Days of Being LJ

I watched The Godfather trilogy with my posse over the weekend and words still can’t describe how much I love those films. I guess it’s another one of those bi-decade re-obsessions I have. But every time I watch an old film or TV show I get this incredible sense of mortality when I start realising holy shit:

Pacino and De Niro are both hitting 70, Sean Connery is 80 and even fricking Macgyver is 60.

Soon, these people (who I’ve grown up with through the medium of cinema) are going to start carking it, and then…I’m gonna cark it too.

It’s a weird way of looking at things really. I get these major mortality pangs, as I like to call them, about once every year, usually towards the end of the year when I realise the impending doom of my birthday in January and I come to the realisation that I’m another year closer to death.

Speaking of great actors I was looking up Pacino’s filmography and in a span of 5 years in the early 1970s he made:

• The Godfather
  
• Serpico
  
• The Godfather part II
  
• Dog Day Afternoon

And he didn’t win an Oscar for any of them. I mean those films pretty much defined his career and he would probably never reach that pinnacle again but to think people like Gwyneth Paltrow have an Oscar for a role in Shakespeare In Love (even though I like that film, it’s still drivel), the lack of the award for the role of Michael Corleone just defines bafflement.

When one talks about Pacino, you immediately have to insert De Niro (crude imagery: one is the bun and the other the frankfurter in a classic NYC hotdog). As Brando defined post-war method acting on screen and thus changing the nature of cinema forever, Pacino and De Niro were both his natural successors. Coming out of the method schools of the East coast they both inspired generations of wannabe actors, mobsters and Italians with raspy voices and squinty frowns.

Pacino took rise in the early 70s but the latter half of the decade and much of the 80s where squarely in De Niro’s pocket. Perhaps his solid relationship with Scorsese guaranteed him a slew of well developed roles whilst Pacino retreated back to treading the boards after his screen career slipped into a long cold coma (Scarface the one exception).

Although they consistently shared sentences, it was not until Heat in 1995, did they share some screentime, and even then their one major scene together was shot with on separate days with stand-ins. Therefore Righteous Kill (billed as the first collaborative film) was to be a wet dream for all fanboys and girls.

Alas it was a shit film. And really what could be expected? Pacino’s last good film was Any Given Sunday, Oliver Stone’s ensemble homage to pro-football, and De Niro? Probably Frankenheimer’s Ronin in 1998. Of course people would disagree, heaps of people LOVED Meet the Parents, and obviously Pacino’s Roy Cohn was deservedly lauded (even though it veered a little on the shouty scenery gnawing Pacino).

The only good thing to come as a result of Righteous Kill

But as these great actors get older and come closer and closer to shuffling off this mortal coil, we think, shit when will we ever get actors like these two ever again? Actors who DEFINED cinema.

Like every wannabe director I’ve had lucid dreams where I’ve cast both in a movie. Of course in reality if I was ever in the same room as Pacino and De Niro, I’d wet my pants and cry in the corner. However in my imagination, as brilliant as it is, I see, 5 years from now, my smooth awesome confident self directing these two 75 year old geezers in a romantic comedy.

Just think about it…you know you’d want to pay 18 bucks to see it.

LJK film al pacino, filmmaking, godfather, life, mortality, robert de niro

“So you put a decade of blood sweat and tears, not to mention the countless lunch breaks you didn’t take, the pain and agony of building your businesses, contacts and networks.

You deliver budget time after time, over countless years adding to the coffers of those above…

…and then one day you’re given the envelope, a pat on the back….

“Well done old boy, you’ve poured your heart and soul into this place but the folks above don’t like you, so sorry but we have to let you go, nothing personal…”

It’s not that you were incompetent, they just didn’t like you…and there’s nothing you can do…absolutely nothing.”*

—

Treatise on Leadership

Are you going to be a pleb or a senator? A soldier or a general?

If you are the latter, are you going to be a tyrant or bring a sense of anarchic compassion?

