Well today I went to feed my rabbits, only to have them escape their cage and run around and acting weird. They were running erratically and didn't seem interested in going home or eating, which is weird because they normally swarm towards the food at the end of the day to devour it. When I had failed rounding them up I noticed that one of them was missing from the mischief.
I looked around and noticed in that shadows at the back of the cage, lying perfectly still in an odd position was Fweckles.
My heart sunk. I'm not sure how to describe the nuance of it, but rabbits have a distinct difference between the way they lie down when exhausted/tired/sleeping and how they lie when dead.
Fweckles (like "freckles" only with a kayewt w) is the matriarch of the lot. She is the grandmother of Panda Moustache-Bunny (the youngest), the largest, oldest and hence the highest in the hierarchy of bunny pecking order. She was an awesome bunny. She would hop around the place like she owned it. When we let her out she'd hop all the way up a story and a half of stairs to hop around the balcony and wait outside the back door until someone inside noticed her and gave her a carrot. Such a spoiled rabbit.
Hey, time for pictures! Let's start with the day we got her:
She was so adorable!
Here she is all grown up eating a carrot on the balcony (as aforementioned)
Here she is with her granddaughter Panda Moustache Bunny taken on a fancy Pentax camera (that beats my terrible old cheap Kodak one hands down... ugh. Everything available today beats my old kodak one)
And here she is with Rachmaninoff, one of her two daughters (that we kept. She's had way more). She got so lazy in her old age. When she was nice and young she would actually climb the framing of her cage! But after falling down from a large height a few times she decided that maybe bunnies weren't meant to climb and were meant to hop around instead.
So that was her. A bunny with an actual personality (unlike Pythagoras, her albino daughter, who is passive and uninteresting) and she has been one of my favourite pets so far.
We buried her behind the shed that is partially her cage as well (it's a pretty big cage ok? You can walk into it). Rachmaninoff stood near the grave for a while, seemingly somewhat confused about it. There there bunny, your mother is gone now but it's ok, you've still got Pythagoras, Bean, Panda Moustache Bunny, the chickens and the guinea pig Plato to keep you company. (I have quite a few pets)
Yesterday I was volunteering at the Laneway Music Festival. It's this festival where they get a bunch of indie bands I've never heard of (except Cloud Control) and force them to perform for money. (My goodness!) As a volunteer I got a free shirt, free water, free access to the festival and I could leave and come back whenever I wanted (suck it everyone else, with the whole "No passouts" rule!). First off I tried to get donations from people entering the gates for "Young Care", which not even the gate manager knew what it was... so the five other people with tins and I decided that we'd just make things up every time someone asked.
"It's for elephants. Baby elephants."
"Pandas."
"Asian's training to become Doctors. Asians with the last name "young"."
"Orphans."
"My personal crack fund."
"It's to fund a new kind of cereal. As you can see the "Y" is a rip off of the Special K, "K"."
I was winning on the donation funds. I was good at bugging people, sometimes I'd walk alongside them holding out the tin.
Turns out it was actually about paraplegics or something... which I found at later and that seemed somewhat effective if you told people it was for the disabled (as opposed to funding my crack habit, which people care less about...). I actually saw a guy in a wheelchair and was like "would you like to donate to the paraplegics?" I also went up to people on crutches to ask them if they'd "like to donate to the crippled?"
There was some other volunteer activities. At one point I had to fill in for someone as they had lunch so I got to go behind a stage onto the street and tell people that the laneway next to me was not the entrance to the festival and they need to go down the street and turn left twice..... YEAH! I was good at it too.
Then some pretty girls in a redbull car drove up, gave me redbull and walked past where I (and someone else) was meant to be guarding into the backstage area. I'm not sure if we were meant to let them through... oh well, we got bribed with redbull by pretty ladies! And we didn't get in trouble... so an overall win.
Anyway, fast forward through the boring bits and we get to me signing off my shift just in time to see Cloud Control! Wooo! That was lots of fun, as they were the only band that I knew of/could understand the lyrics of. They seem to like mentioning water in a lot of their songs for some reason and I should try and ask them if there's meant to be some recurring metaphor behind that...
Despite not knowing who anyone else was, I stuck around (hey, I'd been working and on my feet for nearly 5 hours without getting paid, the least I could do is make the most of the free admission to this festival!) and I just so happened to find myself watching a band from New York called Les Savy Fav.
Now if you've ever seen them live then you'll know why they stuck out from every other band there. If you haven't seen them live, let me give you a quick run down of what I saw (I wasn't there for about the first 5 minutes I think):
The lead singer is this very energetic strange man who decided to jump off stage, and tug at the microphone cord so he could further and further into the moshpit, crowd surf, and start to sink.
^That is the most normal thing he did all night, by far. That would've been pretty normal looking for a rock performance if he wasn't 40-50 years old, fat, wearing only short shorts, have a face painted with gold, and wearing a captains sailors hat.
I can't remember which order it happened in but then he decided to get balloons out from backstage that were in a plastic bin bag and a bin (each separate) and throw them out to the audience. The balloons got stuck in the bin so instead of pouring them, he just threw the bin into the crowd. Then proceeded to tear a hole in the bin bag so he could wear it as a shirt.
At one point he ran off to the right (facing the stage), around the crowd and into this small patch of garden where two drunk guys ran out to tackle/party with him. Not deterred by random drunk people, he deliberately jumped onto the ground and tore a bite out of nearby plant as security pried the drunken people off him.
He pushed his way through the crowd, up the stairs and climbed onto a concrete wall. I was getting a bit worried for his safety as people were tugging on his mike cord. Then he stole a professional camera on a pole (to get shots above the crowd) from a photographer trying to catch his performance and began swinging it back and forth wildly as the flash went off. I stopped caring for his safety was too busy going OH S*** NOT THE CAMERA!!!!! (do you have any idea how much one of those ones cost!?)
