DELIVERABLES
March 28 2011

I come from a very plain spoken world. This Just In. We Go Live. Only Time Will Tell. (An unfortunate aphorism used, overused, and mercifully discarded by most TV news people.) The emphasis in broadcast news is on keeping it simple and we all go about in a rather blustery way to make that happen – hollering re-writes, rushing from edit suite to control room, gathering spontaneously in hallways to talk about the work, what’s happening in the world, that sort of thing. It’s an exhilarating – but basically blunt and scrappy environment.

So the first time I was asked to provide an “agenda” for a meeting I did a spit take. Chapter Two of life brings me not only to the world of voiceover but a corporate directorship as well. I LOVE it. But it really does feel like Mars. Agendas. Action items. Deliverables. When I was asked for the “timeline of deliverables” involved in a particular project, I had to stifle a scream.

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YOU’RE INFECTED
January 6, 2011

I watched my life slip away recently: my computer crashed.

The checking account. All my pictures. And the voiceover demos I worked hard (and paid a lot of money!) to create. The priceless article in the New Yorker about how so many people (including me) can’t sleep. The loss was enormous and instantaneous. It literally made my heart blast against my chest.

And it made me feel insanely vulnerable. How could I have let this much stuff reside in a box that can just, well, go down? Why didn’t I see it coming?

And what’s with all these electronically transmitted diseases, (yes, I know the word is viruses) anyway? How does this work: there’s some kid, in some far flung part of the world, who’s got nothing better to do than to write programs that’ll corrupt MY programs – as well as insuring that my programs go on to corrupt those of all my friends?