May Strailer - 23MY04 - has it been a year already?

I had an interesting day today.

Today I was a construction worker on Vancouver’s latest pisspoor tourist attraction: Storyeum.

So me and my new flatmate Hamish arrive at six thirty in the morning and after a quick health-and-safety orientation I’m decked out in tools, strolling round like a well equipped master tradesman and I have

No

Freaking

Idea what I’m doing.

I’ve been broke most of my life, and right now is no exception. I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for things to come through here and apart from a few volunteer film shoots (more about that later) nothing has. I’ve applied to every animation and web production house in town and still no joy. So staring down the barrel of next months rent due in five days I got talked into construction. Drywalling, to be specific.

Yesterday I rang every single drywalling contractor in town. Dude on the phone’s saying: how much drywalling experience do you have? I’m saying: Oh, couple of months. I’m thinking: what the fuck is drywalling?

Until today I had no idea. I knew it paid well, I knew there was heaps of demand (according to Hamish) but other than I needed a knife to do it, nada.

Second to last company in the yellow pages desperately needed someone to start early (o god so very very early) the next morning and work through the long weekend. We need to supply our own tools. Mad ringing and driving around trying to find cheap gear (tool belt, steel cap boots, craft knife, tin snips, set square, tape measure, drywalling knife and a hard hat that I look really stupid in) and a portable drill to borrow, and before I know it I’m out a hundred and twenty bucks and not knowing if the next day I’m gonna front up and they’re gonna be all like; drywall. and I’m going to be saying, uhm… yeeeeeeah and out a hundred and twenty bucks.

And feeling really stupid.

Actually my contingency plan, such as it was, would be to say that my experience was in New Zealand and so as to just get me up to speed on all the latest Canadian standards, would they mind doing the first one while I watched.

But it does pay eighteen dollars an hour before tax, and Hamish promised me it was so easy even construction workers could do it, and he’d be there to show me.

This, I must say, was a pretty big act of faith on my part.

So I did it, more as a matter of principal than anything and it actually went really well. Eventually.

First I had to get up at quarter past five after four hours sleep (I needed to sleep so therefore couldn’t) and make my way to downtown, which meant borrowing a further two bucks off Hamish (he also floated the tools) since I can’t afford bus fare.

We’re supposed to meet Mark the foreman out front at six thirty but he didn’t show so we’re racing round trying to track down his phone number and a payphone for about an hour, then try to hunt him down on site and after almost giving up and going off with another guy we asked directions off and who offered us more work (as I say, there’s heaps of demand) and then we find him, he takes us to the health-and-safety thingy (I carefully skipped over the parts of the form where it asked for my last date of training and cautioned against using any equipment without proper experience,) and then he vanishes again and we spend another half hour tracking the little bugger down.

Which was all fine by me as we were getting paid by the hour to do so.

I was still stressing, but as it turns out drywalling is the process of finding a hole in the wall, measuring out a bit of board, and putting it in the hole. I’m going to be doing this all week, after tax should take home about seven hundred and fifty dollars.

This actually isn’t the first time I’ve found myself in this situation recently. I had an interview at an animation production house for a job doing graphics for Battlestar Galactica: The Series, which would’ve paid about eight hundred a week and been really cool, but I didn’t get it. It may still come through; I’m not holding my breath.

Anyway, I’m talking to the head guy trying not to expose my ignorance, and he’s like, yeah, we could maybe use you for pre-vis.

I’m saying: ok, that would be ok, what would the specifics of that be?

I’m thinking: Dude, I don’t even know what that _is_, and you want to pay me to do it?

Turns out he didn’t actually want to pay me to do anything, but it might still come through.

So, to recap:

Plan A. Animation production houses, especially those working in film. Dropped off a dozen cd portfolios.

Result: one offer of work, yet to come through. Other than that, nothing.

Plan B. Other graphics and animation outfits, like games, tv, etc. Cd portfolios.

Result: Nothing.

Plan C. Web design companies. Emailed resumes and links to work.

Result: I think one may have got back to me saying they had received my email.

Nothing.

Plan D. Background extra work. Dropped headshots at three casting agencies.

Result: “Things are slow right now, June they should pick up.”

Nothing.

Plan E. General labor.

Result: Kachingo.

Other new job type stuff; volunteered on two independent short films, one ‘The Horror Seasons’, which as far as I can tell is a load of cobblers, and the other ‘Blind Date’ which went to show how anything will look good if you get the lighting right. There was supposed to be another one this weekend but I’m busy drywalling.

Quote from the director of blind date: “I don’t know what you’re getting out of this coz you’ve been working your ass off.”

I aim to please. The point, other than shits and giggles, is education. I want to direct films. I don’t see how that’s possible without knowing how films get made and how film sets run, and I don’t see how you can be really good at something unless you know every step of the process, by working through it yourself from the bottom up.

