Call Me Crazy...

Picked up an awesome paperback this weekend. Start Something That Matters, written by the founder of TOMS shoes.

His name is Blake, and his business model is a bit unconventional: He gives away a new pair of shoes to needy child for every pair he sells.
In the first chapter, Blake talks about the importance of story. Naturally, that got my attention. 

TOMS' story

In 2006, when Blake was 29, he took a vacation in Argentina. He noted that poor kids there went barefoot, and not by choice. No shoes --> blisters --> sores--> entry points for life-threatening disease... you get the idea.

Blake wanted to give away shoes to needy kids for free. Instead of relying solely on donations, (pardon the pun), he posited that maybe it made more sense to create a for-profit shoe company, with a twist: For every pair of shoes he sold, he would give away a pair for free.

People told him he was crazy... he didn't know anything about designing shoes or selling shoes or the shoe business. But with the help of his friend Alojo, he went ahead and did it anyway. Starting out, all they had to start was an idea and a name... TOMS... which is short for "Tomorrow's Shoes."

With the help of a local shoemaker, they adapted native Argentinian shoes, called alpargatas, for the American market.

Supporters: Those other crazy people.

Months later, Blake was flying home from NY, where he'd met with the big shoe dogs (industry veterans, as they're called). His mood was cloudy, not sunny and bright like usual because, despite putting his best foot forward, he still didn't sell any shoes to the NY bigwigs.

As he stood at the ticket counter, he was surprised to find a woman wearing a pair of TOMS, in red. He complimented her shoes. She told him all about TOMS - their mission, and their story, and how wonderful they were. Blake was blown away.

That was the day that Blake realized that his story mattered as much as his product. He also realized something else: This woman was more than a customer. She was an enthusiastic supporter, one who told the TOMS story - his story- to a total stranger in an airport. Blake writes: Customers and employees come and go. Supporters are with you for the long haul.

Crazy like a... millionaire?

That first summer, TOMS sold 10,000 pairs of shoes. Blake returned to Argentina, where he rented a bus and drove from village to village.
He and his team personally gave away 10,000 pairs of shoes. 
Oh, and to the folks who said he was crazy?
The company's 2010 earnings: $100 million. (Up from about $90,000 in 2001.)

Blake says: What we found is TOMS has succeeded precisely because we created a new model. We're just one example of a new breed of companies that are succeeding in this volatile moment in capitalism. 

Who says you can't make money doing work that you love, work that matters?

Let's go crazy... :)

cheers,
Al

Why I love bookstores. (And always will!)

I'm working on my latest script. It's a love story, set in World War II. I've only been writing it for three years. Forgive me but, history buff though I am, World War isn't my specialty. I've had quite some catching up to do.

Which brings me to today's post. I visited a bookstore yesterday, the brick-and-mortar kind... an independently owned one at that. These days, Hayley's Comet might be easier to find. Don't get me wrong. I love the instant gratification of Amazon.com as much as the next writer working hard to procrastinate... but one thing you can't get via iPad is the smell of paper and glue. At least, not yet.

Funny, you never miss things 'til they're gone.

Go ahead, call me sentimental; "vintage" if you must be pc. I'm old. I get it. So what? So what if I enjoy spending a rainy afternoon perusing a forest of dead trees? Some people go to museums. I hang out in bookstores. I'm a writer. It's called research. 

In this particular store, on this particular day, I came face to face with another novelty which can't be found in an online store: Another writer, live and in person. At last, someone who understands. Try getting that in an online store. You can order up a signed copy of an artist's work, or maybe even chat in real time... but I'm betting that the warmth of a handshake can't be found on a site map.

When I'd researched enough of my day away, I headed for the checkout. Finally, the muse was calling. Actually, it was my husband, wanting lunch. There in a neat pile, on a table by the door, I found exactly what I had no idea I needed: A book called FUBAR: Soldier Slang of WWII. A guidebook to the mysteries of male dialogue, during the war years. And what do you know... it was bargain priced! I shuffled my pile of purchases and all but ran with it to my car.

You see, the minute I read the cover I saw where my script was stalled. I've gathered all the necessary bones - the characters, the plot, even the theme. What's missing is the flesh. I have will and knowledge and passion in spades. Great, necessary even, if you're a producer. But a writer is a mechanic, with words. Sooner or later, you gotta write. And if you're writing for the screen, you gotta write dialogue. You know. The part where people talk to each other.

Despite my exhaustive research, I had no idea how men at war talk to each other now, let alone seventy years ago! Dialogue is like fuel in the tank; without it, the vehicle can't go. This little book showed me exactly what I needed to hear.

