7. Great Ideas Are A Terrible Thing
Bold Acting Newsletter Issue 007 — May 21st, 2023
I’m editing video right now. I can’t stand it. I’m too old for this. It’s sooo boring. It’s for a show my buddy Dave and I are making. It was his idea. And it’s a great one.
But great ideas are like Spanx: I look great when I’m wearing them but it doesn’t mean I can skip the gym (or start eating fries again). It’s the execution of an idea that makes it worth something.
Some Recent Great Ideas of Mine
-Yoga classes on commuter airplanes. Other passengers pay extra to watch.
-Get rid of streetcars. Replace with cheap, electric articulated buses. Make a giant Transformers robot of old streetcars. Invade America. They’ll never expect it. Besides, Vermont has always secretly wanted to be Canadian anyway. (Shoutout to maple syrup.)
-The Scratching Post. It’s like a massage parlour but just for back scratches.
-The grilled-cheese-lasagna sandwich. It’s real. I’ve made and ingested a number of them and I can tell you with all certainty these are the next big thing.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s not the strength of the idea that will carry you through, it’s the you. It’s the work. Inspiration comes from a composite of experience, context and gathered knowledge. The muse isn’t some magical force from on high, it’s how we process information around personal preferences. There’s the inspiration you get from a song where you’re inspired to feel something you wouldn’t have otherwise. You put pen to paper and start writing. Then there’s the inspiration you get from watching a really good show or movie and you think I want to do that! Except someone already did. Then there’s the inspiration you get from art or a story where the artist or writer makes it look so easy you think I could do that! But you didn’t.
It takes a pant-load of courage (or self-delusion) to make something and then put it out there for all to pick apart.
Dave and I have had a lot of show ideas together over the years. For this show we’re filming various proofs of concept. So far we’ve been to a crime scene clean-up and a couple days ago I visited a somatic sex healer.
THIS IS THE PART MY PARENTS SHOULD SKIP
(I wrote that in all-caps so they could see it.)
I didn’t know what a somatic sex healer was either. Dave sent me to her because I talk openly about my psychological erectile dysfunction. I’m rusty. I’m older. My testosterone levels aren’t what they used to be. Not being in a romantic relationship means sooo many good things but there are also things I’m missing: companionship, intimacy and modelling for my boys relational collaboration with another human.
Her name is Monica and this is what she does (from her website):
“Cultivating erotic wellness will not only deepen our capacity for joy and intimacy but also lead to a world with less violence and more empathy.”
Big goals. But why not?
First we talked. She asked me questions like What was your most wonderful sexual experience? I didn’t have an answer. Maybe that’s telling. All I could think about was why did she use the word wonderful like that? That’s weird. Clearly I was still in my head.
My head garners so much of my focus. Always has. But being in my head (and being on a dance floor) have never benefitted me or anyone else. I overthink things (and I have a high centre of gravity). These are just facts.
She’s playing some Drum & Bass now and she tells me we’re going to do some shaking. My inner critique turns into Clint Eastwood if he were forced to spend the weekend at Burning Man doing ‘shroomies in a speedo while manning the face-painting tent. But my intransigence melts away as I shake off the adrenaline that covers my skin like a fishnet body suit.
Then we go into her inner lair where there is a massage table, velvet curtains and moody lighting. I’ve already set up my cameras. Monica tells me to disrobe as much or as little as I feel comfortable. She will remain clothed. I still don’t really understand what’s going on.
She leaves the room. I take it all off and lie down on my back on the table. She comes back in and tells me she will touch me wherever I want in three minute increments. She tells me what kind of touch she can do. Then she’ll move on to another body part. I ask her to touch my feet and I immediately start falling asleep. I love my feet being touched. Then I ask for weight. I want to be smothered I tell her. She gets a weighted blanket and puts it on me. A blanket was not exactly what I was hoping for. Then she put her hands on my chest. That didn’t do anything. I asked her to put her hands on my abdomen and tears shot out of my eyes so quickly, so hard it felt like they were hitting the ceiling and splattered back down on me in a convection current of bottled emotion. I was blubbering and heaving and snotting and crying like an American teen that’s just discovered Starbucks has brought back their beloved venti Unicorn Frappuccino.
I was generating mucosal weather systems while lying naked on a bed with a stranger standing over me in a basement in Greektown. And this was just a Thursday!
Do you do that? Do you zoom out like Google Earth high above your present location only to see how tiny you are? How funny it must look to a seagull with x-ray vision flying over you.
Then Monica said “Do you want me to touch your genitals?”
I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me that in that way. Through the weighted blanket she cupped me while still holding my belly. I continued to cry but I couldn’t out-and-out wail. I just couldn’t let go. It was too embarrassing. There was only so much of myself I could tolerate.
I asked her what was happening. She said “The body holds trauma in the muscles and your body is releasing that trauma … a lot of it.”
I named my trauma: a circumcision I could remember (I was four), a hernia surgery, my vasectomy. Do other people cry this much? I have to cry more often. What a release!
After the session I thanked her, paid her $282.50 and go outside with my tripods and ring lights. I stand there on the sidewalk for a moment reminding myself to revel in this new lightness I’m feeling.
A seagull hanging out in front of the nearby Big Carrot health food store looks at me sideways. I flush with embarrassment and walk to my car.
Dave’s and my show probably won’t get made. Shows are hard to get green-lit at the best of times and we failed to sell one when everyone loved white guys. But it doesn’t really matter. We’ll just keep making them and then we’ll get even older and more tired and cranky. But there will be a record of those great ideas. If we can figure out how to use Youtube. It’s the perspiration that makes it real.
And speaking of perspiration — yoga on planes! Am I right? It’s a license to print money. Take the seats out and lay down some mats and all of a sudden your puddle-jumper from Billy Bishop to Montreal-Trudeau is either a workout or an eyeful.
Anyway, I should get back to the editing. Thank God the light was low in that massage room. This ain’t pretty. This is 50. And you can’t heal with your Spanx on.
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Jason, I really enjoyed this one. Thanks. Rick