Those of you who read here regularly never asked me in the comments section why I started writing a Substack. Some comment on my prolific ability to produce a column a day, but never ask why I bothered to write at all. It should be clear to even the casual reader that I’ve got a lot to say and enjoy saying it. My mind works at warp speed and I have to tell you that this Substack outlet is just a relief, a pressure relief valve to get the thoughts out of my head daily.
I always wanted to be a writer, a screen-writer, a newspaper columnist. But since I flunked every single English class I’ve ever taken, and couldn’t diagram a sentence in fourth grade to save my life, the idea of even attempting to attend Northwestern, or Maryland, or God-forbid a Columbia for journalism was out of the question. There wasn’t a newspaper in the land who was going to take me on given all the grammatical errors, punctuation errors, capitalization errors, and publishing a weekly column from someone who butchers the rules as badly as I do. I’d be an editors full time job.
Realizing my weaknesses early I decided instead to pursue a career in sales as the only other thing I enjoyed as much as writing was talking. I was given the Irish gift of gab. As you can imagine with a mind that holds a thousand thoughts in a second all concurrent and running on parallel tracks, I’d go insane if I didn’t allow some of it to spill out loud.
I drive my wife insane by making a simple trip to a local restaurant a discussion on everything from politics, to Roman engineering, to the hockey playoffs, and hey look there is a great looking Porsche 911, and could we afford a white one with a black top and beige interior, and when did they put up a condo complex over there and what do they cost? Hey look, a new gelato shop, maybe we could stop on the way back from dinner, and since when is a homeless man on that corner with a sign, and did you read what Taibbi had to say this morning? All manner of shit just runs out and keeps going until we get parked at the restaurant. I can’t make it stop. I’m really not sure how much of it registers with her, or if after nearly fifty years of dating and marriage she just filters out the majority of it all.
My original goal was to do a travel show. For Youtube. I found one of those circle light stands in the closet that belonged to my daughter who does videos online, figured out how to strap an iPhone to it, and off I went.
I had an idea for a show called “Three Days In…”, a little short travel show to provide viewers with long weekend destinations they might not originally consider for a vacation. I would show the available options for where to stay, where to dine, where to drink and be entertained, and discuss local activities.
Take Florida as an example. Simply everyone has been to Miami, and right now Miami is the hottest city in the US, it has become Nashville and Austin all rolled into one. Miami is the new “it” city, and the vibe there is indeed spectacular. But Miami wouldn’t be on the show. No. The show would feature smaller out-of-the-way places.
There are smaller locales in Florida all over the state where fewer people visit, and that few seem to know even exist. For most, once you get past Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Orlando, they couldn’t name another destination in the state.
Yet Florida has dozens of tremendous little towns, mostly undiscovered, where you could vacation for a long weekend and have the time of your life.
And if you’d allow me to curate the trip, trust me, you’d have so much fun you’d cry in the Uber all the way to the plane taking you back home.
Jupiter, Florida is just heaven on earth. And growing like a weed. Becoming priced out of reach. You could spend a long weekend in Jupiter from a flight-in Friday morning, until a late night Sunday departure, and enjoy every last minute. Especially if you time it right, for some reason everyone wants to escape the cold and get down here in January, but the January weather is hit and miss. Choose the cooler sub-seventy degree days and the beach is not an option. Late April, early May the days are warm, the skies are blue and go on forever, and the weather is just perfection. On the video I’d even suggest the best time of year to visit.
There are so many spots in Florida just as wonderful as Jupiter. Delray Beach is another great place for a three day trip, so is Marco Island. Naples is another great destination as is Siesta Key. My little video would introduce all to some great weekend trips just in Florida to start.
So I was going to create small, short, maybe three minute videos to put up on Youtube with the title “Three Days In…” and curate a visit to each place so that people could be exposed to smaller, out-of-the-way resort areas they may have never considered for a visit or vacation. But where they could have the greatest time.
However, my plans were completely derailed when I found out that first, I am not photogenic. At all. From the looks to the voice, the playbacks were a complete embarrassment. I cringed watching every last second. The camera loves some people, it hates me with a passion. They say the camera adds ten pounds, well, I’ve already got those ten pounds in spades plus, so whatever the camera was adding made the entire production appear that Jabba the Hutt had decided to make a travel show.
The whole project got worse, way worse.
I’d visit the docks of Jupiter to make the inaugural video, the beautiful Jupiter Lighthouse in the background, the framing so beautiful, the water so clear in the background. I’d set up the camera tripod, and begin to record. And then take 2, and then take 3, and then botch up the words, or expression, or have a seagull swoop and cry disturbing the shot, and take 16. Holy Hell filming was a nightmare. At the intersection of A1A and Love Street, the ground zero spot for entertainment spots to be found in Jupiter, I turned the camera on to film only to have a lawn maintenance crew pull up, break out the mowers, and begin to cut the curbside grasses.
Other days I got out the door too late to shoot and found myself sweating profusely in the noon day sunshine, not a great look on film. Never having filmed anything I was blissfully unaware of shooting early to avoid heat, and late to get the “golden hour”. What did I know, I watched a few “how-to-film” videos on Youtube and out the door I went. Spielberg I am not.
And it got even worse.
I got home with some salvageable film. To begin to thread together even three minutes worth of travelogue, I downloaded the most popular editing software, and couldn’t figure out how to use any of it ever. And that is where I had the realization that to do a travel show on Youtube you would need “voice-over” material.
Just drone shot footage with a voice speaking over the scene. And I couldn’t figure out how to load in film, and do VoiceOver work at all. I got eighteen seconds of tape on one track, and the VoiceOver on another. And couldn’t sync the two. I tried and tried and tried. The more I tried the more duplicates I got into the edit machine program. suddenly I had eight streams of beach shots on eight different tracks, with three different voice overs on three other different tracks. It was a complete mess.
