Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong #2

Dimension Films are preparing a remake of David Cronenberg's Scanners to be helmed by Darren Lynn Bousman, director of Saw II and III.

For fuck's sake...

Hey, everything's fine

I will never have a career. I'll probably go from one admin monkey role to another and never get on the career ladder. I'll probably never make a lot of money. I'll probably have to work until I drop dead because I won't have been able to put enough aside for a decent pension. I'll probably never own my own home.

I'll probably never get married, never have a family. I may never have a serious relationship with a woman ever again.

And you know what? I don't care. But I don't mean "I don't care" in a bleak, nihilistic and pessimistic way. I mean it in a "ah well, something will turn up" kind of way.

Today I finished a week-long temp assignment that was really basic office work: filing, photocopying, typing up letters, stuffing envelopes. At the start of the week I thought it horrifically boring but as the days passed I grew to appreciate the mindlessness of it all and the complete absence of any real responsibility. I haven't got any work lined up for next week. I should be bricking myself but I'm not. A friend is going to hand over a bit of cash for me to redesign their website so I can do that and have time left over to concentrate on the job-hunting. Something will turn up for the following week.

It's strange but the uncertainty of not knowing where the next buck is coming from or that I am still not settled in a permanent job or that I am terminally single doesn't bother me in the slightest. I am inexplicably contented.

Plan for next week, then: redesign friend's website; bang out lots of job applications; finally do some bloody revising of my 2006 NaNoWriMo novel (yeah, remember that?); go back over all the music I've written in the last eighteen months and start thinking about revising and rerecording the best ones for a proper demo.

I can't explain this sudden sense of well-being; it is most peculiar but also most welcome so I'm not going to analyse it too deeply. Hey, everything's fine - what else do I need to know?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong

Ron Howard plans to direct a remake of Michael Hanecke's Caché (Hidden).

Christ on a bicycle. At least when Hollywood remade Infernal Affairs they had a high-calibre director with Scorcese so there was a chance that it might turn out to be good (but, sadly, we got Scorcese-by-numbers, a poor man's Goodfellas). But Ron Howard, America's blandest and most inoffensive filmmaker, taking on Hanecke's masterfully suspenseful and dark Caché? No, no, no. We'll end up with an utterly forgetable and sanitised thriller stripped of the original's complex and ambiguous heart.

Hollywood is already in the process of adapting Hanecke's Funny Games. I wonder who will direct that one? Brett Ratner?

Rock off

OK, having declared to the world that I've rediscovered the joys of fuck-off grungy guitar music lately, I spent this morning listening to Mouse On Mars and have now embarked on an Orb marathon. So much for my alleged rock renaissance.

Maybe if I declare to the world that I don't want a well paid, full time permanent job and would prefer to temp forever then I will suddenly get a well paid, full time permanent job.

Is fate subject to reverse psychology?

Anyway, job applications await...

Thought for Sunday

This from a review of a book called Only A Promise Of Happiness (Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University Press):

Not only professional philosophy but large swaths of culture begin to look different once we've included desire and uncertainty in our idea of beauty. When, for example, we talk about beauty in purely formal terms — as Modernist critics did — we must conclude that beauty will always be a rare thing, its appreciation inherently difficult. But if instead we agree with Mr. Nehamas that beauty is identical to desire, that desire longs for engagement, and that such engagements are invariably risky, we might talk about beauty as we would talk about friendship: not as a verdict of something's worth but as indication that a relationship with the beautiful object will continue to give us unexpected pleasures over time.

I like the sound of this interpretation of the word "beauty", a word with which I've always had a difficult relationship.

Anyway, why not go and read the full review and, in the meantime, I'll stick the kettle on and we can have a chat about it when you get back:

"The Uncertainty Principle Of Beauty" - review by Gideon Lewis-Kraus.

On a side note, the review of Nehamas' book compelled me to meander over to the Princeton University Press' website where I discovered a book with the utterly magnificent title of On Bullshit. The book is written by Harry G. Frankfurt, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University, and the the blurb reads:

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

This is how all academic tomes should be written. My copy is on order.

Let's rock! - Addendum

Oh, and In Utero is and always will be better than Nevermind.

Let's rock!

Hmm, for some reason I have felt the desire to reacquaint myself with guitar music. It started last year when I finally got around to listening to the Pixies (and seeing them live on their reunion tour at Alexandria Palace) and wondering why I didn't get into them the first time around. And then I heard some Pavement, remembered that they were supposedly a big influence on the US indie rock scene of the 1990s, bought Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee (the sexy Special Edition reissues with sackfuls of extra bonus tracks) and decided that they were bloomin' marvellous.

I've also been listening to quite a bit of Faith No More again for the first time in years. They were one of my favourite bands during my late teens and I'd forgotten how much I like them. Angel Dust was and still is my favourite FNM album, heavy yet experimental. I then started thinking about Mike Patton and his many side projects that I've been meaning to catch up on. I already owned Mr. Bungle's eponymous debut album which is fantastically barmy, a disjointed mess of funk, metal, scary fairground music and scatological humour. Not an easy listen but I love it. I never managed to get into their second album Disco Volante - that was too fucked up even for me - but their third and final release, California, is brilliant. The fragmented song structures remain but it is a more laid back, surf guitar inspired album.

I then got the two albums Patton released under the Tomahawk moniker - good old fashioned punky metal - which then led me onto the Melvins (I decided to start with their most accessible offering, Houdini, and I'll then move onto the more 'difficult' stuff).