Nearing the end of the performance he climbed up onto the giant side speakers, then grabbed onto the frame that the lights were attached too. The whole stage was rocking back and forth. Thankfully he didn't continue to swing on it and went back to the large speaker where he decided to lie on it.
At some point lots of people were on stage, I don't know who they were or why they were there but people were hugging the guitarist from behind as he played, there was just random things happening. It was all very bizarre.
Musically I didn't think they were anything too interesting. Like, acceptable to good range of songs but I don't feel the need to go and then continue to listen to them. I was completely distracted by my lack of interest in the songs by the odd antics of this weird old man.
Les Savy Fav has definitely been the most interesting and bizarre performance from a band I've ever seen. By far. Granted, I haven't been to many festivals or concerts, but I'm pretty sure most bands don't have their lead singer run off to go violently eat foliage in the middle of a performance. I'd see them again just to see what he ends up doing, see if it's different, see how much security has to interfere, and see how badly he gets hurt.
Remember that blog post where I mentioned that I had FINALLY gotten a job? Well I apologise for not blogging about it sooner guys.
Let me tell you what that job was: It was Telemarketing. Yep. I had to get up at 4:50am just so I could get ready in time to catch the numerous long public transport bus/train rides into the West of the city so I could start at 7am (because we were calling people in Melbourne who are ahead of us in timezones) and call up random strangers just to have them ignore me and tell me to go away. I got paid $18 (minimum) to do this.
I got fired after 2 days.
Woops! Ok, let me explain. You see, the thing with Telemarketing is no one wants to honestly sit there and listen to you. EVER. But to keep the job you need to sell at least 0.7 sales per hour on average (they pay you extra if you manage more). The problem with this scenario (as confirmed by the fellow experienced telemarketers there) is that it was a) close to Christmas so the smart people had decided to buy things already and everyone's spending everything on other things that they know they want or know that other people want. b) the area I had started in was apparently hard to sell in and the experienced telemarketers were complaining in their lunch break how badly they were doing c) like I explained, people don't like telemarketers and so people would hang up on me even before I had even mentioned what I was selling d) NO ONE IS HOME ON A WEEKDAY AT 11 IN THE MORNING THEY ARE ALL AT WORK.
So to describe my job as accurately as I could would be "Sitting down in a room listening to the sound of a phone ring only to get endless answering machines, and on the rare occasion that someone answers they hang up a few seconds later. Repeat this process."
By rare I mean rare. We got a sheet of 56 numbers to go through and I got bored there being barely any real people answering the phones so I marked on it whenever someone actually picked up the phone. The best average I got was 11/56, though it even got down to 2/33. I got so happy whenever someone answered. I responded in this kind of shocked joy when they did, it was like "OH HELLO!" Occasionally one of these people would be an actual business themselves, and you don't market to businesses you market to individuals so that's out of the question. Most of the people just hang up after the first 2 sentences, a few would let me get to the next paragraph before telling me they weren't interested. Rarely you'd get that gem of a customer who would sit and listen to everything I had to say. The feeling of joy when you actually finish reading your script without being hung up on (some people don't even say bye, they just hang up and leave me talking...) is so awesome, so great, making it so much more annoying when they go "sorry, I just let you talk to be polite. I'm not really interested at all. Bye." To which I reply "Have a nice day." when I really want to reply "DAMNIT TO HELL! I GET FIRED IF I DON'T SELL THINGS AND THE MORE PEOPLE I CALL THE MORE LIKELY IT IS I'LL MANAGE TO SELL SOMETHING! YOU JUST WASTED SO MUCH OF MY PRECIOUS TIME! THIS IS A NUMBERS GAME NOT A JOB WHERE IF I FAIL THAT'S OK."
Well, not at the start I didn't... but by the end (two days) I was getting slightly annoyed. So yeah, you know if you get called by a telemarketer, ask them to very briefly tell you what they're selling so you know whether or not you want to listen to them or hang up. Don't waste their time, they get fired if you do...
So yeah. I sold one thing. One thing in 10 hours. That's an average of 0.1 I got a few people interested who said they'd call back after they've thought about it, but I'll never know if I got the sell because they were arranged to call back/be called back about it the day after I got fired.
I got a call and they said "we've been monitoring your progress and you're just not selling things, sorry." and I was like "so I don't have to get up really early in the morning? Awesome, have a nice day." Then walked up to people smiling going "I just got fired!"
But don't worry guys, because I got a new job!
I deliver catalogues! Yep. Instead of having to exhaust myself trying to get up at an ungodly hour to be rejected by strangers simply on the basis of my job title and not what I was saying to them, I now have to exhaust myself folding, packing and walking around for hours on end in the hot Australian summer weather to deliver catalogues to strangers and get paid way less for it! I get paid commission per magazine and it's a very small commission. Today I swear I walked for 2-3 hours sweating in the sun while pulling along tons of catalogues and I'm half done... I feel sunburnt (I probably am, I put on sunscreen but I think I was out for so long it wore off and I'm sensitive to UV light with my redheadedness), my legs don't want to move any more.
I am going to get paid $26 for this.
AREN'T YOU GLAD YOUR JOB IS WORTHWHILE?
Or at the very least better paying.
I need a new job. My jobs are just getting worse and worse and now they don't even pay worthwhile...
Hey ya'll remember when I decided to help Steve Roggenbuck distribute his poetry? Well, as thanks he decided to send me a few print copies of his chapbook all the way from Chicago and I was quite excited. Now I could distribute all the poems quite conveniently for him! And of course, I had an idea before the letter had even arrived in the mail. Here it is:
Here it is, the chapbook looking snazzy in it's simple square format.
Here I am wrapping it up in Christmas wrapping.
Here is a letter addressed to a cleaner, any cleaner really...
Here is the inside of the card.
