| Director/Screen Writer/producers Diary for a short film. |
[20 Oct 2003|03:55pm] |
Well the synopsis is done. Couple of scenes and what I want them too look like is on paper. The problem I have is when ever I tell myself that I should sit down for two hours everyday and write like there is no tomorrow it feels like I am in 5th grade stuck in my room with no way of getting out to play with the other kids unless I finish my homework first.
I want my scenes to come to me naturally not because I sit down and think about them for hours and then come up with something. All the scenes I have so far came to me when I was walking from the subway to work or taking the public transportation from home to work.
Yes I am a mass transit system powered screenwriter/Director wanna be .
So far only one of my scenes is something I concocted in an artificially created manner(By sitting infront of a computer and brain storming away). Even that scene really came to me when I was having dinner with family friend from abroad.
I need to get one of those mini voice recorder tape thingies. I will prolly have my digital video camera at the end of the month its A Canon GL 2(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/photo/B00006FXHQ/002-2438045-5862426).
I need to finish the scenario before the end of December (Highly unlikely). Go into pre production in January. Start shooting in February because I need to have snow for my first scene.
Other then that everything is just peachy.
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| The dilemma. |
[26 Sep 2003|11:43pm] |
I hate to be right when it comes down to the products of my countries hybrid culture. Every aspect of our lives is stuck between the west and the east. Hell I mean I am an end product of that combination. I want to belong. I want to settle down. But then I think to myself: out all these people I get to meet the ones who have managed to experience other cultures are the ones who are usually double laced with tolerance and understanding are the people who I get along best with.
Dont get me wrong when I say understanding I dont mean the usual daily social interactions between individuals. You know like the ones normal human beings do. I for most of the time share a globally aware persons take on where we are going as humanity and all the dominant issues that have been placed infront of us the masses by the ultimate tool of the neo-aristocracy who has managed so superbly to adapt to the times.
I am waiting for my medical examination papers from the Canadian goverment. If I am not terminally ill or have contagious disaese after the hopeful reception of the those papers I will be approved to receive my immigrant visa.
The major dilemma besides the minor ones I have is the fact I despise most of the woman of my country. Their inability to stand up for themselves try to improve themselves and learn to stand on their own feet. But no instead most of them are looking for an husband to take care of them financially so they can stay home and raise kids and look the other way when their husband cheats on them because they have nowhere to go.
Even the ones with a little bit of dignity and are trying to stand up on their feet are so fucked up because of the the pressure they receive in from the opposite sex because they are a big bleeping dot on the radar of defenses of male hood of my once great nation. These wanting to be independent woman who are so paranoid that they will be fucked over by anything with a third leg hanging between the other two. Are stuck in a constant battle of control. All they care about is making sure they have you in their palms. That they are the dominant one in the relation. A paranoia killing their abiliy to share and make them uber strategists and manipulators in their quest to find house trained hubbies .
So their goes my healthy romance life because of the above mentioned reasons.
Add on top of all that the fact that I started working on my first short film. Which means even if I hopefully do end up getting my visa I wont be leaving right away because I would want to finish the short first. So it will prolong my eternal nomadness and the desire to belong and be belonged to.
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| War. |
[25 Sep 2003|12:25pm] |
Today is the second day of our cold war. Its all about control. One side trying to dominate the other. She is testing me. Here I am making my stand. Try to get her to understand it should not be about her having my cojones in her palm. I have spoken to her close to every other day since I have met her. But we had our expected awkward moment. I have been informed that it is difficult for her to admit that she likes me so I should admit it for her.
Today is the day we will see if its all a big power struggle a non accentuated war. A cold war that needs to end with her making the call so I know she is a person I can trust. I hope she is above all that and realizes it is not a game of domination but a continous exchange of love and respect. My conciousness is clean because I called her the day after our moment (which lasted for two hours) just to make sure that she understands there is no negative feelings at least from my part after we decided that we are not gonna do anything artifical to fire up the relationship. We are just gonna let it stroll on its own.
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| Yippe!! |
[12 Sep 2003|09:02am] |
I named all the scenes in my short movie and I have pretty good idea of how each scene is gonna look like and their order and all that good stuff.
Now I need to fatten them up a little.
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| I am back! |
[07 Sep 2003|04:24pm] |
Long time no see folks how u been?
Well my original plan to move to NYC went down the crapper.
