What Caddyshack Teaches About Life

2011 – Last 100 Days

Prodigal Altar Boy Countdown

T-14 Days to Go

17 December 2011

Goal:  1 hour per day working on the film

Details: 

Reviewed Story focusing exercise.

Total time:  15 minutes

Goal:  30 minutes per day music practice

Details:

Warm up on the Fender Roland-Ready Strat

Grace City Practice

Oh Come Emmanuel

You Are Good

Silent Night

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Revelation Song

God is Faithful

It Is Well With My Soul

Total time:  90 minutes

Goal:  15 minutes exercise per day

Active rest

Goal:  15 minutes per day working on the score for the movie

Grace City Sunday Set List work (MojoCaster)

Oh Come Emmanuel

You Are Good

Silent Night

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Revelation Song

God is Faithful

It Is Well With My Soul

Rig check and pack

Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Notes:  Fourteen days and counting.

What Caddyshack Teaches About Life

Ty Webb: Oh, Judge, I don't keep score.
Judge Smails: Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?

Ty Webb: By height.

I have friends that quote “Caddyshack” from memory.  They always look for ways to inject dialogue from the movie into everyday conversation.  For us it’s an inside joke because most of the people we’re around either have not seen the movie or are too young to relate.  I will not browbeat you with all the reasons why “Caddyshack” is such a great movie.  Either you like it or you don’t.  Besides all the great Rodney Dangerfield and Bill Murray lines, the exchange above between Chevy Chase and Ted Knight offers some real life lessons.

At first blush, you could dismiss those lines as typical Chevy Chase wiseacre humor (it is).  Dig deeper into the question, “Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?” is an excellent question.  How do YOU measure yourself with other _______________?  How you measure yourself connects to how you feel about yourself.  Taken further, Judge Smails’ question leads to a deeper question, “Should you measure yourself against others?” 

Ty Webb’s comment he doesn’t keep score and his answer that he measures himself with other golfers by height is a nice bit of psychological judo.  Realizing Judge Smails is not concerned about how Ty measures himself with other golfers, but is more concerned about how he measures himself against other golfers.  The judge’s need to validate himself by comparing himself to other golfers makes him a desperate character.  Since Ty doesn’t keep score, Judge Smails has no frame of reference to determine if he is a better or worse golfer than Ty.  Judge Smails is desperate to find out how he measures up against Ty, so he asks him how he measures himself against other golfers. 

The lesson here is when you measure yourself with others, no matter how good you are, at some point you will come up short.  I am not advocating some Stuart Smalley-type anti-competition where everyone gets a trophy, I am advocating not being too wrapped up in the measurement.  When you define yourself by your score (golf handicap, salary, status, height, etc.), you abrogate your ability to define yourself.  You are not that score.  Even if it’s a really good score, who you are is so much more than that.  You are so much more that focusing on the score blinds you (and others) to the myriad gifts, attributes and blessings you have, you might never reach your potential because you are not fully aware of it. 

So, how do you measure yourself with others?  Should you?

Prodigal Altar Boy Countdown T-21 Days to Go

2011 – Last 100 Days

Prodigal Altar Boy Countdown

T-21 Days to Go

10 December 2011

Goal:  1 hour per day working on the film

Details: 

Second look at Structuring Your Documentary Week 4

DOVES Overview

Cutting an Effective Fundrasing trailer

Naming Sequences

Total time:  1 hour

Goal:  30 minutes per day music practice

Details:

Warm up on the MojoCaster

Grace City Music to work on

“Lord, You Are Awesome” – Bb

“Come Now is the Time to Worship” – D

 “Shackles” – Gm

“We Fall Down” – Eb

“Breathe” – A

Rig check, integrated GR-20 into the rig.  Assinged patches/synth combos to the set list. Packed rig for transport. 

Total time:  3 hours

Goal:  15 minutes exercise per day

Active rest

Goal:  15 minutes per day working on the score for the movie

Adrenalinn III work

Total Time:  30 minutes

T-27 Days to Go - "Looks Like an FM Radio!"

