Post by OgreVI on Oct 10, 2012 2:00:29 GMT -5
Hey, everybody. I've been trying for the past couple of years to get Ed Wood's birthday (October 10) turned into a holiday. Congress isn't going to do it, of course, but I'll be satisfied if I can just get a few folks celebrating every year.
It might seem strange to dedicate a whole day to Ed Wood, but I've got an argument in favor of it. I made a short video about it (linked at the end of the post; I hope nobody minds), but if you don't want to watch it I'll summarize here:
You see, Ed Wood was really, terribly bad at making movies. A sensible person would have stopped trying after his first couple of failures, but he just kept going. In the face of reason, experience, and plain old common sense, he followed his dream. Somehow he kept stitching together shoestring budgets in hopes of making a masterpiece. And you know what? They all sucked. He never succeeded. That's my point.
Ed Wood is my hero, unironically. Think about it: anyone can make his mark in the world if he’s got talent, vision, and genius, but Ed Wood made his mark without those things. All he had was intransigence and a dream. To me, that’s far more inspiring.
We all have heroes, but by definition heroes tend to be extraordinary people, and the fact is that most of us simply aren't extraordinary (if we were, we'd need a new word). It just isn't in us to live up to the legacy of Dr. King or Eleanor Roosevelt. We've all got more Ed Wood than Abe Lincoln in us, but we've still got to get up every morning. We've still got to keep trying.
Ed Wood makes no empty promises to us. The lesson of his career is that if we pursue our dreams with passion and determination, if we commit ourselves body and soul to the things we love, if we ignore the people who say we’re no good even when we know they’re right, we will still fail most of the time. We might fail every time. Sometimes, though, we can fail gloriously.
Nobody ever failed more gloriously than Ed Wood. So maybe tonight, y'all might share some bad movies with some good people. Thanks for listening.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5VCTOPKVnk
It might seem strange to dedicate a whole day to Ed Wood, but I've got an argument in favor of it. I made a short video about it (linked at the end of the post; I hope nobody minds), but if you don't want to watch it I'll summarize here:
You see, Ed Wood was really, terribly bad at making movies. A sensible person would have stopped trying after his first couple of failures, but he just kept going. In the face of reason, experience, and plain old common sense, he followed his dream. Somehow he kept stitching together shoestring budgets in hopes of making a masterpiece. And you know what? They all sucked. He never succeeded. That's my point.
Ed Wood is my hero, unironically. Think about it: anyone can make his mark in the world if he’s got talent, vision, and genius, but Ed Wood made his mark without those things. All he had was intransigence and a dream. To me, that’s far more inspiring.
We all have heroes, but by definition heroes tend to be extraordinary people, and the fact is that most of us simply aren't extraordinary (if we were, we'd need a new word). It just isn't in us to live up to the legacy of Dr. King or Eleanor Roosevelt. We've all got more Ed Wood than Abe Lincoln in us, but we've still got to get up every morning. We've still got to keep trying.
Ed Wood makes no empty promises to us. The lesson of his career is that if we pursue our dreams with passion and determination, if we commit ourselves body and soul to the things we love, if we ignore the people who say we’re no good even when we know they’re right, we will still fail most of the time. We might fail every time. Sometimes, though, we can fail gloriously.
Nobody ever failed more gloriously than Ed Wood. So maybe tonight, y'all might share some bad movies with some good people. Thanks for listening.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5VCTOPKVnk