And here is it, being left on a table at the food court in Whitfords City, just next to the escalator up to the cinemas. You see when you stop eating a cleaner will wipe your table and remove whatever junk you forgot about/were too lazy to remove and I decided that, hey... they're cleaners. It's important but they work when you've left so they hardly get any thanks right? So... what better gift than a vegan poet they've never heard of from the internet?
I have four other chapbooks in my possession. I'm sure to think of other interesting ways to give them to people/strangers.
For those who want to know what lies within the pages of said chapbook, here it is in full.
Ever had one of those nights where like "well this is the first time I've done that..."
I had one of those on Tuesday. You ready for it? You sitting down? Good. It went a little something like this...
Lorna decided to throw a fund raising event at a pub in the city for her final year screening (for those films that her fellow film students made) so for the first time I went out to the city to a pub (I don't go out much ok?) The fund raiser was somewhat disappointing as not many people showed up... and I knew that would happen. That's OK, I found 3 people to come with me. The first one I ran into when he just managed to get into the train door just as it was closing on him. Surprise surprise it's my friend from high school, Matt, who has come back to Perth for a little while to drink with his friends who I also knew from high school. I convinced them that if they wanted to drink they should come to where I was going as otherwise we're really going to fail at this fund raising idea...
So we're at the pub and there's a local musician playing. There's people I haven't seen in ages and those I haven't seen... ever... but only one of them really matters to the story. Any way, one of the musicians was a girl with an acoustic guitar just on stage singing by herself to a crowd of 4 people (I know. Attendance was quite poor. There were more, but not all were watching) and and some point the girl next to me says something when a song finishes that the musicians responds to. Can't remember how it went or why it somehow then involved the musician inviting me on stage to play her instrument (I mentioned I played guitar).
First time I've "gate crashed" someone's live performance, taken their instrument and started playing random chords. Now I should point out that the three friends I had convinced to come along were called Matt, Lewis and Kennard. Lewis was blonde, Kennard isn't.
Well, I'm on stage with a guitar and a microphone. I start off with something nice and mellow, a little arpeggiated Am chord with a little hammer off bit on the e string (e-g) added in. (Sounds cool, do it now guitar peeps) I lean closer to the mike and go "This one goes out to Lewis.... you're so much prettier than Kennard." Then I started improvising, tried to get the musician to improvise some lyrics as Lewis and Kennard watched with unimpressed looks on their faces.
So that was the first time I then started serenading a guy on stage with a guitar.
When I got off stage to let the musician continue her set Lewis came up to me and was like "I am not wooed."
Awww...
Well the night continued, and as a joke to do with the empty stage I mentioned poetry readings and stand up. I was encouraged to do that, but didn't. Some middle aged guy from Manchestor who I thought was joking about it too decided that yeah, it's a great idea!
He took the mike and started reciting poems. Poems that he had written. Because he is a poet. At that point in time I turned to the film students and went "....who is this guy again?" and received a few shrugs. OK, random poet just... very enthusiastically and loudly reciting poems about who knows what. I couldn't really follow. I stood there occasionally commenting on it to the guy next to me. "It doesn't rhyme..." "He's using repetition... which is a convention of some poetry for emphasis." You know, the kind of remarks you make during an unexpected poetry reading a pub and you want to make it obvious that you're not really a literary analyst.
Then, mid-sentence, the poet starts yelling at me. "WILL YOU SHUT THE F*** UP!? I'M TRYING TO READ A POEM HERE AND THERE YOU ARE IN YOUR SHORTS AND YOUR CONVERSE ALL TALKING AWAY! THAT'S RUDE, I MEAN I'M FROM MANCHESTER BUT SERIOUSLY!" And then he continued talking.
So that was the first time that a poet had decided to yell at me during a poem. Afterwards he apologised and said it was all in good fun, he hugged me instead of hitting me. I pointed out that my shoes weren't actually converse...
But his poetry did actually keep going on and on... at one point he was talking about oil, slicking back your greasy hair, yeah you something something... and waving his arm in my direction and I was like "...is this poem about me? My hair is actually quite clean...."
The next one was dedicated to the sound guy, who probably hadn't had a night like this... ever...
The poet said he'd introduce me and get me on stage to do some poems/stand up (remember earlier when I was joking about all that?) and I was thinking to myself "I can't follow this... he's just so enthusiastic." The guy next to me goes "Yes, but anything you say would be better" (oh burn) But he decided "Nah, I like talking too much" and so decided not to give me any more stage time, just keep pacing back and forth saying poems. Oh well. I'd been on stage once that night.
There was a raffle at the end. There were about 6 or so prizes and quite a few people had left (including the people I had came with) so it was like "Nah, can't be bothered giving it to people who aren't here..." So they'd draw a ticket, no one had it... they'd draw another... same thing... draw another, someone would win. It was kinda bad for the people who didn't win anything seeing as their odds were really good considering the small amount of competition and the amount of redraws... but nope. I won some wine and someone else won a pizza voucher so we swapped.
I really wasn't ready for walking through Northbridge with a 1.5L bottle of wine in my hand, waiting at a train station for half an hour and then coming home on the train at nearly midnight. You just don't do that. So that wasn't a first time for me thank fully... I don't want to get arrested/beaten up/forced to drink socially with people I've never met who just so happened to have cups on their person and went "WAHEY! GUY WITH BOOZE LET'S GET HIM TO GIVE A ROUND AND TOAST TO SOMETHING YEAAAHHH!!" (It could happen, don't tell me it can't!)
And then that was also the first night I had gone out late, had a drink, yelled over the loud music until my throat was a bit sore, then come home and had less than 5 hours of sleep before my first day at a job where my job description was to talk to strangers on phones. More on that later.
