😇Touched by an Angel
A StoryMaze Sing-A-Long
Every episode of Storymaze: writing tips or a work-in-progress; something creative I’m digging; a highlight from my comics-writing credits; + a quote that’s got me thinking — maybe it’ll do the same for you!
🎇 Hope everyone had a fab Fourth of July! (And are reading this with all their fingers…)🧨
Manny was Old School Hollywood. He was an intense, nasal-voiced tyrant of talent manipulating the levers of big and small screen power with a well-placed withering look, a condescending shrug, an acid laced barb. "Baby! and "Bubbie!" were the titles he called out in his rat-a-tat dealmaking from call to call on behalf of his famous client. And I was invading his space and cramping his style.
Angel was Manny’s charge, a still glamorous celeb well-known for being one of a trio of TV female detectives in the employ of a mysterious speakerphone voice. As a well-paid spokesperson, Angel was lending her personality to a series of DVD and TV promotional efforts on behalf of a certain pharmaceutical product. I was manning the creative approach to an associated effort, and while we waited on our moment to grab a piece of Angel's time — we were relegated to the ready room. The ready room Manny had already claimed for himself.
In my role as a creative director, I was to guide the production of a collection of video interviews, ensuring that the set look captured something warm and evocative, and that our talent carried forward the message with the right level of intent. In truth, there were enough other people on the set — directors, account managers, clients, and an established professional actor — that it would have taken a concerted effort to *not* deliver on the production. But if my title made the moment feel like it had a bit more creative and direction in it, so be it.
It was clear from his glare and "Shush!' — Manny did not want us there in his domain du jour: he had business to do, deals to make. We could ignore his ire, or maybe slink away and try and find someplace else to hang for the hours ahead of us. But there's a challenge in making friends and figuring out personalities. So I asked for permission to ask a question. (One I probably knew the answer to.)
My thinking was that gleaning wisdom from his worlds of experience was the better course of valor and all that. "What's the difference between an agent and a manager?" Like explaining fission to a snail, he proceeded to school me on the difference. And in the course of doing so, I could see how his bluster — and his mandate — was really all about protecting that Angel.
Perhaps at this time in both their careers that was the orbit they had for each other: a protector and protected. He didn't suddenly become a choir boy, but I saw he really cared and our conversation shifted into something more of mutual interest. Or at least tolerance. So by the time we got to the end of that shoot day and the crew was preparing to head off to a pre-arranged dinner with Ms. Angel and our representatives, Manny was quick to turn to me and exclaim, unexpectedly: "You're coming, right?"
Dinner was at a posh Los Angeles place, with a private room right at the center of everything: glassed in on all sides so the not-so-posh could see very well who had the exclusive space set for the evening. Nothing says show biz like a good old, "Flaunt it baby! Flaunt it!" We were a long table of advertising types with our attention on the star, and as we settled in for the multi-course feting and fawning, the pink champagne that she demanded was poured and emptied and poured out again.
As the evening quickly loosened, the subject matter took a strange turn into favorite songs and the subject of our particular campaign — which happened to be a treatment for menopause. Somehow — there can be no logic as to how these things would ever happen — it became necessary that a song be composed on that very subject. And I laughed along with everyone else at the very idea — until it suddenly became my responsibility to conjure that musical masterpiece on the spot.
As Manny declared "You're the creative. Be creative!" — the Angel enthusiastically agreed and decreed. To cover the moment I conferred with the other creatives at the table, unknown equivalents from other agencies who were there to capture the talent for their own agendas and missions. For some reason, the only tune that came to mind was the Beatles "Yesterday."
In the next fervent moments, on the side of the custom menu printed up for the occasion, we scribbled lyrics related to a woman's issues during "the change." Never one to be satisfied with half measures, the next royal/Angelic decree was for a performance — enthusiastically cheered on by the rest of the table.
I don't consider myself a very good singer: tone deaf and rhythmless would be a compliment or a step up. But regardless of truth, the pink champagne had warmed up the vocal chords to a sufficient degree that I soon found myself singing about menopause to a TV star.
At one time in my teen life, I had watched her flounce and bounce across the screens of ABC television, part of an oversaturated action-packed lineup of crime stopping high-concept detective shows. Now I was serenading her about painful post-menopausal sex due to excessive dryness during "that time of life." I hadn't really signed on for anything — so it'd be hard to say it wasn't what I signed on for.
