“Everyone” is an artist..”

So my life is now taking a new direction. London I love you but you’re bringing me down… nooo that’s’ not quite fair or accurate. It’s just that being in berlin I saw another side of myself and I saw another way to live.  And all my priorities scrambled back into place, and Berlin was this mistress whispering to me come, be here, just… be. Experiment, make work, focus on your work. London has always given me more material then I know what to do with, but Berlin seemed to be a place where I would have the time and space to really DO something with all these stories, characters, thoughts and feelings. And suddenly the weightlessness of where I’m at is a positive thing, it means yes I can walk away, I can step out, I have no attachments that need to be nurtured. My friends will be here, my parents will be here, this wonderful city will be here, but they will still be here when I return. And I’m too in love with the big smoke to go for too long

The funny thing about my film is how literally life mirrors art and vice versa. Every day momentum builds. Every interview I film a new thought, theme comes forward. And instead of my social life distracting from all of it it feeds it, maybe dangerously so. I find myself walking into situations as much because I want as because I want that experience to build the texture of this project. At times it amuses. At times it bores, at times it scares.

My latest thought on the whole madness of online connections is thus; I mean, this is the thing that utterly floors me… so I have this wonderfully exhaustive network of friends, am constantly meeting new people through those friends, and going out, and just… the ether. The online social networking thing enables me to effectively manage all those connections on various levels of contact and intimacy.. My diary is packed to capacity; I never seem to have enough room to write the additional engagements I seem so skilled at cramming in it.  So then I ask myself why on earth I am going outside of these organic live means of meeting, to online, to meet yet even MORE people? To what end? How can I possibly be so addicted to people, interactions with people? It’s not about being romantic or even being a socialite it somehow goes deeper.

Its been particularly odd of late as I now appear to be meeting people via various online resources who often go to the same places I do, live in the same area etc. it even hit a fever pitch of weirdness when I met someone via an online dating site who ended up being a friend of a friend (that I’d never met). And then I think about all of us, all these people on instant messenger, on facebook, on Myspace, on linked in, on dating sites, on classified sites, on “cyber” sites. And of these people walking around in bars, clubs, streets passing each other, we could be interacting out there, why do we find each other online?

Maybe because it feels “safer” I think of the guy at work who sits so close to me I could reach over and tap him, and yet he never so much as said hello. And then I signed into the work aim network (having successfully put it off for years) and then he starts sending me all these lovely messages about the music I had been playing since he started with the company. It was cute, and it was nice messaging, but at the end of the day I said goodbye to him and he seemed just as shy as before. Why couldn’t he just lean past his divider and say great music? And why am I not meeting those I meet online in the big wide world? The irony is I have such mixed feelings about all of it. I see no stigma in being on all these sites, its just another channel after all, but then again I don’t play the game right. I like all the concept involved in the brief messages, that lead up to instant messages, that lead to blog like emails, all night IM ing and then meeting. But then I’m quite happy to skip straight to the meeting stage, and many people aren’t. Either they are cautious (as they should be, I’m far too trusting) or they are only online for the illusion, the concept, they don’t want to dirty it with the reality of how they will come across, interact, even just be in real life. It’s very very strange. I’ve been thinking of starting another blog elsewhere just to focus on the stories I seem to be collecting, but even then if I do now that I have broadened the audience of this blog, I may need to give the address to only a select few, and do a lot of changing of names and details…

I’m definitely giving it some thought..

To fully appreciate this post you may want to click back and read this previous one the writer, THE NOVEL, and the 55 bus   as this is a kind of sequel of sorts, If you don’t feel so inclined/bothered read on and jump into this chapter unawares, much like the way life can be from time to time.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the company of strangers of late, and oddly enough within these experiences have been learning a great deal about myself. My biggest vice has always been people, its what brought me to this city, to my industry, enables me to have such a broad network of friends, and often offers up the energy that drives me through day to day. I have a family within my friends, I have worked at these relationships for years, and they constantly provide me with a conscience, bolster my morality when necessary and encourage my diversions from routine when necessary. I value them with my life.

