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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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The Weekend Warrior 8/27/21 - CANDYMAN, LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD, TOGETHER, VACATION FRIENDS, NO MAN OF GOD, and More

There’s only one new wide release this week, and I’m so happy about that, that I’m gonna say the name of that movie FIVE TIMES!

Candyman

CANDYMAN (Universal)

Well, you get the idea. Jordan Peele seems to have done it again with this sequel the 1992 movie from Bernard Rose, although in this case he’s just co-writing and producing along with the film’s actual director, Nia DaCosta, who directed a small indie called Little Woods, which not that many people saw but that played at the Tribeca Film Festival a bunch of years back.

Of course, the movie is really being sold on the basis of Peele’s involvement, because he had such success with two horror movies as a director, the Oscar-winning Get Out in 2017 and Us two years later. Both of those movies grossed over $175 million domestically and another $75 to 82 million overseas. Get Out opened with just $33 million, which is fairly impressive for an R-rated horror comedy, but Us opened with over $70 million based on the popularity and success of Get Out.

Peele and DaCosta have another decent cast with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, possibly best known for playing Black Manta in James Wan’s Aquaman, playing the lead, an artist named Anthony Mccoy, who learns about the myths of the Candyman at the Chicago projects, Cabrini-Green. He also starred in Peele’s Us right after that, and also appeared in The Greatest Showman with Hugh Jackman, another huge domestic hit. Later this year, he’ll appear (presumably as the younger Morpheus) in The Matrix Resurrections. HIs girlfriend and art curator Brianna is played by Teyonah Parris, who might be best known for her role as Monica Rambeau in the Disney+ series, WandaVision, a role she’ll reprise in next year’s The Marvels, which will reunite her with director DaCosta, as she becomes a full-fledged superhero with the film’s star, Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. The movie also stars Colman Domingo, who had a big breakout by starring in HBO’s Euphoria, the AMC spin-off Fear the Walking Dead, and well-received movies (at least critically) like Zola and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. That’s a pretty amazing trio right there for the movie, and they’ll help the movie get the hoped-for African-American moviegoers but also the young people who enjoy horror.

Horror has generally done okay during the pandemic, although obviously, there’s been a lot of sequels with John Krasinski and Emily Blunt’s A Quiet Place Part II doing the best of all of them. More recent sequels like Escape Room: Tournament of Champions and Don’t Breathe 2 haven’t done as well. And there’s no way around the fact that Candyman is a sequel, but it’s a sequel to a movie that came out nearly 30 years ago, which doesn’t mean that young people will have that close a connection to it.

Maybe it’s no surprise that reviews for the movie have been stellar, similar to Peele’s other two movies, although some definitely have issues with the movie. (My review of Candyman can be found over at Below the Line.)

Candyman seems good for an opening somewhere in the low-to-mid $20 millions, although the anticipation for the movie, and its strong draw within the Black community could give it a nice bump ala the movies Peele has directed. Expect the movie to do especially well on Thursday and Friday, but I think anticipation will make it fairly front-loaded as would be the case with most horror movies released in the summer. (I also expect a massive 55%+ drop next week when Marvel opens Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.)

But in the meantime, this is where I see this week’s top 10.

1. Candyman (Universal) - $22.7 million N/A

2. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $11.5 million -38%

3. Paw Patrol: The Movie (Paramount) - $7.5 million -43%

4. Jungle Cruise (Walt Disney Pictures) - $3.9 million -40%

5. Don’t Breathe 2 (Sony/Screen Gems) - $2.5 million -50%

6. Respect (MGM) - $2 million -47%

7. The Suicide Squad (Warner Bros.) - $1.6 million -52%

8. The Night House (Searchlight) - $1.5 million -48%

9. The Protégé (Lionsgate) - $1.4 million -52%

10. Reminiscence (Warner Bros.) - $900k -54%

A great film I saw at SXSW earlier this year that’s finally coming out and is therefore, this week’s “THE CHOSEN ONE” is the doc LILY TOPPLES THE WORLD (Discovery+) from director Jeremy Workman, which follows the amazing life of 20-year-old domino artist and YouTube sensation Lily Hevesh, who has built up a following due to her amazing domino constructions.

The movie works as a documentary on so many levels, first in terms of relaying Lily’s history as a Chinese orphan adopted at the age of one by non-Asian parents and how that affected her life and her interest in discovery, which ultimately led her to this passion. But building and toppling domino art is much more than a hobby as Ms. Hevesh has been able to monetize her passion with a thriving YouTube channel and also being hired by big corporations to create domino art for commercials and such. I’m not sure how long Workman was following her around but we do get to see Lily in all sorts of environments. We mostly get to see her as entrepreneur as she’s designing and developing her own line of dominoes that would be ideal for the work she does.

Lily Hevesh is just so inspirational and watching this amazing woman go through her life and the wonder she creates in others makes this one of my favorite docs of the year. It will stream on Discovery+ starting Thursday but you can also catch it in NYC at the IFC Center starting Friday.

Over the weekend, I caught a movie that I missed when it got a platform release in New York and L.A. on August 6, as well as when it played at the Tribeca Film Festival back in March. David Gutnik’s Materna (Utopia), an anthology of sorts about four very different women, played by the wonderful Kate Lyn Sheil,Jade Shete, Lindsay Burdge, and Assol Abudllina (the second and fourth of those who co-wrote the script with Gutnik). It’s an interesting anthology that deals with four women who are on the same New York subway when an incident happens, but it never really goes too far into the incident, or even resolves it, since it’s more about the individual women and their lives. I was really only familiar with Sheil and Burdge, although I like the former’s segment more than the latter, though they’re both strange looks at motherhood. I’ll freely admit that there were aspects to all the stories I didn’t get, but I think I ultimately enjoyed the final Assol Abudllina segment the best, even though that’s the only one not in English. I don’t think Materna (which is now available digitally on TVOD) will be for everyone, but it’s certainly an intriguing and somewhat enigmatic film from Gutnik and his collaborators.

Premiering on Hulu Friday is Clay Tarver’s comedy VACATION FRIENDS (Hulu), starring John Cena and Lil Rel Howery as two guys who meet while on vacation with their partners Kyla (Meredith Hagner) and Emily (Yvonne Orji), and they become friends! Okay, there’s a lot more to the movie than that, but I’m embargoed until Friday at midnight so there’s not much more I can say. I do think it’s interesting that this was originally announced in 2005 with Nicholas Cage and Will Smith in the lead roles, and at one point, Chris Pratt and his ex-wife Anna Faris were attached, as well as Ice Cube. It certainly would have been interesting to see any of those pairings, and maybe this would have gotten a theatrical release rather than just streaming.

Mini-Review: A high-concept movie like this could definitely be very funny or absolutely horrible, because it is basically a buddy comedy that relies so much on whether the leads can be funny on screen together. I generally like Lil Rel Howery (even though he’s literally been everywhere this year and is in danger of getting into a James Corden level of annoying) as well as John Cena, who I’ve been a fan of from his wrestling days.

Like I said, the premise is really simple, Howery’s Marcus and his girlfriend Emily are vacationing in Mexico where he plans to propose when they encounter Cena’s Ron and his girlfriend Kyla, who are clearly having the time of their lives, but they’re also the kind of people you don’t want to spend too much time with since they’re VERY LOUD. They end up spending a lot of time together and when they go their separate ways, Marcus thinks that’s it. He and Emily continue to plan their wedding with Marcus trying to prove himself to Emily’s military father Larry (Chuck Cooper). Of course, Ron and Kyla show up and make everyone uncomfortable as they “do their thing” to ruin Marcus’ wedding.

Comedy is a tough thing to critique and gauge how people will receive it, because everyone finds different things funny, and I’m sure that most actual critics will find many reasons to hate this, because it’s incredibly inappropriate and quite low brow. Fortunately, the movie doesn’t rely merely on Ron and Kyla making Marcus uncomfortable as when the movie transitions into a wedding comedy, there’s lots of family dynamics to add to the humor.

Although The Suicide Squad is still Cena’s best and funniest movie of the summer, this is another example of how he’s really trying to mix things up with his acting roles, and even though he’s still way behind Dwayne Johnson in terms of getting to the A-List. Howery is definitely better in this than in some of his other recent movies (koffSPACE JAMkoff), and he continues to be a really strong comic actor that does well with the right material.

Hagner is hilarious and I’m sure I’ve seen her being just as funny elsewhere but some of the best laughs are when she’s faking out Marcus and Emily, but she’s also a great counter to Cena. Unfortunately, that means Orji almost always has to play the straight-person to the other three, but there’s a lot of great set-ups for laughs around her. There are some things that feel played and overdone like the gag of Marcus and Ron getting high and what happens with that, but then there are more original yucks as well.

Ultimately, Vacation Friends does what it’s intended to do. As far as vacation/destination comedies go, this one could have been a hell of a lot worse, but the combination of cast and Tarver’s direction makes this a consistently funny movie that probably would have done okay with audiences in theaters.

Rating: 7/10

I haven’t had a chance to see the Pen15 Animation Special, which also debuts on Hulu this Friday, but I’m looking forward to it for sure, as I love this show.

The pandemic dramedy TOGETHER (Bleecker Street), directed by the great Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, is the definition of a two-hander as it stars James McAvoy and Sharon Morgan (from last year’s Military Wives) as a couple who end up quarantined together during the COVID pandemic even though they clearly loathe each other and probably shouldn’t be together.

This is a movie where I really didn’t know what to expect, but it’s very dark and can’t necessarily be called a comedy and definitely not a romantic comedy, but is something akin to last year’s Malcolm and Marie, although in this case it’s very much meant to be taking place in the here and now. At first, the movie does seem to be fairly funny because of the jabs the two actors take at each other, but then it gets quite dramatic as it deals with her Mum dying in the hospital on her own.

In many ways, Together seems like something that would have worked just as well as a fast-paced play, since writer Dennis Kelly doesn’t make it anything that couldn’t be put on stage, although Daldry and Martin do find ways to keep it interesting as the two actors are moved around their flat. What’s particularly interesting is the pace which starts out quite quickly but then it slows down and gets quite dramatic as each actor goes off to do their own monologue.

It also deals with the seriousness of how badly England was struck by Covid, and it even gets into the mad rush to get the vaccine and the crazy things people would do in order to get it as soon as possible. Much of the question surrounding the duo is how they possibly could have at one time loved each other but now hate each other as their young son is seen in the background during their fiercest arguments. You spend much of the movie wondering whether they can reconcile and get back together, but more importantly, whether they should.

Listen, I’ve long been a fan of McAvoy, and I’ve always known what he could do as an actor but Horgan is a nice surprise, and it’s amazing to see two actors really push each other to get this amazing dual performance that drives the film.

Together covers a lot of ground, and its combination of an amazing script and two actors who can clearly dig in and really get the most out of it makes it a completely riveting film. Everyone involved with this movie has created a really brilliant piece of cinematic drama that can probably withstand multiple viewings to really appreciate what they’ve done, but especially for those two massive performances.

A movie that also debuted at Tribeca is Amber Sealey's NO MAN OF GOD (RLJFilms), another two hander of sorts with Elijah Wood playing Special Agent Bill Hagmaier and Luke Kirby playing notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy. The movie takes place in the mid-80s as Bundy is on death row at the Florida State Prison and Bill is trying out the FBI’s new methods of profiling serial killers in order to find them before they kill more people.

This is another movie that didn’t really click with me when I saw it at Tribeca, but I wanted to watch it again and give it another chance. This is definitely my kind of movie, and you can definitely see how the interviews between Hagmaier and Bundy could have led to things like the novels by Thomas Harris or David Fincher’s Mindhunter series on Netflix.

It’s well-written by Kit Lesser and the performance by Kirby is particularly strong, as he has a method of speaking that lulls you into a false sense of security, but overall, the delivery and pace of the film just isn’t as compelling as it could and should have been. The whole thing feels kind of stiff and staid, and while I like the idea behind the movie.

The movie also has a pretty amazing score, which does add a lot when things just aren’t very interesting, but as much as this is meant to be dark and creepy ala Silence of the Lambs, it just never fully delivers on the promising concept.

Premiering on Apple TV+ this Friday is the second season of the fantasy series, See, starring Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista, but I still haven’t seen the first season, so nothing more to add here.

Other movies out this week include:

BEHEMOTH (Level 33 Entertainment)

DEFINING MOMENTS (VMI Worldwide)

THE COLONY (Lionsgate)

Next week, Marvel Studios is back with a brand new hero in its MCU, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

#The Weekend Warrior #Movies #Reviews #Candyman #Together #No Man of God #Vacation Friends #Lily Topples the World #Box Office

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180brg · 6 years

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Acts 13

Barnabas, Saul, and Doctor Know-It-All

1-2 The congregation in Antioch was blessed with a number of prophet-preachers and teachers:

Barnabas, Simon, nicknamed Niger, Lucius the Cyrenian, Manaen, an advisor to the ruler Herod, Saul.

One day as they were worshiping God—they were also fasting as they waited for guidance—the Holy Spirit spoke: “Take Barnabas and Saul and commission them for the work I have called them to do.”

3 So they commissioned them. In that circle of intensity and obedience, of fasting and praying, they laid hands on their heads and sent them off.

4-5 Sent off on their new assignment by the Holy Spirit, Barnabas and Saul went down to Seleucia and caught a ship for Cyprus. The first thing they did when they put in at Salamis was preach God’s Word in the Jewish meeting places. They had John along to help out as needed.

6-7 They traveled the length of the island, and at Paphos came upon a Jewish wizard who had worked himself into the confidence of the governor, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man not easily taken in by charlatans. The wizard’s name was Bar-Jesus. He was as crooked as a corkscrew.

7-11 The governor invited Barnabas and Saul in, wanting to hear God’s Word firsthand from them. But Dr. Know-It-All (that’s the wizard’s name in plain English) stirred up a ruckus, trying to divert the governor from becoming a believer. But Saul (or Paul), full of the Holy Spirit and looking him straight in the eye, said, “You bag of wind, you parody of a devil—why, you stay up nights inventing schemes to cheat people out of God. But now you’ve come up against God himself, and your game is up. You’re about to go blind—no sunlight for you for a good long stretch.” He was plunged immediately into a shadowy mist and stumbled around, begging people to take his hand and show him the way.

12 When the governor saw what happened, he became a believer, full of enthusiasm over what they were saying about the Master.

Don’t Take This Lightly

13-14 From Paphos, Paul and company put out to sea, sailing on to Perga in Pamphylia. That’s where John called it quits and went back to Jerusalem. From Perga the rest of them traveled on to Antioch in Pisidia.

14-15 On the Sabbath they went to the meeting place and took their places. After the reading of the Scriptures—God’s Law and the Prophets—the president of the meeting asked them, “Friends, do you have anything you want to say? A word of encouragement, perhaps?”

16-20 Paul stood up, paused and took a deep breath, then said, “Fellow Israelites and friends of God, listen. God took a special interest in our ancestors, pulled our people who were beaten down in Egyptian exile to their feet, and led them out of there in grand style. He took good care of them for nearly forty years in that godforsaken wilderness and then, having wiped out seven enemies who stood in the way, gave them the land of Canaan for their very own—a span in all of about 450 years.

20-22 “Up to the time of Samuel the prophet, God provided judges to lead them. But then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, out of the tribe of Benjamin. After Saul had ruled forty years, God removed him from office and put King David in his place, with this commendation: ‘I’ve searched the land and found this David, son of Jesse. He’s a man whose heart beats to my heart, a man who will do what I tell him.’

