my mind with how utterly perfect she is for me. I still do standup for fun once in awhile and write when I can. I'm even pulling out my personal slush pile and seeing what I can do with it - the creative dream dies hard.

However, I can't help but wonder what might have been if I had I drank from that Grail when it was given to me. Going forward, it's always the better option to try and leap across the invisible chasm.