I began writing this script three years ago off a book I picked up in another bookstore, on another clearance table. Today the shop is gone, but the the book and my passion to share it with the world remains. I'm grateful, for it led me to three years, and more importantly, the last three weeks at my grandad's bedside while he died.

I don't remember my grandad as a war hero. I remember him as a scarecrow of a man, long and lean, with a mischievous grin. Years into retirement, he toddered around the house in gray coveralls, speckled with white paint, or "grandaddy bling". 

When he wasn't painting, he was scraping something with the intent to do so. He was always outside, until suppertime. Then he was out again until dusk. Now I suspect I know why. My grandma lives with dementia. For how long, no one knows, but she can be quite scary at times.

Grandad rarely told us about his war years, how he was wounded in battle, how many of his buddies died. He didn't have to. In all the years I knew him, he showed me two things: His love of Jesus and of life. War stories and soldier slang were a thing of the past. He never told me about his purple heart either. I had to look that one up online.

The Bottom Line: Browsing a bookstore is like editing film before NLE machines. Linear editors had to manually scroll through all the takes, then pick the very best ones to hold onto. Sometimes, you really don't know what you're looking for until you find it.

People are kind of like that, too. We haven't managed to replace them either. At least not yet...  

Thoughts from The Boss

I was up late one night, busting up rocks on a scene. I had worked well past exhaustion, so blocked creatively that I was ready to hang it up. Just then I caught a bit of an interview on late night TV with Springsteen, reminiscing on the tumultuous period following the runaway success of Born to Run.

After an ugly split with his management, he holed up with his band mates, pondering: "What if this is the last record I get to make?"

The result? The shirtless all night songwriting/jam session that produced Darkness on the Edge of Town!

Since then, I have kept this affirmation taped under the glass on my desk: "This might be the last time I get to do this."

For an entrepreneur like me, this is powerful language. I'm a self starter by nature; still, some days end before I can reach the end of my to-do list.

The Bottom Line: Springsteen’s sentiment never fails to remind me that serving others - my clients or my team- is a privilege. Following world events of late, The Boss' message is as timely today as it was back then: Get busy producing yourself. Time's a’wastin’…

At the Climax, Some Things Really Are Best Left Unsaid.

My blog looks so boring today after visiting this one. http://www.trouthammer.com.

I found it by following a link from someone's Twitter feed. The post called it out as adorable. Guess I was in need of adorable. Turns out, it was a blogger named Jim's marriage proposal to his girlfriend Julie.You can check it out on the web here. Hang on in there... through the yakking... (!) to the video at the end. It's, well... adorable. 

At first, I admit I hung in there just to see if Julie's reaction was natural or contrived. I mean, surely Jim wouldn't post this uber-private moment without his future wife knowing it in advance? Would he?

As a screenwriter and movie lover, I'm accustomed to exploring the lives of my characters. Characters are people too, after all; BUT...  characters live in my head. Not in Brooklyn! Watching Julie's eyes move across words I had already seen... knowing that I knew something she didn't... felt weird and voyeuristic, even a bit creepy. By then, I was too riveted to look away. One, I'm an unabashed sucker for love stories. And two, like most audience members, I hate to be left hanging. I wanted to see Julie say yes. 

When the climactic moment arrived, I did look away. Even though the kiss happened off screen, that moment was too private, if not for them, for me. I clicked off the video. Only then did I notice the filmmaker's name: Babb. Jim Babb. 

ooooooooo weeeee uuuuuuuuu...

It's a small, small world.

As I skipped around the rest of his blog, I discovered that Jim is a man of his word. It's one thing to perform a white boy rap for your school chums. To post it on a billboard to the world is quite another. It proves that Jim has taken his lady love's advice to heart: He's perfectly willing to laugh at himself... and allow the rest of us to do the same. No wonder Jim wants to spend his life with Julie. Maybe that's the fun of it all.    

The Bottom Line: When constructing the climax, give the audience exactly what they need to see. Nothing they don't. Some blanks the audience are perfectly happy to fill in for themselves. It pays to be brave enough to let them.

My Independence Day Blgo: Let Freedom Ring!

Yes, dear reader; I meant blog.

This weekend I did something I've never attempted before. I drew a cartoon. Ok, Ok, with respect to real cartoonists, it's not so much a cartoon as a doodle. But I had an idea, one I thought was funny enough to give it a shot. I only encountered two problems: What to draw, and what to write.

I can't draw, so that meant I had to figure out what absolutely had to be seen on the page. Which meant figuring out what information was important. Or, perhaps more importantly, what wasn't. 