23-25 “From out of David’s descendants God produced a Savior for Israel, Jesus, exactly as he promised—but only after John had thoroughly alerted the people to his arrival by preparing them for a total life-change. As John was finishing up his work, he said, ‘Did you think I was the One? No, I’m not the One. But the One you’ve been waiting for all these years is just around the corner, about to appear. And I’m about to disappear.’

26-29 “Dear brothers and sisters, children of Abraham, and friends of God, this message of salvation has been precisely targeted to you. The citizens and rulers in Jerusalem didn’t recognize who he was and condemned him to death. They couldn’t find a good reason, but demanded that Pilate execute him anyway. They did just what the prophets said they would do, but had no idea they were following to the letter the script of the prophets, even though those same prophets are read every Sabbath in their meeting places.

29-31 “After they had done everything the prophets said they would do, they took him down from the cross and buried him. And then God raised him from death. There is no disputing that—he appeared over and over again many times and places to those who had known him well in the Galilean years, and these same people continue to give witness that he is alive.

32-35 “And we’re here today bringing you good news: the Message that what God promised the fathers has come true for the children—for us! He raised Jesus, exactly as described in the second Psalm:

My Son! My very own Son! Today I celebrate you!

“When he raised him from the dead, he did it for good—no going back to that rot and decay for him. That’s why Isaiah said, ‘I’ll give to all of you David’s guaranteed blessings.’ So also the psalmist’s prayer: ‘You’ll never let your Holy One see death’s rot and decay.’

36-39 “David, of course, having completed the work God set out for him, has been in the grave, dust and ashes, a long time now. But the One God raised up—no dust and ashes for him! I want you to know, my very dear friends, that it is on account of this resurrected Jesus that the forgiveness of your sins can be promised. He accomplishes, in those who believe, everything that the Law of Moses could never make good on. But everyone who believes in this raised-up Jesus is declared good and right and whole before God.

40-41 “Don’t take this lightly. You don’t want the prophet’s sermon to describe you:

Watch out, cynics; Look hard—watch your world fall to pieces. I’m doing something right before your eyes That you won’t believe, though it’s staring you in the face.”

42-43 When the service was over, Paul and Barnabas were invited back to preach again the next Sabbath. As the meeting broke up, a good many Jews and converts to Judaism went along with Paul and Barnabas, who urged them in long conversations to stick with what they’d started, this living in and by God’s grace.

44-45 When the next Sabbath came around, practically the whole city showed up to hear the Word of God. Some of the Jews, seeing the crowds, went wild with jealousy and tore into Paul, contradicting everything he was saying, making an ugly scene.

46-47 But Paul and Barnabas didn’t back down. Standing their ground they said, “It was required that God’s Word be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it—you’ve made it quite clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life—the door is open to all the outsiders. And we’re on our way through it, following orders, doing what God commanded when he said,

I’ve set you up as light to all nations. You’ll proclaim salvation to the four winds and seven seas!”

48-49 When the non-Jewish outsiders heard this, they could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God—they honored God’s Word by receiving that life. And this Message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.

50-52 Some of the Jews convinced the most respected women and leading men of the town that their precious way of life was about to be destroyed. Alarmed, they turned on Paul and Barnabas and forced them to leave. Paul and Barnabas shrugged their shoulders and went on to the next town, Iconium, brimming with joy and the Holy Spirit, two happy disciples.

#Acts #bible #new testament #Barnabas Saul and Doctor Know-It-All #Don’t Take This Lightly

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anne-louise-fortune · 7 years

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A Creative life - year two, months two and three

... what, you’re surprised I’m late?

It’s been epic people - epic. Let’s start with a brief follow up from January’s post:

Carmen and I didn’t get the opportunity we interviewed for at a local theatre. We are really pleased with how the interview went, even the nerve-wracking presentation with a very strict time limit. We will keep on applying for things!

I am still waiting to hear back from the Young Vic about their director’s network. On the advice of the woman who co-runs it, I have sent them a nudging reminder - I may have to hunt down a phone number to make a less gentle reminder soon...

So, what have I been up to?

There was some lawyering in Hull. On week 6 I cracked, and ate in the pub round the corner from the hotel. I did find a delightful Polish supermarket just down the road, which sold lots of lovely teas and odd foreign chocolate. If it’s got fruit in it, it’s at least partly healthy, right?

Then there was three days more lawyering in the heart of Oxfordshire. I stayed in a Youth Hostel in a very pretty village, and met some very interesting people. I also used it as an opportunity for fun things, and took myself out to Oxford one night for a mooch around. As I have been binge watching ‘Lewis’ lately, it was really fun to spot various filming locations.

There was then... some other stuff (more below)... and now I’m back doing some more lawyering in Bristol. I’m staying at my mate’s house in Trowbridge, which is helping me retain my sanity somewhat. Also, he has unending wifi. And wine.

The lawyering now has a definitive purpose - some of the wages will go towards a show I hope to stage in September (more below).

TV - I had an interview for CBBC, for a possible three month contract on one of their shows (Show X). It was one of the roles I originally interviewed for late last year, but didn’t get. They called me back in to see them in early February, and gave me the job almost immediately.

Another part of the BBC continued to send me e-mails asking if I could do odd days for them, which meant I had to send replies saying ‘I’m currently sitting in the next building to you, working on {show X}, sorry’.

Ah, {Show X}. Show X is a good show, suffering from poor production management. On my third day working on it, a crew member almost died. I’m not joking - she’s had to have specialist knee surgery and will be off work for at least three months. From there it swung from tragedy to not-very-funny-comedy, and a series of mishaps and mistakes that just made the whole process miserable for most people involved. A week and a half in, I got an automated letter from HR, telling me that my contract was due to expire on March 17th - unless I knew any better... I went upstairs, told a slight porky to my contact in Talent, sat out the following two weeks, and then ran for the hills...

Which is fine, as, as you may have gathered, my focus has shifted to Theatre.

And what a two months it’s been! That three days I was in Oxfordshire I used as an opportunity to see Art at the Old Vic. I’ve never been there before, and was in the cheapest seat they do - a box on the edge of the highest gallery. Amazing view, if slightly uncomfortable. The play was really good - the script and the performances both amazing.

I’ve been over to Derby three Saturdays running to take part in the RTYDS Introduction to Directing Short Course. It was great! Loads of useful tips, loads of things I’d sort of thought about but not known how to develop, some stuff I’d never considered before - and all with a great bunch of people. The facilitators were really knowledgeable as well - and had some really good insight to give with respect to their own career paths to date. The cohort were also really lovely - several of us are keeping in touch via various forms of social media.

Studio Salford had the first of it’s twice yearly Development Weeks. Aforementioned {Show X} messed up my timetable so I only got to one night of it, but again, good pieces of work at the start of their lives, and good to catch up with some local actors who I haven’t seen for too long.

A local theatre has opened a rehearsal space in conjunction with two other theatre companies. The facilities used to be a dance studio, but they have massively improved it - especially the toilet situation, which used to be positively medieval! I am hoping to be able to use them for rehearsals later this year. I went to the open evening, drank their prosecco and caught up with a theatre-maker I first met early last year.

My friend Si, who was in my Hamlet last year, was in Wyrd Sisters at a theatre very near to me. He was very good - he had about 4 roles.

I went to London, and met up with various other tumblr users who constitute a part of the European section of the Miss Fisher’s Phandom. We spent a fun three and a bit days loafing around the city and seeing shows. On Friday, four of us went to see ‘Threesome’ at the Union Theatre in Southwark. It was pretty much a British sex-romp comedy show but very well done. It started out as a one act show, and has been developed - you could sort of tell - the first act was much stronger than what came after the interval, but I am very optimistic that the second half can be made just as strong given time for development.

The night after the whole group of us saw David Tennant in Don Juan in Soho, an update of the Moliere morality tale. It was... a bit bonkers... especially the end. But I enjoyed it, Tennant was excellent, as was his co-star, Adrian Scarborough, who excelled in his role as ‘DJ’s’ straight man.

I was in Leeds for three days, Technical Directing on a scratch piece of theatre about ‘Unsung British Women’. In four days the actors created an amazing 30 minutes of theatre from absolutely nothing. I was parachuted in towards the end to do the lights and sound, and it went really well. We did two Sharings for the local theatre community, and about 50 people turned up altogether - this is very good for an unknown show in a railway arch in inner city Leeds on a Friday afternoon. Hopefully, if someone gives the producer some cash, or she can persuade the Arts Council to fund her, it will be developed.

I went to the scratch night at the West Yorkshire Playhouse - five acts of 15 minutes each, all of them works in development. Some were better than others, and I know I will see the full show of one of them when it gets to the Greater Manchester Fringe in July.

As mentioned, I am planning on staging a show in September. The rights holders have been approached, and have sent me a holding response. It is both exciting and terrifying, in roughly equal measure. I’m not saying anything more until they come back to me with a definitive answer. More soon? Let me just say that this will hopefully be the first in a new strand of theatre work I’m developing with a distinct theme. Also more on that... later...

Thanks as ever for all your support, on here, on Instagram and on Facebook. It really means a lot when you like my posts or pictures. I absolutely suck at messaging people, but really appreciate your patience - those people who wait three days for a reply from me will know what I mean! The current lawyering role has no wifi, an internet policy that prevents me even accessing gmail, and a monbile phone policy that means I’m not even supposed to have the thing turned on. It’s not helpful to keeping in touch! Anyway, if this month goes well, I’ll try and update at the end of April. See you soon!

#creativity leave #theatre #directing #miss fisher's fandom #london

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famedubaitravl · 4 years

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Joshua Da Silva: The late bloomer on the fast track

ALMOST THERE

“I told my dad that I’d give myself three years to make the West Indies squad” © Getty

Joshua Da Silva was just 17-years-old when he turned up at Old WImbledonians CC in Surrey for a stint of club cricket as part of the Kieron Pollard Scholarship programme. He did well in that 2017 season, averaging over 60 with the bat and keeping wicket tidily. Unassuming, polite, a bit shy, the club loved him too. Everything that summer went as well as could be. Except for one match. “I remember that like yesterday,” Da Silva laughs. “That one still irks me.”

Old Wimbledonians were hosting Staines in a league game. Da Silva was left trying to chase down a total of 204 almost singlehandedly after the rest of the batting line-up had collapsed in a heap. He had just passed 50 when he was joined by the number 11. Da Silva farmed the strike, played a few shots and had somehow managed to get to 115 when, just a few runs short of leading his side to what would have been a remarkable victory, he went for one shot too many.

“The worst bowler got me out, which is the worst part,” he says. “Caught and bowled. I went for a sweep and caught the bottom of the bat and it went straight back to the dibbly dobbly bowler. That one really, really hits home because I just wanted to do it for the team… It was disappointing that I didn’t see it through.” It was the only time Johnno Gordon, Da Silva’s captain, saw him lose his cool the whole summer. They still talk about that innings now.

Things have moved quickly for Da Silva since. In just three years has gone from playing Division 3 club cricket in Surrey to unseating Denesh Ramdin, the 74 Test veteran, as Trinidad’s number one wicket-keeper during last season’s West Indies Championship. Da Silva’s performances in that competition with gloves and bat forced his way into the reserve squad for West Indies’ current tour of England.

“I did not expect this,” he tells Fame Dubai. “I told myself last year – I was talking to my Dad – I told him that I’d give myself three years to make the West Indies. I haven’t made the squad yet but I’m getting close. I’m on the reserves so hopefully soon, it will be less than that 3 years, and I can make it.”

Although some way off the finished article, his reputation is starting to grow. Jimmy Adams, the West Indies’ Director of Cricket, spoke of Da Silva’s talent on the Two Hacks, One Pro podcast this week. Floyd Reifer, the West Indies batting coach, was impressed when working with him as part of the Emerging Players team which stunningly won last season’s Regional Super 50 competition. A common theme from those who know Da Silva is praise for his work ethic and determination.

He is somewhat of a late developer, though, having only decided to pursue a cricket career rather than a football one in 2016. He played just a handful of games for Trinidad’s age group teams and never made the West Indies Under-19 team. Gordon recognised Da Silva’s talent as a 17 year-old but says it wasn’t obvious then that he would go on to a professional career.

Da Silva himself cites that season in England as a pivotal moment in his development. The responsibility of being the batting’s main bread winner each week – “If I didn’t score runs the team would’ve been in a spot of bother” – and learning to fend for himself helped him grow. “Just overall the responsibility which I never really had because I was a bit of a mummy’s boy at the time,” he says. “Still am. But that really helped me to progress.”

He had joined the famous Queen’s Park CC in Port of Spain a year before he played in England. The club had two sides in the country’s top division and they identified Da Silva as the keeper they wanted for the second of those top flight sides. At that stage, however, he wasn’t quite ready. He had a few technical issues on the front foot and was a bit too gung-ho. So the club got him ready.

Under the watchful eye of coach David Furlonge, Da Silva was put through an exhaustive five day a week training programme to get him up to scratch. In the mornings the pair would train one-to-one and in the afternoons, Da Silva would join in with the club sessions where he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Shannon Gabriel and Sunil Narine. “When we decided to do it, we said don’t come in late, no complaining,” Furlonge says. “He worked hard for it.”

Six hundred runs for Queens Park in the 2017/18 season was his reward and a first-class debut for Trinidad came the following season. But Da Silva only really started to make his name in last year’s domestic programme, having worked hard on his fitness and with a fire lit under him by the disappointment of being left out of Trinidad’s squad for the one-day tournament.

It was a setback but he was given a reprieve when selected as a squad player for the West Indies Emerging Players side who were also included in that competition. Da Silva didn’t expect much game time but made the most of an early opportunity in the second game against the USA. He pumped 62 off 44 balls and then scored a hundred in the next game. “The rest was history,” he says.

Da Silva’s performances for the Emerging Players helped him force his way into Trinidad’s team for the four-day tournament which followed. He averaged 50.70 from eight first-class games, including a maiden hundred, and kept Ramdin out of the side. It was a significant leap. The season before, he had averaged 21.75. There were no significant technical changes but he had dropped 30 lbs since working with Furlonge.

“I did a lot of running. I passed the fitness test for the first time which was very good,” Da Silva says. “My fitness definitely played a big part in being able to bat for longer and making better decisions and concentrating on all those things. I needed to get fitter because to play at this level is not easy. I knew from last season that I wasn’t where I needed to be. I still have a lot of work to do.”

Da Silva wants to be an all-format cricketer but is yet to make his professional T20 debut. He was part of the Caribbean Premier League’s draft this week and although the signings have not yet been released, he is expected to be picked up by one of the franchises. His main aim, however, is to play Test cricket for West Indies. If he does so, he will be the first white West Indian to don the maroon cap since Brendan Nash in 2011.

For now, Shane Dowrich is the man in possession of the West Indies keeping gloves. But if Da Silva does eventually fulfil his dream, and he finds himself on the verge of leading his country to victory in a match, perhaps he will think back to that game against Staines in Surrey league cricket and knuckle down to get the job done. Then maybe that defeat won’t irk him so much.

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The amazing stories of a man you’ve never heard of • Eurogamer.net

The Godfather

“If he only knew his final script was going to be written by some fat, non-professional Irish guy, I think he would have been fairly pissed off.”

