Alice Cooper: How to Live Beyond Age 27

Halloween special you can file under scared to life:

“The biggest lesson of my life‑Jimi [Hendrix] died at 27, Jim Morrison died at 27, and I looked at it and asked what is in common here. And what it was was trying to live that image off stage. …It took me until I got sober to realize that I had to play Alice Cooper and be myself the rest of the time.”
Alice Cooper
Interview on WTF with Marc Maron

I think he means you can’t really live like a rock star 24/7 and expect to be rock star long—or to even live past 27. There may be exceptions, but Cooper’s been sober for 38 years. Mick Jagger who is still touring at age 74 does physical training six days a week to build stamina needed for the estimated 12 miles he covers while performing on stage.

Others in the 27 Club:
Janis Joplin
Kurt Cobain
Amy Winehouse

P.S. I saw an Alice Cooper full theatrical concert in Tampa in the early 80s and actually met him in San Diego in the 90s.  But not until the Maron interview did I realize that his career has not only lasted for five decades, but that he’s had an incredible eclectic group of entertainers cross his path over the years. Not only Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Jimmy Page in his early days in L.A., but other entertainers like Groucho Marx, Jonathan Winters, and Frank Sinatra.

Scott W, Smith

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The Key is Conflict (Movies, TV, Docs, Podcasts, Etc.)

I’m kinda swamped with projects so I thought I’d repost one of my favorite posts from  last year based on Jessica Abel’s podcast and book Out on a Wire:

“The key to writing fiction and screenplays in terms of character is conflict, just like it is in non-fiction. And you have to come up with what is the thing that’s going to test that character. And how are you going to make evident what they’re all about? If you can’t make it evident through action or the results of action it’s not believable.”
Jessica Abel
Author of Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio

Just a few years ago as the economic dipped and newspapers and magazines started to go out of business or lay off thousands of journalists, some colleges started to drop journalism as an undergraduate or a graduate degree.

Then an interesting phenomenon happened. Podcasts helped revive a new type of audio storytelling.  This American Life, Radiolab, and Serial are currently in the top ten on the iTunes chart and are great examples of audio storytelling/reporting at its best.

On her podcast Out on the Wire, host Jessica Abel explores what radio masters like Ira Glass go through in developing their stories. You may or may not be surprised that the questions are the same ones screenwriters, filmmakers, producers, and studio executive ask when developing their stories.

—What’s the hook?
—What does your protagonist want?
—What’s the inciting incident that disrupts the protagonists life?
—What’s the arc of the story?
—What’s the central conflict?
—Where’s the special sauce?
—Why is it interesting?
—How are the stakes raised?
—What’s universal about this story?
—How will it resonate with an audience?
—What’s the focus sentence? (More on that tomorrow.)
—Is there mystery, surprise, and irony?
—Is there a “You won’t f-ing believe it!” moment?
—Who or what changes?
—What’s the theme? What’s the takeaway when it’s all over?
—How do you make the story land most effectively?

Over the years since graduating from film school I’ve worked professionally in film, television, print, photography, radio, and video production (and non-professionally in theater), which possibly makes podcasting my next frontier to explore creatively.

The tools for working in audio (a microphone, a recorder, headphones, an XLR cord, computer/editing software and batteries) are cheaper to acquire than what’s needed for shooting video/film projects. That and the fact you can work solo, you don’t have to have a college degree (or even have finished high school yet), perhaps explains the rise in individual podcasts.

Sure there’s a gap in storytelling quality between the person just starting out and This American Life, but even Ira Glass said he was bad for a long time before he became good, and eventually great.

On Episode 1 of On the Wire Jessica interviews Stephanie Foo (@imontheradio)  a former young skateboarder who once had a podcast with a few listeners called Get Me on This American Life (that she says wasn’t legit but got her press passes). That opened an opportunity to work on Snap Judgment, and she now is a legit producer at This American Life.

In that interview I think they hit on a universal truth; in the world of storytelling it is not only the protagonist who struggles toward their goal, but the storyteller does as well.

Jessica Abel: What do you want to say to the skateboarding girl who was pretending to be a journalist, who had a podcast Get Me on This American Life? 

Stephanie Foo: “I wouldn’t talk to that girl because she was excited. I would talk to the girl who was at Snap Judgment producing five stories in a week and feeling like her head was going to explode, and that she was crazy and not good at her job. And I would just say you’re in it.  This is what it takes to be good. And it’s working. And you might not feel like it’s working, because you might be buried in a million stories. And you might not be able to find your way out. And the bosses might be like arguing with you, and everybody at work might be an absolute chaotic mess. But that’s what it takes. That’s what everybody goes through to become good. Getting completely messy, feeling completely lost is absolutely necessary to finding your way out and becoming good.

Jessica: The German Forest.

Stephanie: Yeah, the Dark Forest, exactly. Getting completely lost, over and over and over again. Because each time you find different paths out. And so at a certain point you can go almost anywhere and know how to find your way back. It’s kind of nice. 

