A beeping alarm woke Flash Meridian as pressure was relieved from the cryo-tube. Consciousness slowly returned while his body was completely relaxed. He just lay there for a while, eyes closed and completely still. The alarm sound continued in the background though Flash’s awareness of it faded in and out.
Opening his eyes, Flash slowly took in his surroundings, though in the beginning he found it difficult to focus. The computer screen read the current date, 1-14-2114. Could it be? Had he slept ten years? If so, where was he? What could he piece together? Switching the alarm off, he reached for his radio. “Come in, alpha control”, he said, doubtful that there would be a response.
“Alpha Control” a voice answered. “Your reanimation is nearly complete.”
Flash was perplexed and he tried to remember. He could recall his recent ascent from earth to test the practicality of warp travel… His training which prepared him for the solitude of space… The ship to which he entrusted his life… Everything else was a blur.
The light hurt his eyes and his body felt limp, his mind groggy. Still, he tried to remember. 2114. Could it be?
“Welcome back, Flash Meridian,” came the voice through his headset again. “Relax, it continued, you are on auto-pilot, and we will bring you in.”
Hazy images presented themselves to Flash’s mind, but disappeared before he could recognize them. Like a dream, or the dream of a dream, details eluded him leaving him to wonder whether he was even now, waking or sleeping. In this way, his dream continued to dream him while crews on earth worked around the clock to bring him back.
He continued to hear voices from the control room. Muffled conversations, often overlapping each other. Static, clicks and tones mingled with the heaving of his ship, and he knew he was re-entering earth’s atmosphere.
The number was emblazoned on his retinas… 2114.
Suddenly Flash thought he remembered something. That voice. “Ash?” he asked simply into his radio, it was all the energy he could muster. “Yes,” said the voice of his friend. “it’s me.” Flash only smiled as Alpha Control, with Ash Lander at the helm, orchestrated his descent.
The next thing Flash knew, he was in a hospital bed, fully awake and feeling fine. He reached for the remote control and turned the tv on. A news clip showed his ship, the Trans-Neptunian Interloper, looking worse for wear after it’s unprecedented voyage. The exterior of the ship was discolored and looked burnt. The craft had served him well over the past ten years. The newscaster reported that the TNI would be refurbished and put back into use, retro-fitted with state of the art components. Flash was also given a clean bill of health. While he had aged a decade, the cryogenic freezing process made the time seem to pass in an instant. When he finally talked to Ash Lander again, there was only one thing on his mind. “I want to go back”. The men talked at length together about their lives, and their unique experiences of space travel.
Flash told Ash about HollyGram. “It seemed so real”, he said, “not like a dream at all”. The fact that Flash was alive and back on Earth was proof of some higher power’s intervention.
“If the universe is truly infinite,” Ash said, “then possibility is limitless. I also had an intervention that I can’t explain. What this tells me”, Ash continued, “is that the greatest adventures and mysteries still await us.”
“When will my new ship be ready?” Flash wondered aloud.
Flash Meridian Volume 1: Episodes 1-15. Includes the Bonus Tracks: Flash Meridian Theme (Young/Elfvin: Sgt. Snowpants), Space Girl (Young/Elfvin: Sgt. Snowpants), Evil Space Flight (Cervenka, Timouth remix: Cloak), Yesterday (Chase: Vanguard), Nomicon Common (Elfvin: Sgt. Snowpants), Space (Elfvin: Sgt. Snowpants), So Far Away (Chase: Vanguard)
Flash Meridian Volume 2: Introduction and Episodes 16-30. Includes the Bonus Tracks: Flash Meridian Theme Remix (Young/Elfvin), Perigee/Apogee (Young/Elfvin/Cervenka), Red Moon (Young/Elfvin), Dear Jesus Please Let Me Find Some Space Clothes (Elfvin/Elmquist), Kryo-Tube (Young/Elfvin), Dripping From The Heavens (Elfvin), Eclipse (Chase)
Flash Meridian CD ROM: Episodes 1-31, Read by the Author, with an original musical score
Flash Meridian Fan Club CD ROM: Includes photos, interviews, music, software, trivia and lots of other behind the scenes goodies
Flash Meridian Volume 1 and 2 instrumental soundtrack, written by Jeremy Chase and performed by Vanguard. 1. Flyin’ High (Opening Theme) 2. Dreaming On A Sleepless Night (Flash’s Theme) 3. Prophecy 4. She Flies (Crystal Weightless’ Theme) 5. Untitled 6. Guiding Light (Dock Galaxy’s Theme) 7. The Awakening (Nebula X’s Theme) 8. War 9. Love’s Shore (HollyGram’s Theme) 10. Eclipse 11. Train’s A Coming (Mars Theme) 12. Bad Kind of Way (P. J. Raygun’s Theme) 13. Paradise (End Theme) 14. Tonight 15. Yesterday 16. Breathe (Sly Wormhole’s Theme) 17. Awakening/Radio Intro
All Discs copyright 2000 Slack Action Productions
Red Moon and Perigee/Apogee were also released as CD singles, and included the Flash Meridian Theme Instrumental Dance version
I found this image on the internet, and it’s labeled “space-toilet.jpg”
It reminds me of a song I wrote called “Kryo-Tube,” which was performed by Knarwhal and appears on the Flash Meridian Volume 2 CD. The song is about what’s in the picture.
