Entry Log 017
YOU’VE GOT TO LAUGH
Welcome to the Playground of Broken Dreams.
Written by Captain Scott Woldian
There is something I think we need to clear up. Apparently, some people have started taking Stu Phillips rather seriously. This is worrying. Because he certainly doesn’t, and that’s when Stu started briefing me on Entry Log 017.
Marillion’s Script for a Jester’s Tear has obviously been rattling around inside his head for most of his life; the phrase “the jester in the courtyard” appeared somewhere in his thinking, and before I knew what was happening, my coat had disappeared, bells had been attached to my hat, and I’d been dumped in a place he’s decided to call:
THE PLAYGROUND OF BROKEN DREAMS
Thanks, Stu. The annoying thing is...it works. Because this particular Journal isn’t really about artificial intelligence. It isn’t about technology. It isn’t even particularly about Terra Nueva. It’s about something much simpler.
The ability to laugh at yourself.
THE JESTER IN THE COURTYARD
Over the last few years, Stu has been playing with artificial intelligence. He’s recently created Stu-e, which is a digital version of himself. He’s invented other characters, such as me, Stan, Hali, “Riggs”, Khalina and of course The Alchemist. He’s written songs with the assistance of AI and put them on Spotify. He’s made ridiculous jingles. And now, apparently, he’s dressed me as a futuristic purple jester. Some people look at all of this and wonder whether he’s actually being serious. The answer is: Yes. And absolutely not.
Stu is perfectly happy being the jester in the courtyard. What people sometimes miss is that the jester is watching everything happening in the courtyard. Behind the silliness is an almost obsessive focus. Behind the stupid song might be an experiment. Behind the joke might be a question. Behind an apparently ridiculous idea might be something he’s been quietly thinking about for months. And sometimes... a stupid song is simply a stupid song. That’s allowed too.
A 60-YEAR-OLD CHILD
Stu describes himself as a 60-year-old child. I think that’s probably about right. Not because he refuses to grow up. Because he refuses to accept that growing older requires becoming boring. There’s a difference. Somewhere along the way, adulthood seems to acquire an extraordinary number of rules. Be sensible. Settle down. Find security. Act your age. Stop embarrassing yourself. Be realistic. Get a proper job. And, whatever you do, don’t make yourself look foolish.
Stu has never been particularly good at any of those. And at this point, why start? Because there’s another side to this story.
Time.
THE FINAL QUARTER
Cancer has a rather unpleasant way of rearranging your priorities. Stu has had more than one opportunity to discover that over the last fifteen years or so. When you’ve sat in rooms where conversations suddenly involve words you never particularly wanted associated with your name, someday starts to feel rather different. Maybe there are another ten years. Maybe fifteen. Maybe twenty. Hopefully considerably more. Nobody knows. But eventually you become conscious that you may have entered the final quarter of the match. And Stu has absolutely no intention of spending it sitting on the bench. That doesn’t make every day profound. Quite the opposite.
It makes the ridiculous days more valuable.
Laugh. Make the stupid song. Try the ridiculous idea. Go somewhere. Build something. Allow yourself to fall in love with something or someone. Make a complete arse of yourself occasionally. Because being alive is actually rather good fun. And after fighting bloody hard to remain that way, it seems extraordinarily wasteful to spend whatever time remains pretending otherwise.
WELCOME TO THE PLAYGROUND
Which brings us back to where I’m currently sitting. The Playground of Broken Dreams. It sounds terribly depressing. It isn’t. Look around. There are nightclubs here. Bands. Architecture. Film and television. Motorsport. Music Touring. Logistics. Artificial intelligence. Businesses. Ideas. Plans. Failures. Successes. And, somewhere near the entrance, a reminder of a young Stu counting bloody lampposts back in 1983. The Playground of Broken Dreams isn’t a graveyard for everything that went wrong. It’s where everything you’ve ever dared to try ends up. The businesses that worked. The businesses that didn’t. The plans that never got off the ground. The things other people thought were ridiculous. The money made. The money lost. The doors that opened. The doors that slammed shut. The people who came along for part of the journey and then disappeared. The mistakes. The illnesses. The reinventions. The dreams that came true. And the dreams that broke your heart.
They’re all here. Because none of them has disappeared simply because the next chapter begins. They’ve become part of Stu.
AND THE GREY SUITS ARE HERE TOO
Of course they are. Every playground needs somebody standing at the edge telling everyone else to stop running. The faceless guardians of: Corporate. Bureaucracy. Targets. Profits. Boardrooms. Conformity. Play it safe.
None of those things is inherently wrong. Businesses need to make money. People need structure. Bills have an irritating habit of requiring payment. But Stu has never believed that the amount of money you’ve accumulated is the only useful measurement of whether you’ve succeeded at being alive. For him, success has increasingly become something much simpler.
Freedom.
