DARIN'S ENGLISH ADVENTURE

Before you know what's happened, things change on you. Things have been changing a lot here in the past few weeks. Kids are hunkering down, trying to decode their textbooks and cram their short term memories in time for their finals. Others, like myself, are taking stock of all the miscellany accumulated over the past nine months and deciding what goes and what stays. Some people are going out to dance for the last time with their friends, finding themselves all teary eyed under hot pink lights, wondering if it will ever be the same again. Still others are in denial, continuing with their routine as though all of this will still be here in a month.

The truth is that everything that has been built up over the last nine months, all the relationships, grudges, hopes, and feelings, will never be the same. It's all been part of this very insulated environment; a tiny place where we've all been thrown together whether we like it or not. Foreign students like myself will be leaving with only memories, photographs, and email addresses. Out of one context and into another, just as you were getting used to things. There's a part of me that wishes I could somehow boil this place down and swallow the essence, just to prove in a tangible way that I was here.

I've imagined many times being back home again, sitting on my bed, and thinking all of this has been a dream because everything is the same, yet inside I still feel different. Like a reverse time capsule that's kept America in suspended animation while I go off gallavanting in England, discovering new habits and rejecting old ones. I'm sad because I imagine all that is the same will somehow conquer over all that has changed, and I'll be dulled back into what I was when I left. But it's just a fantasy. There's nothing I can do to hold on to England. I can't take it with me, and that's good because otherwise, how would I grow beyond it? That's what it's all about. Growing and changing. It's time to be rolling along.

I love art, and artists, but I have to admit that sometimes art goes bad. Very smart people with all the best intentions can sometimes falter and create something terrible. I have done the same myself many times, but only in private. When such blunders are carried out on a larger and more public scale, I am compelled to give my two cents. Come and see what I am talking about...
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This is Josy, a goose. She's been camped out, sitting on her eggs for weeks now. I see her when I walk back from the library and I say hello. She's not very talkative, but it's clear she has other things to think about. Yesterday I saw some kind folks feeding her some breadcrumbs. She's also been given a waterdish; an anonymous donation. I'm not sure when her eggs are due, but I'm sure she's looking forward to getting up and walking around.

My band is in the recording studio. Come hear about it. See some pictures.

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Yes it's true. It's that time of year again. Finals. I can hear the wolf cry at night, and the rooster caw in the morning telling me to get my ass out of bed and start studying. So far I've been watching about two movies a day, with a bit of reading in the evening. Today I watched 'Rebel Without a Cause', which I watched to keep me sane while I sift through the intellectual minutiae of other films. My opinion is that 'Rebel' is actually a bad movie in which James Dean is very very good. All the other actors are so wooden and false. James Dean's father is a particularly bad actor. He always seems to be on the verge of smiling in a very bad way. I must say watching three or more movies in one day is a lot like running a marathon. After a certain distance, you don't even notice that you're running anymore. You forget what it is you're doing really. Where you came from. What you'll be doing later. This is good in a way because it means I'm totally in 'film land' and there are no distractions. It's bad though in the sense that I'm being anti-social. I haven't spoken to my flatmates in two days. I'm a terrible person, I know.

I've been reading a lot with the hope that I'll be more inspired to write. This is important to me because in the next year I need to write and direct a really good movie. I've been jotting down little scenarios in my notebook as they occur to me, and so far they've yielded some interesting ideas. This is promising, because it shows that I'm going in the right direction. But it's like trying to get out of a noisy party: you meet interesting people all around you, but you really have to work to find the guy who will tell you how to get the fuck out. Sigh. Well, back to film land...

British tabloid The Sun ran a headline yesterday regarding Tom Cruise's lovelife. According to the not-to-be-trusted newspaper, Tom is dating a virgin. This would have been petty and crass had the headline not been "Missionary Impossible". Go ahead. It's ok to laugh.

P.S. Inside was the article title "Frisky Business". Zing!

Hey everyone. Come on in and see some French pictures, and listen to my voice in your head.

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Although this picture has little to do with filmmaking, I thought I'd post it anyway. It was taken on Wednesday night at the birthday party of my flatmate Tysen (American from Ohio, on the right). The girl on the left is Tyler, and in the middle is a girl from Estonia named Anna Lisa. Estonia! Never have I met anyone from there.
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I recently took a trip to Scotland and Wales. Come on in and see some pictures. Hear some stories!

