Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Daily Dose #66 (08/09/11)

I AM THE HUMAN MEAT

(A Lake Boy Tale)

HALLOWEEN 1975


My adolescent rebellion was in full flower by the age of fifteen. I had become the antithesis of all that surrounded me:Re-invented as an anarchist and junior Anti-Christ in training.

Who knows how one gets to this point? Nature? Nurture? Raging Hormones? All I know is that "not giving a tumbling fuck" about ANYTHING was always me first move in any situation, and had to be immediately clarified, right up front.

Danger, was indeed my business. And complete anti-social behavior was the conduit and delivery system.

Inspired by Dadaist Happenings, my little circle of ne'er do wells (and ne'er do well experimentalist wannabees) devised a little recurrent happening of our own.

Dubbing ourselves "The Tiger Sextette", we would crash a classroom, gym class, grocery store or any other locale that would have an incredulous surprised audience.

We would then proceed to dance lasciviously, thrusting our collective pelvii, and look absolutely ridiculous as we bumped and grinded for about 30 seconds, and then run out of the joint laughing like six insane screaming hyenas. A total exercise in Surrealism.

It being the mid nineteen seventies, being properly stoned was ritual preparation for these little theatrical commando raids. I suppose it was the "flash mob" happening of its day. We were just having fun.

On this Halloween, it was decided by The Sextette that we would crash Under The Stone, our own little rock club ratheskellar in our sleepy little town of Skaneateles NY. C.R.A.C., a kickin funk band was playing that night, so an appropriate soundtrack to the shenanigans wasn't going to be a problem.

The plan?

1. Get as high and or as drunk as possible
2. Crash the club and the dance floor
3. Run out, or get thrown out. Either outcome was acceptable.

We were all fifteen years old, after all. Well below the legal limit to be in a drinking emporium.

Since this nefarious plan of mischief was devised after school on Halloween Day, a costume had to be improvised, and my inspiration was a 5,000 foot roll of industrial grade shrink wrap in my basement at 12 Gayle Road.

I would transform myself into the human meat! Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius.

I pedalled my bicycle down to the P & C, and bought the most exotic and disgusting cuts of meat I could find: Tongue, Tripe, and Pigs Feet, with a healthy supply of more traditional cuts of beef.


I then enlisted the help of the girl next door for the next phase of my creative Halloween costumed expression. With an indelible purple marker, I had her section off every part of my naked body with dotted lines, and then label the "cuts": Rump Roast, Flank Steak, Top Round, Etc, my body functioning as a butchering diagram for cannibals.

She then took the the industrial grade roll of shrink wrap and wrapped my from neck to toe, in a single unbroken wrap job.

In the middle of this operation, still half naked, my Mother came home from school. She was working on completing her four year RN degree that marriage and kids had interrupted nineteen years previously.

She begged me to reconsider my costume, and even offered a complete nursing uniform to go to the party in full nursing drag. But I could not be swayed. That meat cost a lot of money.

I attached all the bloody meat to a pristine lab coat of my Mother's with safety pins, and completed this horrific ensemble by topping it off with a white hard hat.

As the rest of the fellows collected in the back woods behind Walser's house on Lakeview Circle, we knew it was going to be a night to remember.

The first step was to get properly primed, and we did so with gusto with about an ounce of weed and a bottle of Jack Daniel's that we drained in about a half hour, as we huffed and puffed away.

Careening around Pluto without brakes, we made our covert trek into town, showed up at the door, and weren't even carded. The ridiculous nature of my meat suit gave us automatic entry. "It's Showtime, Ladies and Gentleman"

We immediately crashed the dance floor, to what we were anticipating was going to be the collective shock and horrified awe of a packed club of adults, and be immediately tossed out on our collective keysters.

But Lo, this did not happen. We were applauded, and lauded with free drinks all night. We were teenaged rock stars dancing the night away with real live older women dressed in their once a year, costumed expression of their inner slut.


It was a throwdown to end all previous throwdowns. A real live Bacchanal, and a teenaged dream come true.

Unfortunately there was a critical flaw in the conception of my costume. The industrial grade Saran Wrap sealed my entire body. As the temperature rose, and the alcohol factor increased, I reached the peak of heat prostration and hypothermia.

I had built up quite a tolerance of binge substance abuse by the tender age of fifteen, but this was even beyond my Herculean abilities to handle.

The meat coat was jettisoned sometime in the proceedings, and the sweat slick building up inside the wrapping started to cause it to lose its grip on my skin.

That's the last true cognitive memory I have of the evening. The rest is anecdotal.

Somehow, at around 4am and way past curfew, I found myself at the front door of 12 Gayle Road. Was I driven and delivered? Did I walk up from town? Who knew, because I was in no shape to know.

Coatless, and more importantly without house keys, there was no alternative but to ring the door bell, wake up Mom, and face the music. I was completely butt naked.

I leaned on the door bell and then promptly passed out against the front door.

As my Mother tells the tale, when she opened the door I fell into the house face first, breaking my nose. As she gazed incredulously at my naked ass and the faded purple cuts of meat decorations that had been applied to it only just hours before, a single twisted rope of Saran Wrap was attached to my left ankle. It ran down our walkway, down the entire length of Gayle Road, down the access road to the lake, and finally ended disappearing down the shore line headed in the direction of downtown.

Id like to say that passing out in front of my Mother was a singular occurrence in those days, but it wasn't. There were a few times when she would awake to the sounds of me aspirating my own vomit.

I was on a mission to join the 27 club, and I was ahead of schedule, being the motivated little whippersnapper I was. I was always a "Go Big, or Go Home" personality type, even at fifteen.

2008

I relocated to the town of my birth in the summer, emigrating for good from New Orleans.


It was nice to be home. I needed to get reset, and you can only do that at home. It was the first time that I spent any length of time in Skaneateles since 1978, a repatriated exile, and returned prodigal son.

But a funny thing started to happen. As I was introduced to total strangers, invariably the same question would arise:

"George Rossi....Oh Yeah, You're The Human Meat Guy, aren't you?"

I would like to be remembered and recalled for some of my successes, triumphs, and good deeds done over the past 35 years, but in my hometown? I'm still "The Human Meat" guy.

