I’ve been terrible. Terribly busy. I’m working in Berlin and I’m working long days. Buying groceries is something I have to slip into one narrow time slot per week and even that’s being let slide cos there’s no time to cook the ingredients I might buy. Blogging, as you can imagine, is a luxury I don’t really have. But still, I’m here, passing through and seeing the old place, covered in metaphoric cobwebs and dust.
It’s a strange world, the one they make films in. I’m working in it but it feels like I’m floating through it, like nobody can see me, a diaphanous figure creeping about, watching everything with a heady mix of awe and something like disgust but not as strong. I suppose with it being a temporary thing for me, I look at every situation differently – my lack of related ambition gives me a rare perspective. I’m able to cast a pretty honest eye on things.
It’s a convoluted picture I’m forming – the sheer enormity of the project that creates an hour and a half of entertainment is staggering. The staggering amount of money involved makes me feel fairly ill occasionall but the real thing is the people involved. I’m a people watcher to trade so I really take in the scene in a crew of this many poeple, the relationships involved, the do’s and don’ts around certain ones – it’s heaven, really. Sadly, as far as quality goes, I’ve only met about five people in this whole project that are not possessed of some nature of a hard-nosed, utterly ruthless ambition that makes them helplessly sycophantic around their highers. I’ve met a couple of real characters too, don’t get me wrong, who appear grounded and set enough in themselves that they can exist in this world and remain true to their word and their spirit. But there are so very many levels of hierarchy an such a specific order of peck in this game that people with anything less than a very firmly grounded idea of themselves, a liking for themselves, are drawn into this need for acceptance and to impress one’s superiors at any possible cost.
It’s strong – I found myself starting to be drawn into it a couple of times through this sudden feeling of inferiority that I’d not felt for a lot of years, this wispy insecurity. I’m finally coming to terms with it I think – my strategy is to not have anything to do with anyone that doesn’t appear to be being honest and straight, and it’s easy to tell cos there ain’t a lot of subtlety around!
The greatest revelation for me has been not in the attitudes of the cast members – in fact the few I’ve met are among the ones that seem grounded enough to handle this. No, it’s been realizing the enormity of the egos of people behind the scenes that has my belief beggared, to be honest. That thin plastic crew tag around some people’s necks is a golden ticket, a dastardly cloak that allows the bearer to primp, strut, belittle, condescend and subjugate at will. People don’t look at your face here or listen to your voice, they check your tag first, to see how they should treat you which I find really amazing. You’ll be walking along or standing in the lunch line and you see people you’ve not met reading your tag, scanning for signs of superiority!
I’m a bit like a menstruating woman taking a dip in a shark-infested lagoon to be honest – I’m wide open to be exploited, manipulated, sidelined by these career animals, whatever suits their purpose. And I caught myself trying to be harder, to avoid that for a while before I realized that I’m not ashamed of the fact that I’m not cut out to stand up to all this unmerciful ambition, a fact I’m quite proud of. So I carry on, for example, watching my effort passed off as someone else’s without feeling any malice. I carry on helping out someone, if I see a chance to, without trying to forecast how they might manipulate my help and make it look like something else. I unstintingly walk around with a smile rather than an “I’m busy and important” look on my kite, and I try very, very hard to stay true to who I am. It’s only a couple more months eh?
And anyway, the great thing is that I’m living with TSO, we’re living in Berlin, which is a truly great city, and hey, I’m here and I’m alright, you know? How it is, dudes…
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As intimated before, there’s a ot of love for Jesus in Rarotonga. Every day we drove past a huge sign that said, simply, “Jesus Loves YOU” and, after a few days, TSO and I both, subconsciously started singing “Jesus Loves Me” (the hymn) in our heads. After a few days, I sang it out loud, exposing us both. I tried several times to count how many places of worship on the 40 minute circumnavigation of the island but lost count in the high 20s every time. This statue of Jesus at the side of the road caught my eye early on but the light was never right to take his picture. This is the best I could do. He had a lovely little grotto all to himself, with a little waterfall and heaps of gorgeous pacific plants.
