Adobe CS3 Creative License Conference

The Adobe Creative License Conference is coming, and you can find out about it here.


I’ve been drooling over Adobe CS3 since it was introduced at the PhotoShop World in Boston, and anxiously await my opportunity to upgrade in a month. Now I’ll be attending the Creative License Conference in New York, June 25-26th, (that’s Monday-Tuesday) giving me more opportunity to look enviously on those who already have the upgrade. I hate upgrading early for much the same reason that I won’t see blockbuster movies the first two weeks after they come out. I want to avoid the hype and the buzz, and go to the ones that earn it, and let the rest fall by the wayside. I know it's a big hype machinewhere, unbelievably, marketers have figured out how to get consumers to pay to be sold to (but then again, what else are comic book conventions, at their heart?). That said, I’ll still take the leap for the opportunity of free training and other freebies available at cattle calls like this one. Plus, the networking opportunities are rife for me, at a time when I’m searching for more opportunities. And it is only $199 for two days, and I got a 25% discount off of that through my NAPP membership. Yet again, that membership pays for itself, and once again, I recommend membership. I just wish the old maxim of finding things to spend money on just when you have the least money, didn’t ring so true.

Now, nearly everyone I know in NY either is not interested in this conference, or not in New York anymore. Luckily, there’s a left coast version in LA as well. But if you’re going to be in NY around this time, you can drop me a line!

Snuff

Over the next several weeks, I will be posting the first parts of several of the short stories I've been working on, between other actual blog entries. Any feedback is welcome.

Here is the first part of another longer story, about a broadway play that skirts the edge of a live snuff film. It's also about love.
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“So, you’re comparing yourself to a torture victim,” she said. A look of disbelief twisted her features, wrinkles above her nose adding character to Emily Natchez’s otherwise flawless face. Too flawless, Paul had once told her. She could use the character of a couple of wrinkles. He’d been hoping to hurt her with that. He could never say exactly why.

“No, not…I’m not saying…” Paul stammered, his hands moving around and framing his thin, stubble-darkened face. “Look, I’m just saying …”

He took a breath. He hated that she could still fluster him this way. He considered himself pretty articulate. It was a skill gained over countless cups of coffee in their East Village java hangout after film class, and years more after graduation. It was one of the few skills he took pride in, and became known for in their small circle. Since those days of being one of the golden boys of the class of 92, pride hadn’t taken him far. Lately he’d been subsisting on film reviews and other small journalistic bones from former classmates while he worked on yet another screenplay that he couldn’t sell. He was an excellent craftsman, or so he’d been told. But he was always just waiting, and looking and dreaming of that great idea he could craft into something epic. Instead, he’d found a series of almosts, a love that broke his heart, and a life that left him uninspired. Still, he considered himself a good writer, and a fairly good speaker. But being around Em seemed to wipe all of that away. She knew how to cut him off at the knees, making him feel preposterous and every bit of that insecure freshman who had first fallen in love with her. Running a hand over his forehead to smooth back stringy brown bangs, he tried to regroup.

“Torture victims…people in the military… that, you know, liked war movies or action flicks before…before whatever happened to them? After they’d had an experience in real life like that was—you know, where they really experienced that kind of violence? They’d say they couldn’t watch that kind of movie again. The reality, like, taints the film experience. The more real it seems in the film, the less they can stand it. You know?” He paused, anticipating a nod of understanding from Emily as his cue to continue. Instead, she tilted her head to one side. That gesture always reminded him of his old pet parrot, Ronald Mac. Paul had taught the bird only three swear words before the unclipped parrot skirted the bars of a partially opened window and took to the skies of lower Manhattan, never to be seen again. Emily’s gesture heightened Paul’s annoyance.

“What I’m saying is that love stories hit me the same way. I can’t stand to watch them," he said, gesturing absently in movements that reminded Emily of shucking corn. “ I just... It’s too raw, too...”

She folded her arms, head cocking in the opposite direction before bouncing into a nod. “You’re comparing yourself to a torture victim. “ she said.

He surrendered, flopping back on the worn cloth convertible couch that served as his living room and guest bed. Lately that was here he spent most nights, in fact, not bothering to fold the metal frame out, instead just flopping back onto the sofa cushions, fully clothed, to sleep off his nightly toxic elixer of scotch and coffee. To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub. For in that sleep, who knows what dreams may come?