The applause was thunderous, making those outside our little glass box of stardom quite probably even more envious of whoever we were and whatever we were doing, with our pink champagne and muffled musical.
Before cell phones and security cameras, nothing remains of that moment in the evening LA sun. Even that menu, with its one hit wonder lyrics, was misplaced — which, of course, only adds to the myth. How appropriate then that the tune was Yesterday, with its lyrics of, "Oh, I believe in yesterday/Now I long for yesterday…"
A silly time, not so well appreciated then, hard to hold onto the details now. But a reminder that you have to take the moments as they come.
Thanks Manny. And thanks Angel. (And heck…thanks Baby and Bubbie, too!)
Know someone who’d enjoy time in the Storymaze? Ask them to join us…
Video games bring to mind solo action — and there can be an admitted appeal of just you and screen world, sometimes. But doubling up on the controllers — especially in the too-rare form of co-op gameplay — can be a special treat. I was reminded of this as me and my son took on "Untitled Goose Game" — a truly inspired bit of zany where you honk, flap and annoy a neighborhood with no goal higher than mischief.
As we wandered as two geese a' goosing around an English village, we were assigned varied bits of clever chaos: break a treasured vase, dump a pub owner into some tomatoes, send an old man sprawling off his stool, steal produce from a local farmer, bully a small child into a phone booth.
Typing it out like this it sounds unduly cruel, but, trust me — when you're a goose, it's all in good fun. And when there's two of you checking off boxes on the torture task list, there's quite a bit of extra joy in figuring out how to get the humans to slip up, trip over, or look the other way. Honk.
From a Storymaze perspective, games like this are also a joy in terms of their free-wheeling nature. Even with an end game in sight — the village is only so big, there are only so many villagers a couple of geese can terrorize — sometimes it's just fun to wander, paddle, shock, trample and peck like a white feathered kaiju.
I had this one on my Switch for a while, but I'm glad I waited 'til my kidwas home from school to really (wait for it) "spread its wings." Honk honk. (Special reward: when you finish the truly hilarious "last task" you're given a whole new list of bonus annoyances to unleash.)
I know I’m not the only one with something to say or share. Jump in…
When last we met, the above was one seriously janky hunk of plastic. Actually, four of them, separate parts spread out over several 3D files and printed out from PLA plastic filament. The "miracle" of 3D printing gets a bit more mundane when you've got an old school printer that isn't quite big enough to handle today's "all the rage" of Mandolorian helmets — or Daredevil cowls.
While I can nitpick the flaws in the final output — there's a few too many bumps in the forehead, that line of paint is a little less straight than I'd like it — I'm generally pleased with the result. Many (MANY) YouTube videos later I navigated my way through multiple smoothing tutorials, from gloppy resins to squeezable wood putty to sprayable sealant primers to automobile bondo.
If you're thinking of your own 3D printed adventure, I say risk the brain cells on the bondo: it was by far and away the easiest to apply, and netted the best results across the inevitable multiple rounds of sanding necessary to smooth out the dings and imperfections.
For me, its toxic fumes also brought on a wave of nostalgia, as it reminded me of my dad's garage and the auto body work he did for a living before becoming a firefighter. Not quite sure that balanced out the lost neurons, but your nostalgia may vary.
This almost made the trip to Richmond's GalaxyCon — but I wasn't sure how to juggle it in my air travel, which also needed to include a collapsible banner for my table and assorted prints I was selling along with my autograph. I'll have to figure out the particulars before GalaxyCon in Austin in September. But these horns *will* be taking up table space when I return to Terrificon this summer, since that's just a drive. Come by and check 'em out in July!
“Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up. But the writing is a way of not allowing those things to destroy you.” — John Edgar Wideman
Amazing Times
Thanks for taking a break from the dark web to check out this share-out of projects I’m working on, plus things that have me jazzed. I’m D.G. Chichester. If that looks pretentious, feel free to just call me “Dan”, and have a go at the last name as Chai (like the tea) Chester (like it looks).
I earned my word-cred writing comic book titles like Daredevil, Terror Inc., Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, along with all manner of digital widgets in the world wide web of advertising. I keep my storytelling cred by trying new things — this is one, with more on the way. I like weird tales, so if things here bend that way — now you know why!
Folks seem to like the comic book adventures I’ve written, so if you haven’t checked one out — please do. Many are now available in fab collected editions.
For the lonely moments between newsletters…
@dgchichester — 280 characters from the Twitterverse
@dgchichester — images via Instagramland