I've come to accept this gracefully. We are the sum total of the choices we make, and unfortunately, the salacious bad ones have much more sticking power in a tiny town.

We write our own narratives to some degree, and sometimes we inspire the motivated to write it for us, whether its actually based in any type of reality based truth or not. In the end, you have to own what you have done, good, bad, or indifferent.

So when asked if indeed I am "The Human Meat Guy", I smile, extend my hand and say, "Yes I am. Its a pleasure to meet you"

AUTHOR'S NOTE

As of this writing, The Dose has received over 20,400 legitimate page views in 65 daily injections. All I have asked of the general readership is that if you enjoyed what you just read, hit that little share button on the top right column of this site, or copy the blog address down, paste it in an email, and give a friend a taste.

The Dose's original intent and design was for it to be passed along and shared; sort of hoping that we could form a bond and a shared sense of responsibility between the content creation and its users active participation.

Unfortunately, my personal assessment is that its starting to look like a failed experiment.

It isn't without its harvestable aspects in the face of failure, and I don't regret the amount of time I spent writing 66 posts at all. I have learned so much by disciplining myself to produce quality writing to the best of my ability for 65 conescutive days. I can look myself in the mirror and honestly say that I gave my all, every little last particle of me. I did not phone it in, or take whoever might be reading The Dose for granted in anyway. I stayed true to principle.

I'm truly grateful to those of you that have read, and perhaps even been inspired by the Blog-O-Thon's content and message. I'm also especially grateful to the folks that took it upon themselves to realize their implied responsibility by enjoying the content, and then taking the time to hip their friends and family to the Blog-O-Thon.

Circumstances beyond my control have led me to a place where I can no longer devote the time to producing a quality reading experience for you daily.

Those circumstances were the result of broken promises made to me, and the collateral damge is that I no longer can keep my promise to you... everything, IS connected.

That isn't an excuse though. We are what we eat, and we are the choices we make. I sincerely apologize for breaking my promise, and seeming unaccountable.

Those circumstances coupled, with a rather tepid response of reader participation have led to this unfortunate resolution.

That's cool. I'm a big boy, and I can handle it. "I judge my forward progress and successes by the crushingly epic nature of my failures..."

If you are on facebook, I also started a page called "Little Georgie's Blog-O-Thon". Just search it, it will pop up. That will be the final publicly published Master Index for all of the past Dose Output, and any that might happen in the future.

The "Last Dispensary" as it were.

I love you all.

Easy,

Geo


"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"




AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!



COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

DAILY DOSE #65 (08/03/11)

EXPLORING CREATIVE PROCESSES PART 10:

(Adding The Stock)

I know I'm beating this "Gumbo Metaphor" to death, but this particular dish signifies clearly the process. Food preparation, assembly, and the techniques involved truly mirror how "Little Georgie And The Shuffling Hungarians" was pulled from theory into a tangible reality.

To recap:

At this point in time, all of the foundational concepts that I could complete by myself were identified and clearly defined. The Roux had been rendered, and "The Holy Trinity" had been identified, chosen, chopped in the right amounts; blended into the roux. The basic armature had been pulled from theory to a loose manifestation of reality.

But ultimately, live performances and possible future recordings, like films, are collaborative vehicles. I could be the engine, but I still needed a car to get to the final destination point.

Second only to a perfectly rendered roux, a perfect Gumbo hinges upon the stock used to prepare it for its final finishing stages: the spices and additional ingredients, the timing of their entrance into the gumbo pot, and its cooking down process to blend the flavors of all of the pot's eventual contents.

You can use water, and you can used pre-packaged stock as well, but your Gumbo will suffer accordingly if you do.

Only homemade stock will do.

As mentioned previously, at the time of ultimate creation I had very few resources available to me at the time. I was unknowingly bi-polar crazy, suicidal, and dead broke. All I had was my brain and a modicum of musical talent.

That said, I did have access to a stock; beautifully made and created outside of all of this.


If that stock and the access to it did not exist, then all of this creative armature building would have been a totally pointless exercise. The existence of the stock was the insurance policy needed to commence the mental work necessary to finding the roux and the "Holy Trinity" in the first place.

I knew that if I could get the Gumbo to the point of having the stock added and heat applied, the rest of the process would just fall into place. It was going to start to look and smell like a mighty good gumbo, one that would generate a magnetic force of gravity that would pull all the other future crucial and ultimately very special and unique ingredients into its orbit; eventually convincing those ingredients to dive into the "Hungarian Gumbo Pot" of their own volition.


THE STOCK; MARK TIFFAULT AND PAUL LaRONDE A.K.A. THE RHYTHM DICKS


My association with The Rhythm Dicks started benignly enough. A local comedian by the name of Tom Kenney (Later to go on to fame and fortune as the voice talent behind "Sponge Bob Squarepants")wanted to reprise a one off gig in his old hometown of Syracuse, New York.

I had worked with Tom before. Gary Frenay had organized the original first one off gig of what was to be called "Tom Kenny and The Fabulous Pushballs" (For those unaware of The Upstate New York Volunteer Firemen Arena, Pushball is a form of tug of war played between departments using high pressure hoses and a large canvass ball attached to an elevated rope, utilizing public embarrassment and humiliation for fundraising purposes).


A couple of years later, Tom called me and asked if we could do it again, but this time, he put the responsibility of putting the band together squarely on my own shoulders, and gave me full autonomy over personnel decisions.

I had always been a sideman, parasitically joining bands that were well into their development phases. A gun for hire. Oddly, this would be the first time I had that responsibility and autonomy.

It would be the perfect time to be handed that type of autonomy. I found myself between “causes”: The Bogeymen’s record deal had just imploded, or was about to anyway simultaneously with my personal life. I needed to get my mind of off the shit side of my life and do something productive. It was a unique opportunity to build a “Dream Team”, even if it was to service the needs of a crack comedian to ultimately showcase his abilities. That level of creative and administrative control had never been felt by my hands. It was time to seize control, because all elements of my life as I knew it were wildly spinning out of control.

So if given the responsibility of constructing some thing of value, you start at the foundation. Mark and Paul got the first call, and they signed on for this singular gig.

