Callum Versus The Sea

So. I'm making video art. Yeah... not so sure. Be worried. Potential disaster ahead.

Coming Soon.

Jobber

I've officially "settled in" to my new job. Well, I can't really say new, as my previous job at the Coffee Club only lasted a day. And it wasn't even a job, because I wasn't ever employed there. It was just a temp day, like training. See how I went. This was a while back actually.

It was going really swell. I had to bus into town and everything, and wear head to toe blacks. It was from ten till two, and I got there a bit early and so went to the library and read Roald Dahl's excellent Tales of the Unexpected that I got given by Nat when he left for The Big Salt (I don't think any ones ever called England The Big Salt before, but it was worth a shot).

I was training in the Kitchen by this guy whose name I don't remember. He let me wear his coffee club head cap thing because I had kind of long hair, and he wanted me to feel 'part of the team'. It was nice. We made awkward banter, and he told me about the perks of the job, basically showing me the ropes. I love ropes. He showed me how to make the breakfast foods, use the grill thing, make a huge batch of scrambled egg mix (I had to shell two huge trays of eggs and then mix in 2 litres of cream with a hand blender. It was awesome, but super gross), and do dishes. The dishes were easy, and involved an enormous industrial dish washer. I mainly did them because they didn't involve a recipe and made me feel like I was contributing and not just getting in the way.

This Korean guy named Q came in when shit got busy over lunch. I couldn't really understand a lot of what he was saying. He told me a funny story about sword fighting while I sliced a dozen or so tomatoes. He was pretty cool, and was alarmingly relaxed for what for me seemed like a high pressure job. I guess it was because he was just really good at it. The focus these guys had was mad. And such tough hands. I was told that I would get a lot of burns. I was prepared to bleed for this job.

Then, about ten minutes before the end of my shift, there was an enormous fuck off earthquake. The kitchen was quite small, and the two big fridges slammed against the opposite wall, almost trapping the other two guys in. All the people in the cafe were screaming, and I was almost certain the building was going to collapse. The sound of it. You really understand the weight of concrete and wood and plaster when you remember that it's there, above you. But everyone knows about the earthquake now. It was the worst possible thing any of us needed. I would almost complain about its inconvenience, but that's really a bad way to think about it. That general "fuck this" sneered across every ones faces. These earthquakes will make cynics of us all.

But with time comes perspective, naturally. I think every ones sort of gathered themselves. I understand where I'm at now, and have had time to place my feet back on the ground. I think it's just the uncertainty that scares me more than anything. I didn't really realise how much of a step everything is, whether its planned or not. I really hope it's leading somewhere useful.

I can't stand feeling unproductive. That's what got me through those weeks after the quake, keeping on making goals. The job was a goal, and now I've got it. Now I've finally got something to make my time more valuable. Something to complain about. And ultimately, a way of achieving the bigger goals.

I had this theory that you should never really tell people the bigger goals, because then there's more pressure on achieving them, and also making you less open to other options. I have recently muted this theory on the basis of a startling realisation:

I am allowed to change my mind.

Reminder

Shit's been getting kind of real lately, which has been super lame. In the midst of all the stress and horror and depression and angst you kind of forget the simple things that can really help. Like listening to music.

I HAVEN'T BEEN LISTENING TO MUSIC.

How did I not spot this??

Anyway, Oli downloaded Smith Westerns' Dye It Blonde for me, and seriously, within the first three seconds of the first track I remembered...

MUSIC IS AWESOME.

Really.

I feel better now.

tick tick tick tick

Today I "officially" finished work on both my art folios. Yup. Both of them. I had a mammoth couple of weeks getting them finished, but ultimately I am extremely happy with how both of them turned out. It kind of makes me realise what it would be like to be a parent; creating and raising these two beautiful creatures to fully developed independent entities. And now, after a brief period of fond appreciation, I must part with them, and they from me, wishing them luck upon their journeys to Wellington (absurd parallels to my own parents current experience: noted).

I would complain about how little sleep I've gotten this past month, and how hard it all was, and the stress and all, but, honestly, I'd be exaggerating. It wasn't really that bad. Sure, I didn't sleep, and I was pretty exhausted for a while, and I almost completely disregarded all of my friends, but I made it. And looking back from this end, I don't know why I was whinging so much. I was totally capable of this thing. It was a challenge, sure. It pretty much dominated my thoughts all year, yeah, granted. But now it's over, I'll be stoked to be able to do it again. This year has made me want to go to art school. Not just to see how it goes, or because it's the next logical step. But because I REALLY WANT TO GO. It's also made me way more confident in this next year; because I have a plan to come out of it. Something to look forward to.

