Dreams and cowboys

In news just to hand: I hate working. I look back on my 6 months of unemployment, 3.5 of them spent travelling, with such fondness. Thems were the days.

One night this week I had what I like to call The Best Dream of My Life. The following night I had another dream which totally challenged the previous night's dream for said title. If you don't like hearing about other people's dreams, skip the next two paragraphs.

Dream Number 1 was a rambling, adventurous, frolicking saga filled with rock stars, time travel and trucks. The main characters (excluding I) were a posse of four, sitting in a truck. Their leader, a young Mick Jagger. Heath Ledger. Peter Serafinowicz (British comedian who is in Hardware and Spaced, was in one episode of Black Books, and also Shawn of the Dead) - normally brunette but here blonde. And a fourth chap - possibly Paul Bettany or Alan Tudyk (both of whom appeared with darling Mr. Heath in A Knight's Tale, which we watched recently, the latter also in Firefly and Serenity, the former we thought was Bingley in the latest Pride and Prejudice, but it turns out that's a totally different chap altogether, Simon Woods, perhaps his long lost identical twin?). Anyway, these four formed quite a posse, as you can imagine. Well, maybe you can't. Maybe that's just me. And their leader, young sexy rock god Mick, was a time traveller. Perhaps even, by my reckoning, a Time Lord, a la Doctor Who. There were two Rachels there too - one from the past, busy snogging Dan, the other from the present, talking to me in the back of the truck. At one point I says to Mick Jagger Hadn't you better be getting back to the 1960s and forming a band called The Rolling Stones, otherwise you'll be depriving millions of people of some of the best rock music ever. He seemed nonplussed. Which I guess, as a Time Lord, you have all the time in the world to do those sorts of things. Maybe also he didn't like being told what to do. Rock.

Dream Number 2 was set in some sort of bayside town/city, a small city, a bit like Hobart. At some point there was a noxious gas blanketing the main waterside street. At one point I was playing with a new mobile phone I had recently bought (in the dream, not in real life, but I am thinking of getting one for outside of dreams too). But the main selling point of this dream was that I spent the most part of it seducing Peter Dinklage. My favourite dwarf. I even took him to a studio to see Patricia Arquette - I thought he'd like to catch up with her. I was playing it cool. We held hands. The gas didn't get us.

I can't decide which dream I liked more, which dream gets the title.

Meanwhile, my tear ducts got a good workout in Brokeback Mountain on Thursday night. I used to be not so enthralled by Heath Ledger, but these days he could sneeze and I'd be impressed. And Jack Gyllenhaal is a dish. Y'all gots to see it. Wonderful, moving, real life stuff.

But it all happened so fast—!

Hola people! Guess what? I'm employed. Damn and blast I say. Apart from the money/security/being-able-to-pay-rent-and-buy-stuff thing, it is rotten. What is with all this getting up at 7am? My body is not made for that kind of treatment. I'm a delicate flower. At least the 9am-5pm part of things only lasts for the 7 days of training, then I'm onto regular 1-6pm shifts, Mon-Fri, leaving mornings and weekends free to endulge my creative-writing/painting/David-Bowie-and-Devil-worshipping/drinking/film-watching practices. Simultaneously. Ah yes, 'multi-tasking'. That's me.

Hilariously, I'm now working for a mobile phone company - am I allowed to say who it is on a blog? - it's Vodafone. Hilarious, because as some or most of you might know, I have never owned a mobile phone. I didn't say that at the interview though. Oh, the joys. I have yet to voice my own personal mobile phone related enquiry, which is: can you get Gary Newman's hit song 'Cars' as a ringtone? Because THAT is what it would take for me to get a mobile. "Here in my car, I feel safe as can be..." (Strangely enough, I have also never driven.)

