Tag Archives: Victoria BC

She’s from the Rez! An interview! Whoa!

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I’m sitting in Cook Street Village with a girl who you may have seen popping up on my different social media sites.  Her name is Cece (Cecelia) Sawyer and she is not only my sweety but she is also the in house consultant when Cheri and I are working on bits for our character Mandy, as a cultural consultant and she has been our photographer, extra, and more assistant on everything we do.  She is not only First Nations but she is born and raised on a reservation, namely the Scianew Beecher Bay Reservation near Metchosin, British Columbia.

Q. So, Cece, what was it like growing up on the Rez in Beecher Bay?

A. It was beautiful.  I lived with my grandparents for most of it.  I remember learning my manners and being polite.  I also learned a lot about Native traditions.

Q. How long were you there?

A. I was there all my life, until I was about twenty two I think.  My grandparents looked after me and my cousins.  I remember going to the First Nations church.  That was me and my grandparents and my mom.

Q. What kind of church was that?  Christian or Native, or a mix

A. It was Christian, praying to the same God.  Everybody thinks its not but it is.  I remember my mom using shaker bells and everyone singing Native Songs, in our language.  I remember shaking each others going around before we would leave.  Everyone in the church had to wear all white.  Some of the songs were healing songs.  That was cool

Q. What was in the Rez besides obviously homes.

A. Dogs!  Just kidding.  There is the Longhouse which I also call a smokehouse there.  They do ceremonies.  It’s called a smokehouse because of traditional fires used during ceremonies like funerals.  My uncle use to own a corner store there.  If you wanted to go off the reserve you had to get someone to take us because there was no bus service.

Q Is there a shuttle now?

A. No.  I’ve heard people to talk about it at the Treaty Conference at Ocean Point.  Once and a while you get to go to these.

Q. Is there anything else you remember?

A. Lots of Chief elections.  There was some partying back then.  I’m glad it’s not as much like nowadays.  I like going out to my Uncle’s for Thanksgiving.  He has a beautiful home that he built right on the Pacific Ocean.  The rez is now called Spirit Bay and it’s definitely changing for the better.

Once you’re there you’ll like it.

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It is very easy to get locked into a specific pattern.  The image above is an example of that.  I was working three jobs at the time, trying to finish a film project, going to university and watching things in these and personal places fall around me.  For some reason I had time that afternoon and went for a walk with headphones for the first time in ages.  Not all that much of an escape but something as simple as that is well worth it.  Take time and get out.  On your own.

Victoria is a wonderful place for doing just that.  Take a time each week where you intend to wander and take things slow.  One of my favorite books is “Faster” by James Gleick.  In this he talks about the number of ways we have tried to speed ourselves up, the multitasking and then fact that these things that were supposed to help have just given us excuses to need to go faster still.  Step out of all that.  It’s not real, you are.  There is so much to be grateful for here as a human being that it staggers the mind.  Literally anything you couldn’t think of is available for you to explore.  Our city is a dream of little communities within communities.  Go to a open stage night and listen to some of the musicians who have honed their craft alongside fellow musicians, some for decades now.  Go to Imax and watch a show you never would have thought of watching.  Explore the library for titles you never would have thought of.  Get lost in the streets of Oak Bay with headphones (you can always use google if you get hopelessly confused)  Twitter search #yyj to see what is going on in town today (and yes, you’ll probably run into yours truly on there.  I’m @tomrambles.  Hi!  :D)

Does this all seem a little oversimplified and not in the adult world?  Yes.  But I’ll be honest.  I’ve tried being an adult and I find it a mix of both stressful, kind of boring and not much in it.  Mostly joking there, and the ironic footnote is that this blog was not written in one sweep.  I don’t mean to run down the effort we all put in to be responsible but who the heck wants to make strata councils, finance and long line ups when we don’t have time our whole life?  In the arts and even in the martial arts there is the concept of the child’s mind.  It’s roughly related to the “from the mouths of babes” idea.  It’s also, I feel, connected to the same concept of meditation.

