No-Thang

Ok. It's ranting season once again. Open up your eyes and unzip your flies, lads n' ladies!

This is fucked.

Whilst emotionally I've recovered quite a bit from the mild depression that was Thursday over my inability to be creative, the problem still persists. I can't write. At least, not well enough to make me feel it warrants paying for.

Did I spell 'warrants' right? 'War... rants'. Warrr.... ants'. Shit.

I'm not sure what it is, but it sure is bugging me.

Add to that my constant lethargy. I've been experimenting with my hours of sleepage and it still doesn't make a difference. No matter how early/late I go to bed/get up I still feel the same during the day: dead. My motor functions in sunlight are completely dependent on caffeine.

My 'ad writing' skills are getting stale. This may or may not have something to do with my servicing departments dodgy briefs. Or maybe I'm just getting bored here and need rejuvination. Colleagues have been e-mailing me word of jobs available elsewhere. They pay more, but don't look too enticing.

Then there's the 'music'. Saiful just came back last week with a list from the guy mastering it on what I need to do to make the mix better.

It's a fucking long list.

The mastering master in Indon also said that it's not a good idea for the musician to try and mix the music because the musician doesn't focus in on tiny details when it comes to his/her own music, but the big picture.

Either way, even though all the points were valid, it did make me think "great. I can't mix for nuts".

I'm also a bit wary of passing the material to someone else to mix because I fear that once they hear the raw files they may turn to me and say "holy Jesus! What the fuck do you expect me to do with this turd?!"

Harumph.

Then there's the 'movie' thing. The precious 'movie' thing. My 'Celup' movie, as you all know, is on the backburner for a bit after strange producer issues reminscent of my first bands untimely demise. Whilst my short film is gonna earn me a cool RM$1000, I'm stuck wondering, "what next?"

My parents asked me this same question. They are interested in my movie movements. By the end of this month they'll see their sons first publicly aired short film and will probably bludgen me for the movie's content.

Meanwhile, Kit Ong (who I met when he was CD at FCB) has a two page spread in KLue about his filmmaking activities and is quiting his job to do a feature. Yasmin Ahmad is doing her 'Gubra' movie (I thinkthat's what it's called) and Pete Teo's doing the music whilst also appearing in a movie financed by Andy Lau and directed by Ho Yuhang. Amir Muhammad will finally have one of his movies screened nationally (although I can't remember the name for that one).

Reading about these guys and seeing the whole 'local-industry filmmaking wave' reaching a higher and higher crest and gaining more attention and buzz does hit me with a pang of "when the fuck are you gonna get your act together and make your Magnificent Octopus!?"

...

"...sorry. I meant Magnum Opus."

I have apologetic pangs.

But yeah. All my filmmaking heroes did their thang in their twenties. All the guys (and gals) doing it here are in their thirties, presumably because by that age they have enough financial security and connections to go ahead and do their thang.

My mind's a bit on the different. I don't want to wait until my mid-thirties to do my thang (from here on in, filmmaking endeavours shall be named the 'thang'), I want to try and do everything I've always ever wanted to set out and achieve before I'm thirty so that if it works out I can spend the rest of my life doing my thang (or other 'thangs', wherein 'thang' can also be used to characterize any other creative endeavour besides film) and if my thang don't work out I can at least resign to the fact that I tried to do my thang(s) and won't die regretting I never did my thang.

Y'all un'nerstang?

You may ask, "Is the Guber jealous of all these other guys making movies?" and the Guber would reply, "Fuck yeah!" It's petty, yes, but why lie? They're making movies. I'm not. Of course I'm fucking jealous. I'm not in a position where I have to watch every word I say just yet. Yes, I'm jealous of the fact that all those people are making movies the same way pencil dicks are jealous of African tribesmen.

More importantly, I'm jealous because they have an idea, and turning the idea into a thang. An idea is required to make thang, it is theessence of thang.

But I'm forcing it. I'm forcing out ideas for the thang, and you know when you're forcing the thang 'cos it's never as good as a natural thang. You force the thang out, and the thang don't like no forcin'. I'm trying to figure out any ol' thang, anythang I can pull of, but there ain't no thang.

I need thang.

Something also appeals to me about being the young punk who went out and did his thang as opposed to the middle-aged guy who's comfortably well off to pursue thang-ing and such.

But what thang? Hence the question below about what scares you: to try and formulate a horror thang. Other thang's in mind are comedy thangs and talky-introspective thangs. Any thang doable within the limitations of my thang. But no strong enough idea to turn into a thang.

There's too much mention of 'thang' in this here thang. Dang.