I don’t know Aarti Sequoia, the latest winner of The Next Food Network Star, I almost know her. Her husband, Brendan McNamara, is in our web series “and Boris”; we have two scenes together where we both revel in the extreme evilness of our characters. I am friends with people who know her, but I have never actually met Aarti. Yet watching her journey, as she struggled with her own insecurities in pursuit of a lifelong dream, as someone I almost know was instrumental in helping me find the spine and determination to continue to pursue my own dreams.

My Life and Aarti’s have some strange parallels. Like Aarti, my husband and I found ourselves unemployed at the same time. Like Aarti and her husband, we made a web series on our own to hone our skills and hopefully get someone to hire us. And like Aarti, for the past few months I have been in a situation where everything I have been working toward has the possibility of coming to fruition very soon, dependant only on whether I can withstand the pressure and actually do what I always said I wanted to do.

Aarti’s story arc for the show centered around her confidence in herself (a theme I am more than familiar with). From the beginning it was clear that Aarti had all the tools necessary to be the star they were looking for, yet time and again she would undermine herself through her own insecurities. This is a theme I understand well. After a year of being unemployed my confidence in myself was completely shot. I felt adrift and without any clear direction. I knew where I wanted to go but had no clear way of getting there. Then an opportunity materialized and I learned that magic happens when opportunity meets preparation, as long as my neuroses don’t get in the way.

Each week, Aarti articulated the fears and negative thoughts that plagued my mind. As she had to step up to the plate and deliver whether or not she felt worthy or not, I was constantly re-inspired to keep going and do what I had to do. I even started to get annoyed with her insecurity as I could look objectively at her and know that she was born for this job and was destined for this show; her need to cut herself down felt almost insulting. I knew she was good and I hate to be disagreed with. I suddenly had a greater compassion for my husband who keeps telling me how talented I am, but has to suffer through my constant insecurities and neuroses. It made me realize, I should stop worrying about being good at what I do, and just be good at it. No apologies.

The expectations of modern womanhood are hard to live up to and navigating the path from girl to empowered woman is treacherous to say the least. Aarti gifted me (and the rest of the country) the opportunity to watch her take those final steps and in so doing encourage and inspire the rest of us to do the same. As Susie Fogelson said, (who ,by the way, is to me the epitome of the modern executive and the business woman I want to grow up to be) “It’s time to put on your big girl pants”. Thank you Aarti and Susie, for helping me have the courage to put on my “big girl pants” and live the life I was meant to live.

We post an assertion to be argued for or against, and ask all of our writers to come to the table for a good honest debate. Comments are now open to all readers.

ASSERTION:
Neither is it the government’s duty, nor is the government well-equipped, to make broad attempts to lift people out of poverty.

Never by Adjoa Skinner.

Adjoa is classically trained in voice, flute and piano, is an experienced jazz singer, and spent years living and working in Africa. Read more about this fantastically talented lady on our Artist In Residence page, or visit her own site at adjoaskinner.com. Find more of her music at myspace.com/adjoaskinner and youtube.com/adjoamusic.

Adjoa Skinner, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and Summer 2010 Avocado Jungle Artist In Residence.

We’d like to take a little space on the site to welcome our new Artist In Residence. Singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and percussionist Adjoa Skinner will be with us throughout the summer introducing us to new artists and taking on some fun and ambitious projects. You can read more about her on our Artist In Residence page, or visit her own site at adjoaskinner.com. Find her music at myspace.com/adjoaskinner and youtube.com/adjoamusic. You can hear her quiet and beautiful tune “Never” in our Arts & Culture section.

Angela Richelle, photographer and Spring 2010 Avocado Jungle Artist In Residence.

We also need to thank our outgoing (and first ever) Artist In Residence, Angela Richelle, for providing us with some beautiful photography and for being the brave guinea pig in an ambitious new program. We hope to have the pleasure of working with you again, Angie, and best of luck! For those in need of portraits or event photography, please take a look at Angie’s work on the site of her business, IlluminEssence.