So I will be waiting for my hopeful approval of the immigration process in Istanbul. I decided to get a move on things. Thanks to Kim and Jims excellent gift of the books they have sent to me on movie making essentials I decided to save money to buy a digital video recorder and make my first short film. It will be a while before I have the camera(Unless I budge and dip into my Canada savings which prolly would end up getting me a sunday morning breakfast lecture from not only from dad for a change but also from mom about how irresponsible I am with my money. Which they would be right about). I am working on the story at the moment. I have the general idea down.
I also got a job. Again!. As a project coordinator for a pharmaceutical start up. Pay is not great because I am a man of principle and I did not lie. I told them I might be gone in 6 to 10 months. Also I have not served my mandatory military term. Highly likely they would have asked me to do that first if I wanted a good pay(I got pages worth of ranting about mandatory military service my goverment imposes on our strappin young lads but I wont bother you with them now).
I might turn my blurty into a director/screen writers diary kinda thing.
So peeps hanging in there I will update you as much as I can.
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| A first. |
[18 Aug 2003|05:26pm] |
I call my dad Colonel. I do not use the word dad just colonel(Albayim in Turkish). I like the way it sounds and he does not seem to mind it. He is a retired navy colonel. He was a JAG(judges advocate general) district prosecutor. He is one of those types that beleives in the tuff school family dynamics. In other words school of emotions will not be shown under any circumstances(especially to his two sons).
Saturday morning I open my eyes look around. Mom is taking something from my wardrobe. No biggie since I am a Nomad the room I am in is not exactly mine. I say good morning. She says we are gonna have breakfast together this morning all three of us(Little bro is away at school).
Damn I say in my head not another one of those breakfasts. My dads understanding of any kind of non public eating event especially where there is no one from outside of the immediate family(to save me) present almost always means colonel dressing me down a couple of notches. When I was younger I could not get away. Than I hit the jackpot. 8 years away at school and work saved me from a lot of those breakfasts. Now I am a grown up. The grown up me found a way to abolish this family tradition. It did not take a lot of effort. I told them straight up I did not like it. This time around ma and pa were lot more understanding.
They realized for someone who lived on his own for the last 8 years of his life and because of the circumstances and the mistakes he had made had to return to live with them was not easy. In my eyes I was a failure. What got me the most at the beginning of this whole arrangement a year and a half ago was the fact that I had no job and might have to rely on them financially. My worst nightmare! Luckily with a family friend I started up my own business. I was not making a lot of money or anything but I was at least not asking them for it.
After moaning and bitching to ma about how much I hate the breakfast dressing down sessions I half heartedly agreed to do it. I buckled down and readied for impact. Colonel took his seat couple of mins after ma and I did(Just like the judge always entering the courthouse after everyonelse is present). Soon after we realized the topic of this sessions dressing down was me not being social. Colonel tells me its is wrong for me to be not calling anyone of my friends that colonel knows and approves of. I say well colonel I am not interested in socializing with anyone at the moment. All I wanna do this serve my time in this relatively ding bat of a country and move on at the end of the month (hopefully). I add plus my finances without dipping into my savings will only last me till the end of the month I can not go out and be frivilious with my money. I stated knowing very well that the money was not the issue here. The issue was the state of mind I was in. All geared to leave and not wanting to waste any energy on anything that is not gonna last.
After a good ole 10 minute argument with the colonel about how I should live my life a first happened:
Colonel told me he never sees me around anymore. He wants to spend more time with me. Usually the wording he chooses when he echoes these sort of sentiments is around the lines that the family should eat together to preserve its integrity and all that military tuff school crap. He finishes his speech with the words that keep me in a state of disbelief he says all "I am saying is we should spend more time together before you go".
Well I will be damned!
I wanted to take a picture date it and frame it. Because that saturday morning was the day in which dynamic of our relation took an unexpected turn.
The day the colonel softened his approach and showed me that he cared.
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| LISTEN UP BOYS AND GIRLS. |
[10 Aug 2003|05:23pm] |
Only thing they teach you at the business school that is worth a damn is OPPORTUNITY COST. It is based on the idea that life is a series of linked trade off's. For example at the moment I am sitting on my skinny arse typing away on my e-diary and foregoing my chance to read a book or utilizing my time to do something more productive such as saving the world and etc.
During one of my usual brain fart/storms I realized that no matter how hard we try to have the perfect job, friends, relations with cared ones and subjectively fulfilling lives we are never going to able to juggle all these aspects of life at the same time thanks to our friendly rule of OPPORTUNITY COST. Face it no matter how incredibly good of a juggler you are you will never have the time to deal with all these tenets of life with equal fervor and tenacity.
So what are we to do?