We can’t NOT communicate. I knew this, but was reminded of it in my textbook reading this week. We’re constantly sending non-verbal messages even when we don’t say or write a word. So this got me thinking about when I partook of the services of Hair Club. Yeah, I did that. But at the same time I was telling the kids I mentored that they are unique and special just as they are. I also had braces on my teeth. It made me feel a bit hypocritical until I realized that we all present ourselves in ways that are comfortable and unique to us. Like the song says, “accentuate the positive.”. While my skin is flesh colored, it is not hypocritical to wear the color blue. Or to wear makeup. Even to make a more permanent change like straightening your teeth, getting a tattoo, a facelift, a circumcision or something less tangible like speech therapy, which was also imposed upon me when i was very young, as though it were a necessity. My brother, on the other hand was allowed to maintain his lisp. The fact is, nothing stays the same. Not our bodies, not our minds. We change and change, usually so gradually every day that we don’t notice it is happening. Then we look at an old photograph or meet up with an old friend we haven’t seen for decades, and the changes are obvious. We still exude our true selves in thousands of ways, though today our true self differs greatly or slightly from our former manifestation.
So what is my point? My daughter and I watched a movie last night in which one person played several diverse characters, differentiated by accents, costumes, mannerisms, hair and makeup. And it occurred to me that this is a microcosm of our lives, in a sense. And Flash Meridian? Flash is a character created by me, and in some ways is an allegory of me, but created 10 years ago when I had hair stuck on my head. So Flash has hair, and I found myself stymied when it came to recreating him. Would Flash have lost his hair? Would he have to wear a helmet all the time? Maybe, but not the way I saw him returning. I want Flash to still be Flash. So I ordered him some hair online, and thought I might as well create some other characters as well, to be portrayed by me. We have the ability to make changes in our appearance, our habits, our diet, our level of education as well as many other facets of our lives. Some changes are permanent while others are adopted for a certain time, occasion or purpose.
I am currently taking a public speaking class online. I have to give speeches, videotape them and upload them to my teacher and class. What if I wore a blonde surfer guy wig in my uploads? What if I wore different clothes than I would normally wear? No one there knows what I normally look like. It’s just something I’m finding interesting to think about. What if a surfer dude puts on a suit and dress shoes to attend a wedding or funeral. Is it a costume? I think so. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Flash n. 1. a sudden, brief outburst of flame or light. 2. a sudden, brief display of joy, wit, etc. 3. an instant. 4. ostentatious display. 5. Journ. a brief telegraphic dispatch… 11. to communicate instantaneously.
Meridian n. 1. Geog. a great circle of the earth passing through the poles and any given point on the earth’s surface. 2. Astron. the great circle of the celestial sphere which passes through its poles and the observer’s zenith. 3. The highest point.
THE AMERICAN EVERYDAY DICTIONARY. Copyright 1949 (1955 edition)
I was looking at the budget shop today for a space book. I saw some that I didn’t like, then I happened to pick up a dictionary from 1955. Not only was this book about space, but the first entry I read was specifically about Flash. I was so pleased and enlightened by reading the definition that I wouldn’t leave the store without it. Imagine finding a 55 (56) year old book for a quarter which validates you with “a brief display of joy or wit.” I now see that is exactly what I was going for. All the various meanings seem to fit.