My husband and I are just coming out of production of the third season of our web series “and Boris”. I say coming out of because we still aren’t done shooting. We were supposed to be done shooting at the end of January, that’s what we originally scheduled and had our cast agree to. Then it rained. It hadn’t rained in southern California in months and even then it was light and retreated quickly. Not this. It came down in torrents, wind a gusting (it even ripped the roof off the set of the Tiki Taka in the backyard). Since 85% of this season takes place outside at night, everything got pushed. This meant we had to reschedule everyone; if any of you out there have ever tried to get a bunch of busy people in one room at one time, you can begin to feel my pain. Except for one of our actors was on call for some motion capture for Spielberg and couldn’t be too specific with his availability, another needed to wait till he booked a pilot (which he did), plus most of our actors also work full time and have opposing schedules.

We could have given up at this point; but we didn’t.

We finagled the schedule and through most of February we shot the 100 page action adventure script. We shot it at our house and one other location we got in trade for doing a commercial for them. We made brick walls out of drywall and created an alley in our back yard (actually several, thank goodness for all the junk that was left in the backyard by the previous tenant). We made a roof, we made meditation pools.

A warning to anyone who invites us to their house, we can’t go anywhere anymore without envisioning it as what kind of set it could be used for.

We shot and shot but things kept happening and we kept not getting everything done we needed. Both our car batteries died on the first day of shooting and we had to get jumped losing 2 hours; an actress had a gas leak and can’t come; and an actor didn’t see an email and so didn’t show; the sound cable decided to go berserk and only sometimes worked and only if you hold it in just the right position; David chokes on chili and has to be Heimliched by the star.

We could have given up at any of these points; but we didn’t.

I want to clarify that when I say no budget, I mean no budget. For what will be about 90 minutes of show we spent $500. Most of that on food, tapes, paint, and make up. There was only one crew member, Ava, our makeup artist who truly helped keep David and I going with her glowing spirit. Other than that, it was just me and David: moving equipment, holding the boom, running the camera, making the sets or dressing them, dealing with paperwork, making food. There were days when I wasn’t sure we could physically and emotionally handle it, we were so tired. It is hard to maintain any kind of creative hard line when your body is screaming “just let me lay the heck down!”. I imagine parents of small children will understand the feeling. But we also knew we needed to make this as good as humanly possible, so we did one more take, explored one more idea. And somehow we got most of it in the can… ….now we have to do something with the footage.

We are past the point of being able to quit; and yet part of us would love to.

Post production is the bane of any production experience. Especially with the manpower required. Here’s what I want people to know. Outside of writing the music, everything you see in the show was done by David on our 12 inch, 4 year old, bought it used on craigslist, mac laptop. Every cut, every transition, every title, every sound effect or adjustment, any special effect, every color adjustment was physically done by David. I feel that the monumental nature of this is rarely fully appreciated. David hasn’t had a full nights sleep in weeks and I occasionally get to see him when something is processing and we only have two episodes up so far. David gets down on himself for not being able to get more done. I have to remind him that the credits for Avatar had over a thousand people named, not one guy on a laptop.

It is hard for him to keep going when there are no guarantees that the work will pay off, and yet we’ve come this far. It’s hard to put in thousands of hours on a project and know that for the audience it was a few minutes of their day and then they are on to something else. It’s hard when you know that among the three producers you have over 1500 friends on Facebook and when you put out the call for people to help out and click only 300 do, even though it’s free and they can do it anytime and it only takes 10 minutes. It’s hard to keep going and keeping faith that someone will appreciate the work that went into making something out of nothing. It sure isn’t glamorous.

I guess, in the final analysis regardless of what comes from this experience, it will say that we made 3 seasons of a web series in one year with no money. Not that we thought about making a series, not that we started making one, but that we completed something and offered it to the universe with the best of intentions. We finished something.

Because we could have given up; but we didn’t.

