down down down

no news from any of the prospective contracts that were in the pipeline but agents never call on a monday. tuesday and wednesday are when you tend to get calls. who knows what they do on mondays, but you never hear from them. maybe they are counting paperclips, or they are at 'how to lie like you mean it' seminars or they are at a group therapy sessions for 'people who make money off other peoples talent'. who the fuck knows.

i have a possible offer for someone to rent my flat. with each passing week i feel more and more relucntant to rent it out because its so lovely. i could afford to live it in now, but the sensible part of me wants to be in a secure interesting contract first, as opposed to be blowing in the wind like i am now. something will come up, i know, but maybe i just need to wait 6 months before moving in.

i did speak to someone about a role last week and even though its only a 1 week job its something i am interested in doing and i hope i get it. i even reduced my rate to what they were looking for so that i could do that small project. its just deploying and configuring new esx clusters on new HP blades but its something i know i enjoy doing, and so i will do it for less money. i dont feel the need to be compensated as much when i am doing interesting work. on the flip side of that, i do ask for more money if it sounds like a boring job, just because i feel they should give me money for making me do stuff i have no passion for.

anyways, i hope they come through with that one week job. there is a moral to the story as well and that is to measure yourself by your skill and ability and what you do by the substance of what it is and who you are, and not by how much you get paid. having worked in investment banks i have met a few talented people but i have also met people that are shite but think they are great because they get paid a lot. these are the shallowest of people who have no passion for what they do and have decided to just do any shit as long as they get paid. whores is the most common term used to describe these people.

here is a clip of one of my favourite comedians dave chappelle talking about hollywood. this was a few years after he famously walked out on a $50m contract for a new series of his show, after deciding he wasnt enjoying it and didnt like the direction his career and life was going in and he didnt want to play the hollywood game. he decided to walk away immediately one day and went to africa for 2 weeks.

i read interviews of some young hollywood stars complaining about losing their privacy and the pressures of tinseltown, and i always wonder why they dont just walk away from it. robert pattison from the twilight films was complaining about it in an interview i read somewhere. walk away from it robert. you dont have to do the films. give up the money, the house in the hills, the VIP section in the club, but they never do. he has millions already and more money than most people will ever earn, yet they still cant bring themselves to leave. dave chappelle was different. he did walk away because he wanted to do work that interested him and $50m was not enough to compensate him for destroying his soul. here is a clip of him discussing it.

today i have mostly been listening to charlie simpson - down down down. a very good song. he used to be in a boy band called busted who were shit. he then moved onto fightstar who were better and now he is doing solo stuff and this single sounds very good. some people (not me) who a can be musical snobs (yes, me), might still hold his time in busted against him, but i have to give him credit where its due, its a very good song. have a listen and make your own mind up.