When Tom sent me the source material of the show, it was way more on the Jump Blues side of things. They were still obscure novelty numbers from an era long gone, and Tom was (still is) an absolute scholarly musical archaeologist and archivist when it comes to these matters.

My concept of novelty blues began and ended with Bull Moose Jackson (“Big Ten Inch”), Roy Brown (“Keep On Churnin”), or a huge chunk of the Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five catalog. Tom dug up things that I had NEVER heard, and for me, that was a tough feat to accomplish. “Uh-Oh, Get Out of the Car?” “Cut It Out?” “Mickey Mouse Boarding House?”. “Drunk, by Joe “The Honeydripper’” Liggin’s little brother Jimmy , who used to be his bus driver?” This was a subterranean strata of the blues and rock and roll history that even I had never been exposed to, and I thought I was pretty well schooled at the time.

I still have those tapes. They are an absolute historical primer on how humor and the blues are related. If you were ever curious as to how intrinsically verbal and poetic humor is woven into the blues, rock and roll, and popular music in general, I suggest you talk to Spongebob Squarepants.

So now, at age 31, I was finally being handed the reigns, and how successful a race run was going to fall upon my jockeying abilities; and they at that point were untested.

The “New” Pushballs were formed around the rhythm section of Mark Tiffault, Paul “Big Daddy” LaRonde, and me. We busted our collective asses to be totally prepared for the future voice of Spongebob’s show. With the addition of Tim Harrington on guitar, and a killer sax section of Frank Grosso and Paulie Cerra, I again might have found myself once again the low man on the musical end of the totem pole, but I will take the credit for putting together and administrating a killer band of the very best that Syracuse had to offer.

Tom blew into town, and we played the show at the Zodiac Club. He was on fire, as per usual, and the band killed completely, adopting Tom’s “take no prisoners” mind set when it comes to performance.

Playing a Pushballs show is like being in the middle of a hurricane, and time compresses. It just blows by. At the end of them you always ask yourself these questions; “What in Hell’s name just happened? Was I even here for this? ”

Playing a show with Tom Kenney is an out of body experience.

Transition

In the aftermath of that show, Paul, Mark and I had a pow wow. We had worked so hard to build that set of material, it would be a shame to just let that workload go to waste. I floated the idea of just going out and playing as The Pushballs. I was the rehearsal vocalist anyway. I knew the tunes.

But I was totally untested as a vocalist and frontman. It was a huge risk for Mark and Paul to take professionally. They were on the forefront of the roots and blues scene, I was an interloper from the Rock and Roll world and a green horn as well.

But they took that leap of faith with me. I rounded up the rest of the Pushballs, and booked a series of 4 consecutive Wednesday shows at Club Zodiac, to try and snare some of the revellers heading to Armory Square after Party In The Plaza.


I’d like to say we were a smashing success, but we weren’t. Specifically, I wasn’t. No let me rephrase: I sucked. I couldn’t sing and play at the same time. I couldn’t sing. I was, (and still am to some degree)totally charismatically challenged. I didn’t even know how to count in a song half the time. It was a humbling experience.

After the four shows, it was “back to the woodshed”. Time to figure out the "Gumbo".

FROM THEORY TO REALITY (Taking Stock)

Let's skip back in time a bit.

When Mark and Paul started humping their gear up the stairs to my newly acquired second floor bachelor flat on Winton Street for the first time, I was as low as a human could possibly go. Completely bottomed out.

The Pushballs project fell into my lap, and truly, it was all I had to look forward to. Everything else in life was burned to the ground, and I knew it.

These two musicians were the absolute cream of the crop. The "A" list rhythm section, both with extensive professional resumes. In the midst of abject personal catastrophe, the Universe had decided to cut me a break, and delivered a huge gift, although at that moment wasn't recognized.

They set up in my front room. We really didn't know each other personally from Adam.

My piano faced the bay window overlooking Winton street. I asked if they just wanted to jam on something to warm up, because the source material tapes hadn't been distributed yet. I suggested Professor Longhair's classic "Tipitina" in F, started playing the rubato intro, and they just fell right in.

There was no eye contact between me and the amazingly sympathetic rhythm section playing behind me. They were a Godsend. They knew the tune, they knew the vagaries of style; They put their own unique spin on it, a spin developed over thousands of road miles and countless gigs in their former band The Kingsnakes, and their present project Built For Comfort. They were John Lee Hooker's back up band for chrissakes.

So in the midst of a complete meltdown, this is what was bestowed upon me. Absolute musical perfection. I dont know how long we jammed on "Tipitina" but by the end of it, I was convinced that somebody up there, did in fact like me. It was a sign.


I was going to have the opportunity to play with the best rhythm section I would ever get a chance to play with, even if it was just for one gig with the future Spongebob Squarepants.

I can't really get into their heads as to how they felt about making noise with me, but it went well enough for them to commit to doing the one-off Pushballs gig. The rehearsal source tapes were distributed, the first ten songs on the tape to be learned, and the second rehearsal scheduled.

The Pushballs project was all I had, and I threw myself into it. I trancribed all the lyrics to about forty tunes, charted them out, worked with the horn players to create charts. The "assembly line" system that I would employ in the future was developed right then. I could not waste Mark and Paul's time. Half-assing, phoning it in, and ultimately if that happened, failing, was not an option.

Rehearsals were focused, directed, and run with military precision. They came in totally prepared with a combined surgical eye aimed at the innards of all the material, and I was ready for them. I honestly didn't have anything else to do other than to dedicate myself to pulling it off on a 24/7 basis. My life, literally revolved around the once a week arrival of Mark and Paul to my Winton Street digs.

It was the only bright spot in my rather bleak existence.

By the time we assembled the whole band together for complete rehearsals, the three of us knew that we may be on to something, but that something hadn't really been defined at that point. We did know that the show with Tom Kenney would be pretty epic, but that was about it.

Maybe they recognized my dogged work ethic. Maybe they saw that I could be the potential complimentary engine to their already completely stylized car. I can't tell you what made them decide to sign on to the subsequent four shows at The Zodiac with a totally untested, destined to suck front person. Maybe it was just the extra dough to be made on an off night while they pursued their main project, Built For Comfort.

