Let me first apologise in advance for not knowing how this post ends. Usually I have some kind of point and the content supports that point but today I’m just writing hoping that by doing so I’ll come out the other end with some kind of conclusion.

Also don’t mistake this post as an invitation for you to pity me. Pity is a terrible thing, I despise it, for it’s not only addictive but also a cheap substitute for achievement. This year I’ve not only completed a BA honours degree but I’ve also quit smoking; I stink of achievement at the moment. To ask for anything would just be plain greedy and any sympathetic messages of encouragement will be met with swift resistance - so just don’t fucking bother. I write this a personal record for myself but also because others have expressed an interest in reading such desolate content.

Also - if you are a potential employer or client wanting to know more about the interesting and apparently well mannered young man that you’ve come across then be warned this media is not for you. Go look at the pretty things on my youtube account or the comments on my myspace page (gee-whizz this fella has 4000 friends - let’s get us a piece of that). It’s not about the quality it’s about the size of the digital footprint.(cock)

Let us begin.

It’s pissing with rain; that warm humid clinging rain that hangs around in the air rather than heading to the ground. A few years ago when my ego was so big that the universe revolved around me I believed that the weather was a physical manifestation of what was going on inside my head. I prayed for the sun to come out because with it would come hope and warmth. i was so cold inside that all I wanted was warmth. Today isn’t much better but I know that sun and rain come and go; I’ll just have to wait.

Meanwhile elsewhere, people try to recover what they can of their flooded out homes wondering what they could have done to prevent such devastation - but it’s too late now.

Last night I sat on the train from London to Bournemouth and I started crying again. “Not in public you bastard - there’s no one here to hug you. You’re fucking inviting trouble you weak pathetic man.”

A few hours earlier a landlady showed me the room which would cost £70 per week. It was 3 meters square and the bed was 18 inches wide. No doubt about it - it was a prison cell. Despite being in zone 4 this was as much London as anyone can expect. This was invitation to kill myself properly, with a proper setting - a tiny room in the middle of nowhere whilst a man in the next room could be heard weeping through the paper thin wall - no hang on - I’m the one weeping! Shit I’m the one who dies in the room next door and no one of the 8 other people who lived there even knew my name. What a future - thanks London. But no. I get the message: naivety need to be punished.

So I’m on the train crying because I’ve been reminded that London is loveless and indifferent. Even my favourite area, Ealing has rotted away - I’m too late. And I’m furious with myself for such pathetic behaviour after having only seen one room. Though strictly speaking that’s not true. It may be one room this time round but it’s just the latest in all the shit hole rooms I’ve looked at or lived in for the past 10 years. Each one see gets smaller and smaller and my as my sense of hope diminishes. Once, when I stupidity believed that I could become a professional film maker (lol) I lived in a room that had 2 large windows. Jesus Christ! It had a double bed too! What the fuck was I thinking living there. Or maybe I deserved to live there because I had to nerve to believe in myself. Given a time travel opportunity I don’t know whether I’d shake that me’s hand or punch him. Maybe I’d just cry and ask him for a hug. And then kill him.

Meanwhile elsewhere other men my age really are committing suicide regardless of those that love them who not only would have to grieve but also sort out all the material an financial affairs and even pay for the funeral. And why so selfish? Because those poor fuckers are chained to meaningless job and a mortgage for a house they hate and a bitch wife and they dream of being in my shoes. My fucking golden shoes which tell me I can go whether I want in the world! I can fuck who I want. I can take any job i want (especially no that I’ve fucking degree) for as long as i want. I am free.

Back to yesterday. To London. I’m sat in the auditorium of the NFT - I’m there but I’m not there. I’m in 2001 sat alongside the younger me who dreams of about becoming a film maker. I’m trying to tell that there’s no such thing as film maker - it’s a made term like movie star ivited to help other identify the naive. But he points forward and say if that were so then why am I (we) on the screen.

Back in 2001 I naively believed that by watching lots of films - and by appreciating them that I too could become a film maker. (Don’t laugh.) I’d watch anything and everything far more importantly I’d watch the films that I was meant to watch. The ‘classics’ by Goddard, Felini, Eisenstein, Lang all of those ‘masters’. And I talk about them to - that’s all I’d talk about. I’d go to the NFT almost every week, checking the notice board for lucky breaks and other opportunities. But even then I smelt exploitation, I knew London’t tax on hope was high. Let’s not forget how much importance I place on the notion of truth. I was going investigate that real world bullshit practicalities of making films as much as the romanticism.

But of course none of that mattered because the real truth was that even then I’d have preferred to have seen my face on screen much more than my name. No strike that - back then I thought that film making was a pleasurable experience and that film makers were my kind of people and that I’d fit in and make some good friends. But the end result was the same. It took 6 years but I’d got myself onto the screen on the NFT.

There’s your fucking closure achievement boy.

Maybe I’d pull him from his seat, out into the daylight of the southbank and I’d tell him what it’s really like- beg him - to pursue another path.