I actually met with a local video production company that does work nationally, has won Emmys, and works with the biggest names in the industry from ESPN, to CBS, and all the major cable stations, they are based in West Palm Beach. They only wanted eighteen grand to assist me in shooting the first three minute episode. And said that maybe, if I got really good at shooting film, and proficient at the VoiceOver work, they could cut that fee down to twelve grand an episode.
Of course they also suggested I go out and hire a “Ken and Barbie” to be the on camera talent, and utilize my own, uh, talents, behind the camera. No shit.
My wife wasn’t thrilled when I told her my vanity project was going to take over a hundred thousand dollar investment to get half-a-dozen episodes “in the can” as we film makers like to say, and she was doubtful about my idea to maybe begin including a Hilton Garden Inn recommendation each show to perhaps entice the giant Hilton Corporation into sponsorship to get our hundred grand back. I just couldn’t bring her along to see “my vision”.
Then there was the whole “Ken and Barbie” idea.
Since the audience for the show perhaps would skew toward the empty nesters, maybe a very attractive and photogenic “couple” would be perfect for the “show”. Yeah, right.
I could see my wife’s enthusiasm for me going out and interviewing pert and bubbly blonde fifty somethings who looked great on camera, and great in real life, to do this “show” with me, traveling the state to shoot film. Right. There is a great idea. Hon, me and Miss Arkansas 1988 are going to Naples on a few overnights to shoot “Three Days In…” episodes, I’ll be back by Thursday, Friday at the latest. Take care of the dogs.
Oh, and stick some cash into the account, we went through that first hundred grand like shit through a goose. I was thinking a nice steak house and Miss Arkansas 1988 loves the salad in that high end restaurant in downtown Naples where we will be dining, can you stick some cash into the account? Oh don’t be jealous, “Ken” will be there with us. What is that you say, “Ken” is gay? And why does that matter?
So my great idea for a brief travel film that only lasts three minutes and gives you great travel advice on weekend getaways was derailed from a lack of talent, a lack of ability, a lack of cash, and because being photogenic is a gift from God, and God doesn’t like me. Not at all.
I wanted a small side hobby showing “the people” all the fun they could have traveling this great state of Florida, only be humiliated as a no talent hack, with zero ability to edit film or figure out how to use a film editing program, and wondering how anyone gets a minute of film onto Youtube.
Once that idea died I wanted to do a Jimmy Dore style show but based on the old “Talk Soup” show. Where I’d get to show a video clip over my shoulder of one of the mainstream taking heads lying about Covid, or Russiagate, or the “Laptop from Hell”, and then stop the tape and give a rebuttal. The rebuttal being actual truth.
But then I had to admit to myself that Jimmy Dore was more talented because he could actually go into his garage and film himself and get all that tape editing done properly, which I couldn’t seem to accomplish. And somehow comedian Jimmy Dore was able to finance the entire project, which I couldn’t do. I am not even as capable as a Jimmy Dore, do you know how depressing that is to admit?
I salve that wound by realizing he is no more photogenic at least. How he sticks that mug before the camera and actually has built a viewership is a miracle. A testament to just how important what he says is needed int today’s society.
Both of those ideas are gold, the travel video and Youtube “Talk Soup” of politics.
A “Talk Soup” of politics showing mainstream videos and then giving a Right Wing rebuttal would gain an instant audience as people are starved for truth in media.
Alas my complete fail in film led me to one day bring up Substack and start blathering. And blathering. And blathering. And here I am over four hundred posts in, and I could write three a day. I guess I transferred the idea of “Three Days In…” to writing three articles a day. You should see the “drafts” section. I’d just hit “post” but no one wants to drink from a fire hose. I blame the thoughts. They won’t stop.
So from my complete lack of talent and failure in film came this Substack. I greatly appreciate you reading, and though I keep promising to cut down to a two day a week column the thoughts keep pouring out.
Thanks for reading. Maybe help me by recommending the column to a friend. And if in your own life you find yourself failing at something, stop by and I’ll show you the videos I tried to film. Holy Hell you’ll be leaving thinking yourself a huge success.
It seems you did extremely well at that sales thing, so you can't cry too much about missing a writing career.
But . . . your supposed lack of abilities in grammar and punctuation needn't have been a barrier to actual writing. Did the fact that you didn't finish a degree hinder your career in sales? We've all been brainwashed to accept credentialism. I suspect you're doing your own editing, which proves you do have the abilities of a writer.
Augusten Burroughs was a sixth-grade dropout. After getting a GED, he dropped out of med school in his first semester. Yet his book "Running with Scissors" described how he survived in NYC on his income as a writer.
I had a friend, long gone now, who was a writer. Remember the malapropisms of the Three Stooges -- "I resemble that remark" -- she did that all the time. Yet she won writing contests and published stories she submitted to magazines. Her problem was that she talked a lot about writing but didn't produce much, despite lots of encouragement from all in our friend group.
I live in a Blue State, and there are some perks that come with that. A while ago, I wanted to find out how a 3D printer works. One library here has a Maker's Room or some such thing. It's a room equipped with all kinds of stuff and a person who knows how to use and repair it all.
I made an appointment and got an hour of her time to show me how 3D printers work. I also got a tour of her kingdom. This Maker's Room included a YouTube section that had a camera and editing equipment. I'm sure not nearly as comprehensive as the services offered by a production company, but a free education. In the end, just as YouTube turned out not to be your thing, 3D printing wasn't mine.
Not everything you try works, and it absolutely requires false starts or detours to find the right road. Lucky you, you've found your Second Act.
So, who edits your substack column? You write so much you must have finally learned to write! Good for you! I have a blog, but it takes weeks to get it print ready, so alas no blog. Lol