I have a confession to make. I am the person at your office who takes the last cup of coffee, then leaves the empty pot smoldering on the burner without starting a fresh one. I occasionally ride my bike without my helmet on, and I never walk it across crosswalks. I ate all the good candy from my kid’s Halloween stash and I let them watch too much TV when their mother is not home.
And why, you may ask, is he confessing to these grave moral indiscretions?
A few months ago, moved by I know not what, I was talking to the pastor at my church and I asked him if there was anything we could do for the needy, the “least of these” we like to call them around the pews. The hungry, the thirsty, the disenchanted, the sick, the naked, even the prisoners. Not to mention all those disenfranchised souls voting for Ron Paul and the destitute masses that continue to watch Lost with the naïve belief that they will be rewarded with a meaningful and satisfying ending.
Ours is a good pastor, always at the ready for such queries, and he welcomed me into various activities and programs that our fine church was organizing to help those folks in need. Which brings me to my next confession: I participated in exactly none of these.
There is a phrase that has been playing in the back of my mind ever since that conversation. O wretched man that I am.
I don’t want to sound preachy. Church talk often makes me squirm in my seat and roll my eyes, even when I subscribe to it. So if that doesn’t work for you, if the thought of a higher power turns you off, use whatever moral compass you like. Intuition, institution, Cosmopolitan, the Bill of Rights, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, TMZ, the autobiography of Mr. T, or any other initials you want.
But by whatever measure you want to use, if you take a moment to think about what the city of Burbank is doing for the area’s homeless and needy, you will see that it is anything but wretched. From the last minute opening of the winter shelter at the armory last year, to the renewal and expansion of that shelter this year, to the city council’s continued efforts to provide assistance to transient and low income families. While our representatives in Washington D.C. are handing out billion dollar bailout checks to major banks, insurance companies and car manufacturers, our local city council is looking straight into the eyes of those directly effected by homelessness and trying to make a difference at the individual level. They are doing something right despite some well-meaning resistance.
Globally some 30,000 children die everyday from malnutrition and poverty, entirely preventable diseases and conditions. Too much to think about? Locally some 524 individuals and families just lost their homes 15 miles up the road in Sylmar. We can argue the causes of homelessness and poverty, blaming the left, the right, predatory mortgage lenders, brush fires or just plain old poor personal decision-making.
But if we ignore it, it won’t go away. If we throw money at it without personal accountability, we only perpetuate the problem. Something tells me that if we seek the peace in our city, we’ll have peace elsewhere in our lives. The word peace often refers to completeness, soundness, welfare, health, safety and right relationship with each other. Our individual peace and welfare are bound to our city and to our community’s well being. The facts of poverty will not change until they become personal for us. And what do you get out of this? Nothing you can count. At least nothing that you can measure in dollars.
Is it easier to pity a fool, or pity a person in need? Religious or not, deep down we all know that giving to others, helping those in need, is good and right. I know that in the present economy none of this is easy. Not on a national level, a city level, and not at the home level. But that does not change the face of poverty and homelessness. These we will always have with us, as a wise man once said. That is a call to help, not an excuse to ignore.
Maybe it’s just that the holiday season always makes me feel like doing more unto others than I’ve done unto them in the previous 11 months of the year. Or maybe one or two of the things I’ve learned at church are starting to sink in despite my best efforts to resist them. But this holiday season I am going to try to remember to start a fresh pot of coffee whenever I take that last cup.
© 2008 Patrick Caneday
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
The Squiggle of Our Discontent
In response to the debate in Burbank, California, regarding our local bike path and whether to govern it more strictly:
The kids are arguing because one got a free giveaway ball from the dry cleaner and the other didn’t. The one without claims that I don’t love her as much as her sister. The dry cleaner ruined my favorite shirt. I broke my glasses. The wife is mad at me for spraying sunscreen in the girls’ eyes (again). Fox News is already blaming Obama for all the country’s woes.
And I am out of Prilosec.
Only one thing to do. Take a ride.
Last Christmas, my wife surprised me with a new bicycle. As a simple man in his early 40s, I choose to believe that this gift has more to do with the price of gas and my carbon footprint than the profundity of my midsection. Whatever her motive, the bike has become the best gift she has ever given to me outside of her love, her patience, her cute little bod and our two children. I’ve been a reluctant and unregimented exerciser my whole adult life, and for the first time ever I find myself craving the peace, meditation and physical output of my bike rides.
I set out one recent morning just before sunrise and made my way to Forest Lawn Drive at Barham. Along the way I encountered stoplights and traffic; there was much road work along the way, detouring me down busier streets than I would like. Half-filled and overfilled potholes made the ride bumpier as well.
Once I hit the bike lane at the top of Forest Lawn, I began my ride south. I felt a great sense of relief having finally made it to the path. I work hard, provide for my family, pay my taxes, go to church regularly, buy cookies from girls outside the supermarket and generally try to be a responsible member of society. Finally, as I began what I hoped would be a nice, long, relaxing cruise, I was getting what I deserved. Peace. Is that too much to ask for?
Then one truck and another passed by me so close as to nearly knock me from my bike. Quick, dodge that dead opossum! (Wasn’t that here last week, too?) Broken glass and other debris pushed me out into the road where I narrowly escaped becoming a hood ornament for people too eager to get to their office and surf the Web. There were odors I would rather not know, bugs, dust and exhaust that I couldn’t help but inhale. Grave sites checkered the hillside and gave me caution and pause. Even the wind pushing against me seemed to beg my frustration.