“Okay. I’m comparing myself to a torture victim, “he said through his hands, “and you’re the head whipmaster, Em.”

“That’d be whip mistress,” she smiled.

“Doesn’t matter how much you shame me, I’m not going.” He said.

“Paul, it’s just a play, for Christ’s sake.” She said. She absently checked her watch, gauging which argument she’d have to pull out to get her way in the...thirty-two minutes, twenty seconds...she had left before they had to be at the theater, “it’s a free play, past that. You haven’t been out of this dump all day, your skin’s turning to parchment, for crissake.

“I have a bit of work to do, Em,” he said, “an interview to transcribe and polish, and then two other reviews to write for tomorrow’s…”

“But what’s the point of writing reviews if it stops you from seeing the art? Come on, Pauly, the reviews are just an excuse for free invites, anyway!”

“Beg to differ, darlin’,” he said.

“And if you only review the big movies," she said, not allowing him to interrupt, “you lose out on the inside track to these kind of small art pieces, which was your purpose in getting the review gigs in the first place! This tiny, little, important play has been sold out for weeks, and you’re about to let free passes go to waste.”

“Big flicks pay the big bills. We don’t all have a loaded boyfriend to take care of our every need. Some of us work for a living."

“All of us work for a living. And Clive isn’t my boyfriend. Not anymore.” She said, checking her watch again.

That got his interest. His eyes went wide, before he caught himself and looked away. But she’d seen it; the interest, the surprised mix of curiousity and possibility, and the subtle shifting of will. Nothing escaped her. But his worry now was how to cave, slowly and without obvious intention, to her will.

“Okay, small play, small venue, but big buzz. Not bad for a show with no apparent advertising budget. And a one-night shot to get the inside scoop. Maybe worth peek,” Paul said, eyes drifting over the passes on the coffee table between darts at Emily’s face. “If it means that much to you, maybe I could sell it to one of the downtown art papers.”

Emily pursed her lips. Twenty-eight minutes. Plenty of time. She still had it.

Paul picked up the tickets distractedly, to give him something to look at other than her stare, those blue eyes that seemed to pierce to his core. He studied the play’s logo at the center of each pass, with intensity, willing the flush on his face to disappear. And, for the first time, he read the title.

Snuff.

Dream Big

Over the next several weeks, I will be posting the first parts of several of the short stories I've been working on, between other actual blog entries. Any feedback is welcome.

Here is the first part of a longer story, really a series of interlocking vignettes that connect in the final segments.
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The night was dark, and the bedroom lights had been off for a half an hour when Jay spoke. Like always, the streetlights outside the window cast just enough light through the gauze of the threadbare curtains to half-illuminate their back bedroom. So it was never pitch black, just shadowy. It was sort of like a nightlight, though at ten-years-old, he was, of course, way beyond the need for such things. Really. He kind of enjoyed the suburban half-light all night for sleeping, but he did like it quiet. But slightly more than silence, he liked getting the last word in.

“Anyway, dreaming of elephants is silly,” he said.

“Why? Why is it silly?” his little sister said, from the other side of the room. Jay heard, more than saw, Cally sit bolt upright in the pitch black as she spoke. It was for dramatic effect, he was sure. But her preschool mentality didn’t appreciate that performing in the dark cut the drama. They’d shared this room from her infancy, within the confines of their small house on the outskirts of their small town. Her bed diagonally across from his since it was a crib, Jay had put up with her crying, her nightmares, her bed-wetting, and in recent months her late night philosophical conversations on the nature of moon and why cheese was stinky, but whipped cream smelled good. He even put up with her middle of the night screams when her bed nudged out from the wall, and shed fallen into the small space between the bed and the wall, rudely awakened and terrified. Jay had been the one to make a game of it, calling that space her “hidey-hole” and making it fun to the point that Mom had to stop her from ducking into it every morning when she was supposed to be getting up. Jay had gotten in trouble for that one, too. But older brothers can only be asked so much, and it was getting to be a bit much. Still, he loved her, and acknowledged his responsibility as the oldest to educate the poor thing. Without opening his eyes, he indulged her.

“Well, you need to be careful what you fit into your dreams, for one thing,” he said. “Elephants are way, way big. You shouldn’t dream things too big to fit.”

