Quote of the day: Michael Shannon

Read a great quote on fatherhood the other day in the L.A. Times. It was near the tail-end of a fascinating interview with the freakishly-good Oscar-nominated actor, Michael Shannon (“Revolutionary Road”, “Boardwalk Empire”, etc.). Shannon was discussing his new role as a father to a young girl in the post-apocalyptic, “Take Shelter”, and mentioned how his real-life role as a father to a three-year-old girl prepared him for the challenges of the part.

On the subject of real-life fatherhood, Shannon had this to say: “You don’t understand until it actually happens. Your imagination can’t prepare you for what a powerful experience it is. It’s literally like a new nerve is inserted into your body and it runs straight into your heart, and it’s directly related to this other person.”

Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it described so well. Especially the part about how your imagination “can’t prepare you for” it. That is seriously, the truest thing I’ve ever heard. Nothing can prepare you for this job, no movie, book, song or inspiring fireside chat with an elder can even begin to prepare you for what lies ahead.

Thanks for putting it so beautifully, Mr. Shannon. Can’t wait to see your new movie!

The magic of Mac…

Man, I know it’s crazy and I should be working on other stuff right now, but I simply cannot stop reading about the passing of Steve Jobs. I feel like a really good friend died or something. So sad…

See, I’ve been a Mac loyalist since Mrs. Yeti and I first moved to Los Angeles in the early-90’s. I had just been accepted into the American Film Institute’s screenwriting program and I needed a new computer. We didn’t have any money, and my Dad wasn’t keen on supporting the whole grad school experience, so, I had to talk my Grandma Danaher into buying me my first Mac, or, as I put it at the time “loaning me the money to buy it”.

I think she kinda knew it was more of a gift than a loan, but, she went with it anyway. In fact, she was the only person I knew who didn’t try to talk me into buying a much-less-expensive PC. I guess my Grandma figured if her crazy, artsy grandson said he needed a Mac to help him create, well, that was good enough for her. So, she made it happen and a few days later I bought my first ever Apple Computer…a gleaming, super-sexy Quadra 605. Hot damn, that thing was sleek! Seriously, if I wasn’t already with Mrs. Yeti, I woulda left her for that computer quicker than you can say disc drive. I loved that Quadra to death — Literally. I only stopped using it when it officially died almost ten years later — and I have been a die-hard Mac geek ever since.

I wrote the first screenplay I ever sold on that Quadra and later on, several others on our even sexier 17-inch widescreen iMac G4, you remember the one with the egg-shaped thing on the bottom? That was my girl, actually, she still is…I just keep her in the garage now.

The music that inspired all that writing has been played on a series of iPods over the years and I wrote and rewrote several scenes on the set of my first produced feature film on my trusty Macbook, but the biggest thrill of all has been watching the ease with which Greta operates my iPhone. Seriously, she knows how to do everything but send text messages. And this afternoon as she slipped the phone out of my pocket to watch “Toy Story” for the three-hundredth time, I thought of two things. One was, holy shit, how fucking awesome is it that we can watch movies on phones these days?! And two is that all of this magic was brought into our lives by Mr. Steve-freaking-Jobs! I mean, even the movie came from a company of his. Amazing!

Anyway, thanks again for the many wonderful ways in which you touched my life, Mr. Jobs. The magic you created will be with us forever…

Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

I already posted a couple of pics and a very cool video of a deeply-moving commencement speech that Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005 on our sister blog, so, thought I’d break it up a little and post my favorite quote from the speech here.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose…you are already naked, there is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs

Man, just imagine all the amazing shit we could get done if we stopped caring what other people think and forged our own path through life. Steve Jobs didn’t just talk about changing things up and thinking different, he lived it. And the world, and my life for sure, is a better place because of it.

Thanks again for everything you did to make our world a much cooler and truly magical place, Mr. Jobs. You will be greatly missed…

Dancing queen…

As I may have mentioned a few times already, Greta had her first ballet/tap class this week and lemme tell ya, she had a blast. I tried to upload some video here a minute ago, but, I couldn’t figure out how to do it quickly or easily (words that Mrs. Yeti and I live by these days!) so, it will have to wait for another time. But, trust me, Greta looked adorable in her dance clothes!

Now, if I could only convince her NOT to wear her leotard, tights and dance shoes every day when she wakes up, all would be right with the world. Seriously, we had to practically cut her out of her leotard the other night for her bath…she is obsessed! And the tap shoes? Forget it. Those pretty little things — which we ended up buying at the dance studio for a very reasonable $25.00! — are safely in hiding till next Monday.

Oh, and on top of all that, Greta is totally making friends in class now too. Her BFF at the moment is a cute little red-haired girl named Fiona. And lucky for me, Fiona’s mom and Grandma are really cool too, so, I have someone to talk to in the waiting room while our little one’s dance. Hooray!