This wasn’t working, so I veered off Forest Lawn through the quiet streets of the Rancho and headed for home unfulfilled. As I passed the park with a giant purple dinosaur for a slide, I saw balloons trapped in the telephone wires, remnants of some child’s birthday party. I sympathized with those balloons. As I approached home, I felt gypped. I tried to escape for just a little while, find some peace, and could not get there. So, I continued right past my house and headed through more sleepy streets, avoiding main roads like Buena Vista and Olive. My goal: the Chandler Bikeway.
I’d say it was about 6:30 a.m. when I finally hit the path and started my journey to the east. The San Fernando Mountains seemed oddly majestic and awe-inspiring in the morning haze. I’ve seen this before at the base of the Sierra Nevada or the Rockies. I’d just never seen our local mountains look like this before.
There was an early-morning dew on the grass and plants all around. A soft mist blanketed everything. The dawning sun just cresting the hills ahead of me sparkled fresh light off the landscape like floating crystals. The light reflected especially brightly off the painted lines of the bike path marking the lanes.
I knew that in a few minutes, the sun would move on and the particular intensity of the refracting sunlight would disappear, perhaps never to be seen exactly like this ever again.
I looked around and saw bikers and walkers and dog-walkers, fast, slow and stationary, making their way along this bright path. And I was struck by something I had never realized before. The Chandler Bikeway is crooked.
It is a scribble, a squiggle if you will, through our city. Not a straight and perfect path that I guess I had always envisioned it was. And in that imperfection, I found a kind of perfect peace.
Isn’t it interesting how we can cruise along in life thinking one thing, and in an instant, have that preconception shattered? Perhaps that “too good to be true” mortgage you may have gotten into a couple of years ago?
That smell in Griffith Park is feces. Manure. But what makes that is ponies. Ponies! And ponies make little kids smile and laugh, which makes me smile and laugh. That may be a dead and flattened opossum ahead, but overhead is a flock of exotic parakeets — yes, wild parakeets in Burbank! Their collective chirping sounds like a thousand marbles colliding.
Sometimes there is road work and potholes and exhaust along our ride, walkers in the bike lane and bikers in the walk lane. But there will always be that one old man with his walker, slowly making his way along the path at his own pace, stopping to chat with anyone and everyone willing to take a moment and enjoy good company. He looks like he has more stories to tell than I do mistakes in my life.
Beyond the smells, the garbage and the traffic, there will always be carousels, fountains, ponies and good people willing to share a crooked path with one another.
The straight path to a comfortable and happy life, the straight shot to heaven or salvation or just plain contentedness is real. And it is easy, but only in the decision to actually take the path. In practice, the path is not straight or easy.
There will be obstacles, stumbling blocks, broken glass, dead opossums and foul odors. Sin, if that’s your bag. We can choose only to see obstacles or we can choose to see hope. We can choose to slow down a little, walk together or move out of one another’s way politely. We can choose to do in our hearts what we know is right rather than alienate and demonize one another with rhetoric, rules and restrictions.
Choose to argue or choose to get along. It is not a straight path. But it is our only path.
The kids are arguing because one got a free giveaway ball from the dry cleaner and the other didn’t. The one without claims that I don’t love her as much as her sister. The dry cleaner ruined my favorite shirt. I broke my glasses. The wife is mad at me for spraying sunscreen in the girls’ eyes (again). Fox News is already blaming Obama for all the country’s woes.
And I am out of Prilosec.
Only one thing to do. Take a ride.
Last Christmas, my wife surprised me with a new bicycle. As a simple man in his early 40s, I choose to believe that this gift has more to do with the price of gas and my carbon footprint than the profundity of my midsection. Whatever her motive, the bike has become the best gift she has ever given to me outside of her love, her patience, her cute little bod and our two children. I’ve been a reluctant and unregimented exerciser my whole adult life, and for the first time ever I find myself craving the peace, meditation and physical output of my bike rides.
I set out one recent morning just before sunrise and made my way to Forest Lawn Drive at Barham. Along the way I encountered stoplights and traffic; there was much road work along the way, detouring me down busier streets than I would like. Half-filled and overfilled potholes made the ride bumpier as well.
Once I hit the bike lane at the top of Forest Lawn, I began my ride south. I felt a great sense of relief having finally made it to the path. I work hard, provide for my family, pay my taxes, go to church regularly, buy cookies from girls outside the supermarket and generally try to be a responsible member of society. Finally, as I began what I hoped would be a nice, long, relaxing cruise, I was getting what I deserved. Peace. Is that too much to ask for?
Then one truck and another passed by me so close as to nearly knock me from my bike. Quick, dodge that dead opossum! (Wasn’t that here last week, too?) Broken glass and other debris pushed me out into the road where I narrowly escaped becoming a hood ornament for people too eager to get to their office and surf the Web. There were odors I would rather not know, bugs, dust and exhaust that I couldn’t help but inhale. Grave sites checkered the hillside and gave me caution and pause. Even the wind pushing against me seemed to beg my frustration.
