A lot of funny stories have an emotional truth lurking behind the laughs. And so do a lot of "meaningful" stories contain some good humor (and not the ice cream confection kind of Good Humor). This is the story I mentioned in the last post and it's funny and has to do with friendship and taking oneself too seriously, etc.
I was working out the ideas for the Io Jaxx trilogy, working on the first story, "Forged in the Fire," and as usual, the idea started with a bedtime story for my two boys and then morphed into a song and then into a screenplay. I sent the lyrics to the Gassmen and Mark Menning came up with this wonderful pair of guitar licks and a patter/rap treatment.
Well, "Forged . . ." is meant to be campy and more than a little corny - and so when Muck played with the pseudo-seriousness of it, I was all excited about how good this was going to be. Things like, "Now the temptation was high," which in my version was the end of the verse. But Muck delivered: "Now the temptation was high ... (beat, beat, beat) ... it was extremely high." I loved it!
So it came time to lay down the tracks. The synth drum part was good and the guitar licks and bass and keyboards all came together. And it was the evening and the morning of the fourth day and the Gassmen saw it and it was good. Muck came to me and he said, "Don't worry, when I do the final vocal take I'll do it straight," and I was like, "Whoa, no! Do it the way you did the first time." And he got it - had gotten it the first time. And the story that's told goes like this
I often wonder who has the balls to be irreverent when money is involved. I'm afraid the "executives" who filter Hollywood's queries and spec samples are under pressure (or feel the pressure) to use metrics and tried-and-true formulas in deciding whether or not to send a spec up the chain to people who can actually say yes. Not to be unkind but I suspect there's no clanking sound when they wander around their office. Maybe they keep 'em "in a jar by the door."
To quote the sage, "It's a hard world to get a break in."
I was working out the ideas for the Io Jaxx trilogy, working on the first story, "Forged in the Fire," and as usual, the idea started with a bedtime story for my two boys and then morphed into a song and then into a screenplay. I sent the lyrics to the Gassmen and Mark Menning came up with this wonderful pair of guitar licks and a patter/rap treatment.
Well, "Forged . . ." is meant to be campy and more than a little corny - and so when Muck played with the pseudo-seriousness of it, I was all excited about how good this was going to be. Things like, "Now the temptation was high," which in my version was the end of the verse. But Muck delivered: "Now the temptation was high ... (beat, beat, beat) ... it was extremely high." I loved it!
So it came time to lay down the tracks. The synth drum part was good and the guitar licks and bass and keyboards all came together. And it was the evening and the morning of the fourth day and the Gassmen saw it and it was good. Muck came to me and he said, "Don't worry, when I do the final vocal take I'll do it straight," and I was like, "Whoa, no! Do it the way you did the first time." And he got it - had gotten it the first time. And the story that's told goes like this
I often wonder who has the balls to be irreverent when money is involved. I'm afraid the "executives" who filter Hollywood's queries and spec samples are under pressure (or feel the pressure) to use metrics and tried-and-true formulas in deciding whether or not to send a spec up the chain to people who can actually say yes. Not to be unkind but I suspect there's no clanking sound when they wander around their office. Maybe they keep 'em "in a jar by the door."
To quote the sage, "It's a hard world to get a break in."
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