This might be a good time to share a Flash Meridian story that involves the budget shop at the recycling center (the Gunflint Mall). Ten years ago I drove there with a group of local musicians/Flash Meridian particiPANTS in the car with me. We were on a quest to find space clothes for a photo shoot. As I pulled into the parking space facing the front door, I quietly recited my FM shopping mantra, “Dear Jesus, please let me find some space clothes”. Rain Elfvin (Sgt. Snowpants, hence the earlier capital letters) laughed so hard he nearly peed his snowpants. I simply pointed out that it works for me to say that. I forget his exact skeptical response, but I believe it was something to the effect of “That’s hilarious.”
We walked into the shop, and there hanging on the wall facing us was a Darth Vader costume next to a robot costume. True story. I believe in asking the universe for things. I believe that putting the positive energy out there is better than negative, and to some extent we actually increase the possibility of achievement by having the faith or audacity to ask for it.
Not long after that Rain asked if he could use that prayer as a song title. “Dear Jesus, Please Let Me Find Some Space Clothes” by Rain Elfvin and Sean Elmquist appears as a bonus track on the Flash Meridian Volume 2 CD.
A couple of years ago I was talking about this with Elliot while prepping food at the Angry Trout. I demonstrated my revised mantra for him, and I quote. “Dear Universe, if it’s not too much trouble, please let me sell a painting today. Thank you very much in advance for your cooperation in this matter.”
Elliot’s response was similar to Rain’s. He laughed. Within a few minutes, there was a knock at the locked front door of the cafe. I opened it to a lady I had never met before. She apologized for interrupting us, but said she and her family had dined there the night before. She said she had seen a painting and wondered if it would be possible to purchase it before they left town. I turned around to see Elliot standing in shock, and proceeded to get a ladder to take the painting down for her.
“Dude!” Elliot said. “Why don’t you ask for a million dollars?” I explained that that would not be a reasonable request, and it made me think of the old fairy tale about the Fisherman and his Wife, by the Brothers Grimm.
I wish you joy and wit… err… I mean, I ask the Universe to fill you with joy and wit this new year.
Ten years ago in Grand Marais, I started writing a sci-fi story utilizing the local lighthouse (and Photoshop) as a rocketship. The rocky shore on the west side of the harbor became the surface of Mars.
Like Flash Meridian, I now find myself regaining consciousness after what feels like a ten year slumber. I haven’t been asleep but I’m coming to, nonetheless. I am divorced now, and rediscovering things that have long been dormant. The adventures have been waiting patiently on cd roms, like they were in a time capsule, and with them a part of me was cryogenically frozen, waiting for the technology of social networking and blogging to catch up with me. It’s not that the Adventures of Flash Meridian are so revolutionary. It all started as an idea and was formed without a budget and without a definite plan. But it was fun, and it unfolded organically, taking me to unexpected places within myself and elsewhere. Within each of us lives a vast and limitless world of possibility. Have you ever sat at a desk and allowed your mind to wander off to a tropical beach… A place far from the responsibilities of your work, taking a mini vacation just by closing your eyes for a few moments? That’s what I did, but I happened to think about flying my car into space. Somehow, and I’m grateful for this, I had friends that were willing to share in and expand my experience by dressing up and coming along, or by offering their musical talent to enhance the reverie.
The Chronicles of Narnia began when C.S. Lewis had a picture in his mind of a girl and a faun walking beneath a lamppost in the snow. His classic books grew from that, and he has long been one of my favorite writers. Admittedly I’m much more like Cook County’s Ed Wood. Everyone I meet has a story. I believe we all have untold stories within us that no one else can tell, and for me, that is what makes the universe infinite. The power of our thoughts and imagination give us an endless source of things to say. Things that are uniquely ours to tell. Sure, we are all influenced and inspired by things we have seen, heard and read. But what you have inside you is different than what I have inside me, and we need to hear it just as much as you need to tell it.
When I was in art school, one of the first classes I ever took was Art History. In it, I learned that everything we know about ancient peoples, we know from their artists. The ancient Minoans, the ancient Etruscans, the ancient Egyptians… Their artists were the voices of their generations. Each of those artists was uniquely able to leave something not only beautiful, but something educational and beneficial just because of who they were. That is still true of us today. Being you is all the credential you need to make your voice heard, and leave your fingerprints on this world. It’s not about having a big ego or doing things better than someone else. And you will be criticized along the way. Not everyone likes what I do. Not everyone will like what you do. Not everyone will get what we’re trying to say. So does that mean we shouldn’t say or do it? No!
