My true calling.

Now that I have a head full of graying hair, I've found that my true calling in life is not actually any kind of career or work at all, but to be lazy and unemployable, ideally with a succession of beautiful young ladies. Perhaps reading a good book, sitting in a beautiful verdant garden with a hot Tuscan sky above me. Or maybe in a comfortable chaise-lounge overlooking a perfectly maintained pool, living on room service at a five star hideaway, at some tropical beach in Southeast Asia. An ice cold mango colada in hand. Or maybe traipsing about in Cinque Terra, Italy, with absolutely nothing to do but find someplace that makes a perfect pasta pomodoro for dinner, using vine ripened tomatoes and served on a wheel of parmesan. The truth is that every cell in my body cries out against the inhumanity of regular employment. To misquote Thoreau, "I wish to live deliberately. I want to live deep and suck all the marrow of life... but only if it doesn't take too much effort..."

What is my bliss to follow? Sleeping late on Monday morning, when everyone else has to get up for work. Followed by sleeping late on Tuesday morning... Wednesday morning... ad infinitum. I love sleeping in so much, I should make a religion out of it. Maybe call it Beddhism. My really serious followers would become Beddhist monks... taking a vow of slothfulness, and sleeping in for several years, to try to recover from the profound exhaustion imposed by the crazy work schedules in America.

So the question is, how can I achieve this life of languid indolence, where I can afford to play and love and dally and travel and explore and learn to my heart's content? For the first half of my life, I was sold on the idea that hard work would eventually yield a life of leisure. But now, I'm wondering if there's a better way...

Anyway, this bout of musing was triggered by a joke someone sent me:

My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned...couldn't concentrate.
After that I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it...mainly because it was a so-so job.
Next I tried working in a muffler factory but that was too exhausting.
I managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.
I attempted to be a deli worker, but any way I sliced it, I couldn't cut the mustard.
Then I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the ax.
Next was a job in a shoe factory; I tried but I just didn't fit in.
So then I got a job in a workout center, but they said I wasn't fit for the job.
After many years of trying to find steady work I finally got a job as a historian until I realized there was no future in it.
I studied a long time to become a doctor, but I didn't have any patience.
My best job was being a musician, but eventually I found I wasn't noteworthy.
I became a professional fisherman, but discovered that I couldn't live on my net income.
My last job was working at Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind.

I'm exec producing this conference, The Cameraphone Summit, and it's sucked up every spare moment in my life... simply amazing how much a project can fill in those extra minutes I used to enjoy doing more artistic projects. Now, my drive for art is subsumed by this overarching drive for commerce. I shoot photos to use in the website. I design the ads and direct marketing pieces. I invite people, beg for sponsorships, come up with clever ideas for convincing people to participate. Man, I sure hope this turns out to be a hit conference...

Anyway, go check out the website... http://c-summit.com.

Can't sleep, so I go to eBay and shop. What a wonderful world the Web brings us. The ability to shop for anything you want, at at time, limited only by our imagination. Here's a list of what I went window shopping for:

- Panasonic AGDVX100 24p Progressive Scan Camcorder, the ideal camcorder for indie filmmakers seeking the film look on a budget, can get one for under $2K, don't really have time to use it, but I can dream, can't I? This camera was used to film November, which premiered at Sundance and won the best cinemaography award. Imagine that... a $3000 camcorder beating all the films using 35 mm film!
- hmm, those new G5 dual processor Macintoshes are pretty spiffy, but I really can't justify buying one right now
- looking around for a reasonably priced Sony Ericsson P900 PDAphone (my P800 broke, and apparently isn't covered by the manufacturers warranty)
- made a bid on the complete library of Buffy and Angel DVDs

And here's what I did end up buying tonight:
- bought a sweet portable ChromaKey backdrop for my photography kit
- bought Leonard Cohen's "The Essential Leonard Cohen", a 2 CD set (to help make up for all the downloads I did "investigating P2P technology" way back when)
- bought a rare issue of an 1949 Life Magazine that had an article about my father and his adventurous exploits looking for a mountain taller than Everest (here's a book at Amazon about these exploits of my Dad's in the 1940s, with the famous explorer Leonard Clark)

Gotta get some sleep!

I rented the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Five set, and I have to say that it is a truly stunning feat of filmmaking. The artistic highpoint was the episode titled "The Body" which was one of the most brilliant dramatic works I've ever seen, that faithfully captured the pain and loss and shock... and boredom... of death. Whedon, who based the episode on his own experiences losing his mom, created something that provides no relief to the viewer, from the spare and desolate camerawork to the absence of a musical soundtrack. This, I thought to myself, is art.

Lots of great episodes, but the best is the conclusion of the series, "The Weight of the World" and "The Gift". I guarantee that you will wear out your DVD player's remote, replaying the moment when Buffy realizes her destiny, her final narration to Dawn, and jumps from the top of the tower to seal the portal that threatens the world... I thought this is as beautiful and mythic and dramatic as the final moments of Hidden Dragon, Crouching Tiger, when Zhang Ziyi jumps to her death from the Taoist monastery. Every moment of the teleplay was lovingly, artistically, and perfectly rendered.

This, besides the amazing show 24, is one of the best reasons to own a television.