Memories and Ideas

Reboot

There are days when the startup CHIME from my laptop on my desk of the moment feels less like a machine turning on and more like somebody opening a drawer in the back of my head. There are flashes of images that go with that CHIME.

I’m in the stands at a high school, watching my oldest catch a no hitter as a freshman. A picture I’ll never forget because the team poured out of the dugout to congratulate the pitcher. And that’s right. He threw the no hitter. But also, he was a senior and all the players on the team knew him. The Hitting Coach for Pirates Minor League Team was only a freshman at this point. The team didn’t really know him as well as the pitcher who they spent years with. The picture in my mind is all the players surrounding the pitcher and the Head Coach of the team with his arm around The Hitting Coach for the Pirates Minor League Team. The Head Coach was whispering in his ear and walking him towards the celebration.

“What did Coach tell you out there after the game?”

“That I did my job. Called a great game. Framed. Protected. That the pitcher hadn’t done that the three years before I got to the school.”

Love that memory. Says so much about those people. And also, about what I value. Do the work. Let that work speak for itself. Feel good about it because you know you did good. And, hopefully, some one person will also see it, and give you a thumbs up. That’s all you need.

Another flash as the APPLE chimes to start a new day.

This one is me driving on a back road by myself on the way to Canada for work. It’s like a dream and a memory because I remember the details vividly, but the names all escape me. And then I let my mind relax and the town name comes back. Aurora, Oregon. I love finding small towns and stretching my legs for a walk and explore expedition. I parked near a railroad track, crossed it and found a sweet old vintage street with a tiny café at the end of the block. I walked in and the woman working there asked immediately if I had time for some pie she had just made. It had to cool for a little bit, and I could have a sandwich while it cooled. Probably the greatest small town “upsell” marketing move ever, but I fell for it. I sat and had a great sandwich. And then a slice of apple pie and a scoop of ice cream. While I ate, people came in. Kids from school wanting a snack. Old people who ran antique shops. Or were they Antique people who ran Old shops, hard to distinguish as I enjoyed my meal. For years I tried to find it in my photos. To no avail. Until this very moment. Where I pulled up the “map” tab and bam. Aurora, Oregon. Before I saw that, it was only that picture of me crossing the railroad tracks to go get warm pie.

So many places like this that I fantasize about living in. Where all I do is wake up in a house I paid cash for, walk down to a café like this, get a coffee and sit and watch the world go by. And thanks to billionaire tech people, I was able to piece together where this one was.

Another flash as the APPLE chime starts a new day.

I’m sitting on the back patio of a resort in Tucson on a cold windy day. The fire pit is lit and my Uncle Dave has popped by to see me on his way to work. We sit out and look at the desert and hang and talk. I don’t know it’s the last time I’ll see him alive. We hug and he says, “Love you, Pete.” One of the very few humans who call me that. I don’t know why I was in Tucson, or why I was at that resort. I don’t usually stay at resorts. More of a Hotel Congress guy, but there it is. “Love you, Dave.”

A good reminder to take time with people. Look at your feet. Be where you are.

Besides letting you know that I restart my computer on a regular basis, even though I’ve heard it’s bad for the laptop, what am I getting at here? Here’s what.

“Where do your ideas come from?”

One of the most often asked questions I get, and the hardest to answer. So, is it a dumb question then? Do I rattle off a quick hit list of FIVE DUMBEST QUESTIONS a writer gets? Like, “Which character do you write for?”

Nah. It’s not a dumb question. Look around at the scarcity of new ideas out there. I wrote about how much I liked “Obsession,” a few weeks ago. I thought (but didn’t write about it), “I bet it’s only a matter of weeks before every studio is trying to option any YouTube short creator that isn’t already signed to get a chance to get in on the lottery of ideas that is, “YOUTUBE!” Spoiler alert. It’s not YOUTUBE. The fresh idea, is, well, any fresh idea. Back when reality shows were starting to rise, a comedy writer friend said that all the big Reality Shows were just the hacky late season episodes you’d see on tired sitcoms. The Talent Show episode is American Idol/The Voice. Survivor is just the episode where everyone gets lost in the woods on a campout. Big Brother is the “Stuck In A—” episode. Stuck in the basement, the store, the zoo, the museum. My friend also said, “I know that’s the thing. But I don’t know how to reverse engineer it into an idea I can sell.”

“Where do ideas come from?”

For me, they come from the back of my brain. The back of my brain is a garage full of half-broken, totally valuable things. Just like my real garage. And even though it’s a mess (also like my real garage), I know where everything is that I want.

As long as I’m relaxed. If I’m rushed, or in a hurry. If someone says, “Get me your best idea in an hour,” I’m screwed. I won’t find it. My best idea in an hour is whatever I’m already working on. If you want a new idea, I have the back of my brain. And if I stay relaxed, things will emerge.

Like here’s another one. An idea. Not just a memory. But based on a memory.

A kid is playing on the beach. He’s around eight. He does the pail of sand thing, makes a sandcastle. Kicks it over. Heads into the water. He doesn’t love swimming, because he wears glasses and when he swims, he doesn’t have them on, so he can’t see things real well. But he loves the ocean and loves being out in it, as long as he can touch sand. He drifts out and teases himself, tests himself. Going out just far enough that he can’t touch sand. And has to dogpaddle or tread water to get back in far enough to touch sand. And he keeps doing this forever. Feels like forever. Each time he goes a little bit further out. Why does he do this when he doesn’t love being out of control? Because he’s also a kid with asthma. And when he has an asthma attack, one of the medicines they give him if it’s really bad is a shot of adrenaline in his hip. Guess what? Now he loves that rush of adrenaline and will do things to try and make the same feeling he gets from that shot in the emergency room.

At this point, I bet you are thinking, “MY god, that kid is going to drown. He’s not a great swimmer, he has asthma and he’s eight!” Good. I’m glad. I want you to think that. Here’s what happens next.

He decides it’s time to come back in. So he lets the next wave carry him to the shore. And when he gets there, and walks straight ahead towards where his mom was, he can’t find her. She left. She’s gone. There’s a different family on a different blanket, in the EXACT SPOT he knows she was in. When he went into the ocean, he stayed in the same line, he didn’t swim side to side. And now he thinks his parents ditched him. Does he panic? Maybe he starts to panic. He doesn’t have glasses on, he can’t see real well, it would make sense for him to panic. But before that happens, a voice says, “Time to go. Are you ready to go?” And someone grabs his hand. He looks at the person, now that they are close enough for him to see. It’s not his Mom. But know what? He says, “Yup. I’m ready to go.” And he leaves with an entirely different family than he came to the beach with. Is he testing out his eight year old version of, “How do I get an adrenaline rush?” to an exponential degree? Seeing how far it will take him? Is he being abducted? Has he gone out into the ocean and come back in to a parallel universe and this is his mom here? Is parallel universe him heading home with his mom in the universe he just came from? Or is his mom running up and down the beach in a panic, having lost her nearly blind, asthmatic son in the ocean.

That’s a memory, but now it’s an idea. Only thing you can do is follow it and see where it goes, right?

Maybe that’s where ideas come from. Not nowhere. That’s the thing the question asker maybe doesn’t get. They come out of living. Out of the moments that stay in you long enough to turn from memory into story.

Starts as a memory. Now it’s an idea. And maybe that’s all an idea ever is, a moment from your life that won’t stay put.

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