As part of trying to put together a portfolio showing off all my best stuff, I am going through the hundreds of videos on my YouTube account and picking out the ones I really like.

And it occurred to me that I might as well post them here!

This is in reverse chronological order, oldest to newest.

So how about starting with SHOW?

Ah, simpler and more innocent times. Back when I was pretty depressed, but much younger. If I could only send a message back to my younger self, I would tell him to demand individual therapy and raise hell until he got it.

Might as well start that five year journey out of depression ASAP.

Anyhow, nostalgia side, watching this vid made me remember how much I loved editing video. It’s such a rich and rewarding form of composition. It’s like writing with video, and it can be a lot of fun, although it is also very hard work.

Here’s one of my more provocative talking head pieces :

The message – that bad parents love their kids just as much as good parent – is one that flies in the face of a lot of people’s deeply held beliefs – including mine. The modern pattern of growing up angry about what your family did wrong in raising you has, at its deepest level, the assumption that if they had loved you enough, they would not have made those mistakes.

I feel that way all the time.

But it doesn’t hold up. Parenting is a skill. Some are better at it than others. Love is an emotion. Poor parenting and amount of love have little to do with each other. We have no reason to think that bad parents don’t feel the same love for their kids as the good parents. They are just worse at showing it and/or not good at handling kids.

Perhaps this realization is the last step in admitting to yourself that your parents are imperfect human beings just like you, neither gods nor demons, and that they did the best they could. No matter what, they were going to get some things wrong, and you were going to be angry at them for it.

It’s hard to let go of that resentment. It often doesn’t feel like they did the best they could or that they loved you enough, because while the events are in the past, the pain they caused is still with you to this very day.

But if we, and especially me, can forgive and forget, it would be a big step toward being able to grow up and move on with our lives.

How about some of my award-eligible storytelling?

Looking back from this heady future where I am a whipcrack-smart VFS grad, I can see that I could tell the same story in about half the time and/or word count. But still, not bad for something done impromptu and without any cuts.

I should try my hand at writing one of those “humorist” books full of homespun stories told with wry but loving wit and just a little bit of wisdom as well.

The CBC types love that kind of thing. Hence the popularity of the Vinyl Cafe and its stories over the years. It’s feel-good stuff and God knows, the world needs that right now.

But could I love with myself? Could I survive become a beloved Canadian storyteller? Could I go on knowing that I couldn’t be nearly as snarky and sarcastic any more?

I have my doubts. Sooner or later, I would snark at someone in an interview and then it would be all fallen hero bullshit.

Not worth it.

How about some music?

I did a lot of these little snippets of music, and to be honest, most of them are terrible. But I have a great fondness for this one, and not just of the cute ducks. It’s also because of the fun, silly vibe of the whole thing. It makes me smile. And it’s also because it turned out to be one of my most professional sounding songs, and that is what I have been trying to achieve for years.

Music that sounded like it had been done with live instruments, in a studio. Not like it had been done by some fat dude with a sample based composing program and only a vague idea what he’s doing.

Perhaps I will delve into that world again. But this time, I will invest the time and energy to make things as good as I can, or failing that, as good as I can before my mind dissolves in confusion and I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing any more.

It happens more often than you’d think.

Time to interpret some lyrics!

To me, that end bit from WKRP was like the Holy Grail of incomprehensible lyrics. It’s been a mystery to me ever since I watched that show when it aired. I eventually came to the same conclusion that everybody else does, namely that there are no words and the singer was just improvising gibberish that sounded like lyrics.

But a little part of me still wanted there to be words, and it was for that part of me that I made that video.

They might not be THE lyrics, but they are MY lyrics, dammit!

Have I done one of these yet? I better do one of these.

After all, I made a ton of them. At least 21, apparently.

I have never been entirely happy with the format. Looking back, I should have been quiet for the first few seconds of each slide to give the audience time to read and get the joke before doing my own riff on the thing. That’s how people like Jay Leno do it, and it works.

Still, I am a pretty funny guy. Imagine what I could do with a budget!

That’s enough for this trip down memory lane. More tomorrow, unless something else comes up and I just have to blog about it.

I will talk you nice people again tomorrow.