Prove your worth

With new technologies and the intertubes, everybody and their grandma seems to think that they can be stars by grabbing a cellphone and shooting their antics and putting it out on Youtube. Sure, you'll get a chance to get stranger's responses, and with a bit of luck, you might go viral, at which point you'll have stopped being relevant.

Now if you want to know the gritty behind the scenes of film making, check out the blog for Conversion, the film that Kate MacDonald wrote (and acted in!) and Dominic Marceau directed... and financed out of their own damn pocket. It turns out that it takes more that a few fancy megapixels and some snazzy Apple app to make a movie a reality.

This is not about Google Maps

So buckle up and read it, ya crazy kids!

If the water's frothing, its probably rapids

I haven't really ever had a smooth sailing life. There's always all sorts of things in your way, some intentional, others circumstantial, that pose a hazard to the path of your lifeboat, as it were.

Now enough with the cute imagery and on with the concrete.

Since my summer vacation, there's been all sorts of things happening: not getting paid, losing jobs, waiting for the powers that be to help, nasty neighborhoods, asswad neighbors, rough financial situations, medical conditions, deaths, adoptions, and the wonderful lifestyle experiment called "getting by."

I'm not so much talking about excuses for things not getting done, but the consequences of making choices. If I make the choice of improving my existence, then its likely that something's gonna give somewhere. Some of those choice may well impact others, some very close indeed, in a negative way, for a variety of reasons. We all have our own weight to bear.

After some due considerations, we've decided that we were adopting a rescue cat, which turned out to be two, which also turned out to be adults, because fuck babies. Now, due to our mindset, we went for "trouble cases", specifically we adopted a pair that came from a hoarder ceisure. Cats in who come from that sorts of environments have certain issues and may be somewhat problematic on the socialization side of things.

And thus our first weekend with the new tenants began. The girl is a sweetheart, a cute little thing barely over four pounds ( and yet she's the eldest of our felines) with a respiratory problem that will stay with her all of her life. The boy, while somewhat skinny for a Persian, is of much stronger built and only recently spayed, which is problematic when introduced into an existing dynamic of two large males.

Fur flew. The Maine Coon, is not happy about the new pensioners and is quite vocal about his distaste. He also refuses to deal with them at this point, requiring a certain level of supervision and isolation. This situation, combined with some fairly tight financial woes prevents us from having something of a social life for a while. My return to customer service, putting me in constant contact with the general public all day does not encourage me to interact even more when I'm off work, and my partner's recent unemployment has the added benefit of making a tight financial regimen necessary.

To our friend's woe.

I haven't had to sail such precarious water for so long, it takes some getting used to, and with any luck a few good nights of sleep. It does allow us to catch up a little with our mounting pile of movies that were acquired but not yet previewed.

There is a price for everything, and responsibility requires some sacrifices. I can only count myself lucky that we have cats and not children; we'll never have to deal with having to drive them to soccer practice.

Coming soon to a browser near you

There are events that may not leave much of a mark; verbal abuse has very little visible impact for instance. And then there are events that, by all logic, should leave terrible marks. Being hit in the head with a truck door would, by all order of logic, leave a lasting impression on the receiver. It would certainly be hard to think that it couldn't

And yet, besides the obvious scars, I have little aftereffects of that event. Well, little physical traces anyways. There are consequences, just not the kind that most people expect.

For instance, there was no sudden interest in religion, renewed belief in God, or spiritual discovery. I did not succumb to some sort of massive life questioning where my path is reset and a new direction is taken, one possibly more aligned with people's expectations.

There was certainly an renewal in spiritual pursuit, just like there was a renewed dedication of artistic endeavour, and certainly a new understanding of what had to be done for my goals to be achieved. It had dawned on me just how much time got wasted, some of it due to external circumstances, some of it due to self-limitation.

In my artistic pursuits, I have decided a while back that I should control my destiny as much as possible; while the concept of self-publishing or micro labels is certainly not new, or financially rewarding, I figured that if I was going to do this, I should do my utmost to do it on my own, to be the captain and pilot of my own ship.

Or tank

I took the step of registering a domain name a year ago, with the optic of getting a website up and running withing a few months; as per many of my projects, it has not come to pass yet. Now that I have reached the renewal time, it became obvious that if I made the choice to continue, then I should make damn sure that something should come out of it, good or bad.

The endgame is to bring the project to its conclusion, not just give it a shot and give up halfway through. I have spent far too much time on the abstract, while not doing any of the actual work. That the first sketch will be bad and amateurish, I fully expect; I now have to welcome it, so that I can learn and grow from this experience and develop new skills or understanding.

I have the will, I have a direction. Now, I just have to grab a machete and hack my way.

Onward and forward.

The best time to get insomnia

Its now the second night in a row where I cant get to sleep. No particular worry, no particular stress plaguing me, just perhaps a bit of eagerness to get things done, especially writing.

Not the fiction kind, unfortunately but the blog posting kind, particularly of my food blog Hungry, Smart And Poor. Sure, its a long simmering project from back in my days working for a cable company when I was tempted to dwell into getting a cable access show, teaching those cash-strapped and untutored to cook home food on a budget.

Sure, there are shows like that, like Rachel Ray's but I'm not a fan. There are also Home Ec classes, but they leave a lot to be desired, and I cant say that moms have been teaching their kids to do it, especially on a budget. To me its such a basic need that there are things that should be taught to anyone leaving the family nest so that they can survive without starving.

