Reay Jespersen

So here it is. Day 100 of the second attempt on the 100 Words for 100 Days self-imposed challenge.

As I suspected, it did, indeed, become easier to complete when I did it right after waking up most days. The days when that didn’t happen were the only risky ones. Also helping was setting my watch to go off at a late hour - late enough to rarely be out anywhere, but early enough that it would be before sleeping - in order to be a back-up reminder that, had I not done my words, now was the time to do them. Also helping was Jackie, who felt bad for my having dropped the ball on the previous challenge, reminding me to write when she remembered, which also caught a couple of times I hadn’t yet done it.

So is writing a habit yet? I’d say not, but it’s getting close. The real issue is that my life is varied enough that I don’t have a particular time when I’ll always be able to do it. Even right after waking up doesn’t always work, as it’s not uncommon for us to wake up and hit the laundromat before eating or showering on a weekend day just to beat the usual crush of people. I can bring a notebook and pen and try to write there, I suppose, but the point is that even my mornings, which here have proven to be the most effective time to get at least small amounts of writing done, are varied enough to prevent a routine writing time.

All I can do is strive to write every day and hope that my life soon becomes at least a bit more routine day-to-day so things like standard waking hours and hours returning from work, etc., is more predictable and can be worked around for writing (and really, the planning of many other things…)

In any case, the completion of the 100 Days challenge doesn’t feel as glorious or taste as sweet as I thought it would when I first decided to do it all over again, but I gotta say, it does feel pretty damn good.

Things could be worse.

1. Be prepared to see the unusual
You get the impression something is a bit different right when you land in Santa Clara and see army helicopters and open-bunkered jet fighters beside the runway. Stepping inside the small airport, you’re scrutinized by a pair of immigration officers in a tiny cubicle space, you find the metal detector equipment covered with plastic sheeting in order to avoid damage from rainwater leaking from the roof, and you’ll find that while dressed in professional uniforms, the women get a bit wild with the choice of stockings they wear. Then you go through an hour and a half of the most stunningly poverty-striken country I’ve ever been to on the way to your corner of paradise.

2. Be prepared to smoke
Don’t smoke? Doesn’t matter. It’s legal in Cuba as long as you’re 14, and you’re free to do it in most public places, including the Veradero airport, where we had a brief layover. I’ve never smoked anything in my life, but in the week we were in Cuba, I’m pretty sure I second-hand smoked a carton of cigarettes and a handful of cigars.

3. You’d better like cats
We only saw dogs outside the resort. Inside, there were a lot of cats which, while feral, were very friendly. They had begging in the open-air restaurants down to a science, but when they learned you weren’t giving them any (more) food, they were very happy to get petting and scratching which, to be fair, they probably get much less often than food. We saw cats all over the place, and were only too happy to give them some attention; particularly when we discovered that, though both of us are allergic to cats, neither of us reacted to them.

4. Learn some damn Spanish
If you go to a foreign country, the least you can do is make some effort to communicate to people there in their native tongue. Not only does it show you respect them, but it will more than likely put you in good standing with them for having at least tried. In our case, not only did it (with the use of small phrase/dictionary books) help convey things to the employees at the resort we may not otherwise have been able to get across to them, but it earned us the appreciation and attention of employees we ended up making friends with, and who we will be staying in touch with. It’s hard to sound more ridiculous than saying English words louder and louder to people who don’t fully understand what you’re trying to say in the first place.

5. Be nice and tip the employees
It was made clear through talking with other vactioners that they didn’t appreciate the heavy-handed approach our orientation tour guide gave on the topic of tipping (basically boiling down to tip everyone for everything). As it was, I tipped people all the time for everything they did for me, be it bringing me a drink, filling our drinks and clearing the table between meal courses, or as a show of thanks for the free classes we took.
The employees who get paid at the resort (and not all do) make the equivalent of $30-40 per month. Tipping them a Cuban Convertible peso (a bit over a Candian dollar these days) for their service means a lot to them financially and means next to nothing to you financially. Just because it’s an all-inclusive resort doesn’t mean you don’t need to tip. You’re in a very poor country enjoying the labour of people who will never in their lives in that country be able to afford to go to a resort like the one where you’re staying. Cough up the extra few bucks here and there and help make a difference to people who are nice and busting their asses for your enjoyable time.