Hey kids! Ever been molested while boarding a plane? I thankfully haven't. But then again I don't a) live in America b) fly in planes (I fly through super powers...) Well that's not actually what I wanted to talk to you about (though is it quite disgraceful to treat a three year old like a terrorist) as awful as that is.
Let's talk about somebody else who ran into trouble with the TSA: Soldiers returning from Afghanistan. (Here is a story about it which you must read before reading the rest of this!)
For those too lazy to read that amusing and factual article I will sum it up for you: A bunch of US soldiers returning from war (WHILE HOLDING THEIR WEAPONS) are asked to be screened again after all the trouble of having to get back into the country again and one of them empties their pockets only to reveal that this man, this US Soldier holding an assault rifle and a pistol, is in the possession of a nail clipper. Then he gets it taken off him because "it could be used as a weapon".
Let's just break this down.
These soldiers are returning from war, they're the kind of guys who fight against the nasty people who take over planes (and the very reason why TSA is now so strict you can't have a nail clippers hence the irony of the situation) and do bad things. They've just risked their lives for their country... and they're worried that (while holding a gun - even though it has no bullets in it it is still somewhat heavy/intimidating/capable of being used as a blunt weapon to beat people up) this US Soldier is going to try and take over a plane taking them home while over 200 other US Soldiers are on board... with a pair of nail clippers...
OK. Now ignoring the fact that there are plenty of other soldiers capable of defusing the situation and saving the day, let's say there is one bad guy who decides "Yeah! I'M GOING TO CLIP SOME S*** YEAH! PILOT GIVE ME THE PLANE OR I CLIP YOU! I CLIP YOU GOOD!"
But then! THEN! The pilot gets an adrenaline rush, he envisions his wife and kids (I'm not sexist, it's just that in this story the pilot just so happens to be a man.) back home and that gives him the courage to stand up against this evil nail clipper wielding maniac of doom and prevent the next 9/11 from ever happening! The pilot with almost superhuman reflexes slaps the soldiers hands, knocking the nail clippers to the floor. With rapier wit and a proud smugness to this brave pilot's face, he says "No. Bad soldier. No."
...Then get's pummelled repeatedly by the soldier who has biceps the size of his head because quite frankly...
...HE'S. A. US SOLDIER.
Surely part of his training involves hand to hand combat. Even if the pilot had a gun I don't think that it would really stop the soldier with or without a pair of nail clippers. It's not like he'd announce it "Hey Pilot, I'm about to sneak up behind you and break your neck. Please don't shoot me?"
So remember people, next time you're returning from war after bravely risking your life... don't let them take away your nail clippers. They are yours. They are yours and screw TSA if they want to take them away from you!
(Though it's best not to mention to them that you could kill the pilot with your bare hands if you wanted to because the scared TSA guy will call security on you)
This just in! (I'm not making a whole new post) Someone was forced to stand soaked in their own urine without an apology because of TSA completely ignoring them tell them about their medical condition. Link. It's just ridiculous. Don't they get told to like... use ears? Or even eyes? ARE TSA HEARTLESS ROBOTS!? The answer: probably. The robot uprising starts with TSA.
Have you heard of I am like October when I am dead? Well if you haven't, kindly click on the link provided so you may read the cool works of one Steve Roggenbuck.
He writes short poems (well most of them are quite short) that aren't incredibly verbose in conceits and elaborate metaphors and images but instead are simple and very fun to read. I love them. They are shiny.
What's that? You don't like poems? Well I have one thing to say to you!
i dont care about reading a poem
who do you think i am, robert frost?
i have never been in the woods and i hate walking
- Steve Roggenbuck
Here is another one of his poems:
god help me im throwing my neighbor off a building
That's it. I find them amusing, which is why I'm helping with his distribution! He wants them to be distributed freely wherever, and I decided well I'll help. Now he can say that his poems can be found in physical form on the continent of Australia! As demonstrated by this photographic evidence I took at Murdoch University (where I am a student at):
Yeah, I believe that's near an assignment drop box so all those MCC students (especially Screen Production 1 whose final assignments are yet to be handed in) will be like ".................................what?"
Indeed they do.
Bloody hell my handwriting is messy.
Well, I had two other little cards that I didn't get to hand out as I was afraid that people would see me. The poems I failed to put up were:
i have two sunflowers wilting on my bookshelf
thats it
thats all
the poem is done, get out
and:
i asked my dad if the corn harvest is over
it is way over, my dad said
Perhaps some other time? I also wanted to put up one of my favourites:
to my nephew on his birthday
i will choke your dad
i dont care
im not afraid
But something told me that if I got caught putting up a piece of paper that says "I will choke your dad" I would get in trouble so I didn't.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the mind of Steve Roggenbuck and you can check out his website here: LINK!
Edit: Totally got a thank you email from Steve Roggenbuck himself for my guerilla distribution tactics! He also mentioned me on Twitter and a link to this blog so comment or vote in the poll if he sent you here!
Also, for those who enjoyed his poems: click on this link about distribution on his website!
Warning: The following blog post contains things that some people make consider spoilers. That and you'd get it better if you've seen the show Afro Samurai. If you haven't, stop reading, watch all 5 episodes, then come back.
Afro Samurai is a 5-part Anime miniseries about a black guy who kills hundreds of Asians in a constant blood bath so he can kill a three armed cowboy with a headband.
Before he can achieve his goal, his best friend from his past gets turned into Darth Vader by a cross between Man-at-arms/Duncan of He-Man and Dr Eggman of Sonic and then attempts to kill him while wearing a teddy bear head on his face on the top of a snowy mountain.
Now, does that not sound like the best thing ever? OK not the best thing ever, but it's actually very very cool and you should definitely watch it if you enjoy copious amounts of violence, blood, and Samuel L Jackson's voice.
The end.
*It took millions of man hours just to make it's head.