Anyways, here I am, hunkered down on my laptop at an uncomfortable position (on purpose, as I would waste even more time of all kinds of distracting trivia otherwise), trying to think and plan on the next few entries. It is keeping my mind busy and distracted from the other big project, as the apartment needs cleaning and organizing. And I am randomly skipping to organizing the grocery budget for this week, while maximizing what stuff I already have.

As I deal with such mental workouts I am brought to be thankful that I am not a family man. I can barely deal getting my own life together I cant conceive being responsible for a bunch of toddlers. I don't see the reward in that, I really don't. Its just not part of my emotional and mental makeup I guess. Several years of working in customer service probably aren't helping.

I can barely stop myself from moving around furniture and putting some nails in the walls at four in the morning, so I have my own issues to deal with. I have too many projects on the back burner, its probably not healthy for my sanity, but that's me, I have to have all those options available for those days when I really feel like I have to get things done.

Like sleep. I guess its one of those projects that just took the back burner tonight.

Sadness and sorrow

After his cage mate died of lung problems, our boy Errol got into a depression, being left all alone without a buddy to cuddle with. In no time, he also developed lung problems, going into a round of antibiotics. He looked like he had recovered, but unfortunately for rats, they all carry some lung issue; they are a sort of time bomb for the poor buggers.

We had been looking forward to finding him a new mate, a nice friend he could cuddle with once more. We had one prospect lined up, but before we could get in touch with her current keeper, he fell ill again. The treatment did not help, and as his state was deteriorating, we needed to visit the vet once more.

It turned out to be the last. Given that he was not responding to the treatment, the recommendation was euthanasia. There was just no bringing him back, he was suffering so much. After a quiet and tearful time for the last goodbye, he was first sedated, then his pain was taken away permanently. He died peacefully, and is now resting with his cage mate, while we await the cremation arrangements.

He was with us for such a brief time, but he was such a loverboy. He enjoyed company and all he wanted was to cuddle up and snuggle.

Dear Errol, our fine boy, you will be missed.

Errol 2010-2011

If at first you fail...

In my exercises in creation I follow Robert Rodriguez's advice about film making: if you want to make movies, then grab a camera and start shooting. Push yourself to film any and all scripts that come to mind, as the early ones are going to suck, so better get them out of the way now, so that you can move on to the good stuff.

Now, while its a sensible advice, its easier said than done when you're have several outlets for your creative spirit and you have multiple (and tempting) sources of distraction.

Fortunately, I seem to be getting a handle on thing, of sorts.  I have been focusing a bit more on the music aspect, even if I am not going as full bore as I'd want (or fantasize.) I have been writing the food blog, which allows me to regularly spend some time writing and dealing with my other main creative outlet, cookery.

I may not be getting the results I am pining for: the recordings are nowhere near something I could call songs, more like rough riffs that might lead somewhere; the writing is non-fiction, which isn't bad per se, but I do want to write fiction again, so getting the blog going on a regular basis might get me to eventually scribble some made up bits and so on.

I had been holding myself back, by using circumstances to put sand in the gears, but really, I was just using whatever was at hand to distract me from my goals. I certainly cannot use work anymore, as I am more and more comfortable in the new environment, which is also a constant learning experience, so this will also serve me later. The gains are more than material. I am learning things that will let me properly showcase myself and get the attention that is required for my endeavours to succeed.

I once wanted to join the air force;

 

while I stayed away from the stuffy structure, I have kept a love of uniforms,

flying

and bomber pinups.

Oh, and the motto " Aim High."

Onward and upwards.

When in doubt

Just say fuck it.

Making music happen was something that seemed to come naturally not that long ago. Given a couple of hours, a method of recording and a bit of an opportunity to make some noise, I could crank out a track or two.

 
Even before that, when I had a band going, we could crank out two or three tracks in a session, with lyrics and all.

Nowadays, its something of a miracle if I can get a sixteen step beat going enough to make me want to preserve it. I fell into the trap of super technology. It seems that as of the moment I moved from a taped-together hodge-podged desktop to a netbook, the creative drive took a hit. I felt like I couldn't run this program or that and that was what was causing the rut.

Then I went and upgraded to a laptop that packs some serious power, got my hands on some serious software that should, according to mythology, allow me to build whatever track I want, and I'm completely trapped by the seemingly endless possibilities, ending up pretty much incapable to getting nothing done. That I have the bastards connected to the internet only compounds the problem, as I have a constant access to distracting material, like say Facebook.

Having shit to do, and too many toys to do it, I had to revert back to the olden days; I unpacked a basic electric guitar (because I can plug it in the boards and play nearly noiselessly at two AM) and got half a dozen basic tracks down.

Oh, its very crude stuff, probably off-beat and so forth, but its still more stuff than I've been able to commit to memory since the material I've done for Bone Structure... and that was a while ago. I can probably get a couple of songs out of those recordings, maybe three, of while one will not be too bad and I can get others to listen to them.

It could happen. It has to happen. When I make commitments, I sort of feel the need to pull through now, especially to friends. Especially to myself. I have projects that are just gathering dust, for no other reason than maniacal procrastination.

Too many things to do. Too many things "demanding" attention. I have to make myself filter them out. I have to decide what the filters will be.

I have to get my mind back.

Everything else? Just fuck it.