A True Gentleman

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

This week, I was preparing to run my first (and perhaps only) 100-mile race.

Then, I got COVID yesterday.

Suddenly, I had to practice what I often wrote about here in these newsletters.

Next week, I’ll share the lessons I learned from this sudden change of plans, but for now, I want to reflect on something unexpected that happened during my training.

One of the most surprising things about my long runs has been the number of people who’ve shown up to support me—in spirit. One of those unexpected companions has been the late actor Roger Rees.

Roger was a celebrated theater and film actor, whom I first met in 2004 at the Public Theater Shakespeare Lab. I’ll never forget how he told us, “You know, Ben Kingsley and I both started with the Royal Shakespeare Company playing servants, and by the end of our time there, we had both played Hamlet.”

Roger had a rare gift for making people feel truly seen. He was someone I always regarded as a true gentleman.

A few years later, I served as a reader for an audition he was running at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Not only did he remember me, but he also struck up a conversation. I told him I was about to play Fabian in Twelfth Night that summer at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Once again, he made me feel seen. He said, “I played Fabian once! We discovered something unique about his relationship with the Fool…” and he generously shared his insights with me.

Then, in 2012, I had the pleasure of reading stage directions in my dearest friend and mentor Patrick Page’s play Swansong. Roger was the director of the reading, and even though I was just reading stage directions, he made me feel valued. He told me, “You hold up the play for us—take your time. Know that we want to hear what you have to say.”

Everyone who knew Roger has similar stories of his kindness and generosity.

He passed away in 2015, but his memory remains with me, guiding me like a true gentleman of the theater.

Who is someone that you admire? How can you embody their spirit today?

A CREATIVE TOOL

Last week, I was teaching classes on how to fine tune your own Generative AI model in Kenya. One of the resources I shared was how OpenAI is now allowing Enterprise customers to use their own data to customize (or, ‘fine-tune’) their latest Large Language Model (LLM)—GPT-4o—so they can build custom models that can complete specific tasks for specific use cases.

This is another step in making Generative AI more accessible, making it very easy to create your own company chat bot, a fine tuned model on your brand voice, and so much more!

A PIECE OF ART

“Goodtime Jesus” by James Tate

Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dream-
ing so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it?
A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled
back, skin falling off. But he wasn't afraid of that. It was a beau-
tiful day. How 'bout some coffee? Don't mind if I do. Take a little
ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.

Grateful,

Michael