(Note: mini blog may actually become not so mini and go for more than just a few paragraphs)
Well, quick update. I did NOT get the job at Video Ezy... why? Because there were other applicants. That's in effect of the reason given to me... one job position + multiple (she said "many" which could mean anything) applicants = hahaha like hell we'd pick you.
Which I COULD take it as "Well although you're a friendly film student who it getting a university level education about the only thing we sell and you have absolute availability every hour of every hour we're open thus pretty much perfect* for this job seeing as you can WALK here from your house if you wanted to... we knew from the very beginning that you had no experience so we wasted your time interviewing you because what separates you from any other applicant (besides your film student status, probably the only reason why we even bothered to acknowledge your existence) is the lack of retail experience thus it was predetermined from the beginning that you were really just backup in case everyone else fell through..."
OR...
I could take it as.... wait a moment when I think of a better spin to put on this....
"Your film student status means nothing, you simply lacked the assertiveness to really go outside the set conversational boundaries of the interview thus failed to woo us as an exceptional person who stood out from the rest." (Yes that's positive)
WHICH MEANS.... that to what I need to do to get a job NEXT time I get an interview (which happens on average a year or year and a half right?) is simply just talk more... get to know my interviewer and show them I am more than just the answers to the questions on their sheets. OK that won't guarantee anything, but I have to find some way to stand out and my resume obviously isn't it.
I don't take it personally, that's just silly. Of course it's not personal, there just are people who do better. I am actually quite glad that they took their time to actually acknowledge my existence by phoning me up originally. Very few people do that... in fact... they're actually the only people who have done that. Out of all the job interviews (all 2 and a half in my life) this one was the first one where they actually called me beforehand to arrange it. The last one on the other hand involved them emailing me on the incorrect email address and then me finding out not long beforehand because my brother also got the same interview and they called him instead. Needless to say those people maintained that level of professionalism all the way through my interaction with them.
Each failure is another thing to learn from, every few months I rewrite parts of my resume, improve, learn to shake hands and introduce myself instead of just handing things silently to people, learn how to respond to pointless questions, do lots of volunteer work to make me look like a saint (a saint that gets retail and customer service experience when working the till at St Vinny's), learn sign language so I can handle the deaf.
I just need to improve beyond adequate... I need to be more than sufficient. I shall become superb in my application and interviewing process.
I am awesome. And I will bloody prove this.
Bring it world. BRING IT ON.
...he says for the 300th time...
*(Why is the job I'm most suited for also very highly sought after? Why can't I just get that damn job?)
I'm going to show you two videos and we will see which one involves talent and which one involves something manufactured for the sake of making money. Don't worry, neither will be Bieber (because I am not so evil as to subject you to that horror)
OK here's the first one, it's of Emily Bear:
(If the embed doesn't work or you would like to comment on her sheer awesomeness click on this link)
(Wow, that was made way more impressive by the fact that her hands are freaking TINY! Did you see how frantic her hands were when playing? I doubt she can even reach an octave with one hand she's so small... in fact I'm certain of it! I can only stretch to 9 or 10 tones and I'm an adult.)
OK here's the next one, it's of the daughter of Will Smith, Willow Smith (The official music video had embedding disabled so if you insist on seeing the actually well directed and edited music video click here):
(If the embed doesn't work or you would like to comment... click on this link)
Emily is 6, Willow is 10.
Let's discuss.
Emily is obviously an incredibly brilliant musician and composer who has been composing pieces since she was 3 years old, most of are probably harder than I can play. Willow Smith is a little girl with a song that goes "I whip my hair back and forth" again and again and again.
Now I think Will Smith is a pretty cool guy, and he actually gets his own children to star in his films which is a pretty awesome way to be a father in my opinion. Just think about it, he's a big movie star who is often incredibly busy and is away from home for long periods of time on set of a film he's making... must suck not seeing his family especially his kids... oh wait. He brings them with him! See? BRILLIANT! And they get paid in the process. Best father ever?
But I can't help but feel that his hollywood stature had a role to play in Willow's musical 'career'. She's 10, how else did she really convince a bunch of music producers that "I whip my hair back and forth I whip my hair back and forth I whip my hair back and forth" was a good idea? Perhaps he personally didn't play a part in it any other way than simply being her father. Think about it, Willow doesn't need to get "discovered" like other children, we already know she's there and producers realise that she is connected to one of the most famous and profitable movie stars of the past 20 years, she instantly becomes marketable to a mass audience simply because she has a famous father.
I find this song incredibly (lyrically) simplistic and childishly pretentious which isn't help by it's obviously grandiose music video with a big budget. Sure, it's meant to be about self-love and assurance, to be motivational and uplifting but...
...I whip my hair back and forth, I whip my hair back and forth...
That really doesn't have any really deep sounding meaning to it and it comes off as self centred. It's almost constant repetition detracts from the song, it fails to be an inspiring anthem as it's just quickly spouting a nonsensical phrase. I get that she's a kid and thus can't really write very elegant or deep lyrics but then again... why should I care? (Wait a second... she DIDN'T actually write this song, an adult did. That just makes all my points about her lack of creative ability moot... but makes the person who wrote this really sad as a writer. At least it musically is interesting.)
Gifted children either are prodigies that are unbelievably brilliant or have potential that needs to be nurtured so they can grow into something better and more refined. Emily Brown is a prodigy and I am glad that she has produced 4 albums in 3 years by the age of 8 (and has won huge amounts of awards) but I am not glad that Willow has been put into the musical spotlight.
Let me explain.
Willow is a kid, who is being signed up with these record companies and pushing out some random track to make money. (SHE DIDN'T EVEN WRITE IT). I'm sure she enjoys it and that's good, but I fear that she is getting more attention than she deserves because of her relations and that this will lead to her getting screwed over. She's so young she doesn't really get how the industry works (hell, a lot of bands with adults don't get it either and they probably don't know how much THEY get screwed over until they're halfway through their contracts). She is going to become/is already a product like Bieber. A promotional tool, a play thing for producers. She's 10, she should go out and play with her friends... Michael Jackson never got a childhood and look how he ended up.
