RonVitale: February 2010

I have had a lot on my mind recently. Work has been busy, I'm raising children, writing, keeping up with social media, creating The Podd Couple and Let Go and Be podcasts and I started thinking about creativity. What does it really mean to me? I had a talk with a friend two weeks ago and he was showing me a book he had been working on for ten years. He had taken my advice and had created the book on Blurb.com and was showing me a copy. I held the book in my hands, paging through it and I was impressed. The poetry, the photos (that he took himself)--they were beautiful. The book was a work of art. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a copy and I'd love to review it here and share it with the world.

While talking about art/writing, we admitted that we have a choice: We could create our work and put it in a drawer and it would never see the light of day until after we died or we could try to go the traditional publishing route, see what happened and then... Well, that's what I want to talk about. The "then" which is now.

But first, let's take a ride in my TARDIS. Approximately 29 years ago (oh my!), I was a big Star Wars, Doctor Who and Blade Runner fan. I didn't know what to do with my new found joy so I did what was natural to me: I wrote. I sat down and started writing an action/adventure sci-fi thriller entitled "The Mission." Pictured above is one of the pages to this story. Yes, my three-armed alien looks bad. I know it. You don't have to tell me. And, yes, the story is horrible, but that's also not the point. I was 10 years old, I had an idea, I took the pictures/movies in my head that I could see and transcribed them to the page--for the first time. Before this time I had written pieces for my Dungeons & Dragons adventures, and had collaborated a year or two before with classmates on a school project, but "The Mission" was my first true foray into being a writer. Before writing the story, I had been the Dungeon Master in our D&D sessions. I was the guy who would create everything all up, sit the group down and bring the players through the adventure. I was the storyteller, the guide, the scop around the fire. The tools I had were pretty rudimentary: Crayons, pencils, pens, paper and graph paper (oh, and dice, for the role-playing parts). But when I wrote "The Mission," I decided to do something different. I created the story, brought it to school and shared it with my friends during lunch outside in schoolyard.

I've told the next part of this story to many over the years, but it's worth the re-telling. I showed my copybook to my friends and they all gathered around. Four boys, hunched over a book. A nun, who saw us, came over and with great authority asked to see what we were looking at. Even at that young age, I knew that she thought we were huddled around a Playboy magazine. I detected in her concern and a slight righteousness as she thought that she had caught us in the act. I handed the book to her and she paged through it. God knows what went through her mind as she saw my story and the pictures in there, but she handed it back and told us that we could continue. That run-in with authority was the first time I realized that my art could produce something good and that I could share it with others.

Over the years I have made homemade, goofy movies, written blogs, articles, novels, created podcasts and a whole host of other works. But why? Seriously, why? I believe it's my mission (like that, huh?) to take what I see, what I learn and know and share that with people through my creativity. It's that simple. Sometimes money comes from my labors, sometimes it doesn't. But let me tell you this: I've had readers from parts of the world write me and congratulate me on my work, saying that they really enjoyed it. I've had listeners send me feedback about my podcasts thanking me for helping them during a difficult time. I have, in small ways, helped to reach out and share my experiences with others. For me, that's a good thing.

Twenty-nine years ago I only had pen and paper. Today I have audio recording equipment, a laptop and the internet. My challenge to everyone is to ask you to create. Create so that you can discover a talent in you, that you could share with children, the elderly, your neighbors and with your spouse. How many hours do we sit watching mindless television? How many hours wasted doing nothing? I'm guilty of this. I love my Lost and Doctor Who and a whole host of other shows and movies. But, what if, each of us created a little something and shared it with our social networks? What if we wrote something, painted a picture, laid down a track of music, learned to dance? What could each of us become if we got off our ass and tried something different? A failure? A success? A nobody? Ourselves. Call me Mr. Sunshine Hippie Good Times if you'd like, but take a moment to seriously think about what you can do and become. Not for the betterment of the world, but for yourself. I challenge you to draw badly, write purple prose and to sing out of key. What's there to lose?

The good news is that there are millions of blogs out there. I highly recommend The Care and Feeding of Future Foodies as it's a great read (though, I admit, I'm biased on this one) and also check out Naturalie Natalie for an introspective look on life with a spiritual slant.

My wife and I saw "The Blind Side" last night. Let me say this: Best picture? Are you kidding me? Look, I really went in to seeing this with an open mind. I like Sandra Bullock as an actress but I didn't think see did anything special here at all. What I want to know is: If you're black and you watch this film do you wonder if all the white people in America are crazy? This film is so heavy-handed with the hot, white Christian mom who saves the poor, unable to communicate well, black boy that I kept shaking my head. Really? I mean really?

There's a scene in which Sandra Bullock confronts some boys in the hood, threatening them, ending it with that she's a member of the NRA and is always packing. Okay, let me get this straight: Sandra Bullock's character goes to the projects, confronts several bad black dudes on their home turf and they don't even get up to confront her?

I kept watching this film, wondering what planet this movie was taking place in. The film is told solely from a safe, white perspective. The white mom who basically gets her way to save a black boy. Sure, that's a great story, but there's no true conflict or emotion in this story. It's so filled with fluff that I kept imaging a lot of middle-aged white folk sitting down feeling better about themselves in watching this flick.

Look, I like the story a lot. It's a rags to rices story. I've no problem with that. In fact, I'd like to hear the real story. Not the watered down version we get in this train wreck of a movie. Trust me, save your money and go see one of the other nominated flicks instead. In fact, go watch "An Education" and you'll see a much better movie. One that's filled with great acting, some serious conflict that's worth checking out. Thinking of seeing "The Blind Side"? Just pass. Trust me.