This wasn’t working, so I veered off Forest Lawn through the quiet streets of the Rancho and headed for home unfulfilled. As I passed the park with a giant purple dinosaur for a slide, I saw balloons trapped in the telephone wires, remnants of some child’s birthday party. I sympathized with those balloons. As I approached home, I felt gypped. I tried to escape for just a little while, find some peace, and could not get there. So, I continued right past my house and headed through more sleepy streets, avoiding main roads like Buena Vista and Olive. My goal: the Chandler Bikeway.
I’d say it was about 6:30 a.m. when I finally hit the path and started my journey to the east. The San Fernando Mountains seemed oddly majestic and awe-inspiring in the morning haze. I’ve seen this before at the base of the Sierra Nevada or the Rockies. I’d just never seen our local mountains look like this before.
There was an early-morning dew on the grass and plants all around. A soft mist blanketed everything. The dawning sun just cresting the hills ahead of me sparkled fresh light off the landscape like floating crystals. The light reflected especially brightly off the painted lines of the bike path marking the lanes.
I knew that in a few minutes, the sun would move on and the particular intensity of the refracting sunlight would disappear, perhaps never to be seen exactly like this ever again.
I looked around and saw bikers and walkers and dog-walkers, fast, slow and stationary, making their way along this bright path. And I was struck by something I had never realized before. The Chandler Bikeway is crooked.
It is a scribble, a squiggle if you will, through our city. Not a straight and perfect path that I guess I had always envisioned it was. And in that imperfection, I found a kind of perfect peace.
Isn’t it interesting how we can cruise along in life thinking one thing, and in an instant, have that preconception shattered? Perhaps that “too good to be true” mortgage you may have gotten into a couple of years ago?
That smell in Griffith Park is feces. Manure. But what makes that is ponies. Ponies! And ponies make little kids smile and laugh, which makes me smile and laugh. That may be a dead and flattened opossum ahead, but overhead is a flock of exotic parakeets — yes, wild parakeets in Burbank! Their collective chirping sounds like a thousand marbles colliding.
Sometimes there is road work and potholes and exhaust along our ride, walkers in the bike lane and bikers in the walk lane. But there will always be that one old man with his walker, slowly making his way along the path at his own pace, stopping to chat with anyone and everyone willing to take a moment and enjoy good company. He looks like he has more stories to tell than I do mistakes in my life.
Beyond the smells, the garbage and the traffic, there will always be carousels, fountains, ponies and good people willing to share a crooked path with one another.
The straight path to a comfortable and happy life, the straight shot to heaven or salvation or just plain contentedness is real. And it is easy, but only in the decision to actually take the path. In practice, the path is not straight or easy.
There will be obstacles, stumbling blocks, broken glass, dead opossums and foul odors. Sin, if that’s your bag. We can choose only to see obstacles or we can choose to see hope. We can choose to slow down a little, walk together or move out of one another’s way politely. We can choose to do in our hearts what we know is right rather than alienate and demonize one another with rhetoric, rules and restrictions.
Choose to argue or choose to get along. It is not a straight path. But it is our only path.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Is Your M&E Track Fully Filled?
Picture: Generally good quality…
Audio: Failed, M&E track not fully filled…
Most of us that work in post-production know what an M&E track is. But for those who don’t, here is a brief lesson in Post Production 101. The sound in a movie contains three discreet elements of audio: Dialogue, Music and Sound Effects. Everything you hear in a film comes from those three combined parts. When the Dialogue is dropped out, you are left with the Music and Effects track. This is used when someone wants to place foreign language dubbed dialogue in the film for viewing in another language. This only works correctly when the M&E (Music and Effects tracks combined) is fully filled with all of the sound effects needed to make the show sound normal. Every door slam, footstep and shuffle of papers on a desk. Where would society be without the sound of Indy’s bullwhip, the hair ripping out of a 40-year-old virgin’s chest or the seductive zipper on Angelina Jolie’s bustiere? If any of these effects are missing, the M&E track is not fully filled. The film’s technical quality will be rejected like undercooked pork tenderloin when a diligent Quality Control operator sits in a dark room scrutinizing the show frame by frame. And, according to some mysterious arbiter of all things acceptably viewable on your television somewhere in the world, society will crumble into chaos and anarchy. Simple, right?
So, M&E is the background noise that takes place under the talking. It is what fills the void behind everything we are watching and paying attention to. If it is done well, you usually don’t notice it. But if the M&E were not there, or if it were not fully filled, the overall impact would be that there is something very seriously wrong with this picture.
So it is in life.
Take a moment to think of M&E as the background of your life, the things that go on behind all the talk and chatter and ranting. Think of M&E as the ambience that gives our lives flavor, character and depth. Strip out all the voices in your head and the verbal ballyhoo around you, and simply listen to what is left. Is it fully filled?
I remember the day I decided to go to film school. I was sitting in my truck on a hill somewhere in Glendale overlooking the valley and drinking beer with some friends. This was our favorite pastime back then; and yes, it is a miracle that I eventually found a woman who would marry me. I am pretty sure we were listening to the soundtrack of a John Hughes’ movie on the cassette player, killing my battery once again. John Hughes’ films of the mid 1980’s captured exactly what my generation was feeling right then, somehow making you feel like that movie was made just for you (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles… Pretty in Pink). And the music became the backdrop of our lives. So sitting on that hill, I had an epiphany (yes, epiphany) that changed the course of my life. Music is what makes movie reality different from our living reality and wouldn’t it be great if we all walked around with our own theme music or score playing in the background of our daily rituals. John Williams and the Boston Pops following you everywhere, playing music that fit each moment perfectly. You are standing in line at Starbuck’s choosing between a Caffé Vanilla Frappuccino® Light Blended with soy milk and a Half Caf Cinnamon Dolce Crème, and just when you choose the Frappuccino® and the barista hollers the order in, your string section blares with a triumphant chord and the audience knows you’ve won this battle…until next time. That is what separates movies from reality, I thought. Music! I know what you are wondering. And I will tell you. I was drinking Olde English 800.
