Ah yeah, so as I was saying, I was really an outsider when I came into this scene, and, despite the many things that the OIAF and the animation world have given me materially and intellectually, I’ve pretty much remained near the border — hey the phone just rang! Friend of mine from a big studio. We started talking about this whole identity thing and maybe the big difference would be that no one will talk to you anymore because they don’t need you anymore. We agreed that that’s not a bad thing — anyway sorry I mean for the last few years, I’ve worked my way more towards the… umm… literary world, I guess. Let’s face it, most of my ‘animation’ writing these days, for example, uses animation as a bridge, beard, guise and cloak to get to the ‘bigger’ issues in my life and yours (e.g., finding good porn to stroke or finger to). And, slowly but surely, I’ve been writing more outside the animation world, so I’ve been slowly preparing myself for that day when I bid adieu to the animation scene. But still, it’s tough, like a death or divorce, and maybe that’s the final step I needed. After two-plus boozeless years, a sharper healthier mind/body, maybe this was the last step toward shedding off some dead skin.

Maybe. Maybe not. The same week we got the funding cut news, I was watching this incredible boxing match between Micky Ward and Canadian Arturo Gatti. These two beat the shit out of each other in three separate matches. In this second fight, Gatti smashed Ward’s eardrum with a hard right. Ward lost all balance, stumbled, turned and fell toward the corner of the ring. He managed to keep standing, but with two minutes to go in the round, and his equilibrium absent, there was no way he’d be standing much longer. Gatti came at him with more jabs, hooks and rights, but Ward did not go down. Crazy Irish Micky not only came out of the round, he went the whole 10 rounds. During that fight, I decided that I was not going to let the Ottawa festival die… that no matter how much I wanted to get out of the festival biz, I was NOT going to let it get TKO’d on my watch.

Then came the bizarre and tragic news that the festival’s co-founder, Kelly O’Brien died. She died alone in her home. No one is quite sure how, just yet. How weird is it, that the news that the festival’s founder comes out the very week the festival’s existence is threatened? I’m not much for voodoo and assorted magic, but THAT was too strange. Kelly was a really positive person. I only met her during Ottawa ‘96 — when we had invited all the old directors to come for the 20th anniversary. I had a few phone chats with her, and she was just so damn enthusiastic (and I don’t mean in a retarded way). Anyway, I read some old catalogs, checked the old files, talked to Frank Taylor (another former director) and realized that this festival has always had these sorts of battles. It’s entire history has been a bloody Ward-Gatti fight. So her death sort of re-charged me a bit, made me want to say thanks to her, made me want to let her know that she didnt really die alone, that her work (with Frederick Manter) and ours meant something, that it touched thousands upon thousands of lives from John Lasseter and Nick Park to lesser known students, animators, teachers and industry folk. What else is there to live or die for?

Identity. I’ve talked about it before and, specifically, how we create identities for others and even define those around us. Who are we? How do we define who we are? I remember studying a bit of that French head-studying guy, Jacques Lacan. I always liked the things I managed to understand in his writing. Let me try and shrinkwrap it. As babies, early on we see everything around us as one, We are linked to it. Everything is whole. Then comes the mirror stage when the baby recognizes itself in the mirror, when he/she sees for the first time that they are not connected with all those other images around them. They immediately sense that there is a gap, that they are incomplete, a fragment.

This lack is the backbone of human nature and it creates desire. We desire to fill this lack. BUT… it’s a lack that is just an illusion. We spend our entire lives desiring and craving something that doesn’t exist to begin with. (Advertising fucks have clearly read some of Lacan because they are continually — and I mean CONTINUALLY — telling us that we’re missing something, that we’re incomplete people, and that if we buy their TV, radio, stereo, CDs, books, hand lotion, toilet paper, coffee, liquor, car, house, frying pan, cups, plates, forks, shirts, shoes, hats, tampons, vaginal itch cream, anti-aging, anti-depressant, cottage cheese, low-fat, low-carb, gut-buster condoms, we WILL fill that lack.)