Stephanie is also the creator of Pilot podcast which according to its website: “Is a podcast that seeks to explore and expand possibilities in audio storytelling across formats and genres. Every episode will be a pilot for a different type of podcast.”

P.S. If you want to do some workshops or gather info on audio storytelling check out the Transom website located in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Related post:
Conflict, Conflict, Conflict
Ira Glass on Storytelling
The Major or Central Dramatic Question 
Commitment in the Face of Failure
Finding Authentic Emotions “Just because it’s a worthy cause doesn’t make it interesting.”— Alex Blumberg

Scott W. Smith

 

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Overcoming Major Obstacles: Quinton Flowers Featured on ESPN

Heading into today’s game against Houston, the University of South Florida football team is 7-0. This is the story of USF’s quarterback Quinton Flowers as told by ESPN and Maria Taylor.

Related Posts:
La La Liberty City

Scott W. Smith

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‘A Wave of Hope’—A New Tradition in Iowa

“It kind of brings it all home—what is important?”
Iowa head football coach Kurtz Ferentz

Scott W. Smith

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The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Need a jolt today? Here’s Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder joining Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on The Waiting (and proving I’m still not over the death of Petty earlier this month).

Scott W. Smith

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Postcard #149 ( Green Anole Lizard)

While some of my photos over the years have been near and far away, this one was only two feet from my back porch. Fall colors in Florida mean something different than other parts of the county.

I was actually on the phone when I saw this green anole lizard but quickly got two shots in before he ran away. The key on getting this kind of shot is to always be looking for something interesting, have a camera/phone nearby, know you only have a few seconds to capture the image, and let the lighting and composition do the heavy lifting.

Scott W. Smith

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Method Writing —Write with Your Scars

Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around some
Refugee, music and words by Tom Petty, Mike Campbell

“I hated my father long before I knew there was a word for hate…I remember hating him even when I was in diapers…I’ve been writing the story of my own life for over forty years. My own stormy autobiography has been my theme, my dilemma, my obsession, and the fly-by-night dread I bring to the art of fiction.”
Pat Conroy
The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son

While I could continue with my run of posts centered around rocker Tom Petty who died earlier this month, I found a way to turn the corner listening to the Scriptnotes podcast, Episode 321. And, actually, at the same time this post makes a connection to the roots of much of Tom Petty’s pain throughout his life.

Before we get to the concept of method writing, first let me set the stage by letting Petty recount a traumatic event he had as a youth that involved a slingshot, a Cadillac, and a belt.

“I had this crappy slingshot my father had given me, a plastic thing, the first one I ever had. I was in the yard shooting this slingshot. And cars are driving by. I’m just like, ‘I wonder if I can get a car’. And whack! This big Cadillac. It was going by pretty slowly, and I just nailed the fin on that thing.

“The car came to an immediate stop. The driver got out, and he was so f**king mad. … I felt kind of weird, not ­knowing what was coming next. But when my father got home later, he came in, took a belt and beat the living s**t out of me.

“He beat me so bad that I was covered in raised welts, from my head to my toes. I mean, you can’t imagine someone hitting a child like that. Five years old. I remember it so well.

“My mother and my grandmother laid me in my bed, stripped me, and they took cotton and alcohol, cleaning these big welts all over my body.”
Tom Petty
 Petty: The Biography by Warren Zanes

That may have been the first beating Petty got from his father, but it wasn’t the last one. And I don’t know if that first beating left a physical scar, but I do know it left an emotional scar. Petty knew that his childhood was far from the aspirational Ozzie and Harriet life that he saw on TV, but it would take decades for him to realize that being a successful rock star—or drugs and alcohol— could heal his childhood scars.

You don’t have to look far to see where Petty’s rebel spirit, angst, and bouts with depression came from. Though it would take Petty himself a few decades and some counseling to recognize his scars.

Everyone has scars and on Scriptnotes, Episode 321 screenwriter John August and Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month, have this exchange about using your scars in your writing:

GRANT FAULKNER: I like the method acting approach to writing that you’re really applying your own personal emotional experience to the characters you’re creating. Actually there’s a Shelly Winters quote where she says, ‘Act with your scars.’ And so you can apply your scars to any character. But I do think that requires, like method acting, a lot of introspection.  

JOHN AUGUST: When I read writing the feels very real, when the characters seem like they have flesh and blood,  I do think that’s because the author has invested a bit of himself or herself into their experience. That author has a very clear sense of that character’s inner emotional life  because he or she is using things in their own life to sort of proxy for it. When I was doing the script for Big Fish there is a sequence at the end where Will is going through the story of his father’s death and I knew this was going to be incredibly emotional thing for the character, but also for the audience watching it. So I was incredibly method writing where I’d bring myself to tears and then start writing. It seems crazy and ‘why would you do it that way?’— but I’m pretty sure the only reason I got to those specific words and those specific images was because I was at that emotional state as I was writing it…I would encourage people to try those things, because what’s the harm of trying those things? …Write those feelings that you know. Use the things that are specific and unique to you to help create something specific and unique moments for your story.