Whatever the reason, they were there. And after bombing mightily, they were still there, ready to make a transition into something else, and they left me to my own devices to create and define what that something else was going to be.

Mark and Paul were "The Stock". Perfectly cooked down and rendered, and lustily flavorful. Had they not given me access to their superlative talents, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to go into the tunnel of memory and find the critical components of the Gumbo. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to build that conceptual armature.


To say that there wouldn't be a band without them would truly be an understatement.

Those rehearsals were my life line. They extended it to me, and I grabbed it with all my might.

They saved my life. Period. I wouldn't be writing this blog today without them. I would have been long gone from this earthly existence.

The tenure of the Hungarians through their history was not without its bumps in the road. Some of those bumps could have been avoided, and some of them couldn't.

But when put in terms of giving thanks and finding true gratitude, I look back at that spring and summer, and I realize what really is important in this world.

I was close to dead, and they gave me the means and support over time to ressurect and re-invent myself, and they knew exactly what they were doing.

Its a debt, that can never be repaid. Ever.





AUTHOR'S NOTE

As of this writing, The Dose has received over 19,500 legitimate page views in 63 daily injections. All I have asked of the general readership is that if you enjoyed what you just read, hit that little share button on the top right column of this site, or copy the blog address down, paste it in an email, and give a friend a taste.

The Dose's original intent and design was for it to be passed along and shared; sort of hoping that we could form a bond and a shared sense of responsibility between the content creation and its users active participation.

Unfortunately, my personal assessment is that its starting to look like a failed experiment.

It isn't without its harvestable aspects in the face of failure, and I don't regret the amount of time I spent writing 63 consecutive posts at all. I have learned so much by disciplining myself to produce quality writing to the best of my ability for 63 conescutive days. I can look myself in the mirror and honestly say that I gave my all, every little last particle of me. I did not phone it in, or take whoever might be reading The Dose for granted in anyway. I stayed true to principle.

I'm truly grateful to those of you that have read, and perhaps even been inspired by the Blog-O-Thon's content and message. I'm also especially grateful to the folks that took it upon themselves to realize their implied responsibility by enjoying the content, and then taking the time to hip their friends and family to the Blog-O-Thon.

Circumstances beyond my control have led me to a place where I can no longer devote the time to producing a quality reading experience for you daily.

Those circumstances were the result of broken promises made to me, and the collateral damge is that I no longer can keep my promise to you... everything, IS connected.

That isn't an excuse though. We are what we eat, and we are the choices we make. I sincerely apologize for breaking my promise, and seeming unaccountable.

Those circumstances coupled, with a rather tepid response of reader participation have led to this unfortunate resolution.

That's cool. I'm a big boy, and I can handle it. "I judge my forward progress and successes by the crushingly epic nature of my failures..."

If you are on facebook, I also started a page called "Little Georgie's Blog-O-Thon". Just search it, it will pop up. That will be the final publicly published Master Index for all of the past Dose Output, and any that might happen in the future.

The "Last Dispensary" as it were.

I love you all.

Easy,

Geo


"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"




AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!



COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"



Suggested Reading:

Gary Frenay: A Testimony:

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/05/gary-frenay-testimony.html

033.) "On Rhetorical Devices, Influences, and Making Art "Popular": The use of rhetoric as a velvet rope and associative strategy 1981-2011

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/06/daily-dose-33-062911.html

055.) "Exploring Creative Processes: Part 1": An Introduction

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-55-072211.html

056.) "Exploring Creative Processes: Part 2": What's In Your Gumbo?

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-56-072311.html

057.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 3": The Hard Wiring Of The Really Little Georgie 1960-1964

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-57-072411.html

058.) "Party Time": A "Lake Boy" Tale

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-58-072511.html

059.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 4": The Test Of Time

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-59-072611.html

060.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 5": The Test Of Time

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-60-072711.html

061.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 6": Finding the Second of Three "Trinity" Components: The Green Pepper

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-61-072811.html

062.) Exploring Creative Concepts Part 7: They Eat Green Bell Peppers in the Emerald City

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-61-072811.html

063.) Exploring Creative Concepts Part 8: Finding The Celery: The final and third component of "The Holy Trinity"

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/08/daily-dose-63-080111.html

064.)Exploring Creative Processes Part 9: The Celery Was As Green As An Invader From Mars (Integrating Core Marketing Concepts To Fuel Creative Content)

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/08/daily-dose-64-080211.html

Monday, August 1, 2011

DAILY DOSE #64 (08/02/11)

EXPLORING CREATIVE PROCESSES Part 9: The Celery Was As Green As An Invader From Mars

(Integrating Core Marketing Concepts To Fuel Creative Content)

Citizen Kane is considered by many to be "The Greatest Film Ever Made".

The Hollywood film community and Studio System effectively killed it immediately after its release in 1941. It was too good and Welles made too much trouble for all of them. But once it got resuscitated in the mid 1950's by first French New Wave film makers and critics, and then its television rights got sold and Americans could finally see it, in a relative short time it was topping every critic's "best of" list and still does to this day.

Historical Context is pretty important when looking at "Kane". In 1941, it was just clearly ahead of its time on so many different platforms it still boggles the mind. So much so that Welles never got a chance to make a film with total creative control again in his lifetime.

Much like an early episode of "Survivor" , Orson Welles' sheer genius and the value of his work framed himself as either an impudent child ass or a very real threat to the 1941 film making community. He had to be voted off the island a soon as possible, and was.

I'm not going to go into a lengthy diatribe concerning the artistic value of "Citizen Kane". Much has been written about it, and has been written much better than I ever could.


But in my quest to find a solid armature to build my own work upon, the study of "Kane" and its creators was a forgone conclusion.

With VCR remote in hand, for hours, days, and weeks I deconstructed the film, scene by scene and frame by frame. I bought a copy of the shooting script and took scrupulous notes. Every camera angle, special effect, unorthodox lighting trick, and scene transition was notated. I broke down Bernard Herrman's score bar by bar. I poured over Pauline Kael's and Peter Bogdonovich's critical essays, and fact-checked every anecdote contained within. I logged alot of public library time and still have multiple stacks of composition books written in 1991 filled with "Kane" arcana.