What boggles my mind is that each and every person I see every day has a unique story. The story of their life on earth. Each of your friends. The people you don’t like. Young and old, popular and annoying people. Your parents and grandparents, the clerk at the store, the person driving by in a car.
So yeah, I come to you in my silver space suit because I wrote a story, but this is not about me. It’s not about telling you that I’m great or that I wrote the best story ever. It’s about you. I want to inspire and encourage you to understand how unique and wonderful you are. There has never been a person like you. Not ever since the beginning of the universe. And there won’t be another person just like you again. You are so incredibly special whether you realize it or not.
What is it in life that interests you? What do you love? What are you passionate about? What are you good at, and what things do you dislike about yourself? These are good places to start.
Don’t compare yourself to others. There will always be someone who can do something better than you. There will be a better athlete, a better saxophone player, someone with prettier hair or more money. Someone taller or whatever. I guarantee they still have insecurity and fears. We all do.
If I could give you one thing, it would be confidence in yourself. The confidence to live your dream, and to love yourself. Love your uniqueness and all your wonderful qualities, and fully accept even the things you see as your weak areas or negative things about you. There are some things we can change, and some things we can’t. There are certain things we need to accept, and we may find that these are things we eventually come to appreciate.
Several people told me I should bring Flash Meridian back. I had some hesitation about this. First of all, those original episodes are ten years old. When I wrote them, I was married, and I had hair. Now I’m not married anymore, and I don’t have hair. These are examples of things I can’t change. But I can accept and embrace them. I know I look ten years older, too. I find a life lesson in this. Which I plan to work into the story. My daughter Madeline as K-D at age 4 in 2000 and again at 14 this year. My plan now is to continue on with The NEW Adventures of Flash Meridian, enlisting my daughter and her friends, with some cameo appearances from some of the original members. I have been a mentor to kids in Cook County since 1992.
From 2000-2002, the Adventures of Flash Meridian appeared in Grand Marais newspapers, on the then brand new WTIP 90.7 FM, in the Duluth News Tribune, and with Jason Davis on ABC TV out of Minneapolis. Through the website, the story generated emails from around the world.
The story now includes video and the original musical score and can be seen at http://flashmeridian.blogspot.com. Flash Meridian also has a Facebook page. Like him. He likes you.
Jeremy Chase interviews Tim Young, creator of Flash Meridian and local Grand Marais artist.
Q: I think a good place to start would be, where did you come up with the idea for Flash Meridian?
A: I was born on July 20th, which, in 1969 was the day the first man walked on the moon. I remember that summer really distinctly, and I have a cousin who is a few hours older than me, and I was staying with them that summer because my parents were overseas. We were really into the whole space thing, and went to car dealerships and got maps of the moon and the solar system, and my cousin and I decided we wanted to be missionaries to Pluto. So we started taking really cold baths at night to acclimate ourselves. Q: Wow, it sounds like you’ve been into the space thing for a really long time.
A: Yeah. But I think the thing that really spurred this was that there is a woman who comes up from the Cities a couple times a year named Kris Sorensen, who is a video mentor. She taught me about video and also how to use Photoshop. The first picture I ever did was me flying through space. I was wearing just a suit and tie, and I had these rocket shoes on. That was really the first thing, and I started playing with that space boy character until he finally got a name, Flash Meridian.
Q: Great, so that’s where it started.
A: Yep.
Q: What inspires the story line for it?
A: Well, I guess when we introduce a new character, a person comes in and we decide on a name, and they just start doing something. When we added Sarah, we just needed someone to rescue these guys and she ended up being a space girl who goes to a space school. That opens another huge can of worms, but we didn’t worry about that. When I’m writing the episodes, though, I go back and I look at what they did last, and then in my mind, I watch them do things. Like what would Gravity do in this situation. What would P. J. Raygun do? It’s like when you get to know a person, you can guess what is in character for that person. That’s how I see it. Letting the characters act the way they would act, and see what happens. You also want to keep the story open. You want Gravity to be able to keep doing things as Gravity, so she needs to be pretty well defined. To have Sarah Vaughn playing two characters who are identical twins, Crystal and Gravity would act very differently in almost any situation. Even though it’s the same person writing them and the same person portraying them, they act very differently. They have distinct personalities, which are represented by their names, even.