Mention The Godfather game to someone and they might not bat an eyelid, but tell them you were at Marlon Brando’s house two weeks before he died and they’ll sit up straight.

You’d better sit up straight.

Meet Phil Campbell, a guy you’ve probably never heard of. But you’ve probably played his games and you’ll definitely know the people he’s met. He’s got stories for days. This is one of them.

In June 2004, Campbell was in a car with Godfather executive producer David DeMartini, on the way to Marlon Brando’s Hollywood home. Brando couldn’t make it to a recording studio because he wasn’t a well man, but EA had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse so they would go to him instead. The deal was for two recording sessions over two days – one now, one in the future, both around four hours long.

They pulled into to Mulholland Drive and buzzed the gates. In the backseat was a basket of fruits and wines to sweeten Brando up. “He’s quite the connoisseur,” Campbell tells me. But the gates to the house wouldn’t open. Even then, with the deal shaken on, “He tried not to let us in,” Campbell says. Phone calls were made, lawyers talked and eventually the gates clicked open.

“It was just like a regular house but it had grounds,” Campbell recalls. “I remember when they let us in the security gate we came up through fields and grounds, and there was landscape gardeners and people working.” Jack Nicholson lived next door. “I could have hopped the fence!”

Then, Brando. The actor with a mountain-like presence. The actor who’d defied Oscar awards in the name of activism and turned televised interviews on his hosts. And all of a sudden, the idea of ‘chatting for a bit to get to know each other’ didn’t seem so straightforward. But down they sat, with the recorder on – Campbell recorded everything – and began.

“You know, there’s an incredible self-intimidation factor with Brando,” Campbell says, “and for the first while – you can hear it in our conversation – he’s strong.”

Brando is holding court. He’s making phone calls in “two or three different languages” and regaling the visitors with tales from his decorated past. “At one point,” says Campbell, “he was telling us a story about [Elia] Kazan [director of On the Waterfront] and he actually did the scene from the back of the taxi cab, the contender scene, and we couldn’t believe our ears, our jaws were dropping. He was doing it to make a point about everyone considering it an amazing piece of acting, and he was saying it wasn’t, really, it was his audience that generated that impression.

“He was charming,” he says. “We chatted for so long with him.”

Eventually, it came time for Brando to clear everyone out of the room and get down to business, everyone except Campbell and a sound engineer hidden around the corner. Marlon Brando and Phil Campbell, more or less alone in a room Campbell believes “some stuff had gone down” with Brando’s troubled son. All Campbell had to do was hand over the script he’d written and direct Brando’s performance of it – no biggie.

“And of course, at first, when you’re dealing with Marlon Brando, you tend not to butt in or correct or anything, but over the course of time he made it obvious I could interject and feedback, so I did try to get a performance out of him,” he says.

But there was a problem. They had worn him out. “We chatted for so long with him, it probably tired him out,” Campbell says. He had a breathing tube, Brando, and their one shot at overcoming the audio quality issues with it, was to muster a really big performance. But he hadn’t the energy.

“If it wasn’t for the really bad audio quality, he actually did it really well,” Campbell assures me. “He took us back to the whole Godfather thing.” But they couldn’t use it. And they never got the chance to try again. Two weeks later, on 1st July 2004, Marlon Brando died of heart failure, aged 80 years old. “It was, in fact, the last script he ever performed.”

But all was not lost. Yes, the many grandfatherly talks Campbell had primed Brando for would not be recorded, and an impersonator would have to step in, but some Brando did make it into the game.

Go to the hospital, says Campbell. “If you go and lean in, by [Don Vito Corleone’s] room, you can hear the real Brando.”

Punks in Pleasure Town

Have you ever heard of a place called Portrush? It’s a seaside town in Northern Ireland where Phil Campbell grew up. A place made for holidays. A place of bingo and arcades, dodgems, big dippers and pinball. A place of golf and beautiful beaches, not far from the basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway, and Bushmills Distillery. “It’s where all the troublemakers and terrorists used to go for their day trips,” Campbell says. “Consequently, there was rarely any trouble.”

Campbell’s dad was a well known architect. He made a name for himself designing modern movement-influenced houses in the ’50s. “All of his houses are now listed as of historical significance and you can still see them around the north of Ireland,” Campbell says. “I always dreamed of buying one of them.”

Not sure you’ve quite nailed the punk look, Phil.

But teenage Campbell didn’t want to be an architect, he wanted to be a punk, so in 1976 he joined a band called Pipeline as their singer. You might have heard of them. “We have the honour of being mentioned on the internet once,” he jokes, “when we supported the Undertones at the Portrush Arcadia.”

Being a punk offered an escape from the bloody Troubles in Northern Ireland, which Phil Campbell grew up in. “The great thing about being a punk rocker during The Troubles,” he says, “was that there was no religious divide for us – protestants and catholics hated us alike!

“I suppose it was a bit of an escape. We would go to the seemingly most dangerous places in Belfast and Derry just to see great bands. In Belfast, Stiff Little Fingers, the Outcasts and Rudi were all getting going. In Derry, we took our fear in our hands and ventured to see the Undertones at a tiny pub called the Casbah…”

But the punk rocker dream didn’t last. “This was never a feasible career for me,” he says. “I was a terrible singer.” And the pull of architecture was too strong.

The Godfather, part two

“James Caan never stopped being Sonny. He told us it got him really good seats in restaurants.”

There’s a funny story about James Caan. Unlike Brando, he was happy to be involved in the game, and he was healthy, so EA gave him a lot to do. They made Sonny, the character Caan played in the film, into the player’s friend, made him a kind of big brother to you. Again, Campbell wrote the script.

But again, there was a problem. “I don’t know if this is publishable…” Campbell begins.

“I always remember being called into an executive meeting for The Godfather and they had my script for Sonny in front of them – I used to do these really nice packages with lots of drawings and images.

“They called me into this meeting, these producers, and they said, ‘Look, we’ve gone through your script for Sonny and there’s too many “fucks” per page. I’d like you to take out two “fucks” per page.’ And so, after moaning and whinging about it – basically a creative director’s job – I proceeded to do that.”

Cue James Caan. “He hadn’t changed at all,” Campbell says. He was Sonny Corleone. It was like he never left the role. And when you have an actor so in the moment, you let them improvise, you roll with it – no matter what comes out of their mouth.

And quite a lot did come out of Caan’s mouth, much to the executive’s displeasure and and Campbell’s delight. “He actually added back about four more ‘fucks’ per page,” Campbell says, laughing. “It was very satisfying. It was actually one of my most satisfying moments. He added imaginative swears I never could have written.”

Such as?

“Well,” he answers, “some of them were in Italian and they may have referred to certain parts of a horse’s anatomy…”

He laughs. “It was classic. They’re all in the game.”

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Alongside Caan, EA convinced Robert Duvall and Richard Castellano, and others, to reprise their Godfather roles in the game. Impersonators filled in the blanks. But there was a notable exception, an actor who both refused to be in the game and refused to be impersonated: Al Pacino, who played Michael Corleone.

On the surface, Pacino’s refusal was understandable. “He wasn’t bad about it, he just said he created his legacy with The Godfather and he didn’t want to go back to it, he didn’t want to change it,” Campbell says. “That was hard to take but he was perfectly reasonable.”

But why, then, did Pacino agree to voice a Scarface game for Vivendi released only a few months later? Was he already tied down? Did they offer more money? Or was Scarface not as important to him as The Godfather? Campbell consoled himself with the latter idea. “That’s the way we read it.”

What hurt more than Pacino, however, was what happened with Francis Ford Coppola, who directed The Godfather films. Contrary to popular belief, he was involved, at least to begin with, before he decided to pull out and pillory the game.

“We had Francis Ford Coppola on board until he decided to trash us in the press,” Campbell says. “He came around, with his entourage. We showed him some early cuts and a whole bunch of stuff.”

Coppola even invited the game-makers to his private archives. “I actually got to play with that amazing script he doctored,” says Campbell. “It’s a really legendary movie document where he took the [Mario] Puzo book and cut out the pages and put each one inside a page of his notebook. They’ve now published it, actually, but at the time, us frantically rushing to the photocopier to do 30 pages at a time, was really amazing. It gets to scenes like where Michael kills Sollozzo and the police chief, and Coppola has annotated it and the scene is there in his notes.

“One thing I totally realised by the time I finished writing the script – because I had to basically try and pull more information from the book and then make a load of stuff up – was he seriously did get anything from the book that was any good at all and put it in the movie. There was nothing left. There was the odd scene in the ’30s with Don Vito but really he did an amazing job cutting out all the crap and ending up with a masterpiece.”

Then, something changed. Coppola pulled out and all of a sudden he turned on the game in the press, saying, “They never asked me if I thought it was a good idea.” And, “I had absolutely nothing to do with the game and I disapprove. I think it’s a misuse of the film.”

His beef seems to have been all the action in the game. Action the game needed but the film didn’t have. There are only around 15 minutes of action in the whole Godfather film.”What they do,” Coppola said about the game, “is they use the characters everyone knows and they hire those actors to be there, only to introduce very minor characters, and then for the next hour they shoot and kill each other.”

Campbell sighs. “There are only so many car chases or explosions you can duplicate from The Godfather to serve the purposes of a video game.

“I don’t know. There may be money involved – I have no idea about that. All I know is he was brought in and he gave us full access to all his facilities. I watched all the tapes of the actors auditioning. I just got to sit in his archives and look at everything related to The Godfather. And then along the way, something political happened.”

And it stung. “It matters to me still why Pacino wouldn’t do it, or why Coppola didn’t endorse us.”

Architects in polo necks

“They play softball in Hyde Park and act like they’re Americans. No. I loved the profession of architecture for one main reason: you can still do it when you’re eighty.”

So, Phil Campbell became an architect. He studied in Oxford – Oxford Brookes – and graduated with a first and a masters, then became a registered architect in 1986, working for a company called Rolfe Judd in London.

“I always did the fun stuff,” he says. “I never went on site much, I was terrible on site – I’m terrible at construction – but I always had ideas.” Ideas which turned into bars and restaurants, and led him to a senior designer role on Legoland Windsor.

Campbell even pitched a colour-coordinated car park to Disneyland Paris, which required people in certain-coloured cars to park in certain-coloured lots. “It was like an Impressionist painting on all these slowly undulating car parks,” he says. “Of course, everyone said it was bollocks,” he quickly adds, as he tends to. “And let’s face it, it was.”

His architecture career was going so well he was offered the chance to take over his dad’s firm, Dalzell and Campbell, in Northern Ireland, but Campbell junior had other plans. Phil Campbell and his girlfriend, Julia, who’d go on to become his wife – also an architect – fancied the look of America.

“We were literally sitting on the sofa while I zipped through Teletext – remember that?! I don’t think zipped is the operative word! – and we saw an offer to apply for green cards. We did just that. I entered the Irish Lottery and Julia entered the English Lottery, and we forgot all about it until we heard Julia had got in. We didn’t even talk about it. We just looked at each other and decided to take on the adventure. The move was totally a blind leap of faith.”

They moved to America with nothing but the clothes on their backs and two prized Aalto chairs. And 20,000 comics.

Bowie

“I was in the Bowie fan club when I was eleven. I told him that the first time I met him.”

One day, Campbell received a phone call at home and answered it to discover it was David Bowie. The David Bowie. The two men had been working together so this wasn’t completely out of the blue, but Bowie had never called Campbell at home before.

Campbell was terrifically excited. He was a lifelong fan and could only imagine how impressed his wife would be when she knew who was calling, so as quietly as he could, he called her over. “I was gesticulating to my wife saying, ‘It’s Bowie, it’s Bowie!'”

But how to prove it? He had an idea. “I quietly put him on speakerphone so she could hear the man,” he says, and they gathered around the phone. No sound, however, came out. What had happened to David Bowie?

What they hadn’t realised was David Bowie wasn’t in a good mood. He had actually phoned to give Phil a bit of a telling off. What they also hadn’t realised was everybody knows when they’ve been put on speakerphone.

The silence continued until eventually, Bowie spoke. “Phil, have you put me on speakerphone?”

Oh dear, rumbled by your musical idol. Campbell had no choice but to own up. “Yes, David,” he replied, like a guilty schoolboy. I’m sure his wife was very impressed.

Campbell laughs about it now, of course, it’s one of the stories he tells, and the truth is, he and Bowie got along famously.

They met a long time ago, in the mid-90s, working on Omikron: The Nomad Soul, a David Cage, Quantic Dream game – two relatively unknown names at the time. Campbell was the senior designer and more or less second-in-command, and they needed someone to do the soundtrack to the game.

To Campbell, the answer was obvious: Bowie, obviously. But David Cage disagreed. He wanted Bjork, she was bigger at the time, and usually where David Cage is concerned, Cage gets what Cage wants. “He’s an auteur, you know,” Campbell says, “he’s [Franois] Truffaut. I always wanted to be Hitchcock in that relationship but still.”

Somehow, though, Campbell won out, and the pair set their sights on Bowie. They had an in. Bowie’s son, Duncan Jones, was working in the games industry at the time, so through him they arranged to meet Bowie at Eidos HQ in London. Much to their surprise, he turned up. “He watched everything and came back the next week with Iman [his wife] and Joe [Duncan Jones] and Reeves Gabrels [Bowie’s musical collaborator of many years].” And he agreed to do it.

What followed was a Parisian dream for Campbell: two weeks of working with David Bowie every day. “We rented a flat for the duration and David booked into a fancy hotel under an assumed name. He was writing all this stuff, pitching it to us every day. He would turn up at nine, work practically nine to five. It was an unbelievable phase.”

They laid the groundwork for the album which would become Hours, “smoked too many of my cigarettes to count”, and came up with an entire soundtrack for the game. (“It wasn’t the greatest album in the world but we’ve always loved it because it filled our world with music.”) Anything Campbell put in front of Bowie, he’d sign. He even tried to push a bit of poetry on Bowie, which he “gently rejected”.

“Of course he never told me…” Campbell pauses. “What I really wanted was – you know he was famous for doing that cut-up technique, the [William S.] Burroughs thing, where you cut and paste words together to create sentences? He had a computer program for that which I desperately wanted to get hold of but he refused.”

Nevertheless, Campbell, once a boy in the Bowie Fan Club, was now a close friend of the man himself. There was a lovely moment at the Omikron wrap party, at a tiny French restaurant, where Bowie beckoned Campbell over to sit next to him. “Seconds before,” Campbell says, “all the Eidos big-wigs had been jostling for the spot. But David simply beckoned me over, patted the seat and said, ‘Phil, mate…'”. It’s fondly referred to as ‘awesome Bowie moment number two’.

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Bowie really threw himself at Omikron – it wasn’t a fleeting involvement. He played two characters in the game and motion-captured “some classic Bowie moves” for in-game concerts. He believed in the game and medium so much he saw it as a platform to reinvent himself.

“He wanted to take Bowie into Omikron and leave him there and come out the other side as David Jones,” Campbell says. “He wanted to take his life back and leave Bowie. Bowie would be gone forever.”

Think of the two characters he played in the game. One was an omnipresent half-man half-robot called Boz, the sort of character you’d expect Bowie to be, whereas the other character was an 18-year-old starving street singer called… David Jones.

“Of course, that didn’t happen,” Campbell says. “In the end, Omikron itself could not stand up to the rigors of being the place where Bowie ended. If we’d have sold more copies I wonder if that whole scenario would have played out, but it just wasn’t important enough.”