Jackie and I got back a few days ago from a week-long trip in Cuba, which kicked a lot of ass. On the upside, very relaxing and enjoyable and we met a lot of cool people we’ll be keeping in touch with - many of whom were, ironically, from the GTA. Nothing like flying three hours to meet people who live a 20 minute drive from your home, I always say.
On the downside, I was in such a rush to book it and get prepped to go that we booked it without any thought as to what we’d like to do there aside from resort life. Cuba turned out to be much bigger than I’d expected, putting our resort an hour and a half from the nearest major city, and a whopping five hours from Havana, which was the one place Jackie’s well-travelled brother told us we had to check out. So sadly, none of that happened. But we were able to drown our sorrows in sunshine, gorgeous beaches, and free drinks.

Coming up over the next (hopefully) few days: my journal of our time in Cuba, along with some pics. Stay tuned!

So here’s the thing, straight-up:
I’m putting the two book projects I have in mind on the back burner for the time being. I know I said I was going to focus and see through one project after another in order to get things done, but two events happened that required a re-evaluation of priorities.

1) I saw Narnia - Prince Caspian. I’ve never read the books, nor heard of events in them (other than overreaching concepts about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), but yet found a startling number of similarities between Prince Caspian and my one book idea. On the one hand, I get that there are similarities in fiction, and that such will always be the case. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to pour my heart and soul (to say nothing of time) into something which will undoubtedly bring about derivative comparisons to Prince Caspian. I pride myself on my creativity and only want to work on ideas that are my own and stand apart as distinct from other ideas. I simply wouldn’t be able to keep working on that book as it stood and not have a constant reminder in the back of my brain saying that what I’m writing had already been done - and probably done better than what I was doing. This isn’t to say that the one book idea is totally dead, but needs a serious re-hashing.

2) The next Pitch Expo is coming up in a couple of months. I attended last year, and found it to be pretty well done. Not only were there a good number of agents and movie/TV production company reps in attendance, ready to hear whatever ideas people had to pitch them, but it will likely be bigger and better this year. And frankly, I want to go with something fresh to pitch. Which isn’t to say I’ll not bother with the ideas I pitched last year (which still have amazing potential), but I don’t want to show up without something newer to present, as well.

While my abandoning the book projects for the time being in favour of other projects goes directly against what I said I’d do, the fact of the matter is that one has to be practical. Pushing through book projects which are open-ended, as opposed to focusing on other material for a pending deadline that could serve me very well, doesn’t make sense to me.

Thus, I’m intending on working on a new screenplay I’ve had in mind for a while, and perhaps revisit an animated kids TV series idea I had a few years back. And hopefully my focus will be sharp enough that it’ll get some new, polished material finished come September.

Stay tuned!

The world lost one of the all-time best stand-up comedians yesterday. His routine may have been too much to handle for more delicate sensibilities, but he was a trailblazer for comedy, and will be missed.

A year ago today, surrounded by the love and support of friends and family, Jackie and I got married.

Happy anniversary, hon.
I love you.

So the list of 10 winners for the one page screenplay contest came out yesterday, and my name wasn’t on it. Disappointing, of course, but the success of having even made it as a finalist was a big mental boost. Looks nice added to my resume, as well.

*** BIG FAT SPOILER WARNING! ***

So we got a chance to see it last night. Met up with Big Dan and hit the theatre.
And here’s my thinking overall:
Disappointing. Like, even given what I’ve heard about it, pretty disappointing.

If you haven’t seen Iron Man or Indiana Jones yet, go see Iron Man. Dead easy choice.

I was trying to articulate with Jackie and Dan what it was that didn’t click for me, and I think it was a combination of a bunch of things. In no particular order:

- I found the lighting distracting for the first maybe fifth or quarter of it, while everything in the story’s getting set up. It was too harsh on some characters (almost kind of gilding them) and too lax around them, as though the characters were being highlighted to stand out, but it didn’t look at all natural. Compare that to the first film (the one I recall the best), where the lighting was gorgeously done - it looked far more natural - and you’ll see what I mean. Am I a production snob? To a degree, yes. But for my money, anything that distracts the audience from getting into a story is a bad thing, and that lighting took me out of it a few times. In those scenes, it was just bad.

- The fridge thing. On the one hand, I get that they’re aging Indy and showing how the world around him is changing. Fine. On the other hand, having him survive a nuclear blast by hiding in a lead-lined fridge, while amusing, went out of the bounds it feels they set for what Indy movies are about: more mysteries and adventuring and outwitting his opponents, not deadly threats he accidentally stumbles across that aren’t part of the plot. Silly and pointless.