Q: Yeah, that’s true. You’ve really gotten a lot of press coverage.
A: Yeah, I like that.
Q: Tell us how you feel about that.
A: I think that when the media gets behind you and deems your product worthy of reporting on, it gives me credibility… to know that what I am doing is interesting to somebody other than me. It feels really good. More people get to see it.
Q: Would you say it builds your confidence?
A: It definitely builds my confidence. I can go to other people and present it, or send out press releases, and show them what other people have said about it. It keeps me going. If I didn’t have an outlet for this stuff, it wouldn’t be very interesting.
The first newspaper article was done by the Cook County Star here in Grand Marais, which is a small paper, but after that, the Duluth News Tribune did a huge spread. Right before that, I had decided to end the story… you know, tie up all the characters and write epilogues for them.
Q: Really?
A: And then I got the call from the Tribune and they wanted to do the story, so I thought, OK, I’ve got to write another episode and keep it going, and get everyone motivated to get into their space clothes again and go tromping around town. Then for quite a while there wasn’t any more press other than a couple things in local press, and I had decided once again to end it and move on to my next project. Then I got a call from Jason Davis from ABC TV down in Minneapolis, and he wanted to do a story on Flash Meridian.
Q: So in a way the media helped to keep it alive.
A: Right, it has perpetuated the story.
Q: You’ve put out a lot of CDs. You’ve got all your episodes put out, and you’ve got a CD Rom and a fan club CD. So you’ve got an additional creative outlet.
A: Well, I see them as all the same thing. If you go to the website and read the episodes, the text on the website is the narration that is on the CD, so they are really one and the same. The difference is that on the internet you see the pictures, and on the audio CD, you hear the music. I think both of them leave your interpretation very open. It’s not like a movie where everything is spelled out for you. It’s more like comic book frames where you have this still image, and then a static image of something else, and your mind has to fill in everything else that happens. The audio CDs were just an natural progression from the writing. Because I enjoy working on the computer, I made most of the sound effects that you hear on the CD with my voice. The music was all locally produced… local musicians that I recorded, so the whole thing is original work all the way around. I take all the digital pictures and manipulate them in Photoshop. The CD Rom is basically the website on the disc, where you can view it all without an internet connection.
Q: Then you can put the CD in and listen to the music while you’re looking at the photos.
A: Right. All the audio is in mp3 format. In the mp3 format, you can fit over ten hours of audio on one CD, so we have room for all of the instrumental soundtrack, all the bonus tracks, all the narration, all the pictures, and a lot of the other related pages on the site, too.
Q: Sounds like CD ROM is the way to go.
A: Yes, well, I work on Macintosh computers, and this is my first attempt at a CD ROM, so I hope it works for everyone. I know it works on Mac, and technically it should work on PCs as well since it’s all JPEGs, html and mp3 which are all universally readable.
Q: The town has always known you as an artist. In fact they’ve known you as a bit of an eccentric artist. I think they are very entertained by you, and I think they treat you now as kind of a town mascot.
A: That’s better, I guess, than the jester. The town clown. I was kind of the class clown in High School, and now I’m the adult version of that.
Q: How do you feel, walking down the street and having people call you Flash Meridian?
A: A lot of people do that, or I’ll get out of my car and people will yell things like “Hey Spaceboy!” I just wave. I think it feels good because people know what I’m doing. They’re aware of it, whether they like it or not. Most of what I’m doing is not obtrusive. If you don’t like it, you just don’t see it, unless of course I’m wearing my silver space suit it public. You get the odd look every once in a while.
Q: How would you say this whole project has gotten so lifted off the ground? It’s gotten pretty big and pretty out there for such a spur of the moment and unusual creation.
A: It’s kind of like a birth in a way. One day you’re pregnant, and the next day you have a baby.
Q: Hopefully not that fast.
A: No, you know, there are a lot of things that lead up to the launch of a project, and it was something that I had thought a lot about.
Q: Looking at the show, your whole family, including your wife’s father, is involved in the show.