2011 – Last 100 Days

Prodigal Altar Boy Countdown

T-27 Days to Go

4 December 2011

Goal:  1 hour per day working on the film

Details: 

Listened to Karen Everett’s filmmaker affirmations

Read Karen Everett’s eBook “Documentary Editing”

Postproduction Process:

• Assembly Edit
• Seven Tips for Hiring an Editor

DOVES – Director’s Outcome Vision and Editorial Statement

Printed copies of the DOVES worksheet

Total time:  1 hour

Goal:  30 minutes per day music practice

Details:

MojoCaster warm-up

Grace City music

“Say The Name”

“Trading My Sorrows”

“God of Second Chances”

“You Are Here”

Listened to recording from Saturday (3 December) Grace City practice at Sky Loft and ran the audio through iChord to get the chord progressions.  

Total time:  3.5 hours

Goal:  15 minutes exercise per day

Active rest

Goal:  15 minutes per day working on the score for the movie

Details:

“Dies Irae” – 25X on the MojoCaster guitar

“Dies Irae” – octaves, dyads

Pat Metheny Etude #1 bars 1-4 25X

R&B riff work from Gospel Skillz DVD

E – B/D# - C#min – A  R&B chordal riff work.  Focus on smooth transitions and tone.

Total Time:  30 minutes

Notes:  Twenty-seven days and counting.  

Gary Waugh's reaction to the ART T-28 Attack Module:

"Looks like you moved up to an FM radio!"  (ouch) 

More Lessons Learned:

Never let your monster lay down.  I stole this from the “dead wax” on theEagles album "The Long Run."  Most of you “new-fangled digital young-uns” may not be familiar with the concept of dead wax.  Dead wax is the “blank” area of a vinyl record between the ending grooves of the last song on that side and the label.  In that space, along with the single groove running out there is usually an identifying number for that album, and in some cases, a short handwritten note.  Okay, enough ancient history.  When I saw the words, “NEVER LET YOUR MONSTER LAY DOWN,” it resonated with my understanding of the creative process.  Each piece you create is a spark infused with your spirit and nurtured.  At some point, that spark and your nurturing evolve into something with a life of its own.  For the creative process to be complete, you have to step aside and let what you have created breathe and expand.  There is always the temptation, when a creative piece does not go in the direction you first intended, to abandon it and move on.  While deciding when to abandon a work is another discussion, the speed of how things move often pushes us to abandon a work before it “pays off.”  Do not let that monster lie down; keep pushing it until it walks on its own.

T-28 Days to Go: Prodigal Altar Boy Countdown

2011 – Last 100 Days

Prodigal Altar Boy Countdown

T-28 Days to Go

3 December 2011

 

Goal:  1 hour per day working on the film

Details: 

Karen Everett’s filmmaker affirmations

Total time:  1 hour

Goal:  30 minutes per day music practice

Details:

MojoCaster warm-up

Grace City practice

“Say The Name”

“Trading My Sorrows”

“God of Second Chances”

“You Are Here”

Total time:  2.5 hours

Goal:  15 minutes exercise per day

Active rest

Goal:  15 minutes per day working on the score for the movie

Details:  

R&B riff work from Gospel Skillz DVD

E – B/D# - C#min – A  R&B chordal riff work.  Focus on smooth transitions and tone.

Total Time:  15 minutes

Notes:  Twenty-eight days and counting. 

Lessons Learned for today:

Share the wealth.  Don’t keep opportunities to yourself.  If something you come across can help someone else, pass it on.  If there is something you think a colleague would be interested in, point it out to them.  There is so much information floating around you never know what you will encounter. 

Share information, not obligation.  When passing along information you think a colleague will be interested in, the best follow-up is none at all.  While we may think the latest link or article we forward will be the next big break for a colleague, let them be the judge of that.  Not everything you pass on will hit a home run, you never know what your colleague may know about the information you are giving them, and sometimes they can be so busy putting the information to use they don’t have time to thank you for it.  You don’t do it to get their gratitude; you do it to help them become successful.  In fact, the less obligation you attach to information you provide to your network, the more impact it has.  A member of my network sent me an email about his non-profit organization collaborating with another nonprofit for fundraising.  When I ran into him later in the month, I asked him how that came about.  I was shocked and surprised to learn the idea and contact information came from an article I forwarded him months back.  Wow!

Stay busy.  Yes, I know you are already busy.  What I also know is the more you accomplish, the more you are able to accomplish.  When you buckle down and start squeezing the time to work on your dreams, you will be astonished by the extra time that just opens up.  Much of this “extra” time comes from opportunities that arise, and aligning these opportunities with your big projects gives you the time.  It is counterintuitive, but once you try it, you will see what I mean.