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Is here:

www.earthboundrock.co.uk

I look at my guitar too much when I play. Look at the pictures and you'll know.

Went to the library today after a recommendation from my creative writing teacher to check out some noetbooks from famous writers as a way of getting ideas. I had planned to steal some ideas if I could, but I got something else instead. Upon perusing the notebooks of Henry James, which are voluminous and sprawling, I came to a realization about creative people in general and writers in particular; they possess a massive curiosity which can only be satisfied by constant contact with their craft. Artists fill notebooks with little scribbles of people they see, the way a cloth drapes over a chair, a pet cat or even their own feet. DaVinci's notebooks are filled with meaningless things like the floorplans for buildings in his neighborhood, and a cross section of an erect penis. Writers fill their notebooks with every little overheard conversation, little thought, and casual observance that they can grasp onto. Twain wrote in one of his journals: "I have yet to see a good looking woman in this town." Musicians are dreaming music at all hours, humming to themselves and splurging their melodies and harmonies into recorders or onto a page of manuscript paper. Beethoven was thought of as unusual and antisocial by the townsfolk because he was constantly stopping in the middle of the street to write some notes into his book.

All of this is obsessive behavior by conventional standards. It's easy to imagine the thoughts of those who watch this unusual display as passersby. Why are you drawing that towel? It's so boring! Why are you writing down the things I say? That's so rude! Why are you humming to yourself? That's so annoying! Why are you taking pictures of me? I'm ugly!

Orson Welles was abnormal when he was young. He had only one friend in school, and everyone else avoided him for his unusual behavior. One of his teachers resigned because the 9 year old Orson would persistently question the lesson plan and offer his own perspective. Of course Welles went on to become a world famous super genius. I don't expect that fate for myself, nor do I think I'm quite as inhuman as Welles, but it is reassuring to know that to feel like no one understands you isn't always a bad thing. In the meantime I'll keep writing in my notebook.

Is important. Sure. But to elaborate...

I have a lot of dreams. I want to be a famous and respected musician. I want to be a film director of similar repute. I want a lot of things, but up to this point I've been spreading myself too thin, trying to make it all happen at once. What I haven't done is step back and look at the bigger picture. I can do anything I set my mind to, but I can only do one thing at a time.

I think I've grown up a lot since that guy came into the bar and offered me a job. Oh and by the way, he emailed me after looking at my drawings and said that they weren't what they were looking for, but that's beside the point. The point is that I've had what alcoholics refer to as "a moment of clarity."

Before my dreams of artistic excellence and public acclaim can become a reality, I have to be able to make some money. I have a lot of raw talent that needs honing and polishing before that can happen. I need to learn some basics, and take baby steps for a year or two. But whereas before I would try to deny this with adolescent impatience, now I accept it happily. The idea that what I want can be achieved if it's broken down and worked on carefully and patiently is comforting. It means that it's possible for me. I can do this.

So with this mental clarity will come a cleaning of the house, so to speak. I'm dropping my theater work for the time being. I'm simply not interested enough in the work to learn from it, so it needs to go on the shelf for now. Its time will come. Right now I can sense a breakthrough with my music. I've been writing little things here and there, singing and playing guitar more, and I sense that in the next few months something's going to click and I'm going to make a breakthrough. I'm ready for that. The time for that has come. So this is what I'll be putting my energy into principally.

So it's not about having any false hopes, nor is it about giving up your dreams. It's about being honest with yourself. Being straight with yourself.

It's only a matter of time. The world's going to change and everything that was rock solid for me before will become vacuous and transient. Such is life, after college.

This thought was aroused once again by a chance encounter with a nice man at the bar yesterday. A discussion came up about what I was studying. I told him it was film, and then I told him about how I did all the storyboards for my movies. He asked if I was any good. I am, I said. He tells me he works as a coneptual artist for Sony in London and he may be able to offer me some work if my drawings are up to snuff. I'm going to send him some stuff tomorrow, but in the meantime it got me thinking:

I've been drawing since I was two years old, but most of that time I've drawn from my head, just pure fantasy. Rarely have I bothered to draw from life. If I think objectively about it, I know that I'm not good enough technically to compete with other professional artists. So I've spent my life doodling, never really discipling myself to break out of old habits. My loss, really.