A: It’s true. An artist uses whatever tools he has at his disposal, so your immediate family becomes a really good pool of models, but not only that. When you think about a futuristic astronaut, it sounds like just pure fantasy. Actually, there is another level to the story, which is autobiographical. When you look at the story of Holly Gram who is played by my wife, she is Flash Meridian’s guardian angel, and that is really how I see my wife in a real sense. In a spiritual sense or in a real life sense. My step-daughter who is a senior in high school plays a student in a space school who is always ready for an adventure. That’s not too far off from Heather.
Q: Kind of ready to bust out of her shell if I recall.
A: Uh oh. My step-son who is going to college for computer programming plays a space traffic controller at NASA in the future, so that’s not far off from him either. And then my four year old daughter plays a very powerful little being who is not really well defined at this point in the story except that her episode, 34, came out just before Christmas, and she plays kind of a ghost of Christmas past character with P. J. Raygun. My father in law, as you mentioned, recorded the narration for the introduction on the Volume 2 CD. We all get involved. It’s basically all friends and family.
Most of the teenagers in this are people I’ve known most of their lives or that I’ve worked with in other areas. Most are musicians. Paul Ramey, who plays P. J. Raygun, is in a band called The Everlasting First. Rain Elfvin has been in a variety of bands, and he recorded all the songs that I wrote. The three original members of Vanguard are all in the story. My wife is a singer, and Sarah came into the whole thing because of Vanguard. The only person that really wasn’t cast by me in the story was Joy Saethre, who is a friend of mine in town, and we’ve worked a lot together through the Playhouse. She actually bought the character at a silent auction that was a Playhouse fundraiser, so that’s how that happened.
Speaking of which, Flash Meridian is more than just the story and the internet thing, but I do a lot of educational programs, I’ve been in a lot of classrooms doing space things and other art projects. I’ve gone to the library and done reading programs for preschoolers and elementary age kids in the summer. We also get involved in local parades and fundraisers. Wherever we seem to find a way to fit Flash Meridian in.
Q: It’s a good way to give back to the community.
A: Right. It’s fun. We serve a purpose with kids and with adults. It’s an entertaining thing.
Q: What is your favorite part of working on an episode?
A: I think my favorite part of putting an episode together is editing the pictures. It’s really hard to say, though, because I like all the aspects of it. I have this big red notebook that I carry around with me and write the episodes in. I really like that. I like the portability of it. I’ve written in the car, I’ve written on airplanes, I wrote in the hospital while my daughter was having surgery. I talked about the sterile surroundings of Flash’s spaceship while I was sitting in a hospital waiting room. And one night, we were at a Low concert in Duluth, and when I read the part that I wrote there, it takes me back to that concert, so I do like the writing, and I like the photography, because it’s always fun dressing up or having other people dress up and do all these odd poses. Especially Paul Ramey. I guess you could say he’s hyperactive. We photographed here in my office and he was jumping off couches and leaping all around the room. He’s very active, and his character is, too.
Editing the photographs is really fun because you take the raw picture and you can make it into something really surreal. Putting people into situations or surroundings that they’ve never been in. What the bodies look like in outer space is probably really different than what they would actually look like. For one thing, they’re not wearing space suits. A lot of them are just out there with skin exposed.
Q: Or they just have a visor down on their helmet.
A: Yeah, right. You can do it if you put the visor down.
Q: Like you always say about the technical problems, “suspend your disbelief.”
A: I have this car that serves as Flash Meridian’s spaceship. It’s a 1962 Chrysler station wagon. I call it the Trans-Neptunian Interloper. I had started putting my cars into space before I started Flash Meridian. Somebody once emailed me and said “how can you fly your car in space? You can’t do that.” And I said “well, on the older cars, you want to make sure your window seals are good, roll your window all the way up and turn the air on.”
Q: I remember you saying how your childhood had effected some of the episodes.
A: Yeah, that really came from the personal journey that I’ve been on in my life and turning forty this past summer was a real milestone for me, because I’ve always felt like a kid. Even at an adult age, I didn’t really think of myself as an adult, even though obviously, I am. Now that I’m forty years old, I’ve become more confident in making my own decisions about my own belief system, which at times is not far off from what I grew up with, but sometimes it is. I think it’s casting off the worry about expectation of what people think I should do or be, and trusting myself just to be confident with who I feel that I am for myself. I think I spent most of my childhood and my early adult life trying really hard to read everybody’s mind, and say what I thought they wanted to hear rather than what I really felt, which really didn’t do much of a service for me. Now I think I speak my mind more. I’m more confident with saying “I don’t feel that way.” And pay more attention to what I need and what I really feel.
