Straight away, First thing

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Good size for mug 🙂

That was my first time using the quick photo feature.  Right now I’ve got, well a decent supply of coffee and a 300 page notebook and a bass which is pretty well perfect.  I have considered bringing a coffee maker in here too but as Cece is also in here I’m not sure her feelings on me brewing in here at 6am.  I could sneak in a Bodum perhaps.

Today we have the Emma and Mandy table read which I’m very excited to get into.  With the main shoot for the demo/pilot coming up it will be great to start working one on one with the cast again.  With recent events of course things have not been easy.  Wolf was not only a great cast member and someone who got our dream and our idea straight away but he was also my Cece’s beloved cousin.  We will be doing a tribute to him in the Ollie and Emma WordPress site early next week when we have time to focus on it properly.

I’ve also been working on a new blog story idea that comes from my own background of working in Victoria and living in James Bay where all the big hotels are situated.  It’s called Closer to Heaven and it’s a romance set here in working class Victoria, BC.  Our city is perfect for that, which I know any local anywhere would say but we are set on the ocean and one of Victoria’s quirks is, thinking of my mention of James Bay, the number of little mini towns within Greater Victoria and how, as I mentioned, the very rich and others can not only live close by but even right next door.  This also leads to all kinds of exchanges and therfore story possibilities.

Cookeilidh is also starting up our festival season which is looking to be really busy!  After such a supportive crowd at The Highland Games our next show is June 7th at World Ocean Day in Sidney, right down by the water.  Moving here almost 30 years ago now from the Mainland to Saanichton it’s great to play only a few blocks away from where I got my first bass! 
If you haven’t yet, follow the band on Facebook!

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Victoria Highland Games!

Created by TomPogson.com

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Unconventional love

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It took me a bit to come up with an unconventional love for today’s prompt after going through the discussion about love a few days back.  Love for people and pets is considered understandable fair game that no one would question you for and so anything outside that box is naturally going to seem strange.  There was the runner up of the characters I create but as someone who is putting them self out there as a writer that seemed a bit cheesy.  But at the same time so does this as a musician.  I can only suppose that cheese is inherant within this subject.  As a barista a love of coffee…same.  As a man love of women…I probably should just leave that one alone.  You get the idea.

So I chose headphones.  It’s not naughty by any stretch of the imagination.   And no, I’ve never walked around listening to naughty noises.  Though I could see the surreal quality of listening to amore secretly while taking public transport to return bottles.  I think it would get old fast and I would probably prefer podcasts or music in its place.

But with that extreme concept aside it does show the reason I enjoy them so much.  Within those speakers you have total freedom to create a world of enjoyment that is tailored to what you want.  It’s a wonderful chance to explore something new while you are already in transit, feel the comfort of something heard before, or stay dialed in with local radio.  I know when I use to do Janitorial my connection to local talk radio made every bit of difference as I didn’t feel quite as disconnected to the rest of the world.  These recent ones are Bluetooth so I can also make phone calls from them, though this isn’t always best as you do get to look a bit strange talking like that, but people can suppose it is Bluetooth.  I have also used my headphones as I mentioned before to “test drive” music I have created, taking it out of the home studio context and setting it against the world outside.  As a cleaner I have also spent loads of time with, well, what use to be books on tape but is now podcasts, downloads and things that end with “this is Audible.”

You can use them before work like audio caffeine to get you going. You can switch to a soft playlist to slow things down again.  Another unconventional love I nearly used was that of public transport actually because when you get a decent spot (which is what failed this title as it is not always possible) you can use headphones to create a insular world of quiet ambience and with another honorable mention, my 300 page notebooks, you can use this world to create while you are already on the go.  I created not only ideas this way but entire characters have come from these moments in the back of a low floor double decker passing Uptown on the way to Craigflower and Tillicum where I use to live.  Longer the ride the better.  With headphones on and my Memo app (yet another) I planned my entire last move while supposedly “stuck” on a BC Ferry returning from Christmas holidays.

If you listen to music this way it actually spurs you to discover more music as you naturally want to expand the range of what you hear.  It is where I discovered Karl Pilkington and the Ricky Gervais Show, headphones on, cleaning my way through a newly renovated office.  I also listened in that same place to Sol Stein on writing, which I can’t praise highly enough.  Between those two gentleman’s work was quite possibly my drive to create comedy because a year later I was on the set of my first film shoot.  That film didn’t work out, but my present project with Cheri Jacobs continues to build towards completion.  It’s called Ollie and Emma and if you haven’t seen that yet, please check us out on one of our social media platforms.

Our WordPress blog
Ollie and Emma on Twitter! 
Ollie and Emma on Facebook!
And Instagram too! 🙂

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Cheri Jacobs and I


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Ollie and Emma - The Series

Created by TomPogson.com

Stopping to catch up

Sort of a good time to catch up as we are at the start of March.  It’s my birthday month (ok that’s self indulgence, I apologize) but sitting on a bus with more posters it’s kind of less imposing though.
I don’t really get concerned about my age most of the time.  My main inspirations created their best work past 30 so it doesn’t even phase me.
March is St Patrick’s month and that means I get to do lots of shows with Cookeilidh (presently out in James Bay with posters. ..trying to get to each of Victoria’s micro communities.  And there is a whole lot of those.  A friend and I were discussing that.  It’s one of the cool things about our city and the diversity that’s been here since the Gold Rush but perhaps that’s why travelling across town feels so epic.  It’s like you’re going through six towns before you get to where you’re going.

Ollie and Emma is still very much active too with setting up everything with our awesome new executive producer Less Bland Productions and Cheri and I are working not only on that but on creating other pitches that we could also use in the future.  Our next skit is slated to be one featuring our two fun surreal elders played by Fred Samuel and Wolf Rick Patterson and we will soon be starting the table reads and rehearsal for that.  I get a lot of questions about when do I sleep…i use a memo app so far.  Maybe one day I’ll have a secretary with a memo app.  We’ll have matching memo apps.  That would be amazing.

Oh yeah, and when I have time I’ve been playing around with a little blog story.  I’ll try to keep it pretty regularly posted at least until the story is done.  I’m typing this on a phone and sometimes the auto suggestions are far more interesting than what I write.  I have got to meet that guy someday.  Anyways the new blog is at…

https://journalbymax.wordpress.com/

Have to cut this a little short as I’ll miss my stop. 

Cheers,
Tom

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