Whilst still in a Patton mood, I got the Peeping Tom album, a bunch of collaborations between Patton and the likes of Massive Attack, Amon Tobin, Dan The Automator and... er... Norah Jones. Yes, Norah Jones. Mike 'n' Norah duet on a track called Sucker and you'll never see her in the same light again once you've heard her sing the words, "The truth kinda' hurts, don't it, motherfucker?" The novelty value of hearing the purveyor of sweet, folksy pop music cussing like a navvy notwithstanding, Peeping Tom is a superb album. It is apparently what Patton would like pop music to sound like if he listened to pop music and, frankly, I agree with him.

I don't really know why I've suddenly started hankering after big, crunchy, raucous guitar stuff again after many years of immersion in electronica. I guess that sometimes I need some harsh aggressive noise in my ears. Having said that, I have spent today listening to Wagon Christ and Authechre, so go figure.

More Mad Hattering

Issue 7 of Mad Hatters' Review is online now! It features lots of cool words and pictures and noises and stuff! And if you are thinking, "My word, so much to choose from... where to start?" you could do worse than look at Jai Clare's For A Lack Of Words and Lynda Schor's Sex For Beginners 2 because A) they are both great and B) they both feature music by me.

Mad Hatter's Review - Issue 7

Stick it in yer ear

New Feature!

Go to the noise section and gasp in awe at the all new embedded radio thingie - courtesy of Last.fm - that will stream a playlist of the kind of stuff I listen to into your ears. Then decide that I have shocking tastes in music and turn it off.

Yay! And... oh shit

This week I did something that might possibly be considered as a little rash: I quit my temp job at the council. I had to, really, because not only was I degenerating into an unmotivated, difficult, pedantic, spiteful smartarse but my behaviour was becoming increasingly bi-polar. I seriously thought I was becoming a manic depressive: one day I would be hyperactive, doing silly voices down the phone and talking surreal gibberish at anybody who made the mistake of passing nearby my desk; the next day I would lethargic, sullen, almost weeping at my desk and teetering precariously on the edge of the abyss of total and utter despair. My behaviour was scaring me. I really didn't know which of these two extreme moods was the real me or if either of them was the real me or if I was going mad and hurtling towards a nervous breakdown.

I did wonder if the mood swings were a side effect of the medication. Ah yes, I haven't mentioned that yet, have I? Yes, I'm back on the drugs! Back at the beginning of November I finally admitted to myself that I simply couldn't cope with the whole damn life thing on my own. No amount of sensible eating and vitamin B and St. John' Wort was going to drag me out of the persisting rut my life languished in; I needed the happy pills. So I went to the doctor and he gave me something called Fluoxetine. 20mg a day at first but that made no difference so he bumped up the amount to 40mg a day. I started to feel better. I wasn't bouncing off the walls, invigorated by the joys of life but my underlying mood began to rise. I still had good days and bad days but my moods were no longer underpinned by abject hopelessness. When I went to Devon for Christmas I was fine, quietly contented. I was still anxious about the future and my (lack of) career but at least I was thinking positively about how to rectify my problems.

When I returned to work in the New Year, however, I just didn't want to be there. I've already talked about how I gave up smoking simply to spite the management and as the weeks went on my moods began to swing more and more between extremes. Everybody in the office noticed, the girls at the housing association call centre noticed, I noticed. I'm going mad, I'm finally going bloody mad, I'm losing my mind, I thought.

I had to do something about it. I decided to talk to my recruitment agency and tell them everything I have had to put up with at work. I explained about mad-psycho-colleague's accusations, the investigation, the management's continued failure to get off their arses and advertise my position as permanent, the level of responsibility that had been dumped on me despite only getting paid a basic admin rate per hour. The agency girl nodded without interest or sympathy. All she was interested in was that I had notified my bosses of my feelings and desire to leave and how it would be best for them if I were to leave. The council are one of the agency's biggest contracts and they know what side their bread is buttered on. I'm just a disposable cash-generating machine and they couldn't care less about my happiness or well being. Bastards.

I then went to the doctor again and addressed my concerns about my volatile mood. He said that it was highly unlikely to be a side effect of the medication and was more likely to be caused by the stress I was experiencing at work, especially as I only experienced the volatile mood swings whilst at work.

The next day when I arrived at the office I immediately announced that I'd had enough and was giving them a week's notice. Safe to say that some panicked discussions took place between my supervisors and their manager. What the hell would they do now? Start from scratch with a new temp, an unknown quantity? Wasn't there some way they could entice me to stay?

I was almost doubting if I had really made the right decision until I discovered that the Chief Executive of the council had put in place a blanket freeze on all recruitment across the entire organisation which meant that even if the management were finally on the brink of making my position permanent they would not be able to. The Business Manager of my unit is currently fighting to advertise my post with the board of directors. He'll probably convince them... probably.

So, what did I get? I was told that the organisation genuinely appreciated the work I had done for them and regretted that I had decided to leave but acknowledged that I had had to put up with a lot of bullshit. They may be able to advertise the role shortly if they succeed in overturning the job freeze and they would be more than happy if I were to apply for it. That's it, that was all they could offer me: hearty thanks and an apology for all the hassle. But good luck for the future. Ta ta.

Next Friday will be my last day. I feel ambivalent. I am intensely relieved that I won't have to do that horrible job any more, that I won't have to suffer the sheer incompetence of the management but I am also bricking myself about the not insignificant matter of where the fuck my next pay cheque is coming from. Hmm.

Never mind. I have a job interview next Wednesday. I also only have one week to summon up the bottle to ask that intriguing girl from the Performance Management office for a date.