Pardon My Dust

Clearing My Brain Blog will return with new features and new industry quips, quotes, drippings, shares and nuggets soon.

PEACE all.

Art is Forever.

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. By George Seurat

Art Isn't Easy

In the musical Sunday in the Park With George an artist, George Seurat describes art, his work, the canvas, his life, himself, his technique….any one of these perhaps.

"Order.

Design.

Composition.

Tone.

Form.

Symmetry.

Balance."

- Stephen Sondheim, Color and Light from Sunday in the Park With George

The above moment, as it plays in the Broadway musical, has always been a powerful teacher and message for me personally. It speaks volumes I think for any artist, any creator of art (e.g. music, film, television, written word, performance, et al.) seeking the key to mastering their craft. In the musical, George is painting a large canvas. He has a dedication and unwavering focus and for him it’s all about bringing that canvas to life no matter how long it takes him to do so. His concentration is unshakeable. For the real George Seurat, the people of his day laughed at him. What he was creating was unheard of and considered vulgar. His style broke all of the traditional molds and conformity of the day. But he ignored all outside influences and remained determined to bring his vision to life. What remains today is a powerful snapshot of Seurat’s own thoughts and imaginings, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte (1884, Currently on display at the Art Institute of Chicago) is his legacy. It’s detail supreme. It’s execution masterful. Every spec of paint is placed there with a purpose – “providing order to the whole”. Look upon this canvas that took two years to complete and you will see in all of it’s thousands of delicate pixels, dots and dashes: Order, Design, Composition, Tone, Form, Symmetry and Balance. A recipe for any master of any craft.

If you wish to be the very best at what you do, no matter what your focus may be: writing, producing, directing, managing, creating, critiquing, editing, building, designing – all of ‘em perhaps….consider the above quote from the musical a formula and treat it as a road map for how to get the most out of your entertainment career. And if you think this is too rigid a thing for an artist to follow then look a little deeper at your craft – even the most outrageous and wildly inventive artist have one or more of these ideals in their stable of tricks – they’re just so good at what they do that you’d think it all comes so natural and with little to no effort at all.

And that, my friends is why it’s called “Showbiz”.

A featured song from the Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park With George.

New and Improved! Now With Even More Stain Fighting Power

Starting in the next few days (or so) I will be adding some new features to Clearing My Brain Blog. The first will be a little item I like to call:

“Biz Bites: Little Nuggets of Advice”

Each week I’ll dole out nearly 30 years of professional entertainment biz experience via easy to digest, wisdom infused, single serve nuggets of usable industry advice. This is the kind of stuff that you’d pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to gleen through workshops and classes and I’m serving ‘em up for free. Wanna learn how to succeed in the biz? Make sure to check out Biz Bites for your next helping of guilt free ‘n helpful advice that really is good for you.

Next up:

“The RB Q&A Show”

I’m RB and I will take your entertainment industry related Questions and respond with my Answers. See how simple? It’s your personal private talkback session with a guy who has worked in almost every job this biz has to offer. It’s fun, it’s easy and it’s safe and non-toxic too!

Then, (because I have soooooo much free time) in the next few weeks and months I’ll be adding more featured segments like:

Industry Interviews: candid conversations with some of the most talented talents working in the biz today

“The Best of Today’s Biz”. Things you have to check out like new live shows, movies, TV, publications, people, music and more.

“The Randino Blog-Wall of Fame”: a celebration of great industry friends and people who you really need to get to know. These folks are doing great things and are deserving of a special nod (or two). Will you be on Randino’s Blog-Wall of Fame?

“RB’s World of For-Really Real Quotes and Stuff”: these are things that I overhear people say as I innocently go about my day unknowingly and accidently eavesdropping and then can’t believe I actually heard them say what I for-really real heard them say. Not gossip, just for-really real.

“Dissection of The Project”: as I build a project I will blog about the experience. Whether it’s my next television pitch, stage show development, writing project, pilot or movie shoot you’ll get an inside look at the entire process, from start to finish, via my blogged diary. If you ever wanted to know how a project jumps from vague idea scribbled on a grease soaked napkin to having thousands and thousands of people clamber to see it, this is it. I’ll share it all: unfiltered and as it happens. From the highs to the lows and all the stuff that you never imagined was a part of the process of making entertainment happen. This one may be delivered as a written blog of perhaps video blog or maybe through the use of origami and shadow puppets.

Stay tuned kids 'cause these features and more are coming soon!

Peace.

