Following Passion

I have reduced the number of hours I work on my regular job. I now work 36 hours a week but over 3 days, so I have 4 days off to concentrate on my passions.

Which it seems have been chasing around after my 21 year old girlfriend - who is quite amazing.

I also seem to have have fucked my sciatic nerve in my back. Which caused me an unbelievable amount of pain.

Anyway, I REALLY need to concentrate on writing this script.

Peace and Love.

x

Passion - Short film

One of my greatest passions is the passion of making movies.... I might have some way to go until I am shooting full length features but right now I have committed myself to shooting a 10-15 minute short film in approximately 10 weeks time.

I have done short films and stuff before so I should know my ass from my elbow - but I know for sure that I am so fucking ready to do this project now. I am really excited about it - never before have I had such passion for a project.

Currently I am writing the screen adaptation for the short film. It was originally from a short story/memoir that I read about a year ago and I KNEW the moment I read it that I would make it into a short film, but back then I felt that the time was not quite right. It is an incredibly powerful story and I will need to draw upon my full range of skills in order to drive this project in the right direction.

But this does not scare me. Everything is in place and this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing right now.

Peace and Love

x

Holes in cardboard boxes

A friend of mine called me up last week asking me to help out doing prep for a test commercial he is shooting.

I was more than happy to help him out, he is a long time friend - and in this barren and hostile world I am trying to enter - I figure we need all the friends we can get.
(he is slightly ahead of me in the career stakes - he has made several "proper" commercials) but we are all still in the same boat.

Anyway, I spent eight hours in this room cutting holes into cardboard boxes. But It was nice, together we discussed all sorts of meaningful and meaningless things - and I spent it in polite company, with two friends I have known for years.

Passion

This is a significant post - Significant because it indicates the entering of a time in my life where I am now in uncharted territory.

Within 4 weeks my showreel will be complete:

2 Short films,

2 Commercials

2 music Videos

1 Animation

is all I have to convince the world I am worthy of gainful employment.

I will be backed up by two well tailored suits, my wicked charm and fucked up hair.

Truthfully I don't know what will happen next, part of me is probably being fantastically niave, but I hope another part of me is being bold and daring. Whichever it is, I can only do what it is that I have to do.

It is soon my birthday, and I am at a transitory point in my life. I am consciously cutting down on the things in my life I am not passionate about and putting my full energy into the things I am passionate about. I shall post about these passions another time.

Already I acknowledge how powerful it feels to live like this and I urge you, my dear reader to think what it is that YOU are passionate about. And then make sure you re-juggle your life in order to make the balance in your favour.

AND - be quite certain in understanding me when I tell you: nobody else will do this for you.


Peace and Love

x

What an idiot I am.

Walking down the road on a hot and sunny morning in London I was the only man, probably in the whole of London wearing a wooly hat.

I took a deep breath and I walked into the hairdressers and up to the counter. Three pairs of eyes regarded me with a degree of suspicion.

"I am wearing this hat for a reason," I said to the girl on the reception.

"You need a haircut?"

A reasonable assumption.

"No, I am afraid it is worse than that."

I could have whipped off the hat in a melodramatic display but my embarrassment was such that I simply lifted a corner and showed her a tiny area of hair above my left ear.

"I fucked up my hair."

And then she called her colleage who together with her client looked over at me.

I stood there, and lifted my hat up further.

"I need you to fix this," I said with the utmost conviction as I then revealed my head full of green hair.

The hairdresser, lovely girl - of Turkish origin, same age as my girlfriend, began to laugh.




60 minute later, £60 out of pocket I left the hairdressers.

My hair, self esteem and good looks restored.

A few people later challenged my wisdom in the whole escapade. Yes it is true that I have just wasted a lot of time, effort and money. But I do think I learned something; not for the first time; but like at school, not every lesson teaches you something new. Often you go over old knowledge, but elaborate and understand a little more.