It all started the way most good art does, with a true life experience. It was a Sunday like any other, except for the fact that my soon-to-be-estranged husband and I were actually (shock!) sitting at the breakfast table, at the same time, contemplating breakfast, to be eaten together. If you've ever been caught in the soon to be estranged scenario, then the aforementioned shock will make sense to you. (If not, well then, bully for you... and I hope you never do!)  

So on this particular morning, we were communicating, verbally, with one another, instead of via an iPhone (me) or the internet (him) with others. You see, my husband abhors national politics, and I abhor local ones, so he reads a local paper and I read a national. On this one occasion, for one odd reason or another, it just worked. We talked. And we laughed. It was a rather refreshing change. Perhaps we are not so soon as I once thought to be estranged.

We had a lovely breakfast. Then, with the plates finally scraped and the dishwasher humming, I sat down to my trusty sketchbook. I always keep on hand, (doesn't everyone?) just in case such an occasion should arise. It's good to be prepared. Drawing, I found, was nothing like writing. I didn't ponder where to start; or what to draw. In fact, now that I look back on it, I just sort of held the pencil, and let the brain tell the fingers where to go.

All through breakfast I thought about the dialogue between the two principles. I couldn't think of what to write. Something catchy and insightful, or at the very least clever. I gave up and drew in a placeholder. That's when it hit me... it really didn't matter what was being said, as much as who said it, and how. Like Uncle Ari says: Dialogue is character.  Bingo! That was that.  


The Bottom Line: I'm Al Lee, and I am recovering Perfectonista.

Today I declare myself free of the bonds of my Revisionist tendency to proffer over-edited voiceless text. In the name of Sorkin, King and shipping, I declare my independence, so that The Voice survives and The Work gets done. Perios.

Everything Old is New Again: Trolls, Redfined

Trolls, as defined by millenials and SM (that's Social Media) pros. 

What Trolls Can Teach You About Reputation Management
 written by JD Rucker, of Flowtown.
 
Hmmm... methinks my next mov(i)e is in there, somewhere. 

Gotta go brainstorm... Enjoy the post!

Thou shall not kill.*

Just read Michael Moore's commentary on the killing of the world's most notorious terrorist (in the recent past.) Love him or hate him, Mr. Moore is one of the great critical minds of our time. Which is to say, one of the great directors of our time.

Read the entire post here.  This part grabbed my attention:

"I was thrilled that the Osama bin Laden era was over. There was now an end to the madness.
Being near Ground Zero that night, I decided to head over there and join with others who saw this event as a chance to have some closure. On 9/11, Bill Weems, a good and decent man I knew and worked with (we had just recently completed a shoot together in Boston), was on the plane that was flown into the Twin Towers. I dedicated Fahrenheit 9/11, in part, to him.

But before leaving to go to the former World Trade Center site, I turned on the TV, and what I saw down at Ground Zero was not quiet relief and gratification that the culprit had been caught. Rather, I witnessed a frat boy-style party going on, complete with the shaking and spraying of champagne bottles over the crowd. I can completely understand people wanting to celebrate – like I said, I, too, was happy – but something didn't feel right. It's one thing to be happy that a criminal has been captured and dealt with. It's another thing to throw a kegger celebrating his death at the site where the remains of his victims are still occasionally found. Is that who we are? Is that what Jesus would do? Is that what Jefferson would do?

I was reminded of the tale told to me as a kid, of God's angels singing with glee as the Red Sea came crashing back down on the Egyptians chasing the Israelites, drowning all of them. God rebuked them, saying, "The work of My hands is drowning in that sea – and you want to friggin' sing?" (or something like that).
I remember my parents telling me how, on the day it was announced that Hitler was dead, there was no rejoicing in the streets, just private relief and satisfaction. The real celebration came six days later at the announcement that the war in Europe was over. THAT'S what the people wanted to hear – not just the demise of one evil madman, but the end to all the killing."

WOW. Talk about "eliciting an emotional reaction."

When I heard the news that Osama Bin Laden had been shot, I'm pretty sure I felt the same as most of America: Shocked, and then relieved. Happy? I can't say. I didn't go to any keggers, nor did I take to the streets, champagne in hand. Quietly I bought up every major newspaper I could find, to A) get the facts, and B) assure myself that the news was (is?) indeed true. I imbibed in Jon Stewart's comedic catharsis. I guess you could say that I, too, rejoiced, in my own way.


Then on this Saturday morning, at o'dark thirty, I read this. And I asked myself a question or two. Questions like, who IS America today? And where HAVE the statesmen gone?

It brought to mind another great line: Thou shalt not kill. No if's, ands, buts, or other disclaimers attached.

The Bottom Line: If the duty of Art is to question, then Really Good Art demands that the viewer question himself.