You step out of your reality and accept that you only know the world from your perspective in the same way that I know mine from mine and the guy driving the bus (for instance) knows his from his.  In creativity its like pretending you don’t know how to do your craft at all…now what are you going to do?

The best way to explore it all is with the sense of gratitude, which was the original spark that started this blog.  Feeling that your actually lucky is one of the best things you can do for yourself.  Being outside of your world and just exploring the city is one great way to discover how lucky you really are.  So leave all of the adult world behind for a couple hours.  Have the meeting tomorrow.  Go play outside.

Days are like little lives

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Perhaps it helps that I’ve had some background of being a morning person out of work related necessity.  I worked a lot in cafes and therefore being ready and bright early just started to flow after a while.  I’m also an insomniac so I kind of get a version of both with exhaustion kicking in somewhere midday. As I steer closer to my existence of working on my creative endeavours full time, my focus has become more about how to best use my time.  I’ve always had the job that set the days program and now I will be doing that.  I won’t go into the specifics of it all because it is not as mountaintop-with-guitar/notebook-and-windswept-hair as you think.  The image I chose probably doesn’t help with that.  I wanted to represent time.

So much gets piled on mornings I’ve found.  There is so much of that “first thing in the morning” suggestion out there that I almost think it is like your early years of child development.  Everything calls for attention.  The evenings are like later in life when you can relax. 

Which thing do you do first?  For me its morning-page like free writing with coffee and something light after a walk and then bass practice before steering into the primary work that I do.  I’ve heard exercise and water should be first.  The Artist Way series got my writing going first.  Some of these things I like at home and others out.  I don’t know who else feels this but there is some thing in leaving the home to work on a creative process elsewhere.  Your away from home distractions and you know are there to do the work.  The word work shouldn’t scare creators away.  Its still creative but as Billy Joel said “there’s a job…there’s a gig here…”

All of this hinges on any kind of major event.  And yeah, I do like structure.  It’s my parents coming out in me.  My mom is the creative and my dad is the logical former service planner for Hydro.

And so I’ll be up again, in the young hours with the practical and exhuberant playing out.

Til then…

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Interesting...

I actually was looking for that image of Richard Dreyfuss at the very end when he says those words (or close proximity to them).

I have really enjoyed keeping this on as a daily practice but the next few months are going to get really busy around here.  I have a day job and then on top of that I have my band Cookeilidh which is going into a very busy festival season including shows at the Butchart Gardens, Bastion Square, Car Free Day to name a few.  Ollie and Emma is also gearing up to go into it’s primary shoots which include our application to Bravo Fact and two mini shoots at least prior to that.  I like to approach each one of these entries with care and consideration, despite how short they are and I don’t want to put out material that is literally “I have a few minutes…bang something out…” 

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Will stop occasionally for lunch...

I don’t know how much time I will have for the “Closer to Heaven” blog either, but I’ll see how that goes.  There will be updates on the Ollie and Emma WordPress blog as that’s a necessary part of the show and I want to keep everyone updated on how things are going.  We recently lost a member of not only our cast but also a friend and my girlfriends beloved cousin Wolf Rick Patterson so we want to make our next blog a tribute to him before we move on to other behind the scenes filmmaking writings.

I should probably be back to working on here regularly somewhere between August and September after principal photography is finished and festival season draws more to a close.  Until then feel free to check out some of the links up above as well as some of the other parts of the site.  There are links to a number of platforms which I have been using including my twitter site which I am probably the most frequently on (it takes the least actual time)
Follow on Twitter!
So I’m going on a bit of a WordPress summer vacation.  If all the images aren’t a clue definitely rent Rosencranze and Guildenstern are Dead or take it in live.  It’s weird but full of cerebral fun including the fantastic game of questions.
Have a great summer everyone!

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Statement...

Created by TomPogson.com

The writer’s journey

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Last night in rehearsal

There’s that moment when your wheels grip into the dirt and you surge forward.  You get that when you ride a track as a cyclist and your out of your seat pedaling hard towards those mini bumps that you can jump from the first one, over second and down third if you’re on it.  You can’t do that quiet the same with a hybrid bike.  I tried that on a BMX trail, jumped the first and came down on the next two and got stuck.  Fortunately there was no crowd for that.  That’s why I don’t race.  Well, that and my days of cycling just aren’t what they use to be.

