Memo to Peter Bart: Don’t Be A Dick

I was perusing the trades (that’s slang for entertainment industry trade papers) recently in an effort to live vicariously through the people who actually do what I just imagine doing for a living, and I came across an article by Peter Bart (former Editor-in-Chief at Variety) regarding The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and his foray into the world of film directing (the dickishly titled “Memo to Jon Stewart: Stick with Your Day Job Behind the Desk”).

Artist’s rendering of Peter Bart, who believes that creative people should be neither seen nor heard.

You can read the article if you like, but the general idea is that Peter Bart spends 600 words essentially just shitting on Stewart’s desire to sit in the director’s chair. How does Peter Bart justify his Debbie Dickhead attitude toward Jon Stewart’s project? Well, Bart points out, Bob Dyaln was a celebrity who directed a movie…and it was bad! Not convinced? Well, Bart says, Madonna was a celebrity who directed a movie…and it was also bad!

So just to recap: because Bob Dylan made a bad movie in 1978, no one should try to direct a movie ever again. Got it. And obviously this has everything to do with the fact that Dylan and Madonna were already established stars that tried to transition into directing, and nothing to do with the fact that they were just bad directors (the Dylan film’s final cut clocked in at OVER four hours long, but yeah, I’m sure it was only a flop because he was a celebrity trying to direct). Double got it.

Bart goes on to reference successful directors (Clooney, Sean Penn, Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Elia Kazan, and Francis Coppola) who didn’t release their best work until later on in their directorial careers, and whose first projects either weren’t well-received or just weren’t that good. Basically Bart’s message is if you haven’t already done something, you shouldn’t do it.

Um. What.

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The 9 Stages of Creation

The writer/creator/artist lifecycle has nine very distinct stages:

1 — Get idea, think it’s great or hilarious or whatever.

2 — Write/produce/create idea, still really excited.

3 — Get about 80-90% finished creating/writing/producing idea, begin to loathe all aspects of the idea, doubt the goodness of any idea you’ve ever had.

4 — Stop working on idea altogether, now convinced you are the least-intelligent person ever…person’d…Christ I can’t even think of the right word to replace person’d, so I guess we’re just gonna leave that word in there. Question any and all accomplishments and ideas in your life, convinced everything you’ve ever written, produced, performed in, created, suggested, or said in public or private is worthless shit that even Hitler would be embarrassed to claim as his own.

5 — Finish project just so the hours you’ve poured into it won’t feel like a complete and utter waste. Contemplate sitting in running car with your garage door closed until sweet monoxide-flavored release takes you to a place away from all pressure of creativity, a place whose only language is high-fives and ice cream.

6 — Submit project to boss or internet, lock self in Y2K bunker to avoid the imminent mockery of strangers and the ostracization of your family/loved ones.

7 — Pretend your idea/project/creation never happened in the first place, make all dinner reservations under assumed identity.

8 — Many, many years later, look back on created product/idea/written work/project and get mild enjoyment from it, wonder if you might’ve been overreacting initially.

9 — Come up with new idea, repeat entire process; oblivious to the new, fresh Hell you’re about to willingly subject yourself to.

Play on,
Dustin

30 in 30, The Recap (and Lessons Learned)

So with a little over a week to digest the “results” of my 30 in 30 project, I thought I’d share with you some insights I picked up, and an easy place to check out all the offerings for something that might catch your eye.

Pros:
• Actual completion of the project. I’m not gonna lie (stupid saying, maybe the stupidest ever — anyone you trust wouldn’t need to say they aren’t lying, and anyone who was planning to lie to you wouldn’t call attention to their level of honesty), there were times where my not-quite-best laid plans had fallen all to hell and I didn’t think I was going to get anything out on a given day. Somehow this never happened, though I couldn’t say to you with a straight face that everything I posted was of equal quality.

• It got me doing. A shortened version of a big philosophy of mine is that the action of doing something that you are passionate about is often a greater success than the actual product you create as a result of that passion. That is to say, the very fact that I was able to force myself to make time in my life for creation again was in-and-of-itself a better accomplishment than any of my rambling writings, poor cover songs, etc.

• Networking. No, really. For as much as social “networking” is all the rage, if we’re being honest very little (if any) social networking is actually networking related. More often it’s trying to track down the hot co-workers’ bikini pics and avoiding finding out which of my friends go engaged most recently. Or maybe that’s just me. But what 30 in 30 was able to do was really open my eyes to the resources around me in terms of areas where I lack expertise (photography, directing, etc.), and force me to network with people who are actually good at those areas where I’m even more lacking than usual.