Stray Mailer, 15 July 05 - Well I'm glad You think it's funny.

In addition to nearly blowing up by cousin in Bali,
and my friend Mayte in Madrid, and I’m still waiting
on the near miss stories now from London, the War On
Terror (tm) has made it really hard for me to open a
bank account.

You need a hundred points, a passport (which I have)
will get you seventy, a credit card (which I have)
will get you twenty-five. It took me almost two months
to find some way of getting those five extra points.

At one point I went into a Westpac bank with my
passport, original birth certificate, credit card
(with photo), bank card, piece of mail from Belgium, a
written statement from Jo who’s known me for two years
has a Westpac account and works for the National bank,
my phone listed in the whitepages, an expired Canadian

work permit, a library card and two books taken out with

it: ‘This man, Daniel’, and ‘How to be more trusting’,

and was turned away for having insufficient I.D.

I didn't actually have those books, but it would've

been funny if I'd had the energy.

See, coz you can use a passport _or_ a birth

certificate, and a bankcard _or_ a credit card (unless
they’re from different banks), and none of the rest is
worth anything. At this point I was going to have to
get married (marriage certificate – 25 points), join a
union (membership – 25 points), leave the country and
come back in (if you apply within six weeks all you
need is your passport) or send a form back to my
dentist in Western Australia and ask him to lie that
he’d sited my documents (100 points).

So I tried a couple of National banks instead and the
second one let me away with the phone listing. I then
used my new National card as additional secondary I.D.
to open a Westpac account, and closed the National one.
Fucking banks.

Still not as bad as Ireland. I didn’t even bother to
try there.
In Scotland tho, I sauntered into a random branch,
showed them my passport, that was pretty much it. They
wanted proof of address so I wandered back home and
got my flatmate Ross to write out a note saying
“Daniel lives here, signed Ross” and had an account
twenty minutes later.
I think that account’s still open, actually. Whoops.
Canada was about the same, though they make you buy
fifty dollars worth of shares, which you get back when
you close the account. Around August I got so pressed
for cash I had to cancel it for the fifty bucks, and
at no point for the rest of the year did I have a
spare fifty to open it again. Made it really tricky to
cash cheques.
I tell you, it’s a goddamn miracle I survived last
year.


I’m forcing myself to write this. This mailer is way
overdue. About two months ago I had people asking me
how Melbourne was going and I was all like, yeah
there’ll be a stray coming out soon, I’ll go through
it all then. Sigh.
I only write when moving. Sedentary lifestyle (or as I
like to call it, The Little Death) doesn’t make me
think, therefore no ideas to write down.
Melbourne’s been a fairly chilled experience this time
around. Not been kidnapped by any gay Philippino dance
choreographers or anything (Stray Mailer; issue #1).
I always thought Australians were pissweak for
complaining about how cold Melbourne is. I’m now
prepared to not give them any more shit about it. Not
that they aren’t pissweak, just that after eight
consecutive summers, I am too.

I’ve approached all of the five animation houses here

with my demo reel and heard nothing back, so I’m

currently upping the reel (I know, again…) and

prepping to go bash down some doors and shove it up

some nostrils.

Failing that I’ll go to Sydney, where I know there’s
ten times more work, but I want to give Melbourne as
much of a chance as possible. I really like Melbourne.

One of the first things I bought when I got here (who
am I kidding, it’s the first thing I’ve bought in a
year and a half) was a mobile phone. It’s got a torch
and I can dial by saying the person’s name and I’m
quite fond of it. The salesman asked what additional
features I wanted, I said _Absolutely_None_.

It’s the cheapest phone you can get.

My number is 0425-862-166

I’m still not used to it actually ringing tho,
whenever it goes off I tend to jump, yelp, and start
clawing frantically at my pants. (Pocket).


In the first month I was here I looked at over thirty
flats, and didn’t end up with any. I was offered two
and a half, one was too expensive, one I didn’t like,
the other ended up going to a friend of theirs after
waiting on it for a month (that was the half).

So my ‘mind if I stay for a week or two?’ with Jo and
Dave has turned into almost three months though no one
seems to mind. They abjectly refuse to take money from
me and if I wash the dishes (and that’s an if) Jo hugs
me and Dave tells me I rock.
I’d be screwed without them.
I’ve been helping them out with some graphic work for
a fire performance troupe they’re getting off the
ground

http://www.nocturnalsunshine.com.au

and safety tech’d for their first show at a charity
gig a month back. I was mostly along for the free
drinkies afterwards, and it must’ve been a good night
coz when we got home I had an in-depth conversation
with the cat in spanish.


I’ve been going to a few animation things. There was a
digital media convention last month, which cost five
hundred dollars for three days, and I saw for free
because I volunteered, which involved occasionally
holding open doors and drinking chardonnay . There
were some really good lectures (my favorite one, the
guy gave the history of lighting and composition in
art for the last two thousand years, the complete
history of special effects and the details of his
entire career, especially involving the film
Constantine for which he was head of department, all
in two hours) and I came out with a much better idea
of where my skills need to be. Hence the current
revamp.

They premiered a movie one night, and as I’m sitting
down a guy two seats over asks me if I’m Daniel. I do
the whole Hey Man, how’s it going Bro? thing to cover
the fact I have no idea who he is and it turns out he
knows me from the multimedia course I did six years
ago. Good memory Ivon.
He’s now working as head honcho in a major animation
school, and has vowed to find me a job. And it’s
probably going to be in Sydney.

Watched lots of movies, read Lots of books. Best film
‘Crash’, best book ‘Day of the Triffids’ which
strangely enough is all about weapons of mass
destruction and genetic modification.

Don’t forget you can see my portfolio at

http://www.sugarandfat.info

and get the whole Stray back-issue at

http://straymailer.blogspot.com


And if anyone knows a good way to earn a couple of
bucks in Melbourne, let me know.


One last weird thing: last year a had a dream my
sister had had an accident, which she then did a week
later (Stray Mailer; issue #…?..). It was pretty bad
but she’s fine now.
It was the only time I’ve had a dream that I’ve
thought at the time was more than just a dream, and
it’s the only time someone close to me has been in
such a bad situation.
It creeped me out more than a little.

Now, about a week ago I had a dream that Pauline
Hanson (failed Australian rightwing bitchkrieg) was on
a celebrity reality show where you had to pair off and do
a musical number. She and some guy did what ended up
being a really funky little trip-hop track which I
wish I could now remember.
Fair enough, just an interesting dream. Creepy, but
for different reasons.

Last night I turn on the tv, it’s Pauline goddamn
Hanson as the star of This is Your Life (of all
things) and she’s on stage doing a cover of the jazz

standard You Give Me Fever with some dude who looks

disturbingly familiar.

Suffice it to say the track I dreamt was a LOT better.


Love

Daniel.