ARIF

May 6th 2009.
Got news today that contract has been renewed for another year. Always a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I have another twelve months salary that I can blow on my diverse investment portfolio of food and shelter, on the other hand, it’s another twelve months of corporate America. I don’t mind corporate America as much as I should, but I will say that I hate corporate speak. Picking low hanging fruit? As one who has some first hand experience of picking fruit, you really want to pick the low hanging fruit last. Why fill your sack with stuff that you then have to hump to the top of the tree? What’s the ask? That we speak in grammatically correct English where ask is not a noun? Thinking outside the box? As someone who shares a house with four cats, the last thing you want is someone thinking outside the box. And the TLAs – three letter acronyms – dear God in heaven – the three letter acronyms. I have attended hour long meetings that have been like that line in Good Morning Vietnam. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P. But anyway, I digress. I get home from work and Karen says that some guy from Kaos has phoned and could I phone him back. Something Hussein, she didn’t catch his first name. I give them a ring. It turns out to be an Arif Hussein. Hi Arif, pleased to meet you. Turns out they’ve been trying to mail me and failing – my email account at work had been changed slightly a couple of months back – because I have made it through to the semi finals and they wanted to get a soft copy of all the scripts to send to the judges. Am starting to feel a twinge of excitement but brutally suppress it. That way, anguish lies. I ping it over.
So The Tin Man is gone - only Pizza left. I have another look at it. Night scenes, stunts, multiple locations, ensemble cast. No way in hell. I tell Peter I am down to one in the semi finals. He is really excited now. I’m convinced this is where I end up in my Willem Dafoe Platoon pose.