I’m a unique person on this planet, as we all are, and I should follow my heart. I like to tell kids this especially, because I didn’t get a lot of those messages to believe in yourself. So I like to tell kids, there’s never been anyone like you, there never will be again, you’re unique in the entire scheme of our planet, or the universe, so don’t let anyone tell you what you can or can’t do. If you have it in your heart to do it, DO IT! I don’t really feel like I have much of an option, I feel compelled to do certain things, even if society tells me “who do you think you are to do that?”
Q: I’ve been pretty close to you through this whole process, and I’ve noticed a change in you since before you started Flash Meridian. Would you credit that to your self-discovery? It’s mostly about confidence.
A: That’s what I would say. That I feel much more confident. I can look back to any point in my life, for example, I just got an email from one of my friends in high school. I have kids now that are older than I was when I knew him. So I look back to him and say “Wow, I’m a completely different person than I was when I knew you.” In a sense, I am. I can look at any point in my life and say I’m completely different than I was when I got married. I’m coming up on my eleventh anniversary now. But then, in another sense, I can look back to much earlier childhood and say I haven’t really changed very much.
Q: Yeah, it’s true. It’s funny how that happens.
A: It is. It’s very strange. You just spend a lot of time on the planet, and things happen.
Q: Boy, that sounds like a real zen philosophy to me. If you had one message you would want to give to people, what would you want to say?
A: Do what you dream. Don’t sit back and wish you could do something. If there is something you really want, make it happen. Nobody else knows your heart the way you know your own heart, and what you really desire in life, so nobody else can meet those needs. You’re the only person who has the ability to do that. Everyone else is trying to make their own path, no one can make your path for you. It’s really a shame, I think, if you allow someone to dictate that. You can’t really tell someone to be confident. I mean, you can tell them, but it really doesn’t work that way.
Q: You’re going to have to get that for yourself.
A: I would like to have that kind of childhood confidence where I just never even consider the fact that someone might be criticizing me. Be oblivious to it.
JM: Good morning Tim and Jeremy. Thanks for coming in to WTIP
TY: Good morning.
JC: Good morning.
JM: How are you guys this morning? Are you awake? Are you ready to do this?
TY: We haven’t had coffee yet.
JM: I’m so sorry Tim, that’s horrible. I’m on decaf and I’m flying, man. I can’t imagine what it’s like not to have a cup of coffee in you. Tim and Jeremy are here because Tim is the kind of lead creator in a very interesting… um, I’ll just call it a creation at this point.
TY: We call it a science fiction story.
JM: OK, a science fiction story that you have utilized some certain mediums to express these goings ons inside your brain. One, of course, is on compact disc, and we’re going to hear some of that. Explain the other because you have a fairly intricate website.
TY: Right. Well it all started a few years ago when I was working as an art mentor at the high school. The first time I ever did anything in Photoshop, which is a graphics manipulation program on the computer, I did a self-portrait of me shooting through space with rocket shoes on and that was kind of how that character started. I called that character Rocket Boy, and my wife’s cousin told me, after seeing a few little space things around, that I should do something more with this space thing. So we just started snapping pictures and writing the story and it ended up growing really fast. We have twenty episodes online right now.
JM: OK, twenty episodes online, they’re also on disc as well?
TY: There are fifteen episodes on the first disc, so probably when we get the next fifteen episodes, we’ll have sixteen through thirty on Volume Two, but that’s going to be down the road a little ways.
JM: Alright. I saw some of the photographs on your website. They’re pretty cool, you’re utilizing, I noticed, the local lighthouse which became a rocketship.
TY: Right.
JM: So there’s some pretty cool things going on. I saw the one about Jupiter, now are you transporting images into your program?
TY: Well, that was a picture of Jeremy. He’s actually leaping on one of Jupiter’s moons.
JM: Right.
TY: In reality, he’s actually jumping in front of my caboose. So I just cut the background out and put Jupiter in there.
JM: There we go. That’s a good example of the capacity of the Adobe Photoshop.
TY: Right. And the more I do with it, the more cool things I’m learning that I can do with it.
