!Empower!

Coli(center), who was one our OG roadtrippers came by the office for a visit this week, and we had a chance to speak with him. Coincidentally, we were shooting some of our videos for our Curriculum for Roadtrip Nation in the classroom, and the portion we were filming was for the subject of, Storytelling. Perfect. Coli actually is from Philly, then moved to Boston to go to grad school at Emerson College, and post grad he said eff it, I'm going to move to LA and try to make it out there. His true passion is writing, and he writes pilots and a scripts, while working at Warner Bros right now. He's most definitely embedded in the Hollywood scene. Since there was such a connection there with Coli being a roadtripper and his life purpose of trying to be a storyteller, we filmed and interviewed him. I sat in, and was just taking in all of his nuggets of wisdom, and it was dope to get such pertinent advice from a fellow writer.

-The author is a conduit and a vessel, made up of all their experiences.
-Don't try to change the world, tell the story, and let the story change the world.
-Write from the point of view of who you aspire to be, it the time at which you can your most honest, yet the most vulnerable.
-He also said that the most important thing in any storytelling at writing is that at the very root of it, it is tied to an emotion, and it can be any emotion, whether it be a positive or a negative, it just has to be driven by an emotion.

He also spoke of the different music that spurs his writing, that get him to feel certain moods, and it hit me that, I just need to get on that, and just listen to music regardless of genre that feeds my mind. He said in particular to listen to Thomas Newman, a composer of scores for many films. So i checked out one of his pieces, and it was really interesting what it compelled me to write. I ended seeing the image of my moms wet rag that she cleans everything in the kitchen with and the rest just flowed. Attached after is the track from The Shawshank Redemption that i wrote to

Revamp the damp cloth
bearing stains of her struggle
debris decoded
abstract within it's history
repetition of chores shields her from her misery
provider
in search of co-dependents
yet the only thing left
is her independence.
her memories remain as tattered remnants
as she's scattering her vengeance
compensating for the lack of your presence
she's never ridden a bike
so i can't expect it to reflect right back to her
so i'll push and i'll prod
inching her toward new commitments
yet a lifetime can't convert in a moment or an instant
i'll read it as my misprint
interpret it as indifference
disappointed I didn't make a difference
but in a month i'll see those inches now feet
stepping towards a work in progress
still clutching onto history
but a free hand grasping for the place where visions be
her pain is my anguish intrinsically
so i'll take responsibility
your grief is a burden bestowed only for the broadest of shoulders
knowing full well if it was I
I would be rendered useless
but you boost this son
pace the beats of my drum
resonating to a fever pitch frequency to a hum
in awe still stunned
your fortitude impregnable
maternal love so venerable
shaped me to be as humble as my father
or at least to reach his likes
unconditional love
emblazones me to strive.