Bowie and Campbell worked together for two years on Omikron in total, and even after the game wrapped, they continued to see each other. Campbell would travel up to Bowie’s office in New York to pitch him ideas. “Crazy ones.”

There was one idea which had come to Campbell after seeing something on the news about space junk – old decommissioned satellites circling Earth forever. “And you could buy these,” he says. “So I suggested to David he could buy these satellites and launch Ziggy from there again. Well it’s obvious, right, that’s roughly where he was from!”

Bowie didn’t go for it.

There was another idea to make a giant character in Times Square called, wait for it, Bill Board. Campbell can’t even remember what Bowie said about that. But he does remember using interviews with Bowie as a platform to promote some of these ideas, and he does remember an email Bowie sent to him at the time about it. “He simply stated, in his most Warholian fashion, ‘How are you enjoying your fifteen minutes, Phil?’ I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased or not!”

Guest list tickets continued for years afterwards but the two men drifted apart. Then, in January 2016, while Campbell was watching the movie Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, the news broke about Bowie’s death. “I still find it hard to believe he’s gone,” he says.

Today, he has a pile of signed memorabilia to remember Bowie by, his “prized possessions”, he calls them, and of course he has treasured memories. Which brings us neatly around to ‘awesome Bowie moment number one’.

Taking him up the opportunity of guest list entry years later, Campbell decided to try again to introduce his wife to David Bowie. They went to see him play at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, sitting at the VIP table with Iman “and, man, really lapping it up”. Then they went backstage afterwards to see if they could find him. But they couldn’t.

It wasn’t until Bowie’s managers Coco Schwab and Bill Zysblat pointed the Campbells in the right direction they found the room Bowie was schmoozing press in. “We walked into this big room and all the press photographers were there taking photographs, and he was there, meeting and greeting people, and he turned around and saw me coming into the room.”

Gulp – would this be another speakerphone moment?

“Phil!” Bowie shouted. “And he ran over and he planted a big kiss on my lips, right in front of my wife.”

He laughs loudly. “Best moment of my life, mate, I tell you!”

A pack of wolves

They landed in San Francisco. They quickly established themselves as architects but something gnawed at Campbell, an itch he couldn’t ignore. “I was always playing games.” It began with the Spectrum and never stopped. “I played everything. I loved the Commodore 64; we used to have these massive parties where we’d all play the Track & Field games.”

So, he volunteered. He went to places like EA and Domark (which would be bought by Eidos, which would be bought by Square Enix) and tested games, and every time, he left a calling card. Literally – he left a resume designed like collectible trading cards. “And somebody fell for it.”

Domark fell for it, and he started his own game there called Blackwater. “Here,” Domark told him, “use these new tools, they’ve been developed at Core.” As in, Core Design. As in, Tomb Raider. But Tomb Raider hadn’t been made yet so, for a while, things were peachy. But as Tomb Raider’s star began to rise, things began to change.

Suddenly, the tools weren’t for anything but Tomb Raider. “We’re never going to use these tools for anything other than Tomb Raider,” Domark announced, “so we can’t do your project.” The Blackwater team was “trashed” and the project cancelled. But Campbell’s aptitude with the tools wouldn’t go to waste. He was sent to work at Core Design in Derby. “It was like punishment!”

But Core Design didn’t want him. Core Design really didn’t want him.

“They got me to come over and the first day I was in Derby, the original Tomb Raider team – the game hadn’t shipped yet – they circled me like wolves,” he says. “They refused to let me sit down or go to work because it was theirs – we’re not having anyone else come in. They literally circled me and said, ‘You can’t work here. Nobody else is working on this. It’s ours.'”

It wasn’t until operations director Adrian [Smith] stepped in and “saved my life”, Campbell was allowed in. “Adrian calmed them down so I decided to start coming into the office,” he says.

“I would go into Core’s offices and work late and build levels, and just build, build, build. And slowly – it’s one of those movie scenes – one by one, they’d look in and show they’re curious. And then they’d play it and say, ‘Oh this sucks,’ and then they’d play it a bit more and go, ‘Oh that’s a good idea.’ And so by the end of it I got nothing but support from them – that was the amazing thing at the end of it – but it was like trial by fire.”

Five years, he worked on Tomb Raider, creating, writing and designing expansions and fleshing out Lara Croft as a character and collaborating on comics. However rocky his start at Core Design, working there “taught me almost everything I needed to know”.

What pulled him away was the ambitious young French studio Quantic Dream, also under the Eidos umbrella (Domark was bought by Eidos in 1995). Campbell was still technically an Eidos employee while he worked on Omikron: The Nomad Soul, “But I had so much faith in Quantic Dream at that time that I left Eidos to go work with David [Cage],” he says, “because the allure of what he was trying to do was just too interesting.”

Best and worst

“Me and David Cage together in the same room? It’s an unbearable idea for some people.”

“Oof.”

I’ve just asked Phil Campbell a tricky question and he’s at a loss for words, and that’s a rare thing. But it’s a tough question: “What’s the best idea you’ve ever had?” It’s like knocking on the door of London’s National History Museum and asking for their best dinosaur bone – Campbell’s had thousands of ideas.

I can almost hear him flicking through them in his mind, yep-noping them as they pop up. Then he pauses. “Do you remember a game called Fear Effect?” he asks. I pretend I do. “I singularly remember standing on the phone talking to [the game’s makers] and coming up with the notion that the health and all the other systems in the game should be like a fear effect.”

But no, that’s not it, he goes back to looking.

“I churned out so many ideas into Tomb Raider in the early days,” he suggests. “Every possible level-design trick I could summon. The rolling ball thing, the classic Indy thing they stole and made a Lara thing: I thought ‘Why do we have to limit it to one rolling ball? Why can’t we have a ceiling full of them dropping on you in a weird chess puzzle game?’ And I did that. I always challenged all of the assumptions.”

But no, that’s not doing it either.

Then, suddenly: “My worst design decision ever? I can tell you that for sure.”

The idea is in another Quantic Dream game: Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy in America), the game Quantic Dream made after Omikron. Again, Campbell was instrumental in the design, but this time he wouldn’t see the game through by virtue of it taking three years, apparently, to find a publisher. “We couldn’t sell the damn game!” he says.

It wasn’t until Fahrenheit came out, Campbell realised his worst piece of design. It dawned on him after Godfather senior designer Mike Olsen returned one morning to give his verdict of the game. “Play it, you’ll love it!” Campbell had told him.

Olsen’s reaction, however, didn’t tally. “He came in the next day and he was so angry and frustrated,” Campbell says. “And he said, ‘I played this game and it was so shit. I got completely stuck.’ I couldn’t understand why Mike was so upset.”

Then it clicked. Olsen had gotten stuck at the place you had to stand still and do nothing – the place with the giant flying bugs. Oh dear. “This was my clever-clever design idea,” Campbell says. “It was supposed to show that you were mad – you were swatting at things that weren’t there.”

But doing nothing wasn’t as easy as it sounds. “You’ve got to remember, Mike Olsen is a hardcore gamer. Hardcore,” Campbell emphasises. “He did the whole hand-to-hand system for The Godfather. And of course a hardcore gamer like Mike, there’s only one thing in games he can’t do…”

He pauses for a bit of dramatic effect.

“…do nothing.”

Campbell learned his lesson. “I realised at that time you can be too clever for your own good.”

Our conversation meanders after this, while Campbell’s search for his elusive best idea goes on. At one point, we’re talking about The Untouchables film, the one with Kevin Costner in, the really long one. We’re talking about it because Campbell pitched an Untouchables game idea to Paramount.

“I’d been so pissed off,” he says. “Every single time I was writing something, it was the hero’s journey, it was rags to riches, it was Ray Liotta pushing through the crowd in Goodfellas and becoming a made man. I wanted to do something where, like with the Scarface game I designed at the time-“

Oh, by the way, he made a Scarface mobile game.

“You’re Al Pacino, you’re on a mountain of cocaine – not literally – and you’re trying to cling on. I loved that narrative where you’re at the top already. I wanted to be Brando, you know? I wanted to be Robert De Niro playing Al Capone, hitting the guy with the baseball bat in The Untouchables.”

The Untouchables game would let you do that, play as characters other than the hero. He’s really proud he got this into Quantic Dream games, he tells me, and as he does, it finally hits him: “The best bit of design I ever did. I’ll tell you know, I remember – have you time for it?

“For me, probably the best piece of work I’ve ever done is…” would you believe it? Also in Fahrenheit. “I was responsible for doing the diner scene at the start of Fahrenheit which became the demo. For me, the demo was the perfect little game.”

Do you remember it? The game opens with you, the player, murdering a man in a toilet. You weren’t in control when you did it but now you are in control, you have a body to deal with, and you know, because of a split-screen view (“unashamedly” stolen from the TV series 24) there’s a cop in the diner and he’s going to need the toilet real soon (Campbell calls him “living timer”). Sure enough, the cop gets up and walks towards the crime scene. You have to get out…

Then the game spins and you’re a detective on your way to the crime scene. But of course, as the player, you already know what’s gone down, even where the murder weapon was thrown. It means you waltz in acting like a proper detective, not some rookie, bumbling around. “There’s nothing worse than a player coming into scene, playing a policeman, and not acting like a policeman,” Campbell says. “Once you stop doing appropriate things, you break the immersion.”

In other words, it’s a Bond moment – a term Campbell picked up working on 007. “Bond always had to be Bond,” he says. “The minute he trips on a curb because you built it badly, or he slides off a roof, that breaks the Bond spell.”

The spell in the Fahrenheit demo held. It had tension, it had pace, it had immersion and different points of view. “It summed up everything I wanted to do.”

Where things take a turn

At one point, Campbell was the chief creative officer of Quantic Dream, running a small office in San Francisco, creating an episodic story idea which became Fahenheit. But Campbell would leave long before the game was released because in 2001, “EA made me an offer I couldn’t refuse…”

Yet, Cage and Campbell went on to work together for many years, Campbell as contracted help. They worked together right up until recently, through Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls.

“I did the adaptation,” Campbell explains. “Basically, David would send me wadges of French, translated by a student, and ask me to create all the voices for the characters. It worked really well in Heavy Rain; notwithstanding some of the very bad acting, the good actors’ roles really came across. I got some great write-ups in press on that.

“In Beyond: Two Souls…” He pauses, probably because the game wasn’t well received. “It’s funny,” he goes on. “Beyond: Two Souls was supposed to be David Cage’s game-game and it was a beautiful game, great characters, but what neither of us really realised at the time was it had no agency […] you couldn’t die or anything, whereas Heavy Rain had hit that sweet spot where you could lose your main characters and the story could go all over the place.”

Evidently, Campbell didn’t mind Cage’s domineering way of working and the two men forged a strong working relationship. “I think I’m one of the only people who’s been able to work well with David over many, many years,” Campbell says. “I did a few more things with David but I lost contact with him around Detroit.”

Campbell was brought into EA on the James Bond licence, where he was the creative director on Agent Under Fire (2001) and Everything or Nothing (2003). They weren’t brilliant but they did try to be more than movie tie-ins, bringing original stories to the series.

The Godfather, though, was Campbell’s all-consuming work at EA. “The Godfather was and always will be my baby, for better or worse,” he says. “Just going through a four-year process, which is a really long time, hearing that theme music on loop in the studio – I never want to hear it again, forever. But creating a world, creating every single building in that world, every single mission, every single word, was an incredible experience.”

But living and breathing The Godfather for four years wore him out. He had mafia coming out of his eyeballs and needed a change. It led to a fateful decision. “I made the stupid mistake at EA of saying, after Godfather, I’m not working on Godfather 2,” he says. “I couldn’t. I just couldn’t face any more Godfather.”

He asked to be put back on the Bond team and EA obliged. “So I went back to Bond for about two weeks and then they sold the bloody licence to Activision and I was out of a job, just like that after six years. That was the hardest part.”

Walking away

“That’s the way the luck goes sometimes.”

Picture this: Campbell, alone, surrounded by his ideas. Ideas on the walls on tables, on paper and whiteboard, mapped out in charts and storyboards and flow diagrams. Ideas conveyed in board game dioramas with explanation paperwork surrounding them. But no sound, everything still, like a museum of ideas, their curator waiting idly among them. This was Campbell’s last year at Zynga. His last in the business.

Nothing had quite landed for him after EA. He suggested a Virtual Me idea to EA while working as a consultant. “It was an idea I had that we could consolidate all of EA’s avatar systems, company-wide,” he says. Imagine having one avatar you used for FIFA and Madden, Battlefield and Apex. “You had a single avatar that had all these guises and shared qualities,” he says. “It was a good idea. It’s just, EA’s a very big organisation…”

They worked on Virtual Me for six months, soft-launched it in Poland, “But it really didn’t work,” he says. “It didn’t make it.”

Augmented reality and virtual reality came next, through a company Campbell co-created with Irish animation heavyweight Greg Maguire, who’d worked on blockbusters like Harry Potter and Avatar. They, as Inlifesize, had all kinds of ideas.

There was an idea for wellness pods. “Imagine the Tardis,” Capbell says, “a Tardis for wellness.” You, surrounded by your medical data. It didn’t catch on.

There was an Evil Dead idea Campbell created a gorgeous interactive art book for, to pitch American filmmaker Sam Raimi. It’s got these amazing drawings with cut-out sections that act as windows to the page below, then transform when you flip the page. It’s hard to describe so I’ve included a video to do the job for me. “We never really got the project going the way we wanted,” Campbell says, “but we did ship as a kind of endless runner.”

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This video was shot in portrait – oh Phil! If it doesn’t display properly, click through to YouTube and watch it there.

Their biggest bet was on a game called Fairy Magic, an iOS game which used your phone’s GPS and camera to overlay magical creatures in the real world. Sound familiar? “It was totally Pokemon Go without the Pokemon and the monetisation,” Campbell says – and it was released three years earlier. But it didn’t catch on. “We hit too early,” he says. “We ended up making about two bucks a day.”

If that wasn’t painful enough, Fairy Magic had once been conceived as a Game of Thrones game, and the licence was a very real possibility in 2011, as Inlifesize was funded by Northern Ireland Screen, the company bringing Game of Thrones to Northern Ireland (a now historic move which transformed the region – “We take it very seriously, our gold and our Game of Thrones.”). But Campbell ditched dragons in favour of faeries and the more family-friendly age rating which came with it. “We turned down Game of Thrones early in the GOT process, which was probably our worst ever mistake.”

But what brought Inlifesize to its knees was Doctor Who. “We pitched Doctor Who – we’re all big fans – and what I thought was an awesome AR [augmented reality] Doctor Who game,” Campbell says. “It started in the Tardis and ended up with the Weeping Angels and the Daleks and everything you would expect, and we pitched it for about eight months. We built everything, we did demos, and basically we were told, at the end of the line, that this AR thing, it’s never going to work. ‘Would someone want to do that on the bus?'”

Even now, in 2020, people still aren’t convinced about virtual and augmented reality, and Campbell was banging the drum in 2014, when Oculus Rift was still a development kit two years from commercial release. The ideas fell flat and Inlifesize was wound down.

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It’s at times like these we turn to those we love and so Campbell turned to his wife, who had some motivational words for him. “Go and get a job for fuck’s sake!” she said (Campbell exaggerates for effect) and that’s how he ended up at Zynga.