5 years later I had a degree in film production from the illustrious CSUN film school. I spent the next 6 months unemployed and wondering why no one offered to give me money to make the film I had not yet written, my own Sex, lies and Videotape indie blockbuster. I have a FILM DEGREE for crying out loud! It was another 6 months as a gopher lackey to a so-called producer born and bred in Beverly Hills with a Cartiere platinum and diamond encrusted spoon in her mouth before I started doing anything meaningful with my education. From there I began my career as a servicing manager, and my long education in the world of post-production was underway. That script still isn’t written, but I’ve stopped wondering why no one is knocking down my door to give me money.
I have often wanted to ask people, what would the music behind their daily life be? Classical, Rap, R&B… Calypso? Be careful. Whatever you say hints greatly at how you perceive yourself. Think about it.
Music is obvious. It is easy to think of music in the background of your life. It can be a powerful accent to everything we do, heightening or taming our emotions, adding a sense of poignancy to the events of the day. But if music is the constant structure on which we ride throughout life, effects are the beats, the spice, the sizzle, the nut. Effects are those elements without which life would have no value or interest. Effects are the noises that add texture and substance to everything we do. They are things that give you peace and fulfillment; what you do when you are not behind a computer screen, making a dub, designing a DVD menu, generating a revenue report or trying to fake a laugh at yet another of your client’s off-color jokes over cocktails when you would rather be home with the kids playing Go Fish and wiping Ritz cracker crumbs off your shirt …I digress.
Effects can be anything: books, writing, poetry, painting, riding your bike, cooking, fishing, hiking, playing Xbox, traveling, horseback riding, motorcycle riding, teaching high school kids how to play the drums, paint ball wars, swing dancing, gardening, protesting the Iraq war on a street corner in Atwater Village and trying to get cars to honk in support... the little things that make you you.
I am a book guy. I love learning, love reading, love exploring life, religion, philosophy and the arts. Give me the Bible or poetry by Pablo Neruda, Of Human Bondage or The Sacred Art of Japanese Bondage, the Tao Te Ching, The Tao of Pooh… The Te of Piglet, and I am a happy guy. Get me in the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, tri-tip roast, a rack of spices and a bottle of fine Napa cab, and you won’t find a more contented man.
For most of us, if our lives were put through a 2 pass, 4 channel master QC, we’d fail. We’d fail not because we don’t work hard and try to put the best picture out there for the world to see. We would fail QC for the smaller things. We’d fail QC because our M&E tracks are not fully filled. We’d fail QC because we didn’t spend enough time listening to the music, reading that book, playing with our kids, molding another ashtray out of clay or standing up for what is just and right and good in this world.
Let’s be honest. Our industry is all illusions. From the make-believe script to the actors pretending they are really saving the world to the flickering light on the screen that makes us believe those images are really moving and talking. All illusions. Perhaps the greatest illusion in our industry is the illusion of importance that is given to the products we turn out. Executives have tirades when something goes wrong and that hysteria trickles down through the ranks until every person along the way knows that during that one scene of “Hannah Montana” her skin tone in that one 5 second shot was just a little too red.
But for those of us in this industry, they are our illusions. It is what we do. We take pride in them as the glass blower does a new vase or the carpenter his cabinets. We make the illusions just a little bit better, doing our job as best we can. They are what motivate us through our daily tasks, and most importantly, what pays our bills. Just don’t forget that it isn’t real. What is real is the M&E.
Enjoy the music. You are free and able to fill your life fully with amazing effects that will make you smile and laugh and cry. Go on. Get outta here. Seriously. Go.
© 2008 Patrick Caneday
Audio: Failed, M&E track not fully filled…
Most of us that work in post-production know what an M&E track is. But for those who don’t, here is a brief lesson in Post Production 101. The sound in a movie contains three discreet elements of audio: Dialogue, Music and Sound Effects. Everything you hear in a film comes from those three combined parts. When the Dialogue is dropped out, you are left with the Music and Effects track. This is used when someone wants to place foreign language dubbed dialogue in the film for viewing in another language. This only works correctly when the M&E (Music and Effects tracks combined) is fully filled with all of the sound effects needed to make the show sound normal. Every door slam, footstep and shuffle of papers on a desk. Where would society be without the sound of Indy’s bullwhip, the hair ripping out of a 40-year-old virgin’s chest or the seductive zipper on Angelina Jolie’s bustiere? If any of these effects are missing, the M&E track is not fully filled. The film’s technical quality will be rejected like undercooked pork tenderloin when a diligent Quality Control operator sits in a dark room scrutinizing the show frame by frame. And, according to some mysterious arbiter of all things acceptably viewable on your television somewhere in the world, society will crumble into chaos and anarchy. Simple, right?
So, M&E is the background noise that takes place under the talking. It is what fills the void behind everything we are watching and paying attention to. If it is done well, you usually don’t notice it. But if the M&E were not there, or if it were not fully filled, the overall impact would be that there is something very seriously wrong with this picture.
