By way of following up on my previous post (see somewhere below) I feel I must inform you all that "there is nothing in the Australia Post Rules or Charter that precludes sending a package through the mail marked WARNING: CONTAINS HUMAN HEAD".

The guy said though, that "in these times" it might "freak people in the mail room out".

Sometimes I wonder what my ASIO file looks like.

(For more details on Melbourne International Comedy Festival Show, Yianni's Head, go here)

So we're preparing to make our DVD now. Six years ago, I didn't have a DVD player. Now I'm finally getting with the times and guess what? DVDs are yesterday's news.

Yes, apparently in three years we'll all be downloading movies that are cheaper, better quality, and legal, and watching them on our trusty old TVs. I'm trying to imagine how somehow this will benefit the creative teams that make the movies in the first place.

Hopefully it will be really democratic and grassroots and will open the market right up and enable people with no connections and lots of skill to make movies about things people genuinely care about.

Just kidding. As if that's going to happen.

In legal contracts relating to the broadcasting and distribution of television or film projects, there's this section that covers "future technologies". How cheeky is that? It's saying "we have the first right of refusal to broadcast this film in whatever form we like even those that aren't even invented yet".

Imagine if you could do that in real life. Assert rights in relation to situations that didn't yet exist. It would certainly make breaking up eaier.

In other news, I missed the dreadfully unexciting Oscars last night because I was at a gig in St Kilda. Penny Tangey was doing an excerpt from her show, Kathy Smith Goes to Maths Camp. She's really good. Did I mention that?

Looking forward to the festival, although I usually get sick right in the middle of it. I'm sick at the moment, actually. I went for a swim with Mel Howlett (Standing There Captain of Industry) and we were running late to the movies so I didn't get changed. Not a very good idea to go to the movies in your bathers, just quietly. My throat hurts.

So, in conclusion, instead of taking out an option relating to future technologies, I am hereby taking out an option in relation to the prevention of future stupid decisions. That way, I won't stay up late, go to the movies with bathers on, or hang out in smoky bars all month during the comedy festival. Because I've made a deal with myself that includes future unforseen possible behavioural mishaps.

Excellent. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Well, the film year is really kicking in. Tropfest was in the news this week for more than just the usual "would you believe young people make films using their home computers" angle. Sensational claims and counter-claims about lying and cheating, cancelled festivals and drenched celebrities... it's all very tinsel town. Funny that the boring, plodding world of unfunded and underexposed short films suddenly becomes a cute news story for half a day. And then Thorpie gets a "mystery illness". Talk about a headline from heaven.

The same is true about the comedy festival. I was looking at the program the other day (don't bother - the best shows will be advertised right here. I have a feeling they'll be Kathy Smith Goes to Maths Camp, Yianni's Head, and anything involving Lawrence Leung or Sammy J) when it
suddenly struck me that most comedians spend the whole rest of the year doing gigs in pubs, trying to amuse half-pissed barflies who are attempting to pick each other up before last drinks. Then suddenly there's a festival in their honour. From poor and unrewarded to "Here, have the town hall".

You've just got to love the way the world works sometimes.

Working in the law world a little lately, I've been reminded of the concept of "status". The legal system of course is very hierarchical (a concept which contradicts almost every central theme of the Western Legal System, except for maybe the central theme of the enormous pay cheque).

I've always thought the legal system's status structure is enormously open to parody. Someone pops a wig on and suddenly everyone's shouting at him in a court room politely. Like in Parliament, when some bloke leans across to the other side of the house and spits, "Will the honourable member please go jump up himself with an armful of chairs".

But it's not like that in the art world. It's "everyone's presumed talentless until proven famous" or something. And then when you get famous everyone says "Yeah that's great. Well done. Man. What a dick".

So, the fact that we don't have a structured system of status in the arts means that we're completely confused whenever we come across status of any kind. So, famous comes to mean important, which means talented, which means arsehole.

I love my job.

This year, I've been living with doctors. I've also lived with a lawyer and an engineer. Now I'm living with another lawyer and someone who works in HR.

Normal people. People whose jobs have structure and purpose.

And they're not boring, either. They're interesting. They build (literally) bridges. Not in a "build a bridge and get over it" kind of a way, or a "bridges to a network of artistic communities" kind of a way - they literally build bridges. Well, the engineer does. The other ones do things like, you know, deliver babies. Bring people into the world. That kind of stuff. The others appear in court. One of them employs people.

I don't even employ myself. I'm what's called freelance.

Wikipedia defines a freelancer as "a self-employed person working in a profession or trade in which full-time employment is also common. The word's etymology derives from the medieval term for a mercenary, a "free lance," which literally described a knight who was not attached to any particular lord, and could be hired for a given task".

Well, it's true in a way. I'm not attached to any particular lord. Not in my professional life. In that sense, I guess I'm kind of my own lord, which is nice.

It's the "working in a profession or trade at any given task" aspect that makes freelance sound rather like work-whoring. Sometimes, when I go home to find doctors who've saved lives and engineers who've constructed bridges, it does make me wonder what the hell I'm doing with my time. The other day, I was negotiating orange juice prices (no, really) at one of my paid jobs, when Rita called asking did I know the German translation of "I Could Be Anybody". Not exactly your average day in the office.

I suppose it could be described as "mercenary" though.

I'm thinking of writing "mercenary" as my profession on my tax forms. Or at the very least on my passport. Although the other option is, I could just write, "own lord". I'd be in some good company there.