However, there is a particular kind of awakening I am finding with strangers, new acquaintances and random encounters. I truck a lot of faith in coincidence, particularly at times in my life like now where certainty is regularly in question. But this web of encounters/engagements I have recently found myself in with somewhat strangers has made writing this blog far trickier. Before when I wrote I was very certain of my audience, it fell into two camps, friends of the past and present who know me very well and who I am unafraid of revealing anything too, and complete strangers I have no ties with at all who I am unafraid of revealing anything to, simply because there lack of connection means nothing I say feels too personal.

Lately the audience has changed slightly, and inviting (or accidentally allowing in via my email signature) others I am only beginning to know here I’ve discovered that for someone who doesn’t know me… who is curious, a fair amount of very personal information can be gained. And this disturbs the anonymity I like to enjoy early on in knowing someone.

So for weeks I puzzled over what to write. I have not been short of adventures and characters and thoughts on what these experiences meant, but all felt a little too close to the bone to share. And instead of enjoying kind of “performance” where the lights are either to dark to see the audience, or perhaps I am blind folded to who they are, suddenly dim spotlights came up, and in having an idea in who may be paying attention I found I needed to retreat backstage

As ever I looked to the ultimate familiar stranger to give me an answer, a safe story, or character. And finally after a couple weeks it answered. Tonight I once again had an encounter with “the writer” (and for safety sake I will only refer to him as thus) the funny thing about very briefly running into “the writer” on the bus home tonight is that I know we live close by and had expected to run into many times since the last. But now it’s been almost a year and a half since that fateful 55 bus journey. He didn’t recognize me right away this time (or at least he pretended not to) and when this time I bounded into the seat next to him with my caffeinated smile he could only grin and shake his head and say “you look different”. He asked me what I was up to; I gave him an elevator pitch about my film, which hearing myself was the tightest I’ve described it to date.

I took an odd kind of relevance in seeing him tonight. I got on the 56 from Dalston by mistake. As soon as I saw him, I was aware of how drastically my life had changed since we last met and especially since we met the first time all those years ago. It even occurred to me that some of the specifics of the changes I’ve been through shed an odd kind of light on our history. And it amused me to know that, to be carrying that without reason or time to tell him. There was no talk of THE NOVEL this time. When I asked where I’d been he just said “a class” which knowing what I do of him could have been writing, music or even dance.

I could have asked him, but I wasn’t really interested. I was interested in the timing of seeing him and how my life had moved on since the last. And there was no mention of his copy of Paul Auster’s autiobiography that still lives on my bookshelf. And there was no attempt at even suggesting meeting up, or exchanging numbers or emails. The closet he came was asking me if I was on Myspace and facebook, but even this question was only in relation to my film. Taking this as a possible interest in staying in touch, I asked him if he was on Myspace or facebook, and smiled as soon as I said it, because I knew after asking the obvious answer, he replied “hell no” (obviously not authentic enough for “the writer”)

And he asked me the direct question/challenge at the centre of my film

“you want more authentic communication?”

(I nodded)

“But you’re on Myspace and facebook?”

(Again nodding, but smiling this time)

“So you’re exploring your own addictions?”

“Yes” (still grinning) … and my network as well”

“So why are you then? Using these digital forms of communication?”

And my smile broadened and I said

“ Its crazy isn’t it. That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out.”

And then I realised I was on the not quite the right bus. And got up to get off the bus. I turned to him and said

“ so when will I run into you on a bus again?”

and he smiled, shrugged and said

“ Who knows?!”

I got off and  I walked off knowing I would finally be able to write a blog entry. And liking that “the writer” had provoked that, and feeling that London had spoken to me once again. And also wondered when again would I have a random encounter with “the writer” of Leyton. My part time once every-practically-never muse, who appears at exactly the right time, and whom I will most likely never exchange emails, numbers or even this blog with. How on earth would he react to these two entries, and yet secretly how much would it appeal to his vanity to know he had been within them…

To fully appreciate this post you may want to click back and read this previous one the writer, THE NOVEL, and the 55 bus   as this is a kind of sequel of sorts, If you don’t feel so inclined/bothered read on and jump into this chapter unawares, much like the way life can be from time to time.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the company of strangers of late, and oddly enough within these experiences have been learning a great deal about myself. My biggest vice has always been people, its what brought me to this city, to my industry, enables me to have such a broad network of friends, and often offers up the energy that drives me through day to day. I have a family within my friends, I have worked at these relationships for years, and they constantly provide me with a conscience, bolster my morality when necessary and encourage my diversions from routine when necessary. I value them with my life.

