In Which the Ringmaster Considers His Creative Life

There are probably five things in life that I have a consuming passion for.

One of those things is creating original works of entertainment that people can enjoy. When I was four years old, I would take my parents cassette recorder and record radio shows doing several different voices to populate the show with different people. At ten I invited everyone on my block to watch me, my sister, my cousin, and the neighbor kids put on an improved "show" in the basement.

I wrote my first scifi story in 1982 after watching Roger Corman's "Battle Beyond the Stars." My first play was "An Almost Classic Late Halloween Story" when I was in 7th grade and my first film (written and cast) was on super 8 starring my Middle School teachers and administrators. I sold my first short story for publication when I was 17 (the magazine folded and they never paid me.) My senior year was fun. My dad bought a VHS camcorder and me and my buddy Chad made several improved shorts.

When I graduated high school I wanted to go to a collge with a great creative writing program, but my parents couldn't afford it so I went to ETSU in my home town of Johnson City, TN. Since I didn't want to do anything but write, I took theater classes to maybe pursue a local writing gig for my own troop of actors. I was in the theater program for one semester. Warren Robertson's Intro to Theater managed to kill any interest I had in working with the local theater scene. Where else could I go? I didn't really care about anything but writing or performing. In desperation,

I went to the one institution that had never let me down (because it catered to lowered expectations anyhow.) In 1990 I began to study broadcast television. I recieved some formal training to augment my natural ability. I did an episodic TV show in college, then a couple more over the next few years. I was one of the people who wouldn't wait for a class to teach me. I volunteered for anything that would give me hands on experience. For a while I ran the campus radio station. I shot news video for a couple local stations, I pulled cable in the dome, I did all the shit work that you're expected to do as you learn the ropes.

One day, Tom, my mentor in the TV program, encouraged me to apply for a job in the ITFS service on campus. ITFS was distance education, an evil merging of teaching and live TV. I got the job after a single short phone conversation with Lynn, the Operations Manager.

One day, Lynn told me that she needed someone who could build XLR audio connectors. The individual that could would get lots of extra hours. I immediately volunteered. The next thing I did was go to a buddy of mine in the engineer's office and learned how to make XLR connectors. As time went on, I had to learn more and more skills to make more money. One day ten years had gone by and I'd been a temporary employee the whole time. I was the only technician in the program, I'd worked on circuit boards, troubleshot countless problems, and earned quite a reputation as a problem solver. I got hired full time.

Then I realized that I hadn't done much more than scribble ideas in a notebook the whole time. I'd wasted years working when I should have been creating. (Well, Chad and I had done an ashcan type comic, but that was it apart from school work.) My buddy Jim started back to school and then wanted to get his master's degree. We shot a few videos for his projects and it awoke the creativity in me again! I had to do more! We did some videos for DragonCon TV and they were hugely popular at the Con.

I had created a website originally for friends who had moved away to keep in touch, then they stopped. When our videos went to DragonCon, I relaunched the site to promote my friends and I who had created the videos. Suddenly, I had all this web space and only so much we could physically produce. I opened a photo gallery to all of my artist friends, then I invited them to my apartment in an attempt to get these artists familiar with each other's work and working together to create a new style, a new movement.

Now, I've changed the website again. Now I include original videos, music, poetry, art, and sarcasm. I have to create and surround myself with these things because it's who I am and who I have always been.

Sometimes I think that I'm instant creativity, just add belief. If people believe in me and support my crazy ideas and schemes, then they will usually succeed, my problem is that I can't do anything alone. I NEED people prodding me, cheering me on to create these things.

Today, I had to tell the DCTV folks that because of my rotten job, we didn't get any of the videos I'd promised them finished. I feel like such an ass. The failure is mine, I've let my job totally overshadow my life's work. That has got to change. I've been a dreamer too long to let the real world drag me down now.

I'm sorry we don't have any new videos. Believe in me, though. If you do, we'll create something beautiful.

S.