Me thinks we should first learn to stop being such anal bastards and try to have it all (Well what do you expect from a guy who is name translates into English as first name meaning leader(Kaan) last name meaning orders (Emirler) ). Then take a deep breath and choose from the tenets I have listed (I am pretty sure there is plenty more) the ones we honestly beleive we can be good at.
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| Bah... |
[30 Jul 2003|04:46pm] |
I need to find reasons to frustrate myself I guess. Cuz when I do not have something to vent about I do not feel like posting here. Not that I assume people actually read my ramblings. I think this is my way of masturbating mentally.
Well I am quite happy actually with a dose of paranoia. I fear that all my carefully made plans will not bear any fruits if a hickup in the process occurs. But I will not let my personal Talibans terrorize me. For the first time in my life I became stingy. I am actually trying not to spend money. All the money I have saved up for my hopefully in between jobs time are being spent on some books and seeing some movies on weekends. If I get the job I want at the end of the month as planned I might even start to socialize again. Get back into the land with skies filled with dogfighting overly emotional woman and hormone ridden man.
Other than above mentioned facts my life is in stasis. I will be out of the cryogenic suspension pod in a month or so (Hopefully).
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| Isn't it funny. |
[26 Jul 2003|01:51pm] |
When you don't have despair in your life there is nothing to write about. Well I'am out of hell. I still have direction. If there is no hick ups on the way I shall be heading out at the end of the month.
I am the eternal nomad.
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| I feel like a nomad. |
[13 Jul 2003|08:51pm] |
I am roaming the endless plains of life. Because of the circumstances I can't find that place that is right for me to settle.
I am feeling the side effects of my current dilemma. No healthy relationships with the other sex. Constant need to speed the processes that are in place to get me to my patch of land where I will settle. Always thinking to myself why should I invest into creating a comfortable life for myself when all I want to do is get the fuck out of this place. Even though the process has came a long way since the start, it becoming a reality is not written in stone. The person handling the process is telling me its only a matter of time but I lost my trust in anything but people of my own blood long time ago.
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| If thats what it takes. |
[07 Jul 2003|10:32am] |
I walk around in the streets of Baku and all I see is a torn down city. It is Ugly. It is dirty. It is soulless. People in the streets for the most part look like they have given up on life. The ones who seem to have the glimpse of life in them have it only because either themselves or their parents are rich or they dont know what the civilized world is like. They are happy in their little ignorant worlds.
So many beggars. A lot of kids and some old people begging in the streets. People who were possibly engineers, doctors, judges twenty years ago when the communists were in power. We have this cleaning lady workin in our company she is 65 years old. All I see her do when she has free time is to read books go over her math notes so she can tutor her grandchildren. I asked her why do you read so much? How do you know all this stuff? She said she was engineer when the communists were in power. Now she cleans toilets so she can help out with her family. Financial support from her to her family a big whoppin 100 dolars a month at max. A 65 year old who in any civilized country would be playing cards with her friends in her summer house in a semi exotic to an fully exotic place depending on her financial power and savings.
All this despair is getting to me as well. My solution? Get the hell out.
What strikes me as hilarious was what happened on saturday. The American Chamber of Commerce had their 4th of July picnic. I was angry and impressed. We took off around 3:30 to get to the place where the picnic was being held.
Trust me when I say this. I have been to a lot of cities in the world. I do not remember one city that is as unlively and mood killing than Baku. It is ugly as sin period. But as we approached where the meeting was held I saw these houses made for the expatriats (foreign workers in a country) the amount of green used to make the landscaping. The cleanliness of the houses with their driveways and perfectly planned layouts. It got to me. I was sad and impressed at the same time. Here we have these people living it up and the rest trying to be content with their miserable lives.
The location where the picnic was being held is called the international school of Baku. It is a school for the children of the expats. It has this huge green field for the P.E purposes and the picnic was gonna take place there. As usual it started off with people pigging out on the food. Than the live music kicked in. At that moment I turned around saw bunch of children and grown ups playing football (soccer) and for the first time in my whole stay in this shit hole of a town I saw natural happiness in the faces of the Azeri kids and grown ups. They were having the time of their lives. Ofcourse I have seen happiness in Azeri faces but it was mostly because of non casual reasons such as weddings. But for the first time during my stay in Baku I saw people who were casually happy.
What did it take to make these people happy? Nice green field in which they can have fun, play games and hangout. How many of those does Baku have? ZERO. Azerbaijan is an Oil country its not like they are poor or anything. The problem is the distribution of income trickles down to the pockets of very few Azeris.