However, there is a particular kind of awakening I am finding with strangers, new acquaintances and random encounters. I truck a lot of faith in coincidence, particularly at times in my life like now where certainty is regularly in question. But this web of encounters/engagements I have recently found myself in with somewhat strangers has made writing this blog far trickier. Before when I wrote I was very certain of my audience, it fell into two camps, friends of the past and present who know me very well and who I am unafraid of revealing anything too, and complete strangers I have no ties with at all who I am unafraid of revealing anything to, simply because there lack of connection means nothing I say feels too personal.

Lately the audience has changed slightly, and inviting (or accidentally allowing in via my email signature) others I am only beginning to know here I’ve discovered that for someone who doesn’t know me… who is curious, a fair amount of very personal information can be gained. And this disturbs the anonymity I like to enjoy early on in knowing someone.

So for weeks I puzzled over what to write. I have not been short of adventures and characters and thoughts on what these experiences meant, but all felt a little too close to the bone to share. And instead of enjoying kind of “performance” where the lights are either to dark to see the audience, or perhaps I am blind folded to who they are, suddenly dim spotlights came up, and in having an idea in who may be paying attention I found I needed to retreat backstage

As ever I looked to the ultimate familiar stranger to give me an answer, a safe story, or character. And finally after a couple weeks it answered. Tonight I once again had an encounter with “the writer” (and for safety sake I will only refer to him as thus) the funny thing about very briefly running into “the writer” on the bus home tonight is that I know we live close by and had expected to run into many times since the last. But now it’s been almost a year and a half since that fateful 55 bus journey. He didn’t recognize me right away this time (or at least he pretended not to) and when this time I bounded into the seat next to him with my caffeinated smile he could only grin and shake his head and say “you look different”. He asked me what I was up to; I gave him an elevator pitch about my film, which hearing myself was the tightest I’ve described it to date.

I took an odd kind of relevance in seeing him tonight. I got on the 56 from Dalston by mistake. As soon as I saw him, I was aware of how drastically my life had changed since we last met and especially since we met the first time all those years ago. It even occurred to me that some of the specifics of the changes I’ve been through shed an odd kind of light on our history. And it amused me to know that, to be carrying that without reason or time to tell him. There was no talk of THE NOVEL this time. When I asked where I’d been he just said “a class” which knowing what I do of him could have been writing, music or even dance.

I could have asked him, but I wasn’t really interested. I was interested in the timing of seeing him and how my life had moved on since the last. And there was no mention of his copy of Paul Auster’s autiobiography that still lives on my bookshelf. And there was no attempt at even suggesting meeting up, or exchanging numbers or emails. The closet he came was asking me if I was on Myspace and facebook, but even this question was only in relation to my film. Taking this as a possible interest in staying in touch, I asked him if he was on Myspace or facebook, and smiled as soon as I said it, because I knew after asking the obvious answer, he replied “hell no” (obviously not authentic enough for “the writer”)

And he asked me the direct question/challenge at the centre of my film

“you want more authentic communication?”

(I nodded)

“But you’re on Myspace and facebook?”

(Again nodding, but smiling this time)

“So you’re exploring your own addictions?”

“Yes” (still grinning) … and my network as well”

“So why are you then? Using these digital forms of communication?”

And my smile broadened and I said

“ Its crazy isn’t it. That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out.”

And then I realised I was on the not quite the right bus. And got up to get off the bus. I turned to him and said

“ so when will I run into you on a bus again?”

and he smiled, shrugged and said

“ Who knows?!”

I got off and  I walked off knowing I would finally be able to write a blog entry. And liking that “the writer” had provoked that, and feeling that London had spoken to me once again. And also wondered when again would I have a random encounter with “the writer” of Leyton. My part time once every-practically-never muse, who appears at exactly the right time, and whom I will most likely never exchange emails, numbers or even this blog with. How on earth would he react to these two entries, and yet secretly how much would it appeal to his vanity to know he had been within them…