So it is in life.
Take a moment to think of M&E as the background of your life, the things that go on behind all the talk and chatter and ranting. Think of M&E as the ambience that gives our lives flavor, character and depth. Strip out all the voices in your head and the verbal ballyhoo around you, and simply listen to what is left. Is it fully filled?
I remember the day I decided to go to film school. I was sitting in my truck on a hill somewhere in Glendale overlooking the valley and drinking beer with some friends. This was our favorite pastime back then; and yes, it is a miracle that I eventually found a woman who would marry me. I am pretty sure we were listening to the soundtrack of a John Hughes’ movie on the cassette player, killing my battery once again. John Hughes’ films of the mid 1980’s captured exactly what my generation was feeling right then, somehow making you feel like that movie was made just for you (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles… Pretty in Pink). And the music became the backdrop of our lives. So sitting on that hill, I had an epiphany (yes, epiphany) that changed the course of my life. Music is what makes movie reality different from our living reality and wouldn’t it be great if we all walked around with our own theme music or score playing in the background of our daily rituals. John Williams and the Boston Pops following you everywhere, playing music that fit each moment perfectly. You are standing in line at Starbuck’s choosing between a Caffé Vanilla Frappuccino® Light Blended with soy milk and a Half Caf Cinnamon Dolce Crème, and just when you choose the Frappuccino® and the barista hollers the order in, your string section blares with a triumphant chord and the audience knows you’ve won this battle…until next time. That is what separates movies from reality, I thought. Music! I know what you are wondering. And I will tell you. I was drinking Olde English 800.
5 years later I had a degree in film production from the illustrious CSUN film school. I spent the next 6 months unemployed and wondering why no one offered to give me money to make the film I had not yet written, my own Sex, lies and Videotape indie blockbuster. I have a FILM DEGREE for crying out loud! It was another 6 months as a gopher lackey to a so-called producer born and bred in Beverly Hills with a Cartiere platinum and diamond encrusted spoon in her mouth before I started doing anything meaningful with my education. From there I began my career as a servicing manager, and my long education in the world of post-production was underway. That script still isn’t written, but I’ve stopped wondering why no one is knocking down my door to give me money.
I have often wanted to ask people, what would the music behind their daily life be? Classical, Rap, R&B… Calypso? Be careful. Whatever you say hints greatly at how you perceive yourself. Think about it.
Music is obvious. It is easy to think of music in the background of your life. It can be a powerful accent to everything we do, heightening or taming our emotions, adding a sense of poignancy to the events of the day. But if music is the constant structure on which we ride throughout life, effects are the beats, the spice, the sizzle, the nut. Effects are those elements without which life would have no value or interest. Effects are the noises that add texture and substance to everything we do. They are things that give you peace and fulfillment; what you do when you are not behind a computer screen, making a dub, designing a DVD menu, generating a revenue report or trying to fake a laugh at yet another of your client’s off-color jokes over cocktails when you would rather be home with the kids playing Go Fish and wiping Ritz cracker crumbs off your shirt …I digress.
Effects can be anything: books, writing, poetry, painting, riding your bike, cooking, fishing, hiking, playing Xbox, traveling, horseback riding, motorcycle riding, teaching high school kids how to play the drums, paint ball wars, swing dancing, gardening, protesting the Iraq war on a street corner in Atwater Village and trying to get cars to honk in support... the little things that make you you.
I am a book guy. I love learning, love reading, love exploring life, religion, philosophy and the arts. Give me the Bible or poetry by Pablo Neruda, Of Human Bondage or The Sacred Art of Japanese Bondage, the Tao Te Ching, The Tao of Pooh… The Te of Piglet, and I am a happy guy. Get me in the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, tri-tip roast, a rack of spices and a bottle of fine Napa cab, and you won’t find a more contented man.
For most of us, if our lives were put through a 2 pass, 4 channel master QC, we’d fail. We’d fail not because we don’t work hard and try to put the best picture out there for the world to see. We would fail QC for the smaller things. We’d fail QC because our M&E tracks are not fully filled. We’d fail QC because we didn’t spend enough time listening to the music, reading that book, playing with our kids, molding another ashtray out of clay or standing up for what is just and right and good in this world.
Let’s be honest. Our industry is all illusions. From the make-believe script to the actors pretending they are really saving the world to the flickering light on the screen that makes us believe those images are really moving and talking. All illusions. Perhaps the greatest illusion in our industry is the illusion of importance that is given to the products we turn out. Executives have tirades when something goes wrong and that hysteria trickles down through the ranks until every person along the way knows that during that one scene of “Hannah Montana” her skin tone in that one 5 second shot was just a little too red.
But for those of us in this industry, they are our illusions. It is what we do. We take pride in them as the glass blower does a new vase or the carpenter his cabinets. We make the illusions just a little bit better, doing our job as best we can. They are what motivate us through our daily tasks, and most importantly, what pays our bills. Just don’t forget that it isn’t real. What is real is the M&E.
Enjoy the music. You are free and able to fill your life fully with amazing effects that will make you smile and laugh and cry. Go on. Get outta here. Seriously. Go.
