That was a few years ago. Fast forward to 12th
June 2013 and I am hot, bothered and fidgeting with anticipation at attending ‘A
Conversation with Joss Whedon’ at the BFI Southbank.
Joss Whedon is someone whom I greatly respect. Back in the
day, I came home one night from a very late gig to see the end of Buffy and
watch as she finally had sex with Angel and then to my horror, watch him become
Angelus….roll credits..Say what now?! I had initially avoided Buffy. The film
was still fresh in my mind and I didn’t relish the idea of watching said
cheerleader in varying degrees of live action Scooby Doo and the gang type adventures.
Talk about getting it wrong. One of the amazing things about
Mr Whedon is having the ability to know what it is we want to see. We see that
thing and then we need to see more. I wanted to hate Buffy but how the hell
could I? Don’t get me wrong, there are episodes where I have been very tempted
to find Mr Whedon and ask him what the hell he is playing at (see Season 4, Riley
arc in particular, exception Hush) but then he comes up and delivers not only
the things I need to see but forces me to watch the things I really didn’t want
to. You have to be a stone cold sonofabitch not to melt at ‘The Body’.
So here I am and so it begins and I won’t go into a blow by
blow about everything he said. What I can say is that being in his presence is
inspiring. He talked about his despair about the lack of great females
characters in television and movies. That for all the Buffy achieved, we still
haven’t got there. He spoke of the fact that especially in the horror
franchise, we just have characters that seem to be cannon fodder who we don’t
engage with, we just watch them get hacked to bits. And then there was Firefly…
Hearing him talk about it, adding the emotion of this fully
formed show that didn’t have to become something, because it was already there
was just heart-breaking. It was like going thru the whole thing again as he
charted the rise and fall of Firefly. I could not help but shake my fists at
the world and ask, “Why God wwwwhhhhyyyyy!”
You could listen to Joss be insightful and self-deprecating
and well, just pretty damn awesome for the entire night. It was a tremendous
experience, which merely happened through a twist of fate but the best thing to
come out of it was the answer to a question. The question was the typical, “How
do I be a writer and get into the industry?” It’s a question that the world
never stops asking of people like Joss, how did you do it? How come you got
there? Gimme the guide, gimme anything?! And I once again had to bow to this
man for what he said, “If you want to be a writer then why aren’t you writing?
You have to do it. There are so many avenues now so just do it, write, get your
stuff out there.” Just like that…BOOM! This is a guy who has had varying
degrees of success. There are a lot of ‘couldn’t happens’ that come along with
Joss. I remember hearing when he was originally touted as the director for
Avengers the naysayers queued up in droves. For a second I held my breath
because I knew that if he blew this then that would be it.
That night inspired me to keep going, to put my words out
there because it’s something that I love to do and am pretty good at. The sheer
tenacity of the man, made me fix the hell up, stop being afraid and put pen to
paper for an audience. So here I am, my mind now fixed on watching some Firefly
but mainly grateful for the experience of listening to the insights of a great
writer.
Enjoy my latest alcoholic offering while remembering that I
can kill you with my brain….so just to be safe look out for my next blog.
Sereni-Tea (Firefly/Serenity cocktail) – Courtesy of The
Drunken Moogle
Ingredients:
1oz Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka
¾ oz Captain Morgan’s Original Spiced Rum
¾ oz silver tequila
¾ oz gin
1oz sour mix
Sweet Tea
Coca-cola
Lemon
Directions: Shake all ingredients, except for the sweet tea
and cola, with ice and pour in a highball glass. Top off with an even mix of cola and sweet
tea and garnish with a lemon wedge. Toast to the Independents and drink up!
This variation of the classic Long Island Iced Tea cocktail is also known as
Browncoat Tea.
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