TALENT SCOUT

the lot of a creative
must be a lonely n exhausting one
imagine having to sit there
day in day out
continuously pouring forth original ideas
like a fountainhead
like roald dahl in the shed at the bottom of his garden
tapping out amazing stories on his old olivetti
there may be a few who can do it
the types who can turn the creative muse on and off at will
like a faucet
or who have tapped the wells of unbridled creativity
but what hope for the rest of us?
well i'll let you into a secret, my seedlets
maybe creativity ain't the be-all and end-all
or even the holdall after all
maybe there's a more important aptitude
i'll call it talent scouting...
just think about it
consider one person sitting there generating ideas
just how much inspiration can that one individual have
compared with the whole vast caboodle of human civilization
past n present?
see that's where the talent scout's role comes in
the talent scout is ever alert
always watchful
always with an eye or ear out
for something interesting or useful
the talent scout's antennae are fully functional
the talent scout is lucky
by that i mean prepared for opportunities
a talent scout makes good use of a few simple but crucial tools
for capturing, storing n retrieving ideas:
a small notebook
a dictaphone
a snap camera
a shorthand system
but what kind of talent are we talking about here?
you may well ask
by talent i'm referring to a fragment of potential
however tiny and undeveloped
however unpolished or rough around the edges
talent can be:
a concept
a phrase
a metaphor
a rhyming couplet
a spoonerism
a pallindrome
an axiom
a quotation
a story
a parable
a title
an image
a sound
a texture
a movement
a gesture
a look
a tune
a rhythm
a riff
a refrain
an emotion
a gestalt
an atmosphere
and much else besides
talent can be concrete or abstract
crude or refined
talent can be complete and perfectly formed
a mere spark
a seminal idea
or anything on a continuum in between
my notebook is nearly empty of original thought
but chock full of talent
of course a lot of talent falls by the wayside
just like in life
it's all about the zeitgeist
the right time
the right place
the right people
and the talent to match
take punk rock in new york and london in 1976...
a favourite trick of mine is to borrow chord progressions
once i nicked pretty much the complete chords to a song
not to mention the basic rhythm
(ed: which song was that?
fireseed: now that would be telling!)
i write a completely new melody and lyrics
and publish the song as my own
which of course it essentially was
why did i do that?
because these chords had talent
they demanded an alternative melody
they were just too versatile to limit to one song...
tonight i am listening to a guy on the radio
he did the sound effects for the star wars trilogy
the light sabres
darth vadar's scary breathing
and more recently a load of stuff for wall-e
well he explains how a lot of his sounds are objets trouves
found objects
chance encounters
the thing is
this guy is prepared
he never goes anywhere without a mike n tape machine
so when he hears a sound
befitting a jedi spacecraft changing gear
he is ready and waiting to commit it to tape
he is constantly scouting for talent
so that's what i am
pilferer
pickpocket
common thief
talent scout