I just really don't like children in the music industry.
BUT! Oh I don't hate Willow, oh no! Like I said, she should be nurtured into something better and refined and so I hope that if she truly enjoys writing music then when she is a lot older can think of better lyrics with more substance (and actually write them herself) and she's mature enough to make sure she knows what she is doing, then she will start producing whatever hits she likes. I'm sure when she's older her music will have far more depth, be far more interesting, creative, catchy and have more emotion behind it (and perhaps she'll ACTUALLY write it... Instead of Ronald M Jackson).
Emily Bear on the other hand, although incredibly young, does not appear to be signed with a major record label. She seems cute and humble in her TV appearances, and not arrogant like she feels like she can just barge into the music world. If you also look at her appearances for performances you'll see that her schedule does not involve large touring. It's here and there, it's pretty simple. She's not heavily promoted and marketed to a bunch of children. She gets news coverage for her talent, not because she's wearing something silly on the red carpet. She isn't a media sensation with pointless Dolly and MSN articles with speculation about her private life, but still gets recognition for her talent through awards. She just writes her own music and plays it, sometimes recording it to share with people. She has great talent and I hope that when she is older she can choose to show off more and sign a label or just do whatever.
So my point: The music industry today is starting to find children to become products to sell to newer markets... this is wrong. Children should prove their worth, not be advertised as something worthy of idolisation. This blog would've worked better with Bieber as an example but I refuse to listen to his music and I was just momentarily offended by how much I disliked Willow Smith's music.
Edit: I just realised that I tried to rationalise not liking Willow while liking Emily with having to do with record labels when I didn't need to... because I also have a problem with artists not writing their own songs. So even if Emily were to be signed to a record label, she'd still be the talented and creative young miss that she is (thus her career being admirable and worthwhile) and Willow would still be the random daughter of Will Smith who sings a song she didn't write. BAM! I just ignored my own argument to come up with a better one!
University is coming to an end for the year. My goodness, scary is it not? I'm going to have SO MANY MONTHS OFF! Even longer between semesters than mid-semester break! How will I survive unless I find employment? Oh please Video Ezy choose the super-uber-awesome-film student to fill that position of yours, I really have nothing to do between semesters...
Let's not go on about that.
Radio and sound! Nice 1st year unit for those who want to get into radio later in life. Because of it's MCC### unit code that means it does not involve an exam (that's a lie, I have an MCC### unit that HAS AN EXAM! WHAT!? WHAT BETRAYAL IS THIS!?) but instead a test during the final week. Pretty simple, for Journalism it was worth pretty much as much as an exam would be only you didn't get time off to study for it. Also, it was pretty easy.
Speaking of pretty easy, the test for Radio and Sound was INCREDIBLY easy (and actually worth a surprisingly small amount). Yeah, you're probably thinking "Yeah, I get it you read the book once through and then understood it all so it was easy..."
No that's not it at all. Let me tell you how easy this test was... this test was not for University students, it was for highschool students. The comprehension was so simple the questions might as well have been "restate the 2nd paragraph" and "restate the final paragraph word for word." That is not how you write a test for the end of the year!
Just to stress my point... the test was so easy that anyone could sit down and take the test and still feel like they could've passed it even if they did not study the unit or take it at all.
Which is good seeing as I don't take that unit.
Yeah! Seeing as the days of silly test andexam answers are over because my exams ACTUALLY MATTER ALL OF THEM what with going towards my degree (that I desperately need to prove I actually DID something for 3 years) I have to find a new outlet for being an idiot.
So I sat in a lecture theatre and did a test I didn't have to for a unit I don't do. Fun right? I thought it was fun.
I stood around outside as people gathered to talk just before they did their test. I would go up to some of them and go "Man, I have NOT studied at all! I bet I'm going to fail... I haven't even listened to half the lectures." And it was quite amusing when you get genuine responses about your completely false concern... Then Sam-ham (the ma'am from Man......... durah) had to always interject with "YOU DON'T DO THIS UNIT!" (Thanks for telling them the TRUTH) That too was amusing because quite a few people thought I did... even the lecturer thinks I do. You see back when I was dumb enough to go to my Journalism lectures in the morning -which I could skip - on Monday's only to hang around for 4 and a half hours doing very little before my next class, I'd walk around and some of my friends do Radio and Sound so I would follow them into their tiny lecture theatre and draw while the lecturer talked about the British influence on the Australian broadcast media etc. I even stayed back to talk with the lecturer about things, giving him the illusion that I was a student eager to learn/a student who cared.
So I sit down, ready to take this test and I'm like "I'm just going to write nonsense on it for a joke... maybe some pictures." It starts and I put my real first name down out of habit... wait... DAMNIT! OK, better think of a fake last name... Knox........ no that's stupid... Knoxville! OK, pretty stupid but then again, I don't take this unit it'll be ok. But I couldn't just write random gibberish! It was multiple choice the first two answers! So I was like "hell, I can totally get this right... I'm going to tick the correct answer. This is so easy..."
Halfway through: "Man this is so easy I bet I could pass this.... wait... wait a second... I came in here to FAIL this test! Now here I am taking this seriously? But... it's just so easy!"
And that was about the time I wrote a swear word...
Well OK I put asterixes to censor it but you know you get the point. "When is it appropriate to use the dump button?" COME ON! Now that's just begging for me to not take it seriously. Seeing as at that point in time in the test I didn't know what it was (it was mentioned later on, thus explaining it. Don't you just love it when tests answer their own questions in the wording of other questions?) and I wasn't taking it seriously I decided this was the perfect time to say "When the b*** cheats on you with your brother and three other men! She's a whore! Dump her!"