And the bottom is certainly where you’ll find me. I’m a production assistant. A gopher. I figure the only thing lower than me on the food chain is background extra, but I could even be wrong about that. I ensure that there are no coffee-centric catastrophes and that very heavy things find their proper place in the world. Like the sixty six thousand dollars worth of lighting equipment that the producer/slash/female-lead scored for the weekend by bribing someone with a case of champers and which me, the writer/slash/director and the first-assistant-director/slash/extra/slash/producer’s-husband had to lug up to the third floor apartment where we were filming.

I worked three and a half fourteen-hour days, got up at six every morning (slept at the couples house), got fed like a king by the caterer/slash/producer’s-mum, looked after thirty crew and ten cast (let me tell you, that’s massive for an indie short, and most were very skilled professionals), and learned a lot.

Also got invited by the first A.D./slash slash blah\ -slash. to send him a couple of screenplays that he would go over and maybe send on to a producer mate of his. Also maybe a paid gig doing graphics for an interesting sounding longer film in August.

It’s all about the networking baby, all about the networking.

I went to a Hollywood style cocktail party thing last month (the only rule was you weren’t permitted to not to talk to anyone, started by two non-locals who are sick of Canadians being insular) and got chatting with an English guy. The main advice he gave me (he talked at me for about forty-five minutes, it was very informative) was always be sincere, never jerk anyone around, pursue quality and reap what you sow.

So basically if you can handle life in general, it seems you can handle the movie industry.

A chick came up to me and said; you look like an actor from the eighties. I tried not to show my level of offense at that statement, but she was thinking of someone specific and after twenty minutes of asking the bar, who does he look like, you know, that actor from the eighties (she was drunk), she told me I look like C. Thomas Howell.

She’s right. It’s scary. I’m trying to find some more recent pictures of him so I can see how I’ll look when I’m older.

Two people now have thought I was in my mid thirties. This does not please me.

Shifted flat a month ago. If you say shifted flat to Canadians they giggle. I find myself using more and more obscure kiwi vernacular these days just to make Canadians giggle.

It’s gone pear shaped / turned to custard. She’ll be right. Crikey, the Keas’ve scoffed the wipers off’v me ute!

Pash.

The new house is a lot less… immaculate. Which I like. Character. We also lost two of the American art students and picked up two New Zealand guys. The balance of power is finally shifting my way.

I get on really well with all my flatmates.

Some of them just have some interesting points of view.

Like when we were deciding on colors to paint the floor and it was suggested that we should paint it dark so it would show the dirt more and we’d have to keep it cleaner.

They’re lovely, and I acknowledge my own unusual cleanliness standards, but it’s not just me, right? That is a little weird?

The new place is much closer to town and on the other side of the street is a park. I’m getting a veggie garden going on the back lawn.

It also means I no longer have to ride the SkyTrain into downtown and play dodge the ticket marshals.

I got busted and fined fifty bucks (if I can’t afford the fare, what makes them think I’ll be able to pay the fine?) but the marshal, who against all odds didn’t kick nine types of fluid out of me like they’re known to, instead told me since I don’t have a driver’s license here (?) then “I wouldn’t go getting too many off these things, but don’t worry about this one.”

Do I look worried? I was so freaked out I couldn’t hold the pen to sign the damn thing.

So the games began. Watching out for the black jackets and handcuffs, jumping off as they stepped on. Is this you’re stop? Yup. Is it really? Sure. Ok, just asking. They always hunt in twos, so you have to get it so they’d have to split up to bust you.

I almost went down on my way to The Horror Seasons shoot. Two darted into the carriage behind mine. At the next station I jumped off but one came forward checking the people he passed. I jumped back on and hoped for the best. Just as the doors closed he thrust his arm through, as if through my very heart, but just as the doors started opening again to let him on, he ad to field a question from some guy in the station. He let the train go, leaving me palpitating and twitching, thinking I’ve really got to stop doing this.

Now I walk. We’re close enough.

Canadians are weird. I’m finding it really hard to connect with folks here.

People are closed.

Polite and helpful, certainly, but not warm. In other parts of the world you might get referred to as man, or dude, or bro. Here it’s usually sir. Today someone saluted me.

I’m sort of looking forward to when the Whistler ski field closes and this place gets invaded by Australians.

There are so many of you out there that I so wish were here.

I had an appointment Thursday to dance in traffic.

As part of her art school project one of the friends of the flat, a Mexican girl called Diana, organized thirty of us to

out of nowhere

swarm into a busy central city intersection,

and waltz.

It was beautiful. We got away with it for two and a half minutes. Then, although anyone who could see us seemed to be enjoying it, the cars that had piled way up at the back went mental and when one guy pulled out of the queue and plowed through the intersection, a red light, and us, we figured that should probably be the end of that.