Writing has also been around since I can remember and the idea of doing something serious with it has been at my shoulder likewise.  But there wasn’t really any special drive before.  I just liked riding and writing and fighting Ganon on level 9 like I alluded to in the blog on Nintendo gaming.  There was the occasional story that was inspired by my love of Red Dwarf and other British comedies that between that, computers and so on, yeah I was a nerd.  I still am, but now there’s this nerd cool thing that I sort of fit into, but it’s mostly as an extra.

The process began with a mixture of Ricky Gervais, a Sol Stein audiotape and Uvic.  I had some academic success with scripts and working as a janitor I had time to listen to these to others basically showing me the finer points of writing comedy which I had wanted to do.

Eventually it was the first small production and even though it crashed and burned badly I do remember those moments along its trail.  There is the first time a real actor emails for an audition.  The first time you see the name of your project on a slate.  The more you put in the more you realize you want to make this world happen.

It was also around this time that I started working with Cheri Jacobs.  I had wandered into my first comedy writing completely alone and I felt like having a co-writer would help with this so I put out an ad.  Cheri’s response was the most down to earth and enthusiastic so I met up with her.  It was a great working partnership right away as we finished seven episodes of the old project before that couldn’t move forward and then starting playing around with new ideas and pitches.  From this came Ollie and Emma and our own production company, Jacob Pogson Productions Ltd. 

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Each step along the way has been great with sharing of our enjoyment of what we’ve read and our work which comes from some different and some like backgrounds.  We still work on new ideas and feed off of each others energy and what I can’t wait is to share that energy with the world out there.  The road continues…

Cheers,
Tom

Created by TomPogson.com

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

Show must go on

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With lucky socks and left hand shoe
string tie smell the curtain singe beneath
searing red lamps

Piled together, motley freaks clammy
in off stage nausea that’s
when I text her x’s and o’s
It’s all break a leg or not
And I switch off.

And I switch on
to that creature born
of makeup, smokes and stale coffee
pacing thin leopard

I will pull up the boards with my friends
Raising each riser and rafter
to each conceived end

With plastic stars in our eyes
and blue camera flashes

Tungsten tears and sweat
without ceasing or backing off
We rise and challenge as to battle
to fight for other sad clowns

Our pulse rising to heights of curtain falls like an angel’s blaze in flight

On with the show.

—-
Poem in memory of Wolf Rick Patterson, dear friend and passionate showman.

Created by TomPogson.com

The walk

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The first thing he heard was the scream.
It rang out cold and desperate, echoing far across the golf course and over where he knew was the shoreline.  The road ran straight through the course with home being still half an hour away.  He tried to peer into the dark to make sense of what he heard.  Nothing moved out there.  Ever direction was still.  The air itself froze until the cool sky.

Then came footsteps behind.
He could tell someone was back there.

He started walking faster, daring himself to glimpse back.  Behind him was just the road and the night which was liquid black.  Before him was the long winding road through the Oak Bay Golf Course.  He knew if he got through the course it would stop.  Nothing told him that but he knew.  Snubbed again at another house party and now this.  He walked fast.  Ashma wouldn’t let him run.  He needed his puffy as it was.  He looked into his coat for it as he walked faster.

He fell.  Something tripped him.  He hit the earth with his hands out to break his fall.  He went to rise and something shoved him hard down as he attempted to rise.

“Why?” a woman’s voice hissed in his ear on one side.

“Why?” that voice shrieked again but on the other.

He got up and ran.  Behind him he heard the sound of running.  He could barely breath.  His heart was bursting.  Tears ran down his face.  To one side he heard a shriek.

“No!  Don’t leave me damn you!”

He looked over.

The shape of a woman in tweed running was just a few feet beside him.  It ran through the brambles on the edge of the course, bursting through and then running ahead of him only to vanish and reappear on the other side.

