My Flat, Cresta

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Service: * *
Food: * * *
Ambience: * * * 1/2
Babe Count: N/A

Hmmmm. It's been an eventful two months since I last blogged. Quick catchup...

I took a job writing copy for an online gambling empire. My job was to addict fat American housewives to online gaming, via direct response communications. I thought the job would be a wonderful challenge, both to my morals and my skills. I started out in advertising writing direct response, and loved it.

However, this particular company just has no idea about direct response. They also have no idea about how to get creative beings to stay in their employ.

They were clock watchers of the worst kind. I had to be in the office at 9am, take exactly one hour for lunch, and leave no earlier than 6pm. Ugh!!! Now I'm a particularly fast writer. Humungously so. Give me 22 direct response mailers to write, and you'll have them within two days. Budget a week for them, and I'll be sitting with three days of boredom on my hands. If you don't have the grace to give me the time off, I'll be a very frustrated man.

Which is why I left.

I sent out my cv to a coupla corporate video companies, and within half an hour received a response. The company was UNPLUGGED, and they needed a heavyweight writer to do a humour-packed script for Standard Bank. I met with them, was given the job on the spot, and resigned from the online gambling empire immediately.

They're busy putting the finishing touches on the final edit of the video, and the client loves it, according to my producer. Viva!

I then turned down another writing job, cos the money wasn't right for me, and the job felt rather hectically undefined. I'm a fiendishly expensive writer for many reasons. One reason is that I'm realllly good at what I do. Another is that I'm picky about the gigs I get involved in. Another is that I'm actively living my motto: "I live my art in prosperity and abundance."

My philosophy came about a day or so after the planes hit the Twin Towers. I said to myself, "Roy... if you're in a building that gets hit by a plane, you'd bettttttter be doing something you love."

From that day on, I've been moving closer and closer to ONLY doing jobs I love. And charging between R50k and R100k for them. And walking away from those I don't love.

On the love-front, M and I split up. Basically, it wasn't really working for me. She was pretty set on monogamy after my polyamorous exploration stopped.

You may remember that I was in a polyamorous setup with J, and with M, and that they were both cool with it while it was happening. But then J decided it wasn't cool for her, and she quit the arrangement. As soon as that happened, M said, "Okay, Roy! I'm not keen on polyamory, and I want to be in a monogamous relationship with you."

As much as I liked her, the pressure suddenly seemed enormous. And things fizzled out for me.

But then I met S. She's a babe, and I've fallen head-over-heels in love with her. Smitten, I tell you. She and I discussed polyamory, and we're both theoretically cool with it. Our arrangement is that our current relationship is our primary one, but that we're both free to pursue other relationships after discussion with each other. We've both agreed that we won't do any such pursuing until our relationship is fully established.

I have to admit, though, that I'm feeling spectacularly happily monogamous with S. She's pretty much everything I've ever wanted or needed in a woman. She feels like the person I wanna be with. Yummy.

Part of the reason I haven't blogged till now is that I've been putting my energy into building the relationship. And also, she's been a little nervous over my blogging about her. So the arrangement is that I blog without naming her or making it obvious to anyone who doesn't know us who she is. She'll read what I put on the site, and we'll evaluate as we go along.

On other fronts, I'm experiencing a huge creative upsurge. I've just written a short film, which I'll be directing, with Damon Berry shooting. We'll be filming it early next month. And I've been spending some time breaking the script down, storyboarding it, and generally being a director-producer on it.

I'm looking for some actors (based in Johannesburg, South Africa). Lemme know if you're interested in auditioning. I want to make it clear that this is a freebie though. There is NO MONEY involved in the making of this film. None whatsoever. Not a cent. So if you're in it, it's for free. Email me on schmucknews@gmail.com if you're keen.

I'm also pursuing voice-over work seriously.

And a chance encounter over a French beret has led me to a bunch of people who run team-building seminars that I might find myself part of. I'll be sitting in on one of their processes this weekend out in Sun City.

Blogging will now continue as normal. Good to be back.