ASSERTION:
The government should help to ensure that no business profits excessively off the sick, disabled, or poor.

Tharuna Devchand is a young lady from South Africa with quite a talent for writing and entertaining. We’re excited to share her wit and her viewpoint with you.

Dan Rickabus is a musician from Michigan who we just featured on the site. We asked him to be our music blogger and he luckily said “yes.” I think you’ll find his music writing very cool and very enlightening.

Tharuna and Dan both love to hear opinions and share ideas, so don’t be shy.

The Power of Ridiculous Reasons
Scott Adams
April 28, 2009

The human mind is wired to accept ridiculous reasons as if they are legitimate. Studies have shown that people are more likely to agree to a favor if the word “because” is used in the request. It doesn’t seem to matter what follows that word. As long as the sentence is in the form of a reason, people accept it as though some actual reason is present. (See the book Influence.)

I’ve often used this method. I think I’ve mentioned these uses before, but I will reiterate to set up my larger point.

Guys tend to argue over who picks up the check after dinner. In cases where I know this situation is likely to arise, I prepare a ridiculous “because” reason that I trot out when the moment is right. After allowing the other guy or guys to make their ceremonial attempt at paying, I say something like “I’ll pay today because this is the seven month anniversary of when you bought your car. Congratulations.” I’m exaggerating slightly, but it isn’t hard to come up with some trivial reason why you should pay. The funny thing is that any reason you offer will settle the discussion. It works every time.

Another situation in which the ridiculous reason works is when a large dinner group is being served and only half of the people have their dishes. Everyone sits there staring at their food as it cools, trying to be polite. In these cases I say loudly “According to etiquette, you can start eating as soon as three people have been served.” Everyone instantly digs in. I think I read that rule of etiquette somewhere, but it’s clearly a random number. There is nothing special about three. Ridiculous reasons win again.

I mention these examples because I think the world needs another ridiculous rule to solve some big problems. And it’s no fair saying my new rule is ridiculous because that’s exactly the point. The new rule would be this: Any land controlled by a country for 50 years straight is legitimately theirs. It’s like a statute of limitations for armed resistance.

Obviously the people living in the disputed lands will reject this rule when it kicks in. It’s really for the benefit of others who might be inclined to help the continued struggle for independence. Most struggles depend on outside help. This rule allows the outside helpers to withdraw without being dishonorable.

While the 50 year rule is clearly arbitrary and ridiculous, our minds allow us to accept such things as if they are real rules. So in time it might influence the inhabitants of the disputed lands to accept their situation. Realistically, if a country is controlled for 50 years, it’s probably going to stay controlled. Continued resistance doesn’t benefit anyone.

Consider all of the international struggles that involve lands conquered more than 50 years ago, or approaching that. The partisans need a reason to stop fighting that doesn’t sound like they are a bunch of quitters. Honor is at stake. The 50 year rule is the non-reason reason.

I am aware that this rule, if followed, would sanction enormous unfairness, subjugation, apartheid, and worse. But those things would happen with or without the rule. The only difference is how many innocent people die trying to change a situation that is unlikely to change.w

All Work And No Play
Madeleine Brand
May 3, 2009

I cracked open my NYT Mag today and found an article with real relevance. Not the creepy Quentin Tarantino photo spread. I mean the essay by Peggy Orenstein about how kindergarten should be about play, not work. As in homework. Studies have shown time and again that homework does not help kids until they get to middle school and beyond. It makes no difference, and yet most of our kids in public schools get homework beginning at age 5. You may say – well, it can’t hurt. But Peggy cites studies that show it does. In one, the children who were in the heavy testing/homework laden classes when they were little did worse academically in their teens than children who simply played. That may be because playing is really work — children are learning how to think, how to be imaginative, and how to develop their social skills.

For more on this idea, listen to the podcast “What to Expect from Preschool.”

And the astute Parenting on the Edger will remember that Peggy Orenstein was my guest on the first podcast. She wisely advised me to put on my clothes every day.