The edge of the course neared.  He closed his eyes and ran like his lungs would burst. 

Suddenly a car sped around the corner.  He glanced in horror and dove out of the way.

Last thing he saw was the woman’s face, miserably sad as the world burst with pain, then black.

Created by TomPogson.com

What do you want to see happen?

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The universe awaits...

     
     What do you want?  You don’t have to tell me or anything but what’s out there off in the fine distant horizon?  What world do you see in your mind’s eye or in you wildest dream?  Don’t discount that. It’s something we do as adults.  We’ve learned to play down our importance and the importance of those thoughts.

     No, it’s not all about you, or me, but can’t you give more to the world from a place of strength?  That strength can come from anything too.  Some of the greatest lives were not lived in opulence.

     I still set goals pretty much yearly.  Some goals have made it and some are still, shall we say, in rotation.  The reason I like them so much is the sense of direction they give.  They don’t have to be big since little reachable targets can build slowly towards the big ones but big glorious ones are lovely to have.  They give you that sense of extra drive, like how amazing it would be to get there.

     Every massive thing started small.  There is the “journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step” cliche, which is true but maybe overheard.  I like the story behind Lord of the Rings.  How did that colossus of books and films start?

     It began with a young soldier in the trenches of World War I and a notebook.  That’s it.  One young Englishman jotting down the next idea, maybe playing off of what he last thought.

      That’s the idea right there.  You get an idea of what you want to see, even from the impossibly of your trench, and each day make those steps towards it.  Anything you do counts for something here.  There’s no real pressure here either because any focus on the goal is better than nothing.  Any screw up just tells you “what isn’t the sculpture” in the rock.  Your focus sharpens.  You start getting the picture clearer.  Even if it’s going out for a catalog at the Ferrari dealership.  You have to know what your buying. 

If you want that, naturally.  What do you see?

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Created by TomPogson.com

Nostalgia

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The road to Death Mountain...

Was there something about those games back then that captured the imagination?  I have tried since the passing of my NES from being in its longrunning spotlight to get into games like back then but to no avail.  I have come back to them with purchasing old games and emulators so I don’t know if is really that I grew out if it.

I mean it was a different time and place for me definitely.  Things were definitely simpler then.  That was the age when the Internet was still just a rumor and we had a Comtex 386, which was pretty high end.  Which leads me to how gaming was.  Nintendo was better for action games and the IBM was better for R.P.G’s  Windows was very much in its infancy.  I would load games with MSDOS, the MS standing for…yeah they were already around.  Some games had sound but it was in clunky clips.  These stuck with words below the “action”

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Alexander takes a mint...

I confess I didn’t get to play as many of the Quest series as I would have liked to.  There was something about all this that was wonderfully mysterious though.  There was other players you could talk to in person but mostly you were on your own and as the game didn’t have perfect audio and video you filled in the rest somehow with your head as you worked through it.  It was also relatively simple to play with instructions being about the size of a slightly oversized pamphlet to Fable Cottage Estate that you would pick up on a BC Ferry.   That was my weirdest ever hobby as a kid.  Pamphlet collecting.  Yeah, I don’t get that one either.

If you really wanted to nerd out you could put on a Monty Python cassette and play this at the same time.  Glorious!

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I'm a lumber jack. ..

The above game was a long time favorite which I’ve yet to find a emulator of that comes close.  It was called Empire Wargame of the Century and it was essentially a risk style game with two other players, human or computer, lurking out there in the darkness that would play and explore in turns.  It was usually a slow victory even if you made your settings absurdly easy.

It was a very different time for those of us who first saw the excitement of those early computer game years, starting for me with Apple 2 games like Carmen Sandiego, Choplifter, Airheart and Cross Country Canada all the way until Final Fantasy and these four guys from the Sierra Games.

Just four guys in a game, you know…

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Leisure Suit Larry, Police, Space, and Kings Quest

Permit me to be the nostalgic old guy.   Those were the days…

😉

Tom

Created by TomPogson.com