You know, as you do halfway during the last test of the unit for the YEAR.
My list of silly answers was unfortunately very limited, I did really have very little room to work with. I was tempted to write "Chuck Norris" once but then figured out the answer. Yeah, I only answered like an idiot if I didn't know the answer...
Though in one it asked you a simple question of ethics where you had the phone number of the mother of a boy who has gone missing and your options are a) don't call the number b) call and REQUEST an interview c) Call and ask her questions, secretly record it and then later broadcast it on your show. Well the answer is obviously B (SEE HOW DAMN EASY THIS IS!?) then it asked you to justify your answer so I went "Because not even trying is not doing your job but if you're going to do something illegal you shouldn't broadcast evidence that you did it on the radio, sure do illegal things but be discrete if you're going to do it." Good advice.
Then I handed it in and left feeling that I could actually pass it despite not actually doing the unit... Though looking back I should've really done more. Like for example I came up with writing "...this isn't the biology test..." at the end of it. But alas, too late! Oh well, perhaps next year there'll be some test I can gate crash?
Well, we'll find out next year...
"This isn't veterinary science... this isn't veterinary science at all..."
They're also pretty damn smart. What? Otters are smart? Yes. Otters are smart (I just said that). So smart that they can use tools!
What? LIES! LIES! I hear you screeching like a deranged banshee at your computer screen until your throat is coarse and bloody. Dude, seriously calm down this is just an otter... look, have a picture of one to calm you down:
Silence yelling Otter of stupidity! It is time to educate you, and everyone else out there that Otters can indeed use tools! Don't believe me? Well let's skip past the Wikipedia Article on it that says that they can (Because hahaha Wikipedia, since when was thatreliable?) to some other random website about wildlife and stuff...
They are the only mammals other than primates, birds and a few other animals known to use tools. They use small rocks or other objects to pry shellfish from rocks and to hammer them open.
Propaganda! Yells the yelling Otter of Stupidity (see above) thinking that such trickery is simple and easy on the interwebs!
Remember that last blog post where I said I wasn't going to stop printing out endless applications and resumes (thus slowly killing trees) until I got a call back?
Well, thanks to a very special someone (you may remember them from a previous blog post where I called their current staff incompetent?) the trees have been saved because I have a job interview! (NOTE: I only meant ONE of their stores have incompetent staff... I have a job interview at the OTHER store nearby... though yes, I did apply to the one closer that has random poorly alphabetised DVD's everywhere. So it's a GOOD thing that they'd hire me! They're obviously out to find good employees of fine quality that are intelligent, funny, social team workers who have a passion for film, such as myself!)
I am so happy! Has the curse been lifted? Will I somehow ace this interview and get my dream job? (As in my dream retail job... My dream job is film maker. But you know, you got to start somewhere. Quentin Tarantino did) This is brilliant! I hope they don't ever read my blog!
I was sitting in my creative writing class when I got the call. I looked at my phone and didn't recognise the number, it wasn't on my contacts list. Suddenly I realised that unknown contact = EMPLOYER!!!
"I must take this" I said as I rushed out of class, answering the phone before I had even reached the door (much to the amusement of my classmates, who jokingly yelled out "YES MR PRESIDENT?!" as I left the room).
"Hello, it's (name) from Video Ezy, how are you?"
"YES! I mean, I'm good. How are you?"
Yeah, I literally did this while on the phone just after I had exited the classroom:
Though admittedly not quite as enthusiastic as Lleyton Hewitt, but still. I was damn excited and I have every reason to be so! I got a job interview! Finally! After three YEARS of trying harder and harder it pays off! I handed in an application and the NEXT DAY I get a call! Thank you God, you rock dude.
So come this Wednesday I am going to rock out. Bring it on interviewer, let me wow you. Could anyone go any further for a Video Rental Store job than a Film Student? Hello, I am a FILM STUDENT! that is desperate for a job and committed enough to do it properly! There is none more suited for this job than I! I do really believe being a film student actually helped secure me this interview, and as such I utter the following sentence:
To those who think doing a Humanities subject at University will never get a person a job: Suck it.
Resumes are propaganda and you just need to put enough of it out there before someone actually believes you are worth the job. I firmly believe that stubbornness is the best way to get things done, because persistence and resilience is really just a kind of stubbornness. Don't think I'm worth giving a job to? Well I'll try somewhere else. I'll try again in 3 months. I won't stop bugging you.
So recently I have decided to apply to at least one place every single day until I get a job. It's not a "oh I've done one job application I can tick that off my list of things to do today" nonsense. No. It's a print out a dozen resumes and see how fast I can get rid of them kind of thing.
I will not stop killing off the trees until I get an interview! Want the rainforests to be preserved? Then lower the damn unemployment rate by employing me! May the end of preservation hang heavy on the guilty conscience of the local retail business not mine. I blame them entirely for my print, hand out, repeat attitude.
I walk into stores, find the manager and go "Merry Christmas!" as I hand them a resume. Sometimes I even say "Give me the gift of a job this Christmas" just to make them feel guilty for not considering it. If you need a Christmas Casual you cannot overlook me! The delightful spry adult who needs someone to interview him to know just how brilliant he can be at whatever job that you need!
I don't care if most of you employers will take one look at my long curly hair and beard and think I'm a lazy slob, I don't care if they skim read it, see no outstanding record of retail experience at age 18, I will not stop trying. Someone out there is going to stop and think "He's 18 with no proper experience... because before no one would hire him because he was 17 with no proper experience..." thus realising that it is not a deficiency on my side, but actually an unfortunate cycle of "you don't have experience thus I won't employ you" preventing me from getting experience to ACTUALLY GET EMPLOYED!
So death to the trees. I wish it hadn't come to this... but the environment must die if I am to ever hope of rising above the curse of unemployment. Sorry Environment...