I was in search of a story, but I was also in search of story telling techniques, both in a literary and visual sense.

I learned much and can definitely say that "Kane" as a film was a major influence on me and on the final blueprint that I was trying to create before actually initiating the actual construction of the musical project before me.

But much more influence on me than the film was Welles the man himself.

Welles was given a "Carte Blanche" at RKO, a feat unheard of at the time. Although known as a child wunderkind dramatist and radio star, really he scored that contract on the back of the "War Of The Worlds" broadcast. They were basically expecting him to come to Hollywood and make a B grade amateur film version of it.

Welles was all about controversy and shaking up the status quo. He produced and directed Shakespeare's Macbeth with an all African American cast in a Haitian "Voodoo" context. He mounted a production of "Julius Caesar" with everyone dressed as modern day Italian Fascists in ultra modernist staging and lighting techniques.


And of course, he did a radio broadcast about a Martian Invasion, and set it in the context of an emergency bulletin, igniting a widespread national panic. Don't think he didn't know what he was doing, because even though he had issued a mea culpa apology after the fact, they were well aware of what was happening during the broadcast and Welles refused to pull the plug.

The controversy was a preconceived element and major component, woven directly into the radio play as performed and presented by The Mercury Theater. It was Orson's ticket to Hollywood, and he knew it.

This veritable child arrived in Hollywood with an unheard of two picture deal, total control over all aspects including casting and final cut, having never directed a film before in his life. A kid in a veritable candy store.

Welles basically was lost in the weeds of the Hollywood Hills when he got there. He originally came up with a treatment for Joseph Conrad's "Heart Of Darkness",which RKO refused to greenlight. Then came "Smiler With A Knife", again unable to sell George Schaeffer, the head honcho at RKO on his choice of Lucille Ball for the lead role.

The entire Mercury Theater troupe was out in La-La Land with nothing to do except play tennis all day and get drunk all night on RKO's payroll. Welles was banging starlets like Delores Del Rio and cocktail waitresses two at a time. Things were getting dicey for Orson, and the public relations pressure was mounting; much of it at the poisoned journalistic pen and sword tips of Louella Parsons, the "Perez Hilton" Hollywood gossip monger of her day.


Parsons was the handmaiden and Satanic minion of William Randolph Hearst, one of the most powerful men in America, controlling a newspaper and broadcast empire of epic proportions. She, along with Hedda Hopper (her competition) were key players in the eventual fate of "Kane" and its creator.

With the walls closing in on him, Welles started collaborating with Herman Mankiewicz, and that's when the worm finally turned.

Mankiewicz was part of the New York journalist and writers migration to the west coast when the embryonic film industry started to develop. In his day he was very successful and is credited for creating the snappy dialog patter style in comedies of the 1930's and the subsequent humor employed.

Nunnally Johnson, no slouch to screenwriting and directing himself, once said that the "two most brilliant men he has ever known were George S. Kaufman and Herman Mankiewicz, and that Mankiewicz was the more brilliant of the two. ... he spearheaded the movement of that whole Broadway style of wisecracking, fast-talking, cynical-sentimental entertainment onto the national scene."

But by this time he had de-evolved into a notorious drunk and professional liability. Just another extremely talented, lovable Hollywood loser.


They had a basic working dramatic construct of an idea: Develop a story about a famous American, told from several intersecting point of views in flashback. Aimee Semple McPherson and John Dillinger as potential central characters were kicked around as possibilities, among others.

Only when Mankiewicz handed him an old manuscript and notes of a sprawling novel based on the life of William Randolph Hearst did Welles finally approach the position of getting back on his creative rails. But even then, he wasn't quite there yet.

"Mank" purposefully had shelved the Hearst project out of fear of reprisal from the publishing magnate. Hearst could have people killed in the literal sense, and get away with it. Killing careers to Hearst was the equivalent of shooing away flies.

Mankiewicz was part of the crew that Hearst would ship up to San Simeon, and was a close friend of Marion Davies, Hearst's longtime mistress and Hearst's personal "pet project". Davies' film career was bankrolled by Hearst, and a bit of a Hollywood joke. Mank knew many intimate details of Hearst's life, due to his association with Davies.

You don't become a "Giant of American Publishing" without having a massive ego. Hearst was a Narcissist beyond compare. Welles, knowing a thing or two about over inflated egos and narcissism himself, recognized enough bitchy details in Mank's notes to assume that there just might be enough slings and arrows available to take a shot at enraging that ego as an attempt was made to deflate it.


Welles was compelled by the thought of throwing a well aimed punch at the face of real power and in so doing lighting a fire under the ass of most powerful man in American Media. He was a man that wielded a considerable amount of power over The American Film Industry and Hollywood as well.

Within this context, the controversy would be delivered woven into the actual vehicle of the art.

It was "The Sell" that sold Orson, primed his creative pump, got those juices flowing, directed and focused. Making great art to Welles was a forgone conclusion. He had done it his whole young life.

But making a huge stink and having the art the vehicle to achieve that? Not so easily done. Welles knew that "marketing" was just as important as "making" and he had discovered at a very early age that the secret always was in the alchemy of combining the two in the creative process, instead of the linear process of "making" and then trying to figure out how to sell it.

One of the dirty little factoids in Mankiewicz's notes was the euphemistic pet name that Hearst had lovingly bestowed upon a certain organ in his misstress Marion Davies' vaginal nether world. The pet name?

Rosebud. Rosebud was a code word for "The Courtesan's Clitoris"

This school boy joke became the unifying thread in the narrative of "Kane". As the word was gaspingly uttered in a death rattle, and the first line of dialog spoken, the movie became a "who dunnit" mystery aimed at answering a singular question "What exactly was "Rosebud'?"

The shadowed and almost faceless "News On The March" journalist Jerry Thompson attempts to track down the hidden "clitoral question" through the interviews and subsequent memories of characters Susan Alexander, Jed Leland. Mr. Bernstein, and through Walter Thatcher's memoirs: As Kane's life story was unfolds in flashback from these sources, "Rosebud" was the topic, the conversation starter, and the mystery of the picture.


