Back To That Ideas Thing...

            A few musings ago I wrote about how I am awesome at coming up with ideas but my Follow -through leaves much to be desired. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Everyone says they have great ideas but I feel like I have had some winners.

            Back in my geet-tar playing days, Jeff Doke and I came up with an idea for a song that revolving around the idea of it always being five o’ clock somewhere in the word so it doesn’t matter

when you pop a top on that adult beverage, just enjoy. Yet somehow in our best intentions we never  got around to it and was unpleasantly surprised in 2003 when Alan Jackson released a duet with Buffett called….”It’s Five o’ Clock Somewhere.”  

             I hate that song.   

            Ok, I hate my inability to follow thru. It’s not the first time and I know it’s not the last.

            Take that new show on NBS called Powerless which comes on Thursday night after Superstore. The show feature an office at an offshoot of Wayne Industries with an R & D crew of misfits making gadgets for people who have to deal with a world filled with super powers, heroes, and villains. It’s gotten some mixed reviews but I am enjoying it plus it has Ron Funches who always cracks me up and Alan Tudyk as Bruce Wayne’s spoiled cousin. Tudyk is a brilliant character actor but plays whiny jerk the best.

These 3 guys are geniuses together. Hate this show is not doing better.

            It also reminds me of a great idea I had back in my Snellville days living with Tim Stoklas. It would be a short film revolving around where did super heroes get all those wonderful toys? Yes, I just went there.

            The idea would be framed by two well-meaning but brilliant engineer brothers who would discuss the variety of products they have been commissioned yet difficulties would always ensue. Working on Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane is great honor but what do you do when you lose the keys? How do you keep up with the backlog on all those batarangs for Batman?

            The one that always made me laugh was a Green Lantern bit we came up with over a bunch of Coronas. Green Lantern had commissioned some special weapon for the two brothers to create. They were having the big unveiling and Green Lantern was less than satisfied. It went something like this:

Green Lantern:  Are you guys even the least bit aware how my powers work?

Bro1:   Of course, you received a cosmic ring from a dying alien and was then commissioned as an officer of the Green Lantern Corps, an interstellar law enforcement agency overseen by the Guardians of the Universe. You protect all from the forces of evil so long as you keep your ring charged, which is why we created this high impact Lantern Carrier from Amazonian gold, GL.

(Bro 1 was the salesman speaker of the duo. We had planned he would refer to the Supes, his term for the heroes, with colorful fast talking nicknames. Think the Business-guy from Die Hard that Hans Gruber shot but less swarmy but likeable)

GL:  (seething at the two)  Do I have any weakness that say, something like a cosmic power ring might not work on?

Bro2:  (happy to help out) Oh yeah, the cosmic ring works on everything but……Ohhhhhh (realizing the mistake)

 (Bro2 was actually the smarter of the two but not the talker. He tended to say things as they were and not very abstract)

Bro1:  (almost shouting the answer like he’s won a trivia question)  Yellow! Ohhhhhhh! (it hits him the mistake)

GL:  Yellow!” (as GL points to the Yellow Shaped Lantern Case)

Bro2:  We did bad…..

       

     I realize all our bit was very visual but it never failed to make me laugh as Tim would act this out over many beers and I know it wasn’t just funny to us because others would break into laughter as

well. Just ask Jeff Doke.

            So why didn’t it ever happen? Lots of reasons. We had no idea how to make a short movies and what it would entail. Ideas on movies are great but we had no background for how to create them other than Kevin Smith flicks. I’d also like to add that with no money to hire actors, we’d have to enlist our friends to play the parts and while I have awesome friends I don’t have many with the Ryan Reynolds physiques and I am including myself in that statement. My six pack abs came from actual six packs.

It also came down to where I was at in those days. In the early 2000s, I talked about writing and I wanted to. It’s been my dream since I was 9. The abilities were there but not the confidence in which I would type anything anybody would want to read. Most of all, I didn’t have any confidence where I could create anything I wanted to hear from myself. The late 90s and early 2000s, I was dealing with more self-hate and depression than I am comfortable with admitting about myself.

I don’t hate myself anymore. Age has brought some wisdom that so long as I am creating for myself, screw what people think. I am working on my follow -through though I still spill out too many ideas to keep up with.

There’s that tour guide app that I got tons of notes on. I am still trying to write that horror graphic novel where John Trotter will illustrate. Oh, I have that Elvis story I’ve been running through my head since ’97. There is also this new idea I had the other day and its super cool about WWII Jewish refugees on the run where the mother…. Sigh.

Ok, let me get back to you. I still have some work to do.

One story at a time……