“Elephants can fit in my dreams,” Cally said. “I can fit very big things in my dreams. I like to dream big things. Once I dreamed a whole entire house in my dreams, a big mansion!”

“Yeah, but you dream a room at a time, and really, then, only a part of a room at a time, like a dresser, or a table, or a closet. It just feels like a whole house. But you never see the whole house at the same time. So, really it’s not that big.”

Jay heard the wet smack of Cally’s lower lip popping out in an angry pout. Or maybe he imagined he heard it. Either way, he was sure the pout was there. And he heard a rustle he assumed would be her folding her arms. Through it all, he kept his eyes closed, determined that he would go to sleep before he got sucked into another late-night debate with a five-year-old.

It had begun simply enough. Tomorrow they were going to the circus, and they hadn’t been to a circus in years, not since Cally was an infant in a carrier. By Jay’s limited recollection, she’d slept through it. So when she said she was excited to see the elephants again, Jay had challenged her, saying she’d never even seen an elephant, outside of television. She argued that she had, that she’d dreamed of elephants. Jay has said no she hadn’t and she said yes she had, and Jay said she always made up stuff that she dreamed about, rather than really remembering, and she had said that she was the boss of her brain and not Jay, and anyway Jay was a stupid head, and Mom had shut down the conversation.

“You just ought to be careful, is all I’m saying.” Jay said, a bit petulantly. “Dream too big, and something might get stuck there, and you might not be able to get it out again. Remember the cowbell?”

Cally remembered the little brass bell; something her parents had said was a favor from their wedding. It had a large ring at the top of it, meant to be a handle by which you could manipulate the leaden weight inside to produce the soft tinkle, which the kids called the cowbell. The ring was much too small for an adult finger, but to a three-year-old, the cowbell ring seemed ready-made for wear. Cally had slipped it over her middle finger, and run away from Jay, to a soundtrack of metal tinkling and giggles, calling that she wouldn’t be milked, not today, not today! When it had come time for them to go to school, Cally had been terrified to see that she couldn’t get the cowbell off. She’d hid it behind her back all that morning, and on the bus ride in, so it had been her teacher who first noticed his additional appendage. The school nurse had been unable to remove it, and parents had been called. A quick trip to the emergency room, a few swipes of a metal cutting tool, and the ring atop the cowbell was no more. Now it was a crescent shape atop the thick brass bell. Cally looked at it with a hint of sorrowful remembrance nearly every day. Yes, Cally remembered the cowbell, and how her finger seemed to go in so easily, but then was impossible to get out again. She let out a heavy sigh.

“Do you really think an elephant could get stuck in my dream?” She said, looking at the dark outline of her hand before her face.

Jay finally rolled over and, finally, looked at his little sister, or rather her partial, darkened outline, with exasperation. He always had to explain the simplest concepts to her. Being in second grade was already such a burden; Cally’s late night sessions didn’t make his life any easier. Mom never had to listen to Cally, safely tucked in her own room upstairs, and never believed Jay’s stories about how chatty Cally got at night. He looked forward to next summer, when Mom had promised he’d get his own room in the basement, and be able to sleep the night through without the late night Q&A.

“Why do you think they have a thing called brain surgeons, silly?” he said, “It’s a doctor that has to operate on your brains, and try to get out stuff that sticks there. They have to saw open your skull, and sort of reach into your brains, and look for a hard spot or something moving, like a stuck elephant.

“What happens to the elephant when they get it out?”

Jay paused for a minute, eyes shooting up to the ceiling as he thought. “Oh, once it’s out of your brain, it just vanishes, like all your dreams do when you wake up. It’s only getting in there and getting too big, that sticks it. But it costs a lot of money to get it out. You remember how mad Mom got when they got the bill for getting the bell off? Well, it’s a lot more money to hire a brain surgeon. You don’t want to go there.”

With that statement putting a final period on the conversation, Jay slumped back onto his pillow. Conversation over. And the room was silent for a good minute.

“Does it hurt?” Cally asked, timidly. Jay let out another deep sigh, puffing both cheeks out. Tomorrow would never come, he was sure. He would sit up here and talk to Cally all night, and the sun would come up, and it would be the next day but without any sleep Jay would feel like it was the same day, and tomorrow would never, ever get here. And then he would fall asleep in Ms. Leary’s class, and get sent to the principles office, and have to bring a note home, and probably get in trouble, when it’s fault in the first place for putting me in the same room with Cally anyway, and it just wasn’t fair.