If, next year, I end up finding a life, changing my path, becoming a person or whatever this idealistic unformed human expects from non high school life, then that's awesome. I will continue that path. But if I go and completely fall of the rails, like, wipe out, shit hitting fan, end up miserable, lonely and without direction... then I get to pack up and go to art school. Bam. Solved. I think taking a year to play the 'come what may" card is not a bad plan. Because, ultimately, I'm not drifting. I'm doing.

I got to tick two big red ticks through my to-do list today. It's amazing how quickly the feeling of accomplishment turns to fear, of shit yet to do. I better get working. I still have to Schol Art submissions to finish.

Speaking of finishing; I finished reading Mayor of Casterbridge. And I have two more days of high school. Ever. Yeah.

Theatresports party tomorrow!

I'll be sure to put up photos of my babies soon.

Time for a celebration sandwich.

Do the Drew

When we were in Hamilton for rockquest national finals, we got interviewed by that Drew guy from C4. This was after a number of encounters with TV personnel, having had a mini-doco short thing made about our band in July (iiish?), and filming an episode for the Erin Simpson Show in August (I thiiiink). Overall, the process really told me a lot about how they go about making TV. From what I can assume, it's done quickly, efficiently, with as much forced emotion as possible, and yet with zero to no sentiment. These guys KNOW they're making disposable entertainment. And it's their job to churn it out, all with fake smiles and happy handshakes and best wishes.

It really demystified the whole process for me. I mean, the attitude they had resembled smugness, and yet they constantly put down their jobs. Like, they were aware that what they were doing was seen as exctiting, but like hell they were going to admit that. I dunno, it's really hard to judge their level of enthusiasm, to tell what isn't forced.

I felt sorry for Drew though. He tried soooo hard to be enthusiastic; like, fake smiling and laughing and asking us about our band name and stuff, which always delivers awkard responses from us (not his fault there).

I worry that this sort of happy veil is all these TV guys have got. What happened to the TV presenter people who were legitimately funny, and seemed to actually like their job/were good at it? Happiness is great, but it's not a substitute for humour. Aaah, well.

Anyways, here's an extremely awkward interview that proves none of my points. It's Drew vs. MGMT (he tried SO hard).

To-do

Man, these past two months have really disappeared. School for me this year has been an ever ceasing to-do list, so I've been living under self-imposed hibernation for a while now (see this time last year), forcing myself to do work that I've managed to go to ludicrous lengths to avoid (art art art art english english english classics classics music).

Procrastination is a young mans game. Being a young man, I take every opportunity to live up to this expectation.

For instance, I was given a copy of Thomas Hardy's novel Mayor of Caterbridge (a gripping account of the ups and downs of English wheat exchanges) on sign out day last year, preparing me for the 7th form Scholarship English class that I had managed to get into. The thought of completing ample preparation for classwork ahead of time (no doubt resulting in an engaging and stimulating learning environment) produced an excitement that motivated me through the first three pages of the novel. And that was where it stayed until about a month ago. I'm not going to lie to you. I had plenty of time to read it during the entire term we spent studying the book (an entire term that was essentially lost on me). And yet, I somehow managed to convince myself that the months lying ahead of me until the november exam provided me with endless opportunities to catch up, at my leisure, and read one fucking book. How wrong I was.

I'm currently halfway through, reading a strict chapter a night. It's actually not too bad. Everythings sosososooo melodramatic! Can I get a big *M* for melodrama? Look, I don't CARE that your daughters actually not your daughter but shes kept unawares while she lives with your mistress who's actually in love with your competitor who your dead wife wanted your daughter marying but she can't because she's meek but slowly coming to terms with herself and her hidden beauty but the townspeop;'.le hate you becaus...e you're actually a cunt but her!!! real fgathers!!! actually alive acxfnd reclaims her and yoru forieigi ntioe wheatiodknrojtbro88k;....8...ensobrietyoa..th. ntoiwu';.erbh religiousechosekpepe!!1!!

AHHRHGG IT'S ALL SO IMPORTANT TO EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE!!!!

I need to go outside for a moment.

Know Thyself...

Let's face it, Socrates. You're a jerk. Just look at you, in your robe-toting ignorance. Fucking wanker strutting around telling people they know nothing, not chipping in his fair share of the political duties, whilst going on and bad mouthing the whole system anyway! Well, YOU think of a better political system than democracy, you mind numbing twat.

But NO, instead you claim ignorance, and yet continue to question the authority and organisational structure of a system that you choose to have nothing to do with. You then spread the word to a bunch of kiss-ass tyrants who take pride in bending your message to validate their self-centred political aspirations.

Go do something with your life. Why not take a leaf out of the sophists book? They did alright, eh? Despite being shunned politically, and disowned by any man with philosophical standing in Athens, they avoided living to the age of 70 in complete poverty! Poverty, Socrates! Look at you! You're an old man, this can't be healthy. Have some self pride. Cut your hair every now and then. Bathe for Christs sake.