I pondered some more. I realized the green field on the 4th of July picnic celebrating 227th year of the states independence has just put a smile on peoples faces from a lot of different nationalities. Dont get me wrong I am not naive to say any civilization is an Angel. But I said to myself what if we got rid of the malicious tendencies of different civilizations elite and turned the world into one huge green field where we can all play together?
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| My response to American naivete. |
[02 Jul 2003|11:24am] |
Retort I posted on a forum. Dated 06/29/2003
My naive friend. This will a repeat of one my older posts. I try to dug it out and do a copy paste but I could not find it.
Compared to Europe and a lot of countries States has a lot more restrictions on many aspects of life. 21 to drink and go to the bars. 18 to smoke. Curfews for younguns under the age of 18 in some states. Your cops are the most brutal when it comes down to taking down a suspect. You have speed restrictions out the wazoo. Your society is a free society but it has more rules regulating your freedom than any other country does.
Lets get to the most important selling point our American friends have, Freedom of Speech. This one really cracks me up. Yes people, important people can say whatever the hell they want and not be imprisoned for it. But it stops there. All your freedom of speech does is keep them from being thrown to jail (in most cases). Dynamics of your country is geared such a way goverment does need to control the un desired elements . Power groups working in most of the cases in tandem with the goverment does. You got all your lobbies, activist, publicist. Its all about constantly spinning reality to make it into something that the few and powerful desires. So the masses can be shepherded in a more easier way.
In 2000 an author(I can not remember the name of) wrote a book. Biography of Bush Jr. how his fathers reach has opened all the doors for him through ethical and unethical means how he succeeded in tasks he set for himself. The book right or wrong slandered Bushes name.
Author committed suicide a year after books publishing. His wife divorced him. Took his kids and left because the family could not take the pressure anymore. Publishing house would not give him any work. Oil lobby and the Bush's party turned life into hell for him. So he took his own life.
Yes in United States Of America you can say all you want but if any of the powergroups do not like what you are saying especially when you are a public figure with the means to reach the masses. They will bury you and your freedom speech in a heartbeat.That is the American version freedom of speech. Relatively it is lot better than most of the countries. Absolute freedom of speech is a fallacy it is an Utopic dream.
As for your comments about you being hazed because you had glasses and all the other reasons why you stayed strong did not think of suicide I beleive they are sad. If you think those are reasons enough for you to ponder committing suicide at any point of your lifetime you should just quit and stop wasting the human miracle.
On BBC there was this fund raiser live comedy show. On it they had members of Rock Groups visit africa to help the natives to build themselves houses. This artist I can not remember the name of right now was there on live TV to help this 75 year old African man to build his first house. 75 year old worked for 30 years to save money to build his own place. After 30 years of saving money he had was still not enough. So the fund raiser program made a donation to him so he can build his dream house.
The house was an aluminium shack 3x3 meters no concrete floor and one bed made out of stone and some padding.
COST: 100 DOLLARS.
What got me the most was the face of the old man when first lay down on his new bed and joy of actually having a room to himself made him beam. It was like he was ready to die and move on a happy man. He has accomplished his lifes goal. That hit me so hard. What hit me even harder was the fact that rockstar after seeing all this was crying like a two year old baby.
Point of the story is. Get yer fecking head out yer arse and stop feeding me the lame bullshit you call an excuse for you to ponder suicide. Your fats asses with your 35000 dollars per capita GDP does not have the right to ponder suicide. What you have the right to do is make something out of yerselves and dont let the human miracle become a waste.
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| I am so lame! |
[30 Jun 2003|12:09pm] |
I am mentally bullying kids and preaching to them in their diet coke of forums. But grognards have no colors to them. They are boring. But Kids on the other hand are not really a challenge. They most of the time accept what I say. Maybe it is because they are openminded and the grognards are bunch of 30+ who are afraid of changing what they are used to.
Kids. I envy their energy and their angst the way they put themselves out there and their eagerness to experience . Their use of profanity sometimes when necessary most of the time when it is not. None of the politically correct bullshit. Most of the time brutal.
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| After action report. |
[30 Jun 2003|12:29am] |
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They are not letting me go. A lot of promises not sure if they will become reality though. At least I got a definite to move me into a luxurious apartment in three to four days(hopefully). If I am not in my new apartment with my girl by the end of the coming week I will be outa here. This is their last unkept promise.
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| Erm. |
[29 Jun 2003|07:16pm] |
Ultimatum is now a 2 or a 4 weeks notice. I am not even bluffing. I moved the date to tonite.
Watched a not funny comedy film. Also another dark comedy that was essentialy sad. Being the twisted fuck that I am it kinda strengthened my spirit. You never know what you have until someone elses misery smacks you in the face.