That’s when he heard the glass breaking.

The room was dark, and the night without even darker with the new moon and slightly overcast sky, so it was only another silhouette that Jay saw. At their window. Breaking their window. Jay saw a large gloved hand reach through bottom pane and grope for the knob that would unlock the window.

Jay rolled out of his bed and onto Cally’s, whispering a quick, quiet shsssh into her ear as she sat, transfixed. The hand found its goal, and twisted the lock open. The lower pane began to rise, slowly at first, and then once the hand found purchase underneath, quickly up. Jay wrapped his arms around Cally, and pushed her back into the corner.

“Hidey hole,” he whispered, as he pushed the bed frame away from the wall with one foot, and she slid noiselessly down to the floor. Jay slid over, nearly on top of her. But there wasn’t enough room to conceal them both. From his position, face down on the edge of her bed, looking down into the space where he imagined Cally must be quivering, Jay reached a hand down and found her face, and placed a finger gingerly on Cally’s lips. Shhhh, he said with his hand, and his mind there in the darkness, and would have said with his eyes, if she could have but seen them, if you’ve never been able to be quiet before in your life, please be quiet now.

The shape was in the room now, and moving toward Jay’s bed. Darkened hands patted at the pillow and still-warm sheets, tossing them to the side in frustration at finding the empty bed. Then it turned toward Cally’s bed. It grabbed at the sheets again, stopping when he felt Jays foot at the head of the bed, at the corner from which it protruded. An instant later Jay felt two strong hands at his shoulders lift him from the bed.

Cally, looking up from her hidey-hole saw the change of light as her brother left the opening above her. But she stayed still, moving her own hand to replace Jays, placing her own finger to her lips as Jays had been. Shhhh, she thought. Shhhhhhhhh.

Shock of the New

I’ve been looking into online degrees for the past week. New, old territory. Scary stuff.

The going to school isn’t really the scary part. I can handle that, and I’ve always intended, since the day I graduated college, to return to school. I will get my Masters, before I die. The two I’ve narrowed it down to are AIG (American Intercontinental University) Online and The University of Phoenix Online. Both offer Undergraduate degrees in Visual Communication, in the specific areas I’m interested in. My plan is to get the basic groundwork in the undergrad degree, and then advance beyond that to a Masters, through my next employer. If anyone has any recommendations of one over the other, I’m all ears. I’m looking at starting with one or the other in July. So the clock is ticking.

But that’s the interesting part, the challenging part, the, let’s face it, the fun part of all this. It’s not the scary part.

The scary part is money, the single thing that’s been scary for me since I left my former position, to focus on improving my skills, abilities and marketability in the first place. Going back to school is hard enough. Doing it while working to support a family is insane. But that’s what I’m doing. I’m looking hard for freelance work, and have a few nibbles that will make life reasonable for the short term. In addition, my wife will be adding support to our family financially in addition to her continuing role as main caregiver to our two boys. We’ll both be working twice as hard, for half as much. I’m also looking hard at scholarships, fellowships, and grants in the short term. But it is a full time job looking for jobs, improving ones skills, getting an education and searching for scholarships all at the same time.

Given my competing priorities over the next several weeks, my blog entries here will be necessarily short. I want to savor the fun part, the interesting part, the challenging part. But I’ve got to get over the scary part first.

I remember a movie I saw a while ago, Holy Man starring Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum. Maybe I’ve mentioned it here, before. The message it had sticks with me to this day, though—maybe especially these days. The message was about not letting fear hold you back. That letting go of fear being the greatest freedom there is.

Fear is a self-imposed mechanism, created to prevent us from doing something stupid, from petting a lion or touching fire. But as highly evolved creatures, we also have a highly developed sense of fear. We are afraid to disappoint our peers. We are afraid to be revealed as frauds. We are afraid of a dozen, dozen different things that we have no reason to be afraid of, have no reason even to consider, and which consequently and constantly hold us back. So we compromise, and stick with the status quo, and settle, and conform. We "go along to get along," and to avoid that panicy feeling one gets in the pit of ones stomach that says “Uhh…a little outside the level of comfort, here… danger, danger Will Robinson.” That’s a feeling I’ve been cultivating lately, for some ungodly reason. That’s the feeling that’s been driving me.