The freedom to wake up and pursue an idea. The freedom to create something nobody asked for. The freedom to work with people he likes. The freedom to walk away from things that make him miserable. The freedom to succeed. And the freedom to fail.
FAILURE IS PART OF THE EQUIPMENT
That’s perhaps the most important thing about this playground. Not every dream happens. Not every business succeeds. Not every idea deserves to survive. Sometimes you can work your bollocks off and still lose. Life doesn’t owe you the result simply because you put the effort in.
Stu knows that. He’s lived it. But there’s enormous freedom in reaching the end of something and being able to say: I gave that everything I had. There are no more “What Ifs” or “If Onlys”. Then what? Learn. Laugh. Get up. Find the next ridiculous thing. Because the Playground of Broken Dreams isn’t where dreams come to die. It’s where the dreams that didn’t quite work become the building blocks for the next one.
Or, to put it another way:
Welcome to the Playground of Broken Dreams — where failure isn’t the price of admission. It’s part of the fucking equipment.
REACH HIGH
A lot of this probably started with Stu’s Gramps. He gave young Stewie a piece of advice that stayed with him:
“Stewie, always reach high because you’ll touch the sky. Because if you aim low, you’ll have nowhere to go.”
That’s a hell of a thing to plant in a child’s head. And looking backwards, perhaps it explains rather a lot. The kid who left school unable to speak properly and without much of a sense of where he was going, ended up counting lampposts at the age of 16. Then came architecture. He never qualified as an architect, but he trained in architecture and learned alongside people including Chris Margenout (who is still right by Stu’s side as The Alchemist character and friend even today), Paul Karlsson and, of course, with the enormous support from his mentor “Ted” O’Neil
He designed things. Built things. Ran design-and-build businesses and helped turn other people’s dreams into reality.
Then there was music. Bands. Nightclubs. Bars. Grassroots venues. Promoting.
Then film. Motorsport. Production. Logistics. Touring. Artists. Countries. Businesses started. Businesses lost. Things that worked. Things that spectacularly didn’t. Cancer. Depression. Recovery. Cancer again. Another reinvention with House of Tours Global (HOT-G Desk).
And now...
Terra Nueva.
LOOK UP
There’s one more thing in this playground. Above all the wreckage, above the abandoned ideas, above the grey suits and the broken dreams, there’s a flag flying.
Terra Nueva.
And unlike almost everything underneath it, the flag is pristine. That’s deliberate. It isn’t there to say Terra Nueva will definitely succeed. Nobody knows that. Stu certainly doesn’t. It’s there because he’s still prepared to raise another flag. After everything. After the successes. After the failures. After the money made and the money lost. After illness. After starting again. After being told to be sensible. After all the broken dreams scattered around this ridiculous playground...he’s still dreaming.
Maybe Terra Nueva becomes everything he imagines. Maybe it becomes something completely different. Maybe one day it ends up down here amongst the other dreams and another flag gets raised in its place. That’s life. The important thing is that there’s still somebody willing to climb the battlement and put the bloody flag up.
YOU’VE GOT TO LAUGH
Which brings us back to me. A supposedly respectable Captain, sitting in the wreckage of Stu Phillips’ life dressed like I’ve escaped from a particularly aggressive production of Script for a Jester’s Tear. And smiling. Because that’s really what Entry Log 017 is about.
Self-deprecation isn’t self-doubt.
Being able to laugh at yourself doesn’t mean you don’t believe in yourself. And self-awareness isn’t imposter syndrome. You can be fiercely ambitious and still think you’re occasionally ridiculous. You can work twenty-hour days pursuing something and still take the piss out of yourself while you’re doing it. You can take your dreams incredibly seriously without taking yourself terribly seriously at all. Perhaps that’s the trick. Life can be incredibly difficult. Stu knows that. There have been days he wouldn’t wish on anybody. There have also been extraordinary days that the kid counting lampposts in 1983 could never have imagined.
He’s travelled the world. Made music. Built businesses. Designed buildings. Worked in music, movies & motorsport. Owned venues. Put shows on. Looked after artists. Made lifelong friends. Lost things. Started again. Dreamed. Failed. Survived. And he’s still dreaming.
So if you occasionally see him making a complete fool of himself on the internet, don’t worry. He’s probably perfectly aware of it. In fact, there’s a reasonable chance that’s the entire point. Because eventually the music stops for all of us. And when it does, nobody is going to award extra points because you spent your life looking terribly serious.
So reach high. Work hard. Try things. Love people. Make things. Fail occasionally. Make an absolute tit of yourself when circumstances require it. And when you find yourself standing amongst the remains of another broken dream...pick up whatever you learned from it. Build something else. Raise another flag.
And above all...
YOU’VE GOT TO LAUGH.
Especially at yourself. Because we’re only here once. And being a 60-year-old child sounds considerably more fun than the alternative.
Captain Scott Woldian
Jester. Explorer. Dreamer. Storyteller.
Terra Nueva