It was "this" big . . .
Whew!
I rolled back into Seattle on Saturday night after a whirlwind (and drama-packed) trip to Stamford, Connecticut to speak at Ryan Lee’s “Continuity Summit” event . . .
This was my first “official” speaking engagement in the IM space (I’ve been a guest and on panels a bunch) and I gotta admit I was a little nervous about it.
Got lots of feedback saying I was the best presenter on Thurs (and one of the best of the weekend) . . .
Here’s some of the exhausting (and awesome) lessons I learned along the way . . .
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Hey folks,
What a week.
As I write this I’m sitting in a crowded hospital room in Worcester, Massachusetts listening to the slow, labored breathing of Violet Fiore, my Grandmother.
Gram’s never going to leave this room.
At least not the way she did when she got here.
Every breath she takes is a mile on the road to the end of her life.
And sometime in the next day or so she’s going to come to the end of that road.
As I told my Aunt this afternoon, this is “Sad” but not “Tragic.”
Gram is 80 years old. And she’s lived a good life.
She’s laughed, she’s cried, she’s fought, she’s suffered indescribable pain and fantastic joy.
She’s raised two strong daughters, survived an alcoholic husband and put up with more heart ache and setbacks than anyone deserved.
And right now . . . right now she’s doped up on Morphine, surrounded by family and breathing her way to the end.
And me? I’m . . . happy.
Not because Gram is dying (she’s been a huge part of my life . . . the only Grandparent I ever really knew and a huge influence on who I am today.)
But because I’m able to be here.
Because I was able to drop everything, hop a cross country flight and just be here to watch her go . . .
To give my Mom a hug as she cries . . .
To be a “Rock” for my tiny little family.
And not have to worry about a “job” or a “boss” or anything like that.
Can’t even say how thankful I am for that.
To me, that’s freedom.
Please forgive me if you try to get in touch over the next few days and I don’t
answer.
Much love.
Chris
P.S. My favorite thing I’ve made up in a long time:
“It’s great when friends become family. It’s even better when family become friends.”
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Hey, folks.
Dominic Canterbury and I will be rolling our “Top Ten Marketing Mistakes” class out again August 29th at Richard Hugo House here on Capitol Hill.
More info Here.
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Hey, folks.
Just a reminder that I’ll be participating in 14/48, the world’s quickest theatre festival, tomorrow and Saturday as a writer. That’s right, you can see Haddonic whackiness spewing forth from the mouths of unsuspecting actors for just 15 bucks. More info at 1448fest.com
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Episode one of Cherub: The Vampire With Bunny Slippers, Season 2 is now up and available at Caution Zero.
Check it out. It’s a goodun.
c
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Just finished up a lovely 20 minute conversation with Lisa Haneberg of the Management Craft blog. We chatted about focus, yoga, choice and how to defeat self doubt and the empty page syndrome.
Lisa will be carving our little conversation into a podcast sometime after 7/4. Watch this space for details.
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So, strangely (and shockingly) enough, I’ve got a life outside of sales letters and websites and overall marketing wonkishness.
For the last ten days I’ve been putting in long hours playing “Roger Pipebomb” on the set of Cherub: The Vampire with Bunny Slippers. The show is sort of a “Guerilla Sitcom” mashing up parodied characters from Joss Whedon’s old vampire show “Angel” with a lot of monkees/f-troop/police squad kind of humor. In other words, it’s silly as all get out, exhausting to produce and probably some of the most fun I get to have. I wrote two episodes of the upcoming season and, as an actor, got to show up to work covered in oil, dressed as a pirate and wearing a massive Trump-style wig.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that somehow along the way I managed to contract a nasty case of strep throat. I got into the doctor today and am four pills through a shiny orange bottle of antibiotics, but let me tell you, trying to act chipper and charming on set when it feels like someone is stabbing you in the throat? Not so fun.
We should be getting press in Wired online and The Stranger over the next month and then season two launches just before July. Viva la revolucion! Viva Caution Zero!
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Bone tired. Exhausted. That’s what I am. Since Thursday night I’ve been filming season two of Cherub: The Vampire with Bunny Slippers.
And like I said, I’m exhausted. I feel like I’m about to fall right off this chair and curl into the fetal position for a six-hour nap.
Best part? I’m back on set at 6 tonight and will keep right on keeping on right through the weekend.
But there’s an upside. And that upside is this: When you’re acting in a film, you get lots of time to think. Granted, most of that time is spent thinking “Shoot, do I know my line?” and “Man, when is crafts services getting here?” and “I wonder if I look fat in this pirate costume.”
But sometimes, as you’re sitting there on take 15 trying your darnedest not to trip over your three each boots, you find yourself thinking something useful. Something like “Huh, on a film set you really have to pick and choose when you should make some sort of witty comment and when you should just keep your mouth shut. And that’s just like a marketing piece. That’s just like sometimes you’ve got to just clam up and let your prospect do what they need to do to make the sale.”
It was like an epiphany. Only shorter. And did I mention the pirate costume?
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Last night Dominic Canterbury and I did an encore presentation of our “Top Ten Marketing Mistakes made by Small Businesses and What to do about them” class. We had a great turn out (in fact we were technically overbooked) and managed to cram quite a bit into one long two hour stretch. Dan McComb has posted some comments and pictures (goofy pictures, in my opinion) on the Biznik Blog. Chem it out.
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Presented by web word merc Chris Haddad and roving web dev Daniel Talsky.
Stumped by the web? Wondering what you really need a website for anyway? Still think frames, flash and splash pages are a good idea? Join us on April 17th, 7PM (Location TBA) for a frank look the whacky world of the web and what it means to small business today.
This class has space for up to 20 members - rsvp required to into@biznik.com. Location TBA.
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