I am nervous. I am curious to how its gonna go down tonite. Will there be any yelling? A lot of tension? False smiles paving way to the politically correct pulling the carpet from under you moves.
Nurse 500cc of drama please!!!
I am blowing this out of proportion I mean after all its only my friggin life. I think I secured a job at home. But I dont trust the guy who offered me the position. I dont trust anyone but my blood any longer.I can not eat into my savings. If I do that all this angst and frustration would be for nothing.
I might join the military probably get shot by one of the NCOs who asks you to salute the fire hose for 7 hours straight. Or piss off one my ever patriotic bunk mates. Tell them its all a lie. Start making sheep sounds in the middle of the night.
Bah I am babbling again.
What do you do son?
I am professional babbler sir!
140 minutes and counting.
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| Arrrgh!!!! |
[28 Jun 2003|06:47pm] |
Kill me.
Kill me Now!!!!
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| The Ultimatum. |
[28 Jun 2003|02:08pm] |
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mood |
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annoyed |
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music |
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Beatles |
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Look here boss man. You either gimme what I want or I am out the door.
Shall be delivered on the 30/06/2003.
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| A teaspoon of redemption. |
[26 Jun 2003|02:26pm] |
I am lookin for a place to live in. All the apartments at the range of the budget given to me by the company look like shit. I am really depressed about that. One apartment I liked that I was supposed to move into got axed cuz the people decided to extend their stay.
FUCKERS!
I am looking and it seems like I will give this adventure 4 weeks more than depending on the situation I will make my final decision.
On the good side of my life. Got a call from mom. First stage of my application to immigrate to Canada has been approved. I skirted the edges of the idea of crying but I was too manly for it.
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| New position life cycle. |
[23 Jun 2003|02:44pm] |
International Projects Coordinator.
Kik hiney title. At least IMHO it is.
New kid on the block. All excited. I got all this neat stuff I can do. All these great projects to build from scratch. heart beating really fast all fired up and ready to go. Promises made to give you the power necessary to make it happen. I dont give a rats arse about the money I am luvin my job. I infact make sweet sweet luvin to it everyday. You keep telling that to yourself.
Your typical new job environment. Noone knows you. You do not know anyone. It is the honeymoon stage. Everyone is so cool. With your new guy energy you get to work. You are outperforming everyone. Almost like your reveling in it. More, more!!! It is not enough. Appointments one after the other one non stop. Coordinate hell out of it get all required lined up just right. So you can move from the planning stage to actually make it happen.
First month goes by.
Reality starts showing its ugly head.
Honeymooner: "Hey big boss guy. Lookie here I got everything together as per yer request. All systems are a go. Give me the green light I will make it happen for you."
Big Boss Guy: "Erm...that fast? We need some more time. You need to learn to be more patient" So I see we actually have to spend money to get things done. Doh! I did not factor in."
Honeymooner: "Yes sir!. I am sure you have a plan sir! Now I will be the good soldier that I am and wait infront of my computer for you to give me the green light!"
As expected the poor schmoo goes about his business giving it his 200 percent.
End of the second month;
Big boss guy: "Allright you can invite the professional we need to start the operation. . o O (But we will treat him like shit. Place him in a torn down hotel with no water. Will not give him the basic infrastructure so he can display his skills. Most importantly he will pay out of his own pocket to come down to an interview we invited him to ). I want you to take him from the airport and show him a good time"
Honeymooner: "Yes sir! On a side note. I still dont have my own place sir. We discussed possible accomodations and you said they will be arranged a month ago sir."
Big boss guy: "No worries son. You will have your place by the end of the month"
Honeymooner: "Thank you sir. Thats great news!"
Beginning of the third month;
Honeymooner: "Sir what we did with that guy was wrong. We can not work with westerners like that. They are not of our medieveal mentality in which you can treat them like shit. Pay them nothing than expect them do their job."
Big boss guy: "For a couple of months lets search for westerners with our mentality!"
Honeymooner: "Sir that is not possible!"
Big boss guy: "Do it anyways!!"
Honeymooner: " Yes Sir!!"
End of the third month;
Still living in the office. No prospect of the living quarters promised. New guy energy sapped dry. Slowly becoming one of the ex communist drones without the concept of enterpreneural thinking or creativity. Report to work at 9 o'clock in the morning leave at 1800 hours.
Today;
Pestering a kid on the net and getting a great kick out of it.
Somebody shoot me! Do it now!
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| Sometimes. |
[23 Jun 2003|02:39pm] |
Sometimes being a pest is fun.
I closed all my embassies at the teasers.
We are now at defcon 3.
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