(Written during the early hours of this morning when I was supposed to be working. Could end up becoming something, another novella maybe, but for now it's just ramblings. Read if you dare.)
It’s almost one on a Monday morning and I have realized that I am too damn lazy and/or tired to do anything, least of all my work.
It could be the chicken that is causing this. The genetically engineered monstrosities designed by Colonel Saunders’ evil offspring, fried in a bucket of oil with secret herbs and spices that may or may not include diseased human entrails. We will never know the Colonel’s secret, but we can be sure that nastiness is afoot. A foul nastiness that has caused my motor functions to slow down and make my stomach yearn to release a shit my intestines and sphincter flat out refuse to help with. Perhaps they are lazy and/or tired too.
Perhaps it’s the lack of a television, the cathode tube that runs the huge Italian beast gave way through Austin Powers’ third and final jaunt, getting progressively darker till I couldn’t see a damn thing and hear nothing but the sound of someone pissing, either a scene from the movie or the evil gremlin inside leaving its mark before scuttling off to another electric appliance. The TV is my friend, and it often gets me into the right state of mind.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because the work in question is not immediate in its deadline. That’s usually one of the deciding factors when it comes to my… my…
Bugger me, I’m even forgetting words now…
…PRODUCTIVITY. That’s the one. ‘Productivity’. Or, in this case, a lack of. I have work to do. I know that much. But it is not really required tomorrow. It would be productive and pro-active and well managed of me to do it tonight, now, whilst the deadline is still far away, but I am none of these things. I live off the eleventh hour.
No. That’s not true. I THRIVE on it.
It’s the lack of immediate deadlines that has screwed me the most these past few opening months of the seventh year of the 21st century, a bright shiny new age where all the techno-fears will finally rear their ugly little heads. And as evil robots enslave humanity and we begin downloading information directly into our brains and genetic engineering reaches a point where we can all have gills if we want to, you’ll hear me in the background, talking to myself.
“Fuck me,” I’ll say, “the Doctor was right.”
But enough about the future. We need to talk of the here and now and why I’m typing this. Perhaps they are notes towards something greater, perhaps they’ll just end up as an entry on my blog, the 21st century way for people to write diaries in secret whilst telling everyone at the same time, with none of the actual facing-up involved.
What I do know is this: I have many things to write and design and create. I have no immediate deadlines, true, but there’s something I am lacking that is more dire and depressing than that:
I have no drive.
So that’s what this is, ladies and gents: my jumper cables. Writing about the here and now, inane gibberish in a style stolen from many other more successful and noted masters of the English language, because at least I’m writing.
That’s what’s important, that I’m doing something creative. That’s what my blog was designed for in the first place when I first opened the account – so that when all else fails, I’ll still be creating, even if all I’m doing is putting a different spin to the events that have or are happening in my life or the random thoughts of this nicotine and Colonel-fat diseased brain – at least I’m still using the ol’ noggin.
A lot of that drive disappeared around the first month of this year. After the Anugerah Skrin win, calls came from every direction with possible jobs for directing and writing a number of TV movies, shows, features, etc. It was my jump into the industry and it made me realize one thing – that working with dumb-ass clients was exactly why I left the advertising industry.
The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth and most of all, it made me question the point in following up my first feature. I had forced myself, throughout that month, to squeeze out a bunch of nuggets on cue, only to be told they weren’t the right size or shape or goddamn color.
Now, three months after the win, I find myself a week away from flying to Los Angeles, California, part of the prize for the Anugerah Skrin. A week of Disneyland and Universal Studios, discount shopping outlets and the Malaysian Sambal Grill eatery.
But not for me: I’ve made up my mind when I’ll be taking my little detours. The Guitar Center in Oxnard is one of them. So is the nearest Taco Bell, as well as White Castle and the International House Of Pancakes (which is a strange name considering the outlet is not really found internationally, but then again, none of the other countries take part in the World Series, so I guess it’s an American thing).
Food. Goddamn food. Goddamn Colonel. I’m supposed to be on a diet, for God’s sake. I have grown at an exponential rate since the debacle in Egypt, where I first noticed the weight gain and took disgusting photos of my belly. That was also the first time I shat blood and began a crusade against a cow-headed goddess (we’ve since put our differences behind us).
Now I can’t fit into most of my wardrobe, and the insides of my legs have little pimples that sore from time to time due to the skin of my legs rubbing against each other when I walk. The fat underneath my chin is growing larger, and being of Asian descent and not having much of a chin to begin with, this growth is making me look more and more like my face ends at the bottom of my throat.
But, dammit, I love food to much. And once I land in the United States of America I intend to eat as many tacos, twinkies, square burgers and pancakes as I can fit in my mouth.
That is, if I manage to get in. It’s not a good time to be a Muslim, especially not a traveling one. Before 9-11 I was still an ‘alien with a visa’, now I’m an ‘alien with a visa who may be on a jihad’.
Hmmm… this may be too dangerous to post on-line. The FBI may have websites with the word ‘jihad’ flagged. They shouldn’t worry, though. I answered ‘no’ to the question ‘do you intend to enter the United States to perform acts of terrorism’ on my visa application. I answered the same to questions about being a prostitute, procurer of prostitutes and whether or not I have ever committed acts of genocide, so I must be a decent guy, right?
After all, if I wasn’t, I’d have answered ‘yes’. Isn’t that what any self-respecting Nazi-terrorist-whore-pimp would do? They may be evil, but dammit, they sure are honest.
The visa people even suspected my past trip to Egypt. “Where were you in Egypt,” they asked, “and what were you doing there?”
“Checking out the pyramids, the nile, that kinda stuff,” was my reply. You didn’t seem to mind that I’d been to Australia, Thailand, England or Singapore.
Hmmm… I wonder what would have happened if I had actually asked that?
At least I have my visa now… although, like my previous one, I look Mexican in the photo again. How does this always happen? Why is it I always end looking not just different from my passport photo but alsoMexican? On an American visa, of all things!
But yes, I have my visa, and I’ll be buggering off to the United States of America with all the other winners of the Anugerah Skrin, which is almost a sure guarantee that I’ll be the most out-of-place-feeling-motherfucker there. At least Afdlin Shauki’s my roommate. I heard he smokes, which is a bonus.
Then again, I’m about to enter a land where smoking is practically illegal. This should be interesting.
And you know what else is interesting? It’s nineteen minutes to two on a Monday morning, and I still haven’t got the fucking energy or drive to start on my work.
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