It's one thing to philosophize about a discipline and think of what it could mean, and how to approach that meaning intellectually, but it's another to be skilled and disciplined enough to be employable. What skills do I have that I could go out and make money with right now? Am I good enough to compete for a job? Can I honestly say that I can direct films at a professional level, or play guitar well enough to hold my own on any session? I can't really. So where does that leave me? What's going to happen to me?

People surprised me tonight. New Year's eve, an idiot tried to buy alcohol from me and I tell him he's had enough; I wouldn't serve him. Then a few minutes later I see him bringing a pint up to his lips. He'd had a friend buy him one, incognito. I went over to the guy and pulled the pint from his lips. Of course he kicks and moans and ends up being thrown out by the doormen. Stupid stupid man.

Then I made a round through the bar holding a bucket for donations to the Tsunami Disaster Relief Fund. People gave all the spare change they had. More than one person gave 10 pounds. I was humbled and completely surprised by their generosity. Everyone gave something. Even amidst all the nonsense loud music drunken alcohol soaked madness, people put money into the bucket on their own accord. I collected 70 pounds in just five minutes. I was, and am, genuinely moved.

I can't believe it. I had heard about the Indian Ocean disaster but I have only just now read the articles. I watched amateur footage of the waves hitting the coast of Sri Lanka and I have to say I haven't felt that way since I saw the towers come down on tv more than three years ago. It's simply unbelievable. My hands were shaking and my mouth was open as I watched the waves on my computer. Millions of tons of water going close to 500 miles per hour. The devastation there on the screen, and the sound of people running for their lives. One video, shot at a wedding reception on a balcony, showed the water sweeping away the entire landscape. The sound of the women crying off camera is something I never want to hear again. I was genuinely afraid as I saw their town being swept away, ripped apart so violently by a sheet of dark water. I don't even know what to say, it's so unthinkable. 120,000 dead. Rich and poor alike have been murdered brutally by this horrendous event. It makes me angry now to read an article in the Times about how Bush is using this as an opportunity to prove to the world that America isn't selfish by giving aid. He deserves a slap across the face, that son of a bitch.

So please donate if you can. I've taken up a collection at my work, and I've donated $25 myself. Even a little bit helps. Don't feel you have to give a lot to make a difference.

Hey everybody it's not xmas anymore, but here's a belated card anyway. Brian Lane, Tyler Fosse, and myself had a nice quiet british christmas. We made a polite dinner, and played some modest games of operation, and watched some subdued movies.

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As the world turns, Christmas begins, and a swirl of calm nostalgia inhabits the landscape. England is no exception, but the din of work has been keeping that calm at bay lately. I'm working almost every day now. I did ask for more hours, but I hadn't anticipated such a downpouring of work. Be careful what you wish for I suppose.

My band lost the battle of the bands. I'm not too broken up about it, though. Honestly my band is very derivative. Our sound is not our own, and although catchy, our songs aren't very substantive. It's fun, but I expect no revelations to happen with this band. But it was a pleasant surprise that a club manager came up to us and offered a paying gig in town after the new year. That's cool. Very cool. Fuck the battle of the bands. That's cool.

Last Friday Tyler organized a mini-concert on her now-vacant flat. Performing her own songs was Tyler, performing three covers was me. I was very jazzed to finally sing in front of a group of folks, and I got a lot of compliments on my performance. I'm a singer now. Soon I will write my own songs. And then I'll have a band which will not be generic like 99% of other bands. Ah, ambition. I have too much of it I think.

Speaking of ambition, I've been reflecting on what I've done with my life up to this point, and where I'd like to go. Film directing is for me, I think. Film suits me because it encompasses all other art forms, which I'm really good at, into another seperate one. And it really challenges me on all different levels. It's not as from-the-gut as music, but it gives my brain something to chew on more than music does. It also keeps me on my toes as far as dealing with other people is concerned. I have to be a great politician to be a good director, and that skill is important and it appeals to me.

So I've been plotting out my career as a film director, as silly as that sounds. I really want to be a professional film director, and I'm willing to do the work necessary to make that happen. Am I going to be good enough? I almost don't care about that. Thinking about that won't do me any good right now, because now's the time to work on making something happen.

Well, on that note that's about all for now. Merry Christmas, all, and a happy new year!

...since I updated my journal properly. I suppose I should take the time to do that now, while I take a breath from the essay madness that has occupied my time for the past week.

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