So we and the accordion player we’d found somewhere walked down to the art gallery lawn and danced

as six bike cops showed up too late,

smiled at each other,

and left.

I’ll try to get hold of the photos.

I had another interesting day at work. We’re now two days after when I started writing this. Do try and keep up.

It started with us biking into town rather than taking the bus. I haven’t been on a bike in two years. Well, once in Amsterdam but that was only briefly as we were tearing off to defend a squat from the police (don’t ask how I get involved in these things) and I got left way behind, because, basically, I can’t ride a bike for shit.

Lack of practice. So even at six thirty in the morning, getting to work was a little dicey. And that was before I got pulled over by the police.

I thought it was because I was riding on the footpath (I’m sorry if it’s selfish, but I’d rather hit a pedestrian than a bus) but it turned out they thought that since I was wearing a hardhat as a helmet, I was probably some homeless guy about to go walk onto a building site and steal all the tools.

Apparently I look more like a junkie than a construction worker. Fair call, fair call.

So half an hour late for day three of swaggering round like a gunslinger (the boots make me walk funny) with my tool belt slung low (its meant for builders and I’m too skinny), hand resting on my drill holster (to stop it falling out) getting paid time and a half, praying no one’s sussed me yet.

First we had to redo all the first day’s work, since we used the wrong board, which wasn’t our fault. Then I get split off and have to do this rather technical bit, and got it… just… just wrong.

Foreman was like, its cool, just do it how you feel is best, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job.

I didn’t know whether to hit him or burst into tears. I think I just stared at him and started muttering.

Man it’s a sweet job though. After three days I’ve paid my rent for next month, by the end of the week I won’t have to work until July. And it’s interesting and easy enough. I don’t know why anyone waits tables. If I could find some way to get tips it’d be perfect.

Only a small chance of injury.

First day, onsite medical dude says; you could all die, today.

Thanks Doc.

Oh, I’m not a doctor.

Segue (sgw,) intr.v. To move smoothly and unhesitatingly from one state, condition, situation, or element to another) into a brief rant about the Canadian health system; it’s a shambles. Chick was telling me about her eighty year old grandfather who took a header off an escalator and broke three ribs and a clavicle. The hospital got the diagnosis ok, so they knew he was pretty badly off when they sent him home with just a prescription for morphine.

Few days later he’s back in hospital with a collapsed lung (the almost unavoidable outcome of old guys with broken ribs) and they were like, yeah, nah, he’s gonna die now.

Miraculously he pulled through. And it has to be said that once he came back in with the lung they did apparently take stellar care of him, but I’ve been hearing a lot of horror stories like this. Nurse told me that as long as you have insurance it’s actually much better to get sick in America than here.

So far I’ve been hit in the head twice, thank heavens for that hardhat.

So once I’ve worked the week, I reckon it’s about time for a look around Canada. We went out to one of the small islands a few weeks ago and done a couple of short hikes but I’d love to hitch round a bit, maybe Vancouver Island and up to Alaska. I’m cautious about heading out too far east, out there are the prairies.

Three days of absolute flat nothingness. Crops. Occasional water tower. One long perfectly straight road. I’m going to fly over it or spend a week going around.

I’d go insane.

All flat and no hills makes Daniel a basket case.

Start chewing on the headrest and poking things in my eye just for a little visual interest.

So, no, basically.

I keep thinking there’s more to write about, but things have been pretty quiet. A few little anecdotes like when we had a margarita party and I fell down the stairs (ok, I only really fell down the stair), or when I experimentally nibbled on the tiniest little piece of brownie we found in the back of the freezer to see if it was psychoactive (hi Grandma) and spent the rest of the night gibbering and gesticulating and telling my flatmate she wasn’t making sense. Nothing really worth mentioning.

Actually the brownie incident does deserve a slight mention, or rather, the fact that it happened twice in one week. The second time we’d just moved into the new house and Sarah had some little ginger cookies she’d made and I thought, well surely _one_ couldn’t hurt and subsequently ended up curled in my room suffering an extensive reality flash about how I was now twenty-five and high as a kite in a basement in north America pursuing a dream to make movies and how did this happen, last thing I remember I was nine.

It was actually really valuable to step out of life like that and see myself from the outside. Profound. I’m not going near drugs for a while.

So yeah, I guess that’s about it. Big ups to Julian and Ness taking it off road in South America, big ups to Sophie being a sweetie and couriering my love back to all a yall in Ed. Shout out to the Beltane massive and the Aotearoa and Australia possies. I’d like to thank my family and the Tao, in whom all things are possible.

Peace.

Daniel Pagan Connell.

I used (parenthesis) 24 times in this mailer. Personal best.