- The soda shop scene where Indy and Mutt talk felt utterly contrived. There was nothing natural about how that looked. Again, take a look at the cafe scenes in the first movie: both scenes are written and planned and choreographed, yet the cafe scenes feel natural and realistic, while the background characters in the soda shop (again, with its sometimes distracting lighting) felt totally fabricated, preventing me from getting into the storyline.

- The alien stuff shouldn’t have been taken to the level it was. I would never - not ever - have thought that they’d have Indiana Jones watching a UFO take off. That was far more X-Files than I think an Indy movie should ever have gotten. Dan and I agreed that there’s something inherently acceptable about the believability and appropriate feel of religious aspects to Indy movies (the Ark, the Holy Grail) than spacemen. Why one feels more proper than the other is, again, hard to articulate. Just a deep-set feeling that one works and the other really (really, really) doesn’t.

- The bad guys didn’t have anywhere near the same menacing feel to them that those in the earlier movies (again, particularly those in the first) did. They felt more cardboard cutout bad guys than ones with much dimension to them. Even when Indy’s friend Mac turns on him, did I care? Not in the least. You stick a new character in a movie series, tell me their history (which is a big no-no in movies: show the audience, don’t tell them), and I’m expected to care about him, or if he’s a turncoat?
Having Sean Connery in the second film was better handled because at least we saw him adventuring with Indy (whereas Mac didn’t do much of anything) while quipping about their family’s past for humourous effect. But Mac? Didn’t care about him at all. At all. He’s a friend of Indy’s, and they’ve been through all this stuff together? Sure. Oh, he turned on him? Alright. Oh, now he’s turned again and was with Indy the whole time? Fine. Oh, now he’s really, really against him? Ok. Now Indy wants to save him and he chooses to die? Whatever.

- City kid Mutt pulling a Tarzan and swinging on the vines like a natural with the monkey hordes (which totally get his vibe and attack the bad guys). Good lord.

- Jumping the duckmobile off the cliff onto the tree to ease into the water at the bottom. There are levels of believability that the Indy movies have set up. Yes, extraordinarily things happen, but within a world with boundaries which have been necessarily been established. Like some other things, the duck over the cliff thing stepped over that line for me.

- The waterfalls. See above. You’re falling down two 80-foot+ drops in an open vehicle and everyone’s still there and climbing back in at the bottom? Just a bit wet and coughing on the water, eh? Yep.

- More stuff happens to Indy than his being proactive. He’s kidnapped and taken to the Nevada site. He escapes but then almost gets caught. Luckily, this rocketsled accidentally launches just in time and helps him escape again, and he’s almost nuked, barely escaping that, too. Mutt finds him and tells him about this problem. It’s Mutt’s switchblade that get them untied to turn the tables when they’re trapped on the truck. While Indy’s helping Irina solve the riddle of where to look on the map (and what was with that? I guess with her kinda mind-meld he didn’t know what he was doing? Otherwise, why would he not grab the map and make a break for it to solve it himself later?) Mutt’s the one who steps in and tries to make a break for freedom. Ox turns out to be alive, and - let’s face it - is the one the others are following for most of the key elements of exploration and solving the mystery. In the other movies, Indy pieces together the mystery and puts himself at risk to follow it through to its conclusion. Here, he was far more passenger to the events happening than the hero he’s been in the past. Not cool, and not particularly interesting.

- Jackie pointed out there were almost none of the quippy one-liners that have added to the flavour of the past movies.

All in all, I found it an alright distraction - in truth, I’m glad I saw it, as otherwise I always would’ve been wondering how it was - but was hands down my least favourite of the series. Like, in a totally different league. To the point where they should’ve just left the series alone as it stood, when it was something to be proud of. Honestly. And not only would I not want to see LaBoeuf take up the jacket, whip (switchblade?) and fedora as the next Indy (Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones, period - if he’s not doing any more movies, let the series die with some dignity), but if this is a sample of the production values and writing of where the new spinoff series would be headed, it would be poorly done anyway.

I’ll not give it a rating, but if I were to, it would be head-shakingly, unexpectedly low.

Why, that would be me!

You remember that time I mentioned the one page screenplay contest? Way back like, er… three weeks ago? Yeah, well, turns out the finalists were selected, and I’m one of them.

That’s the kind of thing that makes a guy feel good about a career he aspires to, y’know?

More news on that front as I get it.