But just acknowledging this isn’t enough to get past the fear. Being honest, I’m living with it every day. But I’m also backing it up with the certainty that I’m heading someplace better. And maybe that’s the scariest part—that I know exactly what I’m doing; with a keen awareness of what I could gain, but also what I’m risking to get there. And I’m doing it anyway.

Split personality

I’m of two minds. In rethinking what I have posted here, and what I need to have (and alternately, need not have) posted on my website, I’ve opted to develop a split personality. I want to keep this blog going. I want to have an outlet where I can discuss things with friends, and share thoughts. But I also need to have a more professional side, which is the one I put forward to the world while I’m in the midst of my job search.

Therefore, I’ve opted to create a second blog. This second blog, digital distractions (mmclaurin.blogspot.com) is the one I am linking to my website. This blog, (idmx.blogspot.com) is becoming my personal blog, and will no longer be linked from my website (though you can still go to there from here). So, I hope those of you who have this keyed to blogarithm updates can still follow. I’m trying to resist the more drastic measure of putting a password on the idmx blog, as I think that makes it all a lot more pull than I think most are willing to bear. But maybe you can let me know your thoughts.

And, for those of you of a mind to look into my more professional mind, the other blog may be an interesting read, from time to time.

Peace.

The Hush

The most memorable part of an old-fashioned rollercoaster ride, in my humble opinion, is the climb to the top of that first peak. The jerking motion, the click-click-click as you rise to the top filling you with anticipation, and the momentary pause as, sitting in the first car, you feel the interminable pause at the summit, just before you plunge into the unknown. That yawning chasm of silence was often more dramatic than what came before or after. These past few weeks of silence on the blog has been an echo of that silence. And now, the last click has sounded, and I’m over the edge.

All of which is to say, after a proud association of 11 years, I’m no longer with the Channing Bete Company. I’ve left those fields for other pastures that are perhaps less green, likely more barren and rocky, but entirely my own. I leave with a very nice recommendation, and constant butterflies in my stomach. I’m following up some freelance opportunities for a bit while I scan for a new position, dealing with COBRA issues and other changeovers from being the single support of a family of four. But with the love and support of my family and friends, I’ve taken the plunge and started the next leg of the roller coaster ride.

There are uncertainties as I seek determinately for a position that is better than what I had, which is my ultimate goal, and which I was having no luck pursuing part-time. Scary uncertainties, sure. But having this time gives the opportunity of discovery. One of the things I’ve already discovered in tackling my first hurdle, reworking my resume, is that I’ve done a hell of a lot. I have a pretty solid resume, which you’re free to check out here, mostly in print media. Beyond working in comics (and I’ve worked on and directed some pretty neat books there…), I’ve designed entire magazines, and graphic identities for nationwide programs. I’ve designed logos, and am close to getting Adobe Certified Expert status in PhotoShop and InDesign. I’ve done a lot. But it’s not close to what I know I can accomplish, and that’s been a bit frustrating.

If I want to get into the new media of Flash and Action scripting and web design however, I’m not going to be able to do that part-time, around my other commitments. It’s going to require real work, full time work. It’s going to require expanding my horizons beyond Western Massachusetts, into Boston and Hartford and, yes, perhaps even back to New York. I’m just not sure yet. But I’m figuring it out, fast.

Those of you who’ve been reading between the lines of this blog for the past few months will see this as the culmination of subconscious of unconscious acts. Those of you who know me well will not see this as a big surprise. Others, about now, are giving their screen the head to the side, furrowed brow, puppy dog look. To them I can only point to a sheet of paper I’ve had tacked up beside my desk at home. I found it at Marvel, and had it where I could see it every day. Recently, I found it again in cleaning up my home office, and placed it high where, again, I’m reading it daily. It says:
"The most unfortunate thing that happens to a person who fears failure is that he limits himself by becoming afraid to try anything new. Give yourself a chance.”

This certainly hasn’t been an easy entry to write, as I typically like to feel like I end these explorations with a bit more certainty than I’m evoking here. But, sometimes, that’s the nature of the start of the roller coaster ride. You know where you get off—that’s the certainty, that it will end at point X. It’s the in-between stuff that’s scary. But that’s what you pay the price of admission for, isn’t it?