Frankly, Socrates, I'm worried about you. Do you really have to be so fucking impolite to people? Just learn to accept people for who they are. And maybe, if you do that, you'll come to accept who YOU are. There's nothing more emotionally crippling than self doubt.

All I'm asking is that you make sensible decisions, and try to live out the few years you have left with a litttle financial security. Who knows, it could be fun. You've got a lot of potential. Just don't fuck it up.

Angst Monday

This winter I've been so busy gettting myself in and out of coats and beanies I've forgotten how awesome summer is. This has probably been a good thing actually, so I didn't torture myself waiting for the clouds to fuck off. Yeah yeah, I know how, it's terrible timing for me to start wishing summer would get here, with a rediculous workload and massive life choices to be made before that point (3 to 4 times as much art work as last year (schol inclusive) as well as 4 schol subjects plus cambridge english to study for, as well as a job to get and rockquest to win). But fuck that. I've got well back into summery music (on that note, when am I NOT into summery music). Best Coast is a beautiful album to do anything to... paint, read, nap, whathaveyou. But nothing has made me miss summer more than Girls. Fuck you guys. With your shorts and beachy ideals. Uber jealous of those northern hemisphereres living it up at the moment. Oh well... it's only gonna get colder for you. Hahahaha! Although, autumn was actually awesome this year, I aint gonna lie. But my ipod has thrown all this goodtime feelings out onto the street of technological dysfunction. It's terrible. I can't stand the silence! And no more rdu to get me through the afternoons with their quasi-awkward witty banter and local electronica/foreign obscure indie! GARR!!

Its been very quiet.

Yeah I know, it's been months. Although I dont think I want to apologise. This is MY blog, and my bevy of readers now have learned the power of that fact. I have had quite a wonderful winter though. And it's almost over.

The cherry trees have started to blossom. I had a cherry tree in my backyard in Opawa growing up. Every year we'd try to remember to take a family photo under it when it blossomed. I think the initial idea was that you'd stack them up and flip through them like some cool Home Improvement homage. Played so many awesome games in that tree, when we were still small enough to think it was a big deal to climb up it. At one stage, this grape vine growing on the fence started growing all over the tree. We thought it was a grape tree. Got mad confused. Teachers laughed.

Old story, anyway... so winters almost over. And it was an extremely enjoyable one. Il go into detail with various stories and photos. For now, here are some highlights...

- Paige and I reaching our 6th, 7th and 8th month anniversaries, all celebrated accordingly.
- The holidays.
-Busking. More than once.
-Making a sick Vincent Price tshirt and then spilling coke on it.
-Buying my Campus A Low Hum ticket.
-Seeing, like, 800 movies. Because that's what you do in winter. Movie highlights include; ALL the Twilights in one weekend, TOY STORY 3, Dumbo, Iron Man 2 (HUGE let down)Once Upon A Time in the West, The Runaways... oh man... so many more.
-Forcing Paige to watch Monty Python
-COOKING (and being cooked) soo much food
-EATING (and feeding) soo much food.
-Spending ALL of my money.
-Callums Night of Extreme Challenges.
-Custard Bear winning chartfest, rockquest regionals and generally playing SICK GIGS!!(w/ Tono, Gigglepop, Die! Die! Die!) and generally being uber productive.
-Going to Blenhiem to play Dixie Music.
-Meeting PROPS BOY!
-Being meagrely productive in terms of school work.
-My 7th Form Formal, and subsequent celebrations.
-possibly having a career opportunity
-Finding some of my personal limitations.
-Figuring out my five year plan to the vaguest of standards.

There were plenty of lowlights, some of which aren't fit for remembering. But I'll do my best.

Heres to Spring!

In other news, my ipods broken. Sad face...

Armless Fight

Because its Thursday and everything I thought I'd show you a game me and Jimmy made up whilst in Blenhiem for Southern Jam thing. And no, I did NOT break the curtain. And yes, shit does get real.

Drumrollers

I'm about to enter the hardest year of my life to date (chorus of idiots shout out "Good luck with that!"). I mean, last year was exhausting and never-ending, repetitive and dull, emotionally draining, extremely stressfull and probably more horrilble adjectives that I'm eluding now because its bedtime and I should be asleep but I had to write these thoughts down before they poof away in a cloud of 'imbusywithsomethingrightnowworrymelater'. But 2009 was also so amazingly awesome in hundreds of obvious 'no way 2008 Callum would have done this' ways, and other less obvious, more wanky 'look-on-the-bright-side' ways that Im not going to get into.