"Rosebud" drove the action. And although in the end Rosebud signifies the last time this tragically flawed man was authentically happy, the picture ends with "Rosebud" being discarded and going up in flames.

The whole narrative story was based on a prank. One designed to function as a red hot poker, continuously rammed into the eye of one of the most powerful men in America and thus the entire power structure of the film industry, for the entire running time of "Citizen Kane".

That, my friends, is an integrated core marketing concept that informs and shapes the final product.

It is aimed at a single bullseye to achieve the desired result: a firestorm for a work of art yet to be even created, and really a large part of the formula for the fuel to ignite Orson's creative rocket ship launch.


The rest of the incendiary devices in "Kane" were aimed directly at the Marion Davies character. The "Opera" career. The puzzles on the floor. The dim bulb, knuckle-headed, low brow portrayal. The isolation in Xanadu. The alcoholism. That was just cruel variation on a theme.

The "Greatest Movie Of All Time" was going to be about a clitoris. A very specific one. That was the foundational ground work before a a script was developed or a single frame was conceptualized or shot.

Not alot of people were in on the joke, except a few Hollywood insiders. The movie certainly works for people who don't know the joke.

But for those few who did? Kane became an exercise in absolute brutality, and its agenda was very clear. The few that did know ran the show. The heat that was going to come down on all their heads would be beyond compare.

Then the little pissant upstart interloper NY intellectual had the audacity to make the best film ever seen to add insult to injury, having never made a film before in his life, exposing the mediocrity of Hollywood product of the day.

Under pressure from Hearst, the studio heads made a collective offer to RKO to buy all prints and negatives of Citizen Kane for $800,000... to burn it. The greatest movie of all time came very close to being destroyed before ever getting a chance to be seen by a general viewing public.

THAT'S how good it really was then, and that is why it's still great now.


Welles' own narcissism sealed his own doom; with the marketing device, and ultimately with his own genius.

He became one of the great tragedies of the latter half of the 20th century.

Art can imitate life. In this case, Art imitated life and life imitated art in an infinity loop of unforseen, but ultimate self-destruction.

THE CELERY

The purpose of this series was to expose and explore "process". From a single point of view, show how I came up with what I did and why.

But before work really initiated, the core concepts had to be in place, and a rough blueprint had to be developed.

"The Celery" was where art and commerce met. The Wellesian device, the red hot poker and the secret punch in the face, integrated into the art.

There are other ways to create controversy. You can dress up outrageously. You can bite the heads of of bats, or wear meat dresses at awards shows, or have fake lesbian spit swaps with Madonna.

Welles's device was a little different, and much more integrated. It really was designed at a single target, and the very few insiders that knew the joke. His main target was still mass appeal and a mass audience. He knew he was making popular art.

He just knew how to get eyeballs on it, and he knew how to direct focus and expectations before the eyeballs actually saw it.

So in the end, this device worked for me. I would function as "Kane" as well as "The Bunny" and ultimatley the character of "Little Georgie".

It would be the fictionalized version of real life events. The tragic hero would be undone by his fatal flaw. And although there were many protaganists in the tale I was about to write, the singular one was the ultimate betrayer. The vessel of disengenuous love.


This narrative going to be my version of a classic Greek tragedy of loss, dressed and presented as a comedy. The tragic elements were only going to be revealed to those that had the ability to notice. The surface presentation and eventual narrative was just sugar coating and chocolate dip on a rotten peanut of a story of abandonment,mysticism and the dark arts, lust, sex, betrayal, lies, substance abuse, a public beheading and then delivering a head on a plate, with a surprise twist at the end with a cautionary warning to the members of the collective cosciousness that trucked in the utter banality of evil as they mundanely scorched the earth.

That coating would be able to stand alone and function quite effectively as an entertainment in and of itself, and as a shield.

In the end, a casual observer wouldn't know anything about this, and certainly wouldn't recognize anything resembling a "Rosebud". But for those few in the music community that knew the real story, or were at least privvy to all the gossip surrounding the ugly details of the last year of my marriage and the excruciating year between separation and ultimately divorce played out very publicly by my future ex-wife, it was going to be pretty obvious that "Little Georgie's Narrative" was going to follow real life very closely.

Art would imitate life.

I wasn't very good at hiding my "Rosebud" at first. A Gumbo has to cook down and the flavors have to blend. At the point of creation, ideas and concepts, and the feelings that inspire them are very raw indeed.

But in the end, as a concept, the final hidden output was going to be a twisted love letter to my ex-wife, delivered with hidden a red hot poker directly to her metaphoric eye.

Enough people knew the tale to get tongues wagging.


If I could sustain that local innuendo trading, narrative spinning and tongue wagging for three years, that would buy me enough time to slow cook the Gumbo, and get it into a finished state.

There would be an eventual business plan crafted for long term goals, but this was the point where the creative armature and the future business plan truly intersected.

Next Step For The Creative Gumbo Assembly

At this point in time, all of the foundational concepts that I could complete by myself were indentified and clearly defined. The Roux had been rendered, and "The Holy Trinity" had been identified,chosen, chopped in the right amounts, and blended into the roux. The basic armature had been pulled from theory to a loose manifestation of reality.

But ultimately, recordings, like films, are collaborative vehicles. I could be the engine, but I still needed a car to get to the final destination point.

Second only to a perfectly rendered roux, a perfect Gumbo hinges upon the stock used to prepare it for its final finishing stages: the spices and additional ingredients, the timing of their entrance into the gumbo pot, and its cooking down process to blend the flavors of all of the pot's eventual contents.

You can use water, and you can used pre-packaged stock as well, but your Gumbo will suffer accordingly if you do.

Only homemade stock will do.

As mentioned previously, at the time of ultimate creation I had very few resources available to me at the time. I was unknowingly bi-polar crazy, suicidal, and dead broke. All I had was my brain and a modicum of musical talent.

That said, I did have access to a stock; beautifully made and created outside of all of this.


If that stock and the access to it did not exist, then all of this creative armature building would have been a totally pointless exercise. The existence of the stock was the insurance policy needed to commence the mental work necessary to finding the roux and the "Holy Trinity" in the first place.