I know him well enough to know he’d see how selfish I was being and instead would ignore me. He’d argue that I’ve yet to see the real world and the film school is no indication of the actual film industry. How dare I challenge his dream. He’d probably ask advice about the new name he’d devised, Spainful Films but other than that he’d naively believe that for him it would all be different.

I’m in the bar but I’m not talking to him. I’m talking to some kind of administrator who’s asking me about my future. Reality hasn’t hit me yet (the prison cell incident is still a few hours away) and instead I talk of my belief that there are no lucky breaks; that those who are talented are properly paid and those who make shit on their webcams will inherit the earth. I’m looking round for future me know no doubt is armed to the teeth - “no mistakes this time Slater - don’t let him talk you out of it again - just kill him quickly”

Before I fall completely into the storyline of Terminator I should share with you a few interesting things abuut he films I saw and how I ended up on screen. It was of course the official public screening of my college’s graduation films. Being as AIB is so prestigious and all and that many thousands of pounds have been spent on these films, (UK film council etc.) they end up in the most respectable cinema in the country. Let’s take a quick look at the subject matter of each film.

A man fails to commit suicide and then briefly falls in love with a fellow suicide wannabe. Their new love gives each other something to live for yet also empowers them to get he job done and die together in the path on an on coming train.

A man in some kind of asylum prison cell dreams of being a concert pianist. He has a piano in his room and plays to a photograph of his unrequited love; the maid/nurse that changes his bedding. A protruding bone/growth from his forehead is calved into a piano key enabling him to find a missing note and yet the maid is oblivious.

A writer is nominated for a award. Taking his socially retarded adult daughter a week early to the award ceremony he ends up in a restaurant with her where they both realise that he has been reaching out to her through his literature and that despite not being able to tolerate her company or verbally communicate with her that he does in fact love her.

A child dies in a road accident leaving his grieving mother the dilemma of whether her son’s organs can help save the life of another. Her decision comes too late for the girl that needs to be saved develops medical complications. Meanwhile unaware of this, a tired and overworked NHS organ courier doing overtime takes one too many risks and ends up in a road accident. They probably all die but the credit roll before we find out.

A Russian scientist in the arctic wastes finds his isolation has a devastating impact on his mental health. Even when visited once a year by a courier who brings sheets and four oranges the scientist hides under his bed. This film featured an apple macintosh classic (1990) because it was set in the early 80s. Obviously this kind of thing happened a lot back in the 80s not anymore though.

The owner of an 80s themed nightclub throws a party for his estranged 16 year old daughter. Growing increasingly paranoid his daughter will not be attending he vorbally attacks the nightclub’s clientele - all of which know him and openly mock him, gloating at his failings as a father. Only when he finally cracks and throws everyone out of his club does his daughter appear seemingly forgiving are fathers appalling parental skills.

On the cold unforgiving upper levels or a bleak housing estate a dog is thrown from the balcony to the ground below. A loner whose father has been at deaths for too long rescues the animal an inadvertently becomes friends with it’s owner. After a snog in the corner the loner takes his new friend to witness the mercy killing of the dieing father hoping that from it he will gather the strength to kill the injured dog. This puts a strain on the new relationship but after the funeral it is suggested their differences are resolved. A glass window that was damaged in the process is then replaced.

And these films were made by the people who I thought would be my friends. My kind of people. Yet not once in all of those films was there fire, an explosion, a hand break turn, green screen, a joke, somebody falling over, somebody farting, a pair of bare breasts, naked arse, a penis, blue hair, not even the sound of a fucking electric guitar.

I can go to see the new transformers or harry potter film with these good friends of mine.

fucking hell

And then the admin woman jokingly asks me if I’d ever thought about doing any acting, having seen me on screen.

I tell her that yes I’ve done a little acting before and even won an award for presenting (which I may has well have awarded myself so insignificant an achievement it was but I don’t tell her that). - But I’m not yet good enough an actor to win any acting awards. Avoiding anything which may activate my ego and my fury (”I’m best fucking actor in the room and if you even knew my fucking name which you don’t after three years you’d know that much about me!!!“) Instead I draw her attention away from myself and return it to the films in question. Why the fuck should I educate her about my career when I put it all on the internet so that she can google it later.

And then she asks how I was involved in the films on screen. I wasn’t - so pointless, talentless and worthless that I am I didn’t even bother turning up on their collective misery fest.

“I did some internet stuff” I answer. A good enough reply. Spainful Films, Youtube poop and this blog would mean nothing to her so way pretend it would. I don’t even fucking bother to speak the c word anymore. Comedy is as alien to these fucks as aliens are. This is real film - for real people - who live real lives and have to deal with real reality. 18 inches beds in 3 meter square rooms.

Maybe I should have made a film that was meaninglessly depressing. That way I too could have been there slapping backs and laughing.

Instead I get the rain. Instead I get this, which means more to me than any of the films that I saw on the screen.

THIS VIDEO NOT BY ME

My mum phoned earlier. She told me to come home. I’m not well and if she can admit it now then so can I. More soon

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