Dance Like Napoleon Dynamite is Watching

When you're in a creative valley....

I’m feeling a little bit lost lately. Mostly here in this space, which is part of the life I am trying to build as a working creative human. I’m thinking a lot about what it is I want to be making and contributing; what do I have to offer and why. Overthinking is one of my full-time jobs (no dental, terrible pay, zero holidays). I’m treading water a bit, which doesn’t feel great.

I don’t believe in creative block. I do believe in incubation. I think you drift in and out of lulls where it feels like nothing is gaining traction or particularly clear. That’s okay. That’s probably appropriate because ideas need all the same things as we do: nutrients, space, patience, the more than occasional milk shake. Creative work takes time and energy, that’s pretty much the only formula you need to memorize (sorry high school physics!). The problem for me is that I often get the womby zone of incubation confused with a terrifying void yelling: JUST GIVE UP YOU ARE HORRIBLE AT THIS WHY ARE YOU EVEN BOTHERING HOW DARE YOU?! Basically, run of the mill fear, insecurity, self-doubt that’s topped off with all the mental highlight reels of every time I blew it by giving into my fear, insecurity, and self-doubt. IT’S ALL SUCH A GREAT MENTAL TIME! Do first responders and architects go through this on a regular basis? Lie to me, please.

So I need to talk myself down from what feels like the top of Splash Mountain. I am not a thrill seeker, so for me that is one of the most precarious places I never hope to find myself. The other is dinner at Elon Musk’s nuclear fallout bunker. One of the ways I do this is by going back over crumbs of creative wisdom that I’ve gathered and stored for exactly these occasions. They aren’t fixes or, unfortunately, magic spells. They’re more like touchstones I use to remind myself that there is no reason to panic. Anyone who makes anything art/craft related habitually lands in this space. U2 had to go back into the studio and come up with something after The Joshua Tree (do not envy!); Lin-Manuel Miranda probably wakes up every day going “What about this, like, it’s Julius Caesar, but with like breakdancing and, like, set in London during the Blitz. Is that anything?” I often think that finding ways to stave off this type of “what is the what?” kind of anxiety accounts for about 90% of being an artist. The other 10% goes to buying journals you decide are too beautiful to use.

A few ordinary beans from me to you.

Cue the Theme from Rocky

Sometimes you just need a different kind of energy boost to kind of slough off the sloggy, goopy feeling of inertia. Get some place where you can play music really, really loudly and find yourself a version of Bill Conti’s iconic, epic, anthemic “Gonna Fly Now!” known as The Theme from Rocky. In the movie, “Gonna Fly Now!” plays over a montage of scenes where Rocky is training for the big fight in very unglamorous, unsexy ways. He’s schlubbed out in a prison grey sweat suit running through the Philadelphia rail yards at dawn; he’s working over slabs of beef hanging in a meat locker; he’s doing exercise reps in the ring; he’s getting punched in the gut over and over, expressionless withstanding every blow. He’s nutting up and showing up—for real. Conti’s soaring, blazing, brassy score builds in crescendos to a choral refrain: “trying hard now/it’s so hard now” and “feeling strong now/won’t be long now/getting strong now/gonna fly now/ flying high now/Fly! Fly!” Holy smokes! I dare you to listen to this and NOT feel like you can get in your car, drive to the Saturday Night Live studio in New York, and plant yourself behind the desk to host Weekend Update. Or, you know, whatever your particular creative dream scenario happens to be. Ahem. My point is the song gets to the heart of what it takes to do anything you actually care about: put in the work, the practice, build your muscles. The rest of it really is out of your hands.

It's worth nothing that this theme is the gold standard of training-scene-movie-montages to the point where every other film since has been compelled to issue a disclaimer in the credits: “We’re sorry we don’t have as powerful training montage theme as “Gonna Fly Now!” from Rocky. We did the best we could. No offense Kenny Loggins.” True story. It’s in very, very, very fine print, look for it.

To sum up: The theme from Rocky bangs every. single. time. And always makes me feel like I not only can make the art, but I really, really want to.  

Be the Tracy Turnblad You Want to See in the World  

As I said, my creative “Pit of Despair” is cluttered with self-doubt, especially as it relates to ideas and inspiration. People talk about how concepts arise—where or how to find them—but no one really talks about how you deal with that next phase where you wrestle with: Is this worth pursing? Is it strong? Weak? Is it totally bonkers and will land me on a CIA watch list? That’s when I think about John Waters.

If you don’t know John Waters, you should, you must, please do! He’s an American filmmaker who has been at it since the early 1970s. His particular film flavor is what I call “Trashterpieces.” They are bizarre, kitschy, subversive, outlandish, outrageous, usually dark, dark comedies riddled with the kind of spectacular, over the top antics and deranged plots that make Tarantino films feel as basic as workplace training videos. Probably his most well-known film is Hairspray (1988) that was later turned into a successful Broadway musical. The movie stars Ricki Lake as Tracy Turnblad, a full-figured teenager living in Baltimore in 1962 with dreams of being on the popular music and dance show, The Corny Collins Show. In true John Waters style, Hairspray takes on racial segregation, body image, sex positivity, interracial relationships, the hypocrisy of the moral majority and the religious Right, while handily celebrating “freaks,” weirdos, “deviants” and anyone who feels demonized for being different.

I love John Waters so, so much. I find his stuff smart, funny, unhinged, and very brave. He wrote, directed, and produced his earliest films himself mostly because they were so extreme in the kinds of things Waters truly reveled in portraying (sexual and social taboos) no studio would go near them. But he kept making them. No one was fighting over landing the latest John Waters screenplay about an unassuming suburban mom who is really a serial killer whacking people for the slightest infractions like bogarting a parking space. That is the plot of Waters’ movie, Serial Mom (starring a deliciously lunatic Kathleen Turner), released in 1994, which kind of sounds like it could be any news headline run today.

You decide if your idea sucks or not. The only real investment that matters is yours.

Dance Like Napoleon Dynamite is Watching

The first time I watched the film Napoleon Dynamite I did so in a state of high trauma alert. Every single character is a lovable oddball and misfit swimming upstream in a high school or community built on convention. Please don’t let anyone get bullied, I mentally urged. Please don’t be cruel to Pedro. Please let LaFawnduh be real and not a con artist who is going to shatter Kip’s tender, dorky soul. In my defense, I grew up in the 80s—an era of peak adolescent stupid-mean. Thankfully, Napoleon Dynamite is a charming, funny, quirky indie flick about a teenager, Napoleon, and his small, scrappy circle of friends navigating typical high school experiences. And they do it by being one-HUNDO percent themselves in all their strange and awkward glory. They stay true to themselves and, in both art and life, that really matters.

Near the end of the film Napoleon performs a solo dance routine at a huge school assembly to the song “Canned Heat” by Jamiroquai. This tall, gangly, white, curly-haired kid in glasses and jeans and a tee-shirt pulling off choreography with the focus and commitment of a Broadway dancer in a Fosse number. It is a thing of beauty. Chef’s. Kiss.

Art shines when it’s filtered through authenticity. The courage to be yourself, to show yourself, to put yourself in the work counts for more than the skills you need to make the finished product. This is also something I’m actively learning. It’s ironic that what feels scary and hard is actually a key to creating more easily and freely. Strive to be real, not perfect; dance like Napoleon Dynamite is watching.

And then keep dancing.

Image via Dance Trends