© 2008 Patrick Caneday
Ice Cream Sodas & Buttermilk Donuts
“Grace like rain falling down on me,” the song goes. And yes, sometimes it is like that. But, being clueless and thickheaded (common side effects of being a man), most often God’s method of choice with me is “grace like a baseball thrown at the back of my head.” Case in point, my almost 100-year-old grandmother. She’s been slowly withering away in the full-time care unit of a convalescent home for a few years now.
I got a message from my mother recently. The head nurse at the home had contacted her. Grandma was losing weight and getting weaker. My mother said she never expected her to last out the year.
Virtually every time my mother has called in the last few years, I have searched the tone of her voice in her first words. The moment she says “hello,” I try to detect whether the next words will be, “honey, your grandmother passed away this morning.” Every time.
So, I did something that I have rarely done on my own as an adult. I went to visit my Gammy.
She is in the Alzheimer’s unit, a locked-down cellblock that prevents the incarcerated from wandering out into the wide-open world of their dementia. I have often wondered whether there is a dual purpose to the security door, whether this was more for their security or ours.
There she sat in her chair, watching a TV she could not see, her eyes cloudy with glaucoma. The nurses obviously turn the TV on so the image of this blind, frail, old woman alone in her room is not quite so depressing. Somehow the flickering lights and sounds made the scene artificially less heartbreaking. An infomercial about home mortgages was on; chatty energetic snake oil sellers trying to convince you how easy it is to consolidate your debt, improve your credit score and pave the way to financial stability. I am sure this was of deep interest to Gammy.
I knelt down in front of her and took her hand gently. I came in close to her ear and screamed, “Hi Grandma! It’s Pat!” She hardly moved, and then mumbled something I took to be a form of greeting. She sounded confused. Her gaze seemed to try to outline my image like a silhouette. Perhaps all she saw was light and dark, and this is how she looked at people now. I hoped she saw light.
Her eyes drifted back to the TV, then not really at it but above it, to the corner of the room. I wondered what it was that she really saw, what images played behind those gray eyes; what show or memory or fantasy was playing on that screen she was watching.
I sat on the couch beside her chair, up close, and simply held her hand. I tried to think of something to say, some casual conversation to make. Weather, kids, work, Lindsay Lohan’s latest brush with the law. But the situation did not seem to call for such serious subjects. Instead of idle words, nothing came to my mind. I did not feel like saying anything. So, that is what I did, and she seemed agreeable to that.
I held her hand then gently patted her back, feeling the bones just beneath her skin. This seemed to please her. As I rubbed, her body seemed to wilt in the chair, as happens when someone unexpectedly massages your shoulders after a long, hard day. I simply felt like touching her.
And as I held her and touched her, a recent sermon came to my mind. I feel so embarrassingly Christian when that happens. I picture Jesus and my pastor high-fiving each other, seeing that something finally sunk in. It is a frustrating feeling for someone that hates to admit when others are right. Just one of my many flaws.
We were exhorted to “comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak.” Comfort, meaning to “come alongside,” and uphold meaning to physically touch. Such simple instructions, such powerful repercussions.
We sat in silence and I looked into her eyes searching for something, for someone. I wanted to see that person I used to know. What I saw were ice cream sodas and buttermilk donuts.
In my early teens I spent many a Friday night with my grandmother. We got into the habit of going out on Friday nights, usually to a coffee shop for an early-bird dinner and then a movie. After the movie she would take me to an ice cream shop for a soda. She taught me how to order an ice cream soda properly. Chocolate syrup first, then the seltzer water, then one scoop each of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, and a little more seltzer. This made for the perfect combination of chocolate, vanilla, carbonation and sweetness. We sat in the parlor and enjoyed this treat in the mutual silence of pure enjoyment.
I would often stay the night at her apartment. It had a spectacular view overlooking the city. In the morning, we would get buttermilk donuts. To a kid who loves sweets, the buttermilk donut is not the most attractive of pastries. But, I trusted my Gammy’s advise on this topic, and have never regretted it.
In hindsight this all seems quite odd: a 14-year-old kid hanging out with his grandmother on a Friday night. And perhaps it was. But at the time I did not think about it as anything but fun. Peer pressure would soon take me away to hang out with friends. But for these nights, it was just me and my Gammy. Even then I felt such a simple joy in having her to myself. It made me feel special.
I see my mother doing this with my children now, and my nieces and nephews. I wonder if she took this lesson from her mother, or whether this is just some natural desire within us; something that crosses generations, a spiritual tug to connect uniquely with your children’s children. Perhaps it is a way to establish a foundation for this younger generation, to give them solid memories of gracious love from which to call upon in the future. Whatever it is, it is good.
In our family my grandmother will always be remembered as a bit of a surly curmudgeon. She was a cranky and feisty old lady, not someone who will be remembered for her warmth and gregariousness. That legacy of being a loving and tender person will be my mother’s, her daughter. It is odd, or perhaps not, that it turned out this way.
And certainly I saw the testy side of my grandmother also, her acerbic comments, scowling attitude, a general outlook of bitterness upon the world. But, sitting there trying to think of a single example of her crankiness, I could not. When I think of her now, all I think of are those special moments, sodas and donuts. In my time alone with her I saw the witty, darkly humorous side. Her churlish qualities belied and enhanced her more kindly traits. Imagine an old crone, wrinkled skin, bloodshot eyes, menacing, coming towards you, getting in close to your face as if to scold you, only to burst into a crooked smile and tickle you. That is what I saw. I loved that old crone, for I knew it was just a façade.