Failure has only brought me to become more determined. Bring it world.
Dearest random reader from Slovenia, let me tell you about the epic task of getting one's driving license in Australia.
First, you pass a written test, then when you're 16 you get your Learners (Or L's) then you learn, then you take a practical test, then you drive around even more as a Learner, then you take your Hazard Perception test to get your P's (Or... What does P stand for? Who knows? Nothing probably...) then you drive around for a few years before they actually go "Yeah, after about 5 years we're going to give you a proper license." Which is actually a stupid order to things when you think about it. You see, if only they gave you the Hazard Perception Test BEFORE the Practical Test then you wouldn't fail nearly as much because you'd have to actually understand how the road works before you take your test . That way you wouldn't get cute 17 year old girls cutting me off at roundabouts... and then failing their test 5 minutes in.
Ha! An amateur mistake! Double lane roundabouts are bound to stuff up first time test takers no matter how experienced they are at driving!
...that's what happened to me the first time I failed.
Yeah, I failed my drivers test in under 15 minutes last time I tried it back in January. I called up near the end of December thinking I'd get something in February because people always say you need to book months in advance they're always booked. To my surprise I got something in the very start of January. The 3rd or something... 4th? 5th? Well they informed me that I would have to give 48 business hours before the test if I wanted to change or cancel my test which due to the large amounts of public holidays at the end of the year meant I had until.... 5pm to change. It was about 3 at the time. ".....Yeah OK."
Roundabouts... they're evil. They lurk there, waiting for you to enter them, waiting for you to screw up your indicator or not give way to the right... or just barrel straight through them even though they are curved and you need to indicate before changing lanes/you're not meant to change lanes while entering a roundabout...
..that's what I did. *Ahem*
So yes, I did what anyone who failed their drivers test did. I didn't drive for a very long time and when I did I avoided roundabouts.
(No, I am not this bad)
But then I got back on my horse and I got back to driving (which I know I can do, I am fine it's just I completely freaked and mindblanked during the test) and even got a few professional lessons and the teacher was like "OK let's do this... OK you can do that fine, let's do something else... OK you can do this fine too but (insert tiny little bit of advice). OK you don't actually need lessons... one more then book your test."
He even gave me a lesson just beforehand to make sure everything was polished and smoothed over then loaned me the car for the test. As we walk up to the licensing centre I received the weirdest analogy for taking a drivers test ever.
"Take it slow, don't rush it. It's like screwing a woman, if you take it too fast you ejaculate too soon."
....Um.................... thanks..... great thing to hear just before a drivers test.
(Because, there's nothing like a middle aged man talking about premature ejaculation to calm your nerves before a big practical test)
So today it was Take 2: Me vs The Australian Licensing Centre. BRING IT! I drove fine, I never neglected my indicating, my mirror checking, I stopped at every stop sign. Then I was easing out into the middle of an intersection, as you do, and was thinking about going, as you do when there's no oncoming traffic, but there were two people coming up to turn (each quite a bit apart) I wait for the first one, may have started edging forward and- ASSESSOR SLAMS BREAKS! Instant fail - failure to give way to traffic.
WOMAN! Can't you see I was trying to drive? Damnit to hell! I was barely moving you didn't have to hit the breaks!
On the bright side I lasted a whole probably 5 minutes longer than last time (I was still on section one of their little sheet of things to tick and comment shamefully on. I can't think of a proper name for it so let's call it "The Paper of SHAME") but still under 15 minutes.
Then later my mother, quite shocked that her perfectly competent driver of a son failed... again... was driving me around as I was handing out applications (OK I had been driving a good half of the day before my drivers test, I can only drive so much before I want to rest) was all like "What? I don't understand how did you fail your drivers test?" (she says while turning right at a traffic light) to which I reply "What you just did. I did exactly what you just did..."
Then I examined the situation and realised that traffic lights generally have give way sections when turning left and I was turning right, which means the guy coming on that I failed because of SHOULD'VE GIVEN WAY TO ME AND I SHOULDN'T HAVE GOT AN INSTANT FAIL! DAMNIT! DAMNIT! STUPID FOWL WOMAN THAT DRIVERS LICENSE SHOULD BE MINE!
Then I thought about it some more and realised that there is ONE (ONLY ONE) traffic light intersection in Joondalup where this almost universal rule is excepted and there is an arrow traffic light for those turning left on one side but not the other... so it MIGHT have been THAT. Yeah, I was turning right and there was no arrow. I was put in the most obscure and most difficult situation I could've been and I was caught out on a tiny tiny judgement.
Yep, the basic gist of how to Fail your Drivers Test in Under 15 Minutes is to not drive straight. Any point in time that requires you to stop and then turn is going to be your downfall. Oh yeah, that and I didn't sleep well or eat anything after breakfast and so my test, which was in the afternoon, was done while trying to stay awake. BAD IDEA! Hear me Learner drivers, the world is not straight, it is bent and it is going to eat you alive no matter what you do.
So what do you do about it?
You grab that carbon copy of The Paper of SHAME and scrunch it up (after taking note of the mistake you made last time to make sure you never make it again) and throw it in the bin. You book another damn test and you take it again as soon as you can. You know you can drive, don't get discouraged, you let your ego inflate not deflate.
Failure is something that happens naturally, success is rarely natural it needs to be forced. If someone says you failed, prove them wrong.
Spite and stubbornness. Two of the greatest motivators in the world. Next time I shall succeed, and if I don't I will just try again until I do.
I remember this one line from a movie called Little Man Tate (1991):
"A reasonable man adapts himself to the world around him. An unreasonable man expects to the world to adapt *to* him. Therefore all progress is made by unreasonable men."
That stuck with me, I don't remember any other part of the film except that line. I believe it's quite true. Problems are there for you to step on so you can reach higher, not to drag you down.