I knew that if I could get the Gumbo to the point of having the stock added and heat applied, the rest of the process would just fall into place. It was going to start to look and smell like a mighty good gumbo, one that would generate a magnetic force of gravity that would pull all the other future crucial and ultimately very special and unique ingredients into its orbit; eventually convincing those ingredients to dive into the "Hungarian Gumbo Pot" of their own volition.

That stock manifested itself in the form of three very specific people.

The next intallment of this series will take a look at those three people, for without them, "Little Georgie" or "The Shuffling Hungarians" would have been just another good idea left on the drawing board. The only reason it became realized was because of their specific contributions, ones that I will be forever grateful for.

(Stay Tuned For Installment 10)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

As always, if you are following The Dose regularly, its going to be increasingly more helpful if you have a roadmap and scorecard. An updated master index is sent out weekly that includes descriptions and direct hyperlinks to each archived blog: Its a lot easier than searching for archived material for cross referencing purposes than the blogger platform. Just shoot me your email address at:

piannaplunker88@gmail.com

You can opt out at anytime.

As of this writing, The Dose has received over 19,500 legitimate page views in 63 daily injections. All I have asked of the general readership is that if you enjoyed what you just read, hit that little share button on the top right column of this site, or copy the blog address down, paste it in an email, and give a friend a taste.

The Dose's original intent and design was for it to be passed along and shared; sort of hoping that we could form a bond and a shared sense of responsibility between the content creation and its users active participation.

Unfortunately, my personal assessment is that its starting to look like a failed experiment.

It isn't without its harvestable aspects in the face of failure, and I don't regret the amount of time I spent writing 63 consecutive posts at all. I have learned so much by disciplining myself to produce quality writing to the best of my ability for 63 conescutive days. I can look myself in the mirror and honestly say that I gave my all, every little last particle of me. I did not phone it in, or take whoever might be reading The Dose for granted in anyway. I stayed true to principle.

I'm truly grateful to those of you that have read, and perhaps even been inspired by the Blog-O-Thon's content and message. I'm also especially grateful to the folks that took it upon themselves to realize their implied responsibility by enjoying the content, and then taking the time to hip their friends and family to the Blog-O-Thon.

Circumstances beyond my control have led me to a place where I can no longer devote the time to producing a quality experience for you daily.

Those circumstances were the result of broken promises made to me, and the collateral damge is that I no longer can keep my promise to you... everything, IS connected.

That isn't an excuse though. We are what we eat, and we are the choices we make. I sincerely apologize for breaking my promise, and seeming unaccountable. In the end, all you are left with is your Integrity, and mine got compromised by not recognizing the lack of it in others that I openly trusted.

Those circumstances coupled, with a rather tepid response of reader participation have led to this unfortunate resolution.

That's cool. I'm a big boy, and I can handle it. "I judge my forward progress and successes by the crushingly epic nature of my failures..."

If you are on facebook, I also started a page called "Little Georgie's Blog-O-Thon". Just search it, it will pop up. That will be the final publicly published Master Index for all of the past Dose Output, and any that might happen in the future.

The "Last Dispensary" as it were.

I love you all.

Easy,

Geo


"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"




AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!



COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"



Suggested Reading:

Gary Frenay: A Testimony:

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/05/gary-frenay-testimony.html

033.) "On Rhetorical Devices, Influences, and Making Art "Popular": The use of rhetoric as a velvet rope and associative strategy 1981-2011

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/06/daily-dose-33-062911.html

055.) "Exploring Creative Processes: Part 1": An Introduction

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-55-072211.html

056.) "Exploring Creative Processes: Part 2": What's In Your Gumbo?

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-56-072311.html

057.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 3": The Hard Wiring Of The Really Little Georgie 1960-1964

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-57-072411.html

058.) "Party Time": A "Lake Boy" Tale

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-58-072511.html

059.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 4": The Test Of Time

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-59-072611.html

060.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 5": The Test Of Time

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-60-072711.html

061.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 6": Finding the Second of Three "Trinity" Components: The Green Pepper

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-61-072811.html

062.) Exploring Creative Concepts Part 7: They Eat Green Bell Peppers in the Emerald City

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-61-072811.html

063.) Exploring Creative Concepts Part 8: Finding The Celery: The final and third component of "The Holy Trinity"

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/08/daily-dose-63-080111.html

DAILY DOSE #63 (08/01/11)

EXPLORING CREATIVE PROCESSES: PART 8

(Finding the Celery: The Final Component Of "THE HOLY TRINITY")



Going back in time to find the purity of concept was initially like trying to find buried treasure without a map.

But through repeated dives, by this point a methodology started to emerge, that at least at the surface, was paying pretty large dividends. The more I dedicated myself to the goal of building a solid armature of conceptual elements, the better I got at knowing where to look to find them.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. As I circled around the central point of building that armature, the harvested concepts and ideas kept tightening the circle. At the onset, getting to the true heart of the point of discovery required a time machine worthy of H.G. Wells, but by this point, quantum traveling from any point of the circumference to the center was like walking to the corner store.

Patterns in this chaotic process started to emerge. Subconscious drivers and actual methods materialized.

The Shuffling Hungarians were to be, in the end, a band. A presentation of music, to state the obvious. But by opening myself up to the absolute randomness of the process and to find the real and true answers to the questions I posed to myself, one of those patterns was that I was finding those answers in very unorthodox mediums, that had very little to do with the process of making music.

Maybe I instinctively knew that in trying to create an entity that was unique to its arena, that I needed to pull ideas and be influenced by works of art that had nothing to do with music.

Perhaps that had something to do with how I learned about rock and roll. If you dig The Stones, that sets you on a path of discovery of who they were listening to to arrive at the end product. The same with the Beatles. In fact both groups early recordings were peppered liberally with material to point the way. They were exposing their own journeys of discovery.

To get inside the minds of Lennon and McCartney, you had to absorb the complete ouvres of Motown, Brill Building Pop, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Elvis, The Isley Brothers, Fats Domino, British Dancehall Music and Broadway Show Tunes. The covers gave you a map to understand the artists. If in fact you are what you eat, its a good idea to study the diet of others.

