"Nobody knows anything"

Many years ago, I thought I was going to be the next great screenwriter. I still feel that way, I’m just saying I felt that way back then too (haha). I was going to be this brilliant intellectualist who could observe people and tie together stories of years past and current events, essentially lecturing people “stentorian from the mount”, and eventually end up on Charlie Rose, the Today Show and podcasts that were produced out of studios in New York and basements in Minnetonka. I’m not as interested in all that anymore, but if someone wanted to compare me some day to Paul Thomas Anderson, I wouldn’t “shush” them. 

Last summer, I was lucky to be connected to someone at a major Hollywood studio, based on a writing project I did with the connector. That someone at the studio, who shall remain nameless, wanted me to send him some of my outlines and scripts (I sent three to him) and then he would give me feedback or a job during our scheduled Zoom call. 

At the time, I was geeking out on Ken Burns’ Civil War series as I do multiple times a year for 10+ years now. It’s a tradition. I got extremely motivated for a short time to write a story about a famous/infamous Civil War general who is beloved in the northern portion of the country and hated in the remaining half. The outline was perfectly organized and the script had detailed scenes of battle and also emotional conversations and reflections. Entertaining, revealing and also gut wrenching stuff. 

The executive at the studio read over this script, and thought the story, the pacing, the scene transitions were all clunky but praised my use of time period appropriate dialogue and research. Ultimately he just didn’t feel like the structure was very good and was critical of this project more than the other two. 

What I didn’t reveal to him was that for this story, I used the exact, and I truly mean exact, scene transitions, Act structure and flow that the movie, Amadeus (1984) did. Shot for shot, scene for scene. 

So what the Hell does all this mean?

Most people have no fuckin’ clue what they are talking about, especially the people you are waiting around on for answers. This applies to almost any area of life and only few exceptions exist. Waiting around for someone to approve something or for validation from a source can be deadly, trust me, I have a decade of experience in this tactic. 

Amadeus (1984) was nominated for 53 awards and won 40, including Academy Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Picture, Best Actor (2 nominations) and Best Director. It has been widely considered to be one of the best films ever made.

But you already know this because you were likely forced to watch the movie in high school. 

“Nobody knows anything” - William Goldman

My son got in trouble at school because of my TikTok

If you are a parent who sent your kid to school this morning, you deserve a moment to distract yourself and laugh with this true story. 

MY SON GOT IN TROUBLE AT SCHOOL BECAUSE OF MY TIKTOK

On Tuesday, May 24th, around 1:30pm, my wife looked at her phone and noticed she had an unopened voicemail. It was one of those classic instances that all Verizon customers know all too well, where there is no missed call but a voicemail just appears.

The voicemail was from Lane’s principal at the elementary school, someone who Katie and I really enjoy and respect, that started out in her traditionally stern tone and ended with a light hearted sense of “it really wasn’t that big of a deal, but I wanted to inform you”. 

On Monday, I did a conditioning workout at a football field close to home. I typically film myself doing those types of workouts to convince myself that I have a lot of work to continue to do in order to reduce the amount of embarrassment revealed on the footage. It’s a self deprecating motivational technique that has only recently started to work for me. Within the video, I caught an angle of myself where my dumper looked fair/decent while I was catching my breath. At that moment, I decided that I would create a TikTok post using a trending comedic audio clip and I would become famous. Basically it was a video of me with my hands on my hips, staring off into the distance, inhaling as much air as I could between reps, with my clothed ass as the focal point. 

At home, Lane overheard me using the audio and editing the video before posting it and due to his allergies I could hear him hovering over me with the occasional mucus droplets being sprayed into the air. His congestion - made the suggestion- that there was no question- that in hindsight it would have been better to use abstention- to avoid the forthcoming intervention. 

I posted the video and would periodically check the video to see who “liked it”. So with the editing process and then checking the notifications, the video was played probably 23 times. 

Katie said “Oh I have a voicemail. And it’s from Lane’s school”. The look of surprise, horror, embarrassment, and trying to hold back a giggle was all I could read from her as she listened. She said, “I need to play this for you because you won’t believe it if I told you”. 

According the Lane’s principal, who had already talked to Lane and other witnesses: Lane was in the line to exit the lunch room when he pulled the back of his pants down just far enough so you could see the top of his butt crack and then turned in the other direction and waited for the student who was originally in front of Lane to turn around and notice.

Word eventually made it to Lane’s teacher, and then to the principal who brought Lane in to get his split of the story. Lane told the principal that he has seen comedians and actors on TV do the same thing and he thought it was funny, so he assumed everyone else would. 

My boy covered for me - he could have easily said “My dad posted a picture of his butt on TikTok and now he is famous online” but he didn’t. He didn’t snitch and he took the punishment in solidarity. 

On the ride home from school, we talked about the incident. And I explained to him 3 things: 

1. There are things that you may find funny that others may not. And sometimes people get offended by those things you think are funny, which is okay. If he were at a job and did that, he would be fired on the spot. 

2. What you did is funny, so you aren’t in trouble. This is a parenting technique I picked up from watching a stand-up comedy special with Damon Wayans and it helps me not to become a weirdo dad who cares way too much about what other people think. 

3. What he did doesn’t change the way we feel about him or embarrass us. He won the lottery 8 years ago when he was born into a family where there is nothing, really nothing, that would embarrass me as his father.

The question that remains is WHY is it that I can post a video on TikTok, making fun of my commode-fender and my son gets in trouble for airing out the Harmon Gap?

We may never know the answer to that question, but all I know is that I will be finishing the George Carlin documentary on HBO this afternoon and Lane will be serving his recess time with the principal today.