And so, the last click sounded, the ride begins.

Jumping the Shark

Everybody is the hero of his, or her, own life story. You run through the script every day, living up to your character, maybe throwing in some twists and turns and major and minor motivations. You try to bring the story a little closer to its conclusion—hopefully its happy ending—daily, page by page, frame by frame.

When I was a little kid, I’d look at life like that, as a Star Trek episode or an episode of The Wild Wild West, with myself as the main character. The only thing that annoyed me about every episode of those shows was how the lead would develop a love interest through the course of the story, and get her at the end, but then never see or mention her again in subsequent episodes. They’d been through so much together, how could he just let her go? That was just one of the several elements of the undefinable hero-ness that I never seemed to get. It wasn’t always and ever about just me, and frankly, I didn’t really want it to be. Series that are about just me; The Prisoner, The Fugitive, The Hulk, are inevitably depressing.

So maybe, I thought, it was better to look at myself as part of an ensemble cast. Some episodes of the Brady Bunch focused on Peter, some on Jan, some on Marsha and Greg. And though they started every episode fresh, there was also the development of relationships, and continuity. But then there was the downside of the ensemble cast-the fact that sometimes you were just there as a supporting role, and when that support became your main role, where were you left, then? Whatever did happen to Tiger, anyway?

Seriously though, when I was younger, I would wonder about that. Would I be the hero, the one whose adventures the readers wanted to follow, or would I be the sidekick, able to step forward into a solo role from time to time, but mostly the Robin supporting the Batman, the Kato to someone else’s Green Hornet, the essential, but also essentially supporting, character to the heroes quest, without a quest of my own. And I didn’t like that idea very much. It became a sort of paradigm that I’d hold my life up against, from time to time-am I the supporting character in this episode? I mean, I want to support the cast. But by the same token, I don’t want to be easily able to be written off—not without the possibility of a strong spin-off series of my own as follow-up.

Prince Valiant, the classic soap opera daily strip, continued to follow the life of Val well after he was married and had kids, but increasingly the stories began to focus around the kids, to the point of their even taking over the main plotlines from time to time. Maybe that’s the inevitable progression of the storyline, that it passes onto a new generation and they become the heroes of the piece, with our acting as support, supplanted in the feature role, and willingly so. But while there’s something life affirming in that continuity, there’s also something a little sad. We haven’t even come to the main climax, yet, the one we’ve been working toward for decades, the promised “this one changes everything” dénouement. And it is coming, isn’t it? Mustn’t it?

So this is Middle Age, years into the popular top ten hit, and we hit the point where traditionally the series will try to Jump the Shark to keep up viewer interest. All the major conflicts having been resolved, and newer subplots slower to develop, and something needs to change. This is the time when the writers who have been here from early on start scratching their heads for new direction, maybe the time to bring in a new creative team to shake things up a bit. Such a course could create brand new excitement, or it could derail a series and lose all interest. This is the time where everyone looks forward to a season retrospective, and collectively ask, what next? It’s a time when I look over the series a bit dispassionately, as dispassionately as I can in a series in which I’m so intricately involved, and ask; am I still the hero of this story? What to do, what to do?

Sometimes I wish life could be a movie adaptation of a series. In that, you can look back over the whole life of the thing, and craft a specific story, set that story up really early and start to pay it off spectacularly. Watching Spider-Man III (and I will!), you'd never know that Mary Jane Watson was an after-thought girlfriend, brought to center stage when Peter Parker's real love interest was killed tragically by bad and ill-conceived writing. That's because the movie has the entire storyline to pick and choose and pull from, discarding the meandering ideas that went nowhere, and the years of bad writing, to create a new central core of solid story that gives the illusion of intent, and meaning, and a sense of destiny. But something is also lost by eliminating the meandering. I still remember you, Gwen Stacey, and as you were, not as the revisionist current comics are painting you. I still know you were the love of Peter's life. And I still know how important that is.

Anyway, only half of this entry is tongue-in-cheek. Sometimes I really do review my life as fiction, trying to figure out what the current twist means, and working to pull meaning out of disconnected events. Because there has to be meaning in there. somewhere. There must be. Mustn’t it?

Tune in next week, for another exciting episode. One hopes.