I learned to recognise and admit to a mistake. I learned that no matter how much we want something ( to dye my hair blonde like I did last summer), sometime what we get (yellow with a strong greenish hue) is never an acceptable substitute AND no matter how hard we struggle (re-bleach and colour) - it will never be the same. It is time to admit defeat and begin again.

Of course now I cannot do anything to my hair for about 12 weeks.

And next time.

I'll go to a salon and pay cash to have it done properly.


Peace and Love my children

xx

Affirmative Action

There comes a point when a man needs to recognise his mistake and admit he has fucked up. It is then often quite a useful thing for him to immediately make whatever moves neccessary in order to rectify that mistake.

At 04:30am on a Thursday morning about two weeks away from my 27th Birthday I have to admit to making one big ass mistake.

As most problems can be solved with either time or money, and luckily enough for me, I have some of the latter - I am going to go to the hairdressing salon as soon as they fucking open, to fix my motherfucking mistake.

Even though it is slight, the colouring to my hair is now a very unwelcome and somewhat unnatural shade.

I would not go as far as to say it is a total mess, (IE. It is not beyond repair)

But it is still not good.

I am confident in this appraisal of my hair:

Because it is fucking green.

Highlights

"You alright, mate? What you up to now?"

"Not a lot."

"Okay what time you working tomorrow?"

"1pm til late"

"Good. Can you come around and take me to Tescos now please. I fucked up my hair and I need some Ash Toner"


---

I am standing in the middle of the supermarket on a warm June evening. It is close to 11pm and I am the only mother fucker in the whole of the shop wearing a wooly hat. I am staring at the shelves looking at hair dye, bleach, highlighter, pre-lighter, colourants and various assortments.... but there is no mother fucking ash toner.

This means I am in big trouble.

My only choice is to get more bleach and just bleach the living fuck out of my hair even more to destroy this awful yellow daffodil hue that is giving a signal flare to every wasp and bee in London demanding that they 'come get some.'

As i write this now, I have the bleach on my hair.... God only knows what I am going to look like.

I actually learned something

Yes indeed. I actually learned something totally new the other day that I have never heard before and I have never really understood. On a busy street in South London in the middle on the afternnon it happened.

Two days ago there was a phone call, she asked me to come over because she needed a hug. I bought a return train ticket and metally allowed myself 20 minutes before I would have to return back and go to the gym.

I ended up there for over two hours, we laid on the grass, I even took my top off and did some cartwheels on the grass in my white vest. Before I had to go I leaned up against a brick wall and held her close to me. We were giggling and kissing and hugging like fucking children. I stood gazing into her eyes in the most cliched and icky way you could possible imagine. Out in the middle of the street on the main road in full view of everybody. I simply did not care.

As we stood there I saw her eyes and I could see so clearly the honesty of the emotions she was expressing. There was no doubt and there was no mistaking what I saw. And then it washed over me like a wave, the realisation,

'what an awesome reponsibility it is to have somebody love you.'

Pulling my Thumb from my ass.

I have one final project to complete before compiling my showreel. But I also have to work out the format, and prepare the montage sequences which means MORE fucking editing.

This is my A++ Priority and has been for 18 months now.

Now I am maybe 4 weeks away from completing it and then... and only then will the new challenges begin. I remember a promise I made to myself to enjoy this because this is my life and what I choose to do. There is such uncertainty ahead of me but I must not waver.

Tonight I have finished the edit of the first music video I shot 4 months ago - an embarrasingly long time ago, but there were delays with equipment and waiting for remixes etc. I made the choice to finish the mother fucker tonight and do no more work upon it because it gets to the point when you are not really improving the overall product, you are just working away for the sake of working.

Anway, I must reorganise my work and establish my new priorities:

I think they are as follows:

a) Finalise Test Commercial

b) Digitise and edit all work into sequences for showreel

c) Create, master and duplicate showreel.

d) Shoot 2 more music videos

e) Shoot a short film.

f) Conquer the world.


(I am very excited about a 10 minute short film script that is being written.)

Anyway, it is late and I am tired.

And you probably don't care about this shit anyway.