If I were a leader and I got pushed off my dias, I’d want people to cry over me (unlike Eva Peron)…because at least it meant I touched them and instilled a sense of loyalty.”*

*written 29th Oct 09

LJK job corporate restructure, emotion, life, musings, work, writing

“All the little things we cry about. Silly little things, in hindsight, are so ridiculously inconsequential yet our initial reactions are to yell, scream and then cry.

Such is humanity that the minute we are pressured, when turmoil and conflict hit us, we immediately regress into babies.

But the minute the tears dry, there is still that lingering guilt and anger, why the fuck did I cry? And then further thoughts and contemplation leave us still with wet glistening corneas and we start this masochistic quest to quell the most fundamental of emotions.

What is it all for? Other than pure release crying does nothing else. We sit here day after day making so called meaningful lives for ourselves but in the end it’s just elements, senses, nerves, electrical impulses…”*

*written 28 Oct 09

—

I couldn’t stop crying, anything could set me off. For three days my usually cool calm exterior could crack (and did crack) at any moment, and any time and anywhere. Bus Stops, the office, at home. I joked to a friend that I didn’t have this many tears in the aftermath of my actual uncle’s passing early last year (of course the tears for that event were delayed for months, and boy was that a flood when they did come out)

Last night, after hours of which I consumed an entire six months of alcohol, I just started crying as I walked home. I don’t know why or what I was crying about, but it just continued and I decided to just let myself go. I thought perhaps this was the final release, 1am on a Saturday morning, beyond this cliff was the valley of acceptance. This was the release of more than 7 months of internal tension, turmoil, drama and something I needed to go through to attain catharsis.

Perhaps this morning a newer me stared back from the mirror.

LJK job corporate restructure, emotion, life, musings, work, writing

The email actually went out 6pm Tuesday but by that time I was already on my way to Leichardt to see Genova. I got in on Wednesday morning and heard from my colleague that Pompey had been dethroned, my first reaction is to let out an entire string of “fuck fuck fuckity fuck fucks” and then I fired up my computer to inspect the damage.

I read the email…blah blah, restructure, blah blah, thanks for their work and we wish them the best luck for the future…

Sucker punch to the gut, anger, denial…I can’t believe this is happening…

And then the tears…red hot, full of anger well up…and this is the one time I’m really thankful that I’m actually in an office rather than in the open plan. I wipe them away angrily and check the rest of my emails. Ten minutes later my boss boss comes down to explain the situation to me and I can’t hear anything, it’s like the scene in the film where the music drowns out the other person’s lines and your eyes glaze over, except you my case my eyes were dripping tears as I was both mortified and embarrassed at crying in front of my boss boss. And when he left I took a 30min time out in the bathrrom where I decided to re-enact some bad office movie were the protagonist goes and cries in the cubicle.

—

“A mini-empire came down today, torn apart by barbarians and the leader crucified as the plebs wept (well at least this pleb wept)

I never expected to experience this level of torment at the start of my career but I guess this is life right? Leaders fall and leaders rise and if you become a leader you reap the sugar and spice of the far reaches of your empire but also suffer the consequences of the ambition, greed and treachery of those around you.

The plebs continue to go about their daily lives, selling fish and whatnot. The plebs who harden the fuck up tend to survive the onslaught of the changes in leadership. Those who don’t, fall by the wayside and take their ticket out of the daily lottery.

But hey, power is just a business; it’s nothing personal we tell ourselves. It’s got nothing to do with emotions, feelings, you, me or the other person. But we also forget that unlike machines we can’t build a perfect impenetrable partition between emotions and cognitive thought processes, that’s what makes us bloody human.

The worst thing is, each sequential sacking of an empire makes us harder, more ambivalent and cuts ounces of humanity from our souls…little by little…

So all we are left with is this empty shell of what was, because nothing is personal anymore…everything is just business.”*

*written 28th Oct 09

LJK job corporate restructure, emotion, life, musings, work, writing

An event happened this week, something highly difficult to deal with and the resulting emotional responses and contemplations will stay with me for the rest of my life. I guess it’s one of those coming of age experiences, a colleague explained it best as suffering through your first break-up; the heart pangs and the uncontrollable tears. Except that I’ve never really been through a first break-up so I guess if this is how it feels, I really wouldn’t like to go through this again if I do end up having an actual first break up.