GRANT FAULKNER: Yeah, that’s a great point. I think the stories that I connect with most—I agree with you—the writer or creator has done something that is just so personal, he or she has made themselves vulnerable— they’ve gone deeper. I really think vulnerability on the page is more important than any craft advice, or craft tips that you might write with. And that’s where with [the] Shelly Winters [quote] “Act with your scars” is really going deep. Be willing to reveal your scars on the page and go there. 

P.S. I don’t always find a direct Iowa connection to these posts, but couldn’t miss on that Scriptnotes podcast that there was a guy from small town Iowa talking to a guy who did went to college in Iowa. Grant Faulkner was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa (and went at Grinnell College in Iowa) and John August did his undergraduate work at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

Related post:
Emotion—Emotion—Emotion
Nostalgia: The Pain from an Old Wound
Screenwriting Quote #182 (Richard Krevolin) “All characters are wounded souls…”
Tom Petty and The Untold Story of Rock & Roll  (In a word; scars.)

Scott W. Smith

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Focus on Doing Good Work

 

Success is dangerous to longevity. It’s just a dangerous thing, it’s an overwhelming thing, and used in the wrong way it’s really destructive.  Surviving that in our earliest days was—we came out of that pretty lucky. We had a lot of good people around us.  A lot of good advice.

But you don’t ever want to be complaining about how hard it is to be successful, but it is hard. It’s hard to keep your feet on the ground. To trust people. To not get isolated, because with success and fame it tends to isolate people. It tends to push you away. You’ll go anywhere for privacy or just to feel normal. So I’ve had to grow up with that. Kind of grow up in public, I guess. But very early on Elliot Roberts, who worked with [our manager Tony Dimitriades] for about ten years, had a lot of experience with Neil [Young], and Crosby, Stills & Nash and all that— I just saw him at the [Hollywood] Bowl the last night we were there, and I love Elliot— but he told me very early on, I think it was before Damn the Torpedoes had come out, he said, ‘look I got a feeling that this record is going to a big hit, but that doesn’t mean that it’s good. Think about how many things are hits that aren’t good. You don’t want to get tied up in that. What you want to think about is making good work. You’re going to make a lot of records—they’re not all going to go to the top of the charts. But they can all be good.’ And he said the thing is worry about the product, not anything else, and over time that will sustain you. And I thought that made a lot of sense… Don’t get caught up trying to top yourself every time commercially, because nobody does.”
Tom Petty (who sustained in the music business for 40+ years)
LA Times interview with Randy Lewis 

Related Post: The 99% Focus Rule (Screenwriter Michael Arndt quote)

Scott W. Smith

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Touch Not Tools

I just listened to what the L.A. Times called “Tom Petty’s final interview”  so I guess I’m not finished yet with my string of posts on Petty. The quote comes when Grammy-winning guitarist John Jorgenson (who started out a clarinetists) came up in the conversation.

“The guy’s off the map. He’s off the map, and guitar’s not even his first instrument…his touch is so beautiful. It’s like people who are always looking at guitars—it’s not the tool, it’s the touch. You can buy Pete Townshend’s rig, but you’re not going to sound like Pete Townshend.”
Tom Petty
L.A. Times interview with Randy Lewis on 9/27/17 (Five days before Petty died)

Back when I was a teenager I remember a tennis coach playing with the smallest, oldest racket he could find to show other players that “It’s not the racket, it’s the player.” A different spin on the tool verses the touch. Keep that in mind when you get caught up pursuing the latest writing/editing software, camera gear, and lights. Now with that said, when the top talent, tools, and touch come together that’s when the magic happens.

P.S. For those of you in L.A., Jorgenson will join Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen at the Troubadour on October 23.

Scott W. Smith

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Tom Petty & The Soundtrack of Life

Now I’m walking this street on my own 
But she’s with me everywhere I go 
Yeah I found an angel, I found my place 
I can only thank God it was not too late
Tom Petty/Angel Dream

I’ll round out a couple of weeks of posts centered around Tom Petty with a quote pulled from the Peter Bogdanovich directed 4-hour documentary Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream that touches on the mystical side of creating.

“I really don’t understand it. But I do know that it seems that the best [songs] often just appear. Like you’re sitting there with your guitar or piano and bang—there it is. It just falls out of the sky. I hesitate to even try to understand it for fear that it might make it go away. It’s a spiritual thing.”
Tom Petty

What’s clear from that Petty documentary (and other interviews and biographies) is he experienced incredible highs and incredible lows throughout his life. His life was full of joy and pain. Who can’t identify with that? Many have written that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed the sound track of their lives. I have 23 of their songs on my iPhone that have been in heavy rotation since Petty died almost two weeks ago. His words and music over the last 40 years evoke a wide range of emotions from exuberant to melancholy. And I imagine they’ll be the soundtrack of life for generations to come.

Related quotes:
How to Write Songs
40 Days of Emotions
Screenwriting Quote #55 (Stephen King) “There is no Idea Dump… ”
Where Do Ideas Come From?
Write What Hurts
Tom Petty’s Gainesville Roots

Scott W. Smith

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