Damn it's July already and all the things on my to do list lie in tatters. That three way orgy with a sofa load of smooth skinned, well upholstered models just never happened. Instead a bowl of nachos, series 2 of Mad Men, and a glass of Jacobs Creek with my fat old wife happened and we thought ourselves lucky. Life probably does not get much better, especially when one knows that the models will have poor oral hygiene, Brazilians with the consistency of sandpaper, and drip something unpleasant on the expensive carpet.
Looking back over the year so far: a trip to Botswana, and sultry trawl through the streets of Shinjuku and I did nearly win the I Shot Hong Kong contest except the ex-pat public decided Chinese people ate far too much sharks fin for the good of the species. Inexplicably they backed a doco called provocatively or something, FIN. I couldn't fault it for its professionalism... no actually I can. Like all propaganda even for causes I more or less agree with, it invariably side stepped reality and just went for demonizing and simplification.
But that's the problem with entering "International" competitions in Hong Kong, the local audience doesn't turn up. Chinese papers don't cover anything they perceive of as being ex-pat, or worse, ABC, BBC, CBC. For the non-initiated in Hong Kong politics, that is, American Born, British Born, and Canadian Born Chinese. They are considered somehow treacherous, un-patriotic, and tainted by acronyms whereas ex-pats are merely ignorable.
This is not a specifically Chinese property. The Indians have much the same attitude towards NRI, Non-Resident-Indians. Who they think of as a bunch of carpet baggers who forsook the country in its greatest need and then turned up when the government decided poverty was perhaps not such a great idea, to set up businesses and exploit the horribly low cost of labour to sell Indian services abroad, where they really belong.
The modern, globalised, and very mixed up western societies still maintain their fair share of purist sentiment, but nobody really feels particularly tainted by having some decent Chinese and Indian restaurants, or even some crappy takeway in the neighbourhood. On the contrary they feel grateful and clog their arteries to the point of death as proof of their open-mindedness.
But i digress. The point is, it is mid July and I must sort out the edit of my short story collection, re-write a very funny comedy of mine so that I can afford to film it, and rapidly write a feature script containing a cast of talented and funny Hong Kongers that I intend to shoot before Christmas. And of course, send out the next screenwriters' newsletter and hold the next screenwriters' workshop. I haven't dismissed the three way orgy yet, though my wife informs me that I'll have to empty the dehumidifier and throw the rubbish out every day for ever and receive no sympathy as old age destroys my faculties. I am ruled by an iron rod.
If you feel inclined to join my wacky world, then you can send me your CVs, photographs, scripts, and show reels. Entertain me. Make me laugh. Grab me by the nether regions and promise excitement if only on camera. Or perhaps just join the Hong Kong Writers' Circle and get into the development workshops developing film and TV projects.