JM: Well I imagine you become more efficient as well, so it’s not as time consuming.
TY: Right. Exactly.
JM: Jeremy, how are you involved with the project, aside from being one of the characters. I saw some of your photos, and I know you’re involved musically as well. Talk about that.
JC: Well, for the most part, Tim and I have done some recording in the past and he decided it would be a good idea to put a CD together, so I kind of helped him. I’d come over and watch him and give him some tips…
TY: Jeremy wrote the whole soundtrack. The score.
JC: For the most part, he just took some of the old recordings and put them on the CD, and I loved it, so it stuck.
JM: Talk about the storyline, because we’re going to hear a track from this. So set that up, Tim.
TY: Well, in this track, it’s actually episode seven, called Space Dreams, there are three separate storylines going on, one takes place, let’s see, are they on Mars yet? Well, one takes place way out in the outer reaches of the solar system with Flash Meridian who is trying to get back to Earth.
JM: So Flash Meridian is trying to get back to Earth, and you have these two astronauts who are the American Heroes…
TY: Right, they had been sent out to rescue Flash Meridian who was a pioneer in the field of warp travel. In the first episode we find out that with greater speeds and greater distances, there’s also a greater margin of error, so Flash got into a little trouble. And there’s this other space girl. She lives near Jupiter and…
JM: Gotta have a space girl.
TY: Oh yeah. So you have the two astronauts, you have the space girl and the whole space school. You just have to suspend your disbelief here and there, and then you’ve got Flash. So there are three separate story lines, but right now up in Episode twenty they are pretty much getting really close to each other.
JM: They’re starting to come together. OK, now set up this episode. This is episode seven. Are they on Mars yet? Well, why don’t I just play it and we’ll find out.
TY: OK
[plays episode seven from the Flash Meridian Volume One CD]
JM: Alright, that’s episode seven of Flash Meridian, you can see it, what’s your website address, Tim?
TY: It’s www.timouth.com, and you can click on Flash Meridian from there.
JM: OK. Well, that sounded pretty interesting, are most of the episodes similar, with the narration over music?
TY: Yeah.
JM: Now, you’re adding sound effects, do you want to give away any of your secrets as to how you do that?
TY: Well, all but a couple of the sound effects are done with my voice and just cutting little pieces of the sound out and putting them back together.
JM: So you’re doing digital editing with sound as well.
TY: Right. The whole CD was done on a computer. We put all of the music onto the hard drive, and then dropped it into Premiere, which is the program that we use in the video class here at the school.
JM: OK. For the sound editing as well.
TY: Right.
JM: Is the CD available anywhere?
TY: Yeah, you can get it either through the website, through the mail, or you can go down to Cuppa Diem and pick it up. We have cassettes and CDs there. Or you can get it from me.
JM: So how long is this going to go on? What’s the progression here?
TY: I have no idea. We’ll just go until the well runs dry.
JM: Until Flash is rescued?
TY: Oh no, it’ll go beyond that. There are some pretty surprising things that will be happening with Flash in the next couple of episodes, especially with National Space Exploration Day coming up on July 20th. That’s a big holiday for us.
JM. Aah. Hey, did you want to mention something about the Gong Show?
TY: Oh, yes. Tomorrow night there’s a fund raiser for the Grand Marais Playhouse at the Arrowhead Center For The Arts. It’s a Gong Show. We had a really great time last year there, everybody had a good time, and Flash Meridian will be performing live on stage. I don’t really know many of the other details. I don’t know what time it is or anything.
JM: Hang on, I’ll get you that. The Gong Show is tomorrow night. It’s at 7:30, and it’s hand in hand with a silent auction that also takes place right here at the Arrowhead Center For The Arts in Grand Marais. Actually the auction is first at 7:30 and the Gong Show is at 8:00. Last year, it was a huge success, so if you want to participate I’m sure you can. Get ahold of the Playhouse, or just make sure you’re there plenty early, because I know last year there were people all over that auditorium.
TY: It was great.
JM: Alright, thanks, Tim.
TY: Can I just say one more thing?
JM: Sure
TY: One of the items up for auction is becoming a character in Flash Meridian, so if anyone goes to the website and wants to be a part of all this craziness, then go ahead and bid.
JM: That’s a great idea. Thanks, Jeremy. Thanks, Tim.