In 2009 I failed so hard at so many things, which was a new thing for me. I usually just coast through quite easily which I know sounds cocky, which to be honest it was, which is why crashing badly was such a shock to the usually steady system. I think in a lot of ways, those sort of shit times that sort of hung over 2009 for a we bit there will actually help me a lot this year. At least, when the winter study depression hits, I'll recognise it, cope with it, and know that it DOES end. So maybe that means that 2010 will be a lot more fun. The reason I think 2010 will be so much harder than last year, is that the stuff I'm doing this year CAN'T fail. This year counts. Its the end of my time at (sadly enough) second home; CBHS aka School, after which I would have been following bells for five years. And then.... blankness. Most people would think freedom? I dont know. I've got no solid plans right now, so at the moment, its solid blankness. But I do have a whole year to figure that out. A whole year to figure out where my next five years of bells will be coming from. A whole year where I'll also have to get through those same pressures from last year that are amplified in the Forge of 7th Formdom. Sure that may not make a whole lot of litterary sense, but to my petrified brain the Forge is shit scary.

The great news for you, however, is that this may prove to be some very exciting reading. You will be my angst outlet, so if I get angry, I apologise in advance. And when I say You, I really mean Future Me. I still havent come to terms with the idea that people would actually follow this blog or read through these long tantrums. I'm mainly writing all this so that in the future, I can look back on all this and laugh with glee at how tra laaingly gleeful and hip hop happy my pure little teenage life was compared to adulthood. Who knows?

Dear Blog

Today I did something dreadful.

Anyone who really knows me will tell you that I'm a helpless nostalgic. I keep everything. Too much paper shit is everywhere in my life, and more obviously, my room. I have come to actually throwing a lot of things away recently, things I like but know I wont need in five years time. Something that makes me laugh but wont when I find it in five months time. Or will it? Usually I just sit there rereading it over and over feeling sad and mopey about how fun and carefree my life was when I was (five months) younger... until I realise its just a drawing from a friend, or a ticket stub, or a real old magazine I read lots.

When we moved into this house at the start of Year 9 I decided to cover my door with shit (posters, ticket stubs... mostly school events and shit for my wicked covers band JORC with Joel and Rory). My mum didn't like it at first because it was a rental place because we had a property we were going to be building on soon and we'd be moving and I'd have to rip it all down and probably peel off paint. But I did anyway... a way of making Bryndweird feel like home. Well, fast forward four years down the line and here I am, nearing the start of my 5th year of high school, were still in Bryndwr which has become well and truly home for me (despite the whole no vowel things... SOMETIMES Y IS A LIE!!), Joel and Rory are now in a r ridiculously scary (read 'good') Deathcore (or something) band and we're in (giggle inducing) Custard Bear. Plus, my door is still covered in shit from four years ago. So I took it all off.

Mum noticed straight away (the paint was fine fyi). Dad walked past twice before he did. But they were both sort of shocked. And so was I, kind of. It may not seem like a big deal, but to a hopeless nostalgic its pretty much the worst. But I didn't throw everything away. I kept the JORC posters. In like twenty years time when Behold Thy End is like crazy famous for biting the heads off of bats and Custard Bear (read 'Way Better Band Name') is mediocre famous for playing in librarys and touring the South Island, we can show people that poster and they'd be like "Woah shit, man... thats nutsbuckle*" and we'd be all "Yup... totes. We taught them everything they know".

Can I get a YEHAW for capitalising on friends success??? Nope.

I got scared at my overly clean door so I started blu tacking photo copies of work from my folio. Im liking it, to be honest. Waaaay better than JORC shit.


*future slang term. Trust me, everyone's going to be saying it. Its the new pish posh.


ps. tune into RDU tonight at like 1am. THOMS ON!!!

Wa Wa Wah?

Things are starting to get very intense lately.

It sort of all just hit me this week... like a vicious simile. I realised how little time I have and just how much shit I have to get done.

For example... This week one monday night I completed my art history internal (that was actually due LAST tuesday... but as a class we had collectively forgotten). I was up til 2:30 doing that. But I could have got it done quicker but I got badly distracted by some far too intresting people. Tuesday I painted at school until around 5:00 and then walked home, then slept. On Wednesday I had band practice, then Samba Band practice with Jeremy Thin at CSM til around 6. Then I came home and started my English Research project. Worked til twelve that night.

On Thursday night I worked until 3:00 am on English Research. It was shit and I could have started it much earlier but its 3 credits so it doesn't reeeally matter.

Sure sure, everyone has pressure. But I've never had this much before so I'm sort of slowly starting to freak out. Plus Ive still got two music internals due on Wednesday as well as my art folio due next Thursday (FUCCCKK!! And I have to do three times as much next year!!! AHAHSGF) and then Cambridge English exam that Friday. And then just after that my NCEA externals start. So its fun for the whole family.

This year Ive learned its okay to fail. But I dont want to fail.

On a related note, we were informed yesterday that Art History (the GREATEST subject ever) is cancelled for next year. This will NOT do. Me and Eli are going to fight to keep it. Its going to be a sick mission. Possible documentary opportunity.

Im going to go paint.