It wasn’t all bad. In fact, for a while, it was brilliant. He was unleashed on all the brands he loved – The Walking Dead, Ghostbusters, Justice League and Batman – and ideas poured from him, earning him the cheesily named Design Rockstar of the Year Award in 2015. “For one year it was glorious,” he says. “But the other two years…”

You have to remember, this was Zynga in decline, with three CEOs in three years and a rapidly depleting workforce. One by one, the people around him disappeared. “At one point, I had a whole wing,” he says. “I had a floor at Zynga because they’d been firing so many people I ended up sitting on my own.”

But he didn’t sit idly. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ he thought to himself. ‘I’ll decorate.’ So he got out his Sharpie and plastered any surface in sight – and Zynga loved it. “Everybody who visited Zynga would be brought round,” he says, to be impressed by the overt display of creativity before them.

But Phil Campbell’s way of working began to fall from favour at Zynga. A more methodical approach was desired. Micro-managers moved in, “and I’m a very hard person to micro-manage”. “The final year put me off the business forever.” So in 2016, fed up, Phil Campbell walked away.

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This video was shot in portrait – oh Phil! If it doesn’t display properly, click through to YouTube and watch it there.

The man you’ve never heard of

The whole time we talk, which is quite a long time, one thought keeps bouncing around my head: ‘How have I never heard of you before, Phil Campbell?’ The things he’s done, the people he’s met, games he’s made. The stories he tells. How come I’ve never heard of him before?

But such is the nature of success, I suppose. We don’t hear about the runners up because history celebrates the winners, and for all it promised, Omikron didn’t quite come together, and The Godfather never measured up to the film. But everything Campbell was involved in tried something new. It had new ideas, ambition, guts. The second Godfather game, without him, was empty.

To lose that relentless creativity and energy: it’s a great shame. It’s our loss.

Unless.

Unless Phil Campbell ended up somewhere he was always meant to be.

Something new

“It’s a terrible thing, enthusiasm – you can’t get rid of it.”

“It’s going to kill me!” he says.

“I run about in my classes and I’m jumping on tables, demonstrating mechanics, doing a lot of shouting and drawing on the wall. For old men like me, just raising your arms above your head is dangerous, but I can’t help it.”

Today, Campbell teaches. Four days a week, he’s leaping on tables at either Berkeley City College in San Francisco, or Cogswell in San Jose, inspiring the minds of tomorrow. And he loves it. “I wish I’d started 10 years ago,” he says.

And they love him.

He has the highest retention rate of any class at Berkeley City College. “Every semester I have one hundred and fifty new names to learn – at my age!” he says.

Maybe it’s to do with his lenient marking. “I can’t be bad cop ever,” he says, “it’s ruined my career actually.” Or maybe it’s because he throws comics at students to inspire them. It’s not as though he’s going to run out, he has 25,000 comics at home.

Or maybe it’s because having ideas isn’t as easy as it sounds. How many have you had today? I imagine you’ve had at least one idea while reading this piece (it’s long enough). But what did you do with it – swallow it? What good is it to anyone then?

“I’ve been known in my time, variously, as a great gushing waterfall and a rusty, leaky tap,” Campbell says. “You get both because what you do is you decide to commit. A lot of people will have these ideas in their head and they’ll never emerge. I say get it out. Seventy per cent of the time it will be OK, thirty per cent, people will think you’re stupid, but, you know.”

And he’s developed a few methods over the years to help.

Bodystorming

“Bodystorming is basically brainstorming using your bodies,” Campbell says. “You have a situation and you all play a character and you bodystorm it – you move around, you communicate, you act, and it helps you sort out problems. It’s really brilliant for level design.”

Campbell learnt bodystorming from a guy called Sean Cooper, who used to swear a lot. “When I used to go over and work with Core on Tomb Raider, swearing is just, you know, a casual thing in Britain.” He laughs. “Cooper would come over with a lot of big nasty swears and get everybody’s attention and annoy everybody, but you’d be sitting in a meeting and he would, not angrily [but to demonstrate], flip a chair over and duck behind a desk. He would climb over, he would show what Bond would do physically in any given situation.

“It was the best example of bodystorming I’ve ever seen. He’s an incredible guy. It’s like this legacy of game stuff that gets passed down from the earliest games.”

Hidden narratives

“A hidden narrative is what I had to use many, many times in Tomb Raider because I was churning out levels so quickly over a short period of time I had to find a way of not ever being stuck,” he says.

“A hidden narrative is taking an established piece of media – it could be a song, a poem, a book, almost anything – and you take that classic structure and set out a beginning, middle and end of a narrative for whatever your designing, let’s say a level, and basically insert Lara Croft into that scenario and keep working it and working it until the hidden narrative disappears.

“I based some of Lara’s levels in Egypt on Alice in Wonderland. Right at the end, she’s at the Tea Party, only I created a tea party with all the Egyptian Gods instead of the ones in Alice, and that led me to some more ideas. Or, she goes through the rabbit hole, so I had Lara diving down into…

“I based level designs on my back garden. Anything that triggers you and keeps you going,” he says, “because the worst thing to do is to stop.”

Half-remembering

This is his favourite, and it’s remarkably easy to do. Why, I feel like something of an expert already!

The idea of half-remembering struck Campbell while giving a talk he had completely forgotten he had to give. He was just leaving the hotel to go to the airport when an organiser spotted him and said, “Oh, Phil, the room’s over there. If you could just-“

Phil interrupted: “What for?”

“You’re the keynote speaker,” he was told.

“So I walked out and quickly whipped up my slideshow and I had no idea what to say, and the room was packed – they were practically coming out the doors and windows.

“So I just started the usual chat and showed a few slides and talked about what, you know, we talked about, in a way, and then I couldn’t remember something and I started talking about fuzzy memory, and I just came up with the phrase ‘half-remember things’. And the place erupted.

“It was like one of those moments where you go, ‘I came, I saw…’ and everybody just goes ‘yeahhhhhh’. And it was completely spontaneous. It wasn’t deserved! It just was the way the room was, the atmosphere. Whatever the way it was I said ‘half-remembered’ made people go ‘yeahhhh’. It was like scoring a goal!”

Half-remembering is when you can’t quite remember a plot from a film, say, and end up confusing it with another one. By stitching them together, you create something new. It’s the sort of thing we do all the time in dreams, hopping unquestioningly from one thought to another. So get fuzzy, let yourself forget.

“Don’t become a Wikipedia,” instructs Campbell. “If you can keep your thinking a little bit fuzzy and you can create links between dreams and reality, just let it roll. It doesn’t matter if it’s real or imagined. It’s stuff, It’s content, it’s ideas.”

We snap back to talking about teaching.

“I’ve been called the c-word a lot,” he says.

I laugh.

“That one too, yes,” he goes on, satisfied, “but ‘catalyst’ is the word people use for me. I put ideas together, I get things to work, I share.”

He triggers imaginations, it’s what he’s always done. He throws up thoughts for other people to jump in on, pulls people in, bounces off them. And he does it now, coaxing his students into a place where they have no fear sharing their ideas. They rarely sit down. He tries to get them up on their feet, away from books, playing, sharing, collaborating.

That’s key, working together. If he’s learned anything in his time in the industry, it’s to crack collaboration early on. “I don’t falter,” he says. “I don’t let people go off and work on their own.”

It makes him happy, teaching. He’s content. He’s finally found somewhere his methods and way of working really click. And though he’s not directly in the games development industry, who knows? His effect upon it now may be greater for those he equips to join it. He feels good about that.

“It’s a bit of a legacy thing,” he says. “I get paid very little – luckily my wife has a real job. I’ll just keep teaching until I drop, probably. I just love passing it on.”

A beautiful morning

“This is a real test for me – it’s an exam – trying to not half-remember things.”

It didn’t quite pan out the way Campbell expected. He once expected every game to pay royalties like Tomb Raider did. “They set me up for some dream industry which never quite evolved for me. But hey,” he says, “valuing stuff like meeting Brando and Bowie, it enriches your life forever.”

If he has a regret, it’s not taking any pictures with Brando. He couldn’t, he wasn’t allowed, nor would Brando sign anything. But he has his memories of Brando, Bowie and more. How many people can wheel out the kind of stories he can? “I just look back on a ton of memories and think how lucky I was to be in the right room at the right time,” he says.

There’s still architecture – he picked it because he could do it when he was 80, remember – and it never really left him. It’s why, when he was making The Godfather, his virtual New York had a ludicrous 200 landmarks. He knew them all but how many can you name? The Rockefeller Center, The Empire State Building, Central Park, um, the Friends apartment?

It wasn’t until an EA executive came to ask members of the team the same question in order to prove a point – they averaged around five or six – Campbell finally conceded.

He still plays The Godfather with his students, you know, and finds unexpected pleasure in it. “What was great about playing The Godfather was not playing the missions,” he says. “The joy of Godfather was just starting a rumble in the middle of town. Not in the design plan, not intended, but a true joy to play. That’s what I look for in games.”

He dabbles in a bit of architectural work too. “I still consult,” he says. “I consulted on the Titanic museum in Belfast. But it’s all very casual. My wife is a real architect.”

They collaborated recently (he credits her with all the work) on a very personal project. It’s the reason he suddenly breaks off during our conversation to talk to an engineer. I hear the word “elevator” and I’m just about to ask when he beats me to it.

“Sorry about that, Bertie,” he says, “we just built a new house, finally, after all these years, and I’m standing here looking at the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s certainly beautiful here this morning.”

More specifically, he’s standing in his rooftop garden overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, and he has a six-story bookcase running up the stairs. Downstairs, on the bottom two floors, there’s an apartment stuffed with “everything my wife didn’t want in the house”, all his gaming paraphernalia, and they rent it out on Airbnb. “We just started,” he says. “It’s like a pop culture museum.”

It might not have panned out the way he expected, then, but it panned out pretty nicely in the end. “It’s Retirement House,” he says. Then he changes his mind. “That sounds bad.”

He thinks for a moment longer and with a laugh hits upon something better. He says,

“This is a house to befit someone who’s not quite famous.”

The view from his rooftop garden.

The greatest honour

I feel good about how I leave Phil Campbell, there on his rooftop, looking at the bridge, and as I hang up, I can’t help thinking about all the ways I feel a little bit like him. I’m not Irish, though I do a terrible accent, but my thoughts fire around like his, hopping all over the place, and I can’t resist an opportunity to make someone laugh.

I have ideas, too. No, really! They pop up all the time. But I am in no way as disciplined and determined in getting them down. That’s his mastery. No doubt he’s already off concocting an idea to delight or torment his students with. That’s nice. I’d like him as my teacher. I think of it as his final form. But he wouldn’t be there had he not gone round the houses learning his trade, and as the cliched old saying goes, we learn more from our mistakes than we do our successes.

It’s changed my mind about what this story is. Someone asked me this last night and I struggled to answer – never a good sign when you’ve spent so long on something, let me tell you! It was once, simply, the amazing stories of a man I’d never heard about, and maybe it still is. I hope you’ve enjoyed them. But that feels a bit disingenuous, too, a bit thin. It implies, I think, he’s never found success, and I don’t think that’s right.

Success irks me, because what does it actually mean? Does success mean you’ve attained the highest honour in our society? If it does, what is that – fame and fortune? Is that really all it is? I don’t like to think so.

It reminds me of when I used to take my son to ninja lessons, because that’s what parents in Brighton do, and of something they taught there. It always stuck in my head. They taught that the highest honour you can attain is to teach. Not to become a great warrior, famed and acclaimed, but to learn so much you will one day have the great honour of passing it on. That, I like. Phil Campbell, grandmaster, talking at a hundred miles an hour and cracking jokes. Passing it on.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/01/the-amazing-stories-of-a-man-youve-never-heard-of-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-amazing-stories-of-a-man-youve-never-heard-of-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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Armchair Analyst: What to expect from the rest of the Leg 2 madness

November 9, 20181:14PM EST

Let me sum up Leg 2 of the Cascadia version of the Western Conference semifinals:

Dairon Asprilla lives for #MLSCupPlayoffs.

In his #MLS regular season career:

79 games 3,579 minutes 5 goals 6 assists

In the playoffs:

10 games 563 minutes 3 goals 4 assists 1 winning penalty in shootout

He has all kinds of dance moves, too!#SEAvPOR #RCTID #MLS pic.twitter.com/eQ8v8BOoVR

— #ThankYouDeuce (@JogaBonito_USA) November 9, 2018

Five years from now, or 10, or 25, when someone mentions “The Dairon Asprilla Game,” Thursday night is what they will be referring to, and the above is why. Asprilla came on for the final 18 minutes – on the wing, not at center forward, mind you – and completely changed the game for the visitors. He bagged a goal and an assist, put in the world’s most honest defensive shift, and capped it off with the series-winning penalty in the shootout.

The game was beautiful, glorious madness. It was pure MLS. If we’re lucky we’ll get more of it this weekend.

Sporting KC v. Real Salt Lake

CURRENTLY: 1-1 on aggregate (SKC have an away goal)

What Sporting need to do: The biggest thing is to get on the ball more. SKC can still press you into mistakes, as they did for Diego Rubio’s equalizer, but this team is more of a possession team than anything else, and in Leg 1 they didn’t do much of that to speak of. If you’re not using the ball well, then you’re not making the defense react to you, and if you’re not making the defense react to you, then you’re not pulling the defense out of position. And if you’re not pulling the defense out of position, then they’re not going to be giving you big, inviting gaps – the kinds that Johnny Russell and Daniel Salloi love – to hit from the wing.

Know who struggled the most? D-mid Ilie Sanchez. He’s normally neat and tidy and able to get on the ball and dictate the pace of the game and hit a million short passes and OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!!!

That looks like the storyboard from a slasher flick. It’s the most un-Ilie passing map I’ve ever seen from him.

RSL made his life miserable, constantly hurrying him and leaving him bereft of outlets or options, so he spent damn near the full 90 minutes mailing it to Topeka every chance he got.

Not a great strategy, but it wasn’t fatal, either. They got the road result and are heavy favorites because of it.

What RSL need to do: Somehow reprise the defensive effort of the first game and prevent SKC from getting any sort of rhythm, AND carve out better chances despite the loss of Albert Rusnak to yellow card accumulation, AND exploit the space in behind when Graham Zusi overlaps despite the fact that the Claret-and-Cobalt haven’t really played with a pace-and-space winger over there.

My guess is it’ll be Joao Plata as a very inverted left wing, with Corey Baird as a channel-running center forward and Damir Kreilach as a pseudo No. 10 beneath him. I’d watch for Baird to make diagonal runs away from goal into that space Zusi vacated, while Plata dives inside to play with Kreilach.

Also: They can’t give up anything off of set pieces, especially early. If RSL give up a cheapie in the first half they’ll be forced to really chase, the game, which will leave them stretched. At that point, I’d bet on SKC scoring three.

Atlanta United v. NYCFC

CURRENTLY: 1-0 Atlanta (Atlanta have an away goal)

What Atlanta need to do: This is going sound cliched, but the honest-to-god most important thing for the Five Stripes is to match the intensity of the moment. They were superb at it in Leg 1, dominating NYCFC for the first 45 before making an appropriate halftime sub, but throughout their brief MLS existence they’ve usually fallen short in those moments – last year’s Knockout Round loss to Columbus, the way they got dominated at Red Bull Arena in September, and the utter collapse on Decision Day that cost them the Supporters’ Shield.