The following posts will be a series of random, thoughts, pieces of dialogue and analogies written in the past few days to make sense at least in my own mind of the event which conspired. Most are just simple emotional responses but which actually adhere quite well to the principles of the 7 stages of grief.

A little bit on the backstory

I’m going to keep this a quite vague since I’m going to be selfish and self-protecting on a professional level. I want to focus on my emotional reactions rather than the facts of the matter, and also because since this is the internet confidentiality will obviously be an issue.

I’ve been working for the past 7 months; it’s my first real full-time job, in an actual office. Corporate restructures are nothing new, and I’ve expounded on my first one previously, but this one was slightly different. I’ve known this manager (let’s call him Pompey) for over 7 months, worked as part of his team for 6 and grown to love everyone on the team almost like family, we bonded over some crazy experiences and lots of alchomohol but the personality mix in the team was one in a thousand, you were very unlikely to find or be apart of something as brilliantly visceral with such connections on a human level. The relationships on that team reminded me of how my own closest group of friends work, anything goes, you’re brutally honest both with compliments and insults and you’d help move dead bodies for each other. That’s how deep the loyalty goes.

So Pompey was like the crazy uncle I never had, who also took me in under his wing occasionally, literally and figuratively and pushed me into some industry events and training.  Pompey had been with this firm for a long time, had loads of experience and knew loads of people and was mostly well liked and respected by all. I’d say given perhaps maybe another 6 months or so, he could have become a solid mentor, the possibility was definitely there.

However Pompey had certain personality clashes with upper management and whilst the writing was on the wall for years as other rebel factions were slowly but systematically weeded out, when the time came for Pompey, it was still the greatest shock to all, and for his loyal Labradors, it was something unfathomable and impossible to accept and deal with.

LJK job corporate restructure, emotion, life, musings, work, writing

I’ve been harbouring all this residual rage and I don’t know why. I should be totally happy and content at this time. I have a job, a stable income and creative pathways to pursue…so why am I fucking angry all the time?

This anger and resentment came to a a head tonight, after a particularly frustrating basketball match, where I didn’t play particularly well, armed me with enough rage to turn me into a customer from hell (albeit with good reason).

I got to the parking lot after the game with teamates in tow, bitching about the game and what not, handed over my ticket and a dollar for the fee, thought nothing of it, saw my change and picked it up along with the ticket.

I get to the gate, shoved the ticket in the machine, it tells me with robotic precision:

“You owe $4.00″

AW HELL NO!!!

So parked my car, pressed the intercom and all I can hear is the attendant’s thoroughly uninteresting phone conversation in Shanghainese. There was no way to reach him, so I bolted up to the ticket office. Of course at this point I really should have reversed my car and let the others behind me go. However I thought it was going to be a relatively short ordeal, I go up, he let’s the gate up, everyone is happy. Obviously it was not so short an ordeal, otherwise I wouldn’t be blogging this.

Anyhoo, I apologise to all those cars waiting behind me (Vero & Seets in particular who watched the start of the proceedings with great amusement)

I get to the office, guy asks…where is your ticket? In the machine I reply, hurriedly also explaining how I paid etc.

“You haven’t paid.”

“Yes I HAVE, I was just here.”

So he hangs up the phone and agrees to come down and once he does, takes my ticket out of the machine and says again,

“You haven’t paid.”

“Yes I have, would you like to see the two 50c coins you gave me as change for my 2 dollars?”

No response….then finally:

“Okay I’ll go check”

So he motions me to reverse out of the way and takes my ticket back to his office. I bid farewell to all the cars behind me and I park my car and wait for him to come back.

What seems like an eternity passes…I’m still sitting in my car. Why is it taking so long?