Being very familiar with that process, in very gut-brained fashion I went in the opposite direction. By searching for that one pure moment of discovery, and casting the net wider without any preconceived controls, I started creating a list of "future influence" that wasn't actually operating in the realm of music, or music making. I aimed for the first and last time that I ever felt safe and truly loved.

Then I found the influence and sources of inspiration.

One of my main objectives was again "The Test Of Time". What stood the test of time? What works elevated themselves through time to iconic status?

Beethoven wrote thousands of pieces of music to arrive at the opening four notes of his Fifth Symphony. Out of the whole cannon of Piano Sonatas, why are "The Pathetique" or "The Moonlight" the ones that automatically trigger the collective consciousness?

Van Gough's out put was pretty prodigious, and yet when you think of his work, why do "Sunflowers" or "Starry Night" pop up first? Why does "The David" define the sculptural output of Michelangelo first?



The Sistine Chapel's Ceiling has many images, but God touching his finger tip to Adam's is the first one that pops up.



I was in search of the "Iconic", and I didn't realize it in real time in the multiple journeys of trying to make those discoveries. Really the goal was pretty purely motivated. I just wanted to make the best work that I could with the resources available to me at the time.

I was alone, isolated, bi-polar crazy, clinically depressed and dead broke. The only resource available for conceptual purposes was my own very broken brain, heart, will and spirit. If I could pull off a personal ressurection, than the ressurection would be "televised". My life's story and very public humiliation had been writ large on bathroom walls and shit house stalls, and if I made a public statement, I expected no different of an outcome.

I knew that if I "aimed big", that failure was pretty much a foregone conclusion. But I also knew that in aiming big, I was going to end up with something of much more lasting import than if I stood two feet away from the target and aimed for the middle.

Professional and personal failure was all around me. This did not discourage me, in fact it fueled me. If failure was a foregone conclusion, than I was going to fail in epic proportions. It was the "Daffy Duck" finale. You can only do it once. Accepting that responsibility was a key factor in dedicating myself to the process.

I posted this clip in Dose #60. Watch again, because this was me. I was in search of the creative equivalent of a ".. generous portion of gasoline and nitro-glycereeeen....".

While sewing a Devil's Suit to wear in perpetuity, all I needed was the proverbial "Lit Match" to set it all off. That, dear readers and world wide peep-a-roos, was the "Celery", and I already knew where to find it.



(Stay Tuned For Part 9)

Suggested Reading:

Gary Frenay: A Testimony:

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/05/gary-frenay-testimony.html

033.) "On Rhetorical Devices, Influences, and Making Art "Popular": The use of rhetoric as a velvet rope and associative strategy 1981-2011

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/06/daily-dose-33-062911.html

055.) "Exploring Creative Processes: Part 1": An Introduction

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-55-072211.html

056.) "Exploring Creative Processes: Part 2": What's In Your Gumbo?

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-56-072311.html

057.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 3": The Hard Wiring Of The Really Little Georgie 1960-1964

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-57-072411.html

058.) "Party Time": A "Lake Boy" Tale

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-58-072511.html

059.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 4": The Test Of Time

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-59-072611.html

060.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 5": The Test Of Time

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-60-072711.html

061.) "Exploring Creative Processes Part 6": Finding the Second of Three "Trinity" Components: The Green Pepper

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-61-072811.html

062.) Exploring Creative Concepts Part 7: They Eat Green Bell Peppers in the Emerald City

http://littlegeorgiesblog-a-thon.blogspot.com/2011/07/daily-dose-61-072811.html



As always, if you are following The Dose regularly, its going to be increasingly more helpful if you have a roadmap and scorecard. An updated master index is sent out weekly that includes descriptions and direct hyperlinks to each archived blog: Its a lot easier than searching for archived material for cross referencing purposes than the blogger platform. Just shoot me your email address at:

piannaplunker88@gmail.com

You can opt out at anytime.

As of this writing, The Dose has received over 19,250 page views in 61 daily injections. All I have asked of the general readership is that if you enjoyed what you just read, hit that little share button on the top right column of this site, or copy the blog address down, paste it in an email, and give a friend a taste.

The Dose's original intent and design was for it to be passed along and shared; sort of hoping that we could form a bond and a shared sense of responsibility between the content and its users.

I'd like to continue to keep delivering this stuff, but we're rapidly reaching the point of diminishing returns.

Unfortunately, my personal assessment is that its starting to look like a failed experiment.

It isn't without its harvestable aspects in the face of failure, and I don't regret the amount of time I spent writing 62 consecutive posts at all. I have learned so much by disciplining myself to produce quality writing to the best of my ability for 62 conescutive days. I can look myself in the mirror and honestly say that I gave my all, every little last particle of me. I did not phone it in, or take whoever might be reading The Dose for granted in anyway. I stayed true to principle.

I'm truly grateful to those of you that have read, and perhaps even been inspired by the Blog-O-Thon's content and message. I'm also especially grateful to the folks that took it upon themselves to realize their implied responsibility by enjoying the content, and then taking the time to hip their friends and family to the Blog-O-Thon.

Circumstances beyond my control have led me to a place where I can no longer devote the time to producing a quality experience for you daily.

Those circumstances were the result of broken promises made to me, and the collateral damge is that I no longer can keep my promise to you... everything, IS connected.

That isn't an excuse though. We are what we eat, and we are the choices we make. I sincerely apologize for breaking my promise, and seeming unaccountable. In the end, all you are left with is your Integrity, and mine got compromised by not recognizing the lack of it in others that I openly trusted.

Those circumstances coupled with a rather tepid response of reader participation have led to this unfortunate resolution.

That's cool. I'm a big boy, and I can handle it. "I judge my forward progress and successes by the crushingly epic nature of my failures..."

If you are on facebook, I also started a page called "Little Georgie's Blog-O-Thon". Just search it, it will pop up. That will be the final publicly published Master Index for all of the past Dose Output, and any that might happen in the future.

The "Last Dispensary" as it were.

I love you all.

Easy,

Geo


"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"




AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!



COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"