As You Exit The Blog

Folks, I know that there are millions of blogs flying through cyber space and that you can choose any one of them to read. I’d like to thank you for choosing mine and I hope you have a pleasant flight of fancy while you are here. And remember; as you exit, ignore the handrails... after all, you and your life are moving at the same speed.

A Walk In The Garden

I can’t believe I’m in the Garden today. No rose buds, aphides or tomato vines here though. This Garden gives us the stuff that dreams are made of. Here you’re more likely to find giants (or Knicks) shooting hoops, toothless baddies slinging pucks and butterflies stinging Fraziers. It is here that a Beatle held a concert for Bangladesh while another one gave us his last public look-see before his unnecessary and untimely death. Other memorable greats have come to this Garden as well, and although they are gone their names still ring through these halls and VOMS like a sweet musical note hangin on a Fender guitar played by Hendrix or Clapton. These are names you will know: Joplin, Morrison, Lennon, Sammy, Sinatra, Mercury, Jackson, and Marley. Their energy is here and they have become part of the legacy this place is known for. There are other people who’ve visited this Garden and who believe now that it is, in fact, the center of the universe. People like: Joel, Sir Elton, Bowie, Madonna, Mick, Aerosmith, Kiss, Judas Priest, Wilson Pickett, The Spinners, The Bee Gees, Iron Maiden, U2 Super Tramp, Roger Waters, The Eagles, Phish, Marilyn Manson, Guns N’ Roses, The Dixie Chicks, Streisand, Tenacious D, Timberlake, Ozzy, Jay-Z, Kid Rock, The Black Eyed Peas….everyone comes to this Garden sooner or later and when they do it is a commune for the masses - a moment of pure, unadulterated and unfiltered magic and unlike any moment that has occurred in time before or since. The Garden is that kind of place. And I am here now. I walk the halls once walked by a King – THE King - and perhaps I’ve just leaned on the same wall Elvis himself leaned upon minutes before heading out to wow a crowd of 40,000. I can even feel his ghost watching over me as I type these words and it whispers, “Thank you, thankyouverymuch” in that familiar mumbled southern drawl.

This is indeed a sacred place and the energy here is palpable. I am in the best-known Garden the entertainment world has ever known and perhaps, with the exception of the Coliseum in Rome, the most famous place for viewing the best live entertainment history has ever known. I am in the Garden, Madison Square Garden to be precise. After walking its girth and exploring its sacred halls and corridors you can now put me on that list of those industry peeps who believe that this place really is the center of the universe. If you don’t know Madison Square Garden make plans to take a stroll whether in person or virtually – the link below is a great place to start.

http://www.thegarden.com/

My First Blog

To be honest, this isn’t my first time blogging. That’s not to say that I “blog around” or that I’m a “dirty, naughty blogging boy”, no… ‘cause I am not. But, truth be told, I have certainly been known to post a blogging bloggy-blog or two over the years. Once upon a time I happened to get hooked on Myspace where I was blogging nearly every day. I’d commit random acts of bloggery late at night, early morning and even sometimes by the light of day. Back then I could blog all night long. I’d blog about everything. My blogs ran the gamut from rants to raves and on every subject imaginable: politics, personal life, places, people…even pie. You name it and I have most likely blogged about it. I finally sought help to get my wild blogging under control. I checked myself into rehab…not really. It just sounds topical and kinda “Hollywood” cool (but the truth is, kids…rehab isn’t cool at all). Anyway, that was a period of blogging that seems almost like a blur these days. I actually just stopped blogging altogether when I eventually broke up with Myspace and started running with a whole different crowd on Facebook.

That was then and this is now. I’m back and I’m ready to start experimenting all over again and from an entirely new blogging POV. Clearing My Brain Blog is my new virtual storage house for depositing all the creative and colorful thoughts that pop into my noggin throughout the week. I work in the entertainment industry so I’ll most likely blog about the biz, the people in it and about how much I love doing what I do. It is here I hope to share some of my own brand of humor, perspective, ideas, thoughts, suggestions and everything in between. I’ll investigate, ponder, wax and digress. This is the world through my eyes. We don’t have to agree and frankly, that is how I like it. I enjoy seeing a thing from all sides – so diversity and perspective are always welcomed. Since my blogs are about the biz I suspect that my audience will be folks associated with the industry as well. I will share and I will listen, I will teach but never preach. But even if I can’t make you laugh or perhaps I fail to trigger your neurons, I hope, at the very least that I will simply entertain you. That is my goal. Oh, along the way, if I happen to take a side road or two to blog about other things… it’s just the way my brain works. Follow along and enjoy the scenery and trust me, we’ll get back to the main road again soon enough.