I decide to trudge back to the ticket office. I walk in and find Mr Dumbfuck counting all his coins for the day. Any better and I’ll be having four and twenty blackbirds baked in my pie.

I was speechless, the scene incredulous. Was he counting all his coins to make sure that he had ONE dollar extra for the day? I inquired, still slightly dumbfounded.

He kept repeating for me to wait, that he has to check. Enraged I spouted a string of phrases trying to censor the obscenities rising to the top:

“What do you mean? I need to leave, I can’t wait for you to finish counting ALL your coins for the day (5c pieces too, mind you), just give me the ticket. Look I’ll give you the extra dollar and just validate the ticket.”

He keeps counting and still tells me to wait.

“No it could be my mistake so I need to check.”

“If it’s your mistake then it’s YOUR problem, fix it in your OWN time.”

“So you can’t wait?”

I look at him like he was the biggest dumbfuck in the entire world

“NO!!!!”

So finally after bouts of half yelling and pleading with exasperation, I get my ticket.

I get in my car absolutely pissed off at the guile of this person. And what is the lesson today? Don’t drive when you’re angry.

Whilst reversing I forget to check behind and I run into a concrete post. big dent on the left corner of the rear bumper, cracked plastic on the tail light.

I knew some sort of shit was going to go down today, I had a pretty shitty day at work too, it was bound to blow into something big and when I heard that BOOM from the bumper, that was it.

So from one Shanghainese to loathe to one to love, I came back home and consoled myself by watching Zhou Li Bo with my parents. A post on him shall follow later, but for now all you need to know is that he is a very good Shanghainese standup comic.

I guess I could have been calmer and more patient in dealing with this situation. But there’s only so much calm and patience one has and my reserves are drying out.

The entire time I just felt like ripping into him in Shanghainese (a brilliant language to rip into people with), but I didn’t cause that could be construed and being a cunt to your own race, and I don’t like doing that, but if I had, it would go like this:

eh, pang you, nong le gaou sa a? non le gei di fen bi? Jiauo ghoo deng le gei, deng nong di wei zen le? non na neng ga 13 di? doo ming zhz nong ce cu eh jiauo ghoo deng. zen jing ming, ba ghoo piao zhi.

mando translation:

哦，朋友，你在搞什么？你在点数硬币， 叫我在等待，等你点完了。你这么那么十三点？他妈的，是你出错还叫我等。神经病， 把票给我！

LJK life anger, basketball, conflict, dumbfuckery, emotion, life

Gah! I’ve been quietly seething with rage these couple of weeks and it’s really coming to a head these few days. I just snapped at my dad just then, not that I actually meant it or that he didn’t deserve it (as much as I love him, he’s really teetering on being a full blown obnoxious geriatric git these days).

Work has been frustrating me greatly. I’m not sure if it’s just my attitude or if the process would frustrate any normal person. Perhaps I just need to chill out more, but I’m wondering how chilled I can be before succumbing to a coma.

I’m having one of those moments when I want to scream into the infinite dark abyss like in Garden State and get it all out and over with.

I’m watching Long Way Round right now on SBS, and it seems at first cool and awesome to travel around the world on a motorbike, but shit the amount of brick walls you hit is amazing. My issues at work pale in comparison. Currently Ewan and Charlie are stuck in the wet mud of Mongolia, tears in their eyes, depression setting in and you can see that the one thing they want to do is go back home into the warmth of their beds.

But in a day, after spending hours and hours moving a couple of meters and then toppling over in mud, they make it over this hill. And on this hill is this brilliant dry grassy landscape, stretching towards the horizon. Was it worth it? totally, but Ewan looks at the camera and almost breaks down.

Is my quarter-life crisis coming back after a 4 month lull? Am I in my own little Mongolia at the moment? Perhaps…

Or perhaps it’s just the hormones and the oncoming monthly bout of PMS…

…but I still want to get over this hill and onto the grassy knoll…quickly…

LJK life emotion, life, tv, work