Inspiration #6

I've been holding off talking about him so far.

I mean, I'm a street team leader, I should be a little more enthusiastic, but I don't know ... I don't think I'm one of those crazy fans any more.

This is my piece about Drake Bell, by the way.

I've been aware of his work since The Amanda Show. Truly terrible show (though I do love Josh and Amanda too) but the Totally Kyle skit he did was slightly less bad than the other skits. Plus, you know, he was good looking (whether he's a year younger than me or not) ... at the time, when I was about 14, that was pretty important to me.

When Drake and Josh started, I tried to watch it. Just for him, really. I thought it was crap, in all honesty. I watched the second series when it started, and that was better, so I stuck with it, and then the third series was crap so I switched off. But I knew he sang a lot, and played guitar and I was interested in hearing the music so I went googling, and found his website.

The girls there were enthusiastic and helpful and got me hooked up with his first album, Telegraph. Great album, even if 'Down we fall' takes 9 minutes. My favourite song of his is on there (more about that later). But it was bittersweet joining, since Drake had had a car accident about a month before I joined. He'd been waiting for this car to move at a stop sign so he could go ahead but the driver coming towards him didn't realise or control the car properly and went smashing into his vintage car (I love the vintage car obsession, American vintage cars do it for me). His passenger was fine, he had cracked ribs, a hole in his chin, loads of scratches and scrapes. He admits the first thing he thought was 'not my face!' since you know, it's his career. If you look now, when he stops growing hobo-beards, you can see a faint line across his chin. He could poke his tongue through that once, had his jaw wired shut for 6 weeks.

Anyway, the last series started when I was on the board, after I was invited to be a UK leader. So of course I watched. The boys were better, the whole cast worked well together ... but urgh, I just can't stand Dan Schneider's version of humour. Good scenes were ruined by nonsensical twists or comments that had no place. That Drake and Josh both made a success (in Nickelodeon terms) of the show is a feat.

Their solo stuff isn't so well known, which is a shame, I loved The Wackness (Mary-Kate Olsen, a stoner whore?!?), and everyone loves Ice Age (Josh was a possum with Sean William Scott). Drake's done stuff like College (ehhhhhhhh) and Superhero Movie (ehhhhhhhhhhhhh! I hate the *genre* movie series, but I did think it was better scripted than Date Movie) and tried a series called Fish Tank which didn't work out. At the moment, he's filming for the live-action Fairly OddParents film (which kinda fills me with dread, that I have to watch Fairly OddParents in order to see Drake) ... I'll leave this space.

It kinda sucks, because he kinda floats from one job to another, but I don't think he feels really, really passionate about anything. His music is so good, but his shows are shoddy (I was listening to the merch guy when Cassie and I saw him) ... Stefanie and I talk about it sometimes, sometimes on the leader chats. I can kind of relate to it, but when you've established yourself like it ... it's not good for a fanbase.

But yeah, his earliest stuff was so much better, he seemed so much more committed. Like the few seconds he was in High Fidelity (awesome, awesome film. I love John Cusack!) or working with Roger Daltry in Chasing Destiny. He gave the birdie to Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire (yeah, the hockey players' son ... that kid. That was Drake.) ... I totally recommend his pre-D&J work. And his music. He could never act again and just pump records and I'd be happy.

Which brings me back to my favourite song. It's one I overplayed when I was first in remission. It still hits home now, because I so relate. It's called In The End. I'll post the lyrics in another blog, which will obviously go above this one. So ... this is the post that explains the previous one, yes?

Life imitating art

I wanted to post this the other day but blogspot had a load of error messages whatever I clicked.

And I put it on twitter but it seems to have baffled Joanne, so I'll explain more thoroughly here.

At university, during my second (and best) year, we had a seminar on the influence of life on art or art on life (apt, don't you think, after my reading Dorian Gray recently? His life ruined an art piece, but the art got its own back in his death). It was interesting, because an artist/musician/actor/writer will draw on life experiences to write what they know (or not, Stefenie Meyer) and will use whatever they can to create a sense of reality in their work. There is gun crime in London for example, but when Billie Jackson pulled one out people worried that gun crime being fictionalised for the soap opera would influence others involvement with firearms. There's a constant, constant debate on the effects of rap music or death metal on gang culture and school shottings (But as John Cusack says in High Fidelity, and I paraphrase from imdb 'What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?' touche.) but those songs are written based on a singers experience, first or secondhand as it may be.

I am going somewhere with this. My own writing. I spent months and months and pages and pages and notebook after notebook and onenote on my laptop going through characterisations and relationships etc before considering the plotline and the effects those plots would have on characters.

At one point, I named a character a certain name. This was about four years ago, maybe five ... my son has the same name. I think I've accidentally blogged it on another entry. Anyway, the fictional version has a best friend with an equally unusual name (I took if from that film, Along Came Polly, Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston). My son, a few days ago, had a playdate with a kid with this same name. I met him yesterday too, and they played together again then (our vicar's son ... coincidentally, this boy and my son have biblical names ... don't you just love a coincidence?) ... wouldn't it be so weird if they became like, best friends? I mean, neither of them look anything like the characters in my head (if my son was African American, maybe ...) but still. Weirdness. Now, if I ever got published, it would be art imitating life, rather than the other way around. Does that spark further debate? I'm starting to get tired?