She had small, thick hands. Those chubby little stubs for fingers were like a vise grip though. No one was able to tickle your knee like she was. Sitting next to her, she would send me into violent fits of laughter with just a squeeze.
And now, I hold that once strong hand and am afraid to squeeze it too hard. This fragile, emaciated body is dying. The skin drapes loosely over her skeleton, her eyes are sunken into her skull, thin wispy gray hair, yellowing fingernails. She was never a large person, but she was never this small. Sitting alongside her, I was struck with the overpowering feeling of how sacred and holy it is to be close to those so near the end. It made me wonder, why?
My faith is not in jeopardy here. Faith must endure tests, and I think God likes us to ask the hard questions. So I do wonder why this happens. Why does the end of life have to come to this? Why would a loving God allow his children to suffer such a state? For certainly, to be in such a condition of dementia or catatonia, to be so removed from the physical world and the loved ones around you is to suffer. Right?
I continued to hold her hand, to stare at her. I studied her face, her frame, her hair. I saw signs of my mother in there. Yes, there in the mouth and a little in the nose and forehead, I see her. I began to feel so sorry for her, the woman in this body, in this chair, in this room, in this facility. I held her hand and did something else I don’t do often enough. I began to pray for her. I asked God to welcome her into his kingdom and to greet her warmly into his arms. I prayed that she would be reunited with my grandfather, the center of her life until he died more than 30 years ago. Had she her way, she probably would have gone with him back then. Maybe that is why she was so bitter: she missed her bus 30 years ago.
I prayed for her and kissed her hand. This too she seemed to like. I stood to leave and kissed her cheeks and her forehead. In a quiet voice I told her that I loved her. She turned her gaze to me, and there I saw it. There, somewhere deep in the wrinkles of her paper-thin skin, was that old crone smile. That smile said to me more than a thousand words. My Gammy was in there, somewhere, smiling. She faintly mumbled something indiscernible that sounded like “you too.” Or maybe it was “Yankee doodle.” Either way, it made me feel special again.
I wondered if this would be the last time I would see her alive. Then, I let go of her hand and left her room.
As I walked down the hall, I felt Jesus and my pastor following me, geeky and excited, just waiting for the ball to hit me in the back of the head. Instead, I accidentally set off the alarm when I opened the security door. The siren blared.
As I waited for an attendant to come help me, I felt vulnerable, scared and exposed. Not to mention embarrassed. Something in me wanted to go back down the hall and hold my Gammy’s hand again, to feel safe.
Smack.
Perhaps God puts these people, in this condition, in our lives to comfort and uphold us, those that are still so vested in this flesh. They are not fainthearted and weak. We are.
(Since I wrote this over a year ago, my Gammy is still with us. Though she is on hospice care, she eats more and is stronger than she has been in years.)
© Patrick Caneday 2008
I got a message from my mother recently. The head nurse at the home had contacted her. Grandma was losing weight and getting weaker. My mother said she never expected her to last out the year.
Virtually every time my mother has called in the last few years, I have searched the tone of her voice in her first words. The moment she says “hello,” I try to detect whether the next words will be, “honey, your grandmother passed away this morning.” Every time.
So, I did something that I have rarely done on my own as an adult. I went to visit my Gammy.
She is in the Alzheimer’s unit, a locked-down cellblock that prevents the incarcerated from wandering out into the wide-open world of their dementia. I have often wondered whether there is a dual purpose to the security door, whether this was more for their security or ours.
There she sat in her chair, watching a TV she could not see, her eyes cloudy with glaucoma. The nurses obviously turn the TV on so the image of this blind, frail, old woman alone in her room is not quite so depressing. Somehow the flickering lights and sounds made the scene artificially less heartbreaking. An infomercial about home mortgages was on; chatty energetic snake oil sellers trying to convince you how easy it is to consolidate your debt, improve your credit score and pave the way to financial stability. I am sure this was of deep interest to Gammy.
I knelt down in front of her and took her hand gently. I came in close to her ear and screamed, “Hi Grandma! It’s Pat!” She hardly moved, and then mumbled something I took to be a form of greeting. She sounded confused. Her gaze seemed to try to outline my image like a silhouette. Perhaps all she saw was light and dark, and this is how she looked at people now. I hoped she saw light.
Her eyes drifted back to the TV, then not really at it but above it, to the corner of the room. I wondered what it was that she really saw, what images played behind those gray eyes; what show or memory or fantasy was playing on that screen she was watching.
I sat on the couch beside her chair, up close, and simply held her hand. I tried to think of something to say, some casual conversation to make. Weather, kids, work, Lindsay Lohan’s latest brush with the law. But the situation did not seem to call for such serious subjects. Instead of idle words, nothing came to my mind. I did not feel like saying anything. So, that is what I did, and she seemed agreeable to that.
I held her hand then gently patted her back, feeling the bones just beneath her skin. This seemed to please her. As I rubbed, her body seemed to wilt in the chair, as happens when someone unexpectedly massages your shoulders after a long, hard day. I simply felt like touching her.
And as I held her and touched her, a recent sermon came to my mind. I feel so embarrassingly Christian when that happens. I picture Jesus and my pastor high-fiving each other, seeing that something finally sunk in. It is a frustrating feeling for someone that hates to admit when others are right. Just one of my many flaws.