This team has, more often than not, failed in those moments. Leg 1 was a break from that script as they imposed their intensity upon a good opponent with everything on the line, and won a rock fight. If you’re an Atlanta fan you should be thrilled about that.

You should also be thrilled about that 45-minute cameo by Miguel Almiron, who was the best player on the pitch before coming out at the half. Chances are he’s well-rested and close to 90 fit after another week to recover.

Even on the tight confines of Yankee Stadium Almiron was able to extend the field both on and off the ball, and force the NYCFC backline into copious amounts of emergency defense. At home, with more room to work in…

I’d expect at least a few moments that look a lot like that.

What NYCFC need to do: The No. 1 job is to avoid the above, at least until desperation time. If they spent a bunch of the game chasing Almiron and and Josef Martinez into green acres, their postseason stay will be brief and tragic for the third straight year.

On the other side of the ball, they’ve got to get on the damn ball and put it on Maxi Moralez’s foot, preferably in the central channels at least a little bit. My colleague Ben Baer did a really good job of breaking down how the Five Stripes shut down the NYCFC attack, and it largely boiled down to “starve Maxi, starve the team.”

The Cityzens got marginally more dangerous when they subbed Jo Inge Berget on and went to something of a two-forward set up, as the big man was able to pull defenders away from Moralez and David Villa. If I was Dome Torrent I’d try to keep it scoreless though 70, then replicate that look for the final 20 minutes and toss the dice that Almiron will be too exhausted to punish you on the counter.

To be clear: I don’t think NYCFC can beat Atlanta in Atlanta in a must-win game by going toe-to-toe with them for 90 minutes. Their last road win over a playoff team was waaaaay back on March 4, literally Week 1 of this crazy season of ours.

But if they keep it scoreless for 70, then make some big, bold changes, maybe a bit of magic happens.

Nothing but respect to Dome for calling Atlanta a bunch of divers, by the way.

New York Red Bulls v. Columbus Crew SC

CURRENTLY: 1-0 Columbus (no away goals)

What RBNY need to do: Beat Columbus by two goals, which is something they’ve managed just once in their last 13 meetings. Playing the Crew is hard.

Why? Because Columbus happily play right through the RBNY press when they can, and happily play right over it when they must:

Chris Armas has talked about amping up the intensity for Leg 2, and that’s a start. The Red Bulls weren’t bad in Leg 1, but they were at least a little bit flat – they almost never hurried Columbus – and when the margins are small (as they always are this time of year), that can/usually is the difference.

Another thing to consider: RBNY had a super disappointing result in Leg 1 of last year’s Conference Semifinals as well, against Toronto FC. Jesse Marsch changed things up in the second leg, going to a 4-4-2 diamond with Tyler Adams (!!!) as the attacking tip, specifically to take away TFC’s ability to build from deep in midfield.

It worked. Adams dominated Michael Bradley that game and without that deep midfield outlet, TFC spent the full 90 on the front foot. Only some unfortunately familiar playoff finishing cost the Red Bulls a series they could/arguably should have won.

I would be surprised if Armas went as experimental in this game, but “cut Wil Trapp out of the equation” does make a lot of sense if you want to get the Crew shook.

What Columbus need to do: Surviving the first 20 minutes is key, because they absolutely will get blitzed. It’s a shame, from a Crew SC perspective, that they’ll be without the injured Niko Hansen, whose speed would’ve opened up Route 1 as a viable over-the-top countermeasure for when New York put all 10 field players in the attacking half (which is how I expect the opening 20 to play out).

If/when they survive the first 20, it becomes a process of repeatability in possession – i.e., just do what you always do and trust the system that got you here – and danger mitigation elsewhere. That might mean Zack Steffen, 40 yards off his line, sweeping the ball away, or it might mean Jonathan Mensah launching it to Row Z. It might also mean both fullbacks playing just slightly lower than usual so as to avoid getting stretched.

Basically, though, they just need to score a goal. If they do that, then the Red Bulls need three, and if that’s the case I really, really like the Massive’s chances.

One More Thing to Ponder

Happy weekending, everybody.

Series:

Topics:

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Armchair Analyst: What to expect from the rest of the Leg 2 madness was originally published on 365 Football

#Analyst #Armchair #expect #from #Madness #rest

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militantinremission · 6 years

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Conflicted By Cosby Narrative

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know the whole story behind Bill Cosby's behavior, or all of the details behind Andrea Constand's accusations. I personally think that Dr. Cosby is guilty of adultery, but i'm not sure of any of the other accusations. I don't mean to come off as insensitive to the [dozens of] Women that came forward against him. For me, there are too many conflicting stories to be sure what is accurate.

I feel the need to say that Black America has developed a [substantiated] group paranoia over the Centuries. Out of this paranoia, come Our Urban Legends. Among the most popular, is the belief that a White Woman's word can get a Black Man killed- no questions asked. Carolyn Bryant Donham's accusation of Emmit Till is the classic example. The current trend of White Women calling in false reports, opens the door to more tragedies like the 'Scottsboro Boys' & the 'Central Park 5'

Another popular Urban Legend, is the assumption that Bill Cosby is being targeted, because he wanted to buy the NBC Network. The N.Y. Times broke the Story in 1992, but buzz about Cosby's intentions go back to the Late 80's. Then NBC Owner, General Electric downplayed Dr. Cosby's intentions, & said the network wasn't for sale. It didn't matter, because a New Age was dawning.

At the time, Reginald Lewis acquired Beatrice Foods Inc, becoming the first Black Billionaire in America. Ron Brown, was named Bill Clinton's Secretary of Commerce; the first Black American to hold the position, Post Reconstruction. Across the board, Black Men & Women were beginning to make their presence known in their respective Industry.

Sadly, Ron Brown died [mysteriously] in a plane crash, in Eastern Europe; en route to a European Economic Summit in Croatia. Reginald Lewis fell ill & died from Cancer, not too long after making history. They were taken in the Prime of their lives, but both became role models for the Next Generation of Black Entrepreneurs.

I never heard a formal announcement, but again, rumors about Cosby's intentions go back to the 1980s. A Wilhelmina Model reported in 2014 that back in 1982, her Photographer set up an appointment for her to meet w/ a Casting Agent about a film project. She says two Men- an Asian Man in his 50s, & a White Man in his 30s met w/ her, & offered first $5K, then $10K Cash to work w/ Bill Cosby.

She requested a meeting w/ Dr. Cosby, to go over the script, but was told it wasn't necessary. This was a Spontaneous Casting Call... According to the 'script', she was suppose to meet Dr. Cosby, & try to seduce him. She was supposed to record the 'audition', to determine her success & credibility. If she could deliver seductive photos of Dr. Cosby, along w/ some of his sperm(?), she would get an additional $5K.

She says that she was uneasy about the 'Project', so she excused herself, & never returned. In her FYM Article, she goes on to say that she believed the two men were paying her to discredit Bill Cosby, & is "100% convinced that all of the women coming foward have been paid off to discredit Bill Cosby as well". The implication was that Dr. Cosby was getting too big (for his britches); he was grasping beyond his reach. He was empowering People of Color!

Black America took the (Russian Mob related) murder of Ennis Cosby as a message for Bill to back up... Along that vein, it was assumed that Michael Jackson was targeted for his interest in Sony Music; as well as acquiring the Publishing Rights of Rock & Roll Hall of Famers like Little Richard, & The Beatles. Prince was similarly targeted for winning Ownership of His Song Masters from Warner Music.

The Criminal Case of Andrea Constand against Bill Cosby is one of legal precedence. Ms. Constand alleges that Dr. Cosby raped her in January, 2004, but she didn't come forward until 2005. The D.A. admitted there wasn't enough evidence to bring criminal charges against Cosby, so Constand took him to Civil Court. In that Civil Trial, Dr. Cosby agreed to a ($3.4M) settlement, but was required to give a sworn deposition.

He was assured by the Montgomery County D.A.'s Office that his statement would be sealed, to protect him from possible self incrimination @ a future date. Oddly, Cosby's Defense did not request Immunity; maybe They thought it was implied, when the D.A.'s Office sealed the deposition. In the end, Dr. Cosby complied, & Ms. Constand was paid.

The precedent set in this last Cosby Trial, centers on the fact that the current Montgomery County D.A. overturned the decision made by that same Office to seal Dr. Cosby's Civil Trial Deposition. Did the D.A. know that Cosby did not have a formal Grant of Immunity; just an assurance from the D.A.'s Office, under the previous D.A.?

This D.A. ran on the promise that he would put Dr. Cosby back on Trial. A Jury already declared a Mistrial on these Charges last Year, but the D.A. says Constand deserves a verdict. This is on top of the Civil Trial that ended more than 10yrs earlier. On top of everything else, Cosby accusers forget that Andrea Constand already settled her Case & collected her money.

The more one looks @ this 'Criminal Case', the more one may ask: Why are We here? The D.A. was successful in painting Dr. Cosby as someone w/ a proclivity for adultery- a serial adulterer. Labelling an Octogenarian a 'Violent Sexual Predator', is overkill. The label is obviously meant to smash the 'America's Dad' image. Cosby's deposition says that he acquired drugs to give to women he sought for sex, but is accused of slipping Women drugs; quaaludes in particular.

Problem is, none of the accusations can be substantiated. There is only one account, & then, the young lady requested it. Beverly Johnson's account was spotlighted by Media. She says her incident w/ Cosby occurred while they were rehearsing lines. For some unknown reason, Beverly not only returned to the Set; she finished rehearsal, then shot the episode, all after her alleged violation.

In an interview following David Bowie's death, Iman said she couldn't believe Beverly Johnson's account. She went on to say back then, news like that would've spread through the Modelling World like wildfire. Bill would be untouchable. The implication was that he was a serial dater, not someone slipping Women quaaludes. If Beverly's account were true, no one would want to be left alone w/ him. In the Case of Andrea Constand, she was given a benadryl for an allergic reaction. Hardly a date rape drug. According to Dr. Cosby's (sealed) deposition, they were drinking cognac; perhaps that is the culprit.

In any case, Ms. Constand made contact w/ Dr. Cosby on 19 different occasions, following the alleged rape. In her written statement, Camille Cosby accused the D.A. of ethics violations, including producing a witness (Andrea Constand) that perjured herself. She continues, "Moreover, Bill Cosby's Defense team introduced the testimony of a witness [Margot Jackson] who confirmed that the district attorney's witness admitted that she had not been sexually assaulted, but that she could say she was and get money... which is exactly what she did."

Others point to a Kinder Morgan connection to Dr. Cosby, in Shelburne Falls, Ma. Kinder Morgan, is The 3rd largest Energy Company in North America, worth approximately $125B. They are the largest Energy Infrastructure Company in North America; responsible for 80,000 miles of pipeline & 180 Terminals. The Energy Company's Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company wants to construct a $341M Natural Gas Pipeline through Shelbourne Falls, as part of a $3.75B Northeast Pipeline Extension Project. The Cosbys have been against the Project; since being notified in 2013, of The Company's intention to survey their land.

The Cosbys own hundreds of acres of Protected Land in Shelbourne Falls. They were concerned that the proposed Project "shows disrespect for humans, flora, & fauna." They were also "astounded" that all six New England Governors support the Project. Camille Cosby wrote an op- ed, in March 2014 that questions the motives of a Company beholden to shareholders, more than Nature. She & Dr. Cosby later joined protesters against the Pipeline in July, 2014. Conspiracy Theorists believe that the Cosby Family angered people @ Kinder Morgan; to the point that They wanted to assassinate his Character & his Legacy.

Fast forward to Oct. 17, 2014- Comedian Hannibal Burress accuses Bill Cosby of Rape during his Stand up routine. The floodgates opened! By mid November, Women like Janice Dickenson were accusing Cosby of [graphic] past Rape acts. Around this time, The Washington Post was asking: If Bill Cosby was accused of rape 8yrs ago, why is the story going viral now? A rumor circulates soon after, that P.R. Man Rick Berman, aka, "Dr. Evil" was contracted by Kinder Morgan to take down Dr. Cosby. A tape later surfaces, where Berman brags how he can take down Celebrities for Clients w/o having actions traced back to him.

All things being said & done, i'm conflicted by Cosby. No question he is more than just a very gifted Writer & Actor. But he clearly has another side. Black America was hard pressed for Role Models on TV; Cosby, like O.J. fit a model that appealed to Both Americas. In the end, Cosby believed his own hype. He mistook The 'Cos' for 'Heathcliff Huxtable'. I guess it must be something like Undercover Cops staying 'Under' too long(?). He played a straight shooter so long, that he forgot he wasn't squeaky clean. Now Cosby has to deal w/ a new image & label- Violent Sexual Predator.

Talking Heads let it roll off their tongues w/a frightening ease. It's like 'The Powers That Be' couldn't wait to push that narrative of Cosby. Sen. Lindsey Graham, on @ least two occasions, used Cosby as a reference for 'The' Sexual Predator, in his defense of Brett Kavanaugh... That opens the door to an interesting comparison- Bill Cosby & Brett Kavanaugh measure up pretty well. Kavanaugh was quick to tout his Academic Standing & Community Service- his pedigree, when pressed on his demeanor @ Social Events.

Cosby could have done the same. He could have touted his academic proficiency, Humanitarian Awards, or the Tens of Millions of dollars donated to Charity; particularly, Historical Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) over the years. There is also the number of Jobs that he created for his TV Shows & Concerts...

Ironically, a 'Gang' of Old Conservative White Men stepped in to rescue Kavanaugh, when he faltered. They employed [coded] wordplay in their language, to assure him that all of the brouhaha was moot; he WILL be confirmed. Meanwhile, the same 'Gang' that once lauded Cosby, abandoned him; almost from the beginning.

Phylicia Rashad appears correct in saying this whole thing is about Legacy. The Cosby Show was an inspiration to Black America. The Black 'Professional Class' flourished during the time that the Show aired. Young Men & Women were attending College & Post Grad Programs in larger numbers. Taking the Show off the air was detrimental, not just to Dr. Cosby, but to the overall Image Hollywood portrays of the Black Community.

Actor Geoffrey Owens, is a causality of the conspiracy to discredit Bill Cosby. He admitted that taking 'The Cosby Show' out of syndication, was a factor in his decision to work @ Trader Joes. Dr. Cosby shared syndication royalties w/ his Cast & Crew, so Geoffrey may not be alone. Meanwhile, admitted child molester, Stephen Collins can enjoy collecting syndication royalties, from Networks that still air '7th Heaven'.

Dwelling on America's double standard Culture can be mind boggling. 81Yr Old Bill Cosby is led out of court in leg chains, facing a 3yr- 10yr Prison Term. He is expected to serve @ least 3yrs, but taking his age & health into account, i'm not very confident that he will survive the Experience. Meanwhile, GOP Conservatives- male & female, are arguing on behalf of Brett Kavanaugh; that speaking up after 30+ Yrs is not fair, unless the account can be substantiated. Dr. Ford comes across as credible, but...

When Autumn Jackson appeared in the mid 90s, claiming to be Cosby's daughter, she referred to a tryst that Cosby had w/ her mother in 1974- Why didn't these Women speak up then? From recent interviews, I understand that many were intimidated by his image & stature, but Cosby's fidelity was being questioned. Dozens of Women coming forward would have gained momentum.

Why is Autumn's mother, Shawn Thompson- Upshaw among the Women accusing Cosby of drugging & raping them? That wasn't her story 20yrs ago. Autumn & her partners in Crime (Jose Medina, Boris [Schmulevich] Sabas) were Tried & Sentenced for Extortion ($40M) in 1997. In that Trial, Cosby was a Witness for the Prosecution. In his testimony, Dr. Cosby revealed that he & Ms. Thompson did in fact have a brief affair.

He also admitted that he gave Ms. Thompson $100,000 over the years as 'hush money,' plus he gave her money for Autumn's Education & well being. Does Ms. Thompson- Upshaw think she has a legitimate argument 20yrs later? It's interesting how We are expected to forgive the 'trespasses' of America's Historical figures, but Bill Cosby is tossed out w/ the trash. How does this work? The 'Cos' was part of Hugh Hefner's Playboy crowd. He was a regular @ the Playboy Mansion, & talked about it in his Stand Up routine.

America celebrated Hef's polyamorous lifestyle, even after getting married. Charlie Sheen can be the irreverent Bad Boy, to the point of becoming HIV Positive. Cosby is basically the prototype of Tiger Woods, but he gets singled out for punishment. Meanwhile, Tiger (I'm not Black) Woods gets a second chance. He is currently being toasted by the same people that criticized him 5yrs earlier. R. Kelly is free to do Lord only knows what (w/ Young Black Women), but Society is satisfied w/ locking up a Legally Blind 81yr old in failing health, & calling him a Violent Sexual Predator... But it's not about Legacy though.

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chozenthemaz-blog · 7 years

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Becoming A Playwright

The Love of Making

I used to make pictures. Now I make stories. I have had the great fortune to collaborate with many artists on the project, Dance of the Aphids.

Dance of the Aphids is a musical loosely based on the Old Testament saint, JOB. The more significant theme is God vs., Satan.

Though the subject is ominous, the mood varies from silliness to dread. My humor comes through this play perhaps a bit too directly. Suffice it to say, I love the Three Stooges, and John Lithgow would make a great Satan.

Collaboration Efforts

With the help of many students, professors, playwrights, script doctors, set designers, musicians, and actors, Dance of the Aphids blossomed into the flower it is today.

Though I entirely wrote the book, lyrics, and music, the script could never have gotten to this point without the help of so many. These great folk, at no charge, and for four years, came to my home primarily to teach me what a play was, what a playwright did, and how a musical comes together.

They showed me the ropes of theater. You could say I earned a BFA in my kitchen.

Genesis of Dance of the Aphids

It was the early 1980s. I was traveling north on the Southfield Freeway (Southfield, MI). I was moving at a comfortable clip of around 75 mph when in an instant, I was removed from the vehicle and plopped onto the wing of a theater.

I could not turn my head center stage to witness the action; I could only view the audience, which numbered in the thousands, who could. I saw their heads; mouths agape, eyes wide, enamored as they were at whatever was taking place in the area of the stage I could not muster the strength to turn towards.

I wondered why I was there without my guitar as I had been a professional guitarist and used to the stage. Then I was whisked away and placed gently back into the auto, which did not graciously stop to await my spiritual arrival but rather unconcernedly bereft of a driver, barreled unwaveringly down that highway at a stubborn 75 mph.

To try and describe the range of emotions and thoughts that percolated within me, would be an utter waste of time and white space. Suffice it to say; I was blown away.I made for the Highway’s beefy shoulder.

When arrived, I put the car in park and exhaled. I must have looked just like one of those rapt theatergoers: eyes wide, jaw slack. What just happened? Where did I go? How did I get there? What did it mean?

As a new Christian, I was immediately thankful to God for doing something in my life. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t a clue as to what that something was or how it would impact me. The idea that something of such magnitude happened was enough for now.

About five years after that vision, and for a duration of about that same amount of time, 100 different people spoke the same eight words to me: "God has something great for you to do.

"Butchers, preachers, strangers, fellow travelers of the day and night approached me in the same manner and with the same eight words for five straight years. It was unbelievable. What on earth was happening?

The last “straw” plucked was at a full gospel businessman’s breakfast. There were about 100 of us men in attendance. The meeting adjourned, it was time to leave. We were orderly as we went. Two by two we stood and approached the speakers before we exited the door.

The two speakers who led the meeting would shake hands, or touch the heads or shoulders of those leaving while uttering 'God bless yous’ and ‘see you next weeks.’ My friend, Tom and I were two of the last four guys to leave.

I approached the leader who shook the hands of men on the left side of the orderly departures. As he went to lay his hands on my forehead and give me a blessing, he recoiled away from me as if hit by a thousand volts of electricity.

His eyes were saucers. He pointed his quivering finger at me and commanded me to “stay right there!”Oh no. Was I possessed by the Devil? Was he calling the cops? What crime had I recently committed? What on earth was wrong with me? What was wrong with this guy?

He reappeared within seconds with about 12 bibles in his hands. He thrust them into my arms and prophesied…can you guess? “God has something great for you to do.” WHAT THE????So I dutifully took my new bibles and exited.

Tom and I got into the car, but I stepped back out of it, slammed the door shut, and yelled up to heaven: “WHAT? WHAT GOD, IS THIS GREAT THING YOU HAVE FOR ME TO DO?”

It was one thing being blessed by the Lord through such visions and confirmations, but it became quite another thing always to hear but never understand.

Three month’s after my holy outburst, my back went out, and I couldn’t work. During the following three months, I heard an inside voice telling me to: “write a play, write a play, write a play.”Write a play? What did I, a disco and top 40 guitarist know about playwriting? This must be a mistake. But it was not.

The voice was insistent until I finally put pencil to pad or rather, fingers to typewriter. Yes. I actually typed my way through this musical. Since I knew as much about playwrighting as I did brain surgery, I decided to thumb through a resource that was familiar to me for my inspiration: the Bible.

And what did my foolish mind, set itself upon? Job. That is J…O…B, the pawn in the war between God and Satan. Job, the worst possible character to write a play about in the history of worst possible characters, was my protagonist.

Now, being a solid musician, the music I wrote was very appealing. People gravitated towards it. But my book was appalling. Idiotic, foolish, and bereft of knowledge.

So, being ignorant of how awful the play was, I was quite pleased with myself for accomplishing the task God foisted upon me. I set the 50 pages of my masterpiece in my bottom drawer and forgot about it for five years or so. All is done. I have finished the task God set before me. On with life.

However, as what often happened to me since the play was “completed,” someone familiar with it would query: “What about JOB? Gonna do anything with it?”

Sure. I’ll watch the paper it was typed on getting yellow as the years pass.

Then one day, maybe ten years after JOB’s completion, my sister said she knew a director at Wayne State who might allow us some of his time to critique the play. Well, that was fine with me. Why not?

So one Saturday morning, Greg came on by. He reviewed the script and said he would make some comments. We would meet the following week to discuss. When Greg handed me back a script repulsively raped with red ink, I knew that my play was garbage, that I was garbage, and that I would never write again.

After Greg left, I promptly took the original and only script to the fireplace to become what it deserved: ash. “There. Now it’s time to forget all about this ‘great thing’ I thought God wanted me to do. But later that night, God’s voice came to me and said, “write it again with the changes.”

Now, these changes were not entries of lyric or dialog, but of some of the intricacies of playwriting such as echo lines, and transitional shots, themes, etc. So over the weekend, I typed up the new JOB. Yes. Once again I typed out the script. A sigh of relief. That was done. The new play was now a hit, right?

Greg came. Greg took. Greg came back. More red ink. More insults to my genius. Another trip to the fireplace. Again, God told me to rewrite it and this time, stop being defensive and listen. I could learn much.

Well, God was right. Surprise! I learned a lot.

For the next four years, all manner of actor, playwright, script doctor, director, singer, (even David Van De Pitte, the famous Motown arranger) entered my home to listen, to engage, to get excited, to teach me about the theater.

I received my BFA degree in my own home, without spending a dime except on pizza and soda. At the end of the four years of education, instead of the usual critiques, there was nothing but cheers and tears. They all said this play was ready to be workshopped. And so it just might be.

Is this that “Great Thing” that God had for me to do? I’ll wait and see.

The Title’s Meaning

An Aphid is used by the Ant as a naturalist rancher would use cattle. It is harvested or corralled for its milk. The Ant protects the Aphid. It keeps him safe, warm, and cozy. It alleviates the Aphid’s stress. But that is where the similarities end.

The Ant wishes no harm upon the Aphid and will cause it no harm. The Ant will die fighting to protect it. In effect, the Ant loves the Aphid. So what does this strange duo have to do with our play? Imagine God as the Ant and the rest of us as Aphids.

The Lord chooses those to whom His favor rests. In effect, God corrals us and uses us as He sees fit. In exchange, God gives us everything we need for life and godliness.

What’s Next

Workshopping and investor pursuit. But to achieve either, we must score the play. For this, I need a composer willing to go through the arduous task of not only transferring my ideas to black dots on a page but come up with creative ideas of his own.

Plus, several pieces are beyond my abilities to effectively communicate. I will most assuredly need a composer/arranger to fill in the blanks.

Goal

Broadway. But I’m reasonably sure this play will need to earn its stripes through various circuits before being selected for production on the big stage in NYC. The most likely place to begin would be colleges. But who knows? That’s for the producer to figure out.

#danceoftheaphids #musical #playwright #dance #aphid #ant #broadway #actor #dancer #arranger #JOB #setdesign #director #producer #writer #christian

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leighleighpresents-blog · 7 years

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Cath Jamison interview

Cath Jamison is Australia's leading female magician. Having worked with good friend Katie Underwood with a number of projects, I've been lucky enough to see Cath in action numerous times. By fusing magic with humour, Cath is able to draw her audience into her show quite easily.

With Melbourne's Midsumma Festival almost upon us, Cath is busy preparing for her upcoming show, which will be her 5th show for Midsumma, but fortunately, she was able to squeeze in some time to have a chat to me about her show, as well as her paranormal experiences, influences, and other tidbits.

GQ: Hi Cath, how are you? How’s your day been so far?

CJ: I’ve had a fabulous day. I got up early and fixed the pump in my fishpond, attached the hammock … yeah, very productive while my girl was in bed asleep. Good day, very relaxing, haha!

GQ: Haha, sure sounds like it! You’ve also been quite busy lately getting ready for your new show for Midsumma. A lot of our readers may not have seen you in action, so what could one expect from the average Cath Jamison show?

CJ: Humour, magic, interaction … I interact with the audience a lot. This new show will be heavily interactive – everyone will be involved with at least one of the routines. I dunno, the shows are just really sassy and playful, cheeky, and I think if people want to see something that’s a little different, and they’re drawn to magic. See, that’s the thing, it’s like kids. When I do kids shows, you get the kid that goes “oh, I know how it’s done”, you know, the real skeptic, and then you have kids that just go “oh my godddddddddd, wowwwwwwwwwww”. The thing is, recently, adults go “I LOVE magic, oh my god, quick, do me a trick!” so there’s that sort of believing. I think, whether you’re a skeptic, or a playful believer in magic, the show’s for you. If you’re into paranormal stuff, and playing with the mind, this show’s for you. I also find that I have a lot of gay guys interested in what I do as well. I don’t know what it is, whether it’s my tits, or what it is. Maybe my confidence?

GQ: Well, I’ve had a lot of singers and so forth tell me that they find that gay audiences embrace the arts and so forth a lot more, and we love to have fun, so maybe a combination of the two …

CJ: … and very confident women too. Gay guys are into that, I think. Kate Ceberano, she’s really ballsy onstage too. But it might be my tits, Damian Nicholas (from JoyFM) is always talking about my tits when I’m in the studio …I do find that gay guys and straight women enjoy my show the most. I don’t think I’m a teenage-boy type of magician, I think … like, sometimes I’ll flirt with the straight girls, and they’ll know that they’re safe, so that touches on something, their confidence, their self-esteem. I don’t know … now we’re going into a different topic, analysing the audience!!!! But yeah, it’s going to be a show that makes you think about things, like paranormal activity, and with laughs thrown in. It’s not a heavy show, it’s going to be light, fun, muck-around …

GQ: There’s one particular trick you did at Katie Underwood’s album launch that I keep going over in my head and still can’t work out. The card trick …

CJ: Yeah, I love that. I love how people go “how do you do that???”, and I always say “very well”, haha! It’s all about skill. That’s a trick I’ve done for years, and there’s so many elements to the trick. Magic can be boring. I’ve seen so many people doing it, and it’s so boring, because they don’t embrace the entertainment side of it. It can be like “yeah, pick a card …”. I mean, how boring is that? Or you can go “pick a card, any card, DON’T tell me what it is …”, and I think that’s important with magic, and hence, what I did with that card trick, there’s a lot of entertainment involved, and misdirection, and playing, and so you skipped what REALLY happened before your very eyes.

GQ: So how did you actually get started in magic?

CJ: I got a magic kit when I was a kid, got into that, went to Magic School, I saw an ad and thought “I wanna do that!” I was juggling chickens before that though, so I’ve always been a little different, haha! There’s 3 girls in the family, one’s a sports teacher, one’s an interior designer, and I juggle chickens. I’ve always been that tomboy, quirky, and the deep thinker. I’m always curious about people, how they behave and everything, and I think that’s opened me up to all that psychic type stuff too.

GQ: Speaking of “psychic type stuff”, your new show for Midsumma has a bit of paranormal activity too. We were talking about it a lot before the interview, but in terms of the show, how does that happen?

CJ: It’s important to know that I want the audience to come in with a sense of “maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not” about the ESP, electrokinesis and stuff. Non-believers can come in and leave as believers, but I’m not forcing them. If they come along and leave sceptical and doubtful, that’s alright too, as long as they were entertained. I think that’s the key to this show. I want them to have that feeling of “maybe she is, maybe she’s not”, a bit like I said before, “maybe she’s gay, maybe she’s not”. I love it when things aren’t black and white, and that’s what it’s like with this show. It’s going to make you think, entertain you, you’ll laugh – well, you’d better laugh, or I’ll set my ghosts onto you! – I’m going to drink vodka … that’s the spirit side of things. No, but dabbling on the deep down sort of stuff, the Voodoo religion is something I’m interested in, so I’ll be using Voodoo dolls for a bit of fun, but really deep down, I’m curious about this stuff. I love ghost stories, I love you telling me ghost stories, I love the fact that I’ve experienced my own ghost stories and stuff, but the atmosphere it creates when someone’s telling a ghost story because they believe in it so much, and again, it has that feeling of “is it true? This person’s really honest and sincere how they’re saying it, so it must be true, so that’s really scary”, and I think that’s a really important thing when telling a story. Again, it all comes back to that entertainment thing. It’s not a heavy show. I entertained and tried out a few new tricks at my Dad’s Christmas function, and he goes “oh, you know, it hasn’t got enough zing” which is interesting because I feel that a lot of Mentalist shows are a bit boring, and I want to add the fun side of it without it being too heavy, cos that’s not me. I’ve seen some shows where it’s very heavy, and there’s a lot of talking and stuff. I mean, I do a lot of talking, but I throw in jokes and everything to alleviate all that heaviness. I think I still want to maintain a light show, but touch on stuff I’m interested in, like ghosts and stuff. That’s the interesting side of dating, you know. You’re trying to get to know more about people, like guessing who they are and if there’s more about them. It’s like ESP, is there more to ESP? Is there more to Voodoo religion? Is there more to Leigh if I go on a date with him? You know what I mean? Touching on people’s curiosity about life, like is there more to life than talking about the tram that just went past? Finding out what makes people tick. I’ve always been like that, as a child, you know, more than the outside of the body. More into like aliens and ghosts and stuff, that there’s more than just this table and chair … [tram goes past] … or that tram that just went past again. See what I mean? That was ESP! Haha! I mean, I’m not professing I know everything about this stuff, I’m just someone who’s curious about it all. I want to put a foot into all the areas, learn more, and share what I’ve learned, but in a fun way. I’m not going to do this big script, just a few lines here and there on each topic…

GQ: Dipping your toes in the pools of all areas…

CJ: Yeah, get that in there! I like that! Yeah, so, you know … what makes this different to any other show? Well, me! I’ve always had trouble marketing who I am. I never conform to the long, blonde haired female magician. I’ve never conformed to the David Copperfield look, and I had a revelation and thought “you know what? I’m just gonna be me, who happens to do magic as a form of expression”, so this is just an extension of who I am, my interests and fascinations about the paranormal, and magic, and fun. I’m everything, and it’s very hard to market that, or put it into a show, but, in a way, it works, because I’m so original. Nobody can copy what I’m doing, because it’s who I am.