I found some pretty fucked ads for jobs while I was searching (searching for jobs, that is, not for fucked-up ads for jobs!) Such as:
"MARTENIKG IS ALL AOUBT MKAENIG A BLOD STMEATENT THAT CTAHCES POELPS ANTETITION!!" Hmm, yes. And: "Ambitious and wanting to earn. BIG Ca$h? ... Looking for part-time work ? Want a fun, vibrant, buzzy environment?" Buzzy? Do you have to be a bee to apply? Also some with some pretty frikkin' awful typos, and I quote: "Fun & exceptional retail! Right now we`re looking for exceptional retail sales gurus to be apart of an unreal culture." ... 'Apart of'? Well, I certainly want to be apart from any sort of culture- or cheesmaking process. Except for the eating part of it. And they expect people to actually apply for these jobs? Needless to say, I didn't.

My critera for applying was: do the job writers know how to use the English language good and proper like? And if they did, then off I sent my Cover Letter of Death. Which, if rejected, emitted a poisonous gas which killed anyone within 100 meters. Good-O.

Pirates!

I know, I know. I'm meant to be looking for work. But at least allow me some joy in my life, please.

Today's main source of joy came from (apart from the usual purring cat on my bed to wake me up, coffee for that post-waking wake-up and Anthony and The Johnsons for that relaxing put-me-back-to-sleep mood) the teaser-trailer for the new Pirates of the Carribean filum! Find it here:
http://www.moviecentre.net//upcomingmovies/trailer/movie_id_549.htm
Go! Watch! Now!

As well as the usual hot gay pirate tension between the delicious Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow and the sword-wielding Orlando Bloom as earnest Will Turner, it also has Bill Nighy in it. I love Bill Nighy, particularly as Slartibartfast in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, but him as a pirate can't do no harm neither. There is also more Mackenzie Crook action, who was in the first one (you know, Gareth from The Office).

And my favourite line from the trailer, from Will/Orlando Bloom is:

"What about Jack? I can't leave without him!"

Hee! That AND gay cowboys (Brokeback Mountain), both in one year! We are lucky.

Two things

There are two things I hate the most. More than I hate Eddie Maguire and Shane Warne, as difficult as that might be to believe. The first thing I hate the most is worrying about money. The second thing I hate the most (and possibly hate more than the first one because one can't block it out quite so easily) is: looking and applying for jobs. The two are inextricably linked.

So I have applied for one job today. That's good, huh? Now I need a drink.

I hate self-promotion and all that employment related jargon. I'm no good at it. Isn't it enough to say I'm a fast learner, I'm friendly and I have a pretty face - employ me! Please! And I realise more and more that I don't want a "proper job" - not that anyone seems to want to give me one. I just want to write my book, paint some pictures, play some music and maybe, one day, make a film. These things seem easy enough to do (well, except the film part), but very hard to actually "DO" - ie. make a living out of. I am endlessly facinated by how other artists actually do it. How they survive. How they make enough money to eat and pay rent and do what it is they really want to do. I haven't yet worked out a way to do it myself, but I want to - and this year hopefully. I guess a lot of them teach - something I can't exactly see myself doing, but maybe I should think about it. Damnit.

I guess the other thing that makes this all rather hard is that I have actually found my dream job, the job I'd love to do part time and spend the rest of the time in my garret with my cat and what I like to call my tragic writerly disposition. In Prague, there are people who drive around the city in soft-top vintage cars, showing tourists the sights and generally disobeying the road rules - like driving down by the river where cars, I'm sure, are not meant to be. This is the job I want! Ever since I was about 6 years old I've loved vintage cars and used to collect them, the matchbox model ones that is. And I love Prague and I'm sure I could be selective and try and avoid the obnoxious rich American tourists. And I will no doubt, one day, get my driving licence, which I think might help in this position.

My other dream job is to travel round the world going to film festivals to pick out films to show at the festivals back home. How does one get this job? Would it be a proverbial foot-in-the-door if I started working at a video store? Has the fact that I was so enthusiastic about the film 'Tiptoes' in my previous entry ruined all my chances?

Other than that ... I don't know. I'm all out of ideas. Any one out there want to employ me?! Just leave a comment. Please. And remember, I've got a pretty face...! (I think. Or so my mother tells me. But I never believe her.)