We were exhorted to “comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak.” Comfort, meaning to “come alongside,” and uphold meaning to physically touch. Such simple instructions, such powerful repercussions.
We sat in silence and I looked into her eyes searching for something, for someone. I wanted to see that person I used to know. What I saw were ice cream sodas and buttermilk donuts.
In my early teens I spent many a Friday night with my grandmother. We got into the habit of going out on Friday nights, usually to a coffee shop for an early-bird dinner and then a movie. After the movie she would take me to an ice cream shop for a soda. She taught me how to order an ice cream soda properly. Chocolate syrup first, then the seltzer water, then one scoop each of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, and a little more seltzer. This made for the perfect combination of chocolate, vanilla, carbonation and sweetness. We sat in the parlor and enjoyed this treat in the mutual silence of pure enjoyment.
I would often stay the night at her apartment. It had a spectacular view overlooking the city. In the morning, we would get buttermilk donuts. To a kid who loves sweets, the buttermilk donut is not the most attractive of pastries. But, I trusted my Gammy’s advise on this topic, and have never regretted it.
In hindsight this all seems quite odd: a 14-year-old kid hanging out with his grandmother on a Friday night. And perhaps it was. But at the time I did not think about it as anything but fun. Peer pressure would soon take me away to hang out with friends. But for these nights, it was just me and my Gammy. Even then I felt such a simple joy in having her to myself. It made me feel special.
I see my mother doing this with my children now, and my nieces and nephews. I wonder if she took this lesson from her mother, or whether this is just some natural desire within us; something that crosses generations, a spiritual tug to connect uniquely with your children’s children. Perhaps it is a way to establish a foundation for this younger generation, to give them solid memories of gracious love from which to call upon in the future. Whatever it is, it is good.
In our family my grandmother will always be remembered as a bit of a surly curmudgeon. She was a cranky and feisty old lady, not someone who will be remembered for her warmth and gregariousness. That legacy of being a loving and tender person will be my mother’s, her daughter. It is odd, or perhaps not, that it turned out this way.
And certainly I saw the testy side of my grandmother also, her acerbic comments, scowling attitude, a general outlook of bitterness upon the world. But, sitting there trying to think of a single example of her crankiness, I could not. When I think of her now, all I think of are those special moments, sodas and donuts. In my time alone with her I saw the witty, darkly humorous side. Her churlish qualities belied and enhanced her more kindly traits. Imagine an old crone, wrinkled skin, bloodshot eyes, menacing, coming towards you, getting in close to your face as if to scold you, only to burst into a crooked smile and tickle you. That is what I saw. I loved that old crone, for I knew it was just a façade.
She had small, thick hands. Those chubby little stubs for fingers were like a vise grip though. No one was able to tickle your knee like she was. Sitting next to her, she would send me into violent fits of laughter with just a squeeze.
And now, I hold that once strong hand and am afraid to squeeze it too hard. This fragile, emaciated body is dying. The skin drapes loosely over her skeleton, her eyes are sunken into her skull, thin wispy gray hair, yellowing fingernails. She was never a large person, but she was never this small. Sitting alongside her, I was struck with the overpowering feeling of how sacred and holy it is to be close to those so near the end. It made me wonder, why?
My faith is not in jeopardy here. Faith must endure tests, and I think God likes us to ask the hard questions. So I do wonder why this happens. Why does the end of life have to come to this? Why would a loving God allow his children to suffer such a state? For certainly, to be in such a condition of dementia or catatonia, to be so removed from the physical world and the loved ones around you is to suffer. Right?
I continued to hold her hand, to stare at her. I studied her face, her frame, her hair. I saw signs of my mother in there. Yes, there in the mouth and a little in the nose and forehead, I see her. I began to feel so sorry for her, the woman in this body, in this chair, in this room, in this facility. I held her hand and did something else I don’t do often enough. I began to pray for her. I asked God to welcome her into his kingdom and to greet her warmly into his arms. I prayed that she would be reunited with my grandfather, the center of her life until he died more than 30 years ago. Had she her way, she probably would have gone with him back then. Maybe that is why she was so bitter: she missed her bus 30 years ago.
I prayed for her and kissed her hand. This too she seemed to like. I stood to leave and kissed her cheeks and her forehead. In a quiet voice I told her that I loved her. She turned her gaze to me, and there I saw it. There, somewhere deep in the wrinkles of her paper-thin skin, was that old crone smile. That smile said to me more than a thousand words. My Gammy was in there, somewhere, smiling. She faintly mumbled something indiscernible that sounded like “you too.” Or maybe it was “Yankee doodle.” Either way, it made me feel special again.
I wondered if this would be the last time I would see her alive. Then, I let go of her hand and left her room.
As I walked down the hall, I felt Jesus and my pastor following me, geeky and excited, just waiting for the ball to hit me in the back of the head. Instead, I accidentally set off the alarm when I opened the security door. The siren blared.
As I waited for an attendant to come help me, I felt vulnerable, scared and exposed. Not to mention embarrassed. Something in me wanted to go back down the hall and hold my Gammy’s hand again, to feel safe.
Smack.
Perhaps God puts these people, in this condition, in our lives to comfort and uphold us, those that are still so vested in this flesh. They are not fainthearted and weak. We are.
(Since I wrote this over a year ago, my Gammy is still with us. Though she is on hospice care, she eats more and is stronger than she has been in years.)
© Patrick Caneday 2008
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