GQ: In terms of other magicians, are there any others who have influenced you?

CJ: Oh, heaps. There’s an Australian one who is my mentor, who I look up to and I worked with as his assistant, a guy called Raymond Crowe, and people know him as the Hand Shadow Man – you know, the “What A Wonderful World” shadows? – but the structure of how he does his shows, it plays with people’s emotions, it’s how he is. He’s not doing too much manipulation, it’s just being creative and simple, but it expresses the type of person he is. There’s people like Lance Burton, Max Maven … a lot of magicians who get into mentalism give up magic and just stick to the mentalism side, so they come across with the image of what people think of a Mentalist, like the black hair …

GQ: What IS a Mentalist?

CJ: Mentalism is like telepathy, ESP, tricks of the mind. But yeah, magicians tend to do the whole dark look, the “Satan”-type look, but I think it’s stronger that it’s an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. I think, however, there’s a lot of magicians still stuck in the 50’s, you know, top hat and tails, and I’m just like “just be yourself”. I mean, that’s what I teach to a lot of kids, you can look up to all these other magicians, but just be yourself, that’s the most important thing. That creates originality more than anything. We all start off like the David Copperfield looks and stuff, and even I did that, but there’s more out there to look at as well. I mean, before I even knew I was gay, kd lang was an inspiration to me. As soon as she stepped on stage, she’d project energy out by just standing there, not doing much at all. She has really strong stage presence. That’s what I was told when I first started, that I had great stage presence. I’ve seen some people perform, and they’re performing over the heads of the audience, not really connecting with the audience. I mean, maybe that comes from my busking days too, being able to handle an audience. The biggest audience I’ve done is the Comedy Gala. I was only on for about 3 minutes, but the Telstra Dome, that was filled with people, and that was the biggest thing I’ve ever done, bigger than Winterdaze. That was fun, where I made a dove appear, and people in the audience are like “is that a dove or not?”, thinking they’re seeing things cos of the drugs. Tim Burton, I’m a big fan of his too. It’s not just magicians that inspire me either. There’s other artists that inspire me to create my product.

GQ: We’d best leave it there, but finally, have you got a message for our readers?

CJ: I’m getting a message from the “other side”: “go to Cath’s show, it’s a KILLER. I DIED laughing.”

#Cath Jamison #Mentalist #gay #GenQ

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2muchfor2long · 7 years

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Feeling like a vampire, I threw on some shades and on four hours of sleep, I went to retrieve my car at the scene of the crime. I can tell you that tequila and herbal X are not your friends the morning after an epic night of partying. Frankly, I was amazed that my car was still there and it wasn’t jacked up.

Recovery was on my agenda for the weekend. I wanted to make sure I was in fine form for Monday. Plus, I had several things I had to do for various classes so the plan was to hang out at the beach and then work on some scripts.

After a day of playing in the sun and surf, I was ready to go home. The minute I walked in the door though, my roommate Stacey had other ideas. “Hey, remember that real cute guy I met in directing, Adam?” I nodded. “Well, he is throwing a party tonight at his place and he wanted us to come.”

Rolling my eyes, I told her, “Look, I have to do some writing and I have to be sharp for Monday.”

“Well, this is Saturday. You will have a day to recover.”

I realized that resistance was futile and that she would just bug the crap out of me until I relented. “Okay. When is this soiree?”

“10 p.m.”

“At least that gives me a little time to get things done and besides you will need the bathroom for several hours. You know 45 minute lips and stuff.”

Looking rather annoyed, she disappeared. Once again, derailment of my best laid plans. I spent majority of the night punching up scenes for my screenwriting classes. Stacey was busy doing her primping thing and unfortunately, since I don’t necessarily heed my own advice, a bottle of vodka was calling my name in the fridge.

While I waited for drama queen, I decided to toss back a few Cape Cods. Finally, she emerged from her lair looking like Norma Desmond waiting for her close up. We headed into the night toward Loyola Marymount and whatever potentially bad decisions were awaiting us.

My lips are drop dead sexy!

Once we got to the neighborhood, parking was a bitch. We ended up having to walk a block. LMU is located in a lovely suburb of Los Angeles called Westminster. At the time I attended the university, the area was rather posh but not like Beverly Hills outrageous. Adam’s parents lived in a really beautiful house which could have been featured on the pages of “Architectural Digest.”

I knew some of the people milling about so as I stopped and chatted with everyone, Stacey was whisked away to hold court somewhere. Lucky for me, I found the bar right away. I figured that sticking with vodka was probably a safe bet.

After several more drinks, I was feeling quite relaxed. Stacey had disappeared and I managed to find some people from my classes and spent majority of my time with them. I had to use the bathroom so after I was pointed in the right direction, I headed off.

The staircase to the upper level was magnificent. By the time, I reached the top, I couldn’t remember if I needed to make a left or right turn. I decided on the left. Wrong call, on my part.

Remember that scene in The Shining where a guy in a costume was in a rather suggestive position? Well, I came flying through the door and stumbled in to the 50 Shades of Grey dimension. For a moment, I had to pause and focus because I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing. After I figured it out and became monumentally frightened, I hightailed it out of there before something insane went down.

Care to join us?

Getting my bearings, I decided to try door number 2 which was on the right. Stealing myself before heading in, I turned the handle and walked in to several people focused on cutting lines of coke on the bathroom mirror. They must have been ingenious because somehow, they managed to take the ornate item off of the wall. Not wanting to disturb the potential Scarface scene, I extricated myself rather quickly.

My heart is beating so fast, man!

Giving up, I decided to leave before this became a police event. By now, it was midnight and the music was thumping pretty loudly. I fought my way through the teeming hordes of sweaty, dancing drunk folk and found Queen Stacey surrounded by her minions poolside.

Several people were already frolicking sans clothing in the pool. After leaving behind the Studio 54 house, I managed to somehow enter a portal into the 60s. Stacey and company were passing around joints and just walking into their circle left me in a “Purple Haze.”

I told her I was going to motor and I was rather relieved that she and Adam had hit it off so I wouldn’t have to wait around for her. Not one to pass up recreational “activities” I took a couple of hits and left.

Groovy

Thankfully, the drive home passed without incident. PCH was beautiful and the moon was out. I guess you could say it was the type of thing you picture when you dream of living in LA. The moment I was inside my house, I went into my bedroom and immediately crashed.

Sunday passed without incident and before I knew it, Monday rolled around. I was due to report for duty at 9:30, so that meant getting up at an ungodly hour to get ready. Extremely nervous, but dressed for success, I headed into the early morning full of excitement and butterflies in my stomach.

I arrived on time which was terrific. Making my way inside the building, I stopped at the security desk to pick up my pass. It was official! I now had access to CBS- Television City. I rode the elevator up to the production offices. The closer I got to the door, the more nervous I became. Counting to ten, I walked in to what was going to be a pretty intensive three-month gig.

Everything was pretty quiet. First order of business was to go see Billy in his office. Before I could knock, he opened the door and seemed rather surprised to see me.

“Oh, hey! I see you remembered where we were.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s pretty busy so let me take you around to meet some of the people.”

This was like a whirlwind of information. I met both segment producers, the producers, the research department and then I was ushered in to meet perhaps the scariest person of all, Peter Lassally. This man was a legend in talk show host production. He was the executive producer of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson for years. He also executive produced Letterman’s show.

Legendary Producer

Normally, I am pretty cool but this was enough to make me want to pass out! As it turns out, he was extremely nice even asking me about what I was doing at LMU.

After narrowly escaping a freak out episode, Billy took me to meet Tom’s assistant, Kelly. Kelly was a nice chap from the UK. He had been with Tom for years. He was in charge of basically running Snyder’s life on the show.

Another interesting bit was actually going to the studio and seeing where the “magic” happened. I really enjoyed this because I was wanting to get experience in television production as well. I was introduced to the “booth” personnel which consisted of the director and his group.

Introductions made, Billy and I walked up to the offices where my day officially began. I did your standard routines like help with administrative functions, mail, and even assisting Kelly with Tom’s fan mail. Then of course, there was picking up lunches and coffee runs.

Since my desk was the very first one in front of the door, I routinely got a glimpse of all incoming traffic. As it just so happens, I was involved with a task from the research department when I got the surprise of my life. I was in the midst of working on sorting the mail when Tom Snyder walked in.

The late, great, Tom Snyder

This was straight up bananas. I grew up watching the Tomorrow show and now this man was actually standing in front of me. I thought he would ignore me and just carry on but that didn’t happen.

“So, you must be the new intern?”

“Yes.”

“Nice to meet you….”

“My name is Susan.”

“Nice to meet you, Susan.”

“It’s a pleasure, Mr. Snyder.”

“Call me Tom.”

Well, that threw me for a loop. Then he sauntered away to begin his day leaving me to quietly stroke out. Thankfully enough, the rest of the afternoon passed without further incident.

My internship only required me to be there three days out of the week. However, this quickly turned into five days. I was very eager to take advantage of this opportunity and to be honest with you, it was way better getting hands on experience then discussing theories in a classroom.

The show filmed on Friday nights and for the first part of it, I would man the telephones in case we got a call from our other executive producer, Robert “Morty” Morton. For all of you fans of the early Letterman years on NBC and CBS, he was a familiar face and also the executive producer of The Late Show with David Letterman.

Hi Morty! Welcome to transfer hell.

Of course, the very first night I helmed the phone, around 10:15, it rang.

“Hello. Late Late Show.”

“Hey, hi!”

“Hi?”

“Yeah, this is Morty.”

Okay, at this point, I damned near dropped the phone. Be cool, don’t lose your shit, Susan.

“How are you, Morty?”

“I’m great. Who is this?”

I just looked at the receiver. It sounded like he was in his car or something and this whole conversation was unbelievable.

“I’m Susan.”

“Susan, can I speak with Tammy?”

Tammy happened to be one of the producers.

“Sure. One moment, please.”

Now, this phone was pretty standard and straight forward. The transfer button was not a big mystery. However, suddenly, I felt like NASA needed to talk me through the mechanics of this phone transfer from Mission Control.

After fumbling with several buttons, I managed to find the right combination. I rang Tammy’s office and announced the call. Of course, when I hit transfer, how was I to know that I was actually going to send our executive producer into oblivion?

NASA? Can you help me transfer a call from Mission Control?

Smiling and feeling pretty confident, I immediately got a call from Tammy. She was pretty livid. I felt like I was being yelled at by Charlie Brown’s teacher. Fortunately, Morty did call back and this time, he reached his proper destination. Good times.

Weeks went by and every day was a new experience. One morning, I remember walking in to the kitchen area only to be shocked to see the comedian, Steven Wright getting a Coke from the refrigerator. Trying to be nonchalant, I gave him a nod and a “What’s up?” So smooth, I know.

Another fun experience was Friday night cocktails on the set after the show. It was sort of like a wrap party with a full bar. Tom was partial to vodka martinis. He actually made me a drink and we talked about going to Catholic school. Who would’ve thought that one day I would’ve been kicking it, knocking back drinks with a talk show legend? Priceless.

I also got to take a couple of turns in the production booth as well. One of the highlights is they actually let me do the teleprompter! No, I didn’t do anything crazy like Anchorman (F&*# you, San Diego!). The energy of doing a live show was exciting and just being in that atmosphere was better than any college class.

One memorable incident occurred in the elevator. I was bringing something to one of the producers. On the

way down, someone got on with an entourage. Now, my pleasant ride was jam packed. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed this guy with a smug look on his face almost saying, “Yeah, you know who I am.” Years later, this wonderful individual would be the star of a show, we will call “40 Pebble,” on NBC. What I can tell you is at the time he was wearing these gigantic hideous green glasses. I remember that I wanted to punch that arrogance right off his face.

You know you want me.

My internship was almost finished. However, it was going to go out with a bang. We were all called to a meeting in the conference room by Peter Lassally. David Letterman was coming to our offices to prepare for the Oscars. I could feel my heart skip a couple of beats.

Don't you look at me!

The very next thing I know, me and the other intern, Mike were shuffled into a closed-door meeting with Billy where we were given explicit instructions on how to handle Letterman’s impending visit.

We could not engage Dave in any way. The kicker was we weren’t allowed to look at him! This news sucked really hard. Here I was getting the chance of a lifetime to be around someone that I had a crush on since I was sixteen and it was just going to be extremely awkward.

Activity was amped up in the office. One of the tasks that we were challenged with was creating a “playbook” for Dave to study of all the Oscar nominees and the films. This sounds easy, but it wasn’t. The research was painstaking and the actual construction was a bitch trying to get the binders together.

I won’t lie, it was also exciting. I spent several nights helping out until 2 a.m. Things were crazy, we were punchy but it was totally worth it. Finally, the books were assembled and waiting for Dave and his writers.

The day after one of the marathon playbook sessions, I entered the office only to be greeted by the exceptionally animated receptionist, Kathy. “Susan, don’t be too excited but Dave is here. So, make sure if you see him, don’t make eye contact and don’t talk to him.”

“Okay, Kathy. Sure.” Inwardly I thought if I accidentally glance at him will I turn into stone? Will I cease to exist? Shrugging it off, I grabbed some coffee and headed into the conference room to begin the task of sorting mail. This was a mind-numbing activity but it would help to take my mind off being nervous.

About half way through the sorting, the door to the conference room opened. I looked up to find myself face to face with David Letterman. Holy crap! Damn it! I just looked at him. We stood there for a moment. Immediately, I averted my eyes and pretended to care about the mail.

He left the room. Breathing a sigh of relief, the door opened up again, Letterman looked at me with this quizzical look on his face. Of course, me being so poised, I stood there with what I am certain was a look of abject terror on my visage. Thankfully, he left the room.

Yep. I am so smooth.

After the Oscar ceremony, my internship drew to a close. Everyone was so gracious. The entire staff threw me a going away party. Even Tom and Peter Lassally attended and they sang, “Happy Trails.” That was something to see and a great memory that makes me smile to this day. Another parting gift from the crew, they put my name in the credits. I still have that VHS tape. You never know when it might come in handy.

Hey everyone! I was on tv!

My learning